Beneath Wandering Stars (22 page)

“So what you're telling me is the best way to get people to care about our troops is to highlight their suffering alongside videos of Siamese sneak attacks?”

This comes out whinier than I intended. I appreciate that so many strangers shared their condolences on Seth's blog, but why does
reality
have to go viral and become a trend first? We've been at war for years. Guys like my brother are nothing new.

“Speaking as a soldier, I don't want anyone's pity,” Seth replies. “I willingly signed up for this life, but yeah, it would be nice if more civilians noticed how much it costs. I haven't even been back to the States yet, but talking to old friends makes me feel like I've been living on another planet. It's like nothing ever changes. Like no one even realizes we're at war. Back home, life goes on like normal and the main topic of conversation is which character from a favorite TV series got the axe, even though there are
real
people dying overseas every day.”

Wait, what home is he talking about? Texas? No, that's right—because Seth's parents are divorced, he's basically lived a double life. An Army brat upbringing with his dad, but with consistent summer vacations in the small New England town where his mom lives.

“I mean, I could have just killed someone, but when I call home all my mom can go on about is how so-and-so is dating/marrying/having a baby with so-and-so, and I can't even force myself to pretend I care.” Seth sighs. “It'll be weird . . . going home.”

Has
Seth killed anyone? Before I can ask, a low rumble in the distance warns of an approaching thunderstorm. We're off the highway now, back on a forested dirt trail that's become increasingly rocky and narrow. If the rain comes now, it's going to get muddy.

“Gabi, get back!” Seth grabs me by the pack, slamming me against the embankment that rises up on both sides of the road. I turn to see what he's freaking out about.

It's a stampede.

The “thunder” comes from six gigantic cows, racing down the steep path in a single file. That's several tons of organic, grass-fed beef, just as deadly as the cows on steroids when there's nowhere to hide. The earthen walls on either side of us create a kind of tunnel, and there isn't enough time to scramble up the steep ridge.

“There's no way out!”

“Get back against the wall.” Seth stretches his arm out across my chest, as if his bicep, impressive though it may be, can actually prevent me from being trampled to death. Blood races to my head; it's like someone is beatboxing inside my brain. I pinch my eyes shut, press myself into the wall of soil, and wait for the bone-crunching body slam.

A musty, barnyard smell blows past my cheeks. I hear the heifers' labored breathing as they race by. Heavy hooves pound the ground inches from our feet. Seth squeezes my hand, but the searing pain of broken toes never arrives. I open my eyes. They're gone.

The cow scent lingers, but manure has never smelled so sweet. The earthy aroma reeks of life—the kind of life that only becomes precious when it's
this close
to being snatched away.

“Holy crap,” Seth exhales.

“No kidding.” Right now cow dung really does feel sacred, just like everything else in the natural world that reminds us of mortality.

“What the—? Look!”

I follow Seth's index finger. A large black donkey rounds the bend, the caboose to this wagon train of destruction. On his back sits the madman responsible for our near-death experience. The
burro
blows past us at top speed (for a donkey), and the rancher raises his hat in a friendly salute, as if his wild beasts did
not
almost kill us.

“
Buen camino, peregrinos!
”

Seth and I look at each other, mouths hanging open. Then we burst out laughing.

My legs give way and I slide down the wall to the dirt floor, relishing the feel of mud between my fingers. “That was crazy! Not to mention close.”

Before Seth responds, a loud
crack!
has me scrambling back to my feet. The weight of my pack shifts and I lose my balance, face planting right into a puddle.

Seth helps me up. He's laughing so hard he's almost crying. “That time it really was thunder. Poor Gabi. You're disgusting.” He wipes a smudge of dirt from my nose.

My response to this semi-sweet gesture? Scooping up a handful of mud and slamming it down on Seth's head. Top that, bucko.

For a moment Seth looks pissed, but his eyes give him away. They're smiling and as far as I know, he isn't Irish. “That's how you want to play, Santiago?”

“Bring it on, Russo.”

This is not a game. This is an all-out war. I may not have Seth's training, but Lucas and I used to dress up in Dad's old fatigues and played a more violent version of Capture the Flag that involved organic projectiles. In other words, I'm an expert at flinging mud balls.

Bull's-eye!
I get a good hit in, but before I can strike again, Seth wraps his arms around my waist and tackles me to the ground. Shaking his head like a wet dog, he flings the lovely mud hat I made him back on my face.

“Truce! You're violating international law. Remember the Geneva Convention! The
Geneva Convention
!” I scream as Seth tickles me. I'm laughing so hard my insides hurt.

Seth's face is inches from mine. I can't tell if he wants to kiss me, or slam mud into my mouth. He's covered in so much sludge that he looks like Martin Sheen in
Apocalypse Now
, but instead of shouting, “The horror! The horror!” he flashes a white smile. “Come on, we should get cleaned up. I think I saw lightning.”

We exit the cow alley of death only to find another dilapidated village at the top of the hill. The place is a total time warp. All the houses have the same tile roofs and sea-green shutters, but the only signs of life are the pigs in the front yards and the gardens filled with this huge leafy plant that looks like a cross between cabbage and kale. I try to wash up in the fountain at the center of this ghost town, but that only smears the mud and makes the mess worse.

“How about we hang out in there?” Seth suggests as a flash of white streaks across the dark sky like chalk on a blackboard. “Looks like a nice place to ride out a storm.”

The sarcastic lilt in Seth's voice tells me the shelter he has in mind is far from ideal. Sure enough, I turn around and see an old, abandoned house with boarded-up windows, covered in out-of-control weeds. It's a total dump.

We take off our backpacks so we can squeeze through a gap between the boards nailed over the opening where the front door should be. Thankfully, the house is semi-dry, even if it's rotting from the inside out. Seth gathers scraps of wood left over from a staircase lying in shambles. He pulls out a piece of flint from his pack and starts making a fire in the hearth, its stone covered in a layer of lichen. I peer over his shoulder, impressed by yet another useful Boy Scout skill. Or maybe I'm just impressed by the way Seth's damp shirt clings to his lean back as he crouches in front of the fireplace.

Wait,
what
? Where did
that
come from?

“Gross. All that mold has got to be a serious health hazard,” I blurt out, alarmed by the thought that just passed through my head.

“Hey, if my underwear is soaking wet, then so is yours. Who cares about a little mold at that point?” Seth stands and takes a step back to admire the emerging flames. “Look at you—you're shaking. Get closer to the fire, silly.”

I take a seat on the hearth's stone bench, and Seth sits beside me. We don't talk, but we don't have to. What happened outside in the mud—the play, the laughter, the
sparks
—was weird. And unexpected. And kind of exciting.

And neither of us knows what to do about it.

I'm as warm as I'm going to get. Too warm, probably. “I think I'll explore a bit.”

“All right.” Seth doesn't look up. He keeps his eyes fixed on the flames, almost like he's more afraid of getting burned by me.

I move from the fireplace to the adjacent dining room. There's no furniture. A dusty antique light fixture hangs from the ceiling and yellowed paper peels off the walls in torn strips.

“I wonder who used lived here,” I call out. “And why they left.”

Seth's voice echoes back to me from the other room. “Earlier this morning, I talked with a Spanish pilgrim who told me that a lot of the farming communities in northern Spain are shrinking due to the country's negative birthrate. Almost all of the young people are moving to big cities like Barcelona or Madrid to look for work.”

“But this house has been empty for a long time.” I kneel in front of a built-in bookcase in the far corner of the dining room. On the lower shelf, behind a curtain of cobwebs, a picture frame lies face-down. I pick it up and meet the stare of a stoic man, his chest lined with medallions that proudly announce his profession. “Hey Seth, come look at this.”

By the time I feel Seth's solid presence behind me, I've had a chance to get familiar with the other faces in the black-and-white photograph. Standing beside the imposing man is a short, pear-shaped woman and two young children, a boy and a girl. The same look of longing haunts each pair of dark eyes.

Seth studies the family portrait. “I bet they're Sephardic Jews.”

He points to the large pendant hanging around the woman's neck—an open hand with a jeweled eye centered in the palm. “That's a
hamsa
, an amulet of protection popular in Sephardic Judaism. My grandma has them all over her house to ward off the evil eye.”

“Sephardic?”

“Jews who lived in Spain until they were kicked out of the country in 1492.”

“But this photograph was taken in the 1930s or 40s,” I observe. “Why would a Jewish family still live in Spain if they were exiled centuries earlier?”

Seth shrugs. “Some converted to Christianity on paper, but still practiced their religion in secret. I heard a rumor that during World War II, Spain's leader, Francisco Franco, drafted a list of all the Jewish families still in Iberia and handed it over to Hitler. Spain was officially neutral during the war, but if the man in this photo was a soldier, maybe he caught wind of Franco's list and got his family the hell out of Dodge while they still had a chance.”

“How do you know all this?”

“My grandma is Sephardic. Her family also left Spain right before the war,” Seth explains. “She used to tell me all kinds of stories about growing up in Andalucía. ‘In Granada there are pomegranates as big as your head,' Grammy always said.”

How strange. Seth and I both have Spanish ancestors, but they emigrated for very different reasons. Mine left to seek a better life in a virginal land across the sea, and Seth's fled to seek any life at all. I think of his family scattered across the planet—first because of their ethnicity, then because of their military legacy. “Do you think it will always be like this?”

“Like what?” Seth asks.

I run through a mental list of all the places I've lived, including the pit stops along the way. “Do you think there will always be people destined to wander? People who never get to feel like they have an actual home?”

Seth brushes the dust from the photo's frame and sets it upright. “Yes.”

That's all he says, but it's enough. The thought of other rootless pilgrims scattered throughout history is strangely comforting. It means having a home might just be the exception, not the rule.

It means we're not alone.

• • •

“What. The. Heck.”

Back at the fireplace, a gray striped cat lounges on top of my bag. In G.I. Lucas's spot. The friendly feline gets up to rub against our ankles, but his angry, scrunched-up face and the chunk missing from his left ear tell me he's more of a fighter than a lover.

“Hey, little guy. Where'd you come from?” Seth crouches down to pet the purr machine, but I've got other concerns.

“Seth, what did you do with G.I. Lucas?”

“Don't look at me.” Seth glances around the room. “Did you move him for a photo op?”

“No. He was on my pack when we entered the house.” I study the cat, trying to determine if an animal his size is capable of dragging a doll to some hidden lair. Then I hear it. Laughter, followed by the hollow ricochet of a ball being kicked down the street.

Seth is out the door in two seconds flat. I've never seen him move so fast, even though the cat had him enthralled an instant earlier. I'm right on his heels, just in time to see Seth chasing two boys down the block. A semi-deflated soccer ball sits at my feet.

What just happened? Maybe the two kids followed us into the house—thinking they were about to spy on a stormy make-out session—and saw a tempting toy marketed to their age and gender instead. But even if they lifted G.I. Lucas while we were in the other room, that doesn't explain Seth's intense reaction.

Something is wrong.

The rain slows to a trickle and the thunder has moved on, so I jog after Seth until I reach the village church. He's pacing back and forth in front of the entrance, kicking rocks.

“Whoa, calm down, dude. It's just a doll.”

“No. It's not. Wait until I get my hands on those little punks,” Seth seethes through gritted teeth, his eyes ablaze. He points to the church. “They ran inside. What's the protocol here, Gabi? Cause if I go in there, I'm going to raise hell.”

“I'll go,” I reply, still bewildered. Why is Seth so upset? Sure, G.I. Lucas has sentimental value and it's messed up that the little brats stole him, but they're just kids. “Wait here. And take a few deep breaths while you're at it.”

I pull open the heavy door and enter an empty sanctuary—small, cool, and dimly lit. Filled with perfect hiding places for two little boys. My footsteps trample the silence as I make my way down the aisle, peering beneath each pew, until I reach the altar where a large and intimidating crucifix hangs from the ceiling.