Nathan Jones - Determination

“Can we not talk about this?” Alice asked in a soft voice. They turned to find her sitting on a rock nearby, back to the view below. She’d begun to shake slightly.

Trev shared a look with the others. “Sure. It’s a nice day, no need to spoil it.”

A slightly awkward silence settled, no one coming up with anything else to discuss. Trev called an end to the rest soon afterwards, and everyone seemed relieved to get back to carrying their meat back to camp.

Matt met them along the way, carrying a few jackrabbits from snares they’d set up. “Looks like we’ll be eating well tonight,” he said with a smile as he fell into step beside Trev.

“This dinner, at least,” Trev replied, drawing a few annoyed sounds from his squad mates.

They were giving everything they could spare to Harmon to feed the other fighters, eating from meal to meal. It provided a good incentive to have a successful hunt or place their snares in good locations, but it also meant they’d missed a few meals. Although on the plus side everyone was getting a lot better at gathering edible plants, since in a strange quirk nobody considered those something that needed to be shared with Harmon to be distributed.

His friend ignored the almost complaint. “Listen, Trev, your people are doing a great job hunting. But there are other jobs we need to do out here.”

Meaning patrol and sentry duty. Matt’s squad had generously let Trev’s squad have the less stressful hunting jobs, out of respect for what they’d been through, but it wasn’t fair to make it a permanent arrangement. “Okay sure. We’ll hop into the rotation with the next shift.”

He’d tried to keep his voice casual, but Matt must’ve caught a bit of Trev’s unease at the prospect of being out there again, where his squad mates might run into the enemy. His friend glanced back at Rob, who was walking at the back now that Hans had taken over carrying his end of the doe. “Hey, could you spell Trev for a second? I need to talk to him.”

“Sure.” Rob trotted up the line, and Trev reluctantly handed the sapling over to him and let Matt lead him ahead towards camp.

“Going to give me a pep talk?” he asked once they were far enough away.

“Something like that.” Matt sucked in a breath. “Listen, Trev, I know you’re not taking this easy. Believe me, I get it. I went through the same thing after attacking the raider camp and losing so many people. It’s the sort of thing you can’t really understand unless you’ve been through it yourself.”

Trev looked away. “Yeah.”

“We plan and we prepare as well as we know how, but sometimes we make mistakes that get people killed,” Matt continued. “And it hurts, but the only way past it is to keep going. Keep doing the best you can and hope it’s good enough, then keep going even when it’s not. Nobody else expects you to be perfect; even after what happened your squad mates still trust you as their leader. But you also need to trust yourself.”

“I know.” Trev took a shaky breath. “I’ll get there eventually. Getting back into the shift rotation will probably help.”

His friend patted him on the shoulder. “You know I’m here if you need to talk. It doesn’t even have to be about what happened. It’d be good to just hang out, get out of our heads and find something to think about besides what’s staring us in the face every day.”

“Yeah. Thanks.” Trev glanced back. “I want to make sure everyone in my squad is okay with getting out there again too. Especially Alice.”

“Okay.” Matt patted the rabbits on his belt. “This is probably enough for our dinner. Why don’t you take the deer straight down to 31? It’ll save you a bit of walking, at least.”

Trev nodded and started back to his squad, repeating Matt’s order. The trail turned off towards the main camp not too far ahead, and at that point they veered off to deliver the meat.

Fifteen minutes later they arrived at the main camp, and began picking their way down the slope through it to the mess tent. It was looking even more barren now, with the other two hubs to the north housing just as many of their fighters. Even the civilians had been split up between the three camps to help where they could, including taking sentry duty all along the line or hunting and gathering.

To Trev’s surprise Davis and 1 stSquad were exiting the mess tent as he and his people passed, carrying the deer to the food preparation area. A few of the Marines waved, and the sergeant veered off to intercept them.

Trev waved back. He’d been back to camp frequently when he had time off, to visit Rick and Mason, and from what he’d noticed it was rare to see Davis there these days. The sergeant was usually either setting up for an attack into the valley or carrying one out.

“What’ve you got?” Davis asked.

Before answering Trev set down his end of the sapling, undoing the ties on the bundle and pulling the tarp back to reveal the field dressed carcass. Then he motioned to the bundle Alice and Rob carried. “A buck and a doe.”

“Nice. Glad you’re not just twiddling your thumbs out on that slope.” Davis hesitated, then lowered his voice. “Listen. I was going to radio Larson, but since you’re here it’s probably better you deliver the message in person.”

Trev gave him a wary look. “What is it?”

The sergeant shook his head, swearing softly. “You know a dog that attacks its owner has to be put down. It’s bitten the hand that feeds it, gotten a taste for human flesh. You can’t trust it after that. Even if that owner has been beating the dog every day since it was a puppy, and the poor critter had good reason. Even if after that you give it to good owners who treat it well, doesn’t matter. It’ll snap at the hand that reaches to pet it, snarl at anyone who comes close.”

“I’m not exactly sure what you’re getting at,” Trev said cautiously, glancing at his squad mates. They all shrugged, equally lost.

“I’m saying people get like that too if they get enough hurt in their lives, but there’s no easy solution since of course you can’t just put them down. Not unless they commit a crime warranting it, I suppose. But even if they’re snarling and biting the right targets you can’t ignore the hurt behind the behavior. What exactly do you do about it, when they start going out of control?”

Trev shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not sure I like talking about people like they’re dogs.”

“We’re all animals,” Davis said. “We react certain ways to certain things. We can reason and fight to change that behavior, and sometimes we succeed, but you have to accept the behavior’s going to be there to need fighting. We can try to help someone, but it doesn’t do much if they’re not willing to help themselves.”

“This is over my head, Sarge. Maybe you should just come out with it.”

“That wild kid Larson left in camp, Childress,” the Marine snapped. “Boy needed a shrink, maybe even meds, but we don’t have that luxury. Maybe we should’ve sent him home, but I’m not sure it would’ve mattered.”

Trev fought a surge of anxiety. “What did he do?”

Davis looked away. “He ran off with some stolen gear, including an AK-47 and an MP-443 Grach from the weapons we’ve captured from the blockheads. Along with enough ammo for both to fight a one man war. Nobody saw him go, and none of our patrols or sentries have seen him. I know, I’ve asked around.”

Pete, deserting? Impossible. Nobody wanted to fight blockheads more than he did. “Are you sure?”

“If he’s not with you guys out there I’m not sure where he’d be. Unless he decided to go out and fight the enemy on his own.” The sergeant shook his head. “I tried to keep an eye on him for your friend, but I haven’t had time in the last five days. And I had a feeling that boy needed watching.”