Out From The Valley Of The Shadows -- Part 10
by Martin H Slusser

He shoved the papers at Anna, glancing away at her frown.

Some unreasoning fear forbade her to touch them. She smiled sorrowfully at Benny, seeing his father's face staring at her, and Carl as well, in the hard set of the mouth and eyes.

"What?" she asked softly.

To cover his racing emotions, Benny took a fist-sized loaf of black rye bread and he tore off a chunk with his teeth. "Good," he mumbled around the bread. One of the members of the Longhouse stuffed the rye dough with roasted meat marinated in a Slovakian hot sauce before baking them.

Seeing he wasn't going to get off so easy, Benny's gaze dropped to the papers lying so innocently on the table. The stuffed loaf, so delicious and filling just moments ago turned to so much sawdust in his mouth.

"Jus' induction stuff," he muttered and swallowed hard. It choked all the way down. Benny snatched up a small glass of milk and chugged on it. He covered his mouth and belched softly, still unable to meet Anna's tear-reddened eyes.

Growing nervous, Anna snapped, "Again. In human speech this time."

Benny leaped up and the bench crashed to the floor behind him.

He glared down at his mother. In a tightly controlled voice he snarled, "It's my enlistment papers, ok? I . . . found somebody to help me. I'm signed up, gotta have to report to Camp LeJeune next week." A pen clattered on the table. "All you got to do is sign them, because I'm not eighteen yet."

"Forget it," Anna said, her eyes sharp. "Kid, you aren't old enough yet except in the Old-way count. And whites don't follow our count." She glanced at the papers and her eyes widened. "Since when are you seventeen?" she cried.

"Since two days ago," he told her, and she longed to slap the smug look from his face. "I told you Mom, I got a little help-"

"If that sergeant thinks I'm going to stand for this, he's nuts." Anna stood, her gaze on the phone.

Benny paled. He jumped in front of his mother, only to be shoved aside. "No. Mom, you don't understand," he yelled. "It wasn't Sergeant Mikileski."

Her eyes narrowed, questioning.

Shuffling his feet on the rag rug, Benny muttered, "I can't say."

Anna reached for the phone and he shouted, "It was family."

Biting her lips to keep from railing at her son, Anna slipped onto her bench. She took up the papers and they trembled in her hands. God, how she wanted to rip them to shreds. Catching a hint of her thoughts, Benny stilled. Eyes cool, Anna glanced up.

"Forget it." She sighed, wearily shaking her head. Anna stared out the kitchen window at a gently falling snow. But they were there too, her Carl, her Ben, waiting for an eternal springtime, just beyond the Veil of the Sun.

Voice cracking with strain, Benny shouted, "Why not? Dad signed up for a hitch when he was only seventeen."

"For Officer's Training Camp, in Fort Benton," Anna said quietly. Slamming a corded and work-worn fist on the table, Anna glared at Benny. She leaned forward, her hands slipping into her lap and clenching in an effort to stop them trembling.

"Benny, you are not seventeen. How about graduation? Well? With all those accelerated courses you've been taking, you could go to train for a commission, like your dad. Why not wait?"

He shook his head. "Can't," he said bleakly, and waved his arms at what surrounded them. "I'm going nutty, having to stay in the Valley all the time. Mom? Please sign them. I got to get out of here or I'm gonna go splah." He took a deep breath. "I figure that with me in the Marines, old lady VanTur can't touch any of us."

"You hope."

"Please?" Benny implored Anna, "Sign them, Mom."

Wanting to club some sense into Benny, Anna set her jaw. He had to stay. God, but she hurt so now. Benny, Anna whispered in her mind, Stay, kid, your mom needs you bad right now.

His face was so open, pleading with her. Benny looked so much like his father it broke her heart. Anna closed her eyes and asked the Tsi:Yu, the Eagle-Mother, for her help. For months she would berate herself for this.

She snatched up the pen, scribbled her name across the line hard enough to tear the paper. The pen was cast away in a vicious slash of her arm, making the trash can rock. Anna tossed the papers at Benny. "Here," she snapped. "I hope it satisfies you."

Crowing in delight he snatched at the papers. Leaning over the table, he pecked a kiss on her unresponsive cheek. He paused, his eyes softened with joy. "I'm sorry, Mom, but I got to, ok?"

Anna closed her eyes and refused to watch Benny run for the door.

It slammed, and she became a mother again. Leaping to her feet, Anna cried, "Benny? Your coat-" But he was already gone, his motorcycle pounding over the cobble stones of their driveway.

Anna lay her head on her arms and cried.

"One of our men is missing."

Cindy took the news with her usual lack of concern.

"Who?"

Captain Tillerman hesitated. Taking a slow breath, he said, "Sergeant Gerald Hudson. We found his watch down by the stream." He gave her a full report. To his shock, Ms VanTur smiled. Tillerman wiped his palms off on his black uniform.

Folding her hands in front of her on the table, she said, "Gentlemen, a lesson is in order. You must - immediately- stop thinking of Grey as merely one of the sheep." She added, more to herself than the others, "We all have to."

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