When Hollister returned to the microphone, he seemed determined to drown out any interruption. Claire sat beneath a framed picture of Daniel in uniform, and Hollister let his eyes rest there until his audience softened. He raised one hand to the ribbon pinned to his jacket and spoke as though it were a burden he had never wanted.
"I want to thank Claire for letting me carry Daniel's memory. I put up red smoke. My men saw it. Not one man left behind. This ribbon isn't mine—it belongs to every man on that ridge. And Dustoff 2-6, that voice on the radio—whoever the guy was, he did his job."
Tyler Reeves pushed himself to his feet so abruptly that his chair scraped across the floor. The long scar along his leg still tightened when he was nervous, and every step cost him something, but he remained standing. He had spent years defending Hollister because he believed the staff sergeant had carried him out; even so, the dismissal of the helicopter crew was something he could not tolerate.
"That pilot saved my life, Brock. Don't joke about it."
Hollister's expression flashed with irritation. Then he adopted the tender voice he used whenever Tyler's pain could be made to serve as a reason for silence.
"Easy, Tyler, sit down. I know your leg's hurting."
Tyler lowered himself into the chair, ashamed of the attention yet more ashamed that he had obeyed. Marisol watched his face and saw the same young soldier who had cried out in the helicopter while she held pressure against his wound. She wanted to tell him immediately, but the proof was still forty minutes away and his recovery had already been wounded by too many stories that did not match his memory.
Gene noticed the movement in her hands. He laid a light palm on the table, an old medic's wordless signal that he could manage things here while she took care of herself. When she rose, he spoke as if he were sending a colleague to change a dressing.
"Go on. I'll hold the fort."
"Thank you, Gene."
Marisol found Tyler near the back exit. He had escaped the noise and was resting against the wall, his knuckles white around the head of his cane. When he saw her, his first expression was embarrassment for the scene he had caused, but something in her face persuaded him not to turn away.
"Sorry. 12 years, and I still hear one voice every night: 'Stay with me, soldier.'"
Marisol remembered saying those words over the terrible thud of rotor blades. She could still smell hydraulic fluid and the copper scent of blood, still feel the aircraft pitch under a sudden burst of fire. She folded her arms to stop herself from reaching toward the man whose life had been placed in her hands so long ago.
"Take your time."
Tyler stared through the open doors toward a patch of sky. He had told therapists, his wife, and even his children that the smoke had been yellow, but Hollister's account always prevailed. Eventually, Tyler had begun to wonder whether his brain had invented the color during shock.
"Brock says red smoke. I remember yellow. 12 years I've doubted my own eyes."
"Trust your eyes, Tyler."
He looked at her. The way she said his name, without hesitation and without pity, made his scalp prickle. He searched her features for a memory he had carried through pain medication and fever.