oak, the breath huffing out of his nostrils in spirals of vapor. How tall he was! My feet seemed to dangle two stories off the ground. I patted him on the neck and down we went into the woods.
We wound our way through the pines, surefooted, stepping easily over exposed roots and stones. The night sky was clear, the moon bright. I didn’t yet know what, exactly, I was going to do with Captain Marvel when I found Lex and McCrae, only that nobody could experience this horse under me charging straight at him and not be struck with terror. And I knew that, once terrified, McCrae would reveal his true, repulsive self.
When we reached Lake Deed, I steered Captain Marvel out of the woods and rode him along the pebbled shore. The moon cast an eerie light across the lake, and as we moved toward the camp I imagined myself a knight traveling through a barren landscape of ice and stone.
Just as we neared the beach directly beneath About Face, I spotted figures moving down by the water. I sneaked Captain Marvel uphill into the trees.
“Say that again, in my ear, though,” I heard someone say.
Then something too low for me to hear.
Next the first voice again. “Keep that up. Keep talking like that.”
I peered around the tree. My stomach seized. Lex and McCrae sat on a blanket, facing each other, her legs draped over his. I could see his hands underneath her sweater, mangling her breasts. She had her mouth to his neck. A strange red light coated them both. At first I thought the light was actually emanating from them, from their bodies, but then I noticed two small propane heaters sitting on either side of them, the grilles glowing hot.
McCrae laughed and pulled Lex toward him. “Come here, Lexy,” he said.
I heard her giggle, the exact same laugh she made when I kidded her in the van, and then she began to rub his thighs. His legs were impossibly long, like tongs. Lex seemed enveloped by them. I wanted to rush in and pull her out of those pincers. I knew that all I had to do was give Captain Marvel the slightest kick, just a brush of the heels, and he’d burst from the woods with me on his back. I could see it happening already, see us charging toward them both, tearing down the beach, Captain Marvel’s hooves hammering the shore, causing the ice fixed between the pebbles to shatter and spray up behind us. We’d run at the two of them so fast, the wind would blow my hair straight back.
I pictured us barreling toward Lex and McCrae until they were right in front of us, until Captain Marvel’s crushing hooves were bearing down on them. Then, in my mind, we ground to a stop, Captain Marvel’s chest heaving, and when I pulled on his mane, up he went, rearing high into the air on his hind legs. As he rose, his hoof struck one of the heaters, and its grille exploded in a burst of sparks. Captain Marvel called out, his voice a sound that in years to come I would try to imitate on my trumpet again and again. And when I looked down from the summit of his back I saw—somewhere far, far beneath us—Lex and McCrae crouching in the sand. She was huddled against him, her face buried in his chest, the little knuckles of her spine flashing in and out of view as sparks shot from the busted heater. McCrae was looking up at me with a face split wide open by fear—his eyes wild, his mouth twisted up in a grimace. Then, before he could help it, he did exactly what I’d known he’d do: he pushed Lex away from him, toward Captain Marvel, and scrambled backward, out of the way.
I could see Lex’s terror as Captain Marvel’s hooves came plunging toward her, her shock, and then relief, as they crashed down on either side of her thin shoulders. When she finally looked over at McCrae, I could see the shame on his face, and the rage at being exposed.
“Lexy, he made me do it. He tricked me,” he’d say, reaching out for her.
But it would be too late already. Because Lex would be climbing up behind me, sliding her hands around my waist. I could practically feel the warm pressure of her cheek against my back, hear her saying, “Thank you, thank you,” into my jacket. I could see myself carrying her away from him.
I watched them a moment longer from the woods, savoring my own anticipation. I thought again of McCrae’s horrified face, the skin pulled tight, teeth bared. An owl hooted and the sound echoed across the lake. Captain Marvel’s ribs twitched. I tightened my grip on his mane.
But just as I was readying myself, McCrae jumped to his feet and held his hand out to Lex. She took it and he pulled her up and started leading her toward the edge of the lake. I felt a tingle of worry at the back of my neck. He was going to throw her in. He was going to drown her. I raised my heel. But then, instead of wading out into the water, McCrae stepped out onto its surface, pulling Lex after him. For a moment I was bewildered, but then I saw that the edge of the lake had frozen over. How far out the ice reached, though, I couldn’t tell. When I craned my neck, I saw ripples at the lake’s center.
Disappointment overwhelmed me as I realized I’d have to wait for the two of them to return to shore before I could make my charge. I watched as McCrae dragged Lex farther and farther out onto the ice. She wobbled clumsily as she slid behind him. At one point she lost her balance and screamed. The sound made me burn to race out there and scoop her up. I knew I’d been wrong to think McCrae would go so far as to toss her into the lake, but still, it was reckless of him to take her out there. The ice couldn’t have been more than a few inches thick. Thin as a windowpane. I could practically hear the cracks veining out beneath their feet. How could he be so careless with her? And why was she letting him drag her out there? Then, even more surprisingly, she began struggling to catch up to McCrae, taking quick little steps toward him. Soon she was sliding past him, and now she was the one towing him out toward the lake’s center. The sight of her hurrying away with him confused and angered me, and I wondered how McCrae had cast such a spell over her.
They wandered out farther, so far that I could barely make them out in the moonlight. Finally, McCrae began to slow and gesture for her to stop. Lex tugged on him, but he planted his feet wide and held her in place. She yanked on him, trying to pull him farther out, but McCrae reeled her back toward him. Next she made to kick his feet out from under him, but slipped and fell on her behind. Even from that distance I could hear their laughter blowing across the lake.
I watched as they lay down together on the ice. For a while, they lay with their faces cupped to its surface, peering into the glassy blackness. Later, they flipped onto their backs and gazed up at the night sky. Every few moments one of them would point to something that was invisible to me through the branches. I strained to listen to what they were saying, but all I heard was the wheezing of my face. Eventually, McCrae laid his head on Lex’s stomach, and for a long time they stayed like that, his ear resting right above those damaged kidneys of hers.
I grew painfully cold. I leaned close to Captain Marvel and tried to warm myself in the vaporous heat coming off his neck. A lone cloud wheeled slowly across the moon. I rubbed my hands together to keep the circulation going.
Finally, Lex and McCrae got up and began walking back toward the shore. I shook the fatigue out of my shoulders and steeled myself. But as they stepped back onto the beach I found that I was unable to charge. I could feel the muscles in Captain Marvel’s legs trembling beneath me, tensed and ready. I knew that now was the time. But an image appeared to me and made me hesitate, an image of myself on horseback, hiding in the woods, waiting like a fun-house clown for his chance to jump out and terrify someone. But that wasn’t the truth, I told myself. I was about to help my friend. I was going to save Lex. My teeth were chattering now. I felt like the cold was shaking me apart. I tried to conjure up the vision of McCrae ejecting Lex from his embrace, throwing her beneath Captain Marvel’s hooves, but it wouldn’t materialize. I tried to imagine Lex’s grateful smile as I pulled her up behind me.
McCrae came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. I made myself remember those birds, the words tagged to their ankles. I said the words out loud to myself, listing them one after the other, chanting them into Captain Marvel’s ear. Each one was an attack on McCrae, an ugly truth about him. I started spouting off new ones.
“Trash,” I said as I watched him kiss Lex on the shoulder.
“Reject,” I said as she pulled his hands tighter around her. “Piece of shit.”
I watched until I couldn’t think of anything else to call him, and then I turned Captain Marvel around and tried to find my way back to the main road.
My seven hundred and sixty hours at About Face ended soon after that. For the week and a half until I left, I asked that other drill sergeants drive Lex to the hospital. She came looking for me, but I avoided her as best I could. When we did talk, the feeling between us was different, awkward, and even though she kept pursuing me, looking
