He smiled before adding one more thing. “It is nice that it is an annoying voice. Easier to follow.” But I missed the joke: the story had stunned me.
Gone were baptism and communion and the anointing of the sick. Gone was the Holy Roman Catholic Church. Gone even the hospital. There was only that room, that shaman and this priest and legions upon legions of dead pressing ever nearer.
I knew this because I knew Ronnie's story. I had heard it before, once before, years before.
It has haunted me ever since, both because of the circumstances of the telling and of what happened to the storyteller. Ronnie's version was slightly different, and I wanted to ask him why. But I was so scared or disoriented by what he said that I focused on what I-me, a man of God-now truly believed was the immediate danger: “But if I speak,” I whispered, “if my voice follows you on your journey-what if others hear it? What if others have their journey disrupted? Will they return, too?”
But Ronnie was done talking. He hardly glanced at me before shutting his eyes and mouthing just the one word:
I LEFT MY BARRACKS for the Quonset hut at 7:30 A.M., half an hour, at least, after the time Gurley usually expected me. But since I'd seen him driving into town so late, I didn't expect him to arrive for an hour or more. Surely-I tried to block the thought, but it arrived, pounding, all the same-he and Lily would have busied themselves throughout the predawn hours.
There was a jeep idling outside the Quonset hut when I walked up. I didn't pay much attention; I was busy rehearsing an answer to the question Gurley would ask first: just how had I known about Shuyak Island?
Suddenly, he was right in front of me.
“Kirby-fucking-Wyoming,” he said, clanging out of the compound gate. “Was that your next guess?” He bumped past me and into the jeep. As it drove away, he turned around and shouted, “Walking to Kirby?” I stared after him. “Run, you sot!” Gurley bellowed. I looked at the sentry, who refused to look at me. At the sound of a gunshot, I turned back around to find Gurley firing into the air. I ran. Gurley had the driver slow down enough to keep me close, but not close enough. After a half a mile or so, the jeep stopped and I climbed aboard.
“Why didn't you just get in the jeep back at the hut?” Gurley said, shaking his head, and then dug into a briefcase between his legs. “We have problems, Sergeant,” he said.
“But we've got two weeks,” I said.
Gurley looked up with a blank face. “Until what?”
“Two weeks, you said. We have two weeks to prove ourselves.”
“Oh hell,” Gurley said. “It'd be nice to return to that fairyland, when all our problems were so simple.” He burrowed back into the briefcase, then bumped his head against the dash when the driver stopped at an intersection. “Fuck!” he shouted, and then pulled out his gun, which he put to the driver's head. “This is an emergency, not traffic school. You stop at any more traffic signs, and-”
The jeep launched forward with such force, Gurley almost landed in the backseat with me. When he'd resettled, I had to ask: “What's the problem, Captain?”
“The problem, Sergeant, is a downed balloon.”
“In Wyoming?” I said.
“Correct,” he said, and burrowed into his briefcase.
“So?” I tried to sound like an old hand. “Who found it?”
Gurley appeared to find his paper and sat up. “That,” Gurley said, “is part of the problem.” He pointed to the page before me. “Kirby Wyoming. Balloon found intact. By the Associated Press.”
I read the transcription as we pulled up to the terminal.
KIRBY, WY (AP)____________________ A mysterious aircraft crashed just outside Kirby Tuesday. Local resident Gertrude Cleary, 68, said she saw what looked like the remains of a large helium balloon tangled in a line of trees at the far border of the town park, and reported it immediately to police. Police and civil defense officials refused to comment on the balloon, prompting much speculation and concern among the local citizenry. Cleary and others believe the balloon is from a nearby POW camp. Said Cleary: “So some Nazi is on the loose now, and nobody's talking. You got a lot of scared people here.”
“So word is out,” I said, though it didn't seem that bad. Who read the Cheyenne paper outside of Wyoming?
Gurley had the driver circle around the terminal and deposit us directly before the plane. “Things are actually a bit more fucked up than that, Sergeant,” he said, anxiously scanning the tarmac. “A lot more.”
The plane's propellers were already lazily spinning, but Gurley didn't board. I hung back as well, wondering if this was another invitation-only flight. Gurley asked a crewman nearby if a particular crate of gear had been loaded. The man looked confused; Gurley started yelling. Nothing would be fast enough today. The man left in a trot for the passenger terminal. Gurley followed him at his slower pace, and the two met beside a waist-high box. I was too far away to hear what they were saying, but I could see-anyone could see-that the box was labeled with skull and crossbones. While the crewman loaded the box, Gurley returned. I asked him what was inside. He shook his head and then frowned. The sincere, sympathetic look that followed it was alarming, both for its rarity and for the speed with which it had completely replaced the raw red fury of moments before.
“Sergeant,” he said, and stopped. “I-yes. I have to ask you a question.” He looked nervous, even scared, and he didn't look like he was acting at all. Then he gave a little smile, which made things even worse. He tried again. “And here we are,” he said. “Now then, I have to ask you a question, but it's not really a fair one. The thing is, Sergeant, our war has changed. It may change for everyone, soon, but today, it starts with us. And it starts with me asking if you will
“Of course,” I interrupted. I couldn't bear Gurley, human. It was disorienting, and oddly frightening. If wild, towering, vengeful Gurley could be spooked, then there could be little hope for the rest of us.
“Hear me out, Sergeant,” Gurley said curtly, almost relieved to be back in the position of scold. “I've been told to formally ask if you will volunteer for this mission because of the hazards involved-”
“A balloon is a balloon, sir,” I said, and then stopped speaking when I saw Gurley's face.
“Inside the crate are gas masks and suits,” Gurley said. “We have word-too damn late word, if you ask me, but no one ever does-that one, or a dozen, or all of the balloons now approaching the United States may carry a new kind of bomb. Not incendiaries. Not antipersonnel. Bacteriological. Germs.”
And I really didn't know what he was talking about.
“This information is so new that-we-well, they're not sure if the gear we have is really, you know, up to the task. We just don't know. So I'm supposed to ask if, knowing the risks, which you really don't, you'll volunteer to go. And I'm supposed to let you stay behind if you want.” He took a step toward the plane. “But I can't really do that, Belk, you know why?”
