cunninglinquist

They talked for it seemed like the first time in years. Their on again, off again marriage was there
and often ignored, but something kept bringing them back together. She never asked exactly what
happened to him in the Gulf War, but knew that it had changed him profoundly. Nor did she ever
ask how did he get there, he wasn't supposed to be anywhere near the Middle East but was
wounded in a helicopter crash, and again in fierce fighting. He was a desk jockey, not a combat
officer, now teaching college at UNLV , but staying in the reserves. Non of this made sense, but
she new that some day it would all come out. He was a kinder, gentler man now, but seemed to
sink into himself at times.
She was tempted to ask why was he in Germany for the summer maneuvers, what kind of
insanity was that, and the group that he was commanding just a bunch of out of shape who were
supposed to contribute, another quandry. The fact that he was here, a week early to try to find out
if they still had a chance was welcomed. The recent love of her life had moved on and while she
never asked assumed he had found other women in his life, if only she knew.
He commented that he was given a task of taking different units outcasts and trying to make
something the Army could use out of them. He even smiled, something she had not seen in a
long time. But then she knew that there was something else.
In their 16 plus years she knew he would completely vanish into assignments for months at a
time. She even joked that he must be working for the CIA one time, as her attempts to find him
thru the same Army she was serving in were met with a clerk or commanding officer in some
remote part of the world saying that her husband was on further assignment and would get back
to her, and did, ususally within a few days. This secretive part of his life really bothered her.
Also the incident after the met, when he was doing surprise inspections of the nukes in their
depots, was never fully explained to her satisfaction. She wondered what was the real story.
He told her that he was on a training exercise and that for the next few days while they were
hiking about, they would see just how good team of misfits were at finding and tracking him, he
said it would be good fun, but somehow that did not seem like the truth or all the story.
The love they had one had seemed to be coming back, they had been together for 2 days and had
not made love, but tonight, no matter what the story he was trying to tell her, she would change
that, and she did.
The next morning, the rose early, and found that their magic together had not gone away, it was
alive and better than ever. No matter what she really did love him, no matter what.
The packed their camp and ventured off, around noon, near the stream, he got out a satellite
phone and made a quick call. They had lunch and then took off in an entire new direction, up a
seldom used path to much higher ground. While this puzzled her, he seemed to know exactly
where he was going and around 6 PM, they came on a hunting blind which was their home for
the night. What was surprising was it was not in disrepair or even dirty or cluttered. Someone had
cleaned up this place recently and that was quite strange