InsaneJournal

Who: Aaron, his dad Ted, and guest.
What: A series of memories, and a glimpse at Aaron's childhood.
Where: Somewhere in Montana.
Warnings: None.

Aaron was thirteen, standing on the deck of his father's cabin and watching a squirrel bitch at another squirrel about the peanut he'd stolen from Aaron's lunch five minutes before, when he saw the man separate from the trees. He'd never seen a man do that before; men didn't belong in the woods, and their shapes stood out of the pines like magazine cut outs, even if they were locals and not the idiot tourists that wandered off the road to the park and made illegal campgrounds up in the low mountains approaching Yellowstone Park. They blundered around like rockets going off. This man was in camoflauge gear, and up until that moment Aaron didn't know that stuff even worked. For this man it did, since Aaron didn't see him until he was fifty yards away and the trees just stopped. As he came closer on a funny, leaning gait, Aaron could make out the scramble of grays and yellows that blurred the lines on his shoulders and waist. He wasn't a big man or an imposing one, only a foot more than Aaron, who would stretch out that summer like a rubber band and put on a ridiculous two feet three inches, and he had a face like a horse, with his front teeth the size of nickels under a thick upper lip brushed with a scruffy moustache. Aaron stood up automatically as he came into the clearing and stopped, obviously making sure that Aaron had seen him, and, rather than moving, Aaron called back into the house for dad. By the time he looked back, the man was standing at the bottom of the porch, watching him. He had hazel eyes practically on either side of his face, and he watched him with this look like he could be there all day. Aaron automatically recoiled back three feet, to keep the man's emotions out of his head. The man blinked.

"Hey, mister." He kept his voice super ultra-casual, which he was learning was the thing to do for grown up people. "Been out huntin'?" He looked down at the man's side; he had a gun. Most people Aaron knew had a gun. It didn't bother him. He knew nothing about guns, since Dad only had one that Aaron was expressly forbidden to not even consider using. It was 'for bears, and nothing else.' One time, Dad had seen him looking at it, and the following day, he had decided to stain the cabin with a fresh coat, and Aaron was going to help. For eight hours. In the summer. Aaron stopped considering after that. This man's gun was a hunting rifle, that much Aaron knew, and the way he was holding it made it pretty useless right at that moment.

The stranger didn't smile, but he nodded a little bit, and then looked at the door as Aaron's dad stepped out into the sunlight. Aaron followed his gaze and looked too. Ted Jacobson was an old guy, old enough that he didn't age anymore, and sometimes Aaron would have to push or pull or lift things for him, but he thought he was super ultra-strong, anyway. Ted was super ultra-everything, in Aaron's opinion. Ted's feelings were Aaron's as soon as he came within arm's reach of him. Concern, distraction, an ever present enjoyment that Aaron had realized years ago was a result of good weather, a small spark of love that was for Aaron whenever he saw him, and concentration. Aaron looked back at the stranger when Dad's concern got stronger, and the distraction disappeared.

"Nice day," Dad said to the stranger.

"Good weather," the stranger said. This was the way you said hello in this part of the states.

"Run into some trouble?" Dad asked. Aaron blinked, and looked down. He hadn't noticed the reason the stranger was limping, but there was a dark stain on one side of the loose kakhi pants by the stranger's knee.

The stranger nodded. "Ground gave out in the ravine about two miles up the mountain."

Dad raised his eyebrows the way he did when he was curious about something. "Long way to go."

"Yessir." It wasn't a proud statement, just a polite affirmative in a funny, clipped kind of way. Dad liked that, for some reason, and some of his concern slipped away. However, he looked at Aaron, the curiosity becoming an inquisitive question that he knew Aaron would be able to sense. Dad always asked Aaron's opinion on people; not things, but people. He trusted Aaron's senses just the same as he trusted his. Maybe a little more. Aaron nodded a little. There was nothing bad or dangerous coming off the stranger. He was hurting a little, and not too happy about something, perhaps the ground giving out or perhaps asking for help or maybe even poor luck, but it was a niggling annoyance, not anything like anger. He was okay. Dad looked back at the stranger, who had watched the exchange with a new confusion that made Aaron grin proudly. Aaron didn't know too many people, but when he met them they always thought he was too young to be good at anything. "You better come on in, you can clean up. 'Less you want a ride out to West?" West Yellowstone was a point of civilization outside the park, on the road to Idaho.

The stranger shook his head. "My ride won't be there until Monday. Rather finish out here, if you've got a first aid kit. Lost mine in the fall."

Dad nodded, Aaron retreated off to the extreme edge to the porch, and the stranger went inside. His funny hazel horse eyes painted Aaron with a curious look before he limped up the steps and inside. Dad had him sit down in the kitchen while he pulled the first aid box from under the sink, and Aaron watched from the living room, edging slowly nearer as he realized very little emotion rolled off this new person. So little, in fact, that he was the strangest, most devoid person Aaron had ever met. It was cool, and he inched closer to find out more. The stranger noticed every time he moved, even when he was trying to be quiet about it, and even when Dad cut away the cloth in his pant leg so he could treat an ugly set of lacerations on one side of his knee. "Rocks come down on you?" Dad asked.

"Yessir," the stranger said again. Now that he was in, Aaron could see that his hair was cut real short on the sides with a little more on the top. Military. Cool!

"Huntin' elk?" Dad asked, dabbing with antiseptic.

"Yessir," the stranger said again.

"Find any?"

"Yessir."

"Bag any?"

The stranger seemed to think a minute. "Decided not to, once I found 'em." Dad stopped what he was doing for a minute to look the stranger in the face. The stranger just blinked the horse eyes at him, and then watched Aaron move closer. "Your grandson?" he asked Dad, as Aaron paused midstep guiltily. The stranger was making an effort to be polite and inquire in turn.

"My son," Dad said, flatly.

The stranger blinked again, with a flicker of perceptible (to Aaron) disbelief, but that was all. He saw Dad's pictures on the bookshelf, and then he asked, "Vietnam?"

Dad didn't look up. "Yes."

There wasn't any more questions. The stranger put his foot down, stood up on it, limped reluctantly, and then stood up again. He was annoyed a little at the pain, but that was all. The rest of him was curiously blank, a calm, rippleless empty slate. To Aaron, it was unnerving but also absolutely fascinating.

"I hope you're not planning on leaving on that leg, soldier," Dad said, pointedly.

The solider blinked at him. "Not too bad."

"Bad enough that a night out in the cold isn't going to help it. I wouldn't mind an extra pair of hands to help me with those rotting boards out on the deck, either." Aaron wasn't hurt that Dad didn't consider him that extra pair of hands. His concentration and amusement and determination were focused elsewhere, probably on maneuvering the soldier to stay put long enough that was good for him.

The soldier hesitated, then nodded. "Okay."

"How come you don't feel anything?" Aaron felt compelled to ask, forgetting to be super ultra-cool.

The soldier was disconcerted, but it was only a flicker, and then the calm came back. "What?"

"Aaron," Dad said warningly.

Aaron, who wasn't supposed to talk about people's feelings out loud, ignored that. He had learned to ignore some things he didn't like, and it made Dad irritated in interesting ways that made Aaron feel proud of himself. He wasn't sure why. "He doesn't feel stuff. Not much, anyway," Aaron said, petulantly.

"Sorry," Dad said to the soldier, who was staring at Aaron.

"What do you mean?"

Aaron decided not to push too much more in that direction, considering the look Dad was giving him. Instead he said, "If you're hunting, how come you're not wearing orange so that you don't get shot by the other hunters?"

This time the soldier had a flicker of amusement. "I know they're there before they get there."

"How do you know?"

"I know."

"What if they get there before you?"

"I hear them come in."

"Aaron," Dad said, warningly.

"How?"

"I'm listening."

"How come you went huntin' if you're not gonna shoot nothing?"

"Aaron," Dad said.

The solider answered anyway. "I like it outside."

"But you've got a gun."

That got a flicker of something. Pride, Aaron thought. Dad made him practice identifying the feelings he felt with words. He never said why. "To practice."

"Go set the table, Aaron," Dad said, in the voice-that-wouild-not-be-denied. Aaron went to set the table.

By inventing various chores that didn't require excessive movement or standing, Dad got the soldier to stay two days. The second day at dinner he asked him if he had been abroad, and he said he did two tours in Afghanistan in 2007 and 2008, but they didn't say anything else about it, and Dad got irritated when Aaron wanted to know more and asked more questions that made the soldier blink a lot, but acquired no answers. He introduced himself as John Clayton, but not with the usual flicker of self-acknowledgment that accompanied a person saying their own name. Dad knew he was lying too, but he didn't say anything, and so neither did Aaron.

He left so early the following morning that Aaron saw him walk out to the edge of the trees in the gray light, and then merge with them again, the same way he'd come. Dad made blueberry pancakes, because it was Sunday. "How come I couldn't feel anything from John, Dad?"

"He was trying not to feel anything, and he was real good at it."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, I can tell. Did it myself once."

"Why?"

"I hurt a lot of people in the war, but that's war, and I had to realize that."

"Oh." Aaron didn't like the cluster of feelings that accompanied Dad's memories of war. He had them sometimes in his nightmares, too, and Aaron didn't like being the cause of that, even when he was trying to be irritating. He pushed at his pancake with his fork.

"And he's a sniper."

Surprised, Aaron brought his head up. "How do you know that?"

Dad took a sausage from the plate between them. "Few things he said when we were working on eaves yesterday.

"Why would that change how he feels things?"

"You've got to be a certain kind of person to be a sniper," Dad said, chewing thoughtfully. "I don't think he doesn't feel things. He just accepts them a lot faster than most people, and you probably don't notice them."

"I got little flickers," Aaron said, resentful Dad didn't think his senses were sharp enough.

Dad smiled. "Anyway, in Vietnam, they taught us to fire at a lot of things at once. That's what a gun like we carried is for; you just keep firing, and you put enough bullets in the air, they'll hit something. Snipers, they see who they're going to kill, watch that person for a while, get to know how he moves and why he moves, and then they kill them. Watch them die through the scope, too. You have to be a certain kind of person to do that."

"He didn't seem like a terrible person," Aaron said, stunned.

"Because he wasn't," Dad said. "He wasn't out there killing for fun. He just wanted to be out there. To kill someone that way, you're either a ruthless killer--or you're damn sure you're doing the right thing. John is the kind of person that decides what's right and believes that with everything he is, which is why he can do what he does."

"Did," Aaron said, thinking about what he said about the years he'd been abroad.

"Does," Dad said, firmly. "You don't turn off what you are. He's not killing, but he's still a sniper. And also a very good man."

"How do you know?" Aaron asked.

"My gut," Dad said.

"Oh," Aaron said, and they both finished the pancakes while the squirrels fought over the peanuts Dad had left on the porch rail. Dad's gut told him a lot of things, and Aaron assumed that was something like what he could do, only better. He wished his gut would tell him things that way, but it never seemed to fall out like that. Like with John.

When Aaron wasn't sure what was right, he always thought about John's calm and Dad's gut, and how they made it look so easy.