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  Tears jammed into her eyes. Frustration flowed like acid through her. She looked to her right. There were six other beds in the ward, occupied by injured men in blue pajamas. Like her, they had a leg or an arm suspended. Did that mean they were amputees like her? Dair didn’t know, spinning internally, feeling lost, abandoned, and in need of someone . . . her team . . . to tell her what had happened to her. She felt movement nearby and opened her eyes.

  “Davis!” she cried, her voice barely above a whisper. She looked at her captain, who had just entered the ward and come to her bed.

  “Hey, Dair,” he rasped unevenly, reaching out, sliding his hand into hers, giving it a small squeeze. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get here sooner. Red tape.” He searched her face. “How are you doing?”

  Gulping, tears flowed into her eyes as she clung to his large, rough hand. “I-I don’t know. What happened? No one will tell me anything. Where’s Zeus?” She saw him wince, his dark brown eyes narrowing upon her, a wave of sadness around him. Davis was a great officer, treated her and all the rest of her team like friends, not officer over enlisted.

  “No one’s told you anything?” he demanded, voice filled with disbelief.

  “I-I don’t remember much,” she said. “What happened?”

  “God, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Do you remember we were out on that ridge at night? Hunting an HVT?”

  “Yes . . . the only thing I remember is being cold on that ridge and Zeus sitting down in front of me because the wind changed again.” She searched his gaze, saw the tiredness and regret in his expression. His hand tightened around hers.

  “After you waited for the wind to change direction, you took off with Zeus on the leash. The team was a hundred feet behind you. The winds were erratic, Dair. Zeus stepped on an IED. I’m sorry . . .”

  Stunned, she stared at him openmouthed. “NO!” she cried, sitting up. The movement caused immediate pain in her left leg. Gritting her teeth, she fell back against the bed, breathing raggedly, the fiery agony racing up her leg and into her abdomen. She felt Davis’s hand on her shoulder, as if to steady her.

  “I’m so sorry, Dair,” he whispered brokenly, his fingers moving in calming strokes across her shoulder. “Zeus died instantly. The blast went sideways because your dog was in front of you. We saw the explosion and saw you being hurled out of it. When you landed on the ground, we raced up to where you were.”

  She tried to get ahold of her emotions. Zeus was dead. Her good friend of four years . . . gone. Open and closing her mouth, trying not to cry, she felt hot, warm tears trailing down her cheeks. She saw so much regret in Davis’s eyes. She gulped several times. “W-was anyone else hurt?”

  Shaking his head, he said, “No. We were all fine. Beat up by the pressure waves, a few bruises, but that’s all. You were our focus, Dair.” He looked at her bandaged left leg. “Our two medics worked on you immediately. Your left foot and boot were mostly destroyed. You were bleeding out. They placed a tourniquet around your lower leg, just below your knee, to stop you from dying.” He wiped his mouth, his voice lowering. “We knew then that no one could save your foot or part of your lower leg, Dair. Ted and John flew back with you to Bagram, aboard the medevac we called. The rest of the team got back down that ridge and to the village. Later, Ted called me on the radio and you were already in your first surgery there at Bagram’s hospital. He said they were amputating your foot and ankle, that there was no possible way to save it. I ordered Ted to remain with you, and ordered John back to us at the village. I was trying to get to Bagram to be with you myself, but the next morning, the Taliban attacked us. We repulsed it and we had no casualties of villagers or ourselves. Ted remained with you, even though the docs put you into a medical coma. He tried to persuade them to allow him to escort you when they flew you to Landstuhl two days later, but it was a no go. We hated leaving you alone in Germany. I figured these people here wouldn’t know the story surrounding your injury, or what happened to Zeus.” He gave her a sad look. “Before we went down the slope, I had the men look for any remains of Zeus. But the explosion vaporized him.”

  “Oh, God . . .” Dair cried softly. She pressed her hand against her eyes, trying not to sob.

  “Jason found this.” He pulled something from the pocket of his uniform, handing it toward her.

  Opening her eyes, she saw it was the twisted, partly melted piece of metal that had Zeus’s name and his military number as a WMD dog.

  “And this.” He dug into his other pocket. It was half of Zeus’s leather collar, burned and twisted. “That’s all that we could find, Dair.” He placed them on the table in front of her and pulled a ziplock bag from his shirt pocket. “We thought you might want to keep these things. You can keep them in this bag, if you want.”

  Her heart tore wide open as she picked up Zeus’s partly melted metal identification tag. Tears blurred her vision. She sniffed.

  Davis reached over and found a tissue box, setting it on the table before her. Pulling one out, he said roughly, “Here, wipe your eyes.”

  Dabbing them, Dair dropped the tissue on the tray, picking up what was left of her dog’s working collar. Wanting to scream, fighting not to, she clutched the two items in her hands as she rested them on the tray. Bowing her head, tears dribbled off her chin.

  “Damn, I wish I could do more for you,” Davis said, patting her shoulder gently. “Zeus was a great dog. You two were tight.”

  She heard the tears in Davis’s lowered voice, felt his pain as well as her own. Looking up at him, tears awash her eyes, she quavered, “At least you found these. Thank you, Davis . . . These mean so much to me.” Her voice cracked.

  “I wish . . . I wish we could do more for you, Dair. I ran down your ortho surgeon earlier and pinned him to the wall on what was going to happen to you now.” He made a weak gesture toward her left leg. “He said you’d probably go through one more surgery after you arrive at Bethesda. And then, as soon as you are healed up to a certain point, they are going to fit you for an orthotic leg and foot.” His voice turned more hopeful. “He said you’d walk again, Dair. That’s important. He said it would take a year or year and a half after surgery and fitting your new leg, learning how to use it and all, and then you will be released from the Army.”

  “A medical discharge?”

  “An honorable medical discharge,” Davis told her proudly.

  “What then?” she asked hollowly, wanting to have made twenty years in the Army to get a pension.

  “Well,” he said, more brightness in his tone, “the doc said that you’d need to go home and then register with the nearest VA hospital for ongoing orthotic treatment, learning how to walk again, and then getting on with your life.”

  Misery crawled through her as she clung to the pieces of Zeus. “The Army was my career, Davis.”

  “Yeah,” he muttered, “I know that. Damn, I’m so sorry, Dair. I know I keep repeating that, and I feel pretty helpless right now. I wish I could help you a helluva lot more than just standing here telling you this.”

  She reached out after transferring the metal tag to her left hand, touching his arm. “I’m so grateful you came. No one here knows anything about me, or Zeus, or what happened to us.”

  “Yeah, they do the best they can, but they’re really busy.” He looked around, more sadness in his expression as he looked at the other soldiers in beds, all strung and trussed up.

  Dair pushed her own suffering aside. She reached for Davis’s hand resting on the side of her bed, covering it. “Thank you so much for coming. It couldn’t have been easy cutting through red tape to get up here.” She saw him grin sourly, his eyes glinting.

  “I wasn’t taking no for an answer, Dair. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Well, we’re black ops. You know how to manipulate the system.”

  “Yeah.” He chuckled. “Are you thirsty? Can I pour you some water?”

  Touched by his care, she swallowed hard, forcing back the tears. “Y-yes, I’d like that.” She opened her hands. “I’m still feeling pretty weak and worthless,” she joked.

  Pouring water for her, he said, “I can stay another hour, and then I have to catch a flight back to Bagram. They’re putting me on a medical C-5 returning there.”

  “To pick up another load of wounded like me?”

  “’Fraid so, Dair. Are you hungry? Is there anything I can get you before I have to leave?”

  Shaking her head, she whispered, “You’re like a Christmas present to me, Davis. Just stay with me. Tell me how the rest of the guys are doing.”

  “Well, there wasn’t a dry eye after we got you. Ted and John were on that medevac. At first, we weren’t sure we could save your life at all. You lost five pints of blood, Dair. That’s a helluva lot. But they stabilized you at Bagram. Ted kept calling on the sat phone and giving us updates. When we arrived back at the village, it was 0300, and everyone was asleep. I got the guys together at our makeshift HQ house.” He looked up and away from her for a moment, his Adam’s apple bobbing repeatedly. Finally, he turned, holding her gaze, and said hoarsely, “We all cried. We cried for the loss of Zeus and we cried for you because we knew your foot and ankle would be amputated. We were hurting for both of you.”

  She saw the tears threatening to fall from his eyes, saw him struggling to push them away. “I’m going to miss all of you so much,” she quavered. Choking, she whispered, “I can’t believe Zeus is gone . . . I just can’t.”

  Breathing in roughly, Davis gripped her hand. “Look, you’ve been through so much in such a short amount of time, Dair. It’s going to take you time to come out of the shock of it all. You’ve suddenly lost your Army career, and the dog you loved, and who loved you. Now you’re an amputee. Aside from dying outright? I can’t conceive of anything worse happening to you.” His voice became low with undisguised emotion. “Whatever you do? Stay in touch with us. We don’t want to lose you. None of us do. You already have my address in Afghanistan. Once you get to Bethesda and get settled into your new digs, let’s Skype. Or at least email each other. The guys want to know how you are doing. We all love you like a sister, Dair. This is hurting us, too. So, whatever happens from here on out after you leave Landstuhl? Stay in touch with us?”

  Chapter Two

  February 1

  Dair thinned her lips as she drove into Wind River Valley. It was a hundred miles in length, snow covered, flat, and prosperous looking from an agricultural standpoint. She’d done her homework, thanks to the employment team within the Pentagon. Because she’d been part of a special top-secret project of testing women in combat conditions, they were there to support her once she got released from the Army.

  Her heart ached as she slowly drove down the wet asphalt road that had two feet of snow plowed onto either side of it. It was Saturday morning, February first, and the Wyoming sky was turbulent looking because of a weather front having passed through late yesterday. There wasn’t much traffic and she was glad. Her hands gripped the steering wheel. She tapped her left foot, her prosthesis encased in a big, ugly-looking pink and white tennis shoe. Dair knew she shouldn’t think of it like that. She was grateful to have it, as a matter of fact. A year and a half after that horrible, nightmarish IED explosion that killed her dog Zeus and left her without a foot and ankle, felt like one more battle she had to fight. Only this time, it was going through another operation, getting fitted with a prosthesis, and then learning how to walk with it again.

  She missed her mother, Ruby, and her grandmother, Rainbow. Her mother lived just outside Laramie, Wyoming, and still had her ever popular day school for pre-kindergarten children. Her grandmother, now in her mid-eighties, no longer trained as many mustang horses, but she kept at it, only at a slower pace.

  Dair had always wanted to be just like her grandmother, who was small, tough, and a full-blood Comanche. Her face was deeply lined, but her dark brown eyes glittered with fierce life within them. Dair frowned, pushing a few black strands off her brow. When she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw her light brown, cinnamon-colored eyes were flat looking. Inwardly, she felt hopeless. She’d had so many failures learning to use her wooden leg, as she referred to it. And maybe she shouldn’t think of it in that light. As Rainbow had pointed out, at least she no longer needed a wheelchair and had to use crutches only occasionally, now. Things were looking up for her. Didn’t Dair see that?

  No, she didn’t. Every time she tried to get a job near a VA hospital, she was never hired. It wasn’t that she was stupid or uneducated. Her skills lay in training horses and dealing in combat with a WMD dog. Not much call for either of those out in the civilian world. How badly she wanted to stay with Rainbow and help her out. But Dair had no money to give her grandmother, who relied on social security, which was stretched to the max in order to feed the three horses she had in training. Her grandmother had always lived at the edge of poverty. To stay with her now would make one more mouth for her to feed, and Dair knew she couldn’t afford it, so she’d left.

  Luckily, Ruby gave Rainbow money every month from her preschool business. Without it, her grandmother would have died of starvation a long time ago. There was such poverty among the indigenous people. It was everywhere.

  Her mother had made something more of herself, however. She put herself through college, held three jobs to pay for the tuition, never qualifying for a scholarship; and yet, Ruby graduated with a degree in social work. Coming home, Ruby took the money from her jobs to build a second house, which would eventually become her preschool center. Dair admired her mother greatly. She had Ruby’s genes, that gut desire to succeed.

  Blowing out a puff of air, Dair felt lost. Losing half her lower leg had totaled her in a way she could never have imagined. She simply wasn’t mentally prepared for it. Would she get this job? She’d been turned down so many times in the past that she felt like she’d already lost this one. What was the use of trying one more time?

  Now, Dair understood the depression that vets got after being wounded. The sheer sense of black hopelessness. On top of that, she had PTSD and nights were a special terror for her. She was terribly sleep-deprived. The job the Pentagon team had told her about, an assistant horse trainer at the Bar C, was a perfect fit for her. But what would the owner think of her not having two legs? She wiped a film of sweat off her upper lip, her stomach already knotting over the thought of the coming interview. There were twenty miles to go before she arrived at the ranch.

  The Wind River Valley was coated in deep snow. Because Dair had been born in Laramie, Wyoming, she knew winters here were long and harsh. Growing season on the western side of Wyoming, around the Tetons, was only eighty days; not even long enough to allow a plant to mature to produce fruit or vegetables. Heaving another sigh, she pushed the dark glasses up on her nose, her gaze always roving from one side of the highway to the other. That came from being a combat dog handler. Even now, she could feel that nasty cortisol, part of the fight-or-flight hormones spewed out by the adrenal glands, leaking into her bloodstream. She felt like she was going into combat again. That is what job interviews were like for her since leaving the cocoon of the VA hospital. There, she’d been fed, clothed, and had a roof over her head.

  The Pentagon team reassured her that this job interview would be different from the others they had sent her out on. Shay Crawford-Lockhart, owner of the Bar C, had been a military vet herself, seen combat, and had PTSD as a result. She’d come home to the ranch when her father, Ray Crawford, at age forty-nine, suffered a debilitating stroke that left him incapacitated and no longer able to take care of the huge, sprawling ranch.

  Shay had been granted an Honorable Hardship Discharge upon her release from the service, and returned to take over the daily running of the big ranch. All that sounded hopeful to Dair, who had pretty much given up hope of ever getting a job. People looked at her lost leg and turned her down. Maybe Shay Lockhart would understand and be open to giving her the job. Maybe.

  Her mind wandered as she drove. Dair never kept her cell phone on. She didn’t want the distraction. At times like this, when she felt tension rising in her muscles, she turned to things that made her happy. She pictured her mother, Ruby, who was half-Comanche and half white, a woman who had come from desperate poverty. Dair was born the year she graduated from college at twenty-two, but never let it slow her down.

  Her grandmother Rainbow cackled and said that she looked just like she had looked as a child: black, shining straight hair, golden-brown eyes that changed color when the sun struck them, and she grew to be tall and medium-boned. Her genes clearly favored her Comanche side of the family.

  How she missed her family! Yet, as much as Dair tried, she’d never been able to get a job in Laramie. She’d had to widen her search, not wanting to leave Wyoming because she loved its wildness, its nature, and sparse human population. She’d never been in Wind River Valley before, nor the Tetons.

  Picturing Zeus, his intelligent black face, those large brown eyes of his, pink tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth, she smiled. Her heart blossomed with such love for him. Even now, she grieved for him.

  Rainbow had urged her to get a puppy, train it, and then have it as a companion, because she needed something in her life to love. Dair had resisted, her heart still given to Zeus. She understood the wisdom of her grandmother’s words, but she still couldn’t bring herself to do it. Like a good luck charm, she wore Zeus’s twisted metal ID tag on a long silver chain that fell between her breasts beneath her bright red long-sleeved tee. She wore his tags today for good luck.

  Her mind canted back to another episode. She met a man called Noah Mabry. Nine months earlier, she was on an outing to a horse farm fifty miles from Bethesda Medical Center. Dair remembered it with humiliation. She was still learning how to walk with her metal leg and that big, ugly-looking tennis shoe on her prosthetic foot.