CHAPTER 1

A Conversation

     Jack stared through the glassless window of the old barn.  As a breeze came through the opening, he closed his eyes to inhale the cool, late summer, air.  He was mindful of this moment and of the sound the wind made as he breathed it in.  He sought this moment and others like it by coming to this place.  Sadness from his recent loss smoldered in the pit of his stomach, robbing him of his appetite and leaving a cold feeling within him.  Frustrations tightened the muscles at the base of his skull and made him grit his teeth.  A blue-roan stallion nickered behind him.

     “I know, I know, hold your horses,” said Jack.  “You’re not done yet, you need the back ones too.”

     Exoh shook his head and snorted.

     “Why are you in such a hurry, we’re not leaving until tomorrow morning.”  The horse pawed the ground in the hall of the barn, feeling the grit of his first two shoes against the packed chert.  “You like them?  You are going to need them when we hit those sandstone hills.”

     Jack removed a glowing piece of steel from a small coal forge in the corner of the old barn.  He brushed off the darkening carbon flakes to reveal a smooth bright ember and placed the radiant orange horseshoe taking shape onto an anvil.  He hammered it into its curve and prepared it for the nail holes.  When the iron cooled to a dull red, he placed it back into the coals, turned the handle of the blower and revved the fire.  He repeated this process until it was finished.  Store-bought horseshoes were available, but these he made.  With each blow, he sorted through his thoughts and compartmentalized the discord that stirred within him.  As he swung, he felt his muscles tighten and compel his arm to move.  From a wordless command his muscles received instructions through their neurons and lifted his hand holding a hammer.  Then another signal came which sent the hammer down upon the glowing steel.  His body was strong and his movements precise.  He was confident in his abilities to accomplish any physical task, and he wondered how far his body could go if he asked the impossible of it.  Now he needed his mind to be as capable as his flesh.  It needed to resolve its distractions and move past the frustration and sorrow.

     Outside the barn, yellowing leaves of the hackberry trees fell in pleasing uniformity like the final flurry of a ticker-tape parade.  The sunny and cloudless day distracted Jack from the task of forging horseshoes as the wind and sounds of summer’s end whistled through the plank walls.  The barn was old but well-kept and surrounded by a four-acre pasture.  Jack rented it from Mr. Ian Johnson, an aging widower, who lived in a cabin further down the gravel road.  He liked Jack because he was a Navy boy, kept the barn neat, and paid the rent on time.  Mr. Johnson liked having Exoh there, and even agreed to make sure he had food, water, and hay as needed while Jack was away.  Jack agreed to pay him a little extra each month to see to the horse’s care, but Mr. Johnson enjoyed the daily interactions with Exoh, so the arrangement worked well for all parties.

     Jack hammered the final touches into the shoes.  “It feels good to be home.  The leaf colors are nice,” Jack said expecting no response from his quiet comrade.  “The oak leaves are getting crunchy and are that really dark green,” he continued half daydreaming thinking of his upcoming trail ride tomorrow.  “Heck, I don’t even know how far we will go.  We’ll keep going as long as we are enjoying it.  If we get tired or sore, we’ll welcome a case of the ‘lazies’ and nap in the shade.  I’m packing enough peanuts for either eventuality.”

     Jack plunged the completed shoes one at a time into a nearby bucket of water.  The last shoe was still hot and made a violent hiss and spit.  In a steaming instant, the iron changed from a red ember to cold black hardened steel.  Jack’s movements were skillful, and he worked with little wasted motion.  While part of him was moving like clockwork to complete a task with smooth efficiency, his consciousness was finding hints of resolution.  In this way he could be his most present and aware; he could ponder his emotions, and solve his toughest quandaries.

     Jack hummed a made-up melody as he hung the finished horseshoes on the handle of his wooden toolbox.  “The trip will hopefully give us some time to chat.  I’ve got some ideas I want to run past you,” Jack said to his friend as he smiled.  The horse was of average height, “fifteen-one,” - as they say - with a muscular build.  Jack put eight horseshoe nails between his teeth and reached down to tap on the horse’s left hind foot.  The roan stallion picked up the foot, and Jack nailed on the shoe without issue.

     Jack had owned other horses, but none like this one.  He had gotten him from a man who said he was the best and smartest horse he had ever seen.  Jack took the sales pitch and bought him.  He had always found riding to be therapeutic.  It was one of the few times he felt at peace and safe enough to explore his most sequestered thoughts.  This horse’s name was Exoh after the “X” and “O” branded on his left hip.  He was fifteen years old, and was as the man claimed, very smart and curious.

     The shoe went on like the first two while Exoh stood still without complaint.  He finished the last hoof and put Exoh in the stall.  The handsome blue roan turned and faced him.  “Sleep tight.”  Jack smiled at him and turned away.  He then loaded his things into the back of his pickup and drove home.

     The following day Jack finished adding his things to the saddlebags before buckling them.  He walked outside and put the bags into the back of the pickup next to the saddle, boxes, and firewood.  Jack’s blue U.N. helmet, and his duffle containing his fatigues, were still on the passenger seat of the truck.  He took the duffle out of the truck and placed it on the bed, inside the small two-room house he rented.  He drove the short distance to the barn and backed his truck up to his small two-horse trailer.  He connected the trailer to the truck and pulled the rig up to the barn.  Jack walked into the barn and addressed his friend.  “You ready?”

     Exoh gave himself a head-to-toe shake and nickered.

     “Well, we better get going.”  Jack opened Exoh’s stall door.  “I see you are still eager.”  Exoh stopped at the back of the trailer and waited for Jack to open it.

     Jack was on day three of a ten-day leave.  He joined the Navy five years ago after a trial of college courses failed to satisfy his curiosities and craving for adventure.  The Navy was perhaps a rash decision at the time, but he did not regret joining.  He had been assigned as a technician in an investigation unit due to an impressive ASVAB^[1] score, and had proven to be good at it.  He was nineteen when he joined and by twenty-three was highly regarded in his unit within the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.  In fact, he had received a commendation for describing and perfecting a covert tissue sampling technique from captured weapons.  His discovery allowed confirmation of a combatant’s presence at an alleged location through DNA PCR.  After four years he re-upped and had soon made petty officer third class.  When he heard investigative personnel from the unit were needed as U.N. Peacekeepers, Jack jumped at the chance.  The transition to the “Blue Helmets” went smoothly and the international team welcomed him and his skill set.  Officially, he was based out of a United Nations lab in Geneva, Switzerland, but he usually spent his time going to locations looking for uncontaminated samples from “incidences of international concern.”  In this capacity Jack had been to South America and the Middle East a few times.

     It was in Switzerland where he met Soovi.  She was a Section commander in the Estonian Land Forces, called the Maavägi.  She joined the Land Forces after enjoying her time in the “Home Daughters,^[2]” and it sustained her desire for knowledge and adventure.  She was assigned to an explosives research unit also stationed at the large lab facility in Geneva.  Soovi was uncommonly intelligent and, like Jack, was a bit of a nerdy youngster who was generally curious about the makeup of the world and its people.  She had a genuine desire to help the suffering which is what drove her towards submitting an application in Munich to join the Blue Helmets.  Her English was good, and she was a good communicator.  According to her superiors, she was exceedingly good at her job and at problem-solving.  Only a few days had passed since he heard the news that she was killed in an explosion in Afghanistan.

     He had known sadness before, but had worked through the stages of grief in due course, but this was staying.  He still remembered the words of the counselor he was taken to as a child, after the uncle who adopted him died.  "Jack, I'm sorry this happened to you.  To be such a young little man, you've had a lot happen to you.  Your uncle was a good man, and he loved you.  That's why he adopted you.  You and your aunt still have each other but you will both miss him.  It's okay if you feel sad.  Do you have anything you want to ask or talk about?"

     "No ma'am," said Little Jack.

     "You know, sadness has phases.  When we are faced with a death or a tragedy, our brains go through different steps in processing the change.  First is shock.  Like what you felt when you first heard when your uncle had passed away.  Maybe you couldn't believe what you were hearing.  Then we have the deeply sad part when we feel the real extent of the loss, and we truly miss what we don't have anymore.  Sometimes, that leads to anger when we feel helpless or powerless or that something should have been done.  These parts have to be experienced before we get to acceptance, and can come to terms with who we've lost and go on living our lives with their memory to keep us company."  The phases of grief were not passing by.  He had not yet felt any anger about losing her, and he was nowhere near acceptance.  He was not moving on.  Instead, he was immured in sorrow.

     Back at the barn, Jack drove the truck and trailer out of the driveway and headed east.  Two hours away was the southern tip of Daniel Boone National Forrest, which jutted south from Kentucky into Tennessee.  The drive was pleasant and along small roads that required a leisurely pace.  Jack enjoyed his jaunts to Timbuktu and beyond, but he was glad to be home on a terrain that felt native to him.  As he got closer to the large expanse of wilderness, he pulled the rig into the narrow drive of a cemetery tucked into the woods that provided access to the trail he wanted.  In the back of the cemetery was a small cherty area for parking that was out of sight and rarely used.  He had parked there a number of times in the past and had never had a problem.

     Once Jack had parked the rig, he got out and opened the door for Exoh to get out of the trailer.  The horse backed out slowly and inhaled the mountain-scented air as soon as he had all four on the ground.  Exoh gave himself a good full body shake and started to mosey around the trailer.  Jack hopped into the back of the truck and lifted the saddle.  Exoh walked over to Jack and he placed the saddle on his back from the bed of the truck.  Jack had packing for the trail down pat.  He knew what he needed, and that wasn’t much, and he knew to how avoid carrying extra weight.  He tied on a light bedroll and a single canteen with a fancy built-in filter pump.  His saddlebags were full of grain on one side and peanuts, jerky, and trail mix on the other.  This was usually all he needed for two or three days along the “Big South Fork” of the Cumberland River.

     Jack soon had Exoh saddled, bridled, and ready to go.  He locked the truck and climbed into the saddle.  “Let’s rock and roll,” he said as his boots met the stirrups.  Exoh’s tail swished with eagerness and he pranced toward the trailhead.  The tree leaves were dark and coarse green from being sun-beaten through the dry summer.  The trail they were on was called the “O & W,” and it ran parallel to a remote part of the Big South Fork^[3] for several miles.  The river was low and cascaded musically, but would not be difficult to cross.  Exoh left a powdery fog behind him as his well-shod feet clattered down the trail.

     It was noon when they started on the late September day.  At about three o’clock they crossed the river at a wide sandy spot where Jack dismounted and stretched his legs while Exoh sampled the local grasses.  He was enjoying the trip, but he had not yet sorted or come to resolution on any of the problems on his mind.  After the break, they resumed the trip and came to a familiar meadow at about six in the evening.  At the edge of the meadow, not visible from the trail, was a hearthstone and chimney bottom from the remnants of an old cabin long decayed.  Jack found the old fireplace on a previous ride when he and Exoh camped in the meadow.  The old chimney shell would allowed them a pleasant fire through the night, and made the evening quite nice.  Jack ate a few handfuls of peanuts as he untied his bedroll and laid it on a patch of clovers near the chimney shell.  He strolled around for a few minutes in his bare feet, working out his saddle-soreness, and picking up a few dry sticks from the nearby woods to toss onto the fire during the night.

     Jack was happy to be where he was.  He lay down on his bedroll and felt the soft clovers underneath cradle him.  He opened his snap-button shirt to let the occasional breeze touch his skin, while the uncovered clovers at his feet were soft and cool.  He could hear Exoh pulling and chewing grass nearby as barn swallows, who lived under a mostly decayed rafter beam jutting from the chimney shell, returned to their nightly glut on small flying bugs.

     Lying on his back he thought of how beautiful his present condition was.  The night sky was darkening but still highlighted with streaks of orange.  Jack began to listen to the sound of his own breathing in his ears and he soon ascended into the state of consciousness he had come here to find.  This brought him to Soovi.  The thoughts of her made his stomach uncomfortable, but they would not overwhelm him in this transcendent state.  The voice in his head asked, who was to blame, but he did not know.  He was not sure why the sickening feeling of loss was not abating.  He just needed to think clearly.  Soovi's death was not the only thought that troubled him.  An assignment with the Blue Helmets had recently sent him to Africa.  He had done his job well, but had made a discovery that constantly ate at him.  His sense of right and wrong wanted to do something about it, though he could not decide what.  There were innocent people suffering due to the cruel actions of a few, and he wanted to intervene.  He knew he was capable of finding a solution, but the painful abyss of Soovi's death was in the way.

[1] Stands for Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is a standardized test used to determine skills and proficiencies for military utilization.

[2] The Kodutütred, or Home Daughters is an Estonian program for girls.  Their mission is to encourage remembrance of Estonian culture and to promote good character.

[3] Colloquially “Big South Fork” can refer to the river itself or the general expanse that surrounds the river.