“Don’t go the same way they did,” he yelled over at Ellis, who was trying without success to gain a muddy foothold near the top. “Pick the spots that ain’t been used yet.”
Ellis grunted something Cal couldn’t hear in reply, but there was something in Ellis’s eye that Cal knew wasn’t very friendly. Ellis was sweating profusely, there were rings under his eyes, and he looked like a particularly volatile stew of scared and angry. But in all honesty, there wasn’t much Cal could do about that, so he began his ascent with a shrug. Think what he gonna think, say what he gonna say. No helping it.
One foothold, then a hand, then another foot, another hand. One at a time. Just keep on. Cal’s knees and shoulders were barking a bit more, but he really wanted to get over the wall. He saw Ellis finally flop over the other side. If that soft boy can do it…
Cal reached up for the next handhold — and felt it implode in his right hand. Sharp pain sliced into his palm.
He shouted in surprise and drew his hand back to find pieces of glass sticking out of it. Then the foothold beneath him gave way. Awkwardly, his weight pressed his body against the wall itself — which groaned almost imperceptibly, cracked, and shattered.
Cal fell forward onto a bed of broken glass, large shards cutting deep into his arm, his side, his leg as he hit the ground hard.
The pain was something awful; it felt like being pierced by a million needles. He could feel the blood flowing out of him onto the glass and sand. He squeezed his eyes shut to help him get over the first waves of agony — then opened them to find Ellis standing over him.
“Don’t you ever tell me what to do again, you stupid nigger,” Ellis whispered, his eyes wide and angry. He then turned toward the soldiers alongside the course and started waving his arms wildly to draw their attention. “Man down! We need a medic quick!”
“You… you son of a bitch,” Cal groaned quietly. “You did this.”
“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Hooks!” Ellis screamed loudly. “I don’t know what happened — I couldn’t control it. Medic!”
Pain lanced through Cal in bursts, and every time he so much as moved, the glass shards only sank into him deeper. But more than that, there was anger, a mounting, righteous fury coursing through his veins, rising as Cal swore under his breath he’d never let any man — black or white or goddamn polka-dotted — do something like this to him again. The pain and the rage bubbled over and before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached out…
… and grabbed Ellis’s ankle.
Ellis looked down in surprise and cried out.
“What are y—”
Suddenly, before Cal’s eyes, Ellis’s hair turned pure white. His cheeks sagged. His skin grew dry and hung loose off his bones. Lines appeared around his eyes, blossoming across his face into wrinkles.
A sudden burst of sensation rippled through Cal’s body, giving him the strength to stand.
He let go of Ellis’s ankle and hauled himself to his feet, shaking his injured hand — and watching in amazement as the glass fell away from his wounds — which were closing.
Cal then turned to Ellis, who collapsed into his arms just as the soldiers and medics arrived. He looked down at the Southerner and saw he was a man of eighty now, if a day.
And Cal… well, Cal hadn’t felt this good in thirty years.
Then he remembered the Bible verse he’d read that very morning: “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”
Cal began to shudder and found himself holding back tears. “Damn you, Mr. Longstreet. You just stay still now.”
With that, Cal placed his hand on Ellis’s forehead and prayed — prayed like he’d never prayed before in his life.
12
Barbecue night was starting to become a regular thing around Area 51.
Frank watched with bemusement as Cal Hooks manned the makeshift pit, where brisket and beef ribs smoked under his watchful eye. The first time they had had beef, a few days before, the cooks had simply chopped it into hamburger. Now, to Frank and most everyone else, hamburgers were practically luxurious in the middle of the desert, even stuck between slices of white bread.
But Cal wasn’t having any of that. And to Frank and Maggie’s surprise, Ellis backed him up. Apparently, if there’s one thing a black man and a white man from the South can agree on, it’s barbecue, even though they were more accustomed to spare ribs and pulled pork than beef ribs and brisket. No matter — they lobbied Wallace to have one of the guys in the shop cut a steel drum in half and fix a firebox to it — an old jerry can, in fact. Someone then managed to fly in a couple cords of oak from God knows where. Shortly after that, they hauled another dead steer from the lab where they were evaluating Cal’s new ability, and barbecue night was born.
Cal ended up doing the cooking after repeated arguments with Smitty, the Air Force cook, over proper barbecuing technique. As a result, the whole damn base fell in love with Cal. Even General Montague, on a rare visit from Albuquerque, went back for seconds — and thirds.
Frank nodded at Danny as he sat across from the Navy man. “You know, Commander, you’re a smart guy,” Frank said.
Danny had a face stuffed with beef rib, so could only reply with a quizzical look. Frank took pity on him.
“Everyone saw what Cal did to Ellis — not that Ellis didn’t have it coming — and I know some of the guys on base were really nervous around him after that. Anderson went positively pale. But you went and let Cal be the barbecue guy. That’s a good move. Just saying.”
Danny shrugged as he finally swallowed and wiped his face with a napkin. “Well, I’m just glad experimenting on the cattle worked. And we can’t let all that beef go to waste. I’m a little surprised Ellis backed up Cal’s request. They getting along better?”
Frank frowned. “Ellis is smart. He’s a car salesman, right? He knows when he has to step up. But other than the barbecue thing, Ellis hasn’t said one word to the man. Mostly just stays clear of him. And the rest of us, too, for that matter.”
“I think he joined a poker game with the enlisted men. I suppose that’s good to see,” Danny said. “You think he’s… well, you think he’s a problem?”
Frank sat still for a few moments, thinking. “Well, he’s doing everything we ask him to here, but he’s a cagey son of a bitch. Out in the field? I think he’ll be OK. It’s one thing to mess around in a training exercise; you put us out there in some godforsaken place with only ourselves to lean on, I think he’ll fall in line. Again, he’s not dumb.”
Danny looked over at the mess line again, where Cal was busy serving ribs with a big smile, then turned back to Frank. “You know, we still don’t know what we’re going to do with you all, not really.”
Frank eyed Danny steadily. “Not until you figure out what you got on your hands over at the main base.”
Danny’s eyes met Frank’s for just a split second, and Frank thought Ellis would very much enjoy taking the man’s money over cards. “Come again?”
“Doesn’t take a genius, Commander,” Frank said. “We’ve been here weeks now. We know you got something big at the main base, and there’s a smaller one further to the north and west, around the northwestern side of the lakebed. Given that you aren’t spending one hundred percent of your time here, what’s happening at those other sites has to be at least tangentially related.”