Blood Oath.

David Morrell.

They reached a place where an old man was rowing a boat over a stretch of water.

The ferryman was Charon and those he would not admit to his boat were the unfortunates who had not been duly buried. They were doomed to wander aimlessly for a hundred years, with never a place to rest in.

Edith Hamilton.

PART 1.

Chapter 1.

The stark white rows of crosses stretched forever. They were perfectly aligned, each cross and each row an equal distance from the other. Horizontal, vertical the lines were laid out in a grid of balanced, reasoned order.

Houston felt a sudden chill that made him tremble. Just the wind across this hill, he told himself without believing. His rented Citroen was parked on the highest point of land around here. He leaned against it and stared down at the military graveyard half a mile below him. Gusts tugged at his hair and numbed his cheeks. He had to squint. A tear stung his right eye. Just the wind, he thought again but still did not believe. Sure, just the wind.

The crosses gleamed, as if each morning squads of grieving soldiers pa.s.sed among them wiping dust and polishing. Their brilliance bothered Houston. Their calm order was disturbing. Thirty-seven years ago, ten thousand soldiers died down there. He wondered if a general had stood where he now leaned against the Citroen. The valley would have been a seething h.e.l.lhole: flames, explosions, smoke and craters, bodies strewn across the savaged landscape, chaos rumbling.

His imagination startled him. The wind played tricks. It shrieked, and Houston thought he heard the crack of far-off rifles. He was sure that he heard high-pitched wails and frightened moans and . . .

Houston shuddered. As he blinked another tear away, the valley was again that neat, sane grid of crosses, stark against the lush thick gra.s.s, so dark a green that it was almost olive black the hair of graves while in the distance churning clouds effaced a sky as deeply blue as he had ever seen.

"There'll be a storm soon," Janice said beside him.

Houston nodded, turning. Janice clutched her brown tweed blazer tightly to her chest and shivered. Her long auburn hair was blowing straight back in the wind.

Her cheeks were raw and red. Her green eyes, narrowed and moistened like his own, implored him. "Can't we watch from in the car? I'm frozen."

Houston smiled at her. "I guess I was off somewhere."

"Hey, take your time. You've waited thirty-seven years for this. But good Lord, aren't you cold?"

"We'll put the heater on. We may as well go down there."

Now he turned the other way and opened the driver's door to climb inside the Citroen. His jogging shoes felt hard against the pedals. Janice slid in on the other side. They shut their doors. His cheeks were numb. His hands were cold.

The wind shrieked, m.u.f.fled, past his window.

"I feel . . . hollow . . . feel uneasy," Houston said.

"It's natural. To be expected. After all, he's your father."

"Was."

Houston started the engine, pulled out from the "scenic tourist stop" (the sign had said in French), and angled down the curving two-lane blacktop toward the rendezvous he'd spent his whole life waiting for.

"It's strange," he said. "As a kid, I wondered what this place would look like.

I imagined graveyards like we have at home. But this is ... I don't know."

"It's sanitized, h.o.m.ogenized, anesthetized, and packed in cellophane."

He laughed. "You never left the sixties. If I close my eyes, I'll see you making speeches on the front steps of the student union. 'Burn your draft cards! Seize the administration building!' "

Janice hid her face. "I wasn't that bad."

"h.e.l.l, no, you were good. But I have to tell the truth. I didn't burn my card."

"I saw you."

"Parking ticket."

"You deceitful . . . ! All you wanted was to "

"Get inside your pants. I may as well fess up."

"You h.o.r.n.y hypocrite."

"A h.o.r.n.y pragmatist. Let's speak precisely."

They kept laughing as the rows of crosses magnified before them. It's like whistling when a hea.r.s.e goes past, he thought.

"You're really spooked," she said.

"There are no trees. You noticed that?"

"A bunch of trees would ruin the design. The Army likes things neat and trim. In shipshape."

"That's the Navy."

"Come on, you know what I mean. The military kills, and then it glamorizes death."

"Wrong war for that rhetoric. This wasn't Vietnam."

"I grant you. Necessary war. No question. But from standing up there staring at those crosses, you'd never know the pain they represent."

"I'm not sure I want to be reminded."

He felt Janice study him. "I'm sorry," she said. "I guess I wasn't thinking."

"Thirty-seven years." He shook his head from side to side. He clenched the steering wheel. "Did you know I never saw a picture of him?"

Janice was astonished. "What? You're kidding."

"Mom burned every photograph. She said she couldn't bear to be reminded. Then she wished she hadn't done that. But there wasn't any way to bring the pictures back."

"She must have loved him enormously."

"I only know she had chances to remarry, but she didn't take them. And I still remember this must have been years later how she'd cry herself to sleep. I'd wake up, and I'd hear her. I'd go in and ask her what was wrong. 'Just thinking, Pete,' she'd tell me, eyes red, sniffling. 'Just remembering your father.' "

"Jesus."

"All those crosses. Which one is he buried under?"

Janice put her hand on his knee and squeezed with rea.s.surance. Then she fumbled in her burlap purse and found the pack of cigarettes. She lit one and handed it to him.

He nodded, drawing deeply on the cigarette. American. Low tar and nicotine. He'd had some trouble finding that kind over here, and he had paid four times the stateside value. But the French brands he had tried had made him cough. Besides, he hoped that hard-to-find expensive cigarettes would help to keep his habit in control.

The Citroen filled with smoke. He rolled his window down and felt the wind push at him. Smoke rushed out the window. Houston watched the tall seed-ta.s.seled gra.s.s bend flat on each side of the road. The blacktop angled left along the slope. From this perspective, he stared ahead toward wide rich orchards on the west side of the valley. But the wind cast clouds that hid the sun. A shadow swept across the valley. Houston swung around a curve. His view was to the right now, eastward, and the cemetery filled his windshield close, intense, and vivid crosses white against the sudden shadow, endless.

Houston watched the stone fence loom larger, more distinct. He drove through an open ornate iron gate and stopped at a parking lot. They got out from the Citroen and shivered in the wind before the sprawling low white building that reminded Houston of administration centers in the big state parks back home, all gla.s.s and metal. Impersonal. The word is "inst.i.tutional," he thought. The shrubs seemed made of plastic, and the lawn reminded him of astroturf.

"It's crazy," Houston said. "This isn't going to make a difference. Nothing's going to change because I came here. h.e.l.l, I didn't even know the man." His voice was strident.

"Want to turn around?"

He shook his head. "I can't. I haven't thought about my dad in years. But I remember when I was a kid I made a promise to myself that one day I would see his grave. And now my mother's dead. We came to France to take my mind off her.

But I keep thinking of her. Maybe if I visit this grave, I'll accept her own. Or maybe I just want to tell him that his wife is dead."

Jan put her hand in his and clutched it. Houston's throat felt tight.

"Let's keep your promise."

Houston nodded. He walked past a sign american battle monument and up the hedge-lined sidewalk toward the gla.s.s doors at the entrance. Pushing through, he smelled stuffy air and heard the echo of his footsteps off the imitation marble.

There were wall displays around the long narrow room: photographs and maps that dramatized the progress of the battle; rifles, helmets, uniforms, and mess kits; models, dioramas, paintings, flags. The room was headache-bright. He heard the door hiss shut behind him. He felt Janice close beside him.

But he concentrated on the counter straight across from him. A lean-faced clerk with short hair, thin lips, and a dark suit braced his shoulders, waiting.

Houston walked across to him.

"Sir, may I help?"

Houston saw the clerk's American Legion pin on his lapel. "I'm not sure how. . .

. My father died here," Houston said. "I don't know how to find his grave.

They're alphabetic?" His voice was hollow in the mausoleum echo of the room.

"No, sir." The clerk leaned forward, so solicitous that Houston was reminded of a funeral director. "They're arranged by regiments and companies. If I could have his name, I'll find the grave for you."

"It's Stephen Houston."

"Do you know his middle name? In case of repet.i.tion."

"Pardon me?"

"There might be several Stephen Houstons."

"Oh, I see. It's Samuel."

The clerk, whose voice was Southern, looked at him with interest. "You're from Texas, sir?" he drawled.

"No, what would make you think that?"

"Sorry, sir. It's just the middle name. Sam Houston."

"Sure, of course. No, we're from Indiana."

"If you'll wait a moment, please." The clerk turned toward a console underneath the counter.

Houston glanced at Jan. The bright fluorescent lights hummed. He felt throbbing in his temples. "I could use another cigarette," he said.

Behind him, fingers tapped the keyboard of the console. Jan fumbled in her purse. Houston heard the puzzled Texan voice.

"That's Stephen Samuel Houston, sir?"

"That's right." He took the cigarette from Jan. He lit it, and he turned to face the clerk.

He didn't like the frown he saw. His heart raced. "What's the matter?"

"If you'd tell me how the name is spelled, sir."

"H-o-u "

"No. 'Houston' I'm familiar with. The first name, sir. I'm spelling it with 'ph' in the middle. Sometimes there's a V instead."

"You're right the first time." Houston's stomach burned.

"You're certain that he's buried here?"

"I'm absolutely positive."

"Perhaps another cemetery?"

"This one."