Thibault didn\'t want to return to Iraq, but once more, in February 2005, the First, Fifth was called up. This time, the regiment was sent to Ramadi, the capital of Al Anbar province and the southwest point of what was commonly referred to as "the triangle of death." Thibault was there for seven months. Car bombs and IEDs—improvised explosive devices—were common. Simple devices but scary: usually a mortar shell with a fuse triggered by a cellular phone call. Still, the first time Thibault was riding in a Humvee that hit one, he knew the news could have been worse. "I\'m glad I heard the bomb," Victor had said afterward. By then, Victor and Thibault nearly always patrolled together. "It means I\'m still alive." "You and me both," Thibault had answered. But I\'d rather not hit one again." "You and me both." But bombs weren\'t easy to avoid. On patrol the following day, hit another one. A week after that, their Humvee was struck by a car bomb—but Thibault and Victor weren\'t unusual in that regard. Humvees were hit by one or the other on almost every Patrol. Most of the marines in the platoon could honestly claim that they\'d survived two or three bombs before they went back to Pendleton. A couple had survived four or five. Their sergeant had survived six. It was just that kind of place, and nearly everyone had heard the story of Tony Stevens, a marine from the Twenty-fourth MED—Marine Expeditionary Unit—who\'d survived nine bombs. One of the major newspapers had written an article about him entitled "The Luckiest Marine." His was a record no one wanted to break. Thibault broke it. By the time he left Ramadi, he\'d survived eleven explosions. But there was the one explosion he\'d missed that continued to haunt him. It would have been explosion number eight. Victor was with him. Same old story with a much worse ending. They were in a convoy of four Humvees, patrolling one of the city\'s major thoroughfares. An RPG struck the Humvee in front, with fortunately little damage, but enough to bring the convoy to a temporary halt. Rusted and decaying cars lined both sides of the road. Shots broke out. Thibault jumped from the second Humvee in the convoy line to get a better line of sight. Victor followed him. They reached cover and readied their weapons. Twenty seconds later, a car bomb went off, knocking them clear and destroying the Humvee they\'d been in only moments before. Three marines were killed; Victor was knocked unconscious. Thibault hauled him back to the convoy, and aftet collecting the dead, the convoy returned to the safe zone. It was around that time that Thibault began to hear whispers. He noticed that the othet marines in his platoon began to act differently around him, as if they believed Thibault were somehow immune to the rules of war. That others might die, but he would not. Worse than that, his fellow marines seemed to suspect that while Thibault was especially lucky, those who patrolled with him were especially unlucky. It wasn\'t always overt, but he couldn\'t deny the change in his platoon members\' attitude toward him. He was in Ramadi for two more months after those three marines died. The last few bombs he survived only intensified the whispers. Other marines began to avoid him. Only Victor seemed to treat him the same. Toward the end of their tour in Ramadi, while on duty guarding a gas station, he noticed Victor\'s hands shaking as he lit a cigarette. Above them, the night sky glittered with stars. "You okay?" he asked. "I\'m ready to go home," Victor said. "I\'ve done my part." "You\'re not going to reup next year?" He took a long drag from his cigarette. "My mother wants me home, and my brother has offered me a job. In roofing. Do you think I can build roofs?" "Yeah, I think you can. You\'ll be a great roofer." "My girl, Maria, is waiting for me. I\'ve known her since I was fourteen." "I know. You\'ve told me about her." "I\'m going to marry her." "You told me that, too." "I want you to come to the wedding." In the glow of Victor\'s cigarette, he saw the ghost of a smile. "I wouldn\'t miss it." Victor took a long drag and they stood in silence, considering a future that seemed impossibly distant. "What about you?" Victor said, his words coming out with a puff" of smoke. "You going to reup?" Thibault shook his head. "No. I\'m done." "What are you going to do when you get out?" "I don\'t know. Do nothing for a while, maybe go fishing in Minnesota. Someplace cool and green, where I can just sit in a boat and relax." Victor sighed. "That sounds nice." "You want to come?" "Yes." "Then I\'ll call you when I plan the trip," Thibault promised. He could hear the smile in Victor\'s voice. "I\'ll be there." Victor cleared his throat. "Do you want to know something?" "Only if you want to tell me." "Do you remember the firefight? The one where Jackson and the others died when the Humvee blew up?" Thibault picked up a small pebble and tossed it into the dark-ness. "Yeah." "You saved my life. "No, I didn\'t. I just hauled you back." \'Thibault, I followed you. When you jumped from the Humvee. I was going to stay, but when I saw you go, I knew I had no choice." "What are you talking ab—?" "The picture," Victor interrupted. "I know you carry it with you. I followed your luck and it saved me." At first, Thibault didn\'t understand, but when he finally figured out what Victor was saying, he shook his head in disbelief. "It\'s just a picture, Victor." "It\'s luck," Victor insisted, bringing his face close to Thibault\'s. "And you\'re the lucky one. And when you are finished with your tour, I think you should go find this woman in the picture. Your story with her is not finished." "No—" "It saved me." "It didn\'t save the others. Too many others." Everyone knew that the First, Fifth had suffered more casualties in Iraq than any other regiment in the Marine Corps. "Because it protects you. And when I jumped from the Humvee, I believed it would save me, too, in the same way you believe it will always save you." "No, I don\'t," Thibault began. "Then why, my friend, do you still carry it with you?" *** It was Friday, his third day working at the kennel, and though Thibault had shed most traces of his former life, he was always aware of the photograph in his pocket. Just as he always thought about everything Victor had said to him that day. He was walking a mastiff on a shady trail, out of sight of the office but still on the property. The dog was enormous, at least the size of a Great Dane, and had a tendency to lick Thibault\'s hand every ten seconds. Friendly. He\'d already mastered the simple routines of the job: feeding and exercising the dogs, cleaning the cages, scheduling appointments. Not hard. He was fairly certain that Nana was considering allowing him to help train the dogs as well. The day before, she\'d asked him to watch her work with one of the dogs, and it reminded him of his work with Zeus: clear, short, simple commands, visual cues, firm guidance with the leash, and plenty of praise. When she finished, she told him to walk beside her as she brought the dog back to the kennel. "Do you think you could handle something like that?" she asked. "Yes." She peeked over her shoulder at Zeus, who was trailing behind them. "Is it the same way you trained Zeus?" "Pretty much." When Nana had interviewed him, Thibault had made two requests. First, he asked that he be allowed to bring Zeus to work with him. Thibault had explained that after spending nearly all their time together, Zeus wouldn\'t react well to long daily separations. Thankfully, Nana had understood. "I worked with shepherds for a long time, so I know what you\'re talking about," she\'d said. "As long as he doesn\'t become a bother, it\'s fine with me." Zeus wasn\'t a bother. Thibault learned early on not to bring Zeus into the kennels when he was feeding or cleaning, since Zeus\'s presence made some of the other dogs nervous, But other than that, he fit right in. Zeus followed along as Thibault exercised the dogs or cleaned the training yard, and he lay on the porch near the doorway when Thibault was doing paperwork. When clients came in, Zeus always went on alert, as he\'d been trained to do. It was enough to make most clients stop in their tracks, but a quick, "It\'s okay," was enough to keep him still. Thibault\'s second request to Nana was that he be allowed to start work on Wednesday so he\'d have time to get settled. She\'d agreed to that as well. On Sunday, on the way home after leaving the kennel, he\'d picked up a newspaper and searched the classifieds for a place to rent. It wasn\'t hard to pare the list; there were only four homes listed, and he was immediately able to eliminate two of the larger ones since he didn\'t need that much room. Ironically, the remaining two choices were on opposite ends of town. The first house he found was in an older subdivision just off the downtown area and within sight of the South River. Good condition. Nice neighborhood. But not for him. Houses were sandwiched too close together. The second house, though, would work out fine. It was located at the end of a dirt road about two miles from work, on a rural lot that bordered the national forest. Conveniently, he could cut through the forest to get to the kennel. It didn\'t shorten his commute much, but it would allow Zeus to roam. The place was one-story, southern rustic, and at least a hundred years old, but kept in relatively good repair. After rubbing the dirt from the windows, he peeked inside. It needed some work, but not the kind that would prevent him from moving in. The kitchen was definitely old-school, and there was a wood-burning stove in the corner, one that probably pro-vided the house\'s only heat. The wide-plank pine flooring was scuffed and stained, and the cabinets had probably been around since the place was built, but these things seemed to add to the house\'s character rather than detract from it. Even better, it seemed to be furnished with the basics: couch and end tables, lamps, even a bed. Thibault called the number on the sigh, and a couple of hours later, he heard the owner drive up. They made the requisite small talk, and it turned out the guy had spent twenty years in the army, the last seven at Fort Bragg. The place had belonged to his father, he\'d explained, who\'d passed away two months earlier. That was good, Thibault knew; homes were like cars in that if they weren\'t used regularly, they began to decay at an accelerating rate. It meant this one was probably still okay. The deposit and rent seemed a bit high to him, but Thibault needed a place quickly. He paid two months\' rent and the deposit in advance. The expression on the guy\'s face told him that the last thing he\'d expected was to receive that much cash. Thibault slept at the house Monday night, spreading his sleeping bag on top of the mattress; on Tuesday, he trekked into town to order a new mattress from a place that agreed to deliver it that evening, then picked up supplies as well. When he returned, his backpack was filled with sheets and towels and cleaning supplies. It took another two trips to town to stock the refrigerator and get some plates, glasses, and utensils, along with a fifty-pound bag of food for Zeus. By the end of the day, he wished for the first time since he\'d left Colorado that he had a car. But he was settled in, and that was enough. He was ready to go to work. Since starting at the kennel on Wednesday, he\'d spent most of his time with Nana, learning the ins and outs of the place. He hadn\'t seen much of Beth, or Elizabeth, as he liked to think of her; in the mornings, she drove off dressed for work and didn\'t return until late afternoon. Nana mentioned something about teacher meetings, which made sense, since school would be starting up next week. Aside from an occasional greeting, the only time they\'d actually spoken was when she\'d pulled him aside on his first day and asked him to look after Nana. He knew what she meant. It was obvious that Nana had suffered a stroke. Their morning training sessions left her breathing harder than seemed warranted, and on her way back to the house, her limp was more pronounced. It made him nervous. He liked Nana. She had a unique turn of phrase. It amused him, and he wondered how much of it was an act. Eccentric or not, she was intelligent—no doubt about that. He often got the sense she was evaluating him, even in the course of normal co............