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I woke to banging on my apartment door. Shaking my head, I mopped a hand across my face and rolled onto my side. Tried unsuccessfully to focus my eyes and make out the pattern on the throw rug under my face. Teeth stuck to my lips and cheeks as I tried to swallow.

Pushing myself to a seat on the floor with my back to the couch for support. Apparently, I rolled off of it at some point. When my eyes focused, they were on an empty bottle of Jim Beam, which explained the pounding headache that throbbed with each bang on the door.

“Go away.” I slurred and searched the walls through bloodshot eyes for the clock. It said 2 O’clock, but it could be morning or night. A glance at the window shows it’s dark out, so it’s not afternoon. On the coffee table, a glass sat about a quarter full of amber liquid. I watched my hand reach for it, fumbling, but got it to my lips. “Hold on,” I said and slugged the whiskey in one gulp before rolling onto my hands and knees.

Using the couch and table, I pushed erect and gave out a loud belch. As usual, I flinched at the smell and the fire burning my throat. “Hang on, I’m coming,” and stumbled towards the door, tripping over my gun belt, about fell, and stepping barefoot on my badge. Hopping on one foot, I made it to the door.

“What do you want?”

“Wyatt, open the damned door.” My patrol Sgt., but today was our day off unless I missed one. I unlocked the door and swung it open.

“Christ, ol’ mighty Wyatt, get back in there and put some clothes on.”

It got hot in the apartment, as Texas tends to be, and I wore boxer shorts that saw better days while still in the army. “What’s up, Sarge?” It came out mumbled and slurred as he extended a finger, pushing me back with it. His face looked like he just stuck his hand into a pile of pig shit. The room blurred like I viewed it through a heatwave off the desert.

“Captain called us in, swing shift got swamped.” He gave one more push, and I stumbled back over my gear. “I don’t know what happened, only that mid-shift is shorthanded and we are up.”

I aimed toward the bedroom and recalled coming off shift, and it didn’t seem so long ago. My last call featured a drunken man stabbed with an antique Civil War saber by an abused teenage son who finally decided to fight back.

Making it to the shower, I turned on the cold water, which spilled out lukewarm. The stabbed dad got himself run through with the blade. He fought me, and I tried to keep him down and from pulling the sword out. That fight and his injury reminded me of the war, racking me with images that played across my mind with my eyes open. A movie I couldn’t stop or turn away from.

Ten minutes later, mainly through muscle memory, I managed to dress, pick up, and strap on the gun belt. Sarge handed me my badge and took it back to pin it on because I couldn’t find the stitched holes with shaky hands.

“Get your ass in the car, and when we reach the station, keep your mouth shut and for damn sure don’t breathe on anyone.”

Sgt. Gibbons is a hard-nosed WWII Marine Veteran and survivor of Iwo Jima. Hard drinking, hard fighting man, and he understood some of the issues I carried from Korea. “Troop, you better get this out of your system or no matter who your daddy and uncle are, you’re going to bring shame to all of them and get yourself fired.”

If my head hadn’t been swimming in fog from drinking, I started after shift at about 9 am the day before, I might have paid better attention.

The drive to the station downtown blurred into lights and a steady drone from Gibbons about how many chances I blew thanks to drinking. War memories roamed around in my head, popping up at odd and unexpected times. The sword incident sparked an explosion of images of bayonet charges and frozen bodies strewn like bloody, contorted scarecrows across the tundra.

If I didn’t drink to forget the war, I did to forget that my high school sweetheart started seeing a friend of mine while I worked through rehab in Japan before mustering out of service. Joe Bob had been my knocking around buddy. The kind of pal you figured you would either die with or end up sharing a jail cell. Somehow, we both survived our school years.

Sarge parked in the back lot behind the station. By the time I got out of the car, he stood in front of me. “Look up, Peoples, there’s no fallout. The LT is going to give you an area assignment and ream us both out about being slow to respond. Your career is hanging by a thread. Keep your mouth shut. Nod yes to any instructions and try to make it to your car assignment without falling down.”

Lieutenant Foster wasn’t a big man, but he sported a huge reputation and twenty-five years of working the streets of Fort Worth. He took four years out of the middle of his career to tour North Africa, Italy, and Germany in Uncle Sam’s big green machine. A hard man, but in my judgement a fair one.

As a rule, I liked Foster because he came up through the ranks and backed his officers, often taking the blame for his men and standing as a barricade between them and the top brass. Showing up for duty, hung over if not outright drunk on several occasions, Foster warned me before to put the war behind me and get out of the bottle or find a new job.

As expected, he read us chapter and verse about being expected when called to respond to duty on emergency calls. “The policy of having a phone and living within the city limits is part of department policy, and the reason is to be able to respond in a timely manner. You all signed on knowing it.”

I heard him. Then Gibbons said, “LT, he had a tough shift and fell asleep and hadn’t heard the phone.” However, nodding when I should, my mind drifted to Jo Bob and Diane. Last weekend, Joe Bob invited me out to his ranch near Azle. When I arrived, Diane was there. Tall blonde, long hair, and rode a horse like born to it. We spent the day riding, and come evening, they announced their intention to get married.

Joe Bob wanted me as his best man. Hopes of them breaking up evaporated, not that a girl like her would want a flawed, drunken man like me. I felt tears roll down my cheeks. Then it registered. I still nodded, but it became quiet. When I looked up, Foster leaned inches away from my nose, watching the tears.

“What in the Sam Hill? Peoples, are you drunk wearing our uniform?”

I did as instructed and nodded yes.

“Answer me?” Foster stood on his tiptoes, chest puffed out, and I found nothing funny about it.

“It’s my fault, LT, I made him come—”

“Shut up, Gibbons, I asked a question, and I expect an answer.”

I nodded, “Yes, sir.”

“Son, you’re fired. Turn in your gun and badge and get out of my parking lot. You’re a disgrace to your department, the Army, and your family. Sergeant, get him out of here, and when you get back, we’re going to discuss your job situation.”

Three days later, I rode a Greyhound bus heading for Colorado. The Chief, out of respect for my father, allowed me to resign. I failed as a cop, a soldier, and a son.

My next job I worked on a ranch as a temporary hire during branding season. A bunkhouse acquaintance said he took a job offer at a mine in Durango so after branding ended I tagged along. The constant hard work and time help to sober me up some.

I took jobs at two more mines in Colorado, then moved to a logging operation in Minnesota. From there, I cowboyed at a ranch in Montana. They shipped some cattle to Calgary, Alberta, and I rode along. The following spring, I drifted north to a good paying job on a gold dredge working near Dawson City in the Yukon Territory, Canada.

By then, I’d practically stopped drinking hard liquor at all and allowed myself occasional beer. Partly because I found myself poor, I never earned enough money to afford a good bender. Mainly, I determined working hard helped me sleep better, and physical labor kept my mind occupied.

The drifting life suited me, and when the dredge broke down early in the season, being laid off, I wasn’t disappointed or concerned. With nothing in Canada to hold me, and Alaska just voted in as a brand new state, I took the road north and hitchhiked into Chicken.

At a wide spot in the road, Dottie’s bar and grill sat next to Gene’s Chicken General Store and comprised most of downtown Chicken. The area fits the dictionary definition of being in the middle of nowhere. River valleys in a scrub forest of spruce trees and patches of open tundra surrounded by mountains, where it seemed the sun never set.

There, I met Tim Crockett at the bar, an average-sized man with dark hair and a talkative nature. He took to me right off and suggested his dad might hire me as summer help.

I found work many times before that way. I figured I would move to Fairbanks come winter and find some work there. So I rode with Tim in their old Dodge truck to their Poker Creek Mine. Tim, being the sort who talks a lot and works as little as possible, somehow left out that his younger sister, Amy, acted as foreman at the mine. Before I ever met Tim’s dad, Amy informed me they were not hiring.

Not finding a job wasn’t hard to take, but Amy—well, right there she shipwrecked my heart and soul, crashing them into the rocks of her good looks. After Diane, I thought I would never meet another woman who touched me inside, but from the moment Amy appeared through the dust, I lost it. It being my ability to speak. She changed my world in an instant.

Hiking the long trail back to Chicken, my only thought was to find a way to stay near her, and the Barnes Mine gave me that opportunity. Being the next one west on Poker Creek presented me with that chance when they offered me a job.