Deer jerky melted in Wolfgang’s mouth as he stared at the campfire flames, tongues of orange licking up from the hissing, damp wood. The weather had grown colder even though it was probably August by now.
Although not hard and chewy like properly prepared jerky, the deer meat still tasted good. Sergeant Goetze and the others had taken the rest to a nearby camp so the meat wouldn’t go to waste. Goetze took the other three members of their team with him, supposedly for security, but Wolfgang knew the real reason why.
Goetze wanted to give the newlyweds space. Time alone.
Leah and Wolfgang weren’t married. Wolfgang had proposed a couple of times, but his and Leah’s standards were so different that he’d confused and upset the girl. But she still lied and told the Swiss soldiers she was his wife so they could stay together.
They also made a good sniper team.
If the aliens had never attacked, if Wolfgang hadn’t been forced to leave Southern Germany, his home, for Switzerland and then been conscripted into the newly formed Pan German army, he never would have known of his natural talent for long distance shooting. He’d been singled out for sniper training, had excelled at it, and now he and Leah sat in a damp, cold wood, alone together, watching a fire.
When the others returned, they would expect Leah and Wolfgang to have taken advantage of the time alone, and the two would need to make a show of it, snuggling together in their tiny tent but not actually doing anything. Covenants Wolfgang made with his first wife forbade him from any sexual relationship outside of marriage.
Leah didn’t understand that.
What hurt more was that when the rest of their team gave them time alone and they had to fake being a married couple, Wolfgang thought of his first wife, the one he believed he married not just for time, but for all eternity. The wife he believed he would be with forever. The one who, along with his precious daughter, had died of radiation poisoning. The images of his dead family haunted his dreams.
If the aliens had never attacked, his family would be alive.
As soon as he and Leah went into their tent together, Wolfgang would begin crying. He always did.
He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to feel weak. But the thought of having to pretend to be husband and wife with the Swiss girl reminded him of his loss, of his actual wife and family, and always overcame him in those moments, and he cried like a baby.
He ate his soft deer jerky and stared into the flames.
“It’s time,” Leah gently whispered.
Wolfgang nodded and stood, following the girl into the tent. He took his boots off inside, setting them carefully by the door, and crawled into their one sleeping bag. Leah undressed, leaving her underwear and a thin, military tank top on. The one that drove Wolfgang’s imagination crazy. The one that made him long for his wife, long to make Leah his wife, the one that muddled his thinking and made him fear for the covenants he had made, the one that made him wonder how long he could remain in this strange, not quite platonic relationship.
The one that made him cry.
Leah held him in the sleeping bag, cradling his head on her shoulder and singing softly to him like he was a child and it made it worse and it made it better.
He held on to her until he fell asleep.
Leah woke him in the middle of the night. Wolfgang could tell from the sounds of sleeping around him that the others had returned and slept in their sleeping bags with tarps covering them. Sniper teams moved with as little equipment as possible, and only Leah and Wolfgang used a tent for the privacy they supposedly needed.
“I can’t sleep,” she whispered.
Wolfgang wouldn’t be able to sleep now either. The nearness of the girl, the temptation of her forbidden fruit, would keep him awake and make his thoughts spiral out of control and go places Wolfgang never imagined existed.
Sometimes he worried the lie he was living was driving him insane.
“Tell me about covenants again,” she whispered in English so the others wouldn’t understand if they woke and listened outside the tent that seemed private but was nothing more than a semi-porous layer of nylon.
Wolfgang knew the others probably understood English anyway. Most Swiss were polyglots even if they didn’t admit it. He chose his words carefully in order to not give their secret away.
“A promise not just to my wife, but to God. To keep his commandments, his rules. Together, she and I knelt across an altar and we were sealed for time and all eternity. The covenant we made is eternal. It lasts forever. Death cannot end it.”
“Is there really life after death?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And your wife is in some kind of world of spirits right now?” They’d discussed this many times before.
“Yes.”
“Can she see us?” A new question. Wolfgang didn’t know the answer and said so.
“She’d be jealous if she could,” Leah whispered. Wolfgang sensed the evil grin on her face. “I should take my clothes off and see how jealous she gets.”
“Please don’t,” Wolfgang begged in a whisper.
“I won’t,” Leah replied resignedly. “But I want to.”
Wolfgang wanted her to also. The flesh of his body was still flesh, and he wanted nothing more than the young Swiss girl to undress. Tears came to his eyes.
She noticed.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
He didn’t say anything.
“If I married you,” she said extra quietly, “would we be married for all eternity?”
“It’s possible.”
“What about your wife?”
“I don’t know how that works. But I will be married to her also. I still am.”
“What if she didn’t like me?”
“I don’t know.”
The two were quiet for a while. Wolfgang had never pondered the theological implications of remarrying. When he had proposed to Leah, it had been on impulse. The world crumbled around them and he wanted to be with her and being married to her would be the best way they could stay together. Pretending to be married proved that point.
What would his wife think? What would she say to him if she were here? How would she react?
Somewhere deep inside him, Wolfgang knew his wife was okay with him remarrying. He knew that she would want him to be happy. She had always wanted him to be happy. She had always been loyal to him and he had been loyal to her, never even suspecting the motives of the shy Swiss girl who had joined his hiking club. Never knowing how she clung to his presence in the foreign land she lived in, looking forward to hiking Saturdays once a month as if they were her only link to humanity in a sea of foreignness. Germany and Switzerland. Two countries so close together and yet so different.
Leah had been drowning in that difference.
Wolfgang’s hiking club had been her lifeline during that time of peace and plenty and confusion and loneliness, and now, amidst war and desolation and death, she was Wolfgang’s lifeline.
He debated proposing again, had almost brought himself to it, when she whispered, “I want to make covenants with you.”
“In earnest?” he asked in German. He needed to hear her to say it in German to make sure he understood.
“Yes, my love,” she replied in his native language. “I will marry you.”
He laughed a little and hugged her. He didn’t know how he was going to convince someone to legally marry them when the bureaucrats of the Pan German army already thought they were married, but they’d figure something out.
They snuggled in the sleeping bag and kissed and Wolfgang hoped his first wife really was okay with everything.
He wouldn’t know until he died.
“You two look quite happy,” Sergeant Goetze commented when they came out of their tent in the morning to the smell of frying deer strips and coffee. Wolfgang always passed on the
brown liquid, which meant someone else got his share and they appreciated that.
One of the other men laughed wolfishly, jealously, at the non-commissioned officer’s comment.
“It’s time for you to earn your position on this team,” Goetze added, his voice suddenly strict and military-like. His words stuck a chord of fear and doubt in Wolfgang, dispelling the happiness he felt now that he and Leah were officially engaged.
Until now they’d only shot targets and animals. Shooting humans, even alien humans who had killed his family, would be different. Wolfgang didn’t know yet if he could do it.
He knew many righteous men had killed others. The Book of Mormon held many such stories. Nephi and Laban, Ammon and the Lamanites, Alma and Amlici, Captain Moroni, Mormon himself, and many others. Prophets who had killed in time of war and in self-defense.
But those men lived in a different age. A time of life and death by the sword. A time where every man was his own security, where every man was required to protect his wife and children by the strength of his arm.
Wolfgang would look a man in the eye, not across swords but through a sniper scope, and he would hold his breath and gently squeeze his finger and that man would die, never having seen his attacker.
He didn’t know if it was the same. He didn’t know if it was justified. He didn’t know if he should pull that trigger when the time came.
He didn’t know if he could.
After breakfast, Goetze pulled out a map. He’d received orders the previous evening that his team was to move to a new position. He explained that a helicopter would arrive at night and insert them in a location forty kilometers from their objective, a place where some German scouts reported significant alien activity. Their sniper team would arrive first, get into position, then begin disrupting the aliens while an all out assault developed from another direction.
The sniper team had to pin down the alien troops and prevent them from getting back to their disappearing vehicles until the infantry could attack. They hoped to capture some of the seemingly magical machines. Someone high up the chain of command decided they needed to study the things to change the balance of power in this war.
“The aliens shoot everything out of the sky. We’ll never even get there,” an experienced corporal said, not even looking at the map. He stared straight at his commander, challenging the man. The corporal had two confirmed sniper kills from a tour of duty with the United Nations in the Middle East.
“We fly at night. And that’s why we land so far away from them. Our total airtime will be less than forty-five minutes. That’s where you two come in.” Goetze looked at Wolfgang and Leah, ignoring the veteran corporal and effectively silencing his complaint. “You two will guide us through these Alps to our target.”
Wolfgang studied the map, something he loved to do, maps had always fascinated him, and pushed every other thought and emotion deep inside. Fear, doubt, happiness, everything, pushed away while he focused his energy on this map his commander held.
No one said anything to him. He studied the drop off point and then various routes to their target.
No borders were drawn on the topographical features he studied, but he knew.
“This is in Germany,” he said.
“Borders don’t matter when the war is with aliens from outer space,” Goetze replied.
Wolfgang continued studying.
“This way,” he finally said, tracing his fingers along a route. “If they are unguarded, we can use roads to this point, then we’ll need to climb this mountain. There used to be a good restaurant on top, then there’s a simple trail that we can follow to get into position. It will take a day and a half.”
“A day and a half? It can’t take that long.”
Wolfgang ignored Goetze. “I don’t think we’ll need ropes, but I can’t be sure.”
“I’m going to have to report this. We thought it would take less than a day.”
“Then you don’t know the Alps.”
Goetze nodded, giving in. “You’re right. Alright everyone, we still go out at first dark. Make sure we have enough food for three days and all the water we can carry. It’s time to do what you get paid for.”
Wolfgang almost laughed. Nobody had been paid anything nor would they ever be. The war with the aliens was about life and death. Not money.
81