Chapter 24: Napa

Hank was waiting at the Napa airstrip on Saturday morning with a rolled-up towel under his arm.

He had flown up ahead of us in the Bell 205 with the old man, the woman and her two children, and eleven more of the ridge families.

They stood in a row by the fence in their good coats.

I climbed down from the 407 and Hank held out the towel.

"Open it," he said.

I unrolled it on the hood of the fuel truck.

Inside lay a strip of steel the length of my forearm, with one word stamped into it.

RAVEN.

"That was on your locker door," Hank said, gruffly. "At the unit. Four years. I took it with me when I left."

"You kept it."

"I told you. I never cleaned that locker out."

"Hank."

"Don't make me cry in front of the customers," he said, and pushed it into my hands.

I held the strip against my chest.

Bruce stood a few feet behind me with the urn in both hands, steady.

"Ready?" he asked.

I looked at the vineyards.

They ran down the valley in long rows, gold and red, with the morning mist lifting off them.

Nonna had talked about this valley for sixty years and never once gotten to see it.

"Ready."

I put my Raven helmet on, the dented one, and the old stencil showed over my brow.

My hands were out of the gauze.

The doctor had cleared them that week, and the skin was shiny and tight and pink.

It hurt to close my fingers.

I closed them anyway.

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