They knocked off for the night not long after they found the dog tag – it was getting late in the afternoon, and the light was starting to go.

“I don’t know,” Gil said, “But I think maybe we’d better leave someone at the site, just on general principles,”

“I don’t think anyone would bother it,” Rod said, “But, on the other hand, it’d probably be best.”

“I’ll stay,” Mike offered.

“No, I’ll stay,” Steve said.

“You better not,” Harold told him. “You were up all last night, too.”

“Suppose you’re right,” he said. “I don’t know how I’ve stayed awake all day.”

“Tell you what,” Harold said. “Only Bud, Mike and me got much sleep last night. I’ll stay here for a while. The rest of you go back to camp and have some dinner. Then, about the time everybody is crapping out, have one of the drivers bring Mike out here and take me back.”

“Sounds good,” Bud said. “I don’t think there’s going to be many up late anyway. I’ll save something for you.”

Leaving most of the gear, they all loaded into the three-quarter and headed back out to the road, where a few people got out to ride the Toyota back to the camp.

As Bud had predicted, it was a short evening, and Steve and Gil didn’t even make it to dinner; they were snoring by the time it was ready, and no one was anxious to wake them. There was no campfire that evening; they just slowly ate, mostly silently. It was a meal to eat, not to celebrate; though they’d worked toward this day for many years, it proved to be a day of sadness to find out the actuality of what they’d suspected.

It was not long after sunset when Kien Thanh and Mike got into the Toyota and went back out to the dig to relieve Harold, leaving Mike at the edge of the woods for the night, only a few feet from where Henry Toivo’s bones lay.

It was a long and quiet night for Mike, but one he would never forget. The shadow of what had happened at this spot had hung over him for fifteen years, the wondering and not knowing for sure if Henry were dead or alive. Although from the beginning everyone had been pretty sure he was dead, there was always a little bit of remaining uncertainty that had hung over his life, until late this afternoon, when he’d held Henry’s dog tag in his hand. That, finally, was a new reality.

It was amazing to Mike how much his life had been shaped by what had happened in this spot, by the man he’d never met whose bones lay a few feet away. It was sheer bad luck for Henry; his bad luck had proven to be Mike’s good luck. As the result of Henry’s death, a guy who he’d never known, he’d built a good life for himself. Now, it didn’t seem fair.

There always had been an uncrossable gulf between Mike and the veterans with him on that trip, the vets who were now sleeping soundly back in base camp while he stayed awake with Henry’s bones. Most of them had known Henry, at least a little, but even though Mike had been far more affected by Henry and his death than any of them, the vets shared a brotherhood with Henry that he could never have been a part of, could never be a part of. They didn’t talk about it much, but all of them had indicated at one time or another that it was just the way sheer luck had fallen that had brought them back from Vietnam, and left Henry missing there.

Mike’s imagination worked hard that night. Had Henry lived – had he chosen to enter these woods at a little different spot, had he decided to stay in the edge of the woods rather than seeking denser cover, had a lot of things been just a little different, not much, he might well have gone back to Spearfish Lake, maybe had a few beers with the other Vietnam veterans from there, would have married Kirsten, probably had kids and a life that Mike could not really imagine.

Mike could imagine running into Kirsten and Henry, maybe at the Super Market years after the night that changed all their lives – and they would have been strangers, and their lives would never have touched. After a year or so, Mike would have moved on, perhaps to the Camden Press, perhaps elsewhere, would have married someone else, had different kids, had a different life, certainly not one that involved living in the woods, running dogsleds through the snow, not a lot of things. Whatever that life might have been – and there was no imagining it – it would have been far different. Fate and luck turn on thin bearings, and they seemed very thin on this warm Vietnam night, as a nearly full moon shone down on where Mike sat with thoughts running heavily through his mind.

Mike had never known Henry, of course – he now knew he’d been dead five years before he ever heard Henry’s name – but everybody who had ever known him had always said he was one of the good guys, honest and fair, a good friend, much like Mark had become the last few years. Change the circumstances just a little – it needn’t have been much – might Mike have had a good friendship with Henry, say, like he had with Mark? Although he’d never known him, it seemed like he knew him better than the brother he’d never had.

All good questions, all imponderable. The way fate had swung was the way fate had swung, and that was about what there was about that – but somehow, it seemed as if there had to be a deeper answer, a deeper meaning out there in that moonlit patch of woods, one Mike couldn’t quite make out.

How would Kirsten handle the reality that lurked out in this patch of woods with those bones uncovered during the day, and those yet to be uncovered? She’d be saddened to know the truth, Mike knew, but this time, the worst of the sadness should pass. She’d cried a lot of tears for Henry over the years, most of them before he knew her, but some of them after. What had happened here had shaped her life as much as it had shaped his, but perhaps now it could be in her past, rather than a lurking presence. She’d been anxious for the expedition to come off, anxious to hear the outcome, but how would she bear the reality? Mike was glad she wasn’t there with him that night, since the reality of the partially opened old punji pit might be a little hard to comprehend. But, maybe now, she could finally bury the past.

Spearfish Lake seemed far away, a world away. Mike was glad he’d agreed to come with the vets. He hadn’t really contributed much to the expedition, the way everyone else had, but there had been some things he’d done to help make it a success. What had kept these guys going for so long on the problem? Gil had been picking away at the question of what had happened for over twenty years, seriously for nearly ten. Most of the other guys had been part of the question for ten years, too. That took some dedication, to wait that long, prepare that long, think about the problem that long. Could Mike have done it, if he’d been one of the vets who had grown up with Henry? He liked to think he could have, that he would have, but like so many other questions he asked himself that night, there was no way he could ever know the answer.

For that matter, what would happen with the guys? The question of what had happened to Henry had been a focus of their lives for a decade. Now that they knew, well, that was a part of their lives that had moved on, too. Mike could remember the days that a lot of people considered Vietnam veterans to be a little unstable and dangerous, even the guys who had been mail clerks or driven trucks or whatever. He had to admit to himself, to his shame, that there were times he had held that opinion a little, but whatever these guys might have been, what they had done had been out of a love and a brotherhood that he couldn’t comprehend and could never share.

The story of twenty years was nearly over now, Mike knew. The writer of many stories over the years, Mike knew that all had to come to an end, and this one was nearing it. In a few days, they’d head back to Spearfish Lake, each of them changed a little by the events they’d shared, by the goal they’d shared. Other things would happen, new things, some of them troubles, perhaps, but this would soon be an episode of the past.

Those thoughts and many others went through Mike’s mind that long night, as he stood guard over what had proven to be Henry Toivo’s temporary grave, but they were strong enough that he had no problem staying awake all through the night. Eventually, there began to be a dull glow in the east, and the stars faded into a colorless gray of early light. The light of dawn began to spread on the eastern horizon, and soon the sun began to pop over the distant trees, and a new day had begun. The long night that he’d spent alone with Henry’s body where it had lain for twenty years was drawing to a close, and only now did Mike start to feel tired. Somehow, he managed to stay awake until Kien Thanh came driving across the field in the Toyota, bringing Mark to relieve him so he could get some breakfast and get back out to where he’d spent the night.

Though he might share a portion of it with the guys and with Mark and with Kirsten, the totality of it would forever be only his, and his alone, perhaps to be shared only with Henry if they ever met on the far side of Heaven’s Gate.