Epilogue - Collin

THREE WEEKS LATER

Prissy the chihuahua was delivered via basket. This was Sassy's idea. "She has been sleepin' in this basket since the day she was born. Trust me," Sassy told us. "If we lower it down, she will hop right in."

Amon wanted to use some kind of claw attachment for the drone that didn't come with it, and therefore set us back another five thousand dollars. So I was a little bit hot that we bought that thing and didn't even use it. But Amon said, "Relax, Collin. It's a writeoff. And a claw really comes in handy." Then he slapped me on the back and went back to whatever the fuck he was doing.

Sassy was right about the basket. We took a jet down to the Bahamas, rented a yacht for a day from a guy Amon and I knew once upon a time, and flew that drone right down to Mr. Former Sassy Lorraine's boat dock where the dog was sleepin'. We put a little speaker on the basket, just in case, with Sassy's voice callin' Prissy to go to bed.

"That's all ya got to say," Sassy said. "‘Go to bed' and she'll jump right in."

She was right. The whole thing took about thirty minutes. Then we had a nice lunch on the deck and were back at our hotels by dinnertime.

Sassy and Amon went home, but Low and I stayed for a couple days to relax a little. We'd never been on a trip together and it was nice. And when we got home, our house was ready for us to move in. We don't barely have any furniture yet, but we don't mind.

Mercy stays inside at night, but during the day she guards our porch. Amon says I'm wastin' her. "She's only two, Collin! She wants to work!"

Maybe. But personally, I think she prefers the porch. So that's where I let her spend her days. Amon should've kept her for himself if he wanted to boss her around.

McBooms is still open and Lowyn still goes into town for that, but when she gave Rosie a free house to live in, it came with a full-time job. Rosie minds McBooms now, and Lowyn spends her time doing consultations and picking people's junk and puttin' it online.

I took Amon's advice on that pickin' trip and now we do that together. One week a month we get to take a little vacation. It might not be fancy-fancy, but it's more than enough for us.

But today isn't about any of that.

Today is about our men.

Two buses pull into the compound at three forty-five in the afternoon. They stop right in the middle of the road, about halfway between Nash's house and our house.

There are sixty men inside those buses and Amon, Nash, Ryan, and I are waiting when they all pile out. Big men. Dangerous men. Unstable men. They don't fit in anymore. Every single one of them was found either in a homeless shelter or in jail.

This is their second chance. A fresh start using the skills they built so carefully over the years. They were giants in the military. The best of the best. They came home from things no one ever wants to talk about.

And that's the problem, really. You gotta have someone you can talk about that shit with. That's the whole point of a war story. That's why old men tell those stories. They can't just file them away and forget.

Once you get used to that team, it's there forever. You can't just walk away from a team.

So we brought them here, to the edge of Disciple, West Virginia, and they are now on our team.

They stand there, lookin' around, most of them smiling. The ones who aren't are just a little more cautious than the rest. They'll come around.

There are ten houses. Six men to a house. It's all part of the paycheck.

We will have a boot camp for the next six weeks, then two weeks' R&R, and on August one Charlie Beaufort will be here to tell us what to do next.

I don't know what kind of job Charlie will have me do, but he's not gonna waste that debt on something small, I do know that much. So it probably won't come up for a while and that means I don't have to worry about that debt until it comes due.

Amon starts in with his speech, welcoming them, pointing out the houses, which have been turned into barracks. They nod and listen. And when he brings out the dogs and starts handing them out, assigning each one to a pair of handlers, not a single man is frowning.

Some of them are just puppies and they will be trained by these men. Some of them are breeders, and they will be cared for by these men. And some of them are pretty much ready to go. And these dogs will be their best friends.

Every man in Edge will get his own dog eventually. But for now, it's enough.

I let Amon, Nash, and Ryan do the talking and take myself down the road where Lowyn and Mercy are waiting for me on the porch.

Lowyn's smiling big at me. Probably because I'm smiling big at her.

We have a lot of dark days in our past. There was a lot of thunder in those storms.

But I guess that all those preachers who came before me were right.

Because behind that rumble comes the glory.

THE ECHO ON THE WATER