Weapons of Mass Destruction Read Online Free Page A

also shaken by the incident, though he would never admit it. He understood war and retribution, but not gratuitous violence. Vandalism was one thing. At least it followed a kind of sick logic. If you couldn’t keep up with the Joneses, the next best thing was to trash their property. But wrecking your own stuff was like turning the knife against yourself. Or the gun, as the case may be. The worst were suicide bombers. People always said it was an Arab thing. But Sinclair witnessed the same willful self-destruction back home in Montana. His best friend, Pete, had ruined his high school graduation present from Grandpa, a brand new calf-leather saddle. He hacked it to pieces with a hatchet and threw it in a pile of manure behind the stables. A week later they found him dead in the mountains. He blew his head off with his favorite shotgun.
    Sinclair had traveled halfway around the world, thinking he could make a fresh start. But everything reminded him of Pete, especially the bond he shared with his buddies. They were brothers in ways that far exceeded the mere accident of birth. They shed blood together. With Pete, it had been the blood of animals. When Sinclair killed his first deer, Grandpa plunged his hands into the carcass and smeared the steaming blood on his face. They inherited the ritual from Pete’s great-great-grandfather, a Sioux scout who corralled the first wild horses bearing the Sinclair brand. Grandpa repeated the ritual when Pete killed his first buck, washing his face with blood as though he were his own son. That’s why it was so awful when things went south. They were like family.
    It seemed to happen overnight. One day they were boys roaming the hills with their rifles. The next Pete was busting things up. He played hooky and started hanging around with dropouts on the reservation. He disappeared for days at a time. Even Sinclair couldn’t find him.
    “He’ll end up in the slammer if he doesn’t watch out,” Sinclair’s father said.
    Almost every night over dinner, they tried to figure out what went wrong. Sinclair’s sister, Candace, was uncharacteristically quiet during these conversations.
    “Must be a guy thing,” Candace said, excusing herself from the table.
    In hindsight Sinclair wondered whether his sister withheld information that might have saved Pete’s life. Nothing at the time made sense. Grandpa tried to explain that Pete struggled with things Sinclair took for granted. The Swan family had seen better days. They lived in one of the migrant-worker trailers down by the river. But Pete spent most of his time with Sinclair, eating meals in the big ranch house when his dad was on a bender. Grandpa had all but adopted him, even offering to pay his way through college. Sinclair assumed they’d ultimately run the ranch together.
    “Pete’s proud,” Grandpa said. “Too proud to accept handouts.”
    “Takes after his dad,” Sinclair’s father said.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sinclair asked.
    “He’d sooner shoot himself in the foot than take a step forward.”
    “That’s not fair.”
    “Doesn’t mean it’s not true,” Grandpa said.
    “Why else would they live in that ramshackle trailer?” his father asked. “The foreman’s cabin is there for the asking. Always has been.”
    “You can lead a horse to water,” Grandpa said. He thought better of finishing the adage. Pete’s father could never be accused of refusing to drink, that’s for sure.
    “There must be something we can do,” Sinclair said.
    “Fact is we may have done too much.”
    “You can’t save people from themselves.”
    But something didn’t add up. Sinclair knew Pete would never shoot himself in the foot just to make a point. He wouldn’t have shot himself in the head, either, if he hadn’t been completely demoralized. They said it was an accident, but Sinclair knew better. No one handled a gun like Pete. If he were in Iraq, he’d head up the sniper squad, not Sinclair.
    It defied