Free No Pit So Deep: The Cody Musket Story by James Nathaniel Miller II

possibly torture a man enough that he would gouge himself with his own fingernails?
    “Okay,” she said quietly. “So…so would you mind if I have a look? I could put some of this on the scars and try to make you more comfortable.”
    He lowered his eyes. “Well, sometimes the scar tissue doesn’t smell very fresh after a hot day, if you catch my drift.” He made a fanning motion in front of his nose.
    “That’s no problem. Hang on!” She bounced into the kitchen again and returned with a cool, wet towel and a small basin. She took a seat on the coffee table directly in front of him and displayed the towel. “I can take care of that easily.”
    “Well —” He glanced at her grandfather clock in the corner. “I s'pose…”
    He hesitated too long. It was easy to see he didn't share her enthusiasm. Brandi knew more than her share about men. Would he dare let her touch upon his vulnerability — wounds that caused pain of both body and soul, an area he preferred to keep hidden?
    “You’ll have to forgive me, Cody. I have the habit of just jumping right in when it’s none of my business. When I was in college, the girls in my dorm placed a warning sign outside my door that said, 'It’s best just to be yourself, but not when talking to Brandi.' Someone even suggested I join a convent and take a vow of silence.”
    He was quiet, contemplative.
    “Well, anyway,” she sighed, “if you change your mind. . .”
    “No, no.” He hesitated. “I think…I would like that.” The sight of her cool, dripping towel had broken through his defenses. His howling puppies craved relief.
    "Now you're talking." Her eager smile preceded her as she lifted his right foot and placed it on the pillow next to her. But then his drawn face told her he had second thoughts.
    Brandi made eye contact and pretended she had known him always. “You said it made you uneasy around strangers, Cody. I don’t want us to be strangers. I want us to be friends."
    She slowly pulled the top of his sock down and watched his eyes. His reticent face began to soften, and he closed his eyelids.
    She finished removing his sock and gently rolled up the leg of his jeans past his knee. The burn scars were red, uneven, twisted, and stretched. The top of his foot resembled the dark side of the moon — ridges, valleys, and craters.
    He opened his nervous eyes and watched hers for a reaction. She smiled as if she had uncovered his glory and not as though she had exposed a weakness.
    Brandi bathed and dried his disfigured skin. Then, she began to massage the Blue Tech into his foot and lower leg. His gray, sharpened face warmed and began to look human.
    "Cody, how often do you scratch yourself ‘til you bleed? I don't see you playing baseball if your feet get infected."
    "They started itchin' again tonight after we left the theater."
    "So the violent encounter triggered something?"
    He put his hand over his forehead. "Certain things set me off, and . . .”
    Hesitation telegraphed his reluctance to proceed, so she stepped in. “Um, these burns must have been painful. Would you tell me how this happened?” Her wistful countenance was coaxing, reassuring.
    Cody didn’t know what to make of her. Was he now seeing the real Brandi Barnes? This one was caring, caressing, tenderly persuasive and not repulsed by his ugly wounds. Her radiant blue eyes were windows into a pure soul and a valiant heart.
    Was it finally time to tell someone his story? She put him at ease, this brave woman with the soft, healing hands who jeopardized her safety to fight for children and whose father had won a Purple Heart in battle.
    He leaned back on the sofa and closed his eyes again. “Four years ago, 17 May, I took off in my F/A-18D Hornet from the USS Harry Truman in the North Arabian Sea at zero-eight-hundred. My weapons officer Harry Stanton, call sign 'Seismo,' flew in the backseat. We headed to our rendezvous with a KC-10 tanker to refuel, and then flew to the hills north of