A rough draft section from, Brothers.

For the past four years, Gabe Hula had spent his summers in the area of the old fort he and his brothers had built as kids north of the golf course.  

It was the summer of 2008 and he was sixty-two years old with long gray hair that flowed past his shoulders.  His beard was long, thick, and bushy with mats of hair conveniently tucked under his chin.  His clothing was what one would expect for someone living in the woods, drab, dirty, only not torn or worn out.  His summers were spent living this way so he never got a chance to wear anything out totally.  

The winters had always bothered him so he grudgingly moved back to his little house in the southwest part of Austin to live as soon as the first, consistent whiff of arctic air blew in from the north. 

Three months before he began retreating to the old childhood haunts, Gabe had begun waking in the middle of the night.   Anxiety ridden, he would rise and prowl the perimeters of the house peeping out the windows, crouching low and then popping his head up, searching for the source of his nervousness.  Sleep would elude him for great multitudes of days, until exhausted, he would collapse onto the floor.  He lost track of time, other people, and himself.  He didn’t understand why this was happening to him now, but flashes of war had spilled back into his head and it frightened him to the point where he knew he had to seek help.  

An old war buddy made the first contact at the Veterans’ Administration for him.  Gabe went and was interviewed.  The things he said to the young woman who interviewed him terrified her, and when she threatened to have him thrown in the looney bin he walked out and quit going to the sessions.  

He had begun to feel like he was losing his mind, until…a fever swept him one day to the country, to the old places he and his brothers had explored as kids.  And here, he found a certain peace, away from people, away from terror.  The constant, gentle trickle of water flowing past the shelter he had built calmed him.  Although his hearing had deteriorated,  he was still able to notice the occasional, loud swearing from frustrated golfers on the nearby course, and the hooping of children when they had hit a particularly excellent golf shot.  Those sounds didn’t bother him, however; he had grown up knowing those sounds.  They were the sounds of home.