This is the writer's voice, new fiction from The New Yorker.

I'm Deborah Treasman, fiction editor at The New Yorker.

On this episode of The Writer's Voice, we'll hear Will Mackin read his story,

Crossing the River No Name, from the June 5th and 12th, 2017 issue of the magazine.

Mackin, who retired from the Navy in 2014, will publish his first story collection,

bring out the dog next year. Now here's Will Macon.

Crossing the River No Name

Coast Afghanistan

One rainy night in March 2009

We crossed a muddy field to intercept a group of Taliban

who'd come out of the mountains of Pakistan

They were walking west

We were patrolling north to arrive at a point ahead of them where we'd set up an ambush.

The field was actually many fields inundated by snowmelt and rain. Piles of rocks laid by farmers demarcated the flooded borders.

Every so often we'd come across evidence of what had once grown in those fields. farmers, demarcated the flooded borders.

Every so often we'd come across evidence of what had once grown in those fields, an island

of blighted corn stalks, a soybean chute, as perfect as a laboratory specimen, floating

in a shin-deep lake.

Someday, I figured, the sun would come out, the land would dry, and the farmers would be back

to restake their claims.

That night, however, they'd taken shelter on higher ground, and that entire miserable

stretch of coast was ours.

...