by Mae Argilan
"Don’t do it," Geoff said, without looking up.
"Okay."
"Just like that? You’ve set up this exchange on Burnside Bridge with a CIA agent. You’ve got a TV reporter taping the whole thing—lights, camera, action—and you’re going to give that up? You’dnever do that. Not in a million years."
"If you tell me to, I will. In a minute."
"You’ve never turned down a story in your life."
"That was when the story was the most important thing in my life. Maybe my priorities are changing. That’s supposed to be a good thing, the ability to change. You know what Darwin said, ‘adapt or die’."
"You’re lying," he said.
"Then, look in my eyes."
"You’re not afraid of what I’ll see? You know you can’t hide your lies from me."
"I know that," she said. "Any more than I can’t hide the truth."
Wayne Younkins’ favorite meal was fried chicken, and a six-pack of Bud. In Wayne’sRules of the Road , he liked his chicken the way he liked his ‘chicks’: hot and tender, and don’t even bother with anything but legs and breasts. He liked his beer the way he liked his women: strong and cheap. And, he liked recreation the way he liked sex: the more dangerous the better. Any conversation with him about religion ended with, ‘Heaven would be serving a life sentence in a women’s prison’. Wayne said he knew God was going to honor his request because they had such a close personal relationship. They spent a lot of time together—with Wayne flying into trouble, and God bailing him out. That’s why he never,ever took the Lord’s name in vain.
"You don’t use your best friend’s name as a cuss word."
Wayne’s Rule number 6.
Wayne had his ‘adventure throttle’ all the way open: hang gliding, acrobatic skiing, sky diving. Some said he had a death wish. They called him a wild man. He was all that, and much more, including the best pilot Justin Knight had ever known, with a ‘take no prisoners’ attitude. He didn’t ask for explanations, just destinations. And, this was just that kind of operation. Justin knew he couldn’t have asked for a better man.
The aircraft was another matter. Justin could never get used to the ‘bug mobile’. Wayne called it that because it was a crop-duster. Justin called it that because the helicopter reminded him of a dragonfly with a gland condition. He climbed inside the Plexiglas bubble, and balanced on a seat with a spring under the middle like a horsy on a playground. Wayne shut the plastic door, and ran around to the pilot’s side. Justin was trying to find a place to hold on, when the chopper buzzed to life. Wayne grabbed the joystick, and gave the thumbs-up. Justin took a deep breath, and returned the gesture.
Glenn was familiar with granite monuments and souvenir gift shops of battlefields. But, the magnificent shimmering spectacle that met her eye at Antietam Battlefield was completely unexpected. Geoff explained about the luminaries, how each of the candles flickering inside the white paper lanterns represented a soul who was lost on that day. They were all around her as far as the eye could see. They lined the driveway, and sprouted in clusters on the lawn. They gleamed like a thousand fallen stars, lighting the way on a dark, and dismal day. Artistically, the scene had visual impact, like city lights against a midnight skyline or crystal icicles on a bare black branch. And, the very notion that each light symbolized a human being that was bursting with the vitality of youthful promise until a bullet or a bayonet snuffed it out, was more than she could stand. Where the grisly sight of corpses, and carnage had made her dull and hard, this elegant testimony to the heroic sacrifice of valiant warriors made her heart swell.
Geoff put his arm around her. "It takes a while to get them all lit."
"They’d have to do it individually by hand, wouldn’t they?"
"They get volunteers. Veterans, school kids..."
"School kids. That’s morbid."
"But a great way to teach children about the true cost of war."
She looked at him. "You did it, didn’t you?"
"In eighth grade. Bobby was in high school, and it wasn’t cool, but he did it anyway. That year it was so bitter cold those with good sense didn’t come out. One old guy had a heart attack, and died right beside the road. Massive coronary. We were on the other side of the battlefield. Of course, we told everybody we saw it. High school kids thought that was pretty neat."
"You’re going to have to explain male logic to me someday."
"Not male logic, dear. Girls swarmed around Bobby like bees around a honeycomb. Bobby had an interesting perspective on that. He maintained that there’s something carnivorous about women, that there’s a little praying mantis in all of you. He didn’t mean it in a bad way. Women just seem to instinctively understand the intricacies of life and death better than we do, maybe because they bear children. Men are genuinely surprised by death, especially their own."
Terry drove past the Visitors Center, past the prickly hedge of yew bushes, and silent cannons. Ancient, flat-topped mountains lounged in the west behind a tower of fieldstones with a red, peaked roof. Glenny watched through freckles of rain on the window, as solemn acolytes wended their way through the dusk. They moved slowly, shoulders sagging, faces glowing in the reflected glory of torchlight.
"That’s why I brought you here," Terry said. "It’s public without being too, you know...public. When it gets dark, a procession of cars will pass through. They’ll keep you company while you transact your business. Might keep anyone from getting trigger happy. Not to mention the wonderful background lighting."
Glenn turned to Terry. "It’s time to talk film."
Wayne Younkins said a ‘thunderhead’ was the most destructive force known to pilots. In the fifteen years Justin Knight had known him, he’d seen him gleefully risk his neck for the sport of it. Wayne had a habit of leaping into danger with a grin and wink. Now he was pointing to the slate gray curtain of cloud ahead.
"Whoa buddy, I hate to tell you what that baby would do to a chopper like this."
It looked harmless, almost beautiful to Justin. "What do we do? Go over it?"
Wayne stared at him. "We go down. And, stay down until it passes over."
Electrical energy pulsated behind the curtain. "I don’t think I heard you."
"You heard me."
The small chopper wasn’t like some other aircraft. There were virtually no vibrations, no cross currents creating drag, resistance or wind shear. It was like riding in an elevator—up, down, sideways. Rotor blades whirled overhead, squeaking like a pump handle. Other than that—and the growl of thunder—the cockpit was calm.
"I’ve seen you navigate through storms, hurricanes, even blizzards. There’s no bigger daredevil on the East Coast than you."
"So, what does that tell you? If it was navigable, I’d take you through it. It just ain’t."
"If I had time for fair weather, I’d wait it out. I just ain’t."
"Sorry about your luck. We’ll set down in that field over there."
"I don’t think you heard me." Justin faced Wayne. "This is going to sound like a cliché, but it’s a matter of life and death."
"I hear you, pard. Nothing I can do. Old Man Upstairs is in charge of weather."
Justin paused. "Let me ask you this. Has anyone ever flown through one of these thunderheads, and lived to tell about it?"
"You hear people bragging, but that’s all it is," Wayne said.
"Wouldn’t you like to be the first?" Justin asked.
"I’m not fooling, man. It’s like putting your face in a Cuinsinart."
"I’m not fooling either. Find a way. If you can’t go through it, go around."
"Man, if I didn’t know better I’d think you had a hot babe waiting for you on the other side."
"Wayne, I’ll level with you. There’s a fight brewing between two of the most impressive women I ever met in my career. And, one of them works for me. The whole thing is a bureaucratic nightmare, so I’ve got to get it resolved as quickly, and quietly as I can."
"I figured the
re was something extremely ‘unofficial’ about this, which is why you needed me. And, I also figured there was women in it somewhere for you to be carrying on like this. Two of ‘em, huh? Are they pretty?"
"What difference does it make?"
"You are pitiful if you don’t know that. So what are we? Like riding to the rescue or something?"
"What difference does it make to your thunderhead? If it can’t be done, it can’t be done."
Wayne laughed his wheezy laugh, and scanned his instrument panel. "If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it my way."
"Absolutely. Is it going to be a rough ride?" Justin tried to find a handhold.
Wayne looked sideways at him. "Rough ride?" He winked, and grinned. "Brother, you have no idea."
Due to flood stage conditions, access to Burnside Bridge is restricted to Park Personnel. By order of the DNR. The magic-marker words were scrawled on plywood, and attached to a sawhorse. It was connected to another sawhorse by a yellow streamer like the police use at crime scenes. This one said ‘construction site’, and sagged in the middle. Glenn looked at Geoff.
"DNR?"
"Department of Natural Resources," Geoff said.
"Like Park Rangers? Then, this is more of a suggestion than an order."
"I wouldn’t say that. They have badges and guns."
"And, Smoky the Bear hats. Listen, I survived the PLO in Beirut, and the AFIB, and CIA. I even had a nasty encounter with AT&T about a difference of opinion about billing. I’m not worried about nature cops who guard squirrels for a living."
Glenn stepped over the warning strip. Geoff paused, like he was waiting for an alarm to go off. When it didn’t, he followed. Glenn felt jittery, like she’d gargled with espresso. She proceeded past the signpost to the Georgians Overlook, and down the steps to the forbidden riverside path. There was another warning—which they also ignored—at the banks of the muddy, swirling mass. Glenn looked across it to a field of russet gold, which faded to gray as she watched. They crossed the footbridge. She looked over the thick stone wall at the water below. It wasn’t a far drop, about fifteen feet, but the speed with which the Little Antietam moved made her feel as if the whole earth was passing beneath her feet. A force of nature. Glenn joined Geoff already on the other side, anxious to put that force to use as a barrier between her and Sadie.
Geoff said, "If I were them, I’d surround us. Send that big guy around in those trees where Ter’s supposed to be while Sadie keeps us distracted here."
"What do you think he’d do to Ter if he found him?"
Geoff shrugged. "Why are you doing this, anyway, risking your life for Dave?"
"You know my motto, ‘There are no strangers, just friends who haven’t met yet’."
"Oh, sure, that sounds exactly like you. Didn’t you embroider that on a pillow case once?"
"Actually, on a tea cozy. I don’t know why, but I took a liking to Dave, and I owe him my life. Besides, I’m sure that guy at the cabin is the same one who knifed you at Shane’s, and they’re probably the ones who killed Phil. Maybe I’m doing it for Phil. Maybe I’m doing it for Bobby. Maybe I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do, or because as long as Agent Cozzoli’s on the loose I’ll have to keep looking over my shoulder. The only one who seems to have a hope of stopping her is Justin Knight. But, he’s got no reason to take my word over hers. We’ve got to get proof, get her on film."
"Do you think Knight got the distress call you sent out on the CB?"
"Terry said he’d be monitoring on his headset. Tell me something, out of curiosity. When you were a history major in college, did you study battles of the Civil War? I mean, if something goes wrong, do you know a way out of here?"
"Thousands didn’t make it out of here. They don’t call it Bloody Lane for nothing. But, my dad made us come here for reenactments. I think I could find my way out of here with my eyes closed."
"Or, in the dark." Glenn peered over the hill on the other side of the bridge, where the luminaries were glowing with the pastel fire of a false sun.
"Man, I wish I’d thought to take that gun with us when we switched cars with Gramp." Geoff paced in one direction, and then another, then stood with his hands on his hips. "If anything happens, I want you to hide under the bridge. Be careful you don’t get too close to the water. Get as close as you can, and wait until it’s safe to come out."
"What about you?"
"I’ll go across the field. There’s a road on the other side of the woods. I’ll flag down help. There must be 200 cars here tonight. You stand over there, and I’ll stand over here. That way we’ll have some distance between us. If things go badly, you go that way, and I’ll go this way."
A drizzle settled in. Glenn felt the chill soak into her clothes as she huddled against the stones at the end of the footbridge. During the drive to Sharpsburg, Geoff had told her the history of the battle. The Yankees came down from Harper’s Ferry as Robert E. Lee’s Army made a push into northern territory, to get across the Mason-Dixon line into Pennsylvania. Ambrose Burnside was under the impression that Lee’s forces outnumbered his own, and proceeded cautiously. Had he known that the Confederate troops were fragmented, and exhausted he could have advanced over the Little Antietam to victory. The Great Conflict could have ended many months, and lives, sooner. His dawdling gave Lee hours to amass, and wait for reinforcements. Burnside sent sorties across the bridge, instead of going a hundred yards downstream where they could have forded. Sharpshooters stationed on the opposite hill, now called Georgians Overlook, cut down thousands of Union soldiers. The thing that salvaged the effort from unmitigated disaster was whiskey. The tea-totaling Burnside was the only general in either army who refused to issue his men their whiskey rations. As the afternoon dragged by, a call went out for volunteers to foray into the line of fire. One soldier cried out, ‘Will you give us our whiskey, then?’ Assured that he would, the Pennsylvania unit immediately charged as one man, and routed the enemy in minutes.
Never underestimate the power of positive drinking.
Some events were too sober to face without liquid courage. Sometimes ordinary men needed an anesthetic to blunt the edge of fear and pain. Sometimes ordinary women had to confront destiny with nothing, but a clear head and unclouded judgment. And faith.
I need a drink.
"Pst."
Glenn looked across the river at the shadows moving down the path. The hair on the back of her neck bristled. She wet her lips, and glanced at Geoff.
"You ready?"
"Lights," he answered, "Camera..."
Action? Not yet. I’m not ready. I’m gonna die. We’re gonna die.
Shadow and shape formed at the opposite end of the bridge. Two figures materialized. Glenn wished for a more concrete strategy than the one she’d put into play. Somehow she’d thought once she was in the thick of it her instincts would kick in, and she’d know exactly what to do. It had always worked in the past.
What would Burnside do?
No, she could never identify with a man whose major contribution to America was providing the appellation for facial hair known as ‘sideburns’. Better to emulate someone more like herself, the boozy Ulysses S. Grant. What would Grant do? Why didn’t she pay more attention to U.S. Studies in school?
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to...
"I don’t see her," Geoff said. "Agent Cozzoli. Where is she?"
A male voice called out, "Here’s your friend."
"Send him across," Glenn called.
"You send over the tapes."
Red rover, red rover, send David over.
"They’ll start over when he does. I’ll leave them in the middle."
"If you don’t, I’ll shoot both of you."
Geoff said, "Be careful."
Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. That wasn’t U.S. Grant. What was General Grant famous for saying? Make mine a double .
Glenn saw a silhouette wobble toward her, holding onto the stone wa
ll. She began the incline toward the center of the bridge.
"Stop," Sullivan said. "Let’s see the tapes."
Glenn pulled the cassettes from the inside pockets of her scorched, coat and waved them over her head. She glanced at the figure to her right. It was Dave. He blinked vacantly, and grinned like a lunatic. It was the first glimmer of hope she’d had in a long time. Maybe this crazy scheme was going to work after all. She stacked the tapes atop each other on the waist-high bridge shelf.
"Where’s the CD?" Sullivan called.
Glenn spoke to Dave in a low tone. "Keep going." When he resumed his sleepwalk, she called, "Where’s my camera?"
An object landed heavily several yards ahead.
"Now the CD."
"I don’t have it," she yelled.
"Don’t mess with me!"
Panic seized her in the middle of her gut. "It’s with a friend, with a message I videotaped. I have an hour to get back before duplicates are sent to WMAL in Baltimore, WJLA in Washington, and WHAG in Hagerstown. Every TV station in a hundred-mile radius will be broadcasting that as their lead story during the morning news."
"You’re bluffing."
"Did you think I’d show up here without insurance? I’ll contact you through the personals the day after Christmas." Glenn tried to think of something clever to say. "I’m going back now, and you can come get these tapes."
Get ‘em while they’re hot.
She turned her back on the gunman. If he was going to shoot it would be now. She listened for the shot, but all she heard was the river marching under her.
Do you hear it first, or feel it? Probably hits you like a sledgehammer between the shoulder blades, and then you fall forward.
Dave crumbled to the ground in front of her. Glenn wondered why Geoff made no effort to help. She looked for him. Instead, she saw Sadie Cozzoli moving with stealth and speed.
"Freeze!" she cried, dancing around Dave.
Glenn froze, and watched Sadie advance. Sadie’s right hand pointed a gun, her left hand supported the butt. Her arms raised to shoulder level. Glenn wondered why her life wasn’t passing before her eyes. She also wondered why Agent Cozzoli wasn’t slowing down.