One Man's Island

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  He had several rabbit furs hung out to tan, and several rabbits in the camper’s tiny freezer. He was experimenting all the time with different ways to cook it. Today he decided on breading and frying it, like one would chicken. He hummed along with Mick Jagger as he cooked dinner in the camper’s tiny galley type kitchen. The weather turned a bit cooler and the skies threatened a storm later on in the evening, so he thought he’d just cook up some supper, listen to the Rolling Stones, eat, and get to bed early.

  The three burners on the small range were close together, and he had to juggle for space. He had just enough room for the frying pan and one small saucepan, which he had on one of the back burners, filled with canned creamed corn.

  If he stayed here for a bit, maybe he’d plant some fresh veggies, some corn and tomatoes, something easy that wouldn’t require a lot of attention. He was a soldier, not a farmer. He was turning into a fairly good cook though, and the frying rabbit smelled wonderful.

  Taking each piece out of the pan, he blotted the extra grease off with paper towels, and stirred the corn a bit, making sure it was hot enough. He thought about the pig, and the note. He really wished whoever it was had stopped and taken the chance in talking to him. Then again, they might have run into the same kind of people Paul had run into, and were giving everyone a wide berth. That made more sense.

  He ate in silence by the light of a kerosene lantern. He decided to not run the generator every day, not only to conserve fuel, but to keep some sort of noise discipline. The camper did have 12 volt deep-cell batteries for lighting, but the lantern light was nice and saved the batteries for other things. The refrigerator ran just as well on propane as it did electric, so that used hardly any power at all. He’d just use the generator to recharge his IVIS tablet and the camper’s batteries every few days. As he finished the last of his dinner, he heard the distant rumble of thunder. Lighting a cigarette, he sipped on a beer and thought about his lot. With the exception of almost everyone being dead, he really didn’t have it much worse than when he was still in his house. Better actually, if you counted the fact that he could take a hot shower and use a toilet that actually flushed. He stubbed out his smoke and went to check the voltmeter on the batteries; it still held almost a full charge. He’d toyed with the idea of running the generator during the storm to hide the sound, but that would entail him going outside and getting soaked. If there was one thing an infantryman hated, it was getting wet for no reason. The batteries were good, so he stayed dry.

  Another good thing was having the queen sized bed that he could stretch out in, unlike the tiny Army cot. He showered and shaved, brushed his teeth, and after extinguishing the lantern, crawled into bed between clean sheets. That he was able to do that was just by sheer luck. On one of his explorations into Athens, he’d driven by a Laundromat. With a little bit of tinkering, he got one of the washers and one of the dryers working. With the help of the generator and several long garden hoses leading down to a creek far behind the building, he was able to do his washing. So about once a week he’d head down the road a few miles to Athens to clean his clothes. Tim had it pretty good. He had a roof over his head, hot food in his belly, clean sheets, and a soft bed to lie down on.

  He lay there, for what seemed like hours, as the storm came through, passed and diminished, finally being overcome by sleep in the early hours.

  That night he dreamed of Iraq. He was a First Sergeant then, back when they’d invaded after 9/11, and in his dream he was riding in the command cupola of an M2 Bradley fighting vehicle. The gunner on the 30mm chain gun was a nineteen year-old PFC just out of Advanced Training. They were approaching a small village on the road to Baghdad, and the gunner was boasting on how he was going to kill all the ragheads.

  “Kid?” Tim had asked. “How long you been in the Army?”

  “About six months, Top,” he said with a toothy grin.

  Tim had to admire the kid’s confidence. “Kid, my dick has been in pussy longer than you’ve been in the Army. Stay alert, there are bad guys out there, and they have guns too!”

  “Okay, Top,” the kid said, and went back to his gun sight.

  Tim looked up and saw a flash, accompanied by a streak of smoke off to his left. “RPG! Button up!” he yelled, dropping down into the vehicle as the rocket propelled grenade hit squarely on the turret ring, blasting a molten hot stream of steel outwards, catching the gunner squarely in the face and killing him instantly. The vehicle lurched to a halt, and he heard an ear splitting scream from the driver’s compartment. The uninjured infantrymen in the rear spilled out of the now burning vehicle and scrambled to safety. Tim groped in the smoke for the driver. Grabbing a handful of uniform sleeve, he pulled the driver out behind him. The soldier was screaming his head off, and as Tim got him clear of the now fully engulfed burning Bradley, he saw why. Half his face had been burned away, and his whole upper torso was charred black.

  Another Bradley came up and stopped near and the gunner of that vehicle found its target four hundred meters away and engaged it with his chain gun. The rapid crack crack crack! of the gun was loud, but the nearest foot soldier to Tim heard him call for the radio. The soldier and another sergeant from the platoon came over in a crouch in the cover of the second Bradley, and Tim reached for the radio’s handset.

  “You!” he yelled, pointing at the sergeant. “Take care of him while I call for a MEDEVAC!” The soldier wordlessly complied, pouring a canteen’s worth of water over the driver’s burns, and giving him a morphine injection.

  As Tim held the radio handset to his ear, a helicopter flew low overhead. Looking up, he saw it was a British Lynx chopper, probably supporting the Brit armored brigade off to his battalion’s left. He reached over the Sp4’s head, turned the radio to the Air Guard frequency, and depressed the push to talk button.

  “POP A GODDAMN SMOKE!” Tim yelled over the cacophony of the now raging firefight. Small arms fire was sounding all around him, and he could barely hear. He saw yellow smoke billowing off to his right and called on the radio. “British helo flying over my yellow smoke, we need a dustoff for WIA! Please land immediately to my rear!” When no reply was forthcoming, he repeated his request a little more forcefully. The squelch broke on the radio, and he heard a distinctive female voice with a Scottish accent, “Sorry, Army, we cannot comply, we’re taking heavy fire!”

  Tim keyed the microphone. “Listen here, you fucking pompous British fuck! I’ve got wounded down here, and I’m under heavy fire too, goddamnit! If you don’t land that fucking piece of shit right fucking now, I will fucking shoot you down myself!”

  He didn’t get a reply to that, but the helicopter circled around and began its descent, flaring out fifty meters behind his burning Bradley. He and the sergeant grabbed the driver, placed him in a poncho liner, and carried the wounded soldier to the waiting chopper. The pilot’s hand was on the throttle, a collective, ready to launch back into the air as soon as the wounded man was on board. The whole time, the soldier never stopped screaming. Screaming for his mother, his father, someone named Judy. They slid him in onto the floor of the helicopter and the soldier at the door slammed it shut. As soon as Tim and the other sergeant were clear of the fuselage, he saw the pilot yank back on the collective, and the helo shot into the air, throwing sand and grit into their eyes. The last look he had of the pilot was of an ashen face drawn tight, lips a severe red gash, and a wisp of red hair licking out of the corner of the helmet. As they both ran back to the cover of the second Bradley the younger sergeant looked over at Tim.

  “You really wouldn’t have shot them down, would ya’, Top?”

  Tim gave the sergeant an evil grin. “The fuck I wouldn’t have!”

  “Fuck, Top. I’ll follow you anywhere!” the sergeant said with a big grin, and then left in a scramble to find out what was going on. Someone higher up had also been on the radio, and an Apache attack helicopter came into view, and with rockets and chain gun of its own, turned the building the Iraqi gunmen were using f
or cover into rubble.

  Someone else was yelling, “Cease fire! Cease fire!” as Tim stood cautiously, slinging his M16 and lighting a cigarette. He scratched his bare head, and heard a familiar voice from behind him.

  “Those things are going to kill you, First Sergeant.”

  Tim tuned to see his company commander. “Oh, hey, Cap’n. These?” he held up the smoke. “The last thing I’m worried about right now is a little lung cancer.” He took a drag, wondering where his helmet had gotten to. “Listen, Cap’n, you might get a call later requesting a court martial.”

  The captain raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Oh really, Top?”

  “Yeah,” Tim said ruefully, then gave him a complete SITREP (Situation Report) on what had transpired, right down to him threatening an Allied Army Officer with shooting down a friendly aircraft. The captain had a good laugh over that, and when he was done, looked at him and grinned.

  “You did good, getting him out of here that quick, you might have saved his life. If anything is said, I’ll squash it the best I can.” What Tim didn’t say was, yeah, I might have saved his life, but what kind of life is that kid going to have now, with half a face, if he even survives those burns?

  “You’re a good man to have around in a tight spot, Top. Keep up the good work!”

  Tim woke with a start, bathed in sweat in spite of the cool breeze blowing in through the open window. He lay there in the dark listening to distant thunder roll through the hills, which sounded like artillery. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was almost 5 AM. He sat up and coughed then lit a smoke. He stood and put the coffee on. Might as well start the day. He was beginning to like this area. The forest suited him, and he liked the quiet and the animals. Plenty of game to keep him fed, but he’d have to venture out some the next few weeks, to restock on the canned goods. It was only the beginning of summer, but he thought it was never a bad time to stock up, especially when the weather was good. He knew the winters here would be fairly cold, and probably a lot of snow, judging by the surrounding mountains and the elevation of his encampment.

  He thought about the dream as he drank his coffee in the pre-dawn stillness. The storm had completely passed, and the forest was quiet. Unlike the other dreams he had, this one was quite vivid. He’d not even thought about that incident in years. He’d later learned that the driver had died of his injuries in a hospital in Germany. The gunner and driver, both kids really, were dead. He thought of them as his kids. He remembered when the unit had gotten its activation and shipping orders, and he’d personally assured his gunner’s mother, a single parent, that he’d take care of her little boy. It was the main reason he’d assigned him to his own Bradley crew. Kids, too many kids, died in that game. Besides those two killed, three others had suffered injuries, but he’d not gotten a scratch. It had always bothered him as to why.

  He was supposed to protect his soldiers and bring them all home, but he’d failed, on so many levels. That and broken promises. There were so many broken promises. Maybe he was meant to be alone. Maybe it was the reason he never let anyone get too close to him anymore. Every time someone got close, they wound up getting hurt. Friends he’d had in the past, the little boy who got a stray bullet in the chest, whose only transgression was being in the wrong place at the wrong time, his failed marriage; it seemed like everything was a culmination to this very point in his life. Even Paul, that gentle man who had probably never hurt a soul, had died a horrible death because of a failed promise. Maybe if there really was a God, he was being punished for his failures. He’d tried so hard to do the right thing, but he’d always fallen short of his own expectations.

  His brother had been wrong. One man can’t change the world. Of all the things he’d done, the main ones he’d failed miserably, and now he was left alone to wallow in the waste of what had become of his life. He was on the near side of fifty years old, over half of his life was over, and he’d not made one ounce of difference. His life was for nothing. If he had been a less cerebral person, he might have turned to a religion for solace, but he used too much reason. He had given up on the thoughts of God or any other deity a long time ago. His reasoning was that there was too much evil in the world to allow for the existence of an all-loving God. Even if there was a God and a Devil, like he’d learned so many years ago from the Sisters of the Blessed Bleeding Heart of the Storm Troopers, God wouldn’t let even the devil do all the terrible things that happen to Man. It was inconceivable so therefore, he reasoned, there was no God.

  Now he was far from home, in a place that he’d never dreamed of going, living the life of a modern day Robinson Crusoe, with no hope of even finding his Friday. With that thought in his head, he made himself breakfast in silence. After another cup of coffee, he got dressed, grabbed the M4, and headed out to the truck thinking he would take a little drive to scrounge and to clear his head. As he drove away from his camp, he stopped and looked back. He noted that he couldn’t see his camp at all, even from as close as a hundred meters. At least he could do something right. Heading south, he went through Athens and on to Princeton, where he took Rt. 460 to Bluefield. There he found an undisturbed grocery store where he picked up three cartloads of canned soups, stews, vegetables and fruits. He was pleased to also find several boxes of rice and pasta that hadn’t been spoiled by rats or mice. Loading this up in the truck, he broke into a service station’s caged propane tank area and filled up the bed of the truck with as many tanks as he dared. After filling his tank up with diesel from a semi parked in the lot, he headed out again, and on a whim headed west on Rt. 52 towards the town of Welch, and the West Virginia/Virginia/Kentucky border, right smack-dab in the center of Hatfield & McCoy territory. He knew a little of that history, and found it interesting. Maybe he’d stop at a library and find a book or two on the subject, something to keep him busy over the next winter. He was also in a big coal mining area, he saw as he passed several coal mines right up alongside the road in what would be called ‘hollers’, in the area. It was deep in the mountains too, and the road was very twisty, and filled with plenty of blind curves, so he kept his speed to a minimum, as from time to time, he’d come upon crashed or stalled dump trucks, mostly filled with coal.

  After a few miles of clear road, his confidence picked up and he sped up a bit. Right before he got to the spot on his map that said it was Keystone, he crossed over a small bridge then topped the crest of a hill at forty miles an hour to see a small, waiflike figure standing in the middle of the road.

  “Oh shit!” he said, and slammed both feet on the brake pedal by instinct, forgetting to depress the clutch, and the truck stalled, screeching loudly to a stop mere feet from the motionless figure.

  Chapter 5: Friday

  Tim sat behind the wheel and stared out at the figure. When he regained his breath, he slowly opened the door to the truck with a shaky hand, never taking his eyes off what appeared to be a small child, facing away from him. He then noticed the shoulders shaking, as if it was crying. Getting out, he walked around to the front of the truck to the sobbing child.

  “Hey there, are you okay?”

  No reply. He walked to where he was facing the child, and put a hand on its shoulder, which flinched slightly. He noticed it was a girl, in filthy jeans and an equally dirty t-shirt, skinny as a rail, with a fright wig of dirty and matted hair.

  “Hey, you shouldn’t stand in the middle of the road like that. I could have killed you!”

  “Geoffrey! Geoffrey got hurt!” she said, looking up at him with a dirty, tear stained face.

  “Who’s Geoffrey?”

  “My friend, we was playin’ and I was chasin’ him through the woods, and he fell down a hole and he’s hurt!”

  “Where was that?” Tim asked.

  “Over there,” she said, pointing to the woods, and began to cry again.

  “Okay, take me there. Maybe I can help.”

  “Really?” she said, her eyes brightening hopefully.

  “Yeah, really,” h
e said, smiling to reassure her. He went back to the cab of the truck and retrieved his M4.

  “What’s that for?”

  “I never leave home without it. Show me where Geoffrey is.”

  “This way!” she said, and ran off into the woods. Tim hesitated a moment before following, glad he’d brought the carbine. Maybe he was being just a bit paranoid, but the Taliban had used kids to lure GIs into ambushes before, and he wasn’t taking any chances. They both ran for several hundred yards through the thick brush to a small clearing where she stopped and pointed to the ground. At first he didn’t see anything but some thigh high grass and vines, until he took a second look to where she was pointing. There was a small hole in the ground, about three feet in diameter, with a few old, rotted and broken boards lying near.

  “I was gainin’ on him, and he just disappeared! He fell down that hole and hurt hisself!”

  “Okay, let me have a look.” Tim knelt down by the edge, set his carbine by his side and peered into the hole.

  “Hello?” he called out, and got nothing in response. Turning to the girl, he asked, “How long has he been down there?”

  “A while. Two sleeps maybe,” she said, with a sniffle. “He could talk a bit at first, but he just stopped talkin’ a while ago.”