One Man's Island

by Thomas J. Wolfenden

  “My boy, I think this time it was well worth it,” Izzy replied.

  Tim turned to the women again. “Did you guys hit every high-end shop in Flagstaff?” he asked, not even daring to guess how much all of that would have cost. And it looked like they were wearing real diamonds in their ears and around their necks. Holly was wearing a diamond tennis bracelet, which he didn’t even want to fathom how much would have cost, pre-Event.

  Holly chuckled. “I figure, with the jewelry, around five hundred grand.”

  Tim nearly choked. He picked up his wineglass and said, “I am so glad that money is no object.” Everyone laughed. They finished with the meal, and everyone was quite happy. Tim ushered the girls out to the living room and put on some Big Band Era music. He excused himself, and he and Izzy took care of the cleanup as fast as they could, Tim coming back with a bottle of some sort, and four brandy snifters.

  “Million dollar babes deserve million dollar booze,” he said, opening the bottle and pouring some into each glass.

  Holly picked up hers and let it roll a little in the glass, and Robyn watched and followed what she did. She took a sip. “Nice,” she cooed.

  “One hundred year old Napoleon Brandy, only the best for the ladies,” Tim said, picking up his glass. Izzy came over to Robyn and bowed gracefully. “Would the lady care to dance?” he asked.

  “Love to, but I don’t know how,” she replied.

  “Don’t worry, just follow my lead.”

  Robyn stood shakily on her high heels, and Izzy showed her where to put her hands. “Now just watch my feet, and do the opposite.”

  Tim and Holly sat by and watched them. Holly took Tim’s hand and squeezed it. “Thank you, Tim, for making me believe in humanity again.”

  “Thank you,” he said breathlessly, “for everything.” He stood and asked her to dance also. She quickly found her way into his arms, and with her head on his shoulder, he held her tight as they swayed to the music.

  A faster song came on next, and Izzy was showing Robyn how to jitterbug, and Tim and Holly stepped out onto the porch into the cool late summer evening. Tim walked over to the porch railing.

  “You know what I miss?” he sighed. “I miss lightning bugs.”

  Holly wrapped both her arms around his, resting her head on his shoulder. “Do you mean ‘fireflies’?”

  “Yeah, they’re the same thing. When we were kids back in Philly, we’d run around and catch them and put them in old mayonnaise jars. They aren’t around here though. Last time we saw them was in Kentucky.”

  “And you miss them?”

  “Funny, isn’t it? Sometimes it’s just the little things from your childhood that you miss and it makes you sad.”

  Another slow song came on, and Holly leaned into Tim. “I love this one.”

  “Tommy Dorsey’s ‘Getting Sentimental Over You’. Shall we dance?”

  Holly took his hand. When they were holding each other close again, he bent down and kissed her lips gently. “I’ll never forget this night.”

  “Aye, it’s why I did it. I want you and Robyn to always remember us fondly, and not be sad.”

  “But you know we will. That’s going to be the real hard part. Finally meeting you, and now you’ve got to go.”

  She placed her hand on the center of his chest. “But I hope I’ll always be right here, Tim.”

  “You will be,” he said, not daring to say anymore. The song ended and they rejoined Robyn and Izzy, who were taking a breather. Robyn had kicked off her heels and was rubbing her feet.

  “How can someone stay in these for so long? I’d rather have my boots back!” she said, and they all laughed.

  The party lasted until the wee hours, and they went up to bed slightly tipsy, the brandy on top of the wine doing a fine job indeed. When Tim and Holly were in their bedroom, she excused herself and closed the door to the bathroom. Tim, feeling a little dizzy, took his clothes off and climbed into bed. A few moments later the door opened, and out walked Holly, wearing a two piece satin lingerie number, the same color green as her gown had been, and leaned against the doorjamb provocatively. Tim let out a whistle. She grinned and went to pull the pins out of her up-do, when Tim stopped her.

  “No, no, no! Come here and let me do that,” he said, and her grin widened.

  She walked slowly over to the bed and climbed in. “I want you to remember this night for the rest of your life, Tim,” she said, and bent down and kissed him deeply. Tim decided that tonight he’d leave the lights on.

  As happy as the party was the night before, the morning was equally as somber. Tim wordlessly helped Holly and Izzy load their things into the Hum-Vee he’d given them. He handed them a map, and showed them how to use the IVIS computer’s GPS.

  “Robyn and I will drive off ahead of you and show you where the turnoff is. You’d never see it if I don’t show you where it is.” Tim climbed into the Hum-Vee, and Robyn was already sitting there silently. She’d had another good cry this morning, and he didn’t want to do or say anything to start her off on another jag. They drove off down the dirt track that led to their house, and made a left turn when they reached the road. Travelling south, the road progressively got worse, and after a few miles, the blacktop completely disappeared into gravel and weeds. A few miles further, Tim stopped his Hum-Vee, and Holly stopped hers behind him. They got out, and Tim held up a map.

  “We’re right here,” Tim said, pointing to a spot on the map. “You want to go down this hill, and follow the dirt trail, and then you’ll turn west. You’ll go about ten miles to here, a place called Drake, which is only a place with an old stone walled roofless building and a railroad junction. You’ll come out through a stand of juniper trees onto Rt. 89. Take that south, to Prescott and head east again on Rt. 69 where you’ll pick up I-17 at Cordes Lakes, and that will take you to Phoenix. Then you can pick up I-10 to California,” he said without emotion, like he was giving instructions to a platoon of soldiers.

  “Tim, please don’t,” Holly said.

  “I’m trying really hard not to lose it, Holly,” he said. She quickly grabbed him and held him close. She let go after a while, and walked over to kiss Robyn.

  “Can’t I make you stay?” Robyn said tearfully.

  “I’m sorry, but someday I hope you understand, honey.”

  “I hope so, because right now I don’t understand any of it at all,” Robyn said to her hands, not wanting to look into Holly’s eyes for fear of crying again.

  Tim was surprised by a hand on his shoulder, and found Izzy standing there when he turned. They shook hands. “You take good care of her, Izzy,” Tim said.

  “I will. And you take good care of Robyn, too.”

  “You can bet your life on it,” Tim said. Doing it this way just made it more painful to everyone, so at one point, Holly walked back to the Hum-Vee and got in. Tim stood there and watched them drive off down the hill until they disappeared into the dust. He walked tight jawed back to the Hum-Vee, and started it. Sighing, he put it into drive, and didn’t say a word all the way back to their house. He got out and started to walk into the house, when Robyn called to him.

  “Daddy?” she said in a very small voice. He turned and looked at her. “You aren’t really going to just let them go, are you?”

  “What can I do? I couldn’t keep them here at gunpoint,” he said, a little too forcefully, and she burst out into tears and ran to him. Holding her tightly, he sat down on the porch steps, and began to cry too, not afraid to let the tears flow. They sat like that for hours, not wanting to let go of one another for a long time.

  They finally broke their embrace and went into the house to make lunch, which they ate silently. Robyn excused herself and went to her room. Tim wandered around for the rest of the day in a daze, feeling like he’d been hit by a freight train. He opened a beer, and it sat untouched for hours, and he finally poured it out and climbed the stairs wearily. He poked his head into Robyn’s room, and saw that she was fast asleep on top of th
e covers, Bad Bear clasped in a death grip under her chin. He walked in, and bent down and kissed her on the forehead, turning out her light, and closing the door quietly, so he didn’t wake her. He then dragged himself to his room, and when he got there the bed was still unmade from the morning. His heart dropped again at the memories of how it got so messy. He went and stripped, and took a long hot shower, trying the get the sick, sad feeling off of him, but it didn’t work. He got out and dried himself off, and trod slowly to bed. He lay there unmoving for a long while, and when he went to roll over, he could still smell her on the pillows and he cried some more, holding the pillow for dear life.

  Suddenly, he sat bolt upright. He wiped the tears from his eyes, and got dressed in his ACU uniform, grabbed his rucksack, loading it with what he thought he’d need for a week or so. Walking out, he dropped his rucksack at the top of the stairs, and went into Robyn’s room, switching on the light.

  “Robyn! Get up, now!” he said, loud enough for her to wake. She sat up and looked at him. “What is it, Daddy?”

  “It’s time to ruck up. Get all your shit, full combat load just the way I showed you. Whatever you’ll need for about a week in your ruck, and meet me at the Hum-Vee in twenty minutes!”

  She shot out of bed as fast as she could, and went to ask him what they were doing, but he was already gone. She grabbed everything she’d need, and carefully packed it in her ‘Alice’ rucksack. She dressed in ACUs like Tim, shouldered the pack, and started to walk out, then stopped. She went back and grabbed Bad Bear, a small radio that she’d built, and a small Morse key, and put them both into her ruck. “Got to be able to talk to Jimmy too!” she said to herself as she went down stairs, where she got an M4 from the rack and seven loaded magazines.

  Tim was just coming up from the basement with a small case, and was folding a few pieces of paper up and putting them in his pocket. He put the case in his rucksack and grabbed an M4, his grease gun strapped on, his .45 in an older style canvas web pistol belt. He looked at Robyn. “Are you ready?”

  “Yes, Sar’ Major,” Robyn said with a curt nod.

  “Then let’s get going,” he said, and headed out the door. He waited for her to exit, and shut and locked the doors, making sure the lights were all turned off.

  The moon gave an eerie glow over them, and Robyn looked at her watch. It was 2 AM! Where are we going? she wondered. Tim locked the door, then placed the key carefully under a rock by the porch steps. That task completed, he tossed his ruck in the back of the Hum-Vee and his M4 in the rack in the front, Robyn doing the same. They headed out into the night.

  “Daddy, are we going to get them and bring them back?” she said hopefully.

  “No, baby. I already said we couldn’t hold them here. But we can do the next best thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “We can make sure they get to California in one piece and find their boat.”

  “So we’re going with them?”

  “Not exactly, We’ll bird-dog them all the way. Be like guardian angels.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Now fire up that IVIS, and see where they are,” he said, and she did it smartly. After about a minute, she had the system up and running, and synchronized with the satellite.

  “Okay, got them. It looks like they’ve stopped for the night right here,” she said, pointing at the map on the screen. He glanced at it quickly, and put his eyes back on the road.

  “It looks like they’ve stopped for the night there in Bumblebee. Made it a lot farther today than I thought they would,” he said, and drove off into the night. They stopped about a mile from where Holly and Izzy had parked, and Tim shut the Hum-Vee down on the shoulder of I-17. He looked at his watch, and saw that it was almost 6 AM at this point. “Robyn. I’m going to catch a few minutes rest. You slept most of the way here anyway.” He looked at her and grinned. “They’ll probably be heading out soon, once the sun comes up. Wake me when they do.”

  “Okay, Dad,” she said, giving him thumbs up. She had her patrol cap’s brim curved in a perfect ‘Ranger Curve’ just like his. His eyes were barely closed it seemed when she was waking him. He opened his eyes, and the sun was far up on the eastern horizon.

  “They just started out,” she said, taking a swig from her canteen.

  “I gotta take a piss,” he said, and got out to relive himself. He got back in, and finding his pipe, filled the bowl and lit it. “How fast are they going?”

  “Says here about eighty kilometers an hour, heading due south on the interstate. Why is everything in metric on this thing?”

  “It’s because everything in the Army is metric.”

  They were keeping about a two mile gap between them, so even if Holly looked in her rearview mirror, she wouldn’t see her tail. They followed them down the winding mountains, down to the desert below that stretched for miles. They could now see the city of Phoenix ahead of them, but not Izzy and Holly, just the blip on the IVIS screen. When they got nearer to the city, Robyn spoke up.

  “Dad, they’re headed due west now.”

  “Just keep an eye on them. They must have taken a loop or something,” he said and then saw the signs for the junction for the 101 Loop and I-10 west. He followed the signs, and took the ramp, never slowing down.

  “Where are they now?”

  “They’re still about three kilometers ahead of us,” she said. They went a few more miles, and the loop turned south. “Wait, Dad, they’ve stopped!”

  Tim slowed and pulled over to the side of the road. “I wonder what they are doing?”

  “I don’t know. It looks like they just pulled over for a pit stop or something.”

  “Okay. We wait,” he said, tapping out his pipe on the dashboard and pocketing it.

  After about ten minutes, Robyn spoke up. “They’re on the move again. Wait! They just started heading due west again!”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. They’re still a few miles from I-10,” he said, and put the Hum-Vee into drive and headed out. When they got closer to where they stopped, Tim saw the wet spot on the concrete sidewall of the highway, and laughed. “Yeah, someone had to take a piss!” Then he looked up, and saw the Exit sign for Glendale Ave and Luke Air Force Base. That must be where they’ve headed, he thought, taking the exit and following Glendale Avenue west. They stopped at the crossroads to the main entrance to the base, and he looked at Robyn again. “Well, where to?”

  “They’re over that way it looks like. They’ve stopped again,” she said.

  It was in the base itself. Tim started off again, drove through the gates and said, “Sorry guys. I forgot my ID card!” He waved to the empty guardhouse.

  “Now that way!” Robyn said, pointing to her left. He followed her directions onto the apron and hangar area, where weeds and Russian thistle were starting to sprout from the expansion joins in the concrete in a big way. He started to round one corner, slammed on his brakes, and threw the Hum-Vee into reverse, stopping when the vehicle was back behind the hangar he was next to.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. Something doesn’t look right,” Tim said, taking his carbine and getting out. Robyn followed him, taking her own carbine. He pulled the charging handle and loaded a round into the chamber, and she did the same.

  “Alright, you follow me and don’t make a sound, okay?”

  Robyn nodded, and Tim took off at a lope around the corner and across the face of the hangar, going towards the next one over. A C-130 was halfway out of it, its front landing gear still attached to a tow bar and a tug used for moving the big planes while on the ground. Holly and Izzy’s Hum-Vee was parked in front of it, both doors open, but one of the big four-bladed props was still slowly turning and there wasn’t a hint of breeze in the air. He stopped and crouched when he got to the end of the hangar and waited for Robyn to catch up. There was about a thirty yard gap between the two hangars, and he looked around but didn’t see anyone.

  He turned to
Robyn. “Here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to dash over to that side, while you cover me. You remember how to do that, right?” She nodded grimly and put the weapon on semi-auto. He dashed across the few yards, stopping at the far wall, peering around the corner slowly, then pulling his head back fast. He motioned for her to follow, and she sprinted the distance easily. Robyn could now hear voices, and one sounded angry. Tim sat down with his back to the wall. “I’m going to go around the hangar to the other side, and come around the nose of this big airplane. Give me ten minutes. When I’m in position, you’ll know. When I am, you just use the corner of this hangar as cover. There’s a guy in jarhead cammo holding an M16 on Holly and Izzy, and he seems kind of pissed. Just cover me. He makes any hinkey moves, drill him.”

  She just nodded with a blank expression.

  “Remember, ten minutes, okay?”

  “Got it, Sar’ Major,” Robyn said, and he did something he’d never done before. He kissed her, and took off around the other side of the building. He’d never kissed one of his soldiers before going into possible battle, and he had a smile on his face even though this was now deadly serious. It only took him five minutes to make the dash, and he used a few minutes to spare to catch his breath. I’m getting too old for this shit, he thought as he slowly crept up on the other side of the C-130.

  When he was at a point where he could bring his rifle up to bear, he did so, and yelled out. He saw Robyn round the corner, react when she heard his voice, and bring hers to her shoulder, aiming at the man standing there.

  “Drop the rifle now!” he shouted.

  The man jumped almost out of his skin. “Who is that?”

  “The question is, who the fuck are you?” Tim said, and Holly and Izzy turned to see him behind the tug with a rifle pointed at the man, and they looked very relieved.

  “I’m Lance Corporal Juan Jimenez. United State Marine Corps!”

  “Well Lance Corporal, I’m Sergeant Major Flannery, United States Army, and I’m giving you a direct order to lower your weapon right now, or things will end very badly for you.”