Broken Road

by Mari Beck

“The truth is I’m not a hero, Brenda. I’m not. I’m not.”He was shaking his head from side to side.

  “Okay, I’m still listening.”

  “I’m a murderer.”

  “What?” she asked not quite sure she heard him. He looked straight at her.

  “It was that damn camera guy, he. . .he took the picture. Just a picture of one damn moment. One moment and everybody just assumed.”

  “Assumed what?”

  “I wanted to die. And he, he just started taking pictures. We were on the road to hell and he was taking pictures.”

  “It’s okay, Riley. Just tell me what happened.”

  “It’s not okay, Brenda. It’s never going to be okay.”

  “I promise you. . .”

  “Don’t. Don’t promise. I haven’t told you yet. Wait for the truth.”

  “Fine, but please, please put the gun down. By your side if you want. You don’t have to do anything else. I’m having a hard time listening to what you want to say with the gun aimed at your head. I don’t like guns, remember? Please.”

  “Not yet, Brenda. I can’t put it down. I have to make myself say the words,you know? Then I have to decide if I can live with myself after. . .after I tell you.”

  “It won’t make a difference to me. You’ve already told Meagan McGuinnis. It’ll be okay whatever it is.”

  “When I tell you what happened, you might change your mind. And I didn’t tell her everything. I wasn’t with the convoy. The newspapers, the tv, the Army has me with the convoy. I wasn’t. I was at the checkpoint and I disobeyed orders. I left the checkpoint and went after the guy I thought was the trigger man for the IED. Captain Jenner was with the convoy. He was protecting it, he and the rest of the unit.”

  “I was pissed about almost being shortlisted and sent home because they thought I couldn’t take the stress of being out there anymore. They wouldn’t let me drive the Buffalo anymore, you need steady hands and a pretty clear mind for that. No one was sure I could do it anymore. Not even me. So Captain Jenner gave me a second chance. That day, we were going through a checkpoint we’d already secured on our way to clearing another road. We secured the checkpoints constantly, but even then, we were always looking for anything. . .anything that clued us to a possible danger except. . .that God, we didn’t expect it. We should’ve known especially after what happened to Ricky Marcelino and some of the others.”

  “What didn’t you know?”

  “About the kids. We weren’t looking for the children.”

  “What do you mean?” Brenda was confused. What was he talking about?

  “A strangled sob escaped his lips. “They were the bombs.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  The Distraction

  “The kids?” Brenda repeated trying to take in his words. It was unimaginable.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t understand, Riley. . .”She said desperately wanting to so she could help him.

  “The buddies I lost, some of them didn’t understand either. They didn’t get the whole war zone thing.They just couldn’t get it that they should be more careful. That they shouldn’t be playing with them like that or giving them stuff. You could tell the way the parents looked at their kids and at us. You just don’t go into somebody’s town with a gun in your hands and then expect them to warm up to you because you start tossing Snickers bars at their kids. But some of our guys thought they could be friendly and it got them killed. One minute one of our guys was giving them chocolate and the other was playing soccer with some of the boys. The rest of us were coming up the street and we saw the snipers take them out. The day that Ricky got killed we were clearing a road called Dead Man’s Row. None of the units had ever managed to clear it before something happened and we were back to square one. We were driving up about a foot an hour when we came into a village. We had to go that slow because of the IEDs. Captain Jenner was the route commander that day too. He told us to be on the look out for anything, anything at all that might indicate anything suspicious. He was right. As soon as the people in town saw us they started to disappear. Then the Husky located a device buried in the road ahead and they called us over to dig it up. I was driving for the first time. It was my birthday gift from Ricky. We. . .we drove up and dug then we drove back to a safe distance with the rest of the convoy. The EODs set the explosive to detonate and we just sat there waiting. That’s when Ricky saw the little boy.”

  “No.” Brenda gasped.

  “He was walking up by the detonation site and Ricky freaked out. We all did. He started to wave at the kid, yell at him but he just kept walking. So Ricky tells me that he thinks he can get to him before the explosives go off. I tried to stop him but I was driving that day. I couldn’t just get out and go. Ricky didn’t care even when Captain Jenner told him to stay put or when the EOD guys told him he didn’t have the time. He got out, he walked the distance between us and the hole and he got to the kid. We couldn’t believe it. None of us could. We were shouting and cheering for him when he got as far as the first vehicle-a safe distance from the detonation. Then. . .” He was sobbing hard, “then Ricky looked up at me and it was like he knew, we both did. There was an explosion and they were gone. Gone.”

  Brenda was heart-broken as she listened to him recount the horrors he’d seen. She wanted to comfort him but was afraid that any sudden movement on her part might set him off and cause him to harm himself.

  “The day Captain Jenner died. . .” Riley began but Brenda interrupted him. She wasn’t ready to hear this part of his story.

  “No, you don’t have to go on. You’ve told me enough. It’s okay, Riley. Really. It’s okay. You don’t have to say anything else.” She pleaded but the haunted look in his eyes expressed a need to go on, to empty himself until there was nothing left inside of the memories.

  “The day that Captain Jenner died there was a crowd near the checkpoint. It was our job to sort it out, disperse the crowd and get everything under control. None of us were sure why they’d gathered. They were arguing with us but none of us knew what they were saying. We didn’t know what they wanted. Then a car came up to the checkpoint and we knew instantly that it wasn’t supposed to be there. The locals knew that too, you could tell, they were tense and they kept staring at the car. Some of them started walking away pretty fast and we were trying to put two and two together. It didn’t make sense. We’d secured the checkpoint, there hadn’t been any trouble for weeks. But there was a family crammed inside and we made them get out so we could search it. There were these little kids in there with some of the women and we had to make them get out because they were slow. Captain Jenner ordered two other guys to search the vehicle and he ordered me to watch the crowd. You have to watch for distractions. If they distract you,you die. That’s what they taught us. There could be snipers anywhere. So you had to do the searches quick. In and out and get the people back inside and on their way. But there was this little kid. . .and he’s wearing the ugliest damn sweater I’ve ever seen and I’m thinking how messed up it is that I’m sweating to death in my uniform and he’s dressed like he’s going sledding. But we saw a lot of strange things over there so I didn’t think anything of it at first. So this kid was like 5 or 6 and he’s holding his mother’s hand and he looks scared. And I’m thinking how scared I’d be if some guy with a gun was shoving me out of a car and yelling at me and my mom in a language I didn’t understand. I’m watching him and I’m thinking how lucky I am that I grew up in a place where that doesn’t happen and it’s all so unreal because I’m there and I’m doing it to them. That’s when I see the convoy coming up the road. I can see some guys from the unit and I can tell Captain Jenner’s in the first vehicle and they pull up behind the car and I look away for a moment. I see that the Captain’s jumped out and he’s headed our way. And then I realize that I’ve taken my eyes off the boy and the woman and I’ve lost them in the crowd. I turn back and I can tell that the people from the car seem really nervous when they see the convoy. The
y start moving away from us and around the car and we start trying to round them up again. You see, our orders are pretty clear at the checkpoint. We stop traffic, we don’t ever, ever get distracted by the crowd, we clear the scene before snipers have time to get into position if a convoy or checkpoint is ever compromised. It’s how we were trained. We had manned several checkpoints in the area since we got there and never had any trouble. But it happened just like that. It was like it was happening in slow motion. Except now when I see it in my head it’s like some big choreographed number, like everyone had a part to play and knew exactly what to do and where to stand-except for me.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

  The Split-Second

  Riley gripped the handle of the gun for strength. He needed to tell her what happened that day. There was no going back now.

  “We had them all rounded up, except for the kid. The woman, his mother, was over by me and the others but the kid, somehow he was back by the convoy. He was all by himself in that ugly sweater in the middle of that road. That’s when the Army dismount standing next to the first truck reached down to pick him up because he was crying. He should have known better than to touch that boy. But they’d left him there, standing all alone, next to our guys. And when I saw him, I panicked. It was just like what happened to Ricky all over again and I knew I couldn’t let it happen. I was yelling at the guy to put down the kid and run. That’s when out of the corner of my eye I saw somebody crouched down right inside the entrance to one of the nearby houses where the convoy was stopped. I could just see him peeking out. It looked like he was holding something. It could have been a trigger. I thought I could get to him, stop him, so I started to run but the IED went off and I went down. When I opened my eyes, everything and everyone was gone. There was debris, fire and people screaming but I wasn’t dead. I had a pounding headache, massive ringing in my ears, gashes on my head but I needed to get up. When I did, I could see that the armored vehicles on their sides, smoking and burning. The car was gone, and the people inside were too. There was no sign of the dismount or the kid, but there was a soldier on the ground, his leg had been blown off at the knee and there were a couple more at the checkpoint that were injured. There were other guys from the unit at the back of the convoy already moving, trying to secure the area and a medic giving first aid. I just stood there. I didn’t know what to do, until I saw something move again by the house and I left the convoy in pursuit. I knew that the IED had to be manually detonated. We’d seen it happen before. The Captain and the EOD guys suspected that it’s what happened to Ricky and the kid. The kid was just the bait and Ricky fell for it. When he ran back toward the convoy somebody must’ve triggered the explosion that killed them.”

  “Oh, Riley. How awful.”

  “I was pretty sure the same thing happened again, so I left the convoy and I went looking for the son of a bitch. It was chaos behind me, and I had no idea what was going to happen when I stepped foot in that house. It could have been booby trapped, but I wasn’t thinking about that. All I wanted to do was put a bullet in the guy that kept killing my buddies. As I get to the house, there’s a lot a smoke everywhere from the explosion and it’s hard to breathe or see anything. I kept my gun pointed and my finger on the trigger. I came up to the side of the house that faced the checkpoint and I almost tripped over something. It was a body. One of the locals. That’s when I heard someone running around to the back of the house and I followed. There were shots fired but the smoke made it impossible to see anything. I took a hit. I took cover and fired back. Then, another explosion hit near the house-a rocket propelled grenade. I think it knocked me out. When I came to, I was sitting up against a wall and I was bleeding. I couldn’t get up all the way but I could sort of make out somebody walking toward me. I thought they had a gun but I could hardly see a damn thing. I made my mind up that I was going to shoot before they shot me so I made myself stand up, I took a step or two. . .and that’s when I felt someone tackle me. But it was too late. I heard the shot and he fell on top of me. I didn’t know who it was, not at first. I rolled him off of me. I didn’t recognize him at first with all the smoke. But then he opened his eyes and I almost had a heart attack because I realized that it was. . . Captain Jenner.”

  CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

  The Blame

  Brenda’s legs gave way at that point and she sank to the ground at the sound of the name.

  “No!”she cried in a horrified whisper. Riley didn’t even look up. He continued telling his story.

  “And I’m confused because I know he must be the guy who tackled me and all I can say to him is ‘I’m sorry.’ The craziest thing was that even with all that smoke and me being shot and Captain Jenner hurt, I knew we had to get out of there. I don’t know how I managed to pick him up but I did just like they trained me and I hauled ass with him over my shoulders toward the convoy. I figured that the medic’s was still back there somewhere and the bomb only got the front of the convoy. I carried him as fast as I could but he was too heavy and I was hurting, and we fell. So, I started to drag him and I saw that there was blood on the front of his uniform and it was spreading and he was losing consciousness. I needed him to stay with me so he wasn’t dead weight. They could’ve killed us if there had been snipers setting up near the scene. I talked to him as I dragged him and he could barely keep his eyes open because he was losing so much blood. ‘You gotta keep your eyes open, Captain.’ I told him. ‘You gotta keep walking, we’re almost there.’ But he didn’t answer so I started to ask him about his family, anything to keep him from dying on me and he was talking about you and the boys. But I could see that it was getting harder for him to breathe. ‘Captain Jenner,’ I said, ‘I need to get you to a medic.’ And all he said to me was, ‘Don’t shoot the boy.’ I asked him who he was talking about and he said ‘Don’t shoot the boy.’ And I said, ‘I didn’t shoot any boy, I shot you. I’m so sorry, it was an accident. It was an accident.’ ‘Boy.’ He said to me and I figured he thought I was going to shoot some kid. It had happened before. Some of them fought too. The insurgents gave them guns and we’d met up with a few. It was awful. But I couldn’t think about that because Captain Jenner was starting to get delirious from losing so much blood. He kept talking about some boy and I kept saying that I didn’t shoot any boy and that’s when I saw him. He was crouching, hiding nearby about 20 feet away from where we were. Close to the house. It was a boy, probably 13 or 14 years old. He was smeared with dirt, soot and blood and he was holding a little girl in his arms. She was hurt and he was holding her out to me. All I could think of was that it was another trap, another distraction, so I reached for my gun but it was gone. The boy was yelling at me and pointing away from us and back to the house. But I couldn’t understand what he was saying. He ran toward us and tried to shove the little girl into my arms. I told him that I couldn’t take her, I couldn’t, but then he shoved her at me one last time and ran back into the house on fire. I hardly noticed I was holding her. She weighed nothing-nothing at all compared to the Captain. I didn’t have time to think so I just bent down and pulled the Captain up with my free arm and started walking away from the house and toward the convoy. That’s when the camera guy found us. I had no idea where he came from but he was there and he started taking the shots. He got in my way and I couldn’t get past him and we were only about 100 feet from the convoy when I heard the explosion. The house exploded. That’s when I told the camera guy to get down and then there was another explosion close enough that it blew us all to hell and that’s the last thing I remember. I lost Captain Jenner and the little girl in the explosion, I guess. I mean I don’t know. No one knows. I was holding on tight, I swear I was and then they were gone and I. . .somehow. . .I woke up. . .alive. But the camera guy woke up first and by the time I came to that picture made it around the world. People were trying to give me medals and they wanted to take my picture, get my autograph. . .” There was another heartbreaking sob followed by silence. Brenda clawed at the pavement be
neath her hands. She was certain that she had forgotten how to breathe. She would black out soon, she thought,she prayed,so the pain would stop.

  “I just wanted to die. Captain Jenner was gone, the little girl was gone and her brother too. But no one would listen to what I told them. Then, they gave me a choice. I could keep on talking about how I’d killed Captain Jenner and go home or I could go back for another tour, pretend nothing happened and get back on track with my career. So I signed the papers the shrink put in front of me. I signed them. Why not? After what I did to Captain Jenner? I almost shot that kid and his sister because I couldn’t handle what happened to Ricky and the others. That boy didn’t have a gun! He just wanted me to help his sister. If Captain Jenner hadn’t tackled me, if he hadn’t taken that bullet for those kids. . .I think about that moment every single day. Killing him or killing those kids? Those were my choices? Some people wouldn’t blame me if I’d killed the kids as long as that boy had been pointing a gun at me. But the Captain didn’t want us to have to make that choice. That was the Captain. He wouldn’t have been able to live with it if it could be helped. He always talked about making the right choices and walking the right path. Like we were some freaking football team getting ready for the playoffs instead of soldiers getting ready to meet the enemy in a war. We were American soldiers, he said, and that still meant something to people. We did our job but we didn’t disrespect the uniform or the flag while doing it. And we protected those that needed our help. For him, that meant we protected the children at all cost. They were casualties of war, just as much as we were. That’s why he gave me a second chance. He wanted me to believe in myself again. To know that I could still do my job. But what was the point? I killed him and I lost those kids anyway. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.” He fell to his knees and cried. Brenda saw the gun slip out of his hand onto the wet ground just a few feet away. She reached for it, picked it up and felt the cold hard metal in her hands. Then, she let it drop with a quiet thud. She looked over at Riley hunched over in the falling snow, looking so broken and fragile. Her hands trembled as she reached for Riley and let herself fall apart with him. She held him tightly, comforting him as she would her own child.