The Grey Man: -Vignettes-

by JL Curtis

  Matt ducked out as Jesse rolled over at the sound of the door opening, tears in her eyes, “Papa, I killed two people.”

  The old man replied gently, “You did what you had to do. It was you or them.”

  “But I killed two people, what does that make me?”

  “Hon, it makes you a survivor. You didn’t have a choice.”

  “I see their faces, Papa, every time I close my eyes. I see their faces.”

  Putting his hand gently on her shoulder, he said, “You will always see those faces Jesse, but you have to remember they were trying to kill you.”

  Looking up at him she grabbed his hand and asked, “Do you still see faces? Do you have nightmares about the people you’ve killed, Papa?”

  “Yes, I still remember them, most of all I remember the first one I killed. Remember that bullet in the glass bottle on the bookcase?”

  Jesse nodded.

  “That was the bullet I dug out of my flak vest after I hesitated because that VC looked like a kid. He got the first shot off, and it thankfully hit the chicken plate. When that round hit me, it woke me up to the fact that if I didn’t shoot him he was going to kill me; but I still see his face…”

  Softly Jesse asked, “Will I have nightmares, Papa?”

  “Probably. They will be a reminder that you did what you had to do, and a reason to not want to do it again.”

  Jesse sighed, and dropped her head back to the pillow. “Thank you, Papa.”

  Tears in his eyes, the old man walked back to the nurses’ station. Angelina reached over and grabbed both charts. “Okay, Jesse first. Shrapnel in the right hip, apparently from her radio being exploded. I guess it’s a good thing she’s a lefty. That would have been a helluva mess digging pieces of a revolver out of her. This stuff was fairly easy to clean up, nothing too deep. The worse injury is three broken ribs on the right side and a collapsed lung, but her vest saved her life. The round didn’t penetrate but she’s got a bruise covering most of her right chest.”

  Laying her chart aside, she picked up Aaron’s chart. “Okay, your buddy is not in as bad a shape as we originally thought, although we did have to give him three pints of blood. Apparently, he was shot with a full metal jacket round, it entered just below the distal end of the Gastrocnemius muscle and penetrated completely though the leg, the good news is it missed the Tibidis poster…”

  Realizing neither of them had a clue as to what she was saying, she pulled up the leg of her scrubs and demonstrated on herself as she walked them through it again. “Ok, lemme try this again, the round entered here, on the inside of his lower calf, and exited over here. He’s got a chunk of meat missing on the outside of the calf, and a broken fibula. That’s the little bone in the lower leg, that got fixed and while the doc was in there, he confirmed there was no damage to the artery that runs down to the foot, and both the hamstring and Achilles tendons are okay. Six inches in either direction, it would have been bad. In other words, he’ll be fine, but will have to go through PT to recover the strength. Doc Truesdale said it wasn’t the first time he’d been shot, and looking at the other injuries, he recovered pretty well. Doc will probably kick them both loose tomorrow, since we’re out of beds. If necessary, I can come by and check up on them, unless Juanita… Oh hell, Juanita is probably a better nurse than I am. I don’t think either one really needs a hospital bed, but Aaron’s leg will need to stay elevated most of the time.”

  Closing the chart she looked critically at them. “Both of y’all look like shit. Go home, take a drink, and sleep until you wake up. I’ll call you if anything changes. John if you’ve got a charger for Jesse’s phone in your truck, bring it in. Her phone’s dead and she was in a panic that you were calling her.”

  The old man grumbled, “I was, and didn’t want to try going through the damn switchboard here. I’ll be right back.” He walked off leaving Matt standing there looking at Angelina. She took pity on him asking, “Would you like to call your command and let them know what is going on? We didn’t have a number to make an official notification to.”

  Matt nodded and asked, “Can I use your phone here?”

  “No problem. Dial eighty-four for an outside line, and make sure to leave us the number you called so we can add it to the approved calls list. Damn bean counters around here are nickel and diming us to death on phones among other things.”

  Matt sat down, dug his phone out and pulled up the Camp Pendleton Command Duty Officer’s number. Hitting his watch, he reported the situation to the CDO and gave the hospital number to him. He also gave the CDO both his and the old man’s phone numbers along with the sheriff’s office number. He didn’t detail the level of involvement they actually had in the situation, just that there had been a situation.

  The CDO agreed to log the situation and pass it to their respective commands in the morning. As he finished and looked up, he realized the old man was back and leaning on the counter. “I’ve reported in to the Pendleton CDO, and he’s got us logged in, so for right now we’re covered. And I just started crashing, so I’m ready to go. Oh, wait I’ve got to give the nurse the number and length of time on the call.”

  Hitting his watch again, he mentally subtracted a minute, then wrote on the message pad the number, command’s name and estimated time of the call, “Now I’m ready, sir.”

  The old man agreed, and after thanking Angelina they left and went home. Once there, Matt took a quick shower and crashed. The last thing he remembered hearing was the old man, Juanita and Francisco discussing how to set the house up for two invalids, and whether to move Matt out to the old house. He drifted off to sleep figuring they’d tell him what to do tomorrow.

  18 The Morning After

  The next morning the old man, Juanita, Francisco and Toby had already finished with breakfast when Matt rolled in and grabbed a cup of coffee. “Sorry, folks, I guess I needed a little extra down time this morning. Is there by chance anything left?”

  Juanita got up and walked to the stove. “You tell me what kind of eggs you want Matt, everything else is in the oven staying warm. We understand.”

  Sitting down and scratching Rex’s ears, Matt nodded and answered, “Eggs over easy please and whatever else is holding would be fine.”

  Toby nodded to Matt and headed for the back door. As Francisco picked up his and Juanita’s plates he said, “I’m going to check the fence line up in the North 40 and I’ll take Toby, shouldn’t be gone more than a couple of hours with both of us running it.” Grabbing a couple of personal radios, he kissed Juanita as he went out the back.

  While waiting on the food, Matt decided to ask the old man something that had bugged him since the sniper shoot. “Mr. Cronin, why do you always wear grey? I’ve never seen you in anything but that, and I thought that deputies had to wear a regular uniform on patrol.”

  The old man leaned back and moved his coffee cup in circles for a minute then replied, “Matt, I’ve told you to call me John. Now the reason I wear grey is really three reasons, first and foremost, I’m a cheap bastard. Second, back in Nam I learned a lesson about camouflage from the Degar that stuck with me ever since; that lesson was that grey was one of the most effective camouflage colors out there. Third, technically I’m not a patrol deputy; I’m the department investigator, so I really don’t deal with the public that much. Well, actually four reasons, if I have to go in the field as a sniper, which has happened, I don’t have to stop and change clothes. All I have to do is take off the badge, grab my boonie hat, and I’m ready to go.”

  Matt thought about it for a second and asked, “But we’ve spent millions on camo for different locations and terrain and you’re saying grey is actually better? Even better than a Ghillie suit?”

  Leaning forward, the old man put both arms on the table and slid the coffee cup around again, “Well, maybe not better than a Ghillie suit, but after you eat, how about I give you a practical demonstration?”

  Matt nodded as Juanita slid a heaping plate in front of Matt. His react
ion was this was way too much food, but once he got a couple of bites in, he realized he was hungry and cleaned the plate. The old man had picked his plate up and rinsed it, then put it in the dishwasher and was in the process of getting another cup of coffee when his cell rang.

  Setting the coffee down, he answered, “Hello?”

  Listening for a minute, he said, “Thanks Doc, we’ll drop by later this morning and bring them some clean clothes and check on them. I’m thinking probably getting Rescue to transport Aaron would be the better answer.”

  He listened again, and then hung up. Picking up the coffee, he came back to the table. “Well, Doc wants to keep Aaron another day; he said Jesse could probably come home tonight if he could pry them apart long enough, but the other option is to just push her bed into his room and release them both tomorrow. He’s a little concerned about some swelling in Aaron’s leg and he had to cut the cast to relieve some pressure this morning. Matt, I need to go in for a bit, you can either come in with me, or stay here and I’ll come back and get you in a couple of hours. Your choice.”

  Matt leaned back and thought for a minute. “How about I stay here? I don’t want to be in your way, and frankly I’d like a little down time, if you don’t mind.”

  The old man nodded. “Understood. I’ll call Juanita when I’m heading back, we can grab lunch here and by then it should be visiting hours.”

  “Okay, that works for me John.”

  The old man asked Juanita if she needed anything from town, and getting a negative, grabbed his gunbelt, swung it on, put on his hat and headed out the door. Matt went back to his room and dragged out his journal; sitting on the bed, he wrote up the incident from yesterday as he would have had it been a military shoot. He documented everything he could remember, and the approximate times everything occurred. Finishing with that, he sat for a minute, and then decided he needed some fresh air, he stopped by the kitchen, grabbed a mug and some coffee and wandered out the front door. He sat in a rocker on the front porch and sipped the coffee, enjoying the solitude and the breeze gently blowing across the porch.

  After a few minutes, Matt started replaying the actions from yesterday in his mind yet again, looking for things that could have gone better. He realized they were damn lucky things went as well as they had, considering he and the old man had never shot together before. Other than Sunday morning, they had never even watched each other shoot. Matt also was thankful for the training he’d received and also his instructor tour at the Weapons Battalion, which had taught him to be quick on the uptake with good shooters. It hit him then that he had crossed the old man’s line yesterday in his shot. He was thankful they’d actually had enough offset that there was no possibility of crossing barrels.

  He felt a cold, wet nose on his wrist as a furry head under his hand shifted and he realized that he’d been absently petting Rex while he thought. Ruefully, he was reminded that animals truly do have a sense of human emotions and Rex must have decided he needed some companionship. Matt, reached over and ruffled the big Shepherd’s ears and Rex rewarded him by putting his paws on the arm of the rocker and giving Matt a lick on the ear. Laughing Matt pushed Rex away, and realized he was now in a much better mood. He got up and walked around the house, just looking at the open space and ended up at the corral, watching the horses. He watched Francisco and Toby come back from the North 40 and just smiled at their obviously expert command of the horses and how easily they rode. He noted that Toby really came out of his shell around the horses, and it was obvious they were his true vocation. As Francisco and Toby were unsaddling Matt heard a vehicle stop in front of the house and a door slam. Looking at his watch he was amazed to realize it was almost noon.

  Matt walked back in the house to find Juanita busy at the stove and the old man entering the kitchen with Rex on his heels. Surprisingly the old man was smiling, he nodded to Matt and said, “I’ve got good news, but we’ll wait for Francisco and Toby to come in for lunch so I only have to tell it once.”

  Matt just shook his head and chuckled. “Now you’re sounding like one of my colonels, John.”

  “Oh, hell no, I’d never have made it as an officer, trust me!” the old man replied.

  A few minutes later, with everyone at the table, the old man told the story. “Apparently Bucky was able to actually get DEA off their asses, got some surveillance on that address from yesterday, and at 5:30 this morning they hit the house with a DEA team. Six captured, no shots fired, and over twenty kilos of cocaine in there along with about two hundred thousand dollars in cash. It was apparently the local control for the cartel’s distribution network in Chicago, and right now they’re sitting on the house picking up dealers as they come in to get their drugs. So far they’ve gotten something over ten dealers!”

  Francisco laughed and said something in Spanish to Juanita that caused her to smile, and Toby clapped his hands and said something to the old man in the ‘Yard’ dialect. Juanita commanded, “Eat, I didn’t slave over a stove for cold food to be eaten because you’re too busy talking. There is plenty of time for talk later!”

  Everyone dug in and the food was soon gone. Matt realized he wasn’t going to be getting fed this well in California and sighed. Patting his stomach, he realized that actually wasn’t a bad thing, since he hadn’t been running and he knew he’d put on a few pounds this weekend.

  “One question. Did they find anything out on the Louisiana town where they were going to turn or stop?”

  The old man shook his head. “Nope, dry hole on that one, it traced to a no-tell motel in Hammond, but there was a reservation in the name on the credit card the head guy was carrying. It had been made by phone, so nothing there either. The sheriff was finishing his report, pulling the radio logs, and getting the chain of custody lined out for the evidence with Clay when I got in this morning. They did the ballistics checks on my rifles, and I’ve got them back. I also talked to Jesse, and she’s going to stay at the hospital, but wanted us to bring books. She said Aaron is in and out, and she’s bored with the TV already.

  The old man got up and told Matt, “You wanted to know how effective the color grey is for camouflage, come on, I’ll show you.”

  Matt got up and followed the old man out the back door, remembering he’d actually asked that question this morning. Behind the corral the old man stopped, “Okay, Matt, give me five minutes then start down the trail to the range. I’ll be within five yards of the track within the first one hundred feet of the start of the trail. Your job is to find me before I say bang.”

  Matt nodded and started to hit his watch. “Five minutes!” the old man said as he walked down the trail.

  Matt hit his watch and turned toward the corral where Toby was working a horse on a lunge line: walking him in a circle in the corral, then trotting, and back to walking. When the five minutes were up, Matt started his approach to the trail head. About twenty feet in, Matt felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up. Looking and stepping carefully, Matt moved as quietly as possible and fell into a combat crouch without thinking about it. Easing down the trail, he tried to look everywhere and was getting more and more frustrated. The old man should be easy to find! About that time, something touched him on the back of the neck and he heard the old man say, “Bang.”

  Wheeling around Matt said, “Damn!” There stood the old man, a short stick in hand, dressed in those grey pants and a grey shirt. The only difference from earlier, the old man had smeared mud on his face and hands, and he had his old grey boonie hat on.

  Frustrated, Matt demanded, “Where the hell were you?”

  The old man smiled. “Go back ten yards then turn around, I’ll show you.”

  Grumbling, Matt paced back up the trail, turning around, the old man had disappeared. He heard old man say in a muffled voice, “Okay, start down the trail, look to the left.”

  Matt started back down the trail, looking left and cataloging, tree, trees, rock, boulder, tree, little arroyo, downed tree over a boulder… And the boul
der turned into the old man as he stood up facing him.

  “Sonofabitch! I thought that was a damn rock!” Matt exclaimed.

  The old man just grinned. “C’mon, time for lesson number two. Now we’ll go out in the west field. Then I’ll tell you how I do it.”

  Matt followed the old man back up the trail, turning to look back at the spot again, and shaking his head. At the top of the trail, the old man went around the back side of the corral to the west field, opened the gate and told Matt, “Same thing, give me five minutes, and I’ll be within a hundred feet of the gate when you start.”

  Fuming, Matt hit his watch and turned his back on the old man. But he’d taken a good look at the field and there just wasn’t a lot of cover there, and the field was pretty much yellow grass and a few mesquite bushes.

  Five minutes passed and Matt calmed down. Turning, he scanned the field trying to place anything different from the last scan, not picking anything up, he started walking the field like he had done many times as an instructor during the sniper course. He was a professional at this, and dammit, he’d already embarrassed himself once this afternoon.

  Casting back and forth, he hadn’t found the old man by fifty feet in, and he thought, here we go again. Gonna get my ass handed to me twice in the same day, he thought. Three steps later he heard “bang” and looked down to see the old man pointing a stick at him from six feet away. Matt just stopped.

  Getting up the old man walked over and patted Matt on the shoulder. “Okay, I know you’re pissed, but let me both tell you and show you how I beat you. First, although you don’t realize it, you reverted to type and training. Where are you right now?”

  Matt just looked at the old man. “What do you mean, John?”

  “Where’s the sun?”

  “Behind…”

  “Right, you automatically set yourself up to search down sun. Which way do the shadows go? Away from you, right? And they tend to elongate the lower the sun, right? All I did was use that bush and that piece of stump to break up my outline and shadow it enough for you to miss me because I wasn’t moving. If I’d had on black clothes, you’d have picked me out immediately, same with any camo with the exception maybe of that new MARPAT stuff. Now I did smear mud on my face and hands, but hiding them is easy. And the boonie hat is shapeless and doesn’t give you any clues to pick up. Hell, go back and read Western history, there are cases where cowboys hid from Indians by staying in the open on slopes and other places as the Indians rode right by them, because they weren’t moving. Same down on the trail, I just found a place to break up the outline and shadows to blend in with. I didn’t watch you. I listened for you to pass. Folks seem to be able to sense when someone is looking at them. Don’t look and it takes that gut feeling away.”