Lester poured what was left of the coffee in his thermos and turned the rocker switch on the brewer to off, a small but important detail he had learned the hard way when he had found baked Folgers in the pot, and on more than one occasion. He turned the kitchen light off but left the lamp by his chair burning so the house wouldn’t appear completely dark and unoccupied to any would be drive-by thief. He could think of a couple people that might get a perverse pleasure from robbing the sheriff’s house. Of course there was the dog to deal with. Harley would be more than happy to take a hunk out of somebody’s butt given the opportunity and motivation.
“Sheriff, I’ve thought about this,” Billy Ray said as he stood on the porch. “I think I should do the driving tonight. You’re not used to how this car handles and frankly, it could get away from you.”
“Good grief boy, you think I’ve forgotten how to drive a car? I’ve had a few hot rods in my day you know, probably driven way more stick shifts that you ever thought about. Why, I was drag racing on the back roads while you were still in diapers and shittin’ yellow. Might get away from me, my ass.”
Billy Ray listened politely for a moment, but then took his seat behind the wheel leaving Lester to stand there with the passenger door open. It was ride or else.
Harley gave his owner the look.
“No way dog, not tonight, not with the way you’re passing gas. You need to stay here. Besides that, my young deputy would probably have a hissy fit if you was to get dog hair on his fancy-ass machine, the one that’s too powerful for other people to drive.”
Harley didn’t hear the words he was listening for; truck or in or okay. Not good. The big black tail got still.
The passenger door of the Camaro slammed shut with more force than was necessary but Billy Ray let it pass. He glanced at the older man across from him who sat stone faced and silent, staring straight ahead. It was looking like the beginning of a very long and quiet stakeout at the Pirate’s Den.
Chapter 19
Earl Redman was having a good day with a steady stream of customers, the cash register bulging with greenbacks. When the clock wound down on the Saturday afternoon football games, the crowd had thinned only to be replaced by a good-sized group of thirsty bikers. Earl was having a hard time keeping their pitchers full of beer but so far, no one was acting rowdy. The bunch didn’t look all that menacing, no gang names on the back of their leather jackets, and only a couple had tattoos. They looked to be exactly what they were, a bunch of decent and mostly law abiding folks that just happened to love motorcycles and were out for a fun ride on a picture perfect late September afternoon. Come Monday, they would all be back at their regular jobs; bank teller, lawyer, UPS driver, and a mail carrier to name a few. There was not a single drug dealer in the lot although one of the women did have a warrant for outstanding speeding tickets.
The beer flowed like golden rivers until just past nine o’clock when the bikers suddenly left en masse, as if they all needed to be home before curfew (but most likely on their way to another bar). The evening was young. In the parking lot, the big motors rumbled to life as one noisy fire-breathing entity, the exhausts shattering the peacefulness of the quiet countryside. One by one, single file, and headed south, their taillights grew smaller, then dim before disappearing in the darkness like dying fireflies.
That left the regulars; the two Mexicans who couldn’t speak English, the guy with the wild eyes that lived down the road, and J.O. Mecham of course, who would not forsake his source of free beer until the joint closed up around him. Then there were two guys who looked to be in their twenties—Earl had never seen them before—shooting pool as they’d been doing most of the evening. Three gals at the back table were having a girls night out, sipping their beers and laughing too loud, sometimes dancing with each other when a toe-tapping tune came up on the juke box.
Earl was dead tired. Despite the money he was raking in, he was ready to call it a day but damn it, he couldn’t shut the door when he had this many paying customers. Saturdays made up for his slow days and he couldn’t just lock up and go home. Besides that, his wife would chew him out good for leaving money behind, and Earl was too bushed to listen to that line of crap at this hour. Getting cussed out for not working long hours from a woman who seldom got off her fat ass did not make for a happy ending to a good day. J.O. motioned for yet another refill. As to how many that made, Earl had lost count hours ago but a deal was a deal.
“You’re killing all my freakin’ profit J.O. Don’t you think it’s time you packed it up and headed home? That sheriff might be watchin’ the roads ya know. He’d love to catch you out there and slap a DUI on your ass.”
“That’s my business, barkeep. I’ll deal with him when the time comes, don’t you worry about that. You just keep this glass full until closing time, then and only then will I consider checking out. Earl shook his head in despair and returned to his stool behind the bar where he kept the remote for the TV. He had set the DVR to record America’s Most Wanted and figured this was the best chance he’d have today to watch it. He poured himself a shot of the cheapest bourbon in the house and waited for the set to come up to full color.
*****
Sheriff Lester P. Morrison and his deputy Billy Ray, sat in the far corner of the Pirate’s Den parking lot, nearest the highway, the rear of the Camaro backed toward an open field of wheat. It wasn’t until the rumble of the bikers had faded away did the Sheriff speak, still miffed at being forced to ride as a passenger.
“You ever owned one of those Billy Ray, a motorcylce?”
“A crotch rocket? Nope, not my thing. I’ll take a good fast car over one of those machines any day; never had any desire to catch June bugs in my teeth. You?”
“Yeah, I had a bike once. It wasn’t a Harley by any means. It was a Suzuki 750, a rice grinder was what some bikers called them, but it went plenty fast for me. Had me some nice afternoons on that bike, I did. I liked to go out on the county roads on a late Sunday evening when I had the world to myself, just cruise along 30-40 miles an hour, smelling the smells, and watching the country slide by.
“Did your wife go with you?” Billy Ray said. The Sheriff never talked much about his wife was why the deputy asked.
“Mary Alice wasn’t all that crazy about two-wheelers. She didn’t like to ride on the back and not be in control like with her horses, but she went along on some days.”
“So why did you give it up?”
“One day my buddy and I got a wild hair to ride to Dallas one weekend to watch the Cowboys play football. He had a Honda, also a 750cc. Well, we got lost of course and found ourselves closer to Ft. Worth than Irving where the stadium was. I remember we had just looked at a map and figured out where we thought we were. I took the lead and was barreling though this tight turn to get on a ramp and hit the expressway hoping to be there before kickoff when I hit something slick, a spill of some sort. Later on, I figured out it was probably diesel fuel from some truck that had just filled up. Anyway, as I was leaned over and was goosing that bike through the turn, the back wheel broke loose. I remember hearing the motor rev high, screaming from lack of traction, and down I went. Only good side of it was that I slid and didn’t tumble, probably would have broke my fool neck if that had happened. I had a light jacket on, but I still lost a couple layers of my hide off one arm and a leg. My butt was sore for a week. After that, bike riding wasn’t as much fun anymore. Every time a curve in the road came along, I found myself thinking back to Texas, and getting tense. I guess I gave up motorcycles for the same reason I gave up bull riding, seemed like there might be more sensible ways to have a good time.”
Billy Ray smiled in the darkness. Lester poured another dose of lukewarm coffee from the thermos and sipped on it for a while. Through the open door of the Pirate’s Den, they could see Earl, the owner, sitting and watching TV. There was little movement anywhere, but every so often they would hear the high pitched laugh of some female inside, feeling the drinks.
; “Tell me again why we’re sitting outside some beer joint in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday night. This place is as dead my social life.”
“Quit your bitchin,” Lester said. “You know you got nothin’ better to do.”
Billy Ray grunted something unintelligible. He squirmed in the seat, searching for a new position, trying to get comfortable. He raised one leg, bumped his foot on the console, and winced.
Lester caught it and asked, “One of these days, I’d like to hear about what happened with that foot. Since we’re not all that busy at the moment, this might be as good a time as any.”
Billy Ray said nothing, taking a sudden interest in the multitude of bright stars overhead.
“All right then, you don’t have to talk about it, whatever. Just thought it might help pass the time,” Lester said, never taking his eyes off the front door of the bar.
There were days when Billy Ray wished he had never given up smoking. This was one of them. Like a lot of the soldiers in Afghanistan, he had smoked like the proverbial chimney. Who the hell was worried about a little lung cancer back then? Most figured they’d never live long enough to see it anyway. God, how he loved those coffin nails at the end of a day of dodging Taliban bullets. Back home it was Jana, always health conscious, who had put her foot down. She hated the stink of cigarettes, the smell on his clothes and breath. “Me or the smokes” she said, “take your pick.” Tough as it was, he’d kicked the habit in a week, never to light up again. Well, except for a cigar with Jason Woods every now and then. Jason Woods, the thought of that name never failed to flood his mind with memories of the day that never left him. Kicking cigarettes was easy compared to forgetting the day he almost died. And now Lester wants to hear about it. Aw hell, why not? Billy Ray took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“It happened in Afghanistan, I think I told you that much.”
Lester nodded but said nothing.
“I’d been sent up to the Korengal Valley, a place in the foothills of the Hindu Kush mountains, and notorious for the number of fire-fights. I still remember my first look at the place. I was high above the country in a helicopter and thinking Holy crap, I might die here. It was all straight up and down with villages built right into the sides of the mountains and a million places to hide. I was scared shitless before we ever sat down.
I didn’t know Jason Woods before that. He saw how round-eyed nervous I was, and when the first mortars started coming in, he took me under his wing like a mother hen. Later, I found out he was scared too. Hell everybody was scared, but after a while, scared was normal. You just dealt with it and went on. Jason was from Texas. When he discovered I was from Oklahoma, we soon figured out that we had some things in common. For one, we had both fished for stripers on Texoma, you probably know of it, that big lake that sits on the Texas and Oklahoma line?”
“I do.”
“As it turned out, we had even used the same guide. We both loved college football. Jason had his Longhorns from the University of Texas. I was a Sooner fan of course, and had been since diapers. We had a lot of long but friendly arguments over which team was the best and who would win the next matchup.
Jason was on his second tour over there and knew a thing or two on how to stay alive, but even he admitted that the Korengal was a hairy son of a bitch. Our outpost was positioned where the Hagi’s, that’s what we called ‘em, could see us and we could see their territory and the line where we didn’t go beyond. On any patrol, it was pretty much a given that it wasn’t going to go unnoticed unless you went out at night and even then, the barking dogs usually gave away your position. During the day, and almost every day, they would lob mortar fire in on us hoping to get lucky and drop a round in the middle of the outpost. It was almost impossible to stop it. They knew, almost to the minute, how long they could shell us before we could call in air support and lay some fire down on their bony asses with an A10 Warthog. That would end the excitement for the time being but they were always back, usually the next day, at a new spot, ready to try again.
One hotter than hell day, we got some intel that the Taliban had been seen on the outskirts of a village about three klicks away. Most likely looking for recruits, or food, or maybe just to intimidate the crap out of everybody living there and eventually take over the village. We sure as hell didn’t want the Haji’s to get a stronghold that close to us so we needed to check it out. It was decided that we would leave the outpost at night, use our night vision gear, and be in place at the perimeter of the village before sunup. I remember I had trouble sleeping that night, thinking about what was coming up, but I guess I dozed off because somebody shook me awake around 4 a.m. We formed up and took off down the mountainside. Jason Woods was in the scout position and I was close to the rear. Jason carried the M249 SAW machine gun or Squad Automatic Weapon as it was officially known, a real badass weapon, but Jason thought of himself as a badass and I guess he was, still is in some respects. The SAW was awesome, fired somewhere around 900 rounds per minute and had the capability of changing barrels when one became too hot to use. You can do some serious damage with a SAW. Problem was the amount of ammo you needed if you got in a prolonged fight. All those rounds were damn heavy and carrying a load like that in those mountains took everything you had and then some. If you asked Jason if that gun was too much for him, he’d just give you that silly grin of his that the ladies like so well, and keep on truckin’.
Anyway, we got to the village just before dawn like we’d planned, and everyone found a place to hide…if they could. That type of terrain, you’d be lucky to find a little ditch to crawl into. Mostly, you used a rock or a bush and tried to make yourself small. We watched the movement as the settlement came to life, women fetching water, kids coming out to play, that sort of thing. We didn’t see anything overly suspicious and we eventually walked in. We’d been there several times, on good terms with the elders, and the general population seemed to accept our presence with very little open hostility. Oh, there were few of the younger ones that glowered at us but that was to be expected. In their eyes we were the invaders and there was no denying that. But the older guys knew what the Taliban were about, their extremist views, and wanted no part of their way of life in their village. The lieutenant and our interpreter had a chat with a couple of the elders but, as expected, we got nothin’ of interest. They claimed they hadn’t seen any Taliban for weeks but that didn’t mean much. The knew what’d happen if they gave away any Taliban information. They had been warned that there would be serious retaliation for aiding the infidels. Couldn’t really blame them much, lying to save their own skin like they did.
While we were waiting around, this cute little girl stepped out of her house to check me out. She was probably 6 or 7 years old. She was wearing a dress with brown and purple squares on it, no shoes, but had a smile that could melt your heart. I remember wishing I had brought some candy or food of some kind, but all I had was my canteen full of water. It really made me sad that I had nothing to give her. I’ll always remember that smile.
By the time word came around to head out, the temperature was already over a hundred, or at least it seemed like it, and we had a long walk ahead of us, all up hill and rocky as hell. We were moving along, slow but steady, watching and stopping to listen every so often. Don’t let anybody tell you different, the Taliban are smart in their own way. A lot of them are well trained. They know how to fight, and they can scramble over and around that terrain like a bunch of billy goats. It’s their land, their backyard, and they know what they’re doing, including how to set up an ambush.
You know, I can remember my dad watching some of those old cowboy and Indian movies where Roy Rogers or Gene Autry would be out west surrounded by all those towering red rock formations and one of them would say, ‘It’s quiet, too quiet.” Well, that’s exactly what I remember thinking before that first crack of a rifle and hearing a bullet whiz over my head. What a moment before had been the peaceful sound of silence, was now an eardrum bu
stin’ continuous explosion of weaponry. So loud, so deafening. I think the noise, maybe even more than the fear of catching a round, was so god awful scary, so disorienting that you had trouble getting your shit back together and remembering what you were supposed to do.
Luckily, we were in a field of boulders, sort of like Gene and Roy in Monument Valley, and had some pretty good cover. I flopped behind a good sized hunk of rock, hoping it was between me and the Haji’s, and tried to figure out where the fire was coming from. It was my first fight but from what the guys told me later, it was the most intense attack they’d seen. Bullets rained down us, kicking up dirt, hitting trees, banging off the rocks. Most of the time we were firing blind, just throwing everything we had back in their general direction, anything to ease the terrible shelling we were under. I heard the Lieutenant yelling for some guys to slip off the road and try to flank them on the left. But every time any of us made a move, the shit would come flying in again. Twenty, maybe thirty minutes went by before two black guys, one from Detroit and the other L.A., managed to crawl off and disappear below the ridge we were pinned on. Pretty soon we heard their M4’s going off and that changed things. The fire we were taking let up and I was thinking that I just might live through this when just behind me, an enormous blast went off. I felt the concussion slam into me like a two by four and knew it must have been an RPG, that’s a rocket propelled grenade.”
“I know what an RPG is Billy Ray,” Lester said. “I do watch the news you know.”
“You want to hear this story or not?”
“Sorry, go ahead.”
“Anyway, for a moment, I thought it missed me. My ears were ringing and I could barely hear the firing around me but I didn’t feel any sharp pains. Then, my right foot began to feel sort of strange so I twisted around to take a look. The shrapnel and rock had blown part of my boot off and all I could see was blood and what looked like something that could be bones. I still didn’t feel anything and for one crazy minute, thought I could get up and run if I had to. That feeling didn’t last long. The pain hit me, a pain like I’d never felt in my life. Much, much worse than the shoulder I’d dislocated in high school football. This was the mother of all pains.
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