The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

  Their line of departure took them along the creek bed and out around the meadow. Climbing the half-mile up from the meadow, they crossed several shallow depressions, then came to the bottom of the hill Mitch had stood on. The slope to the top had the same incline as a set of stadium bleachers and stretched out for fifty yards.

  “We get to the top and onto the other side,” Rick told them. “It levels off. After that, it’s a couple miles over relatively flat ground. Just concentrate on staying together and don’t trip.”

  The admonition turned out to be prophetic. Following one another in a tight line up to the top of the slope, Rick led the way, with Mitch at the back and Tony immediately ahead of him. Everyone was about halfway up when it happened.

  Tony had worn a tennis shoe more suitable for the hardwood floor of a basketball court or a city sidewalk than for the grassy surface of a thirty-degree slope. He had slipped twice already, farther back, but had managed to catch himself and keep going without mishap. But the third time it happened, he tumbled all the way.

  As he followed along behind Mike, trying to keep up with the others, his left foot went out from under him and he pitched over backwards. Mitch, close behind, bringing up the rear, reflexively reached out to grab him while at the same time trying to get out of the way. The uncoordinated effort caused him to fall off to the side and down the slope, right along with Tony. Together, the two men rolled down the hill, with Tony landing on top.

  Mike heard the commotion and called out for the others to hold up.

  Heidi, almost at the top of the hill, turned and shined her flashlight down-slope. She saw Mitch and Tony at the bottom. Tony was rubbing his arm and shoulder, but had gotten up. Mitch was lying on his side, holding his ankle.

  “What happened?”

  “What do you think happened?” Mitch shouted up at her.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Am I up and around? No, I’m not okay. I think I may have sprained my ankle.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really!”

  “We’ll come down!”

  “That’d be great!”

  A few minutes later everyone had gathered around to assess the damage. Tony, whose fall had been absorbed by Mitch, appeared none the worse except for some smudge marks on his face and the loss of his stocking cap. His left shoulder and left arm had taken a minor hit; standing there with Mike at his side, he rubbed away the soreness.

  Mitch had not been so lucky. Sitting at the bottom of the hill, he had removed his hiking boot and was massaging his ankle.

  Heidi stood beside him, holding her flashlight. “What do you think? Is it broken?”

  Mitch wiggled his toes and turned his foot in small circles. “It’s painful, but it’s not broken.”

  Jody knelt down and felt the area above the ankle bone. “There’s definitely some swelling.” She looked up at Rick as though to ask what they should do.

  Rick knelt down and felt it.

  “Do you think you can walk it off?”

  “I can try, but I can’t guarantee it.”

  Ralph suggested they wait for a bit: “Give it some time to rest.”

  “Better to keep moving…keep the blood flow going…otherwise, it’ll tighten up on him.”

  “Yeah, that’s the best way to do it,” Peewee agreed. “Just hobble along…endorphins will kick in after a while, and the pain’ll clear up. You can ice it later tonight and tomorrow.”

  “Can somebody retrieve my flashlight for me, if you wouldn’t mind? I’m gonna sit here for a few minutes. This probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t done so much walking earlier. I probably set myself up for it, and I’m tired, anyway.”

  Ralph volunteered to get the flashlight: “I’ll go look for it.”

  “Thanks, Ralph. It’s probably about halfway up.”

  Ralph and Misty started up the slope.

  Rick said, “Well, listen, we gotta get going, anyway—we don’t wanna be too late about this. We need to just get there and do it.”

  Peewee agreed: “Yeah. Besides, the way it feels, it could start snowing.”

  “Wouldn’t that be to our advantage, Peewee? For sure, nobody would follow us in the snow.”

  “Who’s gonna follow us, Heidi? It’s gonna be over and done with before anybody even knows what’s happening. By the time they figure it out, we’ll be long gone. I mean, it’s not like the guy sleeps outside with his cows, to keep vigil. He‘s probably gonna be fast asleep in a nice warm bed. He might not even know until tomorrow, when he goes out to feed the cows, that he’s got some dead cattle on his hands.”

  “Peewee’s right. Let’s not waste any more time. Can you sit here awhile and then catch up with us, Mitch?”

  “I suppose.”

  Ralph and Misty came back. Ralph had the flashlight.

  “Here ya go,” he said.

  Mitch turned it on to see if it still worked.

  “I’ll sit here a few minutes,” he said. “I’ll catch up with you.”

  “When you get to the top, just go straight ahead. You can’t miss it,” Rick told him.

  “Are you going to be okay, Mitch?”

  “I’m not afraid to be alone in the dark, Heidi, if that’s what you mean.”

  Ralph reached into his coat pocket and took out two granola bars. He handed them both to Mitch.

  “Give yourself an energy boost,” he said. “I got more in my pack, back at the camp. I got a couple of ibuprofen tablets, too, if you want them.”

  Mitch stuck the two bars in his jacket pocket and popped the tablets in his mouth. Ralph gave him a swig of water from his canteen.

  “Thanks, Ralph. Anybody else wanna minister to a dying man’s needs? Last chance to do your good deed for the day. What about you, Tony? I wouldn’t be here except for you. How about turning your candy hoard over to me?”

  The others laughed.

  “You don’t sound that injured to me,” Jody kidded him.

  “Gallows humor and injuries go together, Jody. Didn’t you know that? That’s the way it’s done in the movies—the casualty is left alone to die but not before his buddies try to make him as comfortable as possible. Meanwhile, he cracks jokes to keep up a brave front.”

  “We should be going,” Rick said. “We can tell jokes later.”

  “Yeah—take off—I’ll catch up.”

  With Rick and Peewee again leading the way, the others commenced filing up the slope. Deliberately hanging back, letting everyone else get a little ahead, Carlos took up the rear. Before moving out, in a low voice, he said, “You’re faking it, amigo. You don’t fool me.”

  Mitch looked up at him. “We’re all faking it, Carlos. Didn’t you know that?”

  Carlos was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Yeah…well…you take care, hombre.”

  “Take care yourself, amigo.”

  Without saying anything more, Carlos nodded and moved off to join the others.

  In the darkness, alone now, Mitch took out one of the granola bars and, removing the wrapper, bit into it.

  50

  Agent Hammerstein got up from the dining room table and went into the living room. He and the other agents had just finished a late supper of flapjacks, eggs, ham, fried potatoes, and bacon, and he wanted to call his wife before the operation began.

  “You don’t mind if I use your phone, do you, Art?” he had asked. “The cell’s dead out here.”

  “You be my guest, Bill. You know where it is. Anyone else wanna make a call, you’re more than welcome.”

  Agent Hammerstein spoke on the phone for several minutes. The others could hear him speaking softly to his wife, explaining that the operation, while top secret, entailed little if any danger. “It’s pretty routine,” they heard him say. “We’re gonna round up some real bad-dies and turn ’em over to Uncle Sam. They’re as good as bagged and tagged already…”

  Coming back into the dining room, he looked at his watch.

  “What do you think—too ear
ly?”

  “Depends on whether your guys can deliver as promised,” one agent replied, while another nodded in the affirmative. “It’s pretty dark and, for all we know, they might be going in circles.”

  “Our boys are on the ball,” Agent McCullers said. “They checked out the terrain pretty good on the way in and on the way back. A couple of ex-Marines with Ranger training, they aren’t very apt to get turned around. They got our complete confidence. Besides, Art left a couple of overhead lights on for ’em out by the corrals, right, Art?”

  “Just the thought of those people out there stumbling around in the dark, suffering primitive fears of being lost in the wilderness, would haunt me for a long time,” Art replied, a twinkle in his eyes, and the others chuckled.

  “Well, you’ll sure have a story to tell your grand-kids, Art,” one of the agents said. “But, yeah, it probably wouldn’t hurt to get into position right about now.”

  Storm clouds on the horizon, with a mounting breeze rattling the ship’s rigging and sailors scurrying about, battening down the hatches and securing the sails, could not have commanded more preparation. The agents had brought almost as much equipment as soldiers going into a battle. In addition to high-powered rifles, with eight-power Unertl infrared scopes, they had brought Kevlar vests, combat boots, walkie-talkies, extra clips of ammunition, ballistic helmets, suspenders and pistol belts, USMC combat knives, and enough black makeup to supply a traveling minstrel show. They wore black cargo pants, black sweaters, and black hooded jackets with soft fleece lining. And each man had a pair of marksman gloves made of the finest cabretta leather.

  After a burst of activity, everyone had donned his gear and, with blackened faces, stood ready to go.

  “You boys’ll be wantin’ hot coffee out there, something to burn off the chill, won’t ya?”

  “That’d be nice, Art.”

  “Well, gimme those thermos jugs you brought with you, and I’ll see that you get fixed up.”

  A short while later, fortified by a full meal and in possession of fresh coffee, the agents trundled through the kitchen and out into the backyard. As they opened the door and exited the house, a slash of yellow light spilled onto the pebbled walkway. Fifty yards off, two bulbs hung from wooden light poles next to the cattle pen, bathing it in a pool of feeble light that, from a distance, had the effect of subdued stage lighting in a darkened theater.

  During the briefing earlier that day, after the area itself had been walked over, a couple of possibilities had been tossed back and forth. The newcomers had all opted for a rear assault to minimize the possibility of retaliatory fire. They postulated that a barrage of well-directed shots, combined with the element of surprise, would reduce a hostile response to the probability of near zero, if not less. By their reckoning, it would all happen too fast for anyone in the group to realize, or even understand, what was going on around them. The resulting confusion from a sudden hail of bullets would effectively preempt whatever resistance they might otherwise try to offer. The whole affair would be over as quickly as it started, with no injuries to any of the agents. Any casualties that might occur would be limited to the perpetrators.

  The other possibility involved a triangulated field of fire. Four of the agents, split into two-man teams, would cover the flanks; the third team would come in from behind. Getting hit from three sides at once would create even greater pandemonium. With the ensuing panic, none of the group could recover fast enough even to think about returning fire. The game would be up within a minute or two of the onset. The only exception might be Rick and his sidekick. They were the only question marks. Both men had seen combat and no doubt retained a certain ability to act under pressure. If either one of them decided to “go cowboy,” all bets were off. Whichever one went first, the other would follow, and the result would unleash a firefight. The only way to counteract such an eventuality would be to neutralize everyone at the outset.

  “‘Neutralize’—that’s an interesting word,” one of the newcomers had said. “Does that mean we shoot first and ask questions later? Or do we just try to get them to surrender?”

  “Use your best judgment on that,” Agent Hammerstein said. “Just keep in mind, they’re armed and dangerous. And a fight to the finish isn’t out of the question. They might figure, being boxed in, they have nothing to lose. Remember the Symbionese Liberation Army back in the seventies—they wouldn’t allow themselves to be taken, and died almost to a man. This group may be no different. And, the bottom line is, why take a chance?”

  “Gotcha.”

  “Anyway, if we’re separated into three teams, we make ourselves a smaller target than if we’re all at the rear, in close proximity. Granted, it may be a factor of no consequence, but again, why take a chance. We want to take these people in, of course, but we wanna come out of it alive, too.”

  In the end, Agent Hammerstein convinced the others that dividing everyone into three teams and having each team cover a sector made the most sense. The group would be covered from three different angles and would have virtually no escape route. And here, emphasizing the phrase for Art’s sake, he reminded them that spreading themselves out would give them greater control over the situation and thereby lessen the possibility of a “questionable incident.” All in all, they could count on a safe outcome.

  “But if you’re using silencers,” Art wanted to know, “how they gonna know you’re there? Don’t you hafta fire a few shots first, to get their attention?”

  “Good point, Art. I’m glad you asked,” Bill said. “But the silencers are only there to give us an advantage if things don’t go well, if they decide to put up a fight. I personally don’t think they will. I’m with Rick and Peewee on that, but you just never know.”

  The explanation seemed a tad dubious, but Art nodded that he understood.

  “Well, you boys know what you’re doing, I guess,” he said. “Strategy is your department.”

  The walk-over earlier had enabled the agents to orient themselves to the local topography, making the use of flashlights to get from the house to their posts unnecessary. It had been decided, in any case, that flashlights might attract the attention of someone in the group. According to the timetable they had worked out with Rick and Peewee, the agents would leave the house forty-five minutes ahead of the group’s arrival at the elevated spot a hundred yards from the cattle pens. This would give the agents plenty of time to position themselves in advance and lie in wait.

  The first team had selected a spot a hundred yards east of where the group would take up its position. It was behind a wooden water trough and a hand pump, and its field of vision was in lateral alignment with the ridge the group would use as a vantage point overlooking the cattle pen beside the barn. Anyone choosing to occupy the eastern side of the ridge would be the target of choice for the two agents covering that sector.

  The second team had a view of the same grassy ridge, but it was northwest of the first team, at a distance roughly a hundred yards from the backside of the ridge. It had a slightly elevated position, giving the two agents an overlapping field of fire and enabling them to zero in on both the middle and western sectors of the ridge. Their potential targets would be anyone within those two sectors.

  Agents Hammerstein and McCullers completed the formation of the triangle. Their situation approximated the spot Mitch had used earlier to make his observations, except that the two agents were off to the side of the ridgeline at much less of an angle. They were about one hundred yards from where the members of the group would position themselves, but they also had a view of the cattle pen and the barn. They could easily see both the group and the cattle pen, and their field of fire could be in either direction.

  “Team one, what’s your status?” Agent Hammerstein whispered into one of the walkie-talkies he and the others were using to communicate.

  “We’re in place, Bill. All we need now is somethin’ to shoot at.”

  “That’ll happen soon enough. Just remember, keep it
friendly. We want to give them a chance to react.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Agent Hammerstein switched the set to the second team. “Team two, gimme a status.”

  “Team two, about a hundred out. Good view. Solid location.”

  “Good. Just remember, don’t get careless. It has to look right.”

  “I hear ya there, Bill. We cope on that.”

  “You’re first in line—lemme know when you see or hear somethin.’”

  “Will do. But hey, listen, did you order this snow as part of the operation?”

  “Snow?”

  “Yeah, snow…you know, that white stuff that floats down from the sky. I just saw my fifth flake, and there’s another one on its way—two more, in fact.”

  “The weather report did mention the likelihood, but not until later on tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, we’re gonna hafta tell ’em they were off by four or five hours.”

  Agent Hammerstein turned on his flashlight and cupped his hand over the end. He held it out at arm’s length and peered into the darkness.

  “I believe you’re right, Jack. Just saw a couple myself, with more on the way.”

  “Yeah, comin’ from the north…with the wind blowing. What do you think?”

  “We gotta get it done.”

  “What about the targets? Maybe they’ve changed their mind. Maybe they’ll decide to put it off.”

  “I don’t think so. They’ll probably figure they can do the deed and still get back before it gets heavy. But we don’t have a choice—we have to wait and see if they show.”

  “I’ll keep you posted.”

  Hammerstein put the walkie-talkie aside and looked at his watch.

  He turned to McCullers. “How about some of that coffee, Tom. We got a bit of a wait yet.”

  Tom poured coffee from a metal thermos into a plastic cup and handed the cup to his partner. He poured coffee for himself, and the two men drank in silence. The wind had picked up slightly, and a scattering of snowflakes flitted across their line of vision. Hammerstein looked at the luminous dials of his watch again and then off into the night.