Enemy Combatant

by Ed Gaffney

  And choking.

  It was only going to get worse, so I threw my arm across my mouth and nose to protect my face from the heat. I was also hoping that it might provide some kind of filter for the smoke I was continuing to inhale, but I kept coughing. With every breath that I gasped, I felt like I was searing the inside of my chest.

  I surged forward in the direction of the living room, my lungs inflamed, my eyes slit open but of almost no use at all, my left arm across my face, and my right hand holding the ax. The temperature was so high it felt like my entire body was getting badly sunburned all at once, especially those parts of my skin that weren’t covered with clothing.

  As I staggered forward, I also realized that I was getting dizzy from lack of oxygen. Every inhale was a lungful of hot smoke, every exhale a scorching cough.

  I lost my balance, and fell forward onto my hands and knees. It was dumb luck that I didn’t tumble onto the flaming Oriental rug that was about three feet to my right on the floor. Even though this part of the wood floor had not yet been immolated, it was still plenty hot.

  Down on the ground I realized that the smoke was slightly less dense, and I thought I saw the wheel of Henley’s chair. Unfortunately, though, it didn’t seem to matter. All I was able to do was cough. I tried to crawl toward the chair, but my brain was so lacking in oxygen that the smallest increment of progress only led to more dizziness. I reached forward to grab the wheelchair and lost my balance so badly that I actually tipped over onto my side, my arm still extended pathetically.

  Just then, I was startled by the sensation of someone grabbing my outstretched hand and pulling. Pulling hard. Actually dragging me.

  And then whoever it was let go of my hand, and grabbed hold of my shirt, and pulled me even farther. And I was surprised to find my face in contact with something far less hot than the wood floor of the living room.

  My sizzled brain couldn’t make sense of it. I couldn’t have been dragged onto the tile floor of the bathroom. I hadn’t made it that far into the house. And I was heading away from the kitchen when I fell. There was no way I was on those tiles.

  And then I felt a wet, rubbery thing being pushed into my coughing mouth, and I felt something cool and sweet. Real air. No smoke.

  I couldn’t understand it. But I didn’t care. Between skull-racking coughs I gulped a breath of fresh air, and then another. And then the tube was withdrawn.

  I tried to hold my breath until the tube came back, and when it did, I greedily sucked in more oxygen. My brain was slowly coming back on line, and I squinted my eyes open just enough to see that I was lying partially on the hearth, next to Henley, who was alternating the life-giving tube of fresh air between us. I scrambled forward until I was lying directly beside him.

  How the hell was he doing this? Another breath, and the coughing subsided enough for me to take another quick look. He had fed a length of exercise tubing into the flue of the wood-burning stove, and out through the exhaust vent in the wall. We were breathing the outside air.

  Landry, or whoever the thugs were that had done this, must have thrown Henley off of his chair and onto the ground, lit the place on fire, and then left him to die. He’d had the presence of mind to drag himself over to the one place in the house that was designed not to be flammable: the enlarged hearth around the woodstove he loved so much.

  As we got into a rhythm, trading the air supply back and forth, my mental faculties returned to me fully, and I became acutely aware of how little time we had. The temperature was beyond dangerous, and the fire had done so much damage that now embers and small pieces of wood were falling down all around us. It was only a matter of time before the roof, ceiling, or floor collapsed.

  I took a long hit from the oxygen, passed the tube to Henley, and wheezed, “We’ve got to get out of here. I’m going to carry you.” I waited to inhale again until he passed the tube to me. As he held his breath, he grabbed my hand, and pulled it down toward his leg. I shifted my focus in that direction, and then I saw what Henley wanted me to see. Someone had handcuffed his ankle to his wheelchair.

  I nodded, passed the tube back to him, and said, “Stay still. I’ll take care of it.”

  I remained low, dragging myself along the hearth, pushing the ax in front of me, until I was close enough to get a good look. The way the restraint was used, the chain that linked the cuffs was resting on the floor. Perfect.

  I got up onto my knees, pulled the ax over my head, and brought it down, hard, on the chain, breaking it cleanly.

  Then I slithered back next to Henley, leaving the ax behind. I wouldn’t be able to hold on to it while I was carrying Henley. He gave me the tube, and I inhaled fully. Then I returned it to him and said, “Take a good long breath, and hold it.”

  He did, then I took one more. And then he hooked his left arm around my neck, and I slid my arms underneath his shoulder blades and his knees, and hoisted him up.

  At ground level, the smoke was almost bearable. Standing, it was so thick I was effectively blind. But I had a good breath of air filling my lungs, and my father was counting on me. I was going to get us out of here whatever it took.

  Which, in this instance, meant plunging forward into the blinding black smoke.

  Unfortunately, the fire had cut down my options. The front door and porch were engulfed in flame, as were the back door and deck. Henley’s condition and the design of the house made it far too dangerous for me to drop him out of a window, and I obviously had no time to try to fashion a harness of some kind and lower him to the ground.

  For a second, I thought about trying to get back outside the way I’d come in, but just then, a giant ceiling beam dropped down into the middle of the kitchen, cutting us off from that exit.

  I could only think of one more way out. With the last of my strength and breath I stumbled into the hallway toward the back of the house, and opened the doorway on the right. The one that led to the basement.

  I half expected to be greeted with a blast of hellish air, or even a curtain of fire, but it turned out that the blaze hadn’t had a chance to do as much damage to this part of the house yet. The air was much cooler than it was in the living room, and it was also relatively smoke-free. As quickly as I could, I lumbered down the stairs with Henley in my arms. The stairway was narrow, though, and part of the way down, I slipped, and lurched to the side, banging Henley’s paralyzed right arm and shoulder hard against the stone wall. He inhaled sharply.

  Among the difficult realities I had come to discover after my father’s hospitalization was that even if a stroke victim loses the ability to move certain parts of his body, those paralyzed limbs do not lose sensation. It’s like the worst of both worlds. You can’t move your arm, but it can still feel pain.

  Of course, that quick breath Henley took as we smashed into the rocks was the most he’d ever complain. But I knew right then that if we managed to get out of this mess, I’d find a nasty bruise when I had a chance to inspect that shoulder.

  When we finally made it to the bottom of the cellar steps, it became immediately clear that our situation was only temporarily improved. Already, the fire had burned through parts of the flooring above us, and glowing red embers were falling down around us. Smoke was beginning to poison the basement air.

  Then, as if in a bad dream, flames dove down through a hole above us that had been created by the fire, and raced along one of the beams supporting the living room floor. Then there was a crash above us—probably some part of the second floor coming down into the first floor. It would only be a very short time before the house collapsed on top of us.

  I ran over to the bulkhead, but I had to put Henley down for a minute to use both hands to unlock and push open the doors. The bright sunshine that poured through the opening into the basement seemed like it was coming from a different universe. But I didn’t have time to admire it. I had to get Henley and get out.

  I knelt down, and once again, Henley looped his good left arm around my neck. I slid one arm und
er his knees and the other around his back, and hoisted. I had just made it to the first step when another crash sounded from above, and then, a much bigger sound, a rumbling, crackling roar, came to my ears.

  As fast as I could I struggled up the steps with my most valuable cargo, emerging from the bulkhead just as I heard a tremendous crash behind me in the basement. The house was beginning to fall in on itself. I ran away from the structure toward my woodpile, hoping to reach the trees beyond for some shelter.

  The roaring continued, and I could have sworn that even though I was running away from the house, the temperature of the air on my neck and back was rising. Halfway to the woodpile I heard another huge crash, and finally, I lumbered past the chopped wood and into the thicket beyond, where I fell to my knees on some pine needles, and let my father down.

  I turned back just in time to see the final section of the roof smash down onto the second floor, with a gigantic shower of sparks and flames, and then the entire structure collapsed into its center, as if being sucked down into Hades itself.

  A wave of hot air passed over us, and then the air cooled slightly. We were well over one hundred feet away, partially blocked from the intense heat by the woodpile and some trees. I turned to Henley, who was pushing himself up to a sitting position with his good hand. As if anyone cared, he began wiping at a dirty smudge on his right sleeve where we’d crashed into the wall on the way down the basement stairs.

  I took a deep breath. My chest still burned, and I was still coughing, but I was going to be fine. I turned to the inferno that had been my home. Still no fire department, no sirens, no response at all. Even though Henley and I had survived, it was abundantly clear that we were in some considerable trouble here.

  I used my old cell phone to call Cliff, and make a plan.

  When I was done, I called Amy. I said simply, “It’s the end of the world.”

  Then I got Henley into the truck, and took off.

  TWENTY-THREE

  CACTUS CURT’S Steakhouse opened in 1977 as a tourist attraction, and over the next thirty years, evolved into one of the best restaurants for mesquite-grilled steak that I know, provided you respect the dress code.

  To my niece Erica, Cactus Curt’s was unsurpassed in every way. She gobbled up the food—steak, salad, and beans were the only things on the menu—but what she really loved was the ambiance.

  To enforce the casual atmosphere of the place, the patrons all sit at picnic tables. And everyone on the waitstaff is equipped with scissors, because any customer wearing a necktie has it unceremoniously snipped off under the knot and the severed portion literally stapled to the walls, already festooned with thousands of prior transgressors.

  And anyone ordering their steak well-done receives instead a boot on a plate when dinner is served.

  Each time I went with Erica and Amy, I wore a garish tie, pretending to forget the consequences. Erica positively quivered with anticipation as the inescapable confrontation with the waitress approached, and howled with glee when the offending cravat was chopped off.

  Then, I would order my steak well-done, solemnly explaining to my little niece that I had been told that the management had changed their policy, or that I had spoken to the maitre d’, or that I read in the newspaper that the restaurant no longer embarrassed their diners by serving them a boot on a plate.

  When I was inevitably proven wrong, my mock confusion and outrage simply heightened Erica’s delight. And for the rest of the night, the sight of my artificially shortened neckwear would start her giggling again.

  And all that took place after the Wild West show.

  We always timed our arrival so that we’d get a good spot along Main Street, Cowboy Town, a faux Old West movie set constructed between the parking area and the restaurant. Twice per night, at five-thirty and six forty-five, a desperate shoot-out takes place between brave Sheriff Goodheart and the Barton Gang, five gun-toting outlaws led by Mad Bill Barton, the notorious ax-murderer.

  And for twenty minutes or so, six stuntmen run up and down the street shooting at each other, in and out of the entrances to the saloon, the jail, and the general store, hiding behind hitching posts, dying dramatically in water troughs and haystacks, and generally making a lot of noise and kicking up a lot of dust.

  The finale is the big showdown between the sheriff and Mad Bill, on the third-floor balcony of the Golden Palace Hotel. Mad Bill, wielding a six-shooter, lies in wait behind a rocking chair. When Sheriff Goodheart emerges from the hotel onto the balcony, Mad Bill shoots him!

  The sheriff falls, but he isn’t dead yet, so Mad Bill aims again, but luckily for our hero, the bad guy is out of bullets. Not so luckily for our hero, as you will recall, Mad Bill is an ax-murderer, and his trusty and bloody weapon just happens to be right there under the rocking chair. He raises it above his head to finish the sheriff off, when, miraculously, the sheriff finds the strength to fire one last shot. Mad Bill’s homicidal career comes to an unforgettable end as he crashes through the balcony railing, and falls spectacularly into the wagon conveniently located directly below him.

  To Erica, this was entertainment of the highest order. It was so much fun for me to watch her during the show and at dinner that I had asked Amy’s permission to bring her there every day of her life.

  Amy has gently reminded me that one of the reasons the experience is special is because it isn’t a daily event. I know that she’s right, of course. I just love seeing the joy in Erica’s eyes, and knowing that I had something to do with putting it there. So we only eat at Cactus Curt’s on evenings that Erica and I have designated as “Humongously Big Occasions.”

  That Friday night, of course, Henley and I were going to Cactus Curt’s Steakhouse for a much different reason than to enjoy the cowboy extravaganza.

  As we headed into the foothills surrounding Scottsdale, I filled my father in on everything that had happened, and the plans I’d made with Cliff. I was driving pretty aggressively, because I wanted to make the six forty-five show. That was the one that always had the bigger crowd. I hadn’t been followed, but I assumed that Landry and company would be able to track down my truck. I had to get another vehicle, quickly, and secretly.

  I pulled into the huge parking area, parking as close as I could to the throng standing on Main Street. We waited for the show to end, and as the crowd poured into the parking area, I called Cliff, and let him know where we were. Then I got Henley out of the car, and carried him into the middle of the mob.

  Despite the streams of people swirling all around us, Cliff found us in less than one minute. He looked at me carefully, and said, “You really okay? You look a little like garbage.”

  “That’s funny. I feel great.”

  He nodded, and said quickly, “Three rows back on the left, five cars in.” Then he handed Henley a manila envelope, said, “Call me when you get there,” and then walked past us.

  I waited about ten seconds, then turned around and, shielded by the mass of people still buzzing about the shoot-out they’d just seen, walked back three rows, and found the fifth car on the left, and smiled.

  Cliff had gotten me a yellow Volkswagen beetle. A turbo.

  I put Henley into the passenger seat, and headed to our next destination—my home at the southwestern edge of the San Luis Navajo Indian Reservation.

  Not that I’d ever lived there. In fact, the last time I’d even laid eyes on the place was about four years ago, some months after Henley had his stroke.

  I’d gotten the house as a result of an unusual case I’d worked on, thanks to Cliff, and won, thanks to the arrogance or incompetence of Governor Hamilton.

  The story went like this. Cliff’s cousin, Miles, was a car mechanic, and usually a law-abiding, responsible employee. But he was also an alcoholic, and one night he fell off the wagon with considerable gusto, managing to hot-wire and drive around a succession of cars for no reason he can remember. The end result was serious property damage to a pickup truck and four automobiles, including t
he last one Miles stole—a yellow Volkswagen beetle turbo—which ended up lodged in the bushes directly in front of the Copper City Police Station. Miraculously, no one was physically injured except Miles, who was found passed out in the driver’s seat, with two broken ribs.

  Once incarcerated for his night of multiple felonies, Miles became a model prisoner, and soon began employment in what the Arizona Correctional System called “The Industries.” These were jobs, like making license plates, that were designed to provide inmates with the opportunity to make a small amount of money so that when they were ultimately released from prison, they would have some savings. They were only paid one dollar per hour when Miles started, but the state legislature voted a twenty-five-cents-per-hour raise during Miles’s second year in jail.

  Coincidentally, that was the first year that Atlee Hamilton took over as governor. The law had been signed by his predecessor mere days before he left office, and was to take effect four months later.

  It isn’t exactly clear whether Hamilton did it intentionally or through an oversight, but four months after the law was signed, he did not take the steps necessary to give the inmates the raise.

  Fast-forward six more months. Miles, who had been looking forward to the additional money, had written several futile letters requesting his pay increase. He finally called Cliff, to ask if there was something he could do about it. Cliff contacted the prison authorities, who informed him that due to budgetary restrictions, the raise had been put on indefinite hold. Cliff came to me, and convinced me to help him bring a class-action suit to recover the lost wages.

  Interestingly, the state agreed that since there were no facts in dispute, there was no need for a trial. The case was to be decided by a judge on cross motions for summary judgment. And a year and a half after the raise was supposed to happen, Superior Court Judge Wilma Tuggert awarded damages to the class of plaintiffs in the amount of $765,000.