Murder in the Palouse

by Frank Spellman

  Edsinger struggled against the intense wind and increasing surge of the boat as he moved up alongside Blackjack on the bridge. With one hand, he adjusted his olive drab battle helmet, and with the other he held on tightly to the handgrip in front of him. Edsinger looked down at the speed indicator: it was steady at 65 knots!

  They swung hard to the right and Tomahawk was bearing down the middle of the right fork when Blackjack focused in on three enemy junks bearing down on them fast from the left fork. The enemy junks were the last things Blackjack ever saw. An enemy round took the top half of his head off and propelled his body over the side. Before anyone else could react, a barrage of D-40 rockets were triggered at the boat, screaming through the hot air, striking the fiberglass hull, destroying the bridge and throwing men, weapons and glass fragments in all directions. Lynch was killed instantly. Edsinger was wounded severely in his left side, the concussion throwing him to the other side of the deck where he landed with a thud, falling, unconscious instantly.

  Meanwhile, down in the engine room, Patch had been standing before his gauge-board (his smile long gone) leaning against an angle-glass support when the surprise attack first started. The same barrage of rockets that had destroyed the bridge and killed most of the crew had also damaged the stern-section of the boat. Two of the D-40 rockets had come right through the left side of the molded-glass hull, miraculously missing the two diesels by inches and then going right on through the other side, leaving four grapefruit-sized holes in the bulkheads, two on either side.

  Presently, Patch was crouched down low in the left corner of the engine room, pressing his balled-up body as close to the spun-glass hull as he could. A feeling of panic began to come over him as an image flashed before his terror-filled eyes: He impaled on a sharp-tipped stake, while two of the enemy dismembered his still-living body.

  Tomahawk's engines were still running, but her drive train connections to the water-jets had been jarred and broken by the concussions. Patch braced himself tightly into the corner. He could feel the boat swinging wildly through the water; he waited for the crash that he knew was imminent. He didn't have to wait long. When the bridge crew had been killed and the bridge destroyed, the boat was no longer under control, causing it to swerve erratically. At first it swung wildly to the right and then to the left and then it ran sidewise up onto the jungle growth, coming to a violent stop, leaning over sharply to starboard. Patch was thrown violently from his corner to the opposite corner, bruising and cutting himself against the front-end of the engines. He wedged himself even more tightly into the corner, his heart racing like a runaway timer, his face frozen with fear. The engines were still running. Patch was scared shitless!

  Topside, the Tomahawk was without any semblance of ever having had a superstructure. One of the forward twin-fifties was gone. The experimental rocket launcher was still there, but it would always remain experimental, untested; it was twisted and gnarled like a weather-beaten tree. The two 20mm's were still there and each was manned by the only visible survivors: Two Gunner's Mates. Edsinger's twisted body was wedged under a pile of torn debris just forward of the rocket launcher. He was still unconscious.

  The two gunners sighted along their guns and then began firing wildly at the approaching junks.

  Down below, Patch could hear the 20's popping and shell casings dropping onto the deck above. The smell of burning cloth, wood and fiberglass was heavy. He guessed the forward sleeping compartment was burning. The engines were still running; he reached up and turned them off and immediately squeezed himself back into the corner, shaking like the leaves of a quaking aspen in a strong breeze.

  With the engine room quiet now, Patch could hear the continuous explosions and machine gun fire more clearly. He wondered how many of the crew were still alive. Couldn't be many, he guessed. Then, an explosion on his side of the boat tore a gaping hole in the aft corner of the engine room, sending shrapnel ricocheting off the diesels and just missing Patch. The port gun went silent. The starboard gun was still belching bullets, but then it also fell silent. Patch didn't move; he now was beyond being scared shitless … literally.

  After a few harrowing moments, he heard a faint sound above him on the other side of the boat. It sounded like someone dragging himself and his heavy boots down the port side toward the 20mm. Suddenly, a terrifying thought struck him. Maybe it's the enemy. Maybe they're rummaging through the deck, looking for me. With this realization, he jammed himself tighter into the corner, waiting, holding his breath, his heart hammering in his chest.

  Then the 20 started popping again, this time with increased intensity. Patch sighed in relief. Maybe we're winning, he thought ... maybe there's still hope. Then another thought passed through his rattled mind: I ought to go up there and lend a hand. It was only a brief thought, however, quickly replaced with over-powering fear as he balled himself up like a terrified hedgehog and waited.

  Glass splinters flew everywhere as a massive explosion went off just above the engine room. Then another ear shattering explosion literally lifted the roof off the engine compartment and shrapnel flew all around Patch. He got up, but then another explosion rocked the boat violently and something hard hit him in the middle of the stomach, knocking the wind out of him and pinning him against the boat’s jelly-like bulkhead.

  He opened his eyes. The first thing he saw was the smoke-filled sky above him. The pain in his stomach and back reminded him that he had been hit. His hands moved to his stomach. He could feel his own blood and guts. He looked down. His mouth fell open. His eyes went the size of silver dollars. His heart fluttered. Instead of his own blood and guts, there in his lap was Edsinger's head, his blood-covered face looking straight up at him. Edsinger's face wasn't smiling now. His steel blue eyes were open, filled with determination, looking right up at Patch. Patch was frozen with fear, appalled, shattered, terrified, and sick (later he would call this his double D syndrome for: Distressing and Disturbing).

  Yes, he was overwhelmed with fear.

  But not for long.

  Like an over-stretched rubber band or an over-compressed spring that is finally stretched or compressed to the breaking point, Patch's mind snapped. With a trail of blood and gore following it, Edsinger's head went flying out of the engine room to the right while Patch leaped up on top of the diesel to the left. Struggling to get topside, he groped for purchase on the thready remains of the cover lip, throwing one leg over it and pulling himself up and out onto the devastated deck.

  Thin wisps of white smoke drifted back toward him from the forward end of the boat. The air was heavy with the smell of cordite. The sun shone brightly on spent shell-casings, littering the blood-covered deck. He dropped to a low crouch and his crazed eyes surveyed the damage. He noticed immediately that everything forward was gone. The rocket launcher was badly twisted. With smoke engulfing him, he edged his way back to the stern of the boat, dragging three full cartridge-belt containers with him.

  He stopped next to the port 20mm, still crouched low. He looked out across the debris-filled water and could see that one of the junks was listing to port, burning. He watched as the enemy frantically heaved ammunition and rockets into the water from the burning junk. The other two junks were moving in toward the damaged vessel, apparently in an attempt to aid the burning junk.

  While the enemy assumed everyone aboard Tomahawk was dead, Patch stood up and began to load the 20mm, smiling to himself. The enemy's total lack of concern for the remains of Tomahawk gave Patch the edge he needed.

  He wasted little time. After inserting the first cartridge belt with its 128 rounds into the breach of the 20, he sighted in on the burning junk's superstructure. Then he waited a moment. When all three junks were close to each other, he opened up, sending the first hot rounds skipping across the water like flat rocks. But Patch wasn't stupid. Mad yes, stupid no. He understood the purpose of the white-hot tracers that spurted out after every fourth round, and he used them, sighting in on the frantic little men as they ran for c
over. He hit some sort of munitions aboard the burning junk; it blew up into a few million bits. He swiveled the gun to his right and sighted in on the second junk and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The gun was empty. Quickly, he crouched down and ripped the cover off the second cartridge box, keeping an eye on the other two junks as they turned toward him. Then he was hit -- twice, on the left side. He fell back, but quickly righted himself, ignoring the wounds. He finished loading the gun, impervious to the searing pain in his left side. He let go again with tracers streaking across the debris-filled water. The exchange of death and destruction was horrible, horrendous and escalating. Bullets flying everywhere, from both directions. He was hit again, this time in the right shoulder. The round went in through the front and right out the back. He flinched with the impact, but that was all. Insanity overrode the pain. The 20mm blazed away.

  He was already half through the second cartridge belt when the 20 jammed.

  Frantic with hate and determination, he left the impotent gun and ran forward, then across the deck, avoiding the gaping holes in the deck. As he started to turn aft toward the other 20mm, he slipped on spent shell-casings and fell to the deck hard, landing on a drab olive metal box, turning it over on its side and spilling hand grenades about the deck. The grenades went in all directions -- over the side, into gaping holes; some rolled aft, two were spinning like tops until they slapped against each other like castanets just in front of Patch's bleeding nose. He got up, picked up a couple of the grenades and kicked as many as he could with his feet toward the 20mm.

  Just as he reached the gun mount, he was hit again, above the right knee-cap. He fell to the spongy deck, hard. He didn't feel the pain, but his leg muscles failed for a moment to respond to his crazed brain signals. He rolled over on his side, seeing the junks were less than forty yards from him now. The gunfire coming at him was hot and heavy. The junks got closer. He reached behind him and grabbed two grenades and pulled the pins with his teeth. Then he threw them, one at a time, as far and as fast as he could. The junks got closer. Patch didn't wait for results. He reached behind him and grabbed, pulled and threw more grenades. Three of the eighteen grenades hit bullseye, blowing the closest junk out of the water, sending wood, metal, burning flesh and shattered bones skyward.

  He was out of grenades.

  The last junk was almost on top of him now. Even a madman has some sense of impending death; Patch was having his. But he still had a job to do. With an all-consuming passion driving his bullet-ridden, hemorrhaging body, he pulled himself up. Using the 20mm's swivel-mount as a support, he wobbled on rubbery legs. The 20mm was pointed skyward. Patch brought the barrel horizontal, not feeling the intense heat radiating from the gun's metal parts, burning his fingers to the bone.

  He let go with a barrage of rounds that were true and deadly. The gun barrel turned cherry-red as he was wounded again in his right side.

  He continued firing.

  Then a rocket just missed the bent jack staff, cutting a perfect basketball-size hole in the Stars and Stripes, tearing from its stays, throwing it over Patch's right shoulder. Out of the corner of his right eye, he saw the flag. For those who might think it impossible or improbable for a madman to become even madder, don't fucking believe it: The sight of the mutilated flag drove him stark, raving mad … and more determined.

  Perched upon the ultimate pinnacle of madness now, he stopped firing just long enough to grab the mutilated flag and put his head through the round hole, wearing the flag like a poncho. Then he continued firing. The junk was almost at point-blank range as Patch took a piece of shrapnel above his left eye, wedging itself into the bone of his skull. The blow knocked him off his feet and onto the deck; he almost blacked out. Almost. Forgetting the pain surging through his ravaged body, he started to get up again. While struggling, the enemy junk blew apart, sending a huge plume of water skyward and fragments across the deck of Tomahawk. One of the larger wood fragments hit Patch full-force across the chest, breaking six ribs and cracking others. He struggled to get up again, gasping for breath. And again. Again. Finally, somehow, he was on his feet again but this time he was firing the 50mm, firing into empty space. But he didn't know this. He didn't know anything or feel anything. His mind was completely gone. He was smiling the bloody smile of a man beyond madness.

  Preoccupied and totally berserk, Patch hadn't noticed the three American PBR's as they came up in front of him from the downriver side of the channel. The first boat eased up alongside and tied off to a sliver of Tomahawk's broken bow, landing three burly-looking crewmen who stood there gape-mouthed, staring at Patch. Patch was still at his gun, firing. But he wasn't firing rounds. No sir! The gun had emptied long ago.

  "BANG! BANG! BANG! YOU COMMUNIST ASSHOLES! COME AND GET IT, YOU FROG-FACED BASTARDS!" he yelled over and over again, and then letting go with a crazed laugh that was terrifying in itself.

  Needless to say, the three crewmen were bewildered. They had seen part of Patch's heroics just before the last junk had blown apart. But the sight of Patch banging away with the empty gun, draped in Old Glory which was now more red than white and blue and looking at the destruction around them and the debris-choked river, was more than they could readily comprehend; simply, they were dumbstruck.

  Finally, thankfully, mercifully, the CO of the first boat jumped aboard Tomahawk and walked up to Patch, signaling for the other three men to join him. The four of them tried with all their strength to pull Patch from the gun; he would not budge. He didn't even know they were there. He continued shooting the empty gun, shouting and laughing. Then the CO moved up in front of Patch and pulled Patch's fingers off the trigger assembly, breaking four of them in the process, and leaving chunks of cooked flesh attached to the metal. Now they were able to remove him from the gun and carry him back to their boat. They laid him out flat on an Army stretcher, wasting little time strapping him in tightly. But this proved unnecessary. Patch had finally passed out.

  Later, when he came to, he was strapped in a hospital bed. He remained on board Hospital Ship Repose for one week and then was medevac’d back to the States and taken to McCord Air Force Base Hospital in Tacoma, where he remained for six months.

  Coming out of his dayware he was shaking violently and the girls came out of their naps with a start and were shaken to the core with Patch acting so wildly, so out of control. But then he calmed, sat back and sighed.

  Mustang Sally asked, “Are you okay, Patch?”

  Brown Eyes echoed Mustang Sally.

  Patch answered, “I am fine just an old memory that sometimes gets the best of me … the best of me … if there is a best side of me.”

  Mustang Sally gave him a tight squeeze from her side and Brown Eyes did the same from her side.

  All was quiet and normal as JoAnn drove the SUV into the parking lot at Staircase Rapids.

  Normal for sure, Jose, Paco and Maria.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE EMPTY TOBACCO POUCH

  When Sue, Bessie Mae and Crockett arrived at the trailhead for the Palouse Falls Trail they were met by two men in uniform. One of the men was Sheriff’s Deputy Tell and the other Park Ranger Boldt. As usual when the three women were exiting the SUV and taking a few of their weapons from the back of the SUV they were getting the buzzard-eye from the two men—the truth be told both men had instant hardons that they tried to cover with their hands.

  Sue, an astute student of people and especially disgusting men thought it funny that the two men were doing their best to avoid being seen with erections protruding from their uniform pants. Fortunately for Tell and Boldt they were able to get themselves under control and with some effort just smiled at the three beauties walking toward them.

  At first meeting with the Curmudgeons the two men were all was pleasant and cordial and correct and descent and sort of stupid too. The Curmudgeon women understood the stupid in men part; they were used to asinine and fatuous men. Crockett always said she never met a man who was not foolish, silly, inane, sensel
ess and daft. Bessie Mae usually had the same opinion of men. Sue usually had no opinion about men at all because she said they were a waste of time and energy and she had nothing in common with any man.

  Any man?

  Well, hells bells and they were not shipping out on Patch; he is a different entity, for sure.

  For sure, Jose, Paco and Maria.

  Anyway, during their introductions Tell and Boldt took the stage and did all the talking; actually they were mansplaining.

  Mansplaining, what the fuck is that?

  Well, mansplaining in its simplest sense or essence means men talking down to women. Now, in its most compound sense or essence it means men explaining something to women in a manner regarded as patronizing or condescending or belittling or demeaning or men being full of themselves. (Does any of this sound familiar, Snowflakes?)

  Shit, we thought so, Jose, Paco and Maria.

  So, when they first met and introduced themselves Tell gave the women a long-winded line of bullshit about the dangers of the place, the dangers of rattlesnakes, the dangers of sun damage to them including sunstroke and so on and so forth … etc. … etc. … etc.

  Enough was enough.

  Sue said, “You know if I was a famous author or a bestselling novel you two jerks would not hesitate to instruct me, the author, on what the book is all about.”

  “Ditto,” said Crockett. “You know we are working for the FBI and while it is true that they are corrupt and attempted a coup on our present president, something most Washingtonians are in favor of and therefore we do not work for you … you are our guests and we not yours. My suggestion is that if you want to keep your gonads you better shut the fuck up … and don’t dare talk down to any of us!”

  Tell and Boldt were shocked almost out of their jockstraps. Never, ever, ever, ever had they been spoken to in the manner the two wenches talked to them but before they could respond; that is, if they had the gonads to respond, Bessie Mae took the stage, so to speak.