A Soldier Finds His Way (13 page)

Hank’s scraggly beard bobbed as he spoke. “I followed him up to his room and slammed the door behind me. I shoved him and was going to knock him clear into tomorrow. I got right in his face and shouted, what’s the matter with you? Who do you think you are treating Mom like that? All she wanted to do was give you a hug.”

Riveted, Audra leaned closer. “What did he say?”

“He said, ‘Nobody ever really loves you. It’s all just for show.’ I saw in his face that he actually believed what he said. He’d given up. He’d been running on empty for so long that he didn’t think it was possible for anyone to love him. I began to understand how broken he was, and my anger disappeared.”

“Did he ever learn to accept her embraces?”

“Over the years he loosened up, but he never reciprocated, if that’s what you mean. Look, I don’t want to paint my brother as some nut case. He’s not. He puts up walls, but he’s not an impenetrable fortress.”

Audra absorbed Hank’s words. “Thanks for telling me all this.” She rose to leave but stopped short at the door and turned.

“Hank, do you think I have any chance of making it across the moat into his castle?”

Hank smiled and rubbed his beard one more time before giving a slow nod. “I think he would lower the drawbridge for you.”

Edward leaned back in his seat and tried to divert his thoughts from Audra. He switched his headset back to the common channel. “Hey, Greco, where’re we headed?”

“Nicaragua. First, we’ll return this bird to Stewart Airport.”

“What about the rest of the guys?”

“They’re already gearing up at Bragg. We’ll join up with them down there. They didn’t have this rotten weather to contend with.”

“What do you know about this mission?”

“From what I understand, we’ll investigate a weapons cache. Supposedly stolen US assets. I don’t have all the details yet, but that’s the gist of it.”

Pensive, Edward sat, elbows on knees, picking at his fingernails, staring at the floor. A few minutes ago, Audra had been next to him. The adjacent seat cushion still bore the indentation from her weight. He groaned and held his head low.

Jackson and Dexter stared at him with stupid grins.

“What are you looking at, and what’s so funny?”

They chuckled, and made no attempt to hide their amusement.

“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Dexter said.

“Nothing, huh? Then quit looking at me. Go on, mind your own business.”

Dexter and Jackson laughed even more.

“She was cute, LT. Real cute.” Dexter’s comment added fuel to Edward’s mounting anger.

“Shut up, Dexter. Say one more word and I’ll knock that stupid grin off your face.” He coiled his fingers into tight fists and poised himself for a lunge at Dexter.

“Lieutenant, stand down.” Greco stepped in to diffuse the situation.

Edward obeyed at once and sat back, cracking his knuckles before relaxing his hands. He continued to glare at the two, but he calmed down and recognized Greco had prevented an all-out brawl.

“And you two idiots,” Greco said to Jackson and Dexter, “shut your mouths and quit provoking him.”

* * * *

Monkeys howled and chattered in the unseen recesses of the Nicaraguan jungle. Cicadas whined in rising and falling volume.

“Backup? You’re kidding me. We don’t do backup. We aren’t a contingency unit.” Edward’s complaints were met by Greco’s shrug.

“Look, I don’t like it any more than you do,” Greco said, “but we got here late, so they got first dibs.”

Sweat drizzled down Edward’s temple. He wiped it and dried his hand on his pants. “Whose unit is here?”

“Lieutenant Harmon and his guys. They’re taking the lead. I’m going to be in the command center.”

“Harmon’s a good guy. But still.” Edward shook his head. “Backup.”

“It is what it is.” Greco shrugged.

“Yeah. I guess. Where can we stow our gear? Where will we be quartered?”

“You’re going to love this.” Greco snorted. “The locals prepared our luxury suites over there.”

Twin shacks stood at the edge of the tree line looking as if they could fall in at any moment. No windows or doors. Just holes with mosquito netting hanging over the openings.

Edward stepped into the nearest one-room shack. The team stood outside, milling around. “Hammocks. I see backaches in our future, boys.” Five hammocks stretched from wall to wall across the room in front of them, the first one only a few feet from the doorway.

Peanut tossed his duffel bag onto the first one. “I claim this one.”

Greco flipped the hammock and dumped Peanut’s bag onto the ground. “I don’t think so, kiddo.” He put his own duffel bag on it. “You see that one, way in the back of the room? You claim that one.”

Edward, Dexter, and Jackson snorted with laughter as Peanut complied and ducked under the ropes until he got to the back of the room. Being the lowest-ranking man in the unit, he had to put up with this sort of treatment.

Peanut laughed. “Hey, you can’t blame a guy for trying.”

Marcus stood in the doorway. “Guess I’ll take the rest of the guys and settle into the Hilton annex.” He turned to go.

“Hey, Rev.”

Marcus came inside and looked at Edward. “Yes?”

“What’s the holy book got to say about us living in a dump like this?”

A smile split Marcus’s face. “It says to be content wherever you are and to do all things without complaining.”

Edward dropped his bag onto his hammock. He should have known Marcus would come up with something positive.

* * * *

Edward shook Lieutenant Harmon’s hand. They stood outside the rickety buildings Edward’s team occupied.

“The people in this village are dirt poor,” Harmon said. “I’m talking seriously dirt poor. When we first got here, we were ticked off at the lousy living arrangements.” He pointed to similar shacks that housed his team. “But I’m done complaining.”

“Why’s that?”

“Did you know that several families vacated these buildings for us? That’s right. When they found out we were coming, they packed up their kids and meager belongings, and doubled up with other families. It kind of makes you think twice about griping, doesn’t it?”

The men cast wistful glances at the shanties. No one said a word. They didn’t have to. The looks on their faces said it all.

Edward stood silent as Marcus’s mini-sermon hit home. Always complaining, never content. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to break the cycle, it was that he didn’t know how.

“I think I’m going to turn in.” Harmon backed away from the men. “We’re starting out early tomorrow.”

* * * *

The locals smiled at Edward and the guys as they strolled through the small village. Children jumped and played around the men as they walked. A couple of the guys kicked a soccer ball through the rows of shanties, passing it back and forth as kids squealed with laughter.

By the time they got to the end of the village, night was falling. They about-faced and started back. Campfires dotted the lane ahead of them. Women busied themselves preparing evening meals, ducking in and out of the shacks, bringing supplies to the fires.

Sanchez and Alvarez stopped to converse with an old woman.

Her face lit up when she heard them speak Spanish.

The rest of the men continued on.

“Have you guys seen Jackson?” Edward stopped and turned full circle.

“He was with us a minute ago,” Dexter said. “Maybe he had to duck into the boonies to use the facilities.”

They turned a corner. Up ahead, Jackson squatted around a fire with several women who were cooking some sort of animal carcass on a spit. One of the women cut a slice of meat and offered it to Jackson, who took it and popped it into his mouth. Jackson rubbed his belly in a universal gesture of satisfaction, and the woman handed him a second slice.

“He’s going to pay for that,” Dexter said.

“Yup. He knows better than to eat local food out here in the jungle,” Edward agreed.

* * * *

Darkness reigned over the jungle as Edward lay in his hammock in the near pitch-blackness of the shack, lost in his thoughts. Loud snoring came from one of the guys, probably Peanut. It was the slow, evenly spaced snores of a man fully at rest, and he was a bit envious, as sleep was eluding him.

Pictures of Audra went through his mind as he struggled to sleep. It wasn’t only the thoughts of her that kept him lying awake, but also the heat. The drizzling rain did nothing to diminish the oven-like conditions, but added to humidity that made skin chafe and moods flair.

The hammock shook as Jackson tried to negotiate his way through the hammock ropes for the second time that night. Vomiting and diarrhea had started soon after eating the meat offered by the local woman.

Dexter, generally laid back, woke up enraged and flew out of his hammock in search of Jackson in the dark. His cursing and scuffling woke the others.

Flipped out of his hammock by the altercation, Edward fumed.

In the darkness, Edward grabbed someone by the neck in a chokehold. He didn’t care whom, but someone was going to pay for disturbing the peace tonight. When he heard Dexter grunting and cursing, he realized it was Jackson’s neck he was squeezing.

Greco sat up and shined a flashlight on the heap of men on the dirt floor. “What’s going on here? Lieutenant, let him go! That’s an order, son.”

Edward released Jackson and rolled off of him.

Dexter lay in a precarious position with a foot tangled in his hammock ropes, yet still held onto Jackson’s legs.

“Let him go, Dex!” Greco shouted.

Dexter complied.

Jackson ran and retched his guts up outside. Between heaves he yelled expletives at Dexter and Edward.

Greco was irate. “LT, help that moron untangle his foot. Both of you settle down. I’ll have a talk with Jackson about his dietary indiscretion when he stops barfing and swearing. Meanwhile, you two try to get some sleep. If you can’t do that, lie there and shut up so the rest of us can sleep. We’ll all move over and let Jackson sleep closest to the door where he can hock up his organs without disrupting the rest of us. Move it!”

* * * *

Daylight filtered through the mosquito netting and the men started to stir.

Edward picked up his boots and shook each one upside down. A field mouse fell to the dirt floor and scurried out the door. He grunted. “Nice.”

He stumbled out of the hovel wearing a sleep-deprived scowl. The rest of the men followed.

Jackson didn’t look good.

“Hey, Marcus,” Edward called.

Marcus came out of his shack. Edward pointed at Jackson. “See what you can do for him, would you?”

Marcus nodded, came out with his satchel of supplies, and took Jackson aside for a few minutes. He came back and reported to Edward. “Dehydration. He should be okay once he gets fluids in him.”

Greco’s promised conversation regarding Jackson’s eating habits came in the form of a short chewing-out. “Idiot. You know you can’t eat the local fare out here in the middle of nowhere. What were you thinking? From now on, you’ll eat only Army issued grub while we’re here.”

Jackson acknowledged with a “yes, sir,” and that ended the talk.

* * * *

The Alpha unit got their gear together and loaded it into a truck driven by a local man.

Edward shook hands with Lieutenant Harmon and wished him luck. “Watch yourselves up there. Check the ground before you sit. Bullet ants—make sure you remember that. If you get stung, you’ll know how they got their name. Take this.” Edward handed him a slingshot.

Harmon took it with a puzzled look on his face. “What’s this for?”

“Use it on the monkeys. You can’t shoot them, but you can deter them with that. They’re howlers, and they can give away your position in a heartbeat. Watch your stuff when they’re around. They nearly made off with my canteen once while my back was turned.”

Harmon thanked him and tucked the slingshot into his vest. The truck pulled away.

All Edward and his men could do now was watch and wait. They tried to ease their boredom by playing cards, pitching pennies, and telling jokes. Waiting was hard on his guys. Alpha males were used to action, not hanging around twiddling their thumbs.

Greco had remained at the communication center monitoring progress as information came in from Harmon’s team. By late evening, he joined Edward and the men around a small fire they’d built between the shacks.

“We heard from Harmon.” Greco nudged a stick deeper into the fire with the toe of his boot. “They arrived at their objective. Whatever the satellite gurus thought they saw turned out to be nothing of interest to the US military. We’re going home in the morning.”

Peanut scowled and planted his hands on his hips. “You mean to tell us our leave was cut short for nothing?”

“What do you want me to say? I follow orders, just like you do.”

Edward grumbled, displeased at the recent turn of events.

Marcus stood nearby with a goody-two-shoes smile, no doubt meant to diffuse Edward’s anger. “Look at it this way, Edward. If this mission hadn’t come up, those girls would still be stuck in the cabin. Instead, they’re home safe with their families. I’d say God had a plan and executed it with perfection.”

Audra smiled and set her coffee on the counter. “Looks like you made a friend, Dad.”

Cricket’s toenails clacked against the tiles as she crossed the kitchen floor. Sniffing the air with heavy whiffs, she followed her nose to the stove, and sat looking at Dad with pleading eyes as the smell of bacon wafted through the air.

Each time Dad looked down at the tail-wagging dog, she licked her chops with anticipation. He patted her head. “Don’t worry. You’ll get your share. And, I’ve got bone wrapped up and ready to go. This is a full service kitchen here, complete with takeout.”

One by one, family members made their way to the kitchen table, and serving dishes began circulating.

Hank entered the room. “Good morning, everyone. Man, it smells good in here. Freshly brewed coffee, bacon. Mm-mmm.”

Audra pulled out the vacant chair next to her and patted the seat.