Military Romance Collection: Contemporary Soldier Alpha Male Romance (25 page)

8

As predicted, David was ready for the coyote hunt. Charlie was not. “Did anyone get the number of the truck that ran me over last night?” he asked.

Ada put a fried egg sandwich into her husband’s hands. “I’m pretty sure it was the whiskey truck.”

Charlie laughed, and then immediately regretted it. “Oh, my head!”

“Fresh air will do you good,” David said. “A little action’s the best way to get over the night before.”

Freddie looked dubious. “We’ve got this under control, boss, if you want to head back to bed for a little bit.”

Charlie shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Let’s saddle up.”

David elected to go to the top of the ridge line with Freddie and Matthew. “I didn’t know you know how to shoot,” he said to his brother as they started the long ride.

“I don’t,” Matthew said. He nodded toward Freddie. “I let him handle all the shooting. I just do what I’m told and chase the coyotes down the hill. It’s safer for everyone that way.”

“That’s remarkably good sense,” David said with a laugh. “Are you sure you weren’t in the infantry?”

“It’s too bad I wasn’t,” Matthew said. He was frustrated by his lack of firearms skills, and how that impacted the hunting party. “If I had been, at least I could be useful right now.”

“Be glad you weren’t,” David said. He shifted in his saddle, expertly giving the mare a nudge with his knees to guide her around some rocks.

“Where’d you learn to ride?” Freddie asked. “Both of your brothers are malisomo in the saddle.” He glanced toward Matthew. “No offense.”

“None taken!” Matthew said.

“Over there, horses can be your best friend,” David said. “They’re quieter than jeeps, and they can cover all kinds of terrain. Besides, people don’t notice them the same way they do a vehicle. You can get a lot closer to your target without attracting any attention.”

“Coyotes work the same way,” Freddie said. He had no expectation of finding the surviving trio at Lady Lou’s carcass; after yesterday’s events, the coyotes would likely move onto safer territory. But they went there first to be sure. The mare was pretty well worked over; one long strip of hide had been torn and dragged some distance over the rocks.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Freddie said, getting off his horse to examine the ground around the shred of hide. “They came back here after all. It must be slim pickings for them to chance that.”

“Can you track them?” David said, casting a dubious glance at the terrain. It was all loose gravel and grayish soil, very dry, with scant vegetation.

Freddie shook his head. “I can try, but the ground doesn’t get much better than this.” His eyes met David’s. “What I do know is if we go up on the other side of this ridge, we’re going to find a little bit of a streambed.”

“Is there water?” David asked.

“If there is, that’s where it’s going to be,” Freddie replied.

“All right, then.” David turned his horse up toward the top of the ridge, and was moving out even before Freddie was back in the saddle.

“Wait,” Matthew said. He gave his horse a good nudge, urging her to greater speeds than she was used to Matthew asking of her. “What’s the plan? If we find the coyotes, we’re going to chase them up over the ridge and then back down toward Sean and Charlie?”

“If we find the coyotes,” David called back, “we’re going to kill them.”

Matthew looked at Freddie. The ranch hand shrugged.

David had changed over the course of the hunt. As they went up the mountainside, Matthew saw his brother’s face alter. His normally expressive face grew still; he stopped talking entirely, communicating with hand signals that Freddie seemed to understand instantly. His blue eyes never stopped moving. He looked this way and that across the countryside, scouring the hillside, peering into every valley, staring at the spaces between the short, scrubby trees as if he expected to find an entire lost regiment of Taliban waiting there.

Freddie stayed close to David, behind and to the left. Matthew kept to the right, a little further back. He couldn’t ride as well as either of the other two, but that wasn’t his primary motivation. He has a feeling that his brother was suddenly going to change course, and he didn’t want to find himself in the way.

They rode for the better part of two hours. The sun was starting to rise in earnest and it was starting to get hot. Matthew fished his sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on; he didn’t want a glare keeping him from seeing anything he needed to be aware of.

He saw Freddie sending a number of texts from the saddle; he wondered what they said. David was with them, but he kind of wasn’t; there was an energy in the air that left Matthew both excited and afraid. Hunting hadn’t been like this yesterday. Today, Matthew had a real sense that something was about to happen.

David dropped his hand, signaling that Freddie and Matthew should stop. Then he extended one index finger, traced a circle and some squiggles in the air, and looked over his shoulder at Freddie. Freddie nodded, which left Matthew happy that at least one of them knew what was going on.

Then David kicked his horse hard, disappearing down the trail in front of them. Matthew went to follow, only to have Freddie catch his arm.

“Hold up, man. He’s gonna herd them back up, and we’ll pin them down between us. Your job is not to get shot, you hear me?” Freddie’s brown eyes were shining with an intensity Matthew had never seen before. “Don’t be getting yourself killed on me, all right?”

Matthew nodded. “I’ll stay behind you.” He grinned. “So don’t shoot that way.”

“Brother,” Freddie said, “I’m not the one you have to worry about.” He spurred his horse and started down the hill after David.

Matthew stayed in place, holding his horse’s reins firmly when the mare went to join the parade. He wasn’t sure at all that he understood his brother’s plan. If David was going to be shooting up the hill at the coyotes, and Freddie was going to be shooting down the hill at the coyotes, didn’t that mean that David and Freddie were going to be shooting at each other?  That didn’t seem like a good situation to be charging toward.

He pulled out his rifle, deciding that if any coyotes made it past both David and Freddie, he’d do his best to shoot them as they fled. Matthew positioned the mare so any shots he took would be pointing back down the trail they’d come up, distinctly away from both his brother and the ranch hand.  Then he waited.

Only a handful of moments went by before Matthew heard a hellacious noise, the likes of which had never entered his ears before. Coyotes were yowling and howling, sending up sharp snarls and growled threats punctuated with the occasional yips that signaled canine pain. He could hear his brother shouting, but couldn’t understand the words. Then there were a trio of shots, and the coyotes got even louder.

“Fuck this!” Matthew said. He yanked on the mare’s reins and tried to steer her down the path where David and Freddie had gone. She didn’t want to go. He kicked her sides. She still didn’t move. “Come on, I’ve got to help them,” Matthew cried, kicking the mare’s sides as hard as he’d ever kicked a horse in his life.

She responded by planting her front hooves and bucking him off over her head. Matthew flew through the air and landed flat on his back on the gravelly trail.  All of the air went out of his lungs in a giant whuff; he could hear a noise in his head like a ringing bell. When he touched his finger tips to his forehead, they came away red with blood.

“Oh, jesus,” he said, scrambling to his feet. Stones fell off of him as he stood. When he brushed his head, he found gravel stuck in the wet tangle of his hair. Patting tentatively, he found that he appeared to be mostly intact. The mare was watching his performance with  a confused expression on her face; apparently, she wasn’t sure what the next step was after one bucked one’s rider off.

“That’s enough of that,” Matthew said to her, grabbing the reins. He mounted her on the right side, knowing that was all wrong, and leaned forward to shout into the mare’s ear. “I said fucking go!” He kicked her sides again, and this time, she took off, running down the trail so quickly Matthew began to fear she was going to fall down the ridge.

They got to the bottom of the ridge far too late. There were two coyote corpses laid out on the ground. Freddie’s horse was standing with its reins trailing; David’s horse had its saddle all twisted around. It was bleeding heavily from the neck and flank.

Freddie was on his knees, facing away from Matthew. His shoulders were going up and down; it was clear he was sobbing.

“Freddie,” Matthew called. “What’s happened?”  He could see David’s legs splayed on the ground. He walked up next to the ranch hand to see that Freddie had his brother cradled gently in his arms. It was clear that David was dead. His neck was bent at a terrible angle; his jugular vein had been torn open.

Freddie looked up at him, tears running down both cheeks. “We are so fucked, man. We are so, so fucked.”

9

The sheriff was kind. “These bastard coyotes have been awful,” he said, tipping his hat toward Ada. “Begging your pardon, Ma’am.”

Ada didn’t even hear him. All of her attention and energy was focused on Saba, who had taken this turn of events very, very hard. “What do you mean, he’s dead?” she’d screamed at Freddie. Freddie was covered in David’s blood, soaked crimson from shoulder to waist, but that didn’t stop Saba from attacking him with her fists. She pounded her hands against his chest, each blow landing with a wet, thwacking sound. “He can’t be dead! Not my David!”

“Honey.” Ada peeled Saba away from Freddie. “Honey, you’ve got to stop. I need you to be strong. Hafez needs you to be strong. You’re scaring him.” It was true that the little baby boy, with the big brown eyes and curly hair, was terrified by his mother’s outburst. He was shaking, and had jammed one of his fat little fists into his mouth. He didn’t cry, though. Matthew was watching him closely. Hafez didn’t sob at all.

              Saba collapsed into Ada’s arms. “He should be scared! What are we going to do?” She looked around frantically. “We have no home. No family. This is not my country! Where are we going to go?”

              Matthew stepped up and laid his hand on Saba’s shoulder. “We will take care of you.”  Saba looked up at him with wide and shining eyes. “I will take care of you,” he repeated. “You and Hafez. I will take care of you both.”

              Charlie cleared his throat. Matthew looked over at him, and Charlie tipped his head to the side. Matthew followed him as he stepped away.

              “I’d be careful what you promise that little lady,” Charlie said. “You don’t know anything about her.”

              “I know David loved her,” Matthew said. “And I know I’m not going to leave her flounder on her own in her time of need.”

              “You weren’t ready to step up and have a normal life with a nice girl like Jenn, but you’ll take on this sand…”

              Matthew held up his hand. “I know you’re upset. We’re all upset. Don’t say anything you won’t want to have said later, all right?”

              There was another feminine wail. Both men turned to look at Saba. Her eyes were wide and she was staring at Ada.

              “The baby’s coming!” Ada cried. Her hands clutched over her stomach, and her face was suddenly pale. “Charlie! Charlie! I think the baby’s coming now!”

              The sheriff took one look at Ada and began barking into his radio. “I’m going to need a second bus at the Daniel’s ranch stat!”

              Charlie looked green. “We’re not ready. It can’t be time.” He looked at Matthew with his eyes wide. “We haven’t even finished painting the nursery yet.”

              “I told you it didn’t work that way,” Matthew said. He pushed his brother toward his wife. “Babies come when babies come!”

              Saba got to her feet and dried her eyes. She took baby Hafez into her arms and stepped back, smiling as she ushered Charlie toward Ada. “Your son is coming, Mr. Daniels. Now you will become a Baba.”

              Ada leaned against  the table and began to give orders. “Sean, there’s a black suitcase in my room next to the wardrobe. You need to go get that, it will come to the hospital with me. Freddie, get my phone. You need to call my Mom and tell her it’s time to get on a plane. Then you need to make sure you’re down there at the airport to pick her up.” She turned toward Saba. “Honey, I know this isn’t a good time for you. But there’s casseroles in the freezer, enough for a week. Make sure everyone eats dinner. You’re welcome to the guest room as long as you like and don’t worry about what my idiot husband says…” A contraction gripped Ada, and the entire room went silent as she grimaced through the pain. “What am I forgetting?”

              The sheriff stepped in. “You are having a baby,” he said, kindly. “You don’t need to be worrying about anything else right now.” The wails of the ambulance siren could be heard in the distance. “You and Mr. Daniels are going to take a little ride on that bus, and you’re going to have yourself a healthy little cowgirl or cowboy. That’s all you’re doing right now.”

              He nodded toward the other people assembled in the room. “We’ve got everything else under control, isn’t that right?”

              Everyone agreed with the sheriff, smiling broad smiles they kept plastered on their faces until Ada and Charlie went riding away in the ambulance. Then the sheriff took his leave, after letting Saba know that he’d be back the next day with more paperwork for her to fill out.

              “What a clusterfuck,” Freddie announced, after they were alone.

              “Did you even see what happened?” Saba asked him.

              Freddie eyed her warily, as if he was afraid she’d launch herself at him again. “He took off ahead of us down the trail,” the ranch hand said. “The plan was, I thought, for him to circle around the coyotes and come up behind them. He’d scare them toward me, and we’d take them out between us.”

              Saba pictured the scene. “That is a stupid plan. Either he shoots you or you shoot him.”

              Freddie nodded. “That’s why I had Matthew hang back. No sense all of us getting killed. I was banking on him being able to actually hit what he shot at, and as long as he was focused on the coyotes, I’d be all right.” He shook his head. “No offense, but your husband had a look in his eye that made me think he forgot we were after coyotes.”

              Saba nodded slowly. “This is a thing that happens. It is the war that does it.”

              “So he went down that trail, and I followed up. I could see him, but not great. He was flying. It’s a miracle that horse didn’t break all four legs, going down that grade like that,” Freddie said. “But where he should have pulled off and circled round the coyotes, he didn’t. He just rode straight into them.”

              “How many were there?” David asked. “Just the three from yesterday?”

              “No,” Freddie said. “There were at least six. Maybe more.” He shook his head. “It all happened so fast. Maybe he thought the coyotes would scatter. I don’t know. But they didn’t. He came tearing into them like that, and they turned on him.”

              Matthew remembered the way that Matthew’s horse was bleeding. “They tried to bring his mare down,” he said.

              “They almost succeeded,” Freddie said. “I saw her going up on her back legs trying to get away. She almost went over backwards. That’s when David came off of her back.”

              “David is excellent horse back rider,” Saba protested.

              “He was,” Freddie agreed. “But I don’t know many men who could stay on the back of a horse in that situation. Coyotes all around, life or death – I wouldn’t have been able to stay on her either.”

              “So my husband is on the ground, and the coyotes are on him,” Saba said, her voice quavering.

              “It was quick,” Freddie said. “Quicker than I knew was possible.” He shook his head, and let out a sob. “I swear to you I shot at those sons of bitches as fast as I could. But it wasn’t enough…it was already too late.”

              “Better fast than slow,” Saba said. She let out a sigh. “Better not to suffer. But it is hard.” She turned wide eyes toward Matthew. “We will have to let your parents know what has happened to their son.”

              “They already know,” Matthew said.

              Saba looked confused.

              “Our parents died many years ago,” Matthew explained. “It was a car accident. David was still very young when it happened.”

              “Oh!” Saba said. She held her hand up over her mouth. “David never told me he was an orphan.”

              “You two didn’t have much of a chance to get to know each other truly,” Matthew said. “I am sorry.”

              “I’m sorry, too, ma’am.” Freddie looked at Saba. “I shouldn’t have let him go on ahead. He didn’t know what he was getting into.”

              Saba smiled, kindly. “Mr. Freddie. My husband had spent six years fighting the Taliban. Do you really think you could have stopped him from leading the charge on some coyotes?” She shook her head. “I do not think that is something you could do.” She laid her hand on Freddie’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. “I do not think that was something anyone could do.”

              Freddie relaxed, visibly. “Thank you, ma’am.” He took a deep breath. “I just hope the boss man sees things the same way you do.”

              “Go take a shower,” Saba said. “Sleep. My brother will have his hands  and head full with the arrival of his son. Let tomorrow take care of itself. Today is done.”

              Freddie bowed his head once and left. Saba and Matthew were alone together, with baby Hafez.

              “That was kind of you,” Matthew said. “I know Freddie feels very responsible for what happened.”

              “No man makes our fate,” Saba said. “Only God does this.” She smiled sadly. “I told your brother this many times.”

              “I meant what I said, Saba,” Matthew said, “when I said I would take care of you. Of you and your son.”

              “At home, when a woman is widowed, her husband’s brother marries her,” Saba said. “I told David this. Assim had two brothers, one older, one younger.”

              “And neither one would marry you?” Matthew asked.

              “Hassan, the oldest, would have been more than happy to,” Saba shuddered. “Talit, his younger brother, would not have been so bad, but he was injured severely in the attack. Who knows now if he is still alive?”

              “Did you want to go back and find out?” Matthew asked. His mind was whirling. He had no idea how someone would go about making a voyage to Afghanistan, much less how much such a journey would cost. “Because if that’s what you want, we will make it happen.”

              Saba shook her head. “No. He could never accept me as a wife, now that I’ve been married to an American. If he was alive, becoming my husband would be the end of that. The Taliban would take his head.”

              “So what do you want to do?” Matthew asked.

              “I can not stay in Texas.” Saba crossed her arms over her chest and looked up toward the ridgeline where David had met his fate. “To spend every day knowing that there is where it all ended? It would tear me apart.”

              “It’s a big country,” Matthew said. “We can live anywhere you’d like.”

              “But this is your home,” Saba said. “Would you really leave it to start a life with me?”

              “This is my home because I needed a place to go for a time,” Matthew said. “Saba, there’s something I need to tell you. Before you decide if you will let me in your life, you need to know who I am.” He took a deep breath and let the story spill out. He told Saba everything: the intoxicating thrill of betting on MMA fights; the way his wife’s money slipped through his fingers like water; the desperate plans to replace the missing funds with embezzled money from his workplace; the shame of being caught, convicted, and incarcerated. He even confessed how he’d naively shared Charlie’s address with Big Jesus, and the nearly life-ending conflict that came in the wake of that mistake. His relationship with Jenn he told of, although not in great detail; he didn’t want Saba to have any misconceptions about what type of man he was. “So there you go. I am a deeply flawed man, who has nothing to offer you but my honest promise and best intentions. I will do my best to give you the type of life my brother would have wanted you to have. I will do everything I can to help you find whatever happiness this world has to offer.”

              Saba reached out and took Matthew’s hand. “And I will help you too.”