An American Outlaw (19 page)

“What?”

“Do you mind if we take a seat?”

The man in the wheelchair looks at them blankly.

Zemetti gestures Whicher to a suite of soft chairs by a couch at the back of the room.

“Captain Black,” says Whicher, “I appreciate your seeing me. I'll try to make this brief. It's about two men from your former command.”

The man's eyes move behind his still face.

“Staff Sergeant Gilman James. And Sergeant Nathaniel Childress.”

“Childress? Childress was a medical discharge. James is still in.”

“No,” says Whicher. “James left, also. A few months back.”

The man in the wheelchair looks at the doctor.

Zemetti shrugs, lightly. “It must have been after you left.”

The captain looks from one man to the other. He pulls at the T-shirt, fingers and thumb pinching the letters in capital across the chest—U.S.M.C.

“Sir,” says Whicher, “I'm investigating an armed robbery the last couple days—and it seems like there could be some connection with these two men.”

“My men?”

“There's evidence to support that.”

“You'd have to talk to the CO.”

“Excuse me?” Whicher looks at Zemetti.

“If you're thinking of putting them on a charge.”

“It's alright,” Zemetti says. “Marshal Whicher only wants to ask some things about them.”

“Oh.” Captain Black stares into the middle distance.

“Sergeant Childress left the Corps a while back?”

“Yes.”

“Can you tell me anything about that? He was injured in the fighting. Is that right?” Whicher sits forward in the soft seat. 

The captain sits with his mouth partly open, head completely still—sucked back inside himself. 

Outside, through the picture window, trees move soundlessly, indifferent. 

“They had it in writing,” he says.

Whicher inclines his head.

“Under '
Logistic Support
'...”

“Sir, what was in writing?”

“The patrol warning order.”

Whicher looks at Zemetti.

“I think it's a sort of notice,” the doctor says. “Before they set out on a patrol.”

“Yeah. I know what it is.”

“No medical evacuation by helicopter,” says the captain. “No fire support, no air support. It was in writing.” 

His eyes move quickly behind the mask-like face. 

“Don't tell me they didn't know...”

Jackson Fork, TX.

A block-shed. Sitting with Tennille at the Jackson Fork cattle auction—looking down from a bank of raked seats. Another steer moves through the run, behind galvanized bars.

“How much longer?”

“They're almost through,” I says.

There's maybe twenty people in the shed. Most of 'em in Stetsons and John Deere caps. Rocking chairs, flicking on sheets of paper—tappin' a hat rim; making bids.

The last animals are coming in now. A sale by the head, not a batch.

A TV screen hangs from the ceiling, prices on it, running by like ticker-tape. Feeder steers, slaughter cows. Breakers, boners. Ain't sure what. There's an auctioneer at a microphone—singing, a language I can't get. 

Fans rotate the smell of beast and dirt in the air. 

“These are all ones and twos,” I said. “The little guys.”

It's fast. A gate opens, an animal runs in. It takes just a few seconds. 

It looks around, feet trampling the dirt. Bids. A sale. End gate opens, and they run it out. Another one comes in.

“Doesn't look like anybody's getting rich.”

“Not today,” I says. “Tomorrow's the big sale. Come on, let's head out. We don't have long.”

We climbed down the bare concrete steps. Headed outside, toward the holding pens. Through the dark sheds. A wall of smell. Churned up mud.

There's rigs and trailers everywhere. Hoses feeding water tanks, sluicing out the pens. 

“There's an office,” I says. “A trailer they use. Green trailer. Me and Michael clocked it; out back.”

The site's a sprawl. The middle of a bunch of flat fields. Like a fair, or a rodeo came in. Cars and light trucks one end. Rigs and trailers at another. The pens, the shed. Out on a flank, a couple of hundred yards off, past the last pens, there's a group of trailers.

In front of the green office trailer, there's an old Ford van. E-Series. Faded yellow. 

“That's it.”

“That's what they move the money in?”

Across the hard ground, there's nobody—the sale's still running, everybody busy. Alongside the E-Series, there's a Chevy Blazer. 

“Anybody asks,” I says, “we're looking for the john.”

The trailer's got a window running the length of one side. It's dark behind, no light. Piece of plastic from a grain sack taped across one corner. No faces looking out.

“Let me check the van. We couldn't get this close last time.”

“Watch it,” she says.

I glanced in through the van windshield.

“What're you looking for?”

“Extra security.”

Inside, the cab seemed normal. A couple of worn-looking seats. Regular steel bulkhead dividing off the rear. No armor. I tapped on the short hood.

Tennille says, “Let's not hang around.”

We turned away. Headed back to where the rest of the cars and trucks were parked.

We found the Dodge Dakota. Climbed in. Rolled the windows.

“We're about ten miles shy of San Angelo,” I says. “We need to hit the van the first three or four miles in.”

“You work this all out?”

“Me and Michael. We got to hit before they reach the highway. Only thing is this terrain—it's real open.”

“We can't go any closer in to town?”

I shook my head.

“You're sure of their route?”

“I want to check it's the same today.” 

I took a look at where the gate led out onto a farm road across the fields. 

“We used to hate these kind of roads. Flat out hate 'em.”

“We?”

“In the Corps. Out in Iraq.” 

I pushed the door of the Dakota all the way open—to let out some heat. A couple of flies banged around the inside of the windshield. Over and over, tangling, flying on back against the glass. 

“They'd blow the shit out of you, places like this. Mine the road.”

She swung her door wide, the breeze catching it. “This remind you?”

“Maybe it's just the feeling.” 

I stared at the cars and trucks parked all around us. The safety of steel, solid metal, what most folks think. An IED would rip any one of 'em in two.

She says, “Did you see it a lot?”

I let my eyes rest on the flat line at the horizon. Big sky, brown scrub. Dry fields; an indefinable haze rising up. The light seemed to flicker on the hot wind.

“Worst thing is multiple severe injuries...” 

I felt my shirt clinging to my skin.

“I don't know how you get used to that.”

“Secure the ground,” I says. “Black Hawks lift 'em out. Forward surgical teams get 'em.”

I watched the rear-view in silence as the dirt lot began to empty. Surrounded by animals. Dumb beasts, for slaughter. Baying. Not understanding. Feeling something, maybe. Penned-in, constrained. In the lowering sun

People were going home. Cars and trucks peeling away. Going back to something—a thing I couldn't come to imagine any more.

Jesse was a farmer. Most folk don't get it. There's no way back.

In the rear-view mirror I could see two men.

I started the engine in the Dakota.

“That's them...”

Brooke AMC.

From the suite of chairs in Captain Black's private room, Marshal Whicher takes out a notepad and pen. “This patrol. You tell me anything about it? It was under your command directly?”

The marshal glances at Dr. Zemetti. 

“I had them on radio,” the captain says. “They came under attack.”

“They were ambushed. They couldn't get out?”

“We got them out...”

“Yes, sir,” says Whicher. “But there was a high casualty rate. According to the report that I've seen.”

Zemetti clears his throat. “Marshal? Why do you want to go over all this?”

Whicher taps his pen against the notepad.

The doctor leans back. Hands clasped against one knee.

“Them two sergeants? The one of 'em ends up half-dead; on a medical discharge. The other gets a nomination for the Navy Cross.”

The room's silent. 

The captain staring at a wall. He picks at the letters on his T-shirt.

Whicher continues. “Sergeant Childress took his own life three weeks back.”

The doctor sits forward, stiffly.

“And we can put their Marine-issue service pistols at two crime scenes.” 

Whicher pauses. Looks to Captain Black. No response. 

“Sergeant James' gun is in possession of the Alpine police department, as evidence. One more thing...”

Zemetti watches the marshal from the seat opposite.

“We got Childress' kid brother, Steven. Dead at one of the scenes.”

The captain's truncated body twists in the motorized wheelchair.

Whicher leafs through his written notes. 

He reads aloud. “Two Rifle squads. Three fire teams per squad. Twenty six men.” He looks up. “Is that right? All in, on the patrol?”

The captain doesn't answer.

“Out of twenty six men, there were fifteen casualties that day. Including seven dead.”

Inside the room nothing moves but the shadow of the leaves on the trees, blowing, dancing in the wind outside.

“No,” says Captain Black.

“No?”

“Casualties were high. But it was three groups. It wasn't fifteen from twenty six...” He turns to the doctor.

“It's alright,” Zemetti says.

“I ordered them out. James refused...”

The marshal glances at him.

“There was an evacuation route.”

“Sergeant James refused an order from you?”

“He delayed the evacuation. There'd have been no need for a mounted section...”

“Mounted.”

The captain nods. “No air. No artillery. There was no separation from civilian lines.”

“The vehicles got attacked, too?”

“It wasn't fifteen from twenty six...” The captain clenches his hand on the armrest of the wheelchair.

“Why did they delay evacuating?”

In the silence, a switch clicks. Cold air spills from the A/C vents in the wall.

“All of this was looked into,” says Captain Black.

“Why was that, sir?”

The man in the wheelchair nods. As if confirming something to himself.

Whicher makes another entry in his notepad.

Doctor Zemetti cuts in; “I imagine the casualty rate...”

The captain's head snaps upright. “This is about Tyler, isn't it?”

Whicher's pen stops.

“Tyler took it in...”

“
Tyler
”

“Michael Tyler. From B Company.”

“You had a Marine named Michael Tyler?”

“He volunteered, he led the rescue effort. But he's gone, invalided out. He was one of the casualties.”

Whicher writes fast in the notepad.

The wheelchair turns. 

The captain moves back to the window. He stares at the trees, speaks his words to the bright glass.

“James never answered. For that delay...”

Jackson Fork.

It was the same men coming out to the yellow E-series. The same two I'd seen with Michael. Late-thirties. Jeans, western hats, all guts and arms. One of them carrying a brace of metal-alloy flight-cases. The other sporting a shotgun; blue-black finish. Mossberg 500. Extended tube mag; eight shot, at a guess.

They opened up the van and climbed in. I saw the tail-pipe shake as they sparked up the motor. They backed out. Turned. Bumped by us.

Tennille says, “They're going to see.”

They rumbled across the lot in the E-series. Turned. And went out through the gate.

I gave it thirty seconds and pulled out from the line. Swung the Dakota through the gate, onto the road. 

“We'll keep back. They better take the same route.”

We followed the van about a half a mile down the farm road.

“He's got his blinker on,” she says. “He's making a left.”

The van turns down a single track road. No markings, no signage. Flat fields stretching out at either side.

“So far, so good.”

It's open, every direction. There's nothing, all the way out, as far as the eye can see. Just the road, the worked earth. Irrigation booms, five, six span, maybe more; a thousand yards. 

Tennille scans to left and right, out the windows of the truck. 

“How's this going to work? There's nowhere to hide.”

The van's three hundred yards ahead. Like a colored brick. Kid's block, out on the mud. 

There's power lines running down one side of the roadway. Wooden poles and cross spars. A busted single-wire fence. 

“We picked a spot,” I says.

Up ahead, coming in at the right-hand side of the road, there's a line, dark green, against the flat field. The road's arrow straight—running north-south, but there's a barn, to the right, no sides just a tin roof. The dark green line stretching out is a row of Arizona cypress—a planted row. Maybe a quarter-mile long.

“That's the place.”

In front of the line of trees, is an old freight car; stock container, painted red. Right by the side of the road. No wheels on it. A store, most like, an improvised store. But it's solid cover. And it makes two points, with the line of trees.

“Alright, I'm pulling over.”

“You'll lose the van.”

I pointed out the windshield where the road stretched out ahead. 

“You see anything else out there? Anything else at all?”

She shook her head.

“It's here or nothing. We already checked.”

I pulled the Dakota off the road, by the freight car. It was beat up, weathered old, red paint and rust against the brown field.
Santa Fe Railroad
, marked in faded white.

Thirty yards further up, behind the line of trees, a grit track ran the length, hidden in behind. The track made a right-angle where it met the road. At its eastern end, it led to an abandoned farmhouse, among the fields.