Llewellyn’s Child

Commander in Chief John Linforth’s double-image fluctuated frenetically.  His surreal specter filled Jinny’s I-Pad screen.  She leaned forward, re-positioned her earbuds, and waited on the President, but her 170-million-dollar ride waited on no one.  High over the Georgia coastline it efficiently jettisoned the continental United States at 475 mph.  No one in the cabin could hear very well, even with earbuds.

“Mr. Speaker, Mr. Majority Leader, members of Congress, and my fellow Americans—”

Belted in at 42,000 feet, Jinny had felt well-grounded—until now. Her heartbeat had kept pace with the second-hand ticking silently on her wrist—until now.  She tensed, oblivious to the minute hand as it double-crossed twelve midnight and ran toward the dawning of a new day of infamy.

The President continued, “The Islamic Republic  has committed three horrific acts of aggression  since 7:30 p.m. eastern standard time.  First, a squadron of McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II’s left Iranian air space and without provocation, attacked Amman, Jordan.  Preliminary reports indicate that the King’s palace was among the buildings bombed.  Second, aerial surveillance confirms that paratroopers of the Iranian guard now occupy the Golan Heights, due east of the Israeli border.  And as  previously announced,  at 11:32 EDT Camp Arena, our military base in the Herat district of Afghanistan came  under attack.  Due to poor weather, we don’t yet have a clear picture of conditions on the ground.”

“CONOR.”  Jinny felt like she’d been sucker-punched. Hard.

The President leaned forward, pressed his forearms against the pulpit, knotted his hands, and continued reading from the teleprompter. “At my behest and following a  conference with members of Congress, a joint resolution was agreed upon two hours ago.  My fellow Americans and freedom loving people everywhere, I am here at this early hour to proclaim a formal declaration of war against the regimes of Iran, Syria, and renew a pledge to  eradicate those who oppose our efforts to  bring peace to the middle east and to Afghanistan.   Jinny pressed her fingers to her ears to dampen the din circulating through the cabin. “We will do all that is incumbent upon us to defend our homeland and stand alongside our allies in the region—Israel, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and others who respond to the rally cry for freedom.  We have a job to do.  We will not fail.  Let’s get to it—together.  God bless the men and women in harm’s way, and God bless these United States of America.”

“Conor.”

In the cockpit the flight navigator—alert and on task—pressed his com button.   “Captain, we’re dialed in to to probe and drogue over the Mediterranean at 09:37.  I’ve typed in adjusted  course coordinates and can confirm that we’ve cleared the nor’easter.  The storm’s behind us, Sir.  I mean in a manner of speaking the storm’s behind us, Sir.”

“Roger that, Doherty. Stormy days behind; stormy days ahead.”  Neither Captain Sandoval, his crew, nor Bravo Company’s two platoons—all belted in for the long haul—had been caught totally off guard by the President’s announcement, but no one had any conception of what lay ahead for every soldier on board.

“Deity. Honor. Duty. Deliverance.” Jinny’s closest friends had seen her mouth the words during more than one training exercise.  She bowed her head, closed her eyes, and by folding her arms unintentionally cabled to a chosen few that she wasn’t sleeping. They knew she was praying, but none divined the calm resolve that accompanied her inaudible, amen.

Thirty-five feet away a muffled phone soloed a few bars of, “Drop Me off in New Orleans.”  Without unlatching her seat-belt, Jinny could not see who the errant phone call had betrayed.  “Hey, Bay-Bee.  Cun ye hurme? . . . Where y’at? . . .  F’true?!   Nyoo Aahlyins?  . . . Yeah, you rite. . ..  I dunno dawlin’, ax ya maw-maw or Jawn.   I tol you befoe, I caint come ova, but I loves you too, darlin . . .”

“Coming through.”  Lieutenant Staley literally sprinted thirty yards to confiscate the phone. “Count your lucky stars that I got here before Mjor Klaphammer returns from the head, soldier.  Surrender your phone . . .  Private Guillory, when we land in Kabul, find my quarters and report to me.”

“Hey, Cappy-tan, does this mean, I’m gettin’ a pramoshin?”

Lieutenant Staley couldn’t help but smile at the happy-go-lucky eighteen-year-old recruit.  He’d said goodbye to his single mother, to almost everybody he loved,  and to everything he knew–everything but his sworn duty.  Staley got buckled in and Major Klaphammer returned to the cabin.

“Why’s he talking to hisself?” exclaimed Private Guillory with a voice that needed no amplification.

“He ain’t talking to hisself.  It’s that thingamabob in his ear,” chuckled his cousin from Cincinatti.  “And looky there Jacie, he’s growed a tail in the john.”

A strip of toilet paper tailed from  Major Phineas Klaphammer’s trousers, caught a draft, and everyone’s attention.  House lights up. The audience roared approval.  Cell-phone cameras recorded  and  e-mailed it home.  Subject:  Pin the tail on the donkey.

The major swiped at the tp and threw up his right hand..“Quiet!”  He paused to listen to the voice in his ear and then announced, “Our flight crew has tuned to a news update from a Charleston TV station, so listen up.”  The audio came through loud and clear.  No video feed.

“. . . ood morning, I’m Kim-Ly Luong, WTAG, Charleston, with this, just in from the Associated Press:  A would-be assassin, posing as a member of the press-corps, fired upon the President of the United States as  he climbed into the limousine after addressing the nation from the Capitol.   The President is reported to be unharmed; two of his Secret Service detail were  wounded and are on the way to Walter Reid; a capitol policeman is dead; the shooter is dead.

“As reported earlier this morning, the President had just left the House Chamber after declaring war on Iran and Syria, and this after an unprovoked, brutal air attack on our base, Camp Arena, in the Helmand district of Afghanistan.  Preliminary reports indicate that Russian made, Sukoi SU-25s—flying out of Tehran fifty miles to the west—bombed the base.  A casualty assessment is underway.  Our Roland Roth is imbedded with a platoon near Herat.”

Jinny struggled with her helmet; the strap seemed too tight, but it was loose below her chin.   She mumbled, “Conor.”

“Who’s Conor?” buzzed Private Shaw, a seat-mate.

“Not now.  Listen.”  Jinny closed out everything but Kim Ly Luong’s crisp intonations.

“Hello, Roland, what can you tell us about conditions on the ground? . . .  Roland, can you hear me?  Roland, are you there?”  Unseen, Roland Roth stood with an index finger compressing his right ear–ostensibly poised to blow his brains out if the transmission of his belabored report failed to reach the network, and he held a microphone in his other hand as he stared pensively at the ground.  Clad in a flak jacket and helmet, the veteran reporter looked like a scarecrow.  The helmet was too large—even for the head of an overseas correspondent—and it almost fell off when he snapped to attention.  It was as if someone had sneaked up behind and zinged him in the neck with a spit-wad.  “Oh, ho, we’re live.  Absolutely, Nicolle.”

Kim Ly ground her teeth and snapped her pencil in two.

Roth’s voice—spiced with an English accent—sputtered to life. “I am in bed with . . . hold that card higher for Pete’s sake.  What I meant to say is, I’m embedded with Afghan civilians and soldiers about three miles north-north-east of Camp Arena, in the Helmand District.  It is 10:30 a.m.,  local time.”  An unseen camera panned from his dusty face to refocus on a fractured wall, also pockmarked. Roland continued, “We are standing on what remains of the second floor of an abandoned cement factory . . . no? Just a minute.  Correction, my producer says the building is constructed of cement; but yes, of course, I guess that’s self-evident, don’t you think so, old girl?

“I am facing east.  A cutting, stiff cross-wind blows from the north.  Tehran, home of 14 million people and one of the largest cities in Western Asia, is situated about fifty miles due west.  Schultzie, hold my helmet a minute and pan from south to north.  No, the other south to north.”  Roland drew a white handkerchief from his pocket, wiped his brow, and raked back his hair black hair with his fingers.  “Twang.  EVERYBODY DOWN.”  The camera shimmied erratically, instantaneously recorded nothing but a close-up of Roland’s nose hairs, and then jerked back to focus on the reporter. His cheek was streaked with blood, but of course neither those aboard the aircraft with Jinny nor those in the studio back home had much idea of what was going on.

“Roland, have you been hit? Talk to me,” pled Kim Ly, ready to go to commercial.

“No. . . .   Oh, I AM bleeding.   Harriet, take the microphone.”

“What?  Wait.  Okay.  Nicolle, this is Harriet.”

Unseen by Bravo Company, Kim Ly spit bullets around the studio.

Harriet and her cameraman hunkered down before continuing.  “That last round must have sheared off a sliver of cement or something.  Roland will be okay.  Roland, you will be okay, right?  Yes, he’s okay.  And I’m okay.  Stay with us.  We’ve got a sniper out there somewhere.  We drew fire about ten minutes ago.  Hold on.  Schultzie, give Roland back his helmet.  Now.”

Pent up anxiety spawned and hatched fifteen seconds of laughter in the cabin.  It ended as abruptly as if it had been dubbed into a sitcom shoot.  Jinny wasn’t laughing.

“EVERYBODY HUSH!”

“. . . enemy knows our position.    As you can see, I’m kneeling but have a fairly good view of the city, and what’s left of our base.  You should be able to see the heavy black smoke hanging over Camp Arena.”  Harriet muzzled the microphone long enough to say, “No Shultzie, you’re not going to die,” but everyone on board Jinny’s flight wasn’t so sure. “Keep filming if you want a ride out of here.  Sorry, Nicolle.”

Kim Ly sighed aloud and pounded the table.  “You are speaking to Kim Ly Luong, you low-life.”

Harriet continued.  “What was the question again?  What?  Oh yes, it was me that asked the question.  Can you see the heavy smoke hanging over Camp Arena?”

“No Harriet, we have no video, but when did the bombardment stop?”

“No video?  Oh my. The bombing stopped at dawn.  During the night the sky lit up as if it were mid-day.  Evac via Black Hawks is underway.  We’re next on tap to get out of here, we hope. It’s been too dangerous for the Red Cross to truck into this war-zone, and, as I said, for the time being we are pinned down here.  I need a cigarette, and I just messed . . .”

Unbeknownst to both station WTAG and Bravo Company, the camera panned the distant highway to the north.  Roland could be heard whimpering in the background.  Harriet continued reporting at his behest. “A river of refugees has fled Tehran, traveling east on the Kabul-Kan Highway.  Even with the naked eye we can see an unending ribbon of cars and trucks.  It reminds me of the 405 through the Tujunga Pass.

“We’re in Charleston, South Carolina, Harriet, not Los Angeles.  Are you describing the Tehran-Kabul road to the north?” asked Kim Ly.

Words still trailed lips; the feed jumbled, then cleared. “Yes, Renaldo. You are absolutely right.

“I’m not Renaldo, I’m KIM LY. . . “

“Hold on . . .  Afghan Command says we need to exfil right now, and I’ve got to run down Roland before he gets his head blown off.  Oh, over there, Schultzie.  Can you back home see the Blackhawks?  Renaldo, do you copy?  Track them till they land.  Twang. Twang. Twang.  ROLAND BEND FORWARD.”  Harriet’s breathing became labored.  The sound of chopper blades paddling through the sky flailed louder and louder.  Harriet concluded with a breathy, “Generally speaking, it’s been quiet to the east of us for about two hours. Gotta go.  This is Roland Roth’s producer,  Harriett, oh, whatever, signing off.”

“Thank you.  That was Roland Roth and one of our producers, Harriet Schwab, reporting from just outside the U.S. Army Installation near Herat.” Kim Ly discreetly pawed the broken pencil she’d thrown to the floor.  “That was heroic reporting from Afghanistan, Sadie.  Will you take over for me?”

“Yes, Kim Ly, absolutely. Now moving to another breaking story: Yesterday near Kandahar, a U.S. Soldier was gunned down by a small band of ISIS fighters on the road outside the base.  Just hours ago, they were captured without incident.  All but three have been identified as American citizens.   Stay tuned for further details, every hour, on the hour.

“Wait, this just in.  We have footage, courtesy of the Al Bra-zeera Network.  What? Still no video?” There was a brief pause, and then, “I’ve been told to warn you that what you’re about to see is graphic: Viewer discretion is advised, but frankly, given our situation here, that no longer makes sense.”  The transmission ended as abruptly as it had begun.

Jinny shook off the nonsense and settled in.  Her long lashes resisted, fluttered,  closed upon her chocolate brown eyes, and then mystically opened to a haunting repast.

The Safe Harbor Theater marquee read:   Now playing- Ode to Joy.  

Beyond paired steel doors, delicate  stalks of golden wheat, woven into  the burgundy-carpet, artfully adorned the lobby, splayed down both aisles, and warmly welcomed invited guests who silently soldiered to their seats. Tethered, pleated, crimson drapes suspended from ball bearing pulleys and  coaxed by nylon ropes, towered above and behind the orchestra pit and muted the sound of feet tiptoeing on book-matched planks of maple flooring back stage.  Translucent, petaled, stain-glass sconces complimented and complemented the theater’s décor by casting a mystical aurora borealis across the arched ceiling and down fluted columns tinged with gold. 

 A hint of jet fuel wafted through the theater as Corporal Virginia O’Dwyer marched proudly down the aisle holding Old Glory aloft. ““Ten-hut.” All 172 white-gloved soldiers arose, stood at attention, and saluted the flag.  Jinny posted the colors, briskly drew compliant fingers to her forehead, and then as one voice Bravo Company repeated The Pledge of Allegiance.   

 “Two!  Please be seated.”  Jinny stood at ease.  Jinny felt at ease. “Good evening and welcome to our family-night production of Ode to Joy.” Curtains pleated quietly to stage left and right.  An irrepressible “awe” from the audience greeted Isabelle, who stood center-stage on her mark. Trembling, she repeated lines penned by Friedrich Schiller:

 “Brüder, über’m Sternenzelt Muss ein Lieber Vater Wohnen.  (Brothers, Beyond the Stars Must a Loving Father Dwell.)”

 Tapping the rostrum, guest conductor Maurice Abravanel cued the orchestra, paused, and liaised an approving nod as, arm in arm, Jinny assisted her Aunt Dorothy, sightless but seeing, deaf but hearing, to her mark.  Cupping a hand to Dorothy’s ear, Jinny whispered loudly, “You can do this,” then walked off stage with Isabelle in tow. 

 The Maestro raised his baton, and melodious strains from the final movement of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony plucked every heart-string.  In German, Dorothy sang, “Ode to Joy.”  When the last measure had floated away on gossamer wings, the orchestra sat in quiet repose.  No applause. Reverent reflection pervaded the hall but for a moment.

 “Paulo.  What’s wrong?  Wake up.  Help, Corpsmen, help.  A frantic buddy waved his arms.  Jinny sat up straight. Two medical officers—distinguished by a white arm band emblazoned with a red cross—rushed to the unconscious soldier.

“Soldier, can you hear me? He’s not breathing.”  They unlatched his seat-belt, lifted him to the aisle, and laid him on an army blanket.  One medic tried to find a pulse, but for the soldier time stood still.  Following monitored compressions, an epidural, and more compressions, the younger corpsman again felt for a pulse.  He looked up. “Kristy!  What next?  Any suggestions?”

The response was chilling.  “No.  Call it.”

“Time of death:  4:05 hours.”

Private J. P. Kubiak’s company commander arrived and helped bag the body.  Jinny shuddered.  First one gone . . .  and we’re not half-way to Afghanistan.  His poor family.

 Belted-in on Jinny’s left, an eighteen-year-old clutched at his stomach.  “Suddenly I’m not feeling so good.”  Jinny shifted toward him in her seat and proffered the soldier a sickness sack.  “It’s not my stomach . . . maybe.”

“Where does it hurt, Devereaux?”

“Leaving home’s where it hurts, Jinny . . . I mean, Corporal.”

“Where’s home, Devereaux?”

“I’m from Overland Park, Kansas.”

“Really?  Small world. I’m from Abilene.”  Herold (Huck) Devereaux responded as if he’d just swallowed a warm spoonful of homemade chicken-noodle soup. As they visited over the whine of the engines, Jinny asked telling questions,  listened, and sedated her companion with her eyes.  As minutes multiplied, Private Devereaux’s anxiety divided, then subdivided until his concerns were barely identifiable little shivers.  “Thanks for easing my mind, Corporal O’Dwyer.” Jinny nodded.  She nodded again and was soon back on stage, asleep in the Safe Harbor Theater.

Missing nothing, the seated audience leaned forward.  Jinny cued Lance. “You’re on, Pyro-Smurf.”  (A tag he’d earned as a Cub Scout.)  Lance thumbed his lighter, fired the logs, and drew giggling glee from Isabelle when he pretended to singe and blow out his finger.  Isabelle climbed up and straddled one arm of the leather couch, kicking and yelling, “High ho Silver, away, away, away.”  Lance jumped to his arm of the couch from the rear, and the race was on, but it wasn’t the horses who whinnied gleefully—it was the audience.

 A closed, candle-lit window melted snow stacked upon the sill.  The flame sputtered when Conor—his head and left eye bandaged— limped through a back door. Behind him he dragged a glistening, fresh-cut Scotch pine across the threshold and onto the stage.   The wind plead to be allowed inside, but the back door quietly closed of its own accord.   

 And then, as if on cue from the director, even nature’s bluster held its breath as Caleb wheeled Gemma, wrapped in sadness, a woolen blanket, and seated on a chromed secretary chair, from the bedroom.   Gemma wore a pale smile and snugly slippers—one pink; one blue.  Her premature twins had come only to celebrate Christmas. Kaitlin had cooed, Isaac had cried, and then they left for home.  No doctor. No hospital.  Just snow. Lots of snow. 

 Stacked vinyl records, anxious to be needled, topped a centered turntable spindle.  Jinny nodded and magically the RCA console came to life, anxious to console.  Bing Crosby sang again, “I’ll be home for Christmas,” while Isabelle and Lance tossed tinsel at the tree. 

“Here she comes.” Each of four turbo-fan engines gulped 42 tons of air per minute.  Air traffic controllers stood and leaned forward.  They didn’t need binoculars to  track the aerodynamic hippopotamus as it extended its rubber feet and dropped from the sky.  Emergency vehicles idled, beacons flashed, fingers crossed, and, “Come on baby, slow down, slow down, easy does it, easy does it . . . She’s . . . she’s . . . touchdown.  That’s two.”

Touchdown indeed. Twenty-eight tires blistered runway 4-R, and the Galaxy C-5 lumbered flat-out down the wet concrete like an aerodynamic Hilton Hotel sheared from its foundation.  After plowing the length of 26 illusory football fields–26 pair of offensive goal posts included–the aircraft pulled up half a mile short of the Babur Gardens Airport terminal.  Jinny’s seat-belt had relaxed against her torso, but Huck Devereaux’s took his breath away. The thrust-reversal—followed by a violent jerk—rumbled and sounded like the entire population of Albuquerque bailing out  and bouncing off the fuselage screaming bloody murder.  Jinny laid a reassuring hand on Huck’s white knuckles and patted his paw as a pet lover would a trembling lap-dog.  Huck heaved a sigh of relief.  Jinny sighed too, grateful that Huck had heaved up nothing else.

Huck shook his head and muttered, “Okay, we’re stopped.  Drop the ramp and let me run down and kiss terra firma on the lips.”  Jinny grinned.

The com went live.  “What a ride,” the first officer announced. “Ladies and Gents, welcome to Kabul, Afghanistan.  Together we just elevatored from 47,000 to 6130 feet, one floor at a time, in twenty-seven and a half minutes—ding-ding-ding.  Ya gotta know that’s a lot of stairs.”  Razor Shick was still lathered up and clicked microphone cheerfully.  “How did I do, Cap?  We’re alive, right?” he asked.

“Couldn’t have said it better myself, Razor.  Are you done with your monologue?”

“Almost, Cap. I wish Orville and Wilbur—pardon me, may they rest in peace . . .  I wish they coulda have watched me land.   Army personnel, you can tell your kids back home that the plane you’re riding on is longer than the first Kitty Hawk flight.  To you who’ve rode with us, welcome to beautiful downtown Kabul, nestled all comfy-like in the Hindu Kush Mountains, and tenth on the list of the highest elevatored national capitals in the world, right Cap?”

“Right, son.”  The Captain, who usually left the talking to his first officer, added: “Some argue that Washington D. C. is—to borrow your word—the most elevatored in the world; at least that’s what’s nosed around by those who camp free of charge on Capitol Hill year after year.”  Razor chuckled condescendingly and was about to continue his monologue, but the captain put a lid on it.  “We’re still on duty here, Shick, so keep to business and pass the peanuts.”

“Sorry Sir.  Everybody please remain seated until ordered to disembark . . . No, I didn’t mean you, Cap, you’re the pilot.  Moving along, when you folks step out on the mezzanine today, it’ll be slippery.  Step lightly.” The banter got mixed reviews by the troops.

Jinny sneezed and relaxed, but Huck Devereaux tightened his seat-belt and closed his eyes while the C-5 powered up, rumbled to the hanger at five miles an hour, slowed, and stopped.  Engines spooled down, load-masters lowered pneumatic ramps fore and aft, and two behemoth mouths opened to gobbled up some daylight.  Within minutes armored vehicles and equipment rolled from the rear of the plane. Troops grabbed their gear and walked off single file like a company of well-disciplined army ants who’d learned to walk on their hind legs.

Without moving her lips, Jinny offered a thanksgiving prayer, but it wasn’t Thanksgiving—the date was 15 March.  Beware the ides of March.  Shakespeare was furthest from her thoughts.  She looked up one last time to apprehend the intricate design of the rounded inner-shell of the fuselage, and then fell in line behind Devereaux and mused aloud, “I didn’t cough up what I ate, but our ride made me seasick, too, Jonah!”

Devereaux warbled, “Say Jinny, have you forgot?  My name’s Huck.”  Jinny felt hot breath on her neck and it wasn’t Huck’s.

“You can christen ME, Jonah, Corporal O’Dwyer. Wanna pair up and party after we get off the ark, little lady?”

Baggar again.  “I’ll say this just once, so listen up. I’ve got a job to do here, Lance Corporal, so enough with the party line. Go campaign somewhere else; and so that you understand, it was Noah that walked down the Ark ramp, not Jonah.”

 

“Hey Bud, who is she and what’s a babe like her doing in Afghanistan?”  Bagger looked over his shoulder to reply, stubbed his toe, and fell into the least tolerant staff sergeant in the United States Army.  Over they went while Jinny marched alongside Private Devereaux down the ramp toward the bus, whistling, “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” Huck grinned for the first time since they’d met—that is, until they espied Eagle Camp to the south of the airport and east of Kabul. The army installation reminded Jinny more of the backside of Leavenworth than a refuge from the enemy.

 

“Huck.”   Jinny pointed. One by one, five Sikorsky UH-60 Blackhawks, looking like wasps fleeing the nest, caught air and lifted from seclusion at the middle of the fortress.  Jinny and Huck shaded their eyes and watched over one hundred million dollars fly into the sun. “What a sight.”  Jinny gently elbowed Huck.  “Tomorrow, that could be us.”

 

They stowed their gear on a flatbed truck and climbed aboard an overcrowded bus.  Its driver, a dark-complected woman, glared at Jinny and cranked the door closed behind her.  “No seats. Step back. Hang on,” she demanded in broken English.  Jinny grabbed a seatback.  Bus breath smelled like an army surplus store as the aging conveyance lurched forward and ate up the road.    Sealed passenger windows had been burglar-proofed, but Jinny supposed for more lethal reasons than back home in Abilene’s troubled neighborhoods.

 

The seventy-five-acre base of operations—shrouded by a twenty-five-foot-high chain-link fence loosely laced on top with spiraling razor wire—was well-fortified.  To a height of fifteen feet the fence looked like the Green Monster at Fenway park, but jagged tears suggested its skin was vinyl, or perhaps canvas.  Gated guard stations, buttressed by concrete jersey barriers, blocked points of egress, and a serpentine road snaked around the perimeter of Eagle Camp.  At the Beta Gate German Shepherds sniffed for explosives.  “All clear.”  After rolling several hundred yards into the compound the brakes squealed, and the doors folded open.  Jinny avoided the driver’s gaze and was first to bounce to the ground, where she was greeted by a trio of MP’s who silently checked her ID and pointed to a door.   She and Huck grabbed their gear and hustled into one of two mammoth warehouses flanking the east and west perimeters of the base. The warehouse interior reminded Jinny of Costco, only much longer and wider.   Among those first in line, she and her new friend signed in, were issued the accoutrements of war, and along with the rest of their weary platoon were escorted to quarters—one of a dozen corrugated metal Quonset huts, their shells painted olive green, begging for a furlough or a new property manager.

 

Three weeks later.

            

“Any word from home, Huck?” Jinny tenderedthe question without looking up.  She straddled the mess hall bench sideways, scribbled on a napkin, swatted at a fly nibbling on her pizzas, and tried to ignore Devereaux’s poor table manners.  His irregular slurping sounded like a sump pump, and he’d only just begun to empty the bowl.

 

Jinny asked again, “Any word from home, Huckleberry Hound?”

 

“Negative, Nadine,” he countered cheerfully, acknowledging Jinny’s fondness for alliteration.

 

“Is the tortilla soup good as the last ten times you’ve eaten it?  It’s just as noisy.”

 

“I already ignored that question ten minutes ago, and I’ve only had soup twice, Jinny.  May we move to a different subject?”

 

“We may,” Jinny replied sullenly.

 

“What are you writing on that napkin?” Huck asked, trying to draw his sour companion from a dark place into the light but not knowing how. “You already have myphone number.”

 

Reflective for a moment, Jinny slapped her pencil down on the table and confessed, “I’ve been trying to figure out how to reply to Mama’s letter.”

 

“On a napkin, Jinny?  Really?”

 

She shrugged and pressed the napkin flat.  “Is this a fair description of our first month in Kabul?”

 

“Make that three weeks, Jin.”

 

She wrinkled her nose, studied the napkin, and translated her scribbles into English: “Up and down.  Round and Round.  Get shot into the air; then dropped to the ground.  Crawl like a bug; dodge, jump and roll; the ratty-tat-tat’s taking its toll.”

 

“Have you ever been told you have a gift?”

 

“A gift for what?”

 

“Writing poetry.”

 

“No, why?”

 

“Huck dropped his spoon, watched it drown in the bowl, and chuckled. “I was going to say something sarcastic, but I broke that habit before I dropped my spoon.  Jinny, you’re the most gifted, talented, funny, and—I must add—the best sharpshooter I ever saw.  But I think what you wrote is too negative to fire home to your mother, not after what she’s been through.”

 

Jinny pocketed the pencil and wadded up her napkin.  After missing the trash receptacle from the three-point line, she drained the last few ounces of chocolate milk, twisted her straw into a knot, dropped it in the carton, and fired again.  “Game over.” Chocolate milk sprayed the wall.  “Worst day of my life—learning of Conor’sdeath was the worst day of my life.”

 

“Do you still have the letter?”

 

“What do youthink, Huck?  Do you think I’d toss itin the trash?”  Jinny extended her lower lip—as she often did—and blew hair from her forehead.  She threw her leg over the bench and turned to face Huck straight-on.  “Sorry, I’m out of line, I shouldn’t have come to you for grief counseling.”

 

Huck patted Jinny’s hand.  “No damage done.  He got up, wiped the drips from the wall, and deposited the soiled napkin and milk carton in the trash container.  Returning to his seat, he asked, “Are we close enough friends that you’d share the letter with me, or is it too personal?”

 

Jinny’s eyebrows boomeranged as she leaned back, tucked her chin, lightly patted her Kevlar vest, and ended the search at the pocket over her heart.  She retrieved the neatly folded two-week-old letter and relaxed its folds as if she were handling a fragile fragment of the Isaiah Scroll.  After clearing her throat, she leaned her elbows on the table and suspended the letter between paired, slender fingers as one would a string of paper dolls.  “I wouldn’t share this with anybody else, Huck, but are you sure you’re interested?”

 

Huck nodded and put his own worries on pause; he missed Jinny’s native cheery temperament.  Her voice seemed without life–tone deaf:

 

3:00 p.m. Two days from retirement, Angie Wickham—our white-haired postie—rolled her Grumman off the pavement into a custom-made rut and idled out front by our mail-box. 

 

Jinny paused without looking up.  “I suspect Mama copied this from her journal some days after she stopped crying—if she ever stopped.

 

Jinny braced her elbows against her sides and sat up straight before continuing.

 

“My heart skipped a beat or two like it does most days at this hour. I watched Angie two-finger a brown, official-looking envelope and lift it from a reinforced plastic bin.  Before leaning out of her boxy white truck she wrapped the envelope in a Target add, unlatched the weathered lid and—as if handling an anthrax- laced greeting card— gingerly slipped it into the mailbox box andshoved the lid shut, all in one motion.  She caught me staring through the window and shook her head. 

 

No news or bad news?  I telegraphed, but she couldn’t read code.  Our postie pointed at the mailbox, and I knew why—one of our RFD numbers has come unglued and the flag is broken.  The Grumman groaned, pulled over the lip onto the road, and motored away; Angie didn’t wave goodbye.  I waited until the put-put-put broke through the sound barrier before hurrying out the front door.  My heart jumped up in my throat like the night dad died; I feared the worst.

 

“Maybe someday I’ll ask Jinny why the army didn’t send someone to deliver the news in person, but then, maybe I shouldn’t ask.  Maybe there are too many boys and girls dying over there for anyone to bear the pain of it all—except Jesus; that said, neither Conor nor Angie will ever stop by again.

 

“’We regret to inform you that Captain Conor O’Dwyer was . . . .’”  Before I finished the first line, the words fuzzed on the page. Next thing I knew, the screen door banged and Lance dropped his books on the couch.  The TV evening news was muted, thank heavens, but the harbinger of bad tidings lay on my aproned lap screaming ‘murder.’ 

 

“’Lance asked, “should I turn off the TV, Mama? . . .  What’s wrong, Mama?”  Then he saw the letter.  He didn’t need to read it.  He looked into my eyes then buried his head in my lap.  Isabelle walked into the house three sobs later.

 

“‘I’m home, Mama.’  Home, I thought.  She’d come home.”

 

The tinkling utensils, gulps, gobbles, and soldier salutations filled the mess hall, but Jinny heard nothing.  Huck, anchored like a lighthouse on a stormy night, his inner light still flickering, didn’t know how to toss Jinny a life-line.  He wondered if he should bump knees under the table, speak, or leave his friend to ride out the storm alone.   A minute dragged by; Jinny stared right through Huck, then down at the letter, and continued.

 

“’At 7:00 p.m. the grandfather clock chimed five times and stopped. What a day. I told the children that we needed to share the news with Uncle Albert. Isabelle said Uncle Al doesn’t know how to fix clocks. Lance said he’d heard a noise out back and went to investigate. I said, “if its Albert, ask him to come in a minute.” I watched Lance tiptoe to the back door; he opened it and peered through the screen into the dark.  The cold came inside uninvited. “Close the door, please.”  Lance slipped outside and reappeared a few minutes later.  No Albert. Lance looked befuddled.  “Where’s your uncle?” I asked.

 

 “’Mama, he called me Conor; I failed you.’ I caught my breath so I wouldn’t burst out crying.  Lance said the yard light had burnt out, so he’d stood quiet, listened, and hoped he wasn’t about to be ‘ate by a critter or something worse.’ (My land, what a boy.) He said, ‘I heard a sound like somebody was dragging something through the snow, so I called out, ‘Uncle Albert?’    Uncle swung around over by the fence and shined a flashlight in my face.  He said, ‘land sakes, Conor, you scared me, boy.”

 

“’I asked what he was dragging, and he said, ‘Well, I’m not walking the cat, if that’s what you’re getting at.  I am out of potatoes.’  He told me to go ahead and snitch on him and tell you Icaught him stealing potatoes from our root cellar.  Then he said, ‘scoot.’  I tried to tell him you needed him.  Then he got all ornery like when I kicked over the milk bucket last Friday. He said, ’Now you get back inside. It’s cold out here, Conor.  I gotta go, bad.’  Would you believe it, he called me Conor again?  I’m sorry, Mama.’”

 

“Honestly Jinny . . ..”  

 

“Well, Huck, I think that’s enough.”  Jinny folded and put away the letter.  “Thiscamp makes Fort Sill look like a Palm Springs resort—not that I’ve ever been to Palm Springs. One day here is like spending a month at the Dickinson County Fair without any money.”

 

“Interesting analogy.  How so?” replied Huck.

 

“Stuck in a dusty gondola; a bar across our laps, round and round we go:  Freeze-drill-practice-freeze-drill-practice, morning, noon, and night; then we get dumped out without a refund.”

 

“I may be missing your meaning, but shucks, when we signed up we knew there’d be highs and lows—that’s army life.  Onegruntplus one gruntequals a grunt, grunt.”  Jinny picked up on the “grunt.”

 

“Oh yes, and the Ferris wheel is operated by a grumpy, distracted military contractor, who yells, ‘Maybe today you’ll get YOUR ticket punched, little lady!’”

 

Huck got serious.  “I’m going to tell you something you need to hear.”

 

“What’s that?”

 

“Don’t forget who you really are and why you’re really here.”   Devereaux downed a last bite of coleslaw with a plastic fork and slid off the bench as Jinny threw her pizza in the trash.

 

“Who am I, Huck?”

 

“You’re a patriot and a warrior, Jinny O’Dwyer; and now you’ve skipped the main course. You ought to sweeten up with dessert, but I’ve got to hustle.”  Both smiled; Devereaux had cabbage stuck in his teeth, which Jinny was quick to point out.

 

“Oh that?  I’m saving it for a snack time.  See you later, Corporal.  He paused, turned, and raised his left hand. “Promise me you won’t get a stomach ache on that Ferris wheel today.  I won’t be there with a sick sack.  Ah, Jinny, gal.”  Huck placed a hand over his heart, bowed, and as he walked away he pled, “Remember, don’t forget your pal.”

 

“Thanks, I needed that.” I won’t forget you, Huck.  Thanks for the kindest face time I ever had.  Deity-Duty-Deliverance.  Go find a flag to salute, soldier.  She did.

A Douglas-DC 4E departed Burbank for Honolulu and cleared the California coast above Venice Beach at 9:45 PST, August 3, 1947. Far below, scantily dressed Angelinos watched fireworks launch from the boardwalk by the Santa Monica pier.  The summer night was warm, the surf restless.

 High above the dark Pacific, fifty-two seniors—clad in wrinkled Hawaiian shirts, gauchos and capris—polished off dinner, cocktails, and soon slept as if there were no tomorrow.  Hours droned by until, thirty minutes beyond the point of no return, starboard P&W engine number three sputtered, choked, and caught fire, startling the stewardess and shocking everyone into consciousness.  Quieted by the pilot’s voice, passengers prepared for a water landing.  Heads ducked into pillows; hands clutched buoyant seat cushions; but then, black smoke infiltrated the cockpit and cabin, suffocating the crew and passengers.  Starboard engine number four stalled, and the airplane spun like a top, slapped the water, lost a wing, and flipped over in the salty sea.

**

For two days the Taliban  had taunted U.S. forces and succeeded in blocking airline traffic from landing at  the Kandahar International  Airport in southern Afghanistan. A ten-vehicle convoy–slated to transport captured enemy combatants to Kabul, far to the north–finally slipped away under cover of darkness; but things soon went from bad to worse.  Much worse. Sand blasted and pitted everything perpendicular and slowed forward progress to a crawl.  When at daybreak the convoy finally emerged from nature’s denuding, its camouflage proved authentic–sand everywhere.  Soldiers in the seven roofless jeeps had endured the worst of it, but everybody coughed.

Captain Edmund Durant rode shotgun in the lead Humvee and looked like a mummified bandit, his scarf wrapped tightly across his mouth and nose. “You should soon see the bridge, Corporal Duffy,” he said to his driver.  “Call it The Bridge of No Return.”

“I’d rather call it The Bridge That Hasn’t Been Blown All The Way To Buffalo, Sir.”

” Whatever. This map shows Eagle Camp 230 miles up the road. ”   The captain  pocketed the map, leaned forward to activate the  single wiper, and jigged his head hypnotically back and forth.  The wiper struggled.  The captain struggled.   “Do you see it yet?”

“The bridge? No.  I MEAN, YES!  HANG ON CAP.”  Duffy spied calamity just in time.  He plunged the lead Humvee off the road, down the bank, and into a dry, rocky wadi.  Everybody followed suit.  “Woe-woe-woe Nellie!”

Durant braced against the seat, dash, and floor to keep from smacking his head while subconsciously fumbling with a thumb for his absent-without-leave wedding-band.  “Easy does it, Corporal, easy does it; you’re doing fine.  You must be a prophet.  I’m chuffed you saw it before I did. Keep both hands on the wheel,  both eyes on all those belly-scrapers, and be thankful you’re not bucking in the back of that five-ton 12-wheeler with our cargo—zip-tied, bothered, battered, and  bewildered.”   How clever. Isn’t that a song lyric? 

“Cap, this is a wide reach. I’ll lay odds that by now those fellas in the truck wish they’d never left the Mississippi good life, or wherever they crawled  out from under a rock from.”  Duffy’s demeanor dampened as he took in what remained of the twisted girder bridge rudely dismantled to his left.  Its remnants resembled the Santa Monica pier after the worst storm in its history—battered pylons, collapsed trusses, and clapperboards dangling like fractured ribs forty-feet overhead.  “Looks like a dark angel used the bridge for target practice, Sir. Think we’re the first to cross this river bed?”

Deep down, the Santa Monica transplant wished he were cruising Sunset Boulevard seated next to his famous brother in a Lamborghini–a car neither could afford, top down, on a cool evening.  He wistfully looked to see if his surfboard was sticking out the rear of the Humvee.  He knew better.  It wasn’t. But every vehicle in the convoy pitched  back and forth across no-man’s-land as if it were being tossed by a relentless surf, around and over boulders the size of breakers.

“Your job is to get this $220,000 armored alligator across this hazard, then on to Kabul, so dodge that rock, if you please.  I’ll keep an eye out for the best place to claw our way up and out of this hazard.  And Corporal, don’t call me Cap.” Durant picked up the walkie-talkie, tapped it to his lips, and barked an order.  “Listen up everybody. Keep your eyes fastened on our flanks. Let’s not become somebody’s road kill.   Remember, nobody briefed us that this bridge had been buggered.  Are you boys in the back seat staying on task?”

“Yes, Sir, and there’s just me—Kramer.”

Durant twisted around.  “Don’t look at me, Kramer.  Unhook your seat-belt, turn around, grab hold of the back, and watch our six.  Keep your eyes on our boys  back there.  Keep track of the Humvee, the truck, and all seven jeeps–that would be n-i-n-e, not counting us. Holler  if anybody falls behind.  Let’s blaze this trail and get back on the road headed north. ”  Durant thumped Kramer’s knee and added, “Bottom line?  Don’t play stupid, or as John Wayne put it, ‘Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.’”  The captain unsnapped his holstered Glock but left it at ready. “What I still can’t figure is why we needed two platoons to escort 40 detainees to the capital.”

The convoy ground tediously forward,  but its progress suited Tariq Basheed just fine.  He and his men had lain concealed behind the far bank–as invisible as chlorine gas–for an hour, waiting to squeeze American blood from a  turnip.  Waiting was a small price to pay.  The Taliban chieftain’s head—shielded from the elements by a kufiyah held in place by a circlet of rope—bobbed guardedly up and down like a lion sizing up his prey.  But to him, the convoy looked more like  a host of pesky aphids crawling single file, intent on devouring his poppy fields.  Americans are insects; insects are  junkies.

“We’re almost back on track,” mumbled Duffy as the four-wheel-drive clawed its way up the river bank.

In staccato Tariq snapped orders to his men to be alert and ready to fire on his signal. “Keep coming, Americans. Keep coming Americans.  Yes, yes.  Three. Two. One.  ALLAHU AKBAR!”

An explosive collided with the undercarriage of the lead Humvee, forcing all four wheels to levitate for a split second, and ejecting Durant like a rag doll.  The vehicle rolled and pinned Kramer’s left arm to the ground.  Tires spun.  The engine roared. Fires flared.  Action thriller?  Take One?  The men turned to ash were not manikins, and there was no one on hand to weep. Durant could only whisper, “Take cover, men.  Take cover.”

Rapid-fire automatic weapons splayed hot lead, riddling soldiers as they leapt from the second Humvee, the cab of the truck, and the jeeps behind.  The Americans were over-exposed, outflanked, outnumbered, and outgunned; but boys became men and stood their ground during a fearsome firefight.  It lasted four minutes.

“Medic.  Medic.”

Lying folded in half backwards and bleeding through his ears and nose, an eighteen-year-old PFC from Tacoma quieted, gurgled, and gasped, “Never mind me, boys. Mother, I’m home.” Except for one soldier, the entire platoon lay dead or dying.

Tariq ignored the plight of the wounded.  Like an armored picket fence he and his clansmen surrounded the canvas covered truck, eager to heft and confiscate everything on board.  On signal, rifles poised like stiffened fingers, parted the heavy tarpaulin flap, and exposed the ugliest Mississippian in Afghanistan:  Karim of Kandahar—Billy Joe Quagmeyer–and his band of bullies.

As yet uninjured, they huddled together—a defenseless phalanx kneeling on the railed bed.  But not Karim of Kandahar.  He leaped from the truck, took a knee, covered one nostril, and blew his bloody nose on the ground while his men—bound hand and foot—were prodded off the truck like contestants in a potato sack race.  The last man standing went head over heels and landed on his skull.  His neck snapped.  He stopped breathing.  The rest huddled together, postured like frightened animals—but not Karim.  He remained silent but defiant as he calmly faced the picket of rifles being jabbed indiscriminately at his disciples.

Tariq warily approached, leaned in, looked up, studied the hairy Mississippi native, and then spat at his feet.  Karim hoped the gesture to be an Arab greeting or perhaps the beginning of a ritualistic cultural exchange.  His hope paled when Tariq bared his teeth, shook his head disgustedly, circled Karim, and probed his stomach, arms, and back with a sharp stick as one might do to see if his trophy buck was completely dead.  In Pashto, he exclaimed, “Look what we have here, guys—a poorly preserved Neanderthal.  Or perhaps he just escaped from the Kandahar City Zoo,” he chortled.  Tariq clapped his hands three times and jubilantly proclaimed, “I will stuff this one with almond husks and hang him before my tent, to the delight of my grandchildren.”  Teeth bared and bobble-heads nodded approval.

The self-ordained chief of the Okefenokee—well equipped to upstage the entire cast of miscreants—had cleverly worked himself free of his restraints but had not understood a word spoken by the chieftain; nor did he feel threatened by Tariq’s men, who frenzied like caged chimpanzees clamoring for a mid-morning feed.

Karim bared his teeth, raised his tatted arms overhead, and vigorously pumped up and down like King Kong while flashing Nixon’s fingered “V” for victory—which absolutely no one understood. He resorted to ordering his Pashto vocabulary words into intelligible sentences.  No verbs.  No luck.  He huffed and puffed, “Okay, what you see is what you get.”

The Taliban chieftain interpreted the big man’s grin to be a sneer, and the sign a vulgar gesture; he circled Karim’s motley crew like an alley thug searching for further vulnerabilities he could exploit.

“Will somebody please help me?” cried Durant, his arm still pinned beneath the Humvee.

Karim, unaware that only Durant remained alive, responded by pantomiming a request for a weapon and his willingness to kill all the wounded. Frustrated, the Mississippi native tried again.  He pointed at the troops, gesticulated the slashing of his own throat with a filthy thumbnail, and then demanded, “Give me a gun or knife, and I’ll finish them off.”

The captors seemed amused by the sideshow but as yet unwilling to comply with his request.  As a last resort, Karim turned toward his men and demanded, “Repeat after me three times, ‘Rah, rah, for our Taliban brothers who has come to our rescue.’” The chorus was pathetic, the performance, tragically unamusing.

Tariq fisted his right hand and yelled in the King’s English, “Silence. I am Tariq of the Tangnuni.” He ominously poked his finger toward Karim and declared, “YOU, I choose you, big mouth.  Kneel for your execution.  I said, ‘kneel.’  You see,  I am a merciful host, for you won’t have as far to fall as the others.  ALLAHU AKBAR!” Tariq’s men repeated the chant three times while thrusting their rifles triumphantly up and down like they’d seen done in American movies.

Forty odd inmates collapsed to their knees like rotting peaches drop from a tree during an east wind–but not Karim.  He refused to kneel to anyone. Tariq drew his cimeter.  After stroking his beard and shearing off a few kinky hairs, the Taliban chieftain conducted a staring contest with the giant thug, whose eyebrows arched up and eyes bugged out.   One glared down.  One glared up. Not taking his eyes off the stubborn giant, Tariq randomly gestured in the air with a finger and counted aloud who was to be executed first, second, and so on.  He stopped at seven.  “On your knees; you are number one, pig.  You go first.”  Karim didn’t budge.  Tariq fumed. Again, he leaned forward. Shocked, he abruptly grabbed and pinched his own nostrils between two fingers.

“You  smell of moldy hashish.”  His men nodded. “I detect by the stench that you have been caged in Kandahar.  Do you know you got out just in time?  Talibani warriors have overrun the American base, but did you know?  IT HAS BEEN TOPPLED LIKE A WORMY TREE!”  Tariq’s men jubilantly shook their weapons and popped a few rounds into the sky.  What went up came down. Gravity sped one round through an occupied Taliban hijab–dead-center.

Karim was impressed and nodded approval.   “Good shooting, brother.”

Short one man and shorter on patience, Tariq narrowed his bloodshot gaze for effect.  “How dare you call me brother?  To me you are a prickly a cactus covered with motor oil; but and however, since I am a merciful man—Allah be praised—I  give you a test by which you may live or die.”  He spoke slowly and deliberately.  “If we are brothers, as you say, name your clan?”

Tariq spat on a dead soldier and fired a round through the head of another while Karim cogitated over the question.  He straightened and replied, “That would be Ku Klux Klan,” and then he forced out another desultory, stupid grin.

“Ahh.”  Taliban sabers twisted and glistened in the timid sunshine.  The chieftain’s parched lips sported a grim smile. He beckoned his men forward and ordered, “Behead them all, the ugliest first,” which left room for a wide margin for error.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!”  Devoid of hostage negotiating skills, Karim attempted to upgrade his ticket by replying with a mix of Pashto and English. “Ah, but mobile lord, before we dry I must test you, I am a large Land Rover and bleeder of all Okefenokee Tribes. Yes, yes.  It is true.”  Puffed by his own quick response and using only leg muscles to think, Karim rose to his tiptoes like froth atop warm beer.  He crossed his arms, squared his shoulders as best he could, completed one squat, and broke wind.

“Ohh.”  Now the clansmen were impressed.

Tariq said, “Hmm.  I am curious. I would know, are there children in your tribe who look like you?”

With a few prompts, Karim’s Pashto improved. “No.  I am one of a kindness.  No one likes me.  I has been through many bottles.  I wash to jihad all over Americans.”

Tariq licked his fingers and pulled gently at his speckled grey beard, restoring its pointed end. “Ah yes, yes, now I see, I see.  You plan to gas your enemies with your scent? But that’s against the Geneva Convention, so step back.  I said, BACK.” Karim tippy-toed two steps back, tripped, and fell on his buttocks, allowing Tariq the opportunity to drive his point home.  He skillfully thrust his cimeter against the lathery skin on Karim’s buxom neck.   “Since we both wage Jihad against the Americans, I will assume you want to leave behind a good impression, yes?  Karim nodded.  “Well then, since you are one of a kind, as you say, I will remove your head and mount it on a pole in front of my tent.  You will be famous in every camp and even on TV.”

As rigid as an icicle, Karim kept dripping.  Salty sweat oozed from the Mississippian’s every pore, evoking a surge of adrenalin that spiked a brazen outburst the likes of which his henchmen had never witnessed. A throaty rejoinder gulped past his Adam’s apple and broke his silence into small, lethal shards. “FORGET YOU, A-RAB!  I AM GRAND MASTER OF THE KU KLUX KLAN.  I-me-I am potentatoe of the Okefenokee swamp where my warriors are as putrefied as the warts on a washtub full of frogs; so, pay attention cause I’m only going to tell this once:  I’m an ex-con and mighty proud of it; I’ve been cornered before and come out swinging. During my stint in the cooler I got nearly beat to death, but I never give in; I graduated. I know how to carve a shiv out of a chicken bone and spike a rat nearly as mean as you; and this here fella (he pointed at Ajani) will tell you I chested him and swum on my back through a slough full of gators. I surely did save his skin; and one muggy night we got so hungry I bit a cottonmouth in half, skinned it, and we ate it raw.  Ain’t that right Ajani?”

Ajani nodded, “Yep, yep.”

“But now look at you, Arab, standing in this god-forsaken place in a bathrobe and pantaloons, wearing a silly  thing-a-ma-bob on your head while the U. S. of A. stakes claim to your whole country.  And you are here messing with the very folk who wanna help exterminate trespassers.  Don’t there seem to be something off about all that? They burn your poppy fields, pollinate your water, molest your women, and chew on your crops like cockroaches who snuck into a box of Wheaties.  So, here’s the deal—desert moth—give us what we want, and the grand master and his men will eliminate these American roaches. And while I’m considering aloud, where in blazes is this ISIS we’ve heard so much about?  I want a souvenir flag, free of charge.”

Karim patted Tariq on the head.  “All of what I’ve rehearsaled makes us brothers, don’t you see?”  Karim overshadowed Tariq and continued. “So, looky here and listen up; we need a few things to get this show on the road:  First my Klan needs transportation.  We’ll take one of them Hummers—oh, I see there’s only one for the taking.  We’ll strip the dead of their ammo and load up their firearms.  We need all the jeeps, and I have dubs on that soldier; ” Karim pointed at Edmund Durant; “he’s the one stuck to the truck with the bloody nose .”  The captain, in shock, shaking uncontrollably, suffering from a concussion, and temporarily deaf, saw Karim point an index finger in his direction and pull the trigger.

“Gotcha.”  Karim blew imaginary smoke from his finger tip.  In a cockier tone he added, “Oh yeah, Chief Tariq, we need water.  Let’s see, have I forgot anything?”

Tariq furrowed his brow,You forgot I am going to behead you first.  He fisted his dagger but courteously allowed Karim time to pronounce a benediction on his mortal existence.  But Karim leaned forward and muttered something which no one understood but Tarik and Ajani, who had remained silent throughout the peace talks.

Tariq backed off and consulted with his number two man.  “That big ape is a poacher and a fool.  He should be put down, but let’s give him a few weeks and see how many Americans he can eradicate.   Give him no water, but do we need to be worried about the Okefenokee?  Are they coming, too?

“I have no idea.  I need to call the consulate.””

Tariq drew the zaraf from his waste-band and pointed.  “We agree, but the truck is mine.  Load all the bodies and then leave before I change my mind.”

Karim nodded, approached Captain Durant, stooped, clutched his shoulders, and then spat in his face.  “You’re dead but we won’t bury you yet.  You are my salty negotiating chip.  Your uniform is mine, because now I’m in charge here.  Got it?  You’ll ride in your skivvies, and when you wish to die, just remember, you are already dead. But Karim? Karim of Kandahar?  I will become famous for killing Americans and anybody else who stands in the way of treasure.  Do you hear me now?  J-i-h-a-d!”  After examining and brushing dead grass from the captain’s uniform, he backhanded him across the face and stripped off his identification tapes.  Then, after looking to the chieftain for an approving nod, Karim grabbed Durant’s arm and beckoned to Ajani and the men to lift the truck.

“Remember stud, good first impressions pay off.  Now strip this clown, and then wrap him up and throw him in the back of the Humvee. You drive, and I’ll change into my uniform after we get on the road.  I don’t want nobody staring at my skivvies.  Now move it.”

Tariq waited for Karim’s men to load the dead onto the 10-wheeler; then he stepped up into the cab and started the engine.  Like Floridians at a flea market, his men climbed aboard, stripped the bodies of shoes and valuables, and fought over who got what.  Slim pickings. The truck spun around, bounced back across the rocks up onto the pavement and drove south toward Kabul.  Except for exhausted smoke, it was soon out of sight, but one of Tariq’s men stayed behind.  Before disappearing into the barren landscape, he turned, waved his arms, and whistled. “Don’t go to Kabul. Kabul is going to hell, just like Kandahar.  Go to Jalalabad, far to the east of Kabul.  Many Americans to kill there.”  Cursing, he offered up a vulgar sign which Karim acknowledged and reciprocated.

Unseen by all, the canvas-backed truck pulled off the road.  Everybody scampered off and headed for the hills.  Tariq planted explosives, set a timer, and ran away yelling, “Only a fool drives around with a target on his back.”

Meanwhile, Karim concluded that he had masterminded a daring escape. He rode shotgun and chanted, “O-o-gah! O-o-gah!  Praise be to Allah and my Taliban fathers who now see me as a son, the great Karim of Kandahar, chief of the Okefenokee.”

Ajani steered the Humvee with his knees and, sighing under his rancid breath, tried to read a road-map. “What have I gotten myself into?”

Karim slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Just the two of us could have took down them Taliban scum back there, but it’s too late now.  Keep driving until we come to a 7-Eleven.  When we get there, kill the clerk and bring me a large cherry Slurpee, some food, and beer for the men.  But no plastic straws.”  Karim yawned and relaxed. “And keep an eye out for the army.  We need more guns and gas.  Now step on it!”

Ajani looked up from the map as the Humvee swerved back and forth on the road.  “Since I’m the one charting our course, you need to remember that I’m driving as fast as I can.”

“When I ordered you to step on it, there was a scorpion on your shoe heading up your leg.”

Ajani slammed on the brakes. The unconscious hostage overcame inertia, slammed against the seat-back, and flopped on the floor.  Ajani jumped from the Hummer and pounded his leg.  Karim broke into a fit of laughter.  “Get in the truck.”

Furious, Ajani climbed into the driver seat and wailed, “Not funny, boss.”  He slammed the door, threw the map on the dash, ground into first gear, and rolled forward.  After biting his lip until it bled, he played navigator.  “So, here’s the plan.  We’re now going north then west and join up with ISIS.  The map shows lots of small towns along the way.  Yep.  Yep. There is a junction three kilometer ahead.  We’ll turn left and head toward Iran . . . “

Karim exploded, blistering Ajani’s suntanned skin with pustules of anger. “Never, ever, tell ME what WE are going to do!  WE are going to Jalalabaddle to make America’s mothers mourn, but first, WE are going steal guns, food, and after WE kill and collect our dues, WE are going to Pakistan through the Khyber Pass, just like Genghis Khan.  WE. WE. WE.”

All the way home.“Yep.  Yep.  Right, boss.” Ajani wished himself dead—dead-drunk and safely back Charleston SC —but then, Karim had saved his skin.  Every pickle has its sour moments, I guess.

Zip-tied and unconscious, Durant’s head bounced on the floor behind the front seat  like a tethered billiard ball.  Behind the Humvee, seven loaded jeeps played follow-the-leader as they angled east-north-east across a barren landscape.  Some men argued over who was Karim’s favorite, while others silently wondered where the journey would end—as did those monitoring the convoy via satellite surveillance.

“At four in the morning, Corporal O’Dwyer?”

“Come again?”  Jinny buckled in and adjusted her headset.  “What was that, Sir?“

“The grin, sniper lady, what’s with the grin?” he yelled.

“Getting beat up by rotor wash is like facing a Kansas blizzard in the middle of the day.  Feels like  home, Sir.”

“Roger that.  We are down three. Who are we waiting for?”

“At my six, Sir—Laughlin, Keats, and Devereaux.”  Jinny low-fived Huck, the last to board, and then proffered a thumbs-up to the lieutenant.  “Delta team all present and accounted for, Sir.”

“Okay, Ollie, we’re all here, let’s fly.”

“Roger that.  I have the controls.  Renegade 1-1 lifting off.” Warrant officer Bernie Oliver glanced at his second in command for verbal confirmation, then throttled up, and teased back the collector. The Apache lifted American treasure into the pre-dawn as gracefully as a weather balloon freed of its tether, and the door rolled shut.  Everybody grabbed strap and settled back for the ride.

Both the weather and conversation  deteriorated within the hour.  The sortie was scrapped, and the bird returned to nest at the base, but Jinny had hatched a better attitude.  Her soul–both body and spirit–had buckled in for the long haul, determined to see the job “through new eyes,” as her mother had encouraged. The transformation hadn’t been easy.  Every sortie, real or imagined, rented space under the corporal’s skin until a vacancy occurred permitting it permanent housing in her memory bank.  Some deposits were dicey, others horrific; some days she felt like she was drowning, even while hunkered down eighty-five hundred feet above sea level. But after achieving a mission objective, she seemed to catch a wave of hope and ride its crest to a safe harbor—a helipad at the center of Eagle Camp.  And every time she touched down she thanked God above for safe passage.  Every time.

It was  true that from the Ferris Wheel in Kabul Jinny still couldn’t see Kansas, even on her best days, and so she chose to focus on her band of brothers, for whom she’d sacrifice, even her life, to protect. Thank heavens for gentle Huck, always willing to listen.  He’d reassured her that nothing worthwhile—like, for example, staying alive—ever came easy.  Jinny knew Huck relied on her like a brother does on his older sister, but she never forgot that she and Huck, like Conor, bore an invisible expiration date, probably inked on the backs of their necks.

“I can’t believe my eyes.  Mama Mia!  Manna from Kansas.”  A crumpled blue envelope addressed to CPL Virginia O’Dwyer, APO 9320, Battle Company 1-32, Infantry, Kabul, greeted her umpteenth visit to the post office.  Telephone conversations with family were rare, and while satellite transmissions collapsed the distance between Kabul and Kansas, letters trumped phone calls.  Even  homogenized letters could be gulped down again and again and never spoil. The torn envelope, taped at one corner, looked like it had been run over by a tractor; or perhaps the mark had been left by the turtle who shuttled mail to the base.  Water had softened, even blurred the sender’s inked handwriting, but its recipient could hardly wait to taste its tender tidings.  Jinny pressed the welcome salutation to her lips, pocketed it near her heart, and reported for duty.

“Has my team boarded yet, Lieutenant?”

“We’ve got mission critical problems to solve, Corporal, so standby.  Ollie hopes they’ll get us in the air by 1100.”

“Two hours?”  Jinny was elated but tried not to show it.  Not wanting to draw attention to herself, she quick-stepped two hundred yards in the direction of the north gate, looking for a familiar prompt—a red flag extending from its outrigger above a fire-hose and pump on the left side of the wide corridor.  Jinny made an abrupt left turn, disappeared from view, and broke into a dead run for thirty yards.  She pulled up, put her hands on her hips, caught a breath, and looked up at the stenciled AF3226.  “Home at last.”

Numbered rows of twenty-five-foot long, double-stacked corrugated steel containers—resembling boxcars minus the wheels—lined the west side of the base for a hundred yards, north to south. Jinny had slipped between two stacks into what she affectionately called Thrush Hollow–just a narrow gap wide enough to permit passage.  The ground was puddled, and so she steadied her buttocks on the bottom rung of the steel ladder, welded to the west corner of the double-decker.  She sliced open the envelope with a Gerber-LMF knife, leaving its contents uncut by the army, but always homogenized by Gemma, who kept much to herself.  “Dear Jinny, . . . “

Quietude collapsed.  Short spurts of automatic rifle fire—probably fourteen rounds in all—erupted in the north-south facing corridor thirty yards away. Jinny pocketed the letter under the Kevlar flak jacket shielding her torso and listened. Except for her own heartbeat, all she could hear was someone running flat out.  As the studded footfalls drew nearer, she pulled her HK-VP 9 mm, racked a live round into the chamber, released the safety, and pressed her lean body against the cold steel container.

A whistle blew.  “I’ve got two men down!  Two men down!  Medic! Medic to quadrant D-3,” plead a plaintive soldier. “The shooter’s Afghan military, armed with an AK-47. He’s running toward the north gate.  Shoot to kill.”  Jinny knew she had to move—up and now.  She holstered her weapon, grabbed and scampered up contiguous welded ladder rungs to the top of the double stack.  Another shot rang out.

Jinny frog-walked the width of the damp, rusty container but was still too far from the broad corridor to see anyone approaching from the south.  Eight feet separated her from the next double stack. She stepped back a few paces, took a running leap, and landed like a cat. After repeating the leap three times, she dropped to her belly and propelled herself forward with her elbows and knees until the north gate caught her eye in the distance.  Then  she saw him on the far side of the corridor—a wild-eyed, Afghani soldier—his weapon in hand as he zig-zagged among stacked pallets of fifty-gallon plastic drums across the way.  Jinny brought her semi-automatic into the prone firing position.

The bogey, ducking and running, occasionally poked his head up and paused to listen.  Otherwise, all Jinny could see was the barrel of a rifle making right and left turns.  It reminded her of a frightened pheasant running between rows of growing stalks of wheat.

Soldiers warily approached from the south, heard but not yet within sight of either the runner or Jinny.  She estimated the distance between her and the lone gunman—still hidden from view—at 50 yards.  Too far away for a nine mm round to bring him down.

Outside to the north, four Hummers raced down Butterfly Boulevard, crushed gravel, and swung to a stop broadside of Gate B, ready to confront the threat.  A fifth jeep, carrying a mounted fifty caliber machine gun on its back, slid sideways, lost traction, and dismembered the gate.  The MP standing nearby jumped up and down; engines shut off, and troops piled out to take up defensive positions.  A similar, though not identical scene played out at Gates A, C, D. Meanwhile, a lone CH-47F Chinook tandem rotor helicopter bit chunks out of the sky and lifted from the ground to one thousand feet, hovered, and then slowly paced back and forth, it’s manned, pintle-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns—both port and starboard—locked and loaded.

 Just how many bogies are we dealing with?  Jinny wondered after the chopper was airborne.  All I can see is you, mister, and you need a personality adjustment. No wind to correct for, but you’re a small target from fifty yards with a handgun, especially a pea-shooter like this.  If I miss or call out your position, you’ll spot me, and I’m toast.  If I don’t take you out, innocents may die.   Decision time, O’Dwyer.  Time to choose.  Right time, right place.  She eyed the large label on the stacked barrels behind her hidden adversary.  The man’s rifle came up; then his head appeared like a target popping up at a carnival shooting gallery.

“Perfect.”

Jinny’s breathing shallowed; her heart rate slowed.  Still in the prone position, she extended both arms forward, gripped her weapon, urged a finger through the trigger guard, took aim, and rapidly pumped seven rounds into a container of cooking oil.  A quart-bottle-sized-hole released the chemicals which glug-glugged on the Afghani soldier.  He shrieked, not knowing what gooey potion was oiling both his weapon and his resolve.  The squad sweeping the area saw Jinny, then the target.  Jinny immediately drew fire from one frightened, trigger-happy grunt, who persuaded her to flatten like a slice of cheese—but not yet Swiss cheese.  The squad leader yelled, “Mouse, she’s on our side!”

Jinny climbed down and watched the slick-skinned Afghani emerge from the dousing, saturated with Saffola Oil , hands on his head, and a bewildered look on his face.  Surrounded by the squad of soldiers, he was hastily thrown to the ground, zip-tied, and led away for roasting.   Ruffled but not rattled, Jinny had drawn friendly fire from the safest place in Northern Afghanistan.  A tap came to her shoulder.

“ I see you terminated the life of one fifty-gallon drum of cooking oil today.  Sorry you had to stand here and watch it bleed out.  Good shooting, Annie Oakley.

“Thanks, Sergeant Broshinsky.”

“Got any new holes in your BDU, Corporal?”

“No Sergeant, I’ve been checked out and am good to go.  Has the chopper been repaired?”

“No, and that’s the good news.  The bad news is, Corporal, well, you know the drill, clean up this mess and get to mission brief at 1530.  We’re going sightseeing tomorrow.”

“Any word on the injured men, Sergeant?”

“The word’s ‘alive,’ but I hear they’re both going to make it, at least parts of them.   Long recovery ahead.  They’re both kids like you, dammit.  Well, not like you, Annie.”  The sergeant removed his helmet, scratched his head, and then pulled the helmet back over his large ears like a right tackle anxious to rejoin the huddle.  “The boys will fly on to Ramstein for treatment, then home to heal.  Their assailant, on the other hand . . . I won’t go there.”   He patted Jinny’ arm.  “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yes, Sergeant.”

“Okay then, hop to it.” Broshinsky turned to leave.  As he walked away he complained to himself, “Heal hell!  Part of what they’ve gone through won’t heal, it’ll just scab over; but at least the boys will be home.”

Home.  Absent a quiet bedroom, a solitary barn, or a Quail Hollow, Jinny collapsed on her bunk.  She retrieved the damaged blue envelope from her pocket as one would a lift a blanket from a newborn’s bassinet. Empty.

“No, no, no.”  Flexing fingers pressed deeper into her pocket.  “Yes, yes, yes.”  She retrieved three treasures, one piece at a time—the letter, a two-verse lullaby written on a small piece of parchment, and a black and white wallet-sized photograph. The photo lacked color, the lullaby lacked accompaniment, and the letter had been homogenized.  Gemma had kept her problems to herself, but Jinny sensed all was not well on the western front.

Gemma, two children, Uncle Al, and a few seasonal workers were struggling to  ready for spring planting.  This Jinny knew.   Gemma recounted nothing of the toil–both emotional and physical–required by farm life without Caleb’s steady hands and tempered leadership.  Jinny knew this, too.  Gemma wrote nothing about her deteriorating relationship with Albert, who barked orders, gnawed on his sister, bared his yellow teeth at niece and nephew, and then skipped town at the worst possible times.  But Jinny knew this, too.

Clarence Saperstein, a red headed gentleman farmer-real estate broker over in Abilene had approached Gemma and made an offer on one hundred acres of the O’Dwyer spread.  This Jinny had not known.  Clarence wanted the half adjoining his property–including the stumps–to the east of the red barn.  The offer looked fair to Gemma, the buyer was an honorable man, he could pay cash, and on down the road the sale would help put the kids through college.  Gemma thought seriously about giving the deal a handshake, but Albert wouldn’t have it.

Cold darkness enshrouded the camp, but Jinny—her mail pressed close to her heart—fell asleep to the handwritten memory of her Grand-mama Llewellyn singing, A Kansas Lullaby.

 “One, now two eyes close to sleep. Not much time for counting sheep. On to dreamland soon you’ll fly.  Mama’s here, Pa-Pa’s close by. Mama’s here, Pa-Pa’s close by.

“Dream along dear, soon you’ll see, Kansas grain grown tall and free. Up above’s a moon-lit sky. Mama’s here, Pa-Pa’s close by.  Mama’s here, Pa-Pa’s close by.”

When Jinny awoke to darkness, she stowed her memorabilia in a thin waterproof container and dropped it in a boot for the night, unaware of what awaited on dawn’s doorstep.

“Corporal.  . . .  Jinny O’Dwyer.  Wake up.  Rise and shine.”  Sensory neurons fired, motor neurons sparked, and Jinny landed on all fours—down but up.

“Please, Sergeant, tell me I didn’t sleep through reveille!”

 “Roger that, it’s 0330.  Major General Brendon Robertson is on the line from Kandahar.  Get over to the com building.  Hop to it.”

“What?  Who you say?”

“Jinny, there’s a Major General on the phone!  No time to yawn; and remember,” he whispered, “we lift off at 0700.”

 “Okay, thanks Sergeant.”  Bufford Broshinsky—the six-foot, well-rounded teetotaler from Tallahassee—zipped his coat and walked away blowing between and rubbing his hands together.   Jinny pushed up, sat on the bunk, and quickly pulled fatigues over her woolen socks and pajamas.  While planting ten toes in her boots, a thought sprouted in her mind.  Robertson, a major general now?  Why is he phoning ME in the middle of the night? Please tell me it has nothing to do with the FBI.  “I need a shower.”  She bowed her head, offered a silent prayer, and snugged a helmet over her ears.  Neglected shoe laces whipped at her ankles as she exited the Quonset hut and stepped into a cold, moonless night, expecting to slog her way to the distant communications building in the dark.

A groaning engine signaled the approach of a ride, but it was  nothing like the pumpkin-shaped carriage drawn by four dapple-grey stallions Jinny could have easily imagined.  Seventy-one horses dodged around the corner sounding like a jeep, looking like a jeep, and complaining like a jeep, its blackout lights barely illuminating the fog.  It whined, ground, and sputtered to a stop.

“Prince Charming, I presume?”

A voice grunted, “O’Dwyer?”

“Yes.”

“Climb in.”  Jinny doubled her right fist and hopped aboard all in one motion.

“What’s up?”  Plainly you’re not type cast as Prince Charming. The soldier behind the wheel ignored the question, shifted into drive, and the engine died.  After a few electrical shocks to its system, the Willey-made jeep  sparked back to life, but its driver seemed to have none.  The ride was so herky-jerky that both Jinny and her chauffeur nodded like congregants attempting to stay awake during a boring sermon.  Cigarette smoke made the cold night stuffy.  Jinny held her breath for two hundred yards, catching intermittent breaths from the window like a freestyler swimming laps.  The jeep stopped abruptly in front of the communications building—the antithesis of a grand palace—and its antsy passenger vaulted to the ground.  “Thanks for the lift.”  No response. The jeep coughed, stalled, started, and crawled away on all fours.

Wooden stair treads— uninviting, warped and icy—lay between Jinny and the cinder-block communications building, painted the same color as the ground—white.  Its narrow, vacant windows reminded her of where she had been interrogated back at Fort Sill.  She teased the metal handrail with a finger but pulled away before it stuck to her skin.  Flashback:  Conor’s tongue frozen to a pole in the schoolyard during recess.

“Oh, Conor.”

A lonely light, shielded from above by a hooded fixture, hung above the door.  Jinny looked up at the globe, “Cheer up, at least you’re not being swarmed by mosquitoes tonight.”

The door stuck. Jinny shouldered it open with a heave-ho and knocked PFC Charles Chunkworthy to the floor inside.  “Charlie, Charlie, Charlie, I’m sorry.”

“Here, take this Corporal; he can scoop himself up, I suppose.  What took you so long?”  Seated before what looked like a studio display of TV monitors neatly embedded in the wall, the nearest of two communications specialists brusquely handed Jinny the telephone receiver, caught her eye, and flickered a staid smile.  He turned back to business and elbowed his next-door neighbor who had fallen asleep beneath earphones.  “Wake up, Ralph, you won’t want to miss this.”

With the phone to her ear, Jinny swung around to offer a hand up to the downed dough-boy, then hesitated. “Hello?  Hello, this is Corporal O’Dwyer.”

“I know who you are,” replied the befuddled Bostonian as he batted her hand away, lost his balance, caved, and drew attention from the technicians.

“Woe, Private Chunkworthy, if you want to nap, pull up a chair.  Staring at these screens will put you out in minutes; just ask Ralphy.”

Ralph rewarded his co-worker with a high-five and unabashedly oogled Jinny.

Chunkworthy huffed and puffed to a sitting position.  Indignant at having been decked, he pried himself off the floor, brushed off his fatigues, picked up his helmet, and stomped out the door flapping his gums, spewing vulgarities, and totally forgetting why he’d been summoned to the communications office.

Jinny plugged her left ear and ignored the seated soldiers. “Corporal O’Dwyer here.”

A strained voice two hundred and eighty-four miles away responded, “Corporal, this is Major General Brendon Robertson calling from Camp Kandahar.”  Jinny could hear what sounded like plastic packing bubbles being pinched.   “Hang on a second.” He muffled the phone. “Go see what’s going on. . . O’Dwyer, listen up, this will have to be fast.”

“Yes Colonel, did you say, ‘be last’?  I mean excuse me, Major General Robertson, congratulations, Sir, and could you speak up?”

“No Corporal, listen up.  Your field promotion to staff sergeant is being confirmed to your CO by DOD as we speak.  Do you copy?” Jinny hitched herself up on a counter and her boots dropped to the floor. “By my recommendation and because all hell is breaking loose over here, you are, also by order of the DOD, sniper qualified and assigned as designated marksman to Bravo Company.   Expect to be upgraded with an M-110 Semi-Automatic Sniper System and assigned a spotter.”  Robertson’s tone suggested he was reading from a memorandum, but he wasn’t.  “This advancement should have been approved months ago.”   The receiver crackled like tinfoil.  “Hang on, I’m not done.  God bless, soldier.  I mean that. You’re the best damned . . .  who let you in here?  POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. STATIC.”  Dead line.  No dial tone.

“Excuse me Corpsman, I’ve been cut off.  Something’s gone haywire in Kandahar.  I thought I heard gunfire.   Any idea what’s going on?”

“Corporal, put on your boots, walk to the door, and vamoose,” replied the corpsman coldly as he retrieved and jammed his headphones over his small ears.

Jinny hastily commenced lacing up her boots.  “Oops right boot, wrong foot,” she tittered nervously.  After righting the wrong, she hustled out the door, letting it slam behind her. Ralph salivated aloud, “Yada, yada, yada.  Hey Merkley, why would a major general be phoning a heart-stopping corporal? Do you think he’s sweet on her?”

“Mind your own business. Kandahar’s gone to situation critical. Get Lieutenant Colonel Howard on the line.”

As Jinny dashed toward quarters, her promotion and re-classification jumped out of a warm fax machine at Eagle Camp HQ and landed on top of a small stack of official communiques waiting to be sorted and read.  A few were quickly stamped and handed to the acting base commander, Lieutenant Colonel Mack Howard. He had the phone to his ear and had been up all night pacing the floor.  He glanced at, initialed, and forwarded notification of Jinny’s rank advancement by runner to her platoon leader, Lieutenant Randy Staley.

Without warning, the Colonel blistered the innocent black telephone receiver with profanity before body-slamming it on the desk. “Our kids need help, big-time. First Herat, now Bagram’s under attack again, Brendon has been shot in the stomach, and I’ve got nobody to send south. When’s DOD going to . . .”

“Sir, my screen says Kandahar’s under attack.”

“I just said that, Tonto. When are you going to grow ears?”

“Should I alert your staff your and inform MTAC?”

“You spend too much time watching TV.  You’re in the army, Crazy Horse, not the marines, not the navy.   Get command and control on the line and get my team up here like ten minutes ago.”

“Sorry, Sir. Yes, Sir.  On it, Sir.”

Lieutenant Colonel Howard thumbed through each remaining faxed page as if he were frantic to find a Playboy centerfold or a change of assignment.  He stopped and did a double-take.  His eyes saucered.  “What in the Sam Hill?” Repulsed by the photo, he barked, “Are you the ugliest creature I have ever seen or what?  Billie Joe Quagmeyer: AKA Karim of Kandahar. Did somebody under Robertson’s command write this up and Photoshop this face just for me? IS THIS SOMEBODY’S IDEA OF A JOKE?” he boomed.  “This monkey looks like he just won a Bigfoot look-alike contest.  Get Major General Robertson on the phone, pronto, Tonto. Savvy?”

Corporal Irvin Stevens, a full-blooded Blackfoot, replied, “But Sir, they’re under siege down there, and Major General Robertson has been wounded and taken to the hospital.”

“Well of course he’s been wounded, don’t you remember I just told you that?  Listen up, Chief Little Britches, I’m going to burn down your wigwam if you don’t stop questioning my orders.”

Whatever you say, Kemo sabe.  Corporal Stevens stiffened and turned red–well, redder– but maintained a modicum of self-control. The Colonel stared down at him, wadded, and  stuffed the bulletin in a wire basket on the floor.

“Now get him on the phone.”

Stevens leaned over, picked up, and quietly unwaded the bulletin. “Sir . . .  I already read this. I’m the one who stamped and passed it on to you.  It says Quagmeyer is on the loose in our district; it says before coming to Afghanistan he served time in Mississippi; and if I remember right, it states that he’s wanted by the F.B.I. on an arson charge.  Yes, see right here.”

“You’ve accounted for everything but the face,” huffed Howard.  “Cancel the call.  Is my staff on their way up here?”

“Yes, Sir.” But please, I beg you, General Grunt, retreat  and close the door before you light  your peace-pipe. I was born in Los Angeles.

 Colonel Howard slapped Billie Joe’s crumpled photo from his assistant’s hand, squinted, and read aloud as he strode toward his glassed-in office. “So, he and his pal, Jonny Ray Cranston are wanted for what?   But how in the blinkity-blank-blank can they be defectors when they were never in the Army?  I think Brendon Robertson needs to stop smoking peyote.”  He read on. “‘Billie Joe Quagmeyer is wanted by the FBI?  He and his gang were captured after killing an MP on his way back from leave in Kandahar.”  Howard stopped, turned, wadded, and fired the bulletin from the three-point line, hitting his assistant in the head, and then cursed. “Now, while driving him toward my house they’ve lost him, and  DOD wants me find and  babysit this hood and his band of merry men until they can be shipped home.”  Howard’s self-discipline buckled. “I’ll  summarily execute the whole bunch and be done with it, if I have my way.”

“Sir,  satellite photos confirmed they are headed our way.”

“Unwrap that photo again, put a thumbtack through each eyeball, find the traitor, send him home, and let him audition for the Walking Dead.  What has this man’s army come to anyway?  Send my staff in when they get here.”

The six-foot three-inch colonel lit up a cigar, lumbered toward his glassed in office like an overweight giraffe, and clipped his scalp on the door jamb. After slamming the door behind him, he bit his tongue long enough to open the door, retrieve two flattened fingers, close the door, and drop into a chair.  His staff arrived in time to hear him curse, see him retrieve a bottle of Jack Daniel’s from  a drawer, grab it by the neck, and gulp, gulp, gulp.

“Are you sure you wanted to see us, Sir?”

 

The helipad was empty, Jinny’s bunk was empty, but the Kaboja Valley was full—full of drizzling fog that had scuttled U.S. surveillance capabilities for a third consecutive day.  Shambling Martino, a gangly G.I., straddled the crow’s nest  above Eagle Camp and sounded reveille with a trumpet–not a bugle–pressed to his lips.  He looked like a barrel-man high top the mast, scanning the sea through a spyglass; but as he gazed west toward where the sprawling city of Kabul should have been glowing in first-light he could see nothing, not even the neon Coca Cola sign above Talia’s, one thousand yards away.

Martino bagged his precious horn, caribinered himself to a bright orange nylon rope, and rappelled from the high-point of his day down, down, and landed next to a dumpster where he slumped in a funk.  Like everyone in camp he was oblivious of the approaching Iranian Artesh who–armed to the teeth like fanged, frenzied jackals–secretly low-balled under cover of fog from the west.

Martino was weary of army life.  No, he hated army life, except for  time spent in the brig.  In the cage he could relax and dream of jetting down the Deer Valley slopes, or of hanging out in Park City with the ski-bum crowd.  “I COULD BE HAPPY ANYWHERE BUT IN THIS GOD-FORSAKEN WASTELAND—OH YEAH, I FORGOT—OR ANYWHERE BUT IN TOLEDO, MY HOMETOWN.” He gave up the rant.  No one listened, not even in Toledo.  The wheels spinning in Martino’s head gained traction. “Time for breakfast,” he murmured under his breath.  Climbing to his feet, he threw his rifle in the dumpster and abandoned his post.  Fifty yards later he slipped through the north gate like a magician leaving the stage of an empty theater and vanished into a curtain of fog, leaving behind most of what he held dear, even his self-respect.

Lieutenant Randy Staley’s platoon of patriots, packed in a Chinook CH-47 like sardines in a can, had been airborne for an hour and forty minutes.  Jinny marinated between brothers.  Cold but clammy, she was spellbound by the chiseled, snow-topped cusps of the Hindu Kush.  I wonder if we could grow these in Kansas.  “Hey Sergeant Broshinsky, what do you think?”

The sergeant came to life and grunted indignantly.  “Time to infill?” He pulled back his sleeve and pressed his Timex indigo watch-stem.  “Why’d you wake me,  Sergeant O. D.?”  Jinny sensed that he was less than twitterpated by her intrusion.

“How long before we get to Bagram Air Base?”

“Oh that. Absent a headwind this bird has a range of 400 miles.  I estimate, Sergeant O. D., we’ll be in the air another two hours, thirty-three minutes, and one-two-three-four seconds–Sergeant O. D.  Anything else you’d like to know before I go back to sleep, Sergeant O. D.?”  Broshinsky knotted his arms and locked down his eyelids.

“Sergeant O.D?  What’s up, Bro?   Do we have a bone that needs picking?”  Suddenly everybody’s solitude was violated by a discombobulating rattle-rattle-clack-clack overhead.

“HOLY SMOKE.  What was that?”

All on board jolted to full attention.  Bernie Oliver, the warrant officer flying the helicopter, strangled the cyclic and pressed the knobby com-button, ready to transmit an SOS, while the second officer, Lester Tuft, scanned the diagnostics looking for a failure.  Both men had their concentration fractured by “Break. Break.  Alpha Tango Charlie [air traffic control] to Spicy Chicken Two-Three, how do you copy, over?”

“This is Spicy Chicken, Two-Three, I copy you loud and clear Alpha Tango Charlie; come on back, LATER,” chorused the pilot and Lester Tuft, his co-pilot.

“Spicy Chicken Two-Three, reset your compass to vector 2237–destination, Kilo Hotel. Exfill immediately.  Do you copy?  Over?  I say again, reset your compass heading to vector 2237, Kilo Hotel; clear?

“Stand by,  Alfa Tango Charlie,” Oliver replied.  “LT, what’s your take on the clack-clack overhead? Can we even make Jalalabad?”

“Sounds like we’ve lost the forward stabilizer; so, negative; no can do, Bernie.  Even without the stabilizer problem we’d run dry short of Kilo Hotel.”  The anxious air traffic controller interrupted again.

“Spicy Chicken Two-Three, be advised, Bravo Yankee Zulu has punched in a condition orange, and we’ve lost radio contact.  I repeat, Bravo Yankee Zulu has gone to condition orange.”

“Roger that.”  Everyone on board knew the code referenced Bagram Air Base.  The anxious voice on the ground sounded more urgent.  “We are directing Wild Goat Two-Four to exfil and rendezvous with you at Kilo Hotel; estimated ETA is 1130 hours.  Doppler shows a large storm cell moving south over the Tajikistan border, so throttle up, Captain.  One good thing: Hopefully the storm will blow away this fog we got down here.”

LT keyed in the new heading. When it came up on the screen, Warrant Officer Bernie Oliver radioed, “Alpha Tango Charlie, be advised, we’re going to drop out of the sky well short of  Kilo Hotel; I think we’re losing the forward stabilizer.  Request authorization to turn around and limp home; over?”

“Hold on.  Holy Hallelujah, Sir. Now WE’VE gone to Condition Red down here.   I repeat, Condition Red—Bogies from the west, Captain . . . ground troops and armored vehicles, lots of them, twenty miles out and closing. Can you lighten your load and proceed as advised, Sir?”

“Affirmative.  We could dump my co-pilot, Alpha Tango Charlie. “

“No time for funny, Sir.  Spicy Chicken Two-Three, change course and proceed to Kilo Hotel as directed.”

“Roger that.”  Bernie Oliver switched channels. “TIME TO MOUNT THE FIFTY-CALS, Calvin.  And Quickly! Do you copy?”

“Copy that.  On it, Sir.”  The load master unhooked his seat restraint, rotated the mounted guns into position and locked them down in thirty seconds flat.  New personal record.  He dropped back into his seat and latched up.

“Alpha Tango Charlie to Spicy Chicken Two-Three, do you read me?”

“Like an open book, Alpha Tango Charlie,” replied Oliver while mopping his forehead.

“Spicy Chicken, please hold. . . .  receiving drone surveillance of Kilo Hotel—well, at least the south-east vector . . .  shows no hostiles on the campus.  Do you copy?”

“Copy that, Alpha Tango Charlie.  I’m flying VFR.  We’ll keep our eyes open . . . all the way to wherever we crash.”

“God speed, Captain; have you flown to Kilo Hotel before; over?”

“Alpha Tango Charlie that would be a negative; over?”

Heavy boots stomped into the background noise; radio waves spiked, and an irritated voice abruptly came on the line from  air traffic control, commanding, “Give me your headset, son . . . and the chair.  Spicy Chicken Two-Three, this is Colonel Howard, base commander, do you copy me?”

Oliver paused, covered his mike, and snapped, “I can’t imagine a duplication of Colonel Howard being at all helpful, can you, LT?”

The second officer swore.

“Spicy Chicken Two-Three, respond; over?  This is Colonel Howard.”

“We’re still tuned in, Colonel; receiving you loud and clear; but we’re gonna run out of fuel before we reach Kilo Hotel, Sir, and as I told . . .”

“Steel up your spine, son. Compared to what we’re up against here, consider your diversion a Sunday morning cake-walk through Central Park.” The colonel’s mouth sounded mealy dry. “You’ll make it.  You’ll make it.  Have you flown to Jalalabad before, son?”

Big Mistake, Colonel, you dropped the call sign and revealed our destination.  Now everybody knows what we’re up to.  “Again, that would be a negative for both me and my second officer, Sir; but we’re changing course as I speak, Sir.”  The twin engine Chinook curve-balled sharply to the right.  To Jinny, the chopper blades sounded like car tires rolling over cobblestones in front of Independence Hall, and the abrupt change of course pinned her against the fuselage. Everyone momentarily forgot the unnerving racket overhead, but Colonel Howard rattled on, unabated.

“What’s your name, son?”

“First Officer Bernard Clarkson Oliver, at your service and on course, Sir.”

“Okay, B.O., listen up, because you’ll only hear it once:  You’ll recognize Kilo Hotel from the air by its proximity to a couple of south-flowing rivers— the Kabul and Kunar.”

“Dimwit.”

“What did you say, Captain?”

“’Got it,’ Sir.”

“The rivers form a wye and run under a long, low-slung bridge that looks like US Highway 1 running out to the Florida Keys.  I have a condo in Key Largo. You ever been to the Keys, son?”

“No Sir, but you were saying?”

“Before you interrupted me, I was about to say, don’t land between the rivers.”

“I won’t, Sir.”

“You’d be a sitting duck.”

“I’m already a lame duck, Sir.”

“Look son, you’re out of options.  Your Kilo Hotel is 160k due west of my command; and weather permitting, you’ll be able to see the Khyber Pass in the distance, further on down the road toward Pakistan.”  If the Colonel was trying to calm troubled nerves he’d failed.  “Last year I lectured at the Academy on the Cajon Pass, its history, strategic advantages, and . . . let’s see, where was I?”

“In Southern California, Sir.”

 “What, you say? . . . Our staging area is about one click south-east of the bridge. Keep an eye on the windsock and anticipate enemy resistance.  I’m re-routing Wild Goat Two to cover your landing . . .  hold on, hold on.  What’s the number, Gunny? . . .   Cancel that.  I’m told you’ve already been briefed. Update us when you get on the ground. Out.”

“Roger that, Sir, but we’re running out of . . .”   The pre-occupied commandant threw down the headset, swore and oath to a God he didn’t know very well, and buzzed out of the control room, stinging his subordinates as he flew by.

A frazzled voice returned to the com and plead, “Spicy Chicken Two-Three, please stand by.”

“Roger that, Alpha Tango Charlie.  We’re still in the air–son.”

The incessant clatter-bang above the fuselage sounded to Jinny like a berserk blacksmith’s sledge pounding an anvil.  The fuselage shook; teeth rattled; Bernie Oliver struggled to keep the bird aloft. Jinny prayed until her minute hand crossed twelve five times.

“Spicy Chicken Two-Three, can you still hear me?  You’ve dropped off my screen.”

“That’s because I’m losing altitude, Alpha Tango Charlie,” Oliver replied.

“Captain Oliver, we lost Wild Goat Two-Four.  Please hold . . . Kurt, go catch Colonel Howler, I mean Howard.  He just started down the stairs.”  A sleeve brushed across the tower mic.  “Captain Oliver, Wild Goat Two-Four sent out a mayday before crashing short of Kilo Hotel.”

A door slammed in the background and the flight crew heard a few tension-filled snorts.  It was Colonel Howard again, breathing hard and flying low. “G. I.’ give me that thing.  You there, B.O., listen up.  You’re on your own now.  Stay the course to Jalalabad and arm your machine guns.  Go in hot, drop your payload and get out fast.   Here, take your headset back and get to work, soldier . . .  and stand up next time I walk into the control tower.  AND QUIT SHAKING LIKE A WET PUPPY.”

“Did you hear the Colonel’s order, Captain Oliver?” queried the rattled hound.

“Roger that.  Good luck down there.  Spicy Chicken Two-Three, down and out.”  Exasperated, Bernie Oliver exhaled, forcing his lips to whinny like a horse.

Lieutenant Staley had absorbed the radio exchange channeled through his headset and seized the moment to brief his platoon.  Without thinking, he unlatched his restraint and crouched down like a high school coach nearing the expiration of a thirty-second time-out.  “Ladies and gentlemen, I need all eyes and ears on me.”  Jinny tightened her chin strap.

“INCOMING.”

A violent explosion struck the rear mast, damaging the swash plate and spring-jacking Lieutenant Staley head-over-heels into an unsuspecting lap where he clung like a child to his nanny; the aircraft pitched to the left and, with the precision of an electric can-opener, a fractured airfoil gashed a hole in the cabin roof, leaving the chattering lid attached by a thin strip of fiberglass.  Frigid air spewed through and burned every cheek; the altimeter went crazy; the helicopter spun out of control; Jinny watched the tilted mountainside appear, disappear, then reappear three times as the fuselage womp-womp-womped into a death spiral like a wounded water fowl.

Staley barked, “EVERYBODY HANG ON, WE’RE GOING DOWN HARD.”  The uncontrolled landing collapsed both skids; the chopper twisted sideways, and slid down an enormous mass of scree before coming to rest still upright and three feet from the upper edge of a precipice.   Loose talus cascaded and free-fell out of sight—out of sight because for everyone on board it was lights out.

“Jinny lass, it’s me, are you home?”

Ten-year-old Jinny yawned, bookmarked Stand and Deliver, and then without further hesitation pulled a vinyl recording from its tattered sleeve.  She centered the hole on the turntable spindle, twisted a knurled knob, and watched the stylus drop into the first groove as Uncle Albert appeared in the doorway with a toothpick between his brittle lips.  “Perfect timing, how did you know it was me?” 

 Jinny feigned a grin and showed her imperfect pearly-whites, not because she’d been interrupted, but because a migraine daggered her temples.  She proffered a hand for a formal kiss.   “Uncle Al, for some reason, I can’t get up today.”

 He replied, “If you’re not well, I’ll be on my way.  Sorry to intrude.  I’ve only got a few minutes anyway; my lunch break’s nearly over.  Jinn, don’t get up.  I’ll let myself out.”

 The music bade him stay. 

 “No, no please stay.  See?  I can . . .” She struggled to stand but felt inexplicably restrained around her chest and stomach. “Okay if I sit?  I’m fine, just tired.  The cold weather makes my bones ache.”

 The Buffalo Bills sang in perfect harmony–every verse.  Jinny and Albert were simpatico when it came to their love of music.  Uncle Al closed his eyes and swayed back and forth like a stalk of top-heavy wheat—sedate, tranquil, and full of potential.  Jinny leaned her throbbing head against the overstuffed couch and wondered why it had lost its give.  It smelled like army surplus. The music ended; the needle retracted; the old console shut off, and Albert sighed aloud.  “You know Jin, there’s nothin’ more beautiful  than music produced by the close harmony of a barbershop quartet.  I wish Dan were here.”

 “Me, too.”

 If I were rich today, I’d get . . . well, what I’d better get is back to work before your Papa cans me.”  

 Albert leaned forward, rested a hand on Jinny’s shoulder, and said, “Ya knows that I love ya, don’t ya, gal?  Tell Sis her favorite brother dropped in to say, ‘hi.’”  He gently brushed his scratchy whiskers against Jinny’s cheek.

 “She’ll be back soon, and I’ll remember, Uncle Albert.” Albert reeked of sour sweat.  Army sweat.  “Where am I?”  Jinny came to, only to find her cheek against Sergeant Broshinsky’s bristly Velcroed sleeve.

He quavered, “Will someone take my pulse and tell me if I’m dead, or not?  Ah, Jinny. Never mind, this couldn’t be hell—you’re here.  But who in tarnation is Uncle Al?”

Jinny rested her helmet against the fuselage, furrowed and dragged her fingers down her face, and repressed a groan.  Her head ached, she was nauseated, and her heart raced.  She groped for words.  Lieutenant Staley squawked,“Check the guys on either side of you.  Anybody hurt?  I smell gas.”

“What?”  Bernie Oliver regained consciousness in the cockpit, nodded up, sucked in a pint of thin air, and coughed spasmodically.  He eyeballed his second officer’s vacated seat, punched a button, and wheezed, “LT, where are you?  You okay, Tuft?”

“Yes, Sir.  I’m counting heads.   Good; everybody still has one.”

“I’ll see if I can get some help.  Alpha Tango Charlie this is Spicy Chicken; come on back.”

No response.  “Alpha Tango Charlie, if you can hear me, be advised, I’ve crashed on the five-yard line and fumbled the ball; over?”

Sergeant Broshinsky unlatched his seat restraint and patted Jinny on her trigger hand.  “Are you ready to earn those stripes, Sergeant O’Dwyer? The lieutenant wants me to take point. Exit and  lead the men left and around the downside of the helo, but be careful, it’s game on; let’s go recover the ball.”

Jinny glanced at Huck. He proffered a tremored thumb-up. “Make that a musket ball, Jin.” He forced a smile. Then a frown came easy. Before anyone could stand, it was as if an angry chef had clutched an awl and jabbed hole after hole in a gallon can—a string of bullets perforated the helicopter’s skin and ruptured a fire extinguisher mounted near Huck’s head, spewing foam in every direction.

“We’ve got a problem back here,” Huck wailed.  “Anybody got a towel?”

Shoulder restraints kept Jinny from leaping to her feet.   “HUCK.”

“I’m okay; we’re okay,” he assured her, wiping foam from his face; “but as most of you know, I don’t shave, yet.”  One by one, soldiers gathered their feet beneath them, stood, and armed their weapons. Huck was last to stand.

Bernie Oliver looked out his port-side window, looked again at LT’s empty seat, and then pushed his helmet mike aside and yelled, “Tuft, are you sure you’re okay?  I see blood on your seat.”

“Let’s just say I’ll feel better when you give me my binky and tuck me in tonight,” came the frazzled reply.

B.O. hesitated before unlatching his seat belt.  He closed his eyes, bowed his head, and mumbled a prayer.  Had he been stranded on the side of a busy freeway, what happened next couldn’t have been more unnerving.   At supersonic speed an RPG disintegrated the cockpit windscreens, swished by Oliver’s bowed head, flew into a distant  mountainside, and burst into a ball of flames.

“Amen. Get that r-a-m-p d-o-w-n.”

A motor that should have activated the hydraulic lift whined a few bars of Nearer My God To Thee and seized up.  Purple oil spewed from a ruptured artery into the snow, and the heavy rear ramp collapsed to the ground with a crash, exposing the platoon of pensive patriots to hostile gunfire.  Cal Thester, the load-master, cried, “GO-GO-GO,” but every soldier’s instincts screamed, “HIDE-HIDE-HIDE.”  Lieutenant Staley’s boots hit the slippery slope first, with Broshinsky close behind. They flared apart, flopped to their stomachs, and sprayed defensive gunfire up-slope at what they hoped was the enemy position.

While the forward propeller caterwauled to a stop, Jinny led the platoon single-file down the ramp.  Everyone stooped forward to avoid decapitation and made a U-turn, putting them on a ledge between the riddled chopper and the enemy’s elevated position.  Each soldier sidled across the narrow ledge to the front of the aircraft, then slogged laterally through a fall of unsettled shale mixed with snow; for every forward step they slid down two.   As she bent and slogged forward, Jinny kept her eyes on a fallen Douglas fir, blackened by lighting, which straddled the slope and proffered refuge from enemy fire.  Rotor wash distorted the sound of exploding rounds; anxious cries  pierced Jinny’ heart. As she raced the hot lead to the fallen tree, the hollow-points continued splattering into snowy shale like hail being flung from a tornado.

The chopper’s fifty caliber machine guns remained unmanned.   Everyone just ran for cover, including Oliver who helped his wounded second officer over the tree trunk, retrieved and pressed the SDS, and instantly turned the multi-million-dollar helicopter into a ball of flames.

“Lieutenant, we’re missing two men—Mangason and Tuft?  Hold on, make that three.  Where’s Devereaux?”

“Huck?  HUCK. Stay put.  I’m coming for you.”   Jinny poked her head up for a look-see.

“Stay down, O’Dwyer.  It’s too dangerous; I said, hold your position,” yelled the lieutenant.  Nobody saw Jinny mumble a prayer with her eyes wide open.  She nudged her spotter, who was seated, rocking back and forth, head down, and had his hands over his ears.

“Raffi, look at me.  RAFFI.”  She grabbed his arm.  “We’ll get out of this.  Cradle my baby.  I’ll be right back!”  Jinny thrust her sniper rifle into his hands, sprang up, vaulted over the barking tree, and belly-flopped in the snow.  Still alive.  She tobogganed down the slope and parallel parked next to Huck, who lay face down.  He’s unconscious.  “Hang on, Huck.”  Jinny came to her knees and managed to roll him onto his back.  She worked his rifle loose, slung its strap around her neck, and then grabbed his pack straps and pulled.  Dead weight.

“Dear Father, help me help my friend.”  Totally exposed, she came to her feet, stooped forward and, clutching the straps, dragged Huck up the incline.  Automatic weapons fire now sounded like popping corn indiscriminately exploding in a microwave.  Jinny paused at the giant tree-trunk, braced herself, and with help hefted Huck’s limp body up and over to a temporary safe harbor–or so Jinny hoped.

Back on the helo, shrapnel from the exploded fire extinguisher had severed Huck’s femoral artery.   He bled out; he didn’t complain; he didn’t cry; Jinny held his limp hand; he went away peacefully.

“Unbelievable,” mumbled Raffi.  “Unbelievable.”  The enemy stopped firing.

“Two to go,” shouted Broshinsky.  “O’Dwyer, stay put; that’s an order.”   Jinny divested herself of Huck’s rifle, ignored the second order, jumped the tree-trunk, and followed the sergeant and two other men down-slope to help retrieve Mangason, who was crying, and Tuft, who lay spread-eagle on his back. The rescuers struggled to maintain traction as they dragged, rested, and dragged some more.  Jinny could hear Staley berating her from behind the lofty log.

Two of the three wounded soldiers died behind the log, thirty miles from Jalalabad.  Jinny had little time to mourn, although her eyes quietly bawled blurry; but not so blurry that she couldn’t blink, steady, aim, and fire—again and again—and hit her mark.

The snow, streaked red, would soon be obscured by more snow.  But the horrific memory?  Indelible.

The Apache Longbow hissed above the dreary glebe, leaving war-weary soldiers at Eagle Camp slumbering with one eye open.  Two weeks had passed since the Iranian Artesh had been stripped naked by dissipating fog, strafed by a squadron of F-16s down from Bagram airfield, and bullied into a retreat by the 112th battalion, United States Army.

Jinny didn’t know how to retreat.  She squatted at the chopper door, tethered by a strap, night vision goggles engaged, and stared into mother nature’s closet.  Overhead, four blades diced, whipped, and peppered the bleak morning mist.  Steep slopes of the Hindu Kush blurred by, but their peaks’ jagged cusps— silhouetted incisors visible from the platform—exhaled a north wind and wailed, “Go home, Yankees; go home.”  The enemy was an army of ghosts.

“Standby.” A light flashed green.  Bernie Oliver coaxed the cyclic and collective-pitch levers to comply with his command, and the chopper floated to the ground as effortlessly as a leaf from an old, scarred, sycamore tree, or a dove from the weather vane atop the barn.  Jinny unhooked and followed Staley and Broshinsky as they leapt to the ground. She landed like a cat and counted her team as they jumped, one by one, hunched forward, and followed her in a double-time, wedged formation fifty yards into the darkness.  They knelt and waited.

Slapping at the sky, the Longbow levitated noisily upward, circled once, and fled the thin air to a level “safe-zone” in the Korari valley below.  All but pounding hearts fell silent.  For thirty minutes the squad played dead.  Then on signal—tail-end up first like wary cattle—the soldiers climbed to their feet and found themselves surrounded by an expansive field of frosted poppy plants.

“Imagine these in bloom, whispered Arno Janssens,” Jinny’s recycled spotter.

“Do you have poppies in New Haven, Janssens?”

“No, no, but I remind of my trip back to Geluwe in ‘92.  Have you knowd of it?  Geluwe?  It’s in Belgium.  We went back by ship the year after Vater retired from Simkins.”

“Simkins?”

“Ya, a pulp and paper company over in East Haven.”  Janssens fell silent, then added, “From concrete to cobbled streets to a poppy field:  may not life’s journey end here.”  He stepped closer to Jinny.  “Vater’s home is no longer der.  It vas bombed in de var.  I saw poppies in Flanders Field.  Do you know it?”

Jinny brightened up. “You mean the poem?”

“Ya, de poem, too.  I could tell it good back den.  Crimson poppies.  Cool breezes. Very peaceful.  And I tells you, Sergeant, except for barbed vire fences, I seed no evidence of the horrors that befalled my grossfater during da big var.”

Jinny nodded, unseen. “Thermal imaging makes these green-stemmed bulbs look other-worldly, like aliens bulking up until they mature, catch the wind, sail the earth, and destroy the human race.”

“Ya, you got right de part about destroying de human race, Sergeant,” replied Arno in a brusk staccato.   He uprooted a plant and sniffed, “Sie haben keinen Guruch.”

“You speak German, too?  What did you just say?”

“I said, ‘they has no smell.’” Arno Janssens’ piercing black eyes moved methodically like an owl’s–always alert, but he’d come into the world devoid of a volume control.

“Shhhh.”  Lieutenant Staley extended his right arm and simulated the cranking of an ice-cream freezer with a circular motion.  Prepare to move.  Jinny rendered thumbs up and passed on the command.  Sergeant Broshinsky, in the rear, acted as sweep. Staley signaled all to form a wedge and move forward.

Jinny re-positioned her scrim-net scarf, elbowed plants out of the way, and rapidly counted her steps as they scurried forward.  “. . . nineteen, one hundred and twenty.”   She logged the stat in her brain.  On signal, everyone dropped to a knee.  Jinny cradled her M-24, waited, and listened.  Arno, similarly camouflaged, caught up and knelt within whispering distance.

“Even wid these goggles, I can’t see a blinking ding.”

“It’ll be light soon,” replied Jinny.  “Look for white tails.”

“Pardon?”

They waited, and then waited some more, shivering in the shadows.  Thirty minutes passed before daylight exposed the intrepid Americans to a lone eagle circling in the lighted sky high overhead.  The squad remained hunkered down while four sets of glasses surveilled the rugged terrain, waited, watched, and listened for other signs of life.   On orders, Jinny and Arno crawled like lizards to an exposed rise and continued glassing the mountain.  Jinny had long since trained her imagination to stand at ease while on duty, but her tuned senses remained on full alert, ready to advance or take aim and fire.  “Remember to keep your head down today and whisper, Arno.  Just whisper.”

Headsets went live.  “Listen up,” sniped Lieutenant Staley.  “Ollie reported that he drew fire at five hundred feet after the drop this morning. He identified maybe three different muzzle blasts coming from above and to the right of our position.  He estimated the bogie to be four hundred yards up-slope, but it was pretty dark–hard to get a reading.  Let’s advance, shake the bushes, and see what flies out. Is everybody okay?”

“Halt!  Jinny, bogey at two o’clock,” whispered Arno.  He’s just above de escarpment and left off the trees. I seed the glint off his scope.  I makes it four hundred yards.”

“Okay, everybody stays put; keep your heads down,” ordered Lieutenant Staley. “I mean, everybody stay put.”

“Copy that.” Jinny’s calloused elbows steadied her rifle like the legs of a tripod while Arno wiggled away from a rock wedged against his crotch and scoped the distant slope.

“Range 457 point 2 meters . . . angular mils .255 . . . vindage 2 knots, south to north . . . no, better add a click.  Temperature, cold. “

“Hang on.”  Jinny dialed in the target. The squad waited.  “There he is.  I see him. I . . . see . . . him.  Yes, he’s looking right at me.  Now he’s gone.”

Silence. Nothing.

“He’s back. Hold still, you seedy pumpkin.”  From a great distance the enemy’s head looked like a watermelon, balanced on a Kansas fence post, soon to be exploded by a well-aimed round from Jinny’s Weatherby RC-338. She took a deep breath, let a little escape through pursed lips, stopped breathing, and squeezed off a round.

“Bogie’s down,” whispered Arno.  Jinny always hit where she aimed but never felt exhilaration at striking a human target.  Her hands, knees, feet, and elbows had become calloused by combat—but not her heart.

“Okay everybody, they know where we are; advance and stay low,” ordered the lieutenant.  “Are you still behind me, Broshinsky?”

“Got your back, Sir,” he replied through his headset. Uncannily agile, Jinny also never lagged behind.  She was too fleet of foot to be designated as sweep; that was Sergeant Broshinsky job. Bullets splashed the mud around them like handfuls of pea-gravel flung into a quiet pond by an all-star pitcher. The squad ran thirty-five yards flat-out, uphill, fully exposed to enemy fire, and lunged for cover.  Jinny laid out like an outfielder diving for a foul ball and landed hard, sparing only her rifle from damage.    Patriot blood pumped anxiously through her arteries, and she started to pray.

Through each headset again came the rapid riposte, “Go, go, go.”

Jinny braced her elbows, came to her knees, sprang to her feet, and repeated, “Go-go-go,” as she bounded ahead, mumbling, “God bless America and save the children of Afghanistan.” The longitude and latitude of the poppy field were quickly logged into Jinny’s remarkable memory, but Arno’s faculties were all focused on just trying to keep up.  His Bushnell spotting scope bounced rhythmically but failed to keep pace with his heart beat; and he had difficulty keeping pace with Jinny, especially when jumping from rock to rock.

“Hey, Sergeant O’Deer . . . what  you take me for, an elk?”

 “No, just a dear.  Come on, come on, Arno, give me your hand.”   She paused—as she often had back home for Curly—not wanting her spotter to get a flat tire—a sprained ankle.  The squad made their way up a metamorphic outcropping toward a known enemy stronghold.  Black slate proved a slippery test of tenacity and coordination as they climbed, crawled, pawed and finally crouched to rest. Rocks and fissure, discomfited by millennia of earthquakes and erosion, captured the attention of every soldier, even those not interested in geology.   Predatory winds wailed, Halloween–like, through the cracks, crevices and caves which punctuated the mountainside.  Everybody knew Boo stood for booby trap!

Most caves were shallow; some had hosted small campfires; all were foreboding until cleared.  Jinny rested on a narrow shelf below one of these, her back against a steep declivity, and listened to gurgling water.  It wasn’t unusual for the squad to pause by small springs and watch them pulse and fall toward the slotted gully where they co-mingled before racing toward the Kabul River, currently overflowing its banks.

Jinny watched water fall twenty feet to where squad members silently took turns capturing it in their Camelbak bladders—part of the infantry’s hydration system.  The bladders–fashioned from plastic connected to lengths of hose and fitted into insulated bags–were attached to team members’ rucksacks.  A draw-hose was positioned near each soldier’s shoulder strap.

“Incoming.”

Whirring brassy humming-birds hit on each other as they torpedoed an otherwise tranquil ten minutes.  The hot lead zipped and whanged, forcing the squad to flatten like sourdough pancakes.  From far up-slope, gunfire arced to the ground below the squad, but each volley was followed by a small correction in trajectory.  An urgent command crackled through Jinny’s headset.  It was Sergeant Broshinsky’s voice.

“O’Dwyer.  Janssens. Stay low and move laterally twenty meters left.   I think you’ll be able to see the bogie’s nest about four hundred meters north at eleven o’clock of that position.  All I saw was muzzle blast.  Fix the problem before the problem fixes on us.”

“Roger that, Sergeant Broshinsky.”

Jinny and her spotter wormed through the rocks to the new position and pretended to be invisible, that is, until Arno raised a mirror attached to a collapsing rod.  The sun, now high in the sky, negated the tool’s effectiveness and instantly gave away his position.  Peering through his scope he witnessed a small puff of smoke way off in the distance.  “Down.”  Too late. Jinny had already ducked.  A round struck the ground between Arno’s spread feet,followed by a boom that echoed in his ears.  “Dat vas vay too close.”

Jinny chose not to correct Sergeant Broshinsky’s calculation.  The shot had come from nearly five meters away.  “I wonder where that bogey learned to shoot.”

“I Hope dat it vasn’t Fort Benning,” bleated Arno.

Bullets showered down, keeping Jinny and her spotter flat on the ground for about twenty minutes. Unbeknownst to them, Sergeant Broshinsky tried to draw fire in his direction so Jinny could get off a clean shot. They heard the report of a rifle and rolled to the left.  Scope adjustments were called out and clicked in.  Surreptitiously taking aim, Jinny squeezed off one round.  The human target flopped forward, fell head over heels and landed out of sight.

“He’s down.  Vot a shot! Five hundred twenty meters,” squealed Arno.

“Quiet.  He wasn’t alone,” Jinny ordered.  No high fives.  For her, taking human life was never a cause for celebration.

Staley set in motion a plan to outflank the enemy and ordered Jinny and Arno to stay put.  Within the five minutes, headsets came to life again.  No static. A mild, firm voice ordered, “O’Dwyer!  Fall back thirty meters.  Stay low.  Janssens, you stay put, shut up, and keep your eyes open.”

Strange, Jinny pondered.  Why fall back?  She turned and—back flat and head down—zig-zagged down-slope, trailed by, here a whang, there a whang, everywhere a whang-whang, and dived under the foliage of a solitary cannabis plant the size of a small pine tree.   Jinny heaved a sigh of relief, followed up by a few other indigestibles

  “Thank you, Lord.”

Jinny hunkered down and listened, still puzzled by the order to fall back.  The din of rifle fire had given way to reverential silence, and then . . . to muffled bleating.  Children.  Jinny held her breath.  Cautiously pealing back a sagging branch at her right, she peered from under the cannabis leaves, and her life changed forever.  Astonished at the sight, her mouth fell open and her dark brows piqued in disbelief.  Jinny bowed her head and spoke into her headset.  “Either my eyes are playing tricks on me, or my imagination is kicking into high gear, uninvited!”

But no. Two rag-tag, dark-haired little boys, faces smeared—forsaken and shaking like hungry eaglets who’d fallen from a feathered nest—huddled together within the cavity of a shaded overhang.   Only from precisely where Jinny lay could she have seen them.

“Sergeant. Broshinsky. Come on back.  This is Jinny.”  No answer.  “Arno, Bro isn’t responding, can you see him?”

“Not till the shooting stops.”

“The shooting has stopped, Arno.”

“I’m with him, Sergeant,” barked Lieutenant Staley.   “Alvarez is trying to stop the bleeding.  Your Sergeant is unconscious.  What do you need?”  Jinny forgot what she needed.  More disturbed, the Lieutenant cackled, “For crying out loud, Alvarez, I’ll press the wound; get an IV into him; listen up everybody; this can’t be happening; he’s gone. Do you copy that, O’Dwyer?  Broshinsky’s dead.”

Jinny rolled onto her back and shuddered.  Struggling to control her emotions, she managed a garbled plea.  “Lieutenant Staley, Sir, I have eyes on two small children.  I think they’re abandoned.  What should I do?”

“What do you mean, you think?  Either they’re alone or they aren’t.  Maintain your position.  Do not approach.  This may be a trap.”

“Copy that.” Jinny leaned forward, rested her forehead on the dirt and wept like a baby.

Lieutenant Staley palmed the sat-radio and punched in a numbered sequence while Alvarado rolled Broshinsky’s body onto

the body bag, snugged it around him, and zipped it closed. “Spicy chicken, this is Bando one-one, request breach and clear.  I have one KIA.  I’ve lost my sergeant.  Spicy Chicken do you copy?”

“I copy you, Bando one-one.  I’m in the air headed home; had to take evasive action; running on fumes. Again;  over?

I thought you were on the ground in our sector. “Hold on a minute, Ollie.”  Staley’s brain registered CHECK-MATE in capitals.  He muffled his mic and opened all the stops. “O’Dwyer, hold your position, we’re coming.”

Bernie Oliver sensed the distress on the ground.  “Sorry, Sir, but I’m on a short leash; returning to base.  I’m trying to coordinate your ETA at secondary pickup zone with Zulu Zulu; Can you give me an ETA?

“Negative.”

“Do you need those coordinates called out?”

“Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Ollie.  Aren’t you listening to me?  I’ve got one man dead, and two kids just dropped in my lap.””

“I’m doing my best, Sir.  Suggest you get your men down off that slope; bogies at your six.  Skirt the poppy field.  Please hold, Lieutenant Staley.”  Pause. “There are two Hummers, maybe forty miles east on the Grand Trunk Road below your location.  They can touch down  at alternate drop site 7 at 1100 hours and are being re-routed as we speak.  That’s the best I can do, Sir.  I’ve got just enough fuel to leg it home, I hope.”

Staley gritted his teeth and replied, “Copy that.  God speed. We’ll fall back and hold.  I don’t know how long it will take to get down there.  Tell them if we don’t’ arrive by 1100 hours to wait.  Out.”

On edge, squad survivors fashioned a litter for their dead sergeant and slowly worked their way down to Jinny’s position.  Staley exploded. “O’Dwyer, why in tarnation did you fall back?  It’s not like you, even though you are a woman.”

Jinny chilled. “I’ll tell you straight-out Lieutenant, I responded to a direct order, Sir, but I did not recognize the voice.”

“Obviously,” Staley barked while staring at the body bag.  “Arno, yes you!  You and Alvarez approach the youngsters; and don’t get blown up.”  The children didn’t speak, didn’t move, and didn’t resist.

“All clear, Sir. No surprises, except  the older kid was clutching a sharp stick in his hand,” reported Alvarez.

Arno and Alvarez each scooped up a frightened child in his arms and returned to the squad, where they knelt by the cannabis bush next to Jinny.  “These kids are either tongue-tied or they don’t speak English,” muttered Alvarez as they set the children at Jinny’s knees.

Two tattered little bumpkins tightly buttoned their lips and refused drinks from a Camelbak. Then they changed their minds.  Two sets of large, chocolate brown well-springs of life fixed on Jinny.  She stared deeply, first into one paired pool, and then the other and saw only herself. Her features softened into a smile as she remembered a traumatized little girl, a sleepwalker, lost in a Kansas cornfield in the middle of a night so very long ago.  She remembered the rustling sound of a heavy, warm jacket pushing between the sturdy stalks and the tall man who sighed and knelt in the wet furrow.  She sensed again the relief in Caleb’s voice as he whispered, “Come to Papa, little lamb. ‘And when he cometh . . .  he calleth together his friends and neighbors, saying unto them, rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.’” [Luke 15: 6.]

The sun arced warily overhead, precisely marked midday, and then slid silently,  one second at a time, into the afternoon.  To distant Taliban watchers the weary platoon probably resembled a beleaguered funeral procession who had lost its way to the cemetery.  They followed the switchbacks hither and yon, stumbling from one twisty game trail to another; they lost elevation; they gained elevation—again and again. More exhausted than exasperated, they backtracked nearly a mile before catching a break.

Staley limped.  He’d strained a quad.  “If we keep pressing due south we can’t miss the road,” he mumbled three times in an hour, trying to convince himself that they weren’t lost.  The sat-phone was dead.  “The Grand Trunk Road’s gotta still be there.  I flew over it five or six weeks ago.” He fisted a hand into the air. The procession stopped.  “Take ten.  O’Dwyer, climb up there and have a look-see; and keep your head down.”

Jinny left the trail, hiked about sixty yards around and over some Volkswagen-sized rocks, then turned and waved to the children, who pretended to ignore her.  After glassing the valley floor, she cupped her hands over her mouth, but then thought better of calling out her report.  She loped down with the grace of a sure-footed mountain goat and approached her weary lieutenant, who was lying flat on his back, smoking.

“Sir, I saw the road.  It’s rides above the valley floor and looks like a railroad trestle made of gravel.  We’re on course and about an hour out.  No snow. No sign of the enemy.”

“Did you hear any voices up there, Sergeant O’Dwyer?”

“No sir.  No voices.  No train whistle, and I saw no caboose.”

Staley climbed to his feet, swatted at his buttocks, picked up his weapon, and growled, “Okay men . . . and Nursery Nan, let’s move. We’re an hour away from the road and already late for the rendezvous.”

Nobody had trouble keeping up with the lame lieutenant, even with the children in tow.  By the time they reached the base of the roadbed Staley was lagging behind.  “That’s it,” he puffed,  “The Taliban Tollway.  O’Dwyer, double-time it up there and look for our ride.   The rest of you keep an eye on our flanks and rear.  Stay locked and loaded.”

Jinny signaled to the children to sit and rest and then clawed her way up the steep berm to the road.  After kneeling to catch her breath, she unslung her rifle and let go the memory of Conor’s topple into Thrush Hollow, so very long ago and so very far away.  Enough, Jin, focus.  The asphalt—rippled by war machines and eroded by nature’s fury—was devoid of traffic for as far the eye could see, even with the rifle scope.

“Anybody coming?” yelled the lieutenant.

“No Sir, but I get the Taliban Tollway innuendo.  Hang tight for a minute.”  Jinny pivoted from glassing the mouth of the Khyber Pass and looked west again toward Jalalabad. “I see an outline of the city but no sign of our ride.   I’m pretty exposed up here.”

“A little voice told you that, did he?” rasped Staley as he clawed his way up the embankment.  “Give me a hand up.  Where in the tarnation are they?”

“We are two hours late, Sir.”

He scoped the horizon.  “You missed it, O’Dwyer.  I see dust.”

And seeing dust out here is unusual?

“It’s about time.”  The squad rallied to the announcement, but the children huddled like a couple of Koalas not wanting to be disturbed.  They watched Staley open a can, stuff a chaw in his cheek, and plop down on the road.  “O’Dwyer, look into your crystal ball and verify that whoever’s coming is on our side.  I want to know if you hear the same voice that countermanded my order this morning.”

Jinny knelt, scoped the road, then leaned forward and pressed her ear to the ground.   “You’re right, Sir, two Humvees.  As for the voice I heard, I already explained that, Lieutenant.  I fell back because I was ordered to fall back; but by whom, I do not . . .”   Stopping mid-sentence, Jinny knew; she knew who’d given the order.  “I’ll get the kids.”  She slid back down the bank and extended her arms toward the children, who drew back until they heard two 6.5L Vu turbo-diesel Humvee engines careen the final one hundred yards and screech to a stop alongside the seated lieutenant.   He waved off the dust, coughed, looked up, and said, “You’re late.”

“Got here as fast as we could, Lieutenant,” replied a salty sergeant.  “Me and Drifter here had to stop for a soda in Jalalabad.”  Staley didn’t smile.  He stood, stared down the driver and then cranked out an order.

“Mama Kangaroo, pocket your little Joeys, get up here, and hop your hips into this Hummer behind Sergeant Soda Pop and his side-kick, Bubbles.”

“My name’s Roger Blake, and this here’s Drifter Valdez, Sir.”

Jinny detected no humor in the introduction.

Staley pointed at the lead vehicle and talked down at his men.  “The rest of you help Janssens and Alvarez get Sergeant Broshinsky up to the road and lash him on the back of this Humvee; and don’t drop him . . . I said, move it.”  He leaned, watched, and spat.  “Let’s get our hynies out of here.”  Everybody scrambled.

Blake let the engine idle.  He and Drifter, his number two, climbed out to help help hoist Broshinsky’s black bag  and reverently tie it on the sloped rear-end of the lead Humvee.  The solitary driver of the second vehicle jumped out and stood at half attention.   Staley walked past him, climbed into the driver’s seat, and slammed the door. “Give me the keys.  Never mind, they’re in the ignition. Let’s go.  Alvarez, Janssens, and everybody but the Kanga and her roos climb aboard.”  Moments later, the lieutenant spun his Hummer into a sloppy U-turn and yelled to Blake, “Follow me.” He sped west and got smaller and smaller.

“Treddlepinger! Who put a roach in his panties this morning?” chortled Sergeant Blake as he flicked ash from his cigarette and climbed back in the driver’s seat.  Jinny shook her head without answering.  Seeing her spotter, Arno Janssens, being hauled away, she lamented, Farewell Sniper Duty.  Hello KP.  Blake revved the engine.

“Those kids look hungry; you should resupply now, but with your sergeant tied to the back end, you’ll have to climb aboard and access what we’ve got from the back seat.  Be quick. We’re about to run the gauntlet.” Jinny cranked open the passenger door on the driver’s side, and the older child helped his little brother scramble up and in while Drifter hustled around to the other side, hopped in to ride shotgun, and then shoved eight sticks of Wrigley’s gum into his mouth, two at a time.

“Help yourselfs and chow down, little Talibanys,” he twittered as Jinny climbed in and secured the door.  “Do they speak any English, Sergeant Kangaroo?”

“Not yet, and the name’s O’Dwyer–Sergeant O’Dwyer.”

The engine revved; the vehicle lurched and stalled.  Everybody tensed.   Mounted front antennae rocked back and forth, pointing first in the direction of Jalalabad and then the Khyber Pass.  Blake swore, rasped, and cranked the ignition. “Not to worry, folks.  Just fasten your seatbelts and enjoy this six-ticket ride.  It’s on me.”  He turned the key; the engine cranked, and then cranked again.  Nothing.

Jinny stretched her slender neck slowly from one side to the other and arched her shoulders trying to relax.  With the rifle resting between her knees, she stared through the armored transport’s chain-linked window and without moving her lips prayed for the engine to start, then thanked God for seeing her safely through another sortie.  She quickly resupplied the rucksack on her lap, and filled her camelback pouch with two liters of water.  The boys gobbled as if they were eating their first meal in a week.

The engine cranked and sputtered to life, and so did Sergeant Blake.  From deep in his diaphragm he bellowed, “We’re on the road again.  Just can’t wait to get back on the road again . . ..” He’d memorized every word.

After he’d finished bellowing like a banshee, Jinny caught his eye in the rear-view mirror.  “Hey Sergeant, nice ride,” she yelled over the engine’s din as she ran her fingers along the torn seat back. “Thanks for picking us up.”   Blake’s eyes toggled down to watch the boys pinch their noses.  The younger child sneezed.  Blake puffed, coughed, and flicked his smoke out the window.

“Meter’s running, Sergeant.  “Tell me when we get close to where you live.  I’ve never been to Kansas.”

Jinny’s nearly relaxed eyebrows peaked like question marks, and her shoulders rolled forward.  “How did you know?”   Blake wrinkled his nose, winked, and squinted intermittently at Jinny through the rear-view mirror as he dodged back and forth trying to miss the potholes of life.

“Those kids got names?”

“They haven’t said a word.”  She tapped her name patch, “O’Dwyer,” then pointed at the older boy.

Asad swallowed and volunteered, “Asad.”  He pursed his lips and before licking his fingers pointed toward his brother. “Asif.”   The Hummer pitched back and forth and side to side like a bronco.  Asad gently jostled Asif a few times with an elbow, smiled for the first time, and hee-hawed in Pashto like a cowpoke taking his first ride in the Dickinson County Frontier Days Rodeo.  Asif stared at Jinny as if he wanted to speak.  She studied the tear-smudged little face and discovered by his expression that he needed to relieve himself.  In Pashto, Asad confirmed what Jinny had surmised.

Roger Blake logged the message and looked for a place to stop where he’d have a clear line-of-sight–north, south, east, and west.  A veteran of two tours, he pumped the brakes, created as little dust as possible, and brought the Hummer to a stop above a dry creek-bed that disappeared beneath the road through a large corrugated pipe.  He batted good-naturedly at the salmon dry fly dangling from a short length of tippet tied to the overhead visor.  Both he and the fly hailed from West Yellowstone, Montana.

“Okay, Sergeant, go, and make it quick, I don’t dare shut her down.”  He left the engine idling.

The boys needed no help unbuckling their restraints.  Blake opened the driver-side door, dropped one foot to the ground, and glassed the foreboding landscape looking for signs of life—and death.  Lots of places to hide.  Jinny and the boys bailed out the far side, crossed the road, and slid down the steep berm.

“Drifter, keep your eyes peeled.  Tell me when you hear them climbing back to the road.  I smell trouble, and trouble stinks . . . too.”

“I surely will do that.  I surely will do . . . that.”  Born in Atlanta but raised in Nashville, Drifter wished he had a cell-phone so he could call his girl back home—either girl.  He glassed mechanically back and forth, magnified the side of Blake’s head, and forced a grin.  The regular motion of his jaw made the field glasses jog rhythmically up and down.  He quipped, “Been meaning to ask you something, Sergeant.”

“What’s that?”

“ ‘Scuse me for sayin’, but was you born with that de-formation on your head?”

“What de-formation?”

“The cauliflower ears. “

“No, I earned them on the mat.”

Drifter shrugged and mumbled good naturedly, “It don’t look like they shoulda cost you much.”

Jinny and the children slid to flat ground and landed on their feet.   “Guess I ‘shoulda’ left my rucksack and rifle in the Hummer,” she said sarcastically as she brushed off the dirt and signaled the boys to stay close.  “Let’s duck in here so you can do your business.”   Without ducking, Asad and Asif followed Jinny five or six feet into drainage pipe.  Jinny leaped, screamed, stomped, and stumbled backward.  “Oh my gosh! A snake.  A snake.”

The Hummer backfired twice.  It sounded like a cannon.  The engine died. 

 Totally spooked, Asad and Asif backed out of the pipe and dashed away.  “No, no, no, no, get back here.”

Before Sergeant Blake could slide back into his seat and restart the engine, he heard a pop, looked at Drifter, and whispered, “Incoming . . .” The RPG’s vapor trail hissed from hiding; the grenade slammed into Roger Blake, exploded, and instantly incinerated both men—and the dry fly.

Concussed and thrown backward, Jinny landed in a heap inside the pipe. Shrapnel zipped and zapped and ricocheted off the nearby rocks. The death-blow had been launched from two hundred and fifty yards.  The shooter’s knotted kufiyah, fashioned from the remnant of an American flag, wagged triumphantly from side to side atop his hoary head; his accomplice sported a surly grin, unseen by Jinny and the boys.  The launcher was reloaded and the shooter’s shoulder tapped.  The second missile popped, hissed, and blew the Humvee laterally off the ground; it clawed the berm as it rolled over, down, and obliterated three sets of innocent footprints.  Exploding ammunition racked a door panel back and forth—making it look like it was fanning the fire—and left the ground blackened to a radius of forty feet.  The stench of burning rubber and black smoke billowed upward in nauseous puffs, while the shooter, two hundred yards away, squealed in plain English, “Double Jeopardy,” and high-fived his accomplice.  They slipped into cover, squatted, opened a package of powdered opium, took turns snorting and babbling in an unknown tongue, and waited for the fire to burn down. They were soon oblivious to their surroundings.

Until the moment of detonation, Drifter Valdez had been trying to remember the punch-line of an off-color joke; Roger Blake hadn’t lifted his left foot from the ground. His tour of duty had ended one day too soon.  The inferno had fried a one-way ticket to Bozeman, Montana.  Nothing survived to be sent home to his widow and four daughters except a dog tag, still legible, lying in the middle of the road.

Blake
Roger J
OPOS
L.D.S.

Jinny lay unconscious on her back, entombed in the pipe.  “Rabbit, wake up.  You need to get out of here.”  Someone gently shook her shoulders and repeated, “Rabbit, wake up.  You need to get out of here.”  Her singed eyelashes fluttered.

“Curly? . . . Help me.  My arm . . . gone.”  Except for her left arm—pinned clumsily beneath her back—Jinny couldn’t fathom a place where she didn’t hurt.  Her head throbbed; a beating tympani had replaced one of her eardrums.  “I must be alive,” she mumbled without opening her eyes. “Dead people don’t hurt like this—I hope.  Where’s my helmet?  She strained her head to the side and then relaxed.  “It’s still there . . . help.”  Floating, drifting on a stormy sea, Jinny shivered  in a drainage pipe devoid of living water, heard a breaker crash against the rocks, and lapsed into unconsciousness.  When her eyes fluttered open, out of focus extrusions of pipe reminded her of confinement in an MRI scanner.

An inaudible breeze soothed her burned cheeks and forehead.  “Jinny, please wake up.  You must go.”  She struggled, rescued her left arm, and went to sleep while it woke up. The sun had marched two blocks toward the western horizon before her vision cleared, and before she could hear someone breathing.

“The CHILDREN!” Her echo reverberated through the pipe. The snake had fled; time had stalled long enough.  Children’s voices answered as if calling from the far end of the Ellinwood Tunnel in Kansas. “But why are you speaking in Arabic? THE TALIBAN!” Circulation improved. Painful sensations returned to her bruised limbs.  Jinny tucked her chin and squinted toward her feet.  Nestled up close, the children—one on each side—held her blistered hands and tendered consolation in a language she little understood, in a culvert far from civilization.

Jinny propped up on her elbows, then sat up, drew in her knees and joined hands with Asad and Asif.  “You came back.  Yes, yes, and you’re okay.  You are okay?”  She kissed each outstretched hand.  Asad wiped away the kiss and shrugged.  Neither child smiled.  Neither boy was okay, and Jinny knew it.  She lowered here expectations and looked at her watch.  Hours would pass before Jinny’s ringing ears stopped expecting someone to answer.

Asad and Asif stood and, without letting go of Jinny’s hands, pulled her upright.  She straightened, but not quite; she was still taller than the pipe, and she had a stiff neck.  Her rifle was banged up but, after giving it a quick once-over, it appeared to be in working order.

Asad pointed at Jinny’s face and formed a word with his lips but didn’t speak.  “Am I bleeding?”  She touched her skin then examined her finger.  “Yes, but it’s not bad.”  Jinny felt for her rucksack.  Still in place. She rubbed her cracked watch crystal, and then followed the boys out of the pipe.  “Why the hurry?”

Billowing smoke coughed into the sky.  Jinny fell to her knees.  Her headache pounded like an Apache tom-tom beating inside the aging walls of Fort Sill.   “The explosion!  Blake! Drifter!”  As if she had come to worship in Mecca, Jinny fell forward and touched her forehead to the ground.  Too hot. The sanctified Hummer’s smoldering skeleton eerily collapsed inward.  The boys knelt silently on either side of their only friend in the world as she wept.

Half a globe away from the hallowed ground of the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, soldier ashes below the berm peace-piped into heaven—the eternal flame had gone out.  Jinny and her pint-sized companions warmed before the smoldering shrine for ten minutes while she considered gathering stones and laying out three crosses at the memorial remains.  “No time.  We must get to high ground.”  She bade her eyes track a puff of smoke upward and whispered, “I hear you, Mama.   Higher ground. Safe harbor.”  Jinny stood at attention and presented a painful salute–until she felt two tugs.

After a nod and a  beckon, she led the boys from the blackened grave back to the dry creek bed where she stripped three branches from a blackened, denuded willow tree.  The three survivors swept the area of footprints, back-peddled from the smoldering Humvee, and climbed up onto a large rock.  “Well Curly, that tragic day in the loft seems pretty trivial just now,” she murmured.

With the M-24 strapped over her shoulder and the rucksack on her back, Jinny led the way up a hillside, looking back as often as she looked ahead.   On less wobbly legs, Asad and Asif played follow-the-leader until they approached a wide, exposed escarpment of tile-sized slate.  Even wild Argali sheep avoided such hazards.  “Boys, we must either expose ourselves to enemy eyes and cross or backtrack and find another way.”  Jinny’s looked ahead; her confidence got swept into a riptide of despair; she had no water to tread.  Asad looked up, tugged at her hand, grabbed his brother’s hand, nodded determinedly, and double-crossed Jinny’s fears.

Ah, but a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”  [Robert Browning]  

Bending at her knees, Jinny startled the boys by slumping down and drawing them beneath her arms—as a hen gathers her chicks—and plead.  “Heavenly Father, I believe in miracles.  Clear my mind of despair.  We need help!  Blind the eyes of our enemies.  Deliver us across this hazard.  I’ve got a war to get back to.  In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”  Jinny shifted the rifle-sling further back on her shoulder, remained kneeling, and persuaded Asif to climb aboard her rucksack.  “Hang on, partner.  In Kansas, this is called a piggy-back ride.” Grasping Asad’s hand and without further hesitation, she took one measured step at a time; they plodded across the forty-yard-wide hazard, conspicuously visible from the valley below.  “Nice and easy does it . . . at last!  Thank you, Lord.”

Reveling in their success, Asif dropped to the ground and the brothers high-fived then hugged one another.  The trio found seclusion and rested while each sucked water through the plastic tube and chewed on a brown chunk of bullion-flavored ration the texture of chalk.  Jinny pondered:  Should we continue to climb, or angle to the north, drop back to the road, and follow it west toward Jalalabad . . . or turn east through the Khyber Pass and walk into Pakistan?  Or, should we hole up for the night and hope for rescue in the morning?

Asad and Asif studied the soldier’s solemn features, wondering what she was thinking.  In polished Pashto, Asad whispered to his brother.  “I think she’s lost. If she’s lost we’re lost.”

Asif responded with a nonchalant expression and shrugged his shoulders as if he’d given up caring.  He turned, looked back at the smoldering tires, and whispered, “While she was asleep, the Taliban could have slipped in and cut her throat.  She was lucky.”

“To this woman, I think there is no such thing as luck, little brother.”

Jinny disclosed what she was thinking by angling northeast up the incline, content with her present duty and feeling neither alone nor forgotten.  She took care not to kick loose rocks simply to witness their fall down the steep mountainside; each labored step yielded a better view of Taliban territory below.  The bicuspid-like snow-capped peaks still loomed above as if waiting to swallow Rabbit and her young bucks whole, and the Old Grand Trunk Road, paling in the distance, looked as straight as a furrowed row of Hard Red Winter Wheat, scribed east to west across the valley.  Kabul and Jalalabad were too far distant to be espied, even though the lenses of a high-powered scope.

 Jinny held up a fist, crouched, and checked her watch.  “It’s 18:50.” Asad and Asif stopped, turned, and tracked her gaze back to the smoldering Hummer.  Three hearts skipped a beat.  “I heard yelling.” She studied the grey valley below for signs of life, placed a finger to her lips.  One, then four, then eight more men climbed to the road, crossed and stared down at the memorial cemetery.  A dog, its bark barely audible, struggled against its leash and became easier to see when it broke free and lit out on a dead run up the road toward the Pass.  “There goes their dinner,” Jinny quipped, having knelt and pulled down her night vision goggles.  One of the distant figures whistled and shouted, but the dog ignored him.  The whistler raised his rifle and fired, hitting and somersaulting the canine onto its back in the middle of the road.  It stopped barking.

Give me liberty or give me death.

 “Nobody moves,” Jinny whispered as two bearded clansmen glassed the mountainside with binoculars, looking to see movement, any movement. Glass. Turn.  Glass. Turn. Jinny secured her night-vision-goggles above her eyes and whispered, “Taliban.  Heavily armed and drunk.”  What she could not see, stamped on their high-powered binoculars, was “US ARMY”.

In one smooth motion Jinny unshouldered her rifle and stood it upright on the ground.  Asad raised, straightened, and pointed his index finger down range.  He pulled back his thumb, fired, and imitated the recoil.  He looked up at Jinny and without smiling blew imaginary smoke from his index finger. Striking an invisible Taliban clansman from 400 meters would have been spectacular.  Annie Oakley shook her head and whispered, “We’d give away our position; no target practice tonight, Asad.”  He shrugged as if he didn’t care, turned and slowly traced the outline of Jinny’s sheathed K-Bar with his finger; then he drew in close and studied the holstered Glock 9mm semi-automatic.

Evening skies  cleared and cumulative cumuli  floated east into Pakistan.

Under lent light, Asad was first to spot a small, weather-carved cove above and forward of their position—its walls still warm—against which they could put their backs for the night.  They climbed cautiously up to the rocky overhang.  The boys sat.  Jinny unslung her pack, let it drop to the ground and, breathing heavily, looked up as one by one, scintillating clustered stars and clearly distinguishable constellations pinged into view and assumed their reserved seats in the heavens—a luminous array of diamond tinker-toys, invisibly yet recognizably linked together.

Beat up but bright-eyed, Jinny readily absorbed and reflected light.  “Behold the handiwork of God,” she said, gesturing not toward herself, not toward the heavens, but toward the children.  How they regarded her—this beautiful, resilient, athletic, American patriot—she did not know.  That they were hungry, tired, and deserved sanctuary, she understood.  Jinny set her mind and heart on shepherding the boys to a safe haven so she could work her way back to her unit.  She leaned the banged-up M-24 against the overhang and smiled .

“At suppertime, Papa used to bunch up his face, hunch forward, lower his voice, and growl good-naturedly, ‘I’m all give out and hungry as a bar cub.’  Then he’d stick out his tongue, lick his lips, and grin.”  Jinny’s expressive recitation raised Asad’s eyebrows, but Asif yawned and scratched his head, apparently bewildered by the woman.  His interest was in her dropped rucksack.  He watched Jinny unsnap and zip it open.  After cleaning her scratched cheek and each of six hands, she laid out a simple supper of energy bars, a few A and B rations, and everyone sucked a last swallow or two of tepid water.  And then, by a simple pantomime—easily understood by Asad and Asif—Jinny explained, “Tomorrow we must find fresh water, hike down to the road, and make our way through the Pass into Pakistan.”  She retrieved a map and flashlight from her Kevlar vest, unfolded the map, pinned it to the ground with pebbles,  and traced the road with the slivered light.  “Peshawar.  We will seek refuge in Peshawar.  Tonight, we are safe, but we must sleep.”

What Jinny left unspoken was sobering.  We have passed the point of no return; from here on there’s no turning back; not to the Jalalabad road; not to Kabul.  God willing, we will be rescued by a search party or retrieved by a passing convoy. But . . . when they see the skeleton of our Humvee, we might be presumed dead.  Jinny shuddered; the rock was warm; Asad was restless; Asif started to cry.

After some coaxing the boys joined hands with their benefactor.  She spoke softly in her native tongue, praying silently that her companions would understand.  “Cheer up you two.  We have witnessed many miracles today.”  Before she could reach up to hide them, tears escaped from her chocolate brown eye, ran down her cheeks, and tickled her lips.  Wide eyed, the boys saw the tears through the moonlight, relaxed, and Asif stopped crying.  After a soulful pause, Jinny continued, “Asad, Asif, look up.  The power of God is everywhere.”  All raised their eyes, jaws dropped, and together they tried to comprehend the Milky Way.  The children tightened their grip on Jinny’s scorched hands.

Remembering her Mama’s first letter, Jinny retrieved a small, waterproof, metal box from an interior vest pocket where she had kept Gemma’s letter, the pages torn from Caleb’s journal, and a black and white photograph of the lined face of a pleasant-looking woman sitting in an old wicker rocker.  Jinny lay the photo on the ledge, put her back to the valley and shined her flash on her great-grandmother Llewellyn.  Asad leaned forward for a closer look, smiled and said, “Ahh,” just to please the soldier.

“Meet my lonely “Great-grand-mama Llewellyn.” The boys chose not to chew on the surname. “Long ago my maternal great-grandfather sailed with the merchant marines, leaving his pregnant wife and two toddlers alone for many months.  While wiling away the days and nights above the sea, Grand-mama rocked like a skiff anchored near the lea and composed a lullaby.  My mother wrote the lyrics on the back of this photo, giving Grand- mama’s face more lines than she deserved.”

Jinny sang softly as she caressed each sleepy boy’s tousled hair.

La-la-lea, la-la-lea, Papa’s gone to sea.
La-la lea, la-la-lea, I will comfort thee.  
La-la-lo, la-la-lo, yes, we miss him so.
La-la-lo, la-la-lo, more than he may know.
La-la-lie, la-la-lie, baby please don’t cry.
La-la-lie, la-la-lie, soon your tears will dry.
La-la-lay, la-la-lay, every night we pray.
La-la-lay, la-la-lay, he’ll come home some day.
He’ll come home some day.

Soon Asad and Asif—their head’s in Jinny’s lap—were asleep.  And yes, she had noticed that the color of their dark hair matched hers, almost to perfection.  She covered their sandaled toes with a towel, closed her eyes, hummed the lullaby again, and then spoke softly.  “Heavenly Father, thank you for preserving our lives.  Bless those who have lost loved-ones today, and like George Washington at Valley Forge, we need a helping hand.  Help me care for these little boys, Asad an Asif, whom you have entrusted to my care.  Father, they may be orphans, innocent victims of a hellish war, but for now, they are mine, and we are yours forever.”

At least one broadband frequency remained open in the darkness above the Grand Trunk Road.“They shall not hunger nor thirst, neither shall the heat of the sun smite them; for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them. I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted.” (Isaiah 49: 10-11.) 

Asleep and wrapped in a surreal blanket interwoven of threads past and present, Jinny looked down on the screened back porch of her Kansas home.  Grand-mama sat in a wicker chair near a kerosene lantern turned low, rocking infant Jinny slowly back and forth in her arms on a summer evening. Floorboards creaked, soothed frayed nerves, and tended time.  The panoramic view of grain—waving freely on the plain—and the musicality of her own pure soprano voice lullabying above the silence, consoled the old woman as she covered Jinny’s toes, bid the sun good night, and watched it lie down at the far horizon of everything good.

The crispy air smelled of pine.  A watchful raven winged casually down and cawed a warning; and then, despite frantic flapping, he got sucked into an updraft and left unchecked a twisted towel dangling over the campsite.  A sunbeam teased Jinny’s curled lashes into a flutter.   Her eyes popped open.  Then wide open.  She shrank back, stared up the bridge of her nose at the towel, and fumbled for the Glock with her right hand.  Drawing the gun in one smooth motion she lined up the front sight and pulled the trigger.

The puffy blue krait lost both its appetite and its head.  Still twisting, it dropped at Jinny’s feet.  Now what have I done?  She rubbed her eyes and imagined Lieutenant Staley’s response. “I’ll tell you what you’ve done, Sergeant, you’ve killed a snake and awakened every bogie gunning for us within two miles.  So now you’re going to tell me another little voice ordered you to fire, right?”  Jinny took a deep breath and holstered her weapon. Then suddenly realizing she was alone, she sat up and smacked her head on the overhang.  Stars and constellations? At this time of morning? 

 “ASAD.  ASIF.  Where are you?”

A tramp-tramp-tramp alerted Jinny that she’d been heard, but by whom?  Somebody was coming fast.  She turned and watched four muddy feet, their owners out of breath, dash into camp and glance at the headless reptile.  Asif punted the fleeting distraction from the ledge.  “Rasha, rasha.”  Grabbing Jinny’s hands and jabbering in Pashto, the boys tugged her to her feet and without letting go, towed her up the hill.

“Hold on, hold on.   Where are we go-o-o-o-ing?”   The upward exertion ended as abruptly as it had begun.  Asif laced his fingers across his head and swayed back and forth full of anticipation.

Asad pointed and beamed, “Ta-da.”

Jinny gulped. A noble noun pressed from between her parched lips.  “WATER.”  A shaded depression the diameter of a backyard wading pool overflowed its banks as it generously bubbled clear, cold water from the earth. “Way to go, guys,” Jinny grinned while massaging her new lump. “Staley’s not going to believe it  . . .  if indeed we live to tell about it.”

Before she knew it, Jinny’s hands had again been captured by the jubilant explorers who then skipped her around in a circle, dancing as if they’d just received an unexpected furlough.  “Wo-wo-wo, stop.” Jinny let the joy slip from between her fingers and dropped to one knee. “Did you see this?”  A cloud cumbered her countenance as with a stick she traced the outline of a large sandal-print pressed into dirt.  The boys’ faces sobered.  Celebration over.  “Tally ho. The hounds are coming; let’s not get treed.  Let’s exfil.”

Stiff and sore, Jinny climbed down from one pancaked rock to another and led her companions back to camp where she packed up her rucksack, grabbed her helmet, and shouldered the banged-up rifle.  Without a prompt, Asad and Asif pulled up some scruffy brush by the roots and—like plumed peacocks dragging their tails behind them—swept tracks away as the threesome methodically worked their way back to the spring.

Again Jinny went to one knee and groaned.  “Watch me, guys.” she said, pointing at her own eyes.  She crutched the rifle upright on the ground with her left hand and, instead of bending over like a dog and lapping from the spring, she remained vigilant as she caught up a handful of water with her other hand and drew it to her lips.  “Your turn, Gideon,” she beckoned.  Puzzled, the boys mirrored her manner but omitted the groan.  Jinny nodded approval, quickly filled the Camelbak bladder, and then splashed water on her face. The cut on her cheek felt puffy and warm to the touch. “I wonder if Gideon defeated the Midianites without getting a scratch,” she chortled as lightheartedly as appropriate, considering their circumstances.  “No matter. He survived, and he knew why; and so do I.”

They left the track undisturbed and, determined not to be overtaken by the Taliban, climbed into the rocks hoping to find a trail.  Jinny could easily have outdistanced Asad and Asif, even with her battered body, but she paced herself like a mountain ewe.  Her lambs trailed closely behind, jumping gingerly from rock to rock.  They bounced over cracks and crevices like children playing hopscotch without a taw, until finally they achieved a small plateau—a lookout shaped like a giant arrowhead, nicked at its edges.  No sandal tracks here. 

 Jinny unslung her carbine, dropped to the prone position, inched her way forward to the point of the arrow, and drew the rifle scope to her dominant eye.  Angling the barrel down, she studied the winding, ascending stretches of road, hidden hither and yon by the rugged topography, and called over her shoulder,“Boys, do you see the switchbacks?  They remind me of the dreary black and white aerial photo I saw months ago in a power-point presentation.”  Jinny turned over, sat up, laid her rifle across her lap, and shivered.  “So far so good, no Taliban.”

Still standing, Asad lapped one arm across his tummy and supported his opposing elbow so he could prop up his chin with his other hand and nibble on his thumbnail without smiling.  Asif sat cross-legged, put his elbows on his knees and his hands under his chin.  He blew puffs of air from above his protruding lower lip, rearranged the hair gracing his forehead, and stared at Jinny’s gouged cheek.

“Let’s unwind for a few minutes.”  The boys didn’t move.  Jinny rolled her shoulders fore and aft, worked her head from side to side, and tried to relax and forget her headache.  “I wish we could speak to one another in full sentences.  I want to know all about you, where you came from, and how you got separated from your people.”  I hope you’re not Taliban.  Asad and Asif glanced at one another.  “You won’t talk, but I need to.” Jinny checked the road below, then continued:

“Looking at those switchbacks puts me in mind of a stuffy classroom—stuffier than an old barn—longer and dryer than the state of Kansas, and more boring than a powder-post beetle.  It was part of a series sponsored by the CSI.  Nod your heads if you understand.”  No movement, not even a blink.  Jinny’s head throbbed.  “Interrupt and ask questions at any time; no need to raise your hands,” she quipped.  “For example, you might ask, ‘Jinny, what is CSI?’”

“Good question, Asad. It stands for Combat Studies Institute.”  Asad started to say something but changed his mind.  “The lecture I’m remembering—at best a sugared sedative—was delivered by a ruddy-faced Englishman who called himself Sir Paddy Pigg, with two g’s.  He captured a monocle with his left eye and his nose bent down at the tip like this.” With a forefinger, Jinny audibly cocked her nose, winked, and continued. “His nasal tone resembled what you’d expect from someone who’d had his schnozola broken during a brawl, possibly in the House of Commons; but then, he did call himself ‘Sir,’ as I already mentioned.  He sounded something like this.”  Jinny clicked her tongue, uncocked her nose, and then, with thumb and finger pinched her nostrils.

“‘Put it in a sock, Laddie.’  I took that to mean, ‘shut up and listen up.’  Then he lost me. ‘You Yanks are a cheeky bunch of Lizards and Lumpy Jumpers.’”  Jinny smiled but detected no reaction in the boys’ faces.  She sighed, pointed at the road, and continued her improv.  “’Here you see a cracking aerial view of the battle-scarred Khyber Pass and the country road that links Afghanistan and Pakistan.’”  Jinny unplugged long enough to confess, “Look guys, I usually don’t make a fool of myself or others on purpose, but just now I’m in want of a little comic relief; so please, loosen up.”  No riposte.

Jinny’s nimble calisthenics startled the boys.  She jacked to her feet, wagged her stiff neck, threw out her arms and grinned from ear to ear. “Ta-da!”  Two faces full of teeth smiled approvingly.   As she gazed at the handsome little boys, Jinny’s countenance sparkled and sobered at the same time, reminiscent of a Kindergarten teacher who once upon a time had greeted a dark haired, timid, O’Dwyer lass on her first day at McKinley Elementary a thousand years ago.  Jinny squeezed her nose again and continued the parody.

“’You Yanks look a bit knackered today.  I am absolutely gobsmacked by you.  If I were put in command, I’d call you what you are–tossers, not keepers.  Now, now, don’t get your knickers in a twist.  Come to order.’”  The boys’ foreheads wrinkled.  Jinny pressed on.  “’Some of these photos I’ve brought from over the pond are smashing.   For a minute I’m going to be talking nineteen to the dozen so get your pencils pruned.’”  Seeing audience attention wane, Jinny doubled the pace of her monologue.

“’Dwarfed by tilting hills and dipping dales the Khyber road rises to 3500 feet above sea level then zig-zags down into Pakistan’s ruthless northern frontier.  But of course, I already said that.  Let’s see . . .  where was I?  Oh yes, you gobby Yanks might better respond to a simpled-up metaphor, sometimes useful, but then again, sometimes not.’’

Jinny pantomimed reaching into a paper bag and pulling out a 100-foot-long garden hose.  “‘This hosepipe is 30.5 meters long.   Think of the Khyber road as a hosepipe, kinked here and there as it twillies for 53 kilometers from Landi Kotal, through the Spin Ghar Mountains and finally dribbles angst onto the road above the ancient town of Peshawar.  To span that distance would require 1739 hoses, each 30.5 meters long, al . . ..’” Asif stood up and brushed himself off. “But I’m not done.” The boys shook their heads, sat, and gave Jinny their undivided attention.

“Well, the Englishman folded his notes, shoved them into a vest pocket and— we hoped—was about to dismiss the class.  Wrong. He said, ‘I’ve been told on good authority that I bear a striking resemblance to the movie mogul, Alfred Hitchcock.’’’

Jinny paused. “Well, I had never heard the name either, and by now even a court martial looked better than enduring more from this English dote.  He cleared the screen then stepped sideways in front of the projector lamp so as to create a large silhouette of his face, chest, bank of medals, and pot belly.

“With his fingers laced across his portly shelf, the professor drearily imitated Hitchcock by carefully enunciating a jingle which even he appeared not to think funny.”  Better make this quick, sister, you’re about to be gaffed.

If you should passage on a bus, please do stay calm, don’t make a fuss;
And do not ask to stop for tea or expect crumpets—they’re not free.
Remain composed, enjoy the ride, and listen carefully to your guide;
If she bolts don’t try to stop her; remain demure and very proper.
Peshawar lies on down the road.  The Bates Motel is near, I’m told.

The boys were more than ready to move on.  Jinny led the way, hoping to find a trail blazed by animals, not humans.  Visibility was good, maybe too good.  The sun closed in on the earth and gobbled up most of the shade but failed to warm up the three pilgrims.  They ranged a few hundred yards and looked for a place to hole up until the cold wind stopped breathing.  Clouds swirled like ocean breakers across the sky.

“This is no place for a helo rescue.  Let’s keep moving.”

They paused to watch a small tail-lasher lizard scoot on a rock and try to pretend he wasn’t there.  Jinny asked, “Asif, what did you think of the dead viper back at camp?  Were you scared?”

“Maar.”

“Asif, what does Maar mean?”  He wiggled his wrist and finger then rubbed his tummy, apparently not interested in perfecting his skill at charades.    Jinny looked up slope, spied a couple of box seats in the cleft of a rock, and bade the boys to climb and squat.  “Time for lunch,” she said as she reached into a pouch and retrieved an MRE for each.  Although nutritious, the meal tasted like unsalted, partially cooked potatoes.  A little water helped the food slip into hungry stomachs.  Jinny swallowed hard, blew between her cupped hands, and rubbed out the cold.

She drew her Glock and, without looking down, pressed a button above the trigger guard. The magazine released and dropped into her hand.  She thumbed in another cartridge, reinserted the magazine through the base of the grip, and chambered the round.  “You need cleaning, my friend,” she said as she returned the gun to her holster.  Later.  Jinny’s wound needed cleaning.  Now.  It hurt. Asad and Asif watched attentively while she dressed the laceration on her cheek as best she could; but the boys couldn’t observe her ineffectual attempt to rub out the bloody memory of her slain master sergeant, and her friend, Huck.  Sensing the boys’ concern for her discomfort, she smiled and twittered, “Staff Sergeant Broshinsky hated snakes.  He was so scared of them he carried a color-laminated photo-fold-out of local vipers so he could recognize the bad ones.  He claimed he’d picked up the card at the Kabul Chamber of Commerce, but we knew better.” Asad abruptly drew in his chin, lifted his shoulders, and leaned forward pointing.

“Snakes? Do you see a snake, Asad?”

He stood, stabbed his finger toward Pakistan three times, and then jabbered something that only Asif understood.  Jinny stretched so she could see what had caught Asad’s attention.  “A trail.  Good for you Asad.” She offered a high five, then showed him how to reciprocate.  He grinned.  “Let’s see where it leads.  Just give me a minute to pack up my stuff.” While Jinny pouched her first aid supplies, Asad stepped down and strutted forward, apparently happy to take the lead for a change.

Three pair of eyes saucered as they rounded a bend in the trail. Asad stepped back; Asif gulped; Jinny went to a knee and clenched a fist. “If I’m to be beset by vertigo, it’s going to be now. This is unbelievable.”  She stared ahead.   In years gone by, one of northern Afghanistan’s mega-earthquakes had severed and collapsed thousands of tons of earth from a rounded ridge and plunged it several hundred yards toward the Pass below.  Inexplicably, it had banked and stopped above the Khyber Road, leaving immediately in front of Jinny and the boys a bizarre, narrow path, two or three feet wide by seventy-five feet long.  The tenuous footbridge vaguely resembled the spine of a tumbled loose-leaf flipped upside down, its tented sides—minus the rings—steeply angled down on both sides.    A misstep to the left—unthinkable. The unbroken slope to the right, tangled with brush and trees, all but obscured their view of a deep crevasse far below.

Jinny brooded quietly, hoping not to lay an egg.  Dear Lord, this can’t be ‘the straight and narrow way to heaven.”  Where should we go from here?  

 A closer examination of the narrow ridge revealed the splayed hoof-prints of mountain sheep. Jinny used a hand signal.  “I think we should turn back and find another way.  Nod if you understand and agree what I’m saying.”

Asad and Asif exchanged glances then looked askance at their soldier.  Have you lost your nerve, lady?  Asad shook his head.  “No, no.” He pointed at the narrow ridge and in Pashto continued as spokesman for his brother. “Have faith in your God.  He helped us before.”

Jinny apprehended their resolve.  “Asad, Asif, I’m responsible for your safety . . . but, well, we can do this.  We will cross.”

Asad gesticulated with his arms.  You cross three times.  Asif and I each cross once.

 “I hope the crosses don’t stand above our graves.”  Jinny’s lips stopped quivering.  She stroked each boy’s arm.  “I will walk Asif across first, then return for you, Asad.   “Asif, take hold of my hand.  We will inch across sideways if we must.  Do NOT look down.  Don’t worry, I’ve never been afraid of heights,” she chortled.  “It’s falling from them that that I’d terrifies me.”   She mumbled a prayer.  With no rope and but a modicum of hope, each held fast to his will to survive and approached the narrow divide.  “Stay put, Asad.  I’ll be right back.”

He fell and landed face-down on the road.  Fourteen women stopped and turned around.  All were attired in hijabs and abayas in various states of repair.  Dragging a lame leg, one of the women walked back to the fallen waif.  She helped him to his feet, brushed imbedded gravel from his forehead and knees, kissed him, and then shook her finger in his face.  Clasping his hand, she nearly yanked his shoulder out of joint when she turned to catch up with the small band of plodding refugees who had silently continued on.  The child screamed.

Jinny, Asad, and Asif hugged the ground like Comanche warriors; they lay prostrate two hundred meters above the Khyber Pass road and watched.  “I’d guess they are refugees fleeing Afghanistan,” Jinny whispered, still not knowing how much English the boys comprehended.  A tear reflected Asif’s sadness and silently cleared a path down his dusty face. It muddied and dried before it could free-fall from his chin.

Far below, a tall white-haired figure stood erect.  He wore a tattered thwab and carried a staff. To Jinny, he looked like a weary Moses, walking ahead of the small entourage of men, women, and a few children, some of whom baaed like lambs or bleated like goats in search of a safe pasture.  A few children rode in two-wheeled handcarts; some walked. When their shepherd signaled stop with his uplifted staff, the pullers and pusher dropped the cart handles, unloaded, and herded the children to the roadside, where all but the solitary watchman collapsed in the tall grass to rest. One little child, inconsolable, continued crying.

Jinny and her companions watched the bearded, sandaled man kneel and slowly put his ear to the ground.  He wasn’t praying.  After an extended bend he stood, waved his followers forward, and hastened on down the road at a more energetic clip.  Everyone took up the trek with renewed vigor.  Steady handed Jinny, both eyes open, her rifle poised to fire, scoped and studied the distant faces.  “They’re nervous about something.”

Asad and Asif took turns peering through the lens. Seeing two dripping water barrels lashed to the sides of a cart, Asad pulled on Jinny’s sleeve, held up two fingers, and whispered, “Ooba.”

“Jinny cupped a hand pretending to drink and asked, “Asad, is that word Pashto for water?”

“Ooba. Water.”

Delighted that a small window had allowed water to filter through the language barrier, Jinny opined, “Little children suffer the most.”  As if on cue the distant crier—endowed with a great set of pipes—responded with an improvisation of a heart-rending aria from Pagliacci while Asif drew his eye close to the magnifying lens.

He watched, listened, and then in the king’s English solemnly confirmed that the child was, “a boy.”

“Yes,boy, Asif.”

It was Jinny’s turn. “I see no weapons.”  Asad and Asif looked quizzically at one another and shrugged, apparently lost in an attempt to assemble the parts of her speech into a coherent rejoinder.  Asif tugged on the same sleeve Asad had chosen and spoke in his native tongue.  “Ma’am, when you speak would you mind turning your face in my direction?  I’m a little deaf.”   Message delivered.  Message not interpreted.  Jinny rolled over and sat up.

“I say let’s wait until they’re out of sight and then hike down to the road and follow them to Peshawar.”  The children sighed, seemed to nod approval—or relief—and watched the defenseless band straggle around a bend in the road, disappear, and then minutes later stumble one by one again into view.

Clouds squeezed between peaks of the Hindu Kush and pitter-pattered rain to the ground, forecasting that native slate –like a foreign tongue—is slippery and difficult to bridge.  But after a few misty minutes, heaven shut off the rain and air-brushed a bow of pastels, east to west, across the sky.   Even the caravan below stopped and stared.  Asad pointed up and whispered in Jinny’s ear, “booday taal.”

“Booday taal is rainbow?”

The boys replied as one voice, “Rainbow.”  Obviously encouraged by the exchange, Asad pointed at Jinny’s right sleeve.  “Flag.”  She smiled, as tickled as if someone had convinced her this adventure would end well.

“Just between you and me, this feels like progress, I think we’re on a roll; but we mustn’t be seen by the refugees.  As long as I’m togged up in this uniform, we’re vulnerable to attack from almost anybody with two feet and a weapon.”  They continued surveilling the Pass below and waited.  Finally, Jinny whispered, “Okay, they are far enough ahead of us.  Let’s hike down to the road; but be careful, the rocks are wet and slippery.  She skidded downhill about four feet then abruptly put on the brakes, causing a fender-bender with Asif, who ran into her rear bumper. “Woe, hold on, Mister.”

Jinny had received an unmistakable prompting in both her head and her gut, although she saw no further signs of trouble and heard no voices.

Climb. Now.

She tried to shake it off, but the command riveted itself to her brain.

Climb to the trees.  Move quickly.  

 Before moving, Jinny cocked her head back as far as she dared—without losing her balance—and looked up.  The boys reacted by tracking her gaze.  They swallowed hard, prompting Jinny to force another smile and promise, “A safe trail awaits us in those trees.” The giant conifer forest ennobled the mountain’s crest, but it was as impossible to see the treetops as it had been for Jinny to comprehend the top of the Empire State Building when she was five—even lying on the busy sidewalk on her back.

“How far up and why?” demanded Asif in Pashto.

“Just trust her, little brother.”

“Asad!  Asif!  Big brother, you go first, then Asif, and I’ll bring up the rear.  I’m the safety net; now climb.”  The boys gave no indication that they disagreed with the order.  They turned and began the ascent, with Asad—carefully choosing hand and footholds—leading the way.  Bringing up the rear, Jinny stopped from time to time and surveilled the valley below, all the while berating herself for not knowing Pashto by now.  “Rest when you need too, but only long enough to catch your breath.  Safety lies ahead, not behind us.”

Sensing distress in Jinny’s voice, Asif called up to his brother,” But how can she know such things?”

Asad replied, “Keep climbing, Asif.  Remember, I trust her.”

“Woe.”  Jinny cringed and pressed against terra firma as a cantaloupe-sized rock rolled from above, grazed her helmet, glanced off her shoulder, and then careened out of sight.

“Oops,” telegraphed Asif in his native tongue.”

“I’m okay; keep climbing.” Muscles ached; heads ached; the temperature dropped; and the clouds thickened enough to bully remaining sunbeams into a retreat.  Grabbing at roots, rocks and dirt, the climbers clawed-stopped-climbed-shivered and scaled upward for what felt like an hour.  Jinny paused and, without releasing her handhold, looked back to estimate their distance from the road. “Four hundred meters?  Let’s find a place to take a break.”  Fighting fatigue, she tipped back her head and watched as Asad and Asif achieved a narrow shelf where they sat and stared, sober-faced, like fans in the bottom of the sixteenth inning on a cold, late evening.  Asif cupped a hand against his brother’s ear and whispered, “She’s weak like a woman.”

Asad replied, “Let her catch up, little brother.  She was injured, you know.”

Jinny’s eyes took in the grandiose, towering trees cresting the steep declivity above the boys. They heard her say, “Safe harbor, Mama, safe harbor just ahead.  CARRY ON, SOLDIERS, CARRY ON.”  The boys waited, watched her climb, and heard her tongue and lips collaborate.  Out came a poem once posted on the face of the old Kelvinator back home.

Clouds upstage sunshine.  We sometimes do, too.
So, roll back the curtains and bring on the blue.
The weather may darken like a burnt piece of toast,
But the sun won’t quit shining or abandon its post,
Or shrink from its duty or run off to play,
Though some folks complain and murmur all day.
So, hunker down, be patient, and enjoy the ride—
Even hurricane Cybil, or Bonnie, or Clyde—
The sun’s somewhere shining, still doing its best;
Like us, it keeps moving, setting only to rest.

Once Jinny had hitched up alongside the boys, plopped down on a reserved seat, and let her breath catch up, it was time to hydrate.  Each beneficiary of the miracle spring gratefully drank from the camelbak hose, and in the middle of a swallow the senior sibling pulled at Jinny’s accessible sleeve, lifted his foot, and pointed.  At first but a dust cloud, a convoy of seven vehicles swerved ominously back and forth like a sidewinder as they raced eastward up the Pass.  “Quick, we must hide.” Jinny and the boys— blunted but not broken by exhaustion—struggled upward.  Their angle of ascent seemed to taper off, but the likelihood of being spotted heightened with every step; the wail of the racing engines reached Jinny’s ears and sent an electric charge to her brain.  We’re done for.

A projectile ricocheted off Jinny’s helmet. She froze, anticipating that the shooter would correct trajectory and fire another round. Nothing.  She looked down, then up, and saw Asad kneeling beneath the outstretched limbs of a giant deodar and trying to hide a grin.  He’d dropped a pebble and upstaged both the threat below and the giant seventy-footer above his head.  He crawled out of sight, instantly reappeared, squealed, and beckoned Jinny and Asif to hurry.  “The trail!  I found it. I found the trail . . .  and gooseberries.”  Asif understood.  Re-energized and without a moment to lose, he and Jinny put their heads down, clawed, climbed, and finally crawled under cover of the drooping canopy.  The screaming jeep engines below choked off.

With silence crowned king, the majesty of the evergreen forest was breathtaking.  Dark blue-green leaves carpeted the ground; clusters of gooseberries, bunched together, heralded a cry from Jinny’s blistered lips. “Thank you, Lord, but I got another problem.”  Jinny propped against the armored trunk, aimed her rifle, and scoped the jeeps below.  “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven jeeps led by a Humvee . . . property of the U.S. Army, but the men aren’t soldiers.  They have a captive.  In front of him, riding shotgun, I see a gorilla.  No, it’s a man.  They’re not looking for us.  I think they are all drunk or high.”

On signal from their chief, the motley crew piled back into the jeeps.  Doors slammed, and engines started.  The line of stolen vehicles crawled like belligerent badgers around a bend.  “The refugees,” Jinny gasped, “they are stalking the refugees.”  She and the boys forgot the bunched berries, kept under cover of the deodar, and trotted east on a weedy trail roughly parallel to the Khyber road.   Again, they caught sight of the jeeps and dropped to the ground, elbows forward, and surveilled the scene.  Jinny—rifle to her shoulder and her scared cheek pressing the stock—watched the jeeps roll to a stop behind the frightened pilgrims below.  They had no place to hide. Transient tears spilled down Asif’s cheeks and fell unfettered to the ground.  He spread his fingers over his mouth and with the other hand clutched at his brother’s coat.  “No, Asad, no more, not again.  Shoot. Shoot.” Asad grabbed and held fast his brother’s hand.

Jinny had blocked out the conversation and totally focused on the target.  She whispered, “I could take out two or three, but I’d give away our position; I won’t put you in greater danger.”  Unlike Jinny and the boys, the desperate refugees, too tired to run, were totally exposed and vulnerable.  Their leader, unabashed and standing alone, took a few steps toward his assailants and waved his arms overhead like a referee trying to call time out before the game clock ticked down to zero.  Pop- pop-pop- pop-pop-pop.  All six old men contorted, reeled, and collapsed to the ground.  Ten of the hoodlums rushed forward, rudely grabbed the screaming women and children, and carried or dragged them like half-sacks of manure to the jeeps while their comrades ransacked the carts like shoppers at K-Mart on Black Friday.

Clothing, bedding, household goods, and possessions—all of value to somebody—were pulled and strewn on the road like paper towels from a bathroom dispenser in a public restroom.  Handcarts were upended and the thugs, apparently enraged that they had found no booty, wantonly fired point-blank at corpses and screamed obscenities.  The hummer’s horn blared three times.

Jinny’s bowels whipped half-digested rations into caustic gas as she watched the stolen jeeps fishtail, spin around, and follow the leader west toward Jalalabad.  “There goes the last jeep.  No, wait. Something just fell out.  No, no, no.  Someone just fell out.  A child.” The toddler twisted awkwardly before landing on his back.  The trailing jeep stopped, reversed, scored the road for twenty yards, and then braked.  While the jeep idled, the driver bailed out, rushed back, grabbed the limp child by his legs, and then spun around like an athlete accelerates before hurling the Olympic hammer.  The child landed in a heap off the road like a small bag of trash.

Jinny released the rifle’s safety and planted the cross-hairs of the scope on the devil’s chest. She watched as he tossed a cigarette on the wetted ground and pounded his chest with doubled fists.  All decisions come with consequences attached. The cigarette ignited gas on the ground and a narrow flame streaked toward the jeep.  The villain vainly ran and stomped, ran and stomped.  Boom. The jeep exploded, killing the driver and all aboard. Jinny shuddered, wishing in vain that Asad and Asif had been spared the sights, the sounds, the screams—and the nightmares. Except for heavy breathing, the three stony-faced companions fell silent, watched, and waited for the convoy to return.  No one returned.  Haunted by the violent loss of human life, she laid her rifle on the ground and grimaced at the boys.  “Oh, what have I gotten you into?  What are we doing here?  Ashes.  Ashes. We all fall down.”

She cast her bloodshot eyes upward and cried into the wind, “TOO MUCH FOR ONE DAY!  TOO MUCH FOR ONE LIFETIME!”

As if suddenly awakened from the nightmare, she jumped to her feet, paddled her thoughts free of the rocks of despair, slung the rifle over her shoulder, and clasped each traumatized child by the hand.

“Let’s go.”

Asif jerked, uncoupled, and ran as if the mob had spotted him and was in hot pursuit.   His vision blurred with tears, he stumbled, tumbled down, end over end for thirty feet, and came to rest on his belly—one arm hanging over a ledge.  Wide-eyed he gasped for air and watched rocks in free-fall.

Jinny screamed. “Don’t move Asif.  Don’t move.  We’re coming!”  Asif looked up, saw her distress, and tentatively signed a thumbs-up.  Turning onto his back, he watched vultures circle overhead and imagined them licking their chops, hungry to feast of fresh veal.

Jinny shifted her ruck sac and rifle forward, clutched Asad by the hand, and together they skied down through wet weeds on their glutei maximi.  “Don’t move Asif.  Don’t move. We’re c-o-m-i-n-g . . . fast!”  No brakes, just heels.

Asad helped relocate his shaken brother away from the cliff and then watched Jinny tenderly cup tiny cheeks between her hands and, without speaking, kiss Asif on the forehead.  Jinny removed his worn sandal and examined his swelling ankle.  Asad picked up the vacant shoe, pushed his pinkie through a hole in its sole, and wiggled it at his brother. “You had a worm in your shoe,” he kidded in his native tongue.

 Asif giggled at his brother’s antics.  Jinny asked, “Do you hurt anywhere else?”  He did but wagged his head from side to side.  With a few figure-eight wraps of an ace bandage, Jinny secured the swollen foot and ankle.  “Let’s stop tumbling and skiing and sledding and descend like regular folks, okay?” Asad nodded.

Asif added, “Me too?”

“No, soldier. You’ve been injured.  You get to ride.  Saddle up.”  Jinny relocated her rifle, drew a deep breath, winced as if she’d stepped on a nail, and pulled up.  “Asif, did I hear you say, ‘me too’?”  Silence. She continued, “Would I be correct in concluding that you boys speak English?”

Asad sheepishly replied, “Pretty much.”

“Oh my!  Now we’re really getting somewhere.”  Jinny shook her head in disbelief and grinned.  She swung Asif onto her ruck sac. “Piggy-back time.  Oink. Oink is a universal language.”

“Oink, oink?”

“I figured you’d like to enlarge your English lexicon.”  Jinny started tromping downhill and missed the blank stares proffered by both boys. “When we reach the road, we’ll have no time to bury the dead; Asad, stay clear of them; they are in God’s hands.  Instead, look for anything useful that may be stowed in one of those carts.  Hopefully, we’ll find one that hasn’t been damaged.  Asif, you get to ride.  Let’s say goodbye to this sorry Pass and be on our way to Peshawar before the enemy return.”

Asad looked up, smiled at Jinny, and for the first time replied, “Yes, Mama.”

She was so pumped she practically floated down the hill, whistling like a hot air balloon,  and irritating those circling overhead who wondered if dinner reservations had been cancelled.  The large cinereous—sometimes called black vultures—had been aloft for hours, listening for a dinner bell that seldom rang.  They had adapted to a life-style of feast or famine,were big on entitlement programs, and boasted a wingspans of 2.7 meters [8.9 feet].   Following a strict pecking order, the matriarch had dubs on Asif—she called it ‘a take-out order.’

Even though Asif was small, carrying him piggy-back down-hill strained the bone-weary master sergeant.  Jinny tried to stay positive.  She reflected on Isaiah’s words, words she could not recall having heard before. She was too tired to repeat them aloud.   I will lift up my hand to the Gentiles . . . and they shall bring thy sons in their arms . . . [and they] shall be carried upon their shoulders. 

The post-meridian sun warmly applauded when Jinny finally planted her feet on the road, with Asad but two steps behind.  “At last.” Jinny knelt to catch her breath—it was nowhere to be found.  Asif slid to the ground, allowing his ride to unlatch her harness and let her pack fall. “I feel like the first Pilgrim when she set foot on Plymouth Rock.”  Jinny lost her balance and fell backwards into the sea.  “Oops, sorry Asif.”   Reality replaced reflection.

After gathering clothing, a kettle, a wooden spoon, and a little bag of games, Asad returned to help Jinny right the least damaged cart and gently lift Asif aboard. Then Asad summarily held up his clenched fist, just like he’d seen Jinny do. “Stay put,” he said as he hurried off to see if he’d missed anything of value.  He had.  “Mama!” Before Jinny could get to her feet the agile lad had sprinted twenty yards and extended a hand up.  “Their chief.  He noises.”

Jinny retrieved her rifle and re-slung her ruck sac onto her back.  She followed Asad and cautiously approached the body of Moses; he lay motionless on the ground.  “Asad, I think he is dead.”

“No, not dead, alive, and I forget to tell; he have no water.  Barrels dry.” The poor old man lay on his back, his left arm pillowing his head, his right arm twisted and trapped beneath his body.  One slug had grazed his scalp; another gunshot wound—a through and through—had bloodied his right shoulder and broken his collar bone.  The salt and pepper beard extending below his neck was splattered with blood.  Jinny knelt, bent forward, and placed her ear near his open mouth.  Shallow breaths warmed her skin.

Jinny looked up at Asad.  “Yes, he lives. Can you hear me, old patriarch?” she asked.  “Sir, can you hear me?  We’ve come to help.” Tears pushed from beneath the old man’s closed lids.  Jinny scooted close so she could cradle the blood-streaked head in her lap.  “Asad, give him to drink.”  Asad pulled the water hose from Jinny’s shoulder-strap and touched it to the old man’s parched lips.  Shuttered dark eyes blinked opened; an Adam’s apple undulated; he swallowed several times and then coughed.  Time napped and fear vaporized as Jinny and Asad administered first aid.

They drizzled water from the miracle spring onto clean gauze, wiped the laceration and the shoulder wound free of dried blood, and then poured ointment onto the scalp and into the cratered shoulder wound.  Jinny bound them up with gauze and tape as best she could.  With her fingers she combed matted hair from the old man’s forehead; he rallied; his eyes opened. He bid his ministers to lean close so he could be heard, and then he mumbled something only Asad comprehended.  Still kneeling beside Jinny, Asad repeated back word for word: “’And the King shall answer and say unto them, verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.’”  The old man smiled approvingly, but Asad’s grasp of the English language wasn’t that good

 Before his eyes fluttered shut, the invalid pushed the trembling fingers of his right hand beneath his blood-smattered thwab and moaned.  Jinny whispered, “Don’t move old man.  We won’t leave you behind.”  Handle first, he revealed a sheathed dagger with the name, Alim, tool–stamped into the leather.  He lay it on Asad’s palm and attempted a smile. Asad ceremoniously nodded, arose, walked to the cart, and deposited his treasure alongside Asif.  Jinny gently laid the old man’s head on a discarded towel, then unbolted and removed two sturdy handles from an otherwise demolished handcart.  She busily fashioned a stretcher with some torn strips of abandoned clothing.

“How did you know to do this?” asked Asad.  Jinny winked, pursed her lips and—with a little effort and much tenderness—rolled the expatriate onto the stretcher, then secured him with more torn strips of linen.  Together Jinny and Asad raised one end at a time, and soon the stretcher straddled and was tied in place on the cart.  Asif reached out and patted the old man’s hand while Asad, without being asked, folded and tucked a few soiled pillows, a broken package of Pampers,rolled-up surplus clothing, around his brother, and then fashioned a pillow for Alim’s head.

Gaunt and again unconscious, Alim added little weight to the dovetailed, rectangular box straddling the single axle. Two rusted Schwinn bicycle rims, tires intact, supported the load and wobbled slightly on their axles. Gopher-wood handles—at one time attached to a wheelbarrow—had been fitted to the cart by the pilgrims.  Jinny now knew that Alim was an Iranian and a Christian.

All systems go.  “Come Asad; climb aboard,” Jinny beckoned.

Asad reached into the cart, retrieved the knife, tucked it underneath his woven cloth belt, then stepped between the handcart handles and replied, “No, Mama, you ride.  I pull.”

Jinny wept. Asad and Asif rode with the old man.

Jinny’s spirits ebbed and flowed.  A cool breeze stiffened her resolve and cooled her back as would a breeze a spinnaker sail.  She alternately pushed and braked the makeshift ambulance, laden with human treasure, downhill into the Pakistani desert.  The Schwinn wheels wobbled on, despite tires that threatened to blow every time they fell victim to a rut in the poorly maintained gravel road.   Twisted,  cannibalized relics of war—woven with weeds, decoupaged with dung, and reddened with rust—littered the roadside:  An engine block; a Russian tank; treadless tires; Volvo hub caps; a red gas can; a yellow taxi-cab; a double-axle; plastic water bottles; white trash bags–and occasionally, a bleached animal skull ogled the comely soldier from Abilene.  The children and the old man slept through it all.

Jinny’s blistered feet throbbed and her head ached.  She released her grip on the cart handles and dropped to all-fours, pleasantly surprising the impatient vultures who occasionally landed alongside the road and stared in disbelief. Jinny vomited, wiped her chin, wagged a finger at the scavenger, and said, “No.  No.  I’m not sick . . . just bowing to my fans. Some performance, eh?  I’ve put all three of them to sleep.”  To keep her mind engaged, she let her imagination run alongside.  “Put your shoulder to the wheel, soldier, do you hear me?  Remember, the fourth of July is your day, too.”  It wasn’t the fourth of July–not even in Pakistan.

Stand Up
Today’s July Fourth—stars and stripes glide the pole,
Lauding patriots now proven–yes, each precious soul.
They stood up for freedom–so stand up, YES, YOU!                                                                                                              
Salute, pledge allegiance to the Red, White and Blue;

To what  colors attest  up there on the mast.
Let all who love freedom join in our repast:
The Red, patriot blood, shed far off or near;
The White, pledge to purity; the Blue, God’s help, dear.
 
Composed by Master Sergeant Virginia O’Dwyer
On a lonely road in Pakistan.

At first take Peshawar seemed evocative of an abandoned  Lawrence of Arabia movie set. The cart left the road, pin-wheeled into the deserted village square, and wobbled toward a curiously round building, illuminated from the inside by a large bay window.  “Twenty yards-fifteen-ten . . .”  Army quarterback O’Dwyer, only seconds from the end of the final quarter, dug deep and prayed for strength to stay the course.  Too weary to move, she released the handles from service. Darkness had fallen. A beige abaya and black hijab, salvaged by Asad, concealed Jinny’s soiled uniform.  Her rifle and ruck sack lay hidden under the bedding.   Unseen behind the parapet of a nearby building, someone blew taps.

Doors opened, light escaped into the courtyard, and women in white apparel appeared at the threshold.  In Pashto, one timidly called out, “Friend or foe?”

Jinny looked up and gasped.  “I sure hope this is Kansas, friend.”

Four apprehensive women toddled forth, lifted, and carried Alim’s stretcher into a large room with a high ceiling.  A single fan buzzed noisily—the only air conditioner in the village.  Asad, and Asif, assisted by Jinny, stumbled onto the stoop and shielded their eyes from the light.  They didn’t see the backside of the license plate nailed above the door. Scrawled with a broad Sharpie, it read, Hospital.  A thin matron, her hair in a braided bun, grimaced as she stepped in front of Jinny.  One foot shorter than the soldier, she raised both palms.  “NO.”  Initially her deeply line face and narrow eyes reminded Jinny of a drill sergeant, whom everyone called Betty Bunyan, back at Fort Sill.   The resemblance matured.  “No Americans!  Go . . . Go.”

Good grief!  what did I fail to hide?

Staring at the matron, Asif and Asad nestled against the folds of Jinny’s abaya.  Their arms and bodies steadied her legs; their dark eyes converged with those of the matron.  Not pleading.  Not combative.  In their native tongue the children mouthed but a word.  “Mama.”

In perfect Pashto came the salubrious rejoinder.  “I am Nakia. Don’t confuse me with the cell-phone company.  It’s Nakia, not Nokia.”  The old matron squatted and gave the orphans a once over.  After examining Asif’s wrapped ankle and anxious face, she arose.  Her brow relaxed.  Her features softened.  Pointing to Alim, Nakia whispered to Jinny, “You his nurse?”  Without waiting for an answer, she turned and led the way to a screened corner of the large room where, in the King’s English, she muttered, “If you are to wash your hair, the helmet must come off.”  She winked.

Otherwise Nakia was all business.  She pointed to a large round pail of heating water.  “Americans call it a bed bath.  Soap’s in the dish.  I’ll bring fresh linens and towels.  They, like me, have been worn down by war, but they’ll do.  We will burn your clothing.”  She turned toward Alim and sighed compassionately; “But now, I go to help the old man.  His name?”

“Alim,” replied Asad, shielding his brother.

Further softening, Nakia called, “Alia, come.” Revealing the hint of a smile, she added, “Alia is my daughter.”  Before turning to attend to the old man, the old nurse looked up, tugged at Jinny sleeve, and added, “You have done well.  We will take good care of the old man until he recovers–or dies.  You and your children cannot stay in the hospital, but Safeed will be along.  Safeed, he is good.”  Jinny pushed five twenty-dollar bills—American–into Nakia’s hand.  “No, no.  You would insult me?”

“No, no, but yes, yes.  Please.” The nurse relented and pocketed the money.  Privacy screens were moved into place.  Workers’ hummed and countenances radiated goodness as they attended to Alim.  He was gently washed, bandaged and bedded between clean sheets.

An hour later—bathed, clothed, and fed with bread dipped in a bowl of fotra—Jinny and her boys received a visitor who also spoke English.  He had more teeth than his mouth was designed to accommodate, but he was clean-shaven, and the lighted room reflected off his balding head.  His temperament was contagious, even in the sanitary hospital.

“I am Safeed. You have come a great distance.  Tonight, I have come but four blocks.”  He grinned.  “Do all of you speak English?”

Asad replied, “Pretty much.”  Jinny was not too tired to smile.  At Asad.

“I have prepared a place for you to sleep.  Come, follow me.”  Seeing the soldier stiffen and rock back, he added, “You are safe here.  I am as harmless as a locust.”  Jinny spied the tattoo inked in Arabic on Safeed’s right shoulder.   “Oh that?  It says, Superintendent.”  Burned in three colors, it couldn’t be missed.  Safeed wore a sleeveless, ribbed tea-shirt and jeans—frayed at the knees—no socks, and Nike cross-trainers.

Distracted, Jinny forgot his name.   She wasn’t sure she wanted to remember it anyway.  “May I carry the injured child to the cart?” he asked.

“I am Asif. I am a soldier.”

Jinny steadied her wounded warrior and answered, “No.  Thanks.  Got it; I mean, him.”  Jinny carried Asif from the hospital and settled him in for the ride to somewhere, then rummaged beneath the bedding and became agitated. Too tired to endure much more, she cried, “My rifle’s gone.  Who the hell took it?” 

 Safeed bristled but calmly replied, “Your rifle is in your quarters, soldier.  You should never leave a loaded gun unattended. You’re a sniper aren’t you?” Trying in vain to grapple with Safeed’s retort and question at the same time, Jinny fell silent.  Asif shrugged his shoulders and watched Safeed grasp the sweat-salted wooden handles, turn the cart around, and pull it into the darkness.

Jinny swung her night-vision goggles and helmet by its strap with one hand, and Asad squoze the other as together they shuffled down a cobbled alley behind the clackity-clack-clack of naked rims, feeling very exposed.  The tires had outlived their warranty.  Jinny prayed she hadn’t outlived hers.  They trudged through the darkness behind the gangly alien toward an uncertain future.  Three blocks later Safeed pointed up.  “Do you see the candle-lit window on the third floor?”  Heads tilted.  Weary jaws dropped.  All nodded. “For you, may it be a haven of peace. Sorry, but the widow is broken.”

“And your fee for service?” Jinny inquired?

Annoyed, Safeed bit his tongue.  “I take advantage of no one. My father owns three apartment buildings.  If not comfortable with a broken window, at least you will be safe here.  What would you like me to carry up the . . . “?  Bang! One wheel gave way and the axle became a stationary harpoon.  Safeed grabbed Asif by the collar just in time to prevent his fall from grace, face-down on the cobbled courtyard.

Unruffled and smiling at the lopsided cart, Asif tittered, “Mama, the cart’s got a flat, just like you sing.”  It was too dark to see Jinny’s expression.

“So, the humming bird sings.”  Safeed released his grip on Asif’s shirt and patted his head.  “I think, as you Americans put it, this is the end of the road for your lopsided ramshackle bus.  Come, I will help you up the stairs.”  Jinny had fallen asleep on her feet.  “Stay with us soldier.  Again, may I carry your rucksack and the little one?”  Her identity now over-exposed, Jinny nodded, once for each story of the building, and handed the ruck sac to Safeed. “Your secret is safe with me.  I knew you were an American when the trumpet sounded. Come, little man, we will take our first steps toward heaven.”

“I am a big man,” replied Asif.  “And where is heaven?”

Safeed smiled and picked up the lame lamb.  Jinny put on her helmet.  Her washed uniform was rolled up and tucked under one arm.  It had soaked through the abaya.  No worry, at night and at five hundred feet above sea-level, things—not people—dried quickly.  Safeed set the pace as he climbed, jabbering all the way.  Jinny followed, a handled kettle in one hand, and Asad tightly gripping the other.  The spiral passageway was very dark.  The steps creaked. As she huffed and puffed up the last four steps Jinny saw candlelight reflecting on the scarred open door.  The dreary third floor apartment included but two rooms, one of which had been boarded up.  “As you see, that room is, shall we say, decommissioned for life.  Your bathroom is down the hall; and your entry door, shall we also say, has seen better days.”

Jinny briefly examined the door and yawned.  “And I think this building has more than three stories to share.”  Safeed nodded in agreement and left to grab the last loads from the disabled cart.  Upon huffing to the top of the stairs for the third time—and before bidding the weary warriors goodnight—Safeed gifted each a hand-woven sleeping mat and an unlit white candle.  Then he placed his open palms  and prayer fingers together beneath his chin.  “A merciful God grants us light by day; his moon and stars, by night.  The Milky Way and eighty-eight constellations give testimony of our Creator, our Source of all light, our God.  Let us ever be grateful.”

Jinny wondered, Mr. Safeed, are you being square with us?  If not, or what’s your angle? Safeed bowed, backed across the threshold, dragged the door closed, and retraced his steps to the street.  “You may stay as long as you like.  See you tomorrow.”

Jinny was quick on the uptake. “Stay as long as we like?  How about five minutes?” Safeed heard only her first question.  He stopped and stooped long enough to close a hatch adjacent to the foot of the stairs.  I thought I latched you closed hours ago, secret door. Too much to do Safeed, too much to do. Don’t forget your appointment. He decided to leave the handcart where it had collapsed and break it into firewood at the next opportunity.  Firewood was scarce in Peshawar. Even in the summer.

Safeed walked briskly down the alley counting his steps aloud in the dark; he stopped abruptly, turned left and stooped  over, this time to remove his shoes.  He looked east, west, and then glanced up at Jinny’s broken window.  “Fee for service indeed!  How impertinent.  But so beautiful.  So benevolent.”  Worried about his aging parents, he slipped across the threshold into a hallway at the bottom of steep, stacked stairs and quietly closed the reinforced metal door to the alley behind him.

Across the way, an agitated, self-appointed busy-body pushed her calloused nose through a wooden shutter and made mental notes while lip-less laundry, strung on lines across the alley, rudely danced before her eyes.  It couldn’t speak but flapped on and on about petulant poverty. The candle-lit village laid claim to but one gas-powered generator as a source of electricity.   Installed outside the hospital’s western wall, the Honda ran and ran; but occasionally it just walked, sputtered, or quit for lack of fuel. Peshawar was too far from somewhere and too close to nowhere to warrant restringing war-ravaged power lines to a communal power grid.  Islamabad lay 300 kilometers—186 miles—to the southeast of the village square.

As Jinny knelt in prayer with the boys she wondered, are supplies trucked in? That’s a long haul, and who could pay?  How many went to bed hungry tonight?  And where did these people come from?  The matron is bi-lingual, but she looks . . . Too tired to speculate, Jinny let her questions pass through a fast-swishing revolving door.

Asad and Asif—his ankle still wrapped—remained on bended knees after Jinny said, “amen.”   She tipped each gently onto his side and kissed each sleeping, tousled head; the mat reserved between them nudged a smile to her face.  A painful smile.  She blew out the candle.  The freshly bandaged wound throbbed.  Weary but wary, the Kansas native crawled to the broken window, peaked over the sill, and stared down. The half-moon had not yet earned the right to broker light for the courtyard. Bankrupt of beauty, it mirrored how Jinny felt—worn out, and, like her life and service to her country–turned upside down. Unbeknownst to both Jinny and Safeed, the broken handcart had been dragged around a corner and into a cold dwelling.

A knurled olive tree, laden with bitter fruit, cowered against an apartment building wall like a prisoner of war stilled before a firing squad and bore silent testament to both decades of peace and centuries of neglect.  Shiny, green, leafy vines and crimson berries had once suctioned to the weathered masonry beneath Jinny’s window.  The leaves and berries were gone, but their thorny vestiges still clung to the past—lifeless, withered stems and branches—awaiting resurrection.  Remnants of a fountain and a few overturned stone benches remained in what once had been a courtyard garden.  To Jinny, the weathered walls resembled whited sepulchers, and the overturned benches, gravestones–striking variants to the life-treasures snoring peacefully behind her on the floor.

She slowly bowed–unconscious;  she lifted her head, then bowed again to no applause and dreamed.

Translucent ghosts scurried into the courtyard from a long, lighted, cobbled corridor to excitedly inform invited patrons, dressed in Sunday best, that the wedding party was not far behind. Sconced candles decked the walls; a circular, miracle fountain  gleefully gurgled; and an old console in the corner  of the garden square harmonized measured, mesmerizing, melodies while happy children strewed “forget-me-nots’ on wedged, diamond shaped pavers.  

 The wedding party, in high spirits and dressed in all their finery, paraded from the east.  A tatted veil lifted; a radiant bride laughed and danced with her bow.  “Curly, is that you?  No, of course not.”  Children removed their shoes, stepped into the fountain, and ran round and round coaxing it over the shore while flirting friends disregarded rock-hard chiseled benches and cuddled closely.   

 Jinny spotted herself in a tattered uniform, sitting near the rippling waters.  Her Sergeant and Lieutenant— having fashioned a portable chair with their arms—shuttled Alim from the wings and placed him next to Jinny, where together they shared reflections and waited for healing waters lap up their pain.   One by one the children retired to the punch bowl and a tasty spread of layered A-Rations.

This must be Eden’s Garden, heaven sanctioned. 

 Then, as suddenly as the dream had begun, the candles flickered and doused.  The music faded.  Voices paled into the distance.  No applause, no children’s laughter, no splashing, no fragrance—just deep, unencumbered, heavy breathing.