by Glenn Trust
Monty Sole had not laid eyes on his son since the day after his birth. Now he couldn’t take his eyes off of him, examining his face, seeing Clara there, and yes, a little of his father too.
Seconds passed before he stepped aside, opening the door wider. “Do you want to come in?”
Sole stepped over the threshold without speaking. He looked around the shabby room and nodded, then turned to the man still holding the door open.
“Why are you here?” Sole said, his stare icy, disgust the only emotion visible on his face.
“Hard to say.” Monty Sole closed the door, nodded and looked at the floor. “You’ll only hate me more for the reason.”
“I don’t think that’s possible.”
“Alright. I’ll say it.” Monty paused to suck in a deep breath to force the words from his mouth. “I love you …. I loved your mother. What I did …” He shook his head, and now tears glistened in his eyes. “I know it was wrong … inexcusable … it was just that …”
“Don’t!” Sole barked. “Don’t do that. You’re no prodigal son. You're nothing but a stranger who showed up.” Sole turned for the door. “You’re nothing to me.”
“Don’t go.” Monty’s voice broke, the tears falling down his cheeks now. “Please, only a few minutes, then leave if you want, and you’ll never hear from me again if that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want,” Sole sneered. “I’m only here because my mother would have wanted me to see you. That’s it. Nothing more.”
“Can I show you something?” Monty’s trembling hand reached for the duffel on the bed.
“What?”
Opening the bag, Monty pulled out a stack of envelopes bound with several rubber bands. He placed them on the bed in front of his son. Sole recognized his mother’s handwriting immediately.
“What are these?” He picked up an envelope, staring at the address written in her careful hand, perfectly spaced, each letter and numeral exactly as he remembered from the letters she had written him before her death when he was still in the Marine Corps.
“I think you know what they are,” Monty said. “I see it in your eyes.”
Each envelope had been carefully opened, slit along the top with a knife, not ripped. Once read, Monty returned each to its envelope, securing it in the duffel that had stayed under his bed over the years.
Sole bent over to examine them. “She wrote all of these … to you?”
“Yes.” Monty nodded solemnly. “They’re yours now. I suppose you have more right to them than I do.”
The letters spanned several decades, sent to Monty infrequently but regularly. The last letter arrived a few years after their son had gone off to the Marine Corps. Sole realized they stopped when Clara passed away. He looked up.
“I never knew she wrote to you.”
“I asked her not to say anything about our letters.”
“Why?” Sole’s mind spun, trying to come to grips with the unmistakable fact that his mother remained in touch with the man who abandoned her.
“There're things about me … things I’ve done …” Monty shook his head. “It was better you didn’t know … better you didn’t have to live with the knowledge your father did those things.”
“What things?”
Monty shook his head and said nothing.
“You wrote her back?”
“I did.” Monty nodded. “Not as often as she wrote, but I let her know where I was. That’s how she knew where to send the letters.” He hesitated. “I loved your mother, son.”
“Don’t say that!” Sole shouted. “Do not tell me about your love for my mother and do not call me son! You lost that right.”
“Alright. I’m sorry.”
“It’s forty-five years too late for that.”
“You’re right.” Monty shrugged. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You said you wrote back to her. I never saw any letters.” Sole shook his head. “All those years living in the house with her, I never once saw a letter from you.”
“I wrote them just the same and sent them. There wasn’t any return address on them or name. You wouldn’t have known who they were from.”
“Where are they?”
“She hid them in the house, behind a loose wallboard in the closet.”
“They should still be there then,” Sole said. “I think I’ll stop by the old house and see if they are, or if this is just a lie from an old man.”
“They’re not in the house anymore,” Monty said, his eyes fixed on his son’s.
“That figures,” Sole sneered.
“They’re here.” Monty reached into the duffel again and pulled out a smaller bundle of envelopes. “I stopped by the old house … spent a night there and took these.”
Stunned, Sole sat on the bed, slid a letter from the envelope, and began reading. One by one he read through the account of their lives in Cassit Pass. John’s birthdays, Christmases, their anniversary date, Clara always sent an update on their son, what he was doing, his progress in school. Some held pictures of John as a boy, then a teenager, then as a newly enlisted Marine in his uniform.
They were full of news about him and what was happening in their lives. Some were chatty. Others serious, somber even, out of keeping with his mother’s buoyant character.
Sole imagined his mother late at night huddled over the kitchen table writing. Clara and Monty had stayed in touch through the years, but the letters showed more than that. Clara loved Monty. In every one, she told Monty she loved him. At first, she pleaded with him to return to her and his baby son. After a few years the pleas ended, but her affirmation of love for her husband never faltered.
An hour passed, and Sole read on. The years of his life passed by, recorded in his mother’s neat handwriting. He came to one his mother had written when he was three years old, and his brow furrowed.
Come back to us, Monty. We can protect you from the memories. We can give you new ones. Just come back to us.
“What did she mean … protect you from the memories?”
“Doesn’t matter … not anymore.” Monty shook his head and his eyes moved from Sole’s to stare at the floor.
“Bullshit! You show up here after forty-five years, hand me a bunch of letters and call it good?” Sole’s voice rose for the first time. He shook his head, glaring at the man he was forced to accept as his father. “That’s not good enough. Whatever you think I couldn’t handle knowing about you as a boy, I can handle now.”
Monty raised his head and nodded. “Maybe you’re right, but it’s an ugly thing.”
“Say it.” Sole snapped at him.
“I was in Marine Corps …” Monty began softly, speaking without emotion. “Vietnam, 1972. Things had begun to wind down, but they kept the pressure on the North Vietnamese to get them to the negotiating table. Peace talks, they called them, but there wasn’t much peace where they sent us, especially if we had special skills.”
“What special skill?” Sole asked.
“Yeah, that.” Monty nodded. “Not much of a skill really, not for someone from around here. I spent most of my life wandering these mountains and hills, hunting, fishing, doing the things country boys did back then.” He shrugged and added modestly, “Turns out I was pretty good with a rifle, at least better than most of the new recruits. They took me aside and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. No slogging through rice paddies for Monty Sole, no sir, none of that. No, they said I’d have a special place, a safe spot, not out on point waiting for an enemy ambush or booby trap. I’d be in the rear of things. My job would be to deliver long-range precision fire on the enemy.”
“They made you a sniper,” Sole said.
“That they did.” Monty nodded. “And all that talk about staying in the rear, well, that was bullshit. I slogged along right beside the other grunts, taking my turn on point, in the middle of it all. Anyway, there I was, defending our democracy, trying to keep those Communist dominoes from falling the way LBJ had warned.
Mostly, I just wanted to get home to Clara. Then one day …”
Monty’s eyes focused on the wall above his son’s head. He had the look of a man staring at a distant horizon. Sole had seen the look before.
“Our company worked with an ARVN unit, Army of the Republic of Vietnam.” He gave a wry laugh. “Wasn’t much of a republic though, run by dictators and generals pretending to be elected presidents. Anyway, we went out on this operation to take out a Viet Cong unit that had taken over a village. They said the village was supposed to be ours. Don’t know how anyone would know the difference. The villagers were caught in the middle of it all and went along with whoever had the guns. That day the VC had the guns, at least until we got there.”
Sole had been a Marine, been to war. It wasn’t Vietnam, but people died and soldiers were killed. He pushed back the feelings of empathy for his father. Lots of people go to war, but they don’t come home and desert their families.
“Anyway, things were going along pretty smoothly. We surprised them. Wasn’t much of a firefight, just some random shooting. Then the VC disappeared into the bush … all except one … the village chief. Turns out he was Viet Cong too; at least that’s what the commander of the ARVN unit with us told my platoon leader.
“They hollered at him to surrender, but he wasn’t inclined. So the ARVN sent some troops forward to take him into custody. The village chief let off a burst with his AK, and they came scampering back for cover. It was kind of comical, to tell the truth.
“That’s when my lieutenant called me forward. It’s simple, he told me. Find a good position and wait for him to poke his head out of his hut, then take him out. So I said, yes sir, and found a good spot to set up on the edge of the village.
Monty paused. When he continued, his voice droned in a soft monotone, as if he playing the account back on a recorder.
“We took cover, directly across from the hut where he’d taken cover … not more than seventy-five yards. Under normal circumstances, you couldn’t miss. Hell, they didn’t even need a sniper to do it. Any one of us could have taken the shot, but it was my job, so they called me forward to do it.
“I probably sat there waiting for five minutes or so, but it might have been longer. Things get kind of compressed in those situations.”
Another pause. Sole remained silent, waiting for the story to come to its conclusion.
“Finally, I saw some movement. I was ready, safety off, just the slightest pressure on the trigger, breathing controlled. It was routine, like all the other shots I’d taken. Then, he came charging out of the door, his AK slung over his shoulder. He probably figured we weren’t going away and was trying to get to his buddies who had skipped out on him. Thing is …”
Monty took his eyes off the wall and looked at Sole. This part he had to say face to face.
“He had a woman with him, a mother holding a baby. He had his arm around her neck, holding her by the hair. The other hand held a knife at her throat. She was screaming and crying, struggling, so he pressed that knife into the baby’s throat and she settled down, sobbing and speaking fast. I didn’t understand the words, but I knew she was begging him not to hurt her baby.
“Take the shot, Sole, my lieutenant said from behind. He was watching the whole thing. I didn’t. I hesitated. I mean, I was a good shot, but with the woman and baby there, I kind of froze. My hands shook so bad I could hardly hold the rifle. It had to be a perfect headshot, no margin for error. Then the captain came up close behind me and yelled, take the goddamn shot, Sole!”
A single tear rolled down Monty’s cheek. Sole listened silently to his father and for the first time understood the pain he had not wanted to share with him.
“I took the shot,” he said. “The village chief just sort of crumpled to the ground. The woman and her baby fell on top of him.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t full dark yet, just sort of a gloomy fading twilight. I’d made tougher shots before, but I didn’t make that one. I was only off by a few inches, but it was enough.”
Monty sighed, bringing the story to its conclusion. “Two ARVN rushed forward, pulled the woman off the VC, and put a couple of rounds in his head for good measure. I walked out of the bush and checked the bodies, hoping there was a chance they were still alive. They weren’t.”
They stood facing each other in the seedy motel room without speaking.
“The worst of it was, the baby died first. My bullet tore through his little body, his mother, and finally the VC chief. I had one target, but I squeezed that trigger and killed them all.”
John Sole regarded the man who told the story and felt chastised by his pain. For the first time was able to think of him as his father.
“You could have stayed with us, me and Mom. She begged you to,” he said.
“I tried.” Monty shook his head. “Clara and I married. She got pregnant. We tried to do the things you’re supposed to do in life, but one day I came back from wandering the hills and she’d had the baby, and there you were. I held you. Looked into your eyes, saw you smile and put you down. How could I hold you, be a father to you after what I did?” He shook his head. “But I couldn’t. I ran and kept running. It was better than looking at you and being reminded of what I am … a baby killer.”
“PTSD,” Sole said quietly and put a hand on his father’s shoulder. “Post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“I suppose,” Monty said, tears filling his eyes at his son’s touch. “They didn’t have a name for it much back then, so I ran away.
Arrangements
“There is movement.”
Alejandro Garza’s whisper jarred Roman Madera from his doze.
“Movement?” Roman jerked himself upright in the seat.
“There.” Garza nodded down the street into the glare of the rising sun.
Roman rubbed his eyes and tried to focus on the old pickup pulling from the driveway of the house they had watched through the night. It passed by the church, the young man behind the wheel oblivious to the SUV and the two men inside watching.
“Follow?” Roman asked.
“No.” Garza shook his head. “Wait.”
Almost an hour passed before another vehicle, a small car driven by a woman, pulled from the driveway. It too passed by the church, the driver unaware that she was being watched.
“That’s her,” Garza said softly.
“Who?” Roman turned and asked.
“The one we seek,” Garza said, his eyes narrowed, a viper, intent, sensing its prey. “Follow.”
Roman had no idea who the one they sought was, but he obeyed and shifted the SUV into gear. He pulled from the church lot, yawning and trying to focus on the car that was a block ahead now and turning at the corner. He accelerated quickly, fearful of Garza’s reaction if he lost sight of the car.
“Do not draw attention to us,” Garza ordered.
Roman eased his foot off the accelerator. The woman’s car was still a block ahead. He prayed it would not disappear from view around a corner.
As it turned out, the drive was short, less than ten minutes. The woman’s car turned into the parking lot of a small shopping center and parked in front of a simple shop entrance. Goodwin Insurance Agency was stenciled on the large glass window that took up most of the front of the store.
Roman slowed and turned into the parking lot. He tried not to stare as he drove past the building where the woman stopped to take a key from her bag and unlock the door. She was attractive, forty-something, and despite the low budget clothes she wore, her figure held his eyes for a few seconds. He wondered what she had done to attract the attention of Los Salvajes and Alejandro Garza.
“Continue driving,” Garza said. “Pull back out onto the street.”
“Continue?” Roman looked to the side, puzzled. “If she is the one we seek, should we not …”
“Continue,” Garza said, cutting him off in mid-sentence. “We have what we need for now.”
Roman nodded without response and p
ulled through the parking lot. Garza took out his phone and punched in a number. Roman could hear a muffled voice on the other end. It was Chico Saludo.
“Where are you?” Garza asked.
“Near the lawyer’s office,” Chico responded. “In a small park nearby where I can watch.”
Over the last few days, he had become a fixture there under the gazebo. A couple of elderly locals out for their morning walk had even smiled and nodded as they passed by. At least it wasn’t raining today, Chico thought, pulling his jacket tighter around him.
“And the rat? Where is he?” Garza asked.
“In the car, unconscious. He mumbles in his sleep, but does not try to move or escape.”
“He will be like that for several more hours.” Garza put the phone on speaker and opened the notepad app. “Give me the location of your hotel.”
“It’s not actually a hotel,” Chico began. “It’s only a …”
“The address,” Garza snapped.
“Yes, of course.”
Chico gave him the location of the seedy motel in Dahlonega. Garza punched it into the notepad.
“Meet us there. Stay in your car until we arrive.”
“As you say,” Chico said as Garza ended the call.
Like Roman, Chico had no idea what Garza was planning, but at least he could leave the gazebo and get back into his warm car. That was good enough for now.
He was waiting in the parking lot of the motel with the engine running when they arrived in the SUV thirty minutes later. The motel clerk had peeked from the office window several times, watching him. Chico was afraid he might come out to investigate why the out-of-towner guest was sitting in his car. Once, he came from the office and stared in Chico’s direction, but Chico ignored him, and after a minute, the clerk returned to his station behind the desk.
Chico breathed a sigh of relief when the SUV pulled in and Garza stepped out. He climbed from his car to greet him.
