The Arizona State Guard Trilogy

by Jeffrey M. Fortney

  "How about you catch one more while I get the fire going?" said Titus chuckling and reeling in his line. Titus walked back to the cabin and pulled a grill setup from under a lean-to against the cabin and set it near the fire pit outside the cabin. He pulled some dried out fire wood and kindling from a covered stack near the cabin. Within minutes, he had the fire pit ready, the grill set up, and a fire started. He went back into the cabin and came back with a frying pan, various cutlery, plates, and cups. Another trip into the cabin and he brought out a small, collapsible wooden table and some sealed containers of seasonings. Titus wandered into the woods behind the cabin and came back with some wild onions and other natural herbs.

  Marcus walked up to the fire with four fish skewered on a long, slender branch he'd cut from a small tree. He passed the fish to his father then walked into the cabin to put his fishing gear up. Marcus picked up an old coffee pot and a can of coffee he found on the table. Titus cleaned, fileted, and seasoned the fish while Marcus walked to the spring flowing from the rock to fill the coffee pot with fresh water.

  Soon, the aromas of fish, native herbs, and coffee filled the clearing and by the time the fish were cooked, both Marcus and his father were eager to dig in. As they ate, Marcus said to his father, "You never have told me who taught you how to cook fish the way you do."

  Titus set his plate down, picked up his cup, and took a sip of coffee. "It was your grandfather, Maximus Augustus. And according to him, it had been passed down through the line dating back centuries. I told him that he'd been shell shocked too many times in the Ardennes back in World War II. He told me that he couldn't argue with that."

  The two men, warriors descended from a long line of warriors shared a laugh. A student of military history, Marcus Aurelius Roman had studied the memoirs and battle reports of all of his ancestors. He found them to be brave, hard-charging men of great deeds and few words. It was what he read of them in official military reports carefully preserved that validated their descriptions of their exploits.

  Marcus climbed to his feet and gathered the empty plates and utensils and carried them to where the stream exited from the pool. Kneeling down, he carefully scrubbed and rinsed them before returning to the fire. He set the plates on the small wooden table and sat down slowly on a boulder.

  Titus had entered the cabin and returned with his saddle bags. He drew a long, slender cigar from a package in the saddle bags and used the burning end of a thin branch to light it. He knew Marcus didn't smoke, so he didn't offer his son a cigar. Titus squinted at this son through the smoke.

  Marcus returned the gaze then said, "It's time." He went on to describe his recent tours overseas, the lack of real support for their mission from the government, rules of engagement that gave the enemy every advantage and greatly endangered the troops on the ground, and the inevitable politics that threatened to undo all the good he and his fellow soldiers had accomplished over there. He described the ambushes on the Spec Forces teams and the discovery that their Afghan counterparts were aiding and abetting the enemy. Marcus finished with a description of the events in the recovery ward.

  Titus had listened to his son carefully. He interrupted only to ask questions to clarify some things. When Marcus finished, Titus leaned forward and looked his son in the eye. "You really smacked the asshole with a bedpan?"

  Marcus nodded then said, "Yep! And then Teresa stomped him in the balls before decking his aide with another bedpan." The more he talked about it, the sillier it sounded. He saw a familiar twinkle in his father's eyes and a twitch at the corner of his mouth. The two men stared at each other for a moment, then broke into laughter. The laughter went on and on and with it, the tension Marcus had carried within himself for weeks drained away. At one point, he opened his eyes and looked up to see his father standing over him with a hand extended forward. Titus helped his son to his feet then embraced him.

  "Your Mother and I are glad you're home, son," Titus said, his voice cracking with emotion. "And we're glad you are safe and whole. Many young men and women have not been that fortunate." The two men stood locked in an embrace for several minutes and then sat back down.

  Titus relit his cigar and said, "You've served your country with honor. You've done your time. So now what? Any plans?"

  Marcus paused to think about it for a moment. Finally, he said, "Get on with my life! See if Teresa wants to be a part of it. Find something I can do to help this country of ours!"

  Titus grinned, "That's my boy!"

  **********

  Father and son remained at the cabin for two more days before heading back to the ranch. As they reached the foothills, about half way to the ranch house, they saw a large group of people moving northward. Titus pulled his binoculars from his saddle and focused them on the group. Passing the binocs to Marcus, Titus pulled his cellphone from his pocket and turned it on. Once it booted up, he dialed the local Border Patrol station.

  When the dispatcher answered, Titus said, "This is Titus Roman calling from the Roman Ranch. I have a large group of personnel traveling north across our property. I'm sending you the GPS coordinates from my phone...standby."

  The BP dispatcher acknowledged receiving the coordinates and told Titus he was dispatching a response team. Before Titus could cut the call, he and Marcus heard the unmistakable warble of numerous bullets flying past their heads. Reflexes, young and old, kicked in and the two men leaped from their horses. Staying low, they moved themselves and their horses behind an embankment and into a wash. They tied the animals to some scrub brush in the wash and pulled their rifles from their saddle scabbards. They edged back up the embankment and into the concealment of some brush.

  A tinny voice from Titus' phone caught their attention. "General Roman, are you under fire, sir!" the BP dispatcher asked.

  "We are indeed," Titus replied calmly. "We are also armed and prepared to defend ourselves. Call ya back in a bit." With that, Titus terminated the call.

  Marcus lifted the binoculars to his eyes and scanned the group first, then shifted his gaze to the area around the illegal aliens. Something, a flash of color, caught his eye. There, on that boulder, he thought. Oh, look! He's packing an AK-47, the favorite firearm of terrorists, thugs, and cartel members! Another burst of fire zipped overhead. Marcus passed the glasses to his father and pointed toward the coyote with the rifle. Another spray of bullets struck the ground near where they had been. Marcus popped the covers from his sights and brought his rifle to his shoulder. He braced the rifle over a large rock and focused upon the coyote with the AK-47. Marcus took a couple of deep breaths while bringing his finger to the trigger. He released the last breath slowly, then equally slowly took up the slack in the trigger. The rifle buck in his hand and he heard Titus call out, "Bullseye!"

  While Titus scanned for another target, Marcus slid below the edge of the embankment and shifted to another bush several feet to the other side of his father. Still more bullets passed overhead or struck the embankment in front of Marcus and Titus. "Got another one," Titus said loud enough for Marcus to hear. "Opposite side of the group...north twenty yards...near the three-armed saguaro." Marcus swung his rifle in that direction. Titus gave him further landmarks to work from. Marcus found his target and once he had him sighted in, took him out.

  As Marcus repositioned, he heard a shot and saw a burst of dust fly up near his father's legs. Titus slid further down behind the ridge and turned to look towards the foothills to the west. Marcus scanned the foothills looking for some indication of the location of the shooter who had slipped behind them.

  Suddenly, another shot rang out uphill from the some boulders about 100 yards away. This time, both Marcus and Titus saw the muzzle flash. Marcus signaled his father to lay down some covering fire and moved swiftly into a ravine to the south. Once Marcus was on his way, Titus found a location that afforded him protection front and back and returned to monitoring the group of illegal aliens and the shooters.

  Marcus slid into another ravine that ran
west, up into the foothills. His natural hunting instincts, honed by his time in the Special Forces came in handy. He moved silently, exposing little of himself for anyone to see. His target, however, fired two more shots and Marcus' training helped him spot the attacker's location quickly.

  In short order, Marcus was in a concealed position above and behind the attacker. Setting his crosshairs squarely at the center of the man's spine, Marcus called out, "Freeze, asshole!" He repeated the same in Spanish. The man suddenly rolled to the right, trying to bring his weapon around to shoot towards Marcus. A shot rang out and the man's rifle fell from his lifeless hands.

  As Marcus looped back around to Titus' location, two Border Patrol helicopters appeared overhead and began to circle the scared illegals who were beginning to scatter. Two BP SUVs approached from the north and a third from the south. As the BP personnel began rounding up the illegals, Titus pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed the BP dispatcher.

  "Hey...Titus Roman again! My son and I are in the foothills west of your personnel on our ranch. Let your people know where we are and not to shoot at us. Once they have the situation on the ground under control, we'll ride in to meet them. Uh huh! Yep! Thanks!" Titus signed off and signaled Marcus to keep an eye out for any other shooters.

  After about 15 minutes later, one of the BP officers signaled the Romans that it was safe to come down from the foothills. Marcus and Titus put their rifles in their scabbards, mounted up, and guided their horses toward the group of BP personnel and illegals. Soon, they rode up to the BP cordon around the group of illegals, all of whom were now sitting on the ground.

  "Howdy, General!" the senior BP officer called as Titus dismounted. "Hey, Marcus! Welcome home!"

  Patrol Agent in Charge Jorge Chavez walked over and shook hands with the Romans. Chavez had graduated from the same high school as Marcus, only a couple of years earlier. He had entered the Border Patrol and was rapidly promoted for his personnel and technical skills in the field. "So what happened here?"

  With Chavez recording their statements on digital video, Titus and Marcus took turns describing the situation as it had unfolded. While they did this two of the other BP officers went up into the foothills to recover the shooter there. Others marked and photographed the locations of the other shooters. Still others were interviewing the captured illegals and passing out bottles of water to them.

  After an hour, Chavez told the Romans that he had sufficient information for his initial investigation and that he would be in touch. Two rugged and well-worn Border Patrol buses lurched down an infrequently used dirt road to within a hundred yards of the large group. Chavez signaled his personnel to begin loading the illegal immigrants into the buses and the bodies into one of the SUVs.

  "Normally, we'd have the coroner out here and a ton of investigators. With all of the cut backs the Border Patrol has taken in recent years, it's all we can do to respond like this. And this response is stripping another sector of its coverage," Chavez told Titus and Marcus. "Border incursions have risen dramatically each year for the past twenty years. There has been an increase in TB and other diseases. A lot of us worry how long it will be until something really dangerous, like ebola or hemorrhagic smallpox, is brought into the U.S. brought by illegals. Drug trafficking and violent crimes have increased as well. There are parts of Arizona land that it is downright unsafe for Americans to travel in."

  Marcus took that moment to ask, "Is it as bad as I've been hearing since I got home?"

  "It's worse," answered Chavez. "We don't have the personnel or equipment to cover our sectors effectively. We've had a lot of Patrol agents killed in recent years and others quit in disgust over the lack of border security. And the President's new 'immigration' policies are causing a surge in folks trying to enter the U.S. Mostly women and children...with a significant amount of drug mules...and...uh...some people who are not from down south." Chavez looked like he was hedging around something he wasn't supposed to talk about.

  "You mean Middle Easterners, don't ya, Jorge?" asked Titus. "Look, all of the ranchers hereabouts talk to one another. Many of us have military backgrounds to include time in the Sand Box. A lot of us can recognize Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and Kurdish when it is spoken or in writing. Several ranchers have found documents on their lands written in one or more of those languages and have heard them spoken by illegals crossing their lands."

  Chavez nodded before responding, as if shaking off chains holding him back. "Yes sir, we're not supposed to talk about it...violate the party line so to speak. But the majority of us in the Patrol don't belong to that party! Our oaths are to the Constitution...to the People...not some political party! Our job is to protect the Citizens by protecting this border, not let people flow in illegally, flaunting our laws and sovereignty."

  Titus put a hand on Jorge's shoulder, "Son, you're not alone! There are a lot of folks in this country who still honor the Constitution. In fact, the reason we're heading back to the ranch house today is that I have a meeting in a couple of days with Governor Alvarez about this very subject."

  Marcus looked up at his father suddenly. He had not known this. Why hasn't Dad mentioned this meeting before? Marcus wondered. Probably didn't want to interfere my getting my head together up in the mountains!

  Titus and Marcus thanked Chavez and his personnel for their response before mounting up and heading for home. At first they rode in silence, then Titus said, "Good shooting, son! Thanks for getting that one off my six!"

  "You taught me well, Dad!" Marcus replied "All the Army did is fine tune what you taught me."

  Titus smiled his thanks and asked another question, "You okay with what happened?"

  Marcus nodded before answering. "They opened fire on us first...without warning. Either they were trying to run us off or kill us. Tried to harm my Father! And they did it on OUR property! The way I look at it is they were vermin and we took care of some rats. I feel bad for the people they were guiding, but they weren't invited here. They violated our immigration laws crossing our borders and were trespassing on our property. If we don't protect our national sovereignty and our property, then we have no nation...or property."

  Before they got much further, four Roman Ranch wranglers came riding up, armed to the teeth, and madder than hell! Somehow word had gotten back to the ranch house about the firefight. As they reined in next to Titus and Marcus, Hank spoke for the group.

  "General, you and Marcus okay?" he asked.

  Titus smiled at his foreman and nodded. "We're fine. Those hombres picked on the wrong guys to shoot at...a Green Beret and a Special Forces operator. Hell, we had 'em outnumbered. How's my missus?"

  "Oh, she's worried and angry," said Hank. "Probably angrier that you two went off and got yourselves in trouble...again!" The men shared a hearty laugh. Marion Roman was a strong woman who loved her husband and son and had lived with their lives in the military. She knew the risks they took each time they deployed. She didn't expect them to face such danger at home!

  The six men rode back to the ranch house with Titus and Marcus describing what had happened. Reaching the house, Titus and Marcus dismounted and gathered their saddlebags and rifles. Hank and the men took their horses to the corral to water, feed, and rub them down. The Roman men turned to the back door of the ranch house to find Marion standing there with her arms crossed and a stern look on her face.

  "Ooohh brother," was all Titus could think to say.

  "She does look upset," replied Marcus.

  Marion looked them over as if they were two hooligan schoolboys. "I don't know if I should take a switch to you both for scaring me like this or send you to bed without your dinners!" Then a smile played across her face and she stepped forward to embrace her husband and son. "C'mon, dinner's on the table. You can tell me all about it while you eat. Wash up first!" Father and son shared a look of relief and walked to the large, double kitchen sink to wash some of the trail dust off themselves.

  Over dinner, Marion told them
that a news reporter had picked up the BP radio signals and had called her sources within the organization before breaking the story. Being a local reporter, not national, she made an objective report, free of the usual liberal spin found on the vast majority of the national news channels. Upon hearing the report, Marion had sent Hank and the boys out to look for her men!

  Once again, Titus and Marcus took turns describing the attack and their response. Marion knew they were glossing over most of it. She knew she could (and would!) read her husband's journal later for all of the fine points. This wasn't an invasion of Titus' privacy as he had openly shared his journals with her since early in their relationship!

  After dinner, Titus went to his study to place some calls. The first was to the family lawyer to brief him on the event and have him prepared for any potential fallout. Marcus, meanwhile, went out on the back porch, sat by the pool, and called Teresa. She had heard of the attack but knew he was safe and would call her when he was able. They chatted as young couples do for about an hour. Before they hung up, Marcus let her know that he wanted to go to Sedona to visit her and her grandparents. She said she'd talk with them in the morning and see when would be a good time.

  Back inside the house, Marcus rapped on the door to his father's study and entered to his father's usual call of "Bounce and brace!" When he was younger, Marcus would indeed enter the room and snap to attention as required at West Point, his father's alma mater and, later, his own. As he entered, Titus turned his chair and waved Marcus to another chair. Titus finished the phone call he was on and turned to Marcus.

  "Long day huh, son?"

  "Yes sir! But we've had long days before," Marcus replied.