South of Shiloh

by Chuck Logan

  Faces.

  Rane had interred the seven faces in synaptic holes burned in his nerves.

  “So we did it. Formed up in twos, rode onto the battlefield and spurred right down Medicine Tail Coulee, whooping and blazing away with Colts and these big ole .45-70 carbines…

  “And the Indians came boiling across the Little Big Horn River and up that draw. Yipping and yelling, all feathers and dust, and us banging away. Lemme tell you, man,” the speaker’s voice dropped to a hush that brought Rane up on his elbows to barely hear. “Them coming bent over those ponies bareback, shooting these padded-tip arrows they had. Those arrows going whoosh by your head. Talk about your period rush. I mean you were right there in the fuckin’ moment.”

  The other storyteller laughed. “Those park rangers and tourists from New York and Chicago and such, they shit a brick and dropped their dentures.”

  Rane lowered himself and huddled in Paul’s blanket.

  Right there in the fuckin’ moment.

  And he shut his eyes and saw the seven swarthy Sunni faces in the order that they died; a slender strip of negatives curling across the darkroom of his mind.

  59

  RANE WAS DOZING ON PAUL’S PACK WHEN BEEMAN roused him. The conversation and the fires had died down. Shiloh slept in the dark. Rane got up, pulled the greatcoat around him, picked his way through the sleeping troopers, and built up the campfire while Beeman checked the horses. Then Beeman returned, carefully set the Sharps beside him on a log, and squatted by the fire circle. He packed his pipe, put a twig in the coals, raised it to his pipe, puffed, and turned to Rane. “So tell me about the sniper part.”

  Rane scoffed, “A sniper’s like a nature photographer. He’ll lie up in a pile of rocks for days waiting for a bug to pop out of a hole. I was never a sniper. Shit, man, I don’t even like guns.”

  “That may be, but back on Duncan Field you said seven kills,” Beeman said.

  Rane eased his wallet from his pocket, extracted the pierced quarter, and handed it to Beeman.

  “What’s this?” Beeman asked, turning it in the firelight.

  “Souvenir for you. A 168-grain Sierra Boat tail out a Remington 700 Model 308 made that hole. Probably the same rifle those SWAT guys have. My ‘diploma’ from the police sniper school they have at Fort Ripley in Minnesota. They give you one round to carry during the course. Toward the end they put you out alone to see if you can make The Shot. Mine was a quarter at about a hundred forty yards in freezing rain, crawling through the mud and weeds with a dozen cadre trying to find me.” Rane shrugged. “They saw my military records and offered me the course. I did it to fast-track access, you know, to get to know more people in the department.”

  “More research?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And?”

  “It blew up in my face about a month after I got through the probation period, the first time they put me on a SWAT perimeter. I was supposed to sit tight and observe on the radio net. We had a guy who should have been in a mental hospital except he was barricaded in his house with a deer rifle, freaking out the neighbors. That’s when I realized I had a problem left over from Iraq.”

  “What happened?” Beeman asked.

  “I abandoned my post and rushed the door. Surprised the shit out of me and him. He ran out the back into a tag team of cops. So I get suspended pending a psych eval, for violating protocol. I declined the evaluation and left the department. I was dating Jenny at the time.”

  “Hmmm, that sounds a lot like the standoff story in the St. Paul paper,” Beeman said.

  “Yes it does,” Rane said, staring at the flames.

  “John, you understand, I gotta draw the line at helping you commit suicide wearing Paul’s clothes,” Beeman said frankly.

  Rane jerked alert when a drunken howl echoed deep in the trees.

  Beeman explained: “Some of the boys get over-motivated and go off hunting haints every year.”

  Rane turned to Beeman and said just as frankly, “I’m not haunted, Kenny. I don’t obsess about it. It’s not what I did. It’s how I did it.”

  “That’s cutting a pretty fine distinction, don’t you think?”

  Rane shook his head. “Look, I’ve read the whole damn DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual on Mental Disorders. This isn’t some stress-complex thing. Hell. I like stress. It’s…” Rane put his hand out, feeling at the night. “You were close when you said a veil. But it’s more like a transparent barrier. Like this lens between me and people. I keep charging it to break out.”

  The fire crackled and cast war-paint streaks across Beeman’s face, and the ghost-seekers hallooed again in the distance and Rane lost his train of thought and wondered how many trees were still growing today that Lincoln had looked at?

  Beeman brought him back. “What happened to you in the desert, John?”

  “Okay, why not.” Rane held up a hand and let it drop. “Like your guy in Jackson found out, I went through the marine school at Quantico. The sniper course was divided into three blocks of instruction: marksmanship, observation, and field craft. I always could shoot a rifle. My uncle Mike taught me and he thinks there’s a natural connection between photography and shooting, that they use the same skill sets. He calls them kinetic instincts. But it’s a perishable gift. You have to practice it; that’s why I spent some time with the Sharps before I came down here.”

  Rane probed at the embers with a stick, stoking the fire.

  “You could really identify Darl all the way across that field?” Beeman asked.

  Rane nodded and jerked a thumb at his face. “Twenty-ten in both eyes. But there’s more to it. I’d seen him that day in the bar; how he was built, how he moved.”

  “And you remembered that?”

  “Observation. That’s the part of the sniper course I really aced. We’d play this game. It’s called the Kim’s game. The name comes from the book Kim by Rudyard Kipling. Kim is this young guy being trained as a spy in India. They show him this tray full of various rocks and gems for one minute. Then they cover the tray and quiz him on the details of what he saw. We played a variation on the game every day for two months. Kinda like ‘junk on a bunk’: they lay out all these objects in the morning, then we’d train all day, and at night they’d have us write a detailed summary of what we’d seen in the morning. I think on my best day I identified forty different objects out of forty-five. There’s a variation of the game you play in the field, identifying stuff through a sniper scope.”

  Rane paused, his face intent in the flicker of the fire. “And then?” Beeman asked.

  “And then nothing. I go on to my next assignment.” Rane tossed up his hands. “Saddam invades Kuwait. I ship over. When Desert Storm kicks off I wind up following the 101st around taking pictures.” He leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the glowing embers. His face worked and he said, “Thirsty.”

  Beeman held up a canteen. Rane took a sip of rusty water, handed the canteen back, and said, “You remember when everybody was hunting Scuds?”

  “I remember hearing them go over, seeing the Patriot light show,” Beeman said.

  “Well, there was a scout platoon attached to this battalion so I’d hang with their sniper and do some shooting to establish street cred.”

  “Showing off?”

  “Maybe a little. So after a week burning rounds, I’m regularly punching bottle caps at two hundred yards with an M24. My new sniper buddy has this bright idea to take me on a reconnaissance. They had Intel on a Scud launch site way out in the desert. I get to fill in as a spotter plus I take my camera to document the strike if we confirm the target. The colonel likes the idea and gives us a go. Wasn’t much else going on.”

  “A slow day in Bumfuck, Egypt,” Beeman chuckled.

  “You got it,” Rane said. “It’s supposed to be simple. I’d seen it before. You go in with a sat phone and an IR light, a laser designator. There’s an F-16 on call with a JDAM five-hundred-pound bomb, has a targeting pod calibra
ted to your target designator. You sneak in, verify the target, contact the jet, then paint the target with the laser, and bang. It’s called lassoing the target.”

  “So was it simple?” Beeman asked.

  “Shit.” Rane gave his hollow laugh. “We jump off the Blackhawk before the sun comes up; two miles from the alleged target area. Except the pilot misjudges the distance to the deck and we hit hard. About an hour into the march we discover the sniper lost the laser designator in the jump.

  “So he tells me to stay put, he’ll retrace our steps in the sand to the DZ, find the gear, and be right back. About twenty minutes after he splits, the wind does that scary change and the sand starts to blow in, slow at first. It’s getting light and there’s a wadi up ahead with some overhang along the ridge, so I head for that.

  “As I get close I go to ground when I hear a motor. The Iraqis had the same idea because they are pulling this rig with a big-ass Scud missile in tow into the ravine to take shelter. There’s a truck with a security detachment of RGs. Counting the driver there’s seven all told.”

  “Where’s your sniper?” Beeman asked.

  “He’s the hard-ass ranger type so he’s carrying the big ruck with the water, the M2 A1, the sat phone. I’m the pussy photographer so all I carry is the back bag with his sniper rifle, my camera, and one canteen. Total brownout. The war stops. I don’t see him again for almost three days.

  “My canteen didn’t last long. Ever go forty-eight hours without water in the desert during a sandstorm? Hollows you out, does things to your head.”

  Beeman waited patiently as Rane stared into the dark trees when one of the horses shifted position. The fire popped a shower of sparks. A trapdoor opened briefly in the clouds and a crescent moon briefly limned the empty forest and was gone.

  “I have the rifle out to use the scope. I can see them down there, through pauses in the storm. They’re hunkered into this sand cave. They have water in plastic five-gallon jugs. Six of these big fat jugs. I study them, get to know their faces, rank them numerically according to age. Number Seven, the oldest, had the most interesting face. Kinda like Anthony Quinn in Lawrence of Arabia. I watch one, two, three of the jugs fly, empty, cast on the wind across the bottom of the ravine. I can hear the empty jugs bumping on the rocks. Christ. What are they doing, taking baths? They’re drinking all the fuckin’ water…”

  Rane reached for the canteen, drank, handed it back, and spoke methodically, like he was reading from a page. He never allowed himself to go all the way back there, not even now.

  “Before dawn on the third day the wind falls off. You know how you tell severe dehydration? You stop sweating. Your piss turns dark. You have these severe muscle cramps and your spit is white paste. My lips and fingers were cracked and bleeding. Parts of my reflexes were starting to fall off. I was afraid of going into coma.

  “I had a rifle that I’d trained on, that I’d been shooting regularly back at the base camp, and twenty rounds of ammo. The sniper’s cheat sheet with his scope settings was taped on the stock. You know how you figure the range with just a scope? You use the mil dot reticle on the scope like a slide rule to measure the height of a target…” Rane paused, shook his head, lapsing into technical jargon.

  “Sure, I’d been to all the schools but I was just there to watch. I never thought I’d actually have to do any of that shit. And now they were rousing down there, getting ready to send people out. They had AKs and a light machine gun and I was too weak and cramped to get away. Then I felt the rising sun on the back of my neck and saw it was blinding them.

  “No choice. I started at three hundred fifty yards, crawling down the elongating shadows. I caught most of them bottled up along the side of the ravine. They couldn’t locate the source of the fire. I reloaded twice.

  “Number Seven knew what he was doing. He figured my general position by the sound of the shots and rushed me with Number Four. Might have worked with more guys, except it was just the two of them and they had the sun in their eyes.”

  Rane heaved his shoulders; his voice hollow, matter-of-fact.

  “The hardest part was crawling down to the water on my hands and knees. I was afraid I’d pass out before I got there. A couple of them still had light in their eyes when I took the first drink.”

  Beeman started to say something, then stopped.

  “Don’t get me wrong. I’m no pacifist,” Rane said. “But it wasn’t war. And it wasn’t murder. It wasn’t even the water.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Shooters have a slang expression, ‘F/8 and be there.’ It means you set the aperture on your lens for enough depth of field to forget about focusing. You just point and shoot.”

  Rane stood up and addressed the silent forest.

  “It was just too damn easy, Kenny. Pure instinct. I was taking pictures, except my viewfinder was a scope and the pictures killed people.”

  After a moment, Beeman slung the Sharps on his shoulder, rose to his feet, his face questioning in the firelight. “Then what happened?”

  Rane shrugged. “I found their food. I ate their salt. Then I blew up the gas tank on the truck to make a signal fire. When the choppers came in I was drinking Iraqi tea and smoking Turkish cigarettes I’d found on one of the bodies.” Again the hollow laugh. “The colonel wanted a picture with his trophy Scud, said he’d write me up for a decoration. I told him to shove his commendation up his ass. He never got his picture.”

  He turned to Beeman. “What happened was I had trouble getting involved with people, huh? Like the woman who was pregnant with my kid.”

  Beeman toed some coals, stared at the fire, and said, “And now you come down here to revise your fate card.”

  “Whatever,” Rane said. Then he pointed at the Sharps. “But if we run into Mitchell Lee, and it gets real tomorrow, you best hand me that rifle.”

  Beeman shook his head. “I can’t do that, John. All this I learned about you ain’t gonna be some Hardin County prosecutor’s business.”

  60

  Mitch’s eyes popped open. LaSalle stood over him, put the toe of his boot in his side. Looked down. The relief in his voice was forced. As was his smile. “Get up, let’s get this over with so I can go home.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mitch mumbled, looking up and shading his eyes. Something in the way LaSalle looked down at him? Yesterday’s hope scattered like cockroaches under a bright panic. Cave closing in.

  “C’mon. Time to meet your cousin Dwayne. Now sit up, get your shoes on and put out your hands.”

  As Mitch pushed to a sitting position, pulled on the battered leather shoes, and tied them, he noticed the black butt of an automatic pistol jammed in LaSalle’s waistband. The handcuffs clamped on with a dull click. Then the iron ring shifted on his ankle as LaSalle fiddled with the lock. LaSalle’s eyes settled on the almost-empty bourbon bottle lying on its side next to the air mattress. The sheen of sweat on his face sparkled, at odds with the masklike, calm smile on his lips. LaSalle couldn’t quite disguise the ruthless deadbolt set of his brown eyes.

  More than Ellie’s paid help. He moved with the efficient purpose of a man discharging a mortal obligation.

  Mitch wanted to plead, Hey, LaSalle, buddy, if I woulda been there in Baghdad I would have pulled you from the fire. Honest.

  Except he wasn’t there and now LaSalle had returned from the fire with a twitch in his brain and scars on his arms and face and today he was wearing his tight black skin like an executioner’s hood.

  Everything Ellie said was more sedative.

  Jesus, God—they were going to kill him.

  Then he blinked and it was like he woke up for real and the paranoia receded like a last ripple from the Demerol vibrations. He exhaled and remembered Marcy’s voice on the phone.

  Okay. Better now. LaSalle’s face had lost its sinister aspect.

  “What’s that for?” Mitch asked, nodding at the pistol.

  “Shit man, maybe Miss Kirby trusts Dwayne Leets on the phone but she ain’t going alone in the woods
with him,” LaSalle said and Mitch almost grinned, because that injected some healthy reality. Yes it did.

  They walked down the narrow passage for the last time. Good-bye, cave. When they were in the shed, LaSalle pointed out the doorway to his truck.

  “Sorry we don’t have better transportation but you’re going to have to lay in the passenger foot well. I’m gonna cover you with a tarp and tie your legs.”

  Mitch managed to get out one “Hey?” before LaSalle tied a rag over his eyes. The near panic returned when he heard the sound of tape tearing and then the sticky grip of adhesive slapped across his lips.

  The air on his face changed from musty and moldy to a soft breeze, and he was outside. A stillness and a tickle of cool morning mist. His clumsy shoes slipped on wet grass, and then crunched on gravel. A car door opened.

  Then he was lifted and pushed into a fetal position in the cramped space. Something looped and tightened around his ankles. Felt like a bungee cord. Stiff, rubbery folds descended over him. He heard LaSalle get in the truck, the engine start, and then the whir and rattle of road noise beneath him. Mitch pressed his manacled hands against the bandage on his cheek, using the stabs of pain to back off the panic. Listen to them, Marcy said. He concentrated on getting his breathing under control.

  Maybe half an hour passed that way and then the truck went off road and bumped over muddy ruts and stopped. LaSalle got out and a moment later opened the passenger door. Mitch wasn’t ready. He made his body into a tense pretzel, fighting the strong hands that were methodically prying him from his fragile sanctuary.

  “C’mon now, we’re almost there,” LaSalle said patiently, like a man soothing a skittish dog. The reasonable tone of his voice untangled the sweaty slipknots of panic and Mitch relaxed to catch his breath. His feet were untied and he was helped from the truck. “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it,” LaSalle said.

  Walking now, propelled forward by a steady grip on his elbow. A familiar mush of leaves squeegeed under his shoes, the damp snap of dead sticks and the swipe of branches. Mitch heard a mourning dove, the scamper of a squirrel. They were in the woods. This all started in the woods.