by Don Bendell
“A week.”
“Good, then I will enjoy whatever time you are here,” his mom said. “You are getting ready to go into battle, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he replied, never lying to his mother.
“I want to tell you about your uncle’s dream, or better yet, you should go see him,” Betty said. “We will eat a little late. The food will keep.”
“That important, huh, Ma?”
“Yes.”
They got up just like that, and he kissed his mom’s cheek, saying, “See you for dinner in about an hour.”
Fila stuck out her hand, and Betty took it and pulled her into a warm hug. Betty really liked this woman.
“I am so glad I got to meet, you m—uh, Mom,” Fila said.
“We will see each other a lot more, I think,” Betty said. “Don’t stay too late. You know Uncle Eddie needs his sleep.”
Eddie lived in a small house trailer with a ramshackle unpainted porch built on and matching carport, which housed Eddie’s short, scruffy, gray horse. Fila noticed, though, that his carport-turned-into-stall was clean, the water tank was full of clean water, and the horse was eating green alfalfa that looked like it was in very good shape. Around the house were a half a dozen rusted-out cars, most on cinder blocks, and several goats grazed in the weeds around the treeless property.
Fila, Charlie, and Eddie sat on homemade chairs on the ramshackle porch. Eddie was pretty much what was called a traditionalist. He wore a ribbon shirt and very long shiny gray hair in pigtails, with beaded bands and strips of leather tied around the bottom of each. He also wore a single eagle feather hanging diagonally from the back of his hair.
“I was fasting on a vision quest on the mountain yonder,” he said, assuming Charlie would know which mountain he meant.
“I fell into a deep sleep after a sweat,” he said, which meant he had built a sweat lodge, and probably had smoked some peyote and tobacco both, Charlie thought.
“I saw you, but you were painted for war and rode a mighty painted horse,” Eddie said.
“There was a warrior woman riding beside you and sometimes in front, and she said her name was Buffalo Calf Road Woman,” he went on, making reference to the Cheyenne wife of Black Coyote, a dog soldier who fought alongside the Lakota against Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer at the Battle of the Little Big Horn.
“Both you, Wamble Uncha,” he said, using Charlie’s Lakota name, meaning “One Eagle,” “and Buffalo Calf Road Woman had bullets in your arms and legs and blood flowed from your wounds.” Eddie went on, “But when I yelled out to you in the battle that you were bleeding, you said your grandfather had given up fifty pieces of flesh.
“The Pawnee lay all around you on the prairie,” he continued, “and the buzzards were eating on their flesh and so were the coyotes. Then an eagle came and sang a song above you, and he flew down and lifted you both up in his mighty talons and carried you towards the mountains.”
Charlie had chills running down his spine and said, “Uncle, in your vision, did I sing my death song?”
“Yes, but the eagle took you away towards the mountains to fight more battles. You sang your death song, but death did not come. You stood before the tribal council and wore many eagle feathers,” Eddie went on, “and Buffalo Calf Road Woman wore many eagle feathers, too, and she was allowed to sit with the council.”
“What happened next?” Fila said, totally intrigued.
“That ended my vision,” Eddie said, “but I must go now to Lakota Heaven.”
He walked off his porch and headed toward his horse. Fila was horrified, almost crying.
She yelled, “Are you sick? Don’t go!”
He raised his hand without looking at her and grabbed his saddle blanket.
Charlie started laughing and was holding his sides.
Fila turned, as angry as a bumblebee that had been stepped on.
“What is so damned funny, Charlie Strongheart?” she asked, fuming.
He said, “Honey, Lakota Heaven is reservation slang. It means Wal-Mart.”
She looked at Charlie, then at Eddie, and suddenly started laughing at herself. She and Charlie just sat on the porch and laughed and laughed. They laughed for so long that by the time they finished, Eddie had gotten his horse saddled, mounted up, and ridden down the dirt road without even looking back.
Fila watched the last of him disappear from sight and, now serious, said, “He didn’t even say good-bye. I didn’t tell him good-bye.”
Charlie said, “It is not his way. He probably did all that to look stoic but was emotional about me being in Delta. The vision was real, and it probably scared him for me.”
“What did it all mean?” she asked.
He said, “Come on. I’ll tell you on the way back.”
On the way, he told her about Buffalo Calf Road Woman. “Buffalo Calf Road Woman was the wife of Black Coyote. Before the Battle of the Little Big Horn, General Crook and his men got into it with Crazy Horse. You have heard of him?”
Fila said, “Oh yes. I knew about Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse when I lived in Iraq.”
Charlie said, “I will tell you in the words of my grandfather, since you like when I speak more traditionally.”
“I love it, Charlie,” she interjected.
He went on. “Sitting Bull saw the vision he had seen in his Sun Dance ceremony: the sight of many enemy Indians and earless white soldiers falling into the Lakota camp, bloody and dead. Just a week earlier, Crazy Horse had led some Oglalas against Gray Fox (General Crook) in a big fight on the Rosebud River, and he had soundly defeated the general and his troops. Sitting Bull thought about it and knew that this was not, however, the giant victory he had envisioned. When he did his Sun Dance ceremony, he cut fifty pieces of flesh from his arms, and that was what my uncle was seeing.
“Even so, when Crazy Horse defeated Crook on the Rosebud, a magnificent event took place, which the Cheyenne would recall for years to come. A tall Cheyenne chief, Comes-in-Sight, noted for his courage and fighting ability, charged into the fray to count coup on a group of Crow scouts and Crook. His horse was shot out from under him, and neither Crazy Horse’s Oglalas nor their Cheyenne brothers could rush out to save him, such was the volume of gunfire being rained upon him. Then, the Crow scouts decided to charge the lone Cheyenne, ride him down, and count coup on him. He faced them and taunted them as they charged, while the helpless Sioux and Cheyenne watched from a hillside.
“I told you she was married to Black Coyote, but she was also closely related to Comes-in-Sight. She was his sister, and Buffalo Calf Road Woman was not prepared to let her brother die that easily. She jumped on a pony and charged out toward the advancing warriors. She rode right through their midst, swooping down on her brother under a hail of deadly gunfire and arrows. He swung up behind her on the war pony, and they darted out of there under the Crow fire and to the cheers of the Lakota and Cheyenne warriors, including Crazy Horse, who witnessed this event and could not believe the courage of the woman. The fight on the Rosebud against the Gray Fox was called, from that day forward, Kse e Sewo Istaniwe Ititane, meaning ‘Where the Young Girl Saved Her Brother’s Life.’ ”
“I assume you figure I am Buffalo Calf Road Woman in his vision?” she said.
“Naw,” Charlie replied. “Our nation’s beautiful national security advisor, Kerri Rhodes.”
She playfully slapped him, saying, “You son of a bitch!”
She got embarrassed then and was mad at herself for letting him know she was jealous.
He laughed and said, “I only said that because I saw how she was treating me, and I saw a few of the looks you gave her.”
Fila said, “You saw that?”
Charlie nodded.
She said, “Amazing! I have always felt men were totally oblivious to beautiful women putting the make on them.”
“Putting the make on them?” He laughed. “Is that a Persian expression?”
She chuckled and said, “No, it w
as something my dad said several times in Fort Campbell. He teased my mom just like you do.”
“Is that bad?” Charlie asked.
She said, “Oh no! I love my dad very much! He is wonderful and so is Mom. You’ll love them both. They will love you, too.”
“Your dad won’t,” Charlie said. “I’m not a West Pointer.”
She laughed. “Are you kidding? My dad isn’t a West Pointer either, and he is SF through and through. He will love that you are SF, officer or NCO. That does not matter to him at all.”
“Great!” Charlie replied.
They visited with Charlie’s mom for a couple of hours and headed back toward Rapid City, a long drive. Fila truly did love the antelope meat and was amazed at how tender and delicious it was.
They got back to their hotel too late for a hot tub, so they went to their room. Although they had not been intimate, Fila suggested they share rooms and spend all their time together to pick up each other’s nuances as a couple.
Charlie said, “What time will your mom and dad arrive?”
She said, “They were on a red-eye and checking in late. They are meeting us for breakfast tomorrow, if that is okay?”
“Of course,” the tall warrior replied.
“The whole time we visited with your mom,” Fila said, “not one time did she ever mention your hair being cut short. I really liked her.”
“She liked you as soon as she met you,” he said. “I can tell. She senses both good and bad things about people. She will never mention my hair, because she knows I am in Delta and would not cut it off unless there was a good reason.”
“I can’t wait to see Mom and Dad. It has been a long time,” she said, “but right now, I want to think about you. Come here.”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Serpents
“SPANK me!” he commanded handing her his rolled up belt.
Her black hair was glistening already with perspiration from all the rough pre-sex rituals, and her dark complexion was shining in the dimly lit hotel room, but she wanted to oblige. She swung her arm down and lashed him across the buttocks, causing a big red welt.
He cried out in pain, then said, “Harder and tell me I’m a bad boy.”
She shrugged her shoulders and swung even harder, and this time it went across the back of his legs. He screamed in pain and gritted his teeth. Tears welled up in his eyes.
He said, “Harder, bitch! And I told you to tell me I’m a bad boy!”
The session lasted for the full hour. Major General Rozanski got up and paid her the $500 fee and showed her to the motel room door.
I hate honky crackers, the prostitute thought to herself. They are all wierdos. I should have stayed in Fayetteville tonight. I would have made more money and not had to work so damned hard.
She said, “Hey, how do I get back to Fayetteville? Do you now what a cab costs from Southern Pines?”
He said, “You just got five hundred dollars from me. Work it out somewhere else.”
He pushed her out the door amid some creative curses he had never heard before.
Rozanski went to the bathroom and put salve on his battered and bruised thighs and buttocks. He could not wait until his clandestine breakfast the next day.
He awakened, showered, and arrived at the twenty-four-hour breakfast restaurant as scheduled, for the agreed upon 8 A.M. appointment. He ordered coffee and saw a very slender man with red hair and muttonchop whiskers come in the doorway, and Rozanski signaled him over to his table. He was a reporter for a very liberal New York City newspaper. The two men introduced themselves, ordered their food, and started talking.
The reporter, Alan Homer, said, “General, may I use your name in the article?”
“Are you kidding me?” the general whispered. “I am giving you the biggest dirt you have ever gotten about the President of the United States, and you want to use my name? You have to be shitting me, young man.”
Alan said, “Sorry. I have to ask. That is my job. We will keep you as a very anonymous source, General. Don’t worry. Trust me.”
General Rozanski leaned forward across the table and said, “How would you like to know about the President of the United States sending trained professional hit men into Iran to kill a businessman simply because they think he is tied to terrorists?”
“Holy cow!” the reporter said. “Are you positive?”
“Young man, I hold a high government position in intelligence,” Rozanski said, fuming. “I am a retired general. I was there in the planning for the operation.”
“Where?”
The nasty general replied, “In the Delta Force compound at Fort Bragg. I have been involved in the planning.”
“Who are the trained professional hit men you were talking about?”
“There are two, a man and a woman. He is a master sergeant named Charlie Strongheart, a Cherokee or a Sioux or something. The woman is Sergeant First Class Fila Jannat, and she is a member of Delta Force, too. She is originally from Iran.”
“You mean the President of the United States is using Delta Force to do political assassinations for him?” Alan asked, already picturing the Pulitzer Prize above his mantel.
“Damned right he is.”
Alan said, “Just a woman being in Delta Force—that alone is a major story.”
“Ha, there is a whole platoon of them,” Rozanski said. “They call it the Funny Platoon.”
“How can she be from Iran and become a member of Delta Force?” the reporter wondered.
“Because of who we have in the White House,” Rozanski said. “How do we know where that Muslim woman’s loyalties lie?”
CHARLIE and Fila walked into the sunny restaurant and a handsome couple stood up, smiling.
Fila whispered, “I’m nervous. I hope Dad likes you.”
They got up to her parents and her mom and dad both hugged her warmly.
Then Fila was totally shocked as her father stepped forward and embraced Charlie in a big bear hug, laughing and saying, “Cochise! How in the hell are you?”
Fila said, “Dad, you know Charlie?”
“Know him? I’ll tell you a great story about him,” the man said.
“Well, I am shocked,” Fila said. “Well, you know my dad. This is Mom.”
Charlie stepped forward and kissed Fila’s mom on the cheek and said, “Hi, Angela. You look even younger.”
Angela looked at the colonel, saying, “He hasn’t changed, Dave.”
Fila slapped Charlie on the arm, saying, “Why didn’t you tell me you knew my mom and dad?”
Charlie laughed, holding her chair, while Dave held Angela’s, and saying, “You never asked me, honey.”
“Honey?” Dave said, “So you two are more than teammates?”
Fila said, “How was your flight?”
Angela said, “It was okay. Dave, tell Fila how we know Charlie.”
The silver-haired retired officer leaned forward, saying, “Punkin, Charlie and I were classmates in Ranger School. He broke his foot just about the first day that we were in Florida. Every morning he would go into the latrine and tape it up tightly with strips of adhesive tape and never told anybody but me.”
She looked over at Charlie and shook her head.
Her dad said, “I know what you are going to say. Why didn’t he go on sick call? I asked him, too.”
She looked at Charlie and said, “Why?”
Charlie said, “They would have recycled me. I had a mission to accomplish, so I convinced your dad to promise to not tell anyone.”
She said, “Did you both belong to the same group?”
Charlie said, “No, in fact in Ranger School we did not wear rank, unit patches, any identifying patches or symbols. He and I were partnered up a lot and the guys we were around called me Cochise.”
“What did they call you, Dad?”
“Top,” the colonel said. “They all thought I was a first sergeant or sergeant
major. I was a major then. Charlie was a staff sergeant.”
“Your dad never told them any different.”
Dave said, “I was very honored to be thought of as an E8 or E9. Hey, you were an E6 then. What rank are you now?”
“Master sergeant,” Charlie said. “I just lucked out and made the list for E9.”
“That is great,” Dave said. “When you were a staff sergeant, I told Angela you would be command sergeant major of Special Forces someday.”
Charlie cleared his throat and said, “Coming from you, Colonel, that is a great compliment.”
Dave said, “Charlie, I am a civilian and you are seeing my daughter. Please call me Dave.”
Charlie smiled, saying, “I’ll try.”
Fila said, “So tell me the rest of the story.”
Charlie said, “Oh, there is nothing to tell.”
Dave said, “My butt! He had the broken foot, and we were running some small unit tactics and humping for miles wearing a loaded rucksack, weapons, and blank ammo. I did not know how he could handle it. We set up an L-shaped ambush in a swamp overlooking a trail along the higher ground. We all fell asleep on the ambush, they kept us so exhausted. I would shoot my men in combat for that just about, but we all zonked out.”
“You’ve never known Dad to zonk out, have you, Punkin?” Angela said, a big smile on her face.
“Oh, Charlie,” Fila said. “Football season. All he talks about is the Tennessee Titans. We would get home from church, eat lunch, and he is ready to watch football. The Titans! Mom or I would walk in the living room, and he would be asleep in his La-Z-Boy.”
“Continuing on,” Dave said, embarrassed. “While we were on the ambush, I had a critter crawl in my boot. It was either some kind of spider or a scorpion. Anyway, the next thing I knew I had a horrible reaction to the bite or sting, whatever it was. My foot and ankle swelled up to about triple its normal size and turned colors, too. It swelled up so bad, I had to take my boot off. I had never had anything like that happen.
“We were on our final FTX at Camp Ruddy,” he went on, referring to a field training exercise, “you know, at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, so we were near the end of a nine-week long Ranger School. I didn’t want to get recycled either, and Cochise didn’t want me to, so he picked me up in a fireman’s carry across his shoulders and carried me for a couple miles, while he carried his ruck and carried mine on his chest. This young man was mighty strong back then, and looks even stronger now.”
