The Embattled Road

by J. M. Madden

  She folded her hands against her stomach, drawing Duncan’s gaze. White-hot anger exploded when he realized what the swell beneath her hand meant. She’d worn the jacket to try to conceal it. “Ahh, it all makes sense now. So, who’s the lucky guy? Or do you even know?”

  Melanie sucked in a breath. “Don’t be like that,” she implored. “What did you expect me to do? Go without companionship for nine months while you were gone who knows where?”

  He looked at her incredulously. “Yes, exactly, just like I did. And are you serious? I was in Iraq fighting in a God damn war!”

  She broke into harsh sobs, but he didn’t─ couldn’t─ soften. She looked to be a few months along, so, just before he got injured. Hell, even if he hadn’t gotten injured he’d have come home to find her knocked up by some other guy. Betrayal turned his stomach.

  Something had nagged at him about the relationship anyway. She’d been remote since he’d gotten back, not very communicative. She’d moved to her parent’s house in Ohio. Hell, she’d only been up to Maryland to see him a few times since he got back in the States, and only called a few times besides that.

  Melanie was needy and spoiled. He’d known that a long time ago. Honestly, in his heart of hearts, if he was honest with himself, he’d kind of been expecting this.

  He looked down at his motionless legs. It was probably a hell of a downer for the party girl to think she was going to have to take care of him the rest of her life.

  The fact that feeling had begun to return to his legs didn’t matter. It wouldn’t change the outcome tonight, so he kept the information to himself.

  His ex-fiancée continued to weep beside the bed. Her audacity spiked his fury.

  “Ok, Melanie, you can stop with the water works.”

  She looked up at him from tear-drenched eyes that did nothing for him. She’d chosen her path.

  “I’m sorry, Duncan. I wish things had turned out differently.”

  He wasn’t interested in her platitudes. “Yeah, well, drive safe back to Ohio. Ship my stuff to my parents in Colorado.”

  Her eyes widened at the dismissal, and she opened her mouth as if to argue. Instead, she snapped her jaw shut, turned on her heel and disappeared from his life.

  The amount of relief he felt that she was gone surprised him. They’d been a little rocky to begin with, before he ever left for Iraq, but he didn’t think she’d betray him with such a flourish. He was a little regretful that he didn’t have anybody to share his news with other than his parents, who were on the other end of the country.

  Lacey walked in just then, as if she’d heard his thoughts. She gave him a cautious smile. “I saw your honey leave. She didn’t look happy.”

  He snorted. “She’s not my honey anymore. Guess she got tired of waiting for me. She’s pregnant.”

  The nurse winced. “Ouch. Nice. Let me guess, she was lonely and needed companionship?”

  Duncan looked at her, surprised. “How did you know?”

  Lacey shook her dark head. “Sad to say, but it happens a good bit in here. You guys are long term, and a lot of people just can’t deal with the way their lives have to change.” She shrugged. “I’ve been doing this several years, and the ones that hang around the first few months post-injury will likely be around for a long time.”

  He mulled that over as she fiddled with his IV. Some of the guys had family at the hospital day and night. Others didn’t have anybody. One Marine down the hall hadn’t had any family visit. Ever.

  His parents had just left for home in Colorado. They’d been here for most of his recovery, until he’d told them to get back to their lives. They’d been reluctant at first, unwilling to leave him alone, but he’d persuaded them, promising that he’d relocate back there. It was the first time his father had left the family print shop for any length of time. Sam, his brother, was running it while they were gone.

  He had to be honest with himself. The Marines had no use for a grunt in a wheelchair. Even a career man like himself. The thought of trying to find a job while restrained this way absolutely nauseated him, but no other option was available. His father had reassured him that there would always be a job available at the shop, but that would be the same as taking welfare.

  It made him that much more determined to get out of the chair.

  Lacey paused beside his bed, an earnest look on her young face. Her pretty eyes were soft with understanding. “You need to know that when they walk out like that, it’s not the patient’s fault. It’s a failing in them, not you guys. I’ve been a nurse here for six years, and it always happens the same way. But the Marine always conquers and adapts.”

  Duncan snorted at the way she dropped her voice and puffed out her chest for that last part.

  “Well,” he admitted. “I’ll let you in on a secret. I’m not that upset. I think I kind of knew it was coming.”

  Lacey grinned and nodded her head. “I thought not. Besides,” she said as she turned to leave, “you’ve got much bigger things to think about.”

  She wiggled his blanket-covered toes before walking out the door.

  A week after he started getting sensation in his feet, they moved him out of the single unit room into a double occupancy. The threat of infection had passed, for the most part, and they needed the room for more wounded rolling in. His new roommate was Gunnery Sergeant John Palmer, incomplete spinal cord injury, or SCI, paralyzed from the hips down and angry at the world. It took Duncan a week just to get a ‘fuck you’ out of him. He eventually realized this was the guy that had no family, and it made Duncan all the more determined to connect with him, in spite of his surly attitude. Duncan watched two young nurses just out of school leave in tears because they tried to talk to the paralyzed Marine and had been ripped to shreds. The only nurse not outwardly affected by his nastiness was Lacey. She grinned when he cussed her out and shook her dark head. “If you weren’t so cute, Gunnery Sergeant, I’d smack that sour look off your face.”

  “Fuck you,” he snapped.

  She grinned that much more and sailed out of the room.

  Duncan felt slightly offended on the sweet nurse’s behalf.

  “Dude, they feed you. You better cut them some slack.”

  “Fuck you,” he snarled, with no regard to rank.

  Duncan didn’t try to correct him because he understood where the man came from. A week ago he’d thought he would be in the chair permanently, and it hadn’t been a good feeling. The tiny, living, feeling area that had stretched up to his ankles had reignited all his desperate hopes for a normal life.

  Chapter Two

  A week after Duncan moved in with Palmer, Chad Lowell rolled into the room, pushed by an orderly. His left arm was bandaged and there was a stump below the knee of his left leg, but Duncan grinned in spite of himself and gave a yell. He leaned forward as much as he could and almost fell out of bed clasping arms with his ex-Sergeant, genuinely glad to see his buddy. They’d been on two tours together in the desert and they worked together well, though Duncan was several years older. Chad had been injured months ago while they’d been on patrol, walking next to the Marine that had stepped on the mine, Mike Dodd. Dodd hadn’t survived but Chad had, in spite of the traumatic injuries to his entire left side.

  He grinned and Duncan was relieved to see the easy-going character still in there. Though his eyes were haunted, his spirit still seemed strong. Duncan shook his head at the younger man. “I never expected you’d still be here. I asked a couple weeks ago but nobody would answer me. How the hell are you?”

  Chad shrugged and motioned to the orderly standing behind him. “Fine. Getting the royal escort.” He looked up at the orderly. “Mind if we hang for a while? I’ll holler when I’m ready to go.”

  The orderly gave a laid back wave and left.

  Chad looked him over. “You look like crap, Dunc. When I heard you were part of that messy ‘copter crash, I knew it was going to be bad. What’d they tell you?”

  Reaching above himself,
Duncan used the bar hanging over his head to shift his weight on his hips. He was starting to feel when he’d been in one position too long. “I’m okay. Busted pelvis and a few burns. Spinal cord shock was the biggie. But my feeling is starting to come back.” He grinned in spite of himself, and Chad grinned with him. “What about you?”

  “Ah, well,” Chad paused to clear his throat, “you knew my leg was gone. Luckily I still have the knee joint. I’m going to be fitted with a prosthetic next month.” The young Marine looked where his leg used to be. “Damn strange nothing being there.”

  Duncan couldn’t imagine. As he looked at the Marine in front of him, changed for the rest of his life, it was hard not to get pissed at the country and all the suits who pretended to run it.

  “The arm had third degree burns. I’ve had several grafts that have taken well, but I may need more. The ones on my neck didn’t need grafted.” Chad touched the skin of his neck and grimaced as if he didn’t like the feel of it.

  Duncan nodded in support. The grafting process was as painful as the actual injury sometimes. They’d taken skin from his thigh to graft to his back. The pieces seemed to be attaching fine but he still took meds to combat rejection and infection.

  Chad looked across the room at Gunnery Sergeant Palmer, who was flipping channels on the TV. “Hey, Gunny.”

  “Fuck you.”

  Chad winked at Duncan. “Yeah, nice to see you too, buddy.”

  “I’m not your buddy, Lowell.”

  Chad made a comical face at Duncan. “The Gunny and I were in the same airplane for a while, weren’t we? Then we shared a rehab room for a while.”

  Duncan looked at Palmer. He’d refused to talk to anybody unless it was to berate them. This was the first time he’d heard the man talk to anyone without having a ‘fuck you’ attached. And though he was flipping channels on the TV, Duncan thought he seemed to be paying more attention than he normally did.

  “But don’t worry,” Chad continued. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

  Palmer snorted but didn’t remove his eyes from the screen. “Come within reach of this bed you little shit and I’ll show you how bad I can bite.”

  Chad laughed and wiggled his chair with his right hand. “Sorry, Gunny, I can only make left turns right now. Maybe another day I’ll let you take a chunk out of my hide.”

  “Plan on it,” he murmured.

  Duncan was in shock. The downright belligerent Gunnery Sergeant had berated and insulted all who stepped through the hospital room door, including Duncan himself, but he apparently had a soft spot for Lowell. The sharp kid was easy going and a bit of a cut-up. He’d been the perfect balance of tough and fun to work with the new pukes when they came in. Apparently the same approach worked well with Palmer.

  They sat and talked for the better part of an hour before the orderly returned for Lowell. “Grub’s coming, sir.”

  Chad nodded and made his goodbyes. “I’ll be back tomorrow.”

  Duncan wasn’t going to hold him to the promise, but when he rolled into the room the next day he was very glad to see him.

  They settled into a pattern of hanging out together unless one of them had rehab. Sometimes they scheduled their rehab at the same time, so they still hung out and encouraged each other.

  Palmer unthawed enough to talk to him, but he seemed reluctant to mention his wounds. Duncan couldn’t blame him, even though it was the great purple elephant in the room. He’d overheard enough conversation between the doctors to know that the other man’s injuries were not recoverable. Yes, he might feel things occasionally, but he’d never walk again. Guilt that his own feeling was returning but Palmer’s wasn’t nagged at him, and he debated whether or not to request to be moved to another room, just so the other Marine didn’t have to watch.

  But he put it off the more connected they became. Palmer even gave him congratulations on the feeling moving up his legs. Duncan wished he could share his good fortune with the other man. They hadn’t been in the same unit, but he’d come to be partial to his grumpy ass.

  Gunfire erupted right next to Chad’s head and it took everything he had not to clap his hands over his ringing ears. Instead, he tightened his fists on the stock of the M16 and tried to sight down the barrel. They were running low on ammunition. Every bullet had to count. “Short and controlled, men. Don’t waste your ammo!” Half a dozen ‘yes, Sergeants’ bounced back to him.

  He squeezed off two rounds and the return fire coming from across the street stopped. His ears had gone beyond ringing to numb and his head ached from the percussion of the gunfire in the confined space, but he grinned. They were pushing the bastards back.

  He glanced at his watch. Only an hour since they’d rolled into this damn little village. They’d only engaged the enemy less than ten minutes ago. Ten minutes in Iraq’s Diyala Province was longer than ten minutes anywhere else on the Earth though, and he knew he probably had injuries in his squad.

  “Sims, you got air support coming?”

  The Marine didn’t respond. Chad craned his neck to see through the dust and rubble of the bombed out building they were in. Sims was in the corner of the room, mic clutched in his hand. The radio box was sitting on the floor beside him and he was twisting dials but not talking. “Shit!”

  Scrambling across the floor on his belly, he snatched the com out of the Marine’s grip and keyed it. Static filled the air. Calling out his location, he prayed that somebody would hear him, but it stayed quiet. Sims turned the box to the side, showing him the bullet holes in the back.

  Fuck.

  Heavy gunfire erupted across the street again, pelting the front of the building they were taking cover in. Apparently the bad guys could get back-up but the Marines couldn’t. What the hell! First Sergeant Wilde was somewhere to the East. Surely by now he’d heard the explosions and knew that his Marines needed him.

  The men he commanded were returning fire, but unless they got reinforcements or air-support, the entire sitch would swing the other way.

  As if in answer to his prayer, M16 gunfire sounded from the east. “Oorah! ‘Bout time First Squad!”

  He repositioned himself behind the weapon with new enthusiasm, firing at everything that moved. Seemingly too easy to believe, the two squads overwhelmed the few insurgents left in the village. They were quickly dispatched or ran away, and the silence rang through the heat of the day.

  Chad scrambled to get care for his wounded and met up with his commanding officer. Wilde slapped him on the back for maintaining their position. It was high praise from the First Sergeant.

  The men were all giddy as they started back to Base, and he couldn’t really blame them. The numbers had not been in their favor. But they’d all managed to walk out of the situation alive.

  As the group fell into loose formation, he went from man to man checking to make sure they were tight. He had a lot of new blood in his squad. Sometimes, the newbies had to go through a meltdown before they could get on with the job. It was tough, shooting people for the first time. Usually, especially in close quarters, there was a lot of puking their guts out and moaning over going to hell. Not this time, though. They all kept their shit together.

  Private Barnes seemed more quiet than usual. “You all right, Private?”

  The young grunt nodded. “Yes, Sergeant. Just thinkin’. There was a lot going on all at once.”

  “Well, that’s kind of the way they work around here.”

  Barnes grinned and nodded, looking a little more comfortable in his skin. “Yes, Sergeant.” He moved on.

  Chad pulled to the side a bit and waited as the men trooped past. Dodd paused in front of him and locked up at the position of attention. “Sergeant, my rifle malfunctioned a couple times during the fight. It wasn’t reloading correctly. I had to clear it manually before I could fire again.”

  Chad took the rifle from the Marine and ejected the clip, clearing the weapon. The squad marched on. With one eye on his men and the environment, he examined the
M16. Structurally, it looked fine.

  “Was it mis-firing when you had it to your shoulder?”

  Dodd shook his helmeted head. “No, Sergeant. Only when I was holding it away from me.”

  Understanding dawned on the young Marine’s face as he worked out the problem in his head. “I know what it was, Sir. I didn’t have enough stability behind it to jack another round.”

  Slamming the clip home, he handed it back to Dodd. “You got it. Always keep your shoulder tight to the butt. The rifle needs that stability to send the bolt back with the next round.”

  Grinning, Dodd chambered a round and turned to follow the group, who was disappearing over a knoll. They picked up their pace to a jog, Dodd looping around a rock.

  “Dodd, follow…”

  …the footprints.

  Chad’s world went supernova. Blazing heat seared his body, blinding him, and he went spinning through the air. He landed on his pack and floundered, trying to find up. His brain blanked out. Adrenalin pumped through his body and he managed to pull his weapon around, even though he couldn’t see a damn thing. His eyes refused to focus.

  He heard voices to the right of him, and it sounded like a group of men. He brought his weapon to his shoulder but couldn’t find a target.

  First Sergeant Wilde’s voice broke through the melee. “It’s just us, buddy. I’ve got your weapon, Chad. Let go, buddy.”

  He didn’t want to let go. That weapon was his life and death. He slept with it, kept it in the latrine beside him. First Sergeant was asking for it, though, and of all the men in the unit, he trusted him the most. The weight of the M16 left his arm.

  The world was slowly coming back into focus, and there were a ring of faces hovering over him. Warmth was spreading across his lower legs. It felt like there was wool in his ears. The feeling was similar to the aftereffects of a hard shoot when he didn’t use his hearing protection.