Part Three

Willie Nelson claimed his hero’s had always been cowboys, as the boy sat staring at his plate. His eggs were cold. His orange juice tasted like it had been watered down. He chased the few remaining bits of bacon around his plate with his fork, disinterested. He looked at his father, his eyes questioning. His father met the boy’s eyes briefly for a moment before turning to the waitress to ask for more coffee.
“Y’all done here, honey?” she asked, smiling. The boy just shrugged.
“I’ll just box it up for you then, dear” she said and turned away, her ponytail bouncing.
“What’s the matter?” asked his father as he gathered his jacket and hat. The boy struggled for words, unsure. His father just motored on.
“Come on, lets get that feed back to the cows. I’m sure you ma’s gettin’ worried.” They stood to leave. As they cleared the diner door, the boy glanced around quickly, but the old man was gone. The boy was ashamed to feel relief. He was stepping down off the curb, following his father, when he heard laughter drift across the dusty street.
“Better get that kid back to the ranch, ‘else he’s gonna forget what a hard day’s work feels like.”
His father said nothing, but his face spoke volumes as he hauled himself into the pick-up’s cab. The boy climbed in beside him and they were off. As they rolled out of town the boy looked at his father and drew a breath to speak. Before he could, his father punched a tape into the deck and turned up the volume, Hank Williams making conversation impossible. The boy sighed and settled his head against the window to sleep.

The scream of the old Ford’s bad breaks jolted him awake in time to see the herd of elk scatter ahead of them. He felt the hit first, and then watched as a huge animal bounced over the hood, filling his vision and shattering the glass. The truck lurched to the left, his father frantically trying to regain control. The elk, well dead and spewing its greenish stomach contents everywhere, slid off to the right. His father wrenched the wheel hard, too hard, and the truck bucked back across the road. The tires bit into the gravel shoulder and everything slowed. In an instant of clarity the boy saw the torn flesh clinging to the remnants of the windshield, smelt the mix of shit and his father’s acrid breath as the vehicle heeled over like a wind-tossed ship. Sunlight refracted off the broken glass in the boy’s lap as the old Ford hung for a moment before collapsing into the ditch. Stars enveloped him briefly, and then the boy’s world went black.

He felt it before he saw it, like the full body punch of the baseline at a metal concert, crushing the air from his lungs. The shockwave knocked his helmet and coms off his head, the hot wind tearing at his face. The LAV screeched to a halt just inches short of the leading transport, now nothing but a fiery heap of tangled steel and bodies. Frantically, he wrenched back the hammer of his machine gun, trying to center it on his designated arc. He looked around wildly. At first, nothing, everything was still. He could see bits of offal littering the road, smelt the acrid smoke left by the burnt cordite of the IED. The first bullet passed near to his right, the wind of its passage slapping his cheek.
“Contact Right!” he shouted, at first not realizing that his headset was gone.
“What?” yelled his sergeant from below.
“CONTACT RIGHT!” he bent and bellowed directly into the cab before he opened fire. More bullets sang past his ears, others clanging into the LAV’s armored sides. He answered in anger and in fright, spraying fire all over his arc, still unsure of the enemy’s position. Shots materialized out of the billowing black. Somewhere in the smoke and sand someone was trying to kill him, and he worked his weapon madly. He watched as his bullets struck up showers of desert gravel and tore threw the low shrubs searching for a target. Suddenly his fire ripped a trough directly beneath him as the LAV bucked and lurched under his feet. His sergeant gunned the engine and roared across the road, away from their assailants. The others in the vehicle were firing from their seats, blindly. A sickening, wet smack announced the arrival of a new threat on the left, as the squad’s navigator slumped in his seat. He whirled his turret to face this new foe, and his heart stopped. Nestled in a depression not one hundred yards distant were three men, one shouldering an ugly black tube. An RPG crew. As he realized this he panicked. His vision narrowed to follow the stream of 7.62mm rounds picking their way across the dunes towards the crew. Too slow. He watched, helpless, as a flash hid the crew from view. He had no time to shout a warning. He wished he still had his helmet.