Options Are Good (17 page)

A subdued, “10-4” sounded and Bandy quickly ran back to the house to break camp and take off after Colin. The “Return To Base” command had been that of someone used to authority.

As Bandy pulled out onto the highway, he heard Ana-Bella’s voice repeatedly asking if Bandy was all right. Again Bandy stayed quiet. Until she said, with the mike still keyed, “I’m going to go lo…” The transmission cut off.

Bandy grabbed the mike of his radio and keyed it up, hurriedly telling Ana-Bella to stay where she was. But when he un-keyed, Colin was talking. Another rant. About how he had Bandy and what he was going to do to him. And where the deed would be done.

Silence came and Bandy tried to speak before Colin could again. But there was a dead carrier each time he un-keyed. Someone was smart enough to be keeping the mobile radio keyed to block the frequency.

Bandy quickly switched channels and tried again. He got through to the Sheridan Ranch this time. But it was Bob that answered. “She’s already gone, Hawkins! She slipped out when I wasn’t looking! I’m going after her with my team. At least you are okay.”

Knowing it would do no good, Bandy didn’t even try to talk Bob out of it. Nor Angus when Angus said he and Junior would be out looking for her, too. That was followed quickly by the Longhammer Dealership commander saying the same thing.

“Maybe that is better,” thought Bandy for a second or so. But he knew better. If Ana-Bella was headed to the spot Colin had mentioned, there was no way any of the others could reach it before Ana-Bella and Colin did. And him. Bandy put the accelerator to the floor as he flipped a switch to bypass the super quiet mufflers and the big diesel bellowed, now unfettered completely.

A fast, smooth gear change and Bandy was doing a hundred and twenty, intending to get to the little fueling stop and convenience store before either Colin or Ana-Bella did.

CHAPTER NINE

Bandy knew he was quickly running out of options as he came up on the three truck convoy speeding down the highway. There was no sign of Ana-Bella.

He had the Glock 21 .45 in his right hand. But he slipped it under his right thigh and gripped the steering wheel firmly. He’d slowed when he came up to the rear pickup. But he pressed the accelerator again and rammed the vehicle in front of him.

Like the other vehicle, this one swerved and went off the road at high speed. But it bounced out across the road ditch, through a barbed wire fence, swerved again trying to avoid a pond in the path. But instead of missing the pond, the truck rolled, winding up in the small pond, sinking out of sight, upside down. Bandy didn’t slow down or hang around to see if the man made it out. He really didn’t care. The man was out of the action, and that was all that mattered.

Bandy himself had to start swerving back and forth, and backed off his speed when a man leaned out of the passenger side of the second truck and let go with half a dozen single shots, and then emptied the magazine in full auto.

He was still slowing down, and swerving, but the man was able to bring that last burst onto line. Bandy heard the .223 bullets bouncing off the radiator armor. When the windshield of the truck shattered, he felt the cuts on his face and hands from the glass, and then the burning sting of a round going through the skin of his left arm. But it was the last round fired.

Ignoring the burning pain, Bandy straightened the truck and accelerated again while the passenger tried to reload. But the driver of the other truck was swerving back and forth now, too, and the gunner simply could not get the fresh magazine inserted.

Bandy had to back off again. Ramming the other vehicle now was too dangerous, so Bandy eased off a bit more. He could see the buildings on the right hand side of the highway up ahead, and though he could not be sure, he thought Ana-Bella’s big white Ram crew cab one ton pickup was parked there.

He nearly lost control of the truck, as he was trying to see for sure if Ana-Bella was there, when the truck in front of him braked hard. Bandy nearly hit the truck, but swerved in time. But it put him up even with the driver’s side window of the other truck.

Bandy slammed on his brakes just in time to avoid the flurry of handgun rounds the driver shot at him through the other truck’s open driver’s side window.

Bandy never said what he was thinking, or really even described what happened next. But Ana-Bella saw it all, and was not reluctant to tell anyone that would listen what occurred as the three trucks turned into the parking lot of the abandoned and stripped fuel stop and convenience store.

“It was amazing! I was so excited to see that Bandy wasn’t a captive that I didn’t move quick enough when Colin slid to a stop behind my truck, blocking it in. By the time I got out of the truck, with my pistol, Colin was already there. He knocked the gun out of my hand, and then backhanded me in the face with his gun.

“Bandy saw it even as he dove out of his truck, after ramming the driver’s side of the second of Colin’s pickups. I don’t know how he did it. He rolled over three times and then started to fire at the two men in that pickup truck.

“The passenger was out of the truck, shooting over the back of the bed of the truck, just behind the cab, but he went down when Bandy shot his ankles out from under him.

“The driver managed to get out on the passenger side, too. For some reason Bandy didn’t just shoot him. He waited until the man came around the front of the truck, firing as he came. Bandy dropped him with one shot. When I looked at Bandy again, after Colin yanked me around in front of himself for protection, I could see the blood all over his upper body and head. And when he climbed to his feet, he was limping from the bullet that the doctor had to take out of the back of his left calf later.

“Bandy walked toward us, putting his pistol back in the holster. He took one glance at me, but then his eyes… and they were blazing, I tell you, went to Colin.

“Even holding me in front of him and us behind the truck, I felt Colin start to tremble. He put the gun to my head then and warned Bandy. ‘I’ll kill her! You come one step closer and I’ll kill her! You let me in your truck and I’ll drive away. And I’ll turn her lose when I get far enough so I know you can’t catch me’.

“His voice was squeaky and I could tell he was scared. The gun barrel was right against my temple and he kept punching it inward enough to really hurt.

“Bandy did stop, and then he did… well… what he did. I’ll never forget it. I thought he was crazy. Not really sure he wasn’t at that point in time.

“But his voice was so cold. So hard. And it scared Colin even more. But Colin, being the person he was, could not resist the challenge and the insult when Bandy told him, ‘Me and you, Colin, mano-a-mano. You keep your gun the way it is, I drop my magazine and have only one round. Ten feet. I want to see the fear in your eyes when you go down like the rabid dog you are’.

“‘I’ll kill her! I will kill her!’ Colin screamed. Then he did what I think Bandy knew he would. He pushed me away and turned the gun on Bandy. I almost fell down, the push was so hard, but I grabbed the side of the truck and saw the ending. Bandy just stood there and let Colin fire a round before he drew his own gun again. And it was like magic! I can’t honestly say I saw his arm and hand move, but suddenly his gun went off one time, and Colin went down with the bullet actually right between his eyes.

Ana-Bella would always close her eyes at this point, sigh a bit, and then smile as she ended the story, “Then Bandy looked over at me and said, ‘I’m not real happy with you right now for leaving the ranch, Ana-Bella. But, other than that, would you marry me?’

“Moments later three sets of vehicles pulled onto the parking lot and people were swarming all over the place, including Sheriff Broadhearst, on crutches, but armed.”

That was the first time she told the story, as two of the experienced paramedics in the group worked on Bandy’s injuries while he sat there on the tailgate of his truck just ignoring everything.

It wasn’t until some of them were back in the living room at the Sheridan Ranch, including the Sheriff, the Longhammer’s, Brewster Amhurst, Louella Hastings, and Ana-Bella, Magdalene, Bob, and the patched up Bandy that Brewster brought up the subject of Bandy’s time in service, right out of the blue.

Ana-Bella looked curious, but Magdalene was far more so. She’d known from that first time in the kitchen there was something about his military career he wouldn’t talk about.

“That whole deal with the Lieutenant and you, in Iraq… There was no truth in that, was there?”

Bandy sighed. Perhaps it was time to get it off his chest. Ana-Bella had a right to know what had happened. The kind of man he’d been accused of being.

“Oh, there was truth in the story. Just not the whole truth, and with some of the story fabricated,” Bandy said quietly. He lifted his head and looked over at Ana-Bella. “I was accused of cowardice two days before I rotated home.” But that was all he said. He just looked at Ana-Bella, as if waiting for her to tell him to get out of the house and never come back.

“There has to be more to the story,” Magdalene said. “Something doesn’t sound right.” Again she decided asking Bandy about it would be counterproductive. She looked at Brewster. “You know more than you are telling.”

Brewster nodded and looked at Bandy in turn. Deciding he couldn’t make the situation any worse than Bandy already thought it was, he spoke up. “The way the story goes, is that Sergeant Hawkins hid behind his Lieutenant during a firefight. The Lieutenant was a woman. Pretty good reputation as I understand it.

“After the firefight was over, they found the Lieutenant, alive but unconscious, propped up against a boulder, with Hawkins on the ground right up against her back. He was out, too. But his M4 was in the hands of the Lieutenant, with a pile of magazines beside her, and seven dead insurgents dead at ranges from six feet out to about ten yards. And her M9 was empty, on the ground, beside her right leg.

“Both of them had taken three AK rounds each, but only one missed the vests. The one that took the Lieutenant in the side. All three of the rounds that hit Hawkins were stopped by his body armor, but it beat him up bad.

“Apparently, when they were found, by a reporter, not the Lieutenant’s people, and she saw the situation, she claimed that the Lieutenant had protected Hawkins, with his M4 when her M9 went dry.

“Again, from what I heard at the time, and I had no idea who the people involved were then, it sounded legit, because Hawkins, when he came to, was transported to base and was getting ready to come Stateside, and never said a word about any of it. It was only a couple of days later that the Lieutenant, now out of surgery and lucid, was told that she was a real hero and her Sergeant a coward.

“Oh, I think she probably tried to correct the story. But you know how the media is… was. Someone gets a story like that and they just won’t look further than the surface appearances. Before he got on the plane, the others going home were shunning him.”

Brewster looked over at Hawkins again. “But that isn’t quite the way it happened, is it, Hawkins?”

Bandy sighed and turned his eyes away from Ana-Bella, mistaking her sympathetic gaze to one of censure. “No. But I know how it looked. No way for me to prove anything. And we needed heroes about that time. The Lieutenant was a good one.”

Ana-Bella got up and went to sit down beside Bandy on the sofa. “What did happen?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Bandy replied. “It is all in the past. I’ve learned to deal with it.”

“I want to know, Bandy.” Ana-Bella’s voice was gentle, but firm.

Bandy sighed again. “Okay. But it really isn’t that big of a deal, anyway. When the firefight started, the Lieutenant and I both took cover behind that group of boulders. She was calling it in when she took the first round in the vest. It staggered her and she fell out into the open.

“When I dragged her back, I took two rounds. But we managed to maintain the fight, with her staying behind the boulders, with me prone, shooting around them.”

Bandy paused for a long moment and Ana-Bella thought she would have to prompt him, but he began speaking again. “She used her M9 to good effect, considering the caliber, but was out of ammunition quickly.

“I couldn’t just leave her unarmed… It just wasn’t right. So I motioned her down and gave her my M4 and pulled my knife. There were only three of them left that I could tell, and they weren’t too bright. I managed to move up to where they were as the Lieutenant gave me controlled cover fire. I took out the three, one after the other, but the last one put a round into my vest before I was able to neutralize him.

“I was about out of it by then, but the Lieutenant yelled that she’d been hit, so I forced myself to get back to her. An AK round had cut through the side of her armor and opened a gash that was bleeding heavily.

“She was still on her stomach and bleeding badly. I could barely function, but I knew I had to stop the bleeding. The only thing I could think of to do was to get her up, prop her against the rock and support her body with mine to try and pinch the gash closed.

“But she was a good soldier. She never let go of the M4, even though it was empty by then, too. I guess propping her up worked, because she made it, though I had no idea at the time. The blunt trauma I’d taken right over the heart took its toll and I passed out again.

“That is how they found us, I guess, with her shot, empty guns and magazines all around, and me down behind her like a shivering coward.”

“Do not say it like that!” Ana-Bella admonished Bandy. “Like you believe it is true. It isn’t!”

“There was never any mention of knife wounds,” Brewster said.

“Don’t know,” Bandy said. “As you know, I was gone before the reports were filed. I had turned in the report as it had occurred. I guess they just didn’t believe me and decided the reporter’s story was a better one.”

“I always thought there was something wrong with that situation,” Brewster said. “I met the Lieutenant later, quite a while after it happened. She did not seem to be too happy when I brought up her heroism. She wouldn’t really talk about it either. I really think she regretted ever having gone along with it.”