The Independents (5 page)

He
shuddered and then
had to stand again, his body far too tense to remain seated.
“I half crawled and half ran back to try and protect Mr. Mossback and Carlos. On the way, some big Arab dude and I cracked heads and both of us went down, rolling around on the ground.”

Bishop bent down
, retrieved
his
fighting
knife
,
and held it close to his chest
-
like a preacher would hold a B
ible
. He didn’t take it out of the scabbard, but seemed to just want it close to him.
Terri
watched as
every sine
w, cord and vein
bulged
in the arm holding the knife
.
She got a cold chill when she tried to imagine
anyone
facing Bishop and that
blade
.

Terri
suddenly remembered
her determined pursuit of the
perfect Christmas gift for B
ishop when the two were still dating.
His knife seemed to be one of his favorite things as he was always oiling, sharpe
ning
,
or
messing with
it. Without his knowing, she
dug it out of his gear and took
it
to a
custom knife
maker,
whose website was inundated by page after page of 5-star customer reviews, raving about his skill and attention to detail
.
She had commissioned a blade of similar size for a tidy sum.
The knife maker
had been polite, but completely unimpressed with Bishop’s choice. “It’s just an off-the-shelf infantry
model
. Don’t get me wrong, your husband has a good knife here, but it’s
nothing special.”
When the job was complete
, she had been super impressed
with the work of art the man
created
. She couldn’t
wait for Christmas morning. Whe
n Bishop opened the gift, he
smiled
and was
very grateful, but his reaction was not what she had expected. He never carried the new knife.
Now I know why.

Slowly, his grip on the sheath relaxed
,
and he started talking again
. His voice
was completely em
otionless
.

“By the time I had taken big man out of the fight, it was
all
over. To this day, I don’t know
why they stopped. They had completely overrun us
,
and we were all but out of ammo. Maybe they
had just had enough
, I don’t know
. All of a s
udden, nobody was shooting at us
anymore.
Elvis was wounded badly and bleeding out. He had taken two rounds to his right leg
,
and one had hit an artery. Reaper
was gone
- just
disappeared. Carlos was missing as well
,
and Mr. Mossback was buried under a pile of equipment cases and
gear
,
but unhurt.”

Terri waited for a minute for him to continue, but he didn’t.
This is a critical time for him
, she thought,
he needs to get this out
. “Bishop, where was Reaper?”
 

“At the time,
I didn’t know. Big Arab dude
managed to hit me in the head with his rifle butt
,
and
the
fog
hadn’t cleared yet. I remember running to
Reaper’s
position and being amazed at
the bodies that littered the ground
. I remember that because I was checking to see if any of the
dead
were Reaper.
The bodies were kind of piled up.
I
figured
he either had changed position
and would show up in a bit
or had decided to give chase
for a while. Not mu
ch made sense right about then.”

Terri gave him a questioning look
, but Bishop didn’t seem to notice
.
When he started speaking again, the pain in his voice was obvious.

“I ran back to take care of Elvis. He was bleeding badly
and fumbling around
,
trying to wrap
a tourniquet
on his leg. We somehow
managed to get it on as well as
some pressure bandages
.
Right in the middle of all
this…this…mayhem
,
we found out where
Reaper
was
.

Bishop looked up at Terri. She had never seen him look so helpless. She tried to think of something
to say, but he started talking again
.
“
They had him
,
and he was still alive. I’ll never forget th
ose
howling
scream
s
– I didn’t know a human being could make sounds like that
. It was another hour before dawn and another two before the choppers would be there. Those three hours w
ere
the worst I can ever remember. Reaper somehow
managed to survive for one of the three. Even so, it was
a
couple of days later before
two Brazilian police
men
found his body
.
Those Hezbollah animals
had tied him to a tree and
done who
knows what to him.
I don’t know if they were trying to get information out of him
,
or
if it were
just revenge.
All I know for sure is h
e
didn’t die quickly
. God rest his soul. That’s no way for a soldier to
go out
.
I
’ll
tell
you this – he took about 20
of those son
s-of
-bitches with him. I bet he
’s
still chasing them through hell.
”

Terri shook her head, now questioning if it
had been
a good idea to guide Bishop
into
all of this. What
had begun
a
s a
simple enough question about his checklists and
habits
had somehow
become a journey i
n th
is
deep, dark
part of his memory. Perhaps
B
ishop would have been in a better place
if
that part of
his life
had stayed
buried
deep in his mind.
She
was about to
change the subject
,
when Bishop resumed his tale.

“Terri, there we were, in the dark
,
listening to our co-worker’s agonizing screams and unable to do shit about it.
Elvis was bleeding badly, and I couldn’t leave him
. I
’ve
never felt so incapable of controlling a situation
.
Mr. Mossback
was curled
up
with his head buried in his arms and whimpering. Elvis was s
till talking, but his words came sporadically as he faded in and out of consciousness.
You
know
,
I was the team leader and in charge of the blow-out bag
– our medical kit
.
The simplest little thing might have saved his leg – tampons. We always kept them in the kit because they were just about perfect to stuff in a bullet wound and stop the bleeding. In the time before help arrived, I dump
ed that kit out and checked
the contents
ten
times. I remember saying
,
‘I’m sorry man. I
’
m so sorry, but they just are
n’t
here. I’m so sorry.’ We kept torqueing the tourniquet
,
and both of us knew it was too tight. It was his leg or his life
. A
nd to tell the truth,
in the end, it really didn’t make a hell of a lot of difference.
”

Terri
sat silently,
knowing an
explanation
was coming and sure it wasn’t going to be uplifting.
“Fir
st, let me tell you about Elvis,” he continued.
“This
was a tall,
lanky
guy
from Tennessee
. I didn’t know much about his military background
,
but he held all of the records for shooting at the company. Nobody could get close to his times on the courses. He was
very quiet
, but
death incarnate
with
that
rifle
strapped across his chest.
The only thing he really ever talked about were his kids back home. He had pictures of them all over his locker and was always pulling out his wallet to show off his family.
”

Bishop’s voice became almost a whisper and then grew incrementally louder. “
He lost the leg. I know HBR
took
care of him financially, but I guess he never adjusted to it.
The Colonel
got a call about seven months later – Elvis had put a barrel in his mouth and end
ed it all. Several of us flew
to Memphis for the funeral. I spent the next day wit
h his wife and kids.
Elvis had told his wife I was his
really good
friend
.
She went on and on about how he always liked working with me because
my smartass remarks helped
him
relax
. She told me he
believed
I
saved his life that day.
I
ronic,
huh
?
”

Bishop stopped again and shook his hea
d from side to side. The room was eerily quiet except for the sound of his heavy sigh. A minute later
,
h
e surprised Terri by looking up and smiling at her.

“Soooo very pretty girl, you wanted to know why I have all these ch
ecklists and time
tables. Well, now you know. Female hygiene products are the root cause of all of my
anal-retentive
habits. Tampons. They might have saved a life one time
,
but I didn’t have them with me like I should have. I swore never to let that happen again.
I swore never to feel so helpless and stupid.
”

Terri got up and walked over to him. They hugged each other very close and held on for a long time. After a bit, she felt Bishop’s body
tense
and
then
several small
convulsions raked his frame. He was crying
, but she pretended not to notice
. She held him tightly and
soothed the back
of his head.

“Bishop, you can’t feel guilt
y
over
that. It was an oversight – an accident. It sounds like you did
everything you could.”

After a time, h
e sniffed, released his
embrace,
and then held her at arm’s length, looking deeply into her eyes. “Baby, the guilt I feel over the equipment is just part of the story. My demon is that I survived. I’m still alive
,
and the others aren’t. They were more experienced – they were better at fighting. When you go into…situations…yeah, situations like we did, you want to believe surviving is more than just luck. You want to have faith i
n your skill, or knowledge, or G
od…or whatever. You want to count on anything, anything at all, but dumb, random luck. Well, I’ll tell you something – sometimes skill has nothing to do with it. Sometimes all the training in the world doesn’t make
any difference. If it did, I w
ould
’ve
died that day with those men. I didn’t deserve to walk away. You can’t control luck.
I’ve burned more than my share of luck in this life. Working in places like where we lost Reaper and Elvis, and walking out alive. Acting like an invincible fool on the trip out here. Now I’m thinking I shouldn’t p
ress it anymore. Now I wonder
if going to check on that plane is going to suck me back into a shit storm I don’t want or need.
”