I tapped powder into the scale and adjusted the weights. “Yep.”
“I’ve never reloaded.”
“You’ve never had to buy your own ammo,” I pointed out.
“True. And usually I don’t have time to hang around and pick up brass. I’m too busy hauling ass away from the scene.”
We drifted into companionable silence as she sipped her beer and watched me work.
“How many empty casings do you have?” she asked.
“Depends on the caliber. I’ve got bins in the tool shed if you wanna take a peek. I must have a thousand of this type for my dad’s Remington 722 bolt-action varmint rifle. Because it’s an off caliber,.222, it’s hard to find casings.”
Anna whistled. “Man. I guess it’s true what they say about rednecks having a secret arsenal.”
“Ain’t a lot to do out here besides shoot, A-Rod.” I tipped the powder into the shell.
“No kidding. Don’t mind telling you, I never thought I could miss the millions of people in California, but I do.” She picked up a casing. “So what was the last varmint you shot with your dad’s rifle?”
“Prairie dogs.”
“I don’t know if I could kill a prairie dog. They’re so cute.”
My mouth stayed firmly shut. Anna had no issue shooting a person? But she balked at shooting a rat with a brain the size of a dime? I ignored the dichotomy and said, “I should’ve smoked the damn mountain lion that crossed my path, but I didn’t.”
“I’m actually really happy you didn’t kill it.”
I bristled. “Whatever pity that kept me from shooting her that morning came back to bite me in the ass. A couple days later she got into the herd and attacked a calf. The mama cow stomped the hell out of her and eventually killed her, but the calf died anyway.” That’d been a fun conversation with Jake.
“You people have such a different life out here. It’s like you’re from another planet.
“Says the woman who grew up in L.A.” I changed the subject. “What’d you do today?”
“This and that. Hung out with Pete and Re-Pete.”
“What’d you buy?”
“A funky old cane. You should check out Pete’s place, Mercy. He brings in all kinds of new stuff every day.”
“After he buys it for pennies on the dollar and jacks up the price,” I muttered. Not nice, Mercy. “How’s their coffee shop biz?”
“Opening next week. Since I’m ‘citified,’ they wanted my opinion on their new pumpkin-spice coffee.”
“And?”
“And I told them they didn’t have to put actual chunks of pumpkin in for it to be authentic.”
I stopped measuring powder and looked at her. “Are you serious?”
“No.” She laughed. “You never used to be so gullible, Gunny.”
“Seems to be a theme today.”
“Trouble on the campaign trail?”
I shrugged. I couldn’t tell her about Victor. Doubtful she’d shed tears for him anyway. “I’m just having trouble processing a couple of things.”
“Like?” she prompted.
Like are Shay Turnbull and John-John’s claims true? Am I predisposed to a connection with the newly dead?
“Like making a decision and not knowing whether it is the right one.”
Anna drained her beer. “Be specific. We talking life-and-death decisions? Or dealing with those murky gray areas?”
“Murky gray,” I admitted.
“You’ve always had trouble with them, Gunny.”
I bristled again. “No, I haven’t.”
“Yes, you have.”
“Name one time.”
“The time we were on convoy detail and you couldn’t take out that old man.”
Goddammit. I hated that I’d goaded her into bringing it up because I’d tried like hell to forget it’d ever happened.
During our stint at the start of the Iraq War, while we were awaiting new transfer orders to St. Mere, aka Camp Fallujah, we were stationed at Camp Ramadi and tasked to provide escort “services” along with the marines as part of their Tactical Movement Team. Our job was to protect the supply convoys traveling between Camp Ramadi to Combat Outpost to Camp Corregidor and back.
At the time, that area was the most dangerous stretch of road in all of Iraq, nicknamed “the Gauntlet.” Our convoys were consistently subjected to IEDs, sniper fire, mortar rounds, grenades, RPGs, Molotov cocktails. Basically, anything they could throw at us-or shoot at us-they did. “They” meaning rebel kids as young as five and old arthritic men. The insurgents used every dirty, inhumane trick in the book, and the hell of it was, it worked… at first. Our side sustained plenty of casualties.
Those of us unfortunate enough to be in the forefront of the first wave of “protection” passed the intel back to the powers that be, who revised the ROE (Rules of Engagement), which details the level of force authorized, in addition to the EOF (Escalation of Force), which provides criteria for reaching that deadly force threshold. The rules were in place for a reason, but it was frustrating when we were subjected to restricted ROE-usually at the behest of whoever was in command.
Normally on the convoys, we were assigned to the gun trucks. None of the marines or our fellow army soldiers blinked at having a woman manning the machine guns. The most qualified person was selected for the job. Gender was a nonissue, and what defined “combat” was a murky area at best. Getting hit with mortar rounds every damn day at base camp meant we were all in combat situations, regardless of whether we were officially deemed in the field or not.
With limited manpower, each vehicle averaged four soldiers. One of our sniper team members was on each truck, usually running the M240B or the M2, along with a marine driver and the TC (Truck Commander) who operates the radios, monitors in-vehicle chatter, and is linked to the main battle command system BFT (Blue Force Tracker). The third person was a spare gunner in case something happened to the first gunner-sadly, that was a frequent occurrence.
Corporal McGuigan, a young marine, was behind the wheel. As the highest-ranking officer, Captain Thrasher took the passenger seat as the TC. In this particular procession, I was relegated to the backseat of the Humvee, the designated spare, while my team member A-Rod manned the turret.
Since it was a convoy situation, if we took sniper fire, we weren’t allowed to stop, pinpoint the source, and remove the threat, which was usually our job on the sniper teams. Instead, we had to duck and cover, wearing full battle rattle, and keep the convoy moving. That always chapped my ass, but like a good soldier, I did my job, shut my mouth, and snapped off a “Yes, sir.”
We rolled out at 2200, so by the time we saw the sun come up hours later, we’d almost be at our destination. The “no unscheduled stops” had been drilled into our heads from day one.
About four hours into the slow-going desert trek, we were advised to take a tactical pause-army speak for a piss break. Answering the call of nature was no big deal for the guys. Although most female soldiers balked at any kind of special treatment because of our gender, the darkness was a godsend for quick, private relief. The women I served with had incorporated unique tricks to emptying full bladders while in the midst of several hundred men and when confined in a vehicle. Consequently, I didn’t need to relieve myself and opted to remain inside the Humvee.
Turned out to be a smart move on my part, because we immediately came under attack from small-arms fire.
Chaos ensued. I heard shouts outside the vehicle, shouts in my headphones as everyone was ordered to cease fire. When I saw two of the other drivers dragging McGuigan behind our vehicle, I immediately scrambled out to check his injuries before Captain Thrasher barked at me to get my CLS (Combat Life Saver) bag.
McGuigan was dazed. The Kevlar vest had kept the sniper bullet from piercing the kid’s chest. A bullet had grazed the inside of his right thigh, just missing the femoral artery. It bled like a son of a bitch. I managed to get him patched up enough until we reached camp with medical facilities. McGuigan also sustained an enormous bruise on the back of his skull after smacking his head into the vehicle when he’d gone down. I made him as comfortable in the backseat of our Humvee as quickly as I could.