Sean T. Smith
TEARS OF ABRAHAM
Often, that which is done cannot be undone. Sometimes a pebble unleashes a landslide; a small object becomes unstoppable, smashing and sliding and gathering momentum until chaos pulverizes everything. When the dust settles, there is a new landscape, crushed and snapped and desolate, which surely the pebble did not intend. The illusion of control can be more destructive than nature itself, when hubris convinces men to believe the lies they tell themselves.
It began with a few powerful men, tinkering and arrogant, manipulating and prodding. Wealth and power, unfettered by wisdom and conscience, smashed the United States of America. History now remembers the conflict as the second American Civil War, although there were many citizens who then fervently believed they were fighting a revolution.
The first Civil War cost the lives of more than 600,000 people, and was the bloodiest conflict in our country’s history. The second war was worse.
CHAPTER ONE
The Major Malfunction
GREAT FALLS, MONTANA
December 5, 2024
Henry hunched over the wooden bar and took a pull of draft beer. Country music blasted from the jukebox in the corner and three air force pilots at the other end of the bar ordered shots of tequila. The dive was smoky and dark and the air stank of bar rot. Outside, the wind moaned while a blizzard dumped snow on the Montana town.
The divorce papers under Henry’s parka were heavy and seemed to burn. Maybe he should have seen it coming, but he didn’t and now he felt betrayed and desolate. The papers were dated three weeks earlier, but he’d just gotten them because it took time to track him down. He’d read the document three times, staring and barely comprehending while the weight of the words penetrated his brain. His wife was demanding full custody of Taylor, giving him only limited visits with his baby girl. The complaint, on stark black and white letterhead, listed verbal abuse and PTSD to justify the inevitable irreconcilable differences.
What is wrong with me? Something is broken, misfiring. Not just one thing, maybe.
A darkness had crawled into Henry, an alien, invasive thing, and he’d never faced the truth of it until now, realizing he’d lost the love of his life. He was not sure how long the darkness had been there lurking around the nooks and crannies of his soul. Years. It had been eating away at him and he hadn’t wanted to admit it. Destroying him from within while he fought for his country; it was insidious and cruel, a killing poison.
“Hey, soldier,” one of the pilots shouted. “Have a shot on me.
“No thanks, man,” Henry replied.
“Just drink it. We’re celebrating.”
“No,” Henry said.
He needed to be left alone to think. Was there any way he could win Suzanne back? Were they that far gone now? There had to be something he could do. He could change. He could leave the Wolves. Settle down in Key West with her and Taylor and leave his uniform for good. Banish that darkness inside with sunshine. He loved her with a fierceness that surprised him sometimes, and he was certain, for all the distance and strife between them, that she loved him too. She’d given up on him, and he could understand why. He was convinced, though, that she wanted to believe again. He had to give her a good reason.
The pilots swaggered down the bar and plopped onto stools next to him.
“You’re a southern boy,” one of them said. “What do you think about this secession business?”
Henry clenched his jaw. It was all over the news.
“I’d rather not talk about it, guys. Just minding my own business.”
“I’ll bet you’re all for it, huh?”
“You’re drunk, and I’m out,” Henry said. He stood up, left a twenty on the bar, and attempted to walk away.
“What’s the matter,” the oldest of the pilots said, in Henry’s face now, eyes bloodshot and eager. “You some kind of lefty? You like these fascists?”
The pilot shoved Henry on the shoulder.
Henry Wilkins was not the kind of man to start a fight, but he’d ended a few. He tried to step around the pilots.
The young guy wound up for a swing. So be it.
Henry punched him in the throat and smashed the older guy in the face with an elbow. The third pilot tried to crack Henry over the head with a bottle of Budweiser. Henry stepped forward into the blow. The glass bottle smacked Henry in the eye, and he staggered backwards, Roman candles exploding his skull.
“Now you’re gonna hurt,” the pilot said, eyes raging as he coiled for another attack.
Henry lashed out with his knee, catching the man in the crotch. The pilot doubled over in pain and he howled when Henry pounded him on both ears.
The three pilots were on the ground, writhing and groaning, when Henry walked out of the bar and into the snow. The sheriff picked him up before he made it to the street. The bartender must have called before the fight began. Maybe she knew those boys on the floor.
Henry Wilkins opened his right eye at the sound of keys jangling against the metal bars of the cell. His other eye seemed glued shut, encrusted with blood and swollen. His back ached from sleeping on a metal slab.
Uh-oh.
Colonel Bragg, wearing combat fatigues and a murderous scowl, towered just outside the cell. Beside the colonel, a full-bellied, red-faced local sheriff fumbled with a key ring.
Henry pushed himself to his feet, had to catch his balance on the concrete wall, before managing a salute.
“Sir,” he said. Henry’s voice was raw.
“What is your major malfunction?” the colonel growled. He was not screaming. That was not his way. He was straight backed and quiet now.
“Sir, I do apologize, I know I—”
“You apologize? You’re sorry? ”
The sheriff slid the steel door open. Henry remained standing, staring into the face of disappointment, anger, and disgust, the colonel boring into him with these things in no particular order.
“He’s all yours,” the sheriff said. The colonel and the sheriff turned heel.
Henry followed Colonel Bragg through the hallway, a booking room, and then out the front door into the snow. The wind whipped his face, but that was nothing compared to the lashing he knew he was about to receive. A navy-blue Crown Vic waited in the parking lot; a uniformed driver kept the engine idling. The colonel stepped into the front seat, and Henry slid into the back.
The colonel swiveled, training baleful eyes upon Henry. “With all that’s going on in the country right now, you decide to get into a fight off base? I don’t care that your team wasn’t on deck; you know better.”
“Sir—”
“Stow it, Wilkins. To say I’m deeply disappointed in you doesn’t begin to get it. The last thing this unit needs right now is any kind of scrutiny. If I didn’t need every man right now, I’d boot you. I still might.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I don’t care what you’ve got going on in your personal life. You are elite. Act like it.”
“Copy that, sir.”
“You will be confined to quarters until further notice.” The voice of seething wrath was barely contained.
“Yes sir.” Henry took it. He accepted this because it was fair.
The sedan wound through gray streets and the tires made a hissing sound on the wet Montana road. Henry’s head pounded in rhythm to the windshield wipers slapping back and forth while big flakes swirled in the pale morning light. The main gate to Malmstrom Air Force Base was just ahead. O-six-hundred. He’d been in jail since about midnight.
Henry wanted to explain that while he knew there were no excuses, there were reasons, and that’s not quite the same thing. There was context, at least. He wanted to tell Colonel Bragg that Suzanne had served him with divorce papers the morning before, that she was trying to take his child from him. Tell the colonel the last op they’d gone on was wrong. That he was sick and tired of following orders that came down from desk warriors and politicians who seemed bent on getting people killed for no reason. That those pilots he’d left on the barroom floor had it coming, and he hadn’t gone looking for a fight. That he was hurting, and it was more than his marriage inflicting the pain.