Paducah, Kentucky
Nate turned his rental car off the highway and onto a long dirt road, several miles outside of the UNESCO Creative City, named so for its world-renowned quilting culture. He knew from experience that he would be driving nearly a quarter mile before he reached his destination. He also knew that the road dipped down on the right, and that about halfway down there was a bump that he would need to slow down for. He knew all of this and more because he had driven down the road hundreds of times. That was in a past life, though. Regardless of his intimate knowledge of the rural lane, the journey felt distinctly different this time. On past trips he was generally in a good mood, or at the very least not full of apprehension.
He reached his destination and pulled into the gravel driveway in front of a modest house with white vinyl siding. As Nate turned off the engine and exited the vehicle, the sound of rifle fire cracked through the air in the distance. It immediately answered the first question he had, and he bypassed the house and headed toward the outdoor range he knew was set up farther away, closer to the tree line.
This was the moment he had been dreading. His old friend wasn’t expecting him, and he hadn’t called ahead. Nate had simply assumed that he would be here, and he was. The two hadn’t spoken in over a year. Not because they had a falling-out, there had never been that between them, just a spirited argument. Then, things had just stopped.
The sound of rounds cracking off got louder as he approached, and he could see the hulking silhouette of a man in the distance, firing a rifle at targets twenty-five meters downrange. He was transitioning from rifle to pistol, drills Nate himself had done thousands of times with the warrior he was now walking toward. As he approached, Tim McBride didn’t make any indication that he had seen or heard him.
“Spare ear pro is on the table,” Tim said without looking in Nate’s direction, and without ceasing his firing.
Nate walked over to the table and put on a pair of 3M Peltor protective earmuffs. Lying on the table was an additional Glock 19 and several preloaded magazines. Picking it up, he inserted a fresh magazine and released the slide, chambering a round. He walked around the table and picked a target downrange. Nate assumed a proper shooting stance, sighted in the target, and controlled his breathing. When he felt relaxed, he allowed a measured trigger squeeze and the gun jumped as he fired off a round.
He peered downrange and noticed he had hit the target, although it was on the exterior circle of the black bull’s-eye. He repeated the process and fired again, moving closer to center. He kept firing until his last few rounds hit the bull’s-eye.
“You just get in?” Tim asked nonchalantly.
“Yeah. Nashville. Came straight here.”
Nate reloaded and fired again, this time sinking all but two of his rounds into the bull’s-eye. He smiled. Even though he wasn’t shooting with the same regularity as he had when he was on a team, hisweekend trips out to Frank and Janet’s had helped keep his skills from atrophying too much.
“So what do you want?” Tim fired off several more rounds. He still had his bushy red beard and wild red hair that was smashed down under a blue University of Kentucky ballcap.
“I need your help, Tim.”
He didn’t know what else to say. He could have bullshitted him and told him he missed him and that he wanted to make amends, but Tim would have seen right through that. It’s not that it wasn’t true. Nate had missed his friend terribly. It was just that they didn’t talk, and at some point it became too late to start again. He knew Tim blamed him for leaving the team, for leaving him. Nate couldn’t change that, and so for over a year he had said nothing.
“Ha!” Tim scoffed. “My help?”
“Yeah,” Nate responded. “Your help.”
For the first time, the former weapons sergeant slung his rifle across his chest and turned to face him. He was clearly angry, and the weathered wrinkles next to his eyes said as much. He stared momentarily in disbelief.
“After all this time, that’s all you have to say? You need my help?”
“What else do you want me to say, Tim?”
“Nothing.” Tim turned away and immediately fired off several rounds, shooting right through the hole he had created in the center of the target. “Fucking nothing at all.”
“I’m sorry, Tim. Is that what you want to hear? I’m sorry I left. It was a bad time for all of us. I didn’t know what else to do, so I left.”
Tim shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
“Get what?” Nate asked, confused and defensive.
“You’re damned right it was a bad time for all of us! But some of us stayed and stuck it out. We didn’t run off to some fancy fucking Ivy League school to live in a fantasy world.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Nate asked, his concern quickly being replaced by anger.
“It means there wasn’t much left holding the team together. Hell, there wasn’t much of a fucking team! But guess what? We had to rebuild. That meant new guys who don’t know shit about war and have never seen combat.”
“Hang on a minute,” Nate rebutted. “Don’t put that on me. There’s always turnover on teams. It’s the nature of the business.”
“Yeah, but having half your fucking team wiped out isn’t! You were assistant ops, man! The team needed you. And you just fucking left,” Tim spat.
“I wasn’t the only one,” Nate shot back. “Shane got out. Both medics got out. What the hell is your problem with me?”
“Forget it.” Tim fired off several more rounds. Nate reloaded and did the same. He channeled his anger through the weapon and into the target, all of his rounds hitting the mark. When he had emptied the magazine, he stopped to compose himself.
