Brett Battles - No Return

“I don’t know if they had a right or not,” Wes said. “But it wasn’t worth arguing about. We watched someone die out there today, remember?”

She took a deep breath. “I realize that. It’s just I don’t like being taken advantage of.”

“So you’re taking the moral high ground on this?”

“Damn right I am.”

“You thought it was perfectly fine to have Danny shooting footage of the trapped pilot?”

“Don’t get righteous on me, Wes. News teams shoot that kind of stuff all the time.”

“Last I checked, we weren’t a news team.”

“It doesn’t matter that we’re not a news team,” she said, getting heated. “We witnessed a news event, and were the only people on the scene.”

“So it was our obligation,” Wes said.

“Absolutely.”

Wes caught Danny’s eyes in the mirror and shook his head. Danny arched an eyebrow, but gave a slight nod and remained silent.

The truth was, they did have the footage. Wes had gotten the auto-backup system working that morning before they’d left the hotel. It was set up to wirelessly transfer everything from the cameras to a flash hard drive in the back of the Escape at fifteen-minute intervals without the operators needing to do anything.

They’d tell Dione in a few days. But not now. If she knew they had the shots, she would have Wes send them to L.A., and they would be on all the networks within an hour.

But that wasn’t really what made Wes keep his mouth shut.

He had been right beside the pilot, had actually talked to him. He’d had the chance to save the man’s life and failed.

This wasn’t news to Wes.

This was far more personal than that.

The big brown, that’s what one of Wes’s old friends used to call the desert. And that’s exactly what it was. Vast and tan. The dirt, the bushes, the birds, the rocks, everything variations on the theme.

Wes had never intended on seeing it again. Not in person, anyway.

But time had a way of changing things, and when the assignment for the “High Desert” episode had come up, Wes had realized it would be his opportunity to do something he should have done a long time ago.

When they’d arrived the night before, they had entered the valley high on the western edge, driving along the base of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Below them, the eastern half of the valley had been lit up like a squashed ball of Christmas lights, a glowing oasis in an otherwise dark landscape. At night the city of Ridgecrest was indistinguishable from the adjacent Navy base at China Lake.

The moment Wes had seen those lights, his chest muscles had begun constricting tightly across his ribs as if they were trying to crush him. In his ears, blood had thundered past, sounding like the rapids of the Kern River. He’d glanced around to see if anyone had picked up on his distress, but the others had been either staring out the window or half-asleep.

The next morning the town had looked somewhat diminished. There was just no way to hide all the brown from the sun. And while Wes’s tension had mellowed, it hadn’t gone away, becoming a low simmer he was unable to shake off.

“You grew up here?” Danny had asked incredulously as they’d driven through town that morning on their way out to the Pinnacles.

“It’s got its good points,” Wes had replied.

“Name three.”

“The people are nice. Air-conditioning is a given. And you always know someone who has a swimming pool.”

Danny had snorted.

“I don’t know,” Alison had said from the back. “I kind of like it. Looks homey.”

“It was,” Wes had said. For a while, anyway .

Now that the sun had set on a day none of them could have ever expected nor would ever forget, Wes wondered if there was any way he could just return to Los Angeles. Not even back in his hometown for twenty-four hours, and a fighter jet-an F-18, he’d learned from the medic who’d patched him up-nearly killed him.

If that wasn’t an omen, he didn’t know what was.

He had just stepped into the shower when someone pounded on the door to his room. He tried ignoring it, but whoever it was wasn’t giving up.

“I’m coming!” he hollered as he climbed back out and threw a towel around his waist.

He pulled the door open. Danny was standing there, his arm in the air ready to knock again.

“What?” Wes asked, pissed.

“Uh … hey. Just wanted to let you know we’re all meeting at the cars in ten. Going to grab something to eat.”

Wes stared at him, saying nothing.

“I … uh … I thought you’d like the heads-up. Maybe we can get a drink, too. Don’t know about you, but I could sure use a beer or three.”

Wes shook his head and shut the door without replying.

“Does that mean you’re coming or not?” Danny called through the door.

Wes got back into the shower, letting the hot water stream over his head. He knew the others were going to want to know what he’d seen. They’d want to hear details. And if it didn’t happen tonight, it would happen tomorrow.

Better to get it over with now.

He finished his shower, pulled on some clothes, and was at the SUVs only a few minutes late. With the exception of Monroe, everyone was already there. But that wasn’t surprising. She seldom joined the crew after hours.

Dione looked at Wes. “So, where should we go?”

“What do you mean?”

“To eat,” she said as if he were dense as a brick.

He shrugged. “Hell if I know.”

“Come on, Wes, we’re starving,” Tony Hall, the crew’s production assistant, said. Dione had kept him running errands all day, so he’d missed all the fun at the Pinnacles.

“It’s been seventeen years since I’ve been here,” Wes said. But no one in the group seemed very sympathetic. He dug deep into his memory. “Uh … if it’s still there, John’s Pizza’s not too far away.”

“John’s it is,” Dione said.

John’s was still there. Unfortunately, though, the beer and the pizza didn’t last long enough for Wes to finish telling them about the crash. So, at Danny’s suggestion, they stopped off at a bar within walking distance of the motel named Delta Sierra.

“That booth’s empty,” Alison said, pointing across the room.

Danny laughed as they sat down. “Check this out.” He pointed at the table. It was glass topped, and underneath was a large piece of paper with the words pilot lingo in bold on top. Term number one, printed larger than the others, read:

DELTA SIERRA-Dumb Shit

The aviation theme didn’t end there. The walls were covered with framed pictures of pilots and planes and hangars. And prominent on the list of drinks were a Bogey Shot, a Flattop Martini, and something called a Hornet in a Cage.

Alison touched Wes on the arm. “Maybe we should have gone somewhere else.”

“Why?” Danny asked. “This place is great.”

“That’s because it was obviously named after you,” she scoffed. “I was just thinking that after the day we’ve had, maybe someplace a little less aircraft oriented might be better.”

Anna smiled at Wes. “We don’t have to stay.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s fine. Besides, Danny’s buying.”

Laughter all around.

Danny grinned. “I don’t believe I actually promised that.”

“I don’t care if you promised or not, it’s what’s going to happen.”

More laughter.

When things settled down again, Danny said, “I’ll tell you what surprised me most out there today. I thought that plane was part of the Air Force, then all of a sudden we were surrounded by all these Navy people … sailors … whatever you call them. Since when is the Navy in the middle of the desert?”