Mark Gimenez - The Abduction

Charles Woodrow Walker, Jr., was a coward.

As soon as the shooting started, he had run out back and hidden behind the woodpile, hoping Jacko and the others would take out the Feds. He was holding his. 357-Magnum a foot from his face when it disappeared, along with his middle finger.

“Get up, you're not hurt,” Ben said, kicking the blond man curled up in a fetal position on the ground; the man was holding his bloody right hand and groaning like a draftee after the first day of boot camp.

“Where is she?”

Before the man’s response-“Fuck you”-was out of his mouth, Ben’s boot was in it. When the man looked back up, his mouth was bleeding.

He spat blood and said, “You ain’t FBI.”

“And you're not your daddy, Junior.”

“Ben Brice. You betrayed the major.”

“He betrayed himself. Where’s Gracie?”

“You ain’t never gonna find her.”

Ben grabbed Junior by the collar and yanked him to his feet, then pushed him to the back door of the cabin.

“Open it,” Ben said, pushing Junior in front of the door.

Junior slowly opened the door. Holding Junior in front of him with his left hand and his rifle in his right, Ben entered the cabin. The main room was vacant. Two doors were at one end.

“Gracie!”

“She ain’t here.”

Dragging Junior in tow, Ben checked the two small bedrooms at one end of the cabin. No sign of Gracie. Ben looked around the main room. Army ordnance containers were stacked high against one long wall: machine guns, mortars, grenade launchers, LAWS rockets, C-4 explosive, detonators, and napalm. Maps and charts and an aerial photograph of Camp David were on one wall.

“What’s Gracie got to do with the president?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why’d you take her?”

“Because she’s my sister.”

Ben jerked around at Junior’s words. If he had not moved his head those few inches, the high-caliber bullet would have split his skull like a machete through a watermelon. As it was, the bullet creased the side of his head and felt as if someone had hit him with a two by four. He went to the ground. He felt warm blood streaming down his face. A big boot kicked Ben’s rifle away; a big hand yanked the Bowie knife from the sheath strapped to his thigh and snatched the knit cap off his head.

“I should’ve killed you thirty-eight years ago.”

Captain Jack O. Smith stood over Ben. He struggled to his feet.

“How?” Ben said to Junior.

Junior nodded to the captain. “Show him.”

Captain Smith pushed Ben toward a closed door by the kitchen. “Open it.”

Ben turned the knob and pushed on the door. It swung open, into a dark room. Junior moved by him and lit a kerosene lamp. He was standing next to a bed; he held the lamp up over the bed. And Ben saw him.

Major Charles Woodrow Walker.

His form under the blanket was frail, his face gaunt, and his blond hair thin. His eyes were closed. His body made no movement, as if he were “Paralyzed,” Junior said. “What McCoy did to him.”

“I thought he was dead.”

“After we took the woman and got the major released,” the captain said, “we went down to Mexico. The major sent us back up here, said he’d be here in a month. Two months later, he ain’t back, so me and Junior drive down to Mexico. Locals was still talking about the black helicopters and finding the big blond man on the beach. Said he was taken to the hospital. That’s where we found him, like this. They put three bullets in him, one in the neck, cut his spinal cord. Been in that bed for ten years.”

The major’s eyes flickered opened, found their focus, and looked at each of his visitors, finally coming to rest on Ben. After the recognition came into his eyes, Ben thought the major’s mouth moved. Junior leaned over the bed.

“He wants to say something to you.”

Ben stepped to the bed. The skin on the major’s face sagged now and the fullness was gone. But his blue eyes could still look into a man’s soul. He tried to say something. Ben leaned over and put his ear by the major’s mouth. The major’s words came out in a whisper and with great effort.

“Junior showed me… picture… magazine… Elizabeth… the girl… blonde… mine… she belongs… to me… I will own… her life… as I’ve

… owned yours… and her… mother’s.”

“You raped Elizabeth.”

A thin smile. “Same as… those Viet gals… Difference is… I didn’t put a bullet… in her brain after…”

And now Ben understood. The major was his connection to Gracie and hers to him. He couldn’t save the china doll. Thirty-eight years later, God was giving him a second chance.

Ben stood tall.

“You’ve owned my life, Major, that’s a fact, and maybe Elizabeth’s, too. But you won’t own Gracie’s. I guarangoddamntee it.”

The major’s blue eyes flashed dark. They moved off Ben and onto the captain. Ben turned to face him. The captain advanced on Ben with the Bowie knife.

John moved around behind the cabin, hugging the exterior wall, looking both ways, his heart pounding hard enough to hear. He came to a window. He peeked in.

He pulled back quickly.

Inside, Ben was standing next to a bed; an old pale man was lying in it. Next to Ben was a young blond man holding a gun; across the room from Ben was a big man with a tattoo. The two men from the soccer game. The men who took Gracie. The big man was holding a big knife.

Little Johnny Brice’s hands were shaking. The urge to turn tail and run was building when he heard the big man say: “I’m gonna gut you just like the VC gutted your buddy Dalton.”

John touched his father’s dog tags hanging around his neck, and it was at that moment, he would realize later, that Little Johnny Brice finally found his manhood on a mountain in Idaho. His mind and body calmed. All fear left him. He was no longer afraid: not of failing, not of the bullies, not of dying. There was manly in his genes, and he had found it, or it had found him.

John raised his arms, holding the gun with both hands like Ben had showed him, then stepped in front of the window and fired. The glass shattered. John pulled the trigger as fast as he could until everything went dark.

Jacko felt a bullet impact his shoulder. Next thing he knew, Brice leg-whipped him at the ankles, knocking his feet out from under him. Jacko hit the wood floor hard. Before he could react, Brice kicked him in the mouth, bringing blood. But Jacko always liked the taste of his own blood.

Still, he didn’t remember Brice being this good.

But he wasn’t good enough. Jacko rolled with the kick and come up quickly, the Bowie in his hand.

Damn, this brought back some good memories!

He moved toward Brice, excited at the thought of disemboweling the unarmed traitor he had cornered. He glanced over at the major. His eyes were alive and he was smiling.

This is my destiny!

When he looked back at Brice, he saw the major’s bedpan flying through the air at his face. And Jacko thought, Fuck, hope to hell Junior emptied it! He hadn’t. Jacko blocked the bedpan with his arms-urine and shit splattered on the floor and on him-only to realize too late that it was a fake, that Brice’s boot was coming at him hard and he couldn’t block it. The heel of the boot caught Jacko right in the center of his chest and drove his two hundred sixty-five pounds back hard against the opposite cabin wall. Shit! Jacko was surprised at the severity of the pain that suddenly grabbed at his chest. He had been kicked and punched in the chest many times and had never experienced such pain. Shit! He figured it would go away, but it didn’t. Instead it got worse and shot down his left arm; his right hand released the knife and grabbed at his chest. Shit! And at that moment he understood: he was having a goddamned heart attack! What a time to have a fucking heart attack! And he realized the truth: Ben Brice wasn’t his destiny; he was Ben Brice’s destiny.