Charles Henderson - Terminal Impact

“Best shooting I ever saw!” he exclaimed, and the boy didn’t say a word but just grinned under his big hat.

While the family had hoped their son would have one more Christmas at home, the Marine recruiter surprised Rowdy with an early seat at MCRD San Diego, the day after Thanksgiving. He hung his Quigley Sharps over the fireplace with his hat, in mom and dad’s den, and asked Burke to keep it oiled and clean for him until he got back. The long gun still hung there when Rowdy headed to Iraq. Oiled and clean, under his big hat, ready to shoot, as always.

Rowdy Yates was the only Marine Elmore Snow had ever known besides himself who ever lived at Crazy Woman Creek, Wyoming, much less got born and raised there.

Snow Ranch, known around those parts by its brand, the Standing-S, twenty-one sections of land homesteaded by Hector E. Snow, Elmore’s great-great-grandfather and namesake, sat at the bottom of Headgate Draw, just west of where Crazy Woman Creek pours into the Powder River. Yates Ranch, that carried the Sky-Y brand, an arc above the Y, likewise homesteaded generations ago and passed along father to son, lay just south of the Standing-S.

Elmore Snow grew up riding horses and chasing cows on that same wild land where Rowdy Yates had learned ranch work from the boots up. They knew the same hills and hideouts, and best places to take a girl for a kiss. Both of them had endured those long bus rides morning and night to and from school at Gillette, seventy miles by road and thirty-five if a fellow could hitch a ride on a crow’s back and fly direct.

Thus, Rowdy Yates had a leg up with Lieutenant Colonel Elmore Snow when it came decision time on composing this MARSOC, Iraq team. Those home ties and the intimate knowledge of what kind of man comes from Crazy Woman Creek, Wyoming, helped trump the stump of his junior rank. Kinship of growing up in the same place on Mother Earth that most people never realized existed convinced Elmore that in this instance a lance corporal could measure up. Rowdy also seemed a lot older than his years, probably because the wellspring of his life and many influences came from a time more like Jack’s and Elmore’s, and they related well to him.

Even so, Rowdy P. Yates still had to make the grade as not merely a qualified Marine Scout-Sniper and Force Recon operator, but a superior man with a gun, and have keen senses about all those other things rolled into one body of muscle and bone that makes the MARSOC operator all things capable. No task too difficult or too off-the-wall that he cannot accomplish the mission with what he holds in his kit. Creativity, ingenuity, and enterprise define his nature. He’s at home by himself, confident and fearless. A master of field skills, camouflage, and craft. He will adapt to conditions and overcome all challenges, and he will always accomplish the mission regardless of obstacles. It takes special warriors to fight special warfare, and Rowdy Yates filled that bill.

Right out of boot camp, Rowdy got married while home on leave. Brenda Kay, his girl from high school, never wanted anyone but Rowdy, and he had never wanted anyone but her. She and her family lived just west of Headgate Draw, off Crazy Woman Creek, on a small ranch with good timber, up high. They had a cozy stone house up there and ran cattle in the meadows that they opened from logging where they could. She and Rowdy had gone to those sweet secret places that Elmore Snow had also shown June, his bride from Gillette.

Now Brenda Kay Yates sat home at Midway Park enlisted-housing area on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, two thousand miles from Crazy Woman Creek, Wyoming, and her family, eight months pregnant, waiting, worrying, and praying for her man.

“You sure it’s a girl?” Billy Claybaugh asked Rowdy, joking with him as the lance corporal drove the lead Hummer in the convoy of KBR tractor-trailer trucks heading down Fallujah Road. “Maybe it’s a boy, but he had his leg or his hand in the way. Or his pecker’s so little like his daddy’s that you can’t see it without magnification.”

Rowdy laughed with the others and took the jab in stride. They were brothers, and that’s what brothers do. Tell a guy he’s got a little pecker.

Before they had left the MARSOC home base, Rowdy Yates had just gotten pictures of his soon-to-be-born daughter in an email that Brenda Kay had sent him. She had gone to the doctor, and they took ultrasound images of the baby, and announced that they were fairly sure it was a girl. Filled with joy, Rowdy had shown everyone from Captain Burkehart and Gunny Valentine right down the line to Bronco and Jaws.

“Staff Sergeant Claybaugh,” Rowdy drawled back, “my pecker may be short, but it’s wide and satisfying. I’m proud of every pound of it.”

Everybody laughed more because they had all seen Rowdy with his pants off. None of them wore underwear. It was a thing that special operators did, avoiding crotch rot. Free-balling commando style. Big watches and no drawers. A long-held tradition among Force Recon Marines and Navy SEALs.

As a result, living as they did, in close quarters, there were no secrets and no surprise packages.

Cochise Quinlan manned the .50 caliber machine gun and Petey Preston fed him ammo. Randy Powell rode in the jump seat and would run the M240 Golf machine gun if they needed it. The additional man made life a tight fit in the Hummer with the extra boxes of ammunition that Billy-C had stacked in the back. Just in case. Along with the Barrett .50 caliber Bullpup sniper rifle and two of the Vigilance VR1 semiautomatic .338 Lapua Magnum sniper rifles that Bill Ritchie and his son, Keary, at EDM-Vigilance Arms had built for Jack and his boys.

“Jammed up and jelly tight,” Billy-C had said when his Marines started complaining. “You’ll thank me later, when we get in the shit.”

Cotton Martin thought it was overkill but went ahead and loaded his Hummer with the gear and ammo his cohort had prescribed for the mission. No questions asked. Billy was in charge of this detail, and the tall Texas staff sergeant supported his authority. When his crew began to complain about the tight conditions, Cotton backed Billy-C up and said he or Gunny V would have made the same choices.

As they left the pavement and now rolled on hard-packed clay and crushed rock, the Army Cougar that led the convoy ran fifty yards ahead of the first two KBR transport trucks pulling box trailers filled with food and supplies. Each of them also kept fifty yards’ space between their bumpers. Billy-C chased fifty yards behind them, leading the other trucks, followed by Cotton and his crew. All seemed well.

“Staff Sergeant C,” Cochise chimed down from his perch. “Just the other day, Rowdy, me, and Petey was taking us a piss off the Euphrates bridge. Rowdy started whizzing first and said, boy, it’s sure a long way down to that water. Then Petey lets his monster fall, and says, yes it is, and that water’s cold. Then I unfurled my snake. Pretty quick, I let those boys know, that river’s deep, too!”

The whole crew laughed again. So Rowdy took up for himself. “You know, I bruised mine up pretty good when it dragged the rocky bottom. Water being so swift and all. Bruised it up something fierce.”

Everybody moaned.

Billy-C was glad they could joke. It took the edge off his nerves. Boring. He loved boring. Boring to the point that men start measuring their dicks and telling lies.

As they had left Baghdad, mostly wide space lay between them and any houses. Not much cover to support an insurgent ambush. However, less than a mile ahead, Staff Sergeant Claybaugh saw the tight spot he had dreaded. Walls, buildings, junk cars. Lots of places to set up an ambush.

“Heads up and eyes out,” Billy-C reminded his crew.