Kyle Pratt: Through Many Fires

Floodlights illuminated the predawn darkness as he approached the main gate of Fort Rucker. Even at this early hour people streamed in. Guards stopped Caden moments after the convoy passed through the gate. They ordered him to park his vehicle in the sprawling civilian camp. He looked at Adam, sleeping peacefully in the passenger seat, and decided not to protest. He would get a couple hours sleep, turn the child over to the proper authorities and be on his way to Washington state in the afternoon.

As Caden drove across the main compound, he passed dozens of tents and several buildings being remodeled. Floodlights bathed them and, even at this hour, workers climbed scaffolding and dashed about like so many ants. Ambulances pushed through the crowded street toward the hospital ahead. As Caden continued along, several helicopters, with red crosses emblazoned on the side, landed in a nearby parking lot and off-loaded patients.

Caden parked near a small grove of trees at the edge of the base, away from most of the other refugees. Looking in the baby bag he found formula and disposable diapers. “Even during the madness and chaos your mother was trying to care for you.” He sighed. “I guess that is all any of us can do—try.” He fed and changed Adam. When the baby was wrapped in blankets and resting comfortably beside him Caden leaned his seat back as far as it would go and covered himself with a blanket. “Goodnight Adam.” He shut his eyes.

The baby cried.

Caden yawned as he climbed the stairs of the base hospital. Every muscle in his body ached. But then, yesterday in the convenience store parking lot, he had been hit by a car and for the last three days he had slept in one. He looked at Adam cradled in his arms and with a tired grin said, “And you didn’t let me sleep much at all.”

Reaching the top step, he stared out a window in frustration. Acres of what had been green grass along one side of the runway was now a vast sea of tents, trailers, cars, vans, people and mud sprinkled with tiny patches of green. The congestion, mud and filth, brought back memories of camps in Iraq and Kosovo.

The lights flickered and went out as Caden pushed open the door. His gut tightened.

The room took on a dark, oppressive aura. Windows along one wall provided the only light for the large, open ward. Patients were packed into every available space on beds, cots, gurneys and mattresses on the floor.

Hardly breathing, he weaved his way across the room toward a doctor. His stomach churned with irrational fear.

The lights snapped back on. Caden took a deep breath. For over a year after his return from Iraq he flinched at the sound of a gunshot and his stomach knotted. How long, he wondered, would lights blinking out cause that same reaction.

As Caden approached, the doctor glanced up from a badly burned woman and demanded, “What?”

He quickly explained.

Bent over his patient, the doctor asked, “Is the baby sick?”

“No.” Caden tried not to stare at the woman lying between them.

“Injured?”

“No.”

He straightened up, rubbed his back and while writing notes on a clipboard asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“Take him.”

He rubbed his face and eyes and for the first time looked at Caden. “I’ve got over six hundred patients sick, injured or dying. Right now I’m not doing well-baby care.”

“Where’s the child welfare office?”

The doctor shook his head.

Disposable diapers were impossible to find, but a friendly nurse gave Caden four cloth ones and a half-dozen safety pins. Back at his car, Caden looked at the material, looked at the pins and then at Adam. “So do you know how to do this?”

Adam, bundled in blankets and lying on the grass, giggled.

“Well, at least you’re not crying—yet.” From the trunk of his car he pulled out a camp lantern and stove. He lit the lantern and hung it from a tree on the passenger side of the car. A yellow glow pushed back on the darkness. He had no table so he set the stove on the ground near the lamp and warmed some stew. As he bent over the stove, he caught a glimpse of a slender figure dart, at the edge of the camp light. He moved so his back was to the car. He held up a can. “You like stew?” he asked the baby.

Adam cried softly.

“I really don’t care for it either.” In the shadows to his right leaves rustled. Caden’s heart raced, his senses on full alert. He knew the knot in his stomach was unreasonable, but such gut reactions had served him well in combat.

The child wailed.

Caden needed quiet so he could figure out who was moving in the darkness and why, but the child gave him none. He walked back to the car and casually slipped his hunting knife in his waistband. “Now little guy calm down,” Where’s my pistol? He remembered. It was behind the driver’s seat. He would either have to climb into the car from where he was on the passenger side or move to the dark side of the vehicle. No, I’m just being paranoid. Still, he sat facing where he had last heard the crackle of leaves and seen movement. He rocked the baby with one hand. “Now, now, everything will be alright.”

Adam’s wail softened to a whimper.

From behind, Caden heard the pump of a shotgun.

How did they get behind me? He had last heard someone move through the leaves and branches to his right, but the pump of the shotgun came from behind.

“Turn around. Keep your hands where we can see them.”

Caden complied. Two men with stubble-covered faces stood before him wearing dirty, hunting camouflage and ball caps. The one on Caden’s left was about as tall as him, the other shorter. Both had beer bellies. They looked like good-old-boys in the bad sense of the phrase. One held a twelve gauge and the other a 270 hunting rifle with a scope.

His every muscle taut, and in a voice more confident than he felt, he asked, “What do you want?”

“Most everything you got, except the kid.” They both laughed. “Move away from the car and get on the ground.”

Caden was certain that if he obeyed he would never get up. He didn’t know what he would do, but he was sure he could do nothing on the ground. “No. Take what you want, but I’m standing.”

“Like hell you are!” The man with the 270 moved forward to Caden’s right.

Caden’s options were few. The baby was to his back, the car to his left and the crooks to his front and right.

“How about we just kill your kid?” Mister 270 pointed his rifle at the whimpering baby.

A gunshot tore through the camp.

Combat training kicked in. Caden jumped to his left, toward the robber with the shotgun. In one smooth motion, he pulled the knife from his waistband and plunged it into the man’s chest.

The man gasped. Disbelief etched his dying face.

Caden grabbed him intending to use his dead body as a shield, but there was no need. The other robber was on the ground in a growing pool of blood. Adam wailed, but he could see no injury.

Caden dropped the body he held.

At light’s edge stood a young woman with long dark hair. In her outstretched hands she held a pistol.

Caden knelt and pulled his knife from the body, uncertain of the girl’s intentions. Slowly he stood. His eyes were fixed on her, but her eyes, like her pistol, were fixed on the body that lay between them. “Ah—thank you,” he said.

She did not move.

“Are you alright?” He inched forward hand outstretched. “Give me the gun. Okay?”

Her eyes flashed wild and she jumped back pointing the pistol at Caden’s chest.

“Okay, okay, keep it,” he said stepping back, “but don’t aim it right at me.”