The Sheriff of St. Thomas (Part 9)

The only time there had been something close to a blow up over his work was when she found out he was packing the 9 millimeter Beretta. He had violated one of the very few rules she had set down; she didn’t want weapons in the house. This had been instituted when their boys were little and she believed — probably correctly and supported by empirical evidence — that if there were firearms in their home it was much more likely a child would get his hands on one than they would have to use one for self or home defense. And he had always honored her feelings. Besides, he was no gun aficionado.

He was still an expert shooter in the Marine Corps with the rifles and the 9mm Beretta pistol, as he had always been when on active duty, even though he hadn’t been to the range in years. He had grown up a city boy and never touched a firearm until he went into the military, and the best marksmanship trainers on the planet had taken the blank slate he had given them and turned him into a finely-tuned shooter. It came easily to him for some mysterious reason.

But he didn’t own any gun for personal use. He never had. The prospect of home defense seemed remote, and he didn’t understand the concept of hunting animals. It wasn’t that he judged others who did; he wasn’t some animal rights activist. Maybe it was the city boy thing; he just didn’t get it, even though there were people in his own family who hunted all the time. And after he married his wife, who had definitely not grown up a city girl, he came face to face with an entire tribe of hunters.

It had presented a strange contrast at times. For instance, every Thanksgiving or Christmas when they visited her side of the family, the men had asked if he wanted to go out and hunt. The first reason he always politely declined was he was there with his wife and children to spend time with their family, to hang out around the house and watch the Cowboys game while they ate Thanksgiving dinner, or watch the kids open presents on Christmas Eve or morning. That was the excuse he made.

The truth was he had absolutely no desire to ride in some beaten up pickup out to the back forty and trudge through some woods looking for deer, or whatever. The thought of sitting freezing up on some deer stand made him cringe. Not because he wasn’t “tough enough,” but because he had spent more time than any of these guys sitting freezing somewhere, waiting on prey, but not the kind that walked on all fours. And he wasn’t ever going to have that conversation with any of them. Unless they pushed too hard, which, as of about seven years into the marriage, they never had.

Then one bright Christmas morning they pulled a power play, and he decided he’d end the hinting and pressure once and for all. It had started when they arrived at his mother-in-law’s house for breakfast. As soon as Dalton and family arrived, the men started playing hunting videos. On Christmas morning.

“Neil, get out of that kitchen with those women and come watch this,” he heard someone tease. This was a first; no one had ever talked to him like that before. “Be nice,” she smiled as he felt her reach out and grab his arm, almost a nanosecond after the invitation. His wife’s grandmother — in her 80's and one of the sweetest ladies he had ever known — came over. “You don’t have to go in there. Ignore them.” He smiled. One thing he would never do was upset her grandmother or mother; that was just never going to happen. He enjoyed a rare marriage where he actually got along very well with almost all of his in-laws, especially the women. He wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t going to do anything to alter that. But he smiled at her. “It’s okay.” And then he went into the living room where all the men were splayed out on their recliners and couches, watching deer-hunting videos as the women cooked the food. It was a surreal sort of situation.

He sat there for a few minutes, watching the heroes on the tube fire high-powered rifles from near point-blank range into the thoracic regions of deer who had been unlucky enough to walk into the hunters’ kill zone. He didn’t get it. He thought, hell, this is like shooting fish in a barrel; at least challenge yourself.

Someone broke his thoughts. “You ever hunt Neil?”

“Not really,” he said. A flat “No,” might have sounded too abrupt. He was trying to be nice.

“Whuddaya mean not really?” They were going to push it.

“I grew up in Houston. There weren’t too many opportunities.”

A few low-muted grunts greeted this. Someone decided to be direct. “Well, you’re a Marine right? You carry guns all the time right?”

“No.”

This was another strangely common misperception made by the uninitiated; everyone seemed to think Marines walked all over the place with rifles slung and pistols holstered. As if all Marines did was go shoot things all day.

He started to get uncomfortable. How could he truthfully answer these questions in ways that wouldn’t sound patronizing or insulting? He wanted to be diplomatic. He finally offered, “Not all Marines are hunters.”

A few more grunts followed this, this time, with too much a hint of smugness. Dalton looked over and saw one of his wife’s uncles smiling a shit-eating grin. That was enough.

“Is there something funny?” Dalton asked. The smile instantly vanished, as did the other less obvious ones in the room.

Her uncle looked at him with a blank expression. “No, nothing funny. I just figured a Marine might like to go hunting is all.”

Now the silence extended to the kitchen, where the women weren’t making any sounds.

Dalton held the uncle’s gaze for a few seconds, and then finally said, “You know, there is one kind of hunting I do like. But it’s not hunting deer or any other animal. No, the only kind of hunting that interests me is hunting humans.”

You could hear a pin drop for a while. A few muffled snickers came from the kitchen. The first person to get up and walk out of the living room was the offending uncle’s oldest brother. No one said a word in response. Then another walked out.

“You want to talk about that?” Dalton asked the uncle. “Because we can go out back and I can show you how it’s done if you want.” The uncle got up and left the room. “What?” Dalton said as he left. “You don’t want to talk about that? Come on. Let me show you how to put a rifle round through a chest from about 400 yards out.”

Now the other uncles in the room were laughing. One of them got up walked over grinning, and said, “He got what he deserved,” and patted Dalton on the shoulder before going into the kitchen to get his eggs and bacon.

Nobody ever asked him to go hunting again.

— -

No. He had never owned a personal weapon until he had joined the Department of Justice. He thought it quite ironic, actually; he had deployed many times and carried various kinds of rifles and pistols, and had to employ them in anger and defense too many times to recall. His were not what most people would call pleasant memories. But he had done what he had to do to keep himself and others alive, and in the end that was all that had mattered. At least that’s what his conscious mind told him.

But there were days when he would suddenly find himself somewhere and have a deja-vu feeling; sitting in his truck at an intersection, seeing a building, walking on some mountain trail; passing through a valley between towering mountains out west; and at times another person who looked strikingly familiar.

He had these episodes where she would shove him awake during the night and tell him he had suddenly started yelling and kicking in his sleep. When she asked what he had been dreaming about he had no idea; he had no memory of any dream. Was it related to something from his military service? He had no idea, and he wasn’t about to tell anyone else.

These issues were still lingering from time to time when he finally broke down and armed himself. Shortly after the first of the threats that came with being a federal prosecutor, he had decided that despite regulations, he was never going to go down because he was caught empty-handed. Criminals were getting brazen and attacking prosecutors and police officers at all kinds of places. The problem was, DOJ policy forbade prosecutors from possessing a weapon, at least while in the course of their duties and certainly while on federal property. This meant a number of things. First and foremost, you could not possess a weapon in your office or in any federal courthouse. The rule got murky when you were in your car or any place that was not on government property.

When he finally relented and purchased the Beretta at the PX in Quantico, he had decided he would handle things like this: He would obviously never have it on his person inside a government building. But any place else, all bets were off. The best place a bad guy could ambush you was while you were in your car, because you were extremely vulnerable when driving or sitting at a stop-light. He resolved that he would be ready, and if it came to it — which he hoped and prayed it never would — he liked his chances. Because unlike the scourge that might make an attempt on his life, he had been trained in close-quarters combat, hand to hand fighting, and marksmanship of every imaginable kind and had lived it too many times over in combat.

He figured if it ever happened he’d have a little surprise for them; something he had learned in the Marine Corps: Overwhelming, destructive force directed at the enemy. In short, destroy the enemy. Kill the enemy. A pretty simple concept really, once you had committed yourself physically and mentally. All this took was the resolve to put rounds through someone, either up close or from a distance. And unlike most people walking the streets, he had done it before. If the situation ever presented itself, he would not hesitate.

Since checking in to the new job in the U.S. Virgin Islands, he had seldom thought of these issues; everything was so languid in the islands that it was very easy for a false sense of security to creep in. But he carried the nine in the custom-made shoulder holster at all times, one in the chamber and 15 in the magazine. Condition-One. If anything happened, he had to bring the weapon up while flipping off the safety with his thumb, all the while acquiring the target, and then depressing the trigger. The first trigger pull would be full and all subsequent pulls would be easy. One just had to aim center mass.

In the real world, this mechanical progression happened an an instant. If you were trained right — and he had been — you would place all your rounds in the middle upper chest of the target. Only idiots went for the head. And you did not stop firing until your target was neutralized. Or dead.

There was a saying in the Marine Corps, handed down initially and ironically by an Army solider. In his after-action report on putting down the raid at Harpers Ferry, then-Colonel Robert E. Lee — who had been pressed into command of a detachment of Marines — had written, “I must also ask to express my entire commendation of the conduct of the detachment of Marines, who were at all times ready…” The legacy and the lesson was, be ready; at all times. And Dalton resolved to be.

As Dalton made his way over the hill from the north to the south coast of the island of St. Thomas, he mused over how much different this job was turning out to be than his prior stops on the DOJ train, even the good ones. His boss, Marcus Williams, was so laid back and professional it was almost unbelievable. Dalton pinched himself almost daily to make sure it wasn’t a dream. Williams never got in Dalton’s way, and he gave him the absolute authority to handle cases the way Dalton saw fit. There were no agents going behind Dalton’s back to whine or complain to Williams because Williams didn’t tolerate it. This was different than it had been in previous places.

One of the problems was, as a federal prosecutor, you had very little discretion in shaping the outcome of the case. This was because of the federal sentencing guidelines. You didn’t have the power of, say a state or military prosecutor, where you could essentially fashion an agreed-upon sentence that was acceptable to both sides. The only discretion you had was in the decision to charge in the inception. Because once you charged someone, you unleashed a series of forces beyond your control that could not be restrained or put back into the proverbial bottle.

For instance, you couldn’t go into the judge and say, for instance, “Your honor, this guy’s a first-time offender. He’s really not that bad of a guy; he doesn’t need to go to prison for 40 years.” No. It was a faceless machine that determined the fate of any defendant. All you did was plug in what the guy had done and any aggravating or mitigating factors, and out popped a number. Just like a bat computer.

Dalton shook his head and mused over these issues, as he pulled into the parking lot in front of the detention center. He put the truck in park, grabbed his bag, and got out.

He got about fifty feet away from his truck when he heard a sound. It was strangely familiar to him, though the untrained ear wouldn’t have picked up on it. Someone was moving up quickly and stealthily behind him, but they were not as stealthy as they needed to be.

Experience instantly arose from the deep subcortical synapses of his brain and instinctively made him drop his bag and reach for the Beretta in a flash. Without thinking he crouched and spun to his left, bringing out the nine. He felt the impact before he heard the sound of the gunshot; it was a brushing feeling along his right shoulder that felt like a puff or gust of something. It all happened in milliseconds.

His head came around and acquired the target, just like the marksmanship Gunnery Sergeant had shown them back at Quantico using the game of baseball, of all things, as an analogy. The Gunny asked for volunteers who had played college baseball, and Dalton had. The other guy stood about 90 feet away from Dalton, as the Gunny told Dalton turn around and face away. “Now, Lieutenant Dalton, just turn and throw that ball to him.” “Why?” Dalton had asked. “Just do what I say Sir,” the Gunny had directed. So Dalton did so; he turned and threw the ball to the other Lieutenant.

“Do you guys see what Lieutenant Dalton just did?” “Yeah, Gunny, he threw the baseball,” someone yelled to laughter. “No! He turned, acquired his target, and then he threw the baseball. I needed a guy who had played baseball to illustrate the point.” Dalton remembered being dumbfounded at the time. The Gunny was right; he had acquired his target and thrown the baseball. Without even thinking. All those years of playing baseball had made it instantaneous and instinctual.

And so, just like making the relay throw to the catcher after receiving the throw from an outfielder, his head came instantly around and Dalton acquired the target, but instead of throwing a baseball this time, he put the Beretta sights on the upper thoracic region of the attacker and depressed the trigger. The first shot broke and impacted center mass, the middle of the assailant’s chest, about eight inches under the guy’s chin. Before he hit the ground, Dalton fired another round into almost the same spot. The guy fell forward, splayed out face-down, his weapon tumbling off several feet away. He only got off the one round.

Dalton scrambled over, looked around 360 degrees for other attackers, saw none, and turned the guy over. The eyes were already rolling back.

“Who sent you! Who sent you!” Dalton demanded. The guy didn’t look like he could hear Dalton. The eyes kept rolling back. Dalton slapped him a few times.

“Who sent you?” The guy didn’t answer. The eyes steadied, halted, and then the lids dropped a little. A small breath like a sigh came out. The tension drained. The guy settled. Then the guy went limp.

Dalton sat there, adrenaline coursing through him, electrified. Then the old familiar feeling took hold of him, the stomach tightening, knotting up, cramping, and he thought he might vomit.

The officers were pouring out of the detention center now running all over the place in all directions, shouting, weapons drawn. He was somehow able to loosen the vice grip he now had around the nine and put it down on the pavement, lest they shoot him. Somebody recognized him. It was Klinger.

“Neil! Are you okay?” Klinger was down on top of him now, looking him over. “I think so,” Dalton muttered.

“Holy shit, you’re hit brother. Just be still. We’re gonna get you out of here.”

Dalton looked over at his right shoulder. It was starting to buzz and tingle a little. His shirt was torn. It had something dark red on it. What was that? He was confused. He was trying to figure out what it was when he passed out.

To be continued

Copyright, 2019

Glen Hines is the author of three books that make up the Anthology Trilogy — Document, Cloudbreak, and Crossroads — available at Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. His writing has appeared in Sports Illustrated, Task & Purpose, and the Human Development Project.