Manny’s Mission (Broken Wheel Ranch #7)

Chapter 8

CHAPTER 8

“May I ask what happened?” It took several attempts to talk around the sudden lump in his throat after seeing that scar. He could only imagine what she went through.

“Let me fix myself a cup of tea, then we can sit in the living room. Would you like anything to drink?”

“Water’s fine,” he said, and went to the refrigerator for a bottle. He went to the seating area and settled on the end of one of the couches, and turned so he would face her if she sat on the same piece of furniture. Ten minutes later, she joined him, and the first thing he noticed was that the bandana was back in place.

With the steaming cup of tea in her hands, she settled her back against the end of the couch, pulled her knees to her chest, and looked at him sadly. “I was in the military for eight years.” She blew on the steaming mug, and shook her head gently. “Army Ranger.”

“So, you saw some action.” Manny made it a statement, not a question.

“Correct. I only went to Hank at Brotherhood Protectors because a former female Ranger I know works for him. There wasn’t anyone for me to protect with Hank, and Carter didn’t really have anything for me to do, at least not until someone from Colorado called and I was asked if I wanted to come here and protect Cole.”

“How long have you been here?”

“Almost two weeks. It was tense with Benson Alcott here, but with him gone, it’s been easier around here. It’s like the entire ranch knows that he’s off the property. The horses aren’t as jumpy either with him gone. If I’m being honest here, I can’t wait to get these horses out of Wyoming and over to their new home in Colorado. I think it will be better for them, and for Cole.” She gingerly sipped her tea, then looked at him with a scowl. “Do you know if Naomi will ever return?”

“Yes, they’re making plans now, but she doesn’t want to come back until all the horses, their tack, and Cole and his possessions are away from here. I don’t know if you know this, but Benson paid the doctor in Las Vegas years ago to lie to her. She’d been in a wheelchair all this time, but she is now walking. She thinks by the time everything is moved, she’ll be stronger to waltz in here under her own steam and do what she has to do. She told us once that when she returned it would be only once, that as much as she loved growing up here, she would never live here again, not with her father still walking around free.”

“Which is?”

“Sell this place.”

“She can do that?”

“Yes, she has documented proof that she is the rightful owner, and she also has proof that she owned the horse her father had killed, but he claimed the insurance money on. He apparently had bogus papers saying he was the owner. Once the horses are safe in Colorado, she’s going after him with guns blazing, so to speak. With us here helping Cole, she’s back there getting all her ducks in a row to come after him.”

“Good for her. If Benson was the way he is now while she was growing up, then she needs to go after him. He is a vile man.”

“How so?”

“Let me rephrase that, he isn’t so much vile as he his entitled, narcissistic, pompous, vain, conceited.” She looked at him with a raised brow when he snorted a laugh. “You get the picture?”

“Yeah. He’s the type of guy that thinks his shit don’t stink.”

“Correct. Anyway, most of the time he’s not here, he’s at the track, or with the Big Pig.” She grinned as he sputtered at the name she called Percy Biggins. “Have you met either of them?”

“Not yet, and I hope I don’t have to. I do know that once we are done here, we’ll come back with Clark and Naomi and have her back.”

“Who is Clark?”

“Clark Riceman. He’s not only Erin’s brother, but he also is part owner of The New Double A, that thirteen hundred acre spread I told you about, and he’s dating slash living with Naomi. I have a feeling once all this is done and over with, he’s going to ask her to marry him.”

“Good,” Ann said with conviction. “I don’t know either of them, but I’ve heard stories about her from Cole. She seems like a really nice person.”

“She is, and she knows horses inside and out. She’s also great at running The Broken Wheel.” They remained silent as they stared into space, then Manny turned to look at her.

“Can I ask what happened to your neck?” He waited, and when he thought she wouldn’t answer, she leaned forward, placed her cup on the table before the couch, then grabbed the throw on the back of the sofa, and covered her arms. The sad expression she wore caused him to suck in his breath at the anguish he spotted there.

“It’s not pretty.”

“Hey, no offense, but it can’t be any worse than what I went through.”

She scowled at him, then nodded as her brow smoothed out. “You’re right, it’s not that bad. My thing only took less than an hour, while yours took twenty days. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me.” Manny reached one hand out and laid it on her calf, and he didn’t know why, but he sighed in relief when she snuggled down further into the corner of the couch and stretched her legs out. He picked them up and put them on his lap, putting one hand over them to try and ground her. It must have worked because she stared off into space as she began to talk.

“I was on a mission. Once we got to our destination, the information we had originally was spotty at best. Things kept changing.”

“I hated those type of missions.”

“Yeah, and while you were probably on a team of all men, my Ranger team consisted of both men and women. Three each. Our commander liked to pair us up, one man, one woman in a pair.”

“Okay,” Manny said to encourage her as she stopped speaking.

“My partner was green. Not only was he young, but he had only been in the Army for about a year, possibly a year-and-a-half before he went to Ranger school. He was accepted and passed toward the top of his class.”

“That sounds good, but what happened?”

“Remember, he was young, probably twenty or twenty-one when he became a Ranger. He liked to flaunt that he was at the top of his class, but when we did some digging, it turned out he was tenth from the top. He only had one flaw, and was constantly being reprimanded because of this flaw. In the end, it became his downfall and everyone else’s nightmare.”

“What was his flaw?” Manny encouraged her as he rubbed her shins to calm her when he noticed her breathing changed.

“Again, remember he was young, younger than me by six or seven years.”

“So, you were his elder in age, but then did you outrank him?”

“I did. All the women did, and only one of the three males on our team outranked him. I was the second in command of the team, and the second highest ranking officer. Belamy was the highest ranking, and senior team leader. I know I’m getting off track here, but they liked to pair up senior ranking with junior ranking, hoping our seniority and experience would calm, or eventually rub off on the juniors.”

“Got it. What was this guy’s flaw?”

“He absolutely hated the fact that women were not only in the military, but in combat situations, able to become a Ranger, and had authority over him.”

“Shit.” That was all Manny could think of to say as he stared into the cold fireplace as memories of his own experience with soldiers with that attitude came rushing back to him. After he cleared his throat several times, he looked at her, to ask gently, “What happened?”

“Remember I said that our original information was spotty at best?”

“Yes.”

“Well, Belamy told everyone to hold up until we had the proper, or rather, more solid and consistent information. With what we had at the time, we would have been going in blind.”

“Which would have been a dangerous situation.”

“Correct. Well, Everhart, that was the punk’s name, suddenly got a bug up his ass, and began to question Lt. Belamy.”

“His direct superior officer?”

“Correct. Everhart went off on Belamy saying that he was told this was an in and out mission, and he had plans back home. He had a date back at base. He seemed to forget the fact that our base was in Ft. Sill, Oklahoma, and we were on the other side of the world just outside of Kubal.” She looked at him with a scowl and shook her head at Manny. “We later found out that his ‘date’ was with a local bar fly.”

“Holy shit, and he thought he’d be back that night? Wait, one of those women that hung around the bars near military bases?”

“Yes.” She shook her head, reached for her cooled mug of tea and cradled it to her chest after taking a sip. “See, that was why he was written up several times before. He was gung-ho to go on a mission, but once we arrived and things didn’t go exactly as he pictured them in his head, he’d become an instant asshole, worse than usual. On this particular mission, he started blaming us women for fucking with his plans. Those were his exact words. Then he went on to belittle his three superior female officers and after Lt. Belamy dressed him down, he stormed off. As he left the group, all I could think of was a spoiled little brat that didn’t get his way, and was yelled at by a teacher, so he stormed off.” She shook her head sadly. “The fucking punk even stomped his foot in his anger, just like a toddler would have done.”

“Please, tell me you were in a safe location for him to do that.” Manny looked at her with wide eyes, and when she only shook her head at him, he sighed deeply. “Tell me.” He hadn’t realized he’d tightened his grip on her shin until she moved her legs a little. He let up on them, then began to rub the area he’d gripped.

“Remember, he was my partner. I had to go after him. I waited thirty seconds and followed. Belamy told me to wait, let him let off steam, but I couldn’t do that. That wasn’t the type of person I was. Anyway, I thought he was still too green to know to pay attention to his surroundings. I was right.” She shook her head, and her eyes went out of focus as she continued talking.

“I walked out of the burnt-out building we were holed up in, and when I didn’t immediately find Everhart, I made the call that I needed backup.” She looked at him sadly. “We used bird calls.”

“Got it.”

“Anyway, by the time the others joined me, it was less than two minutes from when Everhart stormed out of there, and when we found him, he was being held at knife point by the locals.”

Manny didn’t say anything as he continued to massage her legs, giving her moral support to get through her tale.

“I was the next one they took. My team was a minute behind me. I walked into that ambush because I was worried about my partner. I was grabbed from behind and the man that took me immediately held a knife to my throat. You know, like you see in the movies when someone panics and grabs a hostage.”

“Yes, go on.”

“Anyway, the rest of the team must have seen something, or suspected something, because they didn’t come out to find us right away. The captors started yelling at each other in their own language, and I don’t know whether Everhart understood what they were saying or not, but all of a sudden, he was screaming in their language to kill me. That I was a whore, and he would give me to them if they would let him go.”

“No fucking way.”

“I kid you not. Anyway, the next couple of minutes became a blur because I heard shots ring out. The guy that held the knife at my throat’s brains splattered all over my face, and when he fell, he sliced my neck. The man holding Everhart shoved him away, and as he tried to turn and run, he was shot and killed. All eight of the men that held us was taken out by my team members. Before I passed out, I remember hearing Everhart laughing like a loon, crowing like a banshee that his actions saved the day and we could go home. That he was the hero and if it wasn’t for him, we would still be there. That was the last thing I heard. The last thing I saw was LT Belamy cold cock him and get into his face for insubordination. I also saw the other male member of our team put the cuffs on him.” She shook her head again, and looked directly at Manny this time.

“I woke in the hospital with several internal and external stitches. The cut was deep enough that if my team hadn’t acted as fast as they did, I would have bled out. It was bad enough that my carotid was nicked, and I lost a lot of blood. I passed out from the loss of blood. They radioed for help, another team that was close by came in with the chopper and they took over our mission as my team got me to the hospital.” She shook her head sadly. “Everhart thought we were there for the guys that grabbed us. We later found out they were just some street punks that tried to intimidate the Americans to get money from us. They were not our mission.”

“Your team didn’t stay to finish the mission?”

“No, because Belamy wanted to report Everhart for his insubordination. The leader of the other team assessed the situation, and after Belamy and he contacted our commanding officer, he told us to return home, and for them to take over the mission. It was a serious enough offense that it had to be dealt with right then and there. Thankfully, there was a transport plane waiting for us, and we were able to go back directly to the states. The team had stabilized me enough to make the trip. I never woke until I had been in the hospital for about three weeks.”

“What happened to Everhart?”

“Lt Belamy was so pissed at him, that he cuffed him to his seat the entire way home. Oh, what I forgot to tell you was that the fucking punk was laughing like a loon the entire ride home. It got to the point that one of the other people, not on our team, gave him a drink of water with a sedative in it just to shut him up. Everhart’s actions had been recorded on his body camera, as well as mine, and the last time I saw him, I had to testify at his court-martial hearing.” She shook her head at his shocked expression. “Eight to ten in Leavenworth. His entire defense was that women should stay home, pop out babies, wait on the man hand and foot, and allow the men to be the one to wear the pants in the family. Real psych stuff that was either missed on his interview, or not brought up until later after going on a couple of missions with the team.”

“Holy fucking shit, and I thought what I went through was bad. Yours is ten times worse.”

“How do you figure that?” Ann scowled at him as she cocked her head to the side.

“I was tortured by terrorists. You were basically set up by a teammate.”

“I never figured it that way,” she said softly.

“How long ago was this?”

“Nine months ago was the incident, the doctors wanted me to be completely healed before they made the decision as to whether I could return to active duty or not.”

“Since you’re here, I take it they didn’t clear you?”

“No, I have a weak wall in the carotid and they thought that if I was under stress with carrying my pack, then trying to shoot my gun, it might tear it open. I’m fine to do other things, but because one of my duties on the team was being a sniper, they didn’t want to take the chance of the added pressure of the recoil from me shooting might tear it open.”

“Shit,” Manny said, and the two of them sat there in silence as they both reflected back on the injuries they had sustained while serving their country. It was a long time before they both quietly rose to their feet and went to separate ends of the bunkhouse to settle in for the night. What they didn’t know, was that both of them lay in their beds for a long time staring at the ceiling, unconsciously not wanting to fall asleep in case the nightmares came back after talking about the trauma they had endured. It made for a long night, and the next day would be hell, but staying awake would be better if it kept them sane during the dark hours of the night.