Detachment Delta (24 page)

“Finally, Custer got to a point way down there, where he could make out rows of teepees beyond the tops of the cottonwoods. Beyond those, he saw part of one of the village circles and a couple of hundred lodges. There was no movement, as most of the Indians were either out on the battlefield or in their lodges.

“One Bull, riding along with Sitting Bull, spotted Custer and his column up on the high ridgeline across the river.

“One Bull spoke. ‘More soldiers, Sitting Bull. Come, let us go fight them, too.'

“ ‘No, nephew,' Sitting Bull said. ‘Stay here and help protect the village. Everyone wants to ride out to fight, but some men must stay and protect our homes and families. There may be more soldiers today who will come and attack our women and children.'

“On the ridgeline, Custer grinned and slapped his thigh, while looking at the seemingly deserted village.

“ ‘We've got them!' the boy general cried. ‘We've caught them napping!'

“Turning and waving his hat at the rest of the troops, he yelled, ‘Custer's luck, boys! We've got them! We'll finish them off, then go home to our station! Come on!'

“It was three o'clock then, and the troopers all gave a cheer.

“Many of the warriors who had routed Reno's column saw Custer's excited soldiers and moved in that direction to attack.

“Son of the Morning Star, that is what my people called him, looked below, where Reno was just advancing to the attack. Sweeping his hat in encouragement, Custer rejoined his command. He led his troops down there into Medicine Tail Coulee, which runs down to the river as you can see just sitting here.

“Custer summoned his bugler, John Martin, saying, ‘Orderly, I want you to take a message to Captain Benteen. Ride as fast as you can and tell him to hurry. Tell him it's a giant village and I want him to be quick, and to bring the ammunition packs with him. Wait, I'll write it down.'

“Custer wrote it down and said, ‘Ride as fast as you can by the same trail we came. If it's safe, return and join us, but if not, stay with Benteen.'

“As the bugler John Martin rode away, he turned and waved at the troopers, and many of them waved back. He was the last white man known to have seen George Armstrong Custer alive.”

Charlie stood and helped her up, saying, “Let's walk slowly. Fila, you and I are both soldiers. I wanted you to know about this great battle, but I also wanted you to know how things can go wrong. Custer let his ego rule the day here, and others died for it. I really respect Pops, because he is like me. He believes in very thorough planning if you want to accomplish the mission and in a great victory. You and I live in the real world, and you know there is a good chance we both can be killed.”

She smiled, saying, “I'm not afraid of death. I'll go to Heaven.”

He said, “I will, too. I am a Christian also, but I am not in a big rush to get there, honey.”

She laughed.

“Many things go wrong on operations,” Charlie said. “If I do get killed, I wanted one last visit here. But thinking the way we should always think, which is about winning and not getting zapped, we have to adapt and make split-second decisions. But I have one mind-set and that is to accomplish our mission, even if we have to be bailed out by the QRF. I will want to go right back and try again. I want to know for sure you are in total agreement. That is a lot to ask of a partner.”

“Absolutely!” she said with definite finality. “I know it sounds corny and is a line from a movie, but I would follow you to hell and back.”

He pulled her close and kissed her softly but passionately.

Then he led her to a lone tree near the road and stopped under it.

He said, “You know, the way we live our lives we both are always making split-second decisions. We analyze and look at things from every angle. Well, I have not needed a year or two years, or even five months to know something. That is that I am madly and deeply in love with you, Fila.”

Her heart skipped a beat and tears welled up in her eyes.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out something shiny, saying, “This was my great-aunt's, the granddaughter of White Bull. I want to know if you will wear it, always?”

He dropped to one knee saying, “Fila, if we survive this operation, will you marry me, please?”

“Oh, Charlie,” she said, helping him slip the simple antique diamond ring on her finger. “Yes! Yes! I love you, too. With all my heart!”

He stood up, grinning broadly, and lifted her into his massive arms. They kissed for all they were worth.

 

DAMIEN
Percy Rozanski shook hands with Alan, saying, “Good-bye.”

The reporter said, “Off the record, General. I take it you do not like the President or the head of Delta Force?”

“Or the operators. They are all arrogant and filled with themselves,” Rozanski said, fuming. “And this President is ruining our country! I hate him!”

 

“
I
feel so deeply honored,” Charlie said, as he and Fila almost skipped toward the headquarters building to tell their families the good news, and to let them know they were going on what was almost a suicide mission together overseas.

They wanted their loved ones to think very positively but also have their eyes fully opened. On their way back to Pine Ridge the next morning, they explained what they were allowed to, which was simply that they had a very dangerous assignment together in a foreign country. Obviously, Dave, Angela, and Betty were all very excited about the proposal and engagement, and none were in the least bit surprised.

Charlie got his mom a room at their hotel and left her with Fila's parents to visit and have dinner, as Fila said that she needed to speak with him privately.

She was in the bathroom in the hotel, and he sat at the desk in the room and hollered, “Hey, Fila, do you want to visit the Badlands National Monument?”

She came out of the room and said, “No, thank you.”

Charlie looked up and Fila was wearing a short gown that looked like a super-long T-shirt. It was black, and on the front it had a large green beret with a dagger diagonally behind it, and above and below it the words “I only sleep with the very best . . . US Army Special Forces.”

Fila walked over to Charlie, and he stood. She unbuttoned and removed his shirt, walked around him seductively, and ran her hands over his chest. Next, she dropped down on her knees in front of him and unbuckled his belt, unzipped his pants, and pulled them off, followed by his socks.

She stood and looked up into his eyes, saying in a husky voice, “Ever since you proposed, I have been feeling giddy, very giddy,”

Charlie remembered his words to her and swept her into his arms. He picked her up, as if she weighed nothing, and carried her to the bed. He knew he must be slow and patient and careful, but he wanted to anyway.

Charlie kissed her slowly and then looked into her eyes from inches away, saying, “Fila, I prayed for a woman I could spend my life with, have many children with, and love forever. It was right after that prayer that I met you. You are my Buffalo Calf Road Woman, but you are also my Cleopatra.”

They kissed, and she whispered, “In the thirteenth century a Persian poet and mystic named Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi said, ‘The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers do not finally meet somewhere. They are in each other all along.' Charlie, I want you in me now.”

The next day, they said good-bye to Dave and Angela, who Charlie thought would be awesome in-laws. Fila already loved Betty and vice versa.

They took her back home, dropped her off, and went to the convenience store, and then returned to say their good-byes to Betty before flying back to Raleigh and taking the shuttle to Fayetteville. They had decided the night before that they would make up for lost sleep on the plane.

When they pulled up in front of the house, there was a gang of young Lakotas standing by Charlie's mother's propane tank. All were in their late teens and early twenties, and they had a sneer found only on those who congregate in a gang for strength.

Charlie's mother was standing on her front stoop, and Charlie could see by the stressed look on her face that she must have just had words with the punks. He and Fila jumped out of the car and ran up to her as one of the gangbangers made some smart remark and the group laughed. A Pine Ridge Tribal Police cruiser pulled up just then, as Betty had called on her cell phone when the punks started smarting off to her while they spray-painted her propane tank. The officer inside was also named Charlie, Sergeant Charlie Ten Horses. Charlie Strongheart recognized him and waved him off and the cruiser sped away. This bothered the gang members. Why would the cop leave, they wondered, and why was he laughing when he did?

Charlie and Fila escorted Betty inside, and she told them the gang members openly spray-painted the tank, and she came out to confront them and chase them off. Then one of them, the one in the red ribbon shirt, she said, had flipped her the middle finger and cursed her horribly. Next, the one in the baseball jersey threw an empty beer bottle at her, and it broke on the front of the house.

Charlie opened the front door and looked at the front of the house where the bottle had smashed and saw pieces of glass on the ground.

The one in the ribbon shirt was the gang leader, named Louie Horse.

He yelled, “Git your punk-ass back in the house, Holmes, or we'll shoot it.”

At the same time, he spread his thumb and index finger out in almost a V-sign, a gang sign indicating he was armed. As the punks all laughed, Charlie stepped back into the house and closed the door, looking out through the curtains. The gang members were laughing and patting Louie on the back.

Fila walked up and looked out through the sheers, saying, “Formulating a plan?”

Charlie chuckled and said, “Of course.”

She said, “Need me?”

He said, “No, honey. You stay with Mom. I just need to borrow your Glock.”

She handed it to him and stuck two spare magazines in his left hip pocket, saying, “Try not to kill anybody.”

He said, “I won't. Just going to educate them.”

Charlie thought back to his childhood. He had always been puzzled by men like these in the gang. They felt the same fear he and every other man felt, but they succumbed to it. He wondered how they would be able to go the rest of their days knowing that they had sneaked away from their duties as a man like a thief in the night. Avoiding hard work, responsibility, and life as young men, he felt they copped out and banded together for mutual support.

Charlie grinned as he remembered a conversation with his uncle Eddie. The man had been an LRRP (long range reconnaissance patrol) member of some great repute in the 1st Cavalry Division in Vietnam. Until an AK-47-toting Viet Cong had missed his chest and put a bullet through the back of Eddie's right hand. His youth and his wild fighting days were over, so he decided to settle down and return to the rez.

The man and young Charlie were having a conversation about courage one day when the uncle said, “Young 'un, the difference between a coward and a hero is about one minute in time.”

Charlie was perplexed by that statement, and it bothered him for a long time afterward, but he had finally gotten a handle on it. He got into a fight with two brothers whose family lived in another neighborhood on the reservation. Their family and his attended the same church, but the two brothers were about the furthest thing you could get from walking the Christian walk of life. They were troublemakers from the get-go.

The two bullies simply beat up everybody, and finally Charlie's turn came up. Everyone had backed down from the bullies because they were so tough and brutal. They would chase a person down and beat him senseless. When one of them started to pick on Charlie, he tried everything he could think of to avoid getting into a fight. When one of the two, however, made some disparaging remarks about a girl in Charlie's church whose father had been arrested for public drunkenness, Charlie finally had had it, thinking about his drunk of a father and all the pain and embarrassment he had caused Charlie. He was scared—the bullies' brutality had become legendary locally—but he was beyond caring at that point.

Charlie managed to seem so ferocious in his demeanor alone that the two bullies looked a little unsettled. The boy had heard somewhere that a man using his head had a much better chance in a fight than one who just used his muscle, so he tried to think his way out of trouble. When the first punch was thrown, it landed square on Charlie's temple and sent him reeling to the ground. His right hand closed around a smooth, egg-shaped rock lying on the ground, and he grabbed it without his adversaries noticing.

The two brothers ran up, and both kicked him in the rib cage, knocking the wind out of him and severely bruising his ribs. Most boys would have folded over and cried, but this simply made Charlie furious. He came off the ground with a fury and tore into both brothers. His fists were swinging so wildly and so quickly, nobody noticed the rock sticking out of the ends of his right fist. The faces of the bullies, however, showed signs of the rock. Within a minute, both brothers were lying on the ground unconscious, each sporting two black eyes and a broken nose. Charlie dropped the rock behind his back and nobody ever saw it.

He became the hero of the young girl he had defended, and of the whole community. His repute grew each year as he grew, as did the story of the fight with each telling. In actuality, part of the reason he went off to join the army was his worry that the two bullies might try to get retribution. It bothered him to leave like that, but as he grew and gained confidence, he realized how smart he had really been. One thing he never forgot was the butterflies he'd felt in his stomach when he'd had to face the two bullies, and the great fear that had clutched at him. It would have been so easy to start his life out as a coward back then; instead, Charlie Strongheart chose to act like a man. That decision made him a hero, which he had proven many times since.