Chapter 5, The Amazing Adventures of Ralph Kroder, a work in progress

Center mass

       Ralph did not feel any pain when he died. Mostly, the lack of pain was because he came back alive within seconds. Nano seconds, really. He had no time for pain.

       No time literally and figuratively, because as soon as he knew he was dead, he and the golf cart, the JV bag and his purchases from Publix were somewhere else.

       The golf cart landed smoothly and softly, settling on a wide stone road that wound across a grassy plain. Ralph did not have time to consider his death and his reappearance not dead, because of six horsemen riding abreast to his right. He and the horsemen saw each other at the same time. The horsemen drew sabers and charged. Later, Ralph would wonder if the horsemen and he had appeared at the same time, but right then, he saw the need for defending himself from the six men who clearly intended to kill him by stabbing him or slicing him with their sabers. Ralph knew the golf cart would not outrun the horses, so he reacted from years of training.

       The horsemen began their charge from about fifty meters. That distance gave Ralph time to step from the golf cart, draw his Colt Commander from the holster at the small of his back and take a good two-hand firing position. He quickly assessed the situation, determining the two center riders would be first to reach him. Those two, therefore, were his primary targets.

       When the horsemen were within range, Ralph flicked off the safety, focused at the left-center rider, fired one-two, switched to the right-center rider, fired one-two, then the new right-center, one-two, new left-center, one-two. The flank riders, seeing their friends or compadres or whatevers go down from accurate shooting from one man, turned, and spurring relentlessly, rode away as fast as their horses would go. With the eight-round magazine empty, Ralph quickly reloaded with a second magazine from his holster and shot the fleeing riders, one-two, one-two, between their shoulder blades. Those two fell hard upon the thick grass, as dead as the other four.

       Ralph took a deep breath. Adrenalin raced through his body, causing a sudden chill and a slight tremor in his hands. The chill and the small tremors were not an unknown result of engagements with people who intended to kill Ralph. The last time had been eleven years before, in northeast Honduras, where Hezbollah terrorists left their training camp in northwest Nicaragua, crossed the Coco River and captured Iralaya. Why a Middle Eastern terrorist group wanted to take a small town in Honduras was a dominant guessing game for intelligence people and news broadcasters. Guesses and statements continued from the day of the invasion and for three weeks after the Honduran army, navy and air force took back the town. News people concentrated on civilian casualties, dead and wounded that could have been avoided, so the news people decided, had the Honduran military only taken one or two of several courses of action promulgated by the same news people after the fighting was over. Civilian dead totaled two hundred seventy-three, slightly less than ten percent of the population of Irlaya. Honduran military dead numbered eighty-six, while all ninety-seven Hezbollah were, reportedly, killed in the fighting. None was reported to have surrendered. News reports somehow missed an immutable fact – had the Muslim terrorists remained in Lebanon and Gaza and other places outside the Americas, no one would have been killed in the fishing and agricultural village.

       An adviser to the Honduran army, Ralph accompanied two companies of infantry in their air assault on Iralaya. Ralph was not armed when he boarded the UH-60 Blackhawk. Rules set by the U.S. Congress stated American trainers in Central America would not carry weapons, lest some bandit or robber or terrorist become deceased while attempting to rob or kill said American trainers. Such deaths, Congressional wisdom decreed, would send the wrong message concerning American presence. Although not in agreement with the rule, Ralph followed the congressional decision.

       Events often take precedent over wishes. That was so on late afternoon of Ralph’s first day in Iralaya. As helicopter-borne Honduran forces moved in from the northwest, additional infantry arrived by landing boats from the east. Fighting was house to house. Almost all houses in Iralaya were made of wood. Many caught fire from the heat of tracer ammunition, from hand grenades, rocket propelled grenades and smoke grenades.

       The commander of the western force told Ralph to remain with the command element and not to accompany the farthest forward infantry units. Ralph said, “Yes, Sir,” to the Honduran major. That the major’s decision was correct became evident when three Hezbollah ambushed the command group, firing with automatic weapons from a cattle pen. The fire wounded five Honduran soldiers. Ralph, deciding self-defense overrode any decision on carrying weapons by the U.S. Congress, picked up a squad automatic weapon dropped by a wounded soldier, and immediately placed accurate fire upon the attacking enemy, eliminating the threat to the command group, so read the citation for the award of the Honduran Cross of Merit of the Armed Forces.

       In Ralph’s twenty-six years as a solder, a number of people had attempted to kill him. He had taken bullets on three separate occasions – in Sudan, Somalia and Mali – but none had done enough damage to take Ralph out of his daily duties.

       Now, he knew he was truly dead, courtesy of the flying Toyota Tacoma, and brought back to life -- somehow. He chuckled as he took keys from the golf cart ignition and unlocked the metal box holding his JV bag. “Done in by a pickup at an intersection in Florida.” Ralph took his JV bag from the box, opened the bag and found a box of fifty .45-caliber rounds. He loaded the empty magazine and put it into the magazine holder on his holster. Then, he replaced the four fired rounds from the magazine in the pistol. With that done, Ralph sat on the cargo shelf as he rummaged in the bag and brought out a bottle of water. He removed the top and drank about half the water. His throat had been dry.

       Ralph studied the terrain, grass and low rolling hills, no trees in sight. The stone road ran generally northwest to southeast. The golf car pointed northwest.

       “I don’t like the Northwest,” Ralph said aloud. “Washington and Oregon. Seattle and Portland. Fucking hippies.” He drank more water, then got up and went through one of the two cloth shopping bags on the back floor of the golf cart. He opened two sealed packages and took out a Twinkie and a Hostess cupcake. He sat on the back seat, and took a bite of Twinkie. “Nothing like sponge cake and rich, cream filling,” he said. He ate a quarter of the Twinkie. “Well, shoot. Cassandra’s going to get home and wonder where I am. She’ll see the golf cart is not in the garage, so she’ll figure I went to Publix. After a while, she’ll wonder why I’m not back. All this time, I’m lying underneath a pickup.” He shook his head and ate another quarter of the Twinkie, then took a sip of water. “I hope my cell phone is broken, ‘cause she’s liable to call, and I don’t want a fireman or EMT to answer.” He shook his head. “Shoot. Nothing I can do.” He sighed. “This is not the way I expected things to go. You die, that’s it. There is nothing else. Your heart stops working, and so does everything else, and you’re done. Nothing but a great void.”

       A thought hit his mind then, a thought so intense he almost fell from the golf cart. The earth was without form and void.

       “No, no, no, no,” Ralph said aloud. “That’s not the way things work. You die, and everything is over. There is nothing else.” Part of his mind argued: Are you now dead? If you are dead, why are you eating a Twinkie? “Because I am hungry.” Dead men don’t get hungry. Dead men don’t get anything or do anything. “Yeah, well.” He ate the last bite of the Twinkie. “I get hungry when people shoot at me. I always have.” Dead men don’t get shot at. Ralph opened the cupcake package and took a bite. Chocolate, his mind said. Chocolate makes everything better. More manageable. “Maybe. I could use some coffee to cut this sweet stuff.” Sorry. I don’t have coffee. “You just have answers, hunh.” Not even that. I’ve got questions. For when you think you have all the answers. “I never thought I had all the answers.” We’re getting off course. Ralph gestured with the cupcake. “Who are those men?” Men who wanted to kill you. “Why did they want to kill me? They got something against people who appear out of nowhere in golf carts?” I think they want to kill everybody who isn’t like them. “I guess that would make life simpler. If everybody agreed on the same thing.” He shrugged as he took another bite. “Not that that made any difference in some places we’ve been.” On Earth, you mean. “Only place I’ve been.” Except here. “Yeah.” A sudden realization hit his mind. “Aw, man! Don’t tell me they’re here, too?” Not the same people, but, yes, they are here, too. “And I’m supposed to kill them?” You got something against that? “No. I mean, those guys intended to kill me.” You did good. You haven’t lost anything. “I’m slower then I used to be. But, yeah, I still have the eye.” And the balance. Like you told young soldiers -- Good sight alignment, good sight picture, good hold, squeeze the trigger. Works every time. “It does.” He swallowed the last of the cupcake and drank the last of the water. “Guess I’d better go look at them.”