graphix: spwilcen
MA: on the dark side. Death and theft.
Tooley and I worked together three of the five years I was stationed in that damned desert. From a small oasis on the easternmost edge of the hottest and most desolate place in the world, our detachment enforced peace and nursed justice the locals couldn’t have cared less about.
The desert was so hostile snakes and buzzards avoided it. Our detachment didn’t have the luxury of choice the snakes and buzzards enjoyed. When a local stood accused of some wrong, one, sometimes two of us were assigned to find and bring that local back to answer charges. Invariably, suspects would try to hide in the desert’s sandy expanse. We’d end up tracking through that desert, returning with the accused if we were lucky enough to find him before the desert saw to his demise.
None of the detachment talked of why we were there instead of someplace sane. Tooley and I were no exception. We were friends by circumstances. Fact of the matter, for everyone there including command officers, was that we were there and that was that. Perverse, unspeakable fatalism.
One scorching afternoon the detachment payroll went missing. Our pay was necessary to sustain our need to drink and our off-duty debauchery, so it was a significant crime. No one had any idea where to start. There were no suspects.
Two days later Tooley was sent after a petty thief. His absence for several days was not unusual. On the fifth day, our detachment commander sent me to find Tooley. To make time, I took a light duty Utility Transport. Two days into my search I found myself farther into the desert than I’d been alone before. Cresting a large dune, I saw a general Utility Transport at the dune’s leeward base. Could be none but Tooley’s. It was dead still.
Reaching the dune’s base, what I saw was not pretty. The engine of Tooley’s transport apparently overheated. Finished with the transport, the desert oven had then cooked Tooley. I guessed why Tooley hadn’t radioed or tried to return to headquarters in the relative cool of night. Two paymaster’s satchels were in the utility side seat. Oddly, well not oddly really, Tooley’s kit bag was in the back seat.
Besmirching Tooley’s name would serve no purpose. Leaving the paymaster’s satchels would also be pointless. I tossed the satchels into the seat beside me and left the shifting sands to bury what was left of Tooley and his transport.
I made an unscheduled stop before I returned to detachment headquarters. There, I sadly reported no success in my search.
© spwilcenski 2022
spwilcenwrites 3/22/2022
Ramblings 