A Treasure of Their Own

In thirty minutes the trucks would be pulling around to take them to the practice site again. They had made it through two weeks of training and Sgt. Givens. The borderline harassment was taking its toll on both of them. So far, Taylor had lasted longer than what Sgt. Givens had predicted. He picked on her more than he did the others. Some thought it might be because of the wiseacre way she greeted him. Ramon had shoved some of it his way, too. But, there was just something about the way that he talked to her that let everybody know that he was bound and determined to make her crack.

  If Sgt. Givens was beginning to take his toll on her, she never showed it. She faced his jabs with a calm and somewhat icy gaze. It was like she was telling him that his day was coming and that she would be the one standing over him. Lately, she would just fold her arms, place her feet shoulder length apart and look at him with a soft little smile.

  Some of the guys seemed to think that she was doing it just to get under his skin. Ramon thought differently. He knew her better than anybody. She was fixing to knock the thunder out of him. That little smile was her playing that picture over and over and over in her mind until she was convinced that she would do it. She would wind up with a dishonorable discharge and some jail time but she figured that it would be worth it.

  However, today, she threw Ramon a big curve. They were the last ones to start their way to the pickup point when she asked him, “Ramon, have you had any of those gooshy feelings yet?”

  “Gooshy?”

  “You know, like the kind Tom said he always got when God pointed someone out to him that He wanted him to work with. Lead them to the Lord kind of thing.”

  “Uh…..now that you mention it, no.”

  “I just thought that when you and Rosie started talking every night last week, that maybe she was the one you needed to be talking to or something.”

  “Not to my knowledge. I was able to give her some advice and pray with her but there wasn’t one of those strong urgings.”

  “I’m just trying to check up on myself. As hard as I try to listen, I don’t feel like talking to anyone about their soul. Is that bad?”

  “Is your heart and mind set on this sniping business?”

  “Practically 24/7. I do feel that the Lord has me focused on it.”

  “Me, too. Only thing I figure is that we ought to keep doing what we’re doing until we know that He’s telling us to do something otherwise.”

  “You don’t feel that you were supposed to talk to Rosie?”

  “Well, she asked me for some advice about her relationship with her fiancé back home but I can’t say that I had an unction from the Holy Spirit about it or anything. I gave her Biblical advice, some personal observations, shared stuff that Tom taught and we had prayer and that was it.”

  They shrugged their shoulders, and got in line behind Duke. As he stood there fumbling with his bags, Taylor just couldn’t help but remark, “Duke, what’s taking you so long? Benita told me you were fast, or something like that. Isn’t that what you said, Benita?”

  “Almost got it right,” she quipped right along with Taylor. “But, you know me. I was just repeating the gossip I heard from Sandusky about him. Just what did you mean, Mr. Sandy Wandy?”

  Mowzzer got in, “Sandy Wandy? There hasn’t been any hanky panky have we now?”

  Sandusky shot back with a straight face, “We? Not since WE broke up two months ago. And, I mean it this time stud.”

  And the conversation degenerated from there. And all Taylor did was make one smart remark to the right person in the right company. She was tops at doing it, always had been. She and Ramon just sat back and let the conversation take its course and laugh at what was happening. They didn’t have to say another word.

  The conversation finally turned to the sniper site. Everybody knew that there had been a couple of squads from Kirtland Air Force Base out at the site on the weekend. Their time was spent reworking the site to Sgt. Givens specifications. He had told them last Friday that they were going to enter into a new phase of training in an effort to bring them up to speed on the way the enemy had changed their tactics in the past few months.

  He met them at the site with ten other non-coms walking around and talking. As the trucks ground to a halt everyone began to bail out and step into a loose formation. The non-coms stepped behind Sgt. Givens. As he was about to speak, a jeep made its way to the edge of the area. Sgt. Bennett and Sgt. Lem got out, walked over to the two story observation shed and sat down at the picnic tables in the shade.

  Sgt. Givens acknowledged them with a nod of the head as he spoke, “Alright, I told you that you would have a new area to learn in and you do. Some of you will be able to tell the difference and some of you won’t. The most visible difference from the last two weeks is in the area that you will be shooting from. We have tried our best to make little cubicles for each team to stay in and shoot from. These areas are made to resemble the terrain of Afghanistan. As you can see they are spread about fifty yards apart.

  “Here’s what we’re going to do. We have five teams. I am going to assign two non-coms to each shooting area. One will be standing on a box behind you with a pair of binoculars to check your hits. The other one has one command for you and that is ‘Go.’ When the team to the right of you has made its shot and left its area and you have made your shot, you will be commanded to go. You will gather your equipment ONLY after he tells you to and not before. Get your equipment and run to the next shooting area to your right, set up, follow procedures and shoot. Then, again, wait for the order to go. When you get to the shooting area that is all the way to your right and you hear your command to go, you are to run to the shooting area all the way to your left, set up, follow procedures and shoot. You will do that until you hear that ungodly foghorn blow. Do you understand?”

  There was a loud “Yes, sir.” from the group.

  “You’ve drawn numbers for your positions. You know where to go. Get there and get set up. When I see five spotters’ hands, I’ll give a command over the loudspeakers to begin the exercise.”

  He turned to the non-coms and told them, “Y’all go with them and get ready. Make sure you recognize each team, each shooter, what they hit and what they don’t hit. I’m not that rough on exact procedure, I want to drill speed and site comprehension in these guys. Got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get going then. We’ll have a break when the coffee wagon gets here.”

  Everybody went to their assigned posts. Taylor and Ramon picked position three and hurried to the site and got ready. When everybody was ready, Sgt. Givens gave the command over the loudspeaker. Within seconds, weapons were firing and teams were scrambling.

  After Taylor’s shot was fired, they heard their man say, “Go.” Even though Taylor was to his left and they had to run right, she almost ran over him getting to the next shooting area. As she set up for her shot, she cracked at him, “Hey, Goober, can’t you run any faster than that?”

  “You just can’t lose can you? From the big rock in the middle, three feet left, black turban under the overhang.”

  “Like I always said, second place is really first last place. I am looking from the big rock in the middle, three fee left, black turban under the overhang. I have the target in sight.”

  “Take it.”

  Her shot hit the metal stand the turban was affixed to and it let the non-com know that it was a clean hit. They snugged their equipment in their arms and at the word ‘Go’ they sprinted the fifty yards to the shooting area farthest to the right. They were faster this time as their old football teamwork began to help them anticipate each other’s moves. They got a clean shot and were given the command to go.

  This time it was more like a two hundred and fifty yard sprint to their left. As they began to set up, Ramon spoke up, “Taylor on the way here, I began to get an alarm going off inside me.”

  “Oh, yeah, what kind of alarm?”

  “Like I used to get in Mexico City when I instinctively knew somethi
ng was going wrong. That was why the gangs like to have me around. I could smell out trouble. When we got here I got it real heavy. I need to……wait. That’s it over there. I bet this is what they’ve been waiting for someone to find.”

  “What, where?” Taylor asked as she snuggled herself into a comfortable position.

  Without saying anything, he made the sign of the cross on her right shoulder with the cross piece being along her collar bone. This made four quadrants. He put his finger in the center of the cross, and started to describe the mark.

  Taylor had him in the sights already and said, “White bobbing up and down.”

  Ramon tapped the center of the cross three times to indicate ‘yes.’ He carefully placed a finger in the northwest quadrant a bit higher than the center one, and a finger in the northeast quadrant but a good bit higher. “Different colored rocks. Take them without waiting.”

  “Gotcha,” she replied. After sizing up the shots she squeezed three in rapid succession. Three dings rang out.

  Ramon patted her on the shoulder and began to gather their gear for the next run.

  However, the non-com with the binoculars jumped down from his box, blew his whistle and waved his arms toward the observation shed. The foghorn sounded and shouts went up from every site for the shooters to cease fire. Over the loudspeaker came the voice of Sgt. Givens, “All teams report to the observation shed on the double.”

  Ramon said to Taylor as they were walking toward the shed, “Something else is going on, Taylor. I don’t know just what it is, but things aren’t what they are supposed to be. I know Sgt. Givens is going to bark at us, but that’s no big deal. Something else is up. My insides have perked up. Someone is in danger.”

  “I know who’s in danger,” Taylor snorted, “It’s that dadblamed Sgt. Givens. Today’s the day me bucko. He hands me too much today and he will be toast, I promise.”

  “Taylor, now keep your cool. Someone else is in danger I can feel it. We’re not the ones in danger,” Ramon said as he tried to calm her down. It was just about too late. Her face had already turned red and Ramon couldn’t tell if it was from exertion or anger.

  That was not his biggest worry right now. Something else was going down. Something was tugging on him to be vigilant and watch everybody. He just couldn’t shake it.