Silent Keys: Chapter Four

Don Wilkins was the kind of man who needed to control everything, even the death of his wife, Livi. It didn't quite work out the way he had so carefully planned.

Chapter Four

Earlier that evening when he began to implement his plan, Livi pushed away the first cup of tea. She grimaced as if to curse him. He cradled her in his arms, nearly losing his nerve when her bony frame squirmed away from him.

"Livi, remember how I told you a few years ago that everything in the Universe has its own electromagnetic force. You. Me. The rocks, trees, animals. Everything."

At that time long ago, she nodded, her expression wide-eyed as if a grand epiphany had melded all her religious beliefs with his scientific knowledge. As he spoke of it now, she stared at him, vacant. He had to bring it back to her in a way that would comfort her and fit in with her hopes for an afterlife of some kind.

"Just think of it, Livi, our spirits will be two little balls of glowing energy, bouncing around the Universe. We'll be able to travel the vastness of Space. Won't that be wonderful? And we'll be together forever. Circling around each other like a binary star."

He could see from her far-off gaze how that fantastical image calmed her enough that she drank the tea and settled into the sofa pillows. As he thought of it now, he realized that his scheme to relieve them of their protracted misery had one major flaw. He, and obviously she, didn't really want to leave this world yet. Their lovely home. The garden where, until that afternoon, she wandered amongst the flowers she had nurtured for so many years. Their friends and the neighbors, although after hearing how his cronies really felt about him, he altered his views on that score.

He had to admit that he would miss the regular Wednesday lunches at the BBQ place. All the great discussions about politics and state of the country, all the complaints about whoever filled the Oval Office at the time, the RV camping stories, and all the kids. Always the damned kids living in ways that deeply disappointed their parents.

Especially his kids. Eddie would've been a great engineer had he lived long enough. That kid never stuck to anything. Not even his own life. Selfish little prick!

And Carol, whatever gets into girls' minds to run off and be wild like that, to pick up with some jackass they find at school. That aging hippie in his stupid flower child VW van taking his little girl up to Idaho. Why, to join a commune? Did people ever really succeed at that kind of nonsense?

He thought of that visit with Livi in San Francisco. What kind of crazy life did she lead before they married? And that Michael fellow she talked about. Was he more to her than a play director? He was probably as gay as a day in May. Most of those artsy people are bent that way. He could only imagine the evils she had partaken of, but she never tipped her hand. Yet, he had noticed changes in her personality that day in the simplest gestures. The toss of her head. The deep laugher of a girl freed from the parental constraint. That fire in her eyes whenever she told him about her music and dreams of the concert stage.

A few days before their wedding, he challenged her about her life in San Francisco, she looked him straight in the eye in a way that shocked his angry suspicions into absolute silence.

"Listen, Mister G.I. Friggin' Joe, you had your wild past and I had mine. That's done now. Deal with it. If you don't like the idea that you're not The First Man In My Life, then you can find yourself another bride."

Boom! That was that! He never brought it up again. For such a delicate little thing, Livi certainly had a way to put him in his proper place. Since that declaration, though, she settled down into the role of proper housewife and mother. That was enough to set his heart at ease.

Rising from the swivel chair in front of his ham station, he shuffled into the living room to check on Livi. To his dismay, she was still breathing. The tea wasn't strong enough, but he couldn't make her drink any more. He had to find another method to get it done.

Rummaging around in the kitchen drawers, he found where Livi hid the plastic bags from the grocery produce department. Putting three inside each other, he found a wad of strong cord in back of the a drawer. With that and a pair of scissors, he returned to Livi's side.

The peaceful look on her face stopped him short. As he fingered the bags, his resolve faltered. This was abhorrent to him. It made what he had convinced himself was an act of mercy more truly like murder. He was killing his beloved wife. But he had to finish it. His own heart would kill him someday soon and she couldn't be left behind to fend for herself.

It was easier than he thought to slip the bags over her head. She had become almost weightless because she refused to eat much in the past few weeks. In fact, she hadn't been much of an eater most of their marriage. Because of that, she had retained the shapely figure he adored.

Then he recalled how she always left the dinner table after making sure everyone was served. Leaving her plate untouched, she would just get up and knock around the kitchen, clanging the pots and pans, running the water in the sink. No wonder she stayed so slender. She never ate anything.

He liked her that way, though. Unlike so many women, she didn't let herself become dumpy and fat after they married. He was convinced most women assumed they didn't have to try any more after they had that ring on their finger. If Livi wavered just a bit, maybe gaining a bit of extra bulge around the waist, or if she happened to forget to comb her hair or fix her makeup, he'd remind her. It was the least he could do for her. She was so beautiful and he wanted her to stay that way. He wanted to help her be that stunning girl he had met in high school.

This past year, when she forgot how to dress herself, or smeared lipstick all over her mouth if she remembered to apply makeup at all, it broke his heart. That's when he knew he would have to do something drastic. He couldn't bear to trust her care to anyone else.

Gathering the openings of the bags under her chin, he wound the cord around her neck and cinched it up tight. Then he flattened the plastic over her face, which remained in that grimace. A bit of moisture under her nostrils dampened the plastic. After a minute or so, though, it didn't replenish itself. Her chest stopped rising and falling. It would be over very soon. And he could feel the tea starting to work on him. He was getting dopier by the minute and he still had items on his list to finish.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The bullet ricocheted off his radio backpack before he even heard the rifle shot. Before ducking behind a boulder, he and Lieutenant Dante were just talking about how eager they were to open up the letters they had received before leaving on patrol. Now they pushed against the boulder as other soldiers ran for cover. One man fell, but called out that he had only been grazed. He quickly scrambled to his feet, limping a bit, and dived behind a tree.

Chaos ruled for several moments as Dante wondered out loud, "how many of them were out there, where were they, or is it just one guy … a sniper?"

Don peered over the rock and soon saw a wisp of smoke that gave away a sniper's position. The sonofabitch was close.

"Confident bastard. But maybe he has backup in the forest behind him."

The patrol waited for fire from other sources. When none appeared after several grueling minutes of silence, Dante figured it was a lone shooter up in that tree.

Don only had his side arm, not a very good weapon to shoot a sniper at a distance. The guy pissed him off enough, though, to do something stupid. At nineteen, Don was invincible. And he had been a helluva shot since he was a kid when his dad took him hunting in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

Taking careful aim at where a branch of leaves shuddered in a strange manner, he pulled the trigger. The bullet winged the branch, missing the sniper. Then he sidled to a different position as the sniper's return sung with a disturbing whine inches from where his head had been. He felt his radio backpack shiver.

Damn! This guy's good. That was too close.

Don listened with the same intense focus he used to ferret out scratchy signals on his HF transceiver. Don knew he couldn't hit the sniper with his pistol. What he was supposed to do at times like this was radio their position to the command post.

Another sniper's bullet cracked through the air and a moment later, Don's radio backpack jerked. Shards of metal fell down his collar and sprayed against his head.

"Shit! Now you've really pissed me off, you motherfucker!"

Don stood up, aiming with both hands on the grip, and pulled the trigger. At the same time, another soldier shot toward the sniper with his rifle.

There was a loud grunt from the branch and a rifle fell to the ground. Cautiously, the soldiers approached the sniper and found him straddling the branch like a leopard sleeping in a tree. His arms and legs dangled on either side of the branch. His eyes were closed and saliva dribbled from his open mouth. Blood streamed from his chest.

"Hey Wilkins, which one of us got him?"

"It was more'n likely you did, Maxwell. You're the one with the rifle. I just used this peashooter here." It galled him to give someone else credit, but it was undoubtedly the truth.

"Yeah? Well, look at that hole in the branch above his perch here. That's got to be your bullet. Came damned close to his head."

Don grinned. He couldn't resist teasing Maxwell, whose sense of humor turned anything even sounding like an insult into a joke.

"How do you know that's my bullet, Max?"

The other man slapped Don's shoulder and reared back, laughing. "Because it missed the guy."

As the soldiers lowered the sniper from the branch and searched him for identification, Lieutenant Dante ordered Don to call headquarters to report their position. Regardless of the lack of enemy fire, Dante's eyes darted nervously around the perimeter. He didn't want to risk his men just for a lone gunman, but these commies could be tricky, waiting for the G.I.s to settle back into complacency before opening a barrage of gunfire at them. His men, however, had remembered their training to always be on guard. While some dealt with the sniper, others circled around them, guns ready and eyes surveying the surrounding area.

 Don slipped the AN/PRC-8 radio from his back and gasped when he saw the damage. The backpack was only three inches thick encased in metal. The transceiver sat on top of the large battery section. The antenna stuck up from the case and could be extended long enough to achieve enough resonance for the signal from most locations.

The bullet created a deep dent in the case, missing his head by a distance that Don really didn't want to contemplate. But there it was. The radio took the hit that was meant for him. And it could've been worse. If the bullet had hit the battery section on the bottom of the pack, it would have exploded? Don got off easy. He could fix the radio and he was still alive to tell Livi a great story in his next letter.

Realizing the dumb luck that had saved him, all he could say to Max standing next to him was, "Well, at least I didn't lie to Livi when I told her I'd be the prime target of a sniper," he chuckled as he showed Max the broken radio.

"Sweet Jesus!" Max gasped, then went silent for the first time since Don met the man. He didn't really feel deep down the humor of his comment to Max, but laughing at death was how he dealt with its unnerving proximity. Livi called it cowboy humor. It was the common response where she and Don grew up in rural California.

Opening the box of spare parts supplied with his kit, he pried into the case to assess the damage. One of the calibration oscillator crystals was shattered. It would be an easy fix. If the army did anything right, it was including a full set of parts with the radios for just this kind of scenario. An operator couldn't just drop down to the radio shop or even make a part. Not a crystal, anyway. This box of parts essentially contained a complete replacement radio.

He had repaired and built rigs a lot like this one since he was fourteen. At that time, he bought a dispatch radio from the local police department when they were upgrading their equipment. Man, was he excited to get that prize home and start working on it. And was he surprised when he fired it up and called out on the set frequency.

"This is dispatch. Please state your emergency."

He reeled backward against the wall. Holy cow! He'd just called police dispatch! He hadn't bothered to change the frequency and theirs was still tuned in to the radio. Quickly, he jotted the numbers and taped a note to the radio: Never use this frequency!

Popping the replacement crystal into the radio, he turned it on and called out to command. Nothing. The frequency hissed and crackled as it usually did during these remote patrols. They were down in a valley, but Don hoped not so far down they couldn't get a signal out.

"C'mon, Stu, put on your ears." He tried again. Then he inspected the antenna and found it had been broken at the connection. Well, he wasn't going to let a little thing like that bother him. As he glanced over at his anxious lieutenant, he plucked the roll of antenna wire out of his pack. Dislodging the fragmented antenna from its base, he connected the antenna wire to the transceiver. He would try using an NVIS signal that could breech the valley walls.

With a cocky toss of the reel, he rolled out the wire along the ground. It bumped over pebbles and stretched out almost in a straight line 80 meters long. If all went as he expected, his rudimentary antenna would shoot his signal vertically into the air. It would hit the ionosphere and bounce back at an angle that would cover a circle of anywhere from 250 to 400 miles. That is, if everything went according to his plan. The only problem would be that every other radio, friend or foe, would be able to pick up his signal. He informed Dante of this possibility.

Dante nodded his ascent. "Make it quick, and then we'll get the hell out of here."

Once again, Don pushed the PTT on the mic. C'mon Stu, put your ears on. Finally raising Stu's voice through the static noise, Don sighed with relief.

"This is Private Wilkins. We just shot down a sniper about four miles out. Please advise."

"Leave the sniper and return to camp. We just got word of a huge offensive and we need you guys back here pronto!"

"Roger that. Over and out." Don sighed with relief. That was close. And Livi's unread letter waited in his pocket. He told Dante they were ordered back to camp, but he had to read Livi's letter. After that close call with death, he didn't want to waste another minute.

As the troop hiked back the way they had come, he tried to read her perfect handwriting. Clean, precise, mature. No silly hearts or circles over the i's. No loopy letters or long tails on the g's or q's. Simple, clear sentences. His eyes almost burst from their sockets from trying to read while bouncing along the trail, but he couldn't decipher it for the life of him.

He carefully slipped the thin airmail paper back into the envelope, realizing he needed to sleep. His eyes ached and itched with the dust. These Korean highways were cow trails mostly and the summer heat had baked them into hardpan that soon turned to silt when churned by a troop of soldiers. Once back at camp, he'd have to take a shower and snooze before trying to read anything. The wait was going to kill him until then. If the bullets don't do the job, the marching will.

As the troop covered the four miles back to camp, Don remembered a lovely evening spent with Livi before he shipped out to Korea. Shortly after their day in San Francisco, he had called her up and managed to score a date with her while he was stationed at Ft. Ord. Chinese and a movie. All went well until he walked her back to her apartment. That's when his total lack of dating skills kicked in. It would be a long time before he'd have a chance to see her again … that is if he survived. Yet he didn't want her to think he was one of those soldier-boys looking for a quick lay before shipping out. So, as she gazed up at him with what he thought was an expectation for a goodnight kiss, he said the damnedest thing ever.

"So, can we write to each other while I'm gone? Keep in touch?" It sure would mean a lot to me, he added in his thoughts. He couldn't get himself to actually say it.

She folded her arms and tilted her head in that infuriating way she had of sizing him up. A tiny smile lit up a bit of hope for him. "I don't think that would hurt any. Tonight was fun. And you're not so bad…for a small town boy."

"Oh, well, thank you, ma'am. I aim to please." He sounded more annoyed than humorous.

"My, but you're sensitive." She pulled away from him, seemingly confused.

They were wasting time. He had to get back to the base, so her toying with his emotions like they were back in high school didn't make any points with him. "Sorry I'm such a buffoon, but what do you expect from a hay seed in love?"

With that sudden, unabashed confession that even surprised him, she stared at him. Her face moved through several emotions until it finally stopped on that Mona Lisa smile. "I wondered if …." She was just as tongue-tied as he was at the moment.

Suddenly, she rose up on her toes and planted a kiss he would never forget. Then she darted inside her apartment as if she regretted giving such a blatant hint that maybe, just maybe she liked him as well.

That sumptuous kiss lifted his spirits to the sky. He didn't even remember how he got back to base. Hitchhiking as usual, walking for miles in-between rides. The next morning as the unit boarded the bus, he touched his lips and felt a heat rise up through his entire body. He had slipped his first letter to her into the base mailbox on his way to the bus, ignoring the jeers from his buddies.

"Letter to Mama?" Maxwell shoved his shoulder enough to set him off balance. Don left the joke unanswered, but he couldn't help smiling in a way that told old Maxie he had someone else to write to beside Mama.

With that memory firm in his mind, he slipped the onionskin paper out of the envelope and focused his eyes. Just one page, and again the words didn't make sense. Then he laughed. He was finally able to decipher her little trick. What a girl!

Delta Echo Alpha Romeo     Delta Oscar November,

Juliet Uniform Sierra Tango     Whiskey Alpha November Tango Echo Delta     Tango Oscar     Sierra Alpha Yankee     Hotel India.      Hotel Oscar Papa Echo      Echo Victor Echo Romeo Yankee Tango Hotel India November Golf     India Sierra     Alpha Lima Lima     Romeo India Golf Hotel Tango.

India     Lima Oscar Victor Echo     Yankee Oscar Uniform!

Lima  India Victor India.

Maxwell caught up to him as they marched along. "What's your mother saying these days, sonny boy?"

Don waved the delicate onionskin letter. "This ain't from my mother." He winked and stuffed the precious letter into his breast pocket, where it would remain for the rest of his tour of duty.