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MISS KITTY, ROCKY AND THE IMMORTALS
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GuinS Press
San Diego, California
Other Books by Jay A. Stout
Hornets over Kuwait, Naval Institute Press, 1997
The First Hellcat Ace (with Hamilton McWhorter), Pacifica, 2000
Fortress Ploesti, Casemate, 2001
Hammer from Above, Presidio Press, 2005
To Be a U.S. Naval Aviator, Zenith Books, 2005
Slaughter at Goliad, Naval Institute Press, 2008
Published by GuinS Press
11874 Bridgewood Way
San Diego, CA 92129-5222
Copyright 2009 by Jay A. Stout
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Design by GuinS Press
Especially for Clancey, Frankie, Ramona,
Ricky-Boy, Blackie and Pig-Pig
Prologue
He'd been dead for a couple of weeks already.
The coastal South Carolina dawn was dewy and warm and although it hadn't rained the marsh grass was wet and water clung in droplets to the raccoon's fur. The mud and grass and brackish water of the tidal basin were already starting to cook under the brand new sun and the still air stank vaguely of shellfish and mud and salt. Worms, crabs, and other marsh creatures crawled and skittered in the muck while birds whirled over it all, snapping bugs from midflight.
The raccoon studied the bungalow across the street from his hiding place. He shifted his back legs and lifted his haunches to keep his belly up and out of the damp. Every few seconds he pawed idly at the air around his face; small biting gnats, undisturbed by even the smallest hint of a breeze, swarmed around his head.
Muted breakfast conversation and the clank of dishes sounded through the screen door of the small house. A chair scraped away from a table. The raccoon heard footsteps then caught sight of two figures through the shadow of the screen. The smaller form, a woman in a long shirt, clung to the other, a man, for just a moment. She kissed him as he turned to leave.
"Oh Christ, here I go," the raccoon said under his breath. He stepped out of the marsh, checked for traffic then scampered across the street.
1
Captain Michael "Rocco" Barducci dropped the marker into the tray at the bottom of the briefing board. "So, there's the game plan. Any questions?"
Rocco's wingman, Matthew "Twister" Campbell, looked up from where he sat taking notes. "Yeah, where are you going to find a pair of pink panties that'll fit your fat ass?"
"That's nothing I need to worry about my dear friend." Rocco crossed his arms and looked down at the other pilot. "And remember, all week means all seven days, not just Monday through Friday."
Twister stood up to leave. "I know how many days are in a week. And you can plan on dropping your flight suit around your ankles on every one of them." Twister pointed with his pen at Rocco. "You're going to get shot if I have to do it myself."
Rocco watched Twister walk out of the briefing room. His wingman had already put on his game face. The two of them had been best friends since meeting at flight school five years earlier. That friendship stoked their already fiercely competitive natures; everything between them was a competition that transcended material things, professional competence and even women. The most intensely competed contest was one that defied an easy answer for the almost perfectly matched, supernaturally skilled young men. Through their careers neither of them could unequivocally declare to be a superior pilot over the other.
Today they had agreed that the first to be "shot" would have to wear pink panties each day of the following week. Of course there was a good chance that neither would get bagged. The mission was a practice air-to-air sortie against two F-16s from nearby Shaw Air Force Base. And while the F-16 was a fine aircraft, there weren't many pilots in any service who could match the talent and teamwork of Twister and Rocco.
"Pink!" Rocco shouted down the hall after his friend. "Pink, like your favorite color! Pink, like you wish your car was!"
Twister didn't look back, but waved his hand at Rocco in a mock gesture of dismissal and contempt.
Rocco looked across the flight line at Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort to where a plane captain was performing final checks on Twister’s aircraft. In his own cockpit his hands flew over various knobs and switches while another plane captain finished final checks on his aircraft. He couldn’t see the young marine working on his jet, but he mentally urged him to move quicker. Even getting the aircraft started and out of the chocks was a contest between the two pilots.
A call came over the radio: “Bandit three-two is up and ready.” Twister had beaten him.
"Bandit three-one, roger." Rocco acknowledged Twister’s call and radioed ground control for taxi clearance for the two aircraft. At the same time he signaled his plane captain to pull the chocks out from under his wheels. Once he advanced the throttles and got the jet rolling out of the flight line he keyed the inter-flight radio and needled his friend. “Pink, like your mama’s freshly-paddled ass.”
He looked back to see Twister waving a one-fingered salute from the cockpit of his streamlined fighter. Rocco loved the aircraft they flew. The F/A-18 Hornet had seen quite a bit of service over the years, but with updates and modifications it was still one of the premier fighter aircraft in the world. Designed with ease of operation and maintenance in mind, it was both a pilot’s and a mechanic’s dream. And although it wasn't as fast as some of the other first-line aircraft, the Hornet’s maneuverability had earned it a reputation as a deadly dogfighter.
And it was beautiful. Its sleek nose gave way to a bubble canopy that allowed the pilot superb visibility in all directions. The canopy, in turn, was streamlined into a distinctive wasp-shaped fuselage that housed two powerful afterburning turbofan engines. And atop the rear of the fuselage were two, canted vertical tails that, in combination with its mildly swept wings, gave the aircraft a futuristic appearance.
Leading the two aircraft down the taxiway, Rocco compartmentalized and focused on the upcoming mission. He reviewed his routing, radio frequencies, and the mission profile. Rounding the corner at the end of the taxiway and into the hold short area, he cranked his body around and saw Twister giving him a thumbs-up, indicating that he was ready for take-off.
“Tower, Bandit three-one, flight of two Hornets, take-off two, IFR.”
“Roger, Bandit three-one,” the control tower responded, “winds are one-eight-zero at eight knots, gusts to twelve, cleared for take-off, runway two-three, contact departure.”
“Bandit three-one cleared for take-off, switching.”
Rocco lowered his canopy he taxied his jet onto the runway. Rolling to the far side of the large concrete strip, he centered the aircraft on his half of the runway and pointed it toward the far end. The canopy came down with a clunk and Rocco felt his sinuses squeak in reaction to the change in pressurization. Closed off from the inside of the cockpit, the whine of the two big engines made a lower, duller note. With a quick glance that took no more than a second or two, he checked the controls and switches on the left console, the instrumentation on the panel in front of him, the right console, and finally the take-off checklist.
Rocco watched Twister center his jet abeam his own on the other half of the runway. He gave the other aircraft a quick look to make certain that it wasn’t leaking any fluids, and that all its panels were closed and that it was in the proper take-off configuration.
“Departure, Bandit three-one, deck check to two-thousand.”
“Bandit three-one, departure control has you loud and clear, report airborne.”
Rocco acknowledged Twister’s thumbs-up and signaled for an engine run-up to eighty percent power. He had to add more brake pressure with his feet as the fighter shuddered and tried to break free. One more check of the engine instruments told him that his aircraft was ready to go. A final thumbs-up from Twister indicated that his jet was also ready for take-off.
Rocco raised his left hand high, hesitated for just an instant, then swiftly dropped it down into the cockpit. The low-pitched blast coming from the engines of the two fighters rose to a tremendous roar as both pilots slammed their throttles into full afterburner on Rocco’s hand signal. Simultaneously, both pilots released their brakes and the two aircraft lurched forward, slowly at first, and then much faster as the effects of a collective thirty-two tons of thrust shot each of the jets down the runway.
Rocco eased his throttles back just a fraction to give Twister a greater range of power to make adjustments and maintain formation on his jet. Twister’s position was perfect. It was as if an invisible tether connected the two fighters; they seemed to be a single entity instead of two separate aircraft.
A few seconds later as the aircraft sped through one hundred knots, Rocco pointed skyward, signaling to Twister that they were almost at flying speed. At one-hundred-and-thirty knots he eased back on the control stick and felt his jet’s nose lift clear of the runway. He looked over at his wingman and saw Twister’s jet match his own.
Airborne, Rocco gave a quick head nod and raised his landing gear handle. A quick look showed him that Twister’s landing gear was coming up as well. Another quick nod and both pilots raised their flaps. A final thumbs-up from Twister told Rocco that his wingman’s aircraft was flying normally and ready to press on with the mission. Rocco gave a pushing signal with his hand and watched Twister snap his aircraft out of the tight parade formation and into a looser, more tactical position.
Rocco called the radar controller who was watching their flight. “Departure, Bandit three-one flight is airborne passing one thousand for two.”
“Roger Bandit three-one. Departure control is radar contact. Proceed on course, climb and maintain ten thousand.”
“Bandit three-one WILCO.”
Fifteen minutes and one-hundred-and-fifty miles later, Rocco radioed their F-16 adversaries. “Reef six-four, Bandit three-one.”
“Bandit three-one, this is Reef. I’ve got you loud and clear. We’re two F-16s on station as briefed.”
Rocco replied: “Bandit three-one has you the same. We’ll be entering the area from the south as briefed, ready to play in two minutes.”
Reef six-four, roger, standing by for your call.”
Rocco called Twister on the tactical radio frequency, “Bandit three-one is fence checks complete, stand by for flare check.” He checked his armament switch then flicked the flare switch on the throttle grip.
Twister responded, “Good flare. Bandit three-two is fence checks complete, flare check.”
Rocco watched a single, bright flare eject from his wingman’s aircraft. “Good flare.”
Rocco checked his cockpit switches one more time, noted the position of the sun, and the time. “Reef six-four, Bandit three-one. Fight’s on, fight’s on!”
The F-16 flight leader responded, excitement in his voice, “Reef six-four roger, fight’s on, fight’s on!”
Rocco stretched and repositioned himself in the small cockpit as best he could. He couldn’t resist making one last dig at his friend. “So Twister, are those going to be satin panties, or cotton?”
Twister didn’t hesitate an instant. “It doesn’t matter a bit to me sweetheart, but I’m thinking that satin might cause your fat, sweaty ass to break out in a rash.”
Rocco couldn’t help but laugh. He pushed his throttles forward nearly to the afterburner detents and checked Twister’s position a half-mile away, exactly abeam his own aircraft, and stepped up about two thousand feet.
Twister made the first call. “Bandit three-two is contact five miles east of bulls-eye, at eighteen thousand, hot.”
Rocco saw nothing on his radar. “Bandit three-one, clean high.”
“Nose, forty miles now, still hot.”
Still, Rocco’s radar screen was blank.
A few seconds went by and again Twister called out, “Twenty-five miles now . . . ACTION!”
At the “action” call Rocco racked his jet around into a tight, nose low pirouette that was intended to confuse the F-16’s radars. He grunted under the heavy g-loading and looked up to watch Twister turn away and remain at altitude.
Ten thousand feet below his original altitude, Rocco leveled off and pointed the nose of his aircraft back toward the F-16s. He adjusted the scan of his radar down to a lower altitude and almost immediately picked out two targets ten miles away and closing fast. He locked his radar onto the closest target, double-checked his warning gear to ensure that he himself wasn’t being targeted, and slammed the throttles into full afterburner.
“Bandit three-one is sorted on the southern target, naked.” From this call, Twister knew that Rocco had locked the F-16 closest to him. The “naked” call told him that Rocco himself was untargeted.
“Bandit three-two sorted north, naked.”
Rocco watched as the target on his radar screen made an aggressive move to try and break his radar lock. The radar held onto the other jet and Rocco squinted through his aircraft’s windscreen to pick up the F-16 visually. Seconds later he spotted a speck that was the F-16 in a nose low, evasive maneuver.
“Bandit three-one is tally one, twenty north of bulls-eye at ten thousand, engaging.”
Twister responded, “Bandit three-two is tally one, twenty-five north at eighteen thousand, engaging.”
Rocco selected an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile and heard the audio tone from the seeker head rise to a high-pitched howl as it locked onto the other aircraft. At the same time a stream of decoy flares trailed the F-16 as the pilot caught sight of
Rocco’s aircraft and turned hard into him to engage.
His training missile defeated by the flares, Rocco turned to pass close aboard the F-16 at more than four hundred knots. As they passed, canopy to canopy, and only a couple of hundred feet apart, Rocco looked down into the Air Force fighter’s cockpit and saw the other pilot looking up at him. An instant after they passed, Rocco feigned a turn to the left, then leveled his wings and hauled the nose of his fighter high into a vertical climb. The F-16, low on airspeed because of its aggressive maneuvering, started up as well but was obviously not going to be able to stay with the F/A-18. Rocco sneaked a look to the east and saw two tiny specks engaged in a spiraling aerial ballet.
“Tally two, visual.” This call let Twister know that Rocco had all the jets in sight.
“So Twister,” Rocco called, forsaking their rigid, tactical lexicon, “are you going to have to pick those panties up on the way home?”
“Nope,” Rocco could tell from Twister’s voice that he was maneuvering under high G-forces. “I’m offensive, ten seconds away from a gun kill.”
Rocco looked down at the F-16 foundering below him. “I’ll get mine first.”
His airspeed down to two hundred knots now, and positioned about two thousand feet directly above the Air Force jet, Rocco brought the nose of his aircraft smoothly around until it was pointed nearly straight down. Now inside the minimum range for missiles, he switched from the Sidewinder to his gun and pulled the throttles all the way back to the idle position. Closing to fifteen hundred feet, he maneuvered to settle the gun sight onto the fuselage of the wildly maneuvering F-16. He counted to himself: one thousand, two thousand . . .
“That’s a kill on the F-16, in a left-hand turn at twelve thousand feet!” Rocco rolled his wings level and flashed over the top of the other aircraft.
“Copy kill,” the Air Force pilot acknowledged.
“And that’s another kill on the F-16 at fourteen thousand,” Twister called an instant later.
Rocco swiveled in his cockpit looking for his wingman.
“Twister, what’s your position?”
“Ah . . . I’m four miles east, at eighteen thousand, still looking for you.” It was the wingman’s responsibility to maintain the integrity of the flight, and Twister was a little embarrassed that he didn’t have Rocco in sight.
“Okay, I’ve got you now,” Twister called. “Look at eight o’clock low—hey heads up! You’ve got an F-16, level at two o’clock.”
Rocco swung back around in his seat.
Oh, shit! The Air Force fighter, the jet that Twister had just engaged, was in a lazy turn at the same altitude, and only an instant away from ramming into Rocco’s Hornet. The other pilot probably had his head down in the cockpit taking debriefing notes, or he was looking for his own wingman. It was very obvious though, that he didn’t see Rocco’s jet.
Before he even started to roll his aircraft to get out of the way, Rocco knew it was too late. The F-16’s wing sliced into his jet with a crunching flash that brought stars to his eyes and knocked the breath from his chest.
The sudden loss of pressurization in the cockpit broke Rocco out of his stunned paralysis. He reached for the ejection handle, knowing without looking that the aircraft was beyond saving.
Twister screamed into the radio. “Rocco, get out, get out, get out!”
What was left of his airplane was falling in a tight spiral. The rear of the wreck was engulfed in flames. Rocco braced himself for ejection as best he could, grabbed the handle between his legs, and pulled.
Nothing.
He almost threw up. This wasn’t supposed to happen. If everything else in the jet failed utterly, the ejection seat was supposed to work. The trust the pilots put into the seats, and the pride and meticulous focus the mechanics put into their maintenance was practically a holy thing. So trustworthy was the ejection seat that there was no other way to leave. Bailing out in the traditional sense, that is, jumping out of the aircraft and pulling a ripcord, was not an option.
Rocco reseated the handle and pulled it again. Nothing again. He looked up out of the whirling, flaming kaleidoscope that his aircraft had become and saw the F-16, also burning, plummeting earthward. Higher, he could see the fully blossomed parachute of the Air Force flyer. It seemed so tiny and far away. Although it had been less than five seconds since the collision, he had already fallen a tremendous distance.
Twister was still shouting for Rocco to eject. His voice was tearful, his shouts more plaintive.
“God damn it, Twister,” Rocco called back, “the seat won’t fire!”
Rocco pulled on the ejection handle with all his might. Frantic with fear, he jerked it up and down. But he knew that the seat, somehow damaged in the collision, wasn’t going to work.
His throat tightened, and his breath came hard and ragged. Terrified, he started to sob; the ocean whirled up at him bigger, and bigger. His vision tunneled and grayed, and the noise from the hulk in which he was hurtling to obliteration seemed to diminish.
A few short seconds later, perhaps reflexively, he hyperventilated himself into unconsciousness.
Rocco felt no pain, although the wreck that was his aircraft was shattered by the impact with the water. The body that had also been his was just as surely destroyed.
The other angels embraced him with a profoundly hypnotic and powerful cloak of contentment, empowerment and resolution.
2
The boy felt safe in the grip of his father's hands. Graced with long and beautiful fingers, and a softness that belied their power, they were strong and warm. Gently, his father lifted and guided his entire body through the lesson that wasn't so much an exercise, as an act of love; it was a love for the art, and a special love for his son.
Effortlessly, in an almost soporific fluidity of motion, the two of them, as one, raised the tip of the long rod and brought it back up and over their heads. Lifted clear of the water, the line scribed a great flashing arc, and shed tiny, wet diamonds of light as it sheared through the autumn afternoon. The small black fly at the end of the line streaked overhead, ripped dry by the speed of its travel through the alpine air.
Reaching the limits of its rearward traverse, the line responded to the energy transmitted by the stored tension of the rod, and snapped the fly forward. Again, but in the opposite direction, the ersatz bug whizzed over their heads, this time catching up with the rest of the line until, finally in the lead, it settled daintily upstream onto a quiet whorl of clear, deep, water.
"That's just fine Brashton," his father said. "Really, very nice."
Brashton looked up at his father. He loved him and was reassured by the knowledge that he was loved in return.
His father smiled down. "Now watch your line," he said. "The most spectacular cast in the world won't do you any good unless you fish it properly."
Brashton's father released his hold on the boy and stepped back. The youngster's waders made a muffled crunching sound in the gravel of the streambed. Disturbed by his footsteps, sand and bits of rotting vegetation formed a wispy trail that was caught up and swept away by the current. The two of them watched the fly circle once in the small pool where it had fallen, then followed it as it drifted downstream, pulled by the line into a quickening chute of ripples. Brashton pulled in the slack as the fly floated closer to where they stood. His small hand began to fill with loops of heavy wet line.
"Okay, watch now," his father said. Brashton stiffened as the fly was shot out of the small set of rapids into a big, slow flowing pool. The water was deep and dark and shaded by overhanging branches from the towering pines that guarded the opposite bank.
Then, almost as if on cue, there was a short sucking pop and the fly disappeared in a silvery splash. The boy felt his heart leap as the big fish nearly tore the rod from his grip. His hands trembled with excitement and confusion and he was only barely able to hold onto the frantically bouncing rod.
Brashton heard his father explode into laughter behind him but the laughter did not upset him. It was a not a comic laugh, or one that made fun of the boy. It was a noise of shared excitement and pride.
"Set the hook son." His father reached down and helped Brashton jerk the tip of the pole upward to ensure that the point of the hook was buried deep in the fish's jaw.
"It's a big one dad! I can't hardly hang on." The boy looked over his shoulder at his father; his teeth flashed a huge smile. He held the pole high and moved downstream toward the fish. The current pulled against his small legs and the sun shined on his dark shock of blue-black hair.
"You're doing fine Brashton." His father moved with him, careful to watch and keep him safe, but also careful to let the boy play the fish on his own. "Start bringing in some line and keep that tip up. He's going to get tired."
"He's strong," the boy grunted. "My arms are getting tired."
"You're stronger though. Think about how big you are compared to him."
The fish turned and raced back upstream toward the big pool. The line hissed as it tore against the current and followed the fish into the deep water. Back in the pool the line went slack for a moment and the pressure against the rod relaxed. Then suddenly the quiet water erupted in a silvery spray of fish, and sunlight, and water.
"Wow, dad!" Mesmerized, Brashton watched the trout dance on its tail across the deep pool, then fall back into the water.
Again, the boy turned to look at his father. The sight of him, so strong and sure, was comforting. He seemed to the boy, to be wisdom and time incarnate. The sun against his short-cropped blond hair, and tanned, smooth face seemed to sharpen him somehow. The rest of the world seemed slightly blurry and out of focus when the sun shone on his father in just this way.
"That's right Brashton. Keep the line tight and be patient." His father's voice was calm and steadying. "It won't be but a few more minutes and you'll have him netted. You're doing fine."
The fish was tiring. Brashton drew in more line until he could see the grayish-green back of the fish against the gravel of the stream bottom a few feet in front of him. In desperation the fish lunged, its sides flashing bright against the current, and ran for the swifter part of the stream. The boy reacted quickly, keeping the line tight, and the rod tip high until the fish, unable to overcome the maddeningly pliant strength of the rod, was dragged back into the quiet water.
"Here son." His father reached a short handled net out to the boy.
Brashton grabbed the net. He brought the tip of the rod high one more time and pulled in a final loop of line. The fish lay exhausted in the water at his feet. He could see its mouth opening and closing, gasping, trying to pump more water across its wide-splayed gills. The boy juggled the rod and line into one hand, and reached down toward the fish with the net.
His father's voice was smooth and even. "Gently now, head first. Don't try and scoop him up from behind or you'll spook him. Try and lead him into the net."
Brashton put the net into the water. He liked the way the water and light refracted and made the shiny green aluminum frame of the net looked like it was bent. The stream pulled against the net. His shirtsleeve, wet now, flapped in the current that was colder, and deeper and stronger than it looked. He guided the net in front of where the fish struggled against the line, exhausted and heaving. The fish, wary of the net, flicked its tail and drifted further out into the current. The strain of the water against the net, and the weight and awkwardness of the pole held high in his other hand, was starting to wear on Brashton. He shifted his feet in the gravel to adjust his balance and leaned further out into the stream.
The fish, frightened again by the net, used the last of its energy and burst back toward the pool. Caught by surprise, Brashton lunged after the fish with the net. He felt his footing give way, and then a nearly paralytic shock as icy cold water rushed through his clothing and over his body. Stunned, he felt the rod tear out of his hand and for an instant shame mixed with the fear he felt overtaking him. He flailed at the water with the net in his other hand and tried to regain his feet.
But his rubber boots, full of water now, were heavy and he was startled to discover that he couldn't stand up against their weight.
Panicked now, Brashton struggled, but still felt himself pulled toward the deeper part of the stream. He thrashed and turned around toward the near bank.
"Dad!"
His eyes grew wide looking for what they couldn't find. Desperate, he looked up and down the bank of the stream.
His father was gone.
Terror gripped his chest and he felt the current bump his feet against the stream bottom. Then the bottom was gone and he was pulled down into the cold and dark.
"Dad!"
Lieutenant Colonel Brashton Oakton shot up straight in his bed breathing hard. In the dark he pawed at the bedclothes around him and regained his bearings.
"Oh sweet Jesus," he said to no one who could hear him, then fell back down to his mattress and tried to catch his breath.
3
Rocco opened his eyes. Without moving his head, he looked first to one side, then rolled his eyes and looked in the other direction. He was lying in a brushy slough. Nothing looked familiar, and his vision seemed odd somehow. His field of view and the manner by which he perceived color and contrast were altered in some way. He blinked several times. Still, his eyesight didn't seem quite right.
He wasn't fully awake yet; he felt detached. His state of consciousness was more dreamlike or entranced, rather than alert. Rocco lay still and listened to himself breathe. It was a rhythmic sound, even and comforting. So close to the ground, his nose was filled with the fusty smell of earth and leaves and whatever other detritus the live oaks and palms had molted and cast to the floor of the swamp.
After a time, still less aware than more, he closed his eyes and stretched, taking in a deep breath. He rolled upright; doing so felt awkward. He stood up. Odd. He had unbent his legs, but hadn't made any vertical progress.
Rocco looked down and stiffened with terror.
It was not believable. All in an instant, the memory of the collision and of his dream with the angels came back to him in a mad flurry of recollection. He remembered that somehow he was to return to the world, but this was beyond what he was able to understand.
He had come back as an animal! A quick, terrified look at his feet and tail told him that he was . . . a raccoon.
Rocco staggered. Dizzy with fear and disbelief, he dashed into the brush, but unused to double his normal number of legs he tripped and tumbled the short distance to the ground. He stood up and spat dirt out of his mouth. Again he ran. Where, and for what, he wasn't certain. His breathing quickened as he crashed through the undergrowth that clawed at his still strange eyes, his face and the rest of his body.
The tangled growth of the swamp gave way to the grassy shoulder of a paved road. Without stopping Rocco charged through the grass and up and onto the roadway. His heart pounded and the nails of his paws clicked on the hard surface.
The shrieking blast of an automobile horn stunned him to a skidding stop. Rocco wheeled around at the same time that the screech of tearing tires reached his ears. His eyes widened and his bowels went loose. Dumbstruck, he watched the car careen to a stop, slightly askew, just in front of him. Still frozen in place, he heard the driver swear. The horn blared again and Rocco, finally able to make his legs work, scrabbled off the road and back the way he had come.
Once more in the cover of the swamp, Rocco ripped through the brush again. Thorny palmettos plunged into his hide and tore at his fur. Several times, still unsteady and terrified by his new incarnation, he lost control and smashed into trees or stumbled into brackish pools of tidal backwater. Finally, exhausted and bleeding, his fur wet and matted, he crashed into a thicket of brambles and fell to the ground panting.
He wouldn't accept the absurdity of his situation. What was happening couldn't possibly be. But all indications were that it was indeed. He sat up on his haunches and ran his paws through his fur. He was wet and sore and cold. His lungs burned from his race through the swamp, and under his fur he could feel where the pointed spines of the palmetto leaves had impaled his skin. But still, the idea that he had been killed in an aircraft accident and returned to the world as a raccoon was ridiculous.
He snorted to himself. The dream would end. He lay back down on the ground, curled up, and waited as he tried to catch his breath.
Bugs flew into his nostrils and ears.
He waited more.
He couldn't make himself fall asleep. Dozing away the nightmare wasn't working. The shock of coming to consciousness as an animal destroyed any chance he had of nodding back to sleep.
Rocco sat up and looked around. The brush hadn't gone away. He listened. His hearing was very sharp; there were neighborhood noises and traffic. The sounds told him he was near a residential area. That was also obvious by the smells that his seemingly enhanced olfactory senses brought to him. Garbage, clothes dryer exhaust, barbecues; he could smell it all.
Still frightened, he stood up and paced. The wounds in his hide were sore and his muscles hurt. He was seized by an urge to flee again but it was tempered by the fact that he had no idea where he might go. And he was not used to his new body. Four legs were not two and he stumbled as often as not. Thankfully, he hadn't far to fall. And his heightened senses were so improved that his attention was constantly diverted by some new smell or sound. His eyesight was neither sharper nor poorer, but simply different. His hands, or more correctly his paws, were not nearly so nimble as his human hands had been; he had no thumb and that made it difficult to grasp things.
Stricken numb by his grotesque transformation, Rocco settled back to the ground as the daylight turned to dark.
He spent a wretched night able to snatch only fitful bits of sleep. And each time he awoke, it was as a raccoon, a frightened and confounded raccoon. The next day and the next night were spent the same way. Immobilized by agitation and fear, he stayed huddled in the brush.
He was homesick. Not that he had had much of a home. Physically anyway. When he was alive, that is, still human, he lived in a condominium near the center of town. It had actually been nothing more than a place where he kept his stuff, and where he sometimes ate and slept. That is, when his squadron had not been deployed overseas, or when he hadn't been a casual overnight guest elsewhere. His furnishings were a mix of hand-me-downs and spur-of-the-moment purchases, complemented by that typical bachelor system of cardboard box storage.
No, it wasn't the house he missed. It was his former life. When he had been with the angels, he hadn't cared. Or hadn't missed it anyway. Being with the angels had been beautiful beyond indescribable. But now he wasn't with the angels. He was in a fetid swamp. And bugs were crawling all over him. And he was a raccoon.
Rocco stood up and stretched on the third morning. He was more accustomed to his new manifestation and had been able to rest more than he had the first night. His wounds were healing and the stiffness from his frenzied flight through the swamp had mostly disappeared. Rocco ran a paw through the fur on his chest and combed out a dried twig. Tossing it aside, he smoothed the fur back into place and looked around. The ground was packed hard where he had miserably crouched and paced through the previous several days and nights. The bush where he had taken cover was beleaguered and worn from where he had nervously torn away leaves and pulled at the branches.
A shaft of sunlight reached through the trees and warmed his back and head. Rocco looked up, blinked into the bright light and made a resolution to do something. He wasn't sure what exactly, but he knew that he was a raccoon for a reason. And that he was there for something. And that whatever it was probably wasn't going to happen or get done unless he made an effort to find it.
He sniffed at the cooking smells drifting over from the nearby houses and decided that a good way to start acting on his resolution might be to find something to eat. He had been drinking out of a nearby pool of brackish water but hunger was occupying more and more of his thoughts. A good meal might help clear his mind.
He would wait until dark though. He knew that raccoons were nocturnal—and probably for a reason. The cover of darkness would make him feel more secure during his first trip out into the world.
It was early evening and darkening when Rocco looked back at the little patch of brush where he had spent the first three days of his new life. He turned and started through the brush toward the nighttime sounds and smells of the nearby neighborhood. If he was heaven-sent, the reason probably had something to do with people.
He was more accustomed to his legs; moving through the undergrowth wasn't nearly as difficult as it had been earlier. And it was certainly easier than if he had been human again. For one thing he was smaller, much smaller. And for another, he seemed to have a natural—an instinctual—knack for making his way through the tangle of brush and weeds.
Rocco pressed on until he reached the edge of the wooded area. There was a road in front of him—the same road on which he had nearly been flattened during his first day as a raccoon. It bounded one side of a housing tract he knew very well. He had shared a house with Twister in the same development just a few years earlier. They had been younger then and had quite a reputation for hell raising and woman chasing. The neighbors eventually grew tired of the noise, traffic, trash and pilloried young women that the young pilots' revelry generated. When the time came, they prevailed on the landlord not to renew the lease.
Rocco's stomach prodded him on. It was dark now and he hurried across the still-warm asphalt road to a pair of garbage cans sitting next to the closest house. He listened. Nothing. He smelled. Meat loaf, he thought. And some sort of casserole.
And dog shit.
There was a dog at the house. He listened more closely, but still heard nothing. One of the cans was plastic, the other galvanized steel. It took only a quick sniff to tell that it was the metal can that held the food. He studied both containers carefully, looking for the best way into the steel one. After a careful moment he decided to climb on top of the plastic container so that he could better reach down into the one with the food. He gingerly gripped one handle and tried it with his weight. It held. Rocco lifted himself and made a grab for the top.
It was a mistake. The side of the plastic can gave way and crumpled under his bulk. He scrabbled against the side and tried to regain his balance, but the effort was wasted. With a snap and a rush of putrid air the lid popped off and went rolling across the yard. At the same time Rocco fell over with the can, and a plastic bag full of rotting dog excrement tumbled out and burst open.
He froze and listened. Nothing still. The powerful stench watered his eyes, but still, three days of hunger kept him in place.
Convinced that the noise hadn't alerted anyone, Rocco abandoned his plan with the plastic can and moved to the other. On his hind legs, he pushed up on the lid of the steel container, intending to lower it noiselessly to the ground. But his paws, still new and awkward to him, lost their grip. The lid crashed to the ground with a cymbal-like crash.
There was a thump and a rumble. Even before the steel lid stopped vibrating, the Biggest German Shepherd in the World hurtled—barking and snarling—around the corner of the house. Petrified, Rocco didn't have time to even think about making his little raccoon legs run. The dog stopped only inches away. Teeth bared, hair on end, the great brute growled dog breath straight into his face.
Rocco was petrified. He was only one false move from being torn into pieces of hair, teeth, and eyeballs. He took a tentative step back. Then another. And another. The dog matched him step for step. Rocco found himself backed halfway into the plastic garbage can, crouched right in the middle of the broken bag of dog feces.
"Rex!" It was a man's voice.
"Rex, what have you got there, boy? It better not be another raccoon!"
Shit! It wasn't what Rocco wanted to hear.
"Shit!" said the big man who rounded the corner. He carried a shovel and a flashlight. Rocco was fairly certain the man wasn't planning on an evening of gardening.
Rex growled his hot, wet breath all over Rocco.
"Daddy, what is it?" A spindly-legged little blonde girl in a nightshirt came up behind her father. She clutched a big cat in her skinny arms.
"Go back inside honey pot. You're going to get all dirty out here."
"Yuck, it stinks like hell!" The little girl pinched her nose with one hand and held on to the cat with the other.
"Cal, what is it?" Cal's wife came around the corner and looked at the flashlight-illuminated mess. "Oh my!"
"I'm tired of this bullshit," Cal said. "Go on and take Jessie inside. I'm going to take care of this right here and now." He hefted the shovel in his hands.
"Cal, don't you dare!"
"Daddy, no!" Jessie pleaded.
Rocco raised himself on his rear haunches, and cocked his head. Think cute, he told himself. God bless those girls.
"Give me a break Dora Ann. This is the second time just this week. I'm tired of cleaning up after him. Now that I've finally got him, you want me to turn him loose?"
"You don't know that it's the same one," Dora Ann answered. "Besides, raccoons eat snakes. And you watch your mouth Cal."
Bravo, Rocco thought, although he wasn't too sure about the snake-eating thing.
Cal was also confused about the snake-eating thing. "You're thinking of mongooses, or mongeese, or whatever. I've never seen a raccoon eat a snake."
"Well it's true." Dora Ann wasn't giving any ground. "I saw it on TV, or read it, or something."
"Well look, it's a mess out here!" Cal tried a different tack, appealing to Dora Ann's sense of tidiness. Still, he knew his wife had already won the argument.
"Well you can keep the trash in the garage then."
"Then it'll smell like dog crap in there." Cal gave himself a virtual pat on the back. Crap wasn't as bad a word as shit.
Dora Ann crossed her arms and looked at him. She didn't have a good answer.
The big cat broke out of Jessie's stranglehold.
"Damn it Miss Kitty, you come back here right this instant!" Jessie used her best grownup voice. Cal tried to look as if he didn't notice the look that Dora Ann shot him.
The cat surprised everyone and stepped between Rex and Rocco and started to rub against the raccoon, purring loudly.
"Why, look at that," Cal said.
The cat looked Rocco straight in the eyes. "Turn around and go back across the road. Wait for me. I'll find you later tonight."
"What?" Rocco wasn't used to taking orders from a cat. For that matter he wasn't used to hearing a cat talk. He wasn't used to any of this, including sitting in the middle of a big pile of dog shit.
"Go!" the cat shouted.
"Miss Kitty, you get away from that stinky old raccoon!" Jessie ordered. The exchange between the cat and the raccoon had gone unnoticed by the humans.
Rocco turned to go. Rex growled and took a step closer.
"Cal." Dora Ann put her hand on the big man's arm.
"Rex, come here boy." Cal dropped the shovel in surrender and grabbed the dog by the collar.
Rocco turned and trotted back to the swamp. Rex whined behind him.
"I'm sorry sweetie," Dora Ann said. "I'll get a garbage bag and help you clean up."
4
"Hello there! Raccoon! Where are you?"
Rocco stood up on his haunches and looked over the tall grass where he had been hiding not far from the road. The big cat, Miss Kitty, made her way slowly along the road, whispering loudly into the brush.
"Here! Over here," he answered back.
The cat looked over to where Rocco was hiding, slipped into the brush and a moment later emerged in front of him.
"Well, Rosebud, if I hadn't seen you I'm sure that I would have smelled you. I'm delighted to see that you survived your encounter with Rex the Wonder Dog."
Rocco ignored the uncomplimentary greeting and stared at the cat. He knew that he had heard her. But, it didn't seem possible.
"How do you talk, I mean, how do we—how are we doing this?
The cat laughed. "Oh my, you're a novice aren't you?"
She had a soft, mature, almost timeless voice. It had a reassuring, motherly, but almost sexy inflection. Rocco felt more secure just from hearing her "talk."
"Well, it's sort of a cross between mind-reading, and talking. I meow as I think what I want to say, and your little raccoon brain, such as it is, sort of unscrambles it and turns it into something you can understand. Still though, I've always wondered how it would work if you spoke another language. Like Italian or something. I guess that would be kind of silly for you because they don't have any raccoons in Italy."
Rocco blinked at her.
"Well, I guess they don't, do they?" she asked.
Rocco considered the notion for a moment and decided that the conversation was taking a turn well away from where he wanted it to go.
"Uh, no I don't think so," he answered. "But, what are we doing here? What's going on?"
"Well, sweetheart," the cat was more serious now. You're here because God needs you here. You're a guardian angel, or an angel with a message, or a purpose. There is a reason you've been sent here."
"What is it?" Rocco's tone had a hint of desperation in it.
The cat's voice was like a balm. "Sweetheart, that's the most difficult part. None of us knows exactly what it is we're here to do until the time comes. Although you can be sure it has something to do with humanity, and with putting things right where they may be going wrong. One thing I can guarantee you though. You're not here to knock over garbage cans and dance around in dog droppings."
Rocco felt self-conscious. He had been hungry. For that matter he still was. "Do you know what you're here for?" he asked.
"Well, I've been here a long time."
"How long?"
"Well, the Yemassee Indians, poor wretches, ended my human life with a hatchet when I was nineteen years old. That was in 1764."
Rocco's raccoon eyes grew very wide.
"But don't get upset. As an angel I fulfilled my original obligation soon after that. I'm a little different than most, in that I've always stayed on afterwards and looked to do something elsewhere."
"You've been here for something like three centuries?" Rocco was awed.
"Not just here, although this is where I started. And I've probably spent more time here than anywhere else. But I've been all over the world.
"What was your first—what did you call it? Duty or obligation?"
"House fire," she answered.
"What?"
"Have you ever seen the memorial to Cassandra of the Carston's on Welston Street?"
Rocco recalled a stone and bronze memorial to a cat on one of Beaufort's older streets. A grateful family had commissioned it in memory of a cat. The pet had roused them in the middle of the night as their house was being consumed by fire. Although it was weathered and worn, the memorial was one of the oldest artifacts in town. Still though, it often was the target of pranksters. The first time Rocco had seen it, the big bronze cat had been sporting a pair of sunglasses and a cigarette stuck out of each nostril.
"You were that cat?" he asked.
"I still am."
"But I thought your name was Miss Kitty." Rocco's voice trailed off as he realized that a person, or cat, was certain to pick up several names over a period of a few centuries.
"My real name, the name I was born with, is Katherine Smith. But certainly you can call me Miss Kitty. I've had dozens of names: Petunia, Oliver, Sunshine, Madeline, Snootzy, I could go on and on."
"Oliver?"
"Oh yes, they weren't the most intelligent family in town. That one was a baby stuck in a well. They tried to shorten it to Olive when they realized their mistake but they were so used to Oliver that it just stuck." Miss Kitty had a bemused look on her cat face.
"But what happens to you over time? What about the families? You surely don't stay with them from cradle to grave."
"Nothing truly happens to me. I don't age or get sick. And I've been in accidents that should have killed me. I'm sure that it was an angel like me that started the nine lives legend about cats. Anyway, I can't stay with a single family forever for obvious reasons. Ten or twelve years are a normal span of time. You know, mortal cats do get stolen, or go off to die when they get sick, or sometimes they get lost. A cat can disappear a hundred different ways."
Miss Kitty looked a little sad now.
"Sometimes, after many years have passed, I'll go back to the same family. More than once even. I've been at the deathbeds of dear old friends as they passed away. Those spent and tired people were the very same ones who as toddlers played with me, and toted me around with all the energy and innocence in the world." Miss Kitty sniffed. "Sometimes I cry."
The cat suddenly seemed tired and sad.
Rocco felt a little like crying.
"But Miss Kitty you shouldn't be sad. Those people went to heaven didn't they? Anyway angels don't cry."
The cat looked at him. "Are your grandparents alive?"
"No," he said.
"Did they go to Heaven?"
"Yes." He felt sure.
"Did you cry when they died, even though you knew they were with God?"
"Well, yes," the raccoon answered.
"And the angels wept."
5
"Are you sure you want to be here?" The cat asked.
"Yes, I think so," The raccoon answered.
It was hot. Summer was always wretched in Beaufort. The sun mercilessly rendered the coastal South Carolina watershed into a parboiled stew of humid stickiness and smells. Rocco found that it was just as miserable to him as an animal as it had been when he was human. It was perhaps more so as there was no way for him to go inside to escape the heat.
The parking lot of the chapel was full. Small groups of people clustered here and there among the cars and on the sidewalk leading up to the chapel entrance. They were uncomfortable, but not only from the heat. It was the occasion.
One of their own had fallen. One like themselves. Or one like their husband, or father or son. Rocco had been killed. Michael Stephen Barducci was how his name read in the memorial pamphlets that the crisply uniformed marine ushers were handing out.
Yes, let it be Michael Stephen they thought, but not our Rocco.
After the mid-air collision, Twister had called for the search-and-rescue helicopter. It wasn't long before the helicopter and a number of other search aircraft and ships were on the scene. But there was nothing to rescue. Their searching yielded them only bits and pieces. Bits and pieces because there wasn't much on the forty million dollar flying war machine that floated. Perhaps a bit of seat cushion here, or a piece of composite wing there. A shred of fabric from the shattered parachute casing fed a short burst of hope. But Rocco wasn't found. What was left of his body was probably still strapped into the ejection seat inside the aircraft carcass under eight thousand feet of the Atlantic. He was, they would say under their breath, or quietly at the bar, fish food. And quite literally that was true.
But still they searched. For three days they circled that part of the ocean in ever increasing arcs. When they were absolutely certain that they could sleep at night knowing that their comrade, their fellow warrior, was not adrift at sea still waiting for rescue, they called a halt.
When the search ended, preparations for the memorial service could openly be made, although, to be sure, the chaplain had already been preparing a sermon. The various squadon commanding officers on the base agreed to a date. And family members were consulted as to what type of service would be appropriate and who among them might come to South Carolina to attend it. Arrangements were made with the printer for a suitable memorial pamphlet. All this and more was planned and prepared and staged.
The people filing into the chapel were a mix of squadron mates and friends, fellow service members, and acquaintances from town. Family members made up only a very small portion of the huge crowd.
There existed an invisible bubble around the family members. No one wanted to penetrate that bubble. It was too painful. The family might turn on them. The family might say: "Why did you do this to our son, our brother? How could this be? We entrusted him to you and now he's gone!"
They might shout at the handsome young man with the handsome young wife. Twister sniffed and wiped a handkerchief across his face. They might say, "Matthew, we trusted you. Surely you loved him even as we did. How could you let this happen?"
So, most people did not disturb the bubble around the saddened and bewildered family. Mostly they made small talk as if they had no real reason to be at the chapel at all. Or they talked about the accident in a chitchat sort of way. Damn shame. Tragic. Such a loss.
But a brave few did penetrate the bubble. The commanding officers did because protocol demanded it. The chaplains offered spiritual support and such other solace as they could—it was their job and their calling. There were also those tortured and righteous souls whose consciences gave them no choice; they were compelled to offer condolences and shared grief to the family of one whom they had held so dear.
And slowly, as the hour approached, the small groups that had delayed outside, and the family in their bubble, and the ushers, and the color guard, and all the others, stepped into the chapel.
A raccoon and a cat sat outside in the branches of the great live oak that grew next to and over the chapel.
"You've got a lot of friends," the cat said.
"Yes, or else I'm a good excuse to take a couple of hours off from work."
That wasn't fair he knew.
"Hmmph, you know they're here for the right reasons."
The two animals looked down from their perch and into the chapel through a set of high, narrow, casement windows. Built before the advent of air conditioning, the chapel would have been cooled and ventilated by those windows fifty years earlier. On this day, with the standing-room-only crowd, the windows were open to augment the overtaxed air conditioning system.
The chaplain stepped to the altar and the crowd inside stilled itself. He said a few words then led a prayer. Following the prayer the organ sounded and the people began to sing. The hymn was Amazing Grace.
The raccoon sang with them. Loudly.
"I've always liked this song," he said quickly in between verses.
Kitty glowered at him. "Well hush, you're making a terrible racket."
"So, what?"
"So, someone is going to knock you right out of this tree and you're going to end up as a nice furry cap on some ten-year-old boy's head."
Rocco challenged her. "Now Kitty, do you think that could really happen?"
"What do you mean?"
The raccoon stopped singing. "Well the way I see it, God, or the powers that be, or whoever, put me here for a reason. Like you said before, I've got a duty or obligation, or whatever. Do you think God's going to let some idiot with no front teeth and a big stick whack me over the head and mess up his plan? What happens then? Do I come back as a grasshopper? The way I see it, I'm pretty much bulletproof. Call me Superman. Or Super Raccoon. Look at you; you've lasted nearly three hundred years!"
"Stop! You listen to me you stupid, young fool. I know that this, all of this, has upset and confused you. That's understandable. But it's no excuse to act like a jackass. Think about what you're saying. You're talking about the plan of a powerful and loving God. One that is beyond understanding."
Kitty's stinging words caught Rocco off guard.
The cat continued. "Your self-pitying, capricious attitude is disgusting. It's not worthy of the trust that's been given you. Don't play games. Don't take chances. You don't understand the path that has been put before you. You can't. Just use what you have been given, and do that to the best of your ability. But don't ever, ever forget that you're a precious part of a divine plan. And to be sure, don't you ever do so in front of me!"
Rocco stared shamefacedly at her then looked away.
"You're right," he said softly. "I'm sorry."