Hunting Wolves Ch. 04

Doug's Story

"All charges are dismissed. The defendant is free to go."

It took a moment for it to hit, then I sank back in my seat. My lawyer shook my hand and my father hugged me from behind. It was over!

Well, not really. I looked over at Gary, Lissa's father. He was sitting there with a shocked expression on his face and holding Madeline tight to his side. She was white as a ghost as she cried into his chest. Their nightmare just got worse. Me confessing to the crime was their last hope to find her. Now that it was wolves, it was likely they would never recover her body. They would never be able to have a proper funeral, never have closure. No justice would be found, no answers. Nothing.

I saw him glance up at me, but he quickly looked away. I'm sure he blames me for his daughter's death. After all, I took her camping. I left her alone in the tent. I didn't protect her, and now she was gone.

Now I had nothing, not my girlfriend, not a future, not a child she hadn't even told me about yet.

I leaned forward and covered my face with my hands. I didn't want the press or anyone else to see my grief as it finally hit me that my Lissa was gone. I only looked up when the Sheriff's Deputy touched my shoulder. "If your lawyer contacts us, we can arrange to release your personal effects to him. That way you don't have to go through these leeches." He was looking at the press as he said that.

I walked out of the courtroom between my father and my lawyer. The steps were packed with cameras and reporters. My lawyer talked briefly about justice but I wasn't even listening to him. Someone asked me if I knew where Lissa was. I stopped and looked at the reporter. "If I knew, I would have told them. I want to be able to say goodbye to her." With that, they escorted me through the crowd and into a waiting car.

We stayed at a hotel for a day while the paperwork was processed. Eventually I got back four boxes of my stuff and my Mustang convertible. I drove it straight to a car dealer and traded it in for an old F-150 4x4. I was going to need something that could handle winter.

When I got home, we had to repeat the whole thing with the local Sheriff. They had to return everything they had taken when they executed the search warrant on my parent's house, including my firearms. I checked out my baby, my Accuracy International AX bolt action sniper rifle in .338 Lapua Magnum. I use a similar rifle in Afghanistan, where it holds several records for long range kills. Corporal of Horse (CoH) Craig Harrison of the UK's Household Cavalry, who recorded a 2,707 yd shot (confirmed by GPS) in November 2009, also during the War in Afghanistan, in which he hit two Taliban insurgents consecutively. He used the older L115A3 sniper rifle. One of my heroes as a sniper, SEAL Chris Kyle, used a .338 Lapua by another maker to make a 2,100 yard kill in Iraq. I liked it because it was easier to fire and lighter than the .50 cal rifles, and had better long range ballistics. I could hit man-size targets at a mile more often than not with mine. My rifle was the next generation, and was even better than the ones the Marines let me use. The other stuff was more standard, an AR-15, a Smith & Wesson M&P9 9mm pistol, and some shotguns. I spent some time cleaning and checking them all before locking them up in the safe in my closet.

I had just finished washing up when my Dad yelled I had a visitor. Capt. Grubb, the JAG officer who I had talked to shortly after being arrested, was there along with a Gunnery Sargent from the local recruiting office. It didn't take long to figure out that with all the publicity, the brass wanted me out of the public eye as soon as possible. I was given a choice- either cleaning weapons at Quantico, or shooting bad guys in Afghanistan. Another unit had a sniper who broke his leg while on patrol, and so I would take his place. Frankly, I needed the break as much as anyone.

I was "wheels up" on the way to the 'Stan less than 24 hours later. I was able to make the memorial service for Lissa, which was pretty awkward. I don't think her parents know what they think of me any more. I tried to be respectful and didn't press things, it wasn't about me. It just pissed me off that so many people looked at me like I'd done something wrong, or had gotten away with murder. Not many approached me or wanted to be seen with me. As the plane gained altitude, I decided I needed to let all that go behind me.

So what was left in my life? I would stay in but the Marine Corps didn't want me. I had no job, no idea what to do next. No girlfriend, no wife.

I would find her. THAT I could do. I knew the search parties had given up, but I wouldn't. I would go up there and do two things- find her remains and make sure no one EVER had to go through this again. To that end, my pack was stuffed with my research materials. Topographical maps, wolf surveys, maps showing cattle predation. I also had downloaded a number of books on wolf behavior and trapping.

It took two days and a couple helicopter rides to make my way to my unit. They were stationed out of a forward observation post Shrine. This was the northernmost Marine position in Kajaki, occupying the high ground along the northern side of the Helmand River. Since winter was approaching, it was very cold at night but could be hot in the day. It was isolated, uncomfortable, vulnerable to mortar fire and completely out of internet range. Yep, they found the perfect place to hide me.

My reputation had preceded me. Marines in general don't like anything that makes the Corps look bad, and our code makes people who harm women and children the lowest of the low. Most of them wouldn't look me in the eye. It didn't matter that I had been released, in the end no one could be sure I didn't kill her. I wasn't going to argue; it wasn't a unit I was going to be with long. I had 30 days in country and I was going to make the most of it.

I was teamed with Corporal Joe Miller, who was in his first deployment after graduation from Scout Sniper school. He was a farm boy from Oklahoma, and we hit it off fine as he briefed me on the area. We had overwatch duty on 2 hour shifts, every 6 hours. There were several positions around the OP we could work from, mostly old mattresses that sat behind sandbagged walls. Marine sniper teams consisted of a spotter and a shooter, with the shooter on a Barrett .50 sniper rifle and the spotter with a powerful spotting scope. You'd think being a sniper was exciting, and there are some moments, but for the most part it is drudgery. Look here, look there. Make range maps. Look back here and there and see if there are any changes. Follow vehicles, donkeys or motorcycles. Get to know who is going where and when so you can tell if something is abnormal. Take notes. Make more maps.

Then turn over the watch to another team, get some food and rest, and start again. The routine was helpful to get my mind off everything that had happened.

Joe and I were asleep that night when the first explosion woke us up. It was still far off, but the shout of "Patrol under fire" was all we had to hear. I grabbed my helmet and Kevlar, still in my boxer shorts and boots that hadn't been tied yet, and we ran to an empty firing position with our weapons. I could see the flash of weapons fire on the road below, and a Humvee was burning and upside down. "Fuck! Find me a target!" As Joe was getting the spotting scope up, I was attaching and firing up the night vision attachment to my Schmidt and Bender rifle scope. I then chambered a round and searched for a target.

The patrol was three Humvees, two were pulled across the road and were protecting the Marines who were recovering their buddies from the wrecked vehicle. I could see the platoon was deployed in the ditches and being attacked from the front and the right side, where the bad guys had set up behind rocks on the hillside above the road. I looked for the biggest threat, but Joe found it first.

"Machine gun, 2 o'clock and 300 yards north of the vehicle." Moving my rifle that way, I saw the muzzle flash and increased magnification to 24 times. "Range 1440, wind 10 from 070, elevation -330." I put the information into the ballistics calculator, basically a program for my iPhone that was preloaded with the ballistics of my rifle and load. My scope was normally zeroed for a thousand yards and no wind, so I quickly adjusted the 18 clicks right and 10 clicks down. Placing crosshairs on the target, I relaxed my body, trying to get as low and still as possible, while slowing my breathing.

I had the target and centered the crosshairs on it between heartbeats. "Ready."

"Send it."

The .50 caliber rifle belched its fire as the heavy projectile hurtled towards its target. I could see the trail through my scope until it struck the rock just to the right of the nest.

"Elevation good, 2 yards right." Joe had seen the same. I made a quick adjustment to my scope and relaxed again.

"Ready"

"Send it." Boom. This time it was right on. The machine gun jerked upwards before falling silent.

"Hit. Next target, right 20 yards, down 5, RPG."

I move over to it. Everything was close enough enough that I didn't have to make more adjustments. We worked methodically through the targets, almost not hearing the "whoomp whoomp whoomp" of the mortar launches. Someone shouted "INCOMING" and we hunkered down in our sandbagged position, covered by the sheet metal roof. Three explosions, one really close. "JOE WHERE THE FUCK ARE THEY FIRING FROM?"

The counterbattery computer was already on it. The radar had tracked the incoming mortar shells and calculated the firing location. This was linked to an artillery unit nearby, and the enemy mortar team only got off four more rounds before a 155mm Howitzer round vaporized them and the truck they were hiding behind.

The mortar team being handled, we went back to work. The range made it difficult but I got more hits than misses as we knocked out attackers from top to bottom, figuring the Marines would have an easier time with the ones that were closer. The battle had turned in our favor, and a few minutes later the enemy retreated over the hill. I figured I took out eight or so, we would find out later when the bodies were recovered. Fifty cal wounds were pretty easy to identify as it basically exploded them like a watermelon.

"Nice shooting Doug."

"Good job Joe, you got me on them quick." Joe stood up as I unloaded my weapon. It was only when I tried to get up on my knees I noticed there was something wrong.

"Doug... lay down. CORPSMAN!!" Joe held me down with one arm while he got out his flashlight. "Fuck, man, just sit still and wait."

I reached back with one hand to where my butt hurt, feeling the blood that soaked my boxers as my fingers reached the shard of metal embedded just below the Kevlar vest in the top of my right butt cheek. "Fucking hell, man, the bastards shot me in the ass!"

Joe moved aside as Doc moved into our position, taking the rifle and spotting scope with him. Doc cut my boxers off with a scalpel, leaving me bare-ass facing the rest of the team as he cleaned away the blood and inspected the jagged shard. I had a couple other small wounds on my legs he quickly bandaged. "L.T., we need a medevac for him." Our platoon leader moved away to call it in. "Jesus, Doug... wait till the nurses get a look at that pasty white butt of yours."

"Fuck you, Doc, I'm from Minnesota, that's TAN for us." Doc laughed as he packed the wound with gauze then tied a field dressing over it. He also gave me some morphine. That's some good shit. Pretty soon I was feeling no pain.

Doc, Joe and the Lieutenant had a conversation while I was relaxing on the shooting pad. "When did he get hit?"

Joe thought about it. "The only mortar shell that was close to us was one of the first three. This guy shot for 15 minutes without noticing he had a piece of steel in his ass."

Doc looked at them. "It can happen, in the heat of battle you don't always notice your wounds."

I looked up at them. "I didn't feel anything until I tried to get up. Can you pull this shit out?"

"Doug, I have to leave it in, it will be uncomfortable as hell but the surgeons will need to do it." I was lifted face down onto a stretcher, covered with a blanket and waited for the Pedros to arrive. "By the way... the nurses at the field hospital are mostly guys. Maybe you have a chance since you'll be ass up in the hospital bed for a few weeks."

"Don't ask, don't tell, right Doc? And how exactly would you know?" He didn't answer as the helicopter arrived. The rest was a blur, the flight, the arrival, the surgery (of course I was out for that.) Even the recovery went fast. I was in Germany less than 24 hours after being hit. A Marine Colonel presented me with my Purple Heart just before I loaded up for the States. I never got a chance to say goodbye to my team, but I did text Joe and let him know I was OK. Since I was so close to end of service and needed time to recover, the Marines processed me out and sent me home to recover, with outpatient care at the Minneapolis VA. As Forrest Gump would say, "It was a million dollar wound."

The piece of shrapnel was added to the shadowbox my Dad had made to commemorate my military career. They didn't even clean the blood off it.

So I was back home, with nothing much to do except physical therapy and the Internet. I didn't like going out in public. Too many people recognized me, and just like in the Marines, there were a portion of those who thought I did it. So I stayed home, I learned, and I plotted.

I told my Dad I wanted to go up and search for her. His advice, put succinctly, was "Are you fucking crazy?" I tried to tell him I wasn't, but he wasn't done. "If you find her, it's because you did it. If you don't find her, you were covering up the evidence. There is no scenario under which this works out. Go to school, find a job, do something to move on with your life. It's over."

So much for paternal support. He was right, but it wasn't the first time I ignored his advice. After all, he wanted me to go into the Air Force.

I waited until he was at work before I packed and left, leaving a note that I needed to get away and was going to visit some buddies in California. I had a little money left over, enough to cover a few months out in the woods. I put my cold weather gear, camping equipment and weapons in my 4x4 pickup. I drove to an Army surplus store and stocked it with enough MRE's and dehydrated foods to camp for a few months. I then drove to the same trailhead I had been driven from in handcuffs, parking the truck off the road and covering it with pine branches. It wouldn't withstand scrutiny, but it would be enough to hide it if you weren't looking for it.

It took a week to move all the material to my forward observation post. I had located a small cave near a stream leading to the lake and decided to make that my base. I spent a few days building a sheltered entrance, a sleeping platform, and storage. The rest of the time was hiking back and forth over the snowy trail. It was early November, and the national forest was still pretty empty. The days were short, nights bitterly cold, and the cave was a quiet and uncomfortable hide. In other words, typical for a Sniper.

As soon as I got everything set, I started my scouting trips. I had snowshoes with me for when the snow got deep, but so far it wasn't bad. I started scouting with the lake we had camped at, working my way out. I didn't expect to find her, really- too much snow and too late in the year for that. It was all right. The snow made it easier to find and track the wolves.

I started seeing some tracks about ten miles from my base camp. It was too far away to commute to my base camp, so I set up a sniper hide on a rock overlooking the small lake. It was on the side away from where the tracks were seen but I could see the entire lake and surrounding forest. I figured I would give it a few days and see if they returned. If nothing showed up, I could always keep looking.

The hide was basically a foam pad, a few sleeping bags, and a tarp covered with branches. I couldn't move much, but I had good sightlines and an elevated firing position. My baby was at the ready, scope covers down and sandbag at the front. I spent two days watching and listening before it paid off.

I had used a laser rangefinder and a satellite map to make a range chart of the water and woods in front of my hide. When the dark brown wolf started moving down the steam to the water, I quickly checked that I had 887 yards. There was no wind, and my ballistics computer had already been programmed with altitude and temperature. For me, this was an easy shot. I adjusted the elevation on my scope and settled in behind my rifle.

Relax... breathe... focus on the movement of the crosshairs. Take up the slack on the trigger. Deep breath. Let it out halfway. Send it.

The shot traveled true, and I chambered another round while it was in the air. I saw it hit that huge wolf in the chest and blow through. The wolf dropped immediately. I caught motion in the top of my scope and quickly adjusted to where a second wolf was coming out of the woods. I had another shot in seconds, but in that time the sound of the first shot had reached it and it jumped away. It might have grazed it but it didn't go down. I had chambered another round, but it ran into the forest before I could get another shot off. I heard it howl, a howl that seemed full of anger and grief, not the kind of howl you normally associate with wolves. It was chilling.

I kept watching for a while, but no more wolves appeared. I heard the howls of a pack in the distance, and again later. That was weird. I thought the noise of the shots would scare away the wolves, but these seemed to be coming closer. I kept watching, but soon the sun was down and the moon wouldn't rise for another few hours. The night was cold, still and quiet.

Too quiet.

The total absence of noise was my first clue something was around. The next was the low growl behind me.

I couldn't see a damn thing.

I had a surprise for them, a flare gun. I reached around the tarp and fired the parachute flare straight up. In seconds the bright light illuminated everything within a hundred yards. What I saw scared the shit out of me.

Wolves. A whole fucking pack of them. They were gathered in a semicircle around me, growling and slowly advancing. The lake and its thin ice was behind me, there was no way out. I knew I was a dead man, but I wasn't going down without a fight. The rifle was useless except as a club, so I stood up and drew my Smith and Wesson pistol from my thigh holster. There were dozens of wolves and 19 rounds, and only a few seconds of flare light left.

I had just lined up my sights on a big white wolf when I saw it was changing. Before the light went away, I saw a naked human standing before me. Not just any woman, either. My hand dropped to my side and the pistol slid from it to the ground.

"LISSA!"

I dropped to my knees as the wolves closed in. They swarmed me, two grabbed my arms and pulled me back as a third barreled into my chest. Standing over me, the biggest one took my neck in its teeth and bit down. I could feel the blood pooling into the snow. The last thing I heard before darkness came was my girlfriend begging them to stop.