Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement
A short story in the Karl Warren universe
It was only a .22 rifle, but with the right kind of rifle and the right kind of round, a person could take care of all manner of unfriendly creatures scurrying around a farm.
Though not the best shot in the world, with a good scope, which I had, any menace within 100 yards or so would be dead or, at the bare minimum, would at least have been given notice that their presence wasn’t welcome. I knew this because my parcel on the outskirts of Westwood was big enough that I could plink away with my varmint gun and not have anyone complain. Hell, the nearest neighbors, the Powells, were a mile down the road. There were a few tree stumps down the way from my barn that I used as my targets, but I’d never dream of harming a living thing unless it was a threat. The only reason I had the rifle was not to keep away armed invaders but to keep my girls safe, my chickens.
I’d become more protective of these girls than I ever thought I could be. Though I grew up in semi-rural Missouri, I wasn’t a farm kid, and my family never raised anything more than a couple of dogs over the years. Chickens were something that my friend Sanchez, the Chief of Westwood PD, foisted on me. Even though they had a rooster, Big Red, as their sovereign, they were MY girls, and they quickly became a stand-in for all the people I couldn’t save while on the job. I even named a few of them as such.
There was Cassandra, a tiny white bantam named after a little girl who thought the pain of life was too great to continue, so she ended it herself. I had a vibrant and loud Rhode Island Red named Mandy, after a lively and loud restaurant server. She was killed by a stalker that no one, us cops included, took seriously until it was too late. Swimmer was an odd-looking mixed breed with a crooked leg. She was named after a young guy whose swim team teammates bullied him so hard because of his physical imperfections that he thought it best to steal his stepfather’s gun and kill himself. I got to help clean up that mess. I can’t change the past—but I can do what I can to save my chickens. So far, I’ve done a better job protecting them than humans.
My time is open and my responsibilities are few. I wake, drink cheap coffee on my porch, work on rehabbing my 20 acres from a hay field back to a prairie, and tend to my flock. Since leaving the department, that’s been my life—that and heavy drinking.
The dangers are different here. I don’t have bullies, stalkers, addicts, or pedophiles. I have crows, hawks, barn cats, and the worst of them all: coyotes. So far, I’ve been lucky to have not lost a bird, but the threat was always there.
Big Red knew the fucker was around. Maybe he saw him, or maybe he smelled him—if chickens do that, the big fella, also a Rhode Island Red, did what he was supposed to do. He alerted all the girls ranging a little too wide afield and started corralling them closer to the barn.
I was lucky to be outside in the garden, so I saw and heard him react. Since we’ve been having these scares lately, I kept my .22 outside with me and leaned against the fence where I could quickly grab it. I reached for it and got into a firing position. Even though my military years were spent as an MP with only limited rifle time, I did the best my training allowed—even though my main threat was probably a varmint and not a team of insurgents trying to take out my team.
I moved from the never-used goat pen back to the door of the coop. Some of the girls knew well enough that the day was about to get worse, so a few of them started flitting their way in through the wooden coop door even though it was an hour before night-night time. Big Red was in the field with about ten of the girls, but they were 20 yards away from the woodline. The long grasses and shrubs had built up so thickly there, and I always worried when my flock wandered close. Mainly, the area was home to bunnies and opossums, but I knew that it also provided cover for feral cats and coyotes. Today was one of those days that I regretted not burning down the whole strip of brush between my field and the neighbor’s, giving the predators a place to hide and myself a clear field of fire.
Why didn’t I just go over there and scare off whatever was out there? Why couldn’t I make enough human noise and leave enough scent by peeing to let any four-legged trespasser know this was unsafe land for their kind? Why didn’t I do something more than wait to kill something? Watching through the scope made the scene seem unreal, like a video I could observe without emotion or investment.
As I said, I may not be the best shot in the world, but at this distance, about 50 yards, and with my firm firing position, I’d have great odds of hitting what I shot at. I was standing, but my left hand was leaning on a fence post, and I rested my rifle stock on my left thumb. As I only had about a 10-yard piece of the woodline I had to cover, the lateral range was nothing.
The girls in the field returned to pecking and scratching amongst the grasses and late summer wildflowers, but Big Red was still alert. He knew something was up and that something was in the woodline. Through the scope, I could see the signs of his distress: the extra uprightness of his head, his quick head motions, and firm gaze. I wanted to ask him why he didn’t just hurry the girls back home, but I was busy watching and waiting for what might happen next. Did I want something bad to happen? Or was I afraid to pull the trigger again?
He was a mechanized infantryman. Never one of my favorites to begin with, but that’s my prejudice. This particular soldier was a serial abuser, apparently, but we didn’t know his history at the time. We just knew he was drunk and that he had a gun—and his wife. I wasn’t even on patrol, but I happened to be on duty working an investigation and close by with a weapon, so I was dispatched to assist.
I was the initial responder to their home and cocked it up pretty badly. I came in too hot, made too many demands of the guy, and generally made a mess of an all-too-tense situation. Maybe I could have backed out and waited for the special response team, but with the wife present and in danger, I couldn’t just leave. I was committed. The Patrol Supervisor was the next on the scene, and he helped de-escalate as well as he could, but the guy was a fucking mess, out of his mind with alcohol and anger. We were in a no-bullshit showdown.
The wheat grass and sagebrush moved in a way that suggested something other than the wind. I adjusted the positioning of my aim accordingly and waited. Despite not seeing the creature, I assumed it was a coyote. I could imagine its brown, black, and grey fur all bunched up and ready to pounce on one of my girls. Whichever one it went after, Big Red would probably throw himself at the wild dog and make himself a target. That’s how “chicken” chickens are. They’re far more brave than that slander carries. The wind came and blew my memories back to the South.
One could say things had escalated poorly. Sergeant Davis continued to talk to the infantryman in a casual-as-one-can-be voice despite the pistol the soldier was waving around. Davis had his hands in front of him so anyone could see he wasn’t holding. His job was to communicate with the guy. My job was to cover him. I was 12 feet away and had a good angle. I thought he should have drawn his weapon, but he was senior to me. What do I know?
I’ve never killed an animal before. I might have killed ants, cockroaches, and flies around the house as a kid, but I wasn’t one to pull wings off butterflies or swat at bees. Mother instilled this in me. She saved all of her pent-up compassion on others, and despite the self-harm in her last few years, never killed spiders or bugs that wandered inside our seemingly respectable home. Instead she trapped and released them outside. I recall my brothers, before their untimely deaths, trapping and torturing a house mouse, and when Mother found out, she raised holy hell for a week. Had Father been around, she’d have left it to him, but she had to handle discipline herself—so no video games for a week, but she always relented after a few days.
The punishment, or at least the threat of it, worked, but what carried more weight was her delight every time she saw a butterfly or moth. She marveled at them. For bees, she suggested that those clunky bugs had no business being able to fly their fat bodies on such delicate and tiny wings. Every year at the state fair in Sedalia, she would drag me around to every animal in the exhibits, chickens, rabbits, and goats especially, and tell me everything she knew from her childhood years as a 4-H kid. It wasn’t just the stick of punishment but the carrot of her love and amazement with these creatures, too. Her appreciation became infectious, and I never intentionally harmed any animal—even humans.
Corporal Jeffrey Pennington was his name and there was no calming him down. Sgt Davis would get the man’s ravings under control for a brief moment or two, but then the man’s demons would swirl with the booze and come up with another reason to be angry and hateful toward the world. I waited, weapon at the ready. He waved his pistol around and held onto his wife’s belt, keeping her between us. Though I had a clean shot now and then, he’d never actually pointed his weapon at any of us. He talked a good game, but our limitations were pretty clear: we can’t shoot unless there is imminent danger. There wasn’t yet. Just a lot of anger, alcohol, and a gun being waved around.
The grass and brush made for excellent concealment but not great cover, the difference being that cover can shield one from munitions and concealment only from sight. As soon as I saw the coyote, I could have taken a shot and killed him. I could only see his back, but I had a good enough idea where his head and heart would be that I felt I could take a shot and take him out—but he hadn’t pointed the gun yet. He was just waiting and watching, weighing the odds of a rush into the field.
Maybe he had picked up some human scent. Maybe it was too early and bright. Maybe he knew the chickens could put up a fight he wasn’t unprepared for. Maybe, maybe, maybe. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t violating the rules of engagement yet. He just sat there waiting in the brush and the grass, sniffing the air, weighing the odds.
Maybe Pennington weighed the odds, too. Maybe he thought he could lash out with his anger and gun yet still be victorious. Maybe he thought he could kill his wife, and then we would solve his problem for him by killing him. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
The coyote sank down a little, and its rear end hiked up like it was preparing for a rush. In the field, Big Red upped his game a little, squawking more and flapping his wings. The hens took heed and scrambled back home, more out of fear of Big Red than anything else.
“Fuck you and fuck her!” Pennington screamed at Davis. My life is fucked! You can’t help me.”
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We both noticed that Pennington was amping up and that his gun was getting closer and closer to his wife’s head. Davis’s pleading had become just noise to the drunk soldier, and we both knew time was short. Davis didn’t drop his hands, but with the hand closer to me, his left, he curled his last three fingers, leaving only the thumb and forefinger, making a pistol. We all knew this sign as a “go” sign, and it was the last thing I wanted to see. It meant I was free to shoot when I had a clear shot.
I couldn’t see the coyote’s head anymore; it was just its backside and tail twitching. It must have been doing that little dance that dogs and cats do before they attack. I should have shot.
Its tail twitched again, then became still. Even in the lessening light of the golden hour, I could see it clearly through the scope. I still could have dropped the weapon and run out there making noise, whooping and hollering. Instead, I waited, looking through the scope, finger on the trigger. Davis wasn’t there to give me the signal.
I took my shot. The recoil from my service weapon, a Beretta 9mm, was minimal and allowed me to send one more round at Pennington’s head before he separated from his wife and collapsed as if someone had turned his light switch off. I was expecting a scream from the wife, but she remained exactly where she was until Davis pulled her towards him, all without a sound. My training had kicked in as I stepped close to the body and kicked his pistol away from him.
The crack of the rifle echoed off the low clouds and the nearby mountains. Big Red and the gang barely flinched, but I couldn’t see the wild dog’s tail. Did I get him? Was it lying in a heap, bleeding out, thinking of its family? Did I kill it outright, and its breath and warmth are leaving it as I stand here?
The chickens parted out of my way as I made my way through the high grass to the treeline and hedgerows where my bullet went. The wild roses had withered, but the ninebark was full and flush, so there was plenty of space for a varmint to hide and to cover the sight of his escape. There were no blood spatters. No nothing. He had escaped silently. I’d have to be satisfied that he probably got the scare of his life, or so I told myself. At least, by not killing him, I could play video games tonight.