The Road Less Traveled by D.A.Sanford - HTML preview

Warrior

I find myself getting mad. At least wait for the police. It was an accident. That short life was a good one but I turn as that scene of me fades away. I am snapped back to this reality. There is the sound of a battle going on somewhere near.

I am on a hill with another person. That one is calling out directions and wind speed. I know what he is saying. I find myself looking through a high power sight. I am a sniper and I look at the person in the cross hairs.

My spotter gives me the information and I adjust the scope for those condition. I acknowledge, exhale and gently pull the trigger. Down goes a brutal general. “Hit” the spotter says.

“Last target,” and we take that one. Now we both police up the site, then it is time to make for the extraction point. It is strange that I feel no remorse. It is my task to remove those who are an obstacle to the final peace. I am in demand because I only take those ones that are proven to be doers of perpetuating this war.

The report out was the usual. All of those who I report to know that the avenging angel does not like flattery. I don’t tolerate any praise. It is my chosen task. Something that I was born for. Each report is someone bad that is no longer alive. Each is evil.

I do my research and make sure that the assignment is not a grudge hit. Let the others do that, I have too much self respect.

I grew up in the mountains where all the family helped. The whole area that I lived in were all self sufficient. Hunt, farm and such. In other words, others saw us as poor. All of our neighbors would help each other. The old ones would always have game and vegetables left on their front porch.

I, from my earliest memories, was trained to take one shot. My father said that we don’t waste ammunition. He would always show me where the kill shot was on each animal. “Either hit the heart or a neck shot to sever the spine.” Is what he would say.

Under his tutelage, I became well known as the one that would never miss, never will take the shot until I am sure of the kill. No one questioned my answer when a man tried to take my kill.

I was in my early teens and he was an outsider. A stranger. No one knew him. He just grabbed the deer and told me that it was his shot that killed it. We both knew that there was only one shot. As he was claiming the deer, he was pointing his weapon at me. Not the time for the one shot.

Walking away as he dragged my deer in the opposite direction, I kept an eye on him. He was so confident that he stopped to gut the deer. He never noticed the young boy behind a tree take aim and use his one shot.

The local sheriff was called and it was determined that I was only responding to a threat to my life. They buried him where he was. The sheriff’s parents were ones that I always left something on their porch.

By the time I was in my late teens, the notice came that I was drafted. In our area, you answered the call. This country did not try to interfere with our way of living so service was almost a payment for our freedom.

In basic, I was always up to the physical challenges. We may have been poor in money but we had locals that made sure that all of us children got a good education, not indoctrination. It was at the shooting range that they found out about my talent.

The range master called my first shot dead center but the second shot he called a miss. I asked him to have that checked again. A look at the target showed a slight trace of the second bullet in the center. He had the target changed but with the instructions of patching it after each shot.

By the time of me running out of the box of ammunition I was given, the whole range had stopped and was watching. A box of fifty and all in the same dead center. I found myself being pulled out of my basic training class and was now in a “special” sniper class.

While my original class had graduated and were off to war, I was now in possession of the best rifle and scope I had ever had. I did find it slightly irritating having someone next to me calling out distance and wind speed. You see, with that scope, I was now hitting center at greater distances. My spotter was needed to give me the information to be able to adjust my cross hairs.

That is how I found myself on top of hills taking out officers from that opposing side. I did love seeing the other officers pissed off and the dead one’s troupes firing off in all directions.

I now have had many other spotters. I am known to be hard on them. Knowing what I know, there have been some that I take the range glasses from them and saw that they were reading something wrong. When back in camp, I would basically fire them.

Most, if not all would be sent back to regular ground pounder ranks. I did not care because I need the accurate information but I also know when some of that information is incorrect.

Most of those sent back, may just have been battle fodder. They spotted not taken a shot. They watched, not killed. My rejects were branded as failures. This last one has lasted longer than anyone. We have been a team for many years.

Now I have a need to go home. I have been at the top of my profession for more than thirty years. Home was where I needed to be. The service gave me my discharge and destroyed my records. In place of them was a very dull generic record as a cook.

Home is not what I remember, it had been too many years away. Other people were finding that the view was exactly what they wanted and were willing to pay good money for the view. My parents had died and my siblings took the money. I had bought a large valley. My service pay was such that I was able to afford it.

In the valley, I cleared and built my new home. I loved that fact that I owned enough land as to be far from all others. Most of my adult life was being basically alone. Making the life or death decision on others. Good versus evil. Spotters were almost a tool to me so in effect I was alone most of my adult life and this suited me.

I heard the shot and felt what was a hornet sting.

Now I was away from my body. It was face down, oozing life’s blood onto the ground. My last spotter comes out of the brush and flips the body over. He is laughing hysterically as he pisses on the body.

“That’s exactly how I pictured you. Dead and pissed on. My father was a spotter that you got rid of. He never came home because he was killed in his first battle. The letters he wrote to my mother were filled with the hate he felt towards you for ruining him. Father I have avenged you.”

He kicks my body and runs away.