Where Freedom Reigns

Chapter 12

Fort Carson, Colorado

The coyote was small for its age but otherwise healthy. This, in itself, was not particularly noteworthy. However, the fact that he lived in the middle of the Fort Carson military reservation, where every day, seventy-ton mechanical monsters maneuvered at high speed, trying to kill each other in war games, made it downright remarkable. He had been part of a big litter whose mother was blasted to pieces by a .50 caliber machine gun twelve months earlier. His litter mates were long since dead but this tough little guy had learned to survive on pure wits alone, dodging in and out of the heavy armor that regularly raced across the dusty plains. He was a strong runner capable of galloping at nearly forty miles an hour. When combined with his keen eyes and cunning brain, it kept him out of harm's way from even the most deadly of the Army's armored vehicles, its main battle tanks. 

Despite this hostile environment, he had learned to survive. The pot belly that hung between his gangly legs like a softball in a fur sack was kept full on a diet of field mice, lizards, and an occasional snake that fled before the tanks. He had become so brazen and nimble at doing this that the men of the 3rd Armored Cavalry had adopted him as their unofficial squadron mascot. Not surprisingly, they named him Wiley and the word quickly spread through the squadrons that he was not to be harmed. This put added pressure on the tank drivers, for now not only did they have to avoid "enemy tanks" during their war games, but Wiley as well. 

However, the tank crews participating in the exercises on that particular day need not have worried. Wiley was sitting safely up on a hill watching units of the 3rd Armored Cavalry and the 49th Armored Division of the Texas National Guard attempt to out-maneuver and destroy each other. Even though his little brain could not comprehend the significance of humans playing at war, the sight of so many killing machines all moving at once told him that on that Colorado autumn day, he was better off going hungry. 

As Wiley watched intently from afar, the front of an M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank smashed into a ditch filled with water, sending mud and spray flying everywhere. The tank easily cleared the ditch and continued on its way, followed by two others. They crossed Phase Line Debbie as they went, which was the code name the squadron gave to imaginary lines on the map used to mark progress along their line of advance. The little coyote shifted uncomfortably as the ground literally shook, and the air was filled with mechanical thunder and the pungent smell of diesel fumes. He watched intently as the three tanks raced across the desert floor, placing a thousand yards between them and himself. 

In the open commander's hatch of the lead tank of Company B of the 49th, Captain Larry Stirritt, thirty-four, sat staring intently out across the plains through binoculars. "Do you have him?" he shouted into the microphone on his headset. Not getting a reply, Stirritt dropped into his command seat, pulling the lid of the hatch closed above him. Directly in front of him, the tank's gunner was anxiously typing coordinates into the computer console, as the tank jolted and jostled its way down the arroyo. "Do you have him or don't you?" shouted Stirritt again, his voice filled with a mixture of impatience and apprehension. 

"I think so, sir," was the young gunner's reply. 

Sitting beside the captain, the loader got a shell ready. 

"I've got him!" the gunner suddenly said with relief. 

With that, the loader put down the shell instead of loading it, but closed the breach exactly as if he had and yelled, "Up!" 

In quick succession, the gunner then yelled, "On the way!" 

The captain looked through his thermal imaging scope at the target fast approaching them, and then at his digital video display. Then he looked away, disgusted.