Trial By Fire (46 page)

Got that?”

The MP, taken aback by Jan’s response, looked at her with wide eyes for a few seconds, then turned to his sergeant for guidance. The sergeant, not sure what to make of the angry woman with the violent temper, was unsure what to do. If he sent his MP back to the G3 with the message Jan had just relayed, and the G3 really didn’t know who this reporter was, he might find himself relieved or something even worse. On the other hand, if he didn’t send the MP back with the new message, he would have to deal with the crazy woman standing less than two feet in front of him.

Between the look on her face and her proximity to him, Jan appeared to be the greater of the two threats at that particular moment. Deciding that the old saying that discretion was the better part of valor applied, the sergeant turned to his MP and told him to inform the G3 that the young female correspondent was quite insistent and was threatening him with grave domestic consequences if he did not respond to her request. The MP, trying hard to suppress a grin, shook his head, turned, and disappeared into the courthouse.

By the time Dixon came out onto the steps where Jan had been waiting, she had, for the most part, calmed down. Dixon’s appearance, in desert camouflage uniform, along with his web gear arranged for field duty, holster and pistol, protective mask, and helmet, took her aback for a moment. They were serious, she thought. The appearance of Dixon in downtown Laredo, ready for battle, finally convinced her that the government of the United States was really serious about fighting. Without having to be told, and not needing to do any complicated analysis in which she weighed all available evidence, Jan knew that there would be war. In her heart, she knew it.

Still, she had a little fire left from the joke Dixon had played at her expense. When he reached her, Dixon fanned that fire into a raging flame by greeting her with hands held out and a broad smile as if he had done nothing. “Jan, what a lovely surprise.”

With her hands on her hips, her upper torso angled forward, and her feet spread shoulder width apart, Jan greeted Scott with a growl. “Scott Dixon, you can be a real jerk sometimes. And don’t give me that ‘What did I do now?’ look either.”

Stopping a few feet from her, he paused for a few seconds to admire Jan, who remained standing on the steps below him in her defiant pose.

Her long, dark brown hair was pulled back, probably done up in a French braid. Her oval face, though masked with an angry expression, was tanned from hours of tromping about shooting stories in south Texas. If she was wearing makeup, it was applied with such skill that it blended nicely. The white cotton blouse she wore, no longer crisp and neat after

.a day in the late summer heat of Texas, had the top three buttons undone.

The khaki walking shorts she wore ended just above her knees. Although Dixon found the knees one of the more unimpressive parts of the female body, he admired the calves and thighs that they connected. He was therefore willing to overlook the imperfections that naked kneecaps abounded in. All in all, though fewpeople would call Jan Fields a natural beauty, the image before him, and the person that it represented, had come to mean more to Dixon than anything else. Raising his hands in mock surrender, Dixon called out, “Okay, cease fire, I give up,” as he shuffled down the last few steps that separated him from Jan.

Still angry at the fun Dixon had had at her expense and wanting to play out her show of rage and indignation a bit longer, Jan folded her arms across her chest as Dixon approached, and turned away from him. Dixon, stopping on the step above the one Jan was on, looked down over her shoulder, staring at the exposed cleavage that Jan’s folded arms raised and accentuated. For a moment he stood there, both to admire the view and to evaluate her mood, though he already knew that she wasn’t really mad at him. If she were, she would have turned on him like a cat on a strange dog. No, Dixon decided, it was her turn to have some fun with him. He had embarrassed her in front of the MPs, who were still watching at a respectful distance, though they both tried to pretend that they weren’t. Without a word, he knew that before they could continue, she would have to have her pound of flesh, or at least an apology appropriate to the offense.

Walking around her and down two steps so that he now faced her on a slightly lower level, Dixon took off his helmet, tucked it under his left arm, extended his arms, palms up, and looked up at her. “Dear Jan, I do humbly apologize for making you look like a fool. It’s just that doing so is so easy. And besides, I can’t help myself.”

Jan looked at him, thinking about what he had just said. He was still mocking her, but she really didn’t want to continue to press the point. He was obviously in a playful mood that she didn’t feel up to matching. His hair, receding at the temples and graying on the sides, was cut ludicrously short. The sides, clipped in what Dixon referred to as whitewalls, looked more like beard stubble than hair. Jan ran her fingers through the scant hair left on top. She enjoyed running her hands through Dixon’s hair, when he had enough, and was always saddened when he had it chopped away. Taking a deep breath and letting it out, she looked into his eyes.

“See you got yourself a haircut.”

Dixon, using the palm of his right hand, wiped away the sweat that had beaded up on the right side of his scalp above his ear. “Well, until someone figures out a way to improve the ventilation in the Kevlar helmets, short hair is the way to go.”

When he dropped his hand to his side, Jan raised her two hands to his head, running them along his temples and stopping when they came to rest on his cheeks. With a gentle squeeze, Jan held his face in her hands, tilting it up toward hers. “We have nearly an hour until the president comes on TV and enlightens us with his latest pearls of wisdom. All will be forgiven, provided you buy me something cold and wet. I’m dying of thirst.”

Dixon smiled. “Your wish, my dear, is my command. I happen to know this great little convenience mart a few blocks from here that sells the greatest thirty-two-ounce drinks this side of the Rio Bravo.”

As they walked to the convenience mart, Dixon, for the most part, was silent as Jan talked about the shooting she had done during the past few days as well as what she was planning to do next. Much of her activity had included a healthy dose of the history of Texas, which she was using as background for her stories, and which she now related to Dixon. In one piece, shot outside Meir, Texas, Jan recounted how a small group of Texans, bent on invading Mexico in 1842, had been captured by the Mexican Army. She used this as a lead-in to a story that recounted the problems the Republic of Texas and the Republic of the Rio Grande had had with Mexico after the War for Texas Independence. These incidents, Jan explained, coupled with vigorous lobbying from Texans and expansionists in the United States, had led to what she now referred to as the first Mexican War. That war, Jan told Dixon, had resulted in strained relations between Mexico and United States that had never healed and often resulted in misunderstandings and, at times, incidents like the one that had just occurred in Laredo. In another piece Jan had done, she told of some of these minor border incidents between the American Army and Mexican forces at the beginning of the first Mexican War. Not far from Me Allen, Texas, Jan and her crew visited the site where a patrol of sixty-three U.S. dragoons, led by Captain Seth Thornton, was intercepted and ambushed by Mexican General Anastasio Torrej6n on April 23, 1845. When they shot that piece, Jan had intended to use it for another story. Instead, she explained how she’d use it as a lead-in during her report on the incursion into Mexico by U.S. forces that morning.

After buying their drinks, and as they returned to city hall, Jan told Dixon all was not going well, though. She and her crew had planned to cross over into Mexico to visit several historic sites over the next few days as well as to interview local Mexican officials. That, she pointed out, was highly unlikely after the incident of that morning.

While she spoke, Dixon marveled at Jan’s ability to travel about with her little crew and do what she did. Conventional wisdom viewed Dixon’s duties, those of an American soldier, as dangerous and difficult.

Dixon, however, didn’t feel that way. While being a soldier entailed danger and the requirement to place life and limb in harm’s way, on command, what Jan did was often times as dangerous, and infinitely more difficult.. Dixon, especially as a general staff officer, operated within a very large and complex organization known as the United States Army.

The Army delineated his exact duties.and responsibilities, provided training until he mastered those duties, and for the most part then told him what to do, when to do it, and where to do it. To perform his assigned duties, Dixon had a large number of soldiers to assist him. Like Dixon, these soldiers had well-defined duties and the training required to perform those duties, as well as the necessary equipment. In addition, the Army provided for the physical well-being of Dixon and his soldiers by creating and following them with a support system that provided them with their meals, clothing and personal equipment, supplies used to perform their duties, health and comfort items, and medical support. There were even special units, called Greggs, short for “grave registrations,” that would tag, bag, and bury Dixon or any of his men should they die in the line of duty. In the United States Army, and all of its sister services, it was an article of faith that the soldiers who had volunteered to go forth and do battle for their country would receive all the support and help that the nation and its government could provide those soldiers.

In Jan’s field, by contrast, she was on her own. Everything, from learning the techniques of her craft, to learning how to hustle a news story, was up to her. The only thing she and her crew got from
WNN
, whom she was now working for, was the equipment needed to shoot and transmit their stories. Everything else, from clothing to lodging, was up to them to obtain. While they did receive a nice per diem rate that was meant to cover all their personal needs, it was far different from having someone hand them to you, like the Army did for Dixon.

Even more significant was the fact that, legally and practically, the rights and protection afforded to Jan and her crew were no different than those of any ordinary citizen. When Jan and her crew were out chasing a story, whether it was in Austin, Texas, or in the mountains of Mexico, they were on their own. They had to protect themselves, and if one of them became injured, they had to fend for themselves. By comparison, even though Dixon was the soldier, he was relatively safe, protected by distance from the forward edge of the battle area, and by units such as the MP platoon assigned to guard the division command post and commanding general. Drawn to where the action was by the need to get her story, Jan had no one and nothing to protect her. Dixon thought on that for a moment, reflecting how strange it was that he, pledged to defend and uphold the Constitution, could, in reality, do nothing to protect his lover from the danger she so readily put herself in. Not that there was anything he would do to change such things. Both he and Jan were adults, two people who had their own aspirations and callings, and at the same time, they loved each other so much that neither wished to change the other.

When they got back to the steps of city hall, Jan and Dixon sat as far away from the main entrance as they could. For a moment, there was a pause as each tried to find something to talk about. Dixon, with full knowledge of the current situation on both sides of the Rio Grande, as well as what the president was going to announce in less than thirty minutes, had to be careful what he said, or even implied. Jan, a reporter by profession and nature, had to suppress her natural desire to probe for the information she knew Dixon had. It was not the nature of the trite conversation that mattered, however; it was the proximity of the person that each loved, the sound of their voices, and the tone of the conversation they fell onto. The time they spent that evening on the steps of the Laredo city hall was, for both, a period of rest and renewal as they drew upon each other’s strength in preparation for the ordeal each knew was coming.

Dixon heard the tromp of combat boots approaching on the steps behind him before Jan did. The steps were hurried, which meant the owner of the boots wasn’t coming over for a social call. For a moment, he tried to ignore the approaching boots, hoping they were headed somewhere else—

but he wasn’t that lucky. When the sound of the boots was only a few feet away, the voice of the general’s aide called him. “Colonel Dixon, the CG

needs to see you
ASAP
.”

Twisting his head around, Dixon watched as the division commander’s aide came down and around until he was facing Dixon and Jan. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, Ms. Fields. But we just got this in.” With that, he thrust out a sheet of yellow paper, folded in half, that Dixon recognized as a spot report form.

Dixon unfolded the spot report and read it. Jan, anxious to see what was on it, nevertheless restrained herself, concentrating on taking a long, slow sip from the soda she held. Folding the paper in half again and handing it back to the aide, Dixon told him he would be along in a minute. The aide saluted, then went scurrying back up the steps. When he was gone, Dixon reached out with his left hand and put it on Jan’s legs.

“Well, my dear, duty calls.”

Leaning over so that her right arm was against his left, Jan looked at Dixon, who was staring off into the distance. “Hot date with Big Al?”

Patting her leg, he turned and looked Jan in the eye. “Well, I guess you’ll find out soon enough. Seems our friends south of the border aren’t going to buy the president’s plan.”

Jan was intrigued. “What plan?”

Looking away from her, back to the distant object that he had been staring at, Dixon slowly, carefully, explained to Jan. “The president of the United States is going to annodnce to the American public in twenty minutes his proposal to solve our little border problem, a solution that the American ambassador presented to the Council of 13 in Mexico City a little over four hours ago.” Dixon paused, took a drink, and then continued.