THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXVII
I woke up the morning after Christmas and eased out of bed. My wife made me believe she was still asleep, like she always did although any move on my part to depart the bed never failed to bring her back to life. I moved as silently as possible to get ready for the...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXVI
It was Christmas Eve, although it wasn’t the eve of anything and I wondered, as usual, why the day, from early morning until the sun went down, was still referred to as the eve of Christmas when it was simply the day before. My thoughts turned to the single subject...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXV
Joe Beard sat at Gularte’s kitchen/dining room/living room table, its top cleared and cleaned off as I’d never seen it before. He sat behind a gray plastic box that looked like a small suitcase except for its sharp edges and pointed corners. Joe looked across the top...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXIV
The morning came too soon, although ‘sleeping in’ like I’d loved to do when not at one of my jobs in college, had gone the way of the dinosaurs, lost somewhere down at the bottom of the A Shau Valley. That the valley’s name was known by no one, so never brought up by...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXIII
The ‘unseeable’ was coming home to roost, I now understood. The artifact that was entrusted to me had something to do with San Onofre, the one ‘pod’ that had been taken out of service to become some sort of hyper-secret nearly impenetrable laboratory or meeting place...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXII
The reels moved slowly, as I knelt by the bedside, transfixed by the words of the country’s sitting president. “My friend,” Nixon began, after another pause, saying the words in his strange way that nobody on earth I’d ever heard talked like, “will you guide me...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXXI
I could not talk to Paul, nor my wife, nor anyone else I could think of except one. Richard. He, Cobb, and Hunt had been intertwined in some fashion I didn’t understand, but intertwined they were, at least in my analysis of their proximity at the harbor, their special...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXX
I sat on the couch, facing the television console, Julie on my left but not snuggled up to my side as she had proven herself to be not that kind of little person. Mrs. Beasley, however, was pulled close into her left side and Bozo made believe he was watching...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXIX
Richard and I didn’t speak again. When the staff car piloted by him arrived in the compound parking lot, the Staff Sergeant was appropriately waiting only a few feet from the outer wall doors He opened the back door to the car before I could let myself out, and then...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXVIII
The single word “unseeable” ate at my foundations. Instinctively, I knew that word had nothing to do with nuclear power or any of what went on at the plant. The word didn’t refer, by definition, to something being unable to be seen because it was too secret to be...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXVII
I couldn’t sleep, but that was nothing new since the Nam. The doctors at the VA said that nobody could stay awake for days and nights on end but my time in the valley and then the nights and days after coming home had disproven that, not that my word about such things...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXVI
Earlier in the day the weather had been so very Southern California that I hadn’t noticed it, as I ran around arranging everything I would need for the mission. However, when I was ‘installing’ the Bronco, once again, in between the giant beach cleaning machines at...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXV
The tapes were proving to be a nightmare, not just because the job was boring and delicate but also because of the time. There was the beach patrol issue to be dealt with, as I was on at four in the afternoon and no real way out of not spending six hours, or so doing...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXIV
I lay in bed, my body wanting to fall into a restful and restorative sleep, but my mind was having none of that. In closing my eyes, I wasn’t taken back into combat, which happened only rarely and never when I was so tired. No, it was Gularte’s words about a possible...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXIII
I made no attempt to rise to my feet, as I lay next to the lapping water on the slanted ramp. The reddish dirty bag rope dangled from my right hand. When I’d been out in the pier-end restaurant with Shawna, neither she nor any of the members of the Dwarfs, really had...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXII
I realized just how different Bob Elwell was, as I sat out at the end of the pier considering the coming dive. The simplicity of his plan, versus the overwhelming complexity of my own, amazed me. I’d given my plan only about a fifty percent chance of succeeding since...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XXI
The cat, Bozo, sat at the double doors, almost always open, as it was the morning, the cool breeze wafting in across his short, scarred by still strangely soft body fur. He looked out, although, what with the solid wood railing between him and the more distant outside...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XX
There was nobody at the Galloway restaurant when I showed up, half an hour before it was supposed to open. There were certain advantages and disadvantages I presumed in owning or running a restaurant and living in attached quarters. Lorraine was indefatigable, and Tom...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XIX
The three of us sat on the bench, our backs to Cobb’s smaller, but expensive yacht, and facing Richard’s larger and much more expensive yacht. It was readily apparent that the two boats were so closely slipped near one another out of deliberation rather than ignorance...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XVIII
I sat still inside the idling Bronco, my mind twisting and turning about the call that had come in and the mission Gularte and I had just finished, except we hadn’t finished it. The call was beyond strange, as Chiefs of Staff for presidents of the country were about...
THE COWARDLY LION Volume Three, Chapter XVII
Gularte and I worked back and forth across our interconnected plots of sand, rolling over the state beach area without stopping, as the state guards didn’t much appreciate the beach patrol’s existence much less the mostly reserve officers that manned it. “It’s a turf...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XVI
Gularte was there when I arrived. Ideas about how to do what I now felt compelled to do circulated around my brain, my tiredness from having not slept well at National Airport or being able to settle down once I got back as if I had never been there. Gularte and I...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XV
I sat facing both Haldeman and Ehrlichman, as I had in our previous session. They sat on the couch while I was in an overstuffed easy chair ninety degrees off the view of the ocean that they were facing. I didn’t make any effort to enjoy the stunning view, my full...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XIV
My wife told me that I had to let the incident between Gates and me go, or I might potentially ruin everything. My argument against that was simply one of trying to live in a state of helplessness. Following Vietnam, I was being made to feel like an important man by...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XIII
As soon as Bob was done talking the meeting turned into bedlam. “What kind of conclusion is that to come to?” Hoodoo asked into the maelstrom of everyone talking at the same time. “You have no basis in fact for any of your conclusions leading to that. We don’t know...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XII
We stood outside in the rain and wind, Butch and I staring at the replaced aluminum doors on the side of his Airstream. It was as if they had never been gone. Butch walked forward the few feet to the two steps leading up. He opened the screen door, and then the main...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter XI
The day grew ever darker and more threatening. I knew the storm wasn’t going to miss San Clemente, as it sometimes did. Living right on the shore wasn’t the best place on the planet to make weather predictions about I’d learned over time. I had little time to get to...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter X
Gularte, Richard and I gathered in the cabin of Richard’s luxury yacht. The interior was so well done in teak, stainless-steel and glass that it felt more like some exotic penthouse rather than the interior cabin of a medium-sized boat. Once again, I wondered where...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter IX
I didn’t have an answer for the Staff Sergeant, but then I didn’t think he was expecting one. His response might have indicated that he was ready to be a part of whatever action he thought was going to go down but I didn’t know him and if there was...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter VIII
My first meeting with Paul, my shrink of questionable credentials and experience, had gone amazingly well. My first act of redemption, which he never truly defined, made me feel better about myself in spite of the fact that I wasn’t sure why. I’d bought in immediately...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter VII
Richard and I spent an uncomfortable moment staring at one another. He probably wanted to ask me if I’d recognized his famous guest, but he didn’t. I wanted to ask where the U.S. Marshals that provide security and protection for the United States Secretary of State...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter VI
Gularte and Manning walked into the restaurant, both laughing as they crossed the short distance to my table. I didn’t smile when they took the available chairs on both sides of me. Lorraine appeared with ‘bad tea’ for Manning and a cup of coffee for Gularte. Neither...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter V
The ride on the freeway down toward and then through San Clemente was made in silence. I said nothing and neither of the women did either. I refused to look over at the Staff Sergeant as I felt that if I made the slightest wrong move the whole scene of which I had...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter IV
I walked on the cooling sand toward the Trestles railroad bridge, my mind clearing the web of fear the faux Claymore had brought down upon me. My thoughts were drawn back to a lesser fear. Richard. If Richard was the operative who had disposed of the troublesome...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter III
The quiet stillness in the restaurant was broken only by the regular ‘at sea’ noise coming in through the thin wooden walls and cheap sheet glass serving as spume covered windows. I took command of the group, as going any further, with respect to Richard’s loyalties,...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Three, Chapter II
The staff sergeant and I made small talk all the way to El Toro. It was normally a half hour drive, but the sergeant took his time, staying in the slow lane. His background was embassy duty, so he talked on and on about the different embassies and consulates he’d been...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two Chapter XXIX
My wife’s comment reverberated through me to the core. The last thing I wanted or needed was for her to be exposed in any way to what was developing regarding my work with the people at the compound or what had become the Seven, now Eight Dwarfs. Richard’s unexpected...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXVIII
The Dwarfs, including Richard, had broken up the evening before, and I sat to consider what I was going to do about everything. Hoodoo had gone as far as he could in trying to find anything about the Cobb woman but had come to a dead end with one single minor...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXVII
The ride back into the harbor entrance at Dana Point went smoothly, the wind and waves were at our back and there was no traffic of boats or lines of fisherman along the sea walls to impede our progress. The sound of the dual MTU diesels, thrumming away underneath me,...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXVI
The open sea beckoned us toward it, as I stared at the ever greater rise and fall of the bow. It seemed to be whispering “come my pretties,” as if somehow tied right into the wicked witch’s delivery from the Wizard of Oz. Gularte made it up from the main cabin, just...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXV
The lifeguard boat ran with the wind after making the turn to round the end of the San Clemente Pier, the only thing standing between the fast moving craft and the harbor opening into Dana Point’s yacht basin. The helicopters, Coast Guard boats and the yacht itself,...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXIV
Gularte and I struggled in attempting to do anything but hang on to the sturdy, but very slippery chrome railing. There was nothing else to hold onto as the boat was being continuously beaten all along the port side of its hull by the pounding surf. “Down,” I yelled...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXIII
I tried to sleep in the morning following my meeting with first Haldeman and Ehrlichman, and then Chief Cliff Murray. I was troubled, yet it was too early to get up because my getting up would awaken my wife, and then Julie, both of whom deserved to sleep in because...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXII
I left the Seven Dwarfs at the restaurant, wondering if a group having so much fun forming up to play private investigators, could possibly be at all effective. Gularte drove, while I prepared myself for the coming meeting. I had little doubt that Haldeman was going...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XXI
In the morning I got up early. My Marine green alpha uniform was all laid out in the other bedroom, the other bedroom that wasn’t Julie’s. All that was missing was the rows of ribbons I’d removed after being on the base over a month in the past. I went back into my...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XX
I waited patiently for Gularte, sitting in the afternoon sun, rubbing my useless government pen with the fingers of my left hand. The pen wasn’t totally useless I knew, as its presence where it was found was very likely a valuable clue. Was the person who lost it not...
THE COWARDLY LION,Volume Two, Chapter XIX
The beach was abandoned, at the point where it preceded south from the state beach but not yet a part of the Trestles Beach portion. There the point stuck out into the ocean to create the conflicting broken sea environment that led to sometimes legendary surf, which...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XVIII
Detective Hoodoo instructed Gularte and I to depart the beach scene, as he and the ‘team’ of lifeguards would handle the situation from then on. He’d already given that order but neither Gularte nor I had moved. Instead of re-issuing the earlier command he...
THE COWARDLY LION,Volume Two, Chapter XVII
I finished the shift with Herberich and Gularte. Nobody got shot, and they sort of bonded in that single time together. Not with me, but with each other. I understood, in the back seat, that I wasn’t really bondable material. I had my wife and daughter and that was...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XVI
I left Mardian at the pool, since I’d given him everything I had about whatever it was I was supposed to know, but really didn’t. The money was invisibly held into the middle of the clamshell holster meant to hold and conceal a Smith and Wesson .44 Magnum, 4 inch...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XV
Gularte was waiting at the beach unit when I arrived at the city parking lot, my Volkswagen’s engine knocking a bit, which had me worried, but not unduly so. The thing was still under warranty, although I had no replacement if it might be in the dealership shop for...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, CHAPTER XIV
I drove the Marauder to the pier in silence, neither Gularte nor I saying a word, even as the vehicle, much heavier than the Bronco built for the off-road job of patrolling the beach and incidental structures, made a smooth surface out of the rough wooden slat...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XIII
Tom Turner was the next reserve officer to be ‘trained’ by me. We rode together peaceably until right after dark when Bobby Scruggs called to tell us about a report of a strange couple doing strange things on the northern edge of “T” Street Bridge beach. The call...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XII
The din coming from the interior of the party house was deafening. I moved inside, stepping to the left in order to keep my right hand free, and also allow Gularte to be a second target instead of both of us potentially being taken as one. There were about a dozen...
THE COWARDLY LION, Volume Two, Chapter XI
My mind was racing, as I faced the man, my body now only exposing one side to him. I was in San Clemente, California where there was no war, where I was marginally respected for things I had little understanding of, and where I enjoyed my wonderful wife and fantastic...Subscribe to FROM THE WILDERNESS
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