Re: Decisions AUwA (Mature) 12/20/10 (2)
Posted: Tue Dec 21, 2010 1:34 am
Liz wasn't the only Parker with a plan. The moment he'd seen that empty gun cabinet, Jeff Parker knew what was going on. He'd grabbed the big Kabar from the top of the cabinet, and turned and run for the open door. He was going at a full sprint as he came to it.
OK, it wasn't MUCH of a plan, but it actually wasn't all that unreasonable either. The shotgun blasts had come from the corner of the porch - almost certainly from Diane Evans - and Jeff Parker knew that it would take her time to extract the shells from the ancient double barrel - close it - and cock the manual hammers. He also had little doubt that Liz would be bringing the little 22 to bear momentarily and put herself at risk doing so.
A frontal assault by a guy with a big knife would at a minimum draw Williams sights away from the women and - the man had a scoped rifle and the scope occluded the iron sights. Unless Williams could actually get his eyes out of that scope and fire accurately by looking over the top of it, he had almost no chance of hitting a moving target. That was the theory anyway. Right or wrong, Jeff had little doubt that his DI back in boot camp would have approved. Gunnery Sergeants were like that.
Besides, even if he never made it to Williams he would draw his fire, give Diane Evans a chance to reload, make sure the guy didn't spot Liz and put a bullet in to her. For a father worried about his only child, that was reason enough to do this. Besides, if the guy only wounded him, he might still be able to make it the fifty or sixty feet to Williams before he went down. They'd actually pracitces knife-fighting with their Kabars in boot camp - albeit with a scabbard on them. All you really had to do was to insert the knife just below the sternum in a swift upward movement at 60 degrees to the ground. The sharp blade would cleave through the muscles of the upper abdomen, come up through the bottom of the diaphragm, and put a big slit in the left ventricle heart. After that the possibility of Williams causing Liz future harm would decrease rather drastically.
Like bayonet practice, the Marines did it over and over. It actually wasn't easy to get normally adjusted people to kill other people - assuming of course you believed Marines to be normally adjusted. That was why you drilled repeatedly with the Kabar and with bayonets. So you could do it by rote and not have to really think about it - because if they really thought about it - really understood they were taking a human life - they'd generally freeze up and not be able to do it. That's why all the training. Even then you were at risk for post traumatic stress relating to killing the other person.
Of course when your loved one's life was on the line, like Liz's was today, Jeff had a pretty good idea that the rules were different. He didn't think there would be any hesitation under that sort of situation. As he sprinted for the door he was thinking about those knife lessons a whole lot more for technique than he was because they were supposed to desensitize him to the act of killing itself. Protecting your family was all the motivation you really needed.
But as he came through the open door - still accelerating - there was a little 'pop' of a 22 caliber single-shot bolt action rifle - and Williams collapsed like a cheap suit. The man literally bent at the knees and tumbled over backwards and lay there - his feet still awkwardly bent under his unmoving body.
'THAT,' thought Jeff Parker, '... is a kill.'
He slowed his headlong charge and finally got himself stopped nearly one-third of the way to Williams - just a few feet short of the collapsed Mr. Evans. He turned to look and saw his little girl... his only child ... the 22 still in her hands and running tearfully toward him. The sight of her tore at his heart envisioning the mental anguish and trauma she'd just experienced. As she ran toward him he held out his arms to hug and comfort her as he had done hundreds of times growing up....
The really good news, was that in another six months, Jeff was going to have a grandson and a granddaughter, and he would love them almost as much as he had their mother. And they would reciprocate that love for the rest of his long and interesting life. And their favorite story of all the stories he would tell them, would be about the day that some insane guys had tried to kill their mom, and that when the last guy was dead, he'd put out his arms to hug her, "... and then your mother ran right by me without even seeing me, to make sure your father was alright."
It would be a story that he would tell and retell to his grandchildren, a story that would reliably make their mother blush and protest that she really HAD seen their grandchildren, she was just worried about their daddy. It would in time become part of the lore of the Parker ranch - more valued even than the oil wealth the place would generate.
Yes, it was bittersweet losing a daughter, but Jeff was wise enough to understand that losing her was inevitable and the only way to get her back was to let her go. So he stood there - sort of like a statue - with this big honking knife in his hand watching his daughter on her hands and knees holding the head of the young man who appeared to be slowly regaining consciousness against her bosom, her raining kisses down on his hair in a manner that would have told even the most doubtful parent that she was unashamedly, undeniably, unabashedly, and most totally Max's.
Only a little over an hour ago he'd wanted to kill the lad - thinking HE had been the one trying to kill Liz - but he'd been wrong - wrong about a lot of things. Besides, when a daughter makes her choice, a wise father just smiles ... blinks the tears out of his eyes ... and agrees. Oh. Max wasn't REALLY good enough for her ... no man was ... but he was the one she'd chosen. That made Max ...family.
Nothing else really mattered.
OK, it wasn't MUCH of a plan, but it actually wasn't all that unreasonable either. The shotgun blasts had come from the corner of the porch - almost certainly from Diane Evans - and Jeff Parker knew that it would take her time to extract the shells from the ancient double barrel - close it - and cock the manual hammers. He also had little doubt that Liz would be bringing the little 22 to bear momentarily and put herself at risk doing so.
A frontal assault by a guy with a big knife would at a minimum draw Williams sights away from the women and - the man had a scoped rifle and the scope occluded the iron sights. Unless Williams could actually get his eyes out of that scope and fire accurately by looking over the top of it, he had almost no chance of hitting a moving target. That was the theory anyway. Right or wrong, Jeff had little doubt that his DI back in boot camp would have approved. Gunnery Sergeants were like that.
Besides, even if he never made it to Williams he would draw his fire, give Diane Evans a chance to reload, make sure the guy didn't spot Liz and put a bullet in to her. For a father worried about his only child, that was reason enough to do this. Besides, if the guy only wounded him, he might still be able to make it the fifty or sixty feet to Williams before he went down. They'd actually pracitces knife-fighting with their Kabars in boot camp - albeit with a scabbard on them. All you really had to do was to insert the knife just below the sternum in a swift upward movement at 60 degrees to the ground. The sharp blade would cleave through the muscles of the upper abdomen, come up through the bottom of the diaphragm, and put a big slit in the left ventricle heart. After that the possibility of Williams causing Liz future harm would decrease rather drastically.
Like bayonet practice, the Marines did it over and over. It actually wasn't easy to get normally adjusted people to kill other people - assuming of course you believed Marines to be normally adjusted. That was why you drilled repeatedly with the Kabar and with bayonets. So you could do it by rote and not have to really think about it - because if they really thought about it - really understood they were taking a human life - they'd generally freeze up and not be able to do it. That's why all the training. Even then you were at risk for post traumatic stress relating to killing the other person.
Of course when your loved one's life was on the line, like Liz's was today, Jeff had a pretty good idea that the rules were different. He didn't think there would be any hesitation under that sort of situation. As he sprinted for the door he was thinking about those knife lessons a whole lot more for technique than he was because they were supposed to desensitize him to the act of killing itself. Protecting your family was all the motivation you really needed.
But as he came through the open door - still accelerating - there was a little 'pop' of a 22 caliber single-shot bolt action rifle - and Williams collapsed like a cheap suit. The man literally bent at the knees and tumbled over backwards and lay there - his feet still awkwardly bent under his unmoving body.
'THAT,' thought Jeff Parker, '... is a kill.'
He slowed his headlong charge and finally got himself stopped nearly one-third of the way to Williams - just a few feet short of the collapsed Mr. Evans. He turned to look and saw his little girl... his only child ... the 22 still in her hands and running tearfully toward him. The sight of her tore at his heart envisioning the mental anguish and trauma she'd just experienced. As she ran toward him he held out his arms to hug and comfort her as he had done hundreds of times growing up....
The really good news, was that in another six months, Jeff was going to have a grandson and a granddaughter, and he would love them almost as much as he had their mother. And they would reciprocate that love for the rest of his long and interesting life. And their favorite story of all the stories he would tell them, would be about the day that some insane guys had tried to kill their mom, and that when the last guy was dead, he'd put out his arms to hug her, "... and then your mother ran right by me without even seeing me, to make sure your father was alright."
It would be a story that he would tell and retell to his grandchildren, a story that would reliably make their mother blush and protest that she really HAD seen their grandchildren, she was just worried about their daddy. It would in time become part of the lore of the Parker ranch - more valued even than the oil wealth the place would generate.
Yes, it was bittersweet losing a daughter, but Jeff was wise enough to understand that losing her was inevitable and the only way to get her back was to let her go. So he stood there - sort of like a statue - with this big honking knife in his hand watching his daughter on her hands and knees holding the head of the young man who appeared to be slowly regaining consciousness against her bosom, her raining kisses down on his hair in a manner that would have told even the most doubtful parent that she was unashamedly, undeniably, unabashedly, and most totally Max's.
Only a little over an hour ago he'd wanted to kill the lad - thinking HE had been the one trying to kill Liz - but he'd been wrong - wrong about a lot of things. Besides, when a daughter makes her choice, a wise father just smiles ... blinks the tears out of his eyes ... and agrees. Oh. Max wasn't REALLY good enough for her ... no man was ... but he was the one she'd chosen. That made Max ...family.
Nothing else really mattered.