Page 4 of In Love with a Ranger

Guys like him were the reason that people played that TikTok game, ‘Marry, Love, Kill’… cause he and his boys fit all three. They all wanted to marry him. They all wanted to sleep with him, and they all wanted to kill him when he ditched them in the morning, never calling them back. And no matter what they chose, no matter the selection, no matter how angry they got – not one lady was ever disappointed with her choice.

“All right, brothers… let’s line it up!” he hollered and knew that the air buffeting them all wildly within the cabin of the plane swept away his words. Gideon was giving signals at the same time as he spoke. His team, his brothers, his makeshift family were standing there, knees bent, goggles and helmets on, tense and ready to go.

They were almost on target, and he waited for the signal before dropping his arm. The faint sounds of their excitement echoed beyond their radios as they leaped from the opening into nothingness with a spectacular view of the landscape from their position.

This was a HALO jump – high altitude, low opening jump. Honestly, these didn’t bother him too much because there wasn’t much difference between 15,000 feet and 3,500 feet. Your body still dropped like a weight, and terminal velocity was at 120 miles per hour. As one of his instructors told him in class, ‘Ranger, the splat is where it’s at, son. It doesn’t matter if you’re a shower or a grower; we all still make the same pile of mush when you hit Mother Earth’… and that was eye-opening.

There was nothing like this feeling of adrenaline, knowing your life was on the line and dependent upon the person that packed your chute. Whether it was in the field knowing someone had your back covered or folding a piece of material, you had to have that absolute faith in your team giving it their ‘all’ because less than that was unacceptable. They always lined up in the plane, checking each other's packs, making sure clips were secure, and it was a way to look the other man in the face before you faced death.

Gideon laughed as some of the guys held up one pinky and one pointer finger, making a fist like they were rock stars, before jumping. Others would take a wild rolling flip out the back – and some would simply open their arms and fall forward like a trust fall, but face first. As each man jumped, their harness would give, breaking free from the chute and dangling from the line that ran from the front to the back of the cargo area, and he hesitated as he saw the last of the line coming up quickly.

It was ‘Go’ time!

No one would see him jump this round, so there was no reason for the fancy, fun flips so he simply walked right off the edge into nothingness and sighed. He’d done this so many times you would think it would become monotonous or boring, yet each jump, each moment, brought a new rush. Some of the goofballs below were making a circle like they were acrobats, others were pretending to be sleeping, while a few of the newer ‘kids’ were downright serious, making their way to the ground where a massive painted marker was for this drill.

Yup. The goal of this drill was to stick your target and pretend you were among enemy fire. HALO jumps were used to infiltrate the enemy silently in a quick manner. You didn’t want to give them time to see your chutes. It was basically ‘drop like a hot rock – and then kick-butt.’ There were obstacles on the field and clearings all around to help the landings if one of the newbies made a mistake.

People always asked Gideon if he was scared to jump from a plane – and the answer was a definitive ‘NO.’ Parachutes always opened 99% of the time. If something happened and it didn’t open, then you had a backup system that would deploy the reserve chute in cases that you were unconscious or injured. Something would carry your carcass downward now whether it worked great was another matter. Oh, he had no doubts that his parachute would open, but the operation was a different story.

The odds were not as good when it came to operations. One in a thousand parachutes would ‘fail to operate perfectly,’ and that could be anything from a snarled cable to a frayed cord to a delay on the release – which is why he was going last this jump. He was the ‘old man’ of the group. If someone was in trouble, he was going to head in their direction and talk the newbies ‘down’ from a panic or help them.

“Coming up on altitude… let me see some deployments,” he called out into his radio, and just like desert flowers popping up from a cactus after the rain, you could see the pillowy pockets unfurling below him, almost like starbursts. Each would pop, uncurl, and stretch before catching the air and inflating fully, slowing them immediately.

Gideon pulled his cord and cursed.

He had a premature line release that sent him violently to the left as half of his chute started to ascend above his head, catching the wind while the other half lay limp and flapped in the wind. He started to try to take corrective action and could hear the other soldiers in his unit calling out, but no one would be coming to his aid. Their chutes were already fully deployed and carrying them to the ground. No, he had to get his open or pull his reserve to slow his descent.

Calm down and think!

He was still falling at the strange angle being carried by sharp winds toward the field in the distance – and sincerely grateful there were no trees or houses near the practice landing. It wouldn’t be the first time he ended up in a tree, but that wasn’t ‘enjoyable’ that time, either.

Low and slow… c’mon, baby…

And deployed the reserve chute, not taking any chances. Thankfully, he watched it unfurl above him, catching his body, but he was still falling much too fast.

“Awww crap, this is gonna hurt,” he groaned as the ground rose up to meet him violently.

* * *

Blinding lights and pain caused Gideon to groan in a guttural manner as he faded in and out of consciousness, desperately trying to hold on and focus on something around him.

“He’s coming to…”

“Beck, can you hear me?”

“Someone get him back under… Are y’all butchers? This man’s in pain. I want him sedated now and in surgery ten minutes ago.”

Gideon felt himself slipping under, welcoming the cool, inky blackness that swallowed his soul rather than the fiery pain that seemed to be racing along every nerve ending.

* * *

It was nearly three days before Gideon awoke fully. He was in enough pain to make him immediately start to groan but not enough to cause him to pass out cold again. Yeah, he remembered fading in and out the last few days, blissfully high on morphine and who-knows-what else.

“Gideon? Hey baby, it’s Mama,” a voice said from nearby, full of tears, and he tried to open a single eye, hoping that the bright lights wouldn’t hurt his head as much. “Shhh. You are going to be okay, baby.”

“M-Mom?”

“I’m right here, sweetie. Austin flew me in when we got the call. Your Daddy is talking to the doctors right now, but he’ll be so glad you are awake.”

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