Free No Pit So Deep: The Cody Musket Story by James Nathaniel Miller II Page A

Helmand Province in Afghanistan."
    Cody stopped. Uncertainty paralyzed his tongue. She nudged him forward with an empathetic nod and confident smile, her hands no longer cold like when he had first met her.
    He told her about the failure of the SEALs’ mission due to their blown cover, and about losing the survivors of the Chinook crash to the Taliban.
    His voice increased in volume. His brow became speckled with tiny droplets as he told every detail about the low-level strafing run, the bodies on the hillside, the explosion under his foot, and the harrowing high-speed pancake plunge into the sand.
    “It’s nearly impossible to bring a Hornet down with any handheld weapon. We never figured out what went wrong. I set a thirty-million-dollar jet down in the desert. We came to rest in one piece, but my foot and leg were cooked.”
    Brandi was spellbound, her hands now motionless, resting on his right foot.
    “Seismo was seriously hurt. He…he had a head injury.” Cody's right hand, so stable earlier, was shaking as he lifted the water bottle to his dry lips again.
    Brandi didn't want to make a sound, but anticipation got the best of her. “Cody?" she asked quietly. "What happened to Seismo?"
    He put his hand over his face. He could not bring himself to tell her about the children. The scars on his back began to itch as perspiration made the shirt cling to his skin.
    "Cody, you don’t have to tell me about your friend. It's okay." His face was ashen. He wasn’t just telling his story. He was reliving it.
    “Do you mind if I look at your other leg?” Brandi hoped she could bring life back to his face again. Her voice was hoarse, tender, mesmerizing. He motioned her to go ahead.
    She spoke at barely above a whisper as she rolled up the other leg of his jeans. "I read that you surrendered to the Taliban. Why? Can you share that part?"
    Brandi washed and caressed the scar on his left leg. It was long, jagged, ghastly. It began at his toes and extended up the outside of his leg to above his knee. A separate scar just above the knee ran horizontally through the vertical one, thus forming a cross.
    He cleared his throat. “I spent the night jammed up against a cliff with the SEAL team. At zero-seven-hundred the next morning, we spotted about fifty Taliban bearing down on us. It was just a matter of minutes before they would find us. ETA for air support was one hour — not nearly soon enough.” He exhaled heavily.
    “That’s when I came up with a plan to walk toward the Taliban and surrender. It's a big deal for them — capturing a downed pilot. I thought it would create a diversion so the SEALs could quietly relocate to a secure place.” His eyes had now refocused.
    “I also hoped the enemy would take me where they had moved the Chinook survivors. That way, the SEALs could track at a distance and mount a rescue mission to save us all.”
    “How well did your plan work?”
    He took two more swallows and set the bottle down. His gaze narrowed. “They put a bag over my head and —”
    Brandi covered her mouth and caught her breath.
    “I can’t go on.” He clenched his fists. “Harry died. Children...where they took me —”
    “Children? What children? I don’t remember reading anything about that."
    " And you'll never read about something that didn't happen." He placed an unsteady right hand over his eyes in a futile attempt to hide wet streaks that now made their way down the rugged landscape of his face. “I didn’t know it would be this hard.”
    With Cody’s feet resting on the pillow next to her, tears filling Brandi’s eyes, she could find no words. He carried heavy baggage. He was honorable. He was trouble. One part of her wanted to bid farewell to him and pretend he did not exist. The other wanted to hold him in her arms and never let him go.
    “I’m sorry, Brandi. I gotta stop. You’re the first person I've told since returning home.” He blotted his eyes on the sleeve of the blue shirt.
    She