Rambo Goes to Colorado
John Rambo arrived at Christ Church of Colorado, where Sarah worked, and sighed. He paid the taxi driver that had taken him there from the airport, grabbed his duffle bag, slung it over one shoulder, and stood still, taking in the idyllic sight in front of him, one that he didn't want to tarnish with his presence.
Sarah watched Rambo approach from the window in her office, and wondered why he looked the way he did. His posture was rigid, his shoulders tensed, and there was a stricken expression on his face. They had spoken a few times since reconnecting, and the other day he had told her that he was looking forward to visiting. She hoped that he was just tired from traveling, and that something bad hadn't happened to the man who had already seen and dealt with so much tragedy in his life.
Walking towards the building, Rambo instantly felt relieved when Sarah ran out to meet him. He wasn't up to dealing with other people.
"John! You made it." She said with a smile, looking him up and down, trying to decipher what was wrong.
He nodded stiffly. "I did."
A few of the people who worked for the church milled about around where they were standing, and Sarah could tell that John was uncomfortable. She asked him if he wanted to talk somewhere privately, and when he said yes, Sarah led him to her office.
"What's wrong?"
He sighed wearily, and replied, "I shouldn't have come here. I wanted to… I want to see you, but I'm not good around others."
"What does that mean?"
Rambo swallowed, and replied, "I had a problem on the plane. There was too much going on. Too much noise, too many people, just too much to focus on.
"A woman came by to ask if I wanted something to drink, and I grabbed her wrist. Hard. I hadn't meant to, but she surprised me, and I couldn't stop myself from reacting. She assured me that she wasn't hurt, but the flight crew and passengers looked at me like I was a freak for the rest of the flight."
Sarah looked at him compassionately, but before she could say anything, he shot up from where he'd been sitting across from her desk and shoved a hand through his greying hair. "Why do you want to be anywhere near me? I'm bad company. Why do you like me? Why, Sarah?"
His pleading tone, showing that he really had no idea why she'd want to get within ten feet of him spurred her into responding before he could start up again.
"Honestly, I've wondered the same thing about you, John."
"What?"
"I've thought about you plenty of times in the past fifteen years, and frequently I wondered why you treated me the way you did, why you wanted to spend time with me. When we met, you'd basically given up on the world, and the people in it. I do believe you cursed it.
"So, what did I do that was so special, that made you like me, when you'd basically told everyone else off?"
"You were good." Rambo replied. "You were this bright, shining light, when I had been living in darkness for years. When I leaned in close to tell you to leave, you didn't flinch, or back away from me like you were afraid, like many had. I liked that you didn't treat me like a beast, when I'd been treating myself like one.
"When you grabbed my arm on the boat to convince me not to turn around, you didn't look repulsed. I'd had plenty of men who I worked with who had grabbed my arm to show me a snake to catch, and they had always appeared grossed out by the way I was built. You weren't like that.
"The last woman who touched me like that died in my arms right after we kissed, twenty-three years before I met you. I couldn't let something happen to another woman I cared about.
"I guess I wanted to be near you for selfish reasons," he admitted, "I wanted to steal some of your goodness."
Sarah sat there, stunned into silence. That was the highest number of words she'd ever heard from John Rambo at one time, and what he said made her sad, that he didn't think of himself as a decent person, like he needed to "steal" some of her integrity.
"Goodness, John? You felt like you needed to steal some of my goodness?" she asked incredulously. "Do you even remember how you acted around me in Burma?"
He ran a hand down his jaw. "I told you to get the hell away from me, shoved your fiancé into one of the support beams on my boat when he mouthed off, and didn't deny that everything that went down wasn't your fault. I said that everyone was at fault, but that didn't exclude you like you wanted. How is that good?"
"Your version of events doesn't exactly match up with mine." Sarah informed him, folding her arms across her chest.
"What you said is true, yes, but I remember things a bit differently. When you told me to go home and live my life, your tone was so much softer than the one you'd used with Michael, even though you were saying basically the same thing. On the boat, you spoke to me when you had ignored everyone else, and considered me to be in charge, when I really wasn't. Making conversation with you calmed my nerves about the trip, and I think subconsciously you picked up on that, or maybe you needed the interaction as well.
"When I cut my foot while we were running away from the enemy's camp, I never once considered telling you about it. I figured that your mentality was to push through all pain, and deal with it later. But you figured out what was wrong, and instead of telling me to toughen up and keep moving, you made me stop, and rest.
"You cleaned and bandaged my foot so carefully, and with such gentle hands, I wouldn't have believed them capable of choking a man out if I hadn't witnessed it twenty minutes earlier when you saved my life.
"I wanted to be near you in Burma because I sensed how safe you were to be around. I knew that you would never hurt me, but that you would destroy anyone who tried to, and you did. More than once.
"Everyone else, the people who worked with you, the members of my team, saw the rough, grizzled soldier persona you'd worn for so long, you didn't know how to let go of it. But you did let go of it, marginally, when you were around me, and I liked seeing the kind, sweet man hiding underneath muscled, scarred armor.
"I want to be close to you now, for the same reason I did then. I feel safe whenever you're around. Your tough guy look may worry others, but I know the real you, and I like you, John. You're my friend."
Rambo's head snapped up. "Friend? Sarah, you don't want to call me that."
"Why not?" She bit back, unwilling to let him put himself down again.
"I was part of an elite group in the Army, me and seven other fighting guys. We were all friends. Danforth, the youngest in our team, always talked about his car, and Vegas. I promised him that we'd go there together once we got outta 'Nam.
"He blew up in front of me because he was too naïve to recognize a child as a threat, and I was too concerned with getting beers from a local bar in Saigon to protect him.
"I was supposed to have his back, and instead I had his legs, when they blew off. That's the kind of friend I am."
Sarah gasped. The visual his words painted in her mind was a horrible one. Still, after the initial shock of his harsh recounting of an event in Vietnam wore off, she realized that he'd purposefully used gruesome descriptions to scare her off.
Once she understood his reasoning, she nearly growled. Two steps forward, convincing him he was a good person, one step back, with him telling her that he was a bad friend, for a terrible accident that he wasn't the cause of. She felt like she was dealing with a skittish horse.
"Did you ever rescue a friend?"
John paused, thinking it over, and then said, "My commanding officer, and the only man I trusted with my life after my team was killed, Colonel Trautman, got taken by the Russians in Afghanistan in the late eighties.
"I was staying at a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, when I had to go get him, because he would have done it for me."
Sarah smiled. "Did you get him?" she asked, hoping that this story had a happy ending.
"Yeah," he replied quietly, "I did, and we took down that camp of Russians, right before the war ended."
"That is a prime example of a good friend, John. You went into enemy territory, when you hadn't been involved with the war already, and rescued your only remaining friend from what I am assuming would have been a terrible fate.
"I don't believe that there was anything you could have done to save your team members who died, but even if you believed that, saving your colonel should have redeemed you."
He shrugged. "It's hard to shed the guilt. Has been since I came home from the war, and people spat on me and yelled at me for killing babies."
"I am so sorry for the way people have treated you your whole life, from after you left the military, to my group regarding you as a savage. I am. But you can't allow those previous occurrences to rule your life, John. You still have plenty of good years ahead of you. Don't let opportunities pass you by because you're stuck in the past."
Rambo looked at her, really looked, trying to gauge if she was telling the truth, and when it seemed like he'd come to a conclusion, he said, "Thank you. I would like to have you as my friend, and if you really think that I can be a good one in return, then I'm willing to try."
"I definitely think that." Sarah said with a smile. "Now, how long are you going to be in Colorado?"
"My plane doesn't leave until tomorrow morning."
With a burst of inspiration, she said, "Would you have dinner with Michael and I are our house tonight?"
"What?"
"I know that you have trouble dealing with lots of people and noise, but we live alone, in a very quiet area of town, without any loud pets, and it would be nice to spend a little more time with you before you leave. I haven't mentioned this to Michael, so if you don't want to come, he won't ever know…"
"Okay." He interrupted, shocking but pleasing her with his response.
"Really?"
"Only if you're sure Michael won't mind."
Sarah shook her head. "Like I've said before, John, he doesn't harbor ill will towards you, after you saved all our lives. And he's seen what you can do with a machine gun, so I doubt he'll try to stir up trouble."
Taken aback, Rambo slowly realized that she'd been joking, and chuckled. It felt good, to poke fun at such a serious event, to laugh with a friend.
"I have to lead a group praise session, so unless you want to join in…"
"No, that's okay." He petered off, unsure of what he'd do until she was ready to leave. He had made a reservation at the local motel, but it wasn't going to be ready for a while, since his plane had been early.
Sarah suddenly had a great idea of something she was sure John would enjoy doing, that would pass the time. "Mark, who works here at the church, has a ranch two miles from here, with plenty of horses that could use to be ridden and brushed. He's busy here all day, so you wouldn't have to interact with anyone but the animals. Interested?"
"Yes." Rambo replied. "Do I have to do anything special?"
"No, they don't need any special treatment or anything. In fact, there's a black Andalusian stallion who Mark's been meaning to break but hasn't had the time to hire anyone." She informed him. The horse was huge, and breaking one wasn't an easy process, nor a particularly safe one at that, but she figured after as much soul searching as a man like him had gone through, good old fashioned grunt work with a tough horse might be just what he'd need to regulate his emotions.
A genuine smile twitched at the corner of his lips, and he assured her that he was up to the challenge, having been a horse lover since long before becoming a soldier.
Sarah gave him directions to the ranch, and then left, heading to the meeting hall for group praise. She told Mark about Rambo taking care of his horses, and he was skeptical, having never met him, but Sarah convinced him that there wasn't anyone better for the job.
That night, Rambo entered the house that Sarah and Michael shared, and took a deep breath. He could do this. Sarah was right, it wasn't too crowded or noisy. And after the talk they'd had earlier, he was feeling better about a lot of things.
She led him into the dining room, where Michael was already seated, working on his computer. When he saw Rambo, he stood up, walked over, and shook his hand like it was the most natural thing to do in the world. "Glad you could make it!"
Surprised, John returned his handshake and said, "Me too." And was pleased to admit that he meant it.
They sat down, while Sarah disappeared, claiming to be back out shortly with the food. She'd asked him if he had any allergies, and Rambo had informed her that there'd been a portion of his life where he'd had to eat everything just to survive, so whatever she made would be delicious.
"So, Sarah told me that you worked Mark's horses over for him." Michael said conversationally, hoping to convey to the older man that whatever animosity had been between them fifteen years ago was long gone now.
John nodded. "Yeah. He has some beautiful horses. His Andalusian stallion broke fairly easily, and one of his female horses proved to be skilled in reigning."
Michael didn't much care for horses, so he didn't understand what Rambo was talking about, but he was surprised to find his dinner companion looking and acting more comfortably than the first time they'd met. It was clear working with horses was cathartic for him.
Soon, Sarah came out with dinner, homemade meatloaf with corn and beans, and they ate together, the husband-and-wife missionary unit, and the older, wizened man who kept them alive so that they could be together.
The next morning, Rambo woke in his motel room with pleasant memories from last night's dinner in his head. Maybe there was something to having a friend, and possibly even two. Michael had been incredibly nice, even apologizing for reacting negatively in a supercharged situation, and after what had happened to John on the plane, he understood better than he had before concerning the man's actions.
Grabbing the toiletries and clothes he'd left in the room, Rambo repacked his go bag, checked out of the motel, and headed to the airport, choosing to walk, instead of take a cab, since it was closer by than he'd realized the day before, and because the taxi driver had looked at him the same way the passengers had, like he was going to attack at any moment.
On the plane, in his seat, John closed his eyes, and tried to steady his breathing, get his head into war mode, where he could function no matter what came his way. He hadn't done that the last time he'd been on a plane and didn't want the same thing to happen again.
Someone jostled him sitting down, and he opened his eyes, annoyed that he'd been interrupted, but secure enough not to lash out.
"Sorry, didn't mean to bump you. My suitcase nearly tumbled out of the overhead bin, and in my haste to grab it, I nearly toppled onto you."
That voice. He knew that voice. Turning his head, John was gob smacked to find Sarah seated to his right.
"Sarah?! What are you doing here?"
She smiled impishly. "Oh, did I forget to mention that I was going with you?"
"Yes!" He replied, wincing when he realized how loud he'd exclaimed that, and looking around to make sure people weren't staring again.
"Well, Michael and I are going to speak at a Bible conference in Louisiana in three days, so I figured I'd get there before him and set things up."
"But Arizona isn't near Louisiana, Sarah."
"I know that, but it's closer than Colorado, and I'm meeting up with a colleague who lives in Tucson, and she'll drive us the rest of the way."
"You came on this flight so that you could help me not freak out, didn't you?" John asked.
She shrugged. "Maybe… After all, that's what friends are for."
The End