by Jack Twist
Chapter 12
He told us to call him Arkansas, and we never did get a last name. He was indeed an army deserter, but as he opened up to us that evening, you wondered if he was fully aware of the fact. Although he did ask us to keep his whereabouts a secret. His drawl was so pronounced I imagined it was put on, to achieve some effect. I didn’t know that people actually spoke like Jed Clampett.
Still, for the first part of that night at least, even as he welcomed us into his jungle camp, I couldn’t relax in his company. The cool nonchalance seemed affected, as though he wanted to be Paul Newman but from somewhere in his murkier depths Norman Bates kept emerging. And what was the source of that petulance around the mouth, fading only partly when he smiled? He had me worrying that he might be the type to run amok, turn, quietly and violently, on those around him. We’re westerners, I felt like saying, and we mean well. Be friendly, for Christ’s sake.
Some weeks earlier, he’d been part of an operation in the Muc Thap area, and soon after that, a mission into the central highlands. Those actions were followed by a spell in hospital in Long Binh. We weren’t told why or for how long.
He turned almost wistful, gave Abbie a sad smile, as he described his time in and around Muc Thap. From the moment he saw the little village, and spoke to the locals, he knew he had to get back there. “Sweetest little place I ever seen. Like a little piece a’ heaven in the middle ’all the hell.”
Abbie and I glanced at each other. I’m sure she would have agreed with me that Muc Thap was little different from any other village. More remarkable for the usual signs of poverty than any special sweetness.
Then his talk turned military again. And not in broad and general terms. We were given specifics on what he and his platoon had done. Everything from the names of men to grid references. At least he seemed more relaxed with our company but I was glad when he moved on from operations.
He had simply walked out of hospital one day, convinced a pay clerk that he needed to empty his bank account for leave in Hong Kong, and hitched a ride to Saigon. From there he walked until he reached the village and made generous offers of payment for accommodation. But the people gently refused.
“I can always tell,” he said, “when people don’t want me around. But I couldn’t go away. Not too far anyway. I had to stay somewhere near.”
He moved onto the mountain. His savings from his stint in hospital allowed him to buy food and items for his home in the jungle. The people came to accept him. By their standards he was near to a millionaire. I asked why he didn’t move into the village now that the people had got to know him.
“It’s still a bit close for their likin’. Besides, I’m comfy here in the jungle.”
Arkansas’ ‘comfy’ was a consequence mostly of his camp. And it was a tree house no less, nestled in a leafy clump of branches that hung out over our creek. He had led us to it through the scrub. “Always take a different route, so’s I don’t leave no path.” Then he dragged a piece of wood from the foliage. It was attached to a length of rope that disappeared amongst the branches three or four metres above our heads. A pull on the rope revealed it as a kind of ladder, with pieces of bamboo tied to it, spaced about a metre apart.
“Thanks anyway,” Abbie told him. “But I can’t climb that.”
“It’s fine, ma’am. Near to brand new rope.”
We looked up at a platform of bamboo stalks barely visible among the branches. From what we could see it looked flat but with a slant towards the creek. He assured us it was built sturdy and safe. I suggested storing the jerry can in the bushes somewhere but he shook his head.
“I never leave nothin’ on the ground. Oh. I ain’t got no bathroom upstairs, either. ‘Cept for ‘mergencies. So, if you need it, I’ll show you my downstairs bathroom. Little crick nearby.”
We looked at each other. “I’m okay, thank you,” said Abbie. I shook my head.
“Well, ‘scuse me just a minute.” He disappeared among the trees.
“Oh, my God,” said Abbie. “What have we here? What are we going to do?”
“Not much we can do. I wish he’d shown himself earlier in the day.”
She looked at the baby. “She’s getting too weak to cry. We have to make sure he shows us to the road first thing in the morning. Presuming we make it through the night.” Slowly rocking the sleeping baby, she looked small and scared and very tired.
When Arkansas emerged we had no option except to trust his rope ladder. He carried the jerry can and rifle, with surprising strength and agility, the rope swinging out over the creek bank. Abbie followed, painfully slowly. I carried the baby in my shirt, much to the consternation of her half-sister. And the baby started to cry, very weakly, as though cognisant of this latest peril in which her tiny new life had been placed.
The platform was roughly three metres square and felt almost secure, despite the slant and the notches and bows in the bamboo, and the thinness of one load-bearing tree. Half of the space was taken up with a one-man bivouac tent and a little rock fire place in one corner was covered with wide leaves we recognised from the jungle floor. An army chest sat beside it. Whatever dark, mysterious emotions I imagined might be disturbing the mind of our host, his camp was the work of a disciplined soldier, if marked with a personal touch.
He hung the rolled-up ladder and the jerry can on a branch stump. There were several of these, all cut and smoothed into hanging hooks to hold water bottles, cooking utensils and even a bamboo cup with a tooth brush standing in it. He put the rifle in the chest, though I insisted on removing the magazine which I buttoned down in a leg pocket. I was please to see no other weapon.
Several carved objects lay about. Bowls and cups made from hollowed-out pieces of bamboo. And on one of the branch hooks, a collection of multi-coloured bracelets and necklaces, but not the plastic variety. These were made from woven cotton. He told us the cotton had been given to him by the Montagnard people, an ethnic minority in the mountains with their own cultural dress, who had showed him how to weave them by hand.
But it all did little to calm our fears. We were at the mercy of a man who lived alone on a sloping bamboo deck in the trees of a forest in a very dangerous part of the world, a long way from our homes. What was he doing here, really? How had he lasted the nineteen days he claimed? I imagined what an AK47 rifle, let alone a machine gun or rocket propelled grenade, would do to bamboo.
We sat cross-legged, he furthest away, close to the fire place and the green metal chest. The trees moved in the breeze and I dropped my free hand to the bamboo looking for something to hold on to. Abbie did the same with both hands.
Arkansas smiled. He told us he had allowed for some movement in construction, though it was said more with pride in his work than concern for us. Extra bamboo formed raised edges all the way round and when the breeze eased the whole thing felt more sturdy.
When Abbie released her grip of the floor she took the baby from me and asked if she could use the tent to try to give her a drink and put her to sleep. He nodded, told her to go ahead. When Abbie left us he turned to his fireplace and set about cooking a meal.
He told me he was from the Ozarks, originally, where he had made tree houses as a boy. He liked to whittle and make things out of wood. “Everything from fishin’ hooks to tree houses.” The strong light bamboo he found here had made it easy, hauling the logs up with rope, and he had then spent a night in a tree nearby, watching, making sure no one came for him. And everything but the bamboo had come from the city, via the black market, once he discovered a few of the older boys in the village had contacts. The chest took longest.
As he spoke he tended the little fire he’d made on the collection of creek stones and I saw how the uncut hair accentuated his thin neck, the bony shoulders under the shirt. But as he stirred rice in a tin, boiled some sort of sprouts in a dixie dish and added a powder to both, as unsure as I felt about the man, at that point all I wanted was the food he was preparing.
Whe
n Abbie come out he shared the food around. I finished first, sat back and took my water bottle from my belt for a swig.
“Save some for baby,” Abbie told me gently.
Arkansas smiled. With our dinner done he seemed more at ease. “Amazin’. You two wanderin’ round these woods, like Mary and Joseph looking for a manger? Did you say the baby was your sister?” Abbie filled in some more of the gaps, including why we had left the road in such a hurry.
“Well.” He sat back in a serious, proud way. “That sounds very right and proper. What you’re doin’ to save the baby. Most people wouldn’t care, seems to me. Not about one little baby. And I’m sorry I frightened ya’ll last night. Only went down far as the river. I never go ’yon’ the river.”
“That’s okay,” Abbie looked at me. “We frighten pretty easily.”
“I ain’t seen no one on this mountain to frighten me yet.”
“Still. Wouldn’t you be better on the ground? I mean what if a big storm blows? We found a small cave near a river. Maybe you could find a bigger one.”
There was a storm so fierce one night that he had to find a place on the ground. It wasn’t for him. He was glad to get back to his tree house next day. But he didn’t like the rain.
“I get mighty sick a’ the rain. But at least Charlie don’t use the mountain. Too close to Saigon. And too rocky to tunnel, even in this thick piece a’ jungle ’round the river. The VC They like to go underground. I p’fer the trees. Even in the rain. No one knows I’m here. And that’s the way I like it. My only fear is snakes. Some of ‘em live in the trees.”
“Oh, my God,” said Abbie, peering into the branches. “How do you ... What do you do?”
“Well, I leave them alone, they leave me alone, most the time. And they don’t like smoke. Smoke makes ’em nervous.” He looked up and around. .”I’m tryin’ to get a roof. To keep the rain off. With mosquito net walls.”
He pushed one hand slowly through his hair and stared off into the branches, then came back to us. “But you two have the tent tonight, with the sleepin’ mat. With your baby an’ all. The honeymoon suite.” A real smile then, and it made for some transformation. Just for a moment a happy, welcoming host sat beside us, proud of his little joke.
“Oh. Are you sure? I mean, what if it rains? And the snakes?”
“I got me a hootchie, ma’am. You go right ahead.”
“Well, if you’re sure, thank you very much. You’ve been very kind. Could I ask you though. Would it be okay if we left to find the road to Saigon as early as possible? We’d like to make sure we don’t miss the search party.”
He nodded. “You sure are all fired up to get to Saigon. Can’t stand the place myself. Gimme the J any day.”
“Well the baby’s getting weak, you see. She needs help as soon as possible.”
When Abbie climbed into the tent I was pleased that the baby didn’t start to cry.
“I’ll just give them a moment,” I said.
“Sure.”
I thanked him again for coming to our aid.
“Well, thank the baby san. If I hadna’ heard her I woulda’ left ya’ll alone. It didn’t seem right. A baby in the woods, in the night. I had to see. I don’t leave camp at night, as a rule. Once it’s dark I just like to set a while and listen to the jungle. Nights like this, when the rain’s gone, I like to listen.”
We sat in silence a moment while he listened. My eyes were closing when he opened the chest and took out a shoe-box sized army-green container. Opened, it revealed a collection of the longest, fattest marijuana joints I had ever seen.
I had shared a few but was not a smoker. He lit the roll, dragged long and hard and swallowed the smoke, closing the container and resting back before exhaling and passing it to me. I stifled a cough as I breathed out the smoke. He took another huge drag, holding it again before he spoke.
“In the mornin’, I go down to the village most days. Talk to the people. Give ’em gifts. Share my craft, when I’ve made something nice. And they’re nice to me, mostly. I mean they’re gooks. I don’t even know if they’re Christian. Could be Buddhists or somethin’. Major Hall. He said some of ’em might even be communists. And most of ’em don’t speak any English, but they’re nice. Like the Montagnards, the mountain people. They were nice too.” He passed the joint to me again. “And there’s a girl. In the village. Sweetest little thang. You know? She just … you know?”
I struggled to stay awake as I drew in some more smoke and passed it back. He dragged deeply on it again.
“Army’s full a’ goddamn hippies now. Fuckin’ cock suckers gonna lose us this war. And I see that sweet little girl and I know. You know? I know then we gotta win this war. She don’ speak word a’ English, but it don’ matter.”
I don’t know how much longer he went on before he realised I was leaning against the tree branch behind me, sound asleep.
“I’m sorry,” I said when he woke me with a hand on my shoulder. “Been walking all day and half the night.”
“ ’S okay. Turn in. Use the tent. I’m gonna set a while longer. Have a smoke and listen to the trees.”
In the almost total darkness I could just make out the baby lying in the middle with Abbie beside her, both of them on a narrow sleeping mat. I couldn’t really stretch out but I put my water bottle in the corner, checked again that the rifle magazine was safely pocketed and lay down beside the baby. As my head met the bamboo floor I fell asleep.