Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocation

by Michael Z. Williamson

  Roger felt nauseated. McCarthy had enjoyed that.

  They all stared around them at Ghandi’s followers, who stared back. They weren’t supposed to use violence. Roger didn’t trust that, in hell, armed with a slung single shot rifle, even if he had a long bayonet at his side.

  Ghandi’s assistant shrugged in a broad gesture and said, “Bapu will come back to us in time. We shall continue our sagratyha.” He turned and walked up the steps, heedless of the writhing wounded around him. The others followed.

  Benet said, “So we proceed to the minefields.”

  The princess in the minefields was easy to find. South of town was a large, vacant area, with craters and pocks. They pogoed past animals and pieces of them that lay scattered, crusted and fly-encrusted. Roger wondered what they’d done to deserve this fate.

  Ahead, a figure in khakis with a tool belt became visible through the dusty haze. He could tell she was female, but only from the gait, despite a bad limp. She had a metal detector, chemical sniffers, a toolbelt and a shovel.

  They dismounted, stacked arms—well, sticks—and approached carefully, following the existing holes and paths. They stepped over a bactrian’s corpse, which squished and slid, the skin loose from the meat beneath. He winced.

  She’d clearly been pretty at some point. Now, though, she had divots from her flesh, joints that had healed in lumps, lacerations and generally looked as if she’d been run over, repeatedly.

  Her joints were a moment of clarity for Roger. The human body was intelligently designed, if the purpose of the design was to enable easily inflicting maximum pain and damage.

  Behind and to the right, there was a muffled blast that threw a shifting shadow. Roger turned cautiously, to see someone flail in midair and die. He turned back and ignored it. It was hard not to be fatalistic in hell.

  The woman stood waiting, offering nothing.

  As they got close enough not to shout, Benet asked, “What are you doing, ma’am?”

  “I should hope it was obvious I’m clearing mines.” She sounded amused, sad, bored and annoyed.

  “That could take forever.”

  She shrugged elegantly. “I appear to have the time.”

  Benet said, “Mr. Ghandi suggested we talk to you. We are seeking an honest man.”

  She smiled faintly. “You may be out of luck. I am not a man.”

  “But are you honest?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it? Why would a princess and victim of a tragedy be in the depths of hell pursuing her hobby in this fashion?” She gestured at the surrounding craterscape.

  Roger said, “That’s certainly a legal question. One we’d pursue if we had time.”

  “Ah, yes. The lawyers. I’ve heard of you,” she said.

  Roger offered, “Likely nothing good and likely all true.”

  “Yes, that would be the case here. Why would you think I am honest? I had a very ugly, very public divorce with all kinds of audio recordings and publicity. Then a terrible accident involving alcohol.”

  “No conspiracy?” he asked, ashamed but curious.

  She looked disgusted. “Only from the media, to make as much money from me any way possible. You might check with the famous mister Cronkite. He’s here, and surprisingly candid. I wish I’d encountered more of his type of press.”

  Benet said, “Unfortunately, this is not a trial, nor an inquest. We’re to take you back to the Pentagram, so you can be deposed there.”

  “How amusing,” she said. “I never sat as queen, and yet I am to be deposed. I suppose you’d best take me, then.”

  “It’s not you we are to take exactly, ma’am,” Roger felt compelled to say.

  “Oh?” she asked, turning to face him, and he felt disgusted by his role in this.

  Benet made it one motion draw and slice, and her once-pretty face acquired a new set of injuries as it smashed nose first into the ground.

  Thurmond scooped up her head, gently. She was crying, lips trembling, as he swept off debris and placed her in the sack.

  “That’s a shame,” he muttered. “She was as sweet as she was pretty. I can’t think of anything ill to say about her.”

  He’d lived longer than she had, and apparently had respect for her.

  McCarthy asked, “Who was she, anyway?”

  He really wouldn’t know, Roger realized, and offered, “A tragic figure, just as she said. A lady and a princess.”

  McCarthy snorted. “I don’t approve of royalty. Seems somewhat elitist.”

  “Indeed. Quite far from communism, though.”

  “Hmm. True.”

  Benet interrupted their musing. “Howard, get on that gadget of yours and find where this Bronchitis fellow is.”

  “Walter Cronkite. Famous reporter, and actually very well respected. I do think he’s a good bet, sir.”

  “Well, get on with it.” Benet fluffed his whiskers and pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.

  For some reason, Roger had trouble manipulating his phone, with its intermittent connection, the shifting sunlight and a sack with a wiggling head in it nearby, as well as a staring, belligerent McCarthy and a confused, frustrated Benet cleaning his saber.

  After a few minutes of swiping, typing and cursing, he had video. Cronkite looked good, as he had at his prime, which was about when Roger had been born.

  “He’s reporting live from the east side, where a battle is.”

  “Which battle?” McCarthy wanted to know. “A battle against commies?”

  Roger calmly replied, “Who knows which battle? There are so many.”

  “Well, let’s proceed. Back out the way we came, then a blister break.”

  Roger tried not to think about blisters. Blisters in hell were worse than blisters in life. They infected, oozed, scarred over. He could feel them blossoming inside his stiff leather wingtips, and along the edge of the upper. They’d pop and peel. You could ignore the burn, and the layers of skin coming off. The damage was something else.

  You wanted to be first for treatment. Treatment hurt a lot, but was over quickly. The later patients got to anticipate the pain. Shrieks from each victim primed the next to expect agony. Benet always went last and, to his credit, never uttered a sound. That Fucking Benet had never commanded in battle, but he did have courage.

  He was also stubborn, after a century and more, about those stupid single-shot rifles.

  Roger wondered about Gandhi and his obsession with passive resistance and Benet with his single-shot rifles. Neither could help you in hell. So was hell meant to break the damned of their sinners’ habits? Satan never offered explanations, never actually met with anyone—at least not to answer inconvenient questions. The CLAP handled petty cases to no useful end, for eternity; and with the endlessly shifting legal codes, botched most of them. Like that hell-kitten named Lucky.

  When they stopped to lunch and to treat their feet, their shrieks and screams seemed to please the locals. Hawk-nosed men and gray-eyed women in indigo and bright scarves watched in delight as lawyers suffered.

  When Roger’s turn came, their company combat medic punctured Roger’s festering sores and poured alcohol over them. Roger tried not to howl when the alcohol hit his liquefied flesh. He flushed and sweated; his brain spun; nausea washed over him like surf. Then he spun down a deep dark tunnel into unconsciousness.

  In his nice, black comfy place, a shoe prodded him. “Howard, wake up.”

  He groaned, tried to rise and failed with the pack holding him back, rolled on sharp rocks and stood. His feet were numbed now, so he felt the pokes in knees and elbows all the more.

  There were no showers or clean suits in hell, either, and his tie was too tight.

  They bounced endlessly across the craterscape. The water in his canteen tasted like a combination of mud and urine. In coldest weather, they got moldy iced tea. In extreme heat, it was sometimes boiling Drownin’ Donuts coffee with cloying sweet cream and sugar, offset with a dead mouse. He’d like water. Clean, clear wate
r. Just once.

  Without warning, sniper fire ripped from cover across the wasteland. Henry fell over, his shoulder blown apart. He uttered gurgling noises. Thurmond grabbed his shoulder and held it so it might heal reasonably straight. Three CLAPpers returned fire, and despite the single-shot nature of their rifles, the massive .45-70 rounds scared off the enemy.

  They bivouacked under a shivery chill vault of sky, red like clotted blood with heaving violet and pink swirls. Not pretty like an aurora. Just disorienting and vomitous. He shivered miserably for hours on end, trying to recall black starry nights and crescent moons smiling at him.

  The next morning they munched their rations and moved out. His feet were lumps of rancid meat in his shoes at this point, and his knee had stopped hurting, and stopped bending. The pogo stick caused the joint to smash with every bounce.

  Far ahead, though, was a defensive line of rocks, sandbags, mortars, machine guns and other weapons, and thousands of Ashcan troops trying to protect their little piece of hell from an onslaught of Chinese and Zulu and punk kids.

  “Damned commies!” McCarthy muttered deliberately loudly. “If we can find something to charge them with, I’ll haul them in for hearings.”

  Roger really wished McCarthy would forget communism. Even communists were victims in hell. The past of a sinner paled before his netherworldly sins. The damned butchered hapless victims because they could. Because they always had. Because they always would.

  Roger had never been a hero. He’d been too clever by half for that. But in hell, if could find some heroic path, he’d take it. If it could get him out of hell. But then, heroism wasn’t about premeditation. Holding “hearings” of alleged communists was about premeditation.

  Ahead, though, was a small civilian pickup truck bristling with gear. As they got closer, Roger identified its satellite dish and antennae. They dismounted and proceed on foot, pogo sticks under their arms. It felt strange to walk—well, limp—and to see a stationary horizon. What twist of physics let them pogo so well, without falling and exacerbating injuries more? Or was it just personalized torture for men who’d enjoyed limousines and first-class travel?

  A short distance away, one man stood in front of a camera, a pop-filtered microphone trained on him, pointing to the outgoing fire. It was definitely Cronkite: handsome and dignified. He seemed in fine shape.

  Then when he turned, Roger realized that Cronkite was shot to hell. His camera-loving face was perfect, unmarred. Battlefield butchery covered his body. Par for the course in Ashcanistan, but anywhere else in hell he’d be dead and recycled by now.

  Cronkite’s voice was deep, resonant, familiar: “Greetings, gentlemen. Are you here with the Forces Unified for Central Kabum Emergency Resistance . . . ?”

  Cronkite’s next words were partly drowned out by mortar fire, and the basso whoosh of a round incoming.

  Roger ducked. The round landed far behind them. He stood up, and realized no one else had twitched.

  Benet nudged him. He said, “No, sir, we’re lawyers.”

  “Ah, yes. The lawyers. The CLAP. I’ve heard of you. You are almost as popular as I, myself.” Cronkite smiled slightly.

  McCarthy stared at Cronkite wordlessly.

  “You are the Walter Cronkite?”

  “I was, yes. What I am now, I’m not sure. But that’s how I think of myself.”

  “I’m Roger Howard, sir. I remember watching you while I was growing up.”

  Cronkite said, “You’re making me feel old.”

  “Sorry, sir.”

  “No apologies necessary. I assume, though, that this is a professional visit? Am I being sued again? That happens more here than it ever did in life.”

  “No, that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to—”

  McCarthy finally said, “Cronkite . . . weren’t you the understudy of Murrow?”

  “I was,” Cronkite nodded. “I recognize you, sir.”

  Roger noticed Cronkite hadn’t offered McCarthy a greeting. McCarthy was still staring, too. It was creepy.

  McCarthy said, “Polls said you were the most trusted man on television, Cronkite.”

  “I was called that. I certainly tried to be.”

  “So tell me the truth, now that it doesn’t matter. Was Murrow a communist? A sympathizer?”

  Cronkite rolled his eyes and feigned surprise: he must have heard the slur in life.

  “Murrow? Not to my knowledge, no.”

  McCarthy shifted uncomfortably.

  “You’re certain?”

  “Quite certain. Is this something that still matters to you, here?” Cronkite used his hand to indicate the area around them. Cronkite didn’t even wince in pain until after he lowered his injured hand.

  Roger could see McCarthy considering Cronkite’s question. If Cronkite was honest, Cronkite’s expression of certainty was genuine. If not, then Cronkite wasn’t the soul they wanted. But McCarthy obviously hoped to harm Cronkite.

  What a struggle must be ongoing inside McCarthy’s twisted mind, between duty and vendetta.

  McCarthy, you’re an idiot, Roger thought.

  “Are you the most trusted man in hell?” McCarthy pressed.

  “I would hope not.”

  “In life, on television. But not in hell, on hellovision?”

  Cronkite smiled sadly. “Television in life was a lie; hellovision in afterlife is the same. I condensed the events of each day in the world to a small nugget of glossed-over facts, presented for the layman. Usually the subjects I explained were beyond my own knowledge, yet I was expected to report and comment on them. I tried to be fair, but I did have opinions.”

  “You sound like you might be our man,” McCarthy said slyly.

  “You are seeking the most trusted man in hell?”

  “The most honest,” Roger clarified. “To depose for a trial at the Pentagram.”

  “I see.” Cronkite sounded dismissive. “Well, I’m afraid I must decline the honor. I certainly can’t claim to be the most honest man in all the hells.” He turned toward his camera crew, as if the discussion was now closed.

  Benet asked, “Do you know who would be, Mr. Cronkite?”

  “Who would be?” Cronkite turned back to them. “No. However, in my own limited experience of the afterlife, I’d recommend Mathew Brady.”

  Roger had no idea who Mathew Brady might be.

  Benet looked as if he’d been shot.

  “The Civil War photographer? Lincoln’s portraitist?”

  Cronkite said, “Yes, that is he.”

  Roger asked, “Do you know where this Brady is?”

  Cronkite pointed to the north.

  “When last I spoke to him, he was just over that rise, capturing images of the aftermath of the battle between the Taliban and the Taliwhackers.”

  Benet nodded. “Thank you. Unfortunately, we’ll still have to take you with us.”

  “Oh? Very well,” Cronkite said, seeming rather relaxed as he motioned his crew to take a break. Roger looked at Benet and at McCarthy, and back at Thurmond and crooked-legged Summers and smash-faced Horace and the rest of the CLAP. With the camera crew right there, there was no way to take this head clandestinely.

  Roger realized no one else was going to come out and say it. Sighing, he said to Cronkite, “Sir, we are supposed to bring Satan your head.”

  “Well,” Cronkite said, deadpan, motioning his camera crew to start rolling: “That’s the way it is, this day in hell.”

  He stared unmoving, eyes locked with Roger, as Benet’s saber sliced through his neck.

  McCarthy stepped back as blood spurted and the head of Cronkite bounced and rolled at their feet: “I still think Murrow was a Commie. Cronkite may have been smart. That doesn’t mean he was informed.”

  McCarthy had no decency in life or afterlife, in Roger’s opinion.

  Thurmond had the head in the bag, and he spoke. “I found Cronkite a gentleman,” he said in his scratchy Southern drawl. “He was fair, respectful. He talked to the
person, not just the politician. I had good friends on both sides of the aisle, and we all respected him.”

  McCarthy snorted.

  “So long as we have him. I’ll find Murrow sometime, too. I know you never believed me, Strom, but you were a Dem yourself at the time, hugging those union cretins. You never saw the bureaucratic communistic Frankenstein that was there.” McCarthy’s voice trembled; he was excited.

  Tiredly, Thurmond said, “You convinced people at first, Joseph. But in the end, no one saw what you saw. Either you were alone in your genius, or mistaken.” Thurmond headed back to his stick.

  Roger said, “Sirs, we need to move on,” ducking his head and turning his back on McCarthy while, inside, he seethed.

  Amid sporadic outgoing and incoming fire, they made their way across a rocky hillside. No bullets came their way. To the north, Taliban shot into the town. To the south, the Taliwhackers, Cronkite had called them, returned fire but aimed poorly. Other rebel groups fought the Chinese, the Zulus, the Mughals, and Satan only knew who else. Apart from the racket, travel was reasonably safe.

  They made it over the next ridge, on foot again. Some distance down-slope, there was an American tent, Civil War vintage; farther away were encampments of other civil warriors: English, Irish, Russian, and Mexican.

  They spotted Brady, all alone outside the American tent.

  Benet said, “That’s odd. During the War, Brady sent teams of photographers out, while he stayed in New York. Each team was three to five. It does appear Brady’s by himself.”

  Brady was handsome. His bushy hair and Van Dyke beard framed an aristocratic face. He didn’t seem to be wounded or disfigured.

  Roger thought the large bellows camera mounted on a sturdy wooden tripod delightful. He imagined, though, that trying to photograph hell with it was eternal torture.

  Here and there in the camp were other tripods and cameras, a tent with folding wooden doors that was probably a darkroom, a supply-wagon overflowing with boxes.

  Benet stalked over to the photographer. Roger stumped along behind him.

  “Mister Brady?” Benet asked.

  Brady squinted, pulled his glasses back and forth a bit to adjust focus, then stared.