Targets: A Vietnam War Novel

by Don McQuinn

  He threw the mess in the back seat and forced himself to draw in several rib-stretching deep breaths. Even so, it was several minutes before he felt able to get underway.

  Chapter 33

  Ordway looked at the others at the table in the airport terminal and felt some of the joy in his system flow away. It was flattering, he decided, but it wasn’t really what he’d rather have. Leaving should include all your friends, and it wasn’t going home without having Willy there. The hungover memories of last night’s celebration and today’s excuses weren’t enough.

  Willy and his damned one-man drug crusade.

  He thought of Colonel Tho. It was his fault Willy was off chasing after those people. The big black dude with the pinups would’ve had their ass by now if Tho hadn’t put in backstop at Special Branch.

  That was a bad thing to think about. Even this close to the Freedom Bird, he didn’t want to think about having that man come down on him. He concentrated on the others at the table again.

  The Major. Naturally, he’d be here. And Kimble. Lucky bastard, him and his fat drop—going home same as me and only did eleven months. And the Old Man and Denby. Never saw two men so full of bullshit in all my life. Poor old Winter—no wonder he looks hurting. No replacements. Unit’s going down the fucking tubes, for sure. But I’m getting out. Home. The World. Semper fi, you mothers. I got mine.

  He sipped his Ba Muoi Ba, Denby’s parting gift, idly wondering if it was true they put formaldehyde in it to keep it from spoiling in the heat.

  Pa’ll shit a brick when he hears that.

  The image of his father fixed in his mind’s eye.

  Pa won’t mind me writing to Willy to back up the stuff about importing and all that.

  The image shifted in his vision, turned hot eyes on him.

  Wasted lies. Be honest with yourself, anyhow. Pa thinks life is a proper furrow and no niggers on the property. If he learns Willy’s black he’ll have a rag-doll baby. Likely run me off.

  Whatever they put in this fucking beer, it makes you sorry the horse suffered so ‘fore it died.

  Screw it all. I’m going home!

  Denby said, “You’re quiet today,” and it made him jerk his head up. It was a relief to see the squinchy eyes were on Major Taylor and not himself. The Major continued to stare at the sweaty brown bottle without saying anything and Ordway noticed the hubbub in the terminal for the first time. It was strange how the same combination of noises could be good one day and hell the next. He thought back to his arrival and realized that what had scared him then sounded like a carnival today.

  “I said, you’re quiet today.” Denby’s fleshy smile hardened with the repetition and Ordway considered kicking Taylor under the table but he looked up before it was necessary.

  “Sorry, Colonel. Daydreaming. Being here makes me think about going home, too.”

  Kimble laughed. “You’re not going anywhere, not without Ly.”

  Taylor accepted the dig with a wry smile. “You’re too smart for your own good. And mine.”

  Denby said, “Speaking of that kind of thing—” and locked his jaws at Winter’s fierce glare.

  Kimble missed the cue. “Were you thinking about Hal Allen? Have you heard anything about him, Colonel Winter?”

  “It’s something we shouldn’t discuss here.” Winter’s irritation was abundant. “He’s recovering, but the leg’s gone from the knee.”

  “I know, sir. I was wondering about the girl.”

  “She’s with him. Now, goddamit, drop it.”

  Belated understanding shone from Kimble’s eyes. “Oh, I see. I wasn’t thinking.”

  The uneasy silence returned for a few seconds and Denby attacked it, spraying bad jokes about Berkeley students manning antiaircraft guns around Travis to knock down the returning Freedom Birds, about sleeping in until 0600, about civilians who didn’t know what 0600 meant, and all the going home routine. Through it all, Kimble grinned awkward delight and Winter’s continuing unease grated in subtle discord.

  Finally Denby stared at his watch. “Colonel, I hate to remind you, but you’ve got an appointment with the General, remember.”

  Ordway watched Taylor closely, pleased to see the Major saw through the act, too.

  Officers. As big a pain in the ass for each other as they are for the rest of us. Look at that pig, Denby. Cant make it in the intelligence business, but he can out-bullshit the Old Man seven days a week. The Old Man just don’t like ol’ Kimble and he just can’t hide it. But Denby’s so nice it hurts. Slicker’n greased owl shit.

  They exchanged brusque, soldierly goodbyes that made Ordway want to laugh out loud until he saw Winter’s disappointment.

  Kimble looked at Taylor after the others were gone. “You’re not leaving with them?”

  “I told the General he’d have to wait to see me. Somebody has to keep things in perspective for the old bastard.”

  The small humor rattled off Kimble’s sobriety. He swung his head from Taylor to Ordway and back again as he took off his glasses and polished them and only when they were back on and settled did he say, “And here we are again, the Three Musketeers. We’ve all got something in common and I was hoping to talk to both of you.”

  Ordway nodded, uncomfortable. Kimble faced Taylor in time to see him ordering a fresh round, specifying whiskey.

  The nervous eyes behind the glasses hardened perceptibly and Taylor willed himself to match the stare. After a pause, Kimble looked away. “I don’t know how you knew I needed a stiff drink right now, Major, but I think that’s one of the things I dislike about you the most. You have an uncanny knack for determining what other people need. But my need is for more than the drink. I need to know some things about me.”

  “You’ll have to explain that.”

  “I don’t know if I can, dammit.” He cocked his body forward, reminding Taylor of the tense anticipation of the first splash into spring’s cold waters.

  “You know about pressure. I know you don’t always react exactly right, and all that shit, but what I mean is, you manage under stress. All my life when things got tough I threw up. I don’t understand you. I don’t want to be like you, but I’d like to know how you handle your world without coming apart.”

  The whole thing was half-heard and Taylor felt the mist falling between them, the ice-fog that came and hovered when he was faced with trying to explain to those who hoped the end result of combat was all-encompassing revelation. The cold shielded him, it was his sanctuary against the probing by the ones who truly believed that everything would be solved by understanding. He welcomed it even though he knew it would bring the recurring fear that he was not separated, not distant, but isolated. When the cold and fear intensified beyond a certain point he talked to his hands in his constant need to reassure himself the color wasn’t really draining away from them.

  “You want me to send you back to the States ready to do battle with the natives?” It was a weary, last effort to deny what he knew was coming.

  The ascetic face across the table waggled on the end of its thin neck. “C’mon, Major, don’t stroke me with something cute or some Zen-type bullshit. That night—with the jeep—that’s the first time in my life I didn’t smell trouble coming and get out before it started. I’ve never stuck around anything long enough to be a coward. I’m an habitual absentee.”

  “So?”

  “Well, shit. Look, I want my baby and there’s going to be a fight! You’d just walk in, the way you walk around this goddam place, like you own it. I have to know how to do that, why you’re not scared all the time!”

  “I am scared all the time, but I figured the odds. The only man in Nam who’d burn me for Charlie knows he wouldn’t outlive me by more than a few hours, so forget him. Who else? Some nut with a spare grenade or an extra round? Even then, he’ll probably miss. It comes down to worrying about an accident and I can’t spend my time worrying about accidents or I’d never get anything done.”

  “I want my daughter.” K
imble leaned further forward. “If the man who stole my wife tries to steal my kid, I’ll kill him.”

  Taylor shifted in his chair, raising a hand to brush the stiff crewcut over his ear. Ordway noticed he used his knuckles and it looked like he would throw a punch any instant. He tensed to intercept it and only relaxed when it lowered and the Major went on.

  “That’s a stupid way to think and a worse thing to say. Do it and you gain nothing. And life’s worse for the kid.”

  “It’s what you’d do. You or that cement bastard Winter. You’re the ones who get things done, to use your phrase. Maybe I wasn’t cool when I greased the mother next to the jeep, but I did it, by God, and I can sure do it to get my baby back.”

  His eyes dilated as he spoke, as though the soul behind them needed the light. His defiance was so alien he was hard pressed to retain it and Taylor played to the uncertainty.

  “Is that what you’re asking me? To tell you you’ll do what’s required? OK, if that’s how you see it. And if you’re wrong, I think you’ll learn to live with it, the way everyone learns to live with mistakes. But you know damned well you don’t have to kill him to prove who you are.”

  “I do! It’s the only thing this goddam world understands! It’s why I’m here and this whole thing happened! If you’re hard enough and vicious enough, people leave you alone!”

  “You want me to remind you how easy it is to kill a man? So you can do it again? You want to strip the respect off the body and wear it like some kind of fucking pelt? You think finishing that shot-up little VC ennobled you? Think about it!” Taylor was off the chair, leaning into Kimble, forcing him back, their noses almost touching. People looked at them, at the intensity, and looked away.

  Ordway felt a strange thrill in being near so much tension, wanting no part of it yet wanting to be in it at any risk. His mind careened, trying to find words for his excitement and there were none. He only knew he wished he was somewhere else and couldn’t imagine leaving.

  Taylor said, “Remember how he jumped when the first bullet hit him, how he fell? And remember him trying to get up, like a broken animal? He knew he was dead when you put the second round to him, did you realize that? Remember how the wind blew out of him when it hit him? Grunted like a steer in a slaughterhouse, didn’t he? Make you proud?”

  Behind the glasses Kimble’s eyes guttered and mewing leaked through his lips. Taylor backed off, sitting in his chair again. When he spoke, the remnants of what had happened echoed as a tremor in his voice.

  “If you can think of a way all that made you a better man, tell me about it.”

  Kimble’s head moved in a sick negative.

  “Good. Let’s have no more foolishness then. ‘Cause we just proved two things.” He laughed, and the unexpectedness of it raised Kimble’s head.

  “First, the way you acted that night ought to give you confidence that you can handle a crisis. The other thing is that what we’re talking about is something you can never comprehend. The reason you had to put the second round in that little prick is because he was doing his best to live long enough to get one of us. If he was praying, and he probably was, it was for enough strength to take us with him. You’re not like that. Never could be. That doesn’t make you any better or any worse, as far as I can tell, only different. But if you try to equate what happened down there to getting your child back from some guy in Philadelphia—” He finished the thought with a careless wave, then continued. “I don’t think you really want to kill him and saying you will only creates a kind of obligation. And if you try it and you don’t know how to do it and get away with it, you’ve got trouble. You’re not crude enough to shotgun a man and you’re too full of civilization to bomb his car, so why not just drop it? You’re boxed.”

  Coldly, Kimble asked, “How do you survive? Don’t your memories trouble you once in a while?”

  The futility of trying to explain distracted Taylor momentarily and the fog rushed to cover the exposed part of his mind. At that, he surrendered to the separateness and the faint remaining hope of a genuine connection between them was gone.

  “Kimble, I had more in common with that little VC in the sixty seconds of our acquaintance than I’ll ever have with you. That’s not the point, though. The point is, we’re in the same outfit and I simply don’t want to see you screw yourself completely out of shape. That’s all.”

  “Not quite.” Kimble’s eyes were stones, locked to Taylor’s. “I want to be honest with you, too. I know you don’t respect me much, and that makes it easy for me to tell you I don’t care, because I don’t like you at all. You play games with living and dying, and that’s sick. Look at your idol, Winter. He’s going crazy trying to catch one measly little slope and after he catches him, if he ever does, no one in the fucking world will give one shit. And you’re right in there with him. You’re just like the fucking NVA or the Congs—fanatics, every fucking one of you. You wear the smell of death. I’ve been telling myself I could be like you if I was threatened enough. May be, but it’d have to be my life that was threatened. You’d kill a man for what you’d call honor or duty or country or to pass the fucking time.”

  He stopped and stared into his cupped hands on the tabletop and Ordway struggled to catch Taylor’s eye discreetly. He was dismayed when the Major spoke to him.

  “We’ve been hammering away pretty rudely, Ordway. I’m sorry. You didn’t ask to sit in on this and if you want to shove off or something, go ahead.”

  “No, sir. No, sir.” He swore silently at himself for repeating and unconsciously bowed his neck. “I didn’t want in, but I am. I mean, I was there, and I heard all this just now, and I think both of you all are right. You’re the way you are, Major, ‘cause you’ve got a job to do. You’re a professional in this business. People like the Captain and me, we can do the same things you do, but we’re not ready to think it’s a business. What the Captain done that night was live up to what he knew he’s supposed to do, same’s me. I might could get mad enough to fight a man and kill him. The Captain’d like to, but he don’t think he can. That’s the difference, Major, and it’s why you can’t see the thing the way we do. You know, sir. You’ve done it before and I expect you’ll do it again and it’ll be because you decided to do it. I have to tell you, sir, that scares the shit out of me.”

  At the Major’s smile, he wanted to look away, but it was already too late. He’d seen the smile and the eyes and the shift that changed them from mocking cynicism to appreciation.

  Then the Major said, “You’re a very observant young man, Corporal. And I think far wiser than I’ve given you credit for. That’s my loss.” He raised his glass in a silent toast and drained it. Ordway followed suit.

  Almost as if neither of them had spoken, Kimble said, “You’re right about me, Taylor. I could never be like you. I won’t shoot anybody. But I can do something you can’t do. I can be finished with this place. You never will be. I don’t think you’ll make it this time. I think this place is going to get you. I don’t know if I’ll be sorry about that or not, but right now I think I pity you.”

  Rising slowly, Taylor’s body interrupted a thick bar of sunlight and sent a hugely elongated shadow stretching across the littered floor. A jet screamed into the sky, giving him time to consider and discard several parting messages. In the end he merely gave each man a clipped nod and shook hands. On the way out he was especially pleased to notice his hand was tan and relaxed, the veins standing out in a rich blue. He was whistling to himself by the time he was outside.

  * * *

  Miller sat in the jeep with his eyes closed against the glare and concentrated on a drop of sweat coursing his left arm. It occurred to him it might be a fly and he opened an eye long enough to verify his first impression and closed it again.

  For no accountable reason he was seized by nostalgia, so powerful it caught his entire consciousness and pulled it away from the forthcoming confrontation. The feeling faded as quickly as it came and, telling himself he had to tru
st Tho, he willed himself to remain unmoving. After all, he went on in his mind, a meeting scheduled for mid-morning on a busy street was no place for a hit. Trying to convince himself was hard work and he quit, searching instead for what could have touched off the earlier homesick-like sensation.

  There was nothing—the standard scattering of GIs on Tu Do, but the prevailing sound was like nothing that ever happened in Pittsburgh—the cyclos and asthmatic Bluebirds and all the rest—and the singsong of the whores. He was inhaling, wondering if a smell had been responsible, when it struck him. From one of the bars came the click of pool balls. Larded over that was the muggy day-smell of buildings that only lived at night. He could practically taste the corner hangouts of his boyhood.

  “You awake, man?”

  Miller opened his eyes slowly, dissecting the greeting for any sign of hostility. He couldn’t find any, nor did Mantell’s smile appear deceptive, although it bespoke something less than friendliness. The careless drape of his body across the hood showed the name Randolph and sergeant’s stripes on worn Air Force fatigues.

  “Ready,” Miller said. “I got the word you wanted to talk.”

  “Not a lot.” Mantell baited him, enjoying stretching the anxiety. “A friend of mine said I was to give you a message for him.” He stopped, and the smile grew.

  Miller closed his eyes again and slouched further into the seat. “You get tired fuckin’ around, you tell me.”

  Mantell’s voice hardened, full of undisguised resentment. “The rat say you clean. My friend say he’ll get to you, but you got to be cool. He be away for a month, maybe two.”

  “Two months? What kind of shit is this?” Miller sat up straight and turned to glare at Mantell and the small man brightened again.

  “Tough shit, big operator. We’ll be talkin’.” He turned and left.

  Miller swore under his breath and started the engine, pulling away. Not until he reached the intersection with Bach Dang and was cruising along the waterfront did he allow himself to think of the bitter lump of fear in the back of his throat. He resolved to think of a proper gift for Tho, suddenly smiling at the thought of a gift in repayment for his life. He’d settle for something symbolic, he decided.