Strays

by C. Alexander London

  Right next to his ear, he heard the snort and snarl of Ajax eating his food from a ration can. He tilted his head and saw the boy still stroking the dog’s broad back, awestruck.

  A bolt of pain shot up his spine and sliced out through his limbs with such force that he gasped. The boy looked at him, alarmed, and his mother pulled him away. They sat off by themselves, eating something they’d brought wrapped in wide leaves, the mother whispering to her son in that way that mothers have. The words weren’t really important. The tone said it all. Chuck felt better hearing it.

  He could feel his heartbeat fluttering in his chest. Once the pain settled down, he shivered. The jungle night was wet and cool, but Chuck knew he wasn’t cold because of the weather. He had lost a lot of blood, and that made him cold. He knew what Doc had said. He didn’t want to die.

  He imagined himself back home, calling Ajax over and over again, calling to his dog, but Ajax wasn’t there. In his mind, he saw Griffin coming to him, holding Ajax’s collar and pointing to a pit in the ground, a muddy, wet pit, and Chuck couldn’t bear to look inside it.

  “He’s with Bruno now,” said Griffin, and Chuck shuddered himself awake. His eyes snapped open. Just a nightmare.

  Ajax had curled up beside him, snoring. Double O was sitting on the ground next to him, cleaning his rifle, and Billy was doing the same.

  “You know, Billy,” said Double O. “You did some fine fighting back there. We gonna have to change your nickname. You’re no bean farmer. You cool beans, brother.”

  Billy smiled. “You just called me brother,” he said.

  “Well,” Double O sighed. “After what we been through …” He let the thought fade. Chuck smirked. He felt like he’d had some role in whatever strange friendship was forming.

  “What about you, Chuck?” said Billy. “We never heard from you. You ever have a nickname?”

  “You keep calling me Devil Dog,” said Chuck.

  “I mean before that,” said Double O.

  Chuck shook his head. “No one ever took much notice of me,” he said. “It was always about the dog. They wanted Ajax on patrols and Ajax by their foxholes …”

  The guys glanced at one another. They’d thought the same way before.

  “Ajax, though — he’s got the perfect name,” Chuck said. “Ajax was an ancient Greek hero — Ajax the Great. One of the strongest warriors in all the armies of Greece. And he was one of the few heroes to survive the epic Trojan War.”

  “That so?” Double O was impressed with what Chuck knew. He actually knew the story of Ajax himself, because his mom used to read to him from the long and ancient poem that told the story. It was called The Iliad, and his mother had loved it, had said it would help him to get ahead if he knew it. But Chuck was leaving off the real ending of the story of Ajax the Great. In the story, Ajax survives the war, but he never does make it home to Greece again. Maybe Chuck didn’t know the ending, or maybe Chuck just didn’t want to talk about it. It was only an old story, after all.

  “You guys sure read a lot,” said Billy.

  “My mom always says a book is the best way to travel the world,” said Double O.

  “I think I’ve seen enough of the world already,” said Billy.

  “This ain’t the world,” Double O told him. “This is the war. Read a book and you’ll see the world’s a bigger place than all this nonsense.”

  “I’ve read books before,” said Billy.

  “Books without pictures?” Double O smirked at him.

  Billy made a rude gesture at Double O, and much to his embarrassment, the boy sitting with his mother noticed and imitated it right away. Billy blushed.

  “Good job,” Doc joked. “Way to spread the finest our culture has to offer.”

  Chuck laughed and rubbed Ajax behind his ears. For a moment, it felt like everything was going to be okay. They were joking and talking like old times, like the good times. Then another jolt of pain shot through him. He winced. Doc rushed to his side.

  “I think we should get moving again,” said Chuck, his face pinched.

  “All right.” Doc nodded. “You guys ready?”

  Double O stood and told the woman they were moving again. Billy tried to get Ajax up, but the dog snarled at him and he backed off.

  “When you gonna learn?” Double O laughed. The boy came over and took the leash, and Ajax popped to his feet, eager as ever to continue. Billy shook his head.

  They pushed on in the dark. Ajax sniffed curiously at the underbrush. Occasionally he pulled the boy in a wide circle around a particular patch of ground and the group followed, or he stopped to do his business on a tree, to mark his territory just like Chuck had carved their names over the ping-pong table. That felt like so long ago, back when they were undefeated.

  Doc gave Chuck constant updates on what Ajax was up to, even when he wasn’t sure Chuck was awake anymore. They kept moving steadily through the night.

  As the sun began to rise, they felt the ground sloping down, and they knew they’d crossed the hills. Before the sun had peeked up all the way above the mountains on the horizon, the group had picked their way down into the green twilight of a river valley. They reached a swollen river and saw a rickety wooden bridge slung across it downstream.

  Ajax sniffed at the river and splashed the surface with his paw. The rushing water jumped up when he smacked it, startling him back and making him sneeze. The boy giggled and splashed him. Ajax tried to bite at the spray of water, which only made him sneeze more. Watching from his makeshift stretcher, Chuck laughed.

  Doc looked up, following the line of the bridge to a path on the other side of the river. He gasped. “Would you look at that!”

  He could just make out a flash of white through the trees, a glimpse of marble.

  “Is that — ?” Billy started.

  “Looks like a mansion to me,” said Double O.

  Ajax barked and ran in circles around Chuck on the stretcher, yanking his leash right out of the boy’s hand. Then he darted off down the river to the bridge. The boy scampered after him, taking his job as the dog handler very seriously, even as it became clear that the dog was the one in charge.

  When they caught up to Ajax and the boy at the bridge, they could see the hill slope up on the other side, an overgrown path cut across it. The path turned sharply into the jungle. From here, they could just make out the angled roof of a grand house poking above the trees.

  The bridge itself was made of planks of wood strung together with rope, overgrown with vines and patches of moss. It swayed in the wind over the rushing river below, and Ajax whimpered at it, planting his feet firmly.

  “That bridge don’t look safe to cross,” said Billy.

  “No, it doesn’t,” said Double O.

  Just then, Ajax turned away from the river and looked back at the jungle. His ears pointed; the hair on his back rose, and he let out cautious growl, one front paw raised in the air.

  The boy said something to his mother. She pulled him close.

  “Ajax alerted,” Double O said.

  Chuck turned his head in the hammock with a great deal of effort and looked down at his dog, trying to read his reaction. He nearly passed out from the pain and the effort of just looking down.

  “Someone’s coming,” Chuck said. “Not a small group, by the looks of it.”

  He coughed hard and winced as he coughed. When he took his hand away from his mouth, there was some blood on it. He didn’t need Doc to tell him that was a bad sign, but worry would have to wait.

  They had to get across the river, fast.

  The boy and his mother went first. They tried to pull Ajax across the bridge with them, but he wouldn’t move.

  “Go,” said Chuck. He shooed them forward with his hand so that they would understand. The boy released the leash and they scurried to the other side. The bridge creaked, and they had to step over a spot where two planks had broken, but they made it across and crouched low in the bushes.

  “Ajax will f
ollow me across,” said Chuck.

  “We can’t carry you,” said Doc. “No way the bridge will take all that weight at the same time. No way.”

  “Set me down,” said Chuck. “I’ll walk.”

  “You can’t walk,” said Billy, although it didn’t really need to be said. They all knew it was true.

  “I can’t not walk either,” Chuck said. “We don’t have time to argue. You guys go first, and Ajax and I will make our way after.”

  “I’ll go last,” said Billy. “That way I can cover you from this side … if it comes to that.”

  Doc shook his head. “This is a bad idea.”

  “It’s the only idea we’ve got,” said Double O. “And Chuck’s right. No time to argue. Let’s move.”

  With that, Double O took his first careful steps onto the swaying bridge. He paused and held tight to the ropes, whispered a short prayer to himself, and then crossed the bridge as fast as he could. When he reached the other side, he turned and knelt, lifting his rifle and aiming at the bush behind the others. He signaled for the next person to cross.

  Doc nodded, and he and Billy set Chuck down carefully on the ground. Ajax immediately came to his side and sat, like a sentry on guard duty. Chuck reached over and patted him.

  Doc stepped out on the bridge. He was by far the heaviest guy in the group, and sure enough, his foot went right through a plank about halfway across. He caught himself while falling, and hung for a perilous moment from the suspension rope of the bridge. But he recovered, his hand burning, and he hauled himself back up and made it the rest of the way.

  “Your turn,” said Billy. He bent down and hoisted Chuck up under his good shoulder. He heard Chuck suck in a sharp breath, but he got him standing.

  “Thanks,” Chuck said, grabbing Ajax’s leash in his good arm, the other one hanging limply off his bad shoulder. He leaned on his one good leg and exhaled. Billy helped him onto the first part of the bridge, leaning him on the guide rope. Ajax took a nervous step by his side. “Okay, buddy,” Chuck told his dog. “I need you to save me again, so I can save you. You gotta pull me across.”

  Ajax looked up at him, knowing the sound of a request in his master’s voice, but clearly not understanding what was expected of him. He sniffed at the planks by his feet and looked back to the bush behind them.

  “Go,” Chuck commanded, and that Ajax understood. He stepped forward and pulled Chuck along with him. Chuck gritted his teeth and held himself up by leaning on the side of the bridge and hopping along. The planks creaked in protest and the bridge jerked madly, but it held. “Good boy!” Chuck praised Ajax with every step, trying to sound cheerful through the agony he felt. “Good dog!”

  It felt like hours before they made it across, although it could not have been more than five minutes. As soon as they reached the other side, Chuck collapsed to the ground, out of breath, tears of pain running down his cheeks. Ajax licked his face.

  “You okay?” Double O was over him.

  Chuck couldn’t find the strength to answer. He heard Billy scampering across the bridge and felt himself being dragged into the brush. He couldn’t lift his head, but he didn’t dare pass out. He lay still and kept a hand resting on Ajax’s side, and he listened.

  Ducked under some bushes, rifles raised, Billy and Double O watched the opposite riverbank. The woman and the boy huddled behind them, and Doc lay beside Chuck, pressing his fingertips to Chuck’s neck to feel his fading pulse.

  “Hang in there, soldier,” Doc whispered.

  “Those are Americans,” Billy whispered urgently. “Marines.”

  “Stay cool,” said Double O. “Just stay cool.”

  Doc peered through the bushes to the other side of the river. He watched as a squad of twelve American soldiers stopped at the other end of the bridge, talking to each other and pointing across, up toward the roof of the marble house.

  Double O flicked the safety catch on his gun, locking the trigger so the gun wouldn’t shoot by accident. But still he held the rifle, cradled on his shoulder. It was like an extension of his arm at this point. He wouldn’t feel safe setting it down, not after what had happened back in the village.

  The marines stood talking for a while longer on the other side of the river. Then one of them signaled back into the bush, and two more guys came out, one of them hauling a heavy radio on his back, the antenna bobbing slightly as he walked. The other guy must be the officer in charge. He shook his head as the men talked to him and then pointed downriver. He raised his hand and pointed with two fingers and his thumb, signaling for the patrol to continue.

  Double O exhaled with relief, watching the squad move on along their side. More marines slid out of the bush, following in line. They seemed to materialize from the jungle itself, covered in mud and leaves and filth, their faces worn out, the whites of their eyes flashing up as they each took turns glancing curiously toward the strange white rooftop poking out across the river.

  It took ages for the platoon to pass by, but soon they were gone from sight, leaving not a clue that they had ever been there. Billy relaxed, slumping back onto his behind in the mud. He rubbed his eyes.

  “How’s our man?” Double O asked.

  Doc felt Chuck’s pulse again and shook his head. “Not good,” he said. “We’re losing him.”

  Ajax rested his snout snugly in Chuck’s armpit, but Chuck didn’t react. His eyes fluttered lightly behind his eyelids. His shallow breaths made a rasping noise as they came out. Ajax whimpered.

  “Let’s get up to the house,” said Double O.

  They hoisted Chuck back onto his poncho and carried him up toward the house. Ajax didn’t walk in front with the boy; he stayed right underneath Chuck, walking with his head held high, sniffing urgently to keep his master’s smell.

  They turned the bend in the path and saw the mansion rise from the jungle in front of them, just as it had been described. Three long steps rose to a grand porch that was topped with a wide portico, supported by four high marble columns. Large windows arranged in neat rows surrounded an arched doorway. There was only one difference between the Frenchman’s mansion as Billy’s cousin described it in his letter and the mansion they saw before them in the jungle.

  This one was a ruin.

  No one lived here, and it looked as if no one had for a very long time. Moss carpeted the porch, vines crept up the marble columns, and the arched doorway gaped open, the marble floors beyond littered with leaves and dirt and tangled roots breaking through from below.

  “No one’s home,” Double O sighed.

  Billy’s mouth gaped open, speechless.

  “No dogs either,” Double O added. “None but Ajax, anyway.”

  “We there?” Chuck’s voice croaked out from the stretcher. He couldn’t lift his head to see.

  “Yeah …” said Doc, as comfortingly as he could. “We’re here.”

  Staring straight up at the sky, Chuck smiled. He spoke upward, but his words were meant for Ajax, below. “I told you we’d make it, pal. I told you …”

  Doc and Double O and Billy shared a nervous glance, wondering what to tell Chuck and what to do with Ajax. They knew that time was running out.

  The others set Chuck down and stepped away to talk for a moment. Ajax stayed by his master’s side, sniffing gently at his face. Chuck’s eyes were closed, but his lips twitched with a fragment of a smile every time the big snout bumped his cheek. The dog lay snugly next to him and Chuck felt the powerful chest rising and falling with every breath, encouraging him to keep breathing too. He lay and he breathed and he let his dog lie beside him. It felt like peace.

  The boy and his mother looked around the ruined mansion, peering in through the broken windows. She kept pulling the boy’s curious hands away from the shards of colored glass that jutted out from the window frames. As the heat of the day settled over the hills, morning mist rose off the clearing, giving the whole scene of the ruined mansion in the jungle the look of a dream. In the distance, they heard helicopters
, but the sound quickly faded away.

  “We know the marines are nearby,” said Doc. He pulled out his flare and a purple-smoke grenade. “I say we pop smoke. They’ll come to check it out, call in one of those medevac choppers, and get Chuck the help he needs.”

  Double O nodded. There was no Frenchman. That really was their only choice.

  “We can tell ’em we got separated from our unit,” Doc said. “Marines won’t know what the army’s up to. By the time they sort out all the confusion, maybe we’ll be safe and sound in Saigon.”

  “What about Ajax?” said Billy.

  They turned and looked at the dog handler, lying on his poncho on the ground, his faithful dog standing guard over him, nuzzling gently to wake his master.

  “If the army gets Ajax, they’ll just put him down like they planned from the start,” Billy said.

  Ajax lay down on the poncho next to Chuck, his head resting on the ground beside his master’s.

  “We could just let him go,” suggested Billy. “Just let him run into the jungle.”

  “He’ll never leave Chuck’s side,” Double O answered.

  They stood in the morning mist, thinking, trying to come up with a plan. They had to admit, they weren’t much good at coming up with plans.

  The ping-pong table idea hadn’t worked, going into the village had been a disaster, and trying to save Ajax by taking him to a made-up Frenchman had been plain madness from the start. Quixotic, Billy decided, wasn’t such a good thing at all.

  “Was all this a waste?” Billy voiced his worry out loud, looking at Chuck and Ajax, but his gaze seemed to take in the ruined mansion and the jungle and the boy and his mother, the whole country even, and it was clearly a question with no answer.

  “No,” Double O answered anyway.

  He knew it wasn’t a waste. It was the only thing he’d done in the war that wasn’t a waste, and he wasn’t ready to give up on it now. Things didn’t always have to work out for them to matter. Most things didn’t work out, but Double O knew that they mattered. Life mattered, and trying to save one, even a dog’s, mattered a great deal.