U-Haul shook his head. He seemed defeated. “I’m afraid not. The 67th has stood down.”
“Stood down?” That meant they’d been deactivated!
“Our side of the war is winding down, you know that.”
“But, Sergeant—”
“Did you know the Vietnamese call this the American War’?”
“Sarge, I gotta find her.”
“Rick …” Rick fell silent; U-Haul had never called him “Rick” before. He braced himself for more bad news as U-Haul stared at Cracker’s picture. “You gotta move on.”
Rick knew the sarge was probably right, but he said, “No. No, there’s no other dog like her. If any dog could make it, it would be her.” And as he said it, he started to believe again.
The sergeant’s jowls seemed to be sagging. Then he seemed furious. “Lanski, just thank your lucky stars you’re in one piece. Twenty-Twenty lost his arm.”
“Aw, jeez. Jeez. I’m sorry.” And he was really sorry. Yet he still couldn’t stop. He said, “But, Sarge, about Cracker. I know her. She knows me. If she’s alive, we could find each other out there.”
U-Haul shook his head. “You’re goin’ mental, Lanski. Good luck in the world.” And he walked off.
Rick lay back again and held up the picture of Cracker. It was her, all right. But she looked like a mess. He wondered how long Cracker could survive out there, especially now that the platoon had stood down. She wouldn’t know where to go.
Twenty-six
RICK WAS REHABBING STATESIDE, AT FITZSIMONS Army Hospital just outside of Denver. He rode an army medevac plane back. Racks of bunks filled the back of the plane for the more badly hurt soldiers. Rick mostly sat up in one of the seats or took walks up and down the plane. He knew the more he walked, the faster he would heal. He hated feeling like an invalid. He didn’t know what more he could do to find Cracker when he healed, though.
Except for him, everyone had seemed glad to be leaving. It should have been a happy day for him, but all he could think of was Cracker and how he was getting farther away from her. He had looked at her picture once more, but then he couldn’t look at it again. During takeoff he had stared out the window at the tarmac, remembering back to one day when nothing much was going on. Cody had suggested they get their fortunes told by one of the locals who begged around camp. It was just for fun. The woman always said she was a fortune teller before her village got bombed out. Cody paid her five bucks, and she had moaned and held her head—you could see it was a big con job. But Cody took it all seriously. She spoke pretty good English and told him he was going to be a senator someday. Rick had laughed at that. She got mad at his laughing and told him she saw a net. She moaned again and closed her eyes. “A net!” At first Rick had thought she was saying the name “Annette.” Then she looked at him haughtily and said, “And you are caught in the net!” And now, even as the plane flew through the air, he finally believed the fortune teller.
From the sky, he saw Vietnam spread out, more pockmarked than when he’d flown in. He’d heard that at least some of those pockmarks were not bomb craters, but actually craters from burnt-out latrines. He pressed his head to the window. He had the crazy idea that he might spot Cracker down there. But he couldn’t even spot the village where he’d last seen her. He’d begged everybody within hearing distance to let him stay to search for Cracker. But, basically, the army seemed to be done with him and with her.
His first night in the hospital after his leg operation, he’d dreamed he was rising farther and farther above Vietnam, looking down at the jungles and calling, “Cracker! Cracker!” He’d risen higher and higher, until he could see the whole earth, sparkling in the cities and dark in the jungles. He’d called and called and at one point had been rewarded with a desperate bark. Then he woke up.
He realized he’d been trying to keep something buried in him, and that something was anger. Not righteous indignation. Anger. The army didn’t care about the dogs. He doubted the army cared about even him, Rick. They were done with Cracker, and they were done with Rick. They couldn’t work anymore. And that was all the army cared about.
He rubbed his eyes and forehead. Cracker was a smart dog. She might make it. He’d left word with the other handlers to watch for her. He thought maybe whoever had taken the picture might have fed and watered her. But even if she made it to American hands, he didn’t know what would become of her.
He caught a last glimpse of Vietnam as the plane reached the ocean. From the airplane window, the faraway ocean waves made the water seem to quiver, like a swarm of writhing insects. Everything looked like insects. The Vietnam effect. He caught a flash of Saigon, but then all he could see was water. It was over. For him, the war was over. Rick had as much trouble comprehending that concept as he’d had comprehending when the war had begun for him.
His parents flew down to visit him at Fitzsimons during his recovery a couple of times, but all he could talk to them about was his dog. They brought him food—it tasted okay—and told him about the hardware store, the neighborhood, and his friends, but none of it interested him. He saw the way they looked at each other, like maybe he was a little nuts. He was interested in just two things: finding Cracker and exercising rabidly so he would rehabilitate faster. For some reason, he figured that if he could get out of the army sooner, he could somehow save Cracker.
“You know you always have a job waiting,” his father said. “When you’re ready, of course.”
“Dad, I gotta find my dog.”
His parents just sighed.
He spent all his extra time writing to the same people: congressmen and senators, his mayor and governor, army officials and buddies, Twenty-Twenty and Twenty’s uncle, and Willie, who’d already written him back twice, saying he would write as many letters as he could. Besides Willie, everybody he wrote to was probably getting sick of him. He’d even written to the president of the United States. Hey, the president knew he’d crossed the border, right? Camel had said so. So maybe he’d remember him and his dog. One day he even wrote thirty-seven letters, the same number Willie had written him before he was injured. His hand was so sore after that that he could barely hold his fork at dinner that night. And yet nothing had come of any of it so far.
He was a star patient. He walked and stretched whether asked to or not, and by the end of a month he was processed out with no more fanfare than the day he’d checked out of the hospital a few years ago with appendicitis.
Twenty-seven
CRACKER RAISED HER NOSE TOWARD THE EMPTY SKY and smelled nothing special, saw nothing special, and felt nothing special. She whimpered and moaned. Then she started trotting again toward “Benwa.” She’d found a lot of water to drink today, but now her stomach was upset. And she was hungry. And lonely.
She stopped again, forgetting all her sad thoughts. Just a few leaps away lay a fat, gray lizard. She took a step forward, and the lizard started scurrying off. Cracker sped after it.
She forgot all else for the moment. She wanted to catch this lizard. Her muscles felt full of energy, and her hurting heart found a reason to live, simply in chasing this lizard. The lizard was fast, but she felt like it was practically standing still. When it tried to climb a tree, she leapt through the air and managed to swipe her paw against its body. It began running again, and she chased it. When she was just about to jump on it for a kill, it stopped suddenly and turned around, hissing at her. She paused. She had no idea if it was dangerous or not. With humans, she always knew immediately if she could take them or not in a fight. But this was something new. She wasn’t afraid, though. On the contrary, she felt almost deliriously happy. She snarled. The animal hissed. She pounced, planning to land by its side so she could hit it with her paw before grabbing its throat.
But it whipped around so quickly that it was facing her again, and they were back where they started. She tried again with the same results. Then she just ran straight at it, hitting it aside with her right paw and grabbing its throat when it fell over.
Her mouth filled with blood. She whipped her head back and forth over and over in a frenzy.
The blood-smell was incredibly strong. She ripped at the stomach and swallowed the strong-smelling guts. She’d never tasted anything so good. She ate until she was full, and then she lay down. The jungle was warm, and it felt good to sleep.
When she woke again, it was already getting dark. She was full of optimism as she set off, occasionally stepping around one of the things that Rick had taught her to avoid. She would find him.
Sometimes she moved of her own volition; other times she was pulled by a force. Her stomach rumbled constantly. But when she reached Benwa and saw all the activity, she broke into a gallop. She stopped just outside of camp and watched the men at the base. These men were like Rick. But they weren’t Rick.
An American soldier yelled out, “Hey, that looks like a scout dog!”
Another soldier said, “Check her ear.”
The soldier walked cautiously toward her. She growled, but softly, and stepped back. Rick had taught her to tolerate guys like him. Even though Rick was gone, all that training they’d done together made her know that it was important to tolerate certain types of people. So she stood very still as the man checked her ear and said, “Yup, she’s one of ours. Seventy-two AO.”
Cracker studied the soldiers. They were dressed just like Rick.
Cracker didn’t know for certain whether these new events were good or bad. She just recognized the uniform of the man who now picked up her leash as the same one guys like Rick wore. Uniforms were easy to recognize. This guy seemed like a friend. But she didn’t long for him the way she longed for Rick. She didn’t understand any of this. She just wanted Rick.
The man started talking like Rick. “Easy. Easy, girl.” So she sat, though she growled very softly.
The one man said to another, “She must have got loose somehow. By the look of her coat, it’s been a while.” The man gazed into the jungle. “Of course, even a day in the wrong jungle can get you looking pretty bad.” He petted her head. “I got a shepherd at home.”
Cracker thought he was an average petter. But she could tell he was a good man. Good man.
The men walked off, Cracker heeling with the man holding her leash. She followed them because now they were all she had. They put her in a windowless room with a bowl of warm water. She paced and paced, urinated on the floor, paced more, and raked the door.
Finally, the good man returned with another. “Everything’s pretty disorganized,” he was saying. He petted her again. “We couldn’t find her records, but she’s got the tattoo, so she’s definitely one of ours.”
“What happens to her next?” said the other man.
The first man lowered his voice, as if Cracker wouldn’t understand if he talked softly. She listened intently, though of course she couldn’t understand. “They’re sending a few of the dogs home if they pass the health exams, but they’re either giving the rest to the South Vietnamese Army or putting them down.”
“The army’s putting down its own dogs?”
“Yeah. It’s the Vietnamization, man. They’re leaving behind or destroying unnecessary equipment.”
“So what do we do with her?”
“There’re a couple of scout dog platoons here right now. They just stood down. We’ll give her to one of them.”
Cracker looked eagerly back and forth between the two men. She knew they were talking about her. She stood up and wagged her tail. She licked the good man’s hand. He and the other man didn’t look at her, but rather into the wall, as if they saw something special there. She looked at it but saw just a wall.
“Helluva war,” one said.
The next few days went okay. She got kenneled and fed, and somebody even brushed her. One of the original men who’d found her came and petted her sometimes. She kept waiting to see Rick again. But mostly all she saw was a bunch of bored guys throwing food into her kennel and occasionally cleaning it out.
Twenty-eight
EVERY DAY THERE WERE FEWER DOGS. CRACKER DIDN’T know where they were going. When there were hardly any dogs left, a man moved her into a different kennel. At the far end she saw Bruno! She barked at him and he barked back. She twirled around and he twirled back. Then Cody walked up. She barked hysterically. Cody stared at her for a second, and she heard him say, “Hold on, Bruno.” Bruno whined.
Cody ran closer and looked into her eyes. “Unbelievable.” He flung open her gate, and she nearly knocked him over with joy. He hugged her, and they rushed over to Bruno’s kennel. She and Bruno broke into a run, then ran and ran, Cody calling after them. Then they both realized they should turn back, and they ran and ran back toward Cody, where Bruno jumped all over him as he laughed. All that morning they played and ran together on the obstacle course and through the whole base.
Then they walked over to where some of the familiar guys and their dogs were standing around. But everybody seemed sad. Bruno stuck his tail between his legs. Cracker and Bruno stood together, unsure what was going on. All of a sudden a bunch of the guys were crying. Cody knelt down and held Bruno to him, Cody’s body heaving.
Cody leashed Bruno and handed him to another soldier, who put him in a crate. Some guys carried the crate to a truck where some other dogs in crates had already been loaded. What was going on? When the truck was full of dogs, it drove off, the guys crying and the dogs staring at them. Cody and Bruno met eyes. They stared at each other until the truck rolled out of sight.
After a few weeks at the kennel somebody leashed Cracker and took her to the veterinarian. She remembered this vet from their old home where she’d lived with Rick. He was Rick’s friend. He prodded her sometimes, and once he gave her a treat.
She was poked and prodded more, and then somebody walked her down a hallway. She happened to glance into one room, where she saw a pile of dead dogs. The sight shocked her so much, she stopped walking and, without thinking, pulled on her leash to get away. Then somebody put her in a kennel outside, and even though she got food and water, nobody paid much attention to her. There were a few other dogs in the kennel, but not many.
Every so often one of the dogs left and didn’t come back. One day an unfamiliar man finally came to get her. “Cracker! Heel!”
She dragged her legs as he pulled her into a building. She passed another room full of dead dogs. She wanted to bite this man. He pulled her down a hallway. Farther down the hallway the vet she recognized was leaning against a wall with his eyes closed. Cracker sniffed the air. The air was filled with death. “Hey, Doc,” said the man pulling Cracker’s leash. “You okay?”
“I didn’t become a veterinarian for this,” he said.
“How many did you euthanize today?”
“Twenty.”
They both looked at Cracker. She didn’t know what this exchange was about, whether it was good or bad. She wagged her tail to show them she meant no harm. She remembered those dogs jumping up and down in the pound. She wondered whether she should jump up and down. Instead, she sat. Whenever she sat for Rick, he petted her and said, “Good girl.” Now both these men reached down, petted her head, and said, “Good girl.”
Sitting down always made people happy!
The vet took her to another room and stuck yet another sharp thing into her. She wondered why some of these humans liked to stick sharp things in her. She wondered where Rick was. She wondered if he was coming for her…. She wondered if anyone would feed her soon…. She wondered …
Twenty-nine
RICK WAS FLYING INTO O’HARE, WHERE HIS PARENTS would be meeting him. It was a commercial flight, but there were several DEROSing vets on board. He’d decided to wear his uniform, like a couple of the others. When Rick’s plane was just about to touch down in Chicago, the captain came on the plane’s P.A. system. “Welcome home to our brave soldiers from Vietnam. We’d like to ensure your well-being and have been asked to remind you that to avoid incident over your status as Vietnam veterans, you are advised to remove your
uniforms before you deplane or soon thereafter. In the meantime, the temperature in Chicago is a chilly 28 degrees, with winds at twenty miles per hour. We’re expecting to touch down a few minutes early. It’s been a pleasure being your pilot.”
The soldiers all looked at one another. Rick didn’t even have an extra set of clothes with him. He was so worried about Cracker that he hadn’t even thought about politics. He saw one guy grab his bag from the overhead compartment and take it into the lavatory, emerging a few minutes later in civvies.
Rick hadn’t even thought of civvies. Cracker was all that mattered. He thought, This is what time does. It changes what matters. He smiled ruefully at himself, Rick the Philosopher. Rick knew that some things would stick through time. This Cracker thing wouldn’t go away, ever.
As the plane closed in on land, the sun hung in some strange spot, creating the illusion that the streets below were like mirrors or something. Must have had something to do with the sun reflecting off the tops of the cars, Rick figured. As the plane lowered, he saw its shadow to one side on the ground, first small and then getting larger. It seemed like the ghost of Cracker running alongside the plane but finally merging with the plane. By the time they landed, it looked like what it was: just a simple shadow.
Rick saw neatly cut grass edging the runway. Weird, after all that elephant grass in Nam.
The ache. It had gotten worse every mile he’d traveled farther away from Vietnam. When your heart belonged somewhere different from where your body was, it made everything depressing. Rick the Philosopher again.
As he deplaned in Chicago, he held his head high. Walking away from the plane he limped a bit—what he pictured as a tough guy’s limp. He tried to close off his inner ear like a dog could, but sometimes something broke through. Like a couple walking together but clearly arguing, the woman stomping two feet in front, occasionally turning to the man and hissing something at him. The guy was keeping his face blank. Rick could relate to that. He kept his face blank now. A nice thing broke through too, almost made him smile. A happy kid saying, “Mom, what’s the opposite of nobody being there?” Mom answering, “One person being there.” “No,” another of her kids said. “The opposite would be nobody being there. Mo-o-om, the opposite would be nobody being there.”
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