by J. M. Graham
Pham kept his weapon leveled, his hands not yet willing to believe the evidence of his eyes. “Truong? You’re alive.”
Truong looked down at himself as though he wasn’t sure Pham’s statement was true. He touched his throat with his free hand. “Pham. I saw a spirit. It was here. It stood where you stand now.”
“I saw it, too, Truong, but that was no spirit. It was a man.”
“It was a spirit.” Truong tapped the cover of the book with a stained finger. “A spirit from here. Co told me he was dead, but he came,” he touched his chest where the beaded bag had hung, “for me, for this.”
Pham searched the shadows for any spirit shape in hiding. “I truly hope it was not a spirit. We cannot kill a spirit.”
Truong reached for his AK but felt only the empty spot in the dirt where it had been.
27
The Chief squatted with his spine pressed into the trunk of a wide tree and the stolen AK lying across his legs, a welcome addition to his sorely limited armament. The spoils of war lay at his feet, a book with an artist’s rendition of a Native American warrior on the cover. And more important than both, the pouch he held up by its severed cord, amazed that it was back in his possession. Though he’d never wavered in his resolve to get it back, he’d understood that the likelihood of success was small. The social conventions of his people required him to attempt its recovery—or die trying—but it was only stubborn determination that pushed him on through a quest that he felt could only end badly. The success of his efforts was due to an amalgamation of both Apache and Marine ethos that he had come to discover complemented each other perfectly. A tension deep inside of him released as the weight in his hand made him whole again.
He reknotted the rawhide cord and hung the bag around his neck where it belonged, tucking it inside his shirt. The thought that other hands—enemy hands—had touched the pouch made it appear somehow tainted to him, its sanctity invaded, and he felt responsible. Its loss was the result of a lapse in his vigilance that would not be repeated. He swore never to let it go again.
He looked down at the book and was disconcerted to find the title incomprehensible. The words found no resonance in his sagging mind, and he wondered if the blow to his head had knocked English from his brain. He recognized the Sioux warrior, but the letters of his alphabet were jumbled beyond meaning. He thumbed the pages. French, he thought in relief, recognizing only the famous author’s name. The young Vietnamese was a reader of white man’s tales of the Old West. His smile felt tight on his face.
A few feet away, a pale spider with long white legs scrambled over gossamer cords of its own creation. He watched the spider spin its translucent fiber, creating a strength and design that would ensure its survival. With the enemy no further away than he could throw a stone, the Chief watched the spider at its labors, the concerns of the world removed. He envied the little creature, not for its ignorance of human folly but for its apparent trust that it was innately equipped with everything it needed to do what must be done. He wondered if the spider chose the design of its web or was blindly following some genetic blueprint, released from the messy burden of free will. Was it a machine or was it in control of its life? He knew he could not answer that question. But it was something he could certainly answer about himself.
The bark of the tree caressed his vertebrae from his belt to his shoulder blades and had a friend’s calming effect on his mind. He grasped the pistol grip on the AK in his lap and lifted, testing its heft. It was much heavier than his M16 and even more fearsome looking than the spider, and the long curve of the magazine promised a firepower that might meet his needs. He looked at the spider as it pounced on a moth that foolishly strayed into its trap, then back at the AK in his hands.
For the second time in a handful of minutes Strader flung himself to the ground at the sound of firing up ahead. The first was a sustained burst from a single weapon. The second was an exchange, a clash of opposing yet oddly similar weapons. And they were close. The number of weapons firing grew from one to two to three, and finally became an eruption that defied counting. There was no doubt in his mind that he was not the target, just as there was no doubt that he knew who was. The way his luck was going there couldn’t be any other answer. The Chief was the wellspring of his woes, and from the sound of it, the Indian was in serious trouble. He began crawling slowly forward, abandoned that for a stooped run, and then switched to a headlong dash between the trees.
Franklin led the squad at a pace as quick as the mountain would allow. He wished there were flanks out, but that would only slow them down, with the flanks having to beat their way through virgin ground. The squad would have to rely on an instant reaction to anything that might happen.
The shadows of the jungle fell away into a clearing open to the sky, the light illuminating a scramble of muddy footprints crossing to the tree line on the other side. He stopped at the edge of the exposed ground, not wanting to rush into the opening where he would be a tempting target. It seemed a long way across. The big guns had been called off, so he wasn’t worried about sudden death from friendly fire, but he was still deep in the Arizona, and if the guns weren’t threatening him, they weren’t threatening the VC either.
The ominous quiet allowed the soft sputtering of the Cessna Bird Dog to be heard. Franklin caught a glimpse of the little aircraft cutting the edge of the gap down on the valley end before it banked away and vanished behind the cover of the canopy. Franklin mopped the sweat from his face with an end of the green towel hanging around his neck. It stank of a thousand such wipes, the decay of the jungle, and the pungent smell of the explosions the terrycloth seemed hungry to absorb. A member of the fire team strung out behind Franklin relayed word from back in the column. “Sergeant says get your ass in gear.” Franklin looked ahead at the open ground, took a deep breath, and started across at a quick pace. The squad followed.
Pusic stood silently behind Bronsky, thankful for the rest. The rain and jungle moisture had taken the starch out of his utilities, and he looked like a wilted plant. He could feel sweat trickling down over his ribs. Wiping at his face with a shirt sleeve he smelled the stiff chemical labors of the mama-sans in the camp laundry and wondered why he was out here while they were safely back there, probably counting the paces between the perimeter, the com shack, and the chow hall so their relatives could map out a target for their midnight mortars.
Finally the rear of the squad began to move, like a stretched and now retracting spring. Bronsky looked back with a remark forming on his lips when sudden gunfire broke the silence. Pusic ducked before looking to the rest of the squad for a cue to what his reaction should be. They seemed cautious and alert but not too concerned. Apparently the firing was far enough ahead to warrant only modest interest. It was an abstract threat that promised peril, but only in the future.
The squad pushed on across the opening. Before the tail reached the tree line the second course of firing erupted and grew to consume the air and all of their imaginations about what was ahead.
When Nguyen heard Pham’s weapon firing he was already headed back with Hoang Li and a few other bearers. He sent the remainder of the unit on, carrying all they could manage and leaving packs behind for Nguyen and his detachment to retrieve later.
As they came within sight of the big machine gun spanning the path, firing began again, tracer rounds burning the air both up and down the mountain. Pham’s AK was kicking in his hands, the barrel swinging wildly as though he didn’t know where his target was and had chosen to paint the whole mountain with his lethal brush. Truong was across the path, frantically thrashing the weeds. He finally found a weapon and joined Pham’s efforts to shred the mountain.
Nguyen directed his men’s fire upslope, their rounds blindly searching for the origin of the tracers angling down. They were so close together that the firing battered their ears, and when the RPK with its seventy-five-round-drum magazine opened up, they moved apart. One of the men shouldered an RPG and scanned the m
ountain for a spot to send the rocket. The firing from above began searching them out in turn, and they dove for cover. Nguyen leapt over the old Chinese machine gun blocking the path and ran in a crouched stoop to where Pham was frantically changing the magazine in his AK with fumbling fingers.
Pham looked at Nguyen in shock. His sudden appearance in the path was no less surprising than that of the knife-wielding Indian. But Nguyen couldn’t appreciate the bewilderment on Pham’s face. He was transfixed by the gruesome sight of Co leaning against his pack, bloody intestines lying in his lap like a bundled infant. Nguyen pointed his AK uphill and emptied the magazine into the shadows that held the killers of his friend. Truong limped to Nguyen’s side, and along with Pham they poured fire up the mountain until the swoosh of the RPG made them duck.
The explosion, hidden in the trees, was followed by the crack of a returning shot. The empty grenade launcher fell from the shooter’s hands and he crumpled to the path a lifeless sack. Hoang Li directed the RPK gunner standing nearby to fire into an area his ears told him needed destruction, but as soon as the weapon began to chatter, a single shot dropped the gunner where he stood, the long-barreled gun hitting the ground with a thud. Hoang Li threw himself down. Again his ears identified the shot. It had a familiar voice. He was sure he’d felt that shooter before.
28
The first shot pierced a latticework of branches and leaves, catching the rush of movement that launched the RPG. The explosion lit the trees to Strader’s left, and he waited a breath before pulling the trigger, threading the needle to his target. He could see fragments of movement below him where the path cut through the trees, and he struggled to find another clear shot. A movement to the side caught his eye, and he swung his rifle around, catching the Chief in an awkward lope from tree to tree, coming from the direction of the grenade strike. A long rip of firing from below sent tracers careening off anything hard enough to deflect a round’s hot path, and Strader took aim again and fired, knowing that his round planted pieces of leaves into the shooter whose muzzle blast had betrayed his position. The gun went silent. Each time Strader fired he felt the rounds go true to their targets. It was just a feeling, like getting a solid hit on the sweet spot of a baseball bat: the skill, the training, the need. He didn’t see the enemy fall, but he felt them fall.
The Chief was moving as though his torso was too heavy for his legs. He grabbed at trees and crashed through bushes that a steadier gait would be able to sidestep. Strader watched him come. He wanted to call out but didn’t want to paint a target on himself. As the Indian stumbled, a new fusillade climbed the mountain, blindly biting at everything in its path. Strader smiled. He was pleased to see that the Chief could piss off the VC as much as he pissed off his fellow Marines. He felt somehow less singled out.
Bracing against a tree, Strader pressed in the selector on his M14 and snapped it to automatic. There was no definite target below, so he raked an imaginary line where he thought the path would be, walking the fire north until the magazine was empty. When he stopped shooting everything went quiet.
The Chief came on, cutting an unsteady path between trees, stopping at each one, grabbing hold like a drunken partier at a class reunion. When Strader fired, the Indian looked up with faint interest; his energies were occupied elsewhere, with little left for showing surprise.
Strader waited for some response from below, but none came. He could hear voices down in the trees, and though they sounded angry, his grasp of Vietnamese—limited to negotiating purchases and shooing away children—couldn’t begin to make sense of it. There was a chance that he could reach out and touch those voices, but with less than sixty rounds left, he decided not to gamble away precious resources he was bound to need later. He snapped a fresh magazine into place and glanced over to the Chief. All he could see was the top of the Marine’s head. He had slumped into a squat against one of the trees, unable to come any further.
Strader made his way through the trees until he reached the one bracing the Chief. From a distance it seemed the Chief was convulsing, but when he got close enough he could see the bounce of shoulders and hear the sound of muffled laughter. His suspicions were confirmed: the Chief was crazy. As he knelt, a twisted and swollen smile greeted him.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” the Chief said.
“You should have had more confidence in the white man.” Strader had imagined he would rip into the Chief when he caught up to him, but the swollen, purple face changed his plans.
“Don’t take it to heart, jack-wad. I didn’t expect to see anyone again.”
“You were supposed to wait for me in the rocks.”
“And you were supposed to bring help. I guess we’re both full of shit.”
Strader peeked around the tree to see if anyone was coming up toward them. There was no movement. “What the hell are we doin’ here?”
The Chief pulled up the front of his T-shirt to reveal the beaded pouch nestled against his skin.
“You got me out here for a damned leather bag?”
“I came for the spirit pouch. You’re not supposed to be here at all.”
“I’ve been telling you that all day. I should be in the rear starching my civvies.” Strader could see a cluster of shrapnel wounds speckling the Chief’s ribs. “Jesus, Chi . . . Moon. How much punishment are you gonna take?”
The Chief looked at the lacerations leaking blood down to stain his waistband. He gently touched the pouch, pressing it into his chest. “They’re all honorable wounds.” He touched the battle dressing on his head gingerly. “I ain’t ashamed of any of them.”
“Okay, Moon. I believe you.” Strader looked downhill again. There seemed to be movement on the path. “I suppose you got some payback? Really pissed them off, huh?”
The Chief was surprised to find he still had the empty AK-47. He tossed it aside. “My head is killing me and I can’t see well enough to hit anything.” He pulled his shirt down and patted the lump the pouch made. “I found the one who had my spirit bag, though . . . and I let him go.”
Strader raised his eyebrows at that. “You’re becoming a real humanitarian, Moon.”
“Screw you, Raymond. He just didn’t seem to be an enemy, or not much of one.”
Strader leaned in close, as though imparting a secret. “I hate to suggest this to a warrior and lunatic of your standing, but he is the enemy, and I think we should didi . . . and I mean now.”
The Chief struggled to get his feet set under him. “If you’re waiting for an argument from me, you’ll be here waiting long after I’m gone.”
Strader slipped under the Chief’s arm and they started back through the trees, harnessed together in green brotherhood. They crawled across the face of the mountain until the zing and thwack of rounds blindly searching for a home drove them behind the trunk of an uprooted tree, its exposed root system clawing the air with gnarled tendrils. Strader had hoped to make more distance, but this would have to do. Even Olympic sprinters couldn’t outrun a bullet.
The Chief seemed pleased with the spot and the rest. “Are they coming?” he asked in between gasps.
Strader raised an eye above the trunk and scanned the trees. “I don’t see anything, and I don’t think they see us either. Those shots are wild, just anger.” He sank down beside the Chief and looked into his good eye. “You didn’t make any friends there, did you?”
The Chief blinked stiffly and waited for his breath to come. “I guess the Corps didn’t train me to play well with others.”
Strader stretched his neck for another view over the tree as hot rounds spent their energies blindly. He slipped back. “I don’t see anything, but we can’t stay here and just hope they go away.”
“Why not? They went away last time.”
“Yeah. I went away, too. And yet here I am.”
The Chief put as much intensity into his stare as one eye could provide. “I told you to go. Your problem is, you don’t listen.”
“And you don’t sta
y put.”
A twinge of guilt made the Chief uncomfortable. “I had something to do,” he said.
“I had something to do, too. Like shine my boots and pack my bags and get the hell out of this damn country.”
“Don’t blame me. I didn’t stop you.”
Hoang Li found Nguyen kneeling by Co’s side testing the weak pulse in his friend’s neck. He pointed to the bodies of the machine-gunner and the RPG man lying on the path. “I know who did this,” Hoang said, feeling for the hole in his magazine pouch.
Nguyen looked up, thinking he might see an accusatory finger pointed his way, but he could see that Hoang Li’s anger was focused elsewhere.
The spark of recognition ebbed and flowed in Co’s eyes until he got control of his consciousness. “Get . . . away,” he said when he saw who was kneeling by him.
Nguyen wasn’t sure if his friend was in too much pain to be touched or was just disappointed to be an excuse for jeopardizing their mission. As gently as he could Nguyen rested a hand on Co’s shoulder. “We’ll be going soon.”
Hoang Li pointed his rifle uphill with one hand. “And they’ll follow. They must have been in our shadow since the valley.”
Truong listened to Hoang Li’s anger. He wanted to say that the enemy was following only him to retrieve his property, but they might think him dinky dau; or if not crazy, they could blame him. Either way, the acceptance he had gained within the unit would be lost. He needed to clear his thoughts but couldn’t. Until now his experience in the South had been nothing more than an agony of labor: long days, heavy loads, and little sleep or food. The tormenting insects and heat and rain had made him miserable, but what he felt now was a misery of another caliber. Physical pain and mental confusion clashed in a battle to pilot his mind.