The Wind Is Not a River

by Brian Payton

  He is caught in a stampede of mud-caked leather boots. Men are busy putting up tents nearby. To his right is a man with a bandaged neck and blood dried black about the ears. He opens and closes his mouth, as if trying to speak. Easley sits up, but the rush of blood nearly puts him under. He steadies himself on the rails of the litter. All around, the hills teem with helmeted men.

  The Greek returns with a doctor, a balding man with a squint that says he can bear no more discouraging words. The Greek speaks in hushed tones as the doctor nods his assent.

  A pair of soldiers rushes up with yet another litter. They land it in the mud and beckon the Greek. Now three men crouch over the litter as the doctor stands, staring in the opposite direction, over ryegrass, beach, the sea beyond.

  “I told you not to bring me corpses.” The Greek stands up. “I’ve told you before. Check them out.”

  Easley closes his eyes. When he opens them, the doctor and the Greek loom above.

  “This is the guy.” The Greek pulls back the blankets and reveals Easley’s bandaged feet. He pulls a pair of scissors out of his pocket and cuts the bandage away from the right foot. “It’s been three days. Someone better do something soon. He’s been passed over every time.”

  The doctor looks up toward Easley’s chest, careful not to meet his eyes. He grabs the scissors from the Greek and pokes the putrid flesh. “Feel that?”

  “Around the shin. Feels itchy.”

  Easley watches the doctor poke the purple flesh again. It is as if it is someone else’s body.

  “Clean him up. I’ll take him third, after the enlisted men,” the doctor says over his shoulder, en route to the next decision.

  The man who fed Easley porridge passes with a new litter, which is placed alongside the rest. He pulls off a sock and briefly holds the wounded man’s wrist.

  The Greek leans toward Easley’s face. “It can’t wait . . . You don’t have any tags or papers, do you? We’ll need a next of kin.”

  Easley shakes his head. “John Easley. Civilian. Writer.”

  “That’s right. It’s all coming back to me.”

  “My wife’s in Seattle,” he says, imagining her there, picking up the phone and taking the call.

  The Greek pats his pockets but comes up empty-handed. “Easley, John. Seattle. I’ll try and remember that. Turner will be by to prep you.” Then, as an afterthought, “You’ll be home before you know it.”

  And then the Greek is gone.

  TURNER MOVES THE CIGARETTE to and from his lips in smooth, unhurried arcs, not the sharp strokes typical of the other soldiers. He looks clean-shaven and fresh. Rested, even. Perhaps he’s just arrived. And yet when he bends over Easley the reek of nervous sweat is stifling. Before Turner has a chance to put him under, Easley asks for news of progress against the Japanese.

  “Progress?” Turner seems surprised Easley can speak. “They’ve got the high ground, but we’re still here. The Navy says they can keep their ships out, but who knows? And they’ve got thousands more soldiers over on Kiska . . . Our guys have been standing in mud for over a week. They’re coming down with trench foot and exposure. There’s not enough food to go around. Ask me again in a week.”

  He rests the cigarette between his lips then cuts Easley’s trousers away, pulls them out from under his body, tosses them to the mud.

  “One of the guys threw a grenade in the lagoon,” he says. “You wouldn’t believe how many fish they got. They’re cooking ’em up now. I’d say that’s the best thing that’s happened so far.”

  Easley can feel himself smile.

  Turner takes a clean white cloth and wipes Easley’s feet. The cloth comes back brown with gore.

  Easley lies back and looks up at the seamless cloud. A new set of hands comes from out of nowhere and places a damp cloth over his mouth and nose. Easley grabs the wrist, then releases. Floaters move across his field of vision like plankton in a jar. Soon, all is lost in the light.

  EASLEY AWAKENS with bile charging up from his stomach. There is nothing to expel, so he leans over the side of the litter and wretches down at the mud. It is then that he realizes he is back inside. A larger tent this time. At first it seems as if no one notices him, until he spies the Greek, hands on his hips, standing beside another litter. He stares directly at Easley. But then Easley’s stomach settles and he lies back down again.

  Suddenly, he’s buoyed by a wave of relief. Everything is new—blankets and clean shirt. He reaches below and discovers that he wears no other clothes. Even the fetid underpants are gone.

  The man on the next litter observes Easley’s assessment, the in-

  ventory, and waits until he is through. “You’ll get the Purple Heart,” he says.

  Easley looks over at a kid still in his teens. A bloom of acne colors his chin and where his nose meets his cheek. Beneath the blanket, he wears his jacket and helmet and still he shivers with the cold.

  “I’m not a soldier,” Easley says.

  The kid introduces himself as Garret, Pfc. “They’re taking my foot off tomorrow.”

  Easley raises his head and looks down his own legs. Where twin peaks should rise at the end of the litter, only one remains. His left knee ends in a flat, undisturbed expanse of gray wool. His mind rejects this view.

  This new tent has been pitched in a different location altogether, the slope of land seems more severe. Easley builds the mental map of where the field hospital had been, where the Japanese are holed up in the mountains, where the front might be. He pictures the waves of men still coming ashore without any hope of cover. However many they are, they’ll still need boatloads more.

  “They’ve got good false legs these days,” Garret continues. “You can walk around just as pretty as you please. Of course, shorts are out. I’m bowlegged, anyhow.”

  A sustained volley of gunfire erupts from up in the hills. The inability to see the mountains or beach is disorienting. Easley wishes he could get a look outside.

  “I shot one in the mouth. He was hollering in English. Fucker was yippin’ at us for an hour. ‘Damn American dogs, we massacre you!’ He must have said it a hundred times. Sounded like the only English he knew. I waited. Buddy chucked a grenade and they all jumped out like rats. Came right over the top. And still he was shouting this shit. I plugged him. I wasn’t aiming for his mouth, but now, when I think on it, it makes me laugh. Didn’t kill him. He grabbed his mouth and tried to run. Someone else nailed him in the chest. I guess you could say I scored the assist.”

  Easley is famished. Do they bring food around at set times, or do you have to ask for it? Everyone seems too busy to bother.

  “Had my boots on for eight days straight. Never once took ’em off. By the time they were handing out socks and saying ‘dry your feet’ I was already in trouble. I hope I don’t lose ’em both.”

  Easley looks over and considers the thin blond beard poking through the pimples. “You say you’ve been here eight days?”

  “Nine.”

  Someone starts to cry. Opposite side of the tent, three litters down. Easley sees the man’s hand go up to cover his face in shame. The sobs are unrestrained, rendering unnecessary anything anyone else has to say.

  * * *

  NO ONE BOTHERS TO explain what’s happening. And it isn’t because Easley’s a civilian. No one explains anything to anyone, so far as he can determine. He concludes that no one really has a view of the big picture or the small.

  The crates and medical equipment are carried out first. Easley props himself up on his elbows as men strip the tent amid machine-gun bursts and sporadic sniper fire. Empty-handed soldiers bump into those loaded down as they rush to get everything out. There are too many men for the job. Why can’t they organize a chain and shift the loads from one man to the next?

  A soldier marches in wearing proper rubber boots, a thick, knee-length greatcoat, and fur cap—all of it Japanese. Easley does not need to ask why he is wearing the enemy’s clothes. He only wants to know when and where he got th
em.

  “They had a little foxhole up the pass. They shot four of us before we got them. Pulled a rice ball out of this pocket two days back . . .” The soldier reaches inside, like there may be food he missed the first time around. “Sticky. Some kind of fish taste in it. Only thing I had to eat all day.” He picks up a jerry can and marches outside.

  It isn’t long before Easley is carried out into the open and parked with the other litters.

  Pfc Garret is only now emerging from the fog of ether, beginning to mourn that part of himself left behind.

  Easley averts his gaze from the south end of his own litter, where the surgeon popped the kneecap, sliced between the femur and tibia, then tossed the ruined leg and foot away. The Greek explained that they hope they have cut off all the gangrenous flesh that would have soon claimed the rest of him. In the space left behind, his mind plays tricks, tells him he can still feel a burning itch in the arch of his foot and the tips of his toes. And yet the foot and lower leg are dead and gone. Surely this isn’t what happens when the body dies entirely, the memory of pain lingering on.

  Easley is grateful he no longer has to suffer such thoughts alone.

  Garret draws a heavy sigh and rubs his face. Then opens up, full of talk.

  A few guys are saying we’ve been had, he declares. The attack on Dutch Harbor? The occupation of Attu and Kiska? No more than a diversion for Midway. The enemy’s plan to spread U.S. forces thin around the Pacific didn’t work. The Japanese got clobbered at Midway, but that was eleven months ago. The only reason they’re still here is for the propaganda mileage it gets them back home. They include it in their maps of Greater Japan. Others, himself included, won’t stand such talk and are convinced the Allied invasion of Japan will be launched through the Aleutian Islands—if they don’t try and use them to invade us first. Now that he’s seen the place for himself, and the enemy’s determination to stay, he can feel it in his bones. We’re in striking distance, he says. A short hop to Japan. This is no diversion. This place, this fight, is where the war will be won or lost. The key to the whole damn thing.

  He pulls a pitcher out from under his blanket and pours the contents into the mud. He taps it twice on the rail of his litter, then tosses the bottle to Easley. The kid has a point. This might be the last chance they will get for the foreseeable future. Easley turns on his side, positions the pitcher, and relieves himself awkwardly.

  INFORMATION, AT LAST. The Greek announces that they are on the move again. The whys and wherefores, however, he leaves aside. There must be some strategy in having the wounded near the beach, perhaps for their long-awaited evacuation. Whatever the reason, two dozen litters have to be humped down the slope then lowered over a cliff.

  Easley’s breath makes little clouds in the drizzle as two soldiers carry him away. The sniper fire seems more frequent, machine-gun blasts closer than before. His heart pounds at the recognition of their complete exposure, and Easley’s own helplessness. Each heartbeat sets off a wave of pain in his brain.

  The man at the head of his litter neither speaks nor looks down at Easley. His face is grim with fear. Older than most—thirty perhaps—the man has a runny nose. Easley sees him struggle with the mucus dripping down his upper lip, wishing he could drop the litter and blow. Short of that, he attempts to wipe it on his shoulder while keeping the load in motion. This results in all manner of contortions. Then three sharp cracks have everyone crouching lower, moving quicker. Easley tugs the cuff of his own right sleeve so it hangs like a rag, then pushes it up toward the soldier’s nose. At first the man seems startled, as if Easley has lost his mind.

  “It’s all right,” Easley says. “Blow.”

  The litter bearer leans forward into Easley’s cuff and blows like a tentative child. On second attempt, Easley grips his nose, and the man blows with satisfaction. A few steps on, amid the numerous pops and booms, the man lets out a groan, stumbles and falls. Easley’s head and shoulders go down with him. The wooden rails plow up the mud until the man left hauling the litter drops his load and likewise hits the deck.

  Sniper fire goes on for what seems an eternity and Easley is left with nothing to do but gawk up at the dripping sky and wait for it all to come crashing down. Some of the men, sprawled on their bellies, shoulder weapons and return fire. When the attack settles down and men are back on their feet again, the litter bearer with the runny nose fails to rise. Easley struggles to look around, but sees only the back of another man, checking for signs of life. “Jesus,” the man declares. Three more arrive and Easley’s litter is under way again, rushing toward the cliff.

  A soldier kneels down and winds a rope tight around Easley’s body and litter, securing him in place, pinning all of him save his arms. Easley lies there, bound and waiting, while the other litters disappear over and down.

  When Easley is carried to the edge, another rope is hastily secured to the head of his litter. There is a quick gray sweep of sky, then the dangling view of the rocky beach below. Easley is lowered in short, jerking increments, a controlled, four-story slide. All he can do is brace himself and hang on. Below, two sets of hands reach up and then guide the foot of his litter down toward the beach. When Easley is flat on the ground again, he gasps for breath, despite the fact that he had no hand in this journey.

  The litters are lined up side by side. The wounded lie in wait, listening to the rise and fall of battle and the waves scrambling ashore. Easley allows himself to imagine the sweltering furnace of a ship that will carry him home, the view of this island disappearing forever in the fog, the outstretched arms of Helen. Then the order comes down to haul everyone back up the way they came.

  The return trip takes twice the time and effort. The only consolation is that sniper fire seems to be on the wane. When Easley is a little over halfway up, a gust of wind twists his litter, turning his palms and cheeks against the jagged cliff.

  By the time all men and materiel are back atop the ridge, the howitzers are thundering through the mountains. The Japanese withdraw farther into the clouds as the Americans below scramble to decipher what it all means.

  The decision is made to bring the wounded back to the original site and set up shop once again. To Easley’s surprise, no one complains about this wasted effort, and by the time the tent has risen on the exact same spot, and the litters are safe inside under the red cross, the Greek is back in business calmly dispensing orders and morphine as if they had never left.

  TWENTY

  ON HER DESCENT THROUGH THE CEILING OF CLOUD, it is not the huddled rows of fishing boats, tidy homes, orderly streets, or other signs of civilization that hold Helen’s attention in the emerging world below—it’s the profusion of trees. Marching down mountainsides to the waterline, they are living proof that she’s found her way back to the edge of that safe and familiar world, the one that does not include John.

  Helen is now the only woman on board. She had flown out of Adak with Gladys and Stephen, but because Seattle is her final destination, she was transferred to another flight out of Dutch Harbor. Stephen threw his hands up at his own powerlessness to keep the last of his troupe intact. In the end, he removed his hat and gave a theatrical bow as her plane sped forward and curved up into the clouds.

  The plane circles twice above the airfield and town of Sitka. When the onion-domed cupolas of an Orthodox church come into view, Helen is reminded of having read somewhere that this was once the capital of Russian America, before the colony was sold to the United States and renamed Alaska. She recalls the Russian cross on the windowsill of Ilya and Jesse’s hospital room in Seattle. They had mentioned their people were brought here from Atka to wait out the war in a camp nearby.

  At last the plane touches down, almost seventeen hundred miles east of Adak. Here, the crew will rest overnight while the plane is serviced and refueled. As Helen steps down, an earnest young seaman steps up and offers his hand. Jug-handled ears, cockeyed smile—he doesn’t seem old enough to be in uniform. He gently separates her from the cr
ew and explains that her quarters are ready and waiting.

  “But it’s still early,” he says. “I could drive you into town to have a look around, if you’d like. You know, go for a spin.”

  Helen is hollowed out, beyond words, unsure of the hour or day. She pauses for a moment to consider his question, then says this sounds like a wonderful idea. His smile retreats, however, when she asks to be taken directly to church.

  INSIDE THE CATHEDRAL of St. Michael the Archangel, Helen finds neither kneelers nor pews. She has seen the interior of only one Protestant church, never a Russian Orthodox cathedral. Unsure of how to proceed, she stands at the back of the nave and bows her head. She is not alone. There is no service under way, no priest in evidence, but a half dozen people are praying separately. Middle-aged women with scarves covering their heads glance up now and then from tightly knit fingers to the panels of sacred paintings and through the gates to the altar beyond.

  Helen takes the opportunity to thank the Lord for His protection on her journey and for the deliverance of John—from whatever trial he finds himself in. She prays for her father and brothers. She prays for the end of the war. She finds herself considering adding new prayers to the roster, one for the repose of the soul of her husband, and one for forgiveness of his disbelief. But she cannot form the words. She prays instead for the strength to accept His will, come what may.

  A pair of women and one young girl each make the sign of the cross, turn, then pass Helen on their way out the door. She glances up and into native faces—Indian? Aleut?

  No matter how ridiculous the impulse seems, she asks herself, What if they’ve met John? Maybe answered questions about their village, history, or way of life, saw him out snapping pictures of birds on his National Geographic assignment. He would have been wide-eyed then, taking it all in, the culture of the people, studying the landscape, flora and fauna, pulling out that notebook he keeps in his hip pocket, jotting down impressions, expressions, telling details that would somehow find their way into the weave of his story, the story that would have gone some way toward helping the rest of us understand something about that place. Tell us why those islands are worthy of our attention and give us a glimpse of their frightening beauty. Have they seen him, talked to him, shook his hand? She follows them out into the light.