But some of their faces brightened when Donovan climbed down and headed their way. Villagers started toward him, arms out in welcome.
Corbett moved from a rear seat up toward the copilot’s position. Lincoln eyed him with surprise. “You’re not coming?”
“You’re on your own, man,” Corbett said. “Well, you and Donovan. I’ll be back in a few days, to pick him up and bring you supplies.”
“Okay, cool,” Lincoln said. “Try not to crash this time.”
Corbett didn’t smile at the jab. Instead, he offered his hand. “You watch your back, Lincoln. You’re gonna be alone out here, and it could get hairy. If I can do anything to help, let me know. Donovan will tell you how to contact us. I mean, you know—soon as I bring you a radio. Until then, you’re on your own.”
Lincoln clasped the pilot’s hand, thanked him, and let him go. The chopper lifted off the ground before he was even out from under the propellers. Then it was gone, and he and Donovan were alone in Laos.
At the edge of the field, Lincoln met up with Donovan, who was standing with a lean but sturdy Hmong man who was wearing only a loincloth and a band around his left biceps. He had a thick shock of black hair and an open, friendly expression on his face. “This is Koob Muas,” Donovan said. “He’s an old pal. Speaks pretty good English, too, and some French. I call him Koob. Koob, this is my friend Lincoln Clay.”
Koob gave a short bow and clasped Lincoln’s hand. “Lincoln,” Koob said. “Welcome to Vang Khom.”
“Glad to be here,” Lincoln said. “Especially after all we went through to make it.”
“Koob’s father, Kaus, is the chief around here. He’s a great man. But Koob is the next generation, and he’ll be your main man.”
Koob beamed at the compliments; at least, what he could understand of them. “I look forward to working with you,” Lincoln said.
“I with you, also,” Koob said.
“It’s been a while since he’s had English speakers around,” Donovan said. “So you might want to take it slow at first. He’s spent time with American units in Vietnam, and he’s had some training with ARVN forces, for whatever that’s worth. But he wanted to come home, and we thought he’d be more useful here.” He turned to the Hmong man. “Koob, Lincoln is going to be with you for a long time. He’ll work with you, train your men to fight the Pathet Lao and VC, and he’ll bring guns and supplies.”
“We kill the Pathet?” Koob asked.
“Many Pathet,” Donovan said.
Koob clapped his hands together once. “We love killing those Pathet fucks!”
Lincoln grinned. Apparently Koob had spent a lot of time with Donovan. “Koob,” Lincoln said, “I think we’re gonna get along just fine.”
• • •
Donovan turned out to be well-known in Vang Khom; he had been to the village several times, and most of the people greeted him warmly. Lincoln’s reception was more muted. “You’re a stranger,” Donovan said after several cool responses to his introduction. “It takes them a while to get accustomed to anyone new, especially anyone who’s not Hmong. Plus that last woman said your skin’s a ‘funny’ color. Most of them have never seen a black man before. They’ll get used to you, but it’ll take some time.”
“How much time?” Lincoln wondered. “You’re only here for a few days; then I’ll be alone with them. I don’t want to have to be watchin’ my own people for assassins the whole time, on top of watchin’ for the VC and Pathet Lao.”
“Trust me,” Donovan said. He shook a cigarette loose and lit it, without offering Lincoln one. “We’ll work with them for a few days. Once they see you’re genuinely interested in helping them out, they’ll come around.”
“Helping them out, how?”
Cigarette between his fingers, Donovan indicated the village with a sweep of his hand. “Look around. What do you see as the biggest problem these people have? Besides the obvious fact that they’re living in the Stone Age.”
Lincoln wasn’t sure how to answer that. He was used to New Bordeaux. Even the poorest person there owned more than the richest in Vang Khom. This place didn’t have paved streets or buildings made of materials that could stand up to fire or flood. No fixed addresses meant no mail service. For that matter, he doubted that they had any government services at all. As far as they were concerned, Vientiane was like a place from a fantasy story, something they’d heard of but that didn’t really exist in their world.
They had no electricity, much less TVs and radios and refrigerators. They had some water buffalos and a handful of bicycles, but no farm equipment or motorized vehicles. The stream threading through the village had scant flow, but a man was pissing into it, and a little farther down, an old woman squatted over it. Toilets, he thought. They need toilets.
But before he spoke, he considered the broader implications of that. “They need a real water supply,” he said. “They can’t have plumbing if they can’t control their water, and that little creek doesn’t cut it.”
“That little creek will get a hell of a lot bigger in a few weeks, when the monsoon season hits,” Donovan said. “But you’re right: Even when that happens, it’s still untamed water. After a heavy rain, the creek might swell to the point that it’s fucking deadly. The village will flood, and some of the floodwater will reach the fields, and the crops will grow. But they still don’t have water on demand, at their houses. They don’t have irrigated fields. They need wells and an irrigation system. What else?”
“Money,” Lincoln said. “So they can buy stuff.”
“There’s not much to buy up here on the mountain,” Donovan replied. “But yeah, wealth would help. They don’t need much, but if they had some, they could build some infrastructure. They could buy goods so they didn’t have to spend every minute of every day fetching water or food or making the things they need for bare subsistence.”
“Right,” Lincoln said.
“On the other hand, there’s virtually no crime here. They die of natural causes, disease and so on, most of which we would treat in five minutes at a doctor’s office. Sometimes there’s a fight. Sometimes the Pathet Lao soldiers come in and kidnap their young women, or they get into a feud with another Hmong tribe, but among the villagers, things are generally peaceful. They have to work for their daily bread, but they don’t starve to death. They’re a little low on provisions at the moment, but when the rains come, their rice will come back, and they’ll be flush for a while. Ideally, they’ll set aside enough to get through the next dry season.”
“So you’re saying they don’t really have it that bad.”
Donovan sucked in smoke and blew it out in a long stream. “I’m saying they don’t have it good or bad. It is what it is. If I had to pick between being a Hmong or being Laotian or South Vietnamese, I’d pick Hmong in a heartbeat. At least these guys are warriors. They’re free, and they’ll fight anybody who tries to take that freedom away. But a few small improvements could make a world of difference to the village. Some wells, some pipes, and lessons in basic hygiene. The Hmong believe that bathing washes away a soul. And that they each have thirty-two souls, so losing even one is a problem. If they could get past that and just fucking bathe more, half of their medical issues would vanish. If they had any clue about how to care for their teeth, that would help, too. And if they could establish steady supply of food and clean water, that would fix most of what’s left, maybe more.”
“So I’m, what? Supposed to be their social worker or their drill sergeant?”
“What’s wrong with being both?” Donovan asked.
“I thought I was here to fight communists,” Lincoln said.
“Don’t get me wrong. I hate this social work, myself. But it’s what the Agency bureaucrats want. Hearts and minds and all that happy horseshit. Trust me, you’ll get to kill plenty of commies. But during the downtimes, you’re going to get bored out of your fucking mind. You’ll be glad for some projects.”
Before being sent to Vietnam, Lincoln h
ad thought that serving in the Army might involve a lot of digging ditches and filling them up again, but that hadn’t been the case. Now it looked as if he might be digging ditches for real. Every day, the temperature seemed to grow hotter, the humidity more intense. It sapped a man’s energy and left him dying for cold water.
But in Vang Khom, there would be no cold water. No air conditioning, or even the omnipresent ceiling fans of Saigon and Danang. And he would not only have to turn villagers into warriors, he would have to function as a handyman. Probably confessor and cop, too, if Donovan had his way.
He had agreed to the mission, though. He could claim ignorance of its true nature, but he doubted that Donovan would let him off the hook. They were here now, and they’d almost died trying to make it.
The whole task seemed suddenly hopeless. Impossible. These people wouldn’t be dragged into the twentieth century; for the most part, they hadn’t even reached the nineteenth. Even if they could be, how could he do it alone?
It was a little late for second thoughts, he decided. He was here. He was stuck.
He was all they had.
18
* * *
“So, I wanted to ask you something.”
It was Saturday night, a week after Ellis had finally slept with the woman of his dreams, and they were sitting in the front seat of Lincoln’s car at the park where it had happened, him wondering if a repeat was in the cards, her looking pensive. They’d just come from another rally, this one not interrupted by the boys in blue, which had seemed to disappoint Vanessa.
“Anything,” he said, and thought he meant it.
“You said before that some of the cops were afraid of your family, and some worked for you?”
“More or less.”
“So . . . what if you started bringing some of your people to the rallies?” She looked over at him, her eyes wide and brown and endlessly captivating. “Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the cops breaking things up. You’d be like . . . I don’t know . . . bodyguards or something. We’d be able to demonstrate in peace.”
Ellis held up a hand.
“Whoa! Slow down there, beautiful. Only some cops—mostly in the Hollow. I told you, we got lucky at city hall. It’s not like that’s going to happen most of the places we demonstrate at.”
The crestfallen look on her face made him feel like a piece of shit. He had to do something to erase it, but what? He grasped at the first straw that came to mind.
“Listen, I can try to get some of my friends to come along next time. Giorgi Marcano is an even bigger name with the cops than I am. They see him, they’ll turn their cars around in a hurry, believe me.”
If that was an exaggeration, it wasn’t much of one. Sure, Giorgi was Sal Marcano’s son and held all the privileges one would expect of the heir apparent to the city’s Mafia. And Sal owned the NBPD, lock, stock, and barrel.
But Vanessa didn’t need to know that. And Giorgi probably wouldn’t agree to it, anyway. Social justice wasn’t his scene. It was just something to say to wipe that disappointed expression off Vanessa’s features and get her thinking more along the lines of kisses and caresses and other intimate things.
It seemed to work. Vanessa smiled gratefully at him and he opened his arms. She slid into them and rested her head on his shoulder and all was right with the world, at least for the moment.
• • •
Ellis wasn’t even going to bring it up to his friends, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to face Vanessa with a clean conscience if he didn’t, so when he saw them the next evening, he casually broached the subject. They were drinking at Sammy’s while the old man was out. Just beer, not ’shine—it was too early for that. Much to his surprise, both Giorgi and Danny Burke agreed. Nicki was all in until she found out there was a girl involved; then she accused Ellis of using the movement as a way to get laid and refused to have anything further to do with it. The others laughed as she stormed out, then went back to their bottles.
“Hell, if Ellis can find some girl at one of these rallies, anyone can, amiright, Danny?” Giorgi said, elbowing Ellis in the side as he clinked his beer bottle against Danny’s and the two of them yukked it up.
“Look who’s talking,” Ellis countered. “Your face could make a brother wish he was at a Klan rally so it would be under a hood. Anyway, Vanessa’s not just ‘some girl.’ She’s more high-class than any chick either one of you could bag, that’s for sure. Anyway, she just wants to keep the rally peaceful, so I told her I’d ask some of my friends to come and make sure the cops kept their distance.”
“Jesus, Ellis, that’s a tall order, even for me.” Giorgi wasn’t laughing anymore.
“I know. I tried to tell her that. So I figure you guys show up, I introduce you, you make a show of looking like peacekeepers or whatever. Then if the cops do come and break things up, at least I can say we tried. I’ll still come off looking like the good guy.”
“And wind up getting laid, huh?” Danny added with a good-natured smirk, earning another laugh from Giorgi. “Looks like Nicki had the right idea.”
“Nicki’s just upset that Ellis’s chick isn’t looking in her direction,” Giorgi scoffed dismissively, then looked back at Ellis. “When’s the next rally? We’ll be there, with a few of our closest buddies.” He patted his waistline and the gun he had hidden underneath his vest for emphasis.
“Merde, Giorgi, you can’t bring guns. Vanessa would freak! And you’ll get everyone killed, besides.”
Giorgi gave him a smug smile. Having decided to do it, Ellis knew, he was already plotting out how it would all go down. Giorgi liked to be seen as the mastermind, ready to take over from Sal whenever that became necessary. “What’s the phrase they use these days—‘peace through superior firepower’? You want to keep things running like clockwork, you gotta make sure the gears are greased. You can spread around some cash, but if we don’t know who’s gonna be assigned to work any given demonstration, we gotta go with the next best thing—cold, hard steel.”
Ellis didn’t have enough cash of his own to pay off a bunch of New Bordeaux cops. Giorgi knew that better than anyone, since Sammy kicked back a portion of his take from the lotteries to Sal. He wasn’t sure whether Giorgi would kick in any of his own, but probably not. They were friends, but friendship had its limits, too.
And if the wrong cops saw them carrying, it was going to cause problems for more than just Ellis—it could undermine everything Vanessa and CORE were working so hard to achieve.
Maybe he should just forget the whole thing. Tell her his friends had said no. Risk that look of disappointment—surely it was better than the look he’d get if Giorgi and Danny showed up with guns tucked into their waistbands? Or, worse, wound up drawing them? He could see the headlines now: “Mob Boss’s Son in Firefight at Civil Rights Rally.” Sammy would kill them both. If Sal didn’t get to them first. And even that paled in comparison to what Vanessa might do.
“You know, guys, maybe this isn’t such a good idea. Maybe—”
“It’s a great idea!” Danny interrupted, clapping him on the back. “It sounds like this girl’s a keeper. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t do whatever we could to make sure you hold on to her? We’ll be there—sans guns, right, Giorgi?”
Giorgi shrugged, held up both hands, palms out.
“Okay, okay. I know when I’m outnumbered. No guns. Doesn’t mean I’m not bringing a knife or two, though . . .”
“Giorgi . . .”
“Kidding!”
The three of them laughed—Ellis, mostly in relief—and finished off their beers before arranging to meet at the next rally, in three weeks, back in Heritage Square. Giorgi promised to bring a little extra muscle along to make up for the lack of firepower, and Ellis gratefully accepted his offer. What had started out looking like a potential disaster might actually work out in his favor. He saw his friends to the door, then headed upstairs for the night, smiling and whistling the tune to “We Shall Overcome.”
* * *
The next day, Lincoln got his first closeup look at the Plain of Jars.
The plain couldn’t be seen from Vang Khom, which was situated on the southern slope of a mountainside, just below the crest. He and Donovan, accompanied by Koob and four of the other young men from the village, had to climb up that side, over the top, and then follow well-trod but often precarious footpaths down.
Lincoln figured he would learn everybody’s name, eventually. So far, they mostly sounded like random combinations of letters; things that might have been formed by taking a child’s ABC blocks and throwing them up in the air. Sometimes even when he thought he had one down, he couldn’t manage to say it the way the Hmong did. Then again, they had a hard time with “Lincoln,” though most could get “Clay” right.
Emerging from the jungle-choked slopes into the plain was like walking into a different world. “Plain” might have been a misnomer, since it implied flatlands, and this plain was a vast, hilly expanse. But instead of the lush palms and bamboo stands and other trees that seemed to carpet most of the country, here what trees existed were stunted. Mostly, as they headed into the plain itself, they walked through spiky elephant grass.
“Watch your step,” Donovan warned Lincoln. “We’ve been bombing in here since ’64. You’ll see plenty of craters from the 250s that went off, but there are a lot that didn’t. Every now and then, some random water buffalo or dog gets itself blown to bits. Sometimes people, too.”
“Thanks for the tip,” Lincoln said. “When do we see those jars?”
“Patience,” Donovan said. “Once you do see ’em, you’ll never forget ’em.” He turned to Koob, who carried a bow, with a quiver of arrows strapped to his back. Only one of the Hmong had a gun, and it was a French bolt action from somewhere around the turn of the century. It was remarkably well preserved, and Lincoln guessed it could kill somebody, if it had to. He was almost disappointed that it didn’t have the bayonet, because that would have been an impressive sight.
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