Before the sun goes down

by James Ryder

  “By getting killed in Vietnam?” I asked.

  He looked away. “I don’t intend to get killed.”

  “None of them do.”

  He looked at me then. “Don’t be mad at me, Austen. Please. These last two days with you have been...”

  “Don’t...”

  “You made me feel something I’ve never felt before.”

  “I don’t want you to go,” I said, catching my breath. My best efforts at resisting the pain in my heart fell away. “I don’t want you to go, Landon.”

  He reached over and took my hand and squeezed it tightly.

  “Stay.”

  “I can’t,” he said, quietly. “It’s not easy wanting to make your father proud. You’re lucky yours is proud of you. But I can’t live with mine not being proud of me.”

  “I’m worried that you won’t...”

  Landon wiped away his tears and looked up at his parents’ house. Two people were just emerging stepping out of the front door. I recognised them as Mr and Mrs Rutherford, two solidly conventional, unadventurous people who wore fine clothes, had always kept black servants, went to church every Sunday without fail, dined with the Governor, and presided over the annual picnic for the workers of the mill in town. Mrs Rutherford was waving at Landon, beckoning him into the house. Her husband was standing beside her with his hands clasped behind his back, unexpressively.

  Landon waved at them and said, “I just realised that I’ve never actually kissed you.”

  “No, you haven’t,” I said.

  “When I come back will you let me?”

  I could feel the hope in his voice. “Yes, of course,” I said.

  “I’d like that. It’ll give me something to look forward to.”

  “Just make sure you come back,” I said.

  “I will.” Then, as Landon had always done in moments of gravity, he shook himself and forced a smile. “Look, while I’m away will you do me a favour? Will you look after my car for me?”

  “Your car?”

  “Yes, she needs some tender loving care. If I leave it here my younger brother will only drive it and crash it, and I don’t want that to happen, so will you keep her?”

  I nodded and said I would. Landon climbed out of the car and shut the door behind him. I watched as he walked across the lawn and embraced his mother and shook hands with his father. I watched as they went back into the house. Landon turned and waved goodbye to me, throwing a wink my way.

  Landon wrote several letters to me while he was serving in Vietnam. He always apologised for not being much of a writer, though I found each of his missives to be all the more poignant for their simplicity. He didn’t tell me about the horrors he witnessed, preferring to keep things light-hearted. He often wrote about the jokes the soldiers were telling each other, of how bad the food was, and how thin he was getting as a result. He even said that we should visit Miss Rigsby when he got back so she could fatten him up again. But Landon and I never did visit Miss Rigsby again. He was killed in January, 1969. His body was flown home and he was buried in the Kingston Flats cemetery with military honours. Mrs Rutherford was inconsolable. Her husband didn’t weep. I wrote Landon’s obituary in the town paper and although it surprised my father to see the piece in print, I described Landon Rutherford as a true American hero who had honoured his duty and made his country proud.

  Now and then I take Landon’s convertible out for a drive. When I can stand it I play ‘Guilty’ on an 8-track tape and think of him and what might have been.

  The End.

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