Closer to home.
The pain seemed to numb after an hour until all that was left was a sense of heaviness at the bottom of his legs. That, and the faint sensation of sweat and blood squelching between his toes.
Although they ate more than he had planned, Fletcher suspected they walked farther, as well. By nightfall, he calculated they would have covered over 250 miles. Only one hundred miles to go. He was starting to believe.
Fifty-nine
Day 20
Another impossibly dark night in Laos. Despite the lack of cloud cover, the jungle was a myriad of overlapping shadows, as if the air itself was blackened smoke. During the first few nights, the darkness had been oppressive. Now, it felt comfortable, like the company of an old friend. Fletcher had become used to functioning without light and was no longer perturbed by the insects that occasionally wandered over his body. For the most part, they were harmless. Those that weren’t were apt to act only if their own lives were threatened. Even snakes, and there had been many, barely factored on his list of things that were likely to harm them. As for stings, well … he barely felt them anymore.
What was of growing concern, however, was a painful and disturbing throbbing that had burrowed into the lower half of his legs. His feet had become so swollen that to take off his shoes, he had to remove his shoelaces.
Jack was in worse shape.
Using the canvas sheet to conceal the light, Fletcher shone his torch onto Jack’s bandaged paw. He needed to change the dressing. As he unfurled the dirty rag, the smell that emerged made his eyes water. The wound was covered in a thick, murky layer of slime and blood. The skin around the area was tight and swollen. He unscrewed the lid from one of the water canisters and poured it over the wound. As he gently prodded the area, he could feel there was a severe buildup of fluid under the skin. He immediately unpacked his knife and a box of matches and began to burn the tip of the blade. After a few seconds, when the steel was an angry black, he tightened his grip around the top of Jack’s leg.
“This is going to hurt, but I promise you’ll feel better afterwards.”
He pushed the knife into the middle of Jack’s paw, and a thick wave of pus splashed up onto the blade.
Jack whimpered and tried to withdraw his leg. When he couldn’t, he licked the side of Fletcher’s arm.
“I know it hurts, buddy, but we have to do this.”
Although some of the buildup had cleared, Fletcher knew the worst was still to come. When he traced his fingers over the wound, he could feel other underlying pockets of fluid and firmer areas where the pus had hardened. As Fletcher pushed the blade into a new area, Jack latched on to the back of his arm but didn’t bite down.
Under no circumstances would he ever harm Fletcher.
* * *
That morning they waited an hour after sunrise before moving. They both needed the extra rest. Fletcher was relieved to see that the swelling in Jack’s paw had gone down noticeably. As a reward for enduring the lancing, Fletcher mixed a bowl of their penultimate packet of soup and gave it all to Jack.
He needed the extra energy to fight off the infection, anyway.
Fletcher thought of taking off his boots to check on his feet, but decided against it. He had a good enough idea of how they looked. Instead, he loosened his laces a fraction to give his feet at least some room to move.
“C’mon, Jack. Another week of this crap, and we’ll be in Thailand. From there … somehow I’ll find us a way home.”
Jack rose slowly and wagged his tail. He stepped forward and managed to touch the ground with his injured paw. He quickly lifted it up as if he had trodden on a hot coal, but it was a definite sign of improvement.
Given their situation, even the smallest victories were worth celebrating. With that as their inspiration, they pressed forward. Another day of hobbling through the jungle beckoned.
Sixty
As the afternoon shadows lengthened, Fletcher felt increasingly detached from their situation. His head felt light and dizzy. He had also begun to lose sensation in his legs, which wasn’t, he felt, an entirely bad thing. His arms tingled from the elbows down. He had to constantly refer to the map and compass to ensure they remained on the correct heading, but was finding it difficult to concentrate on their coordinates. At one stage, he found himself at the top of a steep slope with no memory of how he got there. Long passages of time were now unaccounted for.
But that wasn’t the worst of it.
Paranoia, like an insidious disease, was starting to creep under his skin. Suddenly Charlie was everywhere: hiding in the grass, waiting behind bushes, stalking him from behind. Twice, he almost shot at trees, convinced soldiers were hiding behind them.
The lines between reality and delirium were starting to blur. Periods of lucidity served only to add to his confusion.
And then the dead started showing up.
He first saw the two officers he had assassinated in the tunnel complex sitting peacefully in a tree, fresh blood still seeping from their wounds. Then the first man he had killed in Vietnam—a young, barefoot soldier with a spider tattoo on his neck—appeared through the jungle ahead of him. A female soldier he’d shot in the hand suddenly leapt out at him, waving her torn appendage in his direction.
He couldn’t take it anymore. He stopped walking and dropped to his knees. For the first time, he noticed how thick and swollen his tongue was. He was barely able to swallow. He opened one of the water canisters and took a long sip, but it did little more than bring on another tide of nausea. He poured the remaining contents of the bottle into Jack’s bowl. As he listened to him drink, Fletcher lay down.
“I have to rest, Jack,” he heard himself whisper. “I’m just so … tired…”
Suddenly, he was exhausted. It felt like they had walked halfway across the world. He just needed to stop for a while.
To close his eyes.
Get his shit together.
Just for a minute.
* * *
A kick.
At least that’s what it felt like. Fletcher tried to open his eyes, but the late afternoon sun was blinding. There were several dark figures crowded around him.
Was he still hallucinating?
Dreaming?
He tried to talk, but one of the figures rammed something into his face. This was no dream; the pain was excruciating. It felt like the side of his head had caved in. As he struggled to his feet, loud voices shouted at him.
Another strike to his head. Then one against his back.
The onslaught took his breath away. He tried to raise his arms to defend himself, but the back of his hand was violently swatted down by what felt like the butt of a rifle. He felt and then heard the bones crack.
As his vision narrowed, he heard Jack attack one of the men. From the sound of the man’s cries, he was being torn to pieces.
“Please leave my dog. Please!” Fletcher shouted, collapsing to the ground, “Jack … ruush … ruush … get out of here!”
But Jack was trying to defend him.
As if a powerful anesthetic were coursing through his veins, Fletcher felt his world begin to recede. But just before its blackness was drawn over him, he was afforded one final sight. It would break him in every way that a man could be broken.
A soldier smashed the side of his rifle into Jack’s face, spun it around, and as an early twilight fell, carrying Fletcher away, two shots were fired.
Sixty-one
Day 23
Fletcher woke up with a start.
“Easy mate,” a voice issued from behind him. “You’re pretty banged up. Been out for some time now.”
He was lying on a hard mud floor. His head was wrapped in a strip of green material, and he was sweating profusely.
“You’re bloody lucky to be alive.”
“Where am I?” he managed, his throat struggling to manufacture the words.
“The end of the line, I suppose.”
Fletcher blinked through the fog in his eyes a
nd tried to absorb his surroundings. The prison was no bigger than six or seven square yards and made entirely from thick bamboo struts bound together by heavy wire. Through the space between the bars, he could see five or six bungalows in the distance. There was a lookout tower some eighty yards away, on top of which two guards were sharing a cigarette. The area around him stank of urine and feces.
“What’s your name, friend?” The voice belonged to a tall bearded man with a mane of curly blond hair. His accent was unmistakably Australian.
“Fletcher,” he offered. “How long have I been here?”
“A couple of days.”
“Where are we?” he asked again, praying they weren’t back in Vietnam.
“We’re in a prison camp about forty miles out of Cambodia.”
“Still in Laos.”
“Yeah.”
“How far from—?”
“Thailand? About fifty-five miles east, I reckon,” he said, then laughed. “But we may as well be on another planet.”
As the man spoke, Fletcher’s thoughts turned immediately to Jack. He recalled, all too vividly, seeing the Labrador hit in the face and hearing two shots fired. The image scalded him like a branding iron. Had Jack been killed?
He had to have been; the shots were fired at such close range.
How could he have fallen asleep? Fletcher thought suddenly, furious with himself.
It was all his fault.
He had failed Jack.
“Tell me…” Fletcher said, clearing his throat. “When they brought me in, did you see if they were carrying a dog?”
“A dog? What … yours?”
“Yes.”
“Why would they bring your dog back with you?”
Fletcher’s reply was barely audible. “For food. Please, do you remember seeing anything?”
The man stared at the ground. “I saw them bring you in straight through the entrance to the camp, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t carrying a dog.”
Hope, like the vague warmth of a sunrise, lifted Fletcher. If Jack had been killed, there was a strong likelihood the soldiers would’ve brought his body back to camp. Then again, perhaps he was reaching.
“Look, I know it’s none of my business, but I’ve got to ask you something,” the Australian said. “The war ended weeks ago, but you’ve only just arrived here. Where the hell have you been?”
Fletcher looked down at his feet and noticed that his legs were tied to one of the thick bamboo struts. “We were,” he began, his voice drifting away, “on our way home.”
Sixty-two
In the days following his capture, Fletcher clung to the slim hope that Jack was still alive; he had little choice but to do so. He was simply not willing to contemplate the alternative. He had forged a comfortable bond with the Australian, Matthew Summers, which he knew was largely fueled by their shared circumstances. They debated, at length, different ways of escaping, but despite some promising ideas, they had not yet come up with a plausible plan. Fletcher learned that there had been another soldier in the cage, but shortly before his arrival, the man had been dragged down to the river alongside them, given the beating of his life, and shot in the head. So far, he himself had been questioned three times by their captors. They were more than a little curious as to why an American soldier was traveling on his own in the middle of Laos. They suspected he was on a reconnaissance mission of sorts. Neither of the beatings lasted more than an hour. In each case, Fletcher refused to utter even a single word. By the end of the week, they began to lose interest in reshaping his face.
After a fourth beating revealed nothing, they sent him back to his cage for good. Fletcher knew that the next time they came for him, it would be to put a bullet in his head.
Until that day arrived, he spent much of his time replaying the moment of his capture over in his mind. Was it really possible that Jack was still alive? Had he maybe been shot, but escaped? Was he lying in the jungle somewhere slowly bleeding to death? As these dark thoughts and others connected to them continued to plague him, a soldier in his early twenties approached them carrying two tin cups. For reasons Fletcher had not been able to fathom, the young man had been surprisingly kind to them and particularly friendly to him. He had given them extra food and, instead of river water, had twice brought them warm soup.
The soldier carefully pushed the cups inside the cage and backed away. “Drink tea. Get better. You see. You see!”
It was the same four sentences from the day before.
“War over. Soon you go home.”
This was new.
“No,” Matthew replied, pressing his finger against his temple. “Soon we go dead.”
The young soldier shook his head. “No … war finish … no more dead! Home soon for everyone!”
“Thanks, mate, but they’re going to kill us. Trust me.”
The soldier knelt down and tried to get Fletcher’s attention. “You feel better? Is tea help?”
Fletcher stared at the young man, then slowly nodded. “Tea help very much. Thank you for your kindness.”
A smile dawned on the man’s face. He was pleased to finally draw out a reaction from Fletcher.
“I bring more tea?”
Fletcher held up his hand. “No. We have enough.”
“More food?”
The soldier’s keenness to help was becoming more of a mystery by the minute.
“More food is good,” Matthew offered.
The soldier quickly rose to his feet and ran off. Within minutes, he returned with a large wooden bowl brimming with rice.
It was more food than Fletcher had seen in days.
As Matthew accepted the bowl and began scooping handfuls into his mouth, Fletcher reached out through the bars and gently grabbed the young man’s arm. “What’s your name?”
The man regarded Fletcher warily for a moment, wondering if perhaps he was about to be pulled against the bars and strangled. “My name Lee. Lee Tao.”
“I’m Fletcher, and this is Matthew. Why are you helping us?”
The soldier leaned in closer to the cage. “You not remember?”
“Remember what?”
“Small village near Suang. You save us!”
For a moment, Fletcher had no idea what he was talking about, but then a gossamer memory—flimsy and delicate—floated across his mind.
During one of their assignments several months ago, they had come across a small village that Charlie was tormenting. Several of the young girls had been raped as the Vietcong continued to intimidate and forcibly recruit able-bodied young men into their army. Those who refused were murdered in plain view, butchered mostly, and their wives and children beaten. Even the elderly were attacked. As it happened, the Fat Lady decided to wait for this particular band of soldiers who were due back the following morning to recruit more of the men. As Charlie marched arrogantly into the village shortly after daybreak, intent on more bloodletting, the Fat Lady was waiting for them. The firefight lasted less than a minute. It was the only time Fletcher had ever extracted any joy in taking another man’s life—so much so, in fact, that he took four of them.
“More men returned after we left, didn’t they? That’s why you’re here.”
“They very angry. My wife … they were going kill her,” Lee explained.
“I’m sorry. How long have you been here?”
“Five months,” he answered, then glanced over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching their protracted conversation. “Please tell me … is village okay? Is my wife still alive?”
“I don’t know. I’m very sorry, Lee.”
Lee’s expression darkened. “Eat food … Mr. Fletcher. I see you tomorrow.” With that, he stood up and ran toward the bungalows.
As he watched him go, Fletcher realized just how futile their war effort had been. They had helped protect Lee’s village once, but Charlie was always going to return. His will was unyielding. In the end, the ghost had been unstoppable.
Sixty-three
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The next morning, Fletcher woke up with a fever and an almost debilitating headache that bordered on a migraine. He was sure it wasn’t malaria, but rather a nasty dose of flu. Rubbing his eyes, which now felt like swollen marbles, he tried to swallow and discovered that he could now add a raging throat infection to his growing list of ailments.
“No offense, Fletcher, but you look like shit.”
“It’s my new diet plan.” His voice cracked and he rolled gingerly onto his side. “But it’s not for everyone.”
“You’ve been out since early last night. I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.”
“I’ve been conserving my energy. I was thinking of crawling to your side of the cage today.”
Matthew smiled. “And why would you want to do that?”
“Change of scenery. Also I’m not crazy about my current neighbor; maybe I’ll have better luck on your side.”
“I thought you said you were a writer not a comedian?”
Fletcher managed a smirk. “Any idea what time it is?”
“Must be around eight. The sun’s been up for hours already.”
“Christ, it’s so fucking hot in here,” Fletcher replied. He didn’t think he could face another day in their bamboo keep.
“I wonder what’s keeping our friend this morning. He’s late,” Matthew said.
“I think he might be in some trouble for yesterday. I doubt we’ll see him again.”
Matthew carved his initials in the sand with a small stick. He alternated between that and the Australian flag. “I hope you’re wrong.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“It’s a good thing you helped out his village. These things all happen for a reason, you know.”
“Lucky coincidence, that’s all.”
“You think so? I think it’s karma. You defended him and his wife, and now you’re being repaid.”
“I don’t believe much in that type of thing. If it does exist, you have to wonder what kind of sick shit we pulled in the past to deserve being locked up in here.”
“Fair point.”
Finding Jack Page 15