by Jeff Long
She had forgotten about the others. Hours had passed. She could not read the green twilight. It seemed lighter without the mist, and yet dark for her sense of the time. Could it be late afternoon so soon?
Suddenly she was starving.
They followed the echo of the gunshot out of the canyon. It took some searching to locate the head of the stairs. Molly could barely distinguish between one building and another. She was in sensory overload, drained from too little sleep and too much emotion, way too much. She hadn’t experienced so many raw feelings in years, all packed into the space of a single day. The city was like a fuse. One sensation seemed to trigger another in a chain reaction of old fears and repressed memories and anger and wild hope.
Luckily, Duncan had an instinct for the ruins. After a few false turns, he brought them to the rim with its pink sandstone nagas and the staircase. With the mist cleared, the terminus sprawled beneath them, a grand cul-de-sac in a bowl of steeply terraced walls. Trees and vines clung to the most precipitous walls.
From this height, the white Land Cruiser looked as delicate as an eggshell. The big Mercedes truck could have been a toy. The rest of them were down there, and when Kleat saw her and Duncan, he gave a big wave with his gun hand, which only made him look more miniature. The expedition suddenly seemed fragile and overreaching. Their discovery was vastly bigger than they were.
As they descended the stairs, Molly saw that Samnang had not been idle during their absence. A bright green rectangle of a hut made of leaves and poles now occupied the lowest terrace, with one side open to his little spark of a fire. The fire gave her a clue to the time. It glittered too brightly for day. Night was nearing.
They reached the ground. As she wove through the trees, Molly kept an eye out for the names of women carved in the bark, but the light had changed or she was among the wrong trees. She couldn’t find the marks.
Even before entering the camp area, she saw Kleat grinning, and his reason for it. He was wearing a GI helmet with most of the canvas eaten away. Closer still, she could see fading tally marks along one side where a soldier had been counting down his days.
The brothers were in high spirits, too. A row of green bronze and jade vessels and geometrically painted jars stood along one ledge. She expected Duncan to start in about the plundering, but he only sighed.
“We’re on their trail now,” Kleat said. He opened his hand carefully, as if it might hold precious jewels, and three empty brass cartridges lay on his palm.
“You found those in the city?” asked Duncan.
“No, right here in the clearing. Sam found them lying over there.” He knocked on the helmet. “We almost drove over it last night.”
“That’s all you have?”
“It’s a start. Now we know where to look. Down here. Forget the city.”
Molly glanced around at the forest enclosing them. You couldn’t see the reservoirs from here, or their tire marks in the leaves. When it came time to leave, they would have to search just to find their way back to the causeway.
“What are those?” she asked, pointing at saplings bent into O shapes. They appeared at various distances among the trees, like animal snares.
“That’s Sam’s work. Landmarks. I sent him to look for the ACAVs. They have to be around here somewhere.”
“Was that your gunshot?”
“No sense wasting time up there. They probably never went up into the ruins.”
Molly resented that. She and Duncan had been crossing the city’s threshold, drifting among its stories. And Kleat had summoned them.
“Well, they did, for your information,” she blurted out.
Duncan grimaced. She bit her lip. How could she have known that was their secret?
“They were up there?” Kleat said.
It was too late to take back her words. “We found barbed wire in the gate at the back.”
“You found wire?” Kleat said. “And you didn’t call for me? That was the deal. I told you—”
Molly darted a glance at Duncan. It was true, they had abandoned the evidence in order to go exploring in the city. “We called for you,” she lied. “We waited. You didn’t hear us.”
“What gate?” His eyes fell on her camera. “Show me.”
She turned on the camera and showed him her pictures of the tunnel. The camera was quirking out again. The flash glare had blanched white the interior of the tunnel. The vines and roots and coiled wire were thin dark arabesques, but also there were shapes inside, trapped shapes if you wanted to embellish the image. With some imagination, one could almost make out arms and legs.
“What are those things?” Kleat said.
“Ricochet. The flash bouncing off the mist. Maybe I’m wrong about the wire. It looks like vines.” Or tendons.
But his curiosity was piqued. “And what about these?” he pounced, as she scrolled through the terra-cotta warrior series. This was what Duncan had been hoping to hide.
“Statues.” She shrugged. The stone eyes stared out from the display.
“There must be fifty of them.”
“I didn’t count.”
“Where is this gate?”
“There’s no way to describe it,” Duncan said. “You saw what a jumble it is.”
“Then you can lead me there tomorrow,” Kleat said. “But first thing, we’re going to do a line sweep of the area down here. Those ACAVs are somewhere.”
She started to object to his diktat. But Duncan was quicker. “Good,” he agreed. “There’s nothing left of today. It’s getting dark. We need rest and food. We’ll start fresh in the morning.” Not a word more about the city, as if Kleat really might forget it.
The two men went to the hut. Before it got dark, Molly walked to the truck to grab a flashlight and another camera battery from her mule bag. Picture possibilities swarmed through her mind. There had to be a temple or a tree from which to shoot that giant reclining Buddha in its entirety, and she wanted to line up three particular spires so they took the eye to a vanishing point. And there were those sweethearts’ names in the forest, so tender, so terribly mortal, the letters deformed by the years.
She was zipping shut the mule bag when Samnang returned through the dusk. He went straight to the ledge with the looted ceramics and bronze and jade bowls, and obviously this was the first he’d seen them. He approached the brothers, crouching by the fire. From the truck, she could hear him chastising them. One of the brothers rose and shouted back, shaking his rifle. Another flicked a burning twig at him. Bad luck children, she thought.
She joined Kleat and Duncan in the hut.
“A regular civil war out there,” Kleat said. The Khmers’ arguing seemed to please him. At last Samnang disengaged and hobbled off into the forest again.
Someone had put a box of MREs inside for them. Molly sorted through the packets, calling out the names of meals. She made her own selection and slit the thick plastic with her Swiss Army knife. People complained about the meals, but she’d developed a taste for them while covering a crew of hotshots one fiery season in the San Juan range.
While her chow mein heated in the bag, she gazed out at the darkening trees, unwinding for the first time in a month. After the muggy central lowlands, the forest felt cool and restoring. Even so, sweat beaded her forehead. She wiped at it.
Soon, inevitably, Kleat and Duncan began arguing. There was no excuse for it. The evening was quiet except for animal noises, and each of the men was occupied, Duncan with his sketch pad and Kleat cleaning his pistol. And it was the same argument they’d had that morning. The only difference was that now they had real artifacts to fuel their positions. They were no longer talking about the hypothetical. Duncan had found a city. Kleat had found war relics.
“We have to retreat,” Duncan said. “First thing in the morning, before anything more gets destroyed or pillaged, we need to pack up and leave. We’re not prepared for this. The city needs protection. We have to get this right.”
Kleat rejected it with
a grunt. “Not going to happen.”
Molly didn’t know what to say. She felt safe in here. She felt found. And yet Duncan was inviting the world in before they even had their foothold.
“But we could lose everything,” she said, trying to reason with him. Once word of the find spread, the eight-hundred-pound gorillas—the Smithsonians and National Geographics and universities and celebrity professors and best-selling authors and staff photographers—would descend on the place. She would get cut out, and so would Duncan. That was how it worked.
Kleat picked up the theme. “This is what I’ve been saying. We’re here. It’s ours.” He dripped solvent onto a patch and pumped the rod down the barrel.
“We’ll come back again,” Duncan said, “but on our terms, not theirs.” He gestured at the brothers. “We can get them to drive us down to one of the towns, and bring us back with supplies to last us through the next six months. That gives us the monsoon.”
“And what makes you think they’ll keep the big secret down in town?” said Kleat.
“They won’t. That’s a given. They’re human. They’re poor. We’re in a race against time. Which makes you, Molly, the most important one of us. Everything depends on you. You can document the city before the jackals pick it clean. It’s not just these guys. Once the news breaks, the Cambodian army and government will step in. That’s when the real looting begins. You’re our witness to all the greatness the way it is. It means staying through the rains, though. I’d send the drivers away before the river swelled. After that, we’d be shut inside, alone.”
“Yes,” she answered him, though he hadn’t asked the question. Yes, she wanted to be here. Shut inside. Alone.
“Get all the snapshots you want,” Kleat said, “while we search for the men. They come first. There’s not going to be any mission creep here. We came for the bones, not a city. We can beat the rains. Once I have the bones, this pile of rocks is all yours. You two can stay until kingdom come, I don’t care.” He started assembling the pistol.
“We can spend the next few days preparing,” said Duncan. “And the next six months exploring.”
“You and your city,” Kleat said. He fit the spring onto the barrel. “What about the men?”
“If they’re here, we’ll find them.”
“There’s no if. They’re here. And we’re here. And we’re staying.”
Molly dabbed at the sweat trickling down her temples. Was she getting sick?
Now was her turn to try reasoning with Kleat. “What if we can’t find them before the rain comes? Duncan has a point. It’s the difference between having a few days to search or having six months.”
“I need this.” For a moment Kleat sounded desperate. “Before it’s too late.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The captain will come, or someone like him,” Kleat said. “Once they hear it’s us up here, they’ll come to take it over. The river won’t stop them, they’ll fly right over it and banish us again. And that’s not happening. They had their chance.”
“Their chance?”
“These bones belong to me,” Kleat declared. He fit the barrel into the frame with a metallic click-clack.
Molly and Duncan exchanged a look. The bones belonged to him? “John,” Duncan said quietly. “That’s not right. What about your talk of honor?”
“One buys the other,” Kleat said. “These dead buy my dead. It’s the only way I’ll ever find my brother.”
Molly remembered Luke laughing—barking like a monkey—at the claim that Kleat had a brother.
“That’s why you’re here?” said Duncan.
“The captain sent us off like traitors. Here’s their wake-up call. Every year, the missing die a little more. Wives remarry. Children grow up and forget. New wars eclipse the old ones. Soon it will be too late.”
“What do you think the captain and his people are doing in the dirt and mud and sun?” said Duncan. “Searching for the lost ones.”
“They need to search harder, then. With the bones to shame them, I can make America sit up and listen. That’s why you’re important,” he said to Molly. “You and your newspapers. Shame them. Destroy the old rule. We need fresh blood. New direction. My brother is out there somewhere, and one way or another I’m going to take him home.”
The fire crackled outside. No one spoke for a minute.
Finally, Duncan said, “I’m sorry it’s come to this, Molly. I’m trying to think of a middle way. But nothing’s coming to me. It seems we have to choose between the bones and the city, and I know where I stand. And we know where John stands. But there are three of us.”
He looked to Molly for the deciding vote, and she made a face. “What can I say?” She was genuinely at a loss. Kleat had all but persuaded her, and yet the city needed her. “You both have strong arguments.” She was about to ask if there was really no compromise to be made, but Kleat spoke up.
“No need to fret over it,” he said. He clapped the magazine into the grip and chambered a round. He looked at his pistol, then at them.
“Are you threatening us?” Molly asked.
“Please,” he said. “It’s just that sometimes we get carried away with this democracy thing. And we shouldn’t.”
19.
According to her watch next morning, she rose at 9 A.M. the previous morning. It was darker than nine, though. Six, she thought, and hurried from her tent.
Gray rags of fog drifted in the mist, as if the morning could not make up its mind which way to blind her. She had her bearings, though. In less than five minutes she found Samnang’s bright orange fire and the men all gathered.
She feared that Kleat and Duncan were battling for the brothers’ loyalties, the one to stay, the other to leave. But as she quickly learned, the brothers had their own loyalties to attend to. They wanted more money.
“Otherwise, they’re leaving without us,” Duncan said. He was good-natured about it. “It makes sense. Why stick around? They scored a few thousand dollars’ worth of pots, and as far as they’re concerned, the city belongs to them. They’re bringing some friends back with them.”
“What about leaving with us?” Molly asked.
“More money.”
“Pirates,” Kleat fumed.
“We knew that coming in,” said Duncan.
“They’d strand us?” Molly looked around. Vin kept his eyes on the ground. The other two brothers held their chins high and their rifles prominent.
The mist was churning. The forest breathed.
Samnang brought her a coffee. “Sugar?” he asked.
“No, Samnang.” It was all spoiled. They needed food to stay. Blankets. A generator to recharge her batteries. Umbrellas. More malaria pills. A toothbrush. They needed solitude.
“This is your doing,” Kleat said to Duncan.
“It does me no good,” Duncan said. “They’ve got us.”
“How much?” said Molly.
“Another five hundred for the ride out. Five thousand to stay through tomorrow. They’re not stupid. They keep talking about the typhoon and the river.”
“I only have two hundred,” Molly said.
“I’m out,” said Duncan. What had they been thinking, supplies for six months?
“The statues,” said Kleat.
“What?”
“Show them on your camera. The terra-cotta warriors.”
“No,” said Duncan. “Don’t.”
Samnang squatted by the fire and blew on it with pursed lips. He had breath like kerosene. The fire leaped.
“They’re worth hundreds of thousands,” Kleat said. “Tell them you’ll show them the location. They’ll deal.”
“We can walk out of here on foot,” Duncan said. The mist was drawing away. Trees appeared around them.
“Show them,” Kleat told Molly.
She noticed Samnang watching her through the fire. Was there a right and a wrong to this? She was scared. They were in the middle of nowhere. “No,” she decided.
Tails of fog flickered off through the branches. The truck stood over there, and the Land Cruiser. Molly glanced up. Her mouth fell open.
There seemed no way they could have missed such a thing yesterday.
Eyes fixed to the canopy that was their false sky, she backed away from it.
“Molly?” said Duncan. Then he saw it, too, hidden in plain sight. Kleat swore with surprise. The brothers crouched and raised their rifles.
The rusting hulk of a vehicle hung in a spur of limbs, like a Lost Dutchman, beached in the air. One long metal tread had broken and dangled from its belly. She lifted her camera and, on the flank, in plain view, a faint insignia still showed: a black horse rearing.
20.
The revelation—the relic of the Blackhorse patrol—unplugged them from their wrangling. You could not call what followed a peace. They did not reconcile so much as disengage. It was spontaneous. No one willed it. They simply forgot one another, at least for a time.
They drifted apart, staring up at the trapped war machine, struggling to make sense of it. Sixty feet up, the vehicle looked stranded by some mythical flood, but it was the forest that had lifted it.
“Impossible,” Kleat said. “That’s eleven tons or more.”
Yet there it hung in the crook of massive branches. The helmet and cartridges had fallen from it. No one had bothered to look up. Who would have thought such a thing could happen?
Kleat paced beneath like a starving man eyeing an apple, alternately quiet and then stringing out thoughts for anyone to hear. “The first time the Vietnamese saw an APC, they called it a green dragon,” he told anyone who cared to listen. “The army used them for amphibious taxis. M-113s. Armored personnel carriers. The cavalry turned them into gunships on tracks. ACAVs. ‘Tracks,’ the troops called them. They were fast and mean. There was usually a crew of five. They’d load them full of ammunition and go hunting in columns.”