Old Man

by David A. Poulsen

  “Grunts never got to come here. We all heard about it though. I told myself that if I lived through the war, I’d get here someday. Today’s the day.”

  “What’s the big deal? What’s it famous for?”

  “Scenery. The climate. It’s cooler here. That kind of stuff. This house too, it’s sort of a museum. Of course, it wasn’t here during the war. And Dalat is also a big-time honeymoon place.”

  “One lousy date and you’re trying to marry me off.”

  I heard him chuckle. “How’s that going anyway? You talk to the lucky girl today?”

  I nodded. “They’ve all gone to Hanoi. Her dad’s got meetings or something. She said she’ll be back in two or three days.” I had a thought. “How long are we going to be in Vietnam?”

  He sat up, shrugged. “A few more days anyway. Why, you worried you might not see her again?”

  “I guess the thought crossed my mind.”

  “How about I promise you we won’t leave before she gets back?”

  “Really?”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, thanks. So what are we here for, the scenery or the climate.”

  “Neither. We’re here to be cowboys.”

  2

  He wasn’t kidding. An hour later we were sitting on two horses the old man had rented from a stable next to a place called Victory Lake.

  The old man was arguing with our guide. The guy was dressed like a cowboy, except totally fake, cheap green cowboy hat, clothes you’d only wear on Halloween, and plastic guns. I’m not kidding — plastic guns in these crappy cardboard-looking holsters. I figured they had to be paying the guy a lot of dong to look that stupid every day.

  He spoke some English, so I kind of knew what the argument was about. The old man was trying to get rid of the guy, and the guide was wanting to do his cowboy job and ride ahead of us. I guess if some dangerous outlaw jumped out of the woods, he’d shoot the crap out of the guy with the plastic pistols.

  When there was a pause in their argument, I said, “I don’t know. I’d feel a lot safer if Tex went along with us. He looks tough, and there’s no telling what could be out there.”

  “Shut up, Nathan.”

  They argued for a while longer, and finally, as near as I could figure, the old man paid the guy twice as much not to guide us as he would have got to guide us. And we rode off along this path that skirted the outside of the lake. The old man was in front.

  “I think you’d look a lot better with the hat and those guns.”

  “Shut up, Nathan.”

  “It’s Nate.”

  I’ve been on a few horses, but I wouldn’t say I was a good rider. The old man looked pretty comfortable on his horse, like he’d done a fair amount of riding. I decided to take his advice and just enjoy the ride, take in the scenery.

  The old man had been right about that part. The scenery, especially this scenery, was pretty spectacular. The path went up and down, and after an hour or so of riding, we came to a waterfall. The old man stopped his horse, and I pulled up alongside. This was the first place the path had been wide enough for two horses to be side by side.

  I looked at the waterfall. Of course, with a waterfall, you don’t just look. You also listen. For a few minutes I listened to the roar of the water crashing against rocks on the way down and into a pool at the bottom of the falls. The old man hadn’t looked away from the waterfall since we’d got there. I looked over at him. He looked serious, like he was thinking about stuff.

  “You bring your camera?”

  I’d almost forgotten. I’d bought a disposable camera when I’d been shopping for a gift for Mom. “Yeah.”

  I’d been keeping it in a nylon jacket I was wearing. Anything more was too hot, and the long sleeves at least kept some of the mosquitoes off me. I took a few pictures of the waterfall. Thought I maybe got a couple of good ones.

  “You ready?”

  I tucked the camera back in my jacket pocket. “For what?”

  He didn’t answer. He just turned his horse and kicked it in the sides a couple of times. He took off down the path at a pretty good speed. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go quite that fast, but I didn’t have a choice. My horse apparently didn’t like the idea of being left behind and took off after them.

  I’m not sure how long we raced up and down through the hills around there, but I know I wasn’t checking out much scenery for a while. The old man finally pulled his horse up alongside another lake, a different one from before. I don’t know what it was called.

  I pulled up alongside, and we looked at each other, laughing and breathing hard. I didn’t know riding a horse at full speed could be work, but it was also a blast. We let the horses rest and stood there for quite a while looking at that lake. Different sound from what we’d heard at the waterfall. This time it was mostly bird calls and whistles. Most of them were sounds I hadn’t heard before.

  I looked over at the old man. “I don’t think I thanked you, not really, for getting that dog away from me on that hill.”

  He shrugged. “No big deal.”

  “Yes, it was. It was to me. I was … I was really …”

  He nodded. “I know. And you’re welcome.”

  “Would you really have killed that guy? Caca dau. That’s what that means, right? ‘I’ll kill you’?”

  “Pretty close. I don’t know what I would have done, Nate. Probably killed the dog, then seen where it went from there.”

  “Yeah.”

  I waited a minute or so. There was something I’d been wanting to ask. “How do you do that? I mean kill somebody?”

  “When I was here before, I killed people because I wanted to stay alive. Because if I didn’t kill them, they were going to kill me. At least that’s what I thought at the time.”

  “You don’t think that anymore?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I thought that answer was a little strange, but I didn’t say anything more.

  “Let me ask you, Nate. If you’d had a gun and that dog had attacked you, and the man let him do it, made him do it, what would you have done?”

  I tried to make myself remember what it was like on Hill 453, how scared I was. “I guess I’d have shot the dog.”

  “Then what?”

  I shivered. Twenty-five degrees Celsius, and I shivered. “Then seen where it went from there.”

  The horses were pretty well breathing normally by then, but the old man made no move to leave.

  “You like horses?”

  I petted my horse on the neck. “Yeah, I like ’em, I guess.”

  “You probably don’t know that I have a ranch … in Arizona.”

  For some reason that pissed me off. I wanted to say, No, I don’t know that, I don’t know squat about you because that’s the way you’ve wanted it all these years. But I didn’t say anything.

  “Not a big place. Three and a half sections over by Tucson. Pretty good water. Decent house, not fancy. Thirty head of longhorn cows and twenty-five horses, quarter horses, actually thirty counting the foals from this spring.”

  I was watching him as he spieled off the details of the place. I wasn’t sure what the look on his face meant. Pride? He wasn’t bragging, I didn’t think. Just telling me. Like it was something I should care about.

  I didn’t.

  “I’m not there as much as I’d like. I seem to be on the move a lot with some of the other stuff I do. It’s a pretty spot. Saguaro cactus, some pretty good grass. And the water, I guess I mentioned that, but water is important in that part of the world.”

  I nodded. Trying to be polite. I still didn’t care. Even with the water. “What other stuff?”

  “What?”

  “You said you’re not at the ranch because you do other stuff. What other stuff?”

  He took a breath. “I’ve got a brother in upstate New York. He’s a floral broker. Brings flowers into the country. Exotic ones, from different countries. Anyway, I’m a partner in the company. So I go up there and he
lp him sometimes.”

  “You help him with flowers.”

  “Yeah.”

  That seemed funny to me for some reason, but I tried hard not to laugh. I didn’t think he’d want me to laugh.

  “It’s called Cactus West Land and Cattle Company. My ranch.” It seemed he wanted to get off the flowers and back to the ranch. “The name came with the place. I thought it was catchy when I bought it.”

  I nodded again. “Yeah, it sounds okay. The name I mean.”

  His turn to nod. He was still looking out over the lake. “Anyway, it’s yours.”

  It takes a little time to make sense of something like that. “What?”

  “The ranch. It’ll be yours.”

  “I don’t … get that.”

  “I’m giving it to you. It’ll be yours.”

  “Why?”

  “You can change the name if you don’t like Cactus West Land and Cattle Company.”

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know anything about ranching or horses or long neck cattle.”

  “Long horn. Texas Longhorns. Mine have real good horn.”

  “I don’t know anything about ranching,” I said again. “Nothing.”

  “You don’t have to know anything. I got a guy, Gilbert Ruiz, that runs the place. All you do is fly down there once in a while, count the cows, maybe look at the horses, make sure they’re not starving, get back on the plane and fly home. Get a cheque in the mail every now and then. And hell, if you don’t like it, just sell the place….”

  “Whoa. Listen, I’m going into eleventh grade. After high school, I’ve been thinking about university. Why don’t we talk about this then? I’m not trying to be a jerk here. I really appreciate —”

  “Doesn’t work.”

  “What?”

  “It won’t work.”

  “What won’t work?”

  “Waiting until you’re done college. This needs to happen sooner than that.”

  “Why? What’s the big deal?”

  He hadn’t looked at me once during that whole conversation. He turned and looked at me now.

  “Because I don’t have that long.”

  It takes a few minutes for a statement like that to sink in. Even more than when somebody tells you they’re giving you a ranch. And when it does sink in, what exactly are you supposed to say?

  “What? Is this like your farewell tour or something?” I wished afterwards I’d said something different. That sounded like I thought what he was telling me wasn’t serious.

  “Something like that.”

  “You mean you’re … you’re …”

  “Dying. Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “But how … why … I mean …”

  The old man sort of half grinned and shook his head. “You sound like me when I found out. Okay, so here it is. You know who Patrick Swayze is … was?”

  “Yeah, the actor, the Dirty Dancing guy who died awhile back.”

  “Right. Pancreatic cancer. That’s me … same thing. Same as Patrick Swayze, except I’m better looking.”

  Bad joke. But any joke would have sucked right then.

  “So anyway, they said six months, maybe a year if I take a bunch of shit treatments. I didn’t take any of it.”

  “So … you don’t look sick. I mean you’re kind of skinny … uh … thin, I guess, but I other than that … do you feel okay, does it hurt?”

  “Some days I feel great. Other days, not so hot. But overall, it’s not that bad. I guess it’ll get worse.”

  I looked out at the lake. Peaceful. Sun shining across it like a painting.

  “What are you going to do?”

  He shrugged. “I’m doing it. Way too late but I’m doing it.”

  I was having to swallow more than usual.

  “I know I’m sorry doesn’t mean a hell of a lot, Nate, but I am. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you were growing up. I wish I’d taken you fishing, built snowmen with you, taught you about longhorn cows. I wish I’d been your dad, I mean really been your dad. I wasn’t, and I’m real sorry about that.”

  “I don’t like fishing.” My joke wasn’t any better than his. What was I supposed to say? It’s okay. Growing up without a dad isn’t a big deal. I don’t mind that you thought a teenage girl was worth blowing off me and Mom for.

  “I’m sorry that … I mean I … wish you weren’t dying.”

  “Me too, Nate. I wish that too.”

  Some birds that looked like swans, I don’t know if that’s what they were, came gliding in over the lake and landed with a flutter of wings and a swish of water.

  “You’re finally calling me Nate. Thanks.”

  “About time we started back.” The old man turned his horse back the way we’d come. “I’d hate for Wyatt Earp to come looking for us.”

  I turned my horse.

  “Why don’t you lead this time?” he said. “Just follow the path. And even if you get lost, I’m betting these horses would get us back there without any help from us.”

  I nodded, touched my horse’s sides with my heels, and started back up the trail. The sun was lower now, and shadows crisscrossed through the trees and onto the path ahead.

  3

  I’d be lying if I said Dalat was much fun after the horseback ride. The old man tried to keep it light, but it wasn’t working, and he knew it wasn’t working.

  We toured the Crazy House, the part that was a museum, and it was okay. We had a nice lady trying to make it interesting, but I wasn’t interested.

  I checked my phone about every fifteen minutes but no texts from Jen. No answers to the two texts I’d sent her earlier in the day.

  The old man took me to a restaurant called the Long Hoa (we decided that must be Vietnamese for Longhorn), which was totally Vietnamese except for one dish — spaghetti. I had the spaghetti. I wasn’t bad at using my spoon to curl noodles around my fork. The meatballs were pretty good and I ate most of it, which kind of surprised me since I didn’t really feel like eating.

  They served homemade yogurt for dessert, and it was pretty good too, but I left most of it in the bowl. By then, I’d kind of lost interest.

  The old man was finished eating too and was sipping some kind of coffee with booze in it. Didn’t smell great, but he seemed to like it.

  “What are you going to do?” I asked him.

  He looked at me and back at his coffee cup, but he didn’t say anything. I started to say it again. “I mean now, what are —?”

  “I know what you mean.”

  “You know, you could probably come to our house and —”

  He shook his head. “No, I couldn’t do that. That wouldn’t really be fair to your mom, would it? I run off on her, don’t see her for almost a dozen years and then move back in so she can nurse me while I die. Even I’m not that big a jerk.”

  “She’s a pretty amazing nurse. It’s what I think she’d really like to be if she could.”

  He didn’t seem to hear that. “And you’ve already had enough bad thoughts about me in your life without having to watch me do this.”

  Watch me do this. Dying is something you do.

  “So what then? You can’t just drive around the country in that dirty black Dodge. And you said the guy at the ranch pretty much runs it.”

  He nodded. “I talked about it with Tal. I figure I’ll go stay with him. Help him around the place as long as I can. Tal’s seen lots of soldiers die. He can handle one more.”

  “Are you going to see Mom when we get back to Canada?”

  “I don’t think so. I … can take your mom hating me, but I really can’t take her feeling sorry for me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you.”

  “She should.”

  And that was Dalat. The next morning we slept in, had breakfast and went for a walk. Didn’t talk any more about dying. The old man had been right. It was cooler in Dalat. For almost twenty-four hours I hadn’t really sweated.

  About noon we drove out of there and back t
o Saigon. Weird … I was looking forward to getting back. The noise, the lights, the fumes. Even the motorbikes.

  Saigon, the Last Time

  1

  What was it Jen had said? Four hundred thousand more motorbikes every year in Vietnam. That’s more than a thousand a day, and even though not all of them end up in Saigon, it was weird to think that there were probably five hundred more motorbikes in the place than there had been when we left for Dalat. I wondered where they’d squeeze them all in.

  We were almost to the hotel when Jen texted me:

  So sorry. Busy me. But so BRD. BBT. LOL

  J

  That wasn’t all that helpful. Yeah, you’re bored and you’ll be back tomorrow, but do you want to see me? Should I call you? Have you been grounded for the next several months … what? And which LOL is that? Lots of Love, Loads of Laughs, Later on Loser? Hell, there was only one thing I was sure of. Having a girlfriend, if that’s what this was, is way harder than just wishing you had one.

  We dropped our stuff in the room, and the old man said he’d be out for an hour, maybe a little longer, and was I okay with that?

  I said sure and wandered down to the lobby. Dialled up pancreatic cancer on the guest computer. Lots of pretty dismal information. I looked up Patrick Swayze and that wasn’t real cheery either. I gave that up pretty fast.

  BRD. No freaking kidding. There was one thing I kind of wanted to do before we left Saigon, and I figured I might as well make use of the free time the old man had just dropped on me.

  It was something I’d seen while we were driving back into Saigon from Dalat. Something I wanted to take a closer look at, find out a little more about. I’d tried to memorize where the place was from the Rex and how I’d get back there. I didn’t think it was all that far away. I decided to find out. I’d start out walking and if I couldn’t find it or if it was too far away, I’d jump on a cyclo, which was what they called these bicycle-taxi things. They don’t go all that fast, but it didn’t matter; nothing went fast on the streets of Saigon.