13th Valley (68 page)

Cherry quivered. His insides pounded hot, pulsed painfully. His brain ached. He could barely breathe. He forced himself to allow the nightmare to begin. He forced himself to observe his mind in terror.

Half of him was on the enemy road. Everybody had scattered. Leon lay crumpled in a massive bloody heap at Cherry's feet. The sweet smell of blood rushed to Cherry's nose. The image was entirely still except for Cherry's own motion as if Cherry stood in a color photograph. He screamed. “That bullet. That was mine. That was meant for me. For my neck.”

From out of the trail, rising ghost-like from the earth, through the vehicle marred road, rose a figure. The figure wavered as though seen through heat. It was dressed in US jungle fatigues and it was soaked in blood. The image of Cherry's body beneath its ruck shook. Its chest tightened as Cherry's chest tightened on the ground where he lay. Breathing became difficult. Cherry allowed the image to run. He realized he had control over it, could stop it now, whenever he wished. He watched his image watch the horror of the sordid scene on the road. In the photo Cherry froze now as the figure on the trail continued to rise and once at full height the rippling mirage solidified. It was that face again, a firm face, tight yellow-tan skin stretched over delicate bones, deep brown eyes laughing. The figure took one step forward and the face burst in deep red gush splatter. Cherry laughed.

The picture shifted. It came alive. The bloody Silvers at Cherry's feet became an angered, wounded, filthy rat clawing toward the grass shrieking and dragging its shattered gory abdomen. In the grass a hundred foul creatures scurried aimlessly in interlocking circles. Then the ghost figure before Cherry dropped. The head became a skull and glowed iridescent green. It approached. It came closer. It became larger and larger and winds swirled about the green glow until they whisked Cherry's weapon from his hand and blew his helmet from his head. Cherry spun and fled and laughed madly. He ran with every atom of energy in his being. The glowing skull became larger. The frozen wind lashed at Cherry's back. “You're not God,” Cherry's image teased, tormented the spirit. “You're not God. You're Satan. Fuck you. You can't touch me. I'm God.”

“Hey,” Egan woke Cherry. “What the fuck you laughing at?”

Cherry did not fall back to sleep or to dream. He thought about Leon. Hadn't he and Leon exchanged addresses only a few days before? Didn't Cherry agree to write to Leon's sister and brother-in-law? Yes, now he recalled that clearly. How could he write? What could he say? He still did not know what he had done with the address. Tears welled up in Cherry's eyes. He just got blown away. Just like that. Oh God, I can hardly believe it. Thinking about Silvers made Cherry feel very alone and very vulnerable. Them mothafuckers. Them mothafuckin dinks. I'm goina kill every mothafuckin gook slope I see. For you, Leon, you poor bastard.

Cherry's thoughts wandered aimlessly through the darkest night hours. He thought of Linda. He masturbated, quietly shooting his juices into the cold muck outside his poncho. He thought about food, about eating. Eating is a very social behavior, he said to himself as if he were reading a study for a psychology class. It's very important to boonierats. It's the only time we kinda socialize. It's the only time we talk. Man, there aint no social life here in the boonies except that twice or three times a day when we eat. Cherry felt a flash of guilt from his first days in the army, from his very first KP. He had not yet even been assigned to a basic training brigade. He was in the transfer center at Ft. Dix. They had awakened him at 0330 that morning to pull KP. All day he washed dishes and pots and pans and washed the dining hall floor between meals and at four in the afternoon he and three other KPs were ordered to cut up carrots and celery for the evening soup. Tiredly they chopped and sliced, carelessly cutting the vegetables, dropping them on the floor, stepping on them, picking up squished pieces and dropping them into the giant pots, laughing and joking.

Later he had been inserted into the serving line and he had ladled out the soup and had felt nauseous and guilty watching the other recruits and he felt even sicker when he thought about what others might do to the food he ate. Since that time he had always held a rigid standard about teamwork of army units, the communal eating, living, the communal everything, the total communistic society, the societal ideal so opposed by the military minds. And here in the army, he thought, who is the most vehement opposition to authoritarian communalism? It is the same political left draftee who comes very close, some indeed go beyond, proposing that all society should be communal. Not militaristic but communal just the same, communal but for the strongest advocates who would replace the old order with the new, and who would be at the top of the new order. And who would be exempt from the common communal life which they see everyone else living happily. The Great White Father in Washington looking after his boys wherever they are, wherever he sends them. What wonderful control, what complete authority. “Fuck it,” Cherry laughed. “Just say fuck it. Don't mean nothin. Drive on.”

It was now light. Cherry watched Egan writing for several more minutes, then he got up. He sat on his ruck and brushed his hands through his hair and pushed out pieces of vegetation. His scalp was crusted with sweat and dirt. He had never been so dirty. Cherry felt his forehead, his nose. They were covered with pimples. On his cheeks his beard was a splotchy stubble which itched. His arm sores had become worse. He pressed about them. The wet scabs broke easily and oozed pus. His crotch rot was worse. The skin of his scrotum and inner thighs was red sore and white sore.

Cherry watched Egan. They did not speak. Egan carefully put his writing tablet and pens in the waterproof can at the base of his ruck. He removed a razor and soap and toothpaste. Cherry watched Egan shave in a puddle, watched how attentive Egan was to his cleanliness, even in the boonies. Cherry decided to emulate the platoon sergeant. He washed. With the corner of his towel he scrubbed his face and torso. He borrowed Egan's razor and shaved. He shaved in his own puddle, leaving on only the sprouts of a moustache. Cherry scrubbed his arms. The scabs broke and the soap stung in the open sores. He brushed his teeth. He tightened his boots. He repacked his ruck leaving out coffee, cocoa, pound cake and fruit cocktail for breakfast. Instead of repacking his toothbrush he placed it in his fatigue shirt pocket so that the bristled end stuck through the pen slit in the pocket flap. Egan kept his toothbrush in his shirt pocket like that. Cherry wanted to emulate everything.

Now Cherry was eager to move out. He did not want to lie in the muck any longer. He fidgeted and adjusted his ruck straps again. He looked around. No one else was up. Cherry, you en your cherry ass, he assured himself, you're getting it down.

He decided to write a letter. He rose, then squatted by his ruck. He extracted a plastic bag containing pens and writing paper. The paper was damp. Cherry sat back on the ruck. I should write to Silvers' sister, he thought. I should. Cherry stared at the blank paper. He thumbed the edge of the page then began, “Dear Vic,” he wrote. I'll write to the Silverses next, he told himself. “There must be a few things in the world more boring than sitting with an infantry company when they have nothing to do.” How can you write that? he asked himself. Twelve hours of quiet and you're bored. Something is fuckin with my mind. He began again. “Don't believe anything you read in the papers about Nam. In twenty days I know more about this place than in four years of concern back in the World.”

Cherry stopped again. Now how can I say that? Before I knew exactly where the government stood and I knew just what was happening. Now I don't have any idea what we're doing and everything the government said seems either to mean nothing or to be a lie.

He began a third time. “My mind came very close to total collapse these past few days. In five days in the field I have shot a man and I have seen my best friend killed. Yesterday I felt like vomiting. Today, immunity, sweet immunity is setting in and I'm finally crawling out from under my shell as the apathy and insensitivity take hold.”

A slap jolted Cherry's shoulder and he leaped, grabbed for his rifle and swung around. Egan lurched for his 16 when Cherry jumped. Jax was in the grass between their rucks. “Rovers,” he whispered quickly to identify himself as a member of Alpha. “Doan shoot me Bros. It me, Jax.” He had a huge sheepish smile.

“Oh fuckin Christ,” Egan sighed. “Cherry, you make me jumpy as shit. Jax, what you come sneakin up on us for?”

“Yo guys up, huh?”

“Yeah,” Egan hissed.

“Marko on watch,” Jax explained as he wiggled his ass onto Cherry's ruck and shared the seat. “I could not sleep,” Jax orated, his eyes twinkling. “I's there all tucked up in my poncho an one big ol drop a rain squeeze hisself inside with me en join me bout the neck. I get cold, Man. Chills run up my pretty black neck, down my pretty black back. My toes get colder en yesterday's cow flop.” Jax' voice was in its best rhythmic gait. Egan laughed and tapped his feet in the muck in which he had slept. Here was Jax, after their words of the past few days, back to his old style. Egan felt warmed by Jax' gesture.

“I looks up,” Jax continued. “An the sky comin almost light nough so yo know it there. I pulls my poncho over my head an rolls back over an tries ta sleep again. ‘Jest one minute,' say Ol Mista Rain. I's cold out here too. Yo let me come in there with yo an warm up.' I says, ‘Aint no way, Mista Rain.' But he doan listen an he squeeze in again an this time he saunter his sillyass inta my ear. ‘Okay, okay,' I says. ‘I gettin up.' Then I peers out en see Ol Mista Rain, he aint cuttin nobody no slack. I get up. I says, ‘body a Jackson, how yo this mornin?' Ol bod say, ‘Beautiful cept my feet is faauuukkupp.' So I says, ‘Why doan we go up en see Eg en Cherry? Yo know Eg aint never asleep.' An sho nough, here Ol Jax right wid ya now.”

Egan held his right fist out and Jackson met it lightly with his own right fist as they dapped. The two fists tapped knuckles-to-knuckles and back-to-back. Open hands passed over each other in sensual caresses of brotherhood. Left hands came forward and touched and passed open over clasped rights and slid up right arms to shoulders then pulled across to the center of each man's chest and clenched into fists. “I'm glad you're here,” Egan said.

Cherry watched silently then got up suddenly, very quickly said, “Excuse me,” and rushed for the perimeter. A loose warm rush swept down into his bowels. He stopped, opened his pants, squatted. A watery brown gush sloshed onto the jungle floor muck. Feces splashed onto his boots. “Oh God, no,” Cherry groaned. “Not the shits.”

“Sky Devil Niner, Quiet Rover Four,” Brooks radioed Delta Company's commander. At 1100 hours, after a lethargic morning, Alpha's CP and 2d Plt began, moving north in column back toward the road. 1st and 3d Plts had patrols reconning to the south, east and west. At the NDP the remaining boonierats continued silent restful guard.

“Rover Four, this is Sky Devil,” the radio rasped in jocular reply. “Your wish is my command. Over.”

“What the hell?” Brooks muttered to El Paso. El Paso shrugged. “Devil,” Brooks transmitted, “my papa element is in your ballpark six zero zero mike to your sierra. We would like to play ball and will jump the red rope on your comic book to close in one hotel. Over.”

“Roger dodger, Rover. Check it out. Rendezvous with Sky Devils echo tango alpha one hotel. My team is ready to play ball and wilco. Over.”

“Thanks much, Niner,” Brooks said. “Out.”

Delta Company had been moving back and forth on the north ridge for five days, being careful never to progress too far from their first secured LZ. Since daybreak they were to have been moving down the mountain toward the road and toward the rendezvous with Alpha. In reality only their CP had moved from a fixed position Delta's 3d Plt had established atop the ridge to a fixed position Delta's 1st Plt had 400 meters down a rocky finger. Alpha's rendezvous element would do most of the humping.

Brooks signaled with both hands, thumbs jerked outward. 2d Plt and the CP quietly spread out through the grass forming a long line. Again on signal they moved now sweeping forward, slowly, approaching to within two meters of the road. There they halted. They stood completely still for several minutes then one by one squatted or sat to observe. In the midday light and with the higher fog ceiling the corridor was yet more awesome. The surface was composed of rock and gravel and the drainage system was elaborate. On the walls signs of natural material marked junctions and turnaround points. One eight-inch round from the pre-dawn barrage had impacted directly on the road. The explosion had cratered the road surface and destroyed a thirty-foot section of roof. The crater had filled with water. There was no other evidence of damage from the artillery. Brooks radioed the TOC with a new road description and the arty results. Then he cautiously moved forward. The flank gunners also moved to the road's shoulder. They searched the far stretches. Through the hole blown in the roof Brooks could see a small cut in the cliff and a passageway up to Delta. He walked in the grass down the line, observing from various angles.

At Alex Mohnsen's squad Brooks stopped and stood still. The squad leader came to him. “L-T,” Mohnsen whispered, “we aint goina NDP with Delta, are we?” Brooks did not look at him. “They're the noisiest dudes in battalion, L-T.”

“I know,” Brooks whispered back not taking his eyes from the north ridge wall.

They were all silent again. They waited. The road remained empty. Halfway down the line Garbageman tapped one finger against his rifle in time with a silent song being played by a rock group in his head. Toward the far end, Hackworth muffled a cough in the crook of his arm, trapping the sound completely. He stifled the next urge to cough. And the next. Brooks stood rigid. Like everyone else's, his uniform blended well with the grass. Mohnsen looked up at him several times. Brooks, motionless, was difficult to discern from even this short an interval. “Patience,” Brooks muttered beneath his breath. He was very aware of the suppressed restlessness of his men. Still they waited and observed.