Dog Soldiers (48 page)

“
I don
’
t go there.
”

“
Look,
”
Danskin said,
“
there are these hippies up there. They have dope. Drugs.
”

“
You police?
”

“
They have something of ours. They stole it.
”

The Mexican nodded. Danskin opened the jeep door and put a hand on the man
’
s shoulder.

“
You help us get up there and we
’
ll take care of you.
”

The Mexican climbed out. Danskin took twenty dollars from his wallet and put it in the man
’
s hand. The Mexican looked at it for a moment and put it in his pocket. They got into the station wagon, Danskin and the Mexican in the front seat and Smitty in the back with Converse.

“
Other guys here,
”
the Mexican said.
“
In a truck.
”

“
They
’
re our friends. They
’
re gonna wait for us while we get our stuff back. They want to see we get back all right, because the hippies up there are very bad, you know what I mean?
”

“
O.K.,
”
the Mexican said.

“
O.K. is right.
”

They drove round the e
dge of the pit and up an ascend
ing track that ran through groves of aspen. The Mexican stared straight ahead. Before long the woods were so thick that they could no longer see the houses or the hills around them.

When the road ended in underbrush, Danskin turned to the Mex
i
can with a patient sigh.

“
This must be where we get out, huh?
”

He climbed from behind the wheel and leaned against the door. Smitty opened the trunk and took out a Moss-berg rifle. The Mexi
can watched him load it, expres
sionless. Danskin looked u
p the steep hillside with a dys
peptic grin.

“
We ought to tell him to shove it,
”
he said.

Smitty opened the rear door and pulled Converse out on his feet.

“
Who,
”
he asked,
“
Antheil? How we gonna tell Antheil to shove it?
”

“
I don
’
t know how,
”
Danskin said.
“
I
’
ll think about it.
”

Moving through the trees they came to a limestone bridge over a Whitewater stream. On the far side of it the foot trail rose very steeply into birches. The Mexican walked i
n front, then Danskin, then Con
verse with Smitty behind.

From the moment they began to climb, Converse began to experience a curious elation. As they struggled up through the birches, he felt it more and more strongly.

The wind was cool. The birc
h leaves were delicately pale,
almost lemon-colored. When he looked up, the perfect pat terns of leaf and branch calmed, yet excited him in a way he could not understand at all. A mindless optimism rose in him like adrenalin — per
haps, he thought, it was adrena
lin — no more than that.
Utterly without designs, equip
ment, opportunities, he f
elt incapable of despair. It oc
curred to him that his inability to despair might be just another accommodation.

When they rose above the birches, Converse missed them overhead. There were pines now, the ground was rocky and without cover except for the resinous stalk trunks. The trail was steep as ever, with slippery planes of dark rock that slowed them. Ferns grew beside it.

They were all sweating hard. Danskin
’
s tortured breath
ing marked time. Converse grew increasingly excited.

Within fifteen minutes, Danskin had them stop for a rest. They sprawled panting on the ground, resting their weight against the rocks. The grassy valley was spread out before their feet; the slope on
which they rested seemed so per
pendicular that one might drop a stone and hit the hamlet below.

Converse watched Danskin close his eyes and breathe carefully. He felt a certain indulgence; in a few hours, he would be either dead or away from them.

His thoughts raced. Wi
thin the same second, he was im
mersed in speculations of the hereafter and the efficacy of contrition — and the question of whether they had brought another pair of handcuffs up the hill. Marge was supposed to be somewhere on the same mountain, but he could not bring himself to believe it, and the thought merely confused him. He felt intensely aware and alive, the way he had felt in the moment when he decided to buy the dope for Charmian.

When they started up again, he was thinking of Ken Grimes. Ken Grimes was a medic with the 101
^st
. Jill Percy had discovered him in her ob
sessive pursuit of moral refer
ence points, and Converse had looked him up in Danang.

Crimes had fled to Canada and then returned to be in ducted as a noncombatant. He carried candy to give people when his morphine ran out.

They had spen
t
an afternoon drinking beer in an EM club and, when drunk, Grimes had several times amused Converse by remarking that man must endure his going hence even as his coming hither. He said it was his motto. Converse said it was a hell of a motto for somebody who was twenty years old.

Sometime later, Converse learned from Jill that Ken Grimes had died in the
I
a Drang Valley, reading
Steppenwolf
. His death was one of the things Jill cried about. She regretted meeting him, she said. It made her tired of living, and that was a dangerous way to feel.

Converse felt differently. Grimes had provided him a solitary link with an attitude which he publicly pretended to share — but which he had not experienced for years and never thoroughly understood. It was the attitude in which people acted on coherent ethical apprehensions that seemed real to them. He had observed that people in the grip of this attitude did things which were quite as confused and ultimately ineffectual as the things other people did; nevertheless he held them in a certain — perhaps merely superstitious — esteem.

After the fact, he had written a feature story about Grimes in which he had conveyed grief and rage at the waste of a life. The grief and rage conveyed were entirely professional, assumed. At the core of Converse
’
s reaction to Grimes
’
life and death were a series of emotions which were not grief or rage an
d did not make him tired of liv
ing — they were compounded of love, self-pity, even pride in humanity. But his story as w
ritten was false, facile, a vul
garization — that was, after all, his business. He had considered destroying the story as an act of homage, but he had filed it in the end, spent it as moral coin, so that Grimes
’
moral explorations in the face of mass murder and young oblivion had served him for a moment
’
s satisfying warmth, like a hot towel in a barbershop.

As he followed Danskin
’
s faltering heels, the notion struck him that it was the writing of that story he was pay ing for. The idea of such justice both comforted him and terrified him.

Man must endure his going hence even as his coming hither; the words were repeated in his mind until their meaning faded. The manic exhilaration he was feeling made him wonder if a victim frozen before the predator
’
s eyes did not experience
some profound dumb animal illu
mination just before the strike. He moved like a sleep walker, almost beyond fear, invoking Grimes
’
memory.

Further up, they came on hardwood forest and the angle of the slope grew gentler. Danskin called for a rest and lumbered past the Mexican to occupy the highest ground. Angry-eyed, he waved his air marshal
’
s thirty-eight, spor
tively sighting it at Converse.

“
Put those manacles on him.
”

The Mexican did not seem surprised to see his weapon.

“
The cuffs?
”
Smitty said.
“
I left them down there.
”

Danskin shrugged expansively, with a tragic smile.

“
Don
’
t give it another thought. What the fuck? Happy
-
go-lucky, that
’
s us. We don
’
t give a shit.”

“
Oh, man,
”
Smitty said.
“
I
’
m sorry.
”

“
Just keep fucking up. See what it gets you.
”

Smitty pouted.
“
You know,
”
he said,
“
I
’
m thinking maybe you
’
re right, you know. About we tell him to shove it.
”

It would be soon, Converse thought; he felt the diver
’
s fascination for the deeper down. He was glad to be alive.

Danskin stared moodily down at his own boots.

“
How far,
señor
? To the house.
”

The Mexican indicated the ridge just above them.

“
What, just up there?
”

“
A mile,
”
the Mexican said.

“
How many people up there?
”

The man pursed his lips and showed his palms.

Danskin took the thirty-eight, held it in both hands, and pointed it in the Mexican
’
s face.
“
I
’
m sorry. I have no time for fucking around. Answer the question.
”

“
Always different,
”
the man said.
“
Maybe not so many.
”

“
They have weapons?
”

“
I think some of them.
”

“
Hicks is a gun freak,
”
Smitty said.
“
He
’
ll have heat.
”

“
You like it?
”
Danskin asked.
“
I don
’
t like it.
”

Smitty shook his head.

Danskin stood and looked up the slope.

“
I ain
’
t going in just us. I want at least that big mother fucker up here.
”
He waved them to their feet with the pistol.
“
We
’
ll go up and have a look.
”

Converse and the Mexican went in front. At the top of the ridge was a barbed-wire fence with a metal swing
gate leading through it. They w
ent through the gate across a meadow of yellow grass. As they cleared the rise, they came in sight of a rock pinnacle looming over the trees on the far side of the field. Smitty looked up at it through his binoculars and shrugged.

They went two abreast across the meadow and stopped at the edge of the wood on the far side. Danskin tried his radio.

“
Max one,
”
he said into the speaker.
“
Max one, over.
”

They got what sounded like Wolfman Jack, extremely faint.
“
Maybe we ought to try it from lower down,
”
Smitty said. Danskin slapped the antenna down into the box.

“
He must buy this stuff on Times Square. If he used government equipment it might work for a change.
”
He turned to the Mexican and did an impression of cheerful briskness.
“
Where
’
s the house,
señor
?
”

The man pointed into the woods with his chin. His legs were trembling. Danskin looked at him with suspicion, took the glasses from Smitty, and surveyed everything within view.