First Blood (1990) (14 page)

And Shingleton was grinning, laughing, not loud, not hilarious, but laughing just the same. It was mostly all inside him. His chest was heaving and he was laughing. 'We made it. He didn't shoot, we made it.'

And sure it was funny, and Teasle started laughing too. Then Orval coughed more blood and Teasle saw the pain on Orval's face and nothing seemed funny after that.

He reached to unbutton Orval's bloody shirt.

'Take it easy, Orval. We'll have a look and fix you up.'

He tried to open the shirt gently but the blood had stuck the cloth to the flesh, and finally he had to tug at the shirt to free it and Orval groaned. The wound was not something Teasle wanted to look at very long. There was a rank gas coming out the open chest.

'How. bad?' Orval said, wincing.

'Don't you worry about it,' Teasle said. 'We'll fix you up.' He was unbuttoning his own shirt as he spoke, slipping it off his shoulders. 'I asked you. how bad.' Each word was a distinct pained whisper.

'You've seen enough things wounded, Orval. You know how bad it is as much as I do.' He was rolling his sweaty shirt into a ball, setting it on the hole in Orval's chest. Immediately the shirt was soaking blood.

'I want to hear you tell me. I asked you -'

'All right, Orval, save your strength. Don't talk.' His hands were sticky with blood as he buttoned Orval's shirt over the bundle he had put on the wound. 'I won't lie to you and I know you don't want me to lie. There's a lot of blood and hard to see for sure but it's my guess he hit a lung.'

'Oh my Jesus.'

'Now I want you to stop talking and save your strength.' 'Please. You can't leave me. Don't leave me.'

'That's the last thing you have to worry about. We're taking you back, and we're going to do everything we can for you. But you have to do something for me too. You hear? You have to concentrate on holding your chest. I have my shirt inside yours and I want you to hold it close to where you're hit. We have to stop the bleeding. Can you hear me? Do you understand?'

Orval licked his lips and nodded weakly, and Teasle's mouth tasted full of dry dust. There wasn't a hope that a rolled-up shirt would stop the bleeding from a wound that size. His mouth stayed dusty and he felt streaks of sweat trickle down his bare back. The sun was long gone behind the clouds, but the heat was continuing to press on him, and he thought of water, realizing how thirsty Orval must be.

He knew he shouldn't give him any. He knew that from Korea. A man shot in the chest or stomach would vomit water he drank, and the wound would rip larger, and the pain would get worse. But Orval was licking at his lips, licking at his lips, and Teasle couldn't bear to watch his pain. I'll give him a little. A little won't hurt.

There was a canteen snapped to Orval's belt. He worked it loose, the canvas cover rough, and unscrewed the cap, pouring a. little into Orval's mouth. Orval coughed, and the water bubbled out mixed with blood.

'Dear God,' Teasle said. For a moment his mind was blank: he didn't know what to do next. Then he thought of the radio and swung over to it. 'Teasle calling state police. State police. Emergency.' He raised his voice. 'Emergency.'

The radio crackled with static from the clouds.

'Teasle calling state police. Emergency!'

He had been determined not to radio for help no matter what happened. Even when he saw the crashed and burning helicopter, he had not called. But Orval. Orval was going to die.

'State police come in.'

The radio shrieked with lightning, and in the ebb a voice came through, indistinct and raspy. 'State. here. ble.'

Teasle couldn't waste time asking him to say it again. 'I can't hear you,' he said hurriedly. 'Our helicopter has crashed. I have a wounded man here. I need another helicopter for him.'

'. done.'

'I can't hear you. I need another helicopter.'

'. impossible. An electric storm moving in. Every. grounded.' 'But dammit he's going to die!'

The voice answered something, but Teasle couldn't make it out, and then the voice dissolved in static and when it came back it was in the middle of a sentence.

'I can't hear you!' Teasle shouted.

'. sure picked. guy to try and hunt. Green Beret. Medal of Honor.' 'What? Say that again.'

'Green Beret?' Lester said.

The voice was starting to repeat, broke up, never came back again. It started to rain, light drops speckling the dust and dirt, spotting Teasle's pants and soaking in, pelting cool on his bare back. The black clouds shadowed over. Lightning crackled and lit up the cliff like a spotlight, and as fast as the spotlight came on, it went off and the shadows returned, bringing with them shockwaves of exploding thunder.

'Medal of Honor?' Lester said to Teasle. 'Is that what you brought us after? A war hero? A fucking Green Beret?' 'He didn't shoot!' Mitch said.

Teasle looked sharply at him, afraid he was out of control. But Mitch wasn't. He was excited, trying to tell them something, and Teasle knew what it was: he had already thought of it and decided it was no good.

'When you dragged Orval back,' Mitch was saying, 'he didn't shoot. He isn't down there anymore. He's swinging around behind us and now's our chance to move!'

'No,' Teasle told him, rain pelting his face. 'But we've got a chance to.'

'No. He might be swinging around, but what if he isn't. What if he doesn't want just one target, and he's waiting down there for the whole lot of us to get careless and show ourselves.'

Their faces went ashen. The clouds unloaded and the rain came down for real. 10

It came and it came. Lashing at them solidly. Teasle had never been in anything like it. The wind was whipping the rain at his eyes, driving it into his mouth.

'Storm, my ass. It's a goddamn cloudburst.'

He was lying in the water. He didn't think it could get worse, and then the rain increased, and he was almost buried in the water. Lightning cracked bright like the sun, darkness instantly was everywhere, darkness that got blacker and blacker until it was like night, only the time was late afternoon, and rain lashing blind at his eyes, Teasle couldn't even see to the edge of the cliff. Thunder shook him. 'What is this?'

He shielded his eyes. Orval was lying face up, mouth open in the rain. He'll drown, Teasle thought. His mouth'll fill up with water and he'll breathe it in and drown.

He squinted at his men stretched out in the water on the ledge, and realized that Orval wasn't the only one who might drown. Where they all lay

was now the bed of a raging stream. There was swift water rushing down the rise behind them, surging over them, sweeping toward the edge of

the cliff, and though he couldn't see the ledge, he knew what it looked like. It was the top of a waterfall: if the storm got any worse, they'd all be

washed over the side.

And Orval would be the first to go.

He grabbed Orval's legs. 'Shingleton! Help me!' he called, rain driving into his mouth. Through his words it thundered loud.

'Grab his arms, Shingleton! We're clearing out!' The temperature had gone down rapidly. The rain was now shocking cold on his bare back as he remembered stories about men caught in flash floods in the mountains, about men washed down draws and thrown over cliffs and crushed and broken on the rocks below. 'We have to clear out!'

'But the kid!' somebody yelled.

'He can't see us now! He can't see anything!'

'But the kid might be waiting for us up there!'

'We don't have time to worry about him! We have to get off this ledge before the storm gets worse! It'll sweep us over!'

Lightning flashed brilliantly. He shook his head at what he saw. The men. Their faces. In the lightning and rain, their faces changed to white skulls. As suddenly as they came, the skulls were gone, and he was blinking in darkness and the thunder hit him like a string of mortar explosions.

'I'm here!' Shingleton yelled, grabbing Orval's arms. 'I've got him. Let's go!'

They heaved him out of the water, bearing toward the rise. The rain doubled, heavier, faster. It was streaking at them almost sideways, drenching them, pouring off them in a constant rush. Teasle slipped. He fell hard on his shoulder and dropped Orval into the swirling current. He struggled splashing to grab Orval, to keep Orval's head above water, then slipped again so his own head went under water and he breathed.

He breathed. The water he sucked up his nose choked his nasal passages and spewed out the two small holes at the back of the roof of his mouth, wrenching them wide. He was wild, frantic, coughing, now up out of the water. Somebody had him. Shingleton was pulling him.

'No! Orval! Grab Orval!'

They couldn't find him.

'He'll go over the side!'

'Here!' somebody yelled. Teasle blinked rain out of his eyes, trying to see who it was yelling. 'Orval! I've got him!'

The water rose to Teasle's knees. He waded, legs churning to where the man held Orval's head out of the water. 'The current had him!' the man said. It was Ward, and he was tugging at Orval, working to drag him toward the rise. 'He was drifting toward the cliff! He bumped me going past!'

Then Shingleton was there, and they all lifted Orval from the water and staggered with him toward the slope. When they reached it, Teasle understood why the water was rising so fast. There was a trough in the hillside, and the streams on top were draining into it, flooding down upon them.

'We have to move farther along!' Teasle said. 'We have to find an easier way up!'

The wind shifted and the rain lanced at their faces from the left. As one, they stumbled toward the right, the wind helping them along. But where were the rest of the men,

Teasle wanted to know. Were they already climbing the slope? Were they still on the ledge? Why in hell weren't they pitching in to move Orval?

The water rose above his knees. He hoisted Orval higher and they staggered on, and then the wind shifted again: it was no longer pushing them the way they wanted to go, it was shoving them back the way they had come, and they were straining into the full force of the wind and the rain. Shingleton had his arms around Orval's shoulders, Teasle had the legs, Ward was cradling the back and they slipped and stumbled through the rain until they came at last to where the rise seemed easiest. There was a flood gushing down this part of the slope too, but not as strong as back at the trough, and there were big rocks jutting up for handholds. If only he could see to the top, Teasle thought. If only he could be sure the rocks were like that right up to the top.

They started climbing. Shingleton was first; he went up backward, stooping to hold Orval up by the shoulders. He wedged a foot behind a rock and backed up onto it, and then squinted to see another rock behind him and wedged a foot behind that one and backed up onto it as well. Teasle and Ward followed, bent over taking most of Orval's weight, letting Shingleton worry about where to put his feet so he could back up higher. The stream rushed harder down the slope, swashing against their legs.

But where were the others, Teasle wanted to know. Why in Christ weren't they helping? The rain was biting cold on his back. He was lifting Orval blindly, and he felt Shingleton ahead, backing up the slope, pulling Orval with him, and Teasle's arms were aching in their sockets, muscles twisting with Orval's weight. It was taking too long. They wouldn't be able to keep carrying him much longer he knew. They had to get to the top. And then Ward slipped and fell and Teasle almost lost his grip on Orval. They tumbled flat on the slope and slid down a few feet sucked by the current as they all scrambled to hang on to Orval.

They had him. They started working farther up the slope.

And that was as far as they got with him. Shingleton all at once yelled and came falling past Orval, slamming into Teasle's chest. They reeled backward, falling, and Teasle lost hold of Orval, and the next thing he knew he was flat on his back at the bottom of the slope, water swelling over him, rocks tumbling painfully against him.

'I couldn't help it!' Shingleton cried. 'The rock slipped out from under me!' 'Orval! The current's got him!'

Teasle splashed toward the cliff edge. He wiped his arm across his eyes, blinking to see in the rain. He couldn't let himself go too near the edge - the current was too strong there. But God, he had to stop Orval.

He slowed, groping closer, wiping his eyes. Lightning flashed. And there, distinct, bright, was Orval's body flipping over the side. Then it was black again, and Teasle's stomach heaved. Hot tears mixed with the cold rain on his face, and he screamed until his throat seized shut, 'God damn those bastards, I'll kill them for not helping!'

Shingleton loomed beside him. 'Orval! Can you see him?' Teasle shouldered past. He made it to the rise. 'I'll kill them!'

He grabbed for a rock and drew himself up and thrust a foot against a rock and shoved himself up and clawed and dug for handholds through the water sucking past him. All at once he reached the top, bolting into the forest. The din up there was deafening. Wind was bending trees, and rain was shrieking through branches and closeby lightning cracked bright through a trunk with the sharp sound of an ax splitting a solid piece of timber.

The tree crashed down in front of him. He vaulted over it.

'Chief!' somebody called. 'Over here, Chief!'