Flight (8 page)

But why am I so worried about their happiness? About their loneliness? I know I’m going to get my ass kicked if I can’t figure out where I belong in this formation. But I don’t see a sign that says
OLD-FART SOLDIERS BELONG HERE.

“Gus!”

I hear somebody shout that name but I don’t connect to it, so I keep walking up and down the rows of young soldiers, looking for my place. I’m about to shove some kid aside and take his place in line. I already hate these little shits. They’re still laughing and insulting me with quiet voices. They snicker.

Are soldiers allowed to snicker? I thought military training gets rid of snickering.

This feels like a nomadic high school in the middle of the Old West. These guys are soldiers, sure, and they might be good soldiers. But they’re still just kids, cruel and impulsive.

It reminds me of the time when I was twelve years old, and this rich Seattle dude decided to start a charity for disadvantaged youth. He was going to take us homeless and pointless kids on “educational journeys” all over the world.

The rich guy’s motto: “How can you be a part of the world if you haven’t seen the world?”

My motto: “I don’t need to see the world in order to know the world is filled with homeless and pointless kids.”

Each day, worldwide, twelve thousand children starve to death.
That
is fucked up.

So, anyway, this rich guy picked twelve of us Seattle kids and we went to New York City. It was fun, I guess. We stayed in a fancy hotel and went to museums and Broadway plays and the Statue of Liberty. But it was at Newark Airport where I received a real education.

At the baggage claim, I saw a bunch of army soldiers waiting for their baggage. Three or four soldiers grabbed another soldier’s bag and played keep-away with it. They were all dressed in their best uniforms with all their little medals and ribbons, and they were playing keep-away from this nerd soldier, who was wearing thick black army glasses and had big old army-nerd zits on his face. His zits were worse than mine.

Yeah, sure, these guys were serving their country, and a few of them might become big-time heroes, but they were just kids, all eighteen or nineteen years old: immature and goofy and mean and acne-scarred and funny and stupid and silly and unsure about everything.

And these are the children we send to fight our wars. I’m the child that Justice sent to war. And all of us children fight to defend adults. Doesn’t that seem backward?

“Gus! You deaf dusty bastard! Get up here!”

Somebody is yelling at me. I guess my name is Gus. Stupid name, really. But who am I to judge? I’m a time-traveling mass murderer and my name is Zits.

“Gus!” the guy shouts again. He’s a little general dude with a mustache that probably weighs more than he does. “Have you gone mad? Please, sir, get up here now.”

“All right, all right,” I say, and I notice that I’m speaking with this weird accent, like I’m Irish or something. Maybe I am finally Irish. Gus doesn’t sound like an Irish name, but Zits isn’t exactly a highly sacred Indian name, either.

“Okay, troops,” General Mustache shouts to the assembled children, “I want you to meet Augustus Sullivan. You can call him Gus. He’s the best Indian tracker in the entire U.S. Army.”

Oh, shit! I’m in the body of a guy who hunts Indians. God is definitely one funny deity-dude.

“I want you all to take a good hard look at Gus,” General Mustache says. “He’s an old man, and you might think he’s weak and useless, but this is the bravest, strongest man I have ever known. I have fought alongside him for twenty years. I believe in him. I trust him. I would follow him anywhere.”

I guess I am some kind of hero.

“Two months ago, in Kansas,” General Mustache continues, “a group of settlers was attacked by wild Indians. They were all slaughtered: men, women, and children. Whole families. Those savages murdered twenty-five Christian folks. And Gus here, all on his own, went looking for the Indians who did it. And he found their camp on the Colorado River and he’s going to lead us there. And we are going to deliver unto them the swift and deadly blow of justice.”

Okay, so this is not good. I am supposed to lead one hundred white soldiers into an Indian village.

I can’t do it.

I’m in control of Gus now so I’m just going to lead all these soldiers away from the Indian village. That might be a little difficult, I suppose, since I have no idea where the village is. I don’t even know north from south. But my lack of direction will probably be a good thing. I don’t need to get lost on purpose.

So that’s my plan. I’m just going to get on my horse, point it in a random direction, and get very, very lost.

Of course, when you’re a time-traveling mass murderer, you can’t really expect things to work out as planned. If there are rules for time travelers, I don’t know them.

But things are not just happening. None of this is random.

You see, I try to get lost. I try to lead the soldiers astray. But it doesn’t work that way.

Some part of the old Gus remains inside of me. I still have Gus’s abilities. Whenever I zig, Gus makes me zag and so, zigzagging through the trees and grass and hills, we make our way toward the Indian camp. And even though I keep thinking,
I want to be lost, I want to be lost, I want to be lost,
I can’t do it. Gus won’t let me. What it comes to is this: I can’t completely control Gus. I can move his arms and legs. I can talk with his voice. And I can think my own thoughts. But Gus is stronger than I am. His memories become my memories, too. This is new. I couldn’t see into the past of the other bodies I’ve inhabited. I’m scared that Gus might reclaim his body and drown me in his blood.

And so here we are on the ridge above the Indian camp. The sun is hot over the hills. And Gus remembers—and I remember—what he saw when he came upon those slaughtered white settlers.

Dead white bodies stripped naked and mutilated and ruined.

There was the body of a little girl, blond, blue-eyed, pretty even in death. She was still wearing her little blue gingham dress. She was the only person still wearing her clothes. The Indians had shown her that much respect: They murdered her, but they didn’t strip her naked. They let her die as an innocent.

Three arrows in her stomach. She was still clutching a rag doll.

Gus’s eyes water at the memory. My eyes water.

I weep on the ridge above the Indian camp. I stare with watery vision down on the camp where that little girl’s murderers are sleeping and eating and laughing and telling stories and having sex and dancing and singing.

It’s Indians down there. And I’m an Indian. But we’re not all the same kind of Indians, are we?

No, those Indians down there killed a little girl. Shot three arrows into her belly and left her to die. And two feet away from that little girl’s body lay the naked body of a woman. Three arrows in her belly, too. A blond and blue-eyed woman, bloody and violated, her right hand forever reaching out toward the little girl.

Yes, the girl’s mother, as she was dying, crawled across the grass toward her dying daughter and didn’t make it.

The mother died two feet away from her daughter. Separated. They are cursed to be ghost mother and ghost daughter and will wander the grassy plains in the endless search for each other.

These are not my thoughts. This is not my sadness. This all belongs to Gus, and his grief and rage are huge, so my grief and rage are huge, too, and I scream as I lead one hundred soldiers down the hill into the Indian camp.

T
HIS IS WHAT REVENGE
can do to you.

I lead those one hundred soldiers down the hill toward the Indian camp.

We are killers.

As we ride to the bottom of the hill and race the short distance across the flats toward camp, I can feel Gus’s rage and grief leaving my body. With each hoof-beat, I lose pieces of my rage, until I am left with only my fear.

I had wanted to kill, but now I just want to stop.

I throw away my rifle. I don’t want to use it. But I keep riding. I am unarmed. I think I want to die. I think I want Gus to die.

I think I want to lose this fight.

We didn’t really surprise the Indians with our attack. We didn’t even try to sneak up on them. We wanted them to know we were coming. And so, yes, they knew we were coming, and they’re ready.

But only twenty-five Indian warriors ride out to meet us. Most of them are boys. And only a few of them have rifles.

The rest have bows and arrows. And, sure, they’re accurate. I see one soldier get hit in the chest with an arrow and another get hit in the stomach.

But we have repeating rifles.

It’s one hundred repeating rifles versus seven rifles and eighteen bows.

We only lose a few men as we roar toward the Indian warriors. They are screaming and crying. They must prevent us from reaching their camp. If we reach it, we will kill old people, women, and children. We will destroy families. But the warriors can’t stop us. They are riding to their deaths. And they are singing their death songs.

Most of them fall before we’re even close to them. One hundred rifles equals one hundred bullets every three seconds. In the twenty-one seconds it takes us to close the distance, we shoot seven hundred bullets.

Only a few of the warriors survive that crash of bullets.

And then we swarm into them. Ninety-five surviving white soldiers attack eleven Indian warriors. We barely pause as we kill all of them, with bullet and fist and saber and boot.

I don’t kill anybody. But I ride with killers, so that makes me a killer.

We ride into camp. There’s only twenty or thirty tents arranged in loose circles. I don’t know what tribe. Gus doesn’t care. He almost makes me not care.

We are attacked as we ride through the camp. A few of the women have bows and arrows, too. And a few old men.

And one tiny Indian boy. He can’t be more than five years old. He holds a bow. He is Bow Boy. Is he strong enough to even use his weapon? Can he pull back the string and let loose an arrow?

No, he can’t.

He bloodies his fingers on the taut string. And he cries out in pain. But he keeps trying to shoot us. And he bloodies his hand again and again.

I see a soldier slam his horse into an old woman. She falls. The soldier spins his horse around and tramples her. He spins again and rides over her one more time.

A soldier dismounts and chases down a woman and her little daughter. He shoots the woman in the back. She falls. The daughter drops to her knees beside her mother. Daughter wails. The soldier shoots at the daughter. But his gun jams. He pulls the trigger again. Nothing. So he grabs the barrel of his rifle, still so hot that it burns his hands. But he doesn’t feel the pain, not yet, as he smashes the gun down on the girl’s skull. He hits her again and again. Keeps hitting her until his rifle breaks in half.

A group of soldiers, seven or eight of them, drag two screaming and kicking women into a tent.

A soldier jumps up and down on the belly and chest of an old man.

And everywhere, everywhere, other soldiers are shooting Indians.

Bullet after bullet after bullet after bullet.

I see General Mustache down on one knee, taking careful aim at the women and children and old people who flee from us. They run toward the faraway hills. To the thick woods on the faraway hills. Two or three miles away.

The general pulls the trigger. Again and again. And a person falls each time he shoots.

It’s madness.

I wish I had kept my rifle so I could shoot myself. I don’t want to see anymore. I want to be blind. I want to leave this place. I don’t care where I go. I don’t care about which body or time period is waiting for me. I will gladly float in the nowhere. I will gladly be a ghost, if I can be a ghost who can’t see or hear.

And then a stray bullet strikes my horse. Blows my horse’s head into pieces. Covers me with blood and launches me toward the sky.

I think the quickest prayer of my life as I fly:
Lord, please break my neck.

And then I crash into the ground and roll through a campfire and land on a pile of dead bodies.

I scream.

I look up to see Bow Boy running. Oh, my God. He’s only five years old. His hands are bloody. His father must have died with the other warriors. And his mother, oh, where is his mother?

And now I see a soldier running after Bow Boy. The soldier carries a saber—a sword—the simplest killing machine. This white soldier, a boy himself, maybe sixteen years old, chases Bow Boy.

Oh, Jesus, stop this. Oh, God, reach down and crush all of us like insects.

But when have Jesus and God ever stopped a man from taking revenge?

Bow Boy runs fast. The white soldier cannot catch him. Bow Boy spins in circles, dodges, ducks, and spins back toward me.

I stagger to my feet. I will protect him. I will save him.

I run toward Bow Boy, but I am old and hurt. My knees give out, and I stagger and fall again. I bloody my face in the dirt.

I look up to see Bow Boy fall, too. With saber raised high, the white soldier races toward Bow Boy. I am going to watch this murder.

This is my punishment. Yes, this is God’s final punishment for me. I will watch this boy die.

But, no.

Wait.

Without stopping, that white soldier reaches down and picks up Bow Boy. Cradles the child in one arm. And the white soldier keeps running. He’s running toward the faraway hills. Toward those faraway trees. Toward cover. Toward safety. Carrying an Indian child, a white soldier is running with Indians.

I can’t believe it. It can’t be true. But it is true.

That white soldier, a small saint, is trying to save Bow Boy.

I wonder if the other escaping Indians see this. I wonder if it gives them hope. I wonder if this act of love makes it easier for them to face death.

In the midst of all this madness and murder, one soldier has refused to participate. He has chosen the opposite of revenge. Somehow that one white boy, that small saint, has held on to a good and kind heart. A courageous and beautiful heart.