Red Flags (26 page)

"God," she said, "the children are the single bit of relief from this war. Especially those who are too young to grasp what this all is. Or maybe they're just unfazed because they were born into it and don't know anything else. I sometimes wish I had one," she said, eyeing the disarming boy.

"I had the posterity urge too," I said, "not long ago. I thought a kid would be really cool."

"Had?" She shaded her eyes. "Where did the urge go?"

"Lost it when my wife annulled my ass."

"Well, you're what—in your midtwenties? You've got time." She brushed crumbs from her fingers. "I need a favor. Two, actually."

"Sure. Just say."

"When this breaks up, I need you to give your boss a lift to my place. And pick him up in the morning, early. First thing. Can you do that?"

A pang of something passed through me and kept going. "Sure," I said.

Roberta touched my forearm and slipped away to talk shop with the Korean medical team. Judd Slavin stepped forward, looking like a Kansan at a barbecue: short blond hair, short-sleeved blue plaid shirt, chinos, white socks, silver Timex on his wrist. Slavin clinked the side of a bottle and made a short, earnest speech thanking the colonel for his many kindnesses:

"The rice he brings our Montagnards, the medical supplies and building materials that just appear, along with seeds and donated clothing from his hometown parish. I won't go on. I don't want to embarrass Colonel Bennett. He doesn't react terribly well to praise, as some here will attest."

Applause interrupted. Judd turned toward Bennett. "Audrey and Ted Baxter have come a long way to be here. Not a journey lightly undertaken. We wish they hadn't run the risk but I'm delighted they're here. They want to say a brief word."

The couple stepped out of the group, straight as sticks, both in their forties, graying and modestly dressed: she in a madras wraparound skirt and a blouse, he in black slacks and white shirt. Audrey Baxter presented the colonel with a black tribal sarong and shirt for his wife, and addressed him.

"We're pretty isolated where we are. You folks can imagine our surprise seeing an American officer amble into our remote village and ask what was for lunch. He just appeared one afternoon and he's never forgotten the way. He never came empty-handed. Dennis, I just want you to know there are tribal kids who are clothed because of you, fed because of you, alive today because of drugs you supplied. We are so immensely appreciative for all your help and compassion ... and proud to congratulate you on those most appropriate eagles."

Audrey Baxter hugged him and everyone clapped and whistled. Bennett actually blushed. Her husband took the colonel's hand in both of his. Both Baxters looked anxious and frail, as though they didn't eat much more than the Montagnards they ministered to. The colonel admired the sarong and thanked them, bussing Audrey on the cheek. He thanked everyone for coming, singling out the Slavins for their hospitality. More applause.

Ruchevsky came back around as the crowd began to disperse. "The gall of that smug son of a bitch Chinh," he muttered. "Three-thousand-year-old civilization and they're still shitting in holes." He filled a plate with food.

Roberta waved goodbye from afar.

Ruchevsky said, "You playing Cupid now, Rider?" Big John missed nothing.

"Feel more like the rat driving Cinderella's pumpkin."

"And here I thought you might have a thing for her yourself." He took a bite of potato salad.

"She's crazy for him. It's bigtime stuff."

"Tragic thing, unrequited love," he said, sighing, and dug into the food on his plate. He nodded in the direction the Chinhs' armored carrier had gone. "You catch the emeralds on that corrupt bastard's corrupt wife? You could buy all of Cheo Reo with one stone. How much black-market rice you think they cost? I'd like to rip them off her teeny-tiny ears."

"Tell me, John," I said as Roberta pulled away in the buttery light. "How is it you got into the stealth business?"

Ruchevsky massaged the slight paunch developing above his belt. "I dunno. Just liked working with people, I guess." He handed me a small box. "You get a gifty too. I wouldn't be without just now." He clasped my shoulder.

Inside were the impossible-to-find .22-caliber bullets for my pistol.

Ruchevsky arched his eyebrows. "What do you say we have a little chat with our host?"

Judd Slavin appeared surprised by our request for a private talk but showed us to some Adirondack chairs in a shady corner of the broad porch. I could see their vegetable garden over his shoulder.

"I understand your parents were missionaries in Viet Nam," Ruchevsky said.

"For over a decade, yes. I boarded at the Dalat Missionary Children's School back then and spent my summers and school holidays with my folks wherever they were. Had a whole year with them one time at their mission station."

"And you learned Montagnard languages?"

"From my playmates and classmates at the time, yes. I speak at about the level of a ten-year-old."

"Rhade, Jarai ... Katu?"

"Yes. Some Bahnar and Sedang too."

"What is it like," I said, "ministering to the Montagnards?"

"Challenging. For all the powerful deities they live with, they don't easily grasp the idea of a single God. They're happy to add Him to theirs, but most tribespeople don't readily understand the concept of exclusivity."

"One God is a hard sell?"

"No." Slavin smiled warmly. "They mostly like the idea of a God who can protect them from their troublesome spirits and lesser gods. To be fair, the Triune God is what's difficult to explain. Naturally, they see Him as three. We insist He's one. They mouth the words but don't really get it."

"Have you had any success with the Jarai?"

"Reasonable success, I would say, yes. Five years ago we had five hundred Jarai converts here. Double that today." He gave a resigned shrug. "It's slow work. Fraught with problems. They're very communal. When they convert, we require them to burn their magic amulets and idols and forbid them to participate in any more pagan feasts and ceremonies."

"Sacrilege to the rest of the tribe," Ruchevsky said.

"Exactly. Upsetting to the
yang
spirits. Whose displeasure threatens the whole village. So the shamans and neighbors harass families not to accept Christ. Sometimes we try to win over the whole village at one go."

"All or nothing?"

"Exactly. Convert some critical number all at once. If that doesn't work, we might build a church on a facing rise and invite the believers to slowly migrate over to it, hoping this makes the division less traumatic for everyone. But there are dilemmas no matter what we do."

I said, "Was it difficult for your parents to proselytize the Katu?"

Slavin tensed. "The Katu believe in lots of spirits but a single god, the King of the Sky. They're nearly monotheistic."

"Did that make them easier to reach than other tribes?"

Slavin shook his head. "When my parents preached the Gospel, the Katu were keen to adapt Christian belief. They were transfixed by the Eucharist, fascinated by Jesus on the Cross. Even competed at putting up crucifixes in their longhouses. My parents were surprised and encouraged at first. Until one day they realized it wasn't Christ that called to the Katu. The Lord's Body and Blood wasn't a transcendent religious experience for them. What fascinated them was the technique of crucifixion."

"What do you mean?" Ruchevsky said.

"They wanted to understand how we performed sacrifices, how we consumed the Body and Blood during communion. They were offended at being turned away from participating unless they converted. Their old chief explained they wanted to hear everything about
percée de sang—
bloodletting. 'There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood.' They'd beg my mother to sing that hymn in their language. My dad nearly tore down their crucifixes one day but thought better of it."

"How long did he and your mother work with the Katu?"

"They only lasted a couple of years. My mother and father felt they'd failed them. They baptized hundreds in the rivers all over Viet Nam. Not Katu. Not a one."

"They sound seriously primitive," Ruchevsky said.

"They're dark souls, the only mountain clan that metes out capital punishment. If a Katu accuses another of using sorcery or witchcraft to murder and doesn't prove it, the accused has the right to kill his accuser. They deliberately isolate themselves in inaccessible places so they can maintain their customs and primitive ways unbothered. They encircle their village with a stockade and a confusing maze of approaches, most of them lethally booby-trapped. They're always braced for attack. It's a mystical, wary society."

"An inhospitable tribe," Ruchevsky suggested.

"Not really a tribe; more like a cult of intermarried first cousins. They wear their hair long, decorated with cone-shaped bones or the tusks of wild boar. The skulls of the creatures they sacrifice are kept in the highly decorated men's longhouse. It's shaped like an axe head, its ceilings exceptionally high and painted with toucans and snakes, stars, the sun, all done with charcoal and white lime, and red from areca. I was apprenticed to the pigment maker and had the job of maintaining an offering of red flowers laid out on a red blanket."

"A blood symbol—the red?" Ruchevsky said.

"They think it's the color of souls. They're easily the fiercest and most feared of the Highlanders. The other tribes tell their kids scary stories about a clan whose warriors have tails and devour children."

Ruchevsky said, "How is it they came by this reputation?"

"They hunt humans."

We both came fully alert.

"For sport?" John said.

"For their blood. Sometimes their heads too. When the spirits demand a blood sacrifice, the Katu begin a ceremonial journey. They isolate themselves from the village for a day to get ready, then raid some distant community they've scouted. They kill the first male they come upon and smear themselves with his blood. Ritually dip their spears in it. When they return, they go into seclusion for a month to come down from the experience. The slayers see the soul of the victim as a brother. It stays in the village. Katu women—" He circled his face with his hand. "Their faces are tattooed. The women speak gently to the slain soul to comfort it."

"Jesus," Ruchevsky mumbled.

"Did you ever see the ritual?" I said.

Slavin looked straight at me.

"The Katu often declared their village taboo so my folks wouldn't interfere, but they took little notice of me. Kids were very free. I was nearly as dark as they from the sun, and young, nine or ten. One time I shadowed the hunters as they returned. I'd convinced myself they'd gone out after game. I didn't dare believe they'd actually stalk another human. I saw it though. The head. They had killed a chief. A very special victim. They'd decorated themselves with his blood, dipped their spears in it, cut off his head, and carried it home. That's where they think the soul is—in the head. With great ceremony, they put it in the men's house with the others."

"Good God," Ruchevsky whispered.

"That's not the worst of it, I'm afraid."

"I'm not sure I want to know," I said.

"Their preferred prey were foreigners. My father thought they were always fantasizing an honored place in their collection for his noggin, he said—or mine."

Ruchevsky said, "But you were just a kid."

"When their god or the spirits wanted blood from a living person, the raiders would bring back a captive, preferably male—and young."

"How young?" I asked.

"A year or two. Easier to carry in a basket, easier to direct."

"You saw this?" Ruchevsky said, quietly.

Slavin nodded. "There was a big ceremony and they brought the boy out. The raiders wanted him to grasp a sharp blade but he wouldn't, so they forced his hand onto it. They extracted some blood from the wound, then finished the rite ... and added his head to the rest."

The two of us sat silent, speechless.

"When I told my parents, Mom couldn't stop trembling. We left the same afternoon."

Slavin stared at the dissipating crowd. Small boys in blue shorts dashed from an outbuilding at the corner of the property and bolted toward the river, raising a plume of yellow dust as they galloped.

"Reverend Slavin," Ruchevsky said, "we're aware you recently met with the Communists' province head."

He turned to us. "I see."

"Out in the jungle," I added.

Slavin didn't respond immediately. His face took on a sad aspect. "Will this have to go into reports? Do you have to share this with Colonel Bennett?" He took out his pipe and fussed with it to cover his discomfort.

Ruchevsky sat forward, voice lowered. "Were you meeting with the commissar to demonstrate your neutrality, maybe? Showing deference to the revolutionary government in the province?"

He looked chagrined. "Not to put too fine a point on it, I went to collect payment."

"For?"

"Services rendered." Slavin sighed, at last realizing the reason for our interest in the Katu. "I had approached the Katu on the Front's behalf. Persuaded them to grow certain native medicines for the sick and wounded."

"You acted as a go-between for money?" I said.

"Not for me personally. The Montagnard villages I serve are desperate. They're barely subsisting on the provisions the province allows them. Kids' stomachs are potbellied from lack of a decent diet. The colonel's charitable efforts are commendable but they aren't nearly enough." He set the pipe aside. "I continually plead with the province chief, to no avail. We live alongside people ill with hunger. Nothing's been put right about their rice supplies."

"So the commissar offered his assistance if you persuaded the Katu to grow poppies?"

"No, Whalen Lund approached me. He said our military would never challenge the province chief about depriving the Yards of staples or selling off our donated rice. He said we only wanted Montagnards as mercenaries, that America's commitment was to the Saigon government, not the tribes. He said I was wasting my breath going to Chinh, that the South Vietnamese were perfectly happy to see the tribespeople culled by war and deprivation. Except for individual members of the American military—some AID agents like him and missionaries like me—he said nobody was going to intercede on their behalf. His solution was simple: the VC would get opiates for their military patients, and the Montagnards could count on a few thousand dollars at harvest time that could be the difference between surviving and not."