Cracker! (18 page)

Rick said, “What’s going on?”

U-Haul said impatiently, “We got two major battles going on. Lots of casualties. All available men.” He dashed off.

Rick couldn’t believe that “all available men” meant someone who’d just returned from rescuing four Special Forces soldiers and had barely slept for days. But when he got back to the hootch, every other handler was already gone. He kept thinking about the words “lots of casualties.” So he got fresh supplies for himself and Cracker and jogged to the helicopter pad. Only one chopper was left, so he and Cracker jumped aboard.

They neared a field with men lying in the distance. When he and Cracker got off and the chopper left, the silence surprised him. Just the same, he crawled forward rather than walked. He spotted Uppy in a trench and made his way over to him.

“How’s it going?” Rick said.

“They broke the perimeter last night, but we established a new one and it’s holding so far. We tried to get everybody available here when the perimeter broke, but there was another big battle going on twenty klicks away.”

It was already afternoon by now. “This has been going on since last night?”

“Yeah—the middle of the night.”

A gun fired, but just one, then a few fired, then silence again. Then Cracker noticed Tristie at the other end of the trench. A guy she didn’t know was holding Tristie’s leash. Where was Twenty-Twenty? She tried to pull herself up, but Rick pushed her down.

Rick noticed Tristie too. He readied his gun and peered over the trench and saw Twenty-Twenty lying on his side in the field, almost as if he were sleeping. At first Rick just thought he was entrenched a little farther out, but then he saw blood seeping from Twenty. Rick froze in place and figured it was adrenaline freeze again. But then he realized it was his subconscious comprehending that if he made even one move, the momentum would carry him all the way to where Twenty-Twenty lay, and then they would both end up hurt. But he had to do something.

“Where’s the damn backup?” he snapped at Uppy. “My buddy’s out there!”

“It’s too hot to get him now,” Uppy answered, snapping his gum.

Rick suddenly felt like grabbing that gum out of Uppy’s mouth and stuffing it up his nose. Instead, he tried to stay calm. He said, as if Uppy were an idiot, “But it’s quiet now.”

Uppy answered, “My best friend’s out there too. We’ve known each other since second grade. You know?”

Rick took in a breath. “I’m sorry, man. I didn’t mean nothing. I …”

“Forget it.”

Then Twenty-Twenty lifted his head to look up, and a shot rang out. But it wasn’t at Twenty-Twenty, it was at Rick, for sticking his head out of the trench. Savageness rose in Rick again. He wanted to blast every Vietcong in the world to smithereens.

Tristie started barking. Somehow she’d gotten off leash and was leaping into the air. Twenty-Twenty screamed, “No, Tristie, stay. Stay!”

Cracker yelped. Rick shouted, “Cracker, stay! Somebody grab that dog! Tristie, stay!”

A soldier lunged at Tristie. But she was too quick. She lurched off. In mid-leap a single shot rang out. Blood splattered in every direction, and Trisitie fell like a stone, half in and half out of the trench. Rick and Cracker crawled frantically toward her as a soldier pulled her back in.

Something about the triumph of the Special Forces mission mixed with the horror of seeing blood spurting from Tristie made Rick think he might be losing his mind. He cried out to nobody in particular,
“What the HELL is going on?”

The force of his cry startled Cracker. She’d never heard anything like it from him, and maybe nothing like it from anyone, ever. She’d heard cries of physical pain. But this was a different kind of pain, and also a different kind of Rick. She sniffed at Tristie: alive. She looked at Rick to tell him to do something. People could do things.

Rick could hear Twenty-Twenty crying out, “Is she alive? Is she alive?”

The blood from Tristie’s limp body oozed from her chest. She wasn’t moving. Rick held her muzzle shut and blew air into her nostrils. She came back to life, whinnying like a horse. Rick blew more air into her nostrils, then hollered, “Medic!”

Uppy said, “The medic’s got a pile of humans he’s working on.” But then Uppy tore off his shirt and pressed it against the wound.

Rick continued blowing into Tristie’s nostrils.

Then she opened her eyes and looked right at him before closing her eyes and ceasing to breathe again. “Come on, Tristie!” He kept blowing, but she fell limp, and he knew she was gone.

Cracker also knew she was gone.

“Hey, Rick!” It was Twenty.

Rick didn’t answer at first, because he knew what the next question would be. But then he ended up hesitating so long that he realized Twenty already knew what the answer was. Twenty-Twenty didn’t speak again.

Rick gently set down Tristie’s head and turned away and didn’t move for a long time.

Cracker laid her body over Tristie’s but kept a paw on Rick. She knew she couldn’t protect Tristie anymore, but she still felt protective. When a soldier moved nearby, she snarled and the soldier moved back. Tristie smelled muddy and bloody and just like Tristie, except dead. Cracker had smelled rats and birds right after they died, and they smelled different in death. After Tristie had smelled different for a while, Cracker knew it was time to take care of Rick again. She pushed against him. She couldn’t feel anything coming from him, like sadness or anything. That made her feel worried.

The hot sun slanted from the sky and eventually descended as Cracker panted from the heat. Gunfire occasionally broke the peace. When evening fell, the trees loomed dark and large. Several times Rick thought he saw movement in the forest and raised his rifle. But it turned out to be a shadow. Rick squeezed Cracker to him and waited. A long time ago one of Rick’s uncles had taken him through the Mojave Desert in southern California. Weird-shaped trees called Joshuas filled the desert, their limbs bent, seemingly misshapen. Crazy, humanlike shapes. His uncle had told him that Joshua trees looked human because they once had been, in another life. He said the trees were ghosts and that each had a story to tell. Rick figured that after tonight these trees by the battlefield would have some stories.

Finally, mortar fire exploded in the distance. Several guys shouted for joy, and Rick realized he was one of the guys shouting. Illumination flares, hanging on parachutes, floated down, imbuing the sky with an eerie daylight and moving shadows across the jungle. The lights slowly floated to the ground, making the whole world seem inside out. It was as if everything inanimate came to life, and everything alive was ghostly. Rick didn’t know whether the ache in his gut was real or psychological, or whether it made a difference which it was.

For a long time not a single shot broke the silence. The medic moved into the field to Twenty-Twenty, and then the doc and another guy carried him to an area with other wounded. Rick went to talk to him, but the doc had started an I.V. and Twenty must have gotten a shot of morphine, because he didn’t seem to recognize Rick.

Rick didn’t sleep, or maybe he did. Sometimes in Nam you couldn’t tell. At one point when he was definitely awake, the clarity of the stars startled him. The moon had risen over the nipa palms at the edge of the jungle. Smoke from the battle crept like mold through the air. He dozed fitfully, and when the sun rose, the smoke had cleared. Men moved about. Rick was damn glad to see that all the men were friendlies.

Cracker looked at him expectantly, and he realized he hadn’t even fed her or given her water before he fell asleep.
Damn.
She’d saved his life on the Special Forces mission, and he hadn’t even remembered to feed and water her. He did both now, then pushed himself up.

She started to follow him but stopped to sniff at Tristie, only Tristie wasn’t there anymore. That is, her body was there, but she wasn’t. Cracker whimpered and lay down next to Tristie. She pawed again at Tristie like she always did when she wanted to play with her friend.

“Come, Cracker.”

Cracker obeyed, but more reluctantly than usual. She wanted Tristie with them. But she had to follow Rick. They kept walking until they reached Twenty-Twenty, lying among the wounded. Blood-smell filled the air.

The unit must have run out of stretchers, because some of the wounded lay on ponchos. Twenty-Twenty had a poncho both over and under him. Even though his eyes were closed, he still wore his glasses. He didn’t seem to be breathing. Rick’s own breath caught. He braced himself and squatted down, then took his friend’s hand and knelt with his forehead on the hand.

“What the hell are you doing? I ain’t dead yet,” Twenty-Twenty said.

Rick dropped his hand and scurried to his feet as if Twenty had come back from the dead. His friend tried to push himself to a sitting position. “Lie down!” Rick said.

“She’s gone, isn’t she?” His eyes seemed to be blurry.

“Just lie down, man.”

But Twenty-Twenty pushed onto his uninjured elbow and spotted his dog, her fur matted with blood. He collapsed backward. “I told her to stay,” he said angrily. Rick wasn’t sure whom he was angry at.

“I heard you. We all heard you.”

“I
told
her to stay!” The intensity of Twenty’s anger was palpable. Rick wanted to say,
But she was only trying to help, don’t be angry at her
, but then he decided to leave it alone.

“She didn’t stay,” Twenty-Twenty said. “I didn’t teach her right.” Then Rick realized Twenty was angry with himself.

“She was a good dog. You taught her great.”

“I’m going back to the world, aren’t I?” “The world” was what guys called the real world, America.

Rick barely glanced toward Twenty-Twenty’s injured arm, but the glance was enough. “Yeah, you’re going back home.”

“With how many arms? I don’t wanna look. Pick up the poncho.”

“You’re gonna be okay” was all Rick could say. He wanted to look over at Twenty’s wound again, but he already knew. Worse: worse than a Million Dollar Injury. Basically, from the way the poncho lay, it looked like maybe most of Twenty’s arm could be gone.

“You make sure Tristie gets buried properly. Make sure, Rick, okay?”

“I will.” At the firebase the old-timer dog handlers had already set up a graveyard for the dogs who got killed in action or died of jungle diseases.

“I want her epitath to say ‘Sleep well.’”

“All right.”

“I’d already decided, just in case.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“And cut off a piece of my hair and bury it with her.”

Rick took out the knife all soldiers carried and cut off a chunk of Twenty’s hair. He stuffed it in his pocket.

Rick looked out into the field. He couldn’t believe what he saw in the distance: dead bodies, lots of them, beyond the perimeter. Dozens upon dozens of dead V.C. Did that mean they had won the battle? It didn’t feel like they had won.

Cracker sniffed at Twenty-Twenty’s arm. Blood. She lay down, her head resting on her paws, while the medic leaned over to check Twenty-Twenty. Then she followed while Rick and the medic carried Twenty-Twenty’s stretcher and laid him next to a group of other men on stretchers, other men who smelled like blood and guts and dirt. But they were alive.

“What’s going on?” asked Twenty-Twenty.

“You’re goin’ home, buddy. The medevac will be here soon. You’ll be fine. There’s guys a lot worse off than you.”

Twenty-Twenty turned his head away suddenly, crying. “She wouldn’t listen,” he said one last time. “It’s my fault.”

Rick said, “It ain’t your fault.” He looked around. “I think they want to look you over again. You call me if you need anything.” But Twenty-Twenty didn’t answer.

A man who was clearly badly wounded lay unattended. He looked as if he were made of mud. Rick hesitated, then asked someone, “Shouldn’t the medic be looking over that guy?”

“It’s triage, man,” the other soldier said softly.

“His eyes are open.”

“Yeah, but Doc has to work on the guys he can save. That one’s a goner.”

Rick looked again. The “mud man” seemed alert, bizarrely hyper. A poncho covered most of his body. Whatever made the medic determine the guy was a goner was hidden under that poncho. Obviously, it was more than a lost limb. Rick walked over. The sun made the man’s brown eyes hold a glimmer of gold in them. The eyes blinked at Rick. Rick reached for his hand and pressed it. It felt cold.

“Need anything, soldier?” He didn’t even know the guy’s name. As a matter of fact, he probably didn’t know the names of 90 percent of the guys here.

The guy shook his head. He was staring at something. Rick turned to look. It was a bloody thing … a foot lying on the ground. The guy said, “Is that mine?” His feet stuck out from underneath the poncho covering his torso.

“No, you got your legs,” Rick assured him. “Your feet, too.” He hesitated, then lied, “You’re gonna be okay. Dust-off’s coming.” Just as he said it, he heard the choppers in the air. He lied again: “There are guys worse off than you. So you may not be first.”

“That’s okay, take them first.”

Rick lit a cigarette and offered it to the soldier. The soldier opened his mouth slightly, and Rick placed the cigarette in between the poor guy’s lips. He inhaled deeply.