Cracker! (7 page)

Rick struggled to control Cracker. “Sit!” he shouted, and finally she did. He shook her snout. “Bad girl!” He sure didn’t want her going after snakes or other animals in Vietnam.

The handlers and their dogs fell into formation as U-Haul approached carrying a chicken, of all things. Twenty-four men stood together in the platoon. The guys all glanced at one another as if U-Haul was crazy, which of course he was. The sergeant started to shout but halted as several helicopters roared overhead. Nearly all of the dogs strained on their leashes to reach the chicken. Cracker was going wild.

A private Rick had never seen joined Sarge as the helicopters continued to roar. The way Rick heard it, the Vietnam War was sometimes called the “Helicopter War.” With choppers, entire companies could maneuver with greater speed than ever before. Each chopper would carry ten or so men at a time for a big battle and later fly the soldiers back to base camp for a warm meal that night in the mess hall. At least, that’s the way Rick pictured it.

Even before the helicopters had completely passed, the sergeant was already screaming, though not
at
anyone. He just paced back and forth screaming. Rumor was Sarge screamed in his sleep. “You cannot stop a dog from alerting at an animal. But you must control your dog. Your dog must understand that it is not his job to hunt down animals.”

The chicken squawked nervously. The dogs barked wildly, pulling hard on their leashes. Except Bruno. Bruno was mighty interested in the chicken, but he sat under control at Cody’s side. Meanwhile, it took all Rick’s strength to control Cracker. Finally, he shouted, “NO!” and gave a hard jerk on the chain, and she sulkily sat down. Drool began puddling beneath her on the ground.
Damn
, he thought. He’d seen dogs like her before, where the prey drive ran like wolf blood through them. One farmer he remembered had ended up shooting his own dog when she killed half his chickens. Then Cracker tried a new tactic, sitting her best sit in front of him. “No!” he cried.

After a moment Sarge handed the terrified chicken to the private next to him. “Okay, you can take her back to the chef,” he said. He turned to the squad. “Got a senator visiting Benning for dinner tonight. Need to have some kind of special gourmet chicken.”

The private walked off with the senator’s dinner.

Sarge looked at the men suddenly and shouted, “The scout dog must be trained to work on airborne scent alone!” Rick mouthed the words with him: He knew that part by heart; they all did.

Sarge bellowed, “These are scout dogs, not trackers. A dog with his nose on the ground tracking a ground scent might lead you directly into ambush. Determine wind and terrain upon arrival to the mission site. Think. THINK. Think about the scent cone. Private Lanski, what does a strong wind mean?” U-Haul always said Rick’s name wrong. Always. But annoying as it was, Rick wasn’t about to correct him because he figured that’s exactly what U-Haul was trying to goad him into doing.

Instead, he shouted back, “Sergeant! A strong wind means a narrow scent cone!” The scent cone was the three-dimensional shape a scent made in the air. The center of the cone was the booby trap, weapons cache, food cache, Vietcong soldier, or whatever else the dog was smelling. Given even terrain and stable wind conditions, scent moved outward from the center in the shape of a cone. If you didn’t watch your dog carefully, you could lead him right out of the scent cone.

The men waited while U-Haul stood speechless. Rick moved his eyes but couldn’t see what U-Haul was staring at. Then a general’s daughter walked by. She was cute as hell, but a snotty little princess. She liked to walk by the enlisted men and ignore them.

“Never take your eyes off your dog,” Sarge resumed shouting, directly at Rick. “If there is one rule you must always follow in the field, it’s never take your eyes off your dog. Your slack man will protect your back.” A “slack man” was the bodyguard who was assigned to each dog-handling team. A team was one man, one dog: inseparable. The handler watched the dog, and the slack man guarded the handler. Rick tried not to look bored. Cracker panted eagerly. Finally, Sarge stopped shouting.

Cracker was looking adoringly at Rick. He smiled at her.

“Private, are you listening!”

Rick looked up. “Absolutely, Sergeant! You said—”

“I said, in this part of the training your dog is no longer simply following your orders. You are following your dog. If your dog alerts, you must be watching. Always. You become a single entity. Never take your eyes off your dog. They got as many beautiful girls in Vietnam as any country in the universe. They got nothing but girls. They got more beautiful girls than leaves in the jungle.”

One of the guys said, “Woo-hoo!”

Now, if Rick had said “woo-hoo,” he’d be doing push-ups until lunchtime, but U-Haul ignored the other guy. Still, Rick called out, “Yes, Sergeant! Leaves in the jungle, SERGEANT!” Tact and diplomacy! His parents had taught him fairness; now he was learning politics.

The men loaded their gear, including tents, onto the trucks that would take them to field training. They were crossing the border into Alabama today. A couple of guys had to tie up their more aggressive dogs before helping load. One of the guys had a dog who was just plain crazy. The dog wouldn’t let anyone within ten feet of his handler, and he howled for hours when he and his handler were separated. But he seemed to have good sniffing abilities, so the army was holding on to him.

Cracker didn’t think the dog was crazy. He was just protecting his handler. She kind of respected him. She yawned and lay patiently next to Bruno and Tristie as Rick, Cody, and Twenty-Twenty worked. Whenever the guys loaded the truck, it meant they were going away for a while to sleep in the field. She liked that. The loud man started shouting so loudly that Cracker moved her eyes away from Rick. “Remember, in the field you never take your eyes off the dog.” Cracker moved her eyes back to Rick and felt a slight thrill as he moved his eyes to
her.
A soft drizzle fell on her nose. She could smell the loud man from where she lay. He smelled loud, just like Cody smelled happy, Rick smelled calm and confident, and Twenty-Twenty smelled worried. Rick looked away. Cracker rested her nose on Tristie’s back.

When the truck was loaded, Rick looked at Cracker and called out, “Hup!” Cracker timed her leap onto the truck to coincide with when Rick hopped up. She landed a second before he did and turned to wait for him. “Good girl,” he said. She wagged her tail. The sarge came near her, and she growled. Rick grabbed her leash. “No!” he said, and she sat down. She liked the same people and dogs Rick liked. He obviously didn’t like the sarge.

The truck rumbled through the rain. The rain destroyed some of the smells that Cracker was used to, but it also created new, wet smells. Once, the truck passed a deer along the highway, and all the dogs hung off the side barking furiously. Cracker thought about jumping off, but she had a feeling Rick wouldn’t like that. If it were Willie, she would have done it anyway and let him come get her. She hadn’t thought of Willie for a while. He’d been her best friend. But she and Rick had something else, something bigger. She wasn’t sure what it was. All she knew was that when he came to her in the morning, she had no choice but to twirl around and chase her tail before sitting down in front of him. She’d always celebrated when Willie came home too, but this was different. With Willie, she’d felt that when they were separated, he was where he was, and she was where she was. But with Rick, she felt she was kind of with him all the time; and when he came in person, she was even more with him.

As soon as the truck stopped and everybody jumped off, Cracker gave herself a good shake. All the other dogs gave themselves a good shake. All the men held up their hands and called out, “No!” Cracker thought that was funny.

The rain stopped and the air grew heavy with scents. Cracker lifted her nose and sniffed. A feeling of joy washed through her. So many good smells!

“What direction is the wind blowing, Private?” cried out the loud man.

Rick saw that Cracker’s nose had lifted toward the northwest. “From the northwest, Sergeant.”

“Think you’re smart, Private?”

“I’m sorry, Sergeant?”

“I said, think you’re smart, Private?”

“No, SERGEANT!”

“Think you’re dumb, Private?”

“No, SERGEANT!”

“Well, which is it, smart or dumb?”

Rick hesitated before realizing there was no right answer. So he said, “Cracker and I are going to whip the world, SERGEANT!”

Rick could tell that the sergeant liked his answer. Sarge turned suddenly toward Cody. “What the hell are you grinning about?”

“Nothing, Sergeant!” cried out Cody.

Sarge snapped back to Rick. “Go to it, soldier.”

Rick performed the crossover, removing Cracker’s choke chain and slipping on her work harness. That’s how she knew life was about to get serious.

Rick secured anything on Cracker or himself that might jingle and alert the enemy. He taped his dog tags together as they’d been taught to do. He wanted to ask whether they weren’t going to set up camp first, but Sarge was looking at him impatiently. So he said quietly but urgently, “Search, Cracker. Search!”

She surged forward. Rick jerked the leash to correct her. Not too fast, or she might miss something. In Vietnam that could cost Rick his life.

Cracker loved running. She loved pulling, too. Rick didn’t like when she pulled, but she didn’t hold that against him. She restrained herself as she moved forward into a shallow swamp, Rick following. The other men lagged far behind. The mud-colored swamp sucked at her feet with each step, making a soft
shlurp
noise as she moved her paws. But she smelled something important. She stood very still, her ears rotating in the direction of the sound, her nose raised to sniff. There it was! She pointed her nose, then turned with pride to Rick. A bird in a tree!

He jerked at her leash. The sarge had told them that you could never, ever teach a dog not to alert to animals. But you had to discourage it anyway. He thought again of the farmer who’d shot his dog, but he pushed the thought out of his mind.

“No! Search!” Rick said.

Rick felt annoyed. Cracker had improved since he’d met her, but every so often she surprised him by taking off after a squirrel or a bird. Rick rearranged the rucksack on his back. It weighed fifty-five pounds, less than he would carry most days in Nam, but it already felt heavy. Swamp water and sweat drenched his clothes. Sweat dripped into his eyes. He already wanted to take off his steel pot—or helmet—but if he did, a piece of shrapnel might hit him. Of course, since this was just training, there was no shrapnel. But Rick resisted the urge to take off his helmet. He needed to get used to it, and he knew U-Haul would yell at him if he took it off.

Cracker gazed longingly at the bird again but felt the chain jerk on her neck. She’d killed a bird once while she and Willie were out in a forest. She knew it was a “bird” because Willie had taught her that word. She would never forget killing the bird because it was so much fun. But she could feel Rick’s annoyance. She sniffed at the air. There was something … a smell Rick had taught her about. The scent seemed stronger to the left.

Cracker waded through the swamp, thinking of only one thing now: the smell to the left. She pulled Rick out of the swamp and walked directly into the smell. It was everywhere, flooding into her nose. And she heard the faint, whistling rhythm of someone breathing. She pricked up her ears. She could also smell the breath coming from whomever was breathing.

“Whatcha got, girl?” Rick said urgently.

She felt the hair on her back stand up. “Grrrr,” she answered him.
Ouch!
Rick had yanked the harness.

“Quiet,” he whispered.

She charged suddenly, and a man jumped from a thick bush and ran off. She lunged after him, ripping at his pants. Rick called, “Stay! Stay!” Cracker reluctantly stopped.

“Good girl!” Rick said. Cracker felt his face rubbing all over hers. “Good girl!” he said again. She rubbed her face back against his. She felt satisfied all over.

Then she lifted her head sharply. She still heard something. She turned back to where the man had run from and stood straight up. From far away, she heard a sound Rick had taught her to listen for: the sound of wind passing around a wire pulled tight. She faintly smelled gunpowder.

She looked up at Rick, questioning him, and he looked at the loud man, who nodded. Rick said, “Search, girl.”

She knew exactly where the sound was coming from, so she pulled Rick more than she knew he liked. But she didn’t pull so much that he reprimanded her. She was getting to know him really well. The forest grew denser, the smell dispersed, but the sound was unmistakable. As soon as she was sure what it was, and where, she sat down and stared toward the source of the sound.

Rick said, “Whatcha got, girl?”

She looked at him, then turned back to the sound. Couldn’t he hear it?

Rick repeated, “What you got, girl?”

He stepped around her and cautiously moved forward, scanning up and down to make sure he didn’t miss anything. Cracker followed him and pawed him once.

Rick knew he’d tripped the wire almost before he actually tripped it. Later he wondered
how
he’d known beforehand. Unfortunately, he didn’t know in time to stop. The booby trap exploded, though of course it wasn’t real gunpowder. Rick wanted to kick himself. And it was all his fault. Cracker had given a strong alert, and he’d moved past her because he hadn’t seen anything.