Jungle Rules (44 page)

“Take your time, cowboy,” the colonel said, “but at some point you’ll just have to suck it up and walk among the living.”

“Thank you, sir,” Stanley said, and finally opened the door.

“Well, that ain’t so bad,” the colonel said, looking at the captain with his trousers soaked front and back and throughout the inseam area.

Then the colonel put his arm across the captain’s shoulders and started walking him back up the aisle, daring anyone to make a remark or even laugh at the humiliated Marine.

“I shit my pants on a date once, when I was in high school,” he told Stanley Tufts. “It made such an impression with the girl, she married me a few years later. She’s home waiting with my four boys. They’ll be at Norton when we finally get there. Shitting your pants just makes you human, like the rest of us.”

“Thank you, sir,” Tufts sighed, feeling better about the whole ordeal as he came abreast of Major Dickinson, who finally glanced up to see his protégé waiting to sit down.

“Thanks for taking care of my man, Colonel,” Dickinson said as he stepped into the aisle and let the captain get back into his seat.

As Stanley slid into the row, the recon Marine captain by the window laid his
Stars and Stripes
newspaper on the lawyer’s chair bottom, to absorb the wetness. Then he leaned back and offered poor Tufts a friendly smile.

“Anytime, Marine,” the colonel said, and then walked toward the rear of the airplane, returning to his own seat.

“I don’t think I will be in the mood for that Kobe beefsteak and mai tai we had planned on tonight at Sam’s Anchor Inn,” Major Dickinson said as he fastened his seat belt.

“Oh, good, sir,” Stanley Tufts sighed. “Honestly, I had begun to really dread having to go there for dinner this evening.”

“You know, Stanley, I think I lost ten pounds today,” Dicky Doo said and smiled at the captain. “When I hitched up my britches after shitting my brains out, they were loose as a goose.”

 
“YOU’RE A PRIVATE in the Marine Corps, that is correct isn’t it, Mister Cross?” Terry O’Connor said to Leonard Cross.

“Yes, sir,” the witness responded, and then looked at Captain Charles Heyster for approval with his answer. The prosecutor only smiled, trying to hide his concern.

“Let’s see,” O’Connor continued, thumbing through pages of Private Cross’s Service Record Book as he walked to a tabletop lectern set in the center of the room between the tables for the prosecution and the defense. “When you return to the States, you’ll go to Camp Pendleton for release from active duty, it says here. You’ve been in Vietnam now eighteen months, five months on legal hold. Is that correct?”

“Yes, sir,” the skinny, darkly tanned, dark-haired Marine answered. “Me and Buster was suppose to rotate back in November, only a week before that. Uh, before he got his self killed.”

“Yes, Private Cross,” O’Connor said with a smile, “only a week before Private Harold Rein got his self killed.”

“That’s right, sir,” Cross responded, and looked at Charlie Heyster, who had his face turned toward a yellow legal pad, where he busily jotted notes.

“As Captain Heyster had you testify earlier,” O’Connor continued, “you and Private Harold Rein were very close friends.”

“Yes, sir,” Cross said and nodded, and then quickly wiped his eye with his fist, just as Heyster had told him to do, to gain sympathy from the jury. “We joined up on the buddy system.”

“Right!” O’Connor said, and picked up a legal pad. “You testified that you and Harold Rein joined the Marine Corps together, went to boot camp together. You even went to the brig together, didn’t you.”

“Sir, Captain Heyster told me I didn’t need to answer anything about me and Buster going to the brig any of those times,” Cross said, and looked at Charlie Heyster, who leaped to his feet.

“Objection, Your Honor,” Heyster said, looking at his witness, whom he had instructed to say nothing if asked about his two times in the brig with Buster Rein. “The witness’s service record is not relevant to this case. What he observed has nothing to do with whether he ever served time in the brig.”

Colonel Richard Swanson, who flew to Da Nang from Fleet Marine Force, Pacific Headquarters, in Hawaii, to preside over the murder trial of Private First Class Celestine Anderson, put up his hand when he saw Terry O’Connor about to counter Charlie Heyster’s objection.

“Captain Heyster, I am overruling your objection because I allowed you to open that very door with your witness’s combat record,” the judge said, and nodded at the defense counsel to proceed.

“You and Private Rein did serve time in the brig, right here in Vietnam, isn’t that correct, Private Cross?” O’Connor said, leaning over the lectern and looking coldly at the witness.

“Yes, sir,” Cross mumbled, but then looked up, curling his lip at the captain. “We didn’t start none of those fights. They just stuck us in the brig because they didn’t like us boys from Alabama. Them damned niggers started all those fights. Just like this time.”

“Damned niggers. Right. They got you and your pal, Buster Rein, thrown in the brig both times. Right?” O’Connor said, and walked in front of the lectern, crossed his arms, and looked at the six jurors, one of whom was a black Marine staff sergeant.

“Your Honor!” Heyster shouted. “The defense counsel is leading the witness, and goading him to express these unacceptable racial epithets.”

“Is this an objection, Captain?” Judge Swanson said, looking over the top of his tortoiseshell-framed half-glasses.

“Ah, yes, sir!” Heyster responded.

“Overruled,” the judge said with a smile, and then looked at Terry O’Connor. “Captain O’Connor, you are also opening some dangerous doors for your client. I understand the nature of your questioning, but racial tension is an area of deep concern for the Marine Corps today. So be cautious on where you may tread.”

Terry O’Connor nodded, stepped back behind the lectern, and read his notes. Then he looked up at Leonard Cross.

“Private Cross,” the defense lawyer said, “you had just gotten promoted to lance corporal when you came to Vietnam, and your friend Private Rein was a private first class. You have no page eleven entries prior to coming to Vietnam either. What happened?”

“We got put on shit detail,” Cross answered, now slouching down in the witness chair. “We had this gunny that didn’t like us.”

“Was he black?” O’Connor asked, looking at his notes.

“Yes, sir,” Cross answered, and then narrowed his eyes and looked hard at the defense lawyer.

“Why do you suppose a black gunny would have it in for you two?” O’Connor asked, looking back at the witness and not blinking.

“ ’Cause of this,” Cross snarled, and then pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, exposing the stars-and-bars rebel flag tattooed on his shoulder.

“That’s the flag of the Confederacy, correct?” O’Connor asked Cross.

“Yes, sir, it is,” Cross answered, letting down his sleeve.

“It expresses your southern roots, does it not?” O’Connor said, looking at the jury.

“Yes, sir,” Cross answered.

“You’re proud of the fact that you’re a southern boy,” O’Connor said, smiling at the witness.

“Damn right, sir,” Cross said, holding his head high and pitching his shoulders back as he now scooted upright in the witness chair.

“I’m from Philadelphia, the city where our Constitution was born,” O’Connor said, smiling. “I fully understand what you mean.”

“Yes, sir,” Cross said, taking a deep breath.

“That black gunny you worked for, he didn’t understand though, did he,” O’Connor said, leaning over the lectern and looking at Cross sympathetically.

“No, sir,” Cross said, shaking his head. “He called me and Buster and Duke and Ray white trash, and put us on shit detail because we was proud of who we was.”

“That made you mad, right?” O’Connor said, still leaning over the lectern.

“Made me feel like it wasn’t no use,” Cross said, looking down at his hands.

“So you didn’t take shit off anybody then, did you?” O’Connor asked.

“No, sir, we didn’t,” Cross said.

“I think we all understand, and greatly appreciate your frustration with racial bias,” O’Connor said, looking back at his notes.

“Thank you, sir,” Cross said, and then reached for a glass of water set on a side table for the witness.

“You ever hear of the Grand Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, or any variation of that name, the Klan or the K-K-K?” O’Connor asked, and looked at Charlie Heyster for an objection but got none.

“Of course I have, sir,” Cross said, and frowned. “Everybody’s heard of the Klan.”

“Down in Dothan, Alabama, where you and Harold Rein were both born and raised, did you ever see anybody from the Ku Klux Klan, or ever know anybody in the Klan?” O’Connor asked.

“No sir, not me,” Cross said, and smiled at Charlie Heyster.

“You and your buddy Buster never went to any Klan meetings, and certainly never joined it,” O’Connor said, looking at the witness, who kept smiling.

“That’s a secret club, sir,” Cross said, leaning back in his chair. “Nobody knows anybody in it, unless they’s in it, too.”

“What do you think of the Grand Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, Private Cross?” O’Connor asked, leaning on the lectern again, clasping his hands.

“They just some old outfit from the Civil War,” Cross said, wrinkling his lips, trying to outguess the questions now.

“So they’re just historic. Not around anymore?” O’Connor said, still clasping his hands.

“Not exactly,” Cross said, shrugging. “Everybody’s seen the stuff on television about the race protests and such down in Mississippi and back home, too. They got some guys I seen wearing the Klan robes.”

“So all you know about the Klan is what you saw on television news of the racial protesters,” the defense lawyer said. “Who’s right in that mess?”

“Now, sir, the Ku Klux Klan did good for the South, back when the Yankees took over everything. They run out the carpetbaggers and whatnot. We learned all that in school,” Cross said, defending his heritage.

“So the Ku Klux Klan is not a racist hate group then,” O’Connor then said, looking at the jury.

“Sir, not like you Yankees think,” Cross said.

“Your Honor,” Charlie Heyster stood, and then looked at Terry O’Connor, “we are supposed to be examining the murder of Harold Rein, not trying him and the prosecution’s witness. Many southern people regard the Ku Klux Klan much differently than we from other regions. It has no bearing on the death of Private Rein, though. I object to this continued trial of the Ku Klux Klan and beg Your Honor to bring us back to the subject of the murder.”

“Point well taken, Captain Heyster,” the judge said, and then looked at O’Connor. “Captain, we are clear on the witness’s perspective or racial prejudices and the Ku Klux Klan. Can we now move on to something more directly relevant to the events that led to the death of Private Rein? If you please.”

The defense counsel looked at his notes and then looked up at Leonard Cross.

“Laddie. That’s your nickname, is it not?” O’Connor continued.

“They call me Laddie instead of Leonard, yes, sir,” Cross said, folding his arms.

“What about that other tattoo?” the defense lawyer said, tapping himself on his right shoulder. “The one above your rebel flag.”

Leonard Cross pushed up his sleeve and turned his shoulder toward the jury.

“That’s a Maltese Cross above your flag tattoo, is it not?” O’Connor said.

“I don’t know about Maltese, but it’s a cross,” Leonard said, letting down his sleeve.

“What does it represent?” O’Connor asked.

“Nothing, just a cross. I’m a Christian, you know,” the private said, looking at Heyster for help but getting none.

“Buster, and your other buddies, Duke and Ray, they all have that same tattoo, do they not?” O’Connor asked, and smiled at Charlie Heyster.

“Yes, sir. We’re all southern boys. You know that,” Cross said, wrinkling his lips and narrowing his eyes at the defense lawyer.

“What about the circle around the cross, is that a Christian symbol, too?” O’Connor asked, and looked at Heyster, but he now only looked at his notepad.

“That’s just part of the cross, sir,” the private said, shrugging.

“It looks just like this cross, does it not?” O’Connor said, and held up an eight-inch-by-ten-inch photograph of a man wearing a white peaked hood and a white robe with a circled Maltese cross on the left breast, identical to the tattoo on Leonard Cross’s shoulder.

“That’s the symbol of the Ku Klux Klan,” the private said, and then curled his lips at the jury, and stared straight at the black sergeant seated there.

“Correct!” O’Connor said, and took the photograph to the presiding judge and laid it on his desk. “Sir, we ask that the court enter the photograph of the Ku Klux Klan costume as defense exhibit twelve.”

Walking to the edge of the witness stand, leaning on the rail, and looking hard into Laddie Cross’s eyes, O’Connor then asked, “Is there or has there been a brotherhood of you good southern boys here in Da Nang who espoused the teachings and philosophies of the Ku Klux Klan?”

“I can’t say,” Cross snapped back, and scowled at the lawyer.

“That’s right, it’s a secret society,” O’Connor said, and looked at the jury. “The Marine Corps would put you and anyone else in it back in the brig for having such a group. Right?”

“It’s just a tattoo, sir,” Cross answered, and clenched his teeth.

“That’s all I have for this witness, sir,” O’Connor said, and walked back to the defense table, where Wayne Ebberhardt sat next to Celestine Anderson, his wrists clapped in manacles chained to a belt he wore around his chest, and his legs chained to the chair.

“Any redirect questions, Captain Heyster?” Colonel Swanson asked.

“Yes, sir, Your Honor,” Heyster answered without standing. Then he looked at Leonard Cross, who sat in the witness chair wiping sweat from his face with his hands.