Matterhorn (18 page)

Hippy took off his wire-rimmed glasses and wiped them on his shirt. He held them up to the rain and looked through them. He
put them back on, and then slowly took off his boots, grimacing. He carefully peeled his wet socks from his feet, which were
discolored and puffy.

“Those look ugly,” Jake said.

Hippy grunted. He began massaging his feet. “There it is.” He rubbed a few minutes more, then put his boots back on, wincing,
and started taking apart the gun to clean out the dirt and vegetation.

Jake wished desperately that Fisher were back, but Fisher was gone. Just like that, taken away, and now here he was, feet
dangling in Hippy’s machine-gun position, everyone tired, the fucking rain beating into the earth, his squad without bunkers,
and only two days left to complete them.

“No one did shit for us today,” Jake said. He kicked at the side of Hippy’s hole, and a glob of mud splashed into the water.
He saw Lieutenant Mellas approaching him from Conman’s section.

Mellas squatted down next to the hole. “Thought I’d save you the trouble of walking uphill to give me the after-action report.”

Jake noticed that Mellas, too, was dirty and tired, and it made him feel good to think that the lieutenant had been working
on the lines as well. “Nothing, sir. Nothing but rain and fucking jungle.”

“No footprints? Nothing?”

“You’ve been out there. Nothing.”

Rain suddenly slashed down on them in heavy sheets. Water ran off Jake’s helmet onto his nose and neck in tiny cascades. Jake
looked at the lines. “I see they got a lot done on our bunkers today, sir.”

Mellas looked away briefly. “They did the best they could. As far as they were concerned you guys got to screw off with a
walk in the park.”

Hippy slammed home the bolt of the machine gun, startling both Jake and Mellas. “Tell me something, Lieutenant,” Hippy said.
“Just tell me where the gold is.”

“Gold?” Mellas looked puzzled, but Jake knew that Hippy was struggling with something deep. He could see Hippy’s jaw muscles
trying to control the frustration and exhaustion.

“Yes, the gold, the fucking gold, or the oil, or uranium. Something. Jesus Christ, something out there for us to be here.
Just anything, then I’d understand it. Just some fucking gold so it all made sense.”

Mellas didn’t answer. He stared at the jungle for a long time. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I wish I did.”

“There it is,” Jake said. He lifted the butt of his rifle to the earth beside him and pushed himself to his feet.

Mellas stood with him. “Look, Jake, I know it’s tough, but we’ve got some daylight left. Get some food and see if you can’t
fill some sandbags for foundations for the roofs before dark.”

Jake looked at Mellas dully, trying to comprehend it all. He turned without saying a word to pass the order down to the fire
team leaders.

The light began to fade and the lines grew quiet as the company went on the evening stand-to. Williams and Cortell, who had
been working next to Johnson on their own bunker, were cleaning their M-16s in what light remained. These two had been together
ever since they came in-country. Cortell, the leader of Jancowitz’s second fire team, was small and, had he been better fed,
would have been round. His slightly receding hairline made him look older than his nineteen years. Williams, tall and rangy,
with the big hands of a rancher, was almost Cortell’s
physical opposite. What they had in common, besides the Marine Corps and eight months in combat, was farmwork, although for
the one it was cotton in the Mississippi delta and for the other Herefords and hay.

Cortell liked this kid from Idaho. Until he joined the Marines, Cortell had never spoken with a white boy other than to excuse
himself or conduct business. Even in boot camp, the whites and blacks had pretty much kept to themselves for the brief moments
the Marine Corps allowed any of them time to themselves. Now here they were. He could never quite get used to it, expecting
Williams to refuse to sit next to him one day or suddenly go off on him for no good reason. But Williams never did. Today,
however, Cortell could feel something different about Williams, nothing dangerous or ill-willed, but something self-conscious
and hesitant. He took a chance.

“Somethin’ on you mind, Will?”

Williams held up the trigger assembly to inspect it.

“Yeah, but …”

“But what?”

“I don’t know.”

Cortell waited. He knew that waiting was often the best thing.

“I mean, I know that Cassidy and Ridlow and Bass are always getting on you about it. But … I mean I think you do. I mean congregating.
You always go off by yourselves back at VCB. Even out here, you’re always hanging out with Jackson and the other Negroes.”

“We ain’t Negroes any more,” Cortell cut in, not unkindly.

“Well, whatever you are. I mean … that shit isn’t going to get you anywhere.”

Cortell carefully snapped the barrel of the M-16 in place. “I bet you think we over there doing some kind of voodoo or somethin’.
Hatchin’ up black power plots.”

“I don’t know,” Williams said. “I’m not there.”

“Well, hate to disappoint you dumb cowboy ass, but we don’t even think ’bout white folks when we be
con
gregatin’
.
” Cortell gave his characteristic chuckle. “You ever hear that story ’bout the ugly ducklin’?”

“I may be from Idaho, but our mommas do tell us fairy tales.” He pointed the barrel of his M-16 toward the waning light and
peered through the back side, checking for dirt. Satisfied, he began reassembling the rifle.

“Well. You know Jesus,” Cortell said. “He spoke in parables. You know why? Because when you speak in parables it’s the listener
comes up with the right answer, not what the talker think is the right answer. You with me here?”

Williams nodded.

“I bet you think that story be about some ugly little kid that no one like because he be a plug
ug
ly little kid and then he grow up and he not ugly anymore because he ain’t no duck. He be a
swan
. Whoa. And of course the swans be all white and the ducks all dark, but I’m not gon’ go there with this sermon.”

Williams smiled. Cortell was always getting kidded about preaching when he got excited. He took the ribbing, not without a
little pride.

“Well, let me tell you what
I
think that story be about. It be about this little duck can’t grow up. Can’t grow up to be a big duck ’cause he ain’t a duck.
But he don’t know what he’s ’sposed to grow up
to.
” Cortell looked carefully to be sure he wasn’t losing Williams. “I mean, you don’t know what you supposed to grow up
to
, that make it pretty hard to grow up.” He waited a moment. “So, we ain’t
congregating
, we just hangin’ out with people best we can to figure out where
to
is. You with me here?
To
ain’t with the white folk ’cause we be black folk and tryin’ to find
to
hangin’ out with you chucks just a dead end for us. When I hang out with you chucks, I’m a black man first and who I really
am come next. When I hang out with the splibs, I’m
me
first and there ain’t no black man at all. It got nothin’ to do with white folk. It’s just the way it is. Ain’t no voodoo
conspiracy. We just hangin’ out and movin’ on best we can.”

Williams, who had been holding his breath, let it out. “Yeah. There it is.”

“There it is,” repeated Cortell.

“I think it scares people,” Williams said.

“Scare you?”

“Yeah. Naww.” He worked the bolt on his rifle. “I don’t know.”

“We get scared, too,” Cortell said. He looked out at the jungle and back home to Four Corners, Mississippi. “Seems the only
way I ever talk with a white man is to be just a little scared.” He came back to Matterhorn and looked over at Williams. “Till
you, brother.”

Williams slammed home the bolt and stood up. “Aww …” He shook his head sideways. Then he smiled, looking down at his chest.

Cortell laughed. “Sit down here, m’ man. You ain’t got phase two of my sermon yet.”

Williams sat down. “Speak, Reverend.”

“We ain’t Negroes any more.”

“You were when I was in high school and that was only last spring.”

“We ain’t Negroes any more. We blacks.”

Williams only half-suppressed a smile, knowing Cortell would see he was amused. “So if we were whites last spring are we supposed
to be called Blancos or Caucasios or something now?”

“Get back.”

“No, really. I mean, what did you folks used to be called?”

“Niggers,” Cortell said, opening his eyes wide.

“Not that. Fuck you. I know that’s an insult. You know what I mean. I mean what did you folks called
yourselves
.”

“Don’t give me any ‘you folks’ stuff either. You talkin’ to one man here.”

“OK, then. What did blacks used to call yourselves?”

Cortell thought a moment. “Well, Negro a lot, actually. The Reverend King called us that. But he dead. It seem too close to
nigger now, or
ni
gra.” His mind raced through an image of southern aristocracy and then any possible connective root between the words
genteel
and
gentile
, which he quickly dismissed. His mind was always doing that to him. “Negro doesn’t have that, you know, pride thing.” He
held up the bolt of his M-16, trying to catch the last of the light on it to see if he’d missed anything. “Sometimes we called
ourselves people of color.”

“People of color. Never heard that one.”

“Yeah, but you from
I
daho.”

Williams gave Cortell the finger and went back to wiping down the barrel of his own M-16 with another oiled patch.

“Anyway,” Cortell went on, “we blacks now. Ever’one be some color. Even
white
is a color.” Now it was Cortell’s turn to let Williams know he was suppressing a smile. “But it be a pretty dull go-nowhere
do-nothin’-for-you insipid color.”

“Whoa, Cortell. In-
sip
-id.”

“What, you think I’m some dumb cotton chopper with no vocabulary just because I talk like I live in Mississippi?”

Williams smiled at him. “People of color,” he said. “Pee-oh-cee.” He paused, then said, “Poc.” He waited just a moment, then,
“Poc, poc.” It had the sound of a coffee percolator just starting to boil.

Cortell shook his head, smiling at the foolishness.

Williams was suddenly on his feet again. “Poc, poc, poc.” His head was thrown back and now the sound was like a chicken squawking
in a barnyard. “Poc poc pocpocpoc.” He was walking half-crouched, his neck poking forward, hands tucked under his armpits
with his elbows out. “Poc, poc, poc, poc.” He crowed and strutted. Heads turned from up and down the line and then turned
back to what they were doing.

Cortell hung his head, trying very hard not to laugh. “You do that shit ’round some of the other brothers they wring you chicken
neck.”

“Poc.” Williams sat down. “Poc, poc.”

“I know you a dumb Blanco from Idaho so I don’t have to kill you,” Cortell said, “but you make fun of somethin’ serious and
do some that poc poc stuff in front of the wrong brothers and you be in some serious shit.”

“Serious shit?” Williams said. “Serious shit?” He raised his arms and indicated everything around him. “
This
is serious shit. Everything else is horseshit.”

They resumed assembling their rifles. It had never occurred to Cortell, until now, that friendship, not just getting along
with someone, was possible. It had never occurred to him that friendship was not possible, either. It had just never been
there as a thought at all. Williams had simply been a fact, like the jungle or the rain. He started to muse
on this. How could something occur to him that had never been in his mind before? It had to have been there before—otherwise,
it wouldn’t have popped up—but it must have been hiding someplace. Where was that someplace in the mind where all that stuff
hid? Was that what people meant when they said “the mind of God”? But then, that meant God’s mind was inside him someplace—and
Cortell got a little scared at where his head was taking him. He’d have to get someplace quiet, the way he always did when
these kinds of questions scared him, and talk with Jesus about it. Maybe he could go talk with the battalion chaplain someday
when they got out of the bush. He wondered if the new lieutenant knew the answer. Someone said he’d been to college, and they
had to teach them something about God there, didn’t they? Then he started wondering who
they
were.

“Or maybe chickenshit,” Cortell replied to Williams. As usual, the time lapse between someone’s last words and his own reply
had been filled with all these thoughts, but they came so fast that the person he was talking with wouldn’t even notice a
pause. Cortell assumed it happened like that to everyone.

After a while Williams said, “So, I mean, about growing up
to
someplace. Or someone. I don’t know. I mean, you got somebody in mind? Martin Luther King or Cassius Clay or somebody?”

Cortell looked up at the darkening clouds. “Nope. I got Jesus. He’s my
to
.”

“Yeah, but Jesus is white.”

“Nope. He be a brown Jew. God got it just right.”

While working on the bunkers, Mellas caught glimpses of Simpson and Blakely, but neither of them ever came down to the lines
so it was impossible to meet them without appearing obvious. Midway through the next day the storm slacked off to the usual
drizzle, and at lunch break Mellas tried another path.

When he reached the top of the hill, some artillerymen were grunting one of the heavy 105-millimeter howitzers into the center
of a new gun pit. All the trees were gone. The top of the hill was stacked with
cannons, crates, and machinery. Matterhorn looked like an aircraft carrier in a jungle sea.

Mellas spotted the cluster of radio antennae above the new battalion combat operations bunker and ducked down through the
small opening. Two hissing Coleman lanterns lighted the gloomy interior; the air was warm and smelled of their fuel. A lieutenant
was moving markers on a map. The lieutenant frowned. Mellas quickly identified himself as an officer. “Hi,” he said. “Lieutenant
Mellas, Bravo One.” He put on his nicest smile.