13th Valley (67 page)

Over the next few days Rufus and Lila went through the motions of a returning soldier and a faithful wife on vacation. They went to Diamond Head, to Pearl Harbor, to a hotel sponsored luau. They surfed, paddled an outrigger, played tennis. Rufus told Lila a little about his men, a little about tactics, a little about the gore of modern warfare. And they drank. Both drank heavily. Rufus passed out the next two nights. He could not relax.

And in the morning, in bed, “How the hell can you say that?” he demanded.

“You stink. You never used to sweat like that,” she accused.

“Hey,” he was furious. “Look! Three things. One, men sweat. Okay, you're a fine lady and you don't sweat. Well, men sweat. Two, blacks sweat. Okay, you're a fine black lady and you don't sweat but blacks sweat. And three, black men sweat. Why do you think whites call us shines? It's because we sweat. I'm a black man and I sweat like a black man and I smell like a black man. I don't know how you plug up your pores so effectively but I'll tell you this—I can't do it. I won't do it. I'm going to wet stink like the black man I am.”

“Rufus,” she cooed. “White men sweat too.”

He jumped out of bed and stamped off to the bath.

During the days and nights, a dozen times, Rufus flashed upon evening operations on hillsides in Nam, on morning fights on ridges, on night probes in valleys. Again he tried to tell Lila about his men, about heroism he had witnessed, about hours he had endured. And again he felt her lack of interest, her apathy at best, her deliberate rejection, her distaste and hatred. Rufus attempted a different approach. Once he said, “Power is not simply what fire power you have. It's not what you have. It's what the enemy thinks you have.” She did not understand. He tried another vein, something that should mean much to the artist in her black body. “There is a wholeness in black culture which has been disembodied in much of white, especially Anglo-white, culture. The disembodying of the culture is both the cause and the effect of perceptions which divide everything into components and then attempts to explain everything as complex constructions of those components. When I say everything, I mean everything. I mean seeing a man as a composite of molecules and a poem as a composite of words or a culture as a composite of people and not seeing the energies which run through the forms, the molecules, the words, the people, the energy which ties the elements together into what the thing is. It's that energy which our blackness is losing by becoming white.”

She shook her head without hearing.

He dove deeper.

She stopped him. “Brooks,” Lila said, “you're an ass. Can't you stop thinking of war and politics and race? Can't you be normal?” She looked at him and she saw he was shaking. “Please be normal,” she said. “Please be here. Please,” Lila pleaded. She began to cry. “Be here with me. There's a world here that is not just your words.”

“I don't understand you anymore,” he said. “What happened to that lady that I knew that really cared for us. That wanted so many things for us. The same things that I wanted for the two of us together. You used to believe in me. You didn't want to be only you.”

“I still want those things, Rufus. It's you who's changed. I still want happiness and joy for us. I still want kids for us. I want to be much more than I am now for us. And I know it's for us because I don't care about any of that just for me. I want to share it with you. Oh, Rufus.” Her tears were running wild. He was like a total stranger.

Brooks lay back thinking, dreaming. He watched that couple that he was certain he knew yet that he did not know at all. He watched them at night on the beach or in bed not touching. Brooks watched the woman talk to the man. She was very upset. “Love doesn't have to hurt,” she cried. “Don't you see? Can't you see? You don't have to hurt me. I'll love you without the hurt. Can't you see that, Rufus?”

Brooks rolled over and shivered against Brown. “It doesn't have to hurt,” he muttered. Lila's crying dried up and she turned hard.

“Not tonight,” she said when they were in their room. “Hell, you're so drunk, you couldn't if I wanted you to.”

Brooks sat up. His armpit was burning. He reached into his shirt and felt the leech and retched empty stomach acid, hot and bitter at the back of his mouth. He swallowed. He wanted to chase all thoughts from his head. He needed sleep. Perhaps Thomaston was right, he told himself. Perhaps if he told the GreenMan he wanted out, wanted to DEROS and cancel his extension, perhaps he would be out of the boonies come next resupply. He could do that much for Thomaston. Let him have the company. Not for himself. Not for Lila. He was tired, so tired. So tense. Cahalan was asleep next to him. Brooks could feel his rhythmic breathing. On the other side Brown was awake with the radios, noiselessly adjusting the frequencies, monitoring other companies and Alpha's platoons. Twice he called a security check to each LP, to each platoon CP. Twice each one responded with negative keying. I've slept with these guys more than I have with my wife, Brooks thought. A pang of self-pity hit him. A single sharp arrow of pain driving down from between his eyes, down to his throat, down his chest and out his gut. It was as if he had been skewered with a giant fishhook. He clenched his fists and said to himself, “Anxiety must be converted to achievement not to frustration or depression.” He said the words very formally, very evenly. “One must burn stress out of one's system,” he continued. “Convert anxiety. Do not believe in failure. Analyze every situation to maximize the benefits and minimize the detriments.” Ah. It was working. He was successful in talking away the pain, the anxiety. Now, he said to himself, if only I could decide what to do.

SIGNIFICANT ACTIVITIES

THE FOLLOWING RESULTS FOR OPERATIONS IN THE O'REILLY/ BARNETT/JEROME AREA WERE REPORTED FOR THE 24-HOUR PERIOD ENDING 2359 17 AUGUST 70:

INCLEMENT WEATHER LIMITED AIRMOBILE OPERATIONS ON THE 17TH. OPERATIONS BY THE 2D SQDN 17TH CAVALRY (AMBL) IN SUPPORT OF THE 1ST INF DIV (ARVN) IN THE VICINITY OF FIREBASES O'REILLY, RIPCORD AND JEROME WERE DELAYED OR CANCELLED, AND ONE COMPANY-SIZE ASSAULT WAS CANCELLED.

CONTACT IN THE BARNETT AREA WAS HEAVY THROUGHOUT THE DAY WITH CO B, 7/402 CLEARING AN ENEMY COMPANY FROM THE SAME RIDGELINE WHERE IT HAD FOUGHT SEVERAL DAYS EARLIER (YD 173329). THE UNIT, SUPPORTED BY ARTILLERY, ASSAULTED THE POSITION THREE TIMES AND SECURED THE HILL MASS AT 1530 HOURS. SEVEN US SOLDIERS WERE WOUNDED IN THE ACTION. 11 ENEMY WERE KILLED BY SMALL ARMS FIRE AND FIVE WERE KILLED BY ARTILLERY. CAPTURED WEAPONS INCLUDED ONE RPD MACHINE GUN, TWO B-40 ROCKET LAUNCHERS, TEN AK-47S, ONE 82MM MORTAR TUBE AND ONE 9MM PISTOL. IN OTHER ACTION, CO A, 7/402 SUSTAINED ONE KILLED AND ONE WOUNDED.

C
HAPTER
25

18 A
UGUST
1970

First light broke upon the valley as ugly gray mist. The drizzle had not ceased during the night. Alpha was awakened by a horrible roar as if they lay beneath a speeding freight train, then a boom, then the explosion. Jax jolted up. It was still dark on the ground. The top of the grass was just distinguishable from the moist sky. SSSSSEEEECKK-boom-BOOOOMM split the air above him. “Motha! They firin dat thing too mothafucken close.” The roar split the sky again. “Shee-it.” Jax lay back down and tried to sleep. Another round passed over. An eight-inch howitzer from Firebase Jack far to the south had begun the road mission. Alpha was on the GTL, gun-target line, a straight line from the gun to the target. They heard two explosions for each projectile, the small sonic boom of the shell traveling faster than the speed of sound, then the explosion of the round. As each round passed over Jax could feel his back trying to grab the ground, trying to mix his molecules with those of the dirt. The howitzer fired twelve rounds over a half-hour period and then ceased.

Jax pulled his poncho and poncho liner tighter over his head. The drizzle became rain. Grayness penetrated into the grass. A single large drop of water worked its way under Jax' poncho and onto the skin of his back. A chill ran up his neck and down his arms and legs to his fingers and toes. Quietly Jax rolled over and went back to sleep. A minute later another drop squeezed past the poncho and fell into his ear.

“Okay, okay,” he muttered. “I's gettin up.” Jax threw off his poncho. His fatigues were soggy and his skin felt as gray as the sky. Jax removed packets of cocoa, sugar and cream, and a piece of C-4 from his ruck. He grasped his canteen cup which had filled with clean rainwater during the night and put it on his C-rat can stove. He lit the C-4, it flared white hot and died out. The water boiled. Jax mixed the packets and sipped the steaming brew. His breath formed a cloud before him as he blew the cocoa to cool it. Around him no one else was stirring. Jax scrounged in his ruck for a clean pair of socks and the foot powder Doc had given him. He sat down and removed his boots and socks. The skin of his feet was clammy gray and swollen. The constant moisture was causing the surface tissue to peel. Jax looked at his feet for a moment then said, “Hello, feet. Remember me? I's the dude got yo dowin all the dancin. I jest want ta let yo know Jax ree-lee a-preciates the job yo ol boys down der dowin fo me up here. Guess whut? I brought yo somethin. Got yo dudes some powder an a pair a socks that like new. There”—Jax sprinkled the powder on his feet and rubbed it in—” how dat feel? Fix yo dudes right up. Yo jest take it easy now. Yo hear da news? Yo pappy's a squad leader. How bout dat? Hey, hey. L-T say we gowin sit here today. Gowin take it easy. First thing I gowin do, feet, is get yo back in yo stinkin home. Then we gowin clear this AO a leeches, then we gowin rest.”

The fog cloak over the valley floor rose with the dawn. It now lay ten to twelve feet above Alpha. Visibility below the fog would have been perhaps an eighth mile had the thick grass permitted it. Boonierats woke cautiously, quietly. Egan was up, sitting on his ruck, writing. Cherry was awake though he had not yet moved. He looked at Egan. Egan's face was swollen and his right eye was swollen half-shut from the leech bite. Cherry lay motionless. It had not been a good night. He had lain awake long after the conversation had ceased and when he did finally sleep, he dreamed.

Cherry had had first radio watch. During the watch he had thought about Silvers, about how he died. He analyzed every detail and he thought about alternative ways to carry his radio so it would not announce to snipers or trail watchers his important communication function. During his vigil he did not close his eyes. He lay back. His body tense. It was as if all his nerves were one long thin filament stretched taut. And it was in motion, vibrating, like a piano wire. It was as if someone had started a wave action in the wire and the waves oscillated and moved up the wire quickly, hit the end and bounded back through new waves zinging up. He had lain there jangled and taut, not in fear of death or of being hit, but in fear of not acting, not knowing how to act. His face burned as if all his energies were being forced into his head.

Cherry reviewed everything he could recall about jungle warfare. He recalled basic training and AIT, RVN training and SERTS. There had been night-fire classes, quick-fire drills, first aid and ambush classes. Cherry wanted to be good, had to be good, he decided, if he was to survive. In his mind he rehearsed what he should do if he were in column and they were ambushed from the left. He imagined his body reacting left. Then to the right. Front, rear. If someone near him were hit he placed himself mentally in the situation. Then he thought about calling in artillery support. He could do it—if he had to. Of that he was certain. He said to himself, if you think about a situation happening and you think about the proper response, when it happens you will respond properly without having to think. What did Silvers do? How does El Paso sound? Egan. How does Egan move so quietly? What does he do? How does he look? see? smell? feel? Cherry tried to assimilate all their lessons.

Then Cherry had passed the radio to Egan and had lain back and closed his eyes. A picture of Leon Silvers burned on his mind. Wrapped about Cherry, his water-soaked poncho liner became a blanket of sticky warm blood. He opened his eyes. He thought of turning to Egan, of offering to allow Egan to sleep while he took another watch. He decided against it. When the single shot felled Leon on the road Cherry had not jumped from the noise. His mind had been wandering and though the AK pop had startled him, it was the sight of others diving into the grass which brought the awareness of danger to him. I was probably the last fuckin guy off the road, he said to himself.