For the Sake of All Living Things (11 page)

“A tiger...” Mayana exhaled in Khmer. She did not understand Sraang’s words.

“No...in the Cloud...Forest...”

“Stop. Breathe deep,” Y Ksar repeated.

Chung put his blanket over his daughter’s shoulders. “Women should winnow rice,” he said angrily in Jarai, “not meander in the woods.”

“Y Bhur...” Sraang began again. “Y Bhur and Samnang...There are many soldiers just over the ridge. They stayed to see while we came to warn...”

“What is this of a tiger?” Y Ksar said in Khmer to Mayana.

“We’re running from a tiger,” the little girl said.

“No,” Sraang interrupted. “Not tiger. Soldiers.”

“I thought...”

“Okay,” Y Ksar said. He questioned Sraang but she knew few details.

“I’m certain they were yuon,” Sraang said.

“Perhaps,” Y Ksar said. There were now seven young men listening, watching, as Y Ksar transformed from village old man to village chief, from Iron Age Jarai to modern tactical leader. “Perhaps,” Y Ksar repeated. “Warn the children,” he said to his wife. “Y Tang, Y Tung, follow the path into the forest. Djhang, ride to Plei Pang and prepare them to reinforce us or to defend themselves. K Drai, ride to the airfield at Andaung Pech. Tell them we’re being attacked. If they aid us we’ll know the attackers are yuons. If not, perhaps the attack comes from Royal Khmer.”

Immediately the two soldiers jumped on their Hondas and sped from the village. Others ran from house to house rousing the people. Still others sounded a village-specific alarm pattern on the gongs—an eerie dirge which to the uninitiated could mean the sacrifice of a pig or the announcement of some social event but to the people of Plei Srepok meant return from the woods and fields immediately.

For a quarter of an hour men, women and children scurried—men with rifles to defensive positions along the village stockade, women to the communal center to prepare a secondary defense, and children into concealed holes beneath granaries or chicken coops. Then all was silent.

Before the first mortar rounds exploded the early evening was quiet and peaceful. Chhuon was feeling particularly good. On the trip from Plei Srepok to the sawmill at Buon O Sieng, he had made excellent time. Two FULRO troops on gray Hondas had escorted him to the edge of the Cloud Forest where he was met by an NVA roadblock. But the Viet Namese did not search him, did not even slow him but waved him on as if they knew his truck was empty and he in a hurry. He had kissed his Buddha statuette seven times and said a prayer of thanks. Then at Buon O Sieng he again had luck. The men at the mill wanted to leave quickly to check their fish traps and thus loaded the truck without the usual formalities or haggling, and by five-thirty Chhuon was again on the road to Plei Srepok. With luck, he thought, I will be at the village gate by only a few minutes past six.

Chhuon hummed a tune as the small truck struggled to raise the heavy load of fresh-cut teak up the mountain road. He hummed as he laid out in his mind consecutive images of the remainder of his journey. Certainly another roadblock. He checked the roll of counterfeit riels in his pocket. And he told himself to make it appear painful to part with the money. Then he saw the soldier inspecting the top fifty-riel note and fear flashed through him. He stopped the truck. From beneath the seat he removed an envelope and from it took a single good bill. Chhuon rehid the envelope, wrapped the good note around the wad of counterfeits, then drove on thinking, humming, seeing himself with Kdeb and Yani speeding from the high plateau, crossing the bridge to Phum Sath Din.

Chhuon reached into his shirt and grasped his statuette of Buddha. He lifted it to his lips, kissed it seven times. The higher onto the mountain he drove the lighter the cloud cover seemed, yet with the setting sun the light lessened. The vibration of the small truck seemed constant. The road seemed to stretch on forever yet not move at all. For one moment he felt as if physical movement were an illusion, as if he, everything, were standing perfectly still. He tried to make the truck go faster. He checked his watch. It was only three minutes since the last time he’d checked yet he felt he had been driving for an hour. He was still a few kilometers from the turnoff to Plei Srepok. The road dropped into a shallow valley, then rose. As he crested the second knoll a squad of soldiers blocked the road.

“Hello,” Chhuon called out. He stuck his head and left arm out the window and waved. “Hello. May I pass. I have...”

“Halt!” a soldier yelled. He raised his rifle and aimed through the windshield. Other rifle bolts snapped, pointed at him from behind log fighting positions beside the road.

From the third round, Y Ksar knew the mortar barrage would not, was not meant to, destroy the village. The first round impacted just beyond the village gate. The second, nearly a full minute later, also exploded outside the village. The third landed in the cornfields west of the road. Plei Srepok had no artillery to answer the attack. KkkaRrump! KkkaRrump! Back and forth across the canyon just beyond the bamboo stockade.

He stood before his house and listened carefully. The sky was late-evening dark. His scouts had not returned. From his messengers no word, no signal. The village warriors, with an assortment of rifles and two machine guns, had deployed along the front stockade and the treeline above the dry-rice fields on the slope of the east ridge. Nothing had been heard from Y Bhur and Samnang. More explosions jarred the fields before the gate. The mortars were firing from at least two positions, of that Y Ksar was certain. Who was firing, of that he was not sure.

Flash! KkkaRrUMP! A shout. One, two, three rounds landed on the stockade, blowing bamboo slivers, earth and blood into the mango orchard and the first line of longhouses. Then the barrage ceased. Y Ksar called for a runner. “...to each position,” he instructed the young man. “We’re no match for their arms. Tell all not to fire until they’re on top of us.” Now, he thought, the assault will begin. Now we’ll know.

For a time nothing happened. Then from the east ridge small-arms fire erupted. Several short bursts. Then several more. A pause. More firing. Then from the west ridge. Repeat burst. From the high cliff. Longer bursts. Consistent, methodical, lower and lower as the cordon tightened on all sides. In it all Y Ksar could hear the buffalo and cattle lowing, falling. He could see muzzle flashes and tracers, green light balls seemingly floating down from the blackness, stinging the periphery of the village, carefully avoiding firing into the people. Closing down. Not yet presenting a target he wanted his soldiers to engage. A village defender fired off a single round. Six weapons fired onto the muzzle flash. Two RPG, rocket-propelled grenade rounds exploded near the village well. The U-shaped cordon tightened but the enemy stayed unseen in the trees on the slopes above the village.

On the road to the village there was great clatter. The road’s sealed, Y Ksar thought. We’re trapped. He saw headlights. They’re good, he thought. They cannot be Royal troops. Let them get closer before we fight. A single jeep drove up, stopped fifty meters before the gate. Oh, for a few rockets, he thought.

Mayana and Sraang had come from their concealed hole near the well. Sraang’s left arm was badly scraped and bleeding. Before Y Ksar could tell them to go back, a powerful spotlight mounted on the jeep illuminated the village road all the way to the adobe building.

“PEOPLE OF PLEI SREPOK,” an announcement in Jarai blasted from bullhorns beyond the jeep. “WE MEAN YOU NO HARM. ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, ASSEMBLE IN THE COURTYARD BEFORE THE COMMONHOUSE. STACK ALL WEAPONS ON THE ROAD BEFORE THE LONGHOUSE OF Y KSAR! NO ONE WILL BE HURT.”

The light went out. “Stay where you are,” Chung, Y Ksar’s son, shouted. A few women jumped from their secondary fighting positions within the village and advanced to reinforce the stockade.

Again the bullhorn blasted, repeating the demand to assemble and the promise that no one would be hurt. No one moved. Y Ksar felt satisfied at their performance. The spotlight again came on. There was the clatter of tank treads in the blackness beyond the jeep. A second light crossed the first and its beam flooded the tiers of longhouses.

“WE WANT ONE MAN. ONE MAN WHO HAS COMMITTED THE MOST GRIEVOUS CRIMES AGAINST HIS OWN PEOPLE. ONE INGRATE WHO HAS INSULTED US. YOU SHALL BE THE JUDGES. TRY Y KSAR BEFORE YOUR VILLAGE COUNCIL. TRY Y KSAR WHO SENDS BOYS INTO THE FOREST TO HUNT US DOWN. GRANT HIM A FAIR TRIAL AND NO ONE WILL BE HURT. WE WILL LEAVE YOU IN PEACE.”

Again the lights went out. The night was very black: “What boys?” The shout, a woman’s voice, came from the mango grove.

“Quiet,” Chung ordered.

“What boys?” the woman called out again. It was Draam Mul, wife of Chung, mother of Y Bhur and Sraang.

Lights again. Three now. “Tell them to shoot the lights out,” Chung whispered to his father, but as he spoke a man, trussed at the elbows, shackled at the ankles, was thrust before each light.

“Y TUNG IS DEAD. HE DIED LIKE A COWARD ABANDONING HIS COMRADES, Y BHUR, Y NANG, Y TANG. WE WILL EXCHANGE THESE BOYS FOR Y KSAR.”

“Release them. Withdraw your troops, and I will come forward,” Y Ksar shouted in Viet Namese. He laughed, chuckled. Beneath his breath he cursed the yuon dogs.

Trussed before the jeep light, a white bandage wrapped about his left thigh, Y Bhur stood straight. Before one tank light Samnang cowered; before the other Y Tang’s head dropped stiffly to one side, the result of muscle spasms from being beaten.

The lights went off. There was no answer. Draam Mul began to wail. Someone began to play the gongs. The jeep light flicked on. Eight soldiers advanced behind the vehicle. Behind them the sound of two hundred soldiers moving filled the canyon. “Y KSAR, WE SHALL SEND IN A DELEGATION WITH Y NANG. TELL ALL YOUR PEOPLE TO STACK THEIR WEAPONS AND ASSEMBLE IN THE COURTYARD.”

“Uncle! Uncle!” Mayana reached for the elder. “Don’t! Don’t go.”

“It’s all right, Daughter,” the old man said in Khmer. “Everything which blooms, perishes. The rice withers. The mango falls.”

Y Ksar stepped into the center of the road, faced the brilliance of the lightbeam.

“Don’t let them in,” Chung ordered from the shadow of a pigsty. “Stay put.” One villager rose. Then another. The dignity of Y Ksar walking into the lightbeam mesmerized them. Soon many villagers were milling about at the edge of the lighted swath behind Y Ksar.

“Let the boys go.” Y Ksar smiled at captors unseen behind the light. Both tanks closed upon the village, clicked on their lights.

“TELL YOUR PEOPLE TO ASSEMBLE TO TRY YOU OR THE BOYS WILL BE SHOT! NOW!”

A few of the milling people moved toward the courtyard. “Stop!” Chung commanded.

Immediately a rifle cracked. In the light before one tank Y Tang’s head jerked. His body collapsed. Again the gongs. More women wailed. A defender sprung from his trench before the tank, threw his rifle down, ran to his brother’s body. Of all days for the crow to land on my house, Y Ksar thought.

“WE WILL KILL THESE TWO IF EVERYONE DOES NOT ASSEMBLE IMMEDIATELY. DRAAM CHUNG, DRAAM MUL, IS THAT WHAT YOU WISH FOR YOUR SON? RAM SU, ELDER OF THE EBING CLAN, WILL YOU STAND BY AS CHUNG ORDERS HIS OWN SON’S DEATH AND THE DEATH OF THE VILLAGE MUTE, Y NANG? NAY SAH, ELDER OF THE H’MAT CLAN, ARE YOU TO BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR THESE DEATHS CAUSED BY Y KSAR? STACK ARMS. ASSEMBLE.”

The tank light went out. Where Y Tang had stood there was the sound of scuffling. Naming the village elders had great effect on their descendants. The milling crowd drifted toward the courtyard. Y Ksar could not find it in himself to order the defenders to hold the line when indeed it seemed the NVA wanted only to punish him. One by one the defenders rose. Some abandoned their weapons, others carried theirs to the road before Y Ksar’s longhouse and dropped them. On the east ridge a resister was shot. The incident was radioed to the men at the jeep and the details were broadcast into the village. From houses, holes, trees, fields, the villagers converged on the courtyard. Only Y Ksar stood his ground at the entrance to Plei Srepok.

Chhuon brought the truck forward a few more meters. Then he stopped. Beyond the blockage, stretching for several hundred meters, he saw milling groups of soldiers, jeeps, trucks, a tank. A whole army seemed to be before him. He opened the door and stood with his hands up. With a big smile he said in Viet Namese, “I go Jarai village. Get son. Get daughter. Go home.”

“No go,” the soldier answered in Khmer. “No village here.”

“My son and daughter are there,” Chhuon said in lyrical Khmer. “They’re there waiting for me to get this wood for statues of Buddha. We live...”

“No go,” the soldier said again. He did not smile. “Go back,” he said. “No village here.”

“Oh yes,” Chhuon said. He reached slowly into his pocket and pulled out the wad of riel notes. Before his face he peeled off ten bills. “Five hundred,” he said in Viet Namese. “Must go get children at Plei Srepok.”

“No go,” the soldier shot back.

Chhuon peeled off ten more bills. “One thousand,” he said nervously. He held out the whole wad in his left hand, waved his right as if to block the barrel of the soldier’s weapon. “More hidden,” he said frantically. “Much more. Rice too.”

“Go back,” the soldier ordered. “No money.”

“Plei Srepok,” Chhuon pleaded.

“Plei Srepok,
chiet!
Dead!” The soldier swept his hand down as if it were an airplane diving. “Boom! Boom! Phalang!”

“No.
No
!”

“Go back.” He dove his hand again. “More boom!” Then he raised his rifle and aimed it at Chhuon.

Chhuon dropped his hands. He felt the blood drain from his face. His breath seeped out but did not return. He shook his head, turned to the truck. His knees became rigid. He glanced at the soldier. Tears welled in his eyes. He climbed in, started the truck, turned it around. How could he go? How could he stay?

Again there was no motion. His cheeks, chin and neck were wet. He drove, lost in darkness, confusion, despair. “Yani,” he whimpered. “Kdeb,” he cried. “I’ve abandoned them! Kdeb! My Kdeb. My Kdeb.”

In the courtyard the villagers were ordered to arrange themselves not by clan but by age and gender. The first seven careless rows facing the front of the adobe edifice were comprised of the village children, boys to the right, girls to the left. Behind the girls were the mothers with infants, behind the boys, young men. In the last rows, according to the new order, stood the elders. Surrounding the assembly was an entire platoon of formally uniformed NVA soldiers, square belt buckles with stars, heavily armed. Other soldiers were going through the longhouses, flushing out the stragglers, herding them into the cluster.