Time to Hunt (48 page)

A gun was another problem. He felt naked without one, and the gun laws here in Idaho weren’t troubling yet, but there was still that goddamn seven-day wait by national law. He could head back to his property, where his .45 Commander was stored away, but did he really want to carry it on a daily basis? Suppose he had to take an airline or wandered into a bank with a metal detector? Sometimes it was more trouble than it was worth. Besides, how could he shoot it out against a sniper with a 7mm Remington Magnum with a .45? If the white sniper found him, it was over, that was all.

Bob sat back, turning the TV on by remote, discovering to his surprise that it worked. The news came on.

Bob paid no attention. It was just white noise.

His head ached. He held a bottle in his hands, between his legs as he lay on the bed, on a thin chintz bedspread. Jim Beam, $9.95 at the Boise Lik-r-mart, recently purchased. There were water spots on the ceiling; the room stank of ancient woe, of raped girlfriends and beaten wives and hustled salesmen. Cobwebs fogged the corners; the toilet had a slightly unwholesome odor to it, like heads he’d pissed in the world over.

I am losing it, he thought.

He tried to press his brain against the riddle again.

He felt if he could get that, he would have something.

Why, all those years ago, did Soloratov use an Ml rifle, a much less accurate semiauto? It appeared to be
one of those mysteries that had no solution. Or, even worse, the answer was mundane, stupid, boring: he couldn’t get a bolt gun, so he settled for the most accurate American rifle available, an M1D Sniper. Yes, that made perfect sense but…

…but if he could get an M1D, he could get a Model 70T or a Remington 700!

It don’t make no goddamn sense!

It doesn’t have to make sense, he told himself. Not everything does. Some things just can’t be explained; they happen in a certain way because that’s the way of the world.

Bob looked at the bottle again, his fingers stole to the cap and the plastic seal that kept the amber fluid and its multiple mercies from his lips, and yearned to crack it and drink. But he didn’t.

Won’t never touch my lips again, he remembered telling someone.

Liar. Lying bastard. Talking big, not living up to it
.

He tried to lose himself in what was on the tube. The news, some talking head from Russia. Oh, yeah, it sounded familiar. Big elections coming up, everybody all scared because some joker who represented the old ways was in the lead and would carry the day, and the Cold War would start up all over again. The guy was this Evgeny Pashin, handsome big guy, powerful presence. Bob looked at him.

Thought we won that war, he said to himself.

Thought that was one we did okay in, and now here’s this guy and he’s going to take over and restore Russia and all the missiles go back into the silos and it’s the same old crock of shit.

Man, there was no good news anywhere, was there?

He was feeling powerfully maudlin. He yearned for his old life: his wife, his lay-up barn, the sick animals he was so good at caring for, his perfect baby daughter, enough money. Man, had it knocked.

It all was taken away from him.

He turned the TV off and the room was quiet. But only for a moment. A couple of units down, somebody was yelling at somebody. Somewhere outside, a kid was crying. Other TVs vibrated through the walls. Traffic hummed along. Looking out the window he saw the buzz of neon, blurry and mashed together, from fast food joints and bars and liquor stores across the way.

Man, I hate to be alone anymore, he thought.

That’s why Solaratov will get me. He
likes
being alone. I
lived
alone for years, I
fought
alone. But I lost whatever edge I had
.

I want my family. I want my daughter
.

The lyrics of some old rock and roll song sounded in his ears, moist, rich, poignant.

Black is black
, he heard the music,
I want my baby back
.

Yeah, well, you ain’t going to get her back. You’re just going to sit here until that fucking Russian hunts you down and blows you away
.

Ceiling, discolored. Cobwebs, mildew, the sound of other people’s grief over the traffic and me stuck by myself with no goddamn way in hell to figure out what I got to figure out.

You think everything is about you and that blinds you to the world, his wife had told him.

Yeah, as if she would know. She really never did get him, he thought bitterly.

His hand involuntarily cranked on the bottle top and he heard it crack as the seal broke. He opened the bottle, looked down into the open muzzle. He knew a form of doom lay behind that muzzle. It was like looking down the barrel of a loaded rifle, the incredible temptation it had to some weak and deranged people, because to look down it was to look straight into death’s own eye. So it was with the bottle for an ex-drunk. Look into it, take what it has to offer and you are gone. You are history.

He yearned for the strength to throw it out but knew he didn’t have it. He raised the bottle to his lips, wise with
the knowledge that he was about to die, and brought the bottle—

You think everything is about you
.

Bob stopped. He considered something so fundamental he’d not seen it before, but suddenly it seemed as big as a mountain: his assumption that Solaratov came to Vietnam to kill him and had returned to Idaho to kill him.

But suppose it wasn’t about him?

What could it be about, then?

He tried to think.

The sniper had a semiauto.

He could fire twice, fast.

He had to take them both to make sure of hitting one.

But suppose I wasn’t the one he had to hit.

Well, who else was there?

Only Donny.

Could it be about … Donny?

H
e awoke early, without a hangover, because he had not been drunk. He looked at his watch and saw that it was eight here, which meant it was eleven in the East.

He picked up the phone, then called Henderson Hall, United States Marine Corps Headquarters, Arlington, Virginia. He asked to be connected to the Command Sergeant Major of the Corps, got an office and a young buck sergeant, and eventually got through to the great man himself, with whom he’d served a tour in Vietnam in sixty-five and run into a few odd, friendly times over the years.

“Bob Lee, you son of a bitch.”

“Howdy, Vern. They ain’t kicked you out yet?”

“Tried many a time. It’s them pictures I got of a general and his goat.”

“Those’ll git a man a long way.”

“In Washington, they’ll git you all the way.”

The two old sergeants laughed.

“So anyhow, Bob Lee, what you got cooking? You ain’t written a book yet?”

“Not yet. Maybe one of these years. Look, I need a favor. You’re the only man that could do it.”

“So? Name it.”

“I’m flying to DC this afternoon. I need to look at some paperwork. It would be the service jacket of my spotter, a kid that got killed in May 1972.”

“What was his name?”

“Fenn, Donny. Lance corporal, formerly corporal. I have to see what happened to him over his career.”

“What for? What’re you looking for?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I got something to check out involving him. What it is, I don’t know. It’s come up, though.”

“Didn’t you end up marrying his widow?”

“I did, yeah. A terrific lady. We’re sort of on the outs now.”

“Well, I hope you get it straightened out. This may take me a day or so. Or maybe not. I can probably get it, if not from here, from our archives, out in Virginia.”

“Real fine, Sergeant Major. I appreciate it much.”

“You call me when you get in.”

“I will.”

Bob hung up, hesitated, thought about the booze he did not drink and then dialed the Boise General Hospital and eventually was connected to his wife’s room.

“Hi,” he said. “It’s me. How are you? Did I wake you?”

“No, no. I’m fine. Sally took Nikki to school. There’s nobody around. How are you?”

“Oh, fine. I wish you’d reconsider.”

“I can’t.”

He was silent for a while.

“All right,” he finally said, “just think about it.”

“All right.”

“Now I have something else to ask.”

“What?”

“I need your help. This last little thing. Just a question or two. Something you would know that I don’t.”

“What?”

“It’s about Donny.”

“Oh, God, Bob.”

“I think this may have something to do with Donny. I’m not sure, it’s just a possibility. I have to check it out.”

“Please. You know how I hate to go back there. I’m over that now. It took a long time.”

“It’s a nothing question. A Marine question, that’s all.”

“Bob.”

“Please.”

She sighed and said nothing.

“Why was he sent to Vietnam? He had less than thirteen
months to serve. But he had just lost his rating. He was a full corporal and he showed up in ’Nam just a lance corporal. So he had to be sent there for punitive reasons. They did that in those days.”

“It
was
punitive.”

“I thought it was. But that doesn’t sound like Donny.”

“I only caught bits and pieces of it. I was only there at the end. It was some crisis. They wanted him to spy on some other Marines who they thought were slipping information to the peace marchers. There was this big screwup at a demonstration, a girl got killed, it was a mess. He was ordered to spy on these other boys and he got to know them, but in the end, he wouldn’t. He refused. They told him they’d ship him to Vietnam, and he said, Go ahead, ship me to Vietnam. So they did. Then he met you, became a hero and got killed on his last day. You didn’t know that?”

“I knew there was something. I just didn’t know what.”

“Is that a help?”

“Yes, it is. Do you know who sent him?”

“No. Or if I did, I forgot. It was so long ago.”

“Okay. I’m going back to DC.”

“What? Bob—”

“I’ll only be gone a few days. I’m flying out there. I’ve got to find out what happened to Donny. You listen to Sally; you be careful. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“Oh, Bob—”

“I’ve got some money, some cash. Don’t worry.”

“Don’t get in trouble.”

“I’m not getting in any trouble. I promise. I’ll call you soon.”

T
here it was: WES PAC.

He remembered the first time he had seen it, that magic, frightening phrase, when the orders came through for that first tour in 1965: WES PAC. Western Pacific, which was Marine for Vietnam. He remembered sitting
outside the company office at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, and thinking, Oh, brother, I am in the shit.

“That’s it,” said the sergeant major’s aide.

“That’s it,” said Bob.

He sat in the anteroom in Henderson Hall, with the tall, thin young man with hair so short it hardly existed and movements so crisp they seemed freshly dry-cleaned.

“We got it this morning from Naval Records Storage Facility, Annandale. Sergeant Major used lots of smoke. He served with the CO’s chief petty officer on the old Iowa City.”

“You’ll tell him I appreciate it.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sniper-rated, by the way. Great school, out at Quantico. They still talk about you. Understand you fought a hell of a fight at Kham Duc.”

“Long time ago, son. I can hardly remember it.”

“I heard of it a hundred times,” said the young sergeant. “I won’t ever forget it.”

“Well, son, that’s kind of you.”

“I’ll be in my office next door. You let me know if you need anything else.”

“Thank you, son.”

The jacket was thick, all that remained of FENN, DONNY J.’s almost, but not quite four years in the Marine Corps. It was full of various orders, records of his first tour in the Nam with a line unit, his Bronze Star citation, his Silver Star nomination for Kham Duc, travel vouchers, shot records, medical reports, evaluations going back to Parris Island in the far-off land of 1968 when he enlisted, GCT results, the paper trail any military career, good, bad or indifferent, inevitably accumulates over the passage of time. There was even a copy of the Death in Battle report, filled out by the long-dead Captain Feamster, who only survived Donny a few weeks until the sappers took out Dodge City. But this one sheet, now faded and fragile, was the one that mattered; this was the one that sent him to the Nam.

It was signed OF Peatross, Major General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commanding, and below that bore the simple designation DIST: ‘N’ (and WNY, TEMPO C, RM 4598).

Bob had received just such a document three times, and three times he’d come back from it, at least breathing. Not Donny: it got him a name inscription on a long black wall with bunches of other boys who’d much rather have been working in factories or playing golf than inscribed on a long black wall.

Bob turned it over, not to find the usual computerized list of lucky names but only one: FENN, DONNY, J., L/CPL 264 38 85 037 36 68 01 0311, COMPANY B, MARINE BARRACKS WASHINGTON DC MOS 0311.