The Turtle Warrior (37 page)

They were humping up a slope. The humidity was such that they were wet all the time. It made their helmets feel like molded steel on their heads, compressing their brains. There was so much water in the air that they breathed noisily, as though asthmatic, straining to sift out the airborne oxygen. Frank was saying something to him and laughing. Frank’s last words were “steak sounds good right now.” There was a sudden burst of rifle fire and the whine of bullets whizzing past them. They dropped to the ground, and Frank returned fire. When it was quiet, he ran up the muddy trail, thinking that he had killed the Jap who had fired at them. Ernie, beginning to follow him, had turned around to see if the rest of their platoon was behind them when the explosion lifted him off his feet and sent him flying forward as though a burning hand had shoved him in the back. The pain was horrific, and he tried to breathe against it and the thick smoke and debris. He could not hear or see Frank, so Ernie got to his feet in his desperation to find him. Someone else pushed him back down and held him. It took them an hour to cover the thirty feet, searching for more land mines. Only then was he permitted to get up, and he crawled behind the munitions expert.

How could you tell a seventeen-year-old boy what it was like to find a man’s head? His friend’s head. How he cradled Frank’s head and sobbed, closing the lids over the blue eyes with his trembling and blood-covered fingers. Frank was as close to a brother as he had ever gotten. He roared like a wounded bear when they tried to pry Frank’s head out of his arms, and he kicked at anyone who dared try again. They left him alone until he was lifted and placed on a litter, still holding Frank’s head. Ernie didn’t recall feeling any pain in his back even though it rubbed against the canvas of the litter. It was only after they got him to an evacuation hospital and he was given a shot of morphine that they were able to take Frank’s head out of his arms.

How lucky he had been. He had caught an almost fatal blast of shrapnel in the back, and miraculously not only had he survived but none of the hot metal had sliced into his spine, rendering him paralyzed. Ernie tried to feel grateful, but there was a nagging suspicion that he hadn’t been brave enough. That he hadn’t taken enough risks or aided better those who had died.

He didn’t trust himself with a rifle or shotgun after the war and almost didn’t go deer hunting after he had married Rosemary and come back to Olina. Claude Morriseau sat in a rocking chair in the kitchen and sensed his son’s discomfort, his confusion. His speech was slow and measured.

“You did what you had to do,” his father said while he watched his son put on his cedar-scented hunting clothes. “You are still a good man.”

Then his father said something that contradicted what they had been taught to chant during basic training. His father leaned forward.

“This,” his father said, drawing the words out slowly and tapping the barrel of Ernie’s rifle with a calloused finger, “is a tool, nothing more. It is not you. Think when you use it, but don’t love it. Then you won’t kill stupidly with it. Only foolish and weak men,” his father whispered in the dim light of the kitchen, “love their guns.”

Ernie shifted his body so that he would face Jimmy directly.

“When somebody is comin’ at you with a rifle and bayonet,” Ernie explained, “you don’t have time to think about killing. You just do it. It’s either you or him.”

“Did you get any medals?”

Ernie nodded. “I have a Purple Heart because of all the shrapnel in my back, and I have a Bronze Star for bravery. Rosemary,” he commented, gesturing toward his back, “is still cutting out the shrapnel with a razor blade. It works its way to the surface, even after all these years.”

“Dad has medals too,” Jimmy said bitterly. “He takes them out and waves them at me when he thinks I need to be taken down a few notches. But you know,” he added, looking at Ernie quizzically, “I don’t think he ever fought in WW Two. I don’t have any proof. It’s just a feeling and the fact that he shoots so badly. I think it’s all a pile of crap. I think that’s all I’ve ever heard from him. Crap.”

“Well,” Ernie answered lamely with a wave of his hand, “some guys handle it differently.”

But Jimmy’s perception knocked Ernie momentarily off course. Ernie too was sure that John Lucas had never seen action in the war, despite his stories told at Pete’s Bar. But he would never say that to Jimmy. It was not Ernie’s place to expose John Lucas to his son.

He sighed and poured more coffee, which he offered to Jimmy. He watched as Jimmy threw back his head and drained the cup, and he refilled it when Jimmy held it out.

“I wasn’t the only one,” Ernie added, hoping to divert the conversation away from any more war-related questions concerning himself. “Rosemary was an Army nurse in the Philippines. There were a few times when she had to run down to the beach to help them unload wounded men and the Japanese were strafing the whole beach. One of the nurses was killed that way. Rosemary came down with some sort of fever and was sick for a long time.”

“She told me that.”

“Oh! You’ve been asking her questions too?” Ernie grinned and reached over to punch Jimmy’s shoulder lightly. “Speaking of Rosemary, let’s get going. She’s probably baked a coffeecake.”

They dragged the buck home on foot, trudging across the field toward the Morriseau farmhouse. Rosemary’s face appeared in the kitchen window, and they could see her wave before she dashed outside to meet them in the barnyard. They hung the buck from one of the huge beams in the barn before heading into the warm kitchen for more coffee.

IT WAS THE GUTTURAL CRY of a heron that yanked Ernie back into the present. He had to shake himself as though he’d fallen asleep standing up, and that was when he noticed the spit that had trailed out of his open mouth onto his jacket. He finished crossing the swamp. It took another five minutes of slowly walking the base of the north slope of the ridge before he reached the place where three deer trails crossed and where he had hunted the most. Ernie was fifteen feet away when he looked up expectantly and caught his breath.

His deer stand was gone.

Rather, it was no longer perched in the large red pine above Ernie’s head but scattered in pieces on the slope around the tree. Even the wooden ladder he had built up the trunk to reach the camouflaged small platform had been pulled out of the tree and tossed into the snow. At first Ernie thought the culprit was a bear. When he got closer, he saw the platform had been shot up at close range and the ground around the red pine was littered with yellow shotgun casings. Then he saw the gun. Five feet away from the tree and dusted with snow was an older-model pump shotgun. Ernie stared at it, pulsing with anger and confusion until his common sense got the better of him. He looked again at the snow around him and saw the tracks. The gun looked familiar. It was a popular shotgun, a Remington 870 Wingmaster that had sold well during the late 1950s and early 1960s. He picked it up and wiped it off, then pumped the gun to eject any rounds and looked into the breech to make certain it was empty. He balanced the barrel against his shoulder alongside his own rifle and began his slow ascent up the slope.

The tracks did everything but run in a straight line, and interspersed with them were the familiar paw prints of Ernie’s own dog. He had trudged two-thirds of the way up the ridge when his right foot slid on some wet needles, and he went down on one knee. He quickly but painfully straightened up, using the Remington as a staff. He stared at the shotgun again. No wonder it was familiar. He had once owned it and given it as a gift. He ran his fingers over the stock and found the worn letters carved near the end of the butt. JPL. James Peter Lucas.

His gut cramped up. Ernie turned his head from side to side and did a swift visual reconnaissance of the area. He scanned the trees and brush for any signs of green canvas, for the slightly askew pattern of camouflage or the rounded top of a metal helmet. What he had feared facing that morning was back again, and he could almost smell it.

He instinctively loaded his rifle but kept the safety on and the barrel pointed at the ground. He leaned the old Remington against the nearest pine before turning his attention to the tracks that disappeared when they reached the top of the ridge. His mind felt muddy, and he rubbed his forehead as though to massage his brain into action. Ernie slowed his breathing so that he could hear better. The woods were silent except for the chattering of chickadees and a nuthatch’s occasional
zweeee
call. Ernie quickly counted; fourteen, almost fifteen years since Jimmy died. He had wanted to see Jimmy again, to talk to him, but now he was terrified, his stomach cramping. Jimmy was close by. He didn’t want to turn his back on him, but he was afraid of him. Even if he wanted to run, Ernie could not safely turn his back on Jimmy now.

“Jimmy!” Ernie shouted up the slope, and listened as his own voice echoed through the silence of the trees.

“Jimmy! It’s Ernie.”

He waited for fifteen minutes, never taking his eyes off the top of the ridge.

“Jimmy! I know you’re up there!” Ernie shouted again. “I’m not angry ... you know ... about the stand.”

Ernie waited for another fifteen minutes. Then, when he was about to give up and chance turning around, he heard the snapping and rustle of brush being pushed aside. He had been so preoccupied with his last vision of Jimmy that when the silhouette of a man appeared on the top of the ridge, Ernie’s heart kicked against his ribs, and he had to stifle a gasp.

Bill.

The tall young man was emaciated, and his big, bony hands dangled out of his coat cuffs helplessly as though broken. His hair was wet and covered with leaves and dirt, as was his red and black plaid jacket. But what really stunned Ernie was the look of Bill’s face. Rather than having the florid meatiness of heavy drinkers, his face had the white waxiness of suet, and his eyes were sunken into the sockets of his skull.

“You’ve come to get me, haven’t you?”

Ernie paused.

“No, Billy!” Ernie exclaimed. “I didn’t even know you were out here.”

“I’m the one who did it,” Bill answered in the monotone of exhaustion. He dazedly stared down at Ernie.

“Ahh,” Ernie said with a wave of his hand, “don’t worry about the stand. I can make a new one. That one was about to rot off the tree anyway. That was nothin’. Just a little horseplay, huh?”

“I’m the one,” Bill repeated flatly. “I did it.”

“I don’t care who did it.” Ernie tried to persuade Bill. “It was only a deer stand. Just forget it. I’ll tell you what,” Ernie went on, adopting the soft tone he used on sick animals. “Why don’t you come home with me? Rosemary would love to see you. How ‘bout it?”

“You’ve come to get me,” Bill said again, and shifted his gaze toward the rifle in Ernie’s hand.

“No, no,” Ernie answered quickly. “I was going deer hunting.” He bent down but kept his head up and his eyes focused on Bill as he placed the loaded rifle on the ground. Then he stood up and began to walk slowly up the slope toward Bill. “What do you say, Bill? You don’t look like you’re feelin’ so good. I’m gonna take you home with me, okay? Okay?”