Tiger the Lurp Dog: A Novel (22 page)

The sun was still strong, and a few clouds, visible through the breaks in the canopy, rode the wind and moved on smartly. But the leaves dripped, and the air was dank and heavy with the smell of rotting vegetation. When it was Mopar’s turn to eat—after Schultz had polished off a whole ration and a can of C-ration peaches—he nibbled on a cornflake bar, washed down a couple of salt tablets with a long swig of water, and tried not to think about all the hamburgers and chocolate milk shakes he’d had on leave. Marvel could talk for hours about hot pickled cabbage, marinated beef, shrimp-fried rice, and pizza with pineapple and ham, but Mopar had simpler tastes. Hamburgers, milk shakes, iced Pepsi-Cola, and french fries drenched in catsup were more his speed. He rarely daydreamed about food, but now he sorely regretted not having made more of a pig of himself while on leave. When Wolverine leaned over with his map and pointed out the finger of land he wanted to check out next, Mopar could only nod half-heartedly. It was hard to clear his imagination of double-meat California burgers and chocolate shakes and fill it with terrain features.

But once he was on his feet again, once he was moving among the trees, alert and cautious, his rucksack digging into his trapezius muscles and the silenced Swedish K smooth and cool in his hands, he no longer regretted all the hamburgers he hadn’t eaten and all the milk shakes he hadn’t drunk. It was good to be back in the field again, good to be back with Marvel and Wolverine and Gonzales, good even to be out in the field with that pushy jerk Schultz, and Mopar wouldn’t have traded this mission for all the California burgers and chocolate milk shakes in the whole civilian world. This was the real world—here and now. This was the big time. Everything else was frivolous civilian luxury, and Mopar had had enough of that on leave.

They spent the rest of that afternoon combing the ridgeline for signs of passage. Gonzales found a rusty ham and lima bean C-ration can and a white plastic spoon that everyone else had missed, but that wasn’t much of a find. There probably wasn’t a ridge or valley anywhere in Vietnam that didn’t have a few old ration cans lying around somewhere, so Wolverine didn’t waste radio time calling it in. There were no trails on this ridge—no trails, no paths, no tumble-down thatch and bamboo hootches, no fresh caches, no sleeping positions or dug-in bunkers, no discarded equipment (except the plastic spoon and the C-ration can), and no enemy troops lurking in the shadows. The ridge was just too clean, and that made Wolverine uneasy. He had Mopar move the team to what the map said was the highest ground on the ridgeline, and there they formed their security wheel to rest up for the night’s movement.

After sitting silently for an hour and hearing nothing unusual or alarming, Wolverine gave Schultz and Mopar permission to nap. While Mopar slept, Marvel got another commo check with the artillery, studied his map, ate two cornflake bars, and examined his antennas for the fifth time since receiving the mission order three days before. Gonzales wet his finger to test the wind, fished a waterproof cigarette pack out of his thigh pocket, glanced at Wolverine for permission to smoke, then lit up with a survival-pack lighter. This was the first time Wolverine had ever let anyone smoke in the field, and Gonzales was surprised that he’d given permission. Though it was fun to touch the burning cigarette to the leeches on his boot and watch them writhe, smoking always made him thirsty, and he was worried that he’d have to cough or clear his throat during the coming night march. So after a few drags, Gonzales passed the cigarette around. He did not light another.

Wolverine was restless. He stood up and moved a few meters away from the others to piss, then returned and woke Mopar. “Park your rucksack and come with me.” He pointed through a break in the trees to the west, where they could see the sun sitting above the next ridge as if waiting for official clearance to set.

“This place is all wrong,” Wolverine whispered. “I figure they were supposed to defoliate this ridge here, not the hillside we came in on. But look, the trees are thinner to the west, and that damn valley ought to be at least single-canopy jungle. Instead, it looks like some goddamn African savanna. Let’s take a little point recon while the light’s still good. I want to find a safe and easy way downhill. If we’re lucky, we can get another look at that valley before it gets too dark.”

While Wolverine moved on to whisper something in Marvel’s ear, Mopar rubbed his eyes and wiggled his arms out of his rucksack straps. He untied his CAR-15, placed it carefully on his rucksack, and stood up with the silenced Swedish K in his hands. Now that Wolverine mentioned it, maybe it was a little bit strange that there was much thicker vegetation on the high ground than there was down in the valley. He knew that there had to be a line of trees along the edges of the little stream that ran north-south through the valley, but the valley had been so full of fog he hadn’t been able to see it on the overflight. Maybe people used to live down there before the war—if there ever had been a time before the war. Maybe the valley had once been farmland. Or maybe a fire had burned away the jungle. It hadn’t seemed so strange a place on the overflight—what he’d seen of it—and on reflection, it didn’t seem so strange now. Mopar had seen a lot of places where the high ground was covered with double- or triple-canopy jungle, but the valleys were grassy and open. Maybe it was a little strange for such a narrow valley to be so open, but then Vietnam was a very strange country, and there was no sense in trying to figure it out.

Mopar followed Wolverine southwest for fifty meters or so, ducking occasional low branches and stepping carefully, for the ground here was slick with mud and fallen leaves, and the slope was steeper than the contour lines on the map had indicated. The sun was still hanging, round and red, above the next ridge, but the ridge was darkly ominous. In spite of himself, Mopar couldn’t help thinking about J. D. He was probably still on the ridge. He was probably already part of that ridge by now, his flesh given way to mud and mold and insects, his bones lost in the ferns and creepers, or strewn among the leaves and shadows. Maybe Marvel was right, maybe the ridge was haunted. But if Marvel was right about that, then it followed that all of Asia was probably haunted, because there sure wasn’t enough land for everyone to have a proper grave. But since only a gook would worry about such a thing, Mopar put it out of his mind. He eased up next to Wolverine and whispered in his ear.

“What do you think, Sarge? It’s kind of slick but the two ridges almost come together south of here, so we can probably avoid crossing any open ground if we move down that way.”

Wolverine shook his head. “Too thick,” he said. “Too steep. Too tight, and maybe too many gooks. They’re out there, don’t let this cold ridge here deceive you. They’re down there, and if they have any idea we’re here too, then they’ve got this valley bottled up at both ends. We’ll have to cross near the widest point and—”

He was just about to say “and cut across on a northwest azimuth” when he heard a sound that made him stop and listen. Someone was playing a bamboo flute. The sound was faint, and if the breeze hadn’t shifted in his direction, Wolverine wouldn’t have heard it. But he had heard it, and he recognized the sound. He’d had another pointman once, a Vietnamese pointman who had played a bamboo flute, and no matter how faint the sound, hearing it now gave him the chills.

“Listen!” he whispered excitedly. “Do you hear it?”

Mopar closed his eyes for a second and tried to concentrate, but he couldn’t hear anything except the birds in the treetops and the gentle rustle of the breeze in the foliage. He cupped one hand behind his ear, but still couldn’t hear anything. Finally he shrugged and shook his head.

Wolverine forced himself to smile. He ran his tongue over the gap in his teeth. “A flute,” he whispered. “Someone is playing a flute, but I can’t get an azimuth on it. Turn your ear into the wind and maybe you’ll hear it.”

Mopar turned his head this way and that, but still he couldn’t hear anything unusual. He wrinkled his nose and took a deep breath, hoping to catch a scent of smoke or food. If only he’d had a nose like Tiger’s, maybe he could have picked up on a revealing scent. But he’d spent the first nineteen years of his life trying not to smell things, and the last six months hadn’t been enough to bring his nose back to what it would have been if he’d been using it all along.

“Sorry.” He shook his head again. He hadn’t heard anything unusual, and he hadn’t been able to smell anything but the jungle and his own sweat and insect repellent. Still, if Wolverine said he’d heard someone playing a flute, then it was certain that there was a musical gook somewhere out in the valley. Wolverine could be a real lifer sometimes, but he was no fool. He couldn’t have stayed alive for three tours in Special Forces if he was the sort who imagined things that weren’t really there.

“Let’s get back to the radios and have Marvel call in some arty,” Mopar suggested in an even lower whisper than before. “We can blow that valley to hell, then sneak across before the smoke clears.”

Wolverine shook his head. He wasn’t stupid enough to fool around with artillery this early in the mission. He was accustomed to working in places that no friendly artillery could reach, so he had never developed an unhealthy dependence on it. And anyway, if the other side suspected that there was a recon team in their midst, the best way to verify their suspicions would be to start calling in artillery.

“Over there.” He nodded in the direction of a brake of fresh bamboo. There were few trees growing in front of it, and the leaves were in sunlight, but all behind was shadow. From that brake there would probably be a good view of the widest part of the valley, and across to the dark side of J. D.’s last ridgeline. But the vegetation between the bamboo and where they now stood was so thick and tangled they’d probably have to move uphill to the crest, then work down from above to reach it. They’d have to move quickly, but all the time they’d have to keep a running mental file on any slick places or fallen branches, because they would probably have to cover the same ground at night. The sun was already beginning to edge down behind the far ridgeline, and Wolverine knew they’d have to hurry if they were to get to the bamboo for a last look before the valley got dark.

“You lead out,” he whispered. “That’s your job, and you’re good at it.”

Mopar nodded. He knew he was good, and he knew he could get to the bamboo before the sun went much lower. In five minutes they were peeking through the bamboo leaves with Wolverine’s binoculars, and in another fifteen minutes they were back with the rest of the team, going over the proposed route of their coming night march on their maps, briefing the other guys on the vegetation they were likely to encounter and the most likely trouble spots they’d have to sneak past. They hadn’t seen any sign of enemy, and Mopar hadn’t heard any, but both Mopar and Wolverine were sure that there were enemy soldiers in the valley. Mopar was so sure that he lied and told Marvel that he, too, had heard a bamboo flute.

Marvel smiled placidly and nodded at this news. Night was coming down through the treetops and the wind was rustling the leaves. Marvel was wide awake and ready to go, and the knowledge that the other side was relaxed enough for music stoked his confidence. But he knew they couldn’t start down just yet. “Ten o’clock,” he whispered in Mopar’s ear, using the civilian hour because Mopar had just come off leave. “Pappy called while you were gone and said he was laying on a gunship to circle off station and give us an air relay while we’re in the low ground, back us up if we step on anyone. Tell Wolverine the call sign is Cola Seven.”

Mopar frowned at Marvel for being a dork. Wolverine was sitting eighteen inches from Marvel’s right elbow, and Marvel could just as well tell him himself.

“Go on, tell Wolverine,” Marvel whispered again, this time loudly enough for Wolverine to hear what he was saying. “Twenty-two hundred hours. Gunship call sign is ‘Cola Seven.’ You’re the ATL, pass the word on.”

Wolverine scowled and put a finger to his lips. They were going to need better noise discipline than this to sneak across that valley and up the next ridge undetected, and there was no time like the present to start cracking down. He took out his pad and scribbled a few words on it, then passed it around for the others to read in the deepening gloom.

“Hand signals only. Make noise tonight and I’ll have your ass—if the NVA don’t get it first.”

Marvel read the note and blushed. Mopar read the note and glowered at Marvel. Schultz knew what the note was probably all about and passed it on to Gonzales unread. Gonzales read the note and nodded his approval. Mopar and Marvel were starting their squabbling early this mission, and he was glad to see Wolverine put a stop to it right away.

As soon as it was dark enough to move by the glowing rot on the jungle floor, Wolverine had Mopar lead the team to the edge of the tree line above the bamboo brake. Here they waited for the gunship to come on-station. It was a long wait, and rather than sit up worrying about the valley crossing or wondering where Tiger was and what he was doing that night, Mopar decided to catch a few more hours of sleep. He slipped out of his rucksack straps, laid his Swedish K on the ground next to him, and placed his CAR-15 across his chest where he could grab it instantly if something happened. He touched Marvel on the shoulder and signed his intention to sack out, then rested his head on his rucksack and closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep, dreaming that he and a skinny North Vietnamese girl with crooked teeth were walking hand in hand down a sunny lane between a thorny hedgerow and a line of tall palm trees, heading, he supposed, for some mud-walled house where they would lie together on a wicker mat, looking up at the ceiling beams and smoking cigarettes. It was a pleasant dream, even if it didn’t seem to promise any sex, but it was a dangerous dream at the same time, and as soon as he realized that it was, after all, just a dream, Mopar forced himself to wake up and try to forget he’d had it.

He pulled back the knit cover of his watch and checked the time. There was still more than an hour to wait before they could start moving out. To kill the time, he tore off the corner of a cocoa packet, sloshed in a little water, and made himself some Ashau Valley fudge. After he had licked up the last of the gooey mess, he put the empty packet back in his rucksack pocket. He ate a cornflake bar and doused his boots and pant legs with insect repellent. He could see the sky to the west—dark, starless, and ideal for night movement—but he could barely make out Marvel on his right and Gonzales on his left. The wind was rustling in the bamboo, but the treetops were still, and the air was fetid with rot, sweat, and the smell of wet leaves.