Into the Treeline Read online

  “So once you got these guys, did that solve your problems?” asked the doctor, pouring Jim another shot. “Sounds like you had a pretty good handle on it.”

  “Shit, Doc, you ought to know better than that. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in that war, it’s that whatever one side comes up with the other will go it one better.

  “By this time my team’s tour was almost up. A replacement team from Bragg came in and was getting briefed on the operation, orienting themselves to the area. Everything looked good, VC activity in our area of operations was way down. We were regarded as one of the success stories of the war.

  “A couple of days before we were due to leave, the replacement team leader, Captain Mosely, decided he wanted to observe a village sick call. One was scheduled in a nearby village. He, my team leader, team sergeant, and I hopped in a jeep and took off. Sounds pretty stupid in retrospect, but hell, we’d shut down the VC in the local area and this place was only a couple of miles away, so where was the danger?

  “What we didn’t know was the VC High Command had decided something had to be done about us. They sent in a special unit, their best assassins. These guys avoided all contact with the villages, stayed back in the jungle, so we never got any information about them. Apparently they’d been setting up ambushes at random around the camp for a week or two. That day they got lucky.”

  Jim was aware that he was talking too much. The liquor had loosened the ordinarily firm hold he had on such memories. They were too close, hurt too much. But he was gripped by the need to let this out, perhaps in the hope that someone would understand, would know what motivated him and why. Then perhaps they could explain it to him.

  “There were two jeeploads of us. Four Cambode bodyguards in the first, then us. A mile outside camp we went through this little village. Nobody in the streets, no sign of people. That should have tipped us off, but by that time it was too late anyway.

  “You ever been ambushed, Doc? No? It’s a hell of a feeling. One second complete silence and the next everything happens. Total surprise. It stuns you, makes it difficult to move, your body doesn’t seem to want to obey what your mind is saying. Only takes microseconds to get moving, but it seems like an eternity. Lots of people never make it past that point.

  “They hit the first jeep with a grenade. Landed right on the gas tank. Killed everybody in it instantly.

  “My team sergeant, Master Sergeant Goodly, was sitting beside me in the back of the other jeep. Took a round through the back of the head, exited under his eye.

  “My team leader, Captain Hackier, was driving. He got three rounds through the hip and fell out of the jeep on his side. Mosely got hit in the chest and fell out on the other side.

  “There I was, still sitting there wondering what the fuck had happened, bullets flying all around, and I hadn’t been touched. Couldn’t have sat there more than a couple of seconds before I came to my senses and fell out backward. I crawled round to the side where Hackier had dragged himself to cover behind some railroad tracks.

  “He knew he was going to die, I think. Bleeding pretty bad, in a lot of pain. Told me he couldn’t move, that I should save myself, get out, get back to the camp, get help.

  “I didn’t want to go. Stupid. I would’ve died there had I stayed. Hackier realized that, ordered me to go. I crawled down a ditch, had gotten maybe twenty-five yards when I heard an explosion. They’d thrown a grenade on him, blew his guts out.

  “Guess I went a little crazy then. I jumped up, ran to the nearest hut I could find, I guess figuring to work my way from hut to hut until I was clear of the village.

  “One place I ran to I could hear shooting from the inside. I peeked in the door, saw a guy still shooting out into the bodies on the road. I shot him in the back, must have got the spine because he just folded up backward. God, it felt good!

  “I stopped there for a few minutes trying to decide what to do next. The shooting died down. I looked out the window. They were scavenging the bodies. Captain Mosely had come over with his personal pistol, a chrome-plated .357 magnum. One of the VC, a big guy for a Viet, pulled it out of the holster, looked at it for a second, then pumped a round into Mosely’s head. Then the bastard laughed.

  “Then I did something stupid. I wanted more than anything else in the world to kill these bastards. More, even, than to live. So I opened up on them. Got a couple, I think. But not the bastard I wanted. He looked right at where I was, didn’t even take cover. I’ll never forget the expression on his face. Arrogant, almost as if he were daring me to hit him.

  “Guess that’s when I came to my senses. Realized I was the only live friendly still in the village. Very lonesome feeling. I ran like a scared rabbit.”

  He was sweating profusely and shivering. Christ, he thought, I hope it’s not the malaria coming back. Deep down he knew it wasn’t. It was instead the release of feelings he had kept bottled inside for so long. The fears, the shame of running away, the guilt at having been the only one to survive, the struck-dumb terror of looking his enemy in the eyes and seeing the implacable threat written there, all consumed him. And all drove him.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say with all this, Doc,” he said, his tongue thick with the bourbon, “is that I don’t have a hell of a lot of choice about going back. It’s what I do. I’m a soldier. I know nothing else. I don’t choose to know anything else. There’s a saying in Special Forces that sums it up just about as well as anything else can. It’s a shitty war, but it’s the only war we’ve got.”

  “You know, don’t you, that there are a lot of shrinks who’d just love to get their hands on you?”

  Jim smiled. “You know better than that, Doc. Even the shrinks admit they can only help someone who wants to be helped. Way I see it, I don’t need any help. I’m doing what I want.”

  “Even if it means you probably won’t survive it?”

  “That’s not a major consideration. Live hard, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse. Nah, I’m sorry, that’s too glib. I don’t want to die. I don’t think anybody does. Certainly I wouldn’t want to soldier with anyone who did. People like that have a tendency to get other people killed along with them. But I do accept the possibility, even the probability, of that happening. It scares me, sure. But not enough to stop me. But enough of that morbid shit. Let’s talk about something important. Like when you’re going to let me get out of this goddamned bed.”

  “Anytime you think you’re ready.”

  “Obviously not tonight. I’ve drunk so much already that I’d fall flat on my ass even if I didn’t have a hole in my leg.”

  “Actually, you’re scheduled for physical therapy starting tomorrow. That’s really the reason I came by tonight. Figured it was cause enough to celebrate. Now I don’t know. Seems sort of futile somehow. But not much choice, I suppose.” Doc Cable smiled at the irony. “It’s what I do. I’m a doctor. I patch up soldiers so they can go out and fight again.” Cable rose to leave, stumbled slightly and put a hand on the bed to steady himself. Jim’s hand found his and clasped it.

  “Thanks for everything, Doc,” he said.

  “We’re a strange breed, we soldiers,” the doctor said, freeing his hand and patting Jim on the shoulder. “Only we can understand one another. I wish you luck, Captain Carmichael. You’ve picked a hard road. I’m afraid you’re in for some surprises once you get out of here. Not too many people around here have any use for soldiers.”

  “I read the papers, Doc. And watch the TV. Looks like there are a lot of people up in arms about the war. Protests on all the campuses, soldiers being spit upon, people burning their draft cards. But I appreciate the warning anyway.”

  “As long as you understand. Now, get a good night’s sleep. The people in physical therapy are downright sadists. You’ll probably like them.”

  Jim grinned. “Gotta be hard, Doc. You ain’t hard, you ain’t shit.”

  “Fucking Green Beanies, you’re all the same. Have a good time and I’ll check in on you
from time to time.”

  Later, as he was drifting off to sleep, Lisa came in. He heard her sniff the air, come closer to him, sniff his breath. He reached up, pulled her face down to his. She did not resist.

  Her lips were soft and warm, breath spicy. He thought that he had never felt anything quite so good. He wanted it to go on forever, but all too soon she pulled away, fussed for a moment with his covers, then with a deep breath and a setting of shoulders as if she were making her mind up about something, turned and left.

  That night instead of the usual nightmares he dreamed of Lisa’s soft body lying in the bed beside him. They made love over and over again. In the morning when he woke he thought he could smell the faint scent of her upon his pillow.

  When she came to work the next day he observed her closely, hoping to determine by any change in her manner whether the last evening had been a dream or reality. But she was her usual self, cheerfully berating him for transgressions real or imagined, laughing at his jokes, groaning over his bad puns. Regretfully he came to the conclusion that he had been dreaming, the dream undoubtedly spurred by a great deal of wishful thinking.

  But he was not able to dwell upon it for long. Doctor Cable, true to his word, had scheduled the first session of physical therapy.

  He nicknamed them Boris and Natasha. Boris was a very large, gray-haired, hard-faced female. Natasha was a rather wimpy male corpsman who seemed to take joy in the pain he caused.

  At first the exercises were all done in bed. Raise your leg! No? Here, let us help you. Oh, that hurts? Well, a certain amount of pain is inevitable. Here, let’s try it this way.

  They left him gray-faced and sweating. It hadn’t hurt this much being hit. If it was going to be this bad, he thought, let the damned thing stay stiff. But he knew he wouldn’t. He even tried some of the exercises again after the pain subsided. Each day they came. Each day he cursed them. Boris remained impassive, Natasha got even for the curses by giving the leg a little extra flexion whenever Boris wasn’t watching. Within four days they had him out of the bed, in just over a week he was slowly, painfully shuffling around with the aid of a walker. In two weeks he had graduated to crutches. In three he felt confident enough to ask Doctor Cable for a pass.

  “C’mon, Doc,” he begged. “Give me a break. Send Boris and Natasha back to the Lubyanka for a refresher course. I’ve been stuck in this ward forever, it seems like.”

  “You’d be better off staying in here, you know, until you get well enough to go home on convalescent leave. It isn’t the San Francisco you remember out there.”

  “Home? That’s a joke. My home is Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and I’ll be back there soon enough.”

  “What about your family? Your records indicate that your father is still around.”

  Jim’s face darkened. “That would be the last place I’d go,” he said.

  “No girlfriends, fiancées, wives?”

  “A little hard to keep any long-term relationships going when you’re around as little as I’ve been over the last seven years. Since I joined the army the longest time I’ve spent in one place has been in Vietnam. So no, nothing serious. Nobody I’d try and go back to visit, anyway. Come on, Doc! I’ll even go out in civilian clothes. Don’t have a uniform anyway.”

  The doctor relented. “Hell, I suppose a few hours out aren’t going to kill you. Friday and Saturday nights only for right now, back in bed by zero two hundred. You do okay with that we’ll negotiate for longer periods. Fair enough?”

  “Great, Doc. Appreciate it. I won’t fuck up.”

  It was more than he had dared hope, Now, he thought, for the next stage of the plan. It would come when he saw Lisa again.

  Before he could get his courage high enough to broach the subject, she mentioned it. “Understand you’re going to be able to get away from here for a little while this weekend?”

  “Yeah,” he said, hoping to sound nonchalant. “No big thing, just a few hours away. You know any good places close by?”

  “A couple,” she replied.

  “Any chance of you showing them to me?” he asked, braced for the rejection he was sure would come.

  She looked at him for a moment, an unfathomable expression on her face. Finally she said, “Sure. Why not? I’ll pick you up at six. Gotta go. See you then. Oh, and wear something casual.” She left.

  Something casual. Clothes. Now where in the hell am I going to get some clothes? First step is to get some money.

  He hobbled to the elevator, took it to the administration floor. He knew there was a finance office there, hoped he could get some of his back pay. An hour later he stood outside the office with nearly two thousand dollars in his hand, representing three months’ accumulated pay, less the appropriate deductions, of course. He was not surprised to see that he was being charged for the loss of a certain amount of combat gear. Report of Survey, they called it. One item was his M-16, taken from him after evacuation and ending up God knew where.

  Still, it was the most money he’d ever seen at one time.

  The next stop was at the small PX in the basement. The selection of clothes was not great, and he had no idea of current fashion. He hadn’t had to worry about it for a long time. He finally settled for a set of double-knit gray pants and a white shirt, T-shirt, shorts, and of course, white socks and low-quarters.

  He was dressed and ready long before six. What did it mean, he wondered, that Lisa had agreed to go out with him? Anything? Probably not. Just a friendly gesture. After all, they had spent a lot of time together over the last months. Nothing to this, just being nice and showing him places where he could go.

  Promptly at six a battered VW Bug pulled up to where he was standing. “Get in,” she said. “The MPs raise hell if you park here too long.”

  He stuck his crutches in the back and with some difficulty folded his six-foot frame into the seat. As he did so he found several new pains in his leg, but tried to ignore them.

  “Good lord, girl, didn’t anybody ever tell you that you oughta wear clothes,” he said as he got a good look at her. Her tiny denim skirt covered, barely, the upper two inches of her thighs. She wore a tie-dyed T-shirt. It was obvious that there was no bra underneath. Her hair was fluffed out to twice its normal size. It was quite a difference from the white-uniformed girl to whom he had grown so accustomed.

  “Gotta blend in with the natives,” she said. “The GI look doesn’t go over too well in this neighborhood.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “And worse. Doesn’t do any good to explain you’re a medic. Then they hate you because you’re supporting the war machine by taking care of the baby-killers. Should let them die, they say.”

  “And I’m not going to blend in too well.”

  “Not too well,” she admitted. “Short hair, GI shoes, crutches. You might as well be wearing a neon sign.”

  “Sounds like we’re going to have an interesting evening,” he said. “Oh, well, can’t be any worse than the NVA. Lead on!”

  The first place wasn’t too bad. Very quiet, lots of older people. They were stared at as they entered, but except for a couple of whispered asides about his injury he heard nothing bad.

  It was also very boring. “Okay, Lisa,” he said after a couple of drinks, “I appreciate your concern, but if I’d wanted to go to sleep I could have stayed back in the ward. Isn’t there someplace around here with some music? I’m not so much of a redneck warmonger that I don’t like rock-n-roll.”

  “You sure you’re up for this?”

  “Try me.”

  Now this is more like it, he thought, as they entered the next place. A blast of music hit them as they opened the door, a group called Jefferson Airplane, she told him. He vaguely remembered having heard them on the jukebox in a club back in Vietnam. Hadn’t liked them. Here with everyone talking and laughing and dancing the music seemed right in place.

  They squeezed into a booth and ordered drinks. “Much better,” he said. “And nobody seems to be pa
ying much attention to us one way or another.”

  “So far, so good,” Lisa agreed. “Now, Captain…”

  “Jim,” he interrupted.

  “Okay, Jim. What I was going to ask may sound stupid. And you can tell me so and I won’t feel bad.” She lowered her eyes. Her lashes fell long and beautiful across her cheeks. Finally she said, “I overheard you talking to the doctor today about not having a place to go and all. And what I thought was, if you wanted to, you could stay for a while at my place. It’s not much, can’t afford much on a spec-4’s pay. You don’t have to answer now, it’ll be a couple of weeks before you’re out of the hospital. But think about it.”

  For a moment he was speechless. Long enough that she looked quickly up, afraid she had somehow offended him. “No strings attached,” she assured him.

  “No, no, it’s not that,” he said. “I’m just amazed. I never expected this.”

  “You didn’t know how I felt about you?”

  He shook his head slowly. “I’d hoped, of course. But I told myself that you were just being nice. Why?”

  Now it was her turn to shake her head. “I don’t really know,” she answered. “Maybe it was all the hours I spent listening to you when you were out of your head. You talked a lot, some of it comprehensible, some not. There’s a lot of rage bottled up inside you. And pain, and most of all loneliness. I know what it’s like to be lonely. It eats at you, makes you do things you wouldn’t ordinarily dream of doing, just to ease the pain for a little while.”

  “Someone like you, I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever have to be lonely.”

  “You mean my looks?” When she laughed there was a tinge of bitterness. “No, I’d never have to worry about company, male or female. This is the City of Love, haven’t you read that in the papers? Free love, casual sex, group gropes, whatever you want. It’s not hard to come by even if you aren’t attractive, and I suppose I am. But I don’t need that. I need someone I can talk to, someone who’ll at least try to understand what’s going on inside my head. That’s what I like about you. You try to come across as such a hard-ass. But there’s something else there. A tenderness that I can feel whenever you touch me. A capacity for more than war and hate and killing. That’s the Jim Carmichael I want to get to know. And I don’t have much time to do it. I know you’ll be leaving at the end of your convalescent leave, and that I might never see you again after that. But we can have a little time together.”