They drove through long shadows in golden light; the road followed a ridge overlooking the valley, then turned south in hairpin curves over high treeless passes through the mountains. In one of the passes they pulled off the paved highway and parked out of sight of it, among limestone boulders. Below, the ground sloped to a brown depression with a pool of slow-moving muddy water at its bottom.
“Let’s take a rest,” Danskin said.
They climbed out of the car and made their way down the slope. Danskin carried the rum and a plastic gallon can.
“It’s a hole,” Danskin said, looking up to the hills around them. “It’s a literal hole.” He threw the plastic can to Smitty. “Fill it up for the radiator. It’s all dry from here.”
He took a sip of rum and passed the bottle to Converse.
“How you doing, Mr. Converse?”
“O.K.,” Converse said.
“You’re pretty cool, considering.”
“Well, I decided to come. I might as well live with it.”
“You decided? What do you mean you decided? You think you could have walked away?”
Converse looked at the sky. Far above, beyond hearing, the tiny silver body of an airplane inched across the cloud less blue. It occurred to him that he had spent a great deal of time on the ground wishing he were in the air, and rather a lot of time in aircraft wishing he were on the ground.
“Well, it doesn’t matter now, does it?” It was a perfect place to kill someone, he thought. A shot would probably be heard for miles — but there was no one within miles to hear. From the top of the pass they had not seen a single sign of human habitation, not a fence, not a wire. Only the plane, six miles up.
“You’re indifferent?”
“I’m trying.”
Danskin reached inside his gray cardigan and removed a pistol. He sat down on a rock and leaned the gun on his knee so that the barrel was pointed a few inches to the left of Converse’s leg.
“See this thing?”
Looking at the gun made Converse sleepy. His eyelids grew heavy.
“Sure I see it.”
“Looks like a regular thirty-eight?”
“I don’t know anything about handguns. I had a forty-five once. I could take it apart and clean it.” He shrugged. “That was a while ago.”
“This is what it shoots.” Danskin took a small canvas roll from his breast pocket and held it out for Converse’s inspection. “That’s the slug. It doesn’t penetrate. It flattens out on contact and mashes the shit out of anything it hits. Makes a wide shallow hole.”
Converse yawned.
“That’s what the air marshals carry,” Danskin said. “Re member that if you feel like hijacking a plane.”
Smitty was carrying the plastic can up the side of a rock where wild flowers grew. The climb was steep and he went slowly.
“Work for it” Danskin called to him. “Work for it, mother.” He shook his head. “He’s gonna do up,” he told Converse.
“Has he a habit?”
Danskin shrugged.
“Sometimes he shoots a bag by himself. Sometimes he doesn’t. I think it’s the spike he likes.”
They watched him climb until he disappeared behind the top of the rock.
“He’s shy,” Danskin said primly.
“He tells me he’s looking for a job in the agency.”
“Who, Smitty? Smitty doesn’t have the intelligence of an Airedale. He can’t tell the difference between a nickel and a quarter. How’s he gonna be in the agency?”
“He says Antheil’ll get him in.”
“Sure. He can be whatever he wants. He can be governor, he can fly. That’s what Antheil tells him.”
“What does he tell you?”
Danskin shook his head slowly. “Don’t, man.”
“Just curiosity,” Converse said. “I know why Smitty works for him. I couldn’t help wondering why you did.”
“I like it. I’m a student of the passing parade.”
Smitty appeared at the top of the rock; his arms flapped loosely at his sides as he scampered down the face of it. He waddled in a contracting circle beside the water and sprawled on the ground.
“Hey, man,” Smitty called happily.
Danskin smiled indulgently down at him.
“Hey, Smitty.”
“You know what, Danskin? It’s too bad we can’t have a fire.”
“It’s too bad we can’t toast marshmallows. It’s too bad we can’t have a sing-a-ling.” Asthmatic laughter shook him, he wrinkled the folds of flesh around his eyes. “You’re a child.”
Danskin walked over to where Smitty lay and stood over him.
“You want me to tell you scary stories?”
Giggling, Smitty covered up and crawled away from Danskin’s feet. “No, man.”
“All right for you. No stories.” He turned to Converse and his stare hardened.
“Why don’t you tell us about Vietnam? What did you do there besides cop scag?”
“I hung around.”
“That’s all?”
“Once I went up the Mekong on a patrol craft with the Navy. And I went into Cambodia with the First Division.”
Smitty was looking up at him with a loose smile.
“You kill anybody?”
“I wasn’t a combatant. I didn’t carry a weapon.”
“Man, I would have,” Smitty said. “I woulda carried every fuckin’ weapon.”
“For most people in the line it was firing at leaves or points of light. There isn’t a lot of personal combat.”
He turned to Danskin and saw in the man’s face a sudden hatred which surprised him, and frightened him as the gun had not.
“You disapprove of that shit, right?” Dumb unreasoning fury welled in Danskin’s eyes. Converse looked away quickly. “You’re against violence and killing. You’re above it.”
“I’ve always…” Converse began. “Yes,” he said, “I’m against it. I don’t know about being above it.”
“You have contempt for it, right?”
He looked into Danskin’s mad eyes and felt anger. It was an unfamiliar sensation.
“I’ve seen people kill,” he told Danskin. “It’s not all that terrific. A snake can do it. So can a mosquito or a few thousand ants.”
“You’re O.K., Converse,” Danskin said. “First you bring people Vietnam scag, then you tell them how it is. So they shouldn’t do the wrong thing and bring you down.” He reached out and gently took the tab of Converse’s collar between his fingers. “Don’t shit me,” he told Converse softly. “You’re a vindictive nasty little prick — I can tell that by looking at your face. But you’re a coward. It’s as simple as that.”
“Maybe,” Converse said.
“Maybe, hah? Listen, man, you think I don’t know what you bastards are like? You think I don’t know how you have fantasies — the guy kicks sand in your face you’re gonna kill him? You karate the walls, you talk tough to the mirror. You eat shit all your life and you hate every fucking minute of it and you’d like to fuck over half the country but you have to swallow it because you got no guts.
I don’t know about that, huh Converse? You think I’m stupid?”
“No,” Converse said.
“You think I’m sick?”
“No.”
“What am I then?”
“Ah, man,” Smitty said. “Don’t get twisted. Take it easy.”
“I could beat you to death, you know that?”
Smitty stood up and dusted himself off.
“Sure he knows it, man. What are you trying to prove?”
“He thinks he’s superior,” Danskin said. “The guy’s a heroin hustler and not even a good one.”
Biting his lip, he walked away from Converse and started up the slope to the road.
“Let’s get going. We’ll drive tonight.”
Smitty gave Converse an apologetic smile.