“Well,” Callahan said, “it was well thought out and impossible to prove. Would‟ve worked like a
Turkish charm, too, except the leg was weaker than they thought, which is always the case when a
horse breaks a leg in a race.”
“Then just what the hell can I do?” Raines roared, and for a moment he sounded like Chief Findley.
Callahan finished his drink and stood up.
“About this one? Nothing. Thibideau lost his horse; he‟s paid a price. The other two horses and
jockeys? Don‟t know what to say. It‟ll go down in the books, just another accident. I don‟t think—see,
the reason we told you this, it isn‟t the last time it‟s going to be tried. I know how you feel about the
track and the horses. It‟s something you needed to know.”
Raines sighed and sat back in his chair and pinched his lower
“I appreciate it, thanks,” he said. But he was distracted. His gaze once again was focused somewhere
far away.
“Mr. Raines, it wouldn‟t help us—Callahan here, myself, and the rest of Morehead‟s people—for you
to talk about this fix business. Not for just now. Maybe in a day or two, okay?”
He could hardly refuse the request and didn‟t.
“I respect your confidence,” he said, without looking at either of us. “Will forty-eight hours be
enough?”
Callahan looked at me and I shrugged. “Sure,” I said, “that‟ll be fine. We‟ll be checking with you.”
We left him sitting there, staring out at the track he had created and which he obviously loved and
cherished and felt protective of, the same way Chief felt about Dunetown. I felt sorry for him; he was
like a schoolboy who had just discovered some ugly fact of life. Callahan didn‟t say anything until we
were outside the building and walking back around the infield to the car.
“You were pretty tough in there,” he said.
“Callahan, do you ever get tired of dealing with pussyfooters?” I asked with a sigh.
“All the time,” he said, looking down the track, where they were repairing the infield fence.
“That‟s what just happened to me. I got the feeling Raines is anything but. But he‟s surrounded by a
bunch of pussies.”
“It‟s your business to tell him?”
“Nobody else was going to do it. Time somebody played honest with the man.”
“Did that all right,” he said. “Just wonder what Dutch is going to say.”
“I wouldn‟t worry about Dutch,” I replied. “I‟d worry about Stoney Titan.”
After a moment Callahan said, “Yeah and seemed awed at the prospect.
I didn‟t tell him what else had happened, that I was measuring the man to see what kind of stuff he
was made of.
I wasn‟t sure I liked the answer.
58
FLASHBACK: NAM DIARY, THE SECOND SIX
The 182nd day: We know this village is a VC hideout. We go by the place, there‟s this pot of rice
crooking, enough for maybe a hundred people, and there‟s some old folks around, a dozen kids, two
or three younger women, that‟s all.
„They sure are skinny, to eat that much,” Jesse Hatch says as we walk by.
Flagler‟s replacement is this kid from Pennsylvania, handles a .60 caliber like it was part of his arm.
He learns fast too. We call him Gunner. He says he used to hunt all the time, poaching and
everything, summer and winter, since he was maybe eight, nine years old. Nothing scares him. He
achieved “aw fuck it” status before he ever got to Nam.
Anyway, we go back tonight to see if maybe the village is a gook shelter and there was activity all
over the place. What we got is Cook City. We flare the place and hit it from both sides, only there‟s a
stream on the back side of the village and they get on the other side and we are pinned down. There
are green tracers going all over the place, rounds bouncing off shit, kicking around us.
We‟re pouring stuff into the hooches, just shooting the shit out of them, and all of a sudden one of
them goes off. They must‟ve had all their ammo stored inside because it was the Fourth of July—
squared. Grenades, mortars, tracers, mines. Everybody‟s freaking out, running around. Then Hatch
catches one in the leg from the other side of the stream and he goes over the side into the water and
he panics and starts yelling that he can‟t swim and Carmody is yelling, “Shut up, for Christ sakes”
only it‟s too late and Jesse catches a couple in the head. Carmody and me, we go over the side and
drag him back. But I knew he was finished, It was like trying to lift a house.
Carmody keeps saying, over and over, “Why did he yell, why the fuck did he yell. Fuckin‟ stream was
only three feet deep.”
But it was dark and everything had gone wrong and Jesse couldn‟t swim. Hell, I don‟t know why I‟m
apologizing for old Hatch, look what it cost him.
The 198th day: The lieutenant‟s beginning to act weird. It started a couple of weeks ago when we
lost Jesse Hatch. It‟s like he has a hard time making up his mind about anything.
Last night I go by his hooch and I say, “C‟mon, Lieutenant, let‟s have a beer.” And he just sits there,
looking at me, and then he says, “Let me think about it.” Think about having a beer?
Today he says, “My luck‟s going bad. I shouldn‟t have lost Flagler and Hatch.”
“You can‟t blame yourself,” I say to him.
“Who‟m I going to blame, Nixon?” he says, only he says it with bitterness. He‟s lost his sense of
humor, too.
The 215th day: We got separated from our outfit and we were two days out in the boonies. We come
up on this handful of gooks. Ten of them, maybe. We just break through some brush and there they
are, twenty feet away plus change.
Everybody goes to the deck but the lieutenant. I don‟t know what happened. He just pulls a short
circuit and stands there. This one VC has his AK-47 over his shoulder, he rolls backward and gets
one burst off. Carmody takes three hits. He‟s lying there, a few feet away from me, jerking real hard
in the dirt.
It‟s the shortest firefight lever saw. It‟s over in about ten seconds. Everybody is shooting at once. We
are on top of these people and Carmody is the only one gets hit. One of the gooks jumps in the river
and Gunner just goes right in after him, takes him out with his K-bar. Just keeps stabbing him until
he‟s too tired to stab anymore.
I take the lieutenant in my arms and hold him as tight as I can and keep telling him it‟s going to be all
right. I hold him that way until he stops shaking and I feel him go stiff on me.
it doesn‟t seem possible. A month to go, that‟s all he had. I don‟t know why I thought the lieutenant