Rain falls hard on the jungle, striking the canopy and collecting into giant drops that crash down on Gordon and the baby. Gordon’s clothes are waterlogged, his hair plastered to his head, while Xang’s little hands are shrivelled from the damp and a stream of yellow mucus runs from his nostrils. He breathes in time with Gordon’s footsteps, the jolts producing wet little whispers of air. Below them, the river tumbles down the gorge, appearing and disappearing through the trees. Sometimes Gordon stops to stare in the direction of the water, but there’s no sign of Yia Pao and little evidence of any life, only a pair of rats at the trailside, both of them enormous with matted black fur, indifferent to him as they gnaw at the innards of a rotting monkey.
The trails Gordon follows are no more than the pathways of animals, criss-crossed with fallen trees and clogged by branches that tear at his skin. A few times he has to stop and set Xang down to clear a way forward. Finally he reaches a place where it seems that a while ago someone went through with a machete, and he’s able to walk more freely while resting Xang against his shoulder.
A hundred yards later, the path jogs. As he completes the turn, he stumbles over something, barely keeping his feet. At the same time there’s a lash of movement, quicker than the eye can follow, and a sound like the flight of an arrow. An unseen force propels him backward, pinning him against a tree.
He doesn’t move, only groans in agony. Slowly, his eyes travel down to his midriff. A long piece of bamboo presses against him there, the end of it neatly sawed off. A spike of metal sticking through it has pierced his body to an unknown depth.
“Oh God,” he says. “Oh Jesus.”
Raindrops stipple the surface of a puddle beneath him. When he tries to shift in place, blood spurts from his body and he stiffens. Xang starts crying, but Gordon doesn’t comfort him, can’t speak. For a long time he stands there, one arm around the wailing child while the other hangs at his side. The blood flows from him until it has soaked his shirt and begins to stain the puddle at his feet.
“Hush,” he whispers at last, then he tries to sing. “Hush, little baby …” He repeats the words before falling silent again.
Branches around him droop under the weight of the rain. After a few minutes Xang gives up his crying. A black rat crosses the path and sniffs the air, looks Gordon in the eye, sizes up the baby.
“I promise,” Gordon murmurs. “I promise, Xang, I won’t let go.”
It’s getting darker. Xang whimpers a little, falls into sleep. Eventually the puddle at Gordon’s feet overflows its edges, and a trickle of pinkish water starts making its way toward the river.
Monday morning, Maggie awakens at sunrise and goes straight to the kitchen for coffee. It’s the second day of October, and there are only twelve hours until Fletcher arrives. At nine she’s tempted to call the doctor’s office, but already she has made herself a nuisance there, and they’ve said they’ll contact her when they know. What else to do? In the orchard she finds George Ray mending the wire fence that keeps out deer, and she asks him if he has any jobs for her. He shakes his head but suggests they eat lunch together when it’s time. This is a surprise. They almost never have lunch together, and all week they’ve maintained their distance from each other. Perhaps he’s trying to distract her from the waiting, or maybe he’s realized it will be their last chance to share a meal on their own.
After she hears the mailman’s truck turn in the drive, she walks out to the box. There’s a letter there, the address written in a hand she doesn’t recognize, the stamp from Laos. Opening the envelope, she finds two sheets folded inside, coffee-stained and rumpled as though stuffed in a pocket for some time before they were mailed. The handwriting on them is cramped so as to get everything in.
Dear Maggie,
Yesterday I finally reached the mission. Traveling takes longer here now that Air America is pulling out. The mission’s a charming little place, with tents and fish ponds and a big fucking crater in the yard. The people aren’t much into talking, at least not to me or my loyal interpreter (sweet guy, one-armed, probably Pathet Lao), but I can be persuasive when I want to be.
That morning in the grocery store when you told me about not hearing from your dad, I got worried, so I called a friend in Laos, and it turned out I was right to be. Sorry for cutting out like I did, but I figured the sooner I got over here, the better.
See, there’s this guy I know named Sal. I mentioned him in that film of yours. Used to be in Special Forces with me—now he’s a drug runner. When the army caught up with me in Thailand, they accused me of being in his gang. They were wrong, but as luck would have it I’d just seen him in Laos.
You might remember me saying I met your dad at Long Chieng in May. What I didn’t tell you is that I was there because of Sal. He and his buddies were running a good racket in Laos, stealing opium from farmers and selling to the CIA. After I went AWOL I bumped into him. He and I were on a bender in Long Chieng when we met your dad and his buddy Yia Pao.
I have to admit, right from the start I had a bad feeling. Your dad said where they were headed and Sal got this look in his eye. But we were pretty drunk and I figured nothing would come of it. Forgot about the whole thing until that morning in Virgil at the grocery store when you said your dad hadn’t been in touch. Then I got a hell of a jolt. I should have known. Sal doesn’t believe in coincidences, and he doesn’t let chances go to waste. He probably spent the whole summer wondering how he could make use of those two guys.
When I called my friend in Laos, he didn’t know anything about your dad or Yia Pao, but he knew Sal had a deal going down with a bagman at some refugee camp. Plan was for the CIA plane to drop off the money, then for Sal to pick it up the next day. The CIA doesn’t like dealing directly with the banditos, because it looks bad to the natives. Apparently when Sal turned up, though, the bagman said the money hadn’t come in. So Sal checks with the CIA, and of course they said the bagman’s story was bullshit. They didn’t ask Sal what he’d done about the bagman. That isn’t how things work over here.
I’m pretty sure your old man wasn’t wrapped up in it. The priest at the mission figures it was just Yia Pao. But he says that after Sal and his boys turned up, they took your dad along with Yia Pao and his baby.
Sal’s not stupid enough to go killing Americans. I bet he’s thinking he can cover his losses by getting a ransom for your father.
Anyhow, I’m sorry for breaking the news like this. There’s no phone here. Also, I don’t want you jumping on a plane or getting the State Department involved to fuck things up. I can handle it, Maggie, I swear. By the time you get this, everything will be sorted out. Hell, maybe your dad is there beside you. He can tell you how good old Wale saved his ass. I’ll find him, I promise.
Thought I was doing the right thing by going to the farm. Thought I could be a proper father and put this part of the world behind me. You can’t just move on, though, can you? You drag your shit with you like a parachute till it snags and you have to start sawing at the cords. I have my knife out now, Maggie. I’m hacking with all I’ve got.
Sorry for going on like this. There’s been too much time to think this week. Hardly anyone here speaks English, and the opium’s cheap. You spend a lot of the day in your own skull.