“Hey, it’s fucking Tom Light,” Raymond said.
Reynolds played his M-16 behind his back.
“Let me borrow that starlight scope,” Raymond said, reaching out to touch the scope.
Light swung the barrel of the rifle on Raymond’s belly and said, “Get the fuck away from me.”
“Go ahead, might as well shoot him now,” Leander said. “He’s as good as dead. We’ re all gonna get fucking wasted ’cause of you.”
Reynolds & Raymond faded back into the crowd.
“Frag him,” someone yelled.
“Those that have tried are dead,” Light said in a calm voice.
No one in the crowd moved. Jackson realized they were trying to make up their minds which one of them would risk opposing that rifle.
Where was Hale? he thought.
Then Jackson saw Hale running across the compound carrying the radio.
“Goddamn, I told you there’d be trouble,” Hale said to Light.
Light said, “I didn’t start it.”
“Put that fucking rifle down,” Hale ordered.
“I got on a chopper for Vung Tau,” Light said. “Didn’t ask to come here.”
“Ship his fucking ass out,” Leander said.
“I’m in fucking command here,” Hale shouted.
He looked at Leander and said, “Get rid of that gook helmet.”
Jackson had heard Hale tell Leander that on a dozen occasions.
“Already got one hole in it. Bullets are like lightning. Don’t strike twice in the same place,” Leander said.
“Next time I see you there better be a steel pot on your head,” Hale said.
Reynolds sang, “Footprints dressed in red/And the wind whispers Mary.”
Everyone laughed.
“Shut that man up, Sergeant,” Hale said to Leander.
“He don’t belong to me,” Leander said, not paying any attention to Hale’s order.
Jackson noticed Reynolds looking at the starlight like it was made out of gold. Light glanced at him, and Reynolds backed off into the crowd again.
“Men, I made a bargain with Light,” Hale said, talking fast. “He’s leaving in the morning. Won’t set foot on the firebase again. You have my word. Goddamn, Leander, see me in the TOC. That man Reynolds must be drunk. He’ll be brought up on charges.”
Again the men laughed.
“We are going to get the shit tonight because of him,” Leander said, pointing at Light.
Light still had not lowered the rifle.
“Soldier, put that goddamn rifle down,” Hale said. “You have my word nothing will happen to you.”
“Don’t need your word,” Light said.
“Troops are gonna get wasted,” Leander said.
“Shut the fuck up!” Hale yelled. “You open your mouth again and you’re busted.”
Leander continued to mutter to himself but not loud enough for Hale to make out the words.
“Move, all of you!” Hale yelled. “Bunched up like fucking sheep. One mortar round’d get you all.”
“But it won’t get Tom Light,” Leander said to the men. “You’ll be dead. He be back in the world doing any fucking thing he wants.”
The men began to grumble among themselves. Light held up his hand for silence. They grew quiet.
Light said, “Starting right now, anybody comes fucking around this bunker is gonna die. Now get the fuck out of my sight. Bunch of goddamn base camp soldiers.”
The crowd hesitated and then as if on a signal broke up, every man suddenly in a hurry to go somewhere else on the firebase. Only Leander and Reynolds & Raymond stayed.
“I’ll get you, motherfucker,” Leander said.
Light held the rifle and waited.
“Let me look through the starlight?” Raymond asked.
Reynolds played his M-16 with his teeth.
“Get out of here!” Hale yelled.
Then Leander left along with Reynolds & Raymond. Light lowered the rifle.
“Why can’t you go now?” Hale asked.
“Because I’ve been out in the bush for two months,” Light said. “I guess this is all the R&R I’m gonna get.”
Hale said, “Jackson, you make sure he leaves. I’m holding you responsible.”
Then Hale walked off toward the TOC.
Jackson started to gasp for breath and felt Light’s hand on his shoulder.
“Calm down, young trooper. Nothing’s gonna happen to you,” Light said.
Jackson choked and gasped but gradually regained control. He thought of Leander’s prediction, pictured how the mortar shrapnel would tear his body apart, and after it was over, Tom Light would still walk the bush alone.
CHAPTER
3
From the top step of the bunker, Jackson watched the sun starting to sink behind the mountains, the light falling on the wire, the bunkers, the mortar tubes, and reflecting off the windshields of the ships on the pad. The whole firebase was bathed in a soft, golden glow utterly unlike the glare thrown down on the camp all day.
As the sun disappeared, the sky all red over Laos, Jackson heard an animal give a rasping call from the trees beyond the wire. Jackson took a deep breath. He feared the jungle, a wet, green, stinking place which could swallow up whole battalions of American infantry. But most of all he feared the enemy, who soon would begin probing the firebase’s outer defenses, and the incoming which was sure to fall. Jackson heard Light coming up the steps.
“Young trooper, you ready to write?” Light said.
“In the bunker?” Jackson asked.
“That bunker’s darker than the bottom of Moon Lake at midnight,” Light said. “Won’t be dark up here for awhile.”
Jackson, breathing hard, looked out toward the mountains, the sky above them still faintly streaked with red. Light laughed.
“You won’t die tonight. Now write like you promised,” Light said.
Jackson took out the pen and paper and sitting on one of the steps below ground level waited for Light, who had taken a seat on the top step, to begin.
“Dear Daddy and Mama, I am fine and am glad Mama’s heart is better,” Light said. “There ain’t much to do here in base camp. We all just sit around. Same old easy life. I hope Daddy finds out who stole his new hoop net. It will be spring soon, and the fishing will pick up, and he will have a good year. I have reenlisted. They gave me a $2,000 bonus. I had the army put it in the Greenville bank. You can draw it out anytime. This will be my last year here. I will come home. I will write again soon. Your son.”
Light spoke the words without hesitation as if he had been thinking about the letter for a long time and had memorized what he wanted to say. The sniper was careful to pause at the end of each sentence to give Jackson time to write.
When Light signed the letter with a big scrawl, Jackson was reminded of the way he had written in elementary school. Jackson wrote a Mississippi address, a place called String Town, on the envelope.
“It’s over on the Mississippi River,” Light explained. “Daddy’s a commercial fisherman.”
Someone shot up a parachute flare over the perimeter, and they watched it drift out over the gorge, dropping white sparks, and slowly burn out, leaving the camp in darkness again.
“I can keep you alive,” Light said.
Jackson felt like a wounded man watching a medevac approaching an LZ.
“Sooner or later that lifer Hale is gonna carry you out in the bush,” Light continued. “I’ll be watching. I’ll take care of you. Write my letters. Daddy’ll write his to you. That’s all you have to do.”