Then the second wave of Huastecas ran over us.
I don’t know how much later it was when we were back on our bluff. Dust still hung over the flood plain. It was hot. I was so dry my tongue hurt. I could taste blood. I didn’t know whether it was mine or someone else’s.
Another rain of arrows came out of the dust. ‘Heads up!’ yelled Moe. They sailed into our position, pinning a few guys to the ground.
‘Sun damn them all to hell!’ said Sun Man. He had been wounded in the side and the arm during the battle. Two of our people were holding him up.
Took was watching across the plain. The dust was beginning to settle. We could see weapons, clothing, drums littering the ground. There were no bodies. We had taken our wounded and dead, and they had taken theirs. They had also taken about fifty prisoners.
We hadn’t taken any.
I was getting my breath back. I was covered with grit and dust mixed with sweat, blood, and grease. There were cuts and bruises all over me. There was a wet pain low down on my back. My javelin was a third of a meter shorter than it used to be. My club was gone. My knife was in my hand, dark red.
There were two human heads at my feet.
I didn’t remember where they had come from. I didn’t remember anything but the endless fighting and the thirst worse than any I had ever had.
The Buzzard Cult people were starting one of their chants.
‘Apocalypse stuff,’ said Took.
‘What happened?’ I asked.
‘The Huastecas have quit playing by the rules.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know, Yaz. Things are changing. Maybe the Buzzard Cult people are right.’
‘You better believe we are,’ said Hamboon Bokulla, the Dreaming Killer, as his people finished their song. ‘And you better get with it, or be left behind,’ he said to Took.
Tired, bruised, beaten, we picked up our heads all along the line and started home.
Over on the other bluff, the Huastecas were already gone.
Next day, three kilometers or so away from the village, I realized what I had done.
We were passing a small creek. Our wounded were leaning on other warriors. Almost everybody was gimped up in some way. I walked to the creek and stood on its bank.
One after the other, I threw the heads as far as I could downstream. The last one’s eyes stayed on me in its flight toward the water as if it were a ballerina and I were its turning point. Guilty, guilty, the air whistling past the head said. It hit with a splash a few meters behind the first and sank immediately.
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Took, standing behind me.
‘Why not?’ I asked.
‘They were pretty good heads,’ he said, and rejoined the struggling file of the Woodpecker people.
THE BOX VIII
DA FORM 11521Z 11 Nov 2002
Comp: 147TOE: 148
Pres for duty
142
Killed in action
3
Killed in line of duty
1
Missing in line of duty
for: S. Spaulding
1
Col, Inf.
Total 147Commanding
by: Barnes, Bonnie
Cpt, ADC
Adjutant
DA FORM 11402 Z 2 Dec 2002
Comp: 147TOE: 148
Present for duty
131
KIA
7
KLD
2
MIA
6
MLD
For: S. Spaulding
1
Col, Inf.
Total 147Commanding
by: Barnes, Bonnie
Cpt, ADC
Adjutant
DA FORM 11702 Z 24 Dec 2002
Comp: 147TOE: 148
Pres for duty
111
KIA
13
KLD
2
MIA
11
MLD
For: S. Spaulding
1
Wounded, hosp.Col, Inf.
9Commanding
Total 147by: Barnes, Bonnie
Cpt, ADC,
Adjutant
Smith’s Diary
Today we sent out an eleven-man patrol to try to reach the location of Baton Rouge and go far south from there, the only direction we haven’t tried.
I don’t know what they’re supposed to find. Help. Frenchmen. Some of de Soto’s conquistadors. Ponce de Leon? Maybe they can convince some other Indians to help us, or get a treaty with the ones we are warring with.
They continue to snipe at us. Two more wounded today, in spite of the bunkers. I never knew arrows could carry so far – they send them up out of the woods; you can’t see where they come from. By the time you see the arrow, it’s on the way down. You duck for cover, trampling over everybody else. One of the wounded today was already down flat, behind the bunker wall, against the sandbags, and the arrow came down straight and stuck him to the ground like a pin through a beetle. Fortunately, it only got him through the meaty part of the thigh.
Private Dorothy Jones wasn’t so lucky – she got one straight in the ribs, this one fired from the nearest clump of brush about a hundred meters away.
We returned fire in both cases. In the first, we laced the area where the arrow came from with small arms and LMG fire. We won’t know what happened there till we send out the usual patrol.
We do know what happened with the second. As soon as Jones was hit, two of the bunkers cranked up. They fired about 200 rounds each into the bushes the arrow was shot from, tearing them flat, destroying small trees and the ground.
When they stopped, an Indian stood up, dropped his breechcloth and mooned us, then jumped back flat to the ground.
Major Putnam ordered the heavy machine guns to cease fire after another minute. The target area was unrecognizable. There was nothing more than a few centimeters high in the beaten zone. It was like a photograph retouched by a clumsy person, like a picture of the woods with a blank swath taken out.
The Indian jumped up out of the middle of it and ran into the woods.
Putnam wouldn’t let anybody fire.
Spaulding, who fought on Cyprus, says there could be two Indians a day sniping at us, or a hundred, and we’ll never know.
The eleven-man patrol left at dawn after we laid down some grenades in the direction they’d travel. It must have been okay: we didn’t hear any shooting.
They reported in okay three hours later over the radio. They were twenty klicks south and had seen nobody. They would report every two hours. Not that we could help if they needed it. They had all volunteered.
Meanwhile, we’re all digging in further. Arrows go through tents. We can’t cut wood. So we’re digging in, like moles, making ourselves at home.