Susan said, “I’m sorry I can’t help you with that letter. But I can help you find the guy who wrote it, and if he doesn’t speak English I can give you an accurate translation of what he says to you, and you to him.” She added, “I’m pretty good at winning the confidence of the Vietnamese.”
“Not to mention horny American males.”
“That’s easy.” She added, “Trust me, or don’t trust me. You’re not going to find anyone better than me to help you.”
I didn’t reply.
We reached the outskirts of A Luoi, where an old woman was throwing rice to a flock of chickens in a bamboo enclosure behind her house. She looked at us in surprise, and our eyes met, and we both knew why I was here. This valley certainly wasn’t an attraction for the average tourist.
We walked through a cluster of houses and back into the square. The RAV sat where we’d left it, and Mr. Loc was sitting under a thatched canopy in what looked like a primitive café or canteen filled with locals. He was drinking something by himself and smoking. Most Viets, I’d noticed, never sat alone and would strike up a conversation with anyone. But Mr. Loc gave off bad vibes, which the Viets in the canteen recognized, and they kept their distance from him.
Susan asked me, “Do you want to get something to eat or drink?”
“No. Let’s head out.”
She went to the canteen and spoke to Mr. Loc, then came back to where I was standing near the vehicle. “He’ll be ready in a few minutes.”
“Who’s paying for this trip — him or me?”
“I don’t think he likes you.”
“He’s a fucking cop. I can smell them a mile away.”
“Then maybe he has the same thought about you.” Susan asked me, “Do you want a picture here?”
“No.”
“You’ll never be back this way again.”
“I hope not.”
“Do you have pictures of when you were here last time?”
“I never once took my camera out of my backpack.” I added, “I don’t think anyone took a picture here, and if they did, the odds were that their family developed them when the deceased’s personal effects were sent home.”
She dropped the subject.
Mr. Loc finished whatever he was drinking and approached the vehicle.
I took the map off the seat and opened it. I said to Susan, “This dotted line to Khe Sanh says something about the Ho Chi Minh Trail, right?”
She looked at the map and read, “‘He Thong Duong Mon Ho Chi Minh.’ Means sort of network of the trail, or part of the trail network of Ho Chi Minh.”
“Right. It wasn’t actually a single trail — it was an entire network of jungle trails, shallow streambeds, underwater bridges, log roads through swamps, and who knows what else. Most of it, as you can see, goes through Laos and Cambodia, where we weren’t supposed to operate. This trail to Khe Sanh skirts the Laotian border, and I hope this clown doesn’t get lost, and we wind up in Laos without a visa.”
Mr. Loc was standing nearby, and I motioned him toward me. He moved slowly and stood too close. I wanted to deck him, tie his thumbs together, and drive myself. But that might cause a problem. I pointed at the map and said to him, “Ho Chi Minh Trail. Biet? Khe Sanh.”
He nodded and got in the driver’s seat. Susan and I got in the rear, and off we went.
There were a number of narrow farm paths in the valley, which we drove on, and at some point, we headed north on a dirt road through the foothills. The trees came up to the road, and the branches blocked out most of the sunlight. This was, indeed, the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
The terrain got rougher and more mountainous, and now and then part of the road was paved with rotting logs, what we used to call corduroy roads. There were spectacular waterfalls and cascades in the distance, and shallow brooks ran right across the road. Susan took photos as we bounced along. Mr. Loc seemed to enjoy running through the mud as fast as possible to maximize the splashes, and Susan and I got splattered a few times. In the rearview mirror, I could see Mr. Loc smiling.
We were barely making thirty kilometers per hour, and the RAV was bouncing badly. Now and then, the road wound around what looked like small ponds, but which were actually gigantic bomb craters made by thousand-pound blockbusters dropped by B-52 bombers from thirty thousand feet. I pointed this out to Susan and said, “We spent a fortune blowing the hell out of these dirt trails. We may have killed between fifty and a hundred thousand North Vietnamese soldiers, men and women, along these infiltration routes. But they kept coming, filling in the holes or changing the route now and then, like a line of army ants that you’re trying to stomp on before they reach your house.” I added, “I didn’t appreciate this until I saw those Russian-made tanks in that base camp. I mean, those vehicles were made near Moscow, wound up somehow in North Vietnam, and traveled thousands of kilometers over roads like this, under constant attacks, carrying their own fuel and spare parts, and one day, one of them makes it all the way to the gates of the presidential palace in Saigon. I give those bastards credit. They never understood that we were beating the hell out of them and that they couldn’t possibly win.” I slapped Mr. Loc on the shoulder and said, “Hey, you little guys are tough. Next war against the Chinese, I want you on my side.”
Our eyes met in the rearview mirror, and I could swear that Mr. Loc nodded.
The rain forest thinned out, and we could see that the hills and mountains were dotted with longhouses on stilts, and we saw the smoke of cooking fires curling into the misty air.
Susan said, “This is absolutely beautiful. It’s so pristine. Can we stop and meet some tribespeople?”
“They don’t like unannounced visitors.”
“Are you making that up?”
“No. You have to call ahead. They only receive visitors between four and six.”
“You’re making that up.”
“You make stuff up,” I said.
“No, I don’t. Let’s stop.”
“Later. There are lots of tribespeople around Khe Sanh.”
“Are you sure?”
“Ask James Bong.”
She smiled. “Is that what you call him?”
“Yeah. James Bong, secret agent. Ask him.”
She asked him, he replied, and she said to me, “He says there are Bru tribesmen around Khe Sanh.” She added, “He wants to know what business we have with the Moi — Moi means savages.”
“Well, first of all, it’s none of his business, and second, we don’t like racial epithets, unless it’s gook, slant, or zipper head.”
“Paul. That’s awful.”
“I know. I’m regressing. I apologize. Tell him to go fuck himself.”
Mr. Loc, I think, understood this. I said to Susan and to Mr. Loc, “If we were trying to make contact with insurgent tribesmen, would we have a secret policeman driving us?”
No one answered.
Susan took a few more photos and carried on a chat with Mr. Loc. After a while, she said to me, “Mr. Loc says there are about eight million tribesmen in Vietnam, and over fifty distinct tribes with different languages and dialects. He says the government is trying to bring education and agriculture to the tribespeople, but they resist civilization.”
“Maybe it’s the government they’re resisting.”
Susan said, “Maybe they should be left alone.”
“Correct. Look, I happen to like the Montagnards I’ve met, and I’m happy to see that they still carry rifles. My fantasy is to come back, like Colonel Gordon, Marlon Brando, or Mr. Kurtz, and go native. I’d organize those eight million people into a hell of a fighting force, and we’d own these mountains. We’d hunt and fish all day, and perform weird and spooky ceremonies at night, gathered around blazing fires with the heads of our enemies impaled on poles. Maybe I’d organize tour groups of Americans. Paul Brenner’s Montagnard World. Ten bucks for a day trip, fifty for overnight. I saw Montagnards once stake out a bull and skin it alive, then cut its throat and drink its blood. That would be the climax of the evening. What do you think?”