I Am the River Page 9

“My favor is simple,” he continues. “Tiny, in fact. All I’m asking is that during your normal workday, if you happen to run across some interesting information that can’t be traced back to you, that can help me out just a bit, get something on the books, justify my existence in this strange little town, then I’d surely appreciate it, and be obliged to return a favor to you.”

  “You CIA? Military Intelligence? One of those Nixon drug hounds?”

  The man’s face betrays nothing. Just that same, unwavering smile. The rest of his body doesn’t move a muscle.

  “Yeah, okay. I heard through the grapevine that the military is backing certain ex-generals and current warlords in the drug game, positioning rooks and knights based on who’s down with the communists and who still digs Uncle Sam.”

  “This grapevine of yours sounds a tad unreliable.”

  “This grapevine is making all the wine that brings out all the drunks, and you know that. That’s why you sat down, and that’s why you’re in this ‘strange little town.’”

  The man studies me as my new drink arrives. He doesn’t pay for it this time. I reach into my pocket and toss whatever I can find in it on the table. The man notices it’s the last bit of cash I have. Shouldn’t have reached into my pocket.

  “Do you like living here, Mr. Broussard?”

  “I don’t like living anywhere.”

  “Then why don’t you just…stop?”

  I look up into the corners of the room, out of habit. Survival. “It’s complicated.”

  “Yes, it usually is,” he says.

  “You seem to like living here just fine,” I say.

  “No, I really don’t. I know guys that would, which is why they sent me here. Knew I’d stay focused on the task at hand.” He looks around the room, out into the teeming street, still buzzing with neon and small groups of holiday carousers this late into the morning, hoping to push back the dawn. “I’d much rather be in my garden with my wife, drinking coffee and giving the world the finger through the vines growing up the high privacy walls.”

  “Could have fooled me.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s my job, isn’t it?”

  “I guess.”

  “You guessed right.” He gets to his feet, the puppet finding his legs. He slides his hands into his pockets. “Think about that favor, and come find me if you want to position me as a man beholden. Me being obliged to someone usually works out pretty well for them.” He tosses down some bills. “In case you’re thirsty.”

  “I ain’t.”

  “Everyone’s thirsty.”

  He walks away from the table, out the front door, and out into the street, disappearing immediately into the formless movements of a nighttime crowd.

  I look at the cash on the table, then think about the cave, what happened right before I left.

  The drink is down my throat and the glass climbs into the air.

  17. Punji Sticks

  That was too much money.

  I drank too goddamn much.

  That was too much money.

  Can’t feel my feet.

  Street is sideways tonight.

  Them dudes up ahead. They don’t look right.

  Not them dudes. Those dudes. Keep your head, motherfucker.

  Those dudes.

  These dudes.

  Now they’re behind. They look even worse now.

  Must think I have money.

  Ain’t that a bitch?

  I can’t feel it, but I can hear it, like I’m remembering it.

  If I pass out, I hope I die.

  If I go into a coma, Black Shuck will have its way with me.

  If I die, it’ll do worse. It’ll take me in with it.

  If I pass out, it’ll have me.

  If I die, before I wake.

  I pray the Lord.

  My eyes to take.

  Gunshots.

  No, not gunshots.

  Sticks shooting through skin.

  Pop. Pop. Pop.

  Punctured meat.

  Blood on me.

  Can’t feel the bullets.

  No, not bullets.

  Sticks.

  Punji sticks.

  Can’t feel the fists.

  They think I have money.

  Ain’t that a bitch?

  More gunshots.

  No, not bullets.

  Sticks.

  Punji sticks.

  More blood.

  More and more and more blood.

  The blood is a River.

  Taking me back to the jungle.

  I’m getting close.

  To the cave of bones.

  Where I can find rest.

  Can’t feel a thing.

  18. Night Vision

  Broussard watched Chapel, like he often had since the first moment he’d met him. There was something about the set of the man’s jaw, and the calm, almost bemused gleam of those boyish eyes positioned just right amongst the wrinkles that was comforting to Broussard, and he assumed, the rest of the men, if they took time to notice it or not. Certain people were made to be leaders, or took to it naturally when command was foisted upon them by circumstance. Broussard’s grandmother was like that, serving as the anchor of the neighborhood, an organizer, a presence. “Mama Broussard,” they’d call her, even those kids who had their own mamas. Even mamas themselves. Chapel was one of these people. A soothing presence. A rock in the middle of a rushing stream, cutting through the scattering force and remaining steadfast and hard, always there to hold your arm as you stepped across the water.

  Chapel’s eyes squinted into the night that leaked into their open door, combing through the impossibly black nothingness with such intensity that Broussard was convinced the man could pull whatever he was looking for, no matter how far away, how hidden, out of the nothingness and into the low light, allowing him to see it for what it was. To find what he was looking for against all odds of probability and physics. Broussard watched Chapel watch the outside. He wanted to see what this man saw, or at least witness the moment when he finally accomplished his goal. And Broussard knew that he would, as men like that didn’t do things for no reason, just for show. He was hunting, Chapel was, cutting the night with those keen gray eyes that sliced through the nonsense to find the bloody heart of the matter. The drone of the machinery inside the shell of metal above their heads wrapped them all in a familiar bubble that was difficult to push through, and none wanted to except for Chapel, who trained his eyes outside, hunting.

  “Here,” Chapel said, barely audible inside the pocket of sound. But Broussard heard it, without seeing his lips move. “Here!” Chapel shouted, and pointed out into the black.

  All eyes followed the gesture. Broussard leaned toward the open door, to get a better view. He saw nothing, only black.

  “We’ve found the last front line, gentlemen,” Chapel yelled out above the drone. “The war ends right here!”

  19. Angels with Dirty Faces

  I wake up, and for the first time that I can remember, nothing is sitting on my chest but a stabbing pain, and it feels like freedom.

  No hound. No witch. My bed isn’t on fire, or sinking into the swamp. No bag on my head, no barrel in my mouth. No River, below me or inside. All I can feel is pain, and all I can see is the girl’s face. The girl from outside the cave, who came calling for the Night Man.

  “You live?”

  I move my mouth, but no sound comes out. The girl gives me a drink of water from a cracked ceramic bowl. The bowl is light blue. The coolness of the water brings my voice back.

  “Where is it?” I say. My lips are cut, swollen.

  The girl seems confused at first, but then nods slightly. “She no.” She thinks about what she said, then tries again, motioning to the floor. “She no…let here.” The girl points at the old woman, who is seated in the corner. Her eyes are closed and she is mumbling something. Whatever she’s saying, I know that it kept Black Shuck away. For now.

  I try to sit up, but I can’t. Everything hur
ts. Very little moves.

  “No,” the girl says.

  “What happened?” I ask.

  She makes a fist and buries it into her other hand, then forms her finger into a pistol. “Bung, bung,” she says, jerking back her hand like the kick of a gun. She touches the bulging knot over my left eye, the gash on my cheek, then the bandage around my left shoulder and chest muscle. I realize that’s where the pain is coming from.

  I peel back the bandage. A foul-smelling poultice has been packed into a long, hot gash. Just a flesh wound. The bullet grazed me, never went inside. Maybe the only bit of luck I’ve ever had.

  Exhaling and clearing the white stars clouding my vision, I look around the tiny, rectangular room. Partially caved-in ceiling ringed with mold stains shaped like howling mouths. Brass chimes hang in the corners, tinkling to each other. Cracked plaster walls, covered over by prayer sheets written in large Chinese symbols. The framed picture of a young man in a North Vietnamese officer’s uniform, looking off to the right, eyes full of edge and determination. The cement floor is clean but stained with the eternal damp of every ground level in the Floating City. An opium pipe rests on a wooden block next to me, the bowl blackened from recent use. Must have been part of the medical treatment. They probably burnt through a pound to put me down, not counting on my level of dedicated tolerance.

  I rub my eyes. The details of the attack come back to me in sketchy, yellowed glimpses, like strobes flashing from a dirty light bulb.

  “Thank you for helping me… Saving me.”

  She nods once, then squeezes my hand. Her grip is tight, incredibly strong.

  “I hep, Night Man. You hep…we.”

  I groan. “I can’t.”

  “Can, can!”

  “No, I can’t. I’m not the Night Man. I’m nobody like that.”

  “No, you all. You all. You Night Man. You hep.”

  “How? How can I help you? I can’t even help myself. Look at me.”

  She puts her face very close to mine, almost touching her cheek to the tears now running down my bristly cheeks.

  “You hep you, you hep us.”

  “What?”

  “You hep you, you hep us.”

  I don’t understand. My face tells her as much.

  She points at my chest, then touches the side of my head, flutters her fingers over each of my eyes, then points to the middle of my forehead.

  “You hep you, you hep us. Vâng?”

  Yes. I know what she is saying. Somehow, I know. I nod to let her know that I do.

  She nods back, exhales, then smiles. It’s a beautiful thing to see.

  In the corner, her grandmother starts to sing.

  20. The Plain of Jars

  Before the skids touched the ground, each helicopter cut its engines, bringing their full weight of metal, men, and equipment down hard on the dried grass. In the dark, the men spilled out of their Huey and followed Chapel to the Chinook, the double set of heavy blades whooping over their heads.

  They were on open tableland, dotted with boulders and trees, lit a dusky blue. Exposed country, dangerous. Broussard set down his pack, stretched his spine and gazed up at the sky. The moon was full, or nearly so, looking like a wide-open marble eye. Away from its cold white stare, a ghostly blanket of stars that made up the rest of the galaxy puffed and swirled in a dance far too massive, slow, and important for anyone to detect, captured as a snapshot a billion years old. Broussard had been looking up at the night sky for as long as he could remember, but never that he remembered had the universe seemed so close to the earth as it was out on this Laotian plain. All it would take was a determined jump from either side to cross over to the other.

  “Where are we now?” McNulty said, tossing down his gear.

  “We could be home.”

  “Stop being fucking weird, Broussard. Can you do me that favor?”

  The bay door to the Chinook dropped open, exposing a huge, carefully arranged stack of crates and unlabeled boxes, lashed tight with nylon cording.

  “Who’s gonna hump all this shit?” McNulty said.

  “Chapel says help’s coming,” Render said.

  “Guardian angels with a fucking moving van?”

  Broussard climbed the ramp, unhooked the stabilizing cords and started unloading, handing off the first box to Chapel, who grinned.

  “Can you feel it, Broussard?”

  “Feel what, sir?”

  “The end.”

  Nearly an hour later, the men leaned against the stacks they’d assembled on the grass, tired and sweating, as the three helicopters fired up and darted into the brightening sky at a tight angle, staying low as they gained speed and headed back toward the southeast, in the direction of Vietnam, the sound of their blades slapping at the exposed granite mountain peaks and sandstone bluffs that surrounded this elevated upland.

  McNulty looked around as the emerging sun brought slow illumination to the landscape. “Where are we, sir?”

  “Don’t matter where we are, numbnuts,” Darby said, loading his rifle.

  “It might not to you, trailer rat, but it does to me.”

  “Just do your goddamn job,” Darby said, lighting a cigarette.

  “This is the Xieng Khouang Plateau,” Chapel said from the edge of the hill overlooking the lower hill country. “West of Phonsavan.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought,” McNulty said dryly.

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want answers to, McNulty,” Morganfield said as he passed by to join Chapel at the edge of the hill overlooking the valley, murmuring softly into the radio.

  “The mute finally speaks, and it’s to bust my balls. How do you like that?”

  “I like it just fine,” Render said.

  “This don’t look like no jungle,” Darby said, slinging his M-14 over his shoulder. “Better sight lines.” He smiled at Broussard. “I like it.” Darby walked away from the group, whistling.

  “Man, don’t jinx this shit,” Render said. “I’ll walk my black ass all over God’s green, long as there ain’t no jungle involved.”

  “You’d think you’d be used to it by now,” McNulty said, sprouting a grin when Render looked at him.

  “Chuck, I’m not gonna take that shit the way I think you meant it. For your sake, you dig?”

  “I will,” Broussard said, surprising McNulty, and everyone else in the group.

  “Chicago’s an idiot,” Medrano said. “Don’t listen to a word he says.”

  “The name’s McNulty, Medrrrano,” McNulty said, trying to roll the r without success.

  “Haven’t yet,” Render said. “Won’t start now.”

  The thud of bombs in the distance silenced everyone, bringing them back to the reality of the wider world.

  McNulty peered up into the sky. “I didn’t hear no jets.”

  “B-52s,” Broussard said. “High altitude.”

  “What’re Big Uglies doing in Laos?”

  “The same thing we’re doing here,” Render said, his face grim. “Nothing, right? Not a goddamn thing.”

  Chapel and Morganfield rejoined the group, putting away maps and holstering their radios.

  “You think anyone saw us land, sir?” McNulty said.

  “No, I do not,” Chapel said.

  “We’re pretty exposed out here, though,” Broussard said.

  “Yes, we are.”

  “Permission to speak openly, sir?” McNulty said.

  “Do you ever speak any other way?”

  McNulty paused. “Permission to speak, sir.”

  “You don’t need to ask me for permission. This isn’t grade school.”

  “I think we’re open to attack here, sir. Mortar fire, at the very least.”

  Medrano snorted. “General McNulty.”

  “No one’s firing on us here,” Chapel said, making a count of the stacked crates.

  “No enemy in the area?” Broussard said.

  “Not at present, no. I called ahead to make sure the a
rea was cleared first. But even if there are a few stray Victor Charlie who wander close, they won’t attack us here.”

  “Why would you say that?” McNulty said.

  “Because it’s the truth,” Morganfield said. No one liked McNulty, even the guy who was barely there.

  “Yeah, but why’s it the truth?”

  “Darby is about to tell you,” Chapel said, clamping the pipe between his back teeth.

  “Y’all need to check this out,” Darby called from the edge of the plateau, where we was glassing the hill country below with a pair of binoculars.

  The rest of the men jogged over to Darby and looked out onto the topography below.

  Grassland stretched out for miles, dotted with trees, boulders, and smaller grayish objects all nearly the same size, grouped together in clusters that stretched across the entire expanse.

  “Check out them rocks,” Darby said, handing the binoculars to Broussard, who put them to his eyes. “They don’t seem to be random.”

  The smaller gray objects were oblong, hollowed out like urns, a yard or two high, worn rough by weather and mottled by lichens. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, as it was difficult to tell them apart from the large stones scattered between them.

  “Gravestones?” Broussard said, more to himself.

  “Something like that,” Chapel said.

  “What kind of place is this?” Medrano said, performing the sign of the cross across his chest.

  “The Plain of Jars,” Chapel said.

  The men stared down at the ancient stone structures scattered out for a mile in front of them. Patterns emerged briefly, but were easily scattered. Whatever had survived the grind of history only offered hints now, not secrets revealed.

  “We walking through that?” McNulty said.

  “Right through,” Chapel said.

  “Can’t we walk around it?”

  “No, we cannot.”

  “Don’t seem right.”

  “You superstitious, McNulty?” Darby said.

  “I never used to be,” McNulty said. “These days, though? Man… If ghost are real, they live out here.”