13th Valley (35 page)

For several years the Brooks family shifted between the poor black Fillmore district of San Francisco and the ghetto of east Oakland. George Brooks spent what little money he had attempting to rectify his employment difficulties and when the money was gone he gave up. He pumped gas. His wife became a domestic for a wealthy white family who lived in a large house in the Oakland hills. Rufus' mother would stand at the windows of the Victorian mansion and gaze out to the Bay and the Bay Bridge and across to the San Francisco skyline and south toward where her wonderful yellow stucco home had been.

On Rufus' twelfth birthday his family moved into a comfortable apartment in San Francisco's Mission District and the next year his father was again working in the electronics industry—now as an assembler. Times improved but they were never the same. George Brooks spent nights in bars and Rufus' mother withdrew and became very quiet and Rufus spent more and more time away from home, much of it roaming the streets by himself.

In high school Rufus excelled. He was accepted by the roughest street gang for his physical attributes; he became a track star and captain of the basketball team; he was liked by teachers and college-bound students. For the first time in his life he was accepted by everyone, yet he accepted no one. Each of the groups with which he associated despised all the other groups. How could he truly accept any one of them, he would ask himself, without rejecting all the others? Rufus was friendly. He listened, but he very seldom talked.

Rufus' post-high school plans were to join the Marine Corps but his father had refused to sign for him, had forced him to consider continuing his education as the only method of insuring a future. He wanted Rufus to become an attorney.

In September 1963 Rufus Brooks entered the University of San Francisco on a partial basketball scholarship. The sport became his ticket through school, his invitation to fraternities, his pass to parties and his introduction to girls, both black and white. Rufus was cool. He could play ball. To help finance his education Rufus joined the Reserve Officers' Training Corps—one month after the North Vietnamese reprisal attack on the American destroyers
C. Turner
Joy and
Maddox
in the Gulf of Tonkin.

In college Rufus maintained his quiet exterior yet he developed a harsh critical eye. People liked him. He was an intellectual and an athlete—the perfect token. He was accepted by everyone on campus though he did not allow himself to accept anyone nor would he allow anyone to know the real Rufus. He always maintained a distance. For a time Rufus dated only white girls, but then, in his junior year, he met Lila, a beautiful mocha-colored singer and painter.

“You act so BAD,” Lila teased him, “but I know you. Inside you just a marshmallow. You don't fool me. You don't gotta be criticizin things for me. I love you the way you are.” It was magic. He saw this woman accepting him as he saw himself, taking him as her man, without qualification, without plans, without motives.

In his senior year they were engaged. The next autumn, during his first semester of graduate school, they were married.

“Sir, does Red Rover wish Quiet Rover to delay until your niner element is back on station? Over,” Brooks said. The reference and implication was this: the GreenMan had been flying in his C & C bird 4000 feet above the action most of the morning. The helicopter had returned to Camp Evans for refueling. In his absence Major Lothar Hellman, exec of the 7/402, sitting in the forward TOC on Firebase Barnett, was in charge. Brooks did not trust the major. He wanted to delay until the GreenMan returned.

Reports from Recon's early morn firelight indicated that the recon platoon had engaged an estimated NVA reinforced squad. Technically they were still pursuing the enemy. The GreenMan had been excited and the Old Fox had been very pleased. “Caught em with their pants down,” the Old Fox had smiled. Now Alpha Company could follow it up, could seize the initiative, attack the reported bunker complex, overrun the enemy. “Goddamnit, Rover Four, you get your ass in gear,” Hellman had screamed. “We got em on the run. Go get em, Boy.”

Go get em, Boy, Brooks muttered to himself. I'll get em, Boy. I might just turn this element around and overrun your position. Brooks handed the krypto radio handset back to Cahalan, grabbed El Paso's handset and ordered the move to re-commence.

The motion of the point was so slow from the column's mid-point and back that most of the soldiers were sitting between steps forward. Everyone was daydreaming. Brooks had a vision of his wife. He could see Lila and the arm of another man about her waist. Fuck it. Brooks chased the image away.

This is crazy, Cherry moaned to himself. If we're goina get into it, let's get into it. Egan glared back at him every time the radio antenna touched a twig. Fuck him, Cherry thought.

Farther back, Jackson was wondering if his child would be a boy or a girl. Girls is so pretty, he told himself, but boys is so much mo fun. William Andrew Jackson, Junior, an announcer said within Jackson's thoughts, the son of the Vietnam War hero, the great-great-great grandson of a slave, today was inaugurated as the first black President of the New United States of America.

Should Ah? Whiteboy asked himself. If Ah do an the L-T finds out, Ah'll be in a big worl a hurt. God A'mighty. If Ah do it ever gook in the AO goan know where Ah'm. Theah might even be a gook rahght theah thinkin Ah'm firin at'm an Ah can't see a godblessamerica thin. Thinkin doan always do a man good. Sometime it's bettah ta just do it. Oh Lit'le Boy, do yo stuff.

And in the still total silence, dispelling every thought from every boonierat head, Whiteboy's machine gun like the first clap of thunder in the quiet before a storm ripped—explosive crackchattering savage spray. Not a burst. Continuous. Whiteboy fired the big gun from his hip, spraying the black holes of jungle, sweeping jerkily up and back. Hill jumped to his side, emptied his own M-16 into the jungle, attached a belt to the flapping tail of Whiteboy's ammunition, reloaded his 16 and fired another clip. Andrews and Frye sprayed uphill, Kirtley and Mullen downhill, Harley fired the grenade launcher over the point. Egan jumped over Mullen, a hand grenade, pin out, spoon depressed, in his fist, arm cocked, throw dive. Egan now prone beside Whiteboy cutting the jungle to pieces with his M-16. Thomaston, Jackson, Silvers and Marko jumped past Cherry. Pop Randalph, not to be left out, up from the 2d Plt, jumped into the middle of the growing enfilading point. Cherry was on hands and knees, crawling forward toward Egan, his radio crackling. “What's happenin?” El Paso demanded. He did not know if there were fifty NVA out there or one. “Rover Two …” Cherry couldn't hear. “Rover Two …” the radio squealed. Suddenly it was the only sound to be heard. Everything else ceased.

“Lobo Niner, this is Quiet Rover Four Niner,” Brooks addressed the Old Fox. The company commander now went through a complicated explanation of the action, an action he did not fully understand himself. He completed his transmission with a request to withdraw to Alpha's position of earlier that afternoon and to set up for the night. He requested artillery and air strikes devastate the peak to his west. All requests were granted. The boonierats loved it. Brooks was dubious.

Cherry was bewildered again—excited, exhilarated, scared and bewildered. The front of the column had backed up 100 meters, the rear had descended a short distance and the sides of the unit had bulged, but only barely, off the trail. Word had come down to dig in and to prepare an NDP, a night defensive position. Air strikes and artillery were ordered. Co-ordinates were checked and re-checked.

Cherry's exhilaration came partly from the excitement of the day and partly because he was no longer totally petrified. So this is it, he thought. This is war. This is combat. This is what I've come so far to see and be a part of. It was a nice feeling, a satisfying accomplishment, and experience. It was scary. Well, maybe not so scary right now with all these old-timers around, he thought. Here I am, me and my young cherry ass, and here are all these cool-headed dudes. Veterans. I'm going to be okay. What little rice-propelled bastard with a little rifle is going to challenge that giant Whiteboy with his 60? And who could ever make a mistake with Egan around? Indeed, Cherry was completely surrounded by veteran boonierats. It seemed to him they were all there to protect him. The more he thought about it the more secure he felt and the more he liked them. It welled up in him as a warm happy feeling. He would do anything he could for any troop in Alpha Company, he decided. He was young, vigorous. He breathed deeply and felt the strong muscles of his chest and arms tighten. And he was in combat. It was wonderful, it would be wonderful. It was all that simple.

Cherry walked back to the 1st Sqd where Jackson and Lt. Thomaston were making coffee. “We're stayin here tonight,” Cherry announced with a smile. “L-T says to dig in.”

“Right on, Bro me,” Jax said. “Want some coffee?”

“No thanks,” Cherry said. Neither of the men said anything. Cherry looked around then returned down the trail and moved through the point ring to where Whiteboy was sitting.

“Ah got two months lef,” Whiteboy muttered as Cherry sat. “Ah was hopin Ah could stay outa this shit.” He did not take his eyes off the trail below him.

“Yeah,” Cherry agreed toning down his enthusiasm.

Leon Silvers came down and joined them. He had a canteen cup with hot mocha in it. “How's it goin?” he asked handing Whiteboy the cup. Whiteboy shrugged. Silvers sat with them in silence for several minutes then rose and said, “Man, ya oughta move up and dig in.”

Whiteboy looked up, nodded but just sat there. Silvers gave him a sidearm power salute, turned and climbed back up the trail and out of sight.

Cherry sat next to Whiteboy for several long minutes. He was vaguely hoping Whiteboy's stature and speed would ooze from the big soldier and into himself. They sat there with their weapons pointing down the trail. Cherry did not say anything and tried not to be too obvious yet he wanted to look at the gun Whiteboy called Lit'le Boy. He wanted to feel it, to fire it.

“Man,” Whiteboy said quietly after some time, “am Ah glad they mortared us.” Cherry wrinkled his forehead but said nothing. “Man,” Whiteboy said, “if they'da ambushed us, Ah wouldn't even be heah.” He shook his head slowly keeping his eyes on the trail and the jungle downhill.

They sat in silence. The shadow from the peak with the bunker complex was crawling up the ridge descending from 848. Clouds, at first faint and thin, were forming high above the valley. The heat of the day dissipated. The fog choking the river below them was rising.

“Where you from?” Cherry whispered. “I mean, back in the World.”

“Nebraska,” Whiteboy whispered back.

“Where bouts?” Cherry asked.

“A lit'le town outside a Bridgeport,” Whiteboy said.

“Really?” Cherry marvelled, sounding in a very quiet voice as if he had just found a long lost brother.

“Yeah,” Whiteboy turned and looked at him for the first time. “You know it?”

“No, ah …” Cherry stumbled. “I'm ah, I'm from Bridgeport, Connecticut.”

“Um,” Whiteboy moaned and turned back to the trail.

They sat in silence again. Four helicopters appeared over the hilltop where Recon had been dropped during the morning CAs. Two of the birds were Cobras which seemed to be attempting a complicated dual figure-eight movement. Off to one side a LOH, light observation helicopter (pronounced loach), hummed, hovered, darted short distances left then right, looking and behaving like a large bumblebee. Below the Cobras a Huey slick with white doors and red crosses hovered, descended, landed. Cherry was watching the helicopters through a hole in the vegetation. “More birds comin in,” he whispered. Whiteboy looked over. “I wonder what's happenin,” Cherry continued.

“Medevac,” Whiteboy whispered.

Again they sat in silence. Finally Cherry rose, tapped the big soldier on the shoulder, nodded and walked back toward the center of the point defensive ring.

“We're gettin down there,” Egan said to Cherry. It was dusk now. Egan was waist deep in the earth. Red-orange clay clung to his fatigues. He bent over and swung the entrenching tool, half extended like a mattock, from above his shoulder hard down into the bottom of the foxhole. He swung it hard again, keeping his hands in tight to his body. Small wedges of clay broke from the bottom. He scraped the bottom and scooped up the chips and threw them onto the ground beside the hole.

They were surrounded by the sound of ETs and machetes hacking and slashing at the ground and at roots. Men not digging were on guard. The holes being dug were two-man foxholes 40 inches in diameter, 40 inches deep. Below the thin layer of mulch and humus the ground was hard-packed clay and rock. Thick roots ran through the clay like steel reinforcement bars in concrete. The trees beside the trail were so numerous and closely packed it was difficult to find a clear 40-inch diameter surface.

“When I was a kid,” Cherry said, “I thought if you dug deep enough you'd hit China. I wonder, if we dig deep enough here, will we hit the States?”

Egan looked up and laughed. “Here,” he said getting out of the hole and handing Cherry the ET, “you dig. If you get there, I'll go with you.”

Egan and Cherry took turns digging. The shortness of the ET and the hardness of the earth jarred Cherry's arms and hands. “This is tearin my hands apart,” he complained to Egan.

Egan was not paying attention to him. Now that he was not digging he was pensive. Cherry repeated his gripe. Egan looked at him. “Ya know, I bet Nguyen's pissed the holy mothafuck off at us.”

“What?”

“He took all that time siting in this trail, waiting for someone to come trickytrottin down. Then he goes riskin firin our asses up in broad daylight.”

“He may think he got some of us,” Cherry said, resting, rubbing his hands.