A Weldon Family Christmas: A Southern Steam Novella (Weldon Brothers) (6 page)

Did you really strap a bra to your coach’s car license plate and it stayed for several weeks before he discovered it?  And how did you manage to set the campus clocks back an hour in April?

Looking forward to your answers.

Please take every care,
Emma

John tried to sort through the varied emotions Emma’s words evoked.  She had a knack for nailing the heart of every issue she touched upon.  His life on the family farm in Savannah had always been a simple one of planting crops and harvesting the rewards.  His time in college had been simple as well.  Play football.  Win games and pass his classes.  In Vietnam everything was complicated, a chaotic morass of tragedy and pain where nothing was what it should be.

Lance had dropped out of college and had been drafted first.  John had kept in touch with Lance while on tour.  He still had a hard time swallowing what had happened to his friend.  When he’d gone to see Lance in Saigon, John had gone to comfort his friend.  Instead, John had been the one who’d needed help.  Guilt ate at him that he still had both his legs.  Lance’s acceptance of his loss had upset John, made John even angrier at the world and the war on Lance’s behalf.

Emma had known.

There were a few pranks John hoped Lance hadn’t shared.  There were things Emma didn’t need to know.  He could hear the sound of men rising to face another day of war.   

 He went to her last letter before he ran out of privacy, wondering if he’d still feel like punching that Craig guy in the nose.

Dear John,

While part of me wishes to share little anecdotes to make you smile and ease your burden, I can’t seem to fill the page with anything but what’s in my heart and on my mind.  An old friend of mine from high school who now works for Senator Brand was here today.  He too had the audacity to tell me I shouldn’t be in Vietnam and thought I’d abandon my job to spend time in Paris.  It was Craig’s opinion that my efforts to comfort soldiers would be better spent on officers in Washington than the men here sacrificing their lives on the frontline.  His opinion made me mad.  Even now I still feel angry enough to spit.    

When I asked him about the Peace Talks, he made a joke and said he never expected they would pan out.  I rarely have the desire to smack someone, but I wanted to punch him in the nose hard.  Are politicians so far removed from what is happening here that the soldiers they sent to war mean nothing but numbers on a paper?  He worships the ground Senator Brand walks on, so I’ve no doubt Craig’s opinions are in alignment with Senator’s.  One good thing came out of the dinner Maggie and I shared with him.  Maggie has decided when our Donut Dolly duty is over she’s going to Washington to “put those boys in line”.  How she can possibly do that is beyond me, but I’ve no doubt she’ll find a way.  I have a lot of patience, but am learning I do have my limits—one of them being idiots in power.  How does that happen?

My life has never been simple.  Ever since I could remember, I’ve had to face painful conflicts in an unsafe world, fearful of what would happen next.  So I don’t expect life to be fair.  I don’t expect there to be any rose gardens.  But I do expect that when thousands of people vote to put a person into office that they’d elect a man worthy of the post.  Then again, my uncle used to say that the more he learned about people, the lower his expectations in life became and usually it’s the dumb ass’s braying that is heard the most.

Then there are those moments when a man goes beyond all measure of selfless bravery to rescue a fellow soldier.  They had a Christmas Memorial in the chapel today for soldiers who had given their lives in deliberate acts of heroism to save their fellow soldiers.  The stories told both renewed my faith in humanity and broke my heart at the loss of such great men. 

Goodnight John,
I count myself blessed
Emma

John laughed again at Emma’s take on politicians and the war.  He could have added a dozen stories to that Christmas Memorial.  And yes, he wanted to set this Craig guy straight for inviting Emma to Paris as if she were some sort of prostitute.  Yet Emma wasn’t incensed over that.  She was outraged that the man had demeaned the grunts. 

He folded the letters and placed them against his heart.  He had a spring in his step that Emma had actually written him.  And that she actually cared enough to be honest with him.  She didn’t dish out platitudes, but laid everything on the line.

He also had a frown knitting his brow.  Twice now, she’d indicated that she’d faced tragedy in her life.  And today he’d learned that whatever that was had its roots in her childhood.  It didn’t sound as if she’d had much of a childhood.  Her description of “painful conflicts, unsafe world, and fearful of the future” sounded much like the broken lives of the children caught in this war.

Instead of R&R or their usual daily grind on Christmas, they’d been ordered this morning to check and shore up the camp’s defenses.  Which meant something was definitely up.  John walked through the day as tense as if he were in the middle of a minefield.  His one respite from it all was Emma.  He carried her in his mind and in his heart.  She was a bittersweet ache inside him.  She was making life so much better than before, but also making him hunger for her and for things he had no right to want.  He didn’t know how or when but he had to see her again.  Soon.

They’d just finished dinner when news of a missing heli spread though the camp.  Had it been shot down?  It was Christmas day.  It was supposed to be a cease fire, but a Huey north of Da Nang had disappeared.  John's heart dropped.  His camp was northwest of Da Nang.  John ran over the communications center with a sick churning in his gut.  Da Nang was on Emma’s Christmas day schedule.  But surely the Donut Dollies would have been traveling together in a larger heli.  And surely they wouldn’t have ventured to the forward LZ’s.  Still something inside of him wouldn’t let it go until he knew the details.

In May, Mike Company, the badass 3
^rd
Battalion, 1
^st
Marines, 1
^st
Marine Division bugged out of Da Nang, supposedly because the enemy threat was down as the NVG’s were just biding time for the US to turn tail and run so they could ride in and slaughter what was left.  To John, losing Mike Company was the final nail in the US’s coffin in Nam and made him wonder why in the hell the rest of the grunts were here.  But that’s what grunts were for.

“What do we know about the missing heli?” John demanded as he barreled into communications.

PFC Abe Berry swung around, still grubbing on his turkey and dressing.  “Nothing yet, LT.  Maybe it’s a radio glitch.”

“Don’t care.  I need to know.  Where did the Huey leave from?”

“Long Bình.”

John sat onto a hard bench as his knees went weak.  “I’ve gotta know everything, Abe.  Who’s on search and rescue?”

“Honestly?  Only a couple of Pedros, but they’re still thinking it may be a radio glitch.”  He lowered his voice.  “They’re holding back on the heli’s in the air for some reason.  It’s Christmas, but everyone’s so tense, you’d think they were sitting on a land mine.”

The HH-43’s were the best air crew rescue tool in Nam.  Two of them were better than a dozen fumbling yahoos.  Still, John gleaned little reassurance from the news.  He wanted feet on the ground.  And Dear God, if Emma was on that Huey then by damn it would be his feet on the ground, too.

“Emma Rollins is a Donut Dolly who was flying from Long Bình to Da Nang today.  I have to know if she’s there, Abe.  I’ve got to find Em.  Whatever it takes, I have to find Em.”

Thirty minutes later, he got the grim news.  The Huey was still missing and two Donut Dollies had been on board—Emma Rollins and Margaret Shay.  Dear God!  What was he going to do?  He had to find Emma.  Fly overs sometimes didn’t mean squat.  The jungle had been known to swallow up crash sites and they weren’t found until days or weeks later.

“LT, you didn’t hear this from me, but the Captain has Stolsky and Hootch flying some papers to Da Nang in about an hour from now.  Maybe you could talk him into letting you go—“

John reached over and grabbed Berry, jerking him up from the radio controls and enveloping the scrawny guy into a bear hug. “You just saved my life.  If I don’t survive this tell the Captain it would have killed me to sit here anyway.”  John ran for the door.

“Wait!” Berry called.  “You aren’t going to ask him to go?”

“No, I’ll beg forgiveness for dereliction of duty after, but come hell or high water I’m getting dropped into Ninh Hoi tonight.  If you know any prayers, now would be the time to say them.”

John ran for his rucksack and shoved anything he thought he might need into it then he headed for the helis.  He hoped Stolsky and Hootch would fall into his plan, because he’d damn well didn’t want to have to face armed hijacking charges at his court martial as well.

Present Day

E
mma grabbed the edge
of the table.  James’s demand to know what was wrong with John echoed in the waiting room, drawing the sympathetic gazes of a family across the room.

The nurse, who looked too young for her graying hair, widened her kind eyes in surprise.  “Forgive me.  I didn’t mean to alarm you.”  She moved closer and lowered her voice to a private level.  “Mr. Weldon remains stable and is still heavily sedated.  We have a few tests to be done yet then you can come back and see him.  Right now, though, he’s anxious about something, and I thought if you could help us understand what that was perhaps we can help him rest easier.  He keeps saying, ‘Find them Nin Hoy.’  Do you know what that means?”

“Yes, I think I do,” Emma whispered.  She didn’t know whether to be relieved or more worried that John was reaching out to her from the past.  She’d heard that a person’s life flashes though their minds just before death.  “He’s saying Find Em Ninh Hoi.  He wants to find me.  Ninh Hoi was the area near where the Huey helicopter I was in crashed.   It was Christmas Day 1971, Vietnam, and I was on my way to Landing Zone Eagle to serve dinner to the men there.  John went to hell and back to save me.”

“That sounds like an amazing story.”

“It is.”

“Come with me.  Hopefully you can calm him enough for the tech to do the test.”

“Jared just texted,” James said.  “He’s on his way to the hospital.  I’ll wait for him here while you see Dad.”

Emma hugged James.  “We’ll finish talking later.  Just remember that sometimes the heart doesn’t need time to know what’s right.”  Leaving the waiting room, Emma followed the nurse into the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit.  Emma had worked in the hospital cafeteria for years, so the place should feel like home.  It didn’t though.  It felt strange.  The lights were too bright; the sounds too frightening; the surroundings too hard and sterile.  There were touches of Christmas cheer scattered about, but the only comfort to be found was in the dedicated staff committed to saving lives.

“You’ll have to share your story with us,” the nurse said as she slid the curtain across the window, dimming the bright light of the nurses’ station and giving her a little privacy with John.

“I will.”  Emma moved to John’s bedside, blinking back tears.  His eyes were squeezed tight and he was moving his arms and legs restlessly as if in the grip of a nightmare.  “Ninh Hoi Find Em,” he whispered harshly.

Lacing their fingers with his, she pressed her palm to his, a hold that would forever remind her of the first time they’d made love.  “I’m here John.  You found me.  Now, you need to rest.”  Leaning down, she kissed his furrowed brow and brushed back his once dark but now more salt than pepper hair.

He may have been drugged and not quite aware of where he was, but he shifted her way and tightened his hand around hers, making her heart soar.  He knew she was here.   Hooking the leg of a nearby chair with her foot, she pulled it to the bedside and sat down.  Once she wrestled the safety rail down, she snuggled up to him with her head practically on his shoulder and her free hand over his heart.   “You found me, John.  We still have quite a bit of living and loving to do.  So fight for me, my love.  Fight for me.”

His restless movements stilled and his racing heart slowed to a steady pace.  Emma heard the nurse come into the room and looked up to see the woman smiling.  “Whatever you are doing is working.  Keep it up.  We’ll give him a little time to rest before the tech comes back.”

The nurse left, and Emma softly hummed the first song John had sung to her—
Make it With You
by Bread.  He’d been a little off key, a little off rhythm, but his deep voice had wrapped around her heart in that dank jungle and made her smile.  The song had seemed as if it was written just for them and said everything that needed to be said at the time.

She hadn’t thought they’d make it out of the jungle alive, but
he
did.  During that week they’d spent running from the enemy in the middle of the worst bombing campaign in Nam in years, he had made her believe they’d survive—with his strength, his courage, and his love making.  Even now heat flushed her cheeks from the memory.  It was a story that she could never fully tell anyone except John, and he already knew it.  Nobody did it better than her Southern Bad Boy.

Looking back at what they’d gone through and the unleashing of their desperate passion, it almost didn’t seem real or believable.  But she’d lived it, knew that it had all happened, and it had felt more than right at the time.  Still did.  John had needed some convincing though—at least the first time.  After that…well it was a miracle they’d made it out of the jungle.  Not because they’d been lost.  Not because of the infiltrating enemy troops.  But because when the man made love to her she was incapable of doing anything else and he liked making love…often.  Come to think of it, it was a miracle that they’d accomplished anything in life.   

Vietnam
December 1971

T
hrough a hazy nightmare
of smoke and pain, Emma smelled death.  Heat burned at her skin and someone was pulling on her arm.  “Tinh Nhan, come.  Hurry.  Tinh Nhan, come.”

Emma fought for consciousness.  Ginny.  She had to help Ginny.  She pulled back from the boy yelling at her, but when she saw Ginny, she didn’t have to touch her to know she was dead.  A broken blade had sliced into the cockpit and into Ginny’s neck.

As the scene registered in Emma’s brain, she realized that the entire front of the Huey was smashed into an unrecognizable mangle of metal.  The cockpit was flattened and the front seats were pushed back against her.

“Tinh Nhan, must come.  Danger.”  The boy pulled on her arm again.  Emma tried to move only to discover she was being held in place by her shoulder harness and lap belt.  She pulled at the latch.  When it came free, she fell onto the muddy ground, thankful she had on petti-pants beneath her skirt.  Blood covered the front of her powder blue uniform, and her right shoulder hurt like hell.  Her right arm was numb, but her legs worked.  She wobbled to her feet and saw rather than felt that she still had on her loafers.  Fire plumed smoke from the broken tail of the helicopter.  The Huey had nosedived into the ground and split in half.  The tail of the Huey lay about ten feet away and the whole area was heavily covered by plants and a thick jungle canopy.

“Hurry,” the boy cried.  “Dinks, dinks.”

The boy knew English.  He must have had some contact with American soldiers.  Enough to call the North Vietcong soldiers dinks.  She didn’t know much at the moment other than she did not want to be caught by the enemy.  She followed the boy, fully realizing he might be leading her into a trap, but decided he was the lesser of two evils at the moment.  Anytime a helicopter went down near enemy territory, she knew soldiers from both sides would be searching for the remains and the smoke would lead them right to her.  What had her confused was that she really shouldn’t be in enemy territory.  They’d been headed for LZ Eagle, but it was only at the height of the conflict that the area might be considered dangerous.  It was supposedly “safe” now.  There shouldn’t be “dinks” this far south.

But war was war.  And nothing was truly safe in war, especially in guerrilla warfare.  As John had said, a strike could happen anywhere at any time.  Her heart cried out for John.  He’d been right to worry for her.

The boy led her to an area of dense growth and pushed her behind a cropping of heavy fronds and bamboo.  “Wait here,” the boy said then turned to leave.

Emma touched his shoulder with her good hand.  “Chao em,” Thank you in Vietnamese.  “What is your name?”

“Anh Dung.  You make no noise.  I fool dinks.”  He grinned, handed her a pack he had hung on his shoulder then ran back the way they had come.

Suddenly alone with the creeping noise of the jungle closing in on her and the horror of the crash filling her mind, Emma shivered, shaking with cold despite the humid heat.  She wanted to cry out for help.  She wanted to be actively looking for a safe place.  They’d been flying to LZ Eagle.  Maybe it was close by.  Maybe if she started looking now, she’d find safety before nightfall.  She could tell direction if she found an opening in the jungle canopy large enough to see the movement of the sun.  But then, she didn’t know where she was in relationship to LZ Eagle.  She’d have to move south because she didn’t dare go north.

If the boy was right, and enemy soldiers were close enough to come looking for the Huey, then she was better off sitting right where she was until the boy returned or until the cavalry arrived.  Blood trickled down her side, prompting her to examine her right shoulder.  Just below her right collarbone she had a round wound that oozed blood.  As she touched it, she could tell something hard was embedded in it.  She tried to press it out and nearly fainted from the pain.  She needed to pad the wound and stop the bleeding.  Feeling exposed and vulnerable, she stripped to the waist and took off her bra.  Using the cups as a dressing, she applied pressure to the wound and tied it tightly in place.  A red stripe marked her chest from where the shoulder strap had bruised her.   She shivered harder and slipped back into her uniform.

Next she examined the pouch the boy had given her.  She found a pocket knife and about a dozen rambutan fruits.  Looking like red spiny sea urchins, the grape-like fruit made a nice jam.  The boy must have been out collecting them for that purpose.  She’d apologize later, but decided to eat one.  Her body needed sugar to counteract the effects of shock and adrenaline.  Getting to the fruit inside was no easy task.  She was so distracted that she almost blew her cover.  If a soldier hadn’t coughed, she wouldn’t have heard them coming.  She kept her wits, stayed still, and waited.  Until she knew whether he was friend or foe passing by, she barely breathed.  She was rewarded with a whispered order in Vietnamese moments later.

Emma prayed hard.  The men could have been friendly Vietnamese, but she wasn’t about to take the chance.  It was a long time before she went back to peeling the rambutan.  Only now, as the jungle sounds filled in the void, did she find a measure of comfort in them.

After eating the fruit and throwing the peeling as far away from her as she dared, she cut a number of leaves to make a pallet to sit on and protect her from most of the creepy crawlies on the ground.  Supporting her back against the bamboo and wrapping her skirt tightly around her bruised legs, she relaxed enough to take a thorough assessment of her condition.  Besides the wound in her shoulder and a wrenching pain in the muscles of her neck, she was relatively uninjured.  She was damn lucky to be alive.

Ginny and the pilots were dead.  Emma swallowed the hard lump in her throat.  Because she suggested Maggie to switch places with Ginny, Ginny was now dead.  It was Emma’s fault. The soul-deep pain of guilt and loss made her stomach churn.  She should have died in the crash and Ginny should have survived.

Emma lost track of time and before she realized it, dark had descended and she had to ward off the mosquitos, ever fearful of malaria.  Where was the boy?  Why hadn’t he come back for her?  With the night upon her, the jungle sounds turned menacing.  The screech of a monkey became a murderous cry.  The least rustling of the leaves became a slithering snake.  She shivered harder and closed her eyes to pray for strength.  Turning her thoughts to John, she wished she’d been able to spend more time with him.  That led her to remembering his kiss and then dreaming of another kiss.  Though she would have sworn it impossible, at some point during the night, she fell asleep.

“I
’m not sure if
I should kiss you, fall on my knees and cry, or yell at you for being a stubborn fool.”

Emma popped her eyes open, blinked with disbelief and would have pinched herself if she weren’t already throbbing from pain.  In the predawn light, Lieutenant John Weldon stood looking at her like some smug god, and the little boy who’d hidden her, was beside him.  She winced as she sat up.  “At the moment I’ll take all three, if it will prove that I’m not hallucinating.  How in God’s name did you find me?  How did you get here?”