Indian Country Noir (Akashic Noir) (32 page)

Chicago, Illinois

he Pima Indian huddles on the ground in the foxhole, his M1 rifle propped upright between his legs.
He is awake and watchful while his fellow marine, Bill
Faulkner, curls up nearby, getting some shut-eye. The darkness
is pervasive, and he sees what he thinks might be shadows. Or
maybe they aren't. He keeps his ears open, straining to make
sense of the rustling noise. Other marines? The enemy? There
isn't any way to tell.

The most important thing is not to fall asleep. He's responsible for keeping himself and Faulkner safe. He has to stay
awake. It's not a problem for him, though. If he gets sleepy, he
just concentrates on the smell. In the two days they've been
on Bougainville, the marines of Easy Company have been
pinned down in their foxholes in a monsoon, then trapped
under the scorching sun. They all stink.

He turns his head, trying to match shapes to the rustles
he hears. He can see better in the darkness out of the corner
of his eye than by looking at objects straight on. The change
of position causes the stench to hit him again. Not just his
own rank body odor, but the smell of blood. And guts. And
decaying bodies. Already, there are bodies ready to be shipped
home. Young men who knew they'd be the lucky ones to make
it back to America-but they'd figured on doing so alive.

He glances over at Faulkner. He's glad his buddy is able to get some sleep, but he can't figure out how the guy can
do it. The adrenaline courses through his own body, keeping
him from ever really sleeping. This isn't new. Even back home
on the reservation, he could hardly rack up any sack time.
Instead of adrenaline, feelings of guilt, remorse, and shame
would torture him in the nighttime. Not over anything specific. Or rather, over everything. A white man's purposeful
slight. A buddy who made a thoughtless remark. Anything,
really. During the day, he could find ways to cope. But at
night-that was different.

He turns his head again to try to see what's going on in the
darkness around them. He doesn't hear or see anything, but
he strains to listen and penetrate the darkness anyway.

He feels an abrupt thud that reverberates down his arms,
and he hears screaming right next to him. The adrenaline
courses through his body at full speed. He doesn't know what
just happened, but his rifle seems to have a mind of its own,
jerking and pulling out of his hands. He grabs it back by reflex.

All of a sudden, he realizes what's going on. An enemy
soldier tried to sneak up on him, and when he moved to attack, impaled himself on the Indian's bayonet at the end of
the rifle.

He yanks the rifle back, pulling the bayonet out of the
Jap's stomach. He's running on animal instinct now. He picks
up the rifle in both hands and punctures the enemy soldier's
body over and over. He's stabbing the man with his bayonet,
but the man keeps moving. He knows he must kill him or be
killed. So he keeps thrusting. Again and again, he heaves the
rifle downward, pulls it back, hurls it into the man's body.

He is so consumed with his own personal combat that
he's in another world. "Chief, stop! He's dead. You killed him.
Knock it off!"

He can hardly hear the other marine over the roar in his
ears. He's barely aware of the guy's hand gripping his shoulder,
shaking him. "Ira. Ira!"

His lids popped open. Sergeant Beech's fingers squeezed his
shoulder at the nerve point, sending the pain radiating down
his arm. The Indian twitched to shake the sergeant's hand off.
Beech gripped him by the upper arm to lift him to his feet.
The roar of the audience's applause subsided as Rene Gagnon
sat down next to Ira on the dais again. Gagnon shot him a
disgusted look and turned back to his dessert.

The Indian stood up, stretched, and opened his mouth
in a huge yawn. The audience responded in kind. They
looked like a sea of goldfish swimming toward the surface
for food. Beech grinned. This gave him a kick every time it
happened.

He shoved Ira toward the microphone. "Tell 'em ..."

But the Indian knew what to do. He stood before the microphone and confronted the audience of Chicagoans who
had turned out to see the heroes. His mouth always got dry
at this point. He was never a man to use many words, and his
vocabulary seemed to abandon him in front of a crowd.

"I hope you buy lots of war bonds," he said.

He sat down again.

The crowd in the hotel ballroom erupted in applause and
cheering. Ira wasn't really aware of them. He was busy looking around. Beech knew what he wanted and leaned down
to whisper in his ear. "Later, chief." He patted the Indian's
shoulder reassuringly.

Ira didn't want to wait until later. He needed some booze
now. He was thinking about how to attract the waiter's attention without attracting the attention of the audience. He barely heard Bradley, now at the microphone, denying they
were anything special.

"We're not heroes." Bradley gestured to himself, Gagnon,
and Ira Hayes. "We just put up a flag. The real heroes are the
ones who died fighting on Iwo Jima. Please buy war bonds to
honor their memory."

The crowd went wild. The band started up again, and
the room exploded in a cacophony of chatter, laughter, and
music.

Beech slapped Ira on the shoulder. "Come on, buddy. Let's
go.

Ira got up eagerly. Keyes Beech was always ready to bend
an elbow.

Gagnon sneered. "What's the matter, chief? Can't wait to
start drinking again? Fuckin' drunken Indian." He muttered
the last part.

Ira went cold, then hot. His fists curled.

Then Bradley poked Gagnon. "Hey, come on. Ira's working as hard as we are. Lay off."

Beech steered Ira away from the dais, and it was over.
"Don't listen to him. This bond tour is getting to all of its. He's
just blowing off a little steam. Hey, a buddy of mine tipped me
about this great bar in the Loop. Let's go check it out."

Ira didn't say a word. He just followed Beech out of the
hotel, listening to the sergeant's nonstop chatter. He had no
need to talk. Beech said enough words for both of them.

Ira didn't feel at home anywhere, but he felt the least uncomfortable in a bar. Just walking inside, inhaling the familiar
bar smells-old beer overlayed with cigarette smoke-made
the churning in his stomach stop. The act of sitting on a bar
stool gave him that relaxed feeling. Then he gripped the glass in
his hand, and even before the first swallow, he felt at peace.

The whiskey had just begun spreading its comforting
warmth in his stomach when it started.

"Hey, aren't you that guy from the picture?"

"You're a hero, man. Lemme buy you a drink!"

"Look who's here-he's one of the ones who put the flag
up! Bartender, this marine's money's no good tonight!"

Beech loved it. His job was to chaperone the three flagraisers as they toured the country on the 7th War Loan Bond
Drive, raising money for the boys overseas. But Bradley was a
pretty straight arrow, and Gagnon, with his movie-star good
looks, had no trouble fending for himself. Ira was the one he
had to babysit. The Indian was likely to wander off somewhere
and get into a fight, then not remember how to get back to
the latest hotel in the latest city. Or even remember which
city he was in.

Not that Beech minded hanging out with Ira. Hell no.
The guy attracted attention wherever he went. And he was so
modest he hardly said two words in a whole night. So people
began talking to Beech instead. Beech was a tech sergeant
and war correspondent. He told the war stories that people
wanted to hear from Ira, but that Ira would never talk about.
After a few drinks, it didn't matter who was talking. Everyone
was a hero by that time. And the booze flowed, so Beech was
happy. And Ira was happy.

Except Beech didn't think Ira was so happy. Oh well.
Nothing he could do about it. The only one Ira would talk to
was "Doc" Bradley, and Bradley wasn't really a drinker.

So that left the two of them. Two little Injuns, he thought,
and giggled. Snippets of the song ran through his head. Four
little Injuns up on a spree / One got fuddled and then there were three
/ Three little Injuns out on a canoe / One something, something,
and then there were two. He couldn't remember the rest.

"Hey, Ira." He reached across a man who was in the middle of telling a story and grabbed the Pima by the shirt sleeve.
"What happened to the three little Injuns?"

Ira glared at him. Oh boy. He must be drunker than he'd
thought.

"Never mind," he said, trying to pat Ira's sleeve, placate
him. He turned to the storyteller he'd interrupted. "Do you
know what happened to the three little Injuns?"

The guy shook him off. "Buddy, I think you've had
enough."

"I'm fine, I'm fine," he slurred. Then, "Oh shit." He got up
and tried to get to the restroom before he tossed his cookies
all over the bar floor. He didn't make it.

Then Ira was pulling him out of the bar.

Beech bent over in the street, heaving his guts out. "Must
have been something I ate," he croaked.

Ira didn't say anything.

After a minute, Beech stood up and wiped his mouth. "You
know, I actually feel better." He could feel a little spring coming back into his step. "Hey! Look over there." He pointed to
the warm glow of another barroom.

But Ira had already seen it and was heading toward the
inviting lights.

"Geez, wait up, buddy," Beech said.

They elbowed their way up to the bar, and the same drama
from the other bar-from all the other bars on this tourstarted all over again: `Aren't you the guy from Iwo Jima? I
wanna buy you a drink!"

Ira was entering that maudlin stage of his drinking. He
couldn't tolerate company, but he did want the free drinks. He
made himself as small as possible at the back corner of the bar.
He watched the bartender's brogans as the man walked back and forth, hustling drinks. He wished he could just curl up on
the floor behind the bar, alone with all the liquor bottles. Just
sit on the floor. The rats could keep him company. There must
be rats, because there was a box of rat poison, the skull and
crossbones warning anyone who came near.

That's not what a real skull looks like, he thought, hunching lower. A real skull has blood on it. And hair. And pieces
of brain leaking out.

And there are men screaming all around. And huge explosions as mortar shells rock the island.

The Pima Indian hears a fellow member of Easy Company calling out the password. "Studebaker! Studebaker!" But
that's yesterday's password. "Chevrolet! Goddammit, I can't
remember! It's me! It's me, Early."

The Indian doesn't know whether the forgetful marine
gets to live or dies because the next thing that happens is
three of the "prowling wolves" attack him and two of his buddies. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, the commander of the
Japanese forces on Iwo Jima, has given this name to his teams
of stalking, crawling night-murderers-the dancing shadows
feared by every American fighting man on the island.

The Japs are ruthless. They think it's a big honor to die in
combat. Ira just knows it's him or them, and it ain't gonna be
him. He shoots the one who's attacking him in the head. The
round smashes the Jap's face and leaves his teeth lying on the
ground.

The Pima marine wants to be sick, but he's distracted by
something even worse than the dead jack-o'-lantern in front
of him. A marine is wrestling with an enemy soldier, but he's
losing because they're not really wrestling. The Japanese soldier is stabbing him.

"Mom, he's killing me!" the marine cries. "Mom!"

The Indian's eyes flickered. "I'm coming to help you!" he
called. He reached out and grabbed the guy's arm.

"Easy, easy," the man told him. "I just got this here tattoo.
It's a beaut, ain't it? Mom in a heart, that's what I wanted.
And that's just what I got." His jacket was off, his shirt sleeve
rolled up to display his newest artwork.