Nightmare Range (3 page)

As she walked toward us, I turned to Ernie. “She’s got to be the River Rat.”

Her small breasts only slightly pushed out the thick, gray
material of her baggy sweatshirt. She wore a pair of bedroom slippers and loose-fitting, dirty-yellow pants that were short enough to reveal her tall brown socks. Her face was plain but pleasant and seemed removed from the mundane consideration of life by the half smile that controlled it. Her unwashed black hair dripped to her shoulders.

She talked quietly to herself and looked around, not at other people but at objects on the ground and on the walls and in the windows of the small shops that lined the street. She seemed delighted by her conversation and occasionally nodded or waved with an easy twist of the wrist. A fine lady gently accentuating some important point.

She appeared happier than the people trying to avoid her. If she’d actually had a companion, looked at some of the people staring at her, or made some effort to clean herself and make herself presentable, I might not have thought she was mad.

When she got close, I spoke. “
Anyonghaseiyo
.”

She seemed surprised by the interruption. But the small smile quickly regained control of her face and she turned and pointed with her thumb back down the street. “You go?”

I gestured with my head toward Ernie. “We go.”

She looked at both of us and smiled. “No sweat,” she said. We followed her down the street.

About fifty yards past the Starlight Club, she turned off the main road and wound through some mud-floored alleys that got progressively narrower and darker. The stench from the river got harder to take as we went downhill. Finally, she stopped and crouched through a gate in a fence made of rotted wood. The shore of the river lapped listlessly up to within a few feet of the entranceway.

We followed her in. She kicked off her slippers, stepped up on the wooden porch, and slid back the panel leading to her room. She motioned for us to follow.

“Just a minute,” I said. “We wait.”

I sat down on the porch facing the entranceway. Ernie found a
wooden stool and pulled it over behind the gate so anyone entering wouldn’t be able to see him. He reached into the pocket of his jacket, pulled out two cans of Falstaff, and tossed one across the courtyard to me. I caught it with two hands, popped the cap, and sucked on the frothing hops.

The River Rat didn’t question us but squatted on her haunches and waited. Just like I’d told her to do.

Ernie settled down on the stool, sipped on his beer, and checked under his jacket. His face calmed as he touched the shoulder holster that held the .45.

The wind gained strength and elbowed its way noisily through the cracks in the old wooden fence. The snow came down with more purpose now and began to stick on the mud, making for a slippery and clammy quagmire.

Just before midnight, I spotted a shadow lumbering along the edge of the river. At the gate, the shadow bent over and filled the entranceway completely for a moment and then popped into the compound.

At first I wasn’t sure if he was human. He looked more like a moving mountain of green canvas. A small fatigue baseball cap balanced atop his big, round head, and two flaming eyes shone out from within glistening folds of black skin. His shoulders were huge and broad enough to be used as workbenches. The arms tapered slightly, like drainage pipes, and as he walked, they worked their way methodically around the gargantuan girth of his torso. The two large sections that were his legs moved alternately toward me.

My throat was suddenly dry. I held my breath and didn’t move. When he got up close, he hovered for a moment, like a storm blotting out the sky, and turned and sat down next to me on the small wooden porch. It shuddered, groaned, and then held. He tilted his red eyes heavenward and took a drink from a small, crystalline bottle that seemed lost in his huge black mitt of a hand. He swallowed, grimaced, and then grinned, first at me
and then at Ernie. His teeth were square blocks of yellow chalk, evenly spaced along purple gums.

He growled from deep in his throat. Laughter. And he was quivering with it. “Been waiting for you guys.”

He leaned forward and reached out the bottle to me.
Soju
. I took it, rubbed the lip with the flat palm of my hand, and drank. I got up and handed it to Ernie. Ernie drank tentatively at first, and then tilted the bottle up quickly and took an audible gulp. He returned the bottle to Bogard, and walked back and leaned against the fence.

The River Rat bounced back and forth to the kitchen, running around as if she were going to prepare some snacks to go with our rice liquor. She mumbled to herself and flitted about, touching Bogard lightly on his back.

He reached out with one huge paw, grabbed her by the shoulder, and sat her down on the porch next to him. She got quiet and stared serenely at us like a schoolgirl waiting for the presentation to begin.

Bogard’s eyes were viciously bloodshot.

“Tell us about Nightmare Range,” I said.

Bogard grunted a half laugh and looked at the ground.

“It was a mistake,” he said. “She shouldn’t have struggled like that.” He looked up at me. “They always want to check you out, you know? Check to see if you got any shit. But by the time she got me checked out, there was no turning back.”

“The clap?”

“No. Chancroid.” It was one of the more popular venereal diseases. “They wouldn’t let me come out of the field to take care of it. Just a little hole in my pecker, nothing serious. She shouldn’t have looked. Then we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“
We
don’t have a problem,” Ernie said.

Bogard looked up and grinned. “You will.”

I spoke too quickly, trying to pretend that I didn’t understand the threat implied in his answer. “So what happened? You held her down?”

“I hit her first. But the little bitch kept struggling.” He pouted and looked at his fleshy underarm. “She bit me. So I held her.”

“By the throat?”

“Yeah. And when I finished, she wasn’t moving anymore. There was nothing I could do for her.”

The River Rat got up and started to flutter around in little circles, like a wounded bird with one good leg. She mumbled some more and made squeaking noises.

Bogard spoke to her tenderly. “Shut the fuck up.”

She shut up.

“Finish your
soju
,” I said. “Then you’re coming with us.”

Bogard let out a chortling laugh that seemed to cause his shoulders to bounce. He raised the half-empty
soju
bottle to his mouth and took huge, breathless gulps. The level of the clear, fiery liquid fell straight down into his gullet.

He burped and handed the empty bottle to the River Rat. She took it as if it were a great gift and carried it with two hands to deposit it in a safe place.

“I ain’t going,” Bogard said.

Ernie stood away from the fence and jammed his hands further into the pockets of his jacket.

“Think for a minute, Bogard,” I said. “You’ve got no place to go. You can’t leave the country. You have no income, except for dealing a little drugs or whatever. You can’t stay here and you can’t get away.” He just looked at me, amused. “The last GI convicted of murder here in Korea got four years.” I waited for that to sink in. “After he finished the time they sent him back to the States. No sense making it harder on yourself. Come with me, and we’ll get this shit over with.”

The River Rat came back into the courtyard, stopped, and stood stock still for a moment. She started flitting back and forth again, humming and talking to herself, walking amongst us on imaginary errands, a gracious hostess serving her guests.

Bogard bared his block-like teeth. “I ain’t going,” he said. “And it’s going to take more than you two guys to bring me in.”

Ernie took his hands out of his pockets and stepped away from the wall. I reached behind my back and pulled out my handcuffs. Bogard stood up, his feet shoulder-width apart, still smiling, and put his drainage pipe arms out slightly as if he were ready to embrace us.

I took a step toward him. He crouched, and I stopped. He would pulverize me. And once I got in close, Ernie would be unable to use the .45.

Ernie pulled the big pistol out of his shoulder holster, slid back the charging handle, and shot Bogard in the leg. The River Rat screamed. Bogard doubled over, grabbed his leg, and bellowed like a wounded bear. I moved forward and snapped one of the cuffs around his huge wrist. When he realized what I was doing, he let go of his leg and swung an enormous paw at me. I went down. The River Rat jumped on Ernie; screaming and clawing at his face like a wildcat tearing the bark off a tree.

Bogard hopped on his good leg toward Ernie, his enormous girth rising and falling thunderously with each hop. I jumped up, ran at him, and rammed my shoulder into the green expanse of his side.

The foot of his wounded leg hit the ground, he screamed, and we all slammed to the ground in a huge pile. Things crunched. I rolled to my side, groped for the cuffs, and managed to get both of Bogard’s hands shackled before he could recover from the pain.

Ernie hopped up and held the gun on him. Bogard rolled on the ground, his big, square teeth clenched in pain. The River Rat didn’t move.

I checked her out. Her breathing was shallow. I left Ernie in the hooch and walked carefully along the lace covering of newly fallen snow to the main road. I trotted a few clubs down to an MP jeep and had them radio for an ambulance. They followed me to the mouth of the alley so they could guide the medics to the hooch.

When I returned, a few of the neighbors stood around outside
talking amongst themselves. Ernie sat on the porch, hunched over, holding the .45 loosely in his hands. Bogard was still on the ground but sitting up now, slowly trying to shake the fresh snowflakes off his massive head. He clutched the upper part of his thigh, but a puddle of blood continued to grow beneath him. The River Rat hadn’t moved.

The medics brought a stretcher. Cursing and howling, Bogard managed to roll up onto it. It took four of us to carry him out of the hooch, down the alley, and then hoist him up into the ambulance. One medic stayed in the back with him, the other was about to climb into the cab.

“What about the girl?” I asked.

“Can’t do nothing for her,” he said. “You know that.”

“You can treat civilians when it’s an emergency.”

“Only on the compound.” He closed the door and started up the engine. Ernie climbed into the back of the MP jeep. I told him to wait, and I trotted back down the alley to the hooch.

The River Rat still lay on the ground, unmoving, and a few of the neighbors had wandered inside. I checked her pulse. Faint. She was becoming pale.

I talked to one of the old women. She told me that the hooch’s owner had been notified and was on her way. In Korea, going to a hospital requires front money, in cash, and I didn’t have much. The MP jeep honked its horn. I ran back down the alley, got in the jeep, and we spun our tires all the way back to Camp Pelham.

Bogard was all right. The bone had been broken, but not shattered, and the chopper came and took him to the army hospital in Seoul.

Ernie and I spent some extra time on the paperwork. The shooting meant that if it wasn’t done right, it would be our ass.

The MPs at Camp Pelham treated us like heroes, slapping us on the back and congratulating us. They were glad to have Bogard out of their village.

It was well past curfew, but I managed to convince the desk sergeant to give me a jeep. At the main gate the guard came out in the snow and rolled back the fence for me, just wide enough for the vehicle to squeeze through.

The village of Sonyu-ri was completely dark. Not even the glimmer of stray light from behind shuttered windows was visible to mar the beauty of the moon-cast glow on the white shrouded street. The road was slippery, and I drove slowly.

I parked the jeep, locked the security chain around the steering wheel, and felt my way down the pitch black alley. The stench from the river seemed lessened now, and the murky waters lapped peacefully against the glistening mud of the shore.

The gate was open. Inside, the moonlight shone down on the unsullied snow, and the River Rat lay on the ground where I had left her. I brushed the frozen lace from her hair and pressed my fingers into the base of her neck.

I waited a long time. When I got up, I brushed the snow from my knees and walked away from the unblinking eyes that followed me.

A
full-length dress clung to the soft, round parts of her short body like cellophane on a peach.

“Looks like we’ve found our culprit,” Ernie said.

We’d been sitting in the parking lot of the Yongsan Commissary for about thirty minutes, sipping acidic coffee, watching the housewives parade in and out, trying to decide which one to pinch for black-market activities. None of them had been good-looking enough. Until now. She pushed her overflowing shopping cart toward the taxi stand and smiled at the bright spring day. A voluptuous Oriental doll come to life.

“Instant coffee, strawberry jam, a case of oranges, about twenty pounds of bananas. Is she black marketing or what?”