Once an Eagle (50 page)

Passing the needle rapidly, evenly along the hem she thought about her mother. One scene she remembered clearly: there was a bright, hot space framed by the greenish yellow scarves and wings of jungle. A man in a gay blue skirt and vest and a bright yellow headcloth had come forward with a slow, undulating walk, like a man dancing in a dream. His skin was a coppery gold and his slanted eyes glittered. Two men behind him were bare-chested, with massive gold bracelets on their arms; they carried curved knives that flashed in the sun. One of them was holding a tasseled purple parasol over the first man's head as they moved. And then there was Poppa, looking very thin and straight in his tight-fitting khaki uniform; he walked right up to the man in yellow; he bowed, and they shook hands, and the wall of men at the edge of the jungle roared and shook their spears and swords. “That's the Sultan, dear,” her mother was saying. “The Sultan of Palamangao.” Out on the oily water red-and-blue boats slid by with copper-colored pirate sails, and deep in the jungle a gong struck once, again—a thin, quavering sound that made her neck prickle. The Sultan of Palamangao. Her mother was holding her up so she could see. And then, filled with delight at the dancing, pirouetting figures, the bright silk robes and parasols and swords, she felt her mother's arms trembling; and twisting around quickly saw she was afraid …

She peered out into the glare of the yard. Donny had been talking to himself—a chortling recitative that grew into crowing excitement. She expected to see Rusty teasing him, but the Cleghorne boy was crouched several feet away near the edge of the grass pushing his engine along. Donny was sitting bent forward on his blue-and-white patch of blanket, clapping his hands at a speckled section of hose whose end seemed to be hanging from the clothesline. But the clothesline was five feet away. And then all at once the piece of hose moved and her eyes focused on the flat, square-snouted head.

She gave a quick, taut gasp.

The snake shifted his head to the right, to the left again, uncertain, puzzled by the small, chuckling creature, the waving hands.

“Oh,” she said. “
Donny
—”

He paid no attention; he was absorbed in this gliding, beguiling pattern of brown-and-white diamonds that moved without moving. He laughed, his bare round head waggling. She had come to her feet. She started forward in a lurch, checked herself. The snake was too near, she was too far away. To run to the blanket would be bad: it would coil and strike before she could get to Donny and pick him up, and there would be nothing she could do. Again she started to move, and stopped. Donny was quieter now. The snake's sudden immobility had bored him; he was gazing up at the sky. She felt cold and hollow and filled with a sickly, foaming substance that had caught in her throat. She looked around wildly once. Rusty was moving away from the snake, unaware of it. There was no one to call. Anywhere around. She must do it alone. Herself.

To turn her back on the scene at the edge of the blanket was actually painful. With the soundless alacrity of a dream she moved into the bedroom, up to the bedside table Sam had made from a weapons chest, opened the drawer and took the holstered automatic and unsnapping the catch drew out the weapon and darted back to the porch. The snake was gone. No—it was coiling. It was coiled. The .45 was loaded but Sam never kept a round in the chamber; she knew that. She gripped the receiver with her left hand; it was all she could do to throw it back. It shot forward again with its clashing metallic sound. She went down the steps sideways, conscious of the screen door slamming hard behind her. Rusty had turned toward her now—in the scan of her eye she saw him freeze with alarm, then start to scramble to his feet.

“Stay where you are,” she said. “Rusty. Stay right there. Don't move.”

The boy remained motionless, his eyes white and round. Donny had seen her too but all her concentration was fixed on the snake, who had finished coiling. Its head drew back with mesmeric deliberation, the tail a vertical blur; the rattle made a dry, whirring sound, like a bad mechanical toy. She pushed the safety catch off by feel and gripped the big pistol in both hands, her left locked over her right, as her father had taught her at Schofield Barracks years ago. The end of the barrel wobbled up and down past the snake's head. It looked enormous—gross and fearsome, a glittering spring all coiled for death. Donny was talking to her, and she heard Rusty call something, his voice thin with fear.

“That's a good boy,” she said. Her voice was a reedy croak, an old hag's false, forbidding tones. The baby moved suddenly then and she gasped, swung the gun to the right. The barrel kept wavering. The buck. That was what she had, she'd heard them say it: somewhere. “Hold—
steady,
” she said, half-aloud, and gritted her teeth. You idiot. Steady. She brought the nose of the weapon down until it rested just below the lidded agate eye, holding fiercely with her left hand, and squeezed.

There was a stunning roar. Her hands had been flung up in the air and struck her in the forehead; her wrist hurt. The snake was coiled still tighter, writhing and looping. She brought the gun down and fired again, into the scaled tangle. When the smoke cleared the snake was stretched out, its terrible jaws gaping, its head making short, feeble lurches. The thick body was torn in half a dozen places; blood lay bright and slick on the scales.

She darted forward and snatched Donny up on her hip, moved over to Rusty, who started to cry, a high, agonized wail. “It's all right, Russ.” She put the arm holding the gun around him. “It's all right, now.” Another screen door bumped and she saw Elaine Kneeland running toward her from two houses up the line.

“What happened?”

“Rattler,” she called back. She felt perfectly calm now; as if all her blood had turned to spring water and jelled. “Be careful, Ellie.”

“You shot it—!”

“Be careful, now. They go around in pairs. Usually.” She remembered Sam's telling her that. “The other one is probably a little way out in the grass. Take Donny, will you?”

“What? No, wait—”

She felt no fear at all. She advanced into the buffalo grass, moving softly, putting her feet down toe first, curving a little to the right—saw the flickering pattern in the sere yellow stalks. She fired twice more. The second snake doubled up in wild contortions, writhing and flailing, as though trying to divest itself of its skin. She stood calmly watching its death throes while Mae Lee clumped down the back stoop of the Cleghornes' quarters, gripping the railing, her face pinched with apprehension.

“It's all right,” she called. “I got them both.” The powder fumes caught in her sinuses and she coughed. She thought of the rifle ranges at Schofield and Benning, and smiled. Her wrist still hurt, but not severely. From across the parade ground she saw two men in fatigues running toward her.

“Seventh Cavalry to the rescue,” she remarked. She walked back and bent over Rusty, who was roaring with surprise and fear. “There, there,” she murmured. “Everything turned out all right, you see?”

“It was right there—that close to the blanket?” Mae Lee breathed. “My God—with the kids that near … You saved them!”

“Nonsense.”

“You did …” She gazed at the pistol. “I couldn't have done that.”

“Sure you could.” It now seemed like the most commonplace thing in the world. You see a rattler, you shoot it: that's what you do.

“No, I couldn't,” Mae Lee insisted. “I'd have died of fright. I'd have died.”

The soldiers came running up; they were carrying shovels. The first one, a rangy, redheaded man with a broken nose and bushy eyebrows, called: “What's the trouble, lady?”

“No trouble,” she said calmly. “Rattler.” She pointed. “Two of them. I got them both.”

They went over and peered at the corpses. “Don't get up too close to 'em, Dinny,” the redheaded man said. “They can sting you after they're dead … What a monster!” He gave a long, low whistle.
“Nine—frigging—rattles …”
He whirled around. “Beg pardon, ma'am!”

“That's quite all right.”

“Where'd you learn to use a gun like that?”

Tommy looked hard at him; this was lèse majesté, and he knew it. “Several places,” she replied shortly. “I see you've got shovels with you. Will you bury them for me, please?”

“Why—sure, ma'am.” He stared at her, awed. “Right away.”

Juliana Bentik had come up from four sets down the row and everyone was clustered around her now, chattering like a flock of magpies. She took Donny back on her hip. He gazed at her a moment—then all at once threw back his head in that doll-like way, and laughed without a sound. With his two stubs of front teeth he looked like a jovial little old man. She heard a short, imperious voice, and turned. Amanda Pownall, the Second-in-Command's wife, was coming toward them quickly down the back line. She was wearing a plain gray cotton frock and carrying a wicked-looking lever-action cavalry carbine in her right hand, her seamed face composed, intent. She took in the whole situation at one glance. “Thought that's what it was,” she said. “Good girl.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” Tommy felt absurdly pleased at the commendation, and then angry with herself for being pleased.

“She got one of the varmints right though the head, ma'am.” The redheaded soldier raised one of the snakes on the shovel blade.

“So I see.” Mrs. Pownall examined the swollen, drooping body with interest. “Nine rattles. A regular granddaddy. Thank the Lord some of you girls know how to use firearms decently. If there's anything I can't abide it's helpless females.”

There was a little silence. To fill it Tommy said: “I'd better go in and clean this pistol before Sam gets home, or I'll never hear the end of it.”

“You know how to
clean a pistol?
” Mae Lee whispered in amazement.

“Course she does,” Amanda Pownall snapped. “Every Army wife should know how to field-strip and clean small arms, at least. What we ought to do is run a short course, evenings. I'll speak to Harry.” Her lined face cracked into its tough, wintry smile. “My mother shot a redskin right off his pony during the Sioux wars,” she said to Mae Lee with relish, and transferred the carbine to her left hand with almost careless professional competence. “Well, that's that.” Her eyes glinted warmly at Tommy. “Your papa”—she accented the second syllable—“would be proud of you, Thomas.”

She walked off, her skirts fluttering, the carbine's curved brass butt plate glinting in the sun. Now, after the flurry of excitement, there was a reaction: everyone was apathetic, no one knew quite what to do. The rattlesnakes were buried without honors, and the soldiers sauntered back to their detail. Elaine went in with Mae Lee to calm her down, and Tommy took Donny inside and put him down in his crib.

“Dango,” he muttered. “Heh dow lub a gan.” He waggled his head, scowling at her crossly, and she realized he disliked the gunpowder smell. “Good,” she said aloud. “Remember it. Hate it all your life.” With a tremulous rush of affection she caught him up and pressed him against her heart. “My baby,” she murmured. “My own baby boy.” And her eyelids stung with tears.

In the bedroom the drawer to the bedside cabinet was still open; the holster lay on her pillow. She had no recollection of dropping it there. She got out the brush and thong and the little bottle of Hoppe's Number 9 solvent out of the cabinet and sitting on her cot began to clean the barrel. She knew she ought to field-strip the weapon but she'd forgotten how to disengage the receiver. She drew the cleaning pads through the barrel, watched them emerge as greasy black wads.

I did it, she thought, inhaling the pungent banana-oil–and–ether smell of the solvent. I actually did it. I saved my baby. The one time I met a crisis and Sam wasn't here to see. Of course if he'd been here he'd have done it—better and quicker; and I'd have never known whether I could have met it or not … Now he would never know what she'd felt those—what? minutes? seconds? It now seemed like hours and hours. Nobody would ever know but she. That was how life was, perhaps: you fought your bravest battles unapplauded and alone.

She had poured some oil on a rag and was cleaning the chamber when her bowels clutched in a spasm that made her gasp; she jumped to her feet and half-ran to the toilet. Sitting there, streaming, she began to laugh. “What every Army wife should know,” she breathed. Shivering, gripping her knees, she began to sob tightly. Laughing and sobbing she pressed her head against the cool, rough adobe wall.

 

The couples moved
up the steps; the uniforms were somber against the bright splashes of the women's gowns, pasteled now in the dark. All the lights were covered with Japanese paper lanterns, a burnt orange hue; the club looked curiously spacious and festive, freed of the usual overhead glare. On the stand, draped with black and gold, the band was playing a waltz. Tommy, talking with Elaine Kneeland, recognized Sergeant Kinch playing inaudibily in a mute, his thick fingers fluttering over the valves, and the drummer, little Private Ostrowsky, hunched over, his head cocked, listening to the dry patter of the snare. The walls were filled with placards and banners. One was a replica of a battle streamer, but larger, and said: C
AMBRAI
—S
T
. M
IHIEL
—M
EUSE
-A
RGONNE
and another, the largest of all, centered above the bandstand, proclaimed: W
ELCOME
G
ENERAL
P
ERSHING
.

“To think he's actually
here!
” Elaine Kneeland exclaimed; she was a plain, heavy woman with fair hair and a placid smile. She plucked nervously at the front of her gown, like a staff sergeant getting ready to stand inspection. “That he came all the way down
here,
I mean …”