Sharpshooter (7 page)

We stand there, guns raised, eyes left-right-left, like marching, as the first two begin the slow, sweeping walk up the trail.

“Okay,” Lightfoot says, “on we go.”

The trail itself looks like it is built for a couple of bikes riding side by side, or maybe a little Japanese car. As Lightfoot and I walk, we can't quite reach out our hands and touch, but we can do it with our guns. We won't try it, though.

But it is close enough for whispering.

“So, what are you?” he says to me. I stare at him, wondering if he just has nothing real to say or if he is slowly rolling out the longest conversational time filler he can think of.

“I'm an American,” I say.

“Great,” he says, “but I mean more specifically. Like, you're a Catholic, obviously, from the doohickey around your neck….”

“Scapular,” I whisper-snap. “It's called a scapular, and I got it from my mother as I was headed off to here.”

“That's nice. Most of The People, though, they don't go with the Catholic thing.”

“What
people
?”

Up ahead, Parrish whirls around like a big, angry, armed ballet dancer. He mimes
shush
, then points at me with a bit of aggression.

“The People, man,” Lightfoot says with a knowing smile. “What's your tribe?”

Now I really go goggle-eyed at him. I even crane my neck in his direction. He mimes
eyes front
by pointing two fingers at his own eyes, then pointing them up the road.

“Wow,” I say. “I mean, that's pretty impressive. I don't even know how much Indian blood I've —”

“One quarter.”

I open my mouth wide to give him a double
wow
, but he cuts me off.

“I was just kidding that time. But I see you got something in you somewhere. Tribe?”

I sigh, thinking about my dad's scattershot enthusiasm for the whole deal.

“My dad says Sioux, but —”

“Pfshht”
is the noise that comes out of Lightfoot. It is not a noise of agreement.

“You are East Coast. I would guess Iroquois, but I could be wrong. Not as wrong as your father, of course … no offense.”

“No offense. Somewhere right now my mom is laughing over this.”

Both Parrish and Arguello stop suddenly and turn toward us, their guns raised. They stand facing into bushes as we catch up.

When we get there, we can see what has caught their attention. About twelve feet off to the left of the small path, at the end of an even smaller path, is a mound. It is only slightly raised, but it seems different from the surrounding ground and a bit too carefully arranged. Lightfoot and I stand guard as the two of them advance. I draw my pistol and watch the road behind us while Lightfoot watches ahead.

There is about five minutes of digging before they indicate they have something. They dig faster now, a little less cautiously, until they get to the big metal drum and open it …

… to find it empty. Parrish curses, and we come in to have a look.

The side of the drum has been pried open and emptied, the remaining shell lying there opened like it is laughing at us. We waste about another two minutes staring before we trudge back out to the trail to start all over again.

The day goes mostly like that — a slow, methodical creeping through a hostile jungle where we do not encounter one other human being. As the hours pass and we edge farther out into the nothing, a strange combination of boredom and increasing fear creeps up into me. This, I find, I do not like.

We are at the perimeter of the area we are supposed to cover, having uncovered one other empty barrel and one empty hole where a barrel surely once was. I am weary in a way none of the basic-training stunts ever got me weary. This jungle is the hottest thing I have ever encountered, and it is heavy with a humidity that would keep me glistening with sweat even if I had a tap on my side for running it off of me. We're sitting, taking small sips of water, resting a bit for the return, when Lightfoot sees a configuration of fallen tree trunks that doesn't agree with him.

“Cover my back,” he says, and I follow him to the trees about twenty feet away.

Once there, he starts making
hmmm
noises and clicks with his tongue a sound that says he is on to something that he does not want to be on to. The other two catch up, and Arguello starts immediately helping pull the trees apart. I make a move to go in with them, and Parrish grabs my arm. I look, and he just shakes his head no. Parrish and I watch each direction of the road and I, for some reason, have both my grenade launcher and my pistol trained on the trail.

“Oh, no,” Lightfoot says. “No, no.”

“Jeez,” Arguello says.

“Again,”
Parrish says, disgusted. “How are they doing this? They are beating us to it every time, man, and I don't know how —”

He shuts himself right up as he reaches the site. I hear him breathing deeply, four, five, six times, and then I step up next to him.

And for a few moments I don't hear anything at all. It is, literally, like my hearing has been punctured dead.

Dead. There are three — and you can just about make it out because of the partial views of three heads — three dead men in this fifty-five-gallon drum.

Arguello puts his hand over his mouth, stands there as long as he can through one or two partial retches until vomit is bleeding out between his fingers, and heads for a tree to be properly sick.

“Keep it
quiet
,” Parrish snarls as Arguello moans, low and chunky.

They are local people, or at any rate not US military personnel. They are dressed, as I have seen countless indigenous Vietnamese, in simple cotton togs. They are — were — small men, but not small enough to fit in there together. Not unless someone broke them badly.

Lightfoot is kneeling, like a priest, aside the drum. He touches, briefly and lightly, two fingers on each bloody skull. Then he looks up at me and Parrish.

“I'm guessing we just met our informants for all these munitions dumps.”

He looks back and stares at them good long minutes more. Arguello is back with us but mostly looking away. Parrish is silent now, silent beyond being quiet.

“What do we do?” I ask finally.

Lightfoot looks up to Parrish, who has one hand covering the whole lower half of his face.

“Radio Lieutenant?” Arguello says into the void.

Parrish just shakes his head.

“You know Systrom,” Lightfoot says. “If you radio him when he's locked in, it better be a life-or-death scenario.”

“Or it'll
be
a life-or-death scenario,” Parrish says through his hand.

“So?” I ask.

“I think we gotta leave 'em,” Parrish says.

Lightfoot shakes his head.

“It's hard enough not being detected out here without also dragging a barrel full of —”

“Hey,” Lightfoot interrupts.

Parrish just nods and holds a hand up. “But … I don't know, man.”

“We don't take no barrel. We remove these men, individually, as individuals. And we carry them. We've already seen this whole trail. There should be no great trick to getting back okay.”

Parrish ponders.

“Your call, corporal?” Parrish asks.

“My call, corporal.”

All agreed, Lightfoot turns back to the men in the drum. “Sorry,” he says down low as he begins delicately unpicking limbs from limbs, feet from mouths, noses from eyes.

 

“Corporal Lightfoot,” I say as we near the end, the meeting point with the lieutenant.

“Yes, Private Bucyk?”

We are talking as softly as the puffing, dead Vietnamese summer air now. We are doing it without even trying because we couldn't possibly do anything more strenuous.

“My guy is starting to smell really bad.”

“I am sure he feels the same about you.”

Dusk is coming down quickly, and we can just barely see Lt. Systrom and Pvt. Kuns at the side of the trail in the distance. By my count I have shifted this man, this poor, worthy fighter, from one shoulder to the other thirty times. With the four of us ambulatory and the three of them along for the ride, we have each had periodic breaks, yet this has turned out to be backbreaking stuff. Especially with the requirement to stay on watch all the way down the road in case we missed anything the first time or anything new has popped up. Just keeping weapons at the ready is grueling in itself.

I can see the lieutenant's scowl from fifty yards. It adds to the weight of the casualty to the point that I just about fall down at the boss's feet when we meet.

“What's this?” Lt. Systrom asks, and his look doesn't suggest any answer is the right answer. “You had a duty. And picking up locals, however unfortunate those locals might be, was not part of that duty. So I ask again, why did I send out four men and get seven in return?”

Lightfoot does not waste words in his answer, reducing it, in fact, to just the very basics.

“Montagnards, sir.”

The way he is leaning up on his toes and forward, Systrom looks like he has a strong response prepared. Then he retracts.

He stares at Lightfoot, nods, and pulls up the radio.

We continue the heavy march, back toward our landing spot as the lieutenant calls for our ride.

As we lift the last body, then the last of ourselves into the same bullet-holed fiberglass boat that got us here, I feel practically boneless myself. I stumble into a seat next to Lightfoot as the boat motors out onto the river. I look around at everybody looking the same as me. Though not as much as me.

I am a rookie and feel it.

“Lightfoot?” I say into the corporal's ear. “What's Montagnards?”

“Our friends,” he says.

“Okay … right. Lightfoot …?”

“Shhhh,” he says, and pushes my face away. But gently.

 

Now I know.

I thought I knew fear, but now I know it.

I thought I knew horror, but now I know it.

I thought I knew tired … holy smokes, I thought I knew tired….

“Private Bucyk,” Lt. Systrom says from behind me as I'm just about into the mess for some dinner.

“Yes, sir?” I say, turning and saluting.

“I just wanted to check in and see how you thought operations went today. Your first real action. It's not like they tell you it's going to be, is it?”

“Not even close, sir. If they told me it was going to be like today on my first day, well, I just would have thought they were pulling my leg.”

“Right, well, now you know. Truth is, pretty much every one of your days is going to be a lot like today.”

I gulp. I know he can hear me gulp. That can't stop me from gulping again.

“Sorry, kid, I should have been more specific. I meant
my
day today. I lay motionless as a hibernating turtle, covered in leaves on the top of a hill, all day long. Never saw anything to shoot at. Hardly even blinked. That starlight scope, by the way, gets awfully tiresome on the ol' peep eye after a while.”

“I … would imagine it does, sir.”

I would also imagine he is telling me this stuff for a reason, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what that reason might be.

“I bet you're hungry,” he says.

“I absolutely am, lieutenant.”

“And here I am, keeping you from your hard-earned meal after a long first day in the field. What's wrong with me? Tell you what — go on in there and eat, get your fill, then meet me back out here afterward so we can have a talk. How's that?”

“That is fine, Lieutenant Systrom. Sure.”

“Great, then. See you right here. What say, half hour, yes?”

“Well, sir, I was thinking more —”

“Half hour, tremendous. See you here.”

Now I'm worried all over again. Am I in trouble? Am I not in trouble? Does he like me? Is he taking me under his wing? Is he taking me outside to see what kind of man I really am?

Jeez, what am I worried about? What's happened to me? I never used to worry about anything. That's what was great about me.

Now I'm worried about being worried.

I look all around me before I step through the door of the mess. Nobody is watching, thank goodness.

I give myself such a belt across the face, I am sure my dad hears it and is smiling in my direction.

“There,” I say. “That's better.”

Thirty minutes of wolfing later, I encounter the lieutenant standing right where he said he'd be. He has his beautiful sniper's M-21 at his side.

“Fine, fine,” he says, looking at his watch as I walk up to him.

“If you don't mind, sir, could I use the latrine before we begin?”

“Absolutely, private. I mind very much. Next time, plan your allocation of those thirty minutes more judiciously. Follow me.”

Okay, then. I follow right behind as Lt. Systrom marches double-time through the compound, past the commissary and the NCOs' club and the BOQ, which is the Bachelor Officers' Quarters. Right past the dock and the boats all parked next to the big
Benewah
, out to the clearing where we have a makeshift six-station, three-hundred-yard firing range.

Lt. Systrom hands over the magnificent weapon, and my heart goes all beehive on me. I lift it, get a feel for it, raise the scope to my eye, and see that target through the early evening dark as clear as if it were about to bump into me. Already I feel like the rifle and I are one unit.

“You do know your way around a gun, don't you, Bucyk?”

“I believe I do, sir.”

“You have dreams of being a sniper, don't you, Bucyk?”

“I have those dreams every night, sir.”

“It is about so much more than shooting, you know, private. So, so much more. It is about stealth. It is about being a leaf in the forest rather than a baboon. It is about staying so quiet and so still for so long at a time you forget your own presence.”