Arizona Moon

by J. M. Graham

  When manning the lines, each of 2/5’s four companies supplied a platoon for the reactionary force. The H-34s out of Marble Mountain used the moniker “Sparrow Hawk” when they flew these details, and the waiting platoons worked under the same name. As far as assignments went, being the Sparrow Hawk platoon was good duty. No work details. No manning the bunkers. No patrols or ambushes. The men got the sleep they needed and three square meals a day. The only responsibility was keeping field equipment ready for a quick departure. The sergeants would prowl the barracks, inspecting every area, making sure each man’s gear was laid out so it could be gathered quickly.

  If it was quiet in the boonies, Sparrow Hawk duty was sweet. But if anything went sour anywhere in 2/5’s TAOR, the Sparrow Hawk call echoed through the platoon area and everyone had to be lined up in full battle gear along the runway before the helicopters touched down. When units were operating in the Arizona, the Sparrow Hawks generally spent their time enjoying their ease but always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  Within minutes of Pusic’s alert, Lieutenant Hewitt’s 2nd Platoon was forming in front of the control tower. Staff Sergeant Litinsky paced back and forth barking orders as Marines helped each other wriggle through their pack straps. A staggered line of H-34s was already across the northern perimeter wire and dropping over the runway. The sergeant divided the squads into groups that would meet the carrying capacity of a 34, and they turned their backs to the runway as the helicopters dropped to a low hover and swung their tails south before setting down. The rotor wash exploded the dust from the steaming runway plates and pelted the waiting Marines as though from a sandblaster, stinging the backs of their necks and invading their lungs. As soon as the helicopters rolled to a stop, the squads moved forward, following Sergeant Litinsky’s bellowed commands, and climbed on board, filling the interiors until the last man on sat with legs dangling through the hatch above the runway.

  The pilots waited, keeping the rpms high for a quick liftoff.

  A lone figure crossed the rise next to the tower and ran down the embankment, rifle in one hand and helmet in the other. He waved the helmet in the air. Sergeant Litinsky pushed the new arrival onto the last helicopter and climbed in after him.

  Solemn faces populated the shadows in the helicopter’s belly. Marines leaned back against the bulkheads, trying not to hold anyone’s gaze too long for fear of revealing anxieties, or worse, seeing them in others. Tight-lipped smiles faded as quickly as they were made; designed to comfort, they came off as masks sculpted by worry.

  The burdened 34s lifted sluggishly from the runway and banked over the base, fighting for altitude in a wide circle before passing over the ammo bunker and the northern rolls of concertina wire hung with B-4 C-rat cans holding loose pebbles. Worn footpaths led away from the wire, branching out through the low brush like scars, scrubbed bare by the boots of a thousand patrols.

  Lieutenant Diehl set the pace of his Marines with his own speed. Those behind him had to hurry to keep up, and those ahead were driven forward by his admonitions. The lead fire team was uncomfortable moving through the Arizona at the speed they were traveling. The volatile earth of the Arizona did not reward those who threw caution to the wind, but the path they followed was well worn by the fresh imprints of feet under load, and they hoped the fleeing Vietnamese hadn’t taken the time to set traps in their wake.

  Though the blood trail petered out quickly, Burke’s squad had no trouble keeping to the path. The point man pushed through branches and leaf stalks already bent and broken by the VC. He could see that the enemy wasn’t moving single file. They’d gone side-by-side, smashing the undergrowth back and leaving a wide path, and it was obvious where they had stopped, crushing small plants down when they dropped their loads.

  Further along, where signs of a second stop were found, the point called a halt. Burke pushed his way forward. “What’s up?”

  The point man, breathing heavily, indicated with the barrel of his rifle where the path split, one path moving downhill. “We could be walking into an ambush here,” he said, searching the trees with worried eyes.

  Burke turned to the Marine behind him. “Pass word to the lieutenant. Something’s up. The trail has split.”

  While the column passed the word in hushed voices, Burke looked at the churned ground where the paths diverged. Unlike the path straight ahead, the one going down seemed to have footprints going in both directions. He pointed his rifle downhill and followed his aim, with the point man close behind. A handful of yards downgrade a hastily formed layer of leaves and branches looked oddly out of place, and Burke and the point man dragged them aside to reveal a soft mound of dirt. “Well, it’s no ambush,” Burke said.

  Lieutenant Diehl dropped down from the main path, digging his heels in to keep from falling. Clyde was taking the lieutenant’s advice to heart and stayed within arm’s reach. “What’s going on, Burke?” the lieutenant said.

  Burke could see from the lieutenant’s expression that the delay wasn’t making him happy. “It looked like maybe some of the dinks peeled off to wait for us to come along, but it’s just a fresh grave,” Burke said, trying to make his voice not sound like an apology.

  The lieutenant looked down at the raised mound of black earth. “One for the Chief,” he said.

  A question formed on Burke’s face. “Do we dig it up?” he asked.

  “Hell, no,” the lieutenant said, turning back up the hillside. “We’ve wasted enough time already. Get the platoon moving. Now.” The radioman scrambled up the incline after him.

  Burke and the point man looked down at the grave. The point spewed a stream of brown spit from the wad of chew in his cheek, bitten from a Days Work plug that came in the last Red Cross parcel. It hit the mound dead center. The Marine wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “This don’t feel like payback,” he said.

  Burke launched a droplet of clear spit—all his dry mouth could produce—in the general direction of the slurry of thick tobacco juice sinking into the grave. His contribution seemed insignificant in comparison. “No, it don’t,” he said. “But it will. Soon.”

  The two Marines dug their boots into the hill and climbed back to the platoon as fast as their legs would carry them.

  Strader and the Chief dodged trees and staggered upgrade like two drunks in a three-legged race, Strader holding onto the Chief’s belt and the Chief with an arm clamped around Strader’s neck like a wrestling headlock. The Chief grunted with each step as Strader yanked up on his belt, driving his inseam into his scrotum. At least it distracted him from the pain in his head. They took whatever path was steepest, trying to get to the highest defendable ground as quickly as possible.

  Below, at the edge of the tree line, the NVA fired a few short bursts, hoping a round would find a home by chance or flush one of them into view, but the two Marines were well out of sight and climbing above the line of fire. Though they weren’t too concerned about being hit, the firing added an extra energy boost to their climb. Their only advantage was being able to push forward and upward as fast as their feeble gait would allow, while the enemy had to move with at least a little caution, not knowing if they were just pursuing or walking into a desperate defense. Even so, Strader couldn’t imagine the Vietnamese moving any slower than he was.

  Twice the Chief retched with convulsive spasms that produced a weak line of drool that swung from his chin. All the while he forced his legs to keep pushing upward, ignoring the overwhelming desire to curl over his knees and rest his forehead on the ground. Strader looked at him in amazement. He didn’t know it was possible to puke and run at the same time. The streaks of blood from the Chief’s head wound sucked up his perspiration and peeled away in flakes that gave him a diseased look.

  “Can you keep going, Chief?” Strader asked.

  The Chief’s sidelong glance had reproach in it. “You’ll be looking up at me when you fall,” he panted.

  They drove their knees into the slippery face of the mountain unt
il their jungle pants were caked with the pungent earth of the Ong Thu. The midday sun weighed on the canopy above, superheating the air and making the jungle into an orchid hothouse. Plants hanging low with the weight of last night’s rain rose up with the relief of evaporation. Wide, leathery leaves that looked like elephant ears hung on thick stalks intertwined with a lacework of other plants in bewildering variety and profusion that seemed to be conspiring to make movement from one spot on the mountain to another as difficult as possible. Strader pushed and shoved at the natural barricade, looking for weak spots to force a way through. The two Marines ducked and twisted, fighting the plants that snagged their arms and legs and equipment. They tucked in their arms and held their equipment close, hoping to reduce the target for the clinging obstructionists.

  The Chief had to relinquish his stranglehold on Strader’s neck and content himself with hanging onto the buckle straps on his pack. He couldn’t focus his vision ahead, so he let himself be dragged along in Strader’s wake through whatever holes could be found.

  Strader stooped below a cluster of the obstinate branches the Marines cursed as “wait-a-minute vines” that grabbed at him like fishhooks, ripping at his utilities and stinging his ears. By themselves the vines were of little consequence, easily snapped and flung aside, but in the thickets they formed here they were formidable—natural proof of strength in numbers. “Chief. I need your knife,” he said, turning as far as the vines would allow.

  “It’s mine,” the Chief said stubbornly, thumbing the silver end cap that anchored the blade.

  “Come on, Chief. Don’t jerk me around,” Strader said, pushing his hand backward, palm up.

  Reluctantly the Chief withdrew the knife from its sheath and set the handle in the upturned hand. “I want it back.”

  “I’ll leave it to you in my will. That way you’ll be sure to get it . . . soon.” Strader struggled to get his arm back through the vines. He didn’t want to swing the blade like a machete—the hacking noise would be a homing beacon—so he set a vine on the hilt and let it slide up the long blade, parting it easily. He lifted the knife high and drew it down across the web of vines in his face, slicing through them like a razor through spaghetti. He dragged the blade up and down across their vulnerable green throats until they surrendered the way. Their progress improved as Strader sliced through vines the knife could defeat and sidestepped those it couldn’t.

  The Chief seemed to be getting his legs back and had less trouble keeping up. The suffocating vines finally disappeared beneath a fallen tree that had recently crushed the tangled surface community to the ground under its weight. The industry of a voracious termite colony was gutting the tree, and the two Marines followed the spindly-legged army marching along the dead bark. Staying close to the trunk, they trampled down the foot snags and quickly made their way to the leafless dead branches that had once graced the canopy.

  They were deep inside the jungle now, where impenetrable undergrowth found little foothold in the dim light among the thirsty root systems of the larger trees. Strader swung an arm behind the Chief to help him navigate, and they moved upward through the tall trunks as through an obstacle course, climbing over and around ancient root buttresses thick with lichens.

  Huge slabs of stone had slipped away from the face of the mountain at some point in the geological history of the Ong Thu and settled against one another to grow blankets of moss and fade into the natural camouflage of the jungle. Strader led the Chief into their midst and released him to slide down against the upper side of one green slab. “I need a breather, Chief,” he gasped.

  The Chief barely had the strength to scan Strader with the one bleary eye that wasn’t obscured by the slipping battle dressing. “If you say so,” he said, trying to put force into his voice but failing miserably. The Chief held his one-eyed stare until Strader flipped the long knife over in his hand and held it out, handle first.

  “You sure you want a dangerous individual like me to have an edged weapon?”

  Strader balanced the knife between index finger and thumb and wiggled the handle up and down. “I’ll take my chances.”

  The Chief reached up slowly and took the knife, happy to feel the weight of it in his hand again.

  Strader grabbed a canteen from his belt and took a long pull. The bitterness of the halizone battled with the flavor of plastic leached from the inner wall of the canteen to be the taste that made the water undrinkable. They both failed: thirst trumps taste. Strader wiped his mouth with a gritty forearm. “You think you can keep something down?” he said, holding out the canteen.

  “I can try.” The Chief took the canteen and filled his mouth.

  Strader’s Corcoran jump boots, stiff and hard-edged when he’d put them on yesterday, now bent with the subtle flexibility of calf skin when he squatted down. Strader watched the Chief’s blood-streaked face as he drank.

  “What?” the Chief said, returning the canteen.

  “I don’t like the look of your face.”

  “You’re not exactly a fashion model yourself, shithead.”

  “Tilt your head back,” Strader said, taking the canteen from the Chief’s hand.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can’t read your face covered in war paint.”

  The Chief searched Strader’s eyes, trying to determine whether this was an insult. “My people paint their faces so there is no mistaking the read. You don’t have to interpret their expressions. If you see paint, you know you’re in deep shit.”

  “I already know I’m in deep shit, Chief. I don’t need you trying to scare me, too.” Strader gently pushed the stained battle dressing up so he could see more of the Chief’s face. “Close your eyes,” he said.

  The Chief started to pull his face away from Strader’s outstretched hand, but the pain of the movement made him stop.

  Strader grabbed the Chief under the jaw, digging his fingers in and forcing the Chief’s head back without showing any consideration for discomfort. He tilted the canteen over the Indian’s upturned face.

  The Chief spit and blinked his eyes under the halizone soaking. He swung his arm, knocking Strader’s hand away. “You’re wasting water, asshole.” The cool water streamed down his neck and into the stretched-out collar of his T-shirt. He wiped a hand over his face and blinked again . . . and again, then snatched the canteen, tipped his head back, and poured more water onto his face, blinking furiously as he did. Water was running down onto his shoulders before Strader could grab the canteen away.

  “Ease up, man. I might want to wash the car later,” Strader said, screwing the attached cap back on the canteen. Nearly half of the water was gone.

  The Chief dragged a hand over his face again, staring at Strader like he was seeing him for the first time. “I think I can see.”

  “Good. Let’s go.” Shrill bird calls and hooted answers in the upper reaches of the canopy announced intruders, or maybe just passed the time of day, but Strader hoisted the Chief onto his feet anyway and they followed the stones up the mountain.

  The initial pace of the lone squad’s progress along the valley floor dropped off to a steady plod after a quarter mile as each squad member fell into his own rhythm, adjusting speed as necessary to keep up or to keep from being pushed from behind. When Sergeant Blackwell felt they weren’t covering ground fast enough, he sent word to Franklin at the point to act as lead dog, daring the pack to stay with him or suffer the shame. The pace was pounding some of the squad, especially Bronsky, who looked as though the heavy radio was driving him into the ground with each step.

  When thick reeds at the southern end of the lake sent the squad back into the trees, they moved at a cautious walk, thankful for the breather; entering the shade was like stepping off a hotplate. The cool, oxygen-rich air soothed their burning lungs.

  Doc Brede could see that the heat was taking its toll on the squad and passed word to down salt pills before returning to the valley floor.

  The point fire team tested the marshy
ground outside the tree line until they were past the stands of bamboo on the northern bank and the ground firmed up enough to carry weight. Reluctantly, the squad filed out of the trees and back into sunlight that seemed focused directly on them by some immense celestial magnifying glass. The ground was solid and clear, and Franklin resumed the fast pace. He could see across the open valley to the northern Ong Thu that doglegged spurlike east to Nam An 3. In the crook of the mountain’s angle he could see thin vapors rising above the broken body of the helicopter. He pointed to the machine, small in the distance, so Middleton could make it out.

  With the helicopter now in sight, Sergeant Blackwell called a halt to contact Lieutenant Diehl. But before he could squeeze the lever on the handset, a burst of fire erupted high up on the mountain behind them. Every face turned toward the noise, though the firing was too far away to be a danger to them. The gunfire was a sustained rip that lasted only a handful of seconds and was followed by a short pause; then another burst filled the mountainside with echoes.

  To the uneducated ear this was just distant gunfire, but most of the Marines in 1st Platoon were well into a yearlong tutorial in deciphering weapon noises. It didn’t take long in-country to learn to recognize the voices of the different weapons. Each weapon had its own signature readily distinguishable to the initiated ear. The tones of round detonations from the AK-47 and SKS were as different from an M16’s tone as the M16 was different from the M14, and the lapse of time between rounds when the weapon was on full auto easily identified the weapon spitting them out. The M16 could rip through a whole magazine so quickly that it sounded like an abbreviated snarl. The rate of fire of the M60, though using the same round as the M14, had the distinctive cadence of a full-auto machine. The .50-caliber had the methodical plodding of an automatic cannon, slower than the lighter calibers but infinitely more destructive.