“He’s the chief of a village somewhere nearby,” Donovan said after the exchange. “He wants us to go with him.”
“He’s Laotian?” Lincoln asked.
“He’s Hmong.”
“From Vang Khom?”
“No, we’re still too far from there. But he’s Hmong. And considering he’s not exactly a fan of the Pathet Lao, he likes us.”
“How do we know he’s not going to lead us into a trap?”
“Why would he do that? He’s on our side.”
“I’m with Clay,” Corbett said. “For all we know, he’s some kind of cannibal. Maybe he’s got a nice big cook pot simmering, just waiting for us.”
“The Hmong aren’t cannibals,” Donovan said. “He hates the fucking commies. And he says he has a radio.”
“A radio?”
“Yes!” Donovan said something else in Hmong, and the old man laughed, then made a cranking motion with one hand and held his other up to his head, as if speaking into a radio headset.
“I’ll be damned,” Corbett said. “Maybe he really does have a radio.”
“If he does, it’s left over from the French,” Donovan said. “God knows if the fucking thing works. But we have to go with him. At the very least, we can get some food. And maybe we can get help.”
Donovan and the old man exchanged a few more sentences, and then the man gestured for them to follow. Donovan holstered his gun, and Lincoln slipped his knife back into its sheath.
• • •
The village was picturesque, in its way. Carved from the jungle in a saddle just below the highest peak, it sat on the bank of a narrow river. Water buffalo cooled themselves in the river—Lincoln thought they were boulders, until one lifted its massive, horned head to shake off water—and some of the women knelt by the banks, washing clothes. Good-size huts were raised off the ground on stilts, which meant that during the wet season, the river probably overran its banks. The roofs of most overhung the walls enough to form shaded areas for cooking and other chores. Some huts had smaller, secondary ones standing nearby, which Donovan said were basically pantries or larders, for storing goods and foodstuffs.
At the sight of the old man, accompanied by the three Americans, the village’s children went berserk. Naked or nearly so, they ran in circles, around and around the newcomers, many of them holding out their hands, almost all of them jabbering something Lincoln couldn’t begin to understand.
“They’re hoping for treats or coins,” Donovan said. “They’ve heard stories of French troops coming through with their pockets full of candies and coins for the children.”
“Tell them our pockets are empty,” Lincoln said. “And if we had any coins, they’d be American money and useless here.”
Donovan tried to wave the kids away, but he kept a smile on his face and a lightness in his tone. Finally, the furor died down. Now Lincoln realized the village’s men were lined up, watching them carefully. Many carried spears, some bows and arrows. There were only a couple of rifles in evidence, and they were ancient. The women, likewise, watched from their doorways or their shaded work areas. They weren’t smiling, but they weren’t attacking, either, so that was something.
The old man spoke to a few of the younger ones. Once they had gone back and forth a couple of times, two of the younger ones ran to a hut near the edge of the village. They dashed inside and came out quickly, bearing a radio. It looked older than the rifles. Lincoln doubted that even Nilsson, the radio genius from Lang Vei, could have raised anyone on it.
The men set it down in the dirt, connected a hand-cranked, tripod-mounted generator to it, and the old man sat down beside it. One of the younger ones started to crank the generator, and as he did, the old man keyed it, trying to raise someone. Eventually, most of the other villagers wandered off to do whatever it was they did, and Lincoln, Donovan, and Corbett sat down in the shade to wait.
Finally, someone responded. Lincoln hoped it wasn’t the VC. The old man spoke in rapid-fire Hmong as he keyed the message, and Donovan translated what he could catch. “He’s in touch with someone in Vientiane, apparently. They’ll let the government know that we’re out here, and they’ll inform the American embassy.”
“So, what, we’ll be here two weeks? Three?” Lincoln asked.
Donovan shrugged. “Best we can do is the best we can do.”
“We could start walkin’ again, head for Vang Khom.”
“Makes sense to me,” Corbett added.
“Look at it this way,” Donovan said. “If he really was talking to someone in Vientiane and that person really does go to the government, and whoever he talks to goes to the embassy, then at least someone will know where we are. When Corbett doesn’t get back, they’ll know we’re missing—that’ll light a fire under their asses. They might already be looking for us. This way, just maybe they’ll find us quicker. If we take off by ourselves and try to walk to goddamn Vang Khom, the chances of running into a fucking Pathet Lao division are greater than the chances that Americans doing a flyover search will spot us. And even if we do make it to Vang Khom, we’re in the same boat as we are here, except they don’t have a fifty-year-old French radio.”
“Well, when you put it like that,” Lincoln said, “I guess we could stick around for a little while.”
“That’s what I thought you’d say.”
“Did I mention I hate walking?” Corbett asked.
“Three or four hundred times is all,” Lincoln said.
“Well, it’s true.” He considered for a moment, then added, “You suppose any of these people know how to make a pie?”
16
* * *
The sun was balanced on the lip of a mountain range to the west when they heard the buzz of a distant airplane. The three men rose from the dirt but stayed in the shade, each of them shielding their eyes with one hand and scanning the sky. Lincoln saw it first. “There!” he said. It was a dot in the distance but growing progressively larger.
It was a twin-engine propeller job. As it came closer, Corbett gave a shout. “It’s a Beech Baron!” he cried. “It’s our guys!”
“Our guys?” Lincoln asked.
“Air America,” Donovan explained.
“Can it land here?”
“There’s nowhere to put down,” Corbett said. “Even my U-10 couldn’t land here.” He stepped out of the shade, waving his hands over his head. Donovan followed suit, so Lincoln joined them.
The airplane came closer, dipped down, and circled over the village three times. The third time, it wagged its wings in response.
“He saw us!” Corbett said. “My guess, that’s Tommy Pinchot in the cockpit. He loves his Baron.”
Lincoln watched the plane flying away, back in the direction from which it had come. “It’s leaving.”
“He can’t land,” Corbett said again. “Best he can do is send back a chopper.”
“How long is that going to take?”
“I think we can look forward to enjoying the hospitality of these fine folks overnight,” Donovan said. “Could be worse.”
“Damn straight,” Corbett agreed. “They could be cannibals.”
“I told you, the Hmong aren’t goddamn cannibals.”
“That you know of.”
“I’d know.”
“That’s what they always say about cannibals, until they find toothmarks on human bone. Then the story changes.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Brad—” Donovan began.
Corbett cut him off. “I’m just giving you a hard time, Donovan. Nobody’s been looking at me like they’re hungry, and I’m definitely the most appetizing one of us.” He glanced over at Lincoln, then added, “Unless they like the dark meat.”
• • •
After a dinner of roast pig, chased down by the tribespeople with plenty of the local liquor, the chieftain let his distinguished guests use his longhouse for the night. The thatched bamboo structure contained a functional bamboo table and a couple of chairs, a shelf jutt
ing out from one wall containing his entire wardrobe, and a framed-in bed of fresh grasses and leaves. Donovan claimed the bed, so Lincoln and Corbett stretched out on the woven floor. It was more comfortable than Lincoln had expected, and he fell asleep quickly.
The sun had not yet cleared the horizon when he was awakened by horrific, anguished screams. He snatched up the knife that he’d kept close all night and dashed out the door, closely followed by Donovan and Corbett. The screams continued, from down by the river. “What the hell?” Corbett asked as they hurried toward the scene. “Sounds like someone’s being slaughtered.”
This high up on the mountain, once the sun broke above the eastern horizon, full light came on almost at once. When it did, Lincoln saw six of the tribeswomen, naked or nearly so, standing in the shallows at the edge of the water. Each held a machete, and they were all drenched in blood. Then he saw a water buffalo, down on its knees in the slow current, bleeding from a dozen spots. It was no longer screaming, but it let out pained bleats that grew weaker with every passing moment.
The old chieftain stood nearby, just far enough away to avoid being spattered with blood or river water. He said something to Donovan, who translated for the others.
“Apparently we’re to be the guests at a feast this morning. That buffalo gave its goddamn life for us.”
“They let the women do the killing?” Lincoln asked.
“Men do the hunting, but this is food preparation,” Donovan replied. “Women’s work, in their culture.”
Lincoln had never seen a woman acting so savage. He had known men—hardened gangsters—who would shy away from chopping up an animal that way, much less a human being. He didn’t have much patience for that. If you were going to live the life, with all the benefits that came along with it, you had to take the dirty jobs along with the clean ones. Sometimes you wanted a body to disappear forever, which meant a deep grave or incineration or maybe a long bath of lye. Other times you wanted to make a certain kind of statement, one that could best be made with the judicious placement of somebody’s head, or the timely delivery of a finger or a hand or some other recognizable body part. He didn’t enjoy that kind of work—though he’d met a couple of people who did—but he didn’t avoid it when it had to be done.
They stood and watched as the buffalo’s lifeblood drained away into the river, a long pinkish stream that caught the morning sunlight as it vanished around a bend. The women kept hacking at it, cutting it into manageable chunks and tossing them onto the shore. Others, clad in more traditional Hmong dresses and wraps, collected those pieces and carried them to the open space at the village center. A huge fire had been lit there, with flames licking eight to ten feet tall. Lincoln was reminded of the U-10’s fate.
Which reminded him of their own. A feast in their honor was nice enough, but all things considered, he would rather be rescued before he had to spend another night on the old man’s floor.
By nine o’clock, the sun was high and Lincoln was famished. The smell of buffalo roasting over open flame filled the village, and his mouth was watering. Most of the villagers had put on their best, brightest attire; the women wore sparkling silver jewelry adorned with gemstones, along with fine, colorful pantaloons and blouses or dresses. Many of the men wore loincloths, but others had put on fancy, bright shirts and some wore jewelry that outshone the women’s. Jugs of the tribe’s liquor—foul-tasting but strong—had been set out, along with drinking goblets. People chattered amiably, not seeming to mind that of the three Americans, only Donovan could understand a word they said, and then less than half of it.
Then the buffalo was ready. Big slabs of it were handed to the guests and the tribal elders, including the chieftain. He said something over his that Lincoln took to be some kind of blessing, then ripped into it with teeth that seemed plenty strong despite his age. Donovan shrugged and followed suit. When the crowd roared in appreciation, Lincoln and Corbett did the same. It tasted even better than it smelled.
An hour later, pleasantly full and more than a little drunk, Lincoln was sitting with Donovan, Corbett, and a group of young village men. They wanted to know what was going on with the war across the border and with the communist forces within Laos. Donovan was doing his best to translate between the two groups and had told them right off the bat that he couldn’t discuss the American presence in their country. It was dangerous enough to be there, in a village where he’d had no previous contact, where there might be communist sympathizers who would be happy to inform the Pathet Lao that Americans had visited. But thanks to the plane crash, it couldn’t be helped. Now they waited for a helicopter that would further confirm the American presence.
“After you’ve worked with the folks in Vang Khom for a while, see if they’ve got friendly relations with these people,” Donovan said to Lincoln. “They seem amenable to the cause. Maybe you could put together some volunteers.”
“Hold up,” Lincoln said. “I thought I was supposed to focus on the men in Vang Khom. Am I also supposed to be recruiting from other villages?”
“Can’t hurt. If you catch a break in Vang Khom, those people might have friends or relatives in other villages who want to join up. The bigger the force you can muster, the harder you can take it to those red bastards.”
Lincoln nodded. So far, Donovan had been fairly vague on just what he expected. He seemed to think Lincoln would understand what needed to be done and would just know how to do it. That, Lincoln remembered, had been part of what Captain Franklin had stressed—saying that Lincoln had an aptitude for it. But he was a mob kid from New Bordeaux, not a hardened intelligence agent.
“Sometimes it sounds like what you want is a Peace Corps volunteer who has also worked as a drill sergeant,” Lincoln said.
Donovan laughed. “That’s a pretty good summary, Lincoln. Except you forgot one thing.”
“What’s that?”
“I need a man who knows how to kill. If you’re not afraid to die, that’s even better.”
“I’d rather not die,” Lincoln said. “I want to get back to New Bordeaux after this is all over.”
“You’ll be home before this fucking war is over. You’ll probably be an old man before it’s over, the way those Pentagon assholes are running it. If they’d let us turn northern Laos and North Vietnam into another Dresden—or Hiroshima—it’d be over in a goddamn blink. And if we still had Kennedy in Washington . . .” He paused, shaking his head sadly. “No point in going down that path, though.”
One of the younger men, barely out of his teens, interrupted to ask Donovan another question. The agent made him repeat it, slowly, until he understood what was being asked.
“He says he wants to kill communists. He says he doesn’t care if it’s with his bare hands, knives, arrows, or guns; he just wants to soak the earth with communist blood.”
“He’s enthusiastic, I’ll say that for him,” Corbett said with a chuckle.
“Remember this kid, Lincoln,” Donovan said. “When the time comes, this is a motherfucker you want on your team.”
Lincoln couldn’t quite imagine himself ever speaking the Hmong language well enough to recruit people from other villages. And this one was several days from Vang Khom on foot, across a valley that was reportedly a Pathet Lao hotbed.
Still, he didn’t want to sound like he wasn’t fully on board with this mission, whatever it would turn out to be. “I will,” he said. He studied the young man’s face, trying to commit it to memory.
He hadn’t even started yet, but he already felt like he was in over his head.
17
* * *
The slick came while the feast was winding down. The big fire was still going, and since the three Americans didn’t have a smoke grenade between them, they corralled as many villagers as they could into soaking leaves at the river and throwing them into the flames. The smoke cloud from that was sufficient to guide in the unmarked chopper. On the other side of the river, livestock had grazed a clearing big enough for it to land
. Lincoln and his companions bade quick good-byes to their hosts, charged into the river, then, soaking wet and laughing like madmen, scrambled aboard.
Corbett recognized the pilot. “Tommy, it’s you! Was that you in the Baron last night, too?”
“You think I’d let someone else fly my bird?” the pilot asked. He was rail-thin, with a blond crew cut and aviator shades. He wore an olive drab jumpsuit with the requisite survival vest that Corbett had refused. “Somebody else might wreck it. Not that I’m pointing any fingers.”
“Hey, that wasn’t my fault,” Corbett replied. “Man, some people never let you live anything down.”
“One of the five, I’m guessing?” Lincoln asked.
“Five?” Tommy echoed. “I knew it! You dumped another one. Did you lose all the cargo, too?”
“Oh, shut up,” Corbett said.
Tommy got the helicopter airborne. Flying over the valley, they drew some small-arms fire from below, though none of the rounds came close enough to worry about. The flight from mountaintop to mountaintop was a relatively short one, but Lincoln was glad they hadn’t had to make the trip over land. Tommy had brought AR-30s, grenades, ammunition, and survival vests for all of them, so Lincoln felt a little more equipped to face the Laotian countryside.
After about twenty minutes in the air, they dropped down toward a village much like the one they’d just left. This one looked like it had been there for longer. The houses were more substantial and bore the signs of having survived the elements for years. Again, they were raised up on stilts, and a creek trickled right through the village, bisecting it. Cleared areas outside the main collection of huts looked like cultivated fields, but they didn’t appear to be very productive. Beyond those was a rice paddy that looked like it had completely dried up.
Tommy Pinchot put down on one of those fields. Prop wash flattened the vegetation and fluttered the loose clothing of the villagers who had gathered to watch. They wore somber expressions, as if unsure of who would arrive in such a craft, or why.
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