Mr. Fox and Other Feral Tales

by Norman Partridge

  I scrambled for the flashlight, but the beam waned and died. Nervously, I inched along the examining table, blindly reaching forward. I found the bag zipper and the black plastic crinkled with a puff of air —a breath! There was a grating whiz as the zipper released, and a dark figure jerked up before me with a choking gasp.

  I stepped back, startled, and then advanced, extending my hand toward his shoulder. But he moved too quickly, jumping off the table, grabbing me by the wrist. His cold, bloody fingers stiffened and dug in, viselike, twisting against my bones. For a moment we were in the light and I could see his black face, but then he pulled me back into the shadows.

  "Where am I?" he demanded, his voice a cutting whisper.

  Stunned, I swallowed hard. "You're in base camp, Kham D__. This is the morgue tent; they must have thought that you were — "

  "Dead?" He laughed dreamily. "Does it look like I'm dead. Lieutenant?"

  His vision was sharp; even in the dark he'd noticed my stripes. Procedure jumped into my mind. "A medic," I said. "We've got to get you to a medic. Who knows what happened to — "

  His bloody grip tightened around my wrist and he spun me around easily, bending my elbow and driving my wrist up between my shoulder blades. With one smooth movement he slipped my pistol from its holster. I grunted in pain, rising up on my toes to release the pressure, but his icy hand only stiffened and pushed my wrist hard against my spine. A whimper broke my lips and he let me go; I felt the .45 barrel cold against my ribs as I sank to my knees.

  "No medic," he commanded. "I don't need them no more." He paused, bending low and turning my chin toward his own. His flat nose splayed out between large cheekbones, shadowed by a heavy brow. I stared at his strange purple face, searching for his eyes in the darkness. He didn't appreciate the attention. He squinted and pushed me away. "Turn out that damn light," he ordered. "I don't want no one else comin' around here."

  His purple face, the chill of his hand — I knew enough about death (even then) to know that something impossible was happening. "Look, Jackson," I implored, "you'd better just calm down and let me get you some help."

  He cocked the pistol. "Dammit, Lieutenant," he said, speaking with the cold precision of his action, "seems to me you don't hear too well. Seems to me I said to off that light."

  I walked out of the shadows, raised my hand to the weak warmth of the light. I grabbed the cord and pulled. "Happy?" I asked.

  "Radio too," he said.

  I found my way to the desk and flipped off the music. Outside, raindrops splattered into flooded potholes. I almost jumped through the opening, but he came around me and fastened the flap shut, and then I couldn't see well anymore. I heard a chair scrape the canvas floor and saw a shadow sit in it. Blindly, I groped for the plywood desk and leaned back, gripping the splintery edge. Just stay cool I told myself. Someone will come.

  "Ain't nobody comin'. Lieutenant."

  I gasped, wondering if I had spoken. "What are you going to do?"

  "Nothin' now.... Just sit and rap now. Let things clear up. Hey, I been through a lot lately. After awhile. I'm out to the perimeter. A little huntin', you might say."

  I was sure he was crazy. Either that, or I was talking to shadows and I was crazy. But that was before things had melded and reversed, before death seeped into life and bloated it, when I was just the Lieutenant instead of the Officer in Charge of the Dead.

  He shifted and his chair creaked. "Now Lieutenant, you goin' to be a good boy and listen. Because now I sit and think on it, wake up, I know it's all true. It ain't no big dream, nothin' out of a bottle or a pipe." He took a deep breath, very dry; it crackled in his throat like autumn wind crackling over dry leaves. "That old man was right," he whispered. "Damn if that old man wasn't right...." He repeated that a few more times, as if finally convinced after long speculation.

  Wearing him out —that was the key. I'd always been good with words, and I decided that talk would be the way to wind him down. "What old man is that?" I asked.

  He grunted. I knew that he was smiling even though I couldn't see him, didn't even try to see him. Then he spat half sentences: "Old man who birthed me second time. Old man who is my old man now. My new CO, my founder and chief. All that's been and all that'll ever be — "

  "What the hell?" I said, not with excitement, but in a voice that was even and skeptical. And then, "What does that mean?" the same way.

  Again, the invisible smile. "Means just this, sir. Means I ain't windin’ down like you think. Means I ain't losin' no blood, neither. Means I'm wakin' up, sir. Lieutenant, it means your ass is mine if I just want to reach out...."

  I lit another cigarette and said nothing for a long time. The rain came harder; drops pattered against the canvas roof like tiny hammers. I tamped out my cigarette, and in the second of darkness that followed I felt my reserve slipping away. I closed my eyes and dammed up what was left.

  "It means," he said flatly, pausing to emphasize his long consideration, "that you are sitting here talking to a dead man."

  Something cracked wetly. I remembered the rat. A moment later, I heard Jackson chewing. "Um. Finger lickin' — "

  I sprang for the tent flap but only found him. He pushed me back into the middle of the tent, laughing like a coyote. The .45 whipped through the air and slapped against my jaw, and I dropped to the floor. "No... can't be," I said, dazed. "Dead men can't eat, can't hit-"

  "You got a lot to learn. Lieutenant," he interrupted. "A dead man can do anything that a living man lets him do."

  Something bitter rose in my throat. Dizzily, I lay down and pressed my throbbing jaw against the cool canvas floor.

  Jackson patted my shoulder. "I'm sorry. Now you all confused, huh Lieutenant? Don't worry. I'll lay it all out for you. Dead men good for some things. They can tell some tales. The special dead men, that is. The plain dead, they jus' good for something else."

  Angrily, I spat on the floor and asked, "Like what?"

  What else could I ask? He'd led me carefully.

  "Like for life," he said, baiting me.

  I said nothing and he laughed again, trying to crack the dark. His laughter was like some strange, fleshy pump gasping and screeching as it drove an overworked machine. The sound somehow ended inside him, echoing in his chest. I squeezed my eyelids shut and didn't listen, but he just waited, "Man," he said finally, drawing out the word, "I am born again to eat the dead."

  At that moment I wanted to wake up. I yearned for him to disappear. But he kept on talking, slowly and quietly in that muffled drone, sucking slow, uneven breaths like he was forgetting how.

  You see, he made me relax, even though I didn't want to.

  "See, Lieutenant," he said, his tone signaling a beginning, "when I was alive, paying attention to the simple laws that frighten you, I was a lurp. You know: assassin, jungle fighter. Oh, the officers at SOG loved us, and you know why? 'Cause we never lost nothin', that's why. We was meaner than Charlie, bigger and stronger. We got anything we wanted. What SOG wouldn't give us we got from somebody else — everybody was scared shitless of my boys, give us stuff just to get us out of their faces. Yeah, we was the baddest of the bad.

  "So, anyway, my recon team was on a long patrol, way out from the bases, farther than I'd ever been — 'cept when we was in Laos, of course. Seven of us humpin' through jungle we didn't know, waitin' for the smell of opportunity. But nothin' really turned. Oh, we got us a few tunnel rats, a few stragglers, but the damn Vietnamese scouts from LLDB offed them right quick. And that riled me, 'cause I'm in charge, you see. I don't bring back nothin' for those boys at MACV, it's my ass on the line. Besides, I wanted the $700 bounty that SOG was offerin' for prisoners. Things like that mattered then. I was tuned in to their game. I didn't see the jungle...."

  He paused, drawing an empty breath. My jaw ached; my teeth felt like pounding pistons. Rolling over, I opened my eyes and lay flat on my back.

  I know he smiled before continuing. "We needed something heavy before we could ev
en think about startin' back. I was edgy, on everybody, and they was complaining about everything — the heat, the leeches — every damn little thing they could come up with. Things was getting too tight between us, and I knew that if we didn't meet Charlie soon, it was all goin' to snap. Now, I'm the boss. I know it's gonna snap right at me.

  "We was followin' a band of montagnard hunters, hopin' that they would lead us to Charlie. We lost them late in the day, and that's when we found the idol.

  "This thing was a real monster, carved out of the side of a whole damn mountain. A whole goddamn mountain, Lieutenant. And it wasn't no Buddha; it was older than that. The face, what was left of it, wasn't no Asian face. I don't know what the hell it was, but somehow I knew it was so old that it might even give Charlie a case of chills. My men slumped down on one of the feet — must have been 'bout ten-foot long and half as wide—just talkin' about how freaky the thing looked, and the Vietnamese scouts wouldn't go near it.

  "These guys was spooked. Anybody could see that. I mean the fear and the anticipation. Lieutenant. Hell, I felt it myself, but I had to set it aside. So I just thought on it, mapped out a plan. I noticed things. The idol was ancient, half rotten, like it was something dead being eaten by the jungle. Vines wrapped around its arms and legs, rain had poured over the shoulders and down the chest carving gullies that looked like scars, its fingers and toes was either missing or joined. The idol was a real mess, but grabbed you in a strange way 'cause it was still there, not gone. You could still see what it had been a long time ago." Jackson hesitated, searching for more words. "The thing had some weird kind of power.

  "But anyway, while I was lookin' at it, I noticed two things that told me this idol wasn't forgotten. Oh, it was camouflaged real well— the jungle did that anyway — but someone had been usin' the jungle, workin' with it to make small trails up the thing. The trails winded over the lap and up the belly, right along with the vines, leadin' up to a cave in the mouth.

  "That mouth was the freakiest part. The rest of the face was worn almost flat, real smooth; the nose was pushed back wide and almost even with the face, like it was sinkin' in. Anyway, at first it looked like the mouth was that way, too. The bottom lip stuck out just a little, like a ledge, and the top rounded above it, curvin' out a foot or so further. There was two or three feet between. There was vines over the opening, but I could still tell that it was there. I gave the credit to Charlie. He was slick, all right, but I always had a way, always been able to see through him and the jungle, and this time I knew I had him whupped. I took my men back down the trail a ways, let them in on what I'd seen. We planned for night, put on war paint. We ate.

  "Night came. We worked it all out and agreed on the kill; even took us some uppers for an edge. The moon came up bright and blue — things was goin' to be good for us. The plan was like this: we climb up to the lap, hide along Charlie's own paths. I climb up further, above the top lip, lob in a smoke grenade and wait for Charlie to come out. My men nail Charlie when he comes down the trail. Easy.

  "But when we went to work, the thing twisted off in my mind. See, I was ready for the kill myself. More than ready. I edged up that slimy, scarred chest, smellin' that slick rot, my greasegun tight against my belly.... Lieutenant, I knew it was stupid, but you know how you get instincts, how gambles fill you up. So I grabbed the inside edge of the bottom lip, pulled myself over into the black like a ghost, just quiet and cool.

  "Then I was in nothing, failin' fast and straight down. I landed hard on my back, lookin' straight up. I could see the night shining up there, 'bout twenty feet above, hittin' back into the idol's mouth. The opening curved down just like a throat — I could even see knobby rocks that looked like teeth. But that was all I could see; the rest was just black."

  Jackson stopped talking. I felt him concentrating, measuring.... I knew that he was sizing me up. Sweat trickled down my forehead; I sat up and tightened. A low whistle broke the silence. I heard Jackson's booted feet stride across the floor. His sharp whistle spit at me from only inches away; it stank of death. I tried to draw back but there was no place to go.

  Jackson had me. Brain slid through skull and was his. His to fill with subtle doctrine, his to mold and cut and tie. I opened my mouth and tasted the bloody piece of rat that he placed on my tongue as an unholy sacrament. His wheezing breaths came hard and fast; his whistle sang. I recognized his song as the song, and that is when I discovered the power of the dead; that is how I learned of the levels that lie below death, above life.

  Silent, we sat in the dark for a long time. He let me think. Then the story wound on, like all records have to, but now it was much clearer.

  "He was black and shiny and big. He came out of the darkness, and I found out what was going down, because I tried to move and couldn't. I could feel blood trickling out my ears; I could feel how my backbone was all twisted and busted. And then his black face was over me, smooth and slick just like a skull. He pulled something out of his chest and put it in my mouth. Tasted warm and sweet like blackberry jelly. And then I saw the idol, all smooth and strong, all new and young. And I looked at him, but he wasn't that way at all. My back straightened and popped and I reached up and touched the deep gully scars on his chest. I read those scars like they was Braille. And then I knew how I could be just like him."

  "You have to eat the dead," I whispered.

  "Eat my sins, Lieutenant," he corrected. "Our sins. That's what I've got to do. No two ways about it. It is just life." Again he paused, rising and walking across the tent. He opened the flap and stood before the rain, staring into it, feeling it with an outstretched hand. "So then he was gone," he continued, "leaving me to rest easy and wait, just like I'm gonna leave you. Lieutenant. And that's when I heard them crawling closer, saw their flashlights shine. I heard them talk confused while they checked out the empty cave, lookin' for some Charlie who was never there, Charlie who knew better. One said to leave me behind, but I couldn't let that happen. I remembered something he’d said: I had to clean up the past 'fore I could know more. I had to put an end to Larry Jackson 'fore I could move on, and I couldn't do that from the jungle. Hell, I didn't want no one mournin' for me, worryin' where my bones was layin'. My family's God-fearin' folks. They needed a piece of me to come home." He wiped his face with his wet palm.

  "So the others said no. I made them. I concentrated and made them radio a Medevac chopper with the excuse that I was wounded bad. I lay there, thinkin' about how to close the books. See, that's all that mattered, all that matters till it's done. Then I realized that all I had to do was come here, exactly where they'd take me. This base was where I could finish off and move on. And I can. I'll get stronger and then I'll start back."

  "Back to the jungle," I said.

  "Back home." His icy voice echoed. "To our home, Lieutenant. You'll come someday, 'cause once you know you can't hide from it. You can't ignore his power. Soon you'll see more than I've shown you. He'll find you, and then you will rise and come to the mountain." Jackson turned toward me, his obsidian eyes flashing. "Won't be no place else for you to go."

  He sighed. "But maybe I told you too much, more than you can understand yet. Anyway, it's time for me to hunt now. Lieutenant. I'm gonna finish things up and then I'm outta here. Now you remember, it might be hard, but you can do it." He tossed my pistol onto the plywood desk. "I will see you again. Lieutenant," he said, his toneless voice trailing off, whispering into the sound of the rain. "We'll be together in a new army, an army of redemption.''

  He nodded and started the music. The words were full. He walked down the road, went to kill. I bolstered my gun and stretched out on a cool canvas tarp. It smelled of mud and rain, like the jungle. The song poured over me with the warmth of the Asian sun (my heartbeat kept the time). Each chorus reassured me.

  I smiled and fell asleep, filled up with promises.

  Sunlight angled through the tent slash. I yawned and pain knifed through my head. Groaning, I ran trembling fingers over my swollen jaw,
remembering Master Sergeant Jackson and the way he used a .45. If Joe Frazier had spent an evening nailing me with left hooks, my jaw wouldn't have felt any worse.

  I squinted into the light, adjusting to it, hiding from the past. I dreamed of flowers and birds and Jennifer, the real Jennifer, and for a moment it was almost beautiful. I nearly convinced myself that it was over.

  The body bag lay black and still on the examining table. I approached it and read the familiar name:

  JACKSON, L. K. / MSTR. SGT

  5TH GROUP SPECIAL FORCES

  Across the chest there was another inscription, this one freshly stenciled:

  REMAINS UNVIEWABLE

  The zipper growled as I eased it down. I made myself look.

  The once-blackface had been stripped of skin down to the neck, smashed, bones broken and cracked as if gnawed upon... there wasn’t a jaw... wet black pits where upper teeth should have been... brain slick like a raw chicken breast... hundreds of slashes on the arms, deep gullies that ran to where the wrists should have been but weren't...God where were they they were in the jungle with the hands... more gullies running down the chest, down to the great rip and then nothing... no balls, no legs... every thing broken beyond any recognition, identification... and the brow was broken bamboo... and the eyes were lacquered, cotton-colored pools shot through with red....

  I did not report it. Of course I didn't. Does a son report his father? No, I altered the paperwork on Jackson and sealed my lips with rose petals. My lacquered eyes did not blink when they took the thing in the body bag away. Instead I looked to the jungle and dreamed of Jackson climbing its dark paths, hiding from the glow of the ripe Asian sun, the melted and orange and quivering sun. I saw him as the killer on the road, searching for an idol that is worn by time and gentle wind, intricately carved by streams and rain.