I pulled back from the crack. “We’ll be too far from them when the ambush starts,” I told Steve.
“No we won’t. Look, here’s another raft full of them.”
I said, “We should get out of this latrine and get in the trees behind. Once they figure out where the firing is coming from, we’ll be stuck here.”
“They won’t figure it out—how are they going to do that in the dark?”
“I don’t know. We should be out of here.”
One more raft was filled, rowed to shore, pulled up the beach. The thick Japanese men stepped out, looked around. The light on the submarine went out, but its dark bulk remained. Boxes were lifted out of the last raft, and some of the scavengers gathered around the boxes as they were pried open. One in a scarlet coat held up a rifle from a box for his fellows to see.
Crack! crack! crack! The San Diegans opened fire. Shot after shot rang out. From my crouch, looking past Steve’s leg, I could see only the response of our victims on the beach: They fell to the sand, the lanterns were out in an instant, the fire knocked to sparks. From then on I couldn’t see much, but already spits of flame showed they were firing back. I aimed to fire, and at the same moment there was a flat whoosh-BOOM, and we were in a cloud of oily gas, coughing and choking, gasping, crying—my eyes burned so badly I couldn’t think of anything else—I feared the gas was eating them out of my head. As the wind swept the cloud out to sea there was another boom, and another, and the popping sound of our ambush was overwhelmed by tremendous long bursts of gunfire spraying off the beach. Through eyes burning with tears all I saw was the whitish flame spurting from the Japanese guns. I coughed and spit, feeling sick, raised my gun to shoot it for the first time (Steve was already shooting). I pulled the trigger and my gun went click, click, click.
A searchlight speared the darkness, originating on the submarine and lighting somewhere south of us, near the wall hiding the San Diegans. The whole area down there exploded. Gunfire ran in the street behind us, and another cloud of poison gas mushroomed over the beach. The Japanese and the scavengers trapped on the beach stood and marched toward us through the gas, wearing helmets and firing machine guns. Blocks of our latrine fell on us. “Let’s get out of here!” Steve cried. We leaped over the latrine’s back wall and ran for the trees backing the beach. Once on the trash-blocked street flanking the strand, we ran—hopped, rather—struggled over piles of soggy wood and old brick, tripped and fell, got up again. My nose was streaming snot from the poison gas; I threw away my pistol. In an eyeblink the whole area was bright as day, bright with a harsh blue glare, the shadows solid as rocks. In the sky over us a flare was sputtering light, revealing the tiny parachute holding it up. The whole unit quickly tumbled off to sea, lighting the harbor so that for an instant between trees I could see the submarine, and men on it firing a mounted gun at us.
“The bridge!” Steve was shouting. “The bridge!” I read his lips more than heard him. It was astounding how loud the gunfire was, I wanted to collapse and clamp my hands over my ears. We scrambled over rubbish, fallen trees, driftwood from storm tides; Mando caught his foot and we pulled him loose. Bullets whanged over us, tearing the air zip, zip, and I ran hunched down so far my back hurt. Another flare burst into life, higher and farther inland. It floated over us like a falling star, making our way plain but also showing us to everyone so we had to crawl, foot by foot. Rips of machine gun fire came from the sea side of us, and behind us were explosions at frequent intervals: with a blinding flash and a crack to break the ears a building down the street fell all over the rubble. We got up from a tangle of planks and ran again, crouched over. Another flare lit the sky above. We fell and waited for the wind to take it to sea. A wrecked building up the hill exploded, then a trio of redwood trees were knocked down. The flare blew away and we stumbled through the shadows for a good way before another flare burst into life, and we lay flat in a copse of eucalyptus.
“Do you think—” Gabby gasped. “Did the San Diegans get away?” No one answered. Mando was still carrying his pistol. We were just a ways from the bridge, and I wanted to get over it before the submarine blasted it into the river. Dana Point still rang with gunfire, it sounded like a real battle was going on, but they could have been fighting shadows. I wasn’t sure the San Diegans would have run like we had. We got up again and scurried over the trash in the streets. A waft of the poison gas. Another fire sparked, but this one plunged fizzing into the marsh. I fell and cut my hand and elbow and knee. We made it to the bridge.
No one was there. “We’ve got to wait for them!” Steve shouted.
“Get across,” I said.
“They won’t know we’re here! They’ll wait here—”
“They will not,” Gabby said bitterly. “They’re over it and long gone. They told us to wait here so we’d slow down the Japs.”
Steve stared at Gab open-mouthed. Another flare burst right above us and I crouched by the rail. Looking between the concrete rail posts I saw several of the flares tailing out to sea, making a ragged string that fell closer to the water, until the ones farthest out lit patches of water. The latest one sailed offshore and over the submarine.
“Go before they put up another one,” Gabby said furiously. He stood and ran across the bridge without waiting for us to agree. We followed him, but another flare sparked the sky, lighting the bridge in ghastly detail. There was nothing to do but keep running, and run we did, because the submarine commenced shooting at us. The railing clanged and the air ripped like stiff cloth, like the first tearing sound of thunder. We got to the far side of the bridge and threw ourselves flat behind a stretch of canted asphalt. The submarine pummeled the bridge. From the hills inland a siren howled, low at first and then rising fast. Scavengers, sounding the alarm. But who were they fighting? Darkness, distant explosions, siren howls. The submarine stopped firing but my head rang so I couldn’t hear. Little bangs ahead of us in San Clemente, felt more than heard. Steve put his face to my ear. “Go back through streets—” and something I didn’t catch. The shooting to the south meant the San Diegans were already down there, I decided, and I cursed them for leaving us. We ran again, but the submarine must have seen us through its night glasses, because it fired again. Down we went. Crawled and hopped, ran doubled over through the ruins on the coastal road. The submarine stayed in the rivermouth, pounding away. We got off the coastal road, back against a low cliff, through trees and on another road. Into the wreck of San Clemente, the maze of trash. Mando was falling behind, limping. I thought it was his foot. “Hurry up!” Steve screamed.
Mando shook his head, limped to us. “Can’t,” he said. “They shot me.”
We stopped and sat him down in the dirt. He was crying, he had his left hand up to his right shoulder. I lifted his hand away and felt the blood run over mine.
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Steve cried.
“It just happened,” Gabby said roughly, and pushed me away. He put his arm around Mando’s. “Come on, we got to get him back as quick as we can.”
By the distant light of the last flare I could make out Mando’s face. He was staring at me as if he had something to tell me, but his mouth only jerked. “Help me carry him,” Gabby rasped, his voice cracking. I could feel the blood soaking the back of his shirt. Steve picked up his pistol and we were off. We could only take several steps at a time before some beam or collapsed wall stopped us. “We’ve got to stop him bleeding,” I finally dared to say. It was running inside my sleeve and down my arm. We put him down and I ripped my shirt into strips. It was hard getting the compress tight over the bullet hole. By accident I brushed the wound with my fingers: a little tear under the shoulderblade, on his right side. It wasn’t bleeding fast. Mando still stared at my face with a look I couldn’t read. He didn’t speak. “We’ll have you home in a jiffy,” I said hoarsely. I stood up too fast and staggered, but Steve helped us get him up, and we were off again.
The center of San Clemente is one big ruin, no plan or pattern
to it, no clear way through. Gabby and I carried Mando between us and struggled along, while Steve ranged forward pistol in hand to find the best way. Sirens cut through the wind’s shrieking from time to time, and we had to hide more than once to avoid roving bands of scavengers. Gunshots echoed in the clogged streets. I had no idea who was firing at who. A wall fell in the wind. We hiked into dead ends more than once. Steve yelled instructions back to us but sometimes Gabby and I just picked the easiest way; this caused Steve to yell more, in a high desperate shout. Calls came from behind us and Gabby and I lowered Mando to the ground, stuck in the middle of the street. Three scavengers approached us, guns in hand. Steve ran up and fired, crack crack crack crack! All the scavengers went down. “Come on,” Steve screamed. We picked Mando up and staggered on. Dead ends made us backtrack and after a long time trying to find a way we caught up to Steve sitting in the road, houses collapsed all around us, wind and gunfire beyond, no way forward—our way blocked by a giant mare’s nest of bones.
“I don’t know where we are,” Steve cried; “I can’t find a way.” I prodded him to take my side carrying Mando, grabbed his gun and ran across the street. Through trees I saw the ocean, the only mark we really needed when it came down to it. “This way!” I called, and hopped over a beam, dragged it out of their path, ran down and got another fix on the sea, picked a road, did what I could to clear it. That went on and on, till it seemed like San Clemente had stretched out all the way down Pendleton. And scavengers on the prowl, setting off their sirens and guns, howling with glee at the hunt. They put us to ground more than once; I didn’t dare shoot at them because I wasn’t sure how many they were or how many bullets were left in Steve’s gun, if any.
While we cowered in the dark of our cover I did what I could for Mando. His breath was choked. “How are you, Mando?” No answer. Steve cursed and cursed. I nodded to Gabby and we got Mando up again. I left Steve to carry him and went out scouting. Scavengers gone, at least out of sight, that was all I wanted. I set to finding a way again.
Somehow we got to the southern end of San Clemente, down in the forest below the freeway. Scavengers were roaming the freeway; we heard their shouts and occasionally I saw their shapes. The only way across San Mateo River was the freeway. We were trapped. Sirens mocked us, gunshots might have marked a skirmish with the San Diegans, although I suspected Gabby was right and they were long gone, on their boats and under way. They wouldn’t be back to help us. Gabby had Mando resting on his lap. Mando’s breath gurgled in his throat. “We got to get him home,” Gab said, looking at me.
I took the bullets from my pocket and tried to fit them into Steve’s gun.
“Where’s your gun?” Steve said.
The bullets didn’t fit. I cursed and threw the pouch at the freeway. In the dirt we sat on was a rock I could just fit my hand around. I hefted it and started for the freeway. I don’t know what I had in mind. “Bring him up close to the road and be ready to move him across San Mateo fast,” I told them. “You go when I tell you to.” But a series of explosions blasted the freeway above us, and when they ended (burnt powder smell blown by) it was quiet. Not a scavenger to be heard. The silence was broken by the sound of a vehicle coming up the freeway from the south. A little whirrr. I crawled up the shoulder of the road to take a look at it. I jumped out of the road to wave at him. “Rafael! Rafael! Over here!” I screamed, the words tearing out of me like no others ever had.
Rafael rolled up to me. “Christ, Hank, I almost shot you dead there!” He was in the little golf cart that sat in his front yard, the one he swore he could make work if he ever found the batteries.
“Never mind that,” I said. “Mando’s hurt. He’s been shot.” Gabby and Steve appeared, carrying Mando between them.
Rafael sucked air between his teeth. “Put him in back.”
Scattered shots rang out from up the freeway, and one spanged off the concrete near us. Rafael reached into his cart and pulled out a metal tube, held by struts at an angle on a flat base. He put it on the road and dropped a hand-sized bomb or grenade (it looked like a firecracker) in it. Thonk, the tube said hollowly, and a few seconds later there was an explosion just off the freeway, about where the shots had come from. While Gabby and Steve got Mando in the cart Rafael kept dropping grenades in, thonk, BOOM, thonk, BOOM, and pretty soon no one was firing at us. With a final burst of three he jumped in the cart and we were off.
“When we go uphill, get out and push,” Rafael said. “This thing won’t carry all of us. Nicolin, take this and keep an eye out to the rear.” He handed Steve a rifle. “How about more bullets,” Steve said. Rafael gestured at the floor beside him. “In the box there.” We hit the steep hill at the very south end of San Clemente, and pushed the cart up it at a slow run. Sirens wailed off the hills; I could make out three different ones, wavering at different levels as the wind tore at their sound. We made the rise and rolled into the San Mateo Valley. I cradled Mando’s head and told him we were close to home. There were faint shouts behind us, but now we were moving faster than men on foot could. We reached the rise to Basilone Ridge and Rafael said, “Push again.” He was calm, but when he looked at me his eye was hard. When we reached the top of Basilone rise Steve cried wildly, “I’m going back to make them pay!” and he was off in the dark, back up the freeway to the north, rifle in hand. “Wait!” I shouted, but Rafael struck my arm.
“Let him go.” For the first time he sounded angry. He drove the cart to his house and jumped out, ran inside and came back out with a stretcher. We got Mando on it. His eyes were still open, but he didn’t hear me. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth. Gabby was huffing beside the stretcher as Rafael and I carried him. We struck out through the forest, traversing the side of Cuchillo to get to the Costas’ as fast as possible. I stumbled and groaned, and Gabby took over my end. We got to the Costas’ place. Wind whistled over the oil drums; there was no way they could have heard us approach. Rafael propped the stretcher against his thigh, banged the door like he was out to break it. Wham. Wham.
“Get out here, Ernest,” he said, still banging the door. “Get out here and doctor your boy.”
20
It must have been something Doc had imagined many times before, the moment when they came to the door and it was his own son hurt. When he pulled the door away from Rafael’s banging he didn’t say a word to us; he came out and picked Mando up off the stretcher and carried him through the kitchen into the hospital without a glance or a question.
We followed him. In the hospital he laid Mando on the second bed, a small one, and pulled it out from the wall. At the scraping Tom snorted, rolled over. One of his closed eyes opened a crack, and when he caught sight of us he sat up, ground his knuckles in his eyes, surveyed the scene wordlessly. Doc used scissors to cut off Mando’s coat and shirt, gesturing for Gabby to pull off his pants. Gabby squinted as they peeled away the bloody cloth of the shirt. Mando coughed, gargled, breathed fast and shallow. Under the bright lamps Rafael carried in from the kitchen his body looked pale and mottled. Below his armpit was that little tear, surrounded by a bruise. Rafael nearly tripped over me walking in and out. I sat on my heels against the wall, knees in my armpits, arms wrapped around my legs, looking away from Tom. Doc looked at no one but Mando. “Get Kathryn here,” he said. Gabby glanced at me, hurried out.
Tom said, “How is he?”
Doc felt Mando’s ribs carefully, tapped his chest, took his pulse at wrist and neck. He muttered, more to himself than Tom, “Middle caliber nicked the lung. Pneumothorax … hemothorax.…” Like a spell. He cleaned the blood from Mando’s ribs with a wet cloth. Mando choked and Doc adjusted his head, reached in his mouth and pulled his tongue around. A plastic thing from the supply shelf behind Doc served to clamp the tongue in place. Plastic vise on the side of Mando’s face, stretching his mouth open … my spine rolled up and down the oil drum behind me. The wind picked up, wheeeeee, wheeeeeee.
“Where’s Nicolin?” Tom asked me.
&nbs
p; I kept my eyes on the floor. Rafael answered from the kitchen:
“He stayed north to fire some rounds at the scavengers.”
Tom was shifting around against his back wall, and he coughed. “Quit moving,” Doc said. A flying branch knocked the house sharply. Mando’s breathing was rapid, harsh, shallow. Doc tilted his face to the side and wiped bright blood from his mouth. Doc’s own mouth was a tight lipless line. Bright blood on cloth. Under me the floor, the grainy smooth boards of the floor. Knots raised above the worn surface, cracks, splinters all shiny and distinct in the lamplight, scrubbing sand in the corners against the walls. The bedpost closest to me was shimmied. The sheets were so old that each thread of the fabric stood out; needlework in the patches. I stared at that floor and never raised my eyes. My breath hurt so it might have been me shot. But it wasn’t. Kathryn’s legs walked into the room, bending down the floorboards a bit. Gabby’s legs followed.
“I need help,” Doc said.
“I’m ready,” said Kathryn calmly.
“We need to get a tube between these ribs and drain the blood and air in the chest cavity. Get a clean jar from the kitchen and put a couple inches of water in it.” She left, came back. Their feet faced each other under Mando’s bed. “I’m afraid air’s getting in and not getting out. Tension pneumothorax. Here, put down the tube and tape, and hold him steady. I’m going to make the incision here.”
Muffled coughs from the old man. A quick glance up: Kathryn’s back, in sweatshirt and string-tie pants; the old man, watching them with an unflinching gaze. Down on the floor went the jar, clear plastic tube stuck in the water at the bottom of it. Suddenly the water bubbled. Blood ran down the sides of the tube and stained the water. More bubbles. The old man’s steady gaze: I wrapped my arms over my stomach and looked up. Kathryn’s broad back blocked my view of Mando. Shudders rattled me. Broad shoulders, broad butt, thick thighs, slim ankles. Elbows busy as she pulled tape from a roll and applied it to Mando, where I couldn’t see.
The Wild Shore: Three Californias (Wild Shore Triptych) Page 34
