Chuck Logan - The Price of Blood

“What did you do with the militia?” Broker asked grimly.

“Paid them off. Got two men watching them way back in the dunes. Don’t worry, we won’t hurt them,” LaPorte added. “In fact, they wanted to be tied up for appearance’s sake. They’re ignorant kids out to make a buck.”

“He was after the boat, and the whole thing,” Broker said grudgingly.

“There you go. Why would he break cover and come into Hue after he had the jackpot? Certainly not just for the girl. But she was an excuse to deal with me. He needed a method of moving the stuff . He was going to ambush us with his rag-tag militia, rip me off, and sail off with a vessel full of gold.”

Broker exhaled carefully. “I thought the militia was coming to arrest you. Next time I’ll learn the language.”

“I figured you to be a better judge of character, Phil. Trin’s a drunk, with delusions of grandeur.”

Broker heard LaPorte stand up. Dust off his pants. After a moment, LaPorte said softly, “Trin makes sense. And I can understand you blundering in here and him taking advantage of you. But the girl still doesn’t fit. We leaned on her hard and she didn’t even peep.”

Broker sat, head bowed. Silent.

“It’s ironic,” mused LaPorte. “But my being here has saved you and the Pryce kid.” He paused. “He was going to cut your throat, Phil.”

Another cigarette was placed between Broker’s lips. And lit. “Give you some advice. Don’t piss Bevode off. He’s got the idea you’re trying to wipe out his family.”

LaPorte’s footsteps faded in the sand. And Broker puffed on the cigarette and tried not to think of last smokes and firing squads. LaPorte was just toying with him. He and Nina had witnessed Lola’s murder. He wondered why Trin hadn’t tried to cop a plea about Ray Pryce’s incriminating skeleton being in that hole. Maybe he didn’t believe it.

The sun gradually changed on Broker’s skin. He could hear the shadows stretch longer. Fatigue took priority over waiting. He slept on a sand pillow.

Then the moment came and the blindfold was ripped off. Broker’s eyes exploded, almost blinded by the indifferent glory of the sunset. He saw…

Bevode Fret. Powerful, rested, smiling.

Bevode cracked his whip and the rational energy of Dachau and the homespun industry of the Old South convened on a deserted beach in central Vietnam.

They were reunited with Trin at the pit. Trin’s hands were not tied. LaPorte gave them a little pep talk. “Right now I own this beach,” he said. “I can grant absolution. You can still get out of this.” LaPorte walked away.

Two of the Europeans untied Nina and Broker. The second that Broker’s hands were free they flew like springs to Trin’s throat.

Blue Shirt and two of his comrades jumped in and pried them apart. Blue Shirt explained patiently. “Work together and you live. Keep this up and we shoot the girl. More work for you two.”

He threw them three shovels, a net sack full of water in plastic liter bottles, a pack of Gauloises, and a book of matches.

“ Arbeit macht frei ,” he said without irony.

Bevode had not returned Nina’s jeans. Her bare shanks were streaked with sand, dried blood, and mosquito bites. Bevode came for a visit and slowly dragged his coiled whip up the front of her body, raising her dirty T-shirt, ending with the harsh braid distorting her cheek. He leaned over and whispered in her ear, “Before the sun comes up you’ll beg me for it.”

Nina’s face tightened and found a sticking point. She had dispensed with shaking and was now composed. She now had something to measure the rest of her life against.

“You’ll understand,” said Bevode, “if we stay back aways in case it’s rigged to blow.” He walked away.

They stood alone in the escaping light, blinking, massaging their wrists, painfully shuffling their feet to get the circulation going. Trin’s hands shook as he tore open the cigarettes. He held the pack to Broker, who craved one. Broker curled his lip. With trembling fingers Trin manipulated the matches and lit a Gauloise. His dark eyes burned with a disturbing fix in the twilight. He stooped, picked up the shovels and handed one to Broker, then to Nina.

“I told them it might be set with explosives,” he said under his breath.

“Fuck you,” said Broker.

“If we dig and load it and last till dawn, we live,” said Trin. “It’s that simple.”

“Cyrus tell you that.” Broker spat contemptuously.

“ I’m telling you that,” he countered, grandiose to the end. And he smelled of dementia, sweat, exhaustion, garlic and onions, and sour, leftover alcohol. But strangely not of fear. With psychotic energy, he tore into the sand with his shovel.

“You wanted it for yourself,” Broker accused. “You were going to kill us all-Cyrus, her, me. Then you could take the boat. But Cyrus foxed you.”

Nina grimaced. Her eyes tightened. Broker wanted to touch her face. He’d never see her again in the light.

Not much light left.

“Nobody begs,” she said in a barren implacable voice. She set her mouth. Okay, she had her epitaph to go out on. But it sounded like fatalism. Surrender. Broker wondered what she was thinking right now, standing nine or ten feet over her father’s bones. She drove her shovel into the sand. Maybe she had to see if they were really there.

Even if it meant digging her own grave.

Broker set his thresholds. He would not talk to Trin. He would not beg. His life was a few tons of sand running through his fingers. He wished he had a cigarette. Trin had the cigarettes and matches in his pocket.

There was pain and fear and fatigue. There was no adrenaline to run with it. Broker’s muscles balked, cold taffy. He discovered that he wanted to dig to warm his blood.

To feel alive.

He had the shovel. He could use it as a weapon if Bevode got close enough. At the right time. Swing it like an ax. Take his fuckin’ head off.

They worked side by side, each in their private bargaining with what comes next. Trin giggled. “This is the second time I’ve dug up this damn hole.”

Broker felt Nina’s irritation at Trin spike the night.

And now, in total darkness, there were practical demands. “We need some light,” yelled Broker. Blue Shirt came over with two battery bar lights. Broker hacked shelves in the sand. The widening pit filled with soft illumination. They could see each other’s faces. Seeing the mad expression on Trin’s dripping face, it was a mixed blessing.

He had never looked so foreign. Digging. He was spawned from a tribe of resolute diggers. In his chromosomes, Broker supposed, thousands of years of piling up the dikes to control the water to grow the rice to keep the circle of the seasons turning. One of the great warrior-digger races of history. They dug at Dien Bien Phu, at Cu Chi, at Khe Sanh…

Were Ray’s bones really down there? All the graves in this damn country. You’d hit skeletons anywhere you dug. Bone City. Stacked up for millennia and cross-fertilizing a culture of ancestor worship and reincarnation and pretty soon there’d be no room left.

Nothing but graves.

Nice thing about a big young country. You could travel for days and never see a grave…

Fuck this. Broker threw down his shovel, pushed Trin aside, and grabbed at the cigarettes in his chest pocket. He was so tense he bit right through the first one and had to light another. With a loony smile, Trin advised him, “Relax.”

They worked. Drank water. And worked some more. Trin kept widening the hole and at first Broker fought a flush of petty resentment. Making more work. But a bigger hole meant more time. Time was what they had. They emptied it, shovel by shovel, out of the hourglass of their lives.