Colin Cotterill - Slash and Burn

Before they left the sand bank, the teams combed the tree line and the rocks but found no other confusing evidence. As they walked, the debate continued. Were the boulders laid out by a young pilot hoping for a rescue, or were they a recent creation? Were the person who left the newspaper and the rock-speller one and the same? And if Boyd didn’t spell out his own name after the crash, what became of him? Was he captured by the PL? Killed? Did he succumb to the many dangers of the jungle? Die from hypothermia?

“They flew a hundred hours of search and rescue looking for him,” Johnson said. “I can’t believe in all that time nobody spotted a name written on the sand. They train the boys to leave messages. It’s what the rescue pilots look for. With all the slash and burn going on, they wouldn’t have looked twice at a burned-out stretch of ground like the dead man’s field with no visible wreckage, but something like this….”

“So what is the message?” Daeng asked. “If they left the rocks there for us, what are they telling us? That Boyd didn’t make it, or that he did?”

“Perhaps if we find the messenger we can understand the message,” said Phosy.

When they finally reached Ban Hoong, the team members were happy to take off their boots and relax in the village. Much of their march north had been along the bed of the brook, closed in on both sides by the unkempt jungle. They stretched out their damp socks on the rocks with little hope that the blurry cheese ball of a sun might dry them off. Even at midday there was a chill in the air. The sky was a dark sheet of ash. A chorus of chesty coughs rose from the riverbank like toad calls.

Siri and Phosy took a moment to play with Bok then sat with his father and the elders. As was customary, they drank some herbal brew and stared around appreciatively at mother nature before getting to the point.

“How did you know when to take your dragon’s tail to Spook City?” Phosy asked. Ar acted as spokesman.

“The sorceress told us before she died that there would be a sign,” he said.

“Did she tell you a date? Make a map?”

“No,” Ar and the elders laughed. “She was blind by then. She said one day the dragon’s daughter would come and ask for her father’s tail back and we’d have to return it.”

“And she did?”

“Two moons ago. She arrived in the village one afternoon. Just walked in out of the jungle with her bodyguards as if from nowhere. She looked like us, dressed like us, but she spoke a strange language. There was a girl here then who could speak Lao-she’s gone now, went to find work in the city-but even she had trouble understanding what the woman was saying. She was beautiful. Her face had been painted by the gods. She asked if we had any wreckage from an explosion. When we told her about the dragon’s tail she asked to see it. When we took her to the meeting hall we could see in her eyes how happy she was. We knew she was the dragon’s daughter.”

Phosy could tell from the headman’s expression that he didn’t buy in to all this dragon hooey. He was merely keeping the old men happy.

“Did the dragon’s daughter stay overnight?” Phosy asked.

“No, brother.”

“Did she have a camera?”

“I didn’t see one.”

“Did you ever leave her alone with the dragon’s tail?”

“Of course. It was only right. She needed some time to honor her father. Before she left she told us that someone would come from the government. That we should tell them about the tail. But we’d promised our sorceress we’d deliver it in person. So when the cadre came by in her stiff uniform and told us about your visit, we loaded the tail onto a litter and set off for Long Cheng. We left it a bit late. We only had two weeks to get there.”

Phosy and Siri consulted.

“Do you know of a place upstream where there are dark rocks on a sand bank?” Phosy asked.

“Of course.”

“Some of the rocks form a word … a shape.”

“The rocks move all the time. The river swells and pushes them here and there.”

“So if someone made a shape with the rocks this year…?”

“It would probably be moved along by the next rainy season.”

“Comrade Ar, apart from the dragon’s daughter, do you remember seeing anyone out of place? Anyone who really shouldn’t be here?”

Ar laughed.

“Brother Phosy, that would be us.”

“So, who do you think she was?” Daeng asked. “The dragon’s daughter?”

They were all in the rear of the truck bumping along the trail back to Phonsavan. Not even five and the truck had its headlights on.

“Well, if this was two moons ago, it could technically have been after the budget announcement and before the photos were sent to Bangkok,” Siri told her, his words arriving in an asthmatic squeak.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if she had an instamatic stuffed down her bra,” said Civilai.

“Takes a picture of the tailplane,” said Siri, “moves the rocks, secretes the newspaper. She’s undoubtedly the person who’s orchestrating this whole prisoner-of-war story.”

“So you’re convinced it’s fabricated?” Daeng asked.

“Of course it is. Who on earth would want to keep an American pilot locked up for ten years? This mystery woman would have to be someone who knew of Boyd and his connection to the senator. It would have to be someone who’d met Boyd during the war.”

“Or it could be Boyd himself,” said Daeng.

“Good, now you’re into the spirit of things,” said Civilai. “A pilot survives for ten years, unseen in the jungles of Laos. Then one day a copy of the newspaper drops out of the sky and he reads about his father’s good fortune. Where’s he going to find a copy of the Bangkok Post ?”

“Thailand.” Siri and Daeng said it at the same time.

“Ha,” said Civilai. “I see it. You’re just attempting to muscle in on my Hollywood deal. Boyd abseils from a crashing helicopter then walks sixty kilometers to Thailand through hostile enemy-controlled territory.”

“This isn’t all enemy territory,” Daeng reminded him. “He’d be just as likely to meet an ally. There were plenty of friendly villagers around who’d be happy to help out a nice young American boy.”

“If that were so, why wouldn’t he get himself returned to his base?”

“Embarrassment for trashing one of their choppers?” Daeng suggested.

“Or, perhaps he didn’t want to go back,” said Siri.

“A deserter?” said Civilai in mock horror. “I thought he was supposed to be a model soldier. No black marks.”

“Something was troubling him that night,” said Siri. “Something made him act out of character. Perhaps he was afraid to go back.”

“What if the crash wasn’t an accident?” said Daeng. “What if somebody wanted him dead?”

“All right.” Civilai put up his hands. “I give up. I’ll go sixty-forty with you. No more. But I want first billing on the credits and ‘Based on an original idea by Civilai Songsawat’ somewhere up there on the screen.” They shook hands to seal the deal.

Only Lit didn’t join in the laughter.

“You’re all missing the obvious,” he said.

“And what would that be?” Phosy asked.

“That you’re all so intrigued by the fantastic you aren’t seeing the simple. If you could look beyond the dragons and their relatives and the exploding moon and blind sorceresses you’d see it too. Your sweet little Phuan village is the hub of all this intrigue. How about this? Your pilot crashes but he survives. The villagers capture him, take pictures of him and the helicopter tail, and wait for an opportunity to cash in on their good fortune.”

“For ten years?” Phosy laughed.

“And how exactly are they cashing in?” Daeng asked.