James Crumley - One to Count Cadence

But when the cowcatcher caught a mine and the convoy slammed to a halt, no one said a word. A single drawn breath robbed the truck of air, and we gasped like dying men. One man farted, another belched. Stomachs grumbled, guts contracted and growled in protest.

A few rounds were fired in front, then steady chatter and little pops as if from toy guns, then silence again. The Trick tried to climb out of the truck over me, Franklin leading the way, shouting that he had to pee. I pushed him back into the crowd, kept pushing until they all were down, faces hugging the sandbags. Fear rose like a visible cloud from the huddled bodies, but I made them stay, while I dropped out the back and crouched under the truck. Inside, Franklin groaned, trying to hold his bladder, and Quinn shouted not to pee on him, but no one laughed, not even Quinn.

The road, a track through a jungled forest, was gray in the light from a moon as big and bright as a searchlight. No one ambushes by moonlight, I thought, never thinking that those who would would do it in a way I wasn't ready for yet. Murmurs, shrouded by canvas, seemed to fill the space between the darkened trucks. Bodyless voices swept on a ghostly wind, turned, then turned back, till they seemed my voice drifting away from me. For an instant I was drunk with fear, and I knew the only way I could control it was to do something, but there was nothing to do but hold my bladder, keep my peace, and wait. Someone ran down the road toward me, stopping at each truck, then angry, frightened whispers sawed the night like the alarm cries of huge insects. Tetrick ran flatfooted like an old cop chasing a young pickpocket, but an old cop who firmly intended to catch that pickpocket. I stood, whispered an order to stay down inside the truck, then stepped out to meet him, already feeling better.

"What's up?" I asked, my tone calmer than I expected.

"Nothing," he said. "Just a mine. No real damage, but it will take about half an hour to get the truck going again."

"Who fired?"

"Nervous fingers. One ARVN squad ran into another. One dead, four wounded, and lucky at that. Idiots," he said. "Let the troops out for piss call or they will be pissing all over themselves. Tell 'em, for God's sake, stay on the road; the ditches may be mined." But as he said this, two squads of ARVN troops ran past in both ditches heading toward the rear of the convoy.

"Guess not," I said. As I looked, I saw a white track disappearing quickly in the forest, a trail. "But I guess we're lucky."

"Keep 'em on the road anyway. Then get down to the weapons truck – first one in front of the vans – and get yours. Okay?" he asked, then ran off without an answer, his feet slapping against the dry road.

"Okay, you old ladies," I said, unlacing the canvas, "pull down your bloomers, and come out to pee-pee. Trouble's all over, but stay on the road. Novotny, keep them on the road." As I trotted away, I heard Franklin's voice, high and loud with relief, "Sgt. Krummel, Quinn tried to rape me while I was laying down," and Quinn's answer, "And I woulda, if you hadn't been shaking like a twelve-year-old virgin," and then his raw laughter. "Knock it off," I shouted over my shoulder, not even hoping that they would.

Coming back, I tried to be casual, carrying the Armalite by its handle like a suitcase, four grenades bagging the thin pockets of the civilian suit, two full clips sticking out of my back pockets like fifths of cheap whiskey. Morning commented, of course, "Mamma Krummel back to protect his little brood," but I laughed at him. He expected push-ups and an ass-chewing, and grumbled, "It wasn't a joke," and I said, "Yes, I don't think so either." We smoked and talked quietly, our talk like the chatter from behind the other trucks, relaxed, confident, safe, but this cool babble couldn't cover the raw grunt and moan which slipped out of the forest to the right. No one spoke, then everyone, but the metallic clang of a round snapping into the Armalite stopped the noise. I sent Cagle for Tetrick, Morning to the truck cab for a flashlight, and the men into the opposite ditch, then gave Novotny two of the grenades.

Quinn's tooth flashed in the moonlight as he said, "Frankie. Frankie? Where you at, you ugly bastard."

One of the new men mumbled that he had been seen drifting down the moonlit trail. I gave Quinn the third grenade, then Morning the last when he came back with the flashlight.

"Five yards apart on me," I said. "Quinn last. No light yet. Morning behind me. Let's go," I said, then stepped off down the trail.

The trail seemed twice as white as I moved between the dark walls of foliage, following the faint trail of sharp prints made by new shoes in the dust, then the wavering serpentine track where he had peed as he strolled. The trail bent to the left, and as I cautiously slipped around the corner, I didn't need Morning's flash to see.

Malayan Gates, they call them, a bamboo pole tied to a tree beside the trail, a bamboo pole with three or four twelve-inch bamboo stakes lashed to its end, then bent away from the trail and tied to another tree and a trip wire. Franklin hadn't finished, and urine still dripped into the black pool at his feet where he knelt, his grey face turned back toward me, one arm pegged to his stomach where he had been holding himself, and the points of the stakes gleamed out of his back two inches above his belt. His eyes were wide and alive when I first saw him, but before I could move, they were wide, white and dead in his face. A muscle spasm gripped his mouth, and a rumbling, sputtering release from the large bowel mocked the prayer his mouth seemed to form, but his eyes were dead in his face. Morning quietly said "Jesus Christ" behind me. Novotny, stricken, mumbled "Told him to stay on the road. Told him… Told him… Told…" Quinn dropped his grenade and started to run. I laid the butt of the rifle into his stomach as he reached my side, laid it harder than I should have, but a rage clutched at my muscles, and I wouldn't have been surprised if I had started firing into Franklin's offending body. Quinn dropped to his knees and gagged.

"Take him back," I said, my voice colder than I could remember it ever being. "Take the son of a bitch back." I slapped Morning's shoulder and pushed Novotny. Their eyes came back to me from Franklin, then they started to stumble toward him. "No, you bastards, no! Quinn! Quinn! Take him back. Take the son of a bitch back."

Lake two owls dazed by sudden lightning, they asked, "Who?"

"Quinn," I said once more. "Take him back. Have someone sit on him. Bring me a poncho and a roll of field wire. Now, goddamn you, now! Move!" I shoved at them until they moved, cursed them in various tongues, then they moved back down the trail, Quinn between them.

I waited with Franklin's body. God, he stunk. He offended me with his rankness, his malodorous halo clinging to the trees. He stunk worse than any animal I've ever gutted. If I hadn't been sure that he lay on a pressure release mine, I would have kicked him until he stopped emitting that fetid, slimy, smell. I might have anyway, but Tetrick ran up, two sergeants behind him.

He stopped, clicked on the safety of his grease gun, then said, softly, "The bastard."

We stood there, looking and feeling guilty for looking, until Novotny came back with the roll of wire and Morning with the poncho. I made a loop, then tossed it over Franklin's head, around his neck.

"Not his neck," Morning said, but nothing more.

We rolled the wire back to the road and made the troops lie back down in the ditch. Then I tried to pull the wire, flinching like a nine-year-old kid firing his first shotgun, flinching as he does until he learns that it is the flinch not the shotgun which hurts him. The second time I didn't flinch.

Nothing happened. The wire jumped toward me like a slim black snake. Each of us, in our own way, jerked away from it.