Robert Stone - Dog Soldiers

Converse felt differently. Grimes had provided him a solitary link with an attitude which he publicly pretended to share — but which he had not experienced for years and never thoroughly understood. It was the attitude in which people acted on coherent ethical apprehensions that seemed real to them. He had observed that people in the grip of this attitude did things which were quite as confused and ultimately ineffectual as the things other people did; nevertheless he held them in a certain — perhaps merely superstitious — esteem.

After the fact, he had written a feature story about Grimes in which he had conveyed grief and rage at the waste of a life. The grief and rage conveyed were entirely professional, assumed. At the core of Converse’s reaction to Grimes’ life and death were a series of emotions which were not grief or rage and did not make him tired of living — they were compounded of love, self-pity, even pride in humanity. But his story as written was false, facile, a vulgarization — that was, after all, his business. He had considered destroying the story as an act of homage, but he had filed it in the end, spent it as moral coin, so that Grimes’ moral explorations in the face of mass murder and young oblivion had served him for a moment’s satisfying warmth, like a hot towel in a barbershop.

As he followed Danskin’s faltering heels, the notion struck him that it was the writing of that story he was pay ing for. The idea of such justice both comforted him and terrified him.

Man must endure his going hence even as his coming hither; the words were repeated in his mind until their meaning faded. The manic exhilaration he was feeling made him wonder if a victim frozen before the predator’s eyes did not experience some profound dumb animal illumination just before the strike. He moved like a sleep walker, almost beyond fear, invoking Grimes’ memory.

Further up, they came on hardwood forest and the angle of the slope grew gentler. Danskin called for a rest and lumbered past the Mexican to occupy the highest ground. Angry-eyed, he waved his air marshal’s thirty-eight, sportively sighting it at Converse.

“Put those manacles on him.”

The Mexican did not seem surprised to see his weapon.

“The cuffs?” Smitty said. “I left them down there.”

Danskin shrugged expansively, with a tragic smile.

“Don’t give it another thought. What the fuck? Happy-go-lucky, that’s us. We don’t give a shit.”

“Oh, man,” Smitty said. “I’m sorry.”

“Just keep fucking up. See what it gets you.”

Smitty pouted. “You know,” he said, “I’m thinking maybe you’re right, you know. About we tell him to shove it.”

It would be soon, Converse thought; he felt the diver’s fascination for the deeper down. He was glad to be alive.

Danskin stared moodily down at his own boots.

“How far, señor ? To the house.”

The Mexican indicated the ridge just above them.

“What, just up there?”

“A mile,” the Mexican said.

“How many people up there?”

The man pursed his lips and showed his palms.

Danskin took the thirty-eight, held it in both hands, and pointed it in the Mexican’s face. “I’m sorry. I have no time for fucking around. Answer the question.”

“Always different,” the man said. “Maybe not so many.”

“They have weapons?”

“I think some of them.”

“Hicks is a gun freak,” Smitty said. “He’ll have heat.”

“You like it?” Danskin asked. “I don’t like it.”

Smitty shook his head.

Danskin stood and looked up the slope.

“I ain’t going in just us. I want at least that big mother fucker up here.” He waved them to their feet with the pistol. “We’ll go up and have a look.”

Converse and the Mexican went in front. At the top of the ridge was a barbed-wire fence with a metal swing gate leading through it. They went through the gate across a meadow of yellow grass. As they cleared the rise, they came in sight of a rock pinnacle looming over the trees on the far side of the field. Smitty looked up at it through his binoculars and shrugged.

They went two abreast across the meadow and stopped at the edge of the wood on the far side. Danskin tried his radio.

“Max one,” he said into the speaker. “Max one, over.”

They got what sounded like Wolfman Jack, extremely faint. “Maybe we ought to try it from lower down,” Smitty said. Danskin slapped the antenna down into the box.

“He must buy this stuff on Times Square. If he used government equipment it might work for a change.” He turned to the Mexican and did an impression of cheerful briskness. “Where’s the house, señor ?”

The man pointed into the woods with his chin. His legs were trembling. Danskin looked at him with suspicion, took the glasses from Smitty, and surveyed everything within view.

“Anybody see us from here?”

“It’s down,” the Mexican said. “We go down now.”

They followed him into the woods, Smitty cradling his rifle across a forearm, Danskin carrying the handgun pointed at the ground. At a turn in the trail, Smitty froze and crouched. Danskin went down with him.

“There’s some fuckin’ thing in the tree, man. Look at it.”

“It’s a mirror,” Converse said. He walked up to the tree and looked up at it. The next tree was garlanded with angel’s hair, a third with black rosary beads.

“There’s another one,” Danskin said. He and Smitty stood up. The Mexican stood stock-still. Converse saw him swallow.

“What’s all this jive in the trees?” Smitty demanded. “What is that about?”

“Decorations,” the Mexican said.

Danskin was standing under a tree on which a small speaker was mounted; its wires trailed down the trunk and led off into deeper wood.

“For Christ’s sake,” he said.

Smitty looked up apprehensively.

“You think they can see us with that stuff? Or hear us?”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Danskin said.

They walked warily under the decorations; lengths of insulated wire from the tree-mounted speakers ran beside the trail and snaked over an outcropping of rock which the trail dipped to circumvent. As they walked in the rock’s shadow, Converse heard the Mexican draw breath and saw him spring into the bushes just ahead of them. Danskin swung at him with the pistol, then shoved Converse aside in pursuit. There was a furious beating of the brush.

Cursing, Smitty swung his rifle up and peered down into the thick green. In a moment, they could see the Mexican run across a rocky clearing. He ran in a comic manner, lifting his knees high, his elbows pumping furiously. Smitty fired at him, deafening them both. The bullet rang against rock. The man was gone.

“There’s a trail down here,” Danskin called to them. “He took off on it.” They climbed down the slope to where Danskin stood and saw that there was indeed another trail, much narrower and oppressed with undergrowth.

“How come you couldn’t shoot him?” Danskin asked.

“I don’t know,” Smitty said sadly. “First I didn’t want to make the noise, and then I couldn’t see him.”

“Goddamn it,” Danskin said, “I knew he wanted to run. I didn’t think he’d get it on.”

“Maybe he didn’t go to the house,” Smitty said. “He didn’t follow the wires. They go the other way.”

“Let’s see where he went,” Danskin said. “We know the way out We’re not gonna get lost.”

The brush was much thicker and it was difficult to see ahead. Smitty went first, forcing his way through the branches that closed in on the trail. At the first turn he shouldered his way through a brake shielding his eyes with his elbow, and abruptly disappeared from sight. They heard him call out in fright.