Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

“Jesus Christ,” Jimmy Storm said, “that is one fucked-up nigger.”

“And who fucked him up? We did,” the colonel said. “History might forgive us for what’s going on around here. But that man never will. He’d better not.”

Minh didn’t know this black Lurp who’d cut the prisoner’s eyes out. When the man wasn’t around, everybody spoke of him. He slept on his poncho on the ground, and only in the day. At night he moved through the world, no one said where. His hair grew out in wild foot-long clusters. He’d cut the sleeves and most of the pant legs away from his uniform, and nothing kept the vermin from his flesh but the bright designs of red, white, and blue paint streaking his face and limbs.

A little after sixteen hundred hours Minh and the three Americans went back up the mountain and on to Saigon in the colonel’s helicopter, a Huey modified with two extra seats and without a machine gun, on loan to the colonel from the VNAF, though the colonel himself had arranged for the VNAF to have it in the first place. On the colonel’s orders Minh took them to several thousand feet and kept up a speed of nearly a hundred U.S. miles per hour. Sergeant Storm, sitting on his helmet with an M16 across his knees, his hair raked back by the deafening winds, occasionally raised his weapon to fire a burst down into the world below. The colonel’s nephew sat next to the sergeant, staring out the open portal at the jungle and the paddies, the flicker of fires, man-destroyed badlands from which smoke ascended like steam through rents in a cauldron’s lid. Two fighter jets passing close underneath actually drowned out the incredible racket of the chopper’s motors. The craft came very close. F-104s. Minh could almost make out the emblem on one pilot’s helmet.

Skip Sands often smiled, and always Skip Sands joked, but Minh had hardly ever heard Skip Sands laugh. Why had he laughed at the poor tormented man? Certainly nobody could have found it funny. But something had struck him as hilarious.

The colonel, wearing his headset, sat next to Minh and studied the horizon and seemed to have forgotten the terrors of the morning. Skip, for his part, looked as if they’d never leave him. The colonel hadn’t mentioned his nephew’s behavior. Maybe it didn’t bear mentioning. Perhaps Skip thanked his God right now that he had no headset and that their transport was too loud for talk. But who can look into another’s thoughts? And Minh often felt of the Americans that behind their actions lay no thoughts anyway, only passions. But he’d seen Skip’s face as his uncle had helped him aboard and he believed completely that this American was thinking only of the murdered man.

For a brief period Minh let the colonel take the controls. It wasn’t safe, but the colonel did what he wished, and nothing could hurt him. The colonel had seen war at its worst and had once made to Minh a sad confession: in order to save his fellow prisoners from a massacre, the colonel, at that time a young air force captain like Minh himself, had killed one of his own comrades in the dark hold of a Japanese POW ship, had choked him to death with his bare hands. The colonel often shared such stories, possibly because he didn’t think Minh comprehended. Minh’s English, however, kept improving. He could speak confidently about matters within the realm of his duties and sometimes followed whole conversations among Americans, though the subtleties eluded him and he couldn’t hope to participate with any skill. And Minh thought he was probably the only person who knew that the colonel kept a wife in the lower Mekong Delta and frequently traveled to visit her in this very helicopter.

Th e airfield at Tan Son Nhut in Saigon had come under rocket fire three times since the initial predawn assault, but no attack was under

way at the moment, and they were permitted to land. They left Minh with the craft and crossed the field through an oily wind under gray skies. Outside the terminal Hao waited with the Chevrolet, just beyond the concrete barricades.

Skip thought he should demonstrate some minimal interest in where they were going, but he had none. Storm, however, demanded to know, and the colonel said, “Hao better have that figured out.” Skip and Storm in the back, the colonel up front beside Hao, who smoked a long cigarette and worried its filter tip with his thumb, dotting his pant legs with ash, and peered out myopically and drove without certainty. The city echoed with small-arms fire and the drumroll of helicopters and, somewhat curiously, firecrackers. They passed several unclaimed corpses at the side of the street but saw little real damage, saw people carrying on as usual, walking to and fro, sailing out on their small motorcycles. The colonel said, “Do we have a good enough fix on where we’re going?” but Hao didn’t seem to get the question, and the colonel said, “Hao, I don’t think we know where we’re going.”

“He tell to me the location. I will find it.” A few minutes later he said, ahead of the colonel’s next question, “Cho Lon is too big. Too many street.”

“There—there—those jeeps.” Hao stopped the Chevrolet near a trio of ARVN jeeps parked randomly around the dead bodies of two Vietnamese men.

“Stop. Stop. Go ahead and kill it,” the colonel said, and as Hao cut the engine he said, “Hao, we’re going to see some dead VC up here. I want you to look and make sure none of them is our friend.”

Hao nodded.

“You know who I mean?”

Hao said, “Our friend.”

“I don’t think he’s here. He shouldn’t be. But I want you to make sure. All right—let us proceed.” They all got out of the car. The two corpses lay side by side in the middle of the street with their

arms stretched above their heads. Each had been shot a great number of times. A squad of nine or so ARVN infantry sat in or leaned against the jeeps. Nearby a small ARVN officer smoked a cigarette, standing almost at attention with one hand on the butt of his sidearm.

“Major Keng?” “C’est moi.” “I’m Colonel Francis Sands. —Skip, can you get the drift for me?

This is Mr. Skip, my nephew and colleague. Skip, thank him for coming out. Thank him for keeping this under guard. Tell him I’m the one his information originated from.”

The major closed his eyes and smiled. “No need for that, Colonel. I

get you.” “No,” Skip said. “Your accent is terrific.” “Keng is a Chinese name. Incidentally, I am not Chinese.” “How many languages do you speak?” “French, English, Chinese. And my own, of course. What can I do

for you, Colonel?” The colonel said, “Did it all go like we told you?” “Like a charm,” the major said. “We ambushed them.” “Did they have explosives?” Major Keng tossed away his cigarette and beckoned them all over to a

jeep on whose rear seat lay four satchel charges. “Red China,” he said. “What time did they come here?” the colonel asked. “Three a.m. on the dot.” The colonel said, “Everything like we told you?” “Everything was correct,” Keng said, “to the tee. Oh three hundred

hours.” He swept his hand out at the corpses. “Two VC. As promised.” “What was the target?” “To destroy the traffic bridge there,” Keng said. “Is this stuff big enough for the job?” “I will give you my best guess: more than enough.” “No IDs, I suppose.” “No identity cards.” Keng shook his head. “Major, we won’t trouble you further. I just wanted to be sure our in

formation was correct. We’ll take a quick look at this overpass and be on our way.”

Storm and Skip followed the colonel over to the traffic overpass evidently targeted for destruction by the two guerrillas, and stood atop it. Buzzing motor scooters echoed below them. “I’m not sure I see the point,” the colonel said. “I suppose it would have tied up the street down there. But I’m not sure I see the point.” He headed back to the car.