Stephen Hunter - Time to Hunt

“You are fixing to git yourself killed, Lance Corporal. And, much worse, you are pissing me off beaucoup.”

“I am not bugging out. I will not bug out!”

Bob’s eyes narrowed. He suspected all heroism and self-sacrifice because his own survival wasn’t based on any sense of them, but rather on shrewd professional combat skills, even shrewder calculation of odds and, shrewdest of all, a sense that to be aggressive in battle was the key to coming out alive on the other side.

“What are you trying to prove, kid? You been a hard-ass to prove something ever since I teamed with you.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything. I want no slack, that’s all. Zero fucking slack. I go all the way, that’s all there is. When I get back to the world, maybe then it’s different. But out here, goddamn it, I go all the way.”

His fierceness softened Swagger, who’d coaxed many a boy through bad times with shit coming in, who’d gotten the grunts moving when the last thing they wanted to do was move, who never lost a spotter to a body bag and lost a hell of a lot fewer young Marines than some could say. But this stubborn boy perplexed him all the way, all the time. Only one of ’em who got up earlier than he did, and who never once made a mistake on the premission equipment checks.

“Donny, ain’t nobody going to ever say you bugged out. I’m trying to cut you some room, boy. No sense dying on this one. This is a Bob show. This is what old Bob was put here to do. It ain’t no college football game.”

“I’m going. Goddamn, we are Sierra-Bravo-Four, and I am going.”

“Man, you sure you were born in the right generation? You belong in the old breed, you salty bastard, with my dead old man. Okay, let’s gear up. Call it in. I’m going to shoot us a goddamn compass reading to that grid square, and when we’re done I’ll buy you a steak and a case of Jack Daniel’s.”

Donny took the moment to peel off his boonie cap and pull out the cellophane-wrapped photo of Julie.

He stared at it as the raindrops collected on the plastic. She looked so dry and far away, and he ached for her. Three and days till DEROS. He would come home. Donny would come marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.

Oh, baby, he said to himself, oh baby, I hope you’re with me on this one. Every step of the way.

“Let’s go, Pork,” sang Bob the Nailer.

After a time, Donny stopped hurting. He was beyond pain. He was also, ever so briefly, beyond fear. They traveled from landmark to landmark along Swagger’s charted compass readings over the slippery terrain, the rain so harsh some time you could hardly breathe. At one moment he was somewhat stunned to discover himself on the crest of a low hill. When had they climbed it? He had no memory of the ascent. He just had the sense of the man ahead of him pulling him forward, urging him on, oblivious to both of their pains, oblivious also to fear and to mud and to changes in the elevation.

After a while they came to a valley, to discover the classical Vietnam terrain of rice paddies separated by paddy dikes. The dikes were muddy as shit, and in a few minutes, the going on them proved slow and treacherous. Swagger didn’t even bother to tell him, he just lifted his rifle over his head, stepped off the break and started to fight through the water, churning up mud as he went. What difference could it make? They were so wet it didn’t matter, but the water was thick and muddy and at each step the muddy bottom seemed to suck at Donny’s boots. His feet grew heavier. The rain fell faster. He was wetter, colder, more fatigued, more desperate, more lonely.

At any moment, some lucky kid with a carbine and a yen to impress his local cadre could have greased them. But the rain fell so hard it drove even the VC and the main force NVA units to cover. They moved across a landscape devoid of human occupation. The fog coiled and rolled. Once, from afar, the vapors parted and they saw a village a klick away down a hill, and Donny imagined what was going on in the warm little huts: the boiling soup with its floating sheaves of bible tripe and brisket sliced thin and fish heads floating in it, and the thought of hot food almost made him keel over.

This is nothing, he told himself. Think of football. Think of two-a-days in August. No, no, think of games. Think of … Think of … Think of making the catch against Gilman High; think of third and twelve, we’ve never beaten them, but for some odd reason late in this game we’re close but now we’ve stalled. Think of setting up at tight end instead of running back because you have the best hands on the team. Think of Julie, a cheerleader in those days, the concern on her face.

Think of the silliness of it all! It all seemed so important! Beating Gilman! Why was that so important? It was so silly! Then Donny remembered why it was important. Because it was so silly. It meant so little that it meant so much.

Think of going off the set, faking inside, then breaking on a slant for the sidelines as Vercolone, the quarterback, broke from his disintegrating pocket and began to rotate toward him, curling around, his arm cocked then uncocked as he released the ball. Think of the ball in the air. Think of seeing it float toward you, Vercolone had led you too much, the ball was way out of reach, there was no noise, there was no sensation, there was only the ball sliding past. But think of how you went airborne.

That was the strange thing. He did not ever remember leaping. It just happened, one of those instinct things, as the computer in your head took over your body and off you went.

He remembered straining in the air and, with his one hand stretched out to the horizon, the slap of contact as the ball glanced off his longest fingers, popped into the air and seemed to pause forever as he slid through the air by it, now about to miss it, but somehow he actually pivoted in air, got his chest out to snare it as it fell, then clasped his other hand against it, pinning it to him as he thudded to the ground and by the grace of a God who must love jocks, it did not pop out, he had caught it for a first down, and three plays later they scored and won the game, beating an ancient enemy for the first time in living memory.

Oh, that was so very good! That was so very good.

The warmth of that moment came flooding back across him, its meaningless glory warming and giving him just the slightest tingle of energy. Maybe he would make it.

But then he went down, floundering, feeling the water flood into his lungs, and he struggled, coughing out buffalo shit and a million paramecium. A harsh grip pulled him out and he shook like a wet dog. It was Swagger, of course.

“Come on,” Swagger yelled through the din of pounding rain. “We’re almost out of the paddies. Then all we got is another set of hills, a river and a goddamn mountain. Damn, ain’t this fun?”

Water. According to the map, the river was called Ia Trang. It bore no other name and on the paper was a squiggly black line, its secrets unrevealed. As it lay before them in reality, however, it was swollen brown and wide, overspilling its banks, and was a swift, deadly current. The rain smashed against its turbulent surface like machine gun fire.

“Guess what?” said Swagger. “You just got a new job.”

“Huh?”

“You just got a new job. You’re now the lifeguard.”

“Why?”

“’Cause I cain’t swim a lick,” he said, with a broad smile.

“Great,” said Donny. “I can’t either.”

“Oh, this one’s going to be a pisser. Damn, why’d you insist on this trip?”

“I was momentarily deluded into thinking I was important.”

“That kind of thinkin’ll git you killed every damn time. Now, let’s see if we can find some wood or something.”