Muscles in the back of my thigh constricted, then flexed, lifting my leg.  The weight of my boot caused my foot to swing forward.  I stepped down with a slight bounce.  My other thigh flexed and my trailing leg rose.  My knee never locked.  I proceeded ahead.  I walked with caution.  My pace was slow.  I took the next step.

A game, I thought, imprinting the bare dirt, a game of hide-and-go-seek.

My left arm, from shoulder to elbow, hung at my side.  My left forearm, parallel to the ground, extended forward.  The black plastic forestock of my M-16 rifle lay comfortably in the palm of my left hand.  My fingers were wrapped around the forestock.  My right hand nearly surrounded the black plastic grip which extended almost perpendicular from behind the trigger guard.  The first finger of my right hand was in the black steel loop of the guard.  The tip of my finger felt dead lying next to the trigger.  The thumb of my right hand was sandwiched in between the rifle and my gut, just above my naval.  My thumb rested on top of the black steel firing selector lever.  The inside of my upper right arm pressed against the black plastic stock.  My right elbow dipped below the stock.  The weight of the rifle counterbalanced the tension in the muscles of my arms.  The end of the barrel, in front of me to my left, swung to and fro as I walked.

A game, my thoughts continued, where one man hides and another goes looking.  The rules of the game: find him before he finds you.  If you win, he dies.  If you lose, you die.

Jungle enclosed me.  My head turned to the right.  Little had changed here for thousands of years.  The heat and the rain made everything grow.  It grew till it died.  It stood dead till it fell down.  My eyes, open wide, moved and stopped as my head turned.  I blinked my eyes once.  I moved them again.  Scrub grew a foot high.  Grass grew to four feet.  I'd have to look up to most trees and some bushes.  Arching my neck, I'd lean back to see big trees.  The big trees were tall, some grew ninety feet.

When my chin was above my right shoulder, only my eyes continued to move.  My left eye felt as though it were expanding.  Pressure built at the top of my nose.  I strained to see a dark spot close to the jungle floor.   My eyes stopped moving.  My vision remained fixed.  Leading with my right shoulder, twisting at the waist, I rotated to the right.  I moved while concentrating on the dark spot beneath two overlapping trees. I felt secure and I blinked.  My vision jumped to the base of a tree. Still straining to see, I followed shaggy gray bark sixty feet into the air.  I peered out from the black rim of my steel helmet.  My eyebrows moved the skin on my forehead.  I searched large branches where a man could sit.  The top of my neck, at the base of my skull, supported the weight of my Head.  The leather band soaked inside my helmet as it pressed into my flesh.  I searched clusters of leaves where a man could hide.  I moved three strides, five strides.  The tree was empty.  I blinked again and started to pan a hundred and eighty degrees.  My eyes moved slowly. My head turned steadily.  My vision swept through the branches.  I looked for exceptions to color, movement, and light.  I listened.  The jungle was quiet.  My head moved to the left.

It's a simple game, my thoughts returned.

My chin stopped over my left shoulder.

A deadly game, my thoughts persisted.

I searched small branches to large limbs.  I scanned each notch of a tree.  The back of my head rose.  I followed shaggy gray bark toward the ground.  Pressure diminished across my forehead.  Thirty feet above the jungle floor I picked up the shorter trees and the taller bushes. I found a shadow.  I looked for another.   My eyes moved and stopped more frequently.  I looked down, and out.  My head turned from the left.  A large group of trees had grown together in a tight space.  Each stride presented a number of different angles to openings between the trees. My vision fixed on them.  I watched.  I passed.  All the muscles in my neck stopped.  My body moved but my head remained still.  I looked straight ahead at the lone lead figure in front of me.  I looked at his head.  His hair was sweaty.  I looked at his helmet.  It turned as he moved.

A game played by children, I thought.

He walked ten feet ahead of me.  He hid the trail from view. His head turned to the right, not far, and back.   He walked as I walked. He moved as I moved.  He was smaller than me, but not much.  His head turned to the left, not far, and back.  He watched the trail, taking several steps down it.  His head turned to the right.   His name was Ross.

Ross was pointman.  I walked second.

The easy movement of Ross' helmet indicated the trail ahead was clear.  The muscles of my neck pushed and pulled.  My head turned to the right.  My vision swept out through the jungle.  I was hot as a bitch. I looked for the shadows.

A drop of sweat tapped my skin.  It hung from the band inside my helmet.  Unconsciously, I tightened on the grip of my rifle, keeping the barrel in place.  I reached for one end of the towel hanging around my neck.  As I brought it toward my face I took a step.  The sweat dropped down my forehead, it hit my eyebrow, and trickled into my eye.  It burned and I squinted.  One eye stayed open and I watched as I moved.  Pressing the towel against the closed lid, I poked the cloth into the corner of my eye.  I closed the eye tightly and I pulled the towel across the lid. I pushed the towel around my face.  It cooled my skin.  It brought relief. The towel, my towel for twenty some days, was damp, and dirty, and sour. I opened my eye.   The burning was gone.  The sweat from my face made the green towel dark.  The scum in my sweat added an orange tinge.  I lowered my left arm reaching for the forestock of my M-16.  The towel left my hand.

The tension in my right hand eased a bit.  I began to look up into the trees.

The day had been a fuckin' bummer.  It was out of control before my first piss.  A small group of gooks had bumped into us on the far side of our perimeter.  In a matter of seconds all hell broke loose.  I ended up on my knees pissing in my foxhole.  The firefight went on.  I didn't take part.  My foxhole was so small, I had to lie where I pissed.  I listened and I watched until the gooks didi mau'ed.  Just like that, it was over.  We ate.  We moved out.  My squad walked the point.  It wasn't our turn.  No reasons were given.  But experience said we were going to a fight. It wasn't the first time we had point out of turn.  We moved for five hours. We stopped and set up.  We moved three hours more, stopped, and set up again.  Around six o'clock we were given the word.  It came from battalion, through company, to platoon.  Then I got the word.  I gave it to my squad.

Delta Company was in a fight.  They had made contact the day before.  2 dead.  We had moved to get close.  Two platoons would go on. Our squad would lead.  We had point.

We'd been moving for an hour.  In less time it would be dark.

The hair on the back of my neck brushed the collar of my shirt. My head turned to the left.  I projected my eyes upward.  Above me I viewed the double canopy of the trees and the black rim of my helmet.  I scanned the first layer of branches looking for openings to the tops of the trees.  My vision poked through an empty space revealing a second layer of branches still higher yet above those that I could easily see.  I caught a glimpse of ice blue sky.  I blinked and I held the spot.  I blinked again and I lost the opening.  My chin stopped over my left shoulder.  My eyes followed the fall of a dozen leafy vines to the ground.  My head started to turn to the right.  Ahead of me on my left, in the direction of ten o'clock, a tree had fallen sometime ago.  My vision came up from a dark spot. I tightened the grip on my rifle.  The sway of the barrel stopped.  I surveyed the vast configuration of dead leaves and branches.  I twisted slightly to face the area more squarely.  My vision moved, but my eyes didn't.  I watched the shadow beneath the fallen trunk.   I peered into it, following the darkness to the base of the tree.  I checked the base and the area around it.  I eased my grip.  My head moved on.  The barrel swayed.  I looked at Ross.  His head turned slowly.  Mine turned to the right.

A smell was in the air.  I filled my lungs and the scent lingered.  Gooks.  I concentrated as I inhaled.  My chin approached my right shoulder.  The odor was unmistakable.  Humans who eat fish and rice don't smell like humans who eat meat.  My chin stopped.  It started to rise.  Smells in the jungle do not compete.  I inhaled deeply.  They've been here, I thought, twenty minutes ago.  I scanned the notches of a tree.

Ross stopped.

I jerked my head.  My eyes closed and flashed open.  I tried to see around him, but couldn't.  I felt the safety embedded in the skin of my thumb.  My finger touched the trigger.  I stepped to one side, and the jungle brushed against me.  I leaned into it, looking past Ross.

I took the trail.  But the trail was empty.

The jungle was still.  I eased my grip.

The muscles in my forearms relaxed.

Balancing my weight, I looked at Ross.

My voice was low, "What is it?" I asked.

He turned and faced me, his back to the trail.  The whites of his eyes glowed in his head.

"I don't know," he answered.

I stared at the glow.

I reached for my canteen, pulling the snaps, and I took it from the faded green canvas pouch.  I swirled the water.  My mouth was dry. I glanced down the trail.

Extending my dirty hand, I said, "Take a drink."

He reached for it but backed off.

I shoved it further at him.  "You can't walk if you can't swallow."

He took the canteen and unscrewed the black plastic cap.  It fell by the chain.  He raised the canteen and parted his lips.  The open top touched them as the bottom rose.  He closed his eyes and began to drink. His swarthy complexion was oily and dirty, making a layer of grease that beaded his sweat.  His Adam's apple rose twice.  I swallowed.  The heat in his face showed through the dirt.  He licked his lower lip, handing me my canteen.  I swirled the water.  It splashed back and forth.  I wanted a drink.  I couldn't.

"I can smell 'em," Ross said.  He showed no emotion.

Ross had been through this before.  We'd been through it together.  He'd been walking point for nearly two months.  He took the lead spot over from Skinny.  Ross was young and slight, with a Missouri twang and a bad case of acne.  His helmet looked too large for his head, his jungle fatigues too loose.  Though he seldom said much or showed his emotions, I knew who he was, his reactions and limits.  The smell wouldn't shake him.

I was mesmerized by a large pimple near his nose.  It had festered and ballooned.  It was white.  It was ripe.   I blinked and I looked him in the eyes.  "I just picked it up." My voice still a low rumble, "They've been here.  Headed where we're headed."

I seated the canteen in its pouch.  My head turned to the right. My vision swept the jungle.  Nothing had changed.  I looked at Ross. I viewed him full length, starting with the fuzz-on his face.  His shirt was open.   His chest was hairless.  His skin glistened with his sweat.  His pants were filthy.  He looked like a dump.   His laces were loose, one was dragging.

"Tie your boot and let's go."

Obediently Ross bent at the knees.  His chin touched his chest.  I thought of Skinny.  Ross went to the ground.  His rifle went down.  I watched him go down.  In my mind I saw Skinny.  My thoughts were erratic: Skinny, Dudley and Him.  It had happened before.  It was happening then...

...Twenty eight days in-Country.

Working out of An Loc.

A forward firebase on the Cambodian border.

A twenty minute patrol.

Just the platoon, my squad had point.

Skinny was walking first.  I was walking second.

Moving through waist high elephant grass, the platoon leader directing, we stumbled on to something scary, yet exciting, a trail.

It was wider than a sidewalk back in the States, nothing but dirt, swept clean, wandering through the jungle at its leisure.  If there was a bomb crater, it went around the bomb crater.  A tree, it went around the tree.   No way to walk through the jungle on either side, but there was no need with the trail.

Skinny was cool.  We were humpin' pretty fast.  Nothing got in our way, to step over or bend down for.   The sky was blue.  The sun was shining.  I squinted to see.  I saw three gook packs.

They were stashed in the bushes.  They really weren't hidden.  My adrenalin pumped.  They were close.   My platoon leader moved up, saw the packs, he went crazy.  "Hot Shit!" he said.  He had their packs.   "Move out," he said, and we weren't playing anymore.

We moved down the trail fifty yards, sixty, maybe more.  A bend was coming.  I couldn't see around it.   Skinny hit the turn.  I didn't understand.  He was going down, down to his knees, gun down, head down.   He tensed.  He froze.

Three quick steps and I stood at his back.

Down the trail...fifty five feet...standing alone...surrounded by trail...one man, just him, only him...NVA...uniform, helmet, AK... yellow skin...mouth open...eyes big...looking at Skinny...frightened, but doesn't move...sees me...he's horrified...turning, leaving...now I move... he's running away, his right leg up...safety down, feel the click, gun up, butt to shoulder...his other leg up...leaning at him, pointing at him, over the barrel to his head...his right leg up...Now - touch the trigger - squeeze it - pull - recoil, BANG! - recoil, BANG! Feel it, blink...he's flying, falling, lurching, in the air...pulled from the top of his head... he's going down...disappearing...hits the trail...still in sight.

"I got one," I screamed, like killing a rabbit.  "I got one, up here.  He's dead.  Be careful.  Stay down.  We'll check it out."

My squad was up.  We moved down the trail.  Past him, over him, everyone wanting to look back at him. but no one daring, no one but me, I saw him, I studied him, I was crushed for Him.

He was dead!

He lay canted across the trail.  His feet were close to the bright green grass on one side, his body bent at the waist, head into the grass on the other.  One eye was open the iris was black the other eye closed the lid looked puffy.  His brains were smattered over three feet of ground.  Red blood, brilliant red, on a field of gray dirt and bright green, was thick and gooey.  The top of his head had exploded.  His skin and his hair was ripped high on his forehead.  The rest of his hair lay a foot away.  All I wanted to look at were his brains.  The entire time I was walking toward Him, and passed by Him, and set up my squad around Him, his mouth opened and closed.  One eye was open and his mouth wouldn't shut! It opened and closed, and opened and closed, and opened and closed: if he was dead why didn't it stop?

He wore a green military shirt and khaki pants, a cardboard helmet and Ho Chi Minh racing slicks.  He had an AK-47, and that's it. He had been coming for the packs and died coming for them.  And I asked why he died and couldn't figure it out.  I knew I'd never hesitate to kill Him again.  But as a man he wasn't any different from me.

And me, what about me, do I die now? Is it a one to one ratio? Do I take a life and forfeit my own?

No answer came.

I thought of Dudley as he walked point, later, for the squad on my flank.  The platoon leader had directed us off the trail.  Dudley was walking past some bushes.  He had no idea that the gooks were on the other side.  They opened up.  An AK slug knocked Dudley down.  The hole in his chest was a mess.  It was gaping.  The medic moved up, and took a slug in his wrist.  We lay there three hours in the noise and the mayhem.  The gooks so close, yet I never saw one.  I only saw Him, my first kill on the trail.  Two platoons from our Company came to help out.  They tried and-Six died.  They left.  So we crawled out...

...The source wasn't close, but it broke my train of thoughts.

I heard the crackle of gunfire.  An AK made the sound.  It was answered by the snap-crackle of M-16 rounds.  The sounds weren't loud.  The jungle between us muffled all explosions.

Delta Company was still battling somewhere ahead.  There were moments of quiet, broken by bursts of small arms fire, grenades, and machine guns.  Someone is taking some bad shit, I thought, as my chin moved away from my left shoulder.  I scanned thirty feet of long thorned wait-a-minute bushes looking for light, spot movement, against the darkening leaves and branches.  I could hear the firefight, but I listened close.  Reaching for a cigarette, I pondered Delta's dead.  Then two gooks I dug up off LZ Billy in November.  Maggots fighting for space in open wounds.  The smell of blood cooking in the heat of the day.   My head turned toward Ross.  Using only my left hand, I struck a match and lit my cigarette.  I pulled the smoke into my mouth.  I dragged and I sucked.

I came from the Midwest.  I lived in a small town.  I was raised in the cornfields of Illinois.  My father was a teacher.  My mother stayed at home.  I had a brother and sisters who loved me.  I was brought up a Christian, though I struggled to believe.  I was brought up to love my neighbor, and I did.  I was fifteen the first time I heard of Viet Nam. By the time I was eighteen I had the world on a string.  I had found my own way in high school.  I was popular.  I was liked.  I had no money for college and the Army hung over my head.  I looked at Nam as part of living, something to be learned, if I survived.  If I didn't, I had lived for nineteen years, I wasn't afraid to die.  After my final leave home, my brother drove me to the airport.  I told him I wouldn't be back alive.

I was twenty years old.  My cigarette was within a half inch of the filter.  I took a drag and I flicked it into the brush.  My head turned to the left.  My vision swept through the trees.  I saw the sky.  The blue was deeper.  We were running out of time.  I heard a rocket or a big grenade.  We had four or five hundred yards to go.  It would take fifteen minutes or better.  My chin stopped dropping.  My head turned to the right.

McCaffrey, the Old Man, had briefed his platoon leaders.  Gast, my platoon sergeant, gave me the shit before I moved out.  Besides the two dead. Delta Company had fifteen wounded.  Their LZ was too small to bring in a chopper.  The gooks were pounding them from the trees.  I felt an itch.  I shoved my left hand down the inside of my pants and I scratched it.  I wasn't wearing underwear.  No one wore it in the jungle unless he was looking for a way out.  The raw, open, running sores were a high price to pay.  There were easier ways.  Deltas wounded won't make it through the night, I thought, some will die.  I heard another explosion.  It was a ten pound Chi-Com grenade.  It was followed by crackles and snap-crackles.  The gunfire didn't bother me.  It wouldn't shake Ross either.

A few minutes before, we had encountered a fresh trail.  We took it.  I scanned it.  Everything was cut and raked to one side.  Leaves are green and fresh, I thought, busted ends of branches, white, with every step Ross leaves a print.  My head turned to the right.

"Hold up," Pee Wee whispered, carrying the radio behind me.  I stopped and I blinked, freezing the image of what I saw.  I told Ross to hold up.  I took a step back.  I blinked again, twisted, then turned, and looked at Pee Wee.  "It's the Old Man," he drawled, handing me the handset.  I knew the Old Man and he knew me.  He was directing from a couple squads back.  He told me over the horn to take a compass reading and follow it. I had nothing to talk about.  The magnetic needle pointed off to the right at a sprawling stand of dead bamboo.  I dug my hand into my pocket, as I faced Ross, and I closed the gap between us.  I probed with my fingers to the bottom of the pocket and I scratched the itch once more.  Ross and I talked.  He wanted to know if McCaffrey had heard anything new about Delta Company.  I shook my head, no.  I told him where we were going.

Ross turned and slithered into the grass, the jungle took him up to his waist.  I gave him twelve feet.  I stood, watching the trail.  Then I followed the slight impression he made.  My head swung to the left visibly clearing the jungle away from the trail.  I looked up through the trees and across to an opening, high above me, above the bamboo.  Night was coming and coming fast.  Forty minutes, I judged, I won't see my hand in front of my face... my face.  I bent at the waist, but not soon enough, a branch scratched my helmet, it grated, I moved.  The muscles of my neck stiffened.  My eyes tilted up.  Leaning forward, I looked over the top of the grass. There was silence in my head, the sound of the branch drowning out the sounds of the jungle.  My eyes became my ears, for an instant, sweeping, looking for what my ears could no longer hear.   I took the next step, the muscles relaxed, nothing had happened.  I concentrated on sound.  I approached the dead bamboo.  My head swung back toward Ross.

He had just begun to enter.  As the dead shafts moved they creaked and groaned.  He sought to weave a course.  He couldn't.  Most shafts stood upright.  Some shafts leaned down.  The stand was so dense that what had fallen never quite fell to the ground.  He searched for an opening.  There was none.  Nothing could be avoided.  The dry, brittle bamboo was impossible to cut.  With no holes or openings, no easy way, push came to shove and Ross went to work.  Walking into the dead bamboo, the shafts scraped and grated.   He high stepped, they splintered.  He moved forward pulling and dragging the shafts from each side.  They piled against him until his effort was futile.  Forcing himself down, he fell to the ground.  Bamboo erupted.   "Jesus Christ." Ross got himself up.  He started again.  Walking into it, backing into it, he'd fall down, forwards, backwards, over and over; I watched him work.  I watched him move.  I made my way behind.   A few yards a minute, he fell again and again.  I had nothing to look for, no reason to listen.  Ross fell to the ground.  The noise carried.

Pee Wee said something.

Ross moved on.  I stopped and I turned, bringing my towel up to my face.  It was soaked with sweat.  I found a damp corner.  I wiped and let go, and said, "What?"

"New azimuth," he repeated.

I looked at his face.  His voice was no louder.

Pee Wee didn't like this shit.

I swept the open sky, shoved bamboo to one side and backed up.

The Old Man was changing direction.

I took out my compass, let the needle float, looked up and nodded my head.  I returned the compass to a pocket, gave the handset to Pee Wee, and rumbled, "What the fuck you so quiet about?"

"Nothin'," he drawled.

"We're headed out of this shit," I said..  I looked into his eyes. "Wait for Ross, and catch up." It would give him a breather.  His eyes said he'd make it.

I returned to where I left Ross.  He was forty feet farther away, going in the wrong direction.  I called out, "Old Man says this way." Ross stopped.  "I'm going. Catch up."

Leaning forward, I drove into the dead bamboo.  Using my left hand to keep the splintered shafts from tearing my face, I used my right hand to hold up my rifle.  The bamboo stacked against my body at different angles, like so many pickup sticks.  My momentum slowed down.  I couldn't shove it anymore.  I couldn't fall.  I heaped on the pile.  The bamboo popped like firecrackers as I slumped to the ground.  My face slid across my arm.  Dust and little pieces of chaff floated in the air.  I breathed the shit.  I found strength.  Pushing myself up from the crushed heap, I slit my hand.  It bled.  I sucked it, I spit, and moved on.  Fifteen wounded, I thought. I pushed harder.  Fifteen wounded, without help some will die.  I crashed and I churned to get through and get out.  I didn't look around.  Bamboo entangled my body.  I fell down and got up and kept going.  The bamboo started thinning.  I walked without falling.  I came close to the edge.

I was out.

I inhaled through my mouth, my head swinging left, not far.  Night was encroaching.  Back to the right, further than before, visually clearing the area in front of me.  I exhaled with effort.  I stuck a finger up a nostril and I picked my nose.  I blinked and I glanced at what came out.  The tip was covered in a mess of gray jelly, a hair, and fibers of chaff.  I wiped the crap on my pants.  I cleaned the other nostril, wiped my face on my towel, and I listened to Delta Company fight.  Cautiously, I moved through the elephant grass.   Sometimes it touched my hands, as my rifle swung freely in front of me.  I panned back and forth.  I barely felt the grass. I moved.  I held up.  I stopped.  Looking down through the grass I saw the trail.  It was the one we'd just been on.

"Shit," I muttered, pissed off for coming the long way.  It led to the right.  I wanted to go right.  The rest of my squad was somewhere behind.  It shouldn't take long to catch up.  I stepped on the trail.  I began to walk.

My head swept to the right, up into the trees, overhead and down. The same rotation as always, but now I felt the trail before me.  No matter where I looked I kept the trail ahead of me in the periphery of my vision.

I could see the jungle was opening up.  A clearing was coming.  The trail was leading to a large open area.   I rotated to face it. I entered, my eyes moved to the right.

Small trees, thirty feet high, surrounded the clearing.  They formed an impenetrable wall to both movement and deep vision, and made the clearing a rough elongated circle.  The dirt trail cut the circle in half.  Ninety feet from one end to the other, seventy feet across, the clearing was covered in scrub a foot high with no other plants, except two huge trees that grew in the center.  The trail ran past the trees.

Hot shit, I thought, step by step into the clearing.  An ambush here would kill a lotta fuckin' gooks.

There was absolute silence.

A feeling stirred inside of me.  My head swung to the left.  It was dark.  It was quiet.  An impulse whirring around, working its way to my brain, I swept across the outer trees.  There was no indication.  The impulse shook me, nothing gave it away.

I'm in an ambush, I thought.  I'm here, and when I get to there. FLASHES...FLASHES...MUZZLE FLASHES...POPCORN FLASHING...INTENSE, BRIGHT, YELLOW-WHITE...LOW IN THE BUSH...COMING FROM EARTH... JUMPING, DANCING ...TURNING, FACING...TOO MANY TO COUNT...TOO QUICK TO ISOLATE..."Damn"... DOESN'T STOP...WON'T STOP...BRIGHT, ON FIRE, NO RIFLE. NO FACES...BUT EXPLODING...FROM TWO PLACES... EARS HURT...M- 16s...SNAPPING, COMING, THE NOISE, THE FLASHES...MY EARS, MY HEAD...STOP THE EXPLOSIONS, SO MANY TIMES, STOP THE FIRE, SO MANY FLASHES.  MOVE OR YOU'LL DIE.   CAN'T KILL 'EM NOW.  MOVE OR YOU'LL DIE.  MOVE!

I sucked the air.

My eyes squinted at the trees, wincing in anticipated pain.

THE TREE.  I turned.  JUST AHEAD.  LOOK AT THE TREE.  GET TO THE TREE.  TOUCH IT.   HOLD IT.  GET CLOSE TO IT.  MOVE!

RIGHT KNEE, INTO THE AIR.  LEFT LEG TENSE.  PUSH OFF.  EXTEND THE BOOT.  PULL THE LEFT LEG FORWARD.  PULL THE RIGHT.  DO IT AGAIN.  DAMN THE FLASHES! DO IT AGAIN.  DAMN THE NOISE! DO IT AGAIN.  DO IT AGAIN.  DO IT AGAIN.  TAKE THE TREE.   TAKE IT NOW.  HIT IT!...and I lunged! Falling toward the earth, through the air, I collapsed to the ground.  The tree protecting me.  The dirt coming up at my face.  A whiplashing bandoleer smashed my nose and forehead.  The shooting ceased.  I hit the ground.

And there was silence.

Motionless, I lay, face down in the dirt, my head cocked back, my ear and cheekbone resting on the ground.   Only the muscle of my heart moved.  My legs trailed me, outstretched, slightly bent at the knees, the toe of each boot in the dirt, my heels canted to the left.

The dust of the trail settled around me.

I focused on the rear sight of my M-16, looking at it from the top, lying on its side in the dirt, my hand still gripping the trigger.  I stared at my hand.  Air burst from my mouth.  Frozen to the ground, I watched a cloud of brown dust swirl from the dirt before me.  It rose, gusting, across my forearm, receiver, and my hand.  I sucked up another breath.  I felt nothing.  I blew and I watched the dust swirl again.  It settled and I blinked.

My hand rose from the rifle.  I brought the back around to face me.  Stretching my fingers, I turned my hand, slowly, with my forearm.  I looked at my palm and I blinked.  I closed my fingers, feeling the squeeze.  I rotated my forearm once more.

Inhaling through my mouth, I reached for the top of my head.  I found my helmet, upside down, just above me.

Pinning it to my head, I rose off the trail.  The shrill ringing in my ears amplified.  I rolled over and sat upright, the tree on my right, facing, the area through which I had come.  I reached back and I picked up my rifle.

It was still on safe.

My gaze drifted to my legs.

Frightened by what I might feel, I cringed, and I reached out.

With each movement of my head, my ringing ears split my brain.

I felt the weight of my hand and the pressure of its surface.

I felt no burning, no numbness, no blood.

Hesitantly, I put my hand on my chest.

I took a breath.

I slid my hand to my gut.

I took another breath.

Nothing hurt.

I stared at my arm.

I stared at the hairs.

I stared past the hairs to my flesh.

It is me, came my first thought.

I'm not dead, came my second.

My eyes teared, and I squinted.  Water squished from the inside corner of my right eye.  It fell down the crease of my nose and cheek, and dropped into oblivion.  A tear hung from the lash of my left eye.  It parted from the hairs.  It rolled through the dirt on my cheek.  It crept and I felt it.  It was all that I felt.

The tear stopped.

I opened my eyes, inhaling through my nose and I blinked.  I blinked again, and I stretched my eyes open, forcing them open, eyelids raised high, pushing the skin.  I blinked once more, and I reached for my towel.   I'm not Dudley, I thought, and I'm not Him.  I'm not hit.  I'm not hurt.  I'm not dead. They didn't shoot me...they didn't get me...they...I don't know why - when you're dead you should die! I closed my eyes and I pressed the towel against my face.  My chest heaved as I drew a breath.  I concentrated on the smell, the feel, the dampness.  The stink I inhaled.  I bit down hard.  I centered my attention.  The towel became my skin.

Pressure eased inside my head.  I took a breath and let it out.  I took another and wiped my face and looked at the towel.

"Damn," I said aloud.

I heard the word damn through the ringing in my ears.  I heard the crackle of AKs and the snap-crackle of M-16s.  I heard Delta Company cranking it up.  The smell of sulfur was getting stronger.  A thin fog of gunsmoke drifted by in the air.  It all came back to me at once, "Shit," the gooks, the clearing.

Where the fuck were they? Awkwardly, I pulled my feet in under my butt.  Why didn't they take me? I squatted and tensed, touching the tree.  Where the fuck were they? I tried to see by it, around it, past it, something to give me an edge.  I knew where they were.  I held my breath.  I knew just about.

I looked.

Trees...dark...shadows, the images of trees lined the clearing. Quiet...still...lifeless...across the top of the scrub on the jungle floor... no leaves moved, it's all that I saw.  Empty..., that's all that there was.  The jungle was silent.  I was alone.  There were no heads or shoulders, no helmets or rifles, no movement, no reflections, no light.  But was I alone?

Movement came from the corner of my eye.  Ross, and Crowe, crawling down the trail.  Ross was in front, below the top of the scrub.  Crowe lagged behind to keep space.  I faced them.  Fuck it was hot.  Ross struggled in the dirt.  Crowe moved without a sound.  I heard Ross' effort to breathe.  His face was earnest.  

He kept coming at me.  He was close.

I didn't want him dead here.  Making eye contact, I made sure he could hear me, "Get the fuck outta here.  

Stop and go back.

But Ross kept coming.

Crowe stopped behind the other tree.

Ross stopped next to me.

I reached out.  My fingers slipped through the sweat on his arm.  I touched his shoulder, the top of his helmet.  I glanced at his rifle, and looked back at his head.  I locked on the pimple.  It glowed and I blinked. He turned his head peering out over the brush.  He swept the clearing.  He checked the air.  He had heard what had happened.  He was looking at where.

Yet, Ross had no idea what took place.  He finished his sweep.  His eyes met mine.  His voice was low, but it carried weight. "Old Man says move out."

Damn - fuck, I heard the words.  Old Man - move out.  I wasn't ready for those words.  The Old Man wants me to move out.  I wasn't ready for those words.  Move out.  Move out.  The words shocked me.  They shattered me.  Tears filled my eyes.  I was numb.  Ross was fading.  I fought to cope.  I couldn't survive.   He couldn't survive.  We couldn't survive.  We were dead.

"What do you want me to do?" Ross asked.

His words came at me from far away, someone talking at the edge of a dream.  I had just had a race with my sister.  I was five.  I was catching a fish with my Dad.  I was nine.  Kissing Joan in a hammock at a party, I was sixteen.  Then above me stood a Spec4 in green fatigues, my mother clutching her purse, my father in a dark suit.  They looked out of focus.  They looked out of place.  They were looking down at me lying frozen in a body bag. I couldn't reach out.  I didn't want to reach out.  But I bore my mother's pain.

"What do you want me to do?" Ross repeated.

My head jerked.  The vision was gone.

Hot... dark... Ross... want him to do, I groped.

To do... we must do... I began to look up.

Two dead... fifteen wounded..., I wiped my face.  I checked my tears. The wounded are dying on the log pad.  They want to get out.  They have to get out.  Don't let them die to get out! I centered on Ross, I thought about me ... you must go.  Temples pounding against the band inside my helmet, I felt like my head was about to explode.  You have to go.  You're already dead. The muscles in my butt tensed.  It isn't your fault.  Viet Nam.  Save someone by dying.  I sweltered in radiant heat.  Bust this fuckin' clearing.  No doubts.  No fears.  The Old Man says go... 2 dead, fifteen wounded... finish this now!

Calm and steady, I looked at Ross, my voice was matter of fact.

"We'll go together."

Ross gazed at me like a puppy looks at its master.

"Two gooks are on our left.  Watch the left.  We leave together, down the trail.  Stay low.  Watch the left.   If somebody gets hit, the other guy drags him back.  If we're closer to the end of the clearing, head for it.   Closer to the tree, come back.  Fifty-five feet to the gooks on our left.  Maybe they're gone.  Maybe they hit and ran.  Stay close.  Stay low.  Watch the left.  Let's go."

Together we rose.  We turned and faced the trail.

I put my left hand on his shoulder and whispered, "Put it on semi."

I thumbed down my own firing selector lever and I listened to the click.

Every muscle in my hand tightened on my M-16, the rifle in my arm was weightless.

Trees, bushes, and the empty dirt trail lay dormant before us.

Ross took a step and we walked into sight.

NO, "Shit!"...FIRE FROM THE LEFT...FEEL IT, FIND IT, SQUINTING, TURNING...M-l6s...LOW AS BEFORE...THE LIGHT...THE FIRE...THE CRACKLE OF BULLETS, CRACKLE WON'T STOP...SO LOUD, SO MANY, SO BRIGHT...PULL LEFT... WATCH ROSS...NOT LEFT...GO RIGHT, NEW LIGHT...TWELVE O'CLOCK, FRONT... FORTY FIVE FEET...M-16...FANNING TO THE RIGHT...JESUS THE LIGHT...TWO O'CLOCK, AK...THIRTY FIVE FEET...COMING FROM THE GROUND... HORROR, HORROR... PULL RIGHT HARD...FOUR O'CLOCK, RIGHT...M-16...THIRTY FIVE FEET...GOOKS ALL AROUND... FLASHES...BRIGHT...STOP AT THE AK...THE CIRCLE IS LIGHT...ROSS DOESN'T MOVE... GOD!...YOU MOVE!

The fingers of my left hand dug into Ross' shoulder.  My forearm hardened and took him down.  The stock of my M-16 locked between ray elbow and my ribs.  My left hand sprung up.  My palm hit and held the forestock.  I turned in slow motion, facing the AK.  My vision was fixed.  I leaned back for the tree.

Gunfire danced, sparkling in my eyes.  The jungle was green.  The air was yellow and filling with smoke.   Contained in the clearing, the automatic explosions of bullets were so great that I no longer heard them.

Spewing bark from the tree blasted my skin.

ROSS TO THE GROUND... ALWAYS THERE IS LIGHT...FIND THE TREE, FEEL THE TREE, LOCK THE KNEES...TAKE THE AK...LOCK THE RIBS...SWING AND POINT...FIND THE SPOT...FIREBALLS DANCING...LIKE JOHN WAYNE...NOW, SQUEEZE THE TRIGGER -KILL IT - KILL IT - THREE TIMES - FOUR TIMES - DON'T STOP - FIVE TIMES... FIRE'S GONE, DEAD...CLEARING ROARS, CHRIST IT'S HOT, FLASHES... TAKE THE NUMBER FIVE GUN...GOTTA SWING LEFT...CAN'T KILL 'EM ALL - NO WAY. HOPELESS, GET OUT, GO DOWN, NO LEGS, DOWN.

I slipped through the air, landed on my butt and leaned hard back. The resonant hollow thunk of my helmet smacking the dirt trail could be heard around the entire clearing.  The shooting had stopped.  The sound gave way to silence and an M-16 round snap-crackled over me, and another, and the silence returned.

My eyes were open.  I gulped for air.  Sweat burned my face.  I waited an instant.  My muscles were tense.   The silence continued.  I sprang.  Slamming the dirt with my left hand, I bent my right knee up and thrust myself off my foot, rolling to my left side.  I rose on one elbow, setting my eyes on Ross, and I shouted back up the trail.

"Eck, you there?"

I caught a breath.

"Ross, you hit?"

"Yeah!" Eck yelled.

"No," Ross mumbled.

"Bring up the guns, both sides of the trail!" I filled my lungs again. "And shoot the piss outta this place!" My eyes never left Ross.

I reached for his leg.

I grabbed it, squeezed it, "Feel it? You hit?"

The jungle was quiet.  The clearing was fading.  My breath was like fire.  Ross wasn't hit.  Sayre and Basham set up their machine guns.  I heard them.  I saw them.

"You ready?" Eck called.

"Yeah, do it!" I screamed.

With a flashing dance the machine guns thundered into the clearing. Sayre and Basham, shooting from the hip, could kill anything that moved.  They were ablaze in the muzzle flashes.  Eck lit up, firing bursts, checking his squad, a burst, checking the guns, a burst.  Two or three squads were coming up on line.  Gast was walking around, spreading it out.  McCaffrey was on the trail, at the edge of the clearing, .45 in hand.   Cool and in control, standing straight up, looking at us, on the radio, checking with Gase, in the middle of it.  The end of the clearing glared with light.  The firepower was awesome.  The 1st Cav was here.

My brain and my senses, both, said we were safe.  I reached out for Ross.  I touched him.  He left.

Leaning forward, I elbowed down.  Panting and pumping, I pushed off from the tree.  With my elbows and knees I pounded the dirt.  My butt was low. My head was up.  I closed the gap and I pushed on Ross' boots.   He spurted ahead, crawled past the machine guns.  I followed.  He stopped.  I was up on my feet...

Kill 'em, kill 'em, I wanted them dead.  The thunderous mad minute of the firing line was chewing the fucking jungle to shreds.  I swung left with my M-16 probing the ambush positions.  Nothing came back.  I threw grenades.  No fire was returned.  I wanted a fight.  I needed a fight.  I moved up and down the line, firing, taunting the gooks to give themselves away.

Basham's machine gun stopped.

Taking a step back, I looked down the firing line and I shouted, "Ammo! Who's got ammo?"

"Hold it!" Gast hollered.

Sayre's gun stopped.

"Fuck 'em," I rumbled, stepping back on line.  Leveling my M-16 at the clearing, I thumbed up to automatic.  Peering into the sudden blackness, I pulled the trigger, held it, and emptied the magazine.

"Hold it, god damnit!" Gast shouted again, "I said hold it!"

Everything stopped.

The firing stopped and it was dark.

The explosions stopped and it was quiet.

The firefight stopped and it was over.

It was all over.

I slumped down and I shut down, and the coming moments were lost.

From time to time a body tremor would shake me.

People, their voices, their movements, were all around.

Time slipped by.  I waited in the dark.

Someone said we were moving out.

Another voice said we were moving out now.

Men started to stand and file by.

I stood and put the fingers of my left hand in the back of the pant of the guy in front of me.  I didn't know who he was.  I waited to feel a hand in my own pants.  I felt a pull, and like a child I followed.