Oh, shit.
Fire came at him from three points, short, professional bursts from AK47s. They probed, sending the rounds skirmishing after him in three vectors. He assumed that a few more were working around behind him.
That's it, he thought.
I buy it.
This is it.
Oh, fuck, I tried so hard. Don't let me chicken out here at the end. Oh, please, let me be brave.
But he wasn't brave. His anger melted. A profound sense of regret washed over him. So much he hadn't done, so much he hadn't seen. He felt the powerful pain of his own father's death upon him, and how, now that he was gone, no one would be left alive to mourn and miss Earl Swagger.
God help me, Daddy, I tried so goddamned hard. I just didn't make it.
A shot kicked up next to his face, stinging his neck with pricks of dirt. Another one buzzed by close. They were all shooting now, all of them that were left.
I ain't no hero, he thought.
Oh, please, God, please don't let me die here. Oh, I don't want to die, please, please, please.
But nobody answered and nobody listened and it was all over, it was finished. Bullets cracked past or hit nearby, evicting gouts of angry earth and pelting spray. He willed himself back, shrinking to nothingness, but there was only so far he could go. His eyes were shut. They had him. The next round would-Three fast booming cracks, heavy and powerful. Then two more.
Silence. 'Swagger? Bob Lee? You all right?'
Bob lifted his head, about forty yards away, a young Marine stepped out of the elephant grass. Donny's boonie hat had fallen to his back and his hair was golden even in the gray light and the misty rain. He was an improbable black-and-green-faced angel with the instrument of his sergeant's deliverance, the U.S. Rifle M14, 7.62 MM
NATO.
'Stay down,' Bob called.
'I think I got 'em all.'
'Stay down!'
In that second, two men fired at Donny but missed, the bullets pulling big spouts from the valley floor. Bob turned to watch their shapes scuttle away in the grass, and he walked bursts over both of them, until they stopped moving. He crouched, waiting. Nothing. No noise, just the ringing in his ears, the pounding of his heart, the stench of the powder.
After a bit, he went to them, one was dead, his arms thrown out, the blood congealing blackly as it pooled to form a feast for ants. The other, a few yards away, was on his back, and still breathed. He had left his AK 30 feet away as he'd crawled after taking the hits. But now, exhausted, he looked up at Bob with beseeching eyes. His face and mouth were spotted with blood, and when he breathed heavily, Bob heard the blood bubble deep in his lungs.
The hand seemed to move. Maybe he had a grenade or a knife or a pistol, maybe he was begging for mercy or deliverance from pain. Bob would never know, nor did it matter. Three-round burst, center chest. It was over.
Donny came bounding over.
'We got 'em all. I didn't think I could get here in time.
Christ, I hit three guys in a second.'
'Great shooting, Marine. Jesus, you saved this old man's fucking bacon,' Bob said, collapsing.
'You're all right?'
'I'm fine. Dinged up a bit.' He held out his bloody left arm, his side also sang of minor penetration in a hundred or so places. Oddly, what hurt the most was his neck, where the impacting NVA round had blown a handful of nasty dirt into the flesh and hair of his scrubby beard, and for some reason it stung like a bastard.
'Oh, Christ, I thought I was cooked. I was finished.
Wasted, greased. Man, I was a gone motherfucker.'
'Let's get the fuck out of here.'
'You wait. I left the rifle up top. Just let me catch my breath.'
He sucked down a few gulps of the sweetest air he'd ever tasted, then ran up the hill. The M40 lay where he had dumped it, its muzzle spouting a crown of turf, its bolt half open and gummed also with turf.
He grabbed it and ran back to Donny.
'Map?'
Donny fished it out of the case, handed it over.
'All right,' Bob said, 'he's sure got that column moving again. We've got to move on, pass them, and jump them again.'
'There's not much light left.'
Bob looked at his Seiko. Jesus, it was close to 1700 hours. Time flies when you're having fun.
'Fuck,' he said.
