the airstrip.
'God, that was great!' I told him, latching chummily onto his arm. 'I think I could write a song about that myself.'
He grinned like a father being told his newborn was adorable. 'Well, good. Hope it put you in a partying mood. Meet you in about forty-five minutes and we'll all walk down to the club together, okay?'
I agreed happily and changed into my bright pink embroidered Mexican sundress and sandals. Then, feeling a little like a mascot, I walked down the road with thirty or forty of the men from the flying crane unit.
I sailed in between Tommy Dean and the C.O., captured a steak, and watched a thoroughly oriental woman who didn't look as if she spoke a word of English, and who wore a strapless sequined evening gown and high-heeled shoes on bare feet, belt a Patsy Cline song just like Patsy, twang, warble, and all. Then the dancing started and I, who had never been asked to dance at any Stateside party I had ever attended without a date, in high school or out, was in hog heaven. Marge was there, along with several other girls from the 83rd. I sat down to talk to her when the band took a break, but we couldn't hear ourselves for the noise.
As the band started again, someone tapped my elbow and I looked back and up to see my own fun-house reflection in Tony Devlin's mirrored sunglasses.
He turned his hand palm up, inviting me to grab it, and nodded toward the dance floor. I suppose in a movie the band would have been playing a Viennese waltz right then, but actually they were playing something more compelling: 'Proud Mary.' I never could sit still to that. Tony danced well, his knees, elbows, and wrists more than his feet keeping time, a style which is a boon on a small floor. He frowned slightly to himself as he swayed and bounced and snapped his fingers, like a Russian about ready to go into one of those numbers where they get down on the floor and kick. The frown was sexy. I'd seen it on hippie men friends who seemed to use it to say, 'Sure I may be doing something frivolous like dancing, but I'm supporting civil rights' or saving the world from the bomb.' In Tony's case it said, 'You better believe I'm dancing while I've got the chance.' I loved watching him dance, but I enjoyed playful stuff, too-pretending to be Mouseketeers with Tommy Dean, or line dances and circle dances with everybody. When I danced with Tony, I double-timed like an Indian ready for the warpath. Maybe that should have told me something.
But I was feeling good. New friends, a new adventure, and maybe a new romance. I lasted much longer than the girls from the 83rd, and when Marge waved good night, neither of us had stopped dancing long enough to talk much. It must have been quite a while later-I was dancing with one of the crane pilots, I don't remember who-when I noticed that Tony had slipped away from the bar, and that Tommy Dean and jake were gone, too.
I saw the top of jake's head come through the door and his finger make a circle in the air. The girl singer tapped the lead guitarist on the arm and jerked her head in jake's direction, and they cut the song a chorus short and began packing up the instruments.
He stopped and said a few words to one or two guys and the club began emptying.
He started toward me and I met him halfway. 'What's up?' I asked.
'I don't think anybody else is going to be able to leave tonight. Would you mind if the girls in the band shared your room? I don't want any of the guys who've had too much to drink giving them a hard time.'
'Sure,' I said, bewildered. 'But why?'
'There's a sniper at the gate. I got Sarge to get some cots for the entertainers, but I wanted to let you know what was going on before we set them up.'
'I'll help,' I said. We walked back up to the quad in a tight little group, me, jake, and the crane ockeys with the Fillpina girls from the band and the Patsy Cline-clone singer mincing behind us in their toohigh heels and too-tight outfits.
The sergeant bad a stack of cots and linens set out. I started unfolding cots and sheets. I could have let the girls do it themselves, but after working in hospitals as candy striper, student nurse, and graduate for the best part of five years, I automatically tended to make any unmade bed that crossed my path. Besides, it made me feel useful in a potentially dangerous situation over which I had no control. I was used to rockets and mortars, but a sniper? Somehow that seemed a lot more personal.
I was cussing a stubborn hinge on the last cot when Tony poked his head in the door, 'Jake said to tell you relax. Looks like the girls may get to go home after all. We called in an air strike from Phu Bal.'
'Oh,' I said, looking at my row of neatly made up cots.
'Forget that. Come on with me. I've got something to show you. I think you're going to find this real interesting.'
'Where are we going?' I asked.
'Just to the water tower. Come on. Hurry.'
He practically pulled me past the quad, where a few of the crane company were entertaining the Filipinas and vice versa, through the dark part of the compound to a squatty water tower. We climbed a rickety wooden ladder and lay face down on the top of the tower. He lay beside me with one arm flung across my back. His fatigue shirt was damp with clean-smelling sweat mingled with the odor of rice starch, whiskey, and cigarette smoke. He hugged me closer so that his forearm braced us against the top of the tower. With his free arm he pointed ahead of us.
'Watch,' he told me.
'Is that where the gate is?'
'Uh huh. But watch the sky.'
All I could see was buildings, trees, and stars. The occasional pop of gunfire sounded like distant fireworks, an effect heightened by the red streaks of tracers streaming into the air and bursting.
'Hear that?' he asked, and pretty soon I did: a chopper, from the rhythmic beat of the blades, but a very quiet one, as if the rotor had been muffled with oil and velvet.
'Where is it?' I whispered, the excitement of the darkness, the danger, and being half-squeezed to death by Tony making it hard to keep my voice low and serious. The whole scene reminded me of when I was about eight years old and my cousins and I played combat in Army surplus helmets and belts underneath my Aunt Sadie's bridge. Except my cousins didn't smell or feel like Tony.
Tony swung his hand in an are. Following it, I saw the outline of the slim nose of the little chopper, hovering overhead like an airborne cat watching a mousehole.
'What kind is that?' I whispered.
'Cobra,' Tony said, his breath tickling my ear.
Suddenly the Cobra pounced, spitting fire, covering the area in front of the gate with burst after burst. 'Jesus Christ,' I said, 'all that for one little guy with a gun?' It seemed like using a tank for a flyswatter.
But the Filipinas were able to go home after all, which was great, since by the time we left the water tower I had other company in the guest room.
e was scheduled for surgery my first day back. The antibiotics had helped prevent the spread of infection in his stumps, but they still had to be debrided; that is, the dead tissue had to be removed so that the new could form a clean scar.
Of course, I had no idea who the old man was or how great his power had been until it was nearly gone, even though he had already shared it with me once. I'm glad I didn't know. If I had, I would have missed the point: that even a great master like Xe was only a part of the process.
I think if I had known about him I would have been quick to discount my own role in that process. That would have been a fatal mistake, in more ways than one. As it was, the mistake we all made of treating Xe like an ordinary, slightly crazy old man is only embarrassing. And though I'm sure some of his anxiety was real, I wonder now if the old man wasn't having a secret laugh at our expense.
The fracas started when Voorhees began prepping Xe for surgery. Xe had permitted Voorhees to shave and bathe him and clean his nails without a problem. Xe had never been combative before, but I'd noticed when I did his dressings his eyes were always angry and troubled. Once I caught him watching me while I did Dang Thi That's wound irrigation, and his expression was unfathomably miscrable. Mostly, though, he had been withdrawn and almost sullen. I thought perhaps he was still suffering the hostile stage of brain healing I mentioned earlier. On the other hand, it was normal enough for anyone to be angry and confused on awakening from a head injury to find his legs missing.
He sometimes spoke briefly to Mai, their exchanges no more than a few careful words, as if they were trading eggs. When he was sleeping, he mumbled and clasped his hands to his chest. When he was awake, he stared at the wall or followed us with his eyes, though if we said something to him, he looked away.
'I bet he's a VC,' Meyers said once. 'He looks sneaky.'
'Oh no,' Mai objected. 'He very holy man.'
'$o were those monks that barbecued theirselves, and look what they got us into,' Sergeant Baker snorted.
Mai carefully refrained from looking offended, but lowered her eyes. 'I hear about him from my friend,' she said and turned away. I could have kicked Baker for discouraging her from saying more. According to Marge, Mai's 'friends' told her a lot of things-like when there were likely to be heavy rocket attacks or when it would be unsafe to go to downtown Da Nang.
But while Voorhees didn't treat Xe with any particular reverence, he had shaved and bathed the old man with his usual stolid gentleness and patience, as if he were grooming some prize piece of livestock for a 4-H
