that bird.'
'Dead?' I asked. 'Who's dead? You mean the chopper crew?'
'No'm. I mean my unit,' he said. Now that he'd started talking, his tone was conversational, ordinary. 'We got overrun, I guess you'd call it. See, I was asleep in my bunk one night back at base and we was all in this, like Quonset hut, kinda, with a screen door? And somethin'
wake me up. I always been like that, since I was a little boy. I sorta know when somethin' ain't right, like. Anyhow, I wake up and I see this shadow with a gook hat go by the screen door. And at first that don't mean nothin' 'cause the gooks, you know, they all over the place in the daytime. But then it come to me-they ain't s'posed to be no gooks there at night. And I'm just thinkin' that and I just start, halfasleep, you know, rollin' down under my bed when all of a sudden all hell breaks loose. Somebody starts afirin' in the screen door and killin'
everybody. Everybody in there, all my buddies, all my friends, they get sprayed all over there, and when I crawl out, they all dead. Everyone dead and I ain't even had a chance to warn 'em. And outside the door I see fire and I hear guns and I see gooks runnin' this way and that and I crawl on my belly to the door and they're all over the place, all them gooks. Ain't s'posed to be there at night. Not at all. But they all over the place.'
He was shaking his head like an old man with palsy. I patted his arm, the gray and mauve mingling again, spreading into each other. I felt his fear suddenly, as I had felt my own the day before, sharp and acid and helpless.
'How'd you get away?'
'Crawled. I crawled down off that hill, through the fence, and tried to find somebody. But I just got lost. Then I saw your chopper and I thought, William, they have come lookin' for you. Say, you really in the Army?'
'Army Nurse Corps,' I said.
'I ain't never seen no Army nurse in Nam. They come for us with you here. We just got to keep out of Charlie's way. Army won't let you stay out here.'
'They don't know I'm here,' I said, realizing miserably that it was true. 'I guess, officially, by now I'm AWOL.'
'AWOL? And you a lieutenant? Whoo! That some kinda rich!
Shake,' and he held out his hand. I tried to take it, but he did that complicated black handshake instead and I couldn't follow.
'How long you been out here?' I asked him.
'dunno. Two, three days maybe. You?'
'We spent the night in a tree.'
'Yeah, me too, till a snake chased me out. I hate them things.'
time too. But at least the VC didn't spot us.'
'VC? Around here? Where?'
'All over the place last night. They're gone now.'
'Fine with me.' His aura flooded with beams of yellow, blue, and a hint of purple that went with the sudden wide, self-deprecating grin. 'I hate them things too.'
Seeing people as rainbows was a dizzying experience. Still, annoying as the side effects were, the edge the amulet gave me was too great to dismiss because it was a little disorienting. And the longer I wore the amulet and the more I listened to William and Ahn and had a chance to compare the feelings the colors gave me about them with their actions and words, the more eloquent the auras became. It was as if people had an extra feature to gesture with, one that expressed a whole side of them that mouths, eyes, and hands were unable to communicate. William's grin, by itself, was somewhat enigmatic, but while the basic gray-brown of his aura told me that he hated and feared the VC deeply and was in a state of shock explained by what he had just told me, the yellow, blue, and purple said, in the same way a grimace or a twinkle in an eye might, that his hate was not a customary thing for him, that he was a very bright guy, and more used to caring about the people around him than hating them.
That was part of the problem with acquiring an object of power without having studied its ramifications. I thought then that the amulet was giving me guarantees, that I could trust what it told me as absolute.
From being a nonbeliever I was rapidly coming to rely on that one talisman as my salvation-rings of power and singing swords, as in
'folkien and King Arthur stories, aren't supposed to lie any more than just and wise rulers. The amulet abolished any reservations I would normally have had about William. But that was partly my fault, I guess.
I desperately needed something to believe in right then.
In basic, the sergeant had given a little speech I thought was amusing at the time. 'Those of you who are going to Vietnam will need a god. We do not care which god you pick. Your god can be Buddha, Jesus, Allah, or Pele the volcano goddess. Your god can be sex or money if you so desire. But you will need a god. If you do not have a god, go to the quartermaster and he will issue you one.' I began to see what that was all about.
'So,' I said. 'Have you got any idea where we are now?'
William scooped Ahn up with another smooth motion and started loping through the jungle again, which at that point was easy. The jungle door was flat and the ground cover was mostly more elephant grass, though shorter than that in the field because the trees hogged the light. 'Umm hmm.'
'You do? Where?'
'In deep shit, woman. We in deep shit. Thass where.'
''Tohn Wayne would have probably just shot me, but William stopped when I said I couldn't go any farther.
'Thass cool. 01' babysan here ain't no lightweight. They feed you too much Da Nang hospital, babysan.'
'No way, Gi,' Ahn protested. 'Feed me tete. Ahn beaucoup hungry.'
'Yeah, William beaucoup hungry too.' William shrugged Ahn from his back and shrugged his shoulders together to take the stiffness from them.
'You hungry too, mamasan?'
'I sure am. But I don't want to make my meal out of sweets. You haven't seen any rats around, have you?'
'Nah, why?'
'Didn't you guys get that speech in basic about what you do if 're stang and you only have a raw rat and a Hershey bar?'
you ryi
'Oh yeah. You mean where you eat the rat and chase it with a piece of Hershey bar 'cause you ain't even gonna barf up the Hershey bar? It don't work, lady. I know a guy tried it. Says it just make you hate Hershey bars from then on.'
fully. 'Well, maybe it's better with peanut M&M's,' I suggested hope
'Mmm,' he said, lowering his voice a decibel or two. 'Well, we ain't even gonna have to worry about it 'less we carefuler than this.'
I took a quick look around and spotted no particular glows besides the amulet-enhanced phosphorescence of the greenery. 'There's no one close,' I said. 'I think we're safe.'
'Then you musta bumped your head in that chopper crash, woman. We not safe by a long shot.'
'No, but there's no one close.'
'You can't see 'em, lady. Thass the point.'
'I think I could,' I said, and then wondered how I would explain it to him without sounding like a superheroine refugee from Teen Titans comics.
'Yeah? An' how's that? Some special info only officers get?'
'.'Well, maybe you could say I have unusually good vision,' I said. I decided I wasn't up to explaining about the amulet right then and William didn't look as if he was in the mood for listening to such explanations if I was willing to make them.
'Umm hmm. Well, find us some food, then, if you that good.'
'V didn't have that much survival training,' I said. 'What have you been eating? If I were home right now I'd be having steak at the mess hall.'
'Steak? Jesus, lady, you been on the gravy train for sure. What make you get your dainty steak-fed little ass into somethin' like this, taggin' along after some one-leggity child?'
'Someone has to look out for these people,' I said.
William gave me a look that said it was too bad I was braindamaged. 'I been lookin' out for 'em okay. I lookin' real hard, and if any one of
'em come 'cross me, they ain't gonna need no more lookin' out for, and that, girl, is puttin' it polite 'cause you're a female and all.'
Recalling what he'd just been through, I didn't argue with him but changed the subject. I didn't want to stop the conversation. As long as we talked, I felt less afraid.
'Where are you from, William?' I asked, only a little breathless from trying to keep up with him.
'Cleveland,' he sad, still mad at me, his aura bristling dull red.
'I'm from Kansas City. That's where my folks and my brother live. You have brothers or sisters?'
'Yeah. And a wife and two babies. An' I'd like to stay alive to see
,em again. Look, lady, it real nice talkin' to you and all, but I don't want no VC catchin' us shootin' the breeze.'
I shut up, at first a little resentfully-after all, if we were all stranded out there, it
