fear for himself and me swept to me from Ahn. I tried to project reassurance, but apparently the charm reflected only what was really in the wearer because Ahn just looked more afraid. 'Didi mau, mamasan.
Didi mau,' he begged.
I had to slip around the front of the house, since if there was a back way I didn't know what it was. I must have slept several hours. The sky was relatively bright gray, with part of it yellower than the rest where the sun was trying to burn through. The jungle steamed with a sweet, earthy smell that made me want to lie down and bury my face in it. But I needed to find cover, and fast.
just inside the trees I hesitated for a bare moment, undecided where to go, frightened again of mines and booby traps. Someone grabbed me from behind and I whirled around, ready to fight. Hoa tugged on my hand and pulled me behind her.
She was fogged in gray and muddied with olive-tinged brown, a color that would have made me uneasy if I wasn't already just plain terrified. She led me through some brush that had a track wide enough to have been made by a large dog or a small child. She lifted a bush and there was a hole dug beneath, not terribly big but big enough. The spot was within shouting distance of the village, without all that much cover, but it looked just like the rest of the jungle and the bush was high enough that nobody should step on me by accident. I crouched down and she pulled the bush back on top of my back. I could still see out a little, between the roots.
I waited for a long time, watching the village, watching particularly the space between Hue's house and Truong's. The voices continued shouting, but it was muffled and I kept nodding off, despite being scared to death.
How did Hoa know about this hiding place? Could that sweet little girl be a VC? Then I remembered the puppy. Of course, this must be the doghouse. I should have been able to tell by the smell . . . and the stuff that squooshed under my hands and knees.
While I was wondering where the dog was, the meeting let out. I had no idea Hue's house was so large. The whole village was there, many of the patients from the night before, and several young men and women whom I'd never seen before, plus one older man. It was to him Hue was appealing.
Suddenly he backhanded her, knocking her to the ground, and one of the others, like the guard in my dream, leaned forward and jabbed her in the leg, where the snake had bitten her, with his bayonet.
The older man asked her another question, but she shook her head and kept talking. The younger man threatened her again, but his superior restrained him.
Tht auras of the people this morning were mostly dim and muddy. Even Hue's usually bright, fierce one was toned down with gray and the olive-brown Hoe's had shown. But the senior man's contained a burst of brilliant lemon yellow within a spotted aqua, a deep teal, and a lighter, less definite green. And though all of these were encased in a rim of brown weariness and umber depression, the yellow of the intellect, the blue of his devotion to his ideals made his aura outshine everyone else's except that of the sadistic younger man. His aura was all too familiar to me, though he wasn't. He strobed with black light that cast warped shadows on the red of his fury. Just like William on a crazy rampage.
Hue ignored him, appealing instead to the older man.
He shook his head and turned away from her. The younger man kicked her on the site of her injury and planted his foot on her abdomen, setting the bayonet blade against her face. Hoa ran shouting from among the villagers, toward my hiding place.
Staying alive around here appeared to be a popularity contest and I had just lost. I flipped the bush back, stood up, and started to run for it. I saw the trip wire just in time. It was stretched between the two trees, just beyond the dog hole.
If I had been thinking straight, I could have managed to run smack into it. But then it might not have killed me. It could have been a pungi stick trap, which would merely maim or poison me, not a grenade. My reaction time was way too slow, and by the time I made the decision and avoided it, someone was twisting my arms up behind my back so hard I heard the joints pop. The pain shot like a branding iron through the arms, into my heart, down my gut, and straight to my bladder and bowels.
A knife blade twirled itself before my eyes.
Then all at once a strident voice began talking in rapid Vietnamese and one of the younger men, probably no more than a teenager, stepped in front of me while talking fast to my captor. The young man looked vaguely familiar, and though he spoke in Vietnamese I understood the gist of his speech, which would have translated to something like,
'Colonel Dinh, perhaps I misunderstand the situation, but if I may venture a suggestion, I with my own eyes and all these people saw this womanxcuse me, sir, this foreign whore'-he spit at me, for effect-'perform magic that healed last night's casualties. Perhaps the Colonel would find it less embarrassing to interrogate her elsewhere.'
Hearing him, understanding him, I knew him. He was one of the men who had helped me into the hut the night before, one of the strangers who had touched the amulet, and he was trying to save me. His aura was cyanotic with fear of being thought a traitor, but it also bore a blue brighter than that of his superior, blue that spoke of a part of his spirit that had been revived. When he touched the amulet, when he helped heal his comrade, he had healed a little, too. Furthermore, he was still a little linked to me, even though time had passed and contact was broken. He carefully avoided looking at me.
The colonel strode in front of me, glared at me, nodded abruptly, and I was manhandled back to the village. The little creep who held my arms had to bend me over double to keep my wrists between my shoulder blades, because he wasn't tall enough to reach my shoulder blades easily when I stood up straight. So I stumbled ahead of him to where Hue sat painfully erect, watching our progress with an aura cloaked in battleship-gray and her eyes desperately hard. Something gleamed in the mud: her gold tooth.
The others had disappeared-including Ahn. The villagers were still protecting him, which I took to mean that the young soldier who had spoken to the colonel was right. The village was too frightened of the VC to try to save me, but the colonel would be pushing his luck to
. ,, streat me here. Damn. William knew I was here and there was a slim chance he might have found other men, that I might still be rescued, although I wasn't sure that by the time that happened I would be in any shape to know the difference.
While I was thinking this over, surrounded by small people who were smirking at me, poking, groping, and otherwise trying to make me Jump so that my arms would hurt even worse, the colonel stooped and extended a hand to Hue. He said something gruff and disapproying to her. She looked up at him and spoke again. And again I understood what she was saying without translation. The words of my captors, except for the boy who had talked to the colonel, were still a blessed mystery to me.
Obviously, a detached part of me decided, the amulet formed a link between those who touched it, one that conferred understanding-I supposed it must simply get clearer and more literal with practice, or length and intensity of contact. Or perhaps I simply underltood more because of the urgency of my need to know what was being said.
Hue's face was swollen, bleeding, and covered with filth, but she said in the calm, soft voice appropriate to a well-bred Vietnamese girl, 'I have done nothing incorrect, Father. You are mistaken about the woman.
She is not really an American. She's a magician who has made herself look like an American, to test us, if you ask me. She saved my miserable life. Would you have me dishonor our ancestors by betraying her?'
The colonel stood, and just for a moment the brilliant yellow of his aura flickered with indecision; then he marched us out of the village.
I couldn't keep up. The VC trotted through places my body wouldn't fit, and the branches tore at me. I kept closing my eyes to try to protect them, because bent over as I was, my face was even with the backlashing brush that hit me when the others passed. Small hard bodies crowded me on all sides, shoving so that I was afraid of being trampled. Finally I fell.
I fell forward, face down into the mud, without being able to use my hands to break my fall. My teeth bit into my lips and cheeks and my nose started bleeding. The little bastard who had been holding on to me fell onto my back and I rolled over angrily and dumped him. 'Let me alone, dammit,' I squalled. 'I haven't done anything to you.' My feelings were hurt as badly as they had been in my dream when I found out I was in hell. And even while I was bellowing, I realized how stupid it all was. I was going to get killed in an undoubtedly nasty and painful fashion by people I had absolutely no quarrel with. How many of their relatives had been killed the same way? How many of my patients had survived the same sort of thing? It was all so dumb. I screamed something to that effect.
The young soldier who had tried to help me that morning knelt beside me, placatingly, but the colonel backhanded me the way he had done his daughter. I saw the blow coming and ducked away from it. That was a mistake. He knocked the young soldier out of the way and reached for me with both hands. His aura didn't change,
