THE HEALERS WAR [065 5.0] 
BY ELIZABETH ANN SCARBOROUGH 
Synopsis: 
Very realistic and chilling novel of an army nurse in Vietnam. Kittyfinds herself alone in enemy territory with a crippled Vietnamese child,her only protection a mysterious amulet given to her by an ancientVietnamese wise man. The touch of fantasy keeps this book from being atrue nightmare. The author was a nurse in Vietnam herself and the descriptions in this novel are not for the squeamish. 
Dedication This book is specifically for Lou Aronica, who asked theright questions. 
It is also for my fellow Vietnam veterans, living and dead, male andfemale, military, civilian, and pacifist, American, South Vietnamese,North Vietnamese, Australian, Dutch, Laotian, Cambodian, Montagnard,Korean, and Chinese. And for our children, in hopes of arming them withhard questions to ask leaders selling cheap glory. 
The perspective, extrapolations, fantasy elements, and selection ofstory material in this novel are entirely my own. This story is a workof speculative fiction, not an autobiography, although some of the moremundane aspects and background are based upon my own experience as anurse in Vietnam. This work does not, however, claim to berepresentative of the viewpoint of any group or of any other person butme. However, I have obtained nonjudgmental help, support, information,and reference materials from the invaluable sources listed below. 
I would most especially like to thank John Swan for generously sharinghis experience as a field medic, combat soldier, Vietnam VeteransOutreach Center counselor, and human being, for helping me cope with theinitial stages of this book, and for introducing me to the FairbanksCombat Veterans Rap Group. Another debt is owed to a Vietnamese ladywhose perspective was of real help but who prefers to remain anonymous.Thanks also to Mack Partain; Megan Lindholm; Dr. Sharan Newman; Dr.Peter Cornwall; janna Silverstein; Karen and Charlie Parr, my parents;Don and Betty Scarborough, my agent; Merrilee Heifetz, her assistant;Kathilyn Solomon and others at Writers' House; and Walt Williams of theSeattle Vietnam Veterans Outreach Center. In addition, I owe a greatdebt to all of the veterans who have been courageous enough to telltheir stories, whether they thought what they had to say would beacceptable or not. Without their example I would not have been able towrite my story. Particular thanks to Lynda Van Devanter, author (withChristopher Morgan) of Home Before Morning; to Cheryl Nicol, a portionof whose story is in 4 Piece of My Heart; to Patricia L. Walsh, authorof the novel So Sad the Hearts, based on her experiences as an Americancivilian nurse who treated Vietnamese patients in Da Nang; and to HuynhQuang Nhuong, author of The Land I Lost, a portrait of the author'sboyhood in rural Vietnam before the war. Also thanks to those who collected the stories of other veterans: Keith Walker for the excellent 4 Piece of My Heart; Kathryn Marshall for In the Combat Zone; StanleyGoff and Robert Sanders for Brothers: Black Soldiers in the Nam; WallaceTerry for Bloods; and Mark Baker for Nam, among many others. I owe special gratitude to Robert Stone for suggesting Dispatches by MichaelHerr, to Shelby L. Stanton for advice on technical aspects of the story(all mistakes are purely mine, however), to Frances FitzGerald's Fire inthe Lake, and to Jeanne Van Buren Dann and Jack Dann, editors of In theField of Fire, for suggesting that writers of fantasy could haveanything to say about Vietnam. 
Glossary Author's Note Spellings are phonetic and meanings areapproximate, not literal, translations. Many terms are not actuallyVietnamese but pidgin. My apologies to any Vietnamese speakers forinaccuracies. I wish I had had your assistance when compiling this. 
Ba: Vietnamese term for a married woman. 
Bac si: Vietnamese term for a doctor. 
Beaucoup: French for "much" or "many," used in pidgin VietnameseEnglish. 
Bic. Vietnamese term for "understand." (Bicced is author's

Americanizing of past tense.) 
Cam ong: Vietnamese term for "thank you." 
Cat ca dao: Vietnamese term meaning "cut off head." 
Chung wi: Vietnamese term for a lieutenant. 
Co: Vietnamese term for an unmarried woman or girl. 
Com bic?: Vietnamese term for "Come again?" or "I don't understand." 
Dao: Vietnamese term for "head." 
Dau: Vietnamese term for "pain." 
Dau quadi: Vietnamese term for "much pain." (Dau quadied is author's

Americanizing of past tense.) 

DEROS date (military jargon): The day a person can leave an assignment;
in Vietnam, when one leaves country. 
Didi or didi mau: Vietnamese or pidgin used often by GIs and Vietnamese;

approximate meaning "Go" or "Go quickly." 
Dinky dao: Vietnamese or pidgin for "crazy." 
Dung lai: Vietnamese term for "Stop." 
Em di: Vietnamese term for "Shut up." 
La dai: Vietnamese term for "Come here." (La daied is author's

Americanizing of past tense.) 
Mao: Vietnamese term for a cat. 
Mao hey: Vietnamese term for a tiger. 

MOS: Military Occupational Specialty. 
Sin loi: Vietnamese term for apology. 
Tete or titi: Pidgin for French word petit. 
TPR: Temperature, pulse, and respiration. 
Triage: As used in medical emergency situations, this term refers to theprocess of sorting victims of a mass casualty situation or disaster intocategories,. e., those who can be treated and released, those who canbe saved by quick intervention, and those who will need more extensivehelp if they are to recover. The last category are those so seriouslyinjured they will probably die without immediate, extensive care and maydie anyway. In triage situations, patients are treated in the orderlisted, the worst injuries requiring the most care left until last sothe greatest number of people can be treated. 
Prologue The nightmares have lost some of their power by now. I can haul myself out of one almost at will, knowing that the sweat-soakedsheet under me is not wet jungle floor, that the pressure against myback is not the barrel of an enemy rifle or a terribly woundedVietnamese but my sleeping cat. When someone in a suit or a uniform frowns at me, it doesn't always make me feel as if the skin over myspinal column were being chewed away by pointed teeth. Sometimes I can *just shrug, and recognize the authority in question as an uptightasshole with no legitimate power over me-none that counts, that is,nothing life-threatening. 
Still, most of the time, I retain the feeling that it's the nightmaresthat are real and my life here and now that is a dream, the same dream Idreamed in the hospital, in the jungle, in the Vietcong tunnels. I'm always afraid that someday I'll be dragged out of this dream, back toNam, to a war that goes on and on for real in the same way it replaysitself in my memory. 
"That is what stops your power, Mao," Nguyen Bhu tells me. "You cannotprovi 'de a clear path for the amulet's power until your own mind isclear. When you turn your face from your fear, that fear bloats withthe power you give it. Look it in the eye, and it will diminish intosomething that is part of your life, part of your memory, something thatbelongs to you rather than controls you." 
Nguyen Bhu sweeps the floor at his cousin's grocery store. Charlie sayshe's a former Cao Dai priest, a mystic like old Xe, and the wisest manto escape from Vietnam. He is sixty and looks ninety, has lost threefingers from his right hand, has more sense and is far less expensivethan a psychiatrist whose lifelong concern has been to avoid obesityrather than starvation. 
And most important, Nguyen Bhu knows what I have to say, and insiststhat it is not too much to ask people to believe and forgive. Charlieknows part of it, but he has his own nightmares to chase. Of the others who know, I keep hoping that at least one or two survived, and thatsomeday I might see and recognize them among the refugees. One hope Ihave in writing this is that maybe they will read it or hear of it andfind me, and we can heal together. 
 I didn't know old Xe was a magician the night I began to be iaware ofhis powers. If anybody had told me there was anything magical going onthat night, I'd have told them they were full of crap, and assumed theyeither had a sicko sense of humor or had been smoking too much HanoiGold. 
I was in the worst trouble of my life, to date, and had brought someonewith me. An eleven-year-old kid lay comatose, barely breathing, on thebed by my chair. 
Every fifteen minutes I repeated the same routine. 
Right arm, right leg, left leg, left arm, I pulled up a spare lump offlesh from each of the little girl's limbs and pinched hard, silentlydaring her to kick me or slug me. Then I ground my knuckles into herchest, counted to ten, and prayed for a sign of pain. 
A kick or a slap, a whimper or a wiggle, even a grimace would havegladdened my heart. But the kid just lay there, her disproportionatelylong limbs limp as wet rags, her breathing so shallow that it barelystirred her skinny ribs a quarter of an inch up or down. 
I peeled back her eyelids one at a time and dazzled them with the beamof my flashlight, checking to see if the pupils contracted at the samerate, to the same size, or if they expanded at all. If they stayedfixed, or if one was the size of a dime while the other stayed the sizeof a pencil lead, both of us were in truly deep shit. I had to try themfive or six times before I could be sure they were not contracting moreslowly than they had fifteen minutes before. I'd been performing thissame cruel routine continuously since she had been wheeled back fromO.R., already deeply unconscious. Thank God, they had not yetanesthetized her for surgery. 
"Come on, baby, come on," I prodded her encouragingly, as if she were mykid up to bat at a Little League game, and pumped up the blood-pressurecuff that circled her skinny upper arm. I had to pump it and release itthree times before the faintest throb of pulse came through the membraneof my stethoscope. Partly that was because her pulse pressure was soweak. Partly it was because the papasan in bed five had started upagain. 
"Dau quadi," he whined ("much pain"), twisting in the padded cuffsbinding him to the side rails. He sounded like a night in a hauntedhouse, with the rails rattling like hail on windows, his sheetsthrashing like those of a particularly agitated ghost, his bedspringssqueaking like unoiled ancient portals. 
"Dau quadi!" he shrieked this time, his voice shrill with the hostilityhead injuries inevitably display when and if they start to heal. 
All eleven of the patients then on ward six, the neurosurgery ward, wereVietnamese with some kind of trauma to the head. Most of them were civilians, war refugees. Before, we'd had two poor GIs on Strykerframes. One was a gork-a vegetable, who didn't know that he wouldn'tever move by himself again. The other guy wasn't so lucky. Both of themhad been medevaced to Japan that morning, so tonight there were just Vietnamese on this side, them and George, the corpsman, and me. GingerPhillips, who was officially in charge of the graveyard shift that nightfor ward six, was staying on the other half of the ward, across thehall. The EENT patients were over there, injuries and ailments of theeyes, ears, nose, and throat, a couple of GIs with sinus infections anda couple more with superficial facial wounds, as well as elderlyVietnamese suffering from cataracts and facial cancer. Men and womenwere mixed together on both open wards, which was true throughout thehospital. On most wards the division was between GIs and Vietnamese instead. 
Papasan dau quadied again and the old man in the next bed stirredrestlessly. I pulled my stethoscope out of my ears. 
"Can you shut papasan up, George?" I asked. "I can't hear a damned thing for the racket." 
George nodded, rose from his semislumped comic-book-reading position,and lumbered sleepily down the aisle between the beds. I waited while he threatened in a gentle, soothing voice to do hideous things to theold man, pulled the gnarled and squirmy body up in bed, and smoothed thesheets. Then I tried again. I could hear the systolic140-but thediastolic eluded me until the second reading-it was 60. Up 6 points fromthe previous reading. A widening pulse pressure-the difference betweenthe first throb I heard and the last-was a sign of increasedintracranial pressure. But last time the spread had been 144/ 52, so ithad decreased slightly. I hoped I could take that as a good sign. 
The girl's respirations were still so slow and shallow I had to Measurethe movement of her ribs against the sheet to be sure she was breathing.Her right radial pulse, before slowed to 50, was now 56, but that wasnot necessarily a good sign. As the pressure on her brain increased,her pulse might start racing as her squashed brain sent wild signals toher heart, panicking it into an essentially useless flurry of activity.I took pulses in both wrists, at both ankles, and at her carotid pulse,at the base of her jaw. They were within two points of one another. 
Her Foley catheter was still draining urine from her bladder, her I.V.swere still dripping on course. I wrote everything down on the chart atthe end of the bed, sat on the metal folding chair, and used a towel towipe the sweat off my face and neck. 
The sweat wasn't just from the heat. It was from fear: fear that this child was going to die and I was going to have to live with it, and withmyself. The fear soured in my throat and I leaned forward again andtook her hand. It was clammy with sweat. How could I measure intake and output when she was sweating gallons like that, poor baby? 
Her bald head was bandaged with a strip of white gauze, like an Indianheadband, and her face didn't look like a child's. It looked like death, the high cheekbones jutting through the shiny flesh like carnivalapples bleeding through caramel. 
Her original problem was a depressed skull fracture. She'd tumbled off a water buffalo, something Vietnamese kids always seemed to be doing. I only wished the water buffalo had sole responsibility for her currentcondition. But unfortunately for us both, the poor kid had fallen right off that water buffalo into the hands of a numskull nurse, namely, me.Now I was waiting to see if my carelessness had turned her simple,easily treatable injury into something that was going to kill her ormake a zombie out of her. 
I forced myself not to brood about how unfair it was, not to worry aboutwhat they would do to me if she died, or about what I could have done toprevent it. 
Instead I held on to her hand and, in my mind, held on to her spirit,apologizing over and over and begging her to stay. "Tran, come on now,baby, keep it together. You know Kitty didn't mean to hurt you, andshe's sorry, honey, she's really sorry. Just come on back. That shit of a doctor will fix your head and your hair will grow back and you cango back to mamasan and papasan and eat that bad old water buffalo, okay?Aw, hell, sweetheart, I'm so sorry......... 
The old man in the next bed, another depressed-skull-fracture case, withbilateral above-the-knee amputations, shifted slightly in bed so thathis head lolled toward us. His name was Cao Van Xe, according to thestrip of adhesive that had been taped to his wrist. His arrival had caused something of a stir. Some idiot with Special Forces had called achopper out to a really hot landing zone just to load this one old man,who was probably going to die pretty soon anyway. The pilot had giventhe redheaded GI who loaded the old man a piece of his mind, but the manhad grinned and waved and walked back into the bush. The object of allthis dissension slackened his lower jaw so that it seemed to drop into agrin. 
"What's with you, papasan? You think I'm as dinky dao as you, huh?" 
Maybe it did sound crazy to be carrying on a monologue with first onecomatose patient, then another, but in nursing school they taught usthat hearing is the last sense to go, the first to kick back in. So I always chattered at my unconscious patients, telling them what I wasdoing, commenting on what was happening, and musing on life in general,as if talking to myself. 
Papasan's breath emerged in a sort of groan, and I turned in the chairand leaned toward his bed, touching his bony hand. "You okay, papasan?"His other hand fluttered like a bird to his neck and touched what I figured was a holy medal. To my surprise, the hand under mine twistedand caught my fingers for a moment before sliding back to lie flaccid onthe sheet. 
Well, good. At least somebody was responding. I patted his hand againand turned back, a little more hopefully, to Tran. 
No dice. She hadn't stirred. Her breath was inaudible. I held on to her hand with both of mine and concentrated. I had done this before,while trying to hang on to someone who was dying, collecting mystrength, and any other strength I could suck from the atmosphere, God,or whatever, building it into a wave and flooding it through my handsinto that person, almost as if I could wash her back to me, back toherself. She lay there quietly, and when I pulled my hands away, hersmall pale ones had red marks from the pressure of my fingers. 
George clomped up, large and olive-drab, his walrus mustache droopingdamply at the ends. "How's it going?" he asked. 
"Not good," I told him. "BP's a little better, I think. It's about time for an encore." 
"I'll do it, Lieutenant. You get a cup of coffee, why don't you? I just made some." 
"Thanks, but I'll do it." 
He shrugged and clomped back to the nurses' station. 
As soon as his back was turned I leaned over Tran again, but when Ilooked into that vacant little face I just lost it. My calm,I'm-incharge professional mask, the one no nurse should be without whenon duty, dissolved. I had to pretend I was wiping sweat away again. 
Then I repeated my routine: vital signs, neuro checks, and as manyprayers as I could fit in between. 
The prayers were for Tran, because I didn't know anything else to do,not because I'm this holy, religious person. Like all my family, I'vealways been a lukewarm, nonchurchgoing, nonspecific Protestant. Peoplelike us pray only on ritualized occasions, like funerals, and whenthere's a really big crisis. It isn't nice to pray for something youwant for yourself, according to my upbringing, and God expects you tohelp yourself most of the time. But this was for Tran, not for me-notmostly. Well, not only me, anyway. 
Maybe that was the trouble. Maybe God wasn't listening because my heartwas not pure. Every time I squeezed my eyes shut and started mumblinghumble apologies for my sin and error I ended up snarling that it wasn'tall my fault. Even though I knew damned good and well I was going tohave to take the whole rap. Despite the fact that pre-op orders weresupposed to be written, pre-op medications and all narcotic medicationsdouble-checked and double-signed. But our high-andmighty newneurosurgeon had handed down his commands to our high-and-mighty newcollege-educated head nurse, the twit, who had demanded that I do it,damn it, didn't I know enough to give a simple pre-op? 
I should have. I'd done it often enough. But not pediatric doses, andnot on head injuries, not that often. I hadn't been giving meds long onthis ward. And I was so mad at their sheer goddamned pompous arrogancethat I kept jumbling it up in my head. I was mad a lot in Vietnam. Mybest mood, in the heat, with the bugs, and the lack of sleep, and thesegorked-out patients, was cranky. But that day I had gotten so mad that.25 ce of Phenergan turned itself into 2.5 ce of Phenergan. And I gaveit to Tran. 
As soon they came to take Tran to surgery, I got to thinking that thathad looked like an awful lot of Phenergan. By then the doctor was onhis way off the ward and the head nurse was in a more human frame ofmind and I asked her.  .  .  . 
Had Tran been anesthetized already, she would have certainly died. The overdose I had already given her, combined with her head injury, was potentially lethal as it was. She was quiet as death when she returnedto the ward, and I had been at her bedside ever since, watching for somesign of reprieve for both of us. 
I couldn't just blame the doctor and Cindy Lou for the orders. I had to blame myself, too, admit that maybe I was getting rattled, after threelong months in what was vulgarly known among staff members as "thevegetable patch." Maybe it was the Army's fault for sending a sweetyoung thing like me to Nam. But one thing for sure: it wasn't Tran'sfault, and she was the one who was going to die. I tried to explain allof that to God to account for the impure static in my prayers.Unfortunately, there were a lot of distractions that kept me fromformulating a really good defense. 
"Beaucoup dau!" This time it was bed seven, a fourteen-year-old boywhose Honda motorbike had collided with a tractor-trailer unit. The boyhad a broken arm as well as a busted head. Once more George's jungleboots slapped wearily down the concrete floor. 
Somewhere in the distance, mortars crumped. Outgoing. I knew the difference now: what was incoming, what was outgoing. After 124 days incountry, I was fairly blas'e about anything that wasn't aimedspecifically at me, despite the fact that another nurse had been killedby a piece of a projectile just before I arrived in Nam. Mortars bothered me no more than receding thunder, ordinarily. 
But, God, it was hot! This had to be the only country in the world thatdidn't cool off at night. I finished Tran's neuro checks and vital signs again and tried to touch my toes with my fingertips. My uniformwas sticking to my skin and my hair stuck out at all angles, I had runmy hands through it so much. 
Pain boomed through my skull louder than the mortars and probed at thebacks of my eyeballs. The odors of the ward were making me faintlynauseous. The smell of disinfectant and an Army bug spray so strongthat when I accidentally used it on the telephone it melted the plasticwas bad enough. 
But the reek of pot drifting in from the Vietnamese visitors' tent, ashelter set up between the neuro side of ward six and the generalsurgeryside of ward five for the families of our critical patients, was potentenough to give an elephant a contact high from half a mile away. 
At least the disinfectant and the pot smoke covered up the aroma of thescenic beach, which stretched beyond the hospital perimeter, between thebarbed wire and the South China Sea. It was off limits to us because it was used as a latrine by the residents of the villages on either side ofthe compound. 
The smells were something everyone complained about a lot. When Georgehad gone on his R&R to Australia, he said he'd felt light-headed gettingoff the plane and figured out it was because he wasn't used to clean airanymore. He said he had to poke his nose into a urinal for a whileuntil he could adjust to the change in air quality. 
My own headache made me wonder about how Tran's head felt, with all thatpressure in her brain. By now the bone fragment pressing into her head 
could have been gently lifted, she could have been recovering. 
Since they'd brought her back, I'd replayed the scene in my headhundreds, thousands of times, hearing bits of their snippy put-downs.Next time they could write down their goddamned orders as they weresupposed to, so a person could read them, or give the medicinethemselves, and the hell with Army wrist-slapping and nasty pieces ofpaper with snotty words like "insubordination." Better to go head tohead with them than this. At the same time, in the back of my mind anaccusing voice wondered if I hadn't overdosed Tran while entertainingsome adolescent subconscious desire to "show them"-Chalmers and CindyLou-what happened when they didn't listen to me. The idea scared the hell out of me, and I shoved it away. I was a nurse, a helping person,a healer. The whole thing was a mistake. I hadn't realized the difference in dosages. I'd never harm a patient out of spite.Gutlessness, maybe, being too chicken to challenge orders until I wassure of what I was doing, but that was different, even if the resultswere the same. Sure it was. 
She had to live. She had to. What in the hell could I do to get someresponse out of that floppy childish body? The hard thing aboutsomebody you've met only after they've nearly been brained is that youdon't have any idea what you can promise them to induce them to do whatyou want. What did this kid like? What was her favorite color, herfavorite toy? Did she even have any toys? Was a water buffalo a Vietnamese kid's teddy-bear substitute? How would she look in a prettydress? Would she get a kick out of wearing a funny hat while her hairgrew back? Would her hair have a chance to grow back? 
And why in the hell would she listen to me anyway? I tried to concentrate on my prayers, visualizing not some holy heavenly father ina long white beard but other patients I had been close to, people I hadcomforted as they died. Nice people. I saw their faces as if they werewatching over Tran with me. Mr. Lassiter, a kind man with a daughter ayear ahead of me in nurses' training. When the doctor told him he had lung cancer, I'd held him in my arms while he cried and tried to getused to the idea. Later, when the cancer bit into his brain and hebegan doing weird, sometimes obscene things, I led him back to his roomand talked to him and soothed him while he talked nonsense, and Iremembered who he really was while he acted in ways that would havemortified him if he'd known. Mr. Franklin, an incontinent old man whowas in a coma with a high fever all the time I cared for him, but whomade me wonder, until he died, where he really was, and was he feelingthe pain of the hideous bedsores that ate up skin and fat and muscle.And the baby born with its insides so scrambled we couldn't tell if itwas a boy or a girl, but whom I rocked and eventually persuaded itsmother to rock before it died. Those people were who I was reallyasking to help Tran-them and the handful of my own friends and relativeswho had died before I came to Nam. I thought about all of those people,visualizing them as a cross between ghosts and angels, relieved to befree of suffering and looking down at us with a sort of benign apterest.They wouldn't be overly anxious to have anyone, especially a child, jointhem prematurely. "Do me a favor, folks," I urged them. "Nudge herback this way." 
Old Xe stirred, and I realized I'd been babbling aloud. I stood and stretched, my bones creaking louder than the mortars, and leaned over him. He didn't seem comatose now so much as dreaming. The fingers ofhis right hand still gripped the medal thing to his hairless chest. He mumbled a word and groped toward me with his left hand. I thought againof Mr. Lassiter, who mistook me for his daughter in vaguer moments, andgave papasan my hand to hold. He grasped it with a power that wassurprising in someone whose bones looked like a bird's. 
Whatever he was dreaming, it must have been intense, because he held onto me as tightly as if it were a matter of life and death that we remainconnected. I stayed there as long as I could. It made me feel a little stronger, a little more confident, to provide even such a small measureof comfort. I thought that was what I was doing, at the time. 
When I tried to pull away, his hand clenched over mine so tightly hisragged nails bit into my wrist. Well, the beds were on wheels. I tugged them a little closer together and counted Tran's respirations,then checked her pulses and pain reflexes with one hand. The old man refused to relinquish either my hand or his holy medal. The wrinkles of his forehead and between his eyes deepened, as if he was concentrating.As I knuckled Tran, I thought I felt her stir slightly. 
I was reaching for the blood-pressure cuff when the other patientsstarted up again. 
"Troi oi! Trol oi! Trol oi!" (Omigod, omigod, omigod!) The old ladyfrom bed fourteen padded toward the desk, holding her head. "Beaucoupdau," she complained to George, who headed her off halfway down theaisle. 
"Mamasan, you just have numbah one pill. No more now." 
"Beaucoup dau," she insisted, showing her betel-blackened teeth. She wasnot used to taking no for an answer. The interpreter said she was thescourge of the marketplace in downtown Da Nang. She'd been clobbered with a rifle by an ARVN guard who wanted some trinket from her shop. Shewas lucky he'd hit her in the head, where she was well armored by athick skull. If he'd hit her in the abdomen, he might have killed her. 
Leaving George to handle her, I pulled away from the old man to takeTran's blood pressure. When I pried my hand loose, old Xe's hand, as ifworn out from the exertion of holding on to mine, flopped between therails and brushed my back. 
I dreaded starting the neuro checks again, and my hands fumbled as Ilifted Tran's lids to check her unseeing pupils. If she died, nothingwould ever be all right for me again. I wished I could trade placeswith her. My own skin crawled when I pinched hers, my own lids twitchedwhen I lifted hers, and I felt a knot in my chest when I knuckled her. 
I apparently felt more than she did. "For Christ's sakes, Tran, thatmust hurt like hell. Snap out of it. Come on, kiddo, wake up." Thebreath eked out from between her lips with little sighs. I wanted to smack her awake, anything, just so she'd move. That would be compassionate and helpful, now, wouldn't it, nurse? Shit. I justwasn't cut out for this. I was okay with the gallbladders, cancercases, and geriatric patients I'd cared for while I trained in KansasCity, but we just hadn't had a lot of skull fractures, traumatic amputations, or people with parts of them shot and melted away. I could take each case individually, but the collective weight was driving medown until I was simply too tired and depressed to try anymore. I was merely going through the motions, reacting automatically, leaving myselfand my patients wide open to something like this. 
The old man's hand brushed my hip and I swiveled around and looked athim suspiciously. He seemed the same as before, one hand still clutchedat his sternum, the other now curled against my waist. Another mortarcrumped and the bedlam in the ward broke loose again. 
"Dau quadi!" 
"Beaucoup dau, co!" 
"Troi oi! Troi oi! Troi oi!" 
I tucked the old fellow's hand against his side and stroked Tran's armas if she needed soothing, not I. Through one of the three windows sethigh in the curve of the corrugated wall of the Quonset hut ward the skywas streaked with lemon, turquoise, and deep purple. Dawn was dawningand everybody on the ward seemed to have something loud to say about it. 
"Jesus Christ, George," I said, stilling Xe's questing hand by holdingit again, "can't you at least get them to do it in harmony?" 
George grunted and rolled his eyes above his 4rchic comic. 
Maybe the noise wasn't really loud enough to wake the dead, but thenagain, perhaps all that restless energy was contagious. Because this time, when I knuckled Tran, her mouth twisted and from it came a thincry, like the kind that comes from a baby doll when you squeeze it. 
I mention that incident for several reasons. I guess the first is toget it out of the way and tell it myself before anyone else does. There are those who may use that particular medication error to hint that Iwas an unstable nurse, which, of course, I was, and that my judgment wasfaulty, which it also was. However, I think it's important to note thatmy initial assessment of how the situation should be handled wasrejected, which was also the case later, with Dang Thi That. That's what made me realize how powerless I was to do what I knew was right,and what made me take Ahn's case into my own hands. Maybe in a warsituation there's no way to avoid tragedy, but I was trying, at least,to do what I thought was right. But most important of all, Tran's casewas the first unknowing link between Xe, the amulet, and me, and whatled to my transfer. And that, of course, led to everything else. 
Tran's vital signs had stabilized by the time the day shift came on, andshe was reacting to painful stimuli again. She was rescheduled for surgery that afternoon. I was scheduled for a meeting with LieutenantColonel Ixtitia Blaylock, the Chief Nurse of the hospital, that samemorning. 
I wasn't afraid of Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock by that time. As long asTran didn't die from my carelessness, there wasn't really very much theArmy could do to me that would be as hard to take. And after twenty-four hours of bedside-hovering, I was too drained to take much of anything except sleep seriously, least of all the good colonel. 
A couple of weeks after Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock arrived at the 83rdthere'd been a mass casualty situation-one of the biggies with chopperafter chopper of mutilated people, both Vietnamese and Americans. One corpsman covered all but the most hard-pressed wards while every otheravailable person spent the night in the E.R., cutting bloody clothingoff patients, applying pressure bandages, starting I.V.s, giving meds,and going over surgical checklists. By the time I finally returned toneuro, it was almost time for the day shift to come on and I wasdrinking coffee, catching my breath, and waiting. The new patients wereall taken care of, all I.V.s, catheters, and chest tubes were patent,and I felt we'd all done a good night's work. Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock arrived early for an inspection of the ward, her carefullysmoothed, former-model-perfect features contracted in the barest hint ofa frown; I was sure I couldn't be the cause, as hard as I'd been workingthat night. She toured the ward slowly and stopped several times tolook at patients. In the middle of the ward she lifted her arm to summon me to the bedside of an elderly rice farmer who had been hit inthe head by a bomb fragment. 
"Lieutenant McCulley, I would like to know why this man's toenails areso filthy," she said sternly. 
"Because he's worked in the rice paddies all his life, I guess, " Isaid. "He's been bathed, like everyone else." 
ma am, "That is not enough," she said, her voice soaring above myfifteen new I.V.s. "I want these Vietnamese patients properly cleaned.It is our original mission to take care of these unfortunate warcasualties, as you no doubt know, since you have been in country longerthan I." 
What do you say to a colonel who insists on a damn-fool thing like thatwhen you come to the end of an awful night? "Yes, ma'am," I said, butneither I, nor other personnel to whom she had amply demonstrated herdeficient grasp of priorities, had much respect for her. 
Nevertheless, she was the Chief Nurse. And this time she had somethinglegitimate to yell at me about. 
Yelling, however, was too coarse for the colonel. Instead, when she hadreleased me from my stance at attention and bade me be seated in themetal folding chair allotted visitors to her office, she smiled a smileof sweet patient understanding. That made me far more nervous than if she'd yelled. I had learned to beware of smiling colonels atFitzsimons, where I inadvertently got caught in a political battlebetween two of them. 
I sat. The metal folding chairs used throughout the hospital compoundin deference to our unit's "semimobile" status always reminded me offuneral parlors. When I was little, every time you went to an ice creamsocial at church or a school assembly, the folding chairs brought in toseat the multitudes were stamped with the name of the Peaceful PassagesFuneral Parlor, from which they had been borrowed. They seemed anamenity particularly suited to Nam, where Uncle Sam and Uncle Ho wererunning such an enormous wholesale client-procurement racket for the funeral business. Although, in country, disposal of the dead was notexpedited by agencies like Peaceful Passages with hushed tones speakingof loved ones. Here the departed were shoved into body bags, if therewas enough left to bother with. 
I suppose sleeplessness and release from tension caused me to drift intosuch thoughts instead of the trouble at hand. Because when I had composed myself, I saw that the colonel's smile was wearing pretty thin.She blinked, the dried glue of one of her false eyelashes giving way anddetaching itself a teensy bit at the edge. The colonel had been a runway mannequin in New York before going into nursing, as she was fondof saying at parties, little realizing she gave us much fodder for cruelpuns back in the barracks. Her modeling experience had to have beenfifteen or twenty years ago, though, sometime before her makeup hadpetrified into varnish. Still, her years of charm school had imbued herwith a poise that wasn't even challenged by dealing with delinquentsecond lieutenants. 
I would have found a firing squad led by General Patton infinitely morereassuring than that Vogueish smile. 
"You do realize, do you not, lieutenant, that you are a dangerousnurse?" 
"Well, yes, ma'am, but I did ask for a written order-" I began. 
"The doctor gave you an order, Lieutenant McCulley. You were supposedto follow it. Instead, you administered ten times the prescribedmedication. Didn't they teach you dosages and solutions in nursingschool?" 
"Yes, ma'am, but-" But that had nothing to do with it. I was not told to figure the proper dosage from the child's weight. I had been given aspecific order that was incorrectly transmitted or received, I stillwasn't entirely sure which. Had it been written, there would have beenno question, and no error. But I was not going to get a chance to makeeven that meager point. 
The colonel overrode my objections. She knew what was needed to mend the situation. Busy work. "Apparently you need a refresher course. Youwill report to my office during your lunch period until I am satisfiedthat you know how to properly compute them." 
"Yes, ma'am," I said. 
"Meanwhile, I'm afraid I must agree with Dr. Chalmers that despite yourtraining in advanced medical-surgical nursing, we can't continue to riskentrusting you with such seriously ill patients." 
"Yes, ma'am." Well, of course that was right. I was definitely feelingtoo shaky to work on the neuro ward anymore, particularly with Chalmersand Cindy Lou. But it was stupid of Blaylock to ignore Chalmers's shareof the responsibility for bullying me out of verifying his order. If he could do it to me, he could do it to others, with results just asdisastrous. I was not the only insecure, half-baked nurse who wouldever work at the 83rd. 
On the other hand, she wasn't in charge of him, she was in charge of me.And he was the doctor. Anything I said would only make it look as if Iwas being defensive, not taking criticism cheerfully, as they say onevaluation forms. I had only to look at Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock'sface and listen to her voice to know that the arguments clenched behindmy teeth would be construed as sniveling and caviling. 
Why was it that when I was called on the carpet I felt as if John Wayneand every grain of sand on 1wo jima would descend upon my head if Itried to explain myself? When I tried the colonel's roughshod tacticson some of my alleged subordinates, like the guys in the lab, they toldme to stick it in my ear, it didn't mean nothin', and they weren't evengoing to listen to no butter-bars lieutenant. Maybe I ought to takelessons from them instead of the colonel, I thought. I was no good attotalitarianism. My voice betrayed my age and inexperience. In my tapedmessages to my folks, my lisp made me sound like a third grader. 
Obviously, I wasn't the kind of officer men or anybody else followed tohell and back. If Blaylock had been chewing out John Wayne or JimmyStewart, they'd not only convince her to exonerate them andcourt-martial Chalmers, but would come up with some new strategy thatwould win the war. Those kinds of guys never have to question how muchof the blame is theirs. They're never wrong. 
But right then it was rapidly dawning on me that I was wrong about rnprethan Tran's Phenergan dosage. 
Why, oh why, had I ever gone into nursing and joined the Army? 
When I was a kid, I'd dreamed of being either a world-famous mysterynovelist or a Hollywood costume designer. I wrote stories and doodled elongated models in glamorous getups during idle time in school. But what I wanted to be when I grew up was eclipsed by wondering if I'd getthe chance. 
Almost every week we'd have civil defense drills at school. The fire bell would ring and our teachers would herd us into the corridors,assumed to be the safest during bombings, or direct us to huddle underour desks. We listened to the mock alerts on the radio and memorized the conelrad call letters. At home, my mom and dad wondered if thecellar, which made a good tornado shelter, would also be effectiveagainst atomic bombs. On TV, Russia threatened us, then we threatenedRussia, Khrushchey pounded his shoe on the table, and nobody seemed tobe able to get along. War with the Reds was inevitable. I'd be walkinghome from school, enjoying brilliant autumn leaves or a fresh snow, andall of a sudden hear a thunderous explosion that rattled nearby windows.I'd check the sky, see the telltale jet stream, and relax. 
just a jet breaking the sound barrier again. But I was afraid that one day I'd hear a sound like that and there'd be no more leaves, no morehouses, no more cellar, no more school, no more Mom and Dad, and no moreme or anything else. No matter what paltry precautions the adults triedto take, from what we kids had seen of the films of Hiroshima and readabout the new, improved destruction perfected by atomic tests, nothingwas going to do any good. If they dropped the Big One, the only thingto do was bend down, put your head between your knees, and kiss your assgood-bye. 
Later, I read On the Beach and began thinking about what I would do if Iwasn't vaporized. I'd have to be useful, that was for sure. 
Know how to do something the other survivors couldn't get along without.If I was designing costumes or writing stories, I'd be one more mouth tofeed. But if I went into nursing, like my mother, and knew how to takecare of people, I'd be valuable. 
Vietnam had been a pimple of conflict when I entered training, but bythe time I was a senior, it was obviously another of those undeclaredwars like Korea. The military actively recruited student nurses. I was short on money to finish my senior year, and tired of being broke. I was restless, too, and wanted out of Kansas City. I didn't approve ofwar, God no. But Vietnam seemed to be a comparatively piddlyconventional war with men and guns and tanks and stuff, like most ofWorld War II, instead of nuclear warheads. I was so grateful that theworld was restraining itself that I felt a rush of patriotism unmatchedsince the last time I'd watched the old movie about George M. Cohan. Surely, if I joined up and took care of casualties, I wouldn't behelping the war, I'd be repairing the damage as it occurred and doing mybit to keep the war contained until we could win it, without recourse tomonster bombs. I never thought I'd actually end up in Vietnam. I'd have to volunteer for that, I was told. But on my first assignment, Iran afoul of one of those colonels I mentioned before, and discoveredthat I had been volunteered whether I liked it or not. 
My mom had a fit, but after six months at Fitzsimons taking care ofcasualties and hearing my patients' war stories, I was curious to findout what really was going on in Vietnam. And it wasn't as if I'd actually be risking my life, really, not the way the men were. Female nurses were stationed only in the more secured areas, well protected byseveral thousand of our finest fighting men. I'd be able to test myability under emergency conditions, be in the thick of things. 
My skill had gotten tested, okay, and I'd flunked. Instead of gettingsharper, I seemed to be losing what efficiency I'd had when I graduatedsecond in my nursing school class. I had not, even at first, connedmyself into thinking I was going to be another Nightingale, but neitherhad I anticipated becoming the Beetle Bailey of the Army Nurse Corps. 
Apparently the distress from that notion showed in my face sufficientlyto satisfy Blaylock, for she was now ready to deliver her coup de grace. 
"After giving it some thought," she said, "I've decided to transfer youto another ward." She said "transfer," but her face said "banish." 
"Major Canon needs help on ward four. You'll start tomorrow, on days." 
Ward four? Glory hallelujah, I must have overprayed. God not onlyhelped Tran but delivered me from from mine enemies as well. I felt like falling to my knees and begging Blaylock to please, please, BrerColonel, please don't throw me in that brier-patch, just so she would besure not to change her mind and spare me. Ward four was orthopedics.All the patients there were conscious. You could actually talk to them.You could actually watch some of them get better. You didn't run the risk of nearly killing them every time you gave them a cotton-pickin' pill. 
"Yes, ma'am," I said, trying to hide my smile and refrain from clickingmy heels together until I was safely away from her office. 
"Dismissed," she said. 
I felt so giddy with relief that I was ashamed of myself, so I chastisedmyself by sneaking back onto neuro for another look at Tran. Chalmersand Cindy Lou were at the far end of the ward. 
Tran was making up for her lack of activity for the precedingtwenty-four hours. She'd wriggled halfway to the foot of the bed, herfeet pushing the sheet overboard to drag the floor. I slid my armsunder her hot little back and boosted her up again. She was so lightshe felt hollow. She let out an irritating but relatively healthy wall.I smoothed her covers and wiped the sweat from her knotted forehead."Give me hell, sweetie, but thanks for not croaking," I whispered toher. 
In the next bed, old Xe lay quietly with his hands over his chest. Thedeep frown lines I had noticed earlier were smooth now, his wrinklesgentle as the furrows made by wind through a wheat field. The dreamsthat had disturbed him earlier seemed to have quieted, and his sleep waspeaceful. 
Chalmers and Cindy Lou trotted up the ward with bundles of charts tuckedofficiously under their arms, the two of them looking for all the worldlike Dr. Dan and Nancy Nurse. They exchanged a look that pointedly didnot acknowledge my unclean presence. 
tramped up the wooden stairs of the barracks and down the landing to myown hooch too tired to spare a glance for Monkey Mountain or the SouthChina Sea, and unsure whether I wanted to continue to beat my breast,lick my wounds, or gloat. What I really wanted to do was sleep, but assoon as I opened the door to my hooch I knew that was going to present aproblem. 
The sun glinted blindingly off the tin roof of the building, giving myroom the climate of a kiln. I had nailed a Vietnamese bedspread, aninstitution-green brocade of a phoenix, over my window in an attempt TOPROVIDE myself with shade and privacy. Otherwise the hooch's decor was a scant improvement on the miners' shacks outlaws use for hideouts inold Western movies. 
I flopped down on my cot and groaned for a while. The cot was covered with another Vietnamese spread, which was, like everything else at the83rd, habitually sandy. I had no sooner lain down than I knew I was going to have to sit up again and pry off my boots. My socks werewringing wet, my feet swollen and sore. I twisted on the bed and openedmy door and dumped the sand from the boots. Mine were standard issue leather because I have big wide feet and the quartermaster couldn't findthe lighter, canvas-and-steel-reinforced jungle boots in my size. The plywood floor of the room did not cool my burning soles, so I lay backdown on the bed and let the room spin around for a while. 
The whole hooch was about the size of my clothes closet at home in Kansas City, and it didn't have a closet. It did have, courtesy of mymother's care packages, contact-paper flowers stuck around on the bareplywood walls and a mobile of paper cats, a pop bottle with Mexicancrepe-paper flowers stuck in it, also gifts from home. My hot plate,assorted food, a midget refrigerator, and a reel-to-reel tape deck,along with my folded clothing, even my underwear, freshly rice-starchedand ironed by my hooch maid, were arranged on a wonderful wall ofshelves constructed by the orthopedic surgeon I would soon be workingwith. Joe Giangelo, a doctor who had somehow managed to escapeascending to deity when he gained his M.D., was better known as Geppettoby the nurses, because of the kindness with which he deployed hiscarpentry skills. With Geppetto for our local architect and interiordesigner, the hooches of several of the nurses were pretty plush byVietnam standards. 
Correction. This whole assignment was very plush by Vietnam standards.So what the hell was wrong with me? I wasn't being asked to build theBridge on the River Kwai, just to do my job, for very good pay, undermuch better circumstances than most of the people in Vietnam. I wasn'tin any foxholes, or in danger of being shot at, and even the concertinawire and sandbag bunkers were more for joshing the folks at home thantaken seriously, at least by me. Of course, the work hours here were alittle longer, the heat and bugs were atrocious, and I was unable to getenough sleep because of all of the above, but compared to what theaverage grunt went through I was living in fat city. So why was Iscrewing up so badly I almost killed people? 
Well, actually, I wasn't almost killing just anybody, but specifically alittle Vietnamese girl with a head inJury. There was a double dehumanizing factor there. She wasn't one of "us," of course. Didn't speak English. Was automatically suspect of being a grenade-tossingjunior terrorist just because she had the gall to be Vietnamese inVietnam. 
And the head injury made it worse, because even though I knewtheoretically that some of the neuro patients would get well, I couldremember only a handful of encounters with patients alert enough todisplay whole personalities. I really wanted to blame someone else sothat I didn't have to admit that I had gotten not only careless butcallous. 
Looking closely at why I was so mad at the doctor and the head nurse andthe others who were justifiably alarmed over what had happened withTran, I think I took the whole thing personally because I felt theydidn't really care about her as much as I did. They were justtsk-tsking me to get me. Because only a couple of months earlier, ithad been standard operating procedure to give the Vietnamese patientslifethreateningly dangerous care on a routine basis, when we transfusedthem with 0-positive blood. 
Before I came to Nam I had only read about transfusion reactions intextbooks, because a routine laboratory procedure, typing andcrossmatching a patient to ensure compatibility with the donated blood,eliminated most of the danger. 
I began to realize the difference between wartime and peacetime nursingthe night one of my Vietnamese patients went into a transfusion reaction and nobody but me was even upset about it. 
The patient was a middle-aged woman who had been too near when a bombwent off, drilling a hole in her skull as well as peppering her bodywith frag wounds, from which she lost a lot of blood. The first unit of blood had been hung as I came on duty. My assignment was to monitor thepatient for a transfusion reaction. Although transfusion reactions arerare in the States, it's routine to keep track of the patient's vitalsigns and general well-being for the first hour or so, just to make sureeverything is okay. Only this time everything wasn't okay. The womanspiked a temp even higher than the one she was already running fromdehydration, and began chilling at the same time. It's eerie seeinggoose bumps rise on somebody when their fever is 104-105 and the roomtemperature is the same or higher. It happened so fast that she wasstarting to convulse before I quite realized what was happening. As soon as I did, I yanked the unit of blood, tubing and all, and replacedit with a bottle of Ringer's lactate. I put in a call for the doctor,who was, I think, in downtown Da Nang that night (though that wassupposed to be off limits), and called the lab to ask them to repeat thecross match. 
"Why?" asked the stoned young thing on the other end. 
"Because the unit you brought me was wrong-it almost killed my patient." 
"Then so would anything else I bring you. 0 poz is all we got forgooks, lady." 
"What do you mean by that remark, soldier?" I asked in my best JohnWayne growl. "The woman almost bled to death already. We surely aren'tgoing to bring her in and just finish her off with bad blood." 
I meant to be sarcastic, but the fellow was full of herbally inducedpatience. 
"It ain't bad blood, Lieutenant. It's good ol' American universaldonorblood. The gooks are lucky to get it. American donors donate for 'Mericans, get it? There'd be hell to pay if they knew their blood wasgoing to keep some gook alive. But bein' the Good Samarit-the kindhearted suckers we are-we let 'em have a little of the cheap-and-easy brew." 
"If 0 positive is the universal donor, why is she reacting to it?" 
"Oh, it ain't all that universal. Lots of AB types don't handle it realwell, and uh-AB is a lot more common among the gooks than it is with us.oops, gotta date with a hot centrifuge. Have a nice night, Lieutenant." 
The doctor was even more offhand than the lab tech, who was indeedrepeating hospital policy. Nobody said in so many words that theydidn't care if the Vietnamese patients lived or died. But the lifers,the career Army sergeants and senior officers, were fond of reminding usnew recruits that anyone who had served in the Pacific in WW II or Koreacould tell you gooks didn't value human life the way Americans andEuropeans did. 
It wasn't until the neurosurgeon left and a fill-in, a doctor who had been serving in the field, was reassigned to us on temporary duty thatsomething was done about the problem. Dr. Riley was a very logicalman. He decided that if gooks bled, gooks could give blood. He grabbeda handful of tourniquets, needles, and syringes and he and MajorCrawley, our head nurse at the time, raided the visitors' tent andavailed themselves of its walking Vietnamese blood bank. Most of the visitors didn't mind donating. Nobody had ever thought to ask thembefore. 
I had thought myself above the kind of bigotry that had willfullyoverlooked what was so obvious to Dr. Riley; the human body workspretty much the same no matter what kind of upholstery you put on it.Now I had to seriously question whether I hadn't at least inwardly begunto buy into all of that "anti-gook" stuff. Had I harmed Tran because I secretly didn't give as much of a damn about her as I did about my"professional image"? 
Was I really more concerned with stupid appearances than I was withhurting somebody who was so totally helpless and dependent on me? 
Oh well, so I'd screwed up. Nobody had been making it exactly easy forme. Let them transfer me to an easier assignment. What did I care? Except-except that I still hated like hell that I had failed, that Ihadn't measured up. Because I wanted to do more, not less. I reallywanted to be in a field hospital, as a surgical nurse, doing the roughstuff. But of course, after my screwing up like this, there was nochance of that. So I'd have to accept what they told me and watchmyself and make sure that it never, ever . . . 
I wanted to cry, but I couldn't. I was furious with myself now, notjust with everybody else, and it was a cold kind of furious that madethe center of my chest ache as if I had pleurisy. My throat was asgritty and parched as the beach. I trolled with my fingers until Ifound the refrigerator door, and popped it open long enough to extractthe dregs of a flat Coke. I popped two Benadryls and chased them withthe Coke. 
It tasted metallic, and there were little solid pieces at the bottom,like worms. Probably from having been shipped and stored so long. But there were all those stories floating around about the Vietcong takingthe tops off pop bottles and putting ground glass in the Coke, thenrecapping and resealing it. I couldn't help wondering if their evillittle minds hadn't dreamed up a similar way of getting into cans. I generally tried to drink 7-Up or Shasta, but with the PX, you took whatyou could get. 
Despite the Benadryl, I couldn't get comfortable. My elbows and kneeswere in the wrong places, and vast patches of my skin stuck to the cot. 
Someone climbed the steps to the upper porch and walked toward my room,the footfalls sending tiny vibrations across the floor aild up the cotlegs. A face and a pair of hands squashed against my screen door. 
,, Kitty? You there?" 
I grunted, and Carole Swenson opened the door and plopped herself on the edge of my cot. Her ditty bag and another of the Vietnamese bedspreadsslid to the floor beside her boot. "Hi. How was your night?" she askedas if it wasn't already all over the compound how my night had been. 
"Oh, you know. Long," I said. 
Carole was maybe my best friend at the hospital, but I couldn't talk toher about this. She waited a moment for me to continue, then startedpawing through her ditty bag, the little olive-drab cloth sack we allused as a purse. Triumphantly she extracted a stack of three-by-fivecards. "I had a brainstorm. Lookit here." 
"What are those for?" I asked. 
"My schedule. I got tired of reciting it to guys who keep forgetting itand call me up while I'm on duty, so I decided to start copying it outon three-by-five cards. It'll save time." 
"Uh huh," I said, mild amusement lapping at the edges of mybone-tiredness. Carole did tend to carry her talent for organization alittle far sometimes. But that talent was part of what made her such agood nurse. She handled the ICU, which was a nightmare, as if it wereroutine ward work, and conducted eincrgency triage situations as coollyas if she were planning seating arrangements at a party. Her I.V.s always seemed to hit the veins on the first punch, she always found thebleeder, she always managed to hold someone where it didn't hurt, andshe seemed to know before the patients did what would make them morecomfortable, feel a little better. She was the kind of nurse who would be there with a glass of water half a second before a patient realizedhe was thirsty. 
"If you have your schedule, you could do the same thing she suggested,which was supposed to give me an opening to tell her about my transfer.The hospital compound was a small place. Rumors had probably spread farand wide about how I had nearly killed Tran and what Blaylock had doneabout it. Carole, who would never have made the same kind of an error,nevertheless had probably already put herself mentally in my place andwas trying to help. 
I grunted noncommittally, because I still didn't want to talk but Ididn't want her to go away mad either. I needed all the friends I could get. 
,,Be that way," she said, and tucked her cards back inside the bag, andabruptly changed the subject. "Judy's ward master is going to the PXand said he'd drop us at the beach on the way. Wanna come?" 
She'd done it again. Suddenly I knew that I needed to get off thecompound and away from the hospital more than anything. I nodded,plucked my beach bag from the corner, and followed her out the door. 
Carole, Judy Heifetz, and I crowded into the jeep driven by SergeantSlattery, the ward master on Judy's ward. Getting a ride all the way tothe beach was a rare treat. Usually we had to walk to the gate andhitch ' with a passing deuce-and-a-half or whatever other vehicle waswilling to pick us up. Women weren't allowed to drive vehicles off post. Too dangerous. 
The Jeep bumped its way through the gate and down the dirt road throughDogpatch, the Vietnamese village that separated the southern 'de of thecompound from Amer'can-bu'it Highway I. The highway si I I ran down the coast of Vietnam, and led past Tien Sha, the naval base north of us,past Freedom Hill and the China Beach R&R Center, to the south.Somewhere along the way was a turnoff for the bridge across the river toDa Nang and another road that led to Marble Mountain Air Force Base. 
Vietnamese children stopped and watched our Jeep sputter past. A little boy, who was probably eight but looked five, ran toward us. "Hey, GI,you want buy boom-boom?" 
"Get lost," Slattery yelled. 
"Hey, man, numbah one boom-boom, no shit." The child continued with thehard sell. After all, family pride was no doubt involved, since he wasprobably pimping for his mother or sisters. 
We laughed, and Judy leaned out and waved him away. "Hey, man," shesaid. "We mamasans. No need boom-boom." 
The kid, undaunted, trotted along beside our dust cloud, calling, "Hey,mamasans, you want numbah one job?" 
Later, out on the highway, Slattery had to stop the jeep for anoverturned Honda while the three occupants reloaded two baskets ofchickens, their laundry, two water jugs, and a pig onto the littlevehicle. While stopped, we all assumed the sort of hunchbacked positionrequired to cover your watch with your right hand while keeping yourelbows tight over your pockets and, in our cases, our ditty bags tuckedfirmly into our armpits. Vietnamese street kids watched for just suchincidents to dart out and strip the valuables off the passengers ofstopped vehicles before the suckers knew what happened. It occurred to me more than once that it was a damned good thing jeeps didn't havehubcaps. 
Carole and Judy had worn bathing suits under their fatigues, but I hadto stop at the ladies' room of the officers' club to change. My mom hadpicked my suit, a gold velour modified bikini, out of the Sears catalog.Needless to say, it was not particularly revealing, but it wouldn't havemade any difference if it had been cut like a pair of long Johns.Stepping from the ladies' locker room onto the glaringly sunlit beach,surrounded by a couple three hundred males, I squinted down the longstretch of beach between me and the blankets Carole and Judy hadstretched by the edge of the water. I felt I was running the gauntlet,like the guy in that old movie Flight of the Arrow, although thescenario was more like Annette Funicello in Beach Blanket Bingo. Or maybe it was Sally Field in Gidget Goes to War. 
Heat pulsed from the sand, and I smelled the rubber of my flipflopsoles, hot as a teenager's tires. I was glad I had my newtortoiseshell-rimmed aviator-style dark glasses to hide my eyes as theusual chorus of wolf whistles and catcalls followed me down the beach. 
"Hey-hey, Joe?" someone on the enlisted side of the beach called. 
"Yeah?" 
"Get a load of that funny-shaped guy in the two-piece suit." 
I turned around and saw two tanned-to-the-waist, white-legged specimensof American manhood staring after me with a cross between bewildermentand awe. One of them looked mildly mortified that I was staring back.The other one gave me a cocky grin. I waved hello and kept walking. A month ago I would probably have struck up an acquaintance, gone swimmingwith them, or played beach ball for a little while. But during the lastmonth, our fellow officers had decided that female nurses were not safeconsorting with all those horny enlisted men, most of them marines onin-country R&R from combat duty. Our fellow officers thought we weremuch safer consorting exclusively with horny officers. Carole, Judy,and I, as well as a lot of the other girls, were pissed off about it.The guys on the enlisted side of the beach were the ones who were takingall the risks. They were the ones who needed the morale maintenancethat officers on the make were so quick to remind us round-eyes womenwas part of our patriotic duty. Probably some of those guys weredangerous-I mean, they were supposed to be dangerous to the Vietcong andthe NVA, weren't they? But the treatment I'd received from them hadn't frightened me. Though there'd been some tentative passes, sorespectfully tendered as to almost be comical, most of the guys had justseemed happy to be reminded that there were other kinds of people aroundbesides Vietnamese and men. 
Carole was busily filling out her three-by-five cards when I arrived,while Judy tried to get to sleep. I waded into the sea. It was warm as urine and about as refreshing, but I wet myself down anyway, then wadedback out again to lie face down to bake on my blanket. 
I dug little holes in the sand with my toes and tried to snuggle thesand into conformation with my body. The skin of my back twitched whenI lay still, my muscles relaxing only slowly as they grew accustomed tothe warmth of the sun. 
An aircraft carrier rode the waves on the horizon, a guardian beast forthe beach. I felt, as much as heard, the distant rumble of artillery,the sand vibrating beneath my breasts and stomach. 
The tepid gray-green sea lapped the beach, its rhythm soothing. I laystill until the droplets of water evaporated from my hide and werereplaced by droplets of sweat. Then, feeling like a dolphin needing tokeep her skin wet at all times, I waded back into the sea. 
Before I could settle back down on my blanket, a shadow interposeditself between the sun and my body. 
"Hi there, young lady. You look like you could use a drink. What'll itbe?" 
I peered up at this aspiring cocktail waiter. He had thinning grayishhair, an eager expression, and a white band around his left ring fingerwhere his tan stopped. 
"Nothing, thanks," I said. "I'm trying to get some sleep right now.I'll get something to drink later." 
He plopped down beside me. "Don't be crazy, hon. You'll get all driedout in this sun. Hey, you're starting to blister already. Better let me rub some suntan lotion on you." 
"It'll just wash off again," I said, but he was already squeezing mylotion onto his big pink ringless hands. I thought about making a lungefor it and asking Carole or Judy to do the honors instead, but they hadfound new friends and wandered off down the beach. 
"My name's Mitch," the man said as he smeared goo onto my back. "What's yours?" 
"Kitty," I said. I didn't care how good it felt. Name, rank, andserial number were all he was entitled to. 
He chuckled as if he'd already made a dirty joke out of my name. Iglared at him and he put a lid on it. I was surprised. It was the single indication he had given of sensitivity. Or perhaps he just feltvulnerable in swimming trunks. 
"What do you do, Kitty?" 
"I'm a nurse. I just got off a twenty-four-hour shift and I'm trying toget some sleep, " I repeated. A little reinforcement is never amiss when dealing with slow learners. 
"A nurse? Army?" he asked, and I nodded into the blanket. "Say, wesure do appreciate you girls. Me, I'm over at I Corps HQ." 
I grunted. If good ol' Mitch was from I Corps headquarters and had timeto hang out at the officers' beach, he had to be some kind of brass,which accounted for the amount of it in his approach. He took my gruntfor an invitation instead of what it was: the most eloquent un'cat'on Ifelt I could spare, and that only because I was comm I I brought up tobe polite. I was so tired I would have gone to sleep with him there ifI'd dared. 
He lay down on my blanket beside me and got even chummier. "Yeah, wesupply this whole area, you know. Do you like those fancy dishes in thePacex catalog? We got a whole load of those the other day by mistake.I'll bet I could get you some really cheap." 
"uM, " I mumbled. 
"What?" he asked, a little starch creeping into his voice when I did notinstantly offer him my undying gratitude. You usually got that sort ofunrealistic expectation only from lieutenant colonels and above. 
"I said to let me know, after Mrs. Mitch makes her choice of pattern,and I'll talk to my fianed and see what he thinks." 
He sat back up and dusted sand onto my freshly oiled back. "Well, suream getting thirsty, Kitty. Sure you won't take me up on that drink?Nope? Nice talking to you." 
Judy had returned to'her blanket, alone, this time, and had been eavesdropping. "Hey, Kitty, what pattern is Colonel Martin going to getfor you just out of the goodness of his little old heart?" 
"He asked you too?" 
"He's asked every nurse in Da Nang, I think. Somebody ought to let thepoor schmuck know he's real confused about our particular mi I 'I'taryoccupational speciality, and even if we were what he seems to think weare, who ever heard of a hooker who does it for china?" 
"Hanoi Hannah might-do it for China, I mean, get it?" 
"You are on the very seriously ill list, McCulley, and that's a fact.Get some sleep, woman." 
I slept, and in my sleep kept doing vital signs and neuro checks, vitalsigns and neuro checks. Tran's eyes stared up at me, just the whites,and I knew I was going to fall asleep on duty and she'd die because Iwasn't awake.  .  .  .  I jerked myself awake and saw the sand andsmelled the oil. My back felt slightly tight, a little too hot. 
I wet down again and tried to bake the other side, but even through mysunglasses, the light pried my lids open. I now felt the 'llery rumble'n my spine. Oddly enough, it drowned out other, less arti predictablenoises and lulled me back to sleep. I don't remember dreaming thattime. 
It must have been at least two hours later that Carole shook me. "We have to get back now and shower for work. Coming?" 
"I think I'll stay here and have something to eat. I'm not all that anxious to get back." 
Carole gave me a stern look of the "once you fall off a pony, pardner,you just have to climb back on" variety, but I had better things to feelguilty about than staying at the beach all day. 
The China Beach Officers' Club was a rambling French coloTnial buildingon a hill above the beach. It commanded a splendid view of the SouthChina Sea and the adjacent mountains and jungle. It was a romantic-looking place if you overlooked the concertina wire andsandbags and disregarded the attire of the clientele. With its lazilyrotating ceiling fans, latticework of white painted wood, wide veranda,and potted palms, the place always made me feel as if I should bewearing a white linen safari suit and a pith helmet and walk in on thearm of jungle Jim. I kept expecting somebody to come riding up on anelephant and call me "memsahib." 
Right then, however, the Gunga Din illusions of the place were of lessallure than its distance from the hospital. 
I usually dressed up to go to the club and went in a group, or with anescort. This time I just pulled on my rumpled fatigues over myswimsuit, which was by then bone-dry, tried to brush the sand off, andstuck my hair up under my baseball cap. I looked like a grunt, whichwas fine with me. I didn't feel very glamorous.. 
The club was half-empty at five, which was a little early for dinner. I really wanted to be alone to mope, but that was a sure way to attracteven more attention than usual. I looked around for someone I knew. Just anybody harmless and familiar. 
Even as messy as I looked then, I no sooner stepped inside than theclatter of stainless and restaurant pottery died to an occasional clinkand the muted conversations stopped altogether. I felt like the Fastest Gun in the West entering a saloon just before High Noon, but I pretendednot to notice. Since coming to Nam, I had gotten used to stoppingtraffic. Literally. I had always considered myself attractive in asort of wholesome, moon-faced way. I had nice hazel eyes and brown haircarefully kept reddish, and a figure that ten pounds less made "stacked"and ten pounds more made "fat." But none of it mattered, because theattention was nothing personal. It was not my sheer breathtakinggorgeousness or incredible charisma that was causing apnea among themale diners. The standard female reproductory equipment and round eyeswere all that was required to be the Liz Taylor of China Beach. 
I just stood there kind of dazed from the sun and sleepy and tried todecide what to do. The very idea of all those men just made me tiredright now. 
One reason I hadn't minded coming to Nam so much at first was that I hadalready talked to a lot of bewildered boys my age who didn't want to gobut saw no other choice. It seemed unfair that they had to serve, justbecause they were men of the right age. Like discrimination. I thought,if this war was for the benefit of the U.S., why were men the only oneswho had to go? The North Vietnamese, or at least the VC, had womentroops, and so did the Israelis. Of course, two days after I was incountry it was pretty clear that no American, male or female, shouldhave had to be there. If I had to enlist again, nothing short of theinvasion of Kansas City would have gotten me into uniform. Furthermore,I knew that many of the men who had been gung ho before they got to Namagreed with me. Even the South Vietnamese stayed out of the military ifthey could, and it was their damned war. 
Nevertheless, there I was, and my idealistic notions ofbrotherand-sisterhood failed to prevent me from being an exotic noveltyitem in the war zone, no matter how much I wanted, or was able, tocontribute. Most of the guys most of the time were okay, even downrightgallant. But there were those like Mitch who decided that we nurses were just working twelve-hour shifts, continually suffering from Iick ofsleep and incipient heatstroke, as a sort of hobby. What we were reallyin Nam for, of course, was to get laid. By them. 
Nurses, Red Cross workers, entertainers-we were all nymphos if notactually whores, according to the predominant mode of wistful thinking.Even fairly nice men swore to us nurses that all doughnut dollies weremaking big money as prostitutes, and apparently the same men told thesame story about us when they were talking to the Red Cross workers. I remember having a conversation with one of the Red Cross girls at MarbleMountain. "Funny, you don't seem as-ah-you know she said at one point,when we had been talking about what we were doing in Nam. "I know," Isaid. "You don't look like a hooker to me either." 
Thewhole thing made me want to smack somebody, but unfortunately, most of the people I could smack here would outrank me. 
But basically, as long as the guys kept their cruder notions tothemselves, I could handle it, and even enjoy the attention. What really got to me was the ones who made Mitch look like Mr. Suave. On Carole's birthday, one of her boyfriends had brought four of us girls tothe club to celebrate. Drunken marine officers had converged upon us towoo us with obscenities and innuendos delivered with typical Corpscouth, which vies with that of convicted multiple rapist-murderers forgentility. "No, thank you," 
"I'm not interested...... Please go away or I'll tell my boyfriend,King Kong...... I'm engaged," and "I'm married" did not deter them.Neither, at first, did "Get your goddamn hands off me," and "Fuck offand die," until voiced with sufficient volume to attract the interest ofother officers, who wandered over to reinforce Carole's boyfriend. Our rescuers then stayed around for drinks and any possible demonstrationsof eternal gratitude. Most of them were somewhat better behaved than the marines. One of them suggested that we had had no call to get somad, since if we didn't want marines lusting after us, we wouldn't bethere. 
That was so unfair. I for one had been expecting a different MarineCorps altogether-the one with the lofty Latin motto, the one my dad hadJoined in WW II. He had had such a good time with those other marines,and often told long, funny stories about the adventures of his group oflads on Ishi Shima. They never, in Dad's stories, killed anybody, theyjust camped out in the rain a lot and scrounged and gave candy tochildren and nylons to women and converted POWs through sheer kindnessand wrote home to Mother. And they certainly didn't say "fuck" everyother word. Of course, by now I did. Dad would be very shocked at allof us, I supposed. 
Maybe from this you can gather that our lives were a bit on theschizophrenic side. While we were on duty, we were responsible for thelives and deaths of our patients, for calming their fears andadministering treatments that could cure or kill them. Off duty, wewere treated as a sort of cross between a high-ranking general whodeserved to be scrounged for, taken around, and generally given specialtreatment, and a whore. It was a little like that old saying of water,water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. All those men and you couldstill be so lonely. 
On a date, after you talked about where you were both from, your escortwould brag about his aircraft or his unit or, God forbid, his bodycount. If he was feeling disgruntled, you were supposed to keep up hismorale. But you were expected to do the same attentive little cupcakeact the football players had expected in high school. Nobody wanted tohear about your day at work. Some of the girls dated doctors, who atleast had some idea of what the rest of their life was like. I was awfully glad I didn't. All I'd have needed just then was to have tospend my offduty time, too, explaining what I'd done to Tran. Datingdoctors, to me, was a good way to screw up both your social life andyour work life. Besides, doctors were married. 
A nurse captain I'd met at Fitzsimons who had been to Nam twice andOkinawa once told me her prescription for handling one's love life on overseas duty. 
"Keep it light, honey. Keep it light. What happens is you have thesereal killer romances and then the love of your life leaves country,promising to write, and all that shit, then he goes back to hiseverlovin' wife or his real girlfriend, and forgets all about you. It's just not real, see, whatever it feels like. The partying is great, butyou can't take it seriously. What you do is you find a nice guy who hasabout three months left in country, just long enough to have a littlefun. You don't tend to get so involved when you know how soon the endis coming. You date him and meet his friends, and when he goes, you takeup with the nicest of the friends who have only about three months leftin country, and so on. It's the only way to keep from being burned." 
I agreed and tried to maintain a properly cynical attitude, butnaturally, I hoped she was wrong in my case, and that I would find trueand requited love just for being so goddamn noble. Oh well, at least Iwas drawing combat pay. 
A rugged-looking fellow sporting a blond crew cut and a lightweightflight suit marched up to me and smiled, showing enough teeth to lookfriendly and not enough to look as if he were about to bite. "Excuse me, ma'am, but if you're not with anyone, my buddies and I wouldappreciate it if you'd be our dinner guest." 
"Well, I was sort of . . ." I glanced around the room again, but itwas full of strangers. "Okay." 
"I'm Jake." 
"I'm Kitty. Where you from, Jake?" I asked, the usual openingconversational gambit in Nam. Everybody wanted to talk about where theywere from. Damn few wanted to talk about where they were at. 
"Florida originally, but my family lives in Tennessee now. Where youfrom?" 
"Kansas City," I replied and decided as he led me to his table that hewas probably okay. Mentioning his family in the first sentence and nothiding his wedding ring were good signs. Whatever else he was, he wasnot that bane of the single military nurse, the geographical bachelor. 
The table was on the veranda, and at it were two more men in flightsuits, one sitting and one standing, his feet spread as if he were aboutto straddle his chair, his hands on the back of it, his face shrouded inmirrored aviator glasses. Those lenses hide a lot, but I felt themlocked on me as surely as if they were the sights of a sniperscope. Hewore his hair longer than the other two and it was dark, with a ratherrakish forelock brushing the tops of the glasses. He was tanned and rangy and his grin was lopsided and only slightly tobacco-stained. 
"Pay no attention to this fellow, ma'am," jake said. "He's just one ofyour run-of-the-mill dust-off pilots. We let him eat with us, hoppin'he might learn how to conduct himself in proper company. Tony, youdon't propose to eat standin' up, I suppose?" 
"Nah. Not that I don't appreciate educational opportunities, sir, but I ate already, as I would have explained if you hadn't gone trotting offafter the prettiest girl in the room like a-well, anyhow, I got to getback to Red Beach. I'm on alert. But I wouldn't pass up anintroduction." 
"I didn't think you would, somehow," jake snorted. "Kitty, this isWarrant Officer Antonio Gutierrez Devlin." 
Warrant Officer Devlin gave me the full impact of that slightlysnaggle-toothed grin and swept my paw to his lips. "Very pleased tomeet you. What was the name? Kitty what?" 
"McCulley," I said. 
"From over at Single Parent?" 
"What?" 
"Single Parent, the 83rd. You're Army, aren't you? Your code name over there is Single Parent." 
"No shit?" 
"I kid you not. Also referred to more casually as Unwed Mother. Wheredo you work?" 
"Uh-ward four, ortho, as of tomorrow." 
" Hmm-" 
"Didn't you say you were just leaving, Tony? Urgent mission?" 
"Yeah, well, I'm sorry, Kitty. I have to go rescue stranded casualties,unlike these heavy-machinery haulers. Since we all work so closelytogether, I'm sure I'll be seeing you real soon." He tilted hissunglasses down to the tip of his nose and gave me a meaningful look outof hazel-green eyes with curly dark lashes that should have beenoutlawed on a man, then did a smart about-face, swiveled around again,and said to Jake, "Make sure she comes to the party, Cap'n, sir," thensauntered through the door. Have I mentioned that not all of the masculine attention we girls got was unwelcome? 
I was catching my breath when jake gently lowered me into a chair andcontinued introductions. 
"This fine gentleman here is Tommy Dean Kincaid. Say hello to thepretty lady, Tommy Dean." 
"Hello, pretty lady. Ain't it awful what you meet on your way toGrandma's house in the middle of this war?" 
These two were definitely going to be all right. They sounded like BingCrosby and Bob Hope on The Road to Da Nang, with me as Dorothy Lamour.Of course, what I was really wondering about was the Errol Flynn typewho had just left, but the comic relief was comforting. I was still feeling a little too fragile to withstand the kind of internal fireworksTony generated. 
But these two good old boys really were good. Like Jake, Tommy Deanmentioned his wife within the first fifteen minutes, and asked my adviceabout what kind of a present to send her for her birthday. We told each other where we were from, and later jake and Tommy Dean, betweenmouthfuls of steak and baked potato, talked about aircraft while I atein what I hoped passed for awestricken silence. I'm a fast eater,though, being used to institutional half-hour lunch breaks during whichfifteen minutes was spent in a cafeteria line, and I finished beforeeither of the men. 
"What did Tony mean about you guys hauling heavy equipment? 
You are pilots, I gather?" 
"Yes, ma'am, " Tommy Dean said. 
"Fixed-wing?" 
"Goodness no." 
"What do you fly, then? Cobras? Hueys? I rode in a Chinook when I first got here. The guys up at Phu Bai had us up for a party. Boy, arethose things noisy." 
"Honey, you ain't seen nothin' yet," jake said proudly. 
"You seen anything flyin' around in the air looks a little like a biggrasshopper?" Tommy Dean asked. 
"Well .  .  .  I can't say as-" 
"You'd know if you'd seen it. It's a flying crane. Looks a little like this." He pulled a pen from one of his zippered pockets and drew apicture that did indeed appear to be the product of a marriage between ahelicopter and a grasshopper. 
I examined the picture, wondering if this might be another one of thosestrange in-country jokes to impress newcomers and girls. Finally Ihanded it back and asked, "Why in the world would anybody build achopper that looks like that?" 
"It's a flying crane, Kitty," Jake said, and then, of course, Iunderstood. I had been associating the word "crane" with the bird, orwith the long, spindly legs of the Disney version of the Ichabod Cranewho saw the headless horseman in Sleepy Hollow. Jake eagerly pointedout the features of his aircraft to me. "This space under here is for acable to haul cargo. Watch the air sometime. You may see one carryinga tank or another chopper." His face lapsed into an expression of almostpaternal fondness as he spoke. 
"Aw, seein' it from the ground is nothin' compared to watchin' somethingswinging from its belly." 
"I can imagine," I said honestly, because I was by now as intrigued asit is possible for me to be by a piece of machinery. 
"If you'll come over for that party Tony was talking about, maybe we cantake you for a ride," jake said. 
"I'm changing wards right now," I told them and found my voice was alittle unsteady at the reminder. "I don't know my schedule." 
"That's okay, honey," jake said, patting my hand. He obviously mistookthe hint of distress in my tone for disappointment that I wouldn't beable to make an immediate date to acquaint myself with the ungainlyobject that was the current love of his life. "The cranes will be there when you can make it over. And there'll be other parties. Don't worry. 
The talk turned to their families again, then, abruptly, Tommy Deanducked out to see if the sergeant they'd ridden over with was done withhis carousing at the NCO club. "Is he okay?" I asked. 
"Oh sure, honey. just a little homesick. You know, I don't think yourealize how much it means to him-to both of us-to have you come over andtalk to us for a while." He stopped looking at me for the first timethat evening and studied his fingernails, and the ceiling fan, and tookgreat interest in the comings and goings of the waitresses. "Now, I'mnot sayin'we wouldn't either one of us take somethin' if we could getit, if you know what I mean, but mostly we are happily married men. Imiss my wife like hell. It feels so good to be able to talk to a womanwithout, you know, havin' to use sign language all of the goddamn time." 
It was my turn to study my fingernails. I couldn't find the rightexpression to let him know how good it was to talk to men who didn'ttreat me like a servant (the doctors), a police woman (most of theenlisted men), or a piece of ass. 
"If you guys have a jeep, would you mind dropping me off at the PX gateso I can hitch back to the hospital?" I asked. 
They insisted on taking me all the way back to the 83rd, of course, andkept me laughing all the way. I was hoping one or the other of themwould mention something else about Tony, but they didn't, though Jakereminded me of the party. 
I felt pretty good until the jeep drove out of sight and I turned towalk past the sign that said "Welcome to Hell's Half Acre." 
Beyond the gate, floodlights from the guard towers illuminated thecompound, sandbags, concertina wire, plywood barracks, andadministrative shacks. The hospital's white humps shone from within,the three long windows at the top of each ward glowing faintly with thelight over the nurses' station. The hospital building was actually twosets of Quonset huts connected by a long, enclosed corridor. It resembled eight enormous oil drums that someone had split open andspread apart so that half of each drum lay directly across from theother. Each entire oil drum was a whole ward, with space enough formaybe another Quonset hut on each side of the ones already in place. Youcould almost see the cloud of pot smoke swirling above the visitors'tent, defining the atmosphere between wards five and six. 
Smelling it, I forgot about Tony and jake and Tommy Dean and could secthe inside of ward six again as clearly as if I'd never left Tran's bedside. Shame and grief not only for the harm I might have caused Tranbut for the nurse I was not and was never going to be welled up in meagain, returning in a massive sodden lump. The closer I got to thehospital, the bigger the lump swelled, until it filled my chest andthroat and brought the taste of sirloin and stomach acid to my tongue. Ishould stop and check on Tran, just so everyone would know that I reallydid give a damn about her. But what if something had gone wrong? I took a shortcut through the hospital, my boots loud on the concretehallway. No one else was out there, just the mingled smells ofantiseptic, pot, and Nam, and the collective sound of deep breathing,restless sleep, shifting feet, and the occasional clank of metal traysor bedpans. The light glowed softly over the desk on ward six. Gingerwas pouring meds. George was behind his comic. Tran's bed was still occupied. I crept just a little closer, not wanting to greet anyone.The body in the bed was Tran's, and she was breathing. 
I passed through the hospital, out onto the boardwalk, and up the stairsto my quarters, gratefully closing the door behind me. My side of thebuilding had been out of the sun for several hours, so the temperaturein the tiny room was more or less bearable. I turned on the fan and let it blow through my hair, evaporate the last moisture from my skin as Ipulled off my fatigues. 
My laundry was lying freshly pressed on my shelves-well, most of it wasmy laundry. Looked as if mamasan had left me somebody else'srice-starched and ironed lace panties. 
I grabbed a clean set of underwear, slipped on a shift, and headed forthe shower. It was cold, as always, but washed off the sand and thestink. No one seemed to be home in the barracks that night, but thelight at the 83rd officers' club across the road still twinkled and"Proud Mary" warred with the sounds of Aretha Franklin coming from thebarracks in back of ours. 
Returning to my cot, I slouched back against the wall with my stationerybox on my knees and tried to write a long, philosophical letter toDuncan. Duncan was-well, it's hard to explain about Duncan now. He was-is-a former professor of mine, a great storyteller, and in my ownheart then my own true love. Only he didn't seem to know it, or valueit, and tended to treat me like a kid brother. Of all the men I could have had, he was the one I wanted, though I wasn't damn fool enough notto have my spirits lifted by the proximity of men like Tony Devlin.Still, it was always to Duncan, rather than my mother, that I wrote theletters that really explained, more or less, how I felt about Nam. I'd been composing in my head, in my sleep, in between snatches ofconversation, what I would tell him about the situation with Tran, buthalfway through I tore it up. If he found out what a fuck-up I was,he'd never love me. Instead, I wrote a short, funny letter about thebeach and meeting Tommy Dean and jake. I'd save writing about Tony forwhen and if there was something to write about that would make Duncanrealize what an incredibly desirable woman I was. 
I stuck the letter in an envelope, and took two more Benadryl. I thought I might finally be able to sleep. 
Phody shuddered in horror when I reported for duty on orthoA pedics.Nobody said, "Oh no, not her." Nobody gave me knowing glances that said, "Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock told us about your kind." Major Marge Canonlooked up from counting narcotics only long enough to give me a quick,slightly distracted smile. Sarah Marcus, who occupied the hooch nextdoor to mine, wiped the sweaty hair off her forchead with her arm,pouched out her bottom lip to blow upward to cool her face, and lookedstraight through me in a spacey way not unusual for night nurses justcoming off a twelve-hour shift. Then her eyes focused, and she sighedand nodded her head in my direction before resuming the count. 
Sarah's morning report was rushed and perfunctory. "All five of the casualties from yesterday are going out today. I haven't had time to get their tags done yet. I was supervisor last night and there was apush of Vietnamese from some village that got shelled. I think we mayget two or three of them. Joe was triage officer last night and didn'tget scrubbed for our first case till about five-thirty, so you probablyhave an hour or two before recovery room calls. Right now you've gotthree I.V.s on the GI side, one on the Vietnamese. I'll do those tagsnow." 
"Don't worry about it, Sarah," Major Canon told her. "We're finallygetting some extra help around here. Blaylock sent us Kitty instead ofmaking us wait around for joanie's replacement from the States, sothere's no need for you to stick around." 
"Yeah, well, g'night," Sarah said. "I have to go give supervisor'sreport to the colonel. By the way, Kitty," she added casually,"everybody on your old ward had a pretty good night." 
"Thanks, Sarah. Slecp well." 
She waved good-bye, tucked the supervisor's clipboard under her arm, anddisappeared down the hall. 
Before the day crew disbanded from report, Marge made introductions."Troops, this is Lieutenant McCulley. She's been transferred to us to replace Lieutenant Mitchell. Kitty, this is our ward master, SergeantBaker, our interpreter and nursing assistant, Miss Mal, and SpecialistsVoorhees and Meyers." 
I nodded and said "Pleased to meet you" all around. Sergeant Baker wasa broad black NCO with a habitual expression of longsuffering tolerance.Miss Mal looked like an oriental elf who'd been out in the rain too long. All the time I was there, it was Mai's unvarving custom either tocome to work early to wash her hair or to wash it during her break, somaybe she was more of a water sprite than an elf. Voorhees was acompactly built, sandy-haired corpsman of about nineteen. Meyers, theother corpsman, was a tall, chubby-checked black guy who looked as if hebelonged in high school. 
"Come on, Kitty, we'll try to give you a little orientation before itgets busy," Marge said. First she showed me how to fill out medevac tags for the wounded GIs, all of whom were bound for Japan for furthercare, and then to the States. So few of my seriously injured GIs onneuro had lived long enough to stabilize sufficiently for medevac that Ididn't have much practice in filling out the forms. 
I was so glad nobody seemed to be mad at me about my screwup on neuro that I wanted to prove myself, show the major how gung ho I could be. Aswe started rounds, I saw that one of the patients wore a badly saturateddressing over what was left of his right leg, so I pointed it out toMarge. According to the nursing care plan on the guy's chart, he hadbeen backed into by a tank driven by a friend who had taken too muchherbal remedy for the Vietnam blahs. 
"Yeah, that needs reinforcing okay. Let's wrap it with another couplelayers of gauze. We're just going to reinforce most of the dressings onthese guys. We don't usually change them when they come straight fromthe field and are medevaced the next day. Too much danger of infection.Open up a wound here and it sucks germs out of the air. Pseudomonas,staph, you name it, Vietnam's got it." 
"I didn't see much of that on neuro, but then, a lot of times we didn'tget open wounds," I told her. "And I suppose the Vietnamese have acertain tolerance built up." 
"Probably, or anyway those that don't are dead before they get here. Butwe get a lot of infection on the Vietnamese side of the ward, '%u'll seethat later." 
too. 
Another soldier, this one with frag wounds of his upper torso andcompound fractures of the right clavicle and humerus, couldn't wait forus to reach him. He had been using his good arm to scratch franticallyat his cast and dressings. "Ma'am, ma'am, you can change my dressings,can't you? I mean, since I'm asking. You've just got to. They itchlike hell." 
Marge said something soothing and regretful and examined his bandages,then pointed to a fly that had lighted on the dirty part of thedressing. "Probably maggots." 
The soldier, who looked about fourteen, turned a green only a shade ortwo lighter than my fatigues. "Yuck. Get them the fuck off me," hesaid, trying harder than ever to scratch. 
Marge gently restrained his left hand. "Leave them alone, soldier.They're saving you from gangrene. Maggots only ea-maggots clean up deadtissue, sort of nature's way of debriding wounds. They won't hurt you.They just itch a little. They keep wounds like yours from putrefying." 
The boy, red-faced and almost in tears, lay back with a whimper. Notknowing what else to do, I handed him an emesis basin. He appearedneither convinced by the major's explanation nor willing to revise hisno doubt long-standing prejudice against maggots. He was in for a longtrip to Japan. I could only hope he'd get accustomed to the idea ofbodily dinner guests. 
There was also a marine with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his rightfoot, and two other patients with less serious multiple frag wounds,overflows from the general surgery ward. 
Voorhees and Meyers were already at work with razors and basins ofwater. Sergeant Baker brought the dressing cart, and Marge and I put fresh layers of bandage around the filthy, seeping dressings. It felt like sweeping dirt under the rug The boy with the maggots groaned whenwe raised him to reinforce his dressings and cursed us as we manhandledhim, but when we were done, lay back and said, "Thank you, ma'am," assweetly as if he were talking to his Sunday school teacher. 
We were headed for the Vietnamese side when recovery room called to tellus that the first of our new admissions was being transferred to us. 
After that, three more arrived in fairly rapid succession. The corpsmenwere still busy escorting the GIs to the helicopter, so Marge, Mai, andI did routine vitals. I wondered where the charts were, but every timeI asked about pain or nausea medication or whether to touch a bandage,Marge referred me to a little recipe box containing standing orders.These orders authorized nursing staff to administer medication for pain,nausea, or fever, to reinforce dressings, and to perform other routinecare without doctors' orders written specifically for each patient. I was finishing the vital signs on the second patient when the third waswheeled onto the ward. 
Joe Giangelo, red-eyed and barely able to lift the soles of his paperscrub shoes, pushed the last gurney in front of him and stopped at thedesk to hand the major a stack of charts. 
His scrub suit was dotted with a fine spray of red droplcts up one side,blood that had soaked through his scrub gown while he worked. His hairwas matted from being tucked under a scrub cap all night. He opened therefrigerator door and gulped down a canned Coke as if he'd been dying ofthirst. He looked a lot different from the twinkly-eyed benefactor whowhistled while he built cabinet shelves. I thought he was about todrop. But when I reached for some of the charts, he said, "Why don'tyou grab a clipboard instead, Kitty, and make rounds with me. I'll tell you what I know about some of these folks and what we're going to try todo with them." 
The Vietnamese side of the ward was more vigorously noisy than neuro hadbeen. A bedlam of trol ois, dau quadis, and less articulate moans andwhimpers greeted us, along with a cheerful wave from the end of the wardfrom a girl who squealed, "Bac si Joe! Bac si Joe!" 
Bac si Joe drew himself up to his full five feet four inches andsummoned Voorhees, who was counting vitals on one of the new patients."Specialist Voorhees." 
"Sir?" Voorhees asked, his head snapping up as if he expected to becalled to attention. 
"What's the matter with you, Voorhees? Why haven't you informed thesepatients that they, as Orientals, are stoic and inscrutable? 
LDok at them! Listen to them! Scrutable as hell!" 
Voorhees gave him a "Give me a break" sigh and started counting thepulse again. 
Joe's face turned serious as he bent over the middle-aged woman in thefirst bed,,however. She was curled on her side, biting her knuckIt's, her face and pillow wet with tears, and she cried a little harder for amoment when he stooped down to say something soothing to her. Her patient gown was rucked up over a saturated pressure dressing coveringher from waist to knee. 
"This is one of our new admissions from last night, Kitty, Dang ThiThat. Mrs. Dang's husband was murdered in the assault that brought usmost of these people. He was the village chief. After they killed herhusband, the VC shot her too." 
"At least they didn't kill her," I said. 
"No, but this way she makes a good example to anybody who wants tocooperate with us. And it will take time and money to take care of her.You'll see what I mean when we get to another patient, a couple of bedsdown. Now then, Mrs. Dang, let me show the nurse where you're hurt.That's right." Dang Thi That gasped a little as he pulled the dressingoff her wound and showed me a smallish entry hole. She cried out once as he gently turned her to show the gaping crater of medicated bloodygauze where her left hip had been. "You see here the tumbling effect ofthe bullet. Little hole here"-he pointed to the front-"totally blastsaway or pulverizes the entire structure back here. We did a preliminarydebridement in O.R. to clean out the worst of the necrosed tissue and dirt and tie off the bleeders, but of course we'll have to delay closureuntil infection is no longer a problem, and we can maybe get some skinto graft onto the area. It's going to be a long haul for her, butthere's nothing else to do except maybe sew a volleyball in there." 
"Dau quadi, co," the woman said and stretched her tear-slicked handtoward me, then dropped it again, as if the effort of holding it up wastoo much for her. 
"She's been medicated within the hour," Joe said. "I don't think we could give her much else right now." He adjusted the flow of one of hertwo I.V.s and moved to the next bed, where an ARVN soldier withbilateral below-the-knee amputations lay. 
The man ignored Joe's greeting and held out his hand for a cigarette.Joe shrugged. "No can do. They're in my other pants. You bic? Other pants?" The man just looked disgusted and turned away, ignoring us whileJoe told me about his unsuccessful attempts to save at least one of thelegs. "He's been here about three weeks. You know how to do the figure-eight wrap to mold a stump for prosthesis?" I said I did. 
I had to say it loudly because about half the noise on the ward wascoming from the next bed, a small boy with a big mouth. 
The stump of one of his legs was tightly bandaged, but draining. Hisright arm was in a plastic splint. 
"This little devil is Nguyen Tran Ahn, a ten-year-old orphan, parentskilled by the VC before this last raid. He keeps saying he wants to gohome, but nobody's claimed him. He was apparently up in a tree when ashell took his right leg. He fractured his right radius and ulna whenhe fell out of the tree. I-Jesus-" He looked down into the screwed-uplittle face, which reminded me of a monkey face carved out of a coconut,only smoother, of course. 
The volume of the kid's howling and sobbing increased as Joe started tounwrap his stump dressing. I tried to shush him, but that made him howleven more loudly. joc cut his examination short and sprinted two bedsdown. "I would have debrided him this morning, but the little devil gotahold of a candy bar somewhere and I couldn't operate." 
Sergeant Baker, a towel draped over one shoulder, paused to catch whatthe doctor was saying. "Yeah, well, bac si, you can do somethin' for mewhen you take him in to surgery. Sew his mouth shut, will you? 
Whoo, that child sure can holler." He tugged his ear, shook his head,and ambled toward the back door. 
The next patient sat stone-still in bed, disregarding the slings aroundher shoulders and arms, staring at the far side of the ward. 
"What's the matter with her?" I asked, dropping my voice. 
"Bilateral fractured clavicles and shock. Remember what I told youabout the VC?" 
I nodded. 
The question was rhetorical. He used the pause to swallow. He'd been doing a fairly good job of putting on the jolly Joe Giangelo Show for mybenefit and that of the patients, but the jolliness vanished suddenlyand it was easy to see that the man had been working all night. 
"They, uh-the VC-shot-she was walking down the street, see, coming backfrom taking dinner to her husband, who's one of the CIDG civilianguards. She had her one-and-a-half-year-old on one hip and herthree-month-old on the other. The sniper shot both babies out of herarms. They were small. The impact fractured her clavicles." Hecontinued talking in a flat, chart-dictating voice about what he wasgoing to do for her. He had two daughters, a toddler and an infant,back home. 
The next two beds were empty, but in the last a pretty young Vietnamesegirl ostentatiously pouted until we turned toward her, then bounced upand down like a puppy while she waited for us to reach her bedside.Bouncing up and down when your leg is in traction is not all that easyto do, so we hurried, while she beckoned urgently with her hand andcalled, "Bac si Joe, Bac si Joe, I no see you long time. 
"This is Tran Thi Xinh," Joe told me. "Xinh, this is-" 
"This your girlfrien', huh?" she asked. 
"Nah. You know you're my best girl. This is Kitty. Lieutenant McCulley. She's going to be working with us now, so I want to show heryour leg, okay?" 
"Okay, Joe. Kitty, how old you? You marry? Have children?" 
We straightened the sheets under her while she pulled herself up in bedwith the help of the metal trapeze suspended from her overhead bed frame. I told her I was twenty-one, not married, no children, and shesaid, "Ah, same-same me," though she looked no more than seventeen. 
Xinh here is going to put me in the textbooks, Kitty. She has an unusual spiral fracture of the distal femur. We don't really have theequipment here to work with. I'd send her back to the States exceptthat her family doesn't want her to go. So I ordered the equipmentthrough channels. Needless to say, Xinh is going to be one of ourlongterm patients." 
Xinh flashed a cover-girl smile, followed by a torrent of Vietnamese.Mai, also speaking rapidly in Vietnamese, rushed over, half hugging Xinhevery time she winced as Joe examined her. The two of them were almost as noisy as the little boy, Ahn, who was still alternately caterwaulingand whining. 
Both were drowned out by the sudden boom of Sergeant Baker's bass voice."Wait just a goddamn minute, soldier. What you think you're doin'?" 
"Bringin' you a new patient, Sarge. Ain't that nice of me?" The response was from an equally forceful voice with a thick overlay ofSouthern drawl-which didn't necessarily mean the guy came from theSouth, not in Vietnam. For some reason, even guys from Boston startedtalking like Georgia crackers by the time they'd been in country a week. 
,, Not without no authorization you ain't," Baker replied, pulling histowel off his shoulder as if he would flip the tall redhead with it ifhe made a false move. 
Joe flipped the sheet back over Xinh and headed toward the two menfighting over the gurney. 
"Hi, Joe. You want to tell the sergeant here that you authorized thistransfer?" the redhead said. His uniform was funny-looking: a regularcamouflage shirt mixed with green tiger-stripe trousers, his onlyinsignia a Woody Woodpecker pin he'd probably picked up at the PX. Fromhis manner, I thought he might be one of the doctors in from theboonies. They all spurned Army dress codes. 
Joe temporized, "Now, Doc, I didn't . . ." 
Marge popped her head through the door. "Something the matter, SergeantBaker?" she asked cheerfully. 
"This man bringin' us this patient got no authorization, ma'am. Unless,that is, Captain Giangelo, you authorize it, sir?" 
"If Chalmers is all finished with his head, I-" 
"Nothing wrong with his head," the redhead said. 
"There was a depressed skull fracture," Joe said, not arguing, 'Justinforming. 
"That was a mistake, Captain. If you X-ray him now you'll see there'snothing wrong with his head. He needs to get somethin' done aboutreplacin' his legs so he can go back to the villages, though. They need him out there." 
"Wait a minute, wait just a minute here," Baker said. "You a doctor? You don't look like no doctor." 
"Yeah? Say the same thing to me when you've got your ass shot off orare burnin' up with fever and I'm the only dude in sight with a firstaidkitand some kind of training." 
"I'm real impressed. Been a field medic myself in two wars. That don't mean I haul patients around makin' unauthorized transfers or sassin' thereal doctors. What's your name and your outfit, soldier?" 
"Spec-6 Charles W. Heron, Special Forces medical supervisor assigned toC-I operations detachment attached from B-53 Special Missions AdvisoryForce." 
"Uh huh," Baker said. "And who might this man be? Your C.O.?" 
"Sergeant Baker, Specialist-uh-" Major Canon said. "Whoever this patient is, don't you think we'd better make up our minds where he'sgoing and get him back to bed?" 
"I'm tellin' you, Joe, there's no head in'llry," the redhead said. 
"I'll have to clear that with Major Chalmers, Doc." 
"Chalmers! That asshole has his head so far up his-" 
The man seemed to be a good judge of character anyway. 
I remembered belatedly to try to reassure the patient, the object of allof the argument. It took me a moment to recognize old Xe. His color was much improved, his head unbandaged, and his face less sunken. His eyes were open and alert, seemingly staring at the ceiling, though as Iwatched I saw that he shifted them from the redhead to Joe to Baker like someone watching a three-way Ping-Pong match. I probably wouldn't haverecognized him at all in a couple of days-legless, bald elderlyVietnamese men weren't uncommon at the 83rd. But his hands were crossed at his chest, over the medal, in the gesture I remembered well from thenight before last. 
"Way to go, papasan," I said, patting his shoulder. "You sure healed in a hurry." 
"You should watch how you touch him," Heron told me. "It's disrespectful to touch a holy man casually." 
"You're the one who's disrespectful-" Baker began, but Heron wasn'tpaying any attention. The old man was speaking to him in a soft, hoarsevoice. 
When Heron looked back up, his face wore an odd expression, as if he wastrying to assess me, and at the same time resented me. 
Marge, who had been on the phone, reappeared. "Neuro got swamped lastnight with ICU overflow, apparently. When I told Captain Simpson that we had one of her patients over here, she spoke to Major Chalmers. He said he didn't know why we didn't take the old man in the first place,and if you need help with the mild concussion the admitting physicianmisdiagnosed as a depressed skull fracture, Chalmers will be happy toconsult with you, Joe." 
Mai helped Heron put Xe to bed. I transcribed the orders, trying tohurry so I could talk to Heron before he left. It occurred to me that he was the mystery man who had called in the air evac on old Xe'sbehalf. But when I looked up from my chart, the old man was sleepingfitfully in the bed between the woman who had lost her children and thewhiny little boy. I thought it might have been the light, but he lookedsicker and wearier than he had a few moments before. 
Joe Glangelo, when he returned to the ward, evidently agreed with me,because he ordered a new antibiotic, an extra I.V., and two units ofblood for the old guy and scheduled him for surgery as soon as he wasjudged strong enough to withstand anesthesia. 
We were moderately busy those first few days I worked ortho. One morning the husband of the woman with the fractured clavicles simplyappeared and packed her off. Marge called Joe, and Joe, with help fromMal, tried to talk the man out of it, but the husband just gave a tightbow and a tight thanks. Mal said the woman would feel better with her own people and would want to be present at the funeral of her children.Personally, I thought the woman looked as if she would die of grief verysoon and the man looked as if he blamed us for the tragedy and himselffor ever becoming involved with "our" side. Which irritated me. "Our" side was supposed to be the side of most of the South Vietnamese, wasn'tit? We were helping them, not the other way around. And he wouldn't even let us try to repair some of the damage. 
Nor was he the only one who didn't want our help. The day was scheduledfor surgery, the O.R. tech wheeled him away and then, a short timelater, came back scratching his head, wondering if we'd seen the boy. 
Voorhees and Sergeant Baker divided up the hospital and startedsearching, but a few minutes later a sergeant I vaguely recognizedcarried a wailing Ahn back onto the ward. "I understand this mightbelong to you ladies," the sergeant said. I showed him where to depositthe bor while Marge tried to call Joe in O.R. 
I took Ahn's vital signs, thinking Joe would want to know, but Icouldn't hear much. The kid shrank from my hands and bellowed at me,all the time watching me with a mixture of fear and loathing. I couldn't understand it. I hadn't done anything to him. 
The ARVN in the next bed blew a smoke ring and smirked at us as wepassed. 
The sergeant said, "Say, you're the lady we brought home from the club." 
I rounded the nurses' desk and he poured himself a cup of coffee andleaned over the chart rack. 
Marge looked up and said, "The O.R. supervisor says Ahn will have to berescheduled. When they couldn't find him, they gave the room to Dr. 
Stein for a gut wound. Some vertebral damage, so Joe's scrubbed in withhim. He said he's glad we found the little darling, though. Guess we can call for a tray." 
The sergeant, who looked vaguely like an Irish prizefighter, was givingMarge an appreciative once-over. "This major looks like a nice lady tome, Lieutenant. Have you asked her yet about the weekend?" 
"Not yet-" 
"What about the weekend?" Marge asked. 
"Well, ma'am, we're having a sort of a special do over there, and myexecutive officer has asked me to extend an invitation to you forSaturday night but was hoping we could have the loan of this young ladyover at the company so's she could do a little flight training in acrane-kind of a goodwill mission. He's already checked about the guestroom with the commanding officer. It's our anniversary weekend. Hell,we even got a Filipino band." 
"What time's the party?" Marge asked. 
"We'll send birds to pick the ladies up at 1900 hours. Skip eveningmess and we'll barbecue you some numbah one steaks." 
"You want to go, lieutenant?" she asked me. 
"Sure," I said. "I just thought, since I hadn't been here very long, Imight not be up for a weekend yet-" 
"Shoot, girl, you make it sound like you just got in country. I hadn't planned on getting you, so I didn't count on you for the weekend. Go ahead and have it off, but if we have a big push the minute you get backwe'll know who to blame." 
Things were definitely looking up. Nobody looked over my shoulder orbreathed down my neck and somehow I managed very well without thesupervision. Even the noontime sessions with Blaylock weren't all thatpainful, though she looked mildly insulted when I did know the answersto the math questions she drilled me on. Voorhees just happened tomistakenly order an extra lunch tray every day I missed my turn at themess hall. 
Friday evening during my shift, Tommy Dean came to the ward and spentthe last hour drinking coffee while I finished report. I collected myswim tote, into which I'd packed a couple of dresses and 'letr'es,'nclud'ng the Shalimar perfume I got for under ten dollars at tol thePX. The chopper was waiting for us on pad by the back doors of theemergency room. The dust flew higher than our heads as we ducked underthe thundering blades. Tommy Dean flew in the copilot position and Itook the backseat, accepting earphones from the crew chief with mimedthanks. 
The routine was familiar to me. Some outfit or the other was alwaysinviting a group of nurses to their party and sending a chopper as cabservice. Most of the time the chopper came because someone owed someoneelse a favor. Scrounging and barter were as big a part of the economic system for the military in Nam as the black market was for theVietnamese. So I knew how to put on my earphones and listen through thebone-shaking throb of the chopper and the crackle of static to thewisecracks and CB-type lingo exchanged on the radio. The crew chief was often also the crew, especially on the smaller birds, and he was the onewho took care of anything that happened in the back end of the chopper,manned the door gun, and sometimes took care of patients in medevacsituations. 
I've never been afraid of heights and I enjoyed looking out at theground as we flew past China Beach and over Highway I to several milesof cleared ground devoted to hangars, barracks, other ugly buildings,barbed wire, sandbags, and row after row after row of every imaginablekind of helicopter. 
I didn't really know what to expect of that weekend. At Fitzsimons, Ihad gotten into deep trouble with an unreasonable colonel for having aman in my apartment after midnight. We weren't doing anything, but myroommate, a professional virgin who was irked to come home and findWillie there, and the colonel refused to believe me. I was called a slut in front of several other senior officers, and the colonel promisedme she would personally drum me out of the corps if I ever againdisgraced the sacred name of the Army nurses with such depravedbehavior. Shortly after that, I got orders for Nam. I hoped her spieswere watching, writing back, "Oh sure, she says she's just going tolearn about flying cranes, making 'friends' with the men, while stayingchastely in the guest quarters." I'll admit it seemed a little unlikely,but that's exactly what happened. Well, mostly, anyway. 
Friday night, after jake had met us and escorted me to my room so Icould change into a dress for the sake of troop-and my-morale, webarbecued steaks on a quadrangle the men had constructed. The C.O. liked funky country and western songs, such as "Cigareetes, Whusky andWild, Wild Women," and I knew quite a few myself, so we took turnsplaying C-F-G on his beat-up guitar while the troops sang along withvarying degrees of tunefulness and ethanol-enhanced enthusiasm. Itreminded me of the Texas bars I had loved while I was in basic at Fort Sam, and we sang and played until 0100 hours, when jake told me I wasgoing to have to get up early if I wanted to fly a mission in a crane. 
I trundled off to the guest room singing my favorite new horrible song,a parody of the "Green Berets" song by Barry Sadler. It ended with " 'cause that is where herets belong, down in the jungle, writing songs."I intended to send a copy of it to Duncan if I could remember all thewords, and glamorize the weekend for him the way Jake and the otherswere glamorizing their unit for me. 
The next morning Tommy Dean sat me down in the eye of the great airbornegrasshopper, a glass bubble that gave me an unimpeded view of thecountryside and the mission. We flew over fishnet-strung seas, lushgreen mountains fading to purple in the distance, golden rice paddies,and aquamarine waters. Gauzy mists puffed up beneath us, vel 'ling thevalleys. It was still extraordinarily beautiful. But even from the air, the beauty was marred by the bomb craters pitting its surface, likeNever-Never Land with smallpox scars. I was used to thinking of Vietnamas ugly, hot, smelly, dirty. It had never dawned on me that the Rice Bowl of the East, as they called it in social studies, would have to be lush, that a country that was once a resort area for the French would ofcourse be lovely. What a crying shame to hold a war here. 
The crane hovered over a chopper stranded on a small island. A cable was dropped, and a man below attached the great heavy hook to thestranded Huey. A short time later, the crane lifted again, bearing theswinging Huey under its belly as if the smaller aircraft were a flyintended for the larger one's dinner. There were a couple of nervousmoments when they had to pause and wait for the momentum of the Huey'sswing to decrease, so that it wouldn't send the crane off balance.Watching the Huey appear at the bottom of the bubble first from one 'de,then from the other, I thought of the string-and-ring test done to sitell if a baby was going to be a boy or a girl: back and forth for aboy, round and round for a girl. 
By the end of the day I had lots of pictures and an exciting adventureto write home about. My grin almost split my face when jake met me at.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-fiveminutes and we'll all walk down to the club together, okay?" 
I agreed happily and changed into my bright pink embroidered Mexicansundress and sandals. Then, feeling a little like a mascot, I walkeddown the road with thirty or forty of the men from the flying craneunit. 
I sailed in between Tommy Dean and the C.O., captured a steak, andwatched a thoroughly oriental woman who didn't look as if she spoke aword of English, and who wore a strapless sequined evening gown andhigh-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 neverbeen asked to dance at any Stateside party I had ever attended without adate, in high school or out, was in hog heaven. Marge was there, alongwith 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 andup to see my own fun-house reflection in Tony Devlin's mirroredsunglasses. 
He turned his hand palm up, inviting me to grab it, and nodded towardthe dance floor. I suppose in a movie the band would have been playinga Viennese waltz right then, but actually they were playing somethingmore compelling: "Proud Mary." I never could sit still to that. Tonydanced well, his knees, elbows, and wrists more than his feet keepingtime, a style which is a boon on a small floor. He frowned slightly tohimself as he swayed and bounced and snapped his fingers, like a Russianabout ready to go into one of those numbers where they get down on thefloor and kick. The frown was sexy. I'd seen it on hippie men friendswho seemed to use it to say, "Sure I may be doing something frivolouslike dancing, but I'm supporting civil rights" or saving the world fromthe 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 playfulstuff, too-pretending to be Mouseketeers with Tommy Dean, or line dancesand circle dances with everybody. When I danced with Tony, Idouble-timed like an Indian ready for the warpath. Maybe that shouldhave told me something. 
But I was feeling good. New friends, a new adventure, and maybe a newromance. I lasted much longer than the girls from the 83rd, and whenMarge waved good night, neither of us had stopped dancing long enough totalk much. It must have been quite a while later-I was dancing with oneof the crane pilots, I don't remember who-when I noticed that Tony hadslipped 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 acircle in the air. The girl singer tapped the lead guitarist on the armand jerked her head in jake's direction, and they cut the song a chorusshort and began packing up the instruments. 
He stopped and said a few words to one or two guys and the club beganemptying. 
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. Wouldyou mind if the girls in the band shared your room? I don't want any ofthe 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 theentertainers, but I wanted to let you know what was going on before weset them up." 
"I'll help," I said. We walked back up to the quad in a tight littlegroup, me, jake, and the crane ockeys with the Fillpina girls from theband and the Patsy Cline-clone singer mincing behind us in their toohighheels 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, andgraduate for the best part of five years, I automatically tended to makeany unmade bed that crossed my path. Besides, it made me feel useful ina 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 headin the door, "Jake said to tell you relax. Looks like the girls may getto 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 companywere entertaining the Filipinas and vice versa, through the dark part ofthe compound to a squatty water tower. We climbed a rickety woodenladder and lay face down on the top of the tower. He lay beside me withone arm flung across my back. His fatigue shirt was damp withclean-smelling sweat mingled with the odor of rice starch, whiskey, andcigarette smoke. He hugged me closer so that his forearm braced usagainst 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 ofgunfire sounded like distant fireworks, an effect heightened by the redstreaks of tracers streaming into the air and bursting. 
"Hear that?" he asked, and pretty soon I did: a chopper, from therhythmic beat of the blades, but a very quiet one, as if the rotor hadbeen 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 voicelow and serious. The whole scene reminded me of when I was about eightyears old and my cousins and I played combat in Army surplus helmets andbelts underneath my Aunt Sadie's bridge. Except my cousins didn't smellor feel like Tony. 
Tony swung his hand in an are. Following it, I saw the outline of theslim nose of the little chopper, hovering overhead like an airborne catwatching 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 ofthe gate with burst after burst. "Jesus Christ," I said, "all that forone little guy with a gun?" It seemed like using a tank for aflyswatter. 
But the Filipinas were able to go home after all, which was great, sinceby the time we left the water tower I had other company in the guestroom. 
e was scheduled for surgery my first day back. The antibiotics had helped prevent the spread of infection in his stumps, but they still hadto be debrided; that is, the dead tissue had to be removed so that thenew could form a clean scar. 
Of course, I had no idea who the old man was or how great his power hadbeen until it was nearly gone, even though he had already shared it withme 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 myown role in that process. That would have been a fatal mistake, in moreways than one. As it was, the mistake we all made of treating Xe likean ordinary, slightly crazy old man is only embarrassing. And thoughI'm sure some of his anxiety was real, I wonder now if the old manwasn't having a secret laugh at our expense. 
The fracas started when Voorhees began prepping Xe for surgery. Xe hadpermitted Voorhees to shave and bathe him and clean his nails without aproblem. Xe had never been combative before, but I'd noticed when I didhis dressings his eyes were always angry and troubled. Once I caught himwatching me while I did Dang Thi That's wound irrigation, and hisexpression was unfathomably miscrable. Mostly, though, he had beenwithdrawn and almost sullen. I thought perhaps he was still sufferingthe hostile stage of brain healing I mentioned earlier. On the other hand, it was normal enough for anyone to be angry and confused onawakening from a head injury to find his legs missing. 
He sometimes spoke briefly to Mai, their exchanges no more than a fewcareful words, as if they were trading eggs. When he was sleeping, hemumbled and clasped his hands to his chest. When he was awake, hestared at the wall or followed us with his eyes, though if we saidsomething 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 gotus 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 tobe heavy rocket attacks or when it would be unsafe to go to downtown DaNang. 
But while Voorhees didn't treat Xe with any particular reverence, he hadshaved and bathed the old man with his usual stolid gentleness andpatience, as if he were grooming some prize piece of livestock for a 4-Hshow. The trouble began when he tried to remove the pendant the old manwore. 
Xe clutched his fists to his chest and glared defiantly at Voorhees, whoturned to me, looking hot and perplexed. 
"I don't think he's real impressed with the surgical checklist,Lieutenant. We better get Mal to explain it to him." 
I was hot and perplexed myself and sick to death of hearing little Ahn'sincessant crying. "They borrowed her in ICU," I said. Lucky her. Shewas as frustrated with babysan's nonstop wailing as the rest of us. Thekid hadn't stopped crying, or thwarting efforts to get him to surgery,since he arrived. Mai had told me that morning that some of theVietnamese patients were threatening to smother him if he didn't shut up, so they could get some sleep. 
"Well, we got to find some way to tell the old guy he can't wear jewelryto O.R.," Voorhees said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to fight him forit. I didn't sign up for hand-to-hand combat. Any ideas?" 
I rose from charting my meds and walked to Xe's bedside. The old man's bony jaw thrust pugnaciously forward over his doubled fists and hisnarrow black eyes snapped from me to Voorhees and back again as if wewere threatening him with torture and further dismemberment. 
"God, papasan, don't look at me like that," I said, in English, ofcourse, but hoping he'd find my tone reassuring. "I'm not going to hurtyou. Nobody's going to hurt you. Not here. But you gotta give methat." I pointed to the thing he clasped to his larynx. "I keep safefor you." 
He looked suspiciously at my outstretched hand. How in the hell was I going to explain to him that he couldn't wear his necklace because itwould get in the anesthetist's way? For all I knew, his idea ofanesthetic was biting a rock. 
Fortunately, Xinh had forsaken Vietnamese TV for the live entertainmentwe were providing. She had too much energy not to get antsy lying inbed day after day, and now she clearly itched to get involved. HerEnglish wasn't as good as Mai's, but she seemed to understand more thanshe spoke. "Xinh, you know when you go O.R.," I began in the simplifiedEnglish that, mixed with a few words of Vietnamese and a few words ofbastardized French, made for a sort of pidgin common language betweenAmericans and Vietnamese. 
"O.R.?" 
"Surgery? Doctor fix your leg?" 
"Nooo . . ." 
Well, actually, she hadn't been to surgery yet. "Uh, well, anyway.Papasan Xe go surgery. His legs numbah ten. Doctor fix. Make better." 
Xinh nodded energetically, her gleaming black pigtails waggling. Ithought I was getting through to her. "But before go surgery, must takeoff all 'ewetry." I demonstrated, removing my own rings and putting themin my pocket. But although Xinh's eyes followed everything I did, shelooked puzzled. So I reached for her watch, and though she lookeddoubtful, she unbuckled it and handed it to me. 
"Jewelry," I told her, and jingled the watch and rings together in myhand. Xinh looked scornful. She knew that. I continued. "Now then,you papasan." I pointed to her, and Xinh shook her head that no, shewasn't papasan. 
"Play like. Play like you papasan." 
Xinh drew in her breath and nodded. She bicced-understood"play like." 
"I take your jewelry and lock it up," I said, and walked to the narcotics cabinet, looking back to see if Xinh was still watching.Xinh's head bobbed like a buoy on a windy day. 
"Then you go surgery, get legs fixed." I pantomimed Xinh's bed rollingdown the hall and made vague fixing-up gestures at her knees. "Then youcome back"-I continued the charades with more laborious gestures, thenscuttled back to the medicine cabinet and with a flourish worthy pf amagician produced the watch again and handed it back to Xinh-"and youget your jewelry back. Bic?" 
Xinh looked puzzled for a moment, then broke into another flurry ofearnest nods. 
"You explain to papasan for me?" 
I expected maybe three or four more explanations and charades would benecessary, but Xinh drew herself up with the self-importance of ateacher's pet chosen to be hall monitor, leaned over the edge of herbed, and shouted to Xe in strident Vietnamese loud enough to be heardover Ahn's whimpering. Xe, who had steadfastly refused to watch myshenanigans but had withdrawn into staring through the corrugations ofthe tin wall opposite him, looked startled. He shifted onto one hip toface Xinh, then loftily turned away and said something argumentative,gesturing at me and the ward with more animation than I'd seen in him sofar. 
Xinh assumed the airs of both a princess and a mother as she replied,lecturing him. The old man set his jaw even more firmly and sherepeated what she had said, this time in a more coaxing tone,intermittently pointing to me. 
Xe watched me impassively for a while, his fingers idly stroking thething at his neck. After a couple of minutes his jaw relaxed and hebeckoned me to his bedside with a lift of his head. 
This time Xinh shouted her encouragement to me, no doubt urging me notto drop the ball after she, Xinh, had gotten things rolling. I leaned over the old man and he pulled the theng from his neck and tenderlyhanded me the object on the end. I started to carry it to the medicinecabinet, but Xinh, like a referee calling a foul, began bouncing up anddown, crying, "No, co! No, Kitty!" and indicated that I was supposed toput Xe's necklace around my own neck. 
I hesitated, doubting the professionalism of wearing a patient'sjewelry-particularly since it didn't look like very hygienic jewelry.But Xe was making small nodding movements. He was urging me to wear it,not lock it up. Once I slipped it on, he seemed satisfied and withlordly dignity allowed Voorhees to finish prepping him. 
I remember thinking that the necklace could have had value to no one butXe, and even at that the value had to be purely sentimental. The pendanton the grungy theng looked as if it had been carved, or melted maybe,then molded, out of the bottom of a soda pop bottle. It was still roughly round and had a deep wave running through the middle, withsomething like ears on the side. It sure wasn't the Hope diamond, butthen it wasn't mine to worry about either. just so the theng didn'tcontain living creatures. I detected nothing more noxious than the old man's sweat, so I tucked his treasure inside my fatigue shirt, thependant lodging under the top button above my cleavage. I'd promised toguard it with my person, if not in so many words, and I would, thoughwhy anybody would want to steal such a thing I couldn't imagine. But even as Voorhees rolled Xe off to surgery, the old man cast a backwardglance my way to make sure I was living up to my end of the bargain. 
That incident exhausted all of the good humor I had for the day, andwhen I sat down to do the chart, I felt like a boiling lobster. Sweat saturated my hair and dripped into my eyes. My fatigues stuck to myback and armpits, the backs of my legs, and my crotch. My bra wassoaked and clammy. I hate heat and always have. It shuts down mythinking ability by at least 75 percent. I get slow and clumsy, and myskin feels like a freshly tarred road gumming onto everything thattouches it. I get faint and headachy and my temper is about as stableas nitroglycerin. I gulped two salt tablets and sat down with my headbetween my knees for a moment, my hands, where they pressed against myeyes, feeling sticky as those of a two-year-old who's just finishedeating candy. Ahn's shril whine sawed through the heat, irritating asthe buzzing of a thousand mosquitoes. Damn! And I still had to do the little bastard's dressings. I peeled myself off the chair and jerkedthe dressing cart away from the wall so hard it clattered. Jesus, itwas so hot even my skin seemed to be sending off red light, as if itwere boiling. I paused for a moment, closing my eyes just so some partof me could be cool in the shade my eyelids provided. I couldn't touch the kid feeling like this. I took three deep breaths and opened my eyesagain. Well, better. My skin was only giving off a hot rosy glow now.I wheeled the cart over. Now it looked as if the kid was glowingred-red and kind of a murky eggplant color that intensified and darkenedwhen he glared up at me and started shrieking. 
"Oh, shut up, I haven't touched you yet," I snapped. He looked right atme and howled louder. 
"Qkay, kid, that's it. I've had it with you and so has everybody else.You're not the only one around here who's been hurt, you know." 
But he just kept howling. I couldn't, I simply could not, keeplistening to that racket while I worked on him. I pushed him over onhis side and swatted his rear. "Now, em di, dammit. We're all tired of you. Just shut up." I gave him about four swats, the pink of my handblurring to red as it hit the red around his rear. 
He didn't yell any louder. In fact, his shrieking died off to awhimper, then a snuffle, by the time I got control of myself and stoppedabusing my patient. He sniffed and looked at me for the first time without the hatred and terror I was used to seeing in his face. I couldn't figure it out. I was feeling like the Marquise de Sade and thekid was definitely in the best mood he'd been in since he arrived. The light around him looked cooler somehow, too, and less murky. My own hadfaded to dusty pink. I laid my hand on his forehead, thinking thatmaybe the color had something to do with fever. 
His skin was sweaty but cool, and he watched me, not fearfully, but witha funny kind of anticipation. And it came to me that he didn't know nurses weren't supposed to paddle their patients. He knew he'd been thoroughly annoying everybody, but he felt lost and abandoned. The spanking and my scolding voice, even speaking English, had made if hismother were still with hid'mn control of the world, it seem as I I Itelling him what to do. I knew that as certainly as if he'd told me,though I didn't know then how I knew it. But whatever passed between ushe didn't ask to understand but simply accepted with relief. His facesmoothed out of its monkeylike scowl and his lids dropped like rocks ashe passed into long-overdue sleep. 
"ooh!" Xinh cried and shook her hand. I left the dressing cart by Ahn'sbed and walked to hers. A blur of blue-green light surrounded her. I blinked hard, but the light remained. 
"What's wrong, Xinh?" 
She held up her hand so I could see the fingernail broken into thequick, a thin line of burgundy light pulsing from it. "Nothing. Tete dau," she said, her frown vanishing. 
She took my hand in her sore one and swung it back and forth,companionably. This made me a little uncomfortable, but I knew fromwatching Vietnamese people that same-sex friends often held hands inpublic. I was grateful for the gesture, since I was still feeling alittle like an ogress for spanking Ahn, despite the surprising way hehad reacted. Xinh was impossible to dislike. Her emotions swept acrossher face like weather on a seascape, sunny one minute, stormy the next,but open and changeable. She painted her nails and tried differenthairdos and watched the performers on Vietnamese TV. I was sure that if I could understand what she and Mal gossiped about, it would have beenwhat my friends in nursing school talked about, boys, clothes, normalthings that had nothing to do with the war. The only thing funny abouther was that blue-green stain. I must have a bad case of heatstroke, Ithought, and reclaimed my hand. "I have to get back to work, Xinh," Isaid. 
She pulled her own hand away and started to suck on the broken 'l, thenstopped with't halfway to her mouth. "Heyy! Numbah one!" 
nal she said, her eyes shining. She held up her nail, perfectly intact,with about a quarter inch of unpainted growth showing above her ruinedpolish job. She looked at me as if I had pulled a coin from behind herear. "How you do that?" 
"Huh?" I said stupidly. Maybe Xinh wasn't feeling so good either -shewas that funny color around the edges. Maybe we were both sick. I looked at both of Xinh's hands-all of the nails were intact. I shrugged. She shrugged and happily accepted the mending of her manicureas a miracle of American medicine. I felt distinctly dizzy as I startedback for the nurses' station. 
Mal returned to the ward, her hair newly washed, and glowing irl'descent pink. I rubbed my eyes and looked away from her. 
The lunch cart arrived, and Meyers and Voorhees started passing lunchtrays. I joined them at the cart and pulled a tray out, then startedgiggling helplessly. Not only did a baby-pink glow wrap both corps men,but the food was also color-coded: a pale green wisp over the cottagecheese, a faint orange to the fish. 
"You okay, Lieutenant?" Voorhees asked. 
"Uh-yeah. But I think I'd better sit down. Everything looks funny tome." I turned back toward my chair and tripped over my own feet. 
Meyers caught my arm. "Whoa there, ma'am, what you been on?" 
Istared hard at the dark brown center of his face and ignored the fluffof pink tipping his modified afro. "I dunno. One of you guys put adrop of acid on my fizzle or something? You're all weird-" I started to say "colored" and was afraid Meyers would take it wrong, so instead Iasked for a drink of Kool-Aid and sat down again with my head between myknees. Maybe I was having some kind of drug reaction, but I found thathard to believe. More likely it was the heat. I had fainted during myfirst scrub, when I stood in a closed operating theater in muggyninety-degree heat and watched a particularly bloody mastectomy whileunwiped sweat ran down my face and pooled under my surgical mask. I'd also fainted during my first O.B. case, also in the summer, when theheat made the blood smell like hot metal. But I hadn't ever seen colors like this before-a roar in my ears and a sudden blurring of vision, butnever distinct shades surrounding perfectly welldefined individuals. AndI'd been sick those other times. Today I didn't actually physicallyfeel any worse than I'd felt every day since I'd been in country. 
Maybe I should have my eyes checked? But that wouldn't explain why Xinhhad a blue-green halo while everybody else's was pink. Did only staffget pink halos? I'd have to ask Chaplain O'Rourke about that one. Maybethere was more to that angel-of-mercy stuff than met the eye. Trying tofigure it out did make me start to feel a little nauseous, so I avoidedthe whole issue by refusing to look at anyone and finishing my chartinginstead. 
When the major returned from her Tuesday morning staff meeting, shepushed Xe's gurney in front of her. A rosy glow surrounded her. He looked gray around the gills. 
"Joe says it will take a couple more procedures to get Xe's stumps inshape for prostheses," she said. "But he came through this like achamp. Get his vitals, will you, Kitty?" 
As I bent over to listen to his blood pressure, the amulet fell out ofmy shirt. I pulled the necklace off over my head. "Here you go,papasan. Safe and sound," I told him, and looped the theng back overhis shaved head. His color and my vision immediately improved. That is, the gray around him vanished and a little warmth touched his cheeks,not above them but right there in the skin, where it belonged. The glowdisappeared from around my hands too. I knew something strange washappening, and remembered what Heron and Mai said about the old man, butI misunderstood even then and got it backward. "You must be a holy man,papasan," I said. "You seem to have cured whatever was wrong with me." 
suppose so far it sounds as if we never treated anyone but ivietnamesepatients. Sometimes, the slower times that was almost true. Joe keptthe native patients as long as he could, until they were as completelywell as we could make them, because life outside the hospital was moreconducive to dying than to healing. 
But we did treat GI casualties, of course, and when they came, it was inswarms that all but swamped us. The first big push came the day afterXe's surgery. It was what I had imagined it would be like while I wasin training, while I was at Fitzsimons, while I was working neuro, wherewe seldom got mass casualty patients except as overflow. The pushesweren't as constant as I'd believed they would be, which was just aswell, because despite all my imaginary scenarios of how I would handlethat kind of situation, when the first one came I definitely was notready. 
Partly, that was because of the way I had spent the night before. 
Tony had ambled onto the ward during evening report and hung out at thecoffeepot until I finished. "Carry your books home for you,Lieutenant?" he asked, grinning. 
He'd pushed his aviator specs back into his curls and looked like amovie star playing a helicopter pilot. "Hi, soldier, new in town?" Ikidded back, slipping into the space under his arm as we walked out ofthe hospital. 
"I had to see you. You glad?" he asked. Well, I was glad he wanted tosee me, yeah, but I wished he'd waited till I'd taken a shower. 
"Sure am. But who's going to fly all those helicopters while you'reaway?" 
We just fit walking hip to hip, up the barracks stairs. "I told Lightfoot, my crew chief, where to find me if he needs me," he said,slamming my screen door behind us, flipping on the fan, and attacking mytop button in a single fluid motion. The room was smothering, asalways, but Tony was a lot hotter. He finished my buttons and helped mewith his during what was probably a fifteen-minute French kiss, if I'dbeen counting. And that was just the one on my mouth. "Come on, baby,"he said, sliding with me onto my bed. "Tell me how you want it. 
Well, what the hell. The dialogue wasn't exactly from Gone With theWind, but the action was certainly impressive. He was innovative and skillful, all over me and that bed. The man had to have pored over theKama Sutra as thoroughly as he'd studied his helicopter manuals, and hehandled me with the same sort of competence. The trouble was, I wasn'ta helicopter. Don't get me wrong. The sex was great, and I enjoyed iteven more because I felt maybe I was finally going to have a realboyfriend, someone I could get away from work with and confide thingsin. So I snuggled next to him, waiting until he was comfortable to tellhim about the crazy thing that had happened that morning, with thecolors and so on, and about Ahn and the old man. We wedged ourselvesspoonlike in the bed with the fan finally evaporating some of our mutualsweat. He tapped a pack of Marlboros against his chest until one poppedup, lit it, and took a couple of long, satisfied puffs. "You'll get akick out of this, Tony," I said. "Something really weird happened to meon the ward this morning......... I leaned up on one elbow to watch hisface. He was already asleep. I sighed, wondering why I felt it was somuch ruder for me to wake him up to talk to him than it was for him toscrew my brains out, then fall asleep. If he was going to sleep, Iwanted out of the bed and into a cool shower. I ran my fingers through his hair to remind him that I was still stuck between his butt and the wall. He rolled over, smiled lazily, and evcrything started all overagain. 
I climbed over him while he was in the process of lighting up the nexttime. He was sleeping when I returned, and I pulled off my cleanclothes and slid in beside him, getting slick again from his sweat. I flipped the sheet up over us and wondered fleetingly if this was what areal honest-to-God wartime romance was like before I, too, dropped off. 
I don't know how much later it was that someone pounded on the door. I woke up a little disoriented, felt Tony next to me, and thought, Ohshit, it's the colonel. "Who is it?" I asked. 
The door cracked and a round brown face with a hawkish nose poked.in,looked mildly interested at what it saw, and backed out again. "Spec-5Lightfoot, ma'am. I came for Mr. Devlin. We're on red alert now. Need to-" 
"Tonto? That you?" Tony asked sharply, sitting up and pulling on hisshorts and trousers as quickly as any fireman. "That's a roger, kemosabe. Time to saddle up. We gotta didi." 
He did lace his boots, but he was still buttoning his shirt as he ranout the door. He ran back and dropped a kiss on my nose. " 'Bye, babe.Call you later." 
I nodded and listened until his boots hit the bottom stair. 
Still, it was a good thing I'd spent a little time in bed that evening,because the rocket attack started a short time later and I spent therest of the night under the bed, in a T-shirt, panties, flak jacket, andhelmet, keeping the cockroaches company, hugging the plywood. 
What I was actually supposed to do, what we were all supposed to do, wasgrab flak jackets and helmets and head for the sandbag-reinforced bunkerhunching up between my barracks and the one facing it. Usually, nobodyeven bothered to vacate the officers' club. We hadn't received heavyfire in so long that the bunkers were not taken seriously. During myfirst rocket attack, I had dutifully reported to the cavelike littleshelter to find the chief of internal medicine suavely sipping a martiniand reading an Ian Fleming paperback by flashlight. By the next time,he had DEROSed (left the country) and the bunker was unoccupied. I took one look at the dismal, hot little hole and thought of coiled cobras andscorpions and snuck back up the stairs to hide under the bed. 
Which was what everybody else who paid any attention to the shellingdid. I had the procedure perfected by now. I took my pillow, flakjacket, helmet, usually a paper fan and a Coke, a book and a flashlight.It was a little like playing house under the dining room table when Iwas a kid. Usually I didn't mind it too much. The floor was hard, butyou needed your mattress on top of the bed to shield you. Thatparticular night I read the same sentence several times before givingup. I was plenty cool now, and I cursed Tony for being out there flyingaround making Vietnam safe for democracy when he should have been underthe bed with me. 
Then I thought about him flying around up there with all those rocketswhistling through the air, and I wished I could be working, just to takemy mind off it. Over on the wards, the staff would be moving thepatients who could be moved under the beds. Those who couldn't would have mattresses piled on top of them. Several times already, I'd had togive meds on my hands and knees. The GIs with the facial injuries keptasking for their weapons, which were locked up, and I kept wishing Icould slide under one of the beds, too, and huddle next to someone tillmorning. Even though I was supposed to be protecting those guys, I feltbetter knowing that they were there, under the beds. 
You could joke your way through a shelling over on the wards, and acttough. It was less funny to lie alone listening to the shriekingrockets, the mortars crumping like God stomping around out therethoroughly pissed off. 
Mentally, I composed a letter describing the rocket attack. Not to Mom and Dad, of course. I glossed over this kind of stuff when I wrote tothem, knowing it would scare them a lot worse than it really scared me.But it sounded nice and dramatic when I wrote to Duncan and might makehim worry about me a little, the shit. In my imaginary letter I toldhim about Tony, too-well, not everything, but enough to make him'Jealous. I'd have to get around to writing that sometime, I thought.Then, if I was ever found with shrapnel through my throat like thatnurse who was killed while sitting on a patient's bed, Duncan and Tonywould both be sorry. 
I had some good moments there imagining Tony berating himself forleaving me alone, and Duncan in tears when they sent my pathetic medalshome to him (of course, they wouldn't. They didn't send anything topeople you wished were your boyfriend. They sent all your stuff to yourparents). But I got tired of that eventually. I was pooped, and thenoise was giving me a headache, and my own dumb game didn't make the onegoing on outside seem any less stupid. 
It was fine for those guys to run around at night and shoot things ateach other, but how was I supposed to work if I had to toss and turn allnight on the damned plywood? Probably I'd catch my death of cold, too. 
If something was going to hit me, I wished it would just hit me.Otherwise, the whole war should just shut the hell up so a person couldget some sleep. All that noisy crap was just a nuisance anyhow. Nothingevej hit inside the compound. The VC couldn't afford to hit the 83rd. Who else would they be able to trick into taking care of their wounded?Once when George spent the night on guard duty and got pulled to workthe E.R. the next day, he returned to the ward shaking his head andmuttering, "They had a gunshot wound of the buttocks down there? Man, Iswear that looked like the same ass on the same sapper I hit last night.Friendly as hell this morning, though. Loves baseball, apple pie, andElvis like you wouldn't beeleeve." 
Finally, about 0300, choppers began thudding onto the pad, and theirsteady drone lulled me to sleep. 
When I went to work that morning, the ward was transformed. The daybefore, we'd had only two beds on the GI side filled; now we had onlytwo empty. Twelve bottles dangled from poles and Sarah sprinted from one to the other upending bottles long enough to squirt meds into therubber caps or inject them straight into the new, special littlechambers that came with some kinds of tubing. 
The corpsmen and Sergeant Baker ferried wash water, razors, andcigarettes from the nurses' station to the patients. 
"Hey, Sarge, can this dude have a drink of water?" Meyers called. 
"Private Garcia here wants a cigarette, but he's got a chest tube andbottles. What d'ya think?" Voorhees called. 
Sarah rehung a bottle, then consulted her clipboard. "No, he's going tosurgery he called to Meyers. "Absolutely not. Not till he's Off 021" she said to Voorhees. "But you can give him a drink of water if hewants. They operated on him last night." 
Marge grabbed an armload of charts and threw a clipboard at me. Wefollowed Sarah through the ward and she gave us a running account ofeach patient's wounds and what had been done for him. 
The patients were mostly quiet, not saying much. They were fresh fromthe field, from the ambush or firelight or whatever it was that gotthem. Most of them had been waiting wounded for a chopper, then waitingon the chopper and in the E.R. to see if they were going to die or not,how much of themselves they were going to have to lose to get out of thewar. Some were still groggy from surgery, others groggy from pre-opsbefore going to surgery. They all looked a little dazed, pale undertans or sunburns. 
The ward buzzed with a kind of macabre carnival frenzy like the feelingI'd always had in Kansas after a long hot spell when the wind blew upand the radio blared cyclone warnings. My adrenaline rose to theoccasion, jerking me from being half-awake to a clarity of mind thatdamn near amounted to X-ray vision. Sergeant Baker and the corpsmen,and even Marge, rushed from one end of the ward to the other, frowningwith concentration but with a lively urgency to their voices andmovements, making little jokes with one another and the patients. 
I scribbled fast notes and started preparing the next I.V.s, slappingbottles onto the counter and decapitating them, injecting sterile waterinto dry powdered antibiotics and shaking ampoules until my hands werestreaked with white grainy leakage of ampicillin, Keflex, andChloromycetin. I picked up some of the manic feeling from the others.We looked like a recruiting poster, selfless healers doing our bit forthe boys. 
As the patients began to wake up, from sleep or shock or anesthetic,they mostly seemed fairly happy, and in spite of their wounds, there wassome 'Justification for it. They would be out of it now-out of theboonies, out of range, out of Vietnam. Clean sheets and a bath and a pain shot were more comfort than some of them had had in a year andclearly filled them with awe. Most of them remained somewhat subdued,but relief was at least as prevalent as dismay in their reactions totheir situation. The magnitude of their losses, the full impact theirwounds would make on their lives, didn't hit most of them right away. Itwas like jet lag. One minute they were in one piece in the middle of a firelight, the next they were safely tucked in at the hospital, notfeeling sick but with some part of them they had come to take forgranted broken, crushed, full of holes, or missing. But that was the bad news, and it would take time to sink in. The good news was that theshow was over and they were going home. It was as if they thought thatwhen they went home, everything would be made okay again. They'd begiven their DEROS papers and their medals along with those pieces ofthemselves they would need to make it back in the States. I don't think it dawned on very many of them at first that those pieces had to staybehind, in the field, on the E.R. floor. Back in the States, they'dbegin to realize they'd been gypped. 
I'd already seen that side of it back at Fitzsimons, on the orthopedics(read "amputee") ward. 
My civilian experience with amputees had been with elderly diabetics wholost limbs to wound infection. The guys I treated at Fitz were notelderly. They were all about nineteen, and before getting wounded everydanin one of them thought he was immortal, that getting hit was whathappened to the other guy. And their wounds were not gradual. Overnightthey lost their mobility, their manual dexterity, their futures, theirself-respect, and, in their own minds at least, their manhood. Sometimesthey lost their families. Strong young men weren't supposed to becripples. 
And there I was, barely twenty-one years old, fresh out of a dorm fullof other girls, knowing nothing about war, and damned little about men,maybe less about myself, or what kind of messages I was sending, or howto handle the responses I got. 
The idea was I was going to be professional, tough but understanding. I wasn't going to mind a little old thing like a missing limb. I was a nurse, after all, I saw whole people, not just wounds or the space whereparts that were missing were supposed to be. 
It didn't quite work out how I'd planned it. My patients at Fitzsimonswere experts on tough. I tried being seriously empathetic, but that wastaken for pity and I was told angrily by a man who almost believed it,"Hey, I got nothing to feel sorry about. Sure I lost a leg, but youknow how much they're gonna have to pay me for that sucker? 
Man, thousands and thousands. I'm set up for life!" And I didn't knowhow to take it when somebody offered me a necklace of Vietnamese ears,showed me pictures of mutilated bodies, or told me about the torture ofprisoners. 
The one that bothered me most was the handsome young guy with footballmuscles who purred in my ear the whole time I was wrapping the stump ofhis right arm, telling me with considerable relish about the rape andexecution of a Vietcong nurse. I made the mistake of meeting his eyesonce while I bandaged him. His eyes shone like a little kid's onChristmas Morning and a drop of saliva dewed one corner of his mouth ashe told me how they had shoved explosives up the woman's vagina and litthe fuse, and what the mess looked like afterward. I could see him getting off on it, telling that story and watching me, putting me in herplace. I wanted to slug him with the nearest bedpan. I wanted to tellhim how sorry I was that it was only his arm that had gotten blown off. 
That was only the one guy, of course, and now that I think of it, thatand all of the other gross-outs, the coarse randiness, must have been akind of advance revenge on females for anticipated defeats. A wounded war hero can be a romantic figure, but he'd better have nothing worsethan some colorful scars or some vague disease he picked up in thetropics. He'd better have all his parts in pretty good working order ifhe comes home from an unpopular war and wants to impress girls with hispotential as a combination lover and meal ticket. Some of the patientshad already been rejected, put down hard. The worst example of that Iknew of was Tommy, who had a crazy tobacco-stained grin and an ironicsense of humor, and who wheeled around visiting the new guys, givingthem shit to keep them going. "Hey, babe, c'mon to the beauty shop withme," I heard him say in his broad Brooklyn accent to a guy with abilateral amp of the legs who was busy cussing out his physicaltherapist. "You need a pedicure to get in shape for swimsuit season."And the guy laughed a little and settled down to work. Tommy could getaway with that because he had lost an arm, an ear, and an eye as well asboth legs. And when his family came to visit him at the hospital forthe first time, his wife and his parents took one look at him and left,and that was the end of it. Atrocities were by no means confined toNam. 
But even understanding all that, I had trouble dealing with the horrorstories and with the angry, aggressive sexual advances. If you'd askedthe colonel, she'd probably have told you that I invited them, that Iteased the poor, helpless patients. And okay, when I say I wasrelatively inexperienced, I do not mean I was a virgin. I was, in fact,the black sheep of my nursing class, and all of the gently rearedsmall-town girls in my class came to me as they got engaged and asked mewhere the heck to put their knees. The thing was, I didn't considermyself easy to offend and I tried to act as if anything that was said tome was cool, that I could handle it. 
Usually I could. Usually passes were joking or wistful, frightened guysasking for reassurance that they were still men. 
There were maybe only four or five out of over a hundred patients whoreally gave me a hard time, but nobody told me how I was supposed todeal with it, and nobody stopped them, so I went to work every morningwith my gut in knots. 
I wanted to do what I was taught in training and be accepting andnonjudgmental, see, or at least act as if I were. But these guys sawthrough me, or thought they did. What they saw was that I was rejectingthem as maimed. And it was true that the stumps bothered me at first.It was true that what I found sexiest physically about Duncan was hisbeautiful strong hands and his long legs. But lots of guys had thoseand they didn't turn me on the way Duncan did. What I loved the most about him was his wit, his passion for history and poetry, and hisability to make stories come to life, his silliness. I would still love him if he lost a limb or two as long as he kept those qualities. But I guess that was the problem, really. With rare exceptions like Tommy,the loss of limbs seemed to mean the loss of those other qualities,tootemporari 'Iy, at least. That was what I really couldn't deal with.That and the fact I knew that if I were in their place, God forbid, Iwouldn't take it any better than they did. 
One day three of them surrounded me while I was changing a dressing andsuggested that maybe since I was this helping person who cared abouttheir problems and all, I could help them out with a little physicaltherapy at a local motel. In a normal setting, I'd have told themflatly that nurses don't date patients, period. But quoting rules atthem provoked the same response as spitting at them. I wanted to tell them that even if I had been the whore they seemed to think me, I didn'tdo gang bangs. But then, part of me felt like, Why can't you guys befair? You know how this game is played. If one of you had the decencyto say thanks, we appreciate your trying to help, how about coming outto dinner and we'll get better acquainted, well, yeah, even if I wasn'tcompletely bowled over by your charm you might guilt-trip me intosomething, which wouldn't be as good as if it was real maybe, but atleast we'd both get laid, and feel moderately okay about it. 
Instead I told them I was in love. Which I was, but Duncan determinedlyhad nothing to do with my sex life. I thought, these guys don't want tomake love to me, they don't even like me. They want to hurt me, theywant to make me feel worse than I already do. So I said I was sorry, Iwas not available, then added with hypocritical nursely courtesy thatmaybe somebody else would be interested. They said who. I was squirmingby then. And it honestly crossed my mind that maybe I Just was tooprudish, that maybe if I were nonjudgmental, more secure sexually, thiswould not sound like an invitation to rape. Whatever. The bottom line was that I threw them a sacrificial name, another lieutenant who hadconfided in me that she was horny. Needless to say, she never spoke tome again, and when the story got back to our C.O., I was bawled out andaccused of pimping and, what my instructor seemed to think was worse,not delivering what the men said I promised. 
But promises were being broken all around. Most of us in Nam were the children of the last war that was ever supposed to be fought anywhere inthe world. All of the baby boys were promised that they would grow upand become successful and all of the baby girls were promised thatsomeday their princes would come. Then along came the goddamngovernment and bingo, it sent the princes off to battle communism andissued them the right to hate anyone not in their unit. Then it sentthem home in body bags, or with their handsome faces melted or blownaway, their bodies prematurely aged with disease or terrible wounds, andtheir idealistic souls turned into sewers. And those were the survivors. Where the hell did that leave me and all the other women? Realistically, I knew that Duncan was not going to change his mind andfall madly in love with me. So what if the guy who was supposed to, myreal true love, my Mr. Right, was on one of these wards somewhere, sofucked up I'd never recognize him? Worse, what if he was lying in somerice paddy decomposing under a poncho' If he was among the merelywounded, I could only hope that whoever was taking care of him wasbetter at salvage operations than I was. 
Having to deal with all that again was part of what scared me aboutfacing GI casualties on ward four, but as my grandmother would havesaid, I was borrowing trouble. Nobody offered me ears, nobody made anymoves toward me except to grab my hand for reassurance, or to tell me Ismelled good. Even the horror stories were somehow changed, thoughactually, many of them were the same garbage I had heard at Fitz.Hearing them batted back and forth across the ward among members of the same unit, I realized that some of those stories were.nothing more thanfolktales the guys told one another to keep their courage up, make themfeel like the meanest, the baddest, the worst, so bad even hell wouldn'twant to fuck with them. So I tuned it out, and watched the major andJoe and Sarge and did what they did and listened to what they said. 
One thing Marge did not do was put on the same kind of phony act thenursing instructors tell you to. She worked, she medicated, bandaged,and said normal, mundane things, asked trite questions that were easy toanswer. "Your name is So-and-so? Where are you hit? Are you allergicto anything?" and later, "Where are you from? How did this happen?" Nomatter where they were from, she always knew some body from there or hadvisted the place, made the guy feel like some body who had once had abackground and people. 
Her ward policy was to give pain meds a half hour before dressingchanges, and always to soak bandages in peroxide or normal saline beforetrying to remove them. We made a good team, and when she had a day off,I hardly noticed, because she had shown me very clearly what to do andhow simple it was. Dressings and meds were all I was responsible for.Sergeant Baker was in charge of the staff and they mostly knew what theywere doing better than I did. If they didn't, Sarge told them. 
He was a 91-Charlie, the same as a licensed practical nurse, and hechecked my pre-op meds with me since I was still nervous about them. 
But Joe Giangelo always wrote his orders and, if I had even theslightest question, dropped everything until we were both sure he hadwritten what he intended and I knew why. 
The only problem was, we were all spread much too thin. Joe was in surgery constantly after each new influx of casualties, Mai was oftenneeded to translate in E.R. for the fresh Vietnamese casualties that frequently accompanied or arrived shortly after the GIs, and no matterhow full or busy we were, some other ward always seemed to need toborrow one of our corpsmen. 
And once we'd gotten the I.V. bottles hung, the next ones mixed, oneround of pain meds given and dressings done on the GI side, there werealways the Vietnamese patients. Dang Thi That's neomycin irrigations toher hip needed to be monitored. She was still our most critical Vietnamese patient, but her surgery had been postponed until after thecrunch was over. Ahn's surgery, which was a relatively quick and simpledebridement, had been left on the roster for Wednesday, which was twodays after the casualties started arriving. If the kid didn't get insoon, he was going to rot away. 
Marge had a day off that morning, so as soon as I'd done the rockbottommorning necessities on the GI side, I left the ward to Sergeant Bakerand Voorhees and crossed to the Vietnamese side to see how Mal was doing. 
Ahn, who had been fairly quiet and tractable for a day or two, was oncemore in full voice. O.R. should be calling anytime to tell me to givehis pre-op, and it didn't look as if ong thing had been done to get himready for surgery. If he wouldn't cooperate, the very least I expectedwas to find Mal trying to shush the kid or talk some sense into him. 
Instead, she appeared to be engaged in furious gossip with Xinh, bothgirls frowning and gesturing in the boy's direction. 
I held my temper. Mai was highly regarded by Joe, Marge, Baker, andboth corpsmen. It had to be more than her pretty face and wet coiffure.So in my best head-nurse voice I said, "Miss Mal, I'd like to speak toyou for a moment, please." Mai ignored that, but both she and Xinh beganflapping their hands at me to 'oin them. 
"Tell her, Xinh. Tell her what he say," Mal said. 
"You know Vietnamee soldier next to babysan, Kitty?" 
"Private Dong?" 
"I hear him say babysan, I hear him say, 'Babysan, you go with them-' "She turned to Mai and broke into frustrated Vietnamese. 
"Surgery," Mal supplied. "He tell babysan if he go to surgery, they cutoff all his arms and legs." 
"He did, did he?" I asked, very calmly, under the circumstances. Thedays of handling big-time crises really had done wonders for myself-control. "Xinh, thank you very much for telling us this. Mai,would you come with me, please? I'd like you to set babysan straightfor me and then there are a few choice things I'd like you to convey toPrivate Dong." 
We stood before them. Ahn looked up at me, not with the same fear andhatred he had before, but with disappointment and hopelessness. I wanted to wipe that away, first. "Please tell babysan that when he goesto surgery, Bac si Joe will only work on what is left of his left leg totry to save as much as possible. Later, the doctor will give him a newwooden leg so he can walk again. Tell babysan that Private Dong was nottelling him the truth." She shushed Ahn and talked to him for some time,answering his interruptions until his expression changed to one ofskepticism and worry. He glanced down at his soiled dressing and up atme and seemed about to cry again. 
Then I turned to Dong, who was blowing smoke rings and smirking. I pulled the cigarette from between his fingers and crushed it under myboot. "Mai, please tell Private Dong that I'm very sorry if he thinkswe amputated his legs without cause, but that is untrue. Please tell him that if I ever again hear of him frightening this child or any of myother patients with such stories, I'll personally take care of hisremaining limbs with a rusty butter knife." 
Mal looked a little puzzled at some of the terms, but got into thespirit of the thing and, I think, invented Vietnamese equivalents forthe parts of my threat that didn't translate. 
Sometime during this discussion, the phone had started ringing. It stopped of its own accord, but shortly thereafter Joe stormed onto theward, still in bloody green scrub clothes and paper scuffs. "What the hell is going on, Kitty? They've been trying to call to tell you togive Ahn his pre-op for fifteen minutes. I'm going to lose the roomif-" I told him what had been going on. Fortunately, he was the sort ofperson who, when he demanded an explanation, listened to it. While I was explaining I drew up the pre-op, checked it with him, and gave it toAhn, who accepted it with surprising readiness. Joe chewed his fingernail while I talked, looked at the little boy, and looked at Dong,who had turned over on his stomach sometime during Mai's lecture. Thenkindly Geppetto turned on his heel and jerked a thumb back at Dong."Lose the bastard," he said. "Send him to the ARVN hospital or, ifthat's full, to Province. I don't want to see him again. I'll write the order when I'm through in O.R." 
I caught Mai's eye. Her mouth was compressed, with a little quirk atone side, and she nodded once, sharply, with satisfaction. I almost expected her to dust her hands as if she had just finished taking outthe garbage. 
Rounds on the GI side were no quieter. A second push had come in around0200 hours, so most of the men had been quiet earlier that morning,still sleeping or sedated. I knew them only by which antibiotics theywere getting, and the name on their plastic wrist tags and at the footof their beds, all of which I double-checked before handing them thepill cup under the little card carrying the same name. 
I passed pills to two wan young men who accepted them with gratitude.The second one had some questions about his cast, followed by a briefchat about the medevac procedure and his telling me he was fromPennsylvania and had I ever been there? 
"Hi," I said, all unsuspecting, to the third patient. "How you doingthis morning? Need anything?" 
"Out of this fu-out of here, that's all," he said. 
"I think that can be arranged," I told him. "You'll be going to Japanpretty soon. I see the night nurse gave you a pain shot just before wecame on. That holding you?" 
He nodded, but didn't look much interested in talking, so I moved on. 
"Hey, Lieutenant, I could sure use a pain shot," the guy next to himsaid. He had his arm in a cast and the whole thing suspended in a slingfrom an I.V. pole. 
I checked his chart. "Looks like you had a shot about two hours ago,too, corporal. It's ordered every four hours." 
"But this arm still hurts like shit!" 
"I'm sorry. I can give you something in about another hour, but it'sdangerous to give you too much too close together." 
I checked his cast. There was about a half inch of extra I-oom around the wrist and another half inch above his elbow, so it didn't seem tootight. The color in his fingers was fine, tan, still grimy around theknuckles. His nail beds were pink. A bloody spot had already appearedat the cast's pristine elbow, but that wasn't unusual, unless it got larger. No, clinically everything checked out. Unfortunately, thefirst couple of days, fractures just plain hurt. 
"Oh shit," he said and smacked his head back down on his pillow,jingling the dog tags, love beads, and roach clip around his neck. "I don't even believe this shit. Come to a fuckin' hospital and they can'teven give you somethin' for the fuckin' pain, man. Anybody got afuckin' joint?" 
Nobody offered him one, at least in front of me. I probably should havehad Voorhees take him out to the Vietnamese tent to get high on theatmosphere. But it was no wonder his pain medication wasn't holdinghim. Even pot raised people's tolerance to pain meds, so that the samedosages were less effective. I'd had the same problem with civilianpatients addicted to their prescription Valium or Librium. I decided to ask Joe about increasing the dosage, at least for the day, but didn'tsay anything to the patient, in case Joe didn't go for it. No sense in raising false hopes. 
Farther down, a red-faced young man still wearing a splint on his leftankle suddenly sat bolt upright. He strained Is neck toward the entrance to the ward, his Adam's apple bouncing up and down, and theveins in his arms stood out so clearly I started imagining how easy theywould be to hit with an I.V. needle. "Hey, ma'am," he whisperedhoarsely. "Ma'am, I don't want to alarm you or nothin', but I think Ijust saw a zip go past the doorway." 
I almost said, "What? A zip in Vietnam? Surely not!" but remembered intime that the grunt sense of humor was usually dampened considerably bybeing wounded. So I just told him casually that he probably had, sincewe had lots of Vietnamese patients and staff members. 
,,But this is an American hospital!" he said indignantly. He was as young as they all were, his face deeply sunburned and peeling, with awhite line near the hair where his hat or a bandanna might have been. Hehad frag wounds in both legs as well as the fractured left ankle. Whenhe saw that I wasn't going to rush out and correct what he seemed tothink was a terrible oversight, he continued. "Man, I don't want tojust lie here with no weapon with damn zips runnin' around. You can'ttrust 'em. Not any of 'em. The kids will blow you up, the babies arebooby-trapped- Hey, ma'am, no offense, but you know what they say aboutthe way to win Vietnam. You take all the friendlies and put 'em in aboat in the middle of the South China Sea, nuke the country, then sinkthe boat." 
Yes, indeed, I had heard that one. Many times. Way too many times. ButI ignored it and said, "Well, most of the patients have been here for awhile, and we don't let them have weapons either. They're mostly hurtas bad as you are, or worse. And the interpreters have been workinghere longer than I have, and haven't hurt anybody yet." 
But he was still shaking his head as I moved on. 
Two beds down, a man was moaning low heretical obscenities that rose involume as I approached, to, "Oh, why me? Why did this happen to me? Aw,shit. Goddamn, this hurts like a motherfucker." 
The two patients between him and me had rolled onto their stomachs withpillows covering their heads. 
I checked the noisy one's chart. Crushing injuries to the soft tissueof both legs, it said. Nasty. The crisp smell of antiseptic gauze wasoverlaid by the tang of old blood and a touch of the sicky-sweet reek ofrot. His bandages were soaked with the breakdown fluids from hiscrushed skin and muscle. Soft-tissue injuries were often more painfulthan broken bones-and healed more slowly. 
"Sounds like you're really hurting," I said, checking his chart, whichidentified him as PFC Ronald G. Dickens. "You need something?" It hadbeen only two and a half hours, but I was willing to stretch it andestimate a long fifteen minutes to prepare the injection. Fifteenminutes' leeway on the three-to-four-hour limit was usually permissible. 
" I sure as hell do. I need you to get your ass over there to yourlittle stash, sweetheart, and get me a fuckin' pain shot before I gothrough the fuckin' roof. Oh God, oh Gawd." 
Nursing is such a rewarding profession. All that gratitude. Restrainingmyself from strangling him, I drew up the Demerol, but when I swabbedthe alcohol wipe on his thigh before administering the injection liestarted bellowing in my ear again. "Jesus fucking Christ, woman, youcan't give it there. Not in my leg, oh shit-" 
"Well, if you want to wait until I get help to roll you over-" 
"And move these legs? Lady, are you out of your fuckin' mind? 
I'm hurt, you stupid-" 
"Hey, man, cool it," the fellow across the aisle told him. "The lady'sjust trying to help you." 
"Fuck you," Dickens said, and while he was flipping my would-be rescuerthe bird I shoved in the needle, aspirated, and pushed in the plungerbefore he said something I really couldn't ignore. 
"I'll let that take effect and be around to change your dressing prettysoon." I ducked around to the other side of the next bed to put maximu4ndistance between us, and tried to calm myself down. I knew the guy hurtand hurt badly and was probably still shocky. But he still pissed meoff. Maybe he wouldn't be so nasty once the Demerol took effect. He probably realized he might lose some or all of both legs with injurieslike that and would undoubtedly lose some function-it was one thing toexpress those feelings, even loudly, and another thing to take it out onme. 
My hands shook as I disposed of the needle and syringe at the nurses'station. Then I took a deep breath and concentrated firmly on the nextpatient, a Navy corpsman who was lying on his stomach because, inaddition to having lost both legs, he had sustained multiple deeplacerations to his buttocks and back. I thought he was sleeping, but heturned his head toward me. "Hi, Lieutenant. Having a nice day?" heasked, grinning. "Don't answer that. Listen, I think it's about timefor the heat lamp to my butt. Would you do the honors?" 
I pulled back the light sheet that covered his lower half-his upperhalf, like that of most of the men, was already bare except for dog tagsand assorted GI jewelry. His stumps were bandaged, with drainage at theends, and I made :! note to bring more gauze to reinforce them when Ichanged the dressings of the charmer in the next bed. The lacerations on his hips were deep and infected, seeping green and smelling to highheaven of pseudomonas, a germ that got into everything. I pulled thesilver gooseneck lamp over and cranked his bed down so that the lip ofthe lamp was high enough above him that it wouldn't burn him. "There you go," I told him. 
"Thanks a lot, ma'am." 
"Uh-you need anything for pain?" 
"I think I'd better hold off. I'm going to need it a lot worse later,"he said ruefully. 
"How-uh-how did you get hurt?" I asked. 
"Oh, I was helping out when the compound this bunch came from got hit. Isaw this dude get hit out by the perimeter and was trying to drag him inout of range. I screwed up and dragged him across a live grenade. Threwhim up in the air and blew the shit out of my legs. I don't remember any of that. I guess the Army medic saved my life, but he couldn't savemy legs. They tell me I landed in a nest of concertina wire-that's howI got cut up." 
"Yeah? How about the guy you dragged?" 
He shrugged. "Nobody's said. I think he just took some frags, but hardtellin'. If you hear anything, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know." 
Tony called as I was finishing my charting on the Vietnamese side. 
"Keeping busy?" he asked. 
"Sure am, thanks to you." 
"No problem. Happy to be of service. When can we get together again?" 
The red-haired Special Forces type, Heron, flipped a mock salute as hepassed the nurses' station on the way to visit Xe. The old man lay','lke a poor man's skinny Buddha, hands crossed on the concave spotwhere his belly should have been, eyes closed. They opened when he sawHeron and he actually smiled. 
"Uh-I don't know," I told Tony. "Can you come over here after worktomorrow?" 
"I doubt it. We're still on alert." 
"Well, I'm off Monday next week. We could go to the beach or the club,maybe......... 
"Okay. Then, if not before. Gotta go. 'Bye, babe." I said good-bye to a dial tone. 
Both the ARVN and Ahn were gone, I noticed. I'd passed Joe's order onto Sergeant Baker, who'd said he'd take care of it. Apparently he had.Even as I was thinking Ahn was a long time returning from surgery,recovery room called and said they were sending him back to US. 
Heron sat on the edge of Xe's bed, talking to him in a Southernfriedversion of Vietnamese. The old man listened and nodded and said something once in a while. Heron's large hand covered the old man'sfrail one. Xe's other hand was, as usual, stroking his amulet. 
Sergeant Baker called for Meyers to come and help him lift someone onthe GI side, so I took Ahn's vital signs myself, and made sure heturned, coughed, and took deep breaths, all of which he did socooperatively I wondered if they'd sent us another kid by mistake. 
Dang Thi That's hip needed attention next. The woman gave me a waterysmile as I swished the irrigating fluid around in her wound. The woundwasn't as red as it had been, and before long might be r eady for skingrafts. I returned her smile and with forceps removed the light gauzecovering the surface of the large wound and replaced it with fresh. Her breath sucked in with a sharp hiss, but as soon as I was done, shereleased it with a sigh and tried again to smile, although her eyes werebrimming. Her face reminded me a little of that of an aunt of mine, agood woman who had a strong will, a hard life, and a lot of Indianblood. If this kind of thing had happened to Aunt Do, I could see hertaking it the same way as Mrs. Dang. 
While I was passing meds, Sergeant Baker, carrying his supply list,tromped onto the ward, followed by Meyers and Voorhees. Voorhees looked slightly sick. 
"Pretty bad, huh?" Baker asked, chewing on his cigar while he scannedthe shelves as if daring them to be short of anything we needed. When he found something, he marked it down, frowning as if he were giving ita demerit. 
"No shit," Voorhees said. "I'm sorry, Sarge, but that Province Hospitalis not my idea of a place to send sick people. Compared to it, thestock pens back home are the damn Hilton Hotel." 
"Yeah, it ain't much of a place," Baker agreed. "But that's the waythese people treat their own. Myself, I don't see it, but it's theirdamn country." 
"What's so bad about it?" I asked. 
"They didn't even have any beds, ma'am," Voorhees said, almostsputtering with indignation, "just some cruddy old mats." 
"A lot of the Vietnamese don't sleep in beds at home, you know," themajor told him. 
"Yeah, well, not ones like these. They were all soaked with old bloodand pus and stuck to the floor, and the whole place smelled like anouthouse that's been used once too often. People were lying two and three together on these damn mats, without any clothes on, or all dirty,with untreated amputations and wounds and big running sores on them. AndMrs. O'Malley-that's one of the missionaries who was there when I tookthe ARVN-said they don't even feed them. If somebody from the familydoesn't bring in meals, the patients just go hungry. I tell you, it wasgross, ma'am. Bugs crawling all over people. We might as well just haveshot that guy and put him out of his misery." 
I was beginning to wish I'd argued with Joe, but I'd been as mad as hewas about the way Dong had treated Ahn. Still, we accepted that our owncasualties would have lots of hostile feelings they worked through inpretty antisocial ways. For them, there was treatment and at least acertain amount of tolerance. 
Mai, who had been charting her 1300 vital signs, chimed in. "I tell you, honest, what Gus say is true. No one get well Vietnamee hospital.Everybody go there die. That why everybody so happy come here." 
"I guess I thought Province Hospital was just like ours, only thedoctors and nurses were Vietnamese," I said. But I suddenly rememberedwhen, right after I'd started working on ward six, I met a visitingVietnamese doctor, an educated man with a French accent and Frenchtraining, touring the ward with Dr. Riley in some kind of exchangeprogram. While the other doctors were off consulting about something,he'd stood there looking embarrassed, and, trying to put him at ease,I'd attempted to strike up a conversation. I asked, "Are you a surgeon,sir?" 
"No," he'd said. He was smiling a mild and self-effacing smile thatdidn't prepare me for his elaboration. "No, I am not a surgeon. I am not really a doctor, by your standards. I am a butcher. I work in a charnel house." Apparently he hadn't just been modest. 
Baker shook his head and waved his cigar for Voorhees to follow him intothe storeroom. I was opening my mouth to ask Mai if she'd ever workedin Vietnamese hospitals before when Heron wandered over to thecoffeepot. "You know, Lieutenant, we're always needing nurses formedcap missions. Could be you'd find that a real interesting way tospend one of your days off......... He was carefully polite this time,but I could hear him thinking: Instead of going to the beach all thetime. 
But dammit, I needed breaks from the hospital to keep me sane. A secondhand report of a place like Province Hospital was enough for me,thank you. My martyr complex only extended just so far. 
Heron seemed to read me as readily as I'd read him. "Going on a medcapisn't anything like going to Province, you know. We take you nurses andthe doctors and supplies to the villages and you treat people rightthere." 
"Is that how you met Xe?" I asked. "On a medcap mission?" 
"It's how I heard of him," he said, stirring his coffee with the buttend of a ballpoint pen. "Wherever Xe had been, we weren't needed." 
"Why? What do you mean?" 
"He's kind of a one-man AMA," Heron said ruefully. "Only not aspolitical." 
"Xe's a doctor?" I asked, feeling ridiculously dismayed that we hadn'textended the old man more professional courtesy. 
"Kinda. He's sort of a combination of doctor and priest, but I guessyou'd have to say he was practicing medicine without a license, byAmerican standards. I've been studying with him since I met him afterhe'd saved one of my people from rabies." 
"You were the one who called in the chopper when he got hit, weren'tyou?" 
"Umm hmm." 
"You say you study with him. Is he like your guru or something?" 
He gulped the coffee and pitched the cup irl the wastebasket with abasketball twist of the wrist. "Yeah, something like that. Think about what I said about the medcap, Lieutenant. Every Thursday morning." 
I didn't much like Charlie Heron. He was a little holler-thanthou. He made me feel like some stupid debutante who never did anything butpolish her nails and have her hair fixed all day. What did he think I was doing in the hospital anyway? 
What Heron hinted about Xe was intriguing, though, especially since theold man seemed to have amazing recuperative powers. The day after Ahn'ssurgery, the old man spotted someone using a wheelchair and nothingwould do until Mai and Voorhees lifted him into it. 
He wheeled himself around the ward as if he were indeed making roundsand afterward returned to bed exhausted. 
Later, Ahn moaned in his sleep and I took him a pain shot. The kid rolled over without a peep and, after I'd given him the injection,rolled onto his back again. His sheets had worked loose, so I began tostraighten them and hauled him up in bed, lifting him with an arm underhis shoulder, another under his hips. As I pulled my arms out andstarted to straighten, his good arm tightened around my neck and heburied his face against my shoulder for a moment. 
The next morning, Marge was still off. Voorhees got pulled to ICU andSergeant Baker spent most of the morning in his ward masters' meeting.Joe was in surgery with Dang Thi That. There was a new technique forskin grafts using cadaver skin to cover wounds like hers, and Joe wasanxious to try it out. 
I went through my morning routine and checked the charts for the ordersJoe had been writing while we were in report. On Dickens's chart was a new order: the dressings on his crushed legs were to be changed daily. 
Remembering the man's behavior when he first arrived on the ward, I knewit wasn't going to be easy. 
Most of the new casualties had pretty well stabilized by then, and wererelaxed, shouting obscenities back and forth across the ward, sometimesthrowing stuff at one another. When I took them their meds or changedtheir dressings, most of them seemed anxious to talk now, to tell meabout their wives or girlfriends or mothers or dogs, even, to talk aboutwhat a mess it was back in the unit, to gossip about things they'd heardin the bush. Some of them talked so much you couldn't get away fromthem-they had what is called in psych a "pressure of speech," so muchstuff was waiting to come out, a way of releasing adrenaline, of comingdown. A few still stayed silent and I worried about them a little bitmore. But there was nobody else like good old Private Dickens, thankgoodness. 
He hadn't mellowed a bit since he first came on the ward, and Iapproached him for the dressing change in much the same spirit he mighthave approached a squad of Vietcong. I'd given him a pain shot firstthing that morning and he'd fallen asleep soon afterward, but the rattleof the dressing cart woke him to all his snarling glory. 
"Dr. Giangelo wants your dressings changed this morning, PrivateDickens," I announced with false cheerfulness, and before he could sayanything began scooting Chux, the blue paper-diaperlike absorbent pads,under his legs, eliciting a howl and several unflattering references tomy sexual and scatalogical practices. 
When I poured the peroxide over his old bandages, he squirmed and hissedas if it were boiling oil. Of course, it was cold, and it bubbled, butmost patients didn't seem to feel that even on very raw wounds it reallyhurt-not like iodine, for instance. But when I pulled the first layerof gauze away he woke anyone who might possibly be dozing with abloodcurdling yell. The scream went straight from his mouth into myeardrum and almost deafened me. My hands shook with the longing tobackhand him, but I gritted my teeth, having already decided that I wasgoing to be gentle and compassionate with this obnoxious jerk if itkilled me. 
"What are you anyhow, some lousy VC, what the hell do you think you'redoing to me, what did I ever do to you, why the fuck did this happen tome, oh shit, be careful, oh God, you're killing me . . ." 
and then, as I began removing the most encrusted layers of gauze,soaking them with peroxide as I went and being as careful as my shakinghands would allow, he began writhing and screaming piereingly in my ear. 
With my eyes on the wound and my ears full of his screams, it's nowonder I didn't notice the wheelchair gliding up until it was almost toolate. 
Dickens bucked up on the bed like a frightened horse and tried to climbthe wall backward, his screams intensifying. 
At the foot of the bed, Xe sat in the wheelchair and regarded thepatient with a mixture of calm and bewilderment. Then he lowered his eyes and mumbled to himself as he spread his hands over the spoiled meatof Dickens's legs. 
"Get that gook away from me, oh God, he's going to kill me!" 
Dickens screamed. 
A patient named Miller, with one arm in a sling, jerked the wheelchairsideways and sent it flying with a kick. The chair careened down the hall, the old man trying to get control of it by grabbing for thewheels. He succeeded only in making it veer into one of the beds, whereit crashed, sending its fragile old occupant sprawling. 
Two more of the patients leaped from bed and started after Xe. I didn't think they were going to help him up. 
I saw Meyers running, as if in slow motion, across the hall from theVietnamese side of the ward. God, he'll never make it, I thought. 
just then an ungodly clatter drew everyone's attention to the Navycorpsman, Ken Feyder. "oops," Ken said. "Dropped my bedpan," as ifnothing else had been happening. He turned his trunk lazily toward thehyperventilating Dickens. "Hey, doggie, whatsa matter? The old guyjust heard you bawlin' about your legs and wanted to trade ya. Me too,anytime, pal." 
Meyers reached Xe and used his own bulk to shoulder himself in betweenthe angry patients and the old man. 
Dickens's mouth opened, then he stared at Feuder's stumps. His eyestrayed to where Meyers easily hefted Xe's legless body and deposited itback in the wheelchair. He swallowed hard and clamped his lower jawshut like a snapping turtle. I quickly finished his dressing changewhile Meyers returned Xe to the ward. I didn't say another word and,blessedly, neither did anyone else. If they had, I'd have exploded. 
I rammed the dressing cart against the wall, stripping off my gloves sofast I broke the rubber and made the powder fly. I had to make sure Xe was all right, call Joe and tell him about the incident so he couldcheck the old man over, and fill out an incident report. 
"Ma'am?" Feuder's soft voice stopped me in my tracks as I stalked pasthis bed. "Ma'am, would you hand me my bedpan? I can't reach it." 
I picked it up and held it out to him. It wobbled up and down in myshaking hand. His voice was low as he spoke to me. "Don't be too hard on them, Lieutenant. The unit I was with when this happened to me? 
Their interpreter took off just before we got hit." 
I grunted, still too furious to talk. My second day alone on the wardand I have a fucking race riot. Jesus. 
"How is he?" I asked Meyers, who was standing by Xe's bedside. "Did youget his vital signs? Is there any bleeding?" 
"His vital signs are okay, dressings okay too, but maybe there'ssomethin' wrong with his head. He's just starin' into space. Prettyshook up, I guess. I'm sorry, Lieutenant, I was down washin' bedpanslike Sarge told me. I didn't see him go over there." 
'It's not your fault," I said, though I wished I could blame it on him.Xe lay there with his arms limply at his sides, staring into space. I checked his clipboard. His vital signs did look okay. 
"Can you feel this?" I asked and touched his arm with the tip of myfinger. He shook me off as if I were a fly, and kept staring. I wished Mai wre there. I wished Heron were there. What was wrong with Xe wasvery clear to me. His feelings were hurt. Heron said Xe was considered a doctor among his own people, and he'd heard Dickens screaming and cometo help,'only to be attacked. "I know how you feel," I said. "Dickens is almost as bad to me too, but he's an asshole. Don't let him get youdown. We're not all like that, honest. Feyder tried to help. And Ikept this safe for you, didn't I?" I didn't even mean to touch theamulet, just to point at it. I knew how sensitive he was about it. But he moved and my finger made contact with the glass for an instant. Now I know it wasn't a sensation I felt, but then I thought it might havebeen something like static electricity. Because pain shot up my arm andinto my chest, like angina in reverse. And that blade of pain cut aswath for the hot surge of shame and anger that swept over me, leavingthe nauseatingly bitter aftertaste of failure in its wake. 
Xe's eyes fastened on mine as I stepped back, his eyes brimming with afeeble old man's leaking tears. 
My hand was on my chest, but as soon as I stepped away, the pain withinme disappeared. It was as if I was feeling all over again what I'd feltthat night by Tran's bed, only worse, much worse. And it was all there,in that old man's face. 
I returned to my desk and filled out the incident report. 
"What did you do when the incident occurred?" 
"I attempted to calm and restrain Private Dickens while Spec-4 Meyersassisted Mr. Xe." 
"What could you do to prevent such an incident from recurring?" 
I chewed on my pencil for a long time over that. Maintain strict segregation of patients? Gag all overwrought patients during dressingchanges? Never start a dressing change until the riot squad is handyfor backup? I gave it an appropriately vague answer in bureaucratese:"In the future ensure that all patients understand ahead of time thatthey are not to interfere when staff members are treating otherpatients." 
That night I went straight to the club from work and systematicallyproceeded to get very, very drunk. 
In spite of my hangover, the following day started out a little better.Marge and Joe took care of Dickens's dressing change during Joe'smorning rounds, and I learned that most of this particular batch ofcasualties would be transferred to Japan the next day. 
Sergeant Baker kept Meyers and Voorhees scurrying all morning cleaningup the ward. Blaylock informed Marge that VIPs would be touring thehospital later on. And sure enough, sometime around noon a handful of colonels and a general or two arrived with little jewelry boxes full ofmedals, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, and so on. 
We all stood at attention and they handed Marge a list of patients to bedecorated. I was supposed to help prepare everybody to be honored. 
Ken Feyder was up for a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. He was baskinghis buns under the heat lamp when the VIPs started their rounds. "C'mon,Ken, time to turn over and get your just reward," I kidded him. I couldn't be more pleased for him. After yesterday, I didn't needanybody to tell me he was a hero. And I always liked my heroes to benice people, too. But I was a lot more thrilled by his officialrecognition than he was. For the first time since he'd arrived on the ward, Feyder was less than cooperative. 
"Just have 'em pin it on my butt, Lieutenant," he said, and withdrew andrefused to discuss it, pretending to be asleep. They finally presentedit to his pillowcase. 
A surprise came when Heron appeared on the GI side that afternoon andhad a long visit with Ken Feyder. 
"Okay if I take Feyder for a little wheelchair ride, L.T.?" he asked me. 
" I don't know. He's got those wounds on his hips and Joe hasn'tauthorized-" 
"Do me a favor, will you? Call Joe, ask him. Ken's about to go nuts inhere with the heat and the noise. He'd sure like to go out for aspell." 
He was giving me his most helpful good-ol'-country-boy routine, his eyestrying hard to look round and sincere. 
"Are you and Feyder old buddies or something?" I asked. "I thought youwere only interested in Xe." 
"I heard what happened yesterday. You know, surely? Meyers said youwere standing right there." The way he said "standing right there" madeit clear he thought I should have been doing more than that. And he was right, of course. But I had been so taken by surprise I hadn't knownwhich way to move or how fast. "Meyers could come too, for thatmatter," he continued, hurrying past the reproachful jab at me, no doubthaving been told by his Southern mama that he could get more flies withmolasses than with vinegar. 
"Oh, okay, just a minute," I said. Joe okayed it, providing the chairwas amply padded with Chux and heavy dressing pads. I asked Ken if he wanted a pain shot and saw him look toward Heron, who shook his head,very slightly, which I thought was a little odd. Meyers and Heronloaded Ken in the chair and the three of them left by the back door. 
I passed them on the way to pick up my mall. I'd have missed them except for the wheelchair. The three of them were huddled behind some canvas and scaffolding between two of the wards. I saw only their feet,but I caught a strong whiff of pot as I passed. I could have confronted them then, I suppose. As Meyers's superior officer, I should have. I didn't condone smoking pot on duty. But maybe he wasn't. Maybe it wasjust Heron, who wasn't on duty, and Ken Feyder. And I really didn'twant to get Feyder in trouble after all he'd been through. I keptwalking, and decided to send Sergeant Baker out to collect Feyder lateron. Discipline was the ward master's province mostly, anyway. However,by the time I returned, Feyder was in bed sleeping and Meyers hadresumed his duties, though he was wielding the mop in a very dreamyfashion. Heron had wisely made himself scarce. 
When I made rounds with Joe that evening, the doctor tried to encourageXe to try the wheelchair again, but the old man folded his armsstubbornly and refused to so much as look at the chair, which was aboutwhat I expected. But when we came to Ahn's bedside it was a different story. The boy said, "Mamasan, mamasan," and pointed at the chair,then, "Ahn, Ahn," patting himself on the chest. We got the point andAhn got the chair. 
As I passed my P.m. meds on the Vietnamese side that night, I feltsomething tug at my fatigue blouse. "Mamasan, la dai [come here].Mamasan I turned and there was Ahn, enthroned in his chair, one handtugging at my shirt, the other pointing at an I.V. about to go dry. 
"Why, thanks, Ahn," I said, and hurried to replace the bottle. 
Sergeant Baker looked up from the bedpan he was cleaning and shook hishead. "My, my, looks to me like you done got yourself adopted,Lieutenant McCulley." 
chattered to Tony about Ahn, Xe, Xinh, and Heron in the jeep ion theway to the PX Monday. 
"Yeah, those little gook kids are cute okay," he said when I told himabout Ahn. "Just as long as you watch your wallet." 
"Well, I think it's pretty amazing how fast a little hooligan like thatcan start acting like a normal kid once he's treated like one," I saidsmugly. 
His arm was around my shoulders and he rubbed his hand back and forth,his long fingers curling and uncurling. It felt good, exciting andcomforting at the same time. 
"And did I tell you about Xinhdy?" 
"Who?" 
"Her real name is Xinh. She's a Vietnamese girl on the ward, reallysharp. Mai's been teaching her English. She's always talking andlaughing and polishing her nails and stuff-she reminds me of this girl Iwas in training with, Cindy Schroeder. So I called her Xinhdy the otherday, just sort of teasing. She got real offended and said, 'No Xinhdy,Xinh." I asked Mai to tell her she reminded me of my friend in Americawhose name was almost like hers, and that was why I called her that.Yesterday one of her friends came to visit her and called her Xinh, andshe was so funny, Tony. She stuck her nose in the air and said, 'NoXinh. Xinhdy."' 
He turned his head toward me a little and I saw my face reflected in hissunglasses. "Yeah, well, babe, you want to watch getting too close tothese people, y'know? Don't get me wrong, I know how you feel. 
Our hooch mouse is a great gal, and it's hard not to feel sorry for someof those poor bastards we pick up in the villes. But we're going to bepullin' out of here one of these days, and these folks will be on theirown. You better hope your friends are carrying rockets for the VC atnight if you care about what happens to them later." 
He wasn't telling me anything new, but I was trying to amuse him withhuman-interest stories and he was insisting on turning it into hardnews. Nobody wanted to talk about that. I'd already asked him abouthis background and family and how it went in the field and he was vagueabout everything. What was left? Talking about helicopter chassis? 
"Hey, cheer up," he said, giving my shoulder an extra-hard hug. "Have Igot a surprise for you." 
"What?" 
"Wait till you see." He led me inside the PX, a hangar filled withcounters and shelves holding junk food-nonmeltable candy like M&M's andPay Days, potato chips and sticks, canned chocolate milk,sodas-paperback books, mostly either smutty or the action-adventure kindall about what fun war is, and magazines whose illustrations looked likea day in the gyn. clinic from the doctor's point of view. They also hadcheaply priced expensive watches, which was good because the sand workedits way through watch cases, and I'd ruined two already, and perfume.The only other items for women were beaded sweaters from Hong Kong thatlooked like costumes for midget leading ladies in forties movies. In the back of the building was a walled-off section set up as a snack bar,where a Vietnamese entrepreneur offered anemic hamburgers certified bythe PX to be beef instead of dog, and a plate of cold chips. That was where Tony steered me. But at the last moment he blocked the door with his body and said playfully, "What's your favorite Italian food?" 
"Spaghetti?" 
He shook his head. 
"Pizza," I moaned. 
"How long since you had some?" 
"What's this all about?" I thought he was teasing me. It was a favorite game when the ward was quiet to dream of American junk food: "I'd givetwenty dollars for a taco." 
"I'd give thirty dollars for a slice of pizza." Though we got spoiledrotten on steak and lobster regularly, we lusted for cuisine fromMcDonald's, Shakey's, and Taco Bell. One doctor, returning from R&R inHawaii with his wife, had built a little shrine of a Big Mac Styrofoamcontainer, foil wrapper from fries, and a fried-pie box. 
He stepped aside and gestured. "Voild. An authentic Vietnamese pizzaparlor." 
They'd tried. Under a nylon parachute awning, two skinny men and onebewildered-looking girl, wearing white aprons and chefs' hats,industriously made dough and popped things into ovens. The product wasnothing for the Italians to worry about. It consisted of a crust,floury enough to make you pucker, topped with a little ketchup andpieces of hot dog. They'd completely missed the point about cheese. Butwe ate it and laughed and pretended it was the real thing. 
We went to the beach for a couple of hours and swam and played in thewater and lay on the sand. I enjoyed it more than I ever had before,because nobody interrupted us or tried to hustle me with Tony there. He acted as if he owned me, which was just fine under the circumstances. I was delighted to be with such a good-looking, sexy guy. I knew that back in the States I wouldn't have such a knockout for a boyfriend. It was just that in Nam the competition was all among the men. I wondered if there was any way I'd be able to hang on to such a fellow when wereturned home. Shared experience maybe? I was pretty sure my familywould like him and Duncan would be absolutely mute with jealousy-if noton my account, then because Tony was everything Duncan just talked aboutbeing. 
We drove back to the compound. My hooch maid bobbed at us as sheemerged from my room. I turned on the fan. He put Joni Mitchell on thetape deck. And there was a lot more trying each other on for size inevery conceivable erotic position. Instead of being all steaming flesh,as it said in the novels, it seemed to me that we were more all kneesand elbows with no place on that narrow cot to go without being in theway. I started giggling and he growled, "What's so funny? Why don'tyou close your eyes?" 
I thought he had to be kidding. I shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes sex just strikes me as funny. Why?" 
He didn't answer but finished soon after that and grabbed enough clothesto run over to the doctors' shower. I rinsed off too, but I returned tothe room before he did. Well, hell. Sex was sometimes funny to me, butmostly because I was having a good time and having a good time alwaysmeant laughing, as far as I was concerned. Jesus, I couldn't summon upall that dead-serious panting passion you saw in the movies. Tony wasserious enough for both of us. At some points I'd felt like a patientgetting a particularly thorough examination. I had the sneakingsuspicion the whole afternoon would go on my chart with detailed graphsof my anatomical assets and failings. But I didn't want it to end. I just wanted him to think I was flawless for a little while before hestarted criticizing. I picked up my guitar and started playing a songI'd learned from a Tom Paxton songbook. Sarah poked her head in mydoor. "Do you know 'BIowin' in the Wind,' Kitty? There's one chord I can't get." 
We sat on lawn chairs on the porch trying to figure it out, and by thetime Tony joined us I was feeling better. The South China Sea was gleaming beyond the beach, the palms were waving on Monkey Mountain.Judy, who was also off for the day, and the corpsman she was illegallydating 'Joined us, chiming in on the choruses as they sat on the porchswinging their legs off the side to the rhythm as we sang. 
"I'm just learning this one," I said. "We could do the chorus together." I sang a couple of verses of "The Last Thing on My Mind" andJudy and Sarah tried it with me, but Tony hissed in my ear, "Why do youhave to grandstand? You could sing something we all know." 
I didn't much feel like singing after that. Or talking to Tony either.I retreated to my room while they sang outside. He was doing somethingnobody else knew either. Pretty soon Sarah and Judy and her frienddrifted away. I sat against the wall in the corner, with my knees drawnup and a book I wasn't reading propped up on them. Tony lingered in thedoorway. "I'd better get back over to the unit." 
"Okay," I said, trying to sound indifferent instead of disappointed. 
'Bye." This time he didn't kiss me. 
But he called later that ilight and said he had to go in the field for awhile but would miss me and wanted to see me when he got back. His voicewas warm and tender and I decided I got my feelings hurt too easy. 
One side benefit of my new relationship was that I could now fit rightin when the other girls were bitching or bragging about not just men ingeneral but a man, the man each of them was going with, in particular.Carol told me she thought her boyfriend might be a little bit moremarried than he'd told her to begin with. Judy was mad that she and hercorpsman had to sneak around because the brass had ruled against nursesseeing enlisted men. Sarah's long face was wistful when she talkedabout her doctor boyfriend going home to his wife. 
We confided in one another, and on the ward, during quiet times, Iconfided in Marge. She was older, had an upbeat but sensible attitude,and played the field. Or so I thought until she came back from mailcall with her boots floating a couple of inches above the linoleum, aletter on Army stationery clasped to her bosom, and a silly grin on herface. 
"Good news?" I asked. 
She sighed. "It's from Hal. I knew him in Japan. What a guy! 
He's going to be reassigned here." 
"Here? To the 83rd?" 

"No, but in Vietnam. We can see each other sometimes. He's really akick, Kitty. You'd like him." 
"Is he a doctor or what?" 
"An MSC officer. He'll probably be a hospital administrator somewhere.But between my contacts and his contacts, we're bound to be able to getchoppers back and forth once in a while." 
"When's he coming?" 
"In a couple of months. God, I hope he gets assigned somewhere close.Too bad Colonel Martin just got here." 
"Marge! You'd be the scandal of the post, making it with the boss -tsktsk." 
She grinned. "Yeah. I would, wouldn't I?" 
Being rather young, I believed that if I was not the model-perfectspecimen portrayed in the fashion magazines, no man would have me, soMarge's romance came as a revelation to me. She was probably in herlate thirties to early forties and a long way from being a beauty,though her pleasant personality and warmth made you forget that. She was even tolerant of the Army, a difficult thing for a reasonable womanto be, I thought. She had the same attitude toward it that many nicewomen married to men who are jerks but good providers seem to havetoward their husbands. It's a living, and he means well. She had lots of buddies and was friendly with both enlisted men and officers, marriedand single. But it was obvious that this was far from your casual kindof affair. You could almost see little hearts popping out of her head,the way they did in the cartoons. 
And for a while there was ample time to daydream. We admitted casualties in twos and threes instead of bunches, and saw men with badbacks and twisted ankles. Most of them wanted rest or drugs or both. 
Mal was teaching Xinhdy English in her spare time and Ahn hung out withthem when he wasn't following me around. I decided to join them and seeif I couldn't learn more Vietnamese in the process. I didn't, as itturned out, but provided everyone with a lot of amusement as I tried topronounce Vietnamese words. Ahn and Xinhdy were both much betterpupils. Sometimes we watched the Vietnamese TV station, which featuredsingers of wavery-tuned songs doing what seemed like a cross between theoriental version of grand opera and soap opera against backdrops thatwere strictly from Sunday school skits. It wasn't very interesting tome and sounded like fingernails on a blackboard after a while, but itwas better than the bullshit you saw on Armed Forces TV. Mal, Marge,Sarah, and I sometimes had mock battles over who got the honor ofchanging Dang Thi That's dressing. That would watch us with her eyesdancing, and laugh through the painful procedure, encouraged by thehealing she could see for herself if she twisted far enough. Soon she could be grafted, and once that took, we could start physical therapy inearnest and maybe get her back on her feet. 
If Ahn had adopted me as his mother, he took to Xe as a grandfather.He'd sit by the old man's bedside and chatter at him, bring things toshow him, try to involve him in conversations. Xe wasn't interested for a long time, but finally Ahn and Mal convinced him to 'Join them atXinhdy's bedside to chat. 
This sort of thing went on intermittently for several weeks at a time,you understand. New patients were admitted and discharged, but ourlong-term patients were the core group and watched one another and usfor entertainment the same way we watched them. But a lot of the time they slept or vegged out in front of the TV, and those times were prettytrying. Hectic as the pushes were, they were easier to deal with insome ways than the weeks and weeks of twelve-hour shifts that dragged bywhile you tried to find something to do. 
When the patients were napping, the last roll of tape was neatly linedup with the next on the dressing cart, the bedpans were cleaned, and theempty beds gathered dust, the day shift sat around the nurses' stationand talked to each other. 
Sarah and I alternated on nights, so I rarely got to work with her,since the head nurse, Marge, had to be on days all the time. We were supposed to have another nurse, but she had yet to arrive. If she'd been there, she'd have been as bored as the rest of us. 
So Marge and I sat around discussing such burning political issues aswhat we planned to order from the Pacex catalog before we went home. Shealso waxed lyrical recalling her tours in Japan and Okinawa, talkingabout the shopping in those places. If you wanted cameras or stereoequipment you went to Japan, everybody knew that. But Hong Kong was thebest place for all-round shopping, tailor-made anything, fast and cheap,sequined evening clothes and sweaters, jewelry, pirate editions of thelatest bestsellers. 
I could almost see it in all its quarter-to-half-priced glory, and itcheered me in my hour of need, when the patients were surly, when Tonywas gone or we'd had a fight. Nonmaterialism and spiritual values areall very laudable, but when you're in a situation where everythingincluding your J'oh involves questionable ethics, things are the safestpossible topic for conversation and food for thought, except maybe forbargains, which are even better. Talking politics, work, or moralitywas confusing and depressing. Talking about home was even moredepressing. Armed Forces TV showed news reports of what was allegedlyhappening in Vietnam, but to me they always looked wrong. Exaggeratednumbers of Vietnamese dead and understated numbers of American dead and wounded may have been good propaganda, but seemed disrespectful of thesacrifice made by those dead and wounded who had not been counted. And anyway, only the naive new recruits, the terminally gung ho, and lifersbelieved all that crap about assisting the South Vietnamese in repulsingthe Red Peril. 
The Vietnamese I saw seemed more worried about getting enough to eat,keeping their families together, and not getting killed than they wereabout political ideals. Coming back late from China Beach, when themoonlight glistened on the flattened Miller High Life and Schlitz canscovering the Vietnamese huts with tin-into-silver alchemy, and thecandlelight shone through the strands of plastic beads (a phoenix, apeacock, a dragon) curtaining the doorways, I imagined what the familygathered around the candle talked about. 
"How many watches did you nab today, Nguyen?" 
"Thirty-four and four very fat wallet, honorable mamasan. See here,thirty-four dollars and a J. C. Penney credit card. Do you think youcan get a catalog from one of the Americans whose houses you clean?" 
"I'll work on it. Daughter, how many tricks did you turn today?" 
"Fifteen, Mama. One soldier was mean and wouldn't pay me, but thenanother gave me this ring. How much do you think we can get for it?" 
"we'll ask your papa when he gets home from carrying rockets for the VC. 
He's had a hard day of guard duty at China Beach." 
"I wish poor Papa didn't have to moonlight like that." 
"War's hell, my son." 
If I were in their shoes I'd probably have done the same thing. Tony hadhit the nail on the head. The peace marchers were eventually going topressure the President into getting American troops out of this mess,and when they did, the people who'd been loyal to us were going to be upshit creek. It probably didn't make much difference to them if theywere growing rice for South Vietnam or for North Vietnam, as long asthey were able to eat it themselves. Some of the senior officers I'd talked with said America should have supported Ho Chi Minh to beginwith. And some of the guys with a couple of years of college claimedthat the war was not about communism and freedom but about boosting theeconomy and making Southeast Asia safe for the oil companies and theinternational military-industrial complex, whatever that was. While that sounded pretty paranoid, it was less hokey than saying that thewhole war was strictly for the sake of political ideals. The onlypeople who said anything about political ideals recited their lines inthe same way church ladies said "blood of the Lamb" and "fallen fromgrace," or the Communists reputedly talked of "imperialist runningdogs." 
Shallow, materialistic bitch that I was, I preferred talk aboutsomething real like stereo equipment and clothes. 
We were sitting there gabbing one afternoon when Sergeant Baker wanderedin with the mail, eavesdropped a moment, and while Marge opened hersgave us the lowdown on Hawaii and on Thailand, where he'd spent a tourand knew all the best bars and brothels. Meyers, returning from beingpulled to ward eight, chimed in that he wanted to go to Australiabecause he'd heard the women were real friendly. Married men like Voorhees tried to go to Hawaii to meet their wives. I wanted to go toAustralia as much as anything because nobody I knew had ever been there. 
"Yeah, man, I really want to get out of here, go to that Australia,man," Meyers said. "But more'n that, I want to go home. Get outa this place forever and ever." 
"Well, man, you ain't got it so bad," Baker said. "Think of them poordamn Vietnamese. They don't get to go nowhere ever. They're homealready and this is as good as it gets." 
Tony hadn't called in a couple of weeks and I was about to start nightduty, but I wasn't sure if I cared if I heard from him or not. Most of our dates had been spent in bed, with very little socializing or anyother kind of activity. 
"Look"' I said, the last time he came over. "Could we do something elsebesides screw for a change?" 
"What? You don't want to?" 
"It's hot in here and it's been a long, boring week, okay? I'd like to get out and see something maybe, or at least go to the club and dance." 
"Surel- we can go dance if you want to, but there's plenty of timebefore that-" 
"Tony-', "Baby, I'm risking my life up there," he said, slipping hishands up under my shirt and bra and nuzzling my neck. "Who knows? I might not come back next time." 
Eventually we did go dancing, but it was one of those nights when theband played line dances and the fast kind that I love. Tony danced oneor two but then sat in the corner talking helicopters with one of theother men from his company. When I sat down, sweating and happy, hesaid, "Do you have to show off all the time? Why can't you just sithere with me and talk and have a drink?" 
"Because I don't know anything about helicopters and, frankly, they'renot that interesting to me," I said. "You're not the only one who needsto recharge when you're off duty, you know. I put in long days too." 
"Don't I make you happy, baby?" 
The argument was conducted in fierce whispers and nonetheless we weredrawing a little attention. "Tony, you're a fantastic lover, butsometimes I think it's not me you love at all-I keep getting the feelingyou wish I were somebody else entirely, someone who is quiet and demureand keeps her place. Probably somebody who doesn't work a twelve-hourday. Well, I'm not. I'm me. And"-I threw in a line from an old blues song, because it fit-"And if you don't like my peaches, don't shake mytree, okay?" 
He slammed down his drink. "Okay. Excuse me, I think I'd better getback to the unit. I may be needed there. 
I didn't know whether I was madder at him for treating me like a whorewho wasn't due any consideration or for spoiling my off-duty time. He was just jealous of the attention I got, I thought. He was used to being in the middle of things himself and couldn't take it that in thissituation any woman would be more interesting to the vast majority ofthe population than any man. And that emotional blackmail crap abouthow he might not come back. The creep! After a week, I calmed down andrealized that maybe some of it could have been my fault. I had to admit I recognized that he wanted me to be somebody else because I couldn'thelp wishing he were somebody else too. 
Wednesday evening he called. "Hi, babe. How's it going?" 
"Fine," I said. "How've you been?" 
I've missed you. You're off tomorrow, aren't you? How about if I come over?" 
"It's my sleep day," I said. "If I don't sleep, I won't be any good atwork tomorrow night." 
"You can sleep some of the time," he said. 
"I don't think so, Tony." 
"We had a couple of close calls this week, baby......... 

"I'm sorry. Please be a little more careful. Maybe you could use therest, too. Tony, we need to have a talk sometime soon, but I have tohave tomorrow to think, okay?" 
"Yeah. Sure. See ya," he said, and hung up. 
Then, of course, I couldn't sleep that night, so I padded over to ICU tosee how busy Carole was. She was bored stiff, sitting at the deskreading while her corpsmen played cards. 
"Jesus, McCulley, what's wrong with you?" 
I told her. "I don't want to break up with him, Carole, but dammit, ifwe're going to spend every free moment together I occasionally want totalk about something besides which position we should assume next andwhether I came or not." 
"I see where that would get old. Tom and I talk about everything. Idunno, Kitty, there are other fish in the sea, of course, but not manyas sexy as Tony." 
"I know. That's the whole problem." 
"If he calls tomorrow are you going to let him come over?" 
"No. It'll just be the same old thing. I don't think I'll be able to sleep, but I sure don't want to spend another goddamn day on post.Besides, if I'm here and he calls I'll give in. Want to go to thebeach?" 
"Can't. I'm having my own summit conference." 
"If you hear of anyone going, let me know. I've got to get out of here.The last time I did anything interesting was the flying crane ride." 
"Poor baby," Carole said, then chewed on her pencil awhile. "Hey, what'stomorrow? Thursday? Why not go on the medcap mission? I know it sounds like a drag to work on your day off, but if you don't mind losingthe sleep-" 
"So who can sleep? You're a genius, Swenson. I'll tell you all aboutit." 
"well, look who's here," Charlie Heron said affably. "Bac Jvst Joe,how's it going? Nice you could come, Lieutenant. Climb in, climb in.Lieutenant, you want to sit up front?" 
He motioned to the ovenlike cab of a deuce-and-a-half. 
"No thanks," I said. "I'll ride back here with the rest of the troops." 
"Suit yourself," he said, and climbed in beside Joe. 
The doctor and I hadn't exactly planned to come as a team, but the slow ward work had gotten to both of us. I met him as we were walking towardthe gate that morning. Joe walked briskly and happily, a large cameraand lens case around his neck. Photography was his other pet hobby,besides carpentry and orthopedic surgery. 
"Hi, Geppetto," I said. "You don't mean to say that Marge is lettingyou go for the day, too?" 
"Ma ings rge knows more about those folks than I do, by now. Th' have been too slow. Got to go drum up business or I'll get rusty. Bob Blum can handle any emergencies that come in. I want to see a village," hesaid. "Do you think a wide angle and a telescopic will be enoughlenses?" 
"That'll feed two families after the kids steal them from you, and thecamera will probably feed half the village, so-" 
"You're as funny as a broken leg, Lieutenant McCulley, you know that?Speaking of broken legs, what's that limp about?" He cast an expert eyeon my size nines. 
"I don't know. Feels like I might have a rock in my boot." 
By then we were at the truck and being hailed by Heron. I wasn't that thrilled to see him. But even though his tone had been carefullyindifferent, I could tell he was glad to see me there. Cathie Peterson,from ICU, came along too. She was already in the cab of the truck whenJoe and I arrived. 
A young Marine corporal helped me into the truck. "Glad you could makeit, ma'am," he said. "The villagers are always glad to see you nupses.You don't know how much they appreciate it." 
I looked around at all the Marine camouflage fatigues in the truck. "I didn't know the Medical Civic Action Team was a Marinesponsored thing,"I said. The truck bucked into action and rumbled through Dogpatch andout onto the highway. 
A swarthy sergeant whose name tag said "Hernandez" and who had swung upinto the truck behind me after making sure all personnel and gear wereaboard, said, "Yes, ma'am. This one is. Though it started with SpecialForces as a PSYOPS mission. Most of these men been out in the bush the best part of their tour. They're short-three or four months to go. Theyfinish up the tour working in the villages." 
"You mean they come off of combat duty and go right out on medicalmissions?" I asked, feeling a little uneasy about it. These men could as easily have been the numbed, miserable-looking wounded who cycledthrough the wards, enthusing about nothing but the joys of bayonetinggooks and how the difference between a VC and a friendly was how fastthe individual in question could run. If the human target escaped, itwas friendly. If it died, it had to be VC. 
"Yes, ma'am. Sergeant Heron handpicked them." 
I had to digest that. Although most of the men surrounding us weremarines, and there were certainly a lot of decent guys among them, there'd been a couple of nasty incidents early in my tour at the 83rdthat made me question the kind of training they had. Lindy Hopkins hadcome steaming off the ward one night, slammed into Carole's hooch, andsat there crying. "Those bastards. Those goddamn bastards." 
"Take it easy, Lindy. What the hell's the matter?" Carole asked. She and I had been sitting around talking. Lindy worked on ICU with Carole. 
"They brought her in-she was just a kid-eleven years old and they rapedher-" 
"Who?" 
"The seven big strong marines who brought her in. They raped hertill-till they broke her spine. She's going to be paralyzed, Carole. Aneleven-year-old kid. And then the sons of bitches had the gall to askwhen visiting hours were!" 
Another time another marine tried to break into Judy's hooch at night torape her. Fortunately, Judy's got great lungs. 
So I was not crazy about marines. Maybe the only reason I associatedmarines with the vicious and cruel things that happened was because theMarine Corps dominated the area. Of course, I knew the enemy didhorrible things to our people and to their own. But they were theenemy. They weren't supposed to be civilized. I'd grown up with menlike these, and they were supposed to know better. I despised any kindof training that taught them to be less than human. 
At least the men around me refrained from drooling or pawing the bed ofthe pickup truck. They looked perfectly normal-a little older andsadder than a lot of the GIs who passed through the hospital, butbasically okay. 
The man nearest me even offered me his truck tire to lean against andcushion my back. I accepted gratefully, reveling in the wind the truckmade as it rolled down the highway to Freedom Hill. There it turned off onto a dirt road and bumped along through what could have been a ruralarea south of San Antonio, Texas. Golden fields were flanked by fences,and rows of fanning leafy trees shielded the houses from the hot, heavysun. Water buffaloes with pa'amaed people in tropical topees and cooliehats prowled the lone prairie instead of cowboys and longhorns, ofcourse, but it was still cattle and cattle tenders of a sort, so whatthe hell. It was almost like home, lolling in the back of the truck,just enjoying the ride. The only signs of war were the uniforms and theweapons. The men acted as if they were going on holiday, although theireyes shifted toward the trees now and then. 
A small boy wearing a blue shirt, shorts, and a baseball cap andcarrying two metal jerricans over his right shoulder offered us a drinkof water as the vehicles stopped beside the village pump. His shins were dusty, his face expectant. The men poured out of the truck, one ofthem knocking the kid's cap off and ruffling his hair, before replacingthe cap, backward. 
Joe started taking pictures the minute he hit the ground. The villagewas cool and shaded, made darker than the surrounding fields by a canopy of treetops lashed together overhead. Beyond the fields the mountainsrose, and depending on where you were standing, you could see sparklesof a river glinting through the trees. This was not a newsreel-type-village, bombed and half-burned. This was a collection of neat little unpainted homes, most of which bore trellises loaded withflowers and melons. The streets between the houses and trees were busywith bicycles loaded with baskets of pigs, Hondas with nets full ofcoconuts lashed to them. Grubby children with big brown eyes andbowl-cut black hair danced around them. Adults squatting on their heelsin the shade looked up from their work or talk and waved. 
Heron pointed out the school and the marketplace, and the hut that Ilater described to Mom as the "labor and delivery facility." It waswindowless and dark and had the smell of old blood, rot, and other,pungent, vaginal odors very strong within this tropical bacteriabreeding ground. My clinical description was a euphemism; the place wasso ripe I had to suppress an itch to scratch my own crotch in sympathy.Little nests had been made inside, holes dug out of the dirt and linedwith grass and old rags. One mother and her newborn, under thesupervision of an unhurried-looking midwife, occupied the space on oneside of the inevitable Vietnamese bedspread partioning the makeshiftpostpartum section from the L&D. "I'm afraid there's no deliverytables, Lieutenant," Heron said. "Vietnamese mothers deliver from a squatting position." Damned know -it-all. I'd assumed as much. So did my Indian ancestresses. So did a lot of women practicing the newnatural childbirth methods. 
He showed us to the clinic with another glance at me, as if he expectedme to be horrified. I resolutely was not. The clinic area was a hut-a long, low one, also dirt-floored and dark. "You'll do fine," he told me. "I've done amputations in worse places than this, Lieutenant." 
My "Goody for you" was drowned out in another introduction as Heronpresented a boy of about eleven. "This is Li. He'll interpret for you.And this is Miss Xuan from Province Hospital"-he indicated a plain-facedgirl in a white go dai, the graceful tunic-dress of Vietnam, and conicalhat-"and my ARVN counterpart, Sergeant Huong." 
Li was as officious as any sergeant major as he lined up the patientsfor treatment. He strutted up and down the line while the examinationstook place, as if supervising instead of interpreting. Li claimed that Miss Xuan, who was at least twice his age, was his niece. The niece didn't do much work but mostly flirted with Heron's ARVN counterpart,Sergeant Huong. Huong swaggered a bit, James Dean style, and flirtedback. 
I was nervous, not because of the conditions but because this was myfirst whack at public health nursing. Li's main usefulness was in telling the patients what I said. They were able to make themselvespretty clear with gestures and facial expressions. Besides the usual "owies" the children had, there were a lot of snotty noses and deepcoughs and running rashes. Joe diagnosed a carpenter with sore knees ashaving tenosynovitis, an inflammation of the tendons caused mostly bybeing a carpenter. 
"Oh boy, McCulley, come look at this," Cathie called me, peering at theside of a woman's head. The woman was youngish, with rather protruding teeth and a pained expression. 
"She say she no hear too good," Li said. 
"No wonder," Cathie said, and stood aside. The woman's right ear wascompletely blocked by a protruding tumor. 
"Tell her she needs to come to the hospital with us to have this fixed,"I told Li. 
Li fired off twenty or thirty syllables that rose and fell likeVietnamese music. The woman shook her head and replied with fifty orsixty syllables of her own. 
"She say no can do, co. Papasan work in field and she have thesebabysans." He indicated the two shorts-clad toddlers clinging to herpajama bottoms and the little girl, about seven, carrying a nude baby ofabout two on her hip. 
"Well, tell her to talk it over with papasan, and if she wants us tohelp her, come to the hospital with the team next week." 
My next patient was a sickly little girl whose round brown face, blackbangs, and huge dark eyes made her look more like a doll than a realchild. She was hot, her mother said, and cried all the time. I took her temperature, which was 103, and listened to her chest. For an FUO,fever of unknown origin, you also always checked lymph nodes routinely,so I raised the little girl's arms. Lumps the size and color of plumsswelled in the child's armpits. 
I took one look at them and said, "Whoopee shit," and called out to Joe. 
"What is it, Kitty?" 
"I'm not sure. I never studied tropical medicine or anything, but acouple of weeks ago I was reading this novel? And in it the heroine ends up treating a whole bunch of people in the Appalachians for bubonicplague. Joe, the book said the victims had big purple lymph nodes intheir axilla and groin areas, just like this kid has. Come and see what you think." I tugged down the little girl's shorts and checked her groinwhile I talked. More plums. It was a wonder the poor baby could walk. 
"Bubonic plague? No shit? In this day and age? Wait, let me get mycamera. Damn, not enough light." 
"Mamasan, if this is what I think it is, we'd better check you out too,"I told the mother. Li didn't need to translate. The mother pulled herpaiama top off and raised her left arm, pointing to the purple "owie"underneath. 
Joe examined the nodules and whistled. "I dunno, Kitty. Your junkreading may have come in handy. Anyway, the kid's fever is enough tohave her admitted and we may as well take the mother too." 
While the patients gathered their belongings and arranged for theirdepartures, Heron drove us to the marines' quarters, on the outskirts ofthe village. Wonderful cooking smells waited toward us. The mamasan who looked after the marines had prepared a lunch of stewed chicken,rice noodles, and mushrooms in broth. The marines and Heron were already experts with chopsticks, but Cathie, Joe, and I all neededlessons. I began to wonder whether the Army chose olive drab for theuniforms of its Asian-based troops because the color went so well withchicken broth. 
Heron sat next to me, which made me even clumsier and moreuncomfortable: exactly what he intended, I was sure. "I can see where Xe might be right about you," he said. "You don't go much by the book,do you?" 
"Only bestselling novels," I admitted. 
"I mean, you're more intuitive. I can see where he'd find youinteresting." 
He sounded so ridiculously, deliberately mysterious that I barelysuppres sed a desire to tell him that the rumors about me and Xe werecompletely false, that we were just good friends. 
But my opinion of him had risen a little bit. After the incident with the marijuana, it would have been hard for it to get much lower. Still,the way the men behaved toward Heron and the villagers, and the obviousaffection, even adoration, that the villagers greeted him with, made merealize that maybe the man could be more than a lot of talk. 
"I can't get over how much different these people seem from the ones yousee in Dogpatch and Da Nang," Cathie said. 
"Uh huh," Joe agreed, simultaneously holding up his camera and slurpinga noodle. "Look, we've been here half the day and nobody's tried tosnitch my camera." 
"Most of the folks you meet in town and around the hospital arerefugees. They steal to get by. These people are farmers, but takeaway their land and their livelihood and they'd do the same thing, orworse, to put food in their family's mouths," Heron said. "Our mission is to make sure they don't have to steal to get by. Some of that livestock you saw, some of the clothes, cooking utensils, the men herebought for the villagers out of their own paychecks." 
"Hey, that's really nice of you guys," I said. 
"Naw, not really, ma'am," Sergeant Hernandez said. "It's like, see,well, last night a rocket landed out there and we went running out withour Band-Aids and Merthiolate. When one landed too near us a couple ofweeks ago, the people were there to help us in a minute and a half. We figure what happens to them happens to us and vice versa, which is howthis whole fuckin' war-excuse me, ladies-how this whole war should havebeen fought to begin with." 
"If at all," said a thin-faced man with granny glasses. 
"No shit, man," another marine said with feeling. 
I seemed to have stumbled into a bunch of leatherneck Lancelots, no less-men who actually believed that there were good Vietnamese who werenot dead Vietnamese. I can be flip about it now, but I had to look atmy noodles to keep from "gettin' a little misty," as Maynard G. 
Krebs, the beatnik character from "Dobie Gillis," used to say. I also felt a little disoriented-why did some marines give their paychecks tobetter the lives of some South Vietnamese while others, and maybe eventhe same ones, earlier in their tour of duty, dedicated themselves toobliterating villagers who couldn't have been very different from thesepeople? 
guess you can mostly only do this because it's so close to Da Nang andprotected and everything," I said. "I mean, out in the bush, people whoneed medical attention have to be medevaced, right?" 
Heron abandoned his cool altogether. He waved his hands negatively andalmost choked on his noodles, trying to gulp them down in his haste toset me straight. "No way. See, what you don't understand, L.T., iswhat a lot of people don't understand. This is my third tour. Lastyear, Da Nang was hotter than any little old village. Of course, someplaces we just don't have the supplies or men to do much-" 
"That's where dudes like Sergeant Heroil here come in," Hernandez said."You know what this character's idea of a combat mission is, ma'am? He'sthe medic, right? He walks point into some hostile damn ville andstarts patchin' people up before anybody can pop a shot off. Guy's gotto have a charmed life." 
"Hey. Sarge, I been wonderin' about that. Is it true you even sleep inthe villages sometimes?" 
"Mostly the Montagnard ones," he said, as if that was different. 
"Holy shit." 
"But you're not doing that anymore?" I asked. "You're involved with this now?" 
"I do a lot of things," he said. "Helping the Marines matchmake theseguys and this villaGe is what I do lately." 
"You beaucoup dinky dao, Doc," one of the men said. 
"Yeah, I bet there's bets going' down on the black market who's going'to nail your ass first, Doc, the brass or Charlie," the guy with thegranny glasses said approvingly. 
"We've got a little something for Joe, haven't we?" Heron said, changingthe subject. The mamasan was clearing the dishes, and as soon as shefinished, Hernandez returned with a moldy bottle, which he handed toJoe. 
"Homegrown penicillin?" Joe asked. 
"It's one-hundred-day wine. They make it from sticky rice buriedbetween banana leaves for a hundred days. Try it. I hear tell this is a very good year." 
Joe did himself proud. His lips squirmed a little when he finished thewine, but he managed to pull them up into a smile and a thank you worthyof a ham actor taking a curtain call. 
As we left the village, he photographed everything in sight. I shot a few pictures, too, of a young man in a straw hat who had infected soreson his legs but a beautiful face, a young girl holding her littlebrother, a water buffalo and its tender, a mamasan with her loadsbalanced at the ends of a pole. 
But the good feeling I retained from that experience was eclipsed thatnight when I was pulled to help Carole in ICU. She had only a fewpatients, but one of them was an old woman, an ARVN general's wife, whohad been sitting on her front porch when some sort of incendiary bombwas lobbed onto it, burning her over 100 percent of her body, mostlythird-degree. Carole was devoting all of her time to that patient,while her corpsman covered the rest of the ward. 
"What do you want me to do?" I asked. 
"The POW is the other critical one. He's a burn case, too, not as bad,but he's got a collapsed right lung and a fresh trach." 
He also had a guard, who had a green heret and a gun and who shifted asnervously as if he were surrounded by armed VC instead of standing overa relatively helpless one. He glowered at me as I approached. He was no more like Charlie Heron than Heron was like Barry Sadler. 
He watched my every move as I extracted the prisoner's trach tube toclean it in a basin of hydrogen peroxide. Halfway through the cleaningprocess, the prisoner began gurgling, bubbles of accumulated phlegmcollecting at the hole in his throat. I took off the gloves I'd alreadycontaminated, put on a fresh glove, and reached for the suction tubing.The guard held his arm over the patient. 
"Let him strangle," he said. 
"What?" 
"Let him strangle for a while. We're trying to get information out ofhim. We can't do it if you coddle him." 
I glared at his arm and brushed past it. "I'm not coddling him,soldier. I'm suctioning his trach tube so he doesn't die. If youwanted to torture or kill him, you should have thrown him out of ahelicopter when you had the chance. Once you bring him here, he's notjust a prisoner. He's my patient and he is by God going to get the samecare as any other patient in his condition, meaning the best I can givehim." 
The slurp of the suction machine drowned out the guard's protests for amoment. When I pulled the tip of the tubing out of the POW's throat, Iglared at the guard. The muscles in his jaws bunched and relaxed,bunched and relaxed, as if he were chewing on a particularly tough nail.Finally he said, "Your kinda attitude is going to cost Americans theirlives. This guy has information-" "Bullshit," I said. "He can't tell you a damn thing if he's dead. Youlet us get him stable enough to talk, and then if you want to ask himquestions, you do so under our supervision until the man is well enoughfor you to murder him. You bic?" 
The only reason he didn't call me a stupid cunt was because I outrankedhim and could have had his stripe, and women were rare enough in Namthat fragging them was severely frowned upon even by gung-ho comrades.So the guard merely growled, but he got out of my way and didn'tinterfere again. The guard who relieved him was less zealous and sippedhis coffee in peace. 
The patient might not have been too with it, but he did seem to relax alittle when the first guard left. Carole finished spreading a freshcoat of sulfonamide cream on her patient's burns. I thought I shouldwarn her about the surly guard. 
"Yeah," she said. "But you can understand how he feels. He may haveseen buddies get blown away by that guy." 
"I guess." 
"God, I'm sick of burns," she said, tossing her dirty gloves in thetrash bag. "We had another guy last week worse off than this woman. Hewas a villager doing some painting for a civilian contractor, and thisCIDG guard decided he wanted some of the paint. Apparently the guy toldthe guard that he'd have to ask the boss and the guard tossed a litcigarette into the paint. Of course, the worker was already coveredwith paint and stuff and went up like a torch. His friends rolled him in the dirt and finally put him out, but he was third-degree over 90percent of his body. He only lasted a few hours." 
The night finally ended, and none too soon to suit me. A patient whoneeds constant suctioning requires you to be on your feet a lot, andmine hurt. I checked my boot again, but there was no rock, just a redplace on my toe where I thought one might have rubbed. In spite ofhaving been up for twenty-four hours, I had trouble sleeping the nextday. The heat was a problem as usual, and I couldn't seem to get myfoot into a comfortable position. Besides which, my mind wassquirreleaging with a turmoil of impressions and conflicting emotionsfrom the events of the day and night. Also, I came fully awake everytime the phone by the staircase rang. The few dreams I had were confusing, more troubled than restful. 
I gave up finally and had time for a shower before work. My sore toedid not want to fit inside my boot, but I thought, all I have to do ismake it through the night. I'll probably be able to sit at the nurses'station and put it up most of the time. It should be better in the morning. 
It wasn't, of course. I got so sick that night that my memories ofieven the ordinary events are fairly surreal. Then Xe decided to intervene on my behalf and things got even weirder. 
Though I secretly believed that wishing, willing, and praying wouldsometimes help some patients get well, I had been trained in a scientific tradition. Any energy I put forth could be nothing more thana random supplement to real help, such as antibiotics, surgery, andintravenous fluids. My feeling was just that any little extra effort Icould throw in at a critical time couldn't hurt, so why not? Xe's perspective was the exact opposite. 
I think that Xe must have already been considering using meboth fromwhat Heron said and from what happened later. Some of Heron's antagonism toward me was because he had been passed over by the old man.We've talked about this, and he says he knows now that it wasn't aquestion of unworthiness. It was just that the old man could seeclearly and graphically how much Heron's energy was depleted by the war.By the time I met him, the medic was on his third tour. He needed everyscrap of energy to keep himself whole, and didn't have enough of himselfleft over for Xe's work. By the time I got sick, Xe was beginning torealize the full cost of his own wounds. He already had his eye on me,I think, because, of all the healthy people he was in contact with, Iwas the one who was already on his path, even though I'd never thoughtof it that way. Facts, figures, and procedures have always been moredifficult for me than for most of the people I work with, so I'd alwaystried to compensate with some of the less tangible skills I'd tried withTran. Unaugmented, of course, they didn't always help. But they weredeveloped enough for Xe to pick up, even through the physically inducedfog of a coma. He needed me well and strong and I think, if he had beena little stronger himself and time had been less limited, would havestarted trying to teach me. When I got sick . . . 
But I'm ahead of myself. 
The shift started at 1900 hours. The night started out to be even morehectic than the one on ICU. I was glad, in a way, because I was sosleepy that I wouldn't have kept awake otherwise. Sarah was on daysalone and had received four fresh GI casualties at six, and had no timeto settle them in before the shift change. I had their orders to carryout, two I.V.s to start, and a slew of paperwork. Besides that, DangThi That had had her skin graft surgery earlier in the day. The grafthad to be "rolled," or smoothed down with a sterile Q-tip, every fifteenminutes to help it adhere. So I was constantly running back and forthbetween the wards and my sore foot got sorer every time. 
I disregarded it. What was a sore toe compared to what the patients,especially That, were enduring? When I ran the Q-tip around That'swound she'd flinch, clench her eyes shut and her betel-blackened teethtogether, and hiss. Her left hand, with the I.V. taped to its back,would clutch toward the wound, and stop just short of my hand. It must have felt to her as if I were sticking hot icepicks straight into herand twisting. But as soon as I stopped, her hand dropped back to herwaist and she lifted her sweat-soaked face a little and blinked at me. Her mouth even tried to curve a little and she would duck her head in a sort of apologetic gesture and collapse against the pillow again. I noticed once that the case was wet where she laid her face, so I liftedher head and turned the pillow over for her, and from the look she gaveme, you would have thought I'd healed her single-handedly and broughther husband back to life to boot. 
Joe called around 2100 and said that, starting at midnight, That's graftcould be rolled every half hour, which helped me a little. 
Still, when I got up from charting my meds at one, I couldn't bearweight on my left foot and I hopped from bed to bed, and stood with myknee on a chair while I did That's treatment. 
A new corpsman, Ron Ryan, was on the other side and there was no soundexcept the rush of the desktop fan, which didn't cool things off muchbut blew my charts apart unless I weighted the papers down with I.V.bottles and coffee mugs. 
I felt funny hopping along, because with each little hop my head seemedto float right up to the ceiling and take a long time coming down. I felt as if I were looking out from a long way inside my brain, as ifmost of me were somewhere deep inside my body, smaller, shrunken- insidemyself, with the rest of me, this big ungainly shell, hopping around andsweating. Sometimes I- didn't quite keep track of where I was and I'dthink I was at bed three and I was already at five. I was well lubricated by continual runnels of sweat, but they almost felt cool bynow. And I was oddly, dopily happy and unconcerned. Ryan appeared atone end of the ward with a mop and I stood staring at him for a momentand, hey presto, he disappeared without moving, just as I caught myselfon someone's bed rail, falling backward. 
Old Xe was still awake when I hopped to his bedside. He startled me bygrabbing my wrist above the flashlight. He hissed as he touched me and his fingers felt so cool I thought for a moment his hiss was a sizzle,like cold bacon on a hot pan. "Numbah ten, co," he said, giving me apenetrating look from eyes that gleamed like pools of oil in the beam ofmy flashlight. I realized he realized my foot was killing me. 
"Damn straight, papasan," I said from inside a tunnel somewhere."Beaucoup dau," I agreed, but then felt a little ashamed to be tellinghim my troubles, telling this legless old man about my silly sore toe. 
Ryan was on his break when the commotion broke out on the GI side. I limped over in time to see one of the new men standing in the middle ofthe aisle, swinging his pillow in a circle and shouting. Two of his buddies were wide awake, their eyes bright in my flashlight beam likethe eyes of wild animals, watching him in the dark. I started toward him, and one of the others said, "Don't, ma'am. He's asleep, but hecould still hurt you." But I did my best to sound motherly-"It's okay,sweetheart. You're just having a bad dream"-and talked him back to bed. 
Walking back to the Vietnamese side, I felt as if I were on a singlestable stilt. Suddenly Ryan popped up in front of me. He reminded me a little of an intelligent chicken: sharp nose, sharp but receding chin,shiny little eyes, and a bit of a forelock over his brow, like acoxcomb. He grabbed my arm as I tottered against him. "Steady, L.T." 
"You keep popping in and out," I complained; "it's like, now I see you,now I don't." 
"You better sit down, ma'am. You feel like you're running a fever. 
Anything wrong?" 
"Got a sore toe. Isn't that silly?" 
"You better go sit down." 
"Gotta finish rounds." 
"I'll finish them." 
I was dubious. "Okay, but make sure everybody's breathing." 
"Affirmative, L.T." 
I limped back to my metal folding chair and landed heavily. I proppedmy sore foot on another chair, feeling like a comic figure of an old manwith gout. 
I wanted to take my boot off, but I was going to wait until the nightsupervisor made rounds, because I didn't want to be caught out ofuniform and I knew that if I got the boot off, I wouldn't be able to getit back on. Actually, I didn't care all that much one way or the other,but to take the boot off would require bending over and I thought itvery likely the top of my head would fall off and rattle down the aislelike a loose cookie jar lid when the jar is tipped too far. So I would just rest a minute and then I would start a letter to Mom. 
My eyes just closed for a moment, but they wanted to stay closed. I fought them open again. I couldn't be caught sleeping on duty. I finally pried them open and started writing the letter. I found that I couldn't remember my last word and my pen kept slipping off the page, mywords leveling out like an EKG gone flat when a patient dies. 
My lids kept drooping and I wished I could use toothpicks to prop themopen-the dim lighting, the muted noises, the intense heat, and thefeeling I had of trying to move through molasses with my body while mymind was in free-fall made me feel drunk. I kept dropping off andstartling myself awake a split second later, so that my surroundingstook on the semblance of a clumsy animation with too few frames -jerkyand discontinuous. I thought things would seem more real if only Icould turn on more lights. 
And then the ward lurched again and I saw that there were more lights,floating just ahead of me and a little above my chair. They were verypretty multicolored ones, patterned ones, a veritable Fourth of July'sworth of lights, except that they weren't exploding and sparking butswirling out and dissipating like heat waves. 
At first I thought there were seven, but they all sort of blurred andexpanded into one big radiant pattern, flowing like smoke out of acentral body, drifting, seeming to form ghosts, like the ectoplasmmediums were-supposed to exhale, only in living color-rather faded colorat first, but as I watched, growing more vivid. Clear blue and jadegreen and spiraling flames of amethyst flowed from what seemed aredorange fountain with curls of blue smoke and rays of pure yellow,with a white spark near the center. 
I thought: Far out, complimenting myself on my Technicolor imagination.I watched the colored thing's progress passively as if it were a weirdmovie. I could see perfectly well beyond the light and everyone was still sleeping. 
Behind the light, at first dim but growing brighter all the time, was aman's figure. Initially it seemed legless, but as it grew brighter itlit him up like a Christmas tree. I could see that he had his legstucked up under him, yoga style. 
He was floating about five feet off the ground, just above the iron endsof the beds, and underneath his toes I saw the intake and outputclipboard hanging from Xe's bed foot. Through the transparent whitespark his hands clasped at his chest. 
I don't know if I actually said it, but I thought: What a great trick,Xe. I didn't know you could do that. I also thought it was neat theway he'd grown his legs back, but I didn't want to say anything-itseemed crass to mention it. 
As I watched, the light shifted with the same jerkiness as everythingelse, so when the pink tendrils started waiting toward me, it was againa case of presto chango, now I see them and now I don't know if I likethis whole trip or not. I scooted back and my leg fell off the chair,which sent shafts of fire up it. The tendrils shriveled, and as theyshrank back to the center, they deepened to bright red, then deep brickred, surrounding the whole pattern. Through the light I saw Xe's face,and that made me scramble even farther backward. 
With another of those animated frame shifts, I blinked and saw only thelittle desk lamp. Xe was lying quietly, his eyes closed, looking maybea little more tired and sadder than I remembered from before, butotherwise the same. I caught the glint of Ahn's eye as he rolled ontohis stomach, looking around him as if he thought a cougar would pounceon him. I started up from my chair but blinked again and there was Ryanleaning across me over the desk. "L.T., you okay? You look real bad." 
"I'm burning up," I told him and realized it was the truth. "And I gotta pee." 
Inside the narrow toilet cubicle behind the nurses' station, I saw inthe mirror that my face looked ghastly-if I had a patient who lookedlike that, I'd put them on the seriously ill list. My hair was mattedwith sweat that rolled off my pasty face and trickled down the back. of my neck, though there were still goose bumps on my arms and ice waterrunning through my spinal column. When I pulled down my trousers andtried to sit on the seat, my leg didn't want to bend from the hip. The rock in my groin was harder, and a ribbon of blush ran all the way downmy leg. 
I thought: Oh shit, and pried off my boot, which seemed embedded in myleg. I was glad I was already on the stool when I finally pulled my toefree because it hurt so badly I would have messed myself otherwise.Rolls of puffy calf and ankle flesh almost obscured my boot garter and Icut it off with my bandage scissors. The toe was red and twice as bigas the other one, and the whole foot was bloated with edema. When I limped back outside, I shoved a thermometer in my mouth before doingThat's treatment. I thought something was wrong with the thermometer.The mercury hit 105. I took three aspirin and left the rounds to Ryan. 
When the shift was over, I reported to sick call and spent the nextthree days in my hooch soaking my foot in purple solution and poppingantibiotics. 
"Dear Mom," I wrote during that time, "I now know how it feels to bedelirious. You wouldn't believe the dreams! And I think they may putme in for a Purple Heart on account of I got this service-incurreddisability .  .  .  ... 
My toe was already turning toe-colored again, except for a slightresidual purple stain, when Father O'Rourke made his sickliedvisitation. The two of us sat in the lawn chairs on the porch outsidemy hooch and listened to my new Irish tapes, which had arrived from homea day or two before. The priest guzzled beer and I guzzledlemonaje-alcohol interferes with antibiotics. I elevated my purple footon the rail and tapped air in time with the music. It felt good to bealive and not in solitary and not baking with fever anymore. 
And if there was any man I loved to hear talk almost as much as he lovedto hear himself talk, it was Father O'Rourke. It was the brogue,mostly, of course, emerging deep and sonorous from that dark and burlyman, who gave the impression of being large without physically taking upall that much space. He could have made supply memos sound likeShakespeare. Or Brendan Behan, more appropriately. But he was also a lover of music and books and knew more theology than what was in hisbreviary. 
During the time I was recovering in my hooch, I'd had a couple of dreamsabout what I'd seen on the ward that night. While I could pass off Xe'slight show as being due to my delirium, there had been too many otheroff-kilter occurrences between that old man and me for me to pass it offso lightly. The brilliant light had had a very spiritual feeling aboutit, and I thought it might be bound up with halos after all. Everyonekept telling me Xe was a holy man. Unlikely as it seemed, I wondered ifmaybe-mayhe, because my illness had altered or expanded my consciousnessas LSD was supposed to, I had been enabled to see his halo-maybe hewasn't just holy, but a saint or even an angel. Okay, so it soundedfarfetched. But I hadn't expected to find bubonic plague in Vietnameither, and I had. 
"Father, can I ask you a question?" 
"After the song's over, my child," he said. The song was about anexecution of an Irish patriot three hundred years before, and if I'dbeen paying proper attention I'd have noticed before I asked that Fatherhad tears rolling down his cheeks. 
When he'd mopped his face with a Kleenex, I tried again. "What I want to know is, who has halos and who can see them? Do saints have halos,or is it just angels? And can somebody be a saint without some sort ofpapal decision about it? I mean, could there be maybe Buddhist or Hindusaints that God knows about but hasn't let the Church in on yet? Could just anybody see their halos, if they let you?" 
The chaplain glowered at me from under his bristling black brows. With such brows, he always seemed to be glowering, whether he intended to ornot. "My dear child, what is it you're tryin' to do? 
Start another holy war? Is the one not enough for you, then?" 
"No, it's not that, it's just that .  .  .  well, when I first got sick,I was delirious, you know? And another time, I thought I sawon't laughat me, damn it, it isn't funny. I want you to regard this as being asconfidential as if I were one of your patients." 
"Flock." 
"Okay, one of your flock. Even though I was delirious, I think this wassort of like a dream and it must mean something. I haven't experiencedanything like it since I had the measles and heard this radio thatwasn't really playing and smelled salted nuts when there weren't any inthe house." I looked at him quickly but he had composed himself, hisbackwards baseball cap pulled down over his too assertive eyebrows, thewords "God Power" machine-embroidered on the cap's hem. "The other night, when I first got sick, I thought I saw this giant halo that wasall different colors and shapes around one of the patients, an oldVietnamese guy. And before, when the old man was in surgery, it lookedlike the major and our interpreter and Meyers and everybody had littlehalos too. Do you think, if the old man is a saint, well, could it becontagious somehow?" 
O'Rourke tilted his cap back and stopped balancing his chair on the backlegs, squarely setting it down. "Ah, life among the heathen isn'tfittin' for ye of little faith, I see that now. Some of this Eastern stuff seems to be rubbin' off on you." 
He was kidding me-the Irish always got a whole lot thicker when he waspulling your leg. 
"What Eastern stuff? Halos?" 
"Not halos, darling' girl. The Holy Father holds the patent on halosand on saints and angels, since you ask. Auras, now. Anyone can havean aura. Buddhists and Hindus and the lot are lousy with them. 
They have quite a few over to Duke University back in the States aswell." 
"What did you call them?" 
"Auras." 
"Like the northern lights?" 
"That's auroras, though I daresay it comes from the same root. Light,bands of light. Colored light, as a rule." 
"Sounds like a halo to me." 
"Only on your proper martyrs and such. Buddhists and them other Easterners are only authorized auras, martyrs or no. You mark my words,girl, and watch your step. They get you poor little lukewarm Methodistsand all over here and pump you full of Asian germs and start showing youauras, next thing you know you'll be runnin' around shoutin' Harry Krishna and playin' with matches and gasoline." 
The weather changed while I was on quarters. It started getting coolerin the evenings. At first I thought I just felt cooler because my feverhad gone down, but long after I returned to work, the nights remainedquite pleasant, balmy but no longer sweltering. 
I'd walk home from the ward for midnight supper break and sit on theporch outside my hooch. At night everything was so much nicer. Youcouldn't see the barbed wire and the concrete and the raw plywood andsandbags and olive drab so clearly. The sky was black and velvety andstar-studded, as glamorous as if there were no war on at all. Palms swayed on the horizon, and the South China Sea lapped gently at thebeach. You could even forget the smell if there was a little breeze. I couldn't help thinking that if I were Vietnamese, I could hate theAmericans on aesthetic grounds alone. Poor as the native houses and cities were, they blended with the countryside. Our compound remindedme of a strip mine I'd seen high in the Rockies. Everything else aroundit was breathtakingly beautiful and then there was this gutted mountainand a lake that looked like liquid cement. 
On the way back to the ward, the compound was dark and muffled, withonly the red glow of a cigarette tip from the guard tower to remind youit was manned by a bored soldier with a rifle. Inevitably there was alittle muted rock music from some corner of the compound, a radio turneddown low. 
The ward was quiet, too, those first few nights except for a whisper ofpages turning in Ryan's book. I still took the flashlight and rolledDang Thi That's graft, but now she sometimes slept through theprocedure. I was more curious than ever about Xe, but he slept allnight. Sometimes Ahn would wake up when I did rounds and climb into hiswheelchair and come sit with me by the desk, watching with serious darkeyes as I charted or read or wrote letters. I showed him how to write his name in English and he drew the letters like an artist, his smallgrubby hands oddly graceful, the hooded light of the lamp at the nurses'desk gleaming on his bowl-cut black hair. He was very quick. The worst problem was keeping him quiet. Already his sessions with Xinhdy and Maihad him babbling away in fluent pidgin. Still, he would leave them tofollow me if he thought I had a scrap of attention to spare him. I wrote my mother and asked her to comb the garage sales for children'sclothes. 
Evenings when I came on duty, Xe would be visiting with Dang Thi That orwith Xinhdy. He nodded courteously to me if I happened to catch hiseye, but otherwise paid me no observable attention, though sometimes Ifelt him watching me. I wondered about him more than ever. That alwaysseemed to feel better after he left, but while her wound improved witheach new procedure, the process was as long and gradual as Joe expected.I wonder now if Xe's power was really so diminished at that point, or ifhe simply felt that the hospital was the safest place for all of them tobe. 
Anyway, casualties came and went, including a pair of VC. I had no idea they were VC. They just looked like your average injured villagers tome, although, looking back, I remember them as a little more demandingand aggressive than most, but that could be my imagination. Anyway, one day they were admitted, seriously wounded, and when I came on shiftagain they were gone. I asked what had happened. 
Mai chimed in. "Patients say they VC. Xinhdy say to me if we not moveVC patients, other patients kill them," and as she said the last she ranher finger across her throat. 
"So where'd they go?" I asked. 
"The POW ward," Marge said. "The MPs came and got them." 
I tried not to wonder what became of them after that, and not to imaginewhat might have happened to us or our patients if Xinhdy and Mai weren'tso close. 
The last night I was on the ward was quiet and Xinhdy la daied me downto her bedside. She took my hand and looked at my ragged nails. "Numbahten," she said and got out her file and polish and started giving medragon-lady points. I let her. My work was caught up until midnightand I'd missed her cheerful, normal company. She more than anyone elselet me imagine that at one time there must have been a happier kind oflife in Vietnam, where people could be frivolous and worry about whatwas pretty. 
"Kitty, when you fini Vietnam?" she asked. 
"Oh, I still have months to go," I said. 
"Good. I cry when you fini Vietnam." 
"I'll miss you too," I said. "Do you think you might ever get to cometo America?" 
"I don't think so, but maybe. I like America. You know Hollywoo'?Vietnamee movie stars, they poor. Mai have more money than movie star.Not like Hollywoo'." 
"I guess not. Why, do you want to be a movie star?" 
"Hollywoo' movie star, yes. Vietnamee movie star not so good. Myfamily say movie star not so good for Vietnamee lady." 
When she gave me back my hands I resembled Madame Nhu from the wristsdown, stiletto nails, blood-red polish, and all. But Xinhdy thought Ilooked glamorous. 
When I got back to my quarters that morning, Julie Montgomery waswaiting at my door. I didn't much like Julie, as I'd mentioned to Tony.She had two topics of conversation: how irresistible she was and howmany men agreed with her. Most of the other girls disliked her, too,and openly snubbed her, but I'd tried to be at least polite. Being newin country wasn't easy. Still, I didn't welcome her visit. I had no desire to be bosom buddies with someone who was her own biggest fan. 
"Kitty, I have to talk to you," she said, her voice carrying a tragicwobble to it. 
"Sure. Come on in." 
She stood in the doorway and lit a cigarette. Her gestures were shortand jerky and she tried to make a tossing motion with her head, but hairas damaged by overtreating as hers doesn't move very well. In the sunlight streaming in the door, not one glint reflected off that pile ofdead straw she had teased into a bouffant. "I couldn't bear the thoughtthat you'd hear this from anyone else, so I decided, painful as it was,I had to come and tell you myself. You see, I don't want you to behurt. You've always been nice to me. But he said-he said you wouldn'tmind sharing. And since he's married, I figured it couldn't be reallyserious or anything and"-she giggled-"he's such a dish and he was solonesome.  .  .  ." 
I had been getting her a Coke from the fridge, but I put it back andkicked the door shut. "Wait a minute. Are you talking about Tony?" 
She nodded, giving me a soulful look through her cigarette smoke. "The way Carole Swenson acted, I thought maybe you might not know and Iwanted you to hear it from me instead of her. Oh, Kitty, say you won'thate me forever. It was just a date and you were on quarters." 
"Let me get this straight. Tony told you that he's married?" 
"Well, yeah-" 
"Thank you, Julie. I appreciate you telling me, but you'll have toexcuse me now, I've got a murder to plan." 
Well, at least I knew who the demure creature he wanted me to be like was. I supposed that was faithfulness, of a sort. I called Red Beach and told Tony what I thought of him and never to darken my doorwayagain. I surprised myself by not crying. Instead, I flopped onto mycot and read until I fell asleep, feeling strangely relieved for someonewho'd been jilted, as if I'd just peeled out of a tight girdle. 
At least now I wouldn't have anyone harping at me about being ladylikeor nurselike or like anything else but myself, or as much of myself as Icould still find after seven months in country. Tony's wife wasprobably having a ball at home. He ought to have sense enough to knowthat even Is perfect wife would probably be a lot different if she werein my shoes. Being a dust-off pilot wasn't the only job that had to bedone after all. 
I knew I'd miss him, but it was just physical, I told myself. justbecause his legs were longer and prettier than mine, and his hair was sotritely perfect to run my fingers through, was no reason to fall apart. 
just because his strong, beautiful fingers felt better than salt waterand sun on my skin. In my mind's eye I saw him stride jauntily towardthe pad. If only the jerk hadn't lied to me, damn him. 
The monsoon drizzle started at around three that afternoon, in keepingwith my mood. I didn't bother with a poncho but let the rain soak myred alligator-bedecked polo shirt. My flip-flops smacked against thewet cement walkway leading to the hospital and mail call. I didn't getmail, of course, but Marge Canon clutched another letter to her bosom, this one unstamped, which meant it came from in country. 
I'lutty, you got time to come back to the ward for a cup of coffee? 
I want to ask you about something." 
"Sure thing," I said, almost hoping she'd ask me to give up my afternoonoff and work extra. I felt miserable and useless, and when I felt likethat, the ward was the best place for me. 
"Kitty, you ever been to Quang Ngai?" 
"No," I said cautiously. Had I screwed up again or had it simply takenthe powers that be this long to find somewhere to send me? "I never had any reason to. Why? Am I being transferred?" 
"No, but I hope I am. Remember I told you about Hal? Well, he's inQuang Ngai now as hospital administrator at the 85th Evac. He wants me to try for a transfer." 
Her eyes sparkled. I didn't know whether to be happy or bitter that atleast somebody's love life was going well, but if anyone deserved to behappy it was Marge, so I said, "That's terrific, but when would youleave?" 
"Oh, not till I'm processed. And after your promotion, of course. Whichis tomorrow, by the way, in case you'd forgotten." 
"Promotion?" I asked stupidly. Even though promotion to firstlieutenant was supposed to be automatic, the brass could withhold ordelay it, as Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock had pointed out to me on acouple of occasions. 
"Don't look so shocked. You've grown tremendously since you came here.You're one of the best-organized charge nurses in the hospital and yourrapport with the Vietnamese is outstanding. As a matter of fact, Ishouldn't tell you this, but I'm putting you in for a Bronze Star andJoe is writing a commendation for your file before he leaves. And I'm recommending you for head nurse if my request for transfer goes through.So everything's going to work out great with you getting promoted rightaway. Lieutenant Colonel Blaylock wouldn't like leaving a secondlieutenant as acting head nurse but plenty of first lieutenants are. So I won't have to wait until my replacement arrives in country." 
When I arrived at work the next day, I walked about six inches tallerand chirped my way around the ward with more energy than usual. 
,Good morning, Melville," I greeted one of the GI patients, "How's theankle doin'?" Melville had sprained it while stocking supply shelves. I suspected he had fallen off the ladder while stoned. He stayed stoned alot, though nobody on the ward ever saw him smoke. 
"Oh, sir," he said, "I think gangrene is setting in. Can I have a Darvon?" 
Usually I would have snarled. Today the milk of human kindness filledmy circulatory system. 
"Of course you can, Melville. Just a sec." It was a wonder I didn't tell him to take two, they're small. 
My promotion was held on the Vietnamese side, with Marge, Joe Giangelo,Sergeant Baker, Mai, and Voorhees in attendance. Meyers had been pulledto ICU. 
I stood at attention while Marge read me the paper telling me in Armyesethat I had met their requirements (though it sounded, in typicallyinflated bureaucrat language, as if I had won the Congressional Medal ofHonor instead of merely an almost guaranteed promotion) and pinned a setof shiny silver bars over the embroidered ones on my fatigues thatcorresponded to a second lieutenant's butter bars. The shiny silverones were for symbolism's sake. You didn't wear metal insignia oncombat fatigues. I had learned this soon after coming in country, whenthe rationale of Army couture was explained to me by the supplysergeant. "No, ma'am. No shiny brass in the field. Sun catches on it and announces your arrival to the enemy, sure as shit." 
But I looked at my new bars as if they were platinum and shook hands allaround. 
I felt a tug at my hip pocket and turned around to see Ahn wearing anofficious expression. "Mamasan, mamasan, la dai. Chung Wi Long say youcome." 
Lieutenant Long, in the bed directly across from the nurses' station,was nodding a smiling endorsement of Ahn's summons. Long had been withus about two weeks. He was an educated man who spoke both French andVietnamese and sometimes translated for us on nights. He'd lost a legbut seemed to have accepted his loss with equanimity. He was glad to beout of action, I think, but I wished we could medevac him too. After all, when the NVA took over as seemed inevitable, Long would still be inVietnam. I didn't think a disabled vet from the losing side whuld standmuch of a chance. 
I followed Ahn to Long's bed. In the next bed, That shifted painfullyand gave me a tired smile. On the far side from us, Xe woke mutteringfrom an afternoon nap. 
Lieutenant Long cleared his throat. "Miss McCulley, you have promotion.You are now chung wi, same-same me, yes?" 
"Yes. See my pretty new bars?" I flipped up my collar for him to admirethem. 
"Very nice." He reached under his pillow and held out a couple of smallbrass flower-shaped clusters, hooked together. "This is Vietnamese rank for chung wi. Please accept with my congratulations." 
"Are these yours?" I asked. 
"Yes. I have more. Please accept." 
"Oh, I do. Thank you very much." And added formally, as I pinned themon my shirt pocket flap, where sometimes we wore extra little pins, unauthorized, of course, "I will wear this proudly. I feel veryhonored." And I did. Even though no extra pay came with it, I wasalmost more pleased at being promoted by Lieutenant lmng than I was atbeing promoted by Uncle Sam. 
Then, of course, Xinhdy and That and Ahn all had to admire my new rank,both American and Vietnamese. That bobbed her head respectfully. Ahn wanted to know if he could have my old ones. Even old Xe la daied me imperiously, gravely surveyed my new ornamentation, and nodded hisapproval. I patted his hand, despite his lordly air, and I thought hiseyes brightened. 
Xinhdy took out her lipstick and a Kleenex and polished the bars for me.It was the kind of totally off-the-wall thing she was always doing totry to please me, just because she was a generous and outgoing girl. I never got a chance to pay her back for her attempts to make meglamorous. 
Sergeant Baker called me from the door. "Hey, Lieutenant, you got avisitor," he said. 
I turned from Xe to see Ginger Phillips shuffle onto the ward, her handson the shoulders of a gangly, crew-cut Vietnamese child in a faded pinkdress. 
They met me before I came around the bed and the child threw her armsaround my neck. I returned her hug, though I was a little puzzled. 
"Tran just wanted to say good-bye and thank you, Kitty," Ginger said."She's going home today so she can spend Christmas with her folks." 
"Cam ong, co," Tran said softly. "Tank you." I had no idea what she wasthanking me for, but I suspected Ginger had put her up to it. She hadworked on ward six since a little before I had, and had continued tospeak to me after my transfer. 
"No sweat, Tran," I said, stroking her bristling head. The words had a hard time coming out. My throat had closed over and my eyes wateredlike an old woman's. 
Ahn grabbed my hand as soon as I let go of Tran, and didn't release ituntil she left. 
I was promoted on Wednesday, switched to days on Thursday. 
mISunday morning I worked alone on day shift. I walked onto the Vietnamese ward to find Sarah still running around trying to get morningmeds and charting done. Her face was set and tight with emotion and shewould not look at me. There was something else, too, something awfulabout the ward that made me stop at the door and hesitate to lookaround. My eyes went first to Dang Thi That and Xe, but they bothseemed to be sleeping. I was noticing that the old man looked even moredrawn and drained than usual when Ahn sat up, saw me, and catapultedinto his wheelchair like a cowboy in a movie, barely stopping himselffrom knocking me over by throwing his arms around my waist and sobbing.I knelt down to pet him and that was when I noticed Xinhdy's empty bed. 
"Sarah, where's Xinhdy?" I asked as casually as I could. She could have been in X-ray, or surgery. She was young and healthy and . . . 
"Xinhdy died, Kitty." 
"Died?" I asked stupidly. "What do you mean she died? C'mon, Sarah,get real. I'm talking about Xinh, in the last bed? She couldn't have died. All she had was a broken hip, for Christ's sake. She wasn't even on the seriously ill list. She wasn't authorized to die." I know that sounds like a bad joke to an outsider, but we had a seriously ill listand a very seriously ill list. If a patient was not on the veryseriously ill list before he died, staff members were considered to bederelict in their duty. 
Sarah didn't answer me, but Mai emerged from the bathroom. This timemore than her hair was wet. 
"Mai .  .  .  ?" I began, still stroking Ahn's back and shoulders. Mailooked away, then covered her face with her hands, and I knew there wasno mistake. 
But there had to be. When I left the ward the night before, Xinhdy wasperfectly okay. Well, she was restless and was sweating more thanusual. She had a very slight temp, which I charted. I told Sarah in report I thought Xinh might be coming down with the flu. She'd been socranky all evening Meyers had asked very carefully if she might be onher period. She kept thrashing around, shifting from one position toanother, demanding that things be moved to accommodate each shift. This from the most self-sufficient bedfast patient on the ward. When the other Vietnamese visited, she complained to them in a loud voice untilthey left again, disgruntled. Still, I figured it was just a littleupset. Hospitalized people can get colds and the flu too. My God, hadI missed the beginnings of some horrible fast-killing Vietnamese strainof pneumonia? The empty bed stared blankly back at me. I expected agurney to be wheeled in at any moment with Xinh in her hip spica castleaning up on one elbow to smile and wave hello like a Rose Bowlprincess as she passed the other beds on the ward. 
"What was it, Sarah?" I asked. "Did she-was it some kind of flu? Were you able to get Joe?" 
"Not till it was too late," she said. "He was over at that generals'mess at I Corps and didn't get back till later. Captain Schlakowskicame over at eight and checked her but thought she was okay. Then we got three new patients on the GI side, and when I came back to do'dn'ght meds Xinh was having trouble breathing. I was taking her mi Ipulse when she arrested. I started CPR while Ryan called a code andtossed me the ambu bag. The team got here right away but it was justtoo late." 
"How could she arrest?" I asked. "She's twenty-two years old." 
"I know, I know," she said, her voice getting softer and softer. "Joecame in to pronounce her. He said it was a fat embolism. Sometimes it happens with bad hip injuries who are bedridden for a long time. I never heard of that before, did you?" 
"No-l-where's Joe?" 
"In surgery with one of the GIs. I don't know how he can do it, Kitty.He was more upset than anybody. Except maybe Xe. He woke up when theteam brought the crash cart and I guess he was confused by all thecommotion. He tried to get out of bed by himself and fell, then keptcrawling toward us. It was awful," and now Sarah started to cry and Iput my free arm around her. "I'm filling out an incident reportnow. 
"Old guy's more trouble than he's worth, isn't he?" I said, but my voicecracked. 
I didn't cry until toward the end of the day, though. You aren't supposed to cry in front of the patients, but that wasn't it. I justcouldn't believe she was gone. Well, gone, yeah, but dead? I keptwandering back to her bed. The silence, without Vietnamese TV, wasoppressive. Mai simply made herself scarce except when she hadspecifically assigned duties. The other patients slept, except forThat, when I did her treatment, and Ahn, who clung to me and wanted meto carry him all day. 
The day passed in a haze until mail call. I opened a care package fromhome when I got back to the ward. A nest of fat, bright yarn hair tieslay in the bottom and I pulled them out. My first thought was Xinhdywill love these; and then I looked at her stripped bed and aping bedsidetable. My throat clamped down. I dumped Ahn in his wheelchair andbolted for the nurses' bathroom on the GI side. I don't know how longit took me to stop crying, but when I did, the fog had lifted and thepain had definitely set in. I wish I could say that I nobly comfortedeverybody else, but we all handled it as we handled most things inVietnam, isolating ourselves from one another until we could convinceourselves that the anguish was nonsense, that war was a tough situationand you just had to do the best you could. The patients slept. Mai wenthome early. The corpsmen and Sergeant Baker furiously cleaned the wardas if the President were visiting the next day. Joe was a pain in theass when he made rounds, ordering all kinds of useless things forpatients he hadn't done more than cursory exams on for months. 
On Monday, Sergeant Baker plopped a wad of R&R pamphlets on the desk infront of me. "Forms are right there, Lieutenant. Pick your spot, fill'em out, and get the hell away from here while you still got thechance." 
I leafed through them. The waters of the Great Barrier Reef looked abnormally blue, the mountains of Japan steep, and I already had acamera and a stereo coming from the Pacex catalog. As for the shoppingof Singapore and Hong Kong, who needed sleazy silk clothes or outdatedbeaded sweaters? I couldn't work up any enthusiasm, yet I knew thatSarge was right, I needed to leave, and soon. 
Heron was leaning against Xe's side rails when I returned from passingmeds to the new GI casualties that day. He looked tired and ungainly,his body angling off in several directions to bring his face close tothe still one of the shrunken old man. Xe's left hand fluttered like a moth until it lit in the medic's palm. As I approached them, the oldman's eyes opened. His face was agonized as he looked up at Heron, likea dog asking to be put to sleep. 
Without turning around, Heron asked, "How long has he been like this?" 
"Since last night. He fell out of bed. He was trying to-urn, he was-"I broke off and bit my lip, swallowed, and continued, "One of ourlong-term patients died last night. She was-a friend of Xe's. I think he was probably so scared for her he forgot he couldn't walk-" 
"Who was it?" 
"Xinhdy-Xinh. The girl in the last bed. It was-a sort of freaky thing.My voice died away as my throat closed off again. "I think -I think he's grieving-" 
"That's putting it mildly," Heron said bitterly. Then he turned to face me. "Sorry, McCulley. But you have no idea how special this man is." 
"I'm starting to. You've spoken of it before. And-some things havehappened." 
"Like the deal with the men on the other side of the ward?" 
"Heron, I want you to know it wasn't that I didn't mean to help Xe. But I saw Meyers coming and I still had to dress Dickens's legs and I don'tthink the men would have really-" 
He gave me a disgusted look. "Of course they would have. But I understand when you've got two patients who both need you, yourinclination would be to stay with the white guy." 
"That's a goddamn lie," I said. 
"Okay, okay, cool it. Can you get someone to relieve you? Good. Theri. let's go for a nice walk. If you really want to know about Xe, I'lltell you. But I don't want to talk anymore in front of him and I don'tmuch like spending time in rooms full of people. It makes me jumpy." 
He stopped, said something in soft Vietnamese to Xe, and bowed slightly.The old man wearily inclined his head and closed his eyes, his handscrossed on the amulet in the gesture I'd seen so often. Only this timeit reminded me of the classic pose of a corpse holding a lily. 
I let Sergeant Baker know I was going to be off duty for a few minutesand led Heron through the screen door at the back of the ward, throughthe curtain of rain draining off the roof of the building and onto thestreaming sidewalk between the perimeter fence and the back row ofQuonset hut wards. It wasn't raining hard then, but we were both wet inpatches before either of us spoke again. A cool green smell waited infrom the perimeter, of ozone and fresh growth. 
Outside I saw that Heron was in worse shape than I was, though not asbad as Xe. His eyes were infrared maps, and in the blue circles liningthe sockets a large vein jumped. His mustache, waxed to ferociouspoints like the toes of Turkish slippers, twitched. 
"Heron, I do care about Xe and I wouldn't have let anything more happento him, you've got to believe that. I guess I just don't think on my feet that quickly and Meyers and Feyder were quicker. But I'm gettingready to go on R&R. Can Marge or someone on the ward contact you ifanything happens to Xe?" 
He shook his head dismally. "Nope. That's why I came over today. To say good-bye. I'm being reassigned to the field next week. I got in alittle trouble I couldn't talk my way out of." 
"Was it with drugs? Because I know you use pot-I saw you with Meyersand Feyder.  .  .  ." 
"Did you?" He looked mildly amused. "Is this a bust?" 
"Come off it. What I mean is, you use drugs, well, pot anyway, you haveaccess. I just need to know. The drugs aren't part of this power ofXe's you're talking about, are they? I mean, you don't have to be onsomething to see it? He doesn't, like, give people something . . ." 
He stared me down. "What do you think?" 
"I don't know what to think. You tell me Xe is some kind of native doctor and I've seen him get hurt twice trying to help other people, butthe experiences I've had with him were like how I've heard LSD tripsdescribed. So when I saw you pushing pot to my corpsman and one of mypatients, it made me wonder, you know?" 
He looked down at his foot and nodded, his lips compressed. "Yeah, well.The smoking's got nothing to do with Xe, but I'll tell you how that isfor me. I think we need a little light anesthetic sometimes to getthrough this war. A man who's good and stoned isn't so uptight he'sgoing to go shooting up whole villages, you bic? But that's my thing.Xe doesn't need drugs for the kind of high he generates." He turned hisback on me as if he had had the last word, and started walking backtoward the ward. 
I walked backward until I caught up with him, passed him, faced him. Thesun came out behind him and I had to squint up. His lantern jawshuttled back and forth beneath the pointy mustache. "Fine. I won't argue with you. Listen to me a minute, okay? Let me tell you why Ieven asked about drugs." 
I told him about the ball of multicolored light around Xe and about theday I'd worn the amulet. "But was it really just that I was sick, ordid I see something? Father O'Rourke said it could have been auras. Is that right? And if it is, why did I see them on everybody that one daywhen I wore the thingy he has around his neck, but then the other time Ijust saw his aura, but brighter, without wearing the necklace?" 
"He allowed you to wear the amulet?" 
"He insisted. He was going to surgery, and Xinh-l-he told her he wantedme to wear it if he was going to take it off." 
"And you saw colors?" 
I nodded. 
"Shit. I wore it once, too, and I didn't see a damned thing. He's talked about you before, but he never let on that you'd worn the amulet.The way he explained it to me, the amulet is a sort of magnifying glass.It makes the auras of other people clearer to him, although he can seethem, of course, without its help. But with it, he perceives physicaland spiritual information about people that helps him heal them." 
"I don't get it," I said. "It's usually pretty clear what's wrong withmy patients, but I can't do anything about it just because I know what'swrong 
"Maybe not, but he can. The way I understand it, the amulet alsoamplifies his aura so he can use his energy to help someone else's.Before he got hurt he traveled all over the north part of thecountrynobody ever gave him shit, not VC, not NVA, not ARVNS. Because he knew how to read them, how to heal the folks around, so that theyalways protected him from the hard-core badasses. Too fuckin' bad mortar shells don't have all that much of an aura." His voice was bitter again. 
"How about the night I saw the ball of light, then?" I asked. "I wasn't wearing the amulet." 
But he'd had enough of my questions and looked at me as if I were asister who'd gotten more than her share of cake at his birthday party.He shrugged. "You said you were sick. You figure it out." And hereturned to the ward to say a good-bye to Xe that I suppose both of themmust have known was final. 
When I dreamed that night it wasn't about R&R or about Xinhdy or Tony. Idreamed about Xe. I couldn't remember much except that he was floatingaround in a big balloon and seemed to be looking for something. I had the feeling he was looking for Heron, but I also knew, the way you do indreams, that that wasn't quite right. And ihen I thought it might be mehe was looking for and I wanted to tell him where I was, but LieutenantColonel Blaylock was hiding in the jungle somewhere with a rifle and ifshe found out I was watching that balloon instead of being back on theward, she'd shoot me and make sure I wouldn't get my Bronze Star either. 
I went to Taiwan for R&R. After Xinh's death and my cheerful chat withHeron, I couldn't bear to stay in Vietnam one extra minute. 
As soon as my papers were processed and Marge had rearranged theschedule, Sarge drove me out to the airport. Ahn rolled over on his stomach and wouldn't say good-bye to me, but That squeezed my hand andMai handed me a folded paper fan. "Airplane too hot," she explained,fanning herself with her hand. 
At the airport, the NCO in charge of the R&R flights said no way couldhe get me out. I started feeling panicky. It was one day of my leavejust sitting there. I told him to send me anyplace, anyplace at all,just get me out of country. He found one seat on a plane to Taipei. I didn't have the faintest idea what I'd do in Taiwan. The corpsmen toldme proudly of their exploits and showed me photos of their bedroombounddates, but I was damned if I was going to spend my little taste offreedom from the 83rd in one lousy room. 
Sick of the Army, tired of the military milieu in general, alone in aforeign country I had never explored before, I headed straight for thenaval base. I don't remember why. Maybe I needed time to becomeacclimatized to a week playing tourist. But I found I'd been missingthings I'd taken for granted, even despised, before. I met a Navy wifeat the PX coffee shop and sat for hours drinking coffee and listening togossip and routine marital problems that would have normally bored mestiff. It felt good to hear another woman a normurse, nonmilitarywoman, talk about ordinary, everyday housewifing business that hadnothing to do with sickness or war or dying. I found her child-rearingtraumas fascinating, her struggles with the base schools gripping. I cannot for the life of me remember if I even got her name. 
After I left her I wandered around the commissary in a daze, and at onepoint stood between the rows of sugar pops and frosted flakes andremembered all my junk food breakfasts and Saturday morning cartoons andprizes and box tops and good old American come-on advertising, and Istood there and wept like a fool. I never thought I'd miss crasscommercialism so much, and realized that I was capitalist to the core. Imissed the damned radio and TV commercials. I wished Xinhdy could haveseen, oh, a Maybelline ad, or a Clairol one. She'd have thought themvery glamorous. On Armed Forces Radio, the only commercials were "Dopreventive maintenance on your vehicle," and "Clean your weapon," and"Don't use captured enemy weapons and, if you happen to be an enemylistening, we wouldn't advise you to use your own weapons either." 
Later I shopped and bought jewelry and presents for friends at the 83rdand the family and went to a Taiwan aboriginal dance where they dressedus visitors up in native costume and had us dance with them, something alot like the squaw dances the Indians hold at powows at home. I had dresses made and I smelled flowers and traveled inland to the gorgeousTaroko Gorge and saw a turquoise river flowing through the mountains andthe marble factory. The funniest thing was getting on a FAT airlinesplane and hearing only oriental voices and seeing only oriental facesall around me. I began to feel panicky when all the speeches by thestewardesses were in Chinese. To my relief, a man's voice with a heavyAustralian accent announced that "this is your captain speaking." Ofcourse, there are undoubtedly lots of marvelous oriental pilots, but Iknew only of the mess the ARVNs made of our technical equipment, and theassociation was automatic. 
I felt like a large barbarian, a feeling that was reinforced when I wentshopping. I kept forgetting, surrounded by small oriental people, thatI was no longer in Vietnam. I was looking at one ring in a jeweler'sstall and said, "Oh, that one. I like. Numbah one." And the man in the stall said, "Yes, madame, that is an emerald of the finest quality.Would you care to try it on? Could I offer you tea, perhaps, while youare considering your choice?" I felt like a condescending fool. 
And once my cab passed a construction site and somebody dropped a boardor a hammer or something. I was on the floor of the cab before I knew what I was doing. 
The driver was alarmed. "Miss, miss, you okay?" he asked. 
"Oh, sure, thanks. just-uhropped my contact lens. There you are, youlittle devil." 
But the country was more beautiful than I had ever imagined, and Ialmost forgot about Vietnam in the fun of going shopping, dressing upand eating in nice restaurants. People were unexpectedly kind. I ran out of money before I could collect my developed snapshots and the manat the photo store told me not to worry, to send the money to him when Igot back to Nam, no sweat, he had a brother who was a dentist in theStates and so that made me okay too. And the girls in the hotel giftshop, where I had bought a couple of rings, called me over on my lastday to give me a sack of dried pineapple as a going-away present. 
I returned to the 83rd, if not eager to get back to work, at least eagerto share my adventures with my friends and play lady Bountiful with thepresents: a book for Marge and jade earrings for Voorhees's wife, apirated rock tape for Meyers and an ivory back scratcher for SergeantBaker, strings of beads for Carole and Judy, a woven Chinese handcufffor Ahn, and a delicately carved wooden hair ornament that struck me assomething that would be beautiful in Mai's hair if she kept her locksdry long enough to wear it. It cost maybe thirty-five cents in Americanmoney and I intended to get her something nicer but ran out of money. I felt guilty about being so chintzy when I had been so little comfort toher over Xinh's death. 
So I was surprised at her reaction when I intercepted her and gave it toher. 
"Very pretty," she said admiringly and handed it back to me. 
"No-it's for you," I told her. "I don't know if you wear this kind ofthing or not, but I thought it would look nice in your pretty hair." 
"For me? You buy present for me?" Her eyes started filling as shehandled it. "Thank you, thank you very much. Is so beautifoo. Wait. I have present for you too. It not here today. I bring it tomorrow-,,"Oh no, Mai, you already gave me a present. You were right. The planewas very hot and I used your fan all the time. I just wanted to bringyou the comb because I think a lot of you. It's so little really." 
But the next day she was there with a bolt of purple silk. She held it up against me, measuring. "It maybe too long for Western dress." 
"But that's good," I said. "I've really been wanting a Vietnamesedress. I'll have mamasan at the gift shack make me one. You alwayslook so pretty in yours." 
She took the cloth back. "No way you have her make Vietnamese dress foryou. I make you go dal." The next day she measured me for it and withina couple of days brought it over to the ward, along with an invitationfrom her family to come to the village and have dinner with them. So far as I knew, none of the other girls had been invited to a Vietnamesehome. I had to get special permission, but Mai was well known and likedat the 83rd and had doctors, nurses, and corpsmen she had worked with inthe past writing to her from all over the world. 
Permission was granted. The day we were to go, we both dressed in ourgo dais, my purple one so much larger than her little pink flowered one,and Joe took our picture. We walked down the road unmolested though not exactly unnoticed through Dogpatch and to Mai's house. Her mother hadfixed a chicken dinner and left the beak and the claws on top of thecooked meat so I would know that it wasn't dog or cat. Their house waslarge and spacious, with covered decks for eating and cooking.and bigfan-cooled rooms full of books. After dinner, Mai's brothers and Iplayed guitars and I chatted with her mother while Mai translated. Bythen it was well after dark, and Sergeant Baker came for me in the jeep. 
I think Mai and I were trying to start a friendship that would expand tofill some of the gap left by Xinh's death, though we never spoke of her.But though the friendship was cut short, I remember that peaceful,relaxed evening with gratitude. 
I had been looking forward to monsoon season as a break from ithe bleaksimmer of the heat. The first weeks of rain were welcome, but sooneverything stayed clammy with damp. The sheets were damp, the towelswere damp, even my sweater didn't offer much warmth because it was damp,too. I worked an unexpected run of nights when Sarah caught amebiasisand had to lie on a stretcher and take I.V. fluids every morning beforework because anything she ate or drank was lost to diarrhea andvomiting. The wards were cold in the daytime, and high winds broughtstorms in off the sea. Dressed in ponchos and wet jungle boots, wewaded to work across half-submerged islands of sidewalk. About an inch of water covered the floor of the central corridor. The roof leaked and bedpans and urinals sat around everywhere to catch the drips whileponcho-clad Vietnamese workmen crawled around on the roof, laboringslowly to plug the holes. Little lizards darted through the halls, andAhn, now equipped with a crutch and a makeshift wooden leg Joe hadfashioned from a crutch, limped after them with more agility than Iwould have thought possible. 
Marge's transfer to Quang Ngai was reluctantly approved with the help ofher boyfriend's connections. Joe's DEROS date was fast approaching, andbetween the two of them, you'd have thought the place was a photographystudio instead of a hospital ward. We took turns snapping pictures ofMarge and Joe, Marge with Mai, Joe with Mai, Marge and Joe together andseparately with Ahn, me, Sergeant Baker, Voorhees, Meyers, Ryan, That,and any other patient or staff member who would stand still long enoughto be snapped. Then we had to do more of the same because Marge'scamera was a Polaroid and Ahn and Mai wanted duplicates of every picturewith them in it. 
Then Sarah suddenly got a drop because of her amebiasis, which meantthey sent her home two months early to recuperate. I was pleased forher, but it made a lot more work for me, since her position and my oldone were filled with two new nurses. I spent a lot of time beingteacher. One of the new girls got amebiasis her second week in countryand, like Sarah, had to report early for I.V.s every morning. She andSarah left on the same plane. 
Marge hugged me when it was time for her to leave. "You'll do fine,Kitty. Write and let me know how everybody is, okay?" 
"Okay. just take care of yourself and kick Hal in the shins for me fortaking you away from us." 
Soon to be ex-Major Joe Giangelo and another major made it to the door in time to block her exit. Joe grabbed Marge for a hug. "You be a goodgirl, Margie, and oh, I almost forgot, I have something for you here."His brown eyes twinkled as he handed her a couple of pieces of paper."They're exercises to correct bowless-after you've been with old Hal fora while you're probably going to need them." 
"Don't let me take the copies you were going to mail to your wife, Joe.How long have you got left now?" 
"Six days four hours three minutes and"-he checked his watch-"twenty-one seconds. By the way, I'd like you all to meet myreplacement. Major Krupman, Major Marge Canon, the best ortho nurse inVietnam and possibly the entire military and an incredible fink who issplitting our fabled beaches. And this is Lieutenant McCulley, hersecond-in-command." 
Marge said hi and then had to run for her ride. I said hi, but Krupmanignored it. "I'd like to make rounds now, Joe, if you don't mind," hesaid briskly. 
"Sure thing. We'll start here." 
"Here? But these aren't American servicemen, they're gooks." 
Joe looked around him at all of the familiar faces and the few new arrivals. "No kidding? How about that? You mean you guys aren't from1st Cay?" 
Mai giggled. I decided it was a good time to get That up for herafternoon walk. Her grafts had taken and her hip was healed except fora single small area, from which a drain protruded. She had alreadywalked twice. This time when I raised her, she only hissed between herteeth, but did not cry when I got her to her feet, slung her arm aroundmy shoulders-which was a reach for her-and put my arm around her waist.She hissed again and groaned once. 
"Sorry, That," I said. "Sin loi." I hated to hurt her. 
She turned her face to me and on it was the biggest smile I had everseen. She was walking. It hurt, but she was walking and she hadn'tever thought she'd do that again, the smile said. We made the route twice. In a couple of weeks the drain could come out and with a littlehelp she could go home, wherever that was. 
"Hey, Joe, look at That!" I said. Joe looked up and waved. 
"Numbah one, mamasan!" he called to That from Xe's bed. "You gonna runfootraces pretty soon." 
Krupman straightened and glared. 
Joe made rounds for three more days. Krupman usually made it just intime for the rounds on the GI side, but was unavoidably detainedelsewhere when it came time to examine the Vietnamese. Even when Joe was not technically on duty, during the three out-processing days,Krupman didn't make rounds on the Vietnamese ward, despite our having aflock of new casualties, though he spent a lot of time patiently explaining back exercises to the incapacitated clerk-typist from Marineheadquarters. 
The day Joe got on the plane, however, I returned from lunch and sawthat the new doctor had finally deigned to visit the Vietnamese wardlong enough to stack a pile of charts where I could take off the orders. 
The first chart was that of an old man with a fractured collarbone and possible pneumonia. He had had his arm in a sling and had had I.V.antibiotics for the last day or so. The new order said "Discharge," asdid the orders on the charts of a girl with multiple shrapnel wounds toher lower body and a fractured humerus. The third discharge order wasfor Lieutenant Long, and already his bed was neatly made up and hisbedside table cleared. 
"Mai, did you see somebody take this order off already?" I asked,puzzled, since as the only nurse on the shift I was the only one whocould pass along the orders to be carried out. 
"No, Kitty. Chung Wi Long, he hear Dr. Krupman say, 'Send that manaway, is no more we can do for him." Chung Wi Long go." 
"Go? Where can he go?" 
Mai just looked unhappy. 
"Does he have family here, Mai?" 
Mai looked even more miserable and finally she mumbled that she supposedhe must, and left. 
"Sarge, Lieutenant Long just took off and Mai doesn't know where he'sgone." 
"Oh, yes, ma'am. Major Krupman said he could go. Only he didn'texactly put it like that." 
"Go where? He's got one leg and no family around here anymore. He saidthey were all wiped out at Tet last year. Where could he have gone?" 
Baker gave me a long look. It said I'd had a sheltered life and didn't understand much about people with no choices. It said what did I think happened to former Vietnamese officers with no family and wounds thatleft them helpless and dependent. 
"Beats the hell out of me, ma'am," was all Baker said. 
My hand went to my brass rosettes and my eyes swam as I opened thefourth chart, Dang Thi That's. "Transfer to Province Vietnamese Hospital," the order said. 
I cleaned and dressed That's wound, helped her use her trapeze to swingherself free of the bed, and walked her, deliberately waiting untilKrupman arrived the next day to talk to him about his preposterousorders. 
He beat me to it. "What are these people still doing here, nurse? I have written orders that they were to be discharged." 
"Xuan and Dinh are waiting for someone from their village to collectthem, sir," I said. They might be waiting, but their village was nearTam Ky and their relatives had no idea how to locate them. 
"How about the old woman?" 
"I wanted to talk to you about her, sir. That's been making greatprogress-I'm sure Dr. Giangelo told you how hard we've worked with her,how hard she's worked, but she's not quite healed yet and-" 
"Lieutenant, I am the physician here. I make that determination," hesaid, despite the fact that he had yet to examine her. "She's on her feet. She's well enough to go to her own facility and give up her muchneeded space to a deserving Gi." 
"Sir, we haven't had to admit GIs to this side since I've been here andthe census isn't especially high right now. We don't need the bed. There are four empty beds-" 
"I've given you an order, lieutenant. I expect it to be carried out. DoI make myself clear?" 
"But, sir, when you've been in country awhile and seen what ProvinceHospital is like-" 
"See here, young woman, I'm not listening to any more of these crappywar stories by you so-called old-timers. I want that woman out of here and I want her out of here now. Sergeant!" 
He was talking to Baker. "Yes, sir," Baker said. "Voorhees!" 
Voorhees dropped the thermometer he was about to put in Dinh's mouth."Sergeant?" 
"You heard the doctor. Get an ambulance and transfer the patient in bedfour to Province Hospital ASAP." 
"Yes, sir." 
I glared at Sergeant Baker, but he didn't meet my gaze. 
Voorhees moved slowly, rebelliously, but he was up for promotion, so hegot the ambulance and he got the stretcher and he started loading DangThi That onto it. I went over to help, to try to reassure her. I don't remember where Mai was, but she wasn't there to translate or I wouldhave tried to find someone else, a friend, a relative, to let them knowabout That's departure. I took her hand and said, "New doctor say youwell, mamasan. Send you Province Hospital." 
I hadn't gotten the words out of my mouth before she grasped my arm withboth hands, digging in frantically with her fingernails. Her face,which had reflected slow and agonizing suffering for so long, wassuddenly suffused with terror. "No, co! No!" She started climbing myarms, crying and begging. "Kitty, no-" Her eyes pleaded with me tochange things, not to betray the hope and trust I had-we all hadencouraged her to have in us. 
I held on to the stretcher, but Voorhees was pulling it away. That'snails grazed my arms as her hands lost their grip. Sergeant Bakertugged gently at my shoulders. "Come on, Lieutenant. No need to gethysterical over this," he said. "How many ladies like her you think areout there ain't had nobody to look after them?" 
"No, Kitty! No!" That cried, but now Voorhees, who looked about to cryhimself, was patting her and trying to calm her. He pulled the cartaway from me and rolled her down the hall. I looked after them. Voorhees was still comforting, but That was silent now, her arms foldedacross her chest, her streaming eyes turned toward the ceiling. 
I whirled around to glare at Krupman, but the bastard hadn't had theguts to stick around and hear her cry, so I glared at Baker instead. 
"Thanks for the backup, Sarge," I said sarcastically. 
"Don't go gettin' hurry on me, L.T. I just saved your butt. That doctor outranks both of us, and he said she goes, she goes. I didn't like it neither, but this is a war we got going' on here. Lkts of folks got less chance than Mrs. Dang out there on their own. At least he sent her to the hospital." 
"You heard what Voorhees said about that place! She'll die there and she knows it." I was still shaking, so I concentrated on licking myfinger and smudging the bloody tracks That's nails had left on my arms. 
"You don't know no such thing, ma'am. It's the place these people wouldgo to if we weren't here. They got their own ways, you know." 
"I guess so," I said, and turned away because I didn't want him to seeme crying. I was sitting at the desk watering the charts when I feltsomething warm close by. I turned slightly and Ahn leaned against me,nodding his head wisely, his eyes filled, not with fear, but with amixture of cynicism and the sort of pity an adult gives a child thefirst time the child has a toy his father can't fix. 
We got in a push of GIs later that week, and Krupman was too busyenjoying being a combat physician to banish any more of the nativepatients. I did my job and was barely polite, but as I worked with himthat week and the next I couldn't help realizing that with the GIs hewas a good doctor, caring, skillful, and thorough. I had to close myeyes and see That's face to remind myself what an ass he was. But I wasbeginning to be almost able to stand the man when Voorhees returned fromthe orphanage. 
"We stopped by Province Hospital on the way back, Lieutenant," he said. 
I was afraid to ask but I did anyway. "Did you see That? How is she?" 
,,She died a few days after she was admitted. Wound infection." 
"Shit," I said, but that was all. 
Mai returned from her daily shampoo in time to hear me. "What the mattah?" she asked, looking from me to Voorhees. 
He told her. 
I just sat there, and when I started to move, I felt as if I'd had agreat big novocaine shot that affected my entire body. 
Behind me, I heard the Vietnamese talking, but I didn't pay anyattention. When it was time for dressings, I missed doing That's as Ihad every day since she'd left. Forty patients on the census, and Imissed dressing one hollow hip. 
When it was Xe's turn, I bent over to dress his stumps and felt hishands come up at the sides of my head. The numbness there began slidingaway, and a deep ache replaced it. 
"What are you doing?" I snapped, but then I looked at him to find in hisface a perfect counterpart of my own pain and sense of failure. And I knew what had been slowly killing him. We were in the same boat, buthis was sinking faster. We were both there to help, and he, whoaccording to Heron had once been so much more powerful than I, was noweven more powerless. 
His hands, transparent as paper, hovered on either side of my head andhe ignored my question but kept watching me. Something silken andbalmlike touched the burning edges of the ache, then fell away. Thesorrow in his eyes deepened even as he lowered his hands. 
But the ache in my head receded and the numbness returned. 
I walked away from the hospital, the cold afternoon drizzle soakingthrough my uniform. I didn't even bother with my poncho. I went straight to the club and knocked back three straight tequilas. The tequilas weren't so much to bolster my courage as to tranquilize me so Ididn't attack Krupman with my bare hands. Usually booze just makes mesleepy, but that night I had to quit drinking before I calmed down. 
The anger swelled up inside me till there was no longer room to swallow.I wanted Krupman to come into the club. I wanted to make a scene. I wanted to ream him out in front of everybody. But he didn't come, thebastard, so I staggered over to his hooch and stood there pounding onthe screen while rivulets of water poured off my boonie hat and down myarms. The doctor was inside, headphones enveloping his ears while hisreel-to-reel deck rolled shiny tape from one cylinder to another. He looked up, and no one could accuse him of undue sensitivity or secondsight. 
"What is it, lieutenant?" he asked, almost amiably. "An emergency?" 
"Not exactly," I said. "I just wanted to give you something tocelebrate. I thought you'd like to know that poor woman you sent toProvince Hospital accommodated you by dying. That seems to be what youwanted-" 
He had lifted the headphones when I started to talk; now he tore themoff his head and flung them on his bunk. "I didn't want anything oneway or the other, lieutenant. I just didn't give up my practice to treat slants." He picked up a photo of a group of people, and I admit Ididn't register what they looked like because I thought he might beplanning on using it as a weapon. "You see this boy in uniform here? 
That's my baby brother. He volunteered to be an American adviser and help these goddamn people and they let him walk into an ambush. 
"I came over here to help boys like him and keep them from dying in thisidiotic war. How people like that Giangelo guy and you can make petsout of the locals when you see what they do to your own people is amystery to me, but as long as I'm in charge of orthopedics we aretreating Americans, and the gooks can take care of their own. I'll tellyou something else, lieutenant"-his face was perfectly calm through allthis and his voice was as even as a numbed-out marine's, though not asloud-"as soon as I have a little free time from the men who need me, I'mgoing to clean that place out, starting with those panhandlers who'vebeen using up American medical supplies for the past few months. So youmight as well start getting used to it." 
He slammed the screen, then the inner door, in my face. As the door slammed, I saw him slip his headphones back on. 
I could have pounded all night and been hauled off by the MPs, Isuppose, but instead I sloshed back through the rain to the club tocontinue getting drunk. It wasn't my day. Tony was there. I hadn't seen him in weeks, except coming and going a couple of times fromJulie's hooch. Carole had mentioned that they'd broken up and that Tonyhad cornered her and Tom to cry on their shoulders. 
"Kitty, I have to talk to you-" 
"Not now," I snapped. "Not ever. Let me alone, Tony. Take whatever you've got to say and put it in a letter to your wife." 
"Don't be that way, babe. I didn't know it mattered to you. You were seeing jake when I met you." 
"I was not 'seeing' jake," I began and then was just too tired tofinish. "Look, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk to you." 
"Baby, I miss you. We're getting fired on all the time now. I almost got creamed last time." From his tone and the slight tremble of hisperfect fingers around his drink, I thought he meant it this time.Usually, despite his fondness for military melodrama, Tony had as muchfaith in his own immortality as most of my patients had before theyqualified as patients. But I, for one, did not give a shit what hebelieved. 
"Tony, I'm sorry about that, but I have a few other things on my mind,all right? I'm cold and wet and I just finished talking to a so calledphysician who cheerfully accepted that he murdered one of my patientsand intends to go on murdering them, all perfectly legally and with theArmy's blessings, because he blames my patients and maybe me for thedeath of his brother." 
"He killed your patient?" 
"Yes. It was Dang Thi That." 
"The old lady with the hip?" 
"I'm surprised you remembered. You never liked me to talk about mypatients, if I recall. They weren't as interesting as your goddamnhelicopters." 
"Okay, okay, I deserve that, I guess. Carole tried to tell me a little how you felt, and believe me, I never thought you were cheap oranything. It's just, we were so good together I couldn't see why youcouldn't just be happy with that. Why dwell on the war all the time?" 
"I wasn't talking about the goddamn war. I was talking about mypatients. The same way you talk about your fuckin' helicopters. It's my work and-and that bastard is destroying everything......... I started bawling again, and could have shot myself for it. 
But Tony had made up his mind to be charming, and I had forgotten howgood at it he could be. He ran his hand up the back of my neck andkneaded, comfortingly, warmingly. "God, babe, I'm sorry. Tell me aboutit, come on. Let's go back to your place, or you won't be in any shapeto do anyone any good." 
I stopped crying before I told him because I didn't want to give him anexcuse to hold me, much as I wanted to be held. He was unexpectedlyconcerned, however, and I remembered that a lot of my patients had beenhis patients first, in a way. He had delivered them. And Tony was a lotof things I didn't like, but for Vietnam, he wasn't much of a racist. 
"Now he says he's going to do the same thing to the others-" 
"Can't you head him off?" 
"How?" 
"I don't know. Where are they from?" 
Somewhere near Tam Ky." 
"Okay, I'll check it out. If we can get some relatives up here, yourpatients will have someone to look after them at Province anyway." 
He was talking about an awfully long shot and we both knew it. UninjuredVietnamese were even lower priority than injured ones. 
"Christ," I said. "It's like triage. It's bad enough for the newpeople, but old Xe and Ahn . . ." He reached over and stroked my cheekwith that beautiful hand and gave me a melting look from those beautifuleyes and I almost fell into his arms. But I wasn't about to. Maybe hewasn't a complete rat, but That's death was the issue here, not my sexlife or his. 
"Don't they have anyone?" 
"Nobody. Ahn's an orphan and Xe-Tony, do you know a Special Forces type 
named Heron?" 
"Heron, Heron .  .  .  no, babe. Sorry. I don't-sounds familiar, but . 
. ." He let his arms raise and drop and the pungency of his sweat rose

up between us from the darkened green patches under the arms of his
fatigue shirt. 
"Will you ask around for me? Please? He's a friend of the old man's. 

He got sent back to the field, but he might be able to pull some stringsand get Xe sent home. But I don't know what to do about Ahn. If Margewere here she'd know what to do." 
"Where is she?" 
"In Quang Ngai, with her buddy Hal, who runs the hospital. If she 

hadn't left, that bastard Krupman would never have gotten away with
this." 
"She knows the kid, Ahn, huh?" 
"Sure. She knew all the long-term patients. Ahn's not so sick, but his

stump isn't all that healed over yet, even though he has that prosthesisJoe cobbled out of an old crutch. We've been waiting for a realprosthesis." 
"He'd just sell it on the black market," Tony said. 
I started to swing on him. 
"Okay, okay." 
"I'm sorry. You're right. But he doesn't have any place to go or any

chance." 
"You could say that about half of Vietnam." 
"Yeah, well, half of Vietnam doesn't call me mamasan. Tony, I can't let

him die like That, I just can't. Shit. If only Marge were around." 

"Well, hell, if she's the answer to everything, why not take the kid
down to her?" 
"I can't. I-" 
"I could. I go down there every once in a while. We could go down and

visit your friend and you could drop the kid off." 
"Is that-I mean, is it okay to carry a Vietnamese civilian?" 
"I do it all the time." He grinned. "Part of my job description, babe,

remember? And why do you care about okay? You're the one who needs to get around regs now. just tell me when to pick you up." 
"Well, I couldn't go-I mean, I'm on duty." "You could go after, couldn't you? You're head nurse now. Rewrite the schedule. Give yourself a day off. Nobody will know. I'll have you 
back day after tomorrow night, and if not, hell, what can they do, sendyou to Vietnam?" 
"But couldn't you just find Marge once you get there and get her toadmit Ahn?" 
"Baby, I don't give a shit about Ahn, or Marge. I'm in this for ulterior motives, remember? I want my best girl back." 
"Tony, you're married," I said wearily. "And you lied to me about it." 
"Well, so what? She's not here and you are. Is it a deal or not?" 
That's face flashed in front of me again and Ahn's sad, knowing eyes asTony's scent smoked up my nostrils and his hand brushed my cheek again."What you say, babe? Deal? Huh?" 
"Okay." 
"Seal it with a kiss?" His mouth came close to mine and his arms slid upmine. 
"Tony, believe it or not, I'm just not in the mood right now." 
He grinned. "I bic, baby. That's okay. I know a guy in Quang Ngai Ican kick out of his hooch for the night. See you tomorrow." 
'Tony?" 
"Yeah?" 
"You think this will work?" 
"Sho 'nuer, baby. No sweat." 
The atmosphere on the ward the next morning was as dismal as theweather. Navy-gray clouds rolled in from the South China Sea like tonsof concrete, dropping rain in thick splats. The din of rain on a tin roof can be rather pleasant if you're inside. But combine the din with the discordant notes of those same drops plonking into basins andbedpans inside your shelter and the cursing of personnel tripping overthe basins, and it's too noisy to think. 
Sergeant Baker glowered at me when I came in and Voorhees declined tomeet my eyes. I made old Xe's bed with him in it that morning. He was still asleep when I brought his medication, but his respirations wereloud enough to be heard from several feet away over the rain. His chest sounded like a rattle. Ahn sat in bed and watched, his eyes as round asif he'd never seen anyone sick or hurt before. I thought again howquickly he had begun to act like a normal child. I wondered if I had done him any favors by convincing him that he could afford the luxury ofa childhood, however brief. 
The sheets I bunched under the old man were damp. Ahn slid out of bed,grabbed his crutches, and helped me. Watching Mai and the corpsmen,he'd learned to make hospital corners as sharp as any probationer's, andwhile he tucked, I rolled Xe toward me. When I rolled him onto his back again, his eyes were open-one of them, anyway. The other lid droopedheavily over the eye and the side of his mouth tugged at the corner. I grabbed a blood pressure cuff, but there was no particular change. At some point, while he slept, Xe had had a stroke. 
It could have happened to anybody his age, but combined with hisamputations and the rattle in his lungs, it was ominous. 
"Aw, shit," I muttered, half to myself, half to Ahn, who had moved to myside and was watching the old man as if he might explode. "Now I have to call Krupman in early." I couldn't help but take a hard look at Ahn. 
"No, mamasan, no call bac si. He cat ca dao papasan, same-same Ba That,Mamasan, you make papasan numbah one." 
"No can do, Ahn. Sin loi," I said, and started for the phone as Ahncontinued his protests in ever-shriller Vietnamese. Xe's right handcurled over his chest like a claw, but his left one whipped out andgrabbed my arm in a viselike grip. 
He moved his mouth, but nothing save a dribble of spittle emerged. 
"What did he say, Ahn?" I asked. "Does he need anything?" 
"Papasan say he fini pretty quick." 
"Give me a break, kid. You sound like Krupman now." 
The right hand stayed hovering over the chest, but the left one steeredmy hand to the old man's neck and the theng, and my fingers found theamulet. Together we steered it back to its place over his sternum, andhis good hand clamped mine over his bad one and the amulet. A violet-gray light oozed from him like a slowly spreading hematoma. I started to check his pupils, but suddenly life-real, knowing, painfullife-leaped back into his good eye like a revived candle flame andfocused on me. I felt as though we had clasped hands across a deepcrevasse. I had seen, felt, such a thing from patients before, whenthey prepared to die, especially those who couldn't talk-this is who Iam, remember me, it said. But never before with the bruising strengthof will that flowed from Xe. In those eyes were my grandfather,great-grandmother, my favorite teachers at their wisest, my mother andfather, Charlie Heron as I had last seen him, and another, strongerpresence, a man who had been young and whom the war had made old, a manwho had been even more than he was now-much more-and who was finallylosing what was left. Those eyes held me fast, and then the power andthe personality drained from them until only a stagnant pool was left inthe good eye, which wearily closed for a moment. 
I hugged Ahn close to me with my free hand. Papasan breathed a deepsigh and opened his eye to fix it on us. He seemed puzzled for amoment, then the side of his mouth that was not drooping downwardtwitched up. His good hand nudged mine toward his chin. 
"Xe want you take his joolry, mamasan. Same-same last time." 
I rallied from the impact of that compelling stare, which had made mefeel almost that I was Xe instead of me. I couldn't stop to think about it until after I'd taken his pulse, called the doctor, done what I couldto preserve his life. I tried to untangle my hand from his so I couldtake his pulse. Refusing to release my hand, however, Xe carried itwith him as he nudged at his amulet again. I had to take a set of vital signs before Krupman arrived, so I did as Xe insisted and removed theamulet. If Xe died, my logical side insisted I'd save it for Heron. I was just kidding myself-I knew there was more to it than that-but for Xeit was enough that I took it. He didn't insist I wear it this time, andas soon as I stuck it in my pocket, he relaxed. 
Krupman had barely begun his examination when Xe expired. 
"Well, Miss McCulley," Krupman said, "looks like your hangover from yourlittle toot last night prevented you from giving decent care even toyour pet gooks. He's dead. Perhaps if I'd been called sooner-" 
"If you'd been called sooner you could have sent him to Province to die,right?" I demanded. 
"That's it!" he said. "I've put up with you about long enough, younglady. You're earning yourself an Article 14." 
I bit back what I would have said if I could have afforded to spend myafternoon at attention in Blaylock's office. 
"I'm sorry, Doctor," I said more meekly than I would have thoughtpossible. "But I called you as soon as I could. I didn't want to leave the patient alone." Yeah, Doctor. Unlike you, I care about my patients. 
"I want those other people out of here by tomorrow morning. And I'mdischarging the amputee kid." 
I didn't say anything. I couldn't agree with him or he'd be alarmed,and since I already knew what I was going to do, I had no reason todisagree with him. So I shut up. 
"Lieutenant?" 
'Sir?" 
"I mean it. I expect these patients to be gone when I return in themorning." 
"Yes, sir," I said, and did busy work on the other side until he leftthe ward to go to surgery and heal the patients who deserved treatment. 
Tricking Voorhees wasn't necessary. Fortunately, Sergeant Baker had along ward masters' meeting and a farewell party for the command sergeantmajor of the hospital. So I refrained from telling the corpsmen aboutthe transfer until the end of the shift. Then I gave the fastest reportin nursing history and announced that I was going to ride along in theJeep. But as Voorhees and I rolled Ahn's wheelchair out the door of the 
E.R. toward the motor pool, Tony landed. He cut it a little close to suit me, but he was there. 
"Oh, wait a minute, Gus, will you?" I said. "Tony will want to saygood-bye to Ahn." 
I had to shout over the ripple of the blades. The spin and wind of themblew rainwater everywhere and lifted my poncho up over my face. 
"What's going on, L.T.?" Voorhees shouted, trailing me to the pad. I helped Ahn out of the wheelchair and handed him his crutch. I didn't want to get Voorhees in trouble, but then, it wouldn't be so great if hereported me as AWOL the minute we left the pad. 
I leaned over and cupped my hands to the corpsman's ear and shouted,"We're taking Ahn to Major Canon in Quang Ngai." 
He shouted into my ear, "Krupman will have your ass." 
I shouted back, "No way. He just wants the kid gone, bic?" 
Voorhees seemed to think this over for a split second, then pulled backand gave me a wide grin and a thumbs-up sign. "All right." 
I climbed aboard the chopper, pulling Ahn in after me. Lightfoot,Tony's crew chief, handed me a pair of earphones, and the avalanche ofnoise around me dulled to a vibrating thunder. A splatter of CB-styleradio talk passed between Tony and the ground and then we lifted off thepad like a pregnant hummingbird. 
"Welcome aboard, babe." Tony's distorted voice crackled into the mike."Want to sit up front? It's more comfortable." 
"Nah, I'd better stay back here with the kid in case he gets scared." 
"A gook kid? Scared of a little chopper ride? You gotta be shittin'me." But he didn't repeat the offer. Lightfoot knelt by the open door,watching the country go by. Gusts of rain swept in and I tugged myponcho tight around both Ahn and me for warmth. 
Tony kept to the coastline at first, the sky drab pewter, the beachpale, the rain and sea shiny, and the jungle a brilliant ribbon ofvariegated green. Perfect squares of fishnets were suspended above thewater all along the coast, isolated from the shoreline. I wondered how they caught fish in them. Ahn kept shouting curious questions atLightfoot, who grinned and pointed at things. 
I settled down amid the olive-drab-painted metal and webbing. Whew. So far so good. We were getting away with it. A little rush of excitement and anxiety zipped through my nervous system, only to be replaced bydepression. Out of all those people I'd cared for all those months, Icould save just one. Maybe. Xinh gone, That gone, and now Xe. When that guy said war was hell, he wasn't just whistling Dixie. I was racking up a body count a marine would envy. Ahn flipped water from afold in my poncho and smoothed it across my lap, before laying his headin it and falling asleep. 
Seeing little but sea, most of my hearing blunted by the roar in myearphones and the occasional staticity chatter, I soon grew sleepy, too. 
Some time later, Tony's voice crackled in my ear. "Hey, babe?" 
"Yeah?" I mumbled into the mouthpiece. 
"You know that guy you told me to ask about-Heron?" 
"Yes," I said, a little more alert. Heron would want to know about Xe. He'd be glad I saved the amulet. Even if he didn't want to use it himself, he'd know who should have it. 
"I kinda found out and I kinda didn't. He's off in the field somewhere,but the mission is classified, no contact. Sorry 'bout that." 
And after another minute, "Babe? You okay?" 
"Yeah, sure, I'm fine, Tony. The old man died earlier today, did I tellyou that? I just wish Heron could have been around." I fingered thecloth of my pants pocket where the amulet lay. The headphones wentstaticity-silent for a moment, and then Tony was humming "The 59thStreet Bridge Song." 
I was sleeping again when we got hit. I felt the chopper lurch andsnapped awake, thinking for a moment we'd landed. It was too noisy tohear the round striking the bird. But when my eyes flew open, I sawAhn's head raise up for a split second. His eyes glittered like atrapped animal's then his skinny little arms covered his burr crew cutand he curled into a protective ball. 
The round hadn't wakened Lightfoot and I thought it should have. Surelywhen Tony started dodging bullets the crew chief would have duties. And sure enough, Tony's voice called, "Tonto? Hey there, kemo pabe-Ben?"and he started to turn around. But I realized it was too dark for him to see anything and too dangerous for him to let go of the controls, soI unbuckled myself and crawled over to the crew chief, shaking his footto wake him, as I had learned to do with the combat troops. 
The foot flopped and I noticed that one of Lightfoot's arms was danglingout the door. I thought we ought to close that sucker anyway. I startedto tug on him, and then I noticed the blood on his chest. I dragged himin and felt for a pulse, found none. I didn't expect to. 
"Lightfoot's hit," I told Tony. "I think he's had it." 
"Well, do CPR, for Chrissakes, while I try to find Quang Ngai......... 

I was way ahead of him, working on Lightfoot even as I tried to rememberwhat I'd been drilled on with a plastic doll but had never had to do toa human being-clear the airway, tilt the head back, pinch his nose, takea deep breath, and cover his mouth with mine. His mouth smelled sour,and when my finger came away from feeling for the airway, it was smearedwith blood. I breathed in anyway, and pumped on his chest, but all thatdid was force more blood out the mouth and the wound. God, Lightfoot,you could give a girl a little help here, I thought, but I knew I wasworking on a dead man. 
"Get away from the goddamn door," Tony barked over the roar. I started to haul Lightfoot with me, but he was a big man, awfully heavy, and hisfoot caught on some webbing. Then the chopper lurched again and outsideI saw a red tracer round streak past us. I couldn't help but remember what they'd said in basic about the red cross on medevac choppers makingsuch a great target. 
I was trying to dislodge Lightfoot's boot from a piece of webbed strapwhen another round hit, and Lightfoot's body jerked again. The chopperlurched and I fell backward as another round exploded through the metalfloor of the chopper's belly, right behind me, and another. I abandoned Lightfoot and grabbed for Ahn, huddling against the metal pole that heldthe rotor. 
The rounds kept coming and Tony was trying to fly us out of range, butsomething was wrong with the rhythm of the blades. Even I could tell that. Instead of a steady "thucka-thucka-thucka" there was a jarringgrind every few beats. I lifted my earphones. I could feel the chopper's damaged heartbeat through the floor, through the walls,through my skin, and deep inside my guts-my hips and the backs of mythighs tightened every time that beat missed, every time a round hit.Ahn grabbed for my neck like a drowning boy just as the chopper wallowedonto its side, the open door yawning beneath my boots. Lightfoot's bodywas lodged between me and the opening or I would have fallen out then.Somehow we had left the ocean and were now heading over tall elephantgrass toward an endless tangle of trees. 
The taste of Lightfoot's blood in my mouth made me want to vomit, butAhn had hold of me and I had grabbed on to one of those webbed strapsand was pulling myself up as Tony righted the chopper. 
"You okay, babe?" Tony's voice, crackly and almost unrecognizable, camethrough the earphones. 
"Yeah-I think so," I said. Okay considering the circumstances. I fumbled as I talked. The wire to the headphones had wound around myneck and the mouthpiece, and I had to untangle it and pry Ahn loosebefore I could move freely. 
"Kid too?" 
"Him too. How about you? You okay?" 
"That's affirmative." 
I drew a deep breath. Good. Tony would get us out of this. He had been in plenty of scrapes before. This was only going to be a tragicdelay. Everything was under control. 
"Babe?" 
"Yeah?" 
"Listen, there's a field of elephant grass up ahead. I want you to pushthe kid out and jump, got it?" 
"Jump?" 
"Do it, dammit." 
"Yeah, but What about him? He must have some idea how to maneuver the bird to safety but couldn't do it with us aboard. He wouldn't ask us to leave unless he had a plan. He'd get us out of this somehow. He wanted to get laid, didn't he? 
The chopper jerked and shuddered over the elephant grass, and bladeslicked the sides of the open door. Ahn clutched me convulsively. Icrawled over Lightfoot's body, trying not to step on him, wishing Ididn't have a corpse to stumble over. 
The broad grassy valley swept beneath us, the elephant grass ripplingfrom the wind of our blades, spewing rainwater everywhere. The patientshad shown me pictures of themselves in the elephant grass. The grass,which looked so soft, stood a good three feet above the heads of thetallest men. 
The chopper convulsed and Ahn twisted away from me and dove through thedoor, the end of his crutch peg leg disappearing last. I grabbed forhim-he couldn't jump with just one leg like that, surely -but theheadphones tugged on my ears. I ripped them off and turned to set thembehind me and saw Tony turn and rise in his seat, his mouth forming ascream: "Jump!,, From overhead came a horrible grinding and the floorfell out from under me as a blade sheered through the front windshield,metal, controls, and all, and through Tony, vertically, spraying me withhis blood and burning me with its speed as it brushed past me and cutinto the floor. 
I didn't have to jump. The floor was somewhere to my right and down afoot or so and the chopper in a roll. I tumbled through the open door,scraping against the raw edges of the new holes in the red cross on thechopper's belly and dropping past the remaining prop, still swinginglike some berserker's sword blade as it sliced the air and grass wheremy body had been just before. 
The ground smacked up with a bone-jarring thud, and for a moment I wascaught between the hard ground and a flattening wind as the choppercrashed past me, mowing a path through the elephant grass beforeexploding with a roar of flame and shrapnel that made the ground buck upunder me again. The stench of hot grease, hot metal, and gasoline andthe stomach-churning stink of burning flesh boiled into my eyes andnostrils, so I started choking and crying at the same time. One of the chopper blades poked out of the flames like the handle of a saucepanfrom a campfire. 
I don't know how long I gasped and coughed and watched the billowingblack smoke from watering eyes before the full impact of what washappening hit me in a shock wave harder than the blast of the crash. 
All at once I took it in, along with the smoke, along with the heat ofthe flames, along with the rain: this was not me overdramatizing, thiswas not a movie, a joke, a stunt, or a nightmare. Tony was not going tocome walking from the flames. What I had seen before I fell meant that he had died before the chopper caught fire. It's hard to scream when you're gasping for breath and gagging on the air, but a scream swelledup inside me and started to force its way out my open mouth. Maybe itwas because that's what women always do in the movies, but I had to cryTony's name, had to keen for him A bony arm slammed between my teeth."Em dil co," Ahn pleaded, his voice a low hiss. His all too familiar tears were coursing down his cheeks again, and the sight of hisfrightened face jerked me back to my own responsibilities, which were tothe living, Ahn and me. Tony would be really pissed if he knew I blewthe chance he gave us by screeching our position to whoever had fired onus, or got roasted in the Vietnamese equivalent of a prairie fire whilepaying noisy homage to his memory. 
Ahn already had his arms around my neck and I hoisted him up, piggyback,and ran for the trees. Every time my foot hit the ground I thoughtabout land mines and unexploded bombs and trip wires. Every yard closerto the trees I wondered who was in them, if we were already in the crosshairs of a sniper's rifle or were running into a Vietcong ambush. 
Part Two: The jungle 
I tried to think what to do, where to go. In the States I would lwalt calmly by the wreck to be rescued. Here I might not want to meet thefire department, if it did come. Quang Ngai had to be around heresomewhere-maybe a few miles, maybe more-but I didn't even know mydirections here. And I couldn't remember what the hell it was the sun did, except that at noon it was in the middle of the sky and at night itdisappeared, if it bothered to appear during the day at all, duringmonsoon season. VC would be all over the jungle, probably, but they'dsee us even quicker in the high grass, if they hadn't already. I was glad Ahn had kept me from screaming. No need to announce that all of the occupants of our chopper hadn't perished. 
Thinking about that put me in a funk again and I stopped, a littleinside the forest, and stared off into space, my mind floating for awhile. I wished I could float my body right after it and float away.When I looked down, Ahn was looking up at me anxiously, and alsosomewhat speculatively. I frowned down at him. He was probablycalculating how much an Army nurse captive would bring him from the VC.The Army had warned all of us girls that we absolutely mustn't allowourselves to be captured-in case any of us had been considering doing sofor kicks, I guess. The propaganda value would be too great, they said.They would waste too many lives trying to get us back, they said. And,oh yes, the enemy would do terrible things to us. No doubt. I shivered and backed off a pace from Ahn, whose face suddenly broke into one ofhis monkeyish mugs as he began to cry in earnest. 
I pulled him to me and smothered his sobs against my fatigue shirt, asmuch for both our safety as his comfort. Poor kid. He'd alreadylearned that his own parents weren't omnipotent enough to prevent theirdeaths and his injuries. just when I'd made him feel safe and caredfor, my grand plan to protect "my" patient had landed us both in thisgodawful mess, had cost Tony and Lightfoot their lives. I wanted to comfort Ahn but I started crying too. 
We couldn't stumble through the jungle crying. We'd get blown up orcaught for sure. Besides, I didn't want to get too far from the chopperwreck. Maybe it would draw some of our guys to see what happened. And I had the vague idea that maybe, after the smoke had cleared and thingshad cooled down, I'd find something in the wreckage that would help us.All I had with me besides Ahn was my poncho and my ditty bag, still tiedaround my belt loop, where I hung it when I didn't want to risk leavingit behind but wanted to keep my hands free. 
I dug into it and pulled out a bag of M&M's, tilted Ahn's head back, andpopped one in his mouth. "There, babysan, numbah one, eh?" 
He wouldn't be comforted but chewed and cried at the same time. 
"Look, honey, I couldn't agree with you more, but we have to dosomething." 
The obvious answer was directly overhead, in the branches of the trees,which I figured, despite my conviction that everything in this junglewas out to kill me, would be the best possible cover. After all,hundreds of VC snipers couldn't be wrong, could they? 
I pointed up to Ahn and gave him a boost. He shook his head and pointedto his makeshift prosthesis. I cut the bandage away with my scissors,and immediately realized I should have unwound the gauze and tapeinstead and saved what I could. God alone knew what we were going toneed before we were-before whatever was going to happen to us happened.With the bandage gone, I gave him a boost and he grabbed on to the lowerlimb and swung up on it like the monkey he resembled when he cried.There was plenty of vegetation to use for foot and handholds and I wasnot many years removed from my treeclimbing days on the elm in myparents' yard, so I scrambled up after him and urged him to a higherbranch. 
We settled in like a pair of geese trying to roost where the hawks wouldleast expect to see us. I fed Ahn another couple of M&M's and startedto put them back without having any myself, since I was going to go on adiet. Then I remembered where I was and popped two, hewing themmechanically, looking out toward the red and black of themonsoon-drenched blaze. Though the area right around the chopper wasstill burning pretty hot, the elephant grass had charred out a fairdistance from the wreck and died out, so at least we wouldn't be friedin our sleep. 
Ahn had snuggled into a crook of a branch and fallen asleep. My bulkwasn't so'easily accommodated. At least we were out of the rain, thoughwe were both soaked from the grass. I thought of Tony, and of what weshould have been doing right now-and I thought about all the things Iwould have done for him before, all those little things he liked somuch, if only I had known. But who would have thought such achickenshit would turn hero on me like that? My mind was racing toomuch to sleep, I was too scared, too relieved to be alive, too worried,too bewildered, too aggrieved. My nerves were jumping along the back ofmy neck, down my spine. Or was that bugs? There were certainly enoughof those in the tree, though by and large the rain kept them from beingtoo fierce as long as it lasted. 
My ditty bag contained a change of dressing for Ahn; three bags ofM&M's, one plain, two peanut; a can of shoestring potatoes; six packetsof fizzles; a comb; lipstick; change of underpants; and wallet. Myfatigue pants held adhesive tape, scissors, scraps of notes I'd writtento myself, a discarded medicine card, a small flashlight, pens, apencil, several I.V. needles and a couple of syringes I'd neglected todiscard, and Xe's amulet. 
A spasm of bitterness swept over me as I fingered it. My mother hadn'twarned me about days like this. She'd never dreamed there could he daysthis bad: starting with Xe's death, ending with Tony's and Lightfoot's,and me, an unathletic, very conspicuous uniformed woman, stranded with aone-legged child she could barely talk to in terrain she hadn't thefoggiest idea how to handle. Where were all those goddamn marines whenyou really needed them? 
I fell asleep wondering how I was going to explain Tony's death to hiswife-I would have to do that, I figured, if I got out of this all right.I owed him that-or maybe that was exactly what I didn't owe him. No,no, I could lie and say I was medical escort for a critically injuredchild Tony was flying to emergency care and-oh, what the hell. How wasthe Army going to explain my death to my family? At least Ahn didn't have that kind of problem. 
I'd been turning the amulet over in my hand like one of those jadeegg-shaped worry stones I got in Taiwan. The worn old glass reminded meof Xe and the hospital and safety and of Charlie Heron, burned out andidealistic at the same time. I slipped it around my neck. It hadn't been such hot luck for either one of them, but Xe had died an old man atleast. Anyway, it couldn't hurt. I fell asleep with it around my neck,my thumb tracing its smooth contours. 
I slept very poorly. The foliage had shielded us from the worst of therain initially, but soon the wind changed direction and we were takingthe full force of it. The poncho kept blowing up over our heads. And Ihad fitful half-dreams full of fear that I would make noise and reveal our position, and self-reproach that I really didn't seem to feel allthat much about Tony and Lightfoot dying. Why wasn't I grieving? 
Tony and I had been lovers for three months. He given his life to saveours-well, for the time being at least. 
And instead of thinking nice thoughts to send him to heaven with, anungrateful bitch inside me kept muttering, Women and children first,huh? Thanks a lot, Tony. Now what do I do? You're the one with the survival training, the combat conditioning, all that good shit. What amI supposed to do when people try to kill me? Punch 'em with my bandagescissors? My recruiter told me this would never happen to me. The Armywouldn't let it-guess we outsmarted the Army, buh? 
They probably told you you'd never get knocked off those gorgeous pinsof yours by a helicopter prop either. And I would try to make myselfcry, forcing up memories of those long legs storking about my hooch ashe sipped a beer or smoked a joint, the smell of his skin, the feel ofhis curls, the way he felt inside me. Funnily, all I could remember ofhis eyes right then was those damned mirrored shades. 
I knew it was healthy to cry, and this might be my only chance, but Ijust kept wondering hopelessly how we were going to get out of there.How I didn't even have the pioneer woman's traditional last round to useon myself if capture became inevitable. And even if we never saw a VC,what would we eat? Where would we sleep? How would we keep from beingblown to pieces by all of the things that were all the time blowing mypatients to pieces? And we would get nowhere fast-Ahn's prosthesis,which worked well enough on the level concrete floors of the hospital, was going to be a problem in mud and rough terrain. 
I opened my eyes in the middle of this rambling anxiety attack passingitself off as a dream and realized that I must have been sleeping inspite of everything. It was now fully night, with a steady hard pour.Across the elephant grass the chopper sat in a blackened circle, glowingwith heat and little interior fires. And around it other things glowed,like huge fireflies. I could see the lights clearly through the rain,the elephant grass, and the darkness, but the funny thing was that manyof the colors were not bright or light ones but dulled down-a brownglow, a taupe one, wine-colored, teal, brown with red spots, olive,rust, and even, I swear it, a black glowing deeper and hotter than theblackness around it. These mixed and wavered and changed often, butthey danced around the chopper like so many Tinker Bells. And as myeyes adjusted, I saw within the glow people in military hats a littledifferent from ours, with rifles in their hands. They were diggingaround the helicopter, looking for the bodies, I supposed, or usabledebris. 
I jumped as something touched me on the shoulder, and looked up to seeAhn, encased in a pale green glow sparked with grayed violet, puttinghis finger to his lips. I nodded. 
The fireflies poked around for some time, then fanned out, looking upand down, side to side, rifles ready. I always knew where they were,however, thanks to old Xe's handy-dandy cosmic gizmo. Everybody was litup like a Christmas tree. 
A teal-blue glow stalked through the elephant grass, toward us, thenbelow us, and at first I wanted to shut my eyes so the woman with therifle couldn't see me. Because light was pouring from me, too, just asit was from Ahn, who was wrapped tightly around his tree limb,gray-violet rays of radiant fear leaking from him. 
But the closer the woman got, and somehow I knew it was a woman, a girlreally, even through the blinding rain and her personal light show, themore I felt I knew about her: Poor kid, she's so heartbroken she doesn'teven know how scared she is. And the closer she got, the more the lightgrew distinct, into separate colors, brown overpowering the teal,gray-violet overpowering both, all three colors blending into oneanother before bleeding from her into the darkness, not in beams, theway you'd think light should, but in droplets, like tears. And the wholetime her rifle was at the ready, waiting for us to make a false move. 
We didn't, though. We lay there barely breathing for what seemed likehours, until, when I looked around cautiously, I could no longer see anyof the nine glows I had counted-two mostly teal, three mostly brown, anamber, a rust, a black, and a dull red. 
I patted Ahn on the arm and the little brat yawned at me. He'd gone tosleep, rain and all. "Come on, babysan, I think we better didi mau." 
His purplish gray had been superseded by a brighter red and green whichI knew, don't ask me how, were much healthier colors for a growing boy.The green was a shade that spoke of growing things, similar to the faintphosphorescence that was the aura of the tree that hid us, the plantsall around us; the red, vital and strong, qualities in Ahn that were obvious watching that one-legged boy shinny back down the tree. 
The sky lightened a little in one direction and the sun peeped outbeyond the rain, splashing a rainbow across the sky. It seemed inappropriate, under the circumstances, but it had its uses. I didn't know if Vietnamese kids were ever boy scouts, but I thought they mighthave survival skills little girls who were bookworms in Kansas Citymight not have mastered. "Ahn, can you tell from the sun which way isthe sea?" 
,, Sure. Sea that way," he said, and pointed toward the wreckedchopper. 
I wondered how he knew, but even if he was wrong, it was someplace tostart. I had about abandoned hope that another helicopter would arriveto find out what happened to the first one. If it did come, I hoped thewill-o'-the-wisps from the previous night would be far away. 
I found a stout stick and handed it to Ahn. "Babysan, you use this forcrutch." 
"No want stupid stick!" he said, his face screwing up for a good cry ashe poked through the underbrush below the tree until he found the pieceof crutch that had been his prosthesis. "Want leg Bac si Joe make forme." 
Kids. I humored him. Let him determine for himself what was going towork for him. I rewrapped his stump and bandaged it into the cup of themakeshift prosthesis. 
The elephant grass gave off a faint greenish radiance, punctuated nowand then by varicolored sparks as insects and lizards darted past us. Iwas glad for the cooler, damper weather and the wind. The bugs weren'tso bad now as they had been earlier in the year. I took the lead, withAhn just behind me. I watched the ground carefully for the sort oftraps patients had told me about: punji sticks, trip wires, any trace ofrecently disturbed earth where mines could be buried. The VC might hopeas I did for a second helicopter to investigate the loss of the firstone. If I'd been them, I would have laid a tra for it. 
I was not reassured when I didn't spot anything. After all, most of mypatients had had far better training than I had before they becamepatients, and obviously they hadn't spotted anything either. I stoppedshort of the charred remains of the chopper. Fortunately, it didn'tlook as if anything remained that would have been of any earthly use tous, because I sure wasn't going to wade through that mess of smolderingwire and metal to find out if the wreck had been mined. 
Ahn tried to take my hand, but it was shaking so hard he had troublecatching hold of it. His was small and hot in mine but reassuringnevertheless. My knees kept trying to fold and I had a queer, dizzysensation. The color around me was mostly gray, though Ahn's aura bynow showed a little less gray, a little more red, and he patted my handwith his free one and looked gravely into the wreckage, not because hecared, I thought, but because I did. 
The red cross was not burned all the way off the bottom and I kept seeing it, feeling it against my shoulder as I scraped by, seeing theblade drop, seeing Tony fly apart, seeing the chopper scream by me andfeeling the impact of the explosion, then all over again, from the timeI first turned Lightfoot over to the lightning bug people last night,and again, and again. 
A faint orange glow still shimmered near the bottom of the wreckage-thelast embers of the fire? I scarcely noticed it at first, as my mindreplayed the last few hours, but then I couldn't help but notice thatthe glow drifted against the wind, toward us. My own aura bristledaround me, a fearful gray shadow, growing wider the longer I stoodthere, but the orange crept into it, warming it, interpenetrating ituntil my aura and a portion of Ahn's mingled with the brightness. Myknees rebraced and my head settled down. My trembling fell severalpoints on the Richter scale. And the instant replay stopped whileinside my head a more sensible voice said: Could be worse. You're alive, the kid's alive. Now try to stay that way. 01' Tony didn't getgreased helping some dumb broad who folds up when it gets a littletough. These woods are thick with VC, but they're thick with our troopstoo. Stay loose. 
And I suddenly realized what a great target I made and shook myself freeof what was no doubt a major hallucination induced by fear and the weirdpsychogenic power of the amulet. I had no choice now but to accept whatthe amulet showed me, and be glad of it. Heron was right. Old Xe had known a thing or two and, bless his heart, had somehow in that last longlook managed to pass some of it on, maybe knowing how much we would needit. If he could read me the way I read Ahn, read the VC woman lastnight, then he could have known. And however much his amulet confused mewith the feelings and reactions it stirred in me, it had the quitepractical ability to light up any human being in the vicinity as if thatperson were a shop window, and I couldn't think of a more useful tool tohave when marooned in a jungle war, not even an M-16. 
Ahn had wandered off. The rain was somehow colder and harder, but eventhough the orange light had bled away, that around me was no longer thepure gray it had been, but was flushed a somewhat healthier mauve. 
I skirted the wreck to the forest beyond, watching silently for Ahn. A faint glint in the underbrush caught my eye and I stooped toward it.Tony's mirrored shades winked up at me, one earpiece broken. I pickedthem up and tucked them in my pocket. 
I caught Ahn's glow in the brush ahead of me and quickened my step justa fraction to catch up with him, though I still moved as quietly as Icould and kept my eyes moving. 
Then the glow dipped and he fell with a rustle of brush and a sharpVietnamese swearword. 
He was no sooner down than another glow, one I hadn't noticed in myscrutiny of my surroundings, my pursual of Ahn, stepped into MY line ofvision and dove toward Ahn. 
The hell with trip wires. I plowed through the brush toward them. 
khn cried, "No, Joe! No. Me good boy. Me no VC." 
"Hold still while I'm killin' you, you little muthahfucker," someonedemanded unreasonably. 
But he was demanding in black American English. 
"Wait!" I called. I didn't mind being loud now. If one GI was here,his unit couldn't be far behind. No doubt they'd seen the crash andcome to investigate and we were rescued already. "Wait! Don't hurt him. He's okay. He's with me." 
A tall black man with his shirt tied around his waist unbent until he was standing, staring bug-eyed at me. Ahn scuttled out from under him and half crawled back to me. His prosthesis was dangling at an anglefrom his stump and he was crying again. I picked Ahn up, pulled theprosthesis off, and threw it in the brush. 
"Shame on you for picking on a little sick boy," I said to the GI,wiping Ahn's tears away. "He's a patient of mine. I was medevacing himto Quang Ngai when the chopper went down." The man kept staring at meand I began to feel uneasy. "Wow, are we glad to see you," I said."Where's the rest of your guys?" 
He looked blank, and wary. 
"The rest of your unit, where is it?" 
He took a step toward me and I noticed his aura then. It was peatbrownand ash-gray-he was deathly afraid, even of me. I took a step forwardto meet him. "I'm Lieutenant McCulley-Kitty McCulleyfrom the 83rd Evacat Da Nang," I said, trying to radiate all the warmth and gratitude Icould. The mauve shadow around me deepened and was tinged with darkerstreaks of magenta. The first gray tendrils mixed with it, and the manstopped, and stared some more. "Two of the guys from Red Beach weretaking me to Quang Ngai with little Ahn, my patient, here. But we gotshot down. I'm so glad to see you." 
He took one more step and the mixture continued. He swallowed. 
I swallowed and slowly lifted a wrinkled brown package out of my dittybag. "We wouldn't have had enough M&M's to last much longer, but nowthat we're rescued, we can use them to celebrate. Want one?" 
He took it slowly, a red one, and popped it into his mouth, and lookedmildly surprised when his tongue met the candy. Then he backed up apace, still surrounded with gray, and started marching back into theforest. 
"Hey, just a minute!" I said. "You can't leave us here. This little boy is crippled and I-I don't know where I am, and-" and I knew all of asudden that something was badly wrong with this man-I wasn't sure weweren't safer without him, but he was an American. He must know where there were more. He must have come for us The soldier stopped, turnedaround, and picked Ahn up as easily as if he were a rifle and hoistedhim onto one bare shoulder. "Lady, that just about make it unanimous,"the man said. 
We walked into the forest together and the GI remained silent, his aurastill mostly gray, though it seemed the green of the plants showedthrough now and then. 
We could hear the rain pouring harder, but under the forest canopy ittook its time reaching us. Sometimes it was a fine mist, sometimes asteady drip, and now and then a downpour. The noise of the rain on the leaves was quiet compared to what it had been while Ahn and I were inthe tree. The soldier's head rotated constantly, back and forth, sideto side, up and down, and changing so he never got into a pattern,watching the ground, the trees, and air in front of him, the spaces oneither side of him. I found myself doing the same thing. 
He moved with thorough, automatic caution but very quickly. Too quicklyfor me. I lagged behind, panting to keep up. Ahn looked back over his shoulder, worried. 
The man stopped abruptly and turned around. "Could I have another pieceof candy, ma'am?" 
"Sure," I said. 
"They're all dead," he said when he had bitten into the M&M. He kicked a log and, when it didn't kick back, lowered Ahn to the ground and satdown himself. "My unit. I thought you was comin' to find me when I sawthat 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, histone was conversational, ordinary. "We got overrun, I guess you'd callit. See, I was asleep in my bunk one night back at base and we was allin 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 thisshadow 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 thedaytime. But then it come to me-they ain't s'posed to be no gooks thereat night. And I'm just thinkin' that and I just start, halfasleep, youknow, rollin' down under my bed when all of a sudden all hell breaksloose. Somebody starts afirin' in the screen door and killin'everybody. Everybody in there, all my buddies, all my friends, they getsprayed all over there, and when I crawl out, they all dead. Everyonedead 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 Icrawl on my belly to the door and they're all over the place, all themgooks. Ain't s'posed to be there at night. Not at all. But they allover 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 acidand 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 Ithought, William, they have come lookin' for you. Say, you really inthe Army?" 
"Army Nurse Corps," I said. 
"I ain't never seen no Army nurse in Nam. They come for us with youhere. We just got to keep out of Charlie's way. Army won't let youstay out here." 
"They don't know I'm here," I said, realizing miserably that it wastrue. "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 thatcomplicated 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 hintof purple that went with the sudden wide, self-deprecating grin. "I hatethem things too." 
Seeing people as rainbows was a dizzying experience. Still, annoying asthe side effects were, the edge the amulet gave me was too great todismiss because it was a little disorienting. And the longer I wore theamulet 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 actionsand words, the more eloquent the auras became. It was as if people hadan extra feature to gesture with, one that expressed a whole side ofthem that mouths, eyes, and hands were unable to communicate. William's grin, by itself, was somewhat enigmatic, but while the basic gray-brownof his aura told me that he hated and feared the VC deeply and was in astate 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 verybright guy, and more used to caring about the people around him thanhating them. 
That was part of the problem with acquiring an object of power withouthaving studied its ramifications. I thought then that the amulet wasgiving me guarantees, that I could trust what it told me as absolute.From being a nonbeliever I was rapidly coming to rely on that onetalisman as my salvation-rings of power and singing swords, as in 'folkien and King Arthur stories, aren't supposed to lie any more thanjust and wise rulers. The amulet abolished any reservations I wouldnormally 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 amusingat the time. "Those of you who are going to Vietnam will need a god. Wedo 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 sodesire. But you will need a god. If you do not have a god, go to thequartermaster and he will issue you one." I began to see what that wasall about. 
"So," I said. "Have you got any idea where we are now?" 
William scooped Ahn up with another smooth motion and started lopingthrough the jungle again, which at that point was easy. The jungle doorwas flat and the ground cover was mostly more elephant grass, thoughshorter 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 whenI said I couldn't go any farther. 
"Thass cool. 01' babysan here ain't no lightweight. They feed you toomuch 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 backand 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 stangand 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 ofHershey 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 hateHershey 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'teven 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 tohim without sounding like a superheroine refugee from Teen Titanscomics. 
"Yeah? An' how's that? Some special info only officers get?" 
'."Well, maybe you could say I have unusually good vision," I said. Idecided I wasn't up to explaining about the amulet right then andWilliam didn't look as if he was in the mood for listening to suchexplanations 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 youbeen eating? If I were home right now I'd be having steak at the messhall." 
"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, andthat, 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 butchanged the subject. I didn't want to stop the conversation. As longas we talked, I felt less afraid. 
"Where are you from, William?" I asked, only a little breathless fromtrying 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'twant no VC catchin' us shootin' the breeze." 
I shut up, at first a little resentfully-after all, if we were allstranded out there, it seemed pretty lousy not to be able even to talkto each other. Before long, we were climbing the side of a ridge, pushing through vines and shrubs that tore at my poncho and stands ofelephant grass that made a ripping sound as we brushed through it, so itsounded as if our clothing were being shredded. Any VC in the areashould be able to hear us for miles before we ever saw them. I remember Duncan, who was a hunter, telling a story in which he said somethingsimilar to klutzy hunting companions when they complained of not seeingdeer. "Nope, you haven't seen them, but they've sure as hell heard you,"Duncan would quote himself. Unlike the deer, the VC would not be scaredaway by hearing us. With that to think about and the work of climbingto occupy my energy, I was fresh out of conversation anyway. 
Not that William was hurrying-he just sort of oozed up that slope likeso much oil compared to me. He did let Ahn down, and the boy made gooduse of his foot, both hands, and, though I winced for him, his stump, ashe climbed. He stopped and rubbed his stump occasionally, but didn'tcomplain, and twice grinned at me as I stood panting for breath, tryingto keep up. Nursing involves a lot of walking, stooping, bending,lifting, and running, but it's blessedly short on scrambling up steepmuddy hills in dripping, steaming rain. The exertion more than made upfor the slight drop of temperature caused by the wind and rain. Whereas in the clearing I'd been cold, within the heavy cover of jungle growthwith big leaves overlaying bigger leaves, I felt like a pig at a luau.Sometime in late afternoon we broke through the thick cover into lightrain sprinkling the top of the ridge. Here the trees were tall but the undergrowth was rocky and relatively free of tangly growth. I leaned against a rock and almost slid off it, I was that slippery from my ownsweat. William looked like a ghost, wrapped in his own cloud ofcongealing moisture. 
My head roared and my eyes weren't focusing all that well. The rain was warm but it was water, and I raised my head and let it trickle into mymouth. Ahn crawled over to me, dug into his shorts pocket, and offeredme a Baggie of salt tablets. William was already on his stomach,lapping from a hollow rock. He gave me a turn, as he might at thedrinking fountain in some park, and after a few laps I popped the salttablets and lapped some more. It helped, but I couldn't knock it backand reach the most parched part of my throat. Still, I knew thesystemic effects would save my life anyway. 
When my eyes and mind had cleared a little, I looked at Ahn, who waspocketing his tablets again. 
"Babysan, where'd you get those?" I asked him. 
"I find them, mamasan. Numbah one, huh? I think maybe I sell when Ifini hospital." 
The Vietnamese version of free enterprise had for once proved useful. I had my own salt tablets, but having two supplies was better than havingone. I had no idea what a salt lick looked like and doubted we would just run across one every time we got dehydrated. William had swallowed a couple of tablets too, but he had been in the bush long enough thathis body had adapted somewhat. My sweat glands were spouting like OldFaithful and his just seemed to flow gently, like the Danube, adding apolishing gloss to his skin. Of course, he stank like a billy goat, butthen, I was building up quite a pungent fragrance myself. The gruntswere all warned against using scented American hygienic products like toothpaste and deodorant and after-shave. I wondered if it mattered. I'd heard that Americans smelled bad to Orientals, that eating red meatgives us a special odor they find objectionable. I wondered if the VC would kill you quicker for smelling good from toothpaste and after-shaveor smelling bad from stinky pits, toe jam, dragon mouth, and crotch rot. 
We walked along the ridge and over onto another one, with just a slightdip between hills. Once I stopped and removed the amulet for a moment,to see the country with normal eyes. I thought how much my mother withher love of nature trails and bird-watching would have loved this.Fields of elephant grass rippling like summer wheat were the onlyresemblance between this country and Kansas. The country was spinedwith ridges protecting low-lying areas of grass, paddies, and morejungle. Atop these ridges, spindly trees clawed their way out of rockyground strewn with explosions of thin green tongues. The hillsides and valleys brimmed with forest green, emerald green, peridot green, bright,light, medium, dark, and drab olive green, lime green, chartreuse, andother shades of green I had no name for. Through the valley to the eastof us, a stream glinted between the trees like fragments of Christmastinsel. 
"What you stoppin' for?" William asked. 
"I bet you can see all of Vietnam from here," I said. 
"I bet all Vietnam can see us too; think 'bout that and move your ass." 
He didn't have to tell me twice. I slipped the amulet back over my headand followed. Although the footing was easier, and the wind and rainfelt fresh against my face and arms, my feet burned as if I were walkingon hot coals and my legs ached to my waist. William dumped Ahn onto theground and rolled his shoulders back to relieve the tension. Ahn looked at me expectantly, but I shook my head, and without whining, he pickedup a long stout stick and used it for a crutch. 
The sky darkened from pale silver to the color of a new cast-ironskillet. The raindrops grew larger and the ground boggier. Below the ridgeline, the jungle covered us again. We slid down a slick embankment on our rears and dropped onto a spongy dead tree trunk that supportedtwo more trees sprouting from its corpse. William stepped down fromthis and scuffed the ground cover up with his feet. Several lizards and spiders scuttled away, including two or three pretty large spiders. I wanted to ask if those were tarantulas but felt stupid for not knowingalready, so I tried to look nonchalant as if, oh sure, I knew they couldbe tarantulas but I wasn't scared of anything like that. 
"We better post sentry tonight," William said. "Which watch you want,first or second?" 
"I'll take first," I said. "I'm beat but I don't think I'm going to beable to sleep-I hurt too much. What do we do if they do come? Spit atthem till they drown?" 
"No, but if we see them first, we're warned, we can hide. We don't see them and they see us, nicest thing they could do is slit our throatswhile we're asleep, but I don't think they'd let us off that easy,specially with you along." 
"Thanks, William," I said, shuddering. "Any inclination I had to sleepis definitely gone now." 
He nodded as if he thought I really was grateful and curled up betweenthe tree and the lip of the ridge to sleep. Ahn was dead to the world as soon as the spiders were gone. I sat with my back to the cliff, myarms curled around my knees, and watched the auras of my companions dimwith sleep, like private sunsets damping to dusky rose and slate blue. 
Every once in a while I'd uncurl enough to peek up over the ridge, alertfor the teiltale glow of enemy auras. But I didn't think I'd see them in time if they overran us. 
I rolled my head and shoulders and rotated my feet, feeling the deeppain in my shoulders and neck, my legs, arms, hips, my feet especially.I wanted to take off my boots. I knew I should or I'd get jungle rot,but who cared about that kind of thing when you could be shot# worse-atany time? I understood how the grunts came in with some of thecomplaints they did. I didn't want to take off my boots. I wanted to be able to run if I needed to. I did not want to be captured. 
Officers' basic at Fort Sam was pretty much a lark for my class ofnurses-they needed us too badly to harass us. Unlike the men, many ofus could have quit. Those of us who had contractual obligations couldget pregnant and get out if need be. They did not want to bug us toobadly. So when they took a group of us into a small classroom andclosed the door behind the instructor and a Special Forces-typesergeant, I thought they were just being melodramatic. 
"Ladies and gentlemen," the instructor said, "what we are going to tellyou here is not to go outside this room. If you repeat it, we will denyit." Oh boy, I thought. "Mission: Impossible." The others showedvarying degrees of concern-with most of the women it was polite. Themale nurses responded a little differently. I saw jamison, a fellow I'dchatted up at the 0 club, lean forward and look suddenly very intense.There were several male nurses in our group, but two or three, includingjamison, were already veterans before they got their R.N.s. 
As soon as they got their diplomas, they were eligible to be redrafted. 
jamison told me he'd enjoyed Nam as a corpsman, had felt he'd reallydone some good on the medcap missions, but wanted the expertise hethought nurses' training would give him. He hadn't been redrafted, butfrom the expression on his face, I wondered if he wasn't having secondthoughts. 
The sergeant introduced himself first as a two-tour Vietnam veteran. We didn't really need to be told. And it was looking at his face, with itstired eyes, at his stance that was at the same time very casual and verytense, that made me realize that this part was not just more Armymelodramatic bullshit. "Now I'm going to tell you something and I knowyou're going to think this is a cruel and inhuman thing to say and allthat, but I got my reasons. You women, if it ever appears as if you arein a situation where capture appears inevitable, the best thing you cando is to kill yourself. You men, if you are in a situation with one ofthese women and it looks as if she may be captured, do her a favor and kill her. Because the tortures are atrocious." Then he showed us pictures. 
I was a little shaken, but still thought to myself: Oh, what a load-there they go playing John Wayne again, the old saving the last roundfor the schoolmarm bit. The horribly hurt people in the pictures wereshoved to the back of my mind with icky pictures out of medical booksafter a while. 
At Fitzsimons, I met the nurse who told me her system for handlingoverseas romance. She had served in Nam during Tet too, which made hercrazy enough to like me, I suppose, and try to help me out when thebrass and all the other head nurses were so down on me. The day I gotorders for Nam, she gave me the big-sister talk about men and we splitfirst one, then two bottles of wine. 
Toward the bottom of the second bottle, she started talking about thepart of Nam she hadn't told me about: not the beach parties and theinconveniences, but her work. She had been triage nurse at Cu Chiduring Tet and was talking about the way the Vietcong overran the placeat one point and of some of the awful things that came through her E.R.,the mutilations, the deaths. I asked, carefully, because we'd beenwarned not to mention it outside the room, "Did you get that talk aboutenemy torture before you went over there?" 
She nodded. "Yep. I wish someone had told the civilians the same thing, because they were right on. We had a couple of American nunscome in; the VC had tortured those women till-well, one of them died,and I was praying to God the other one would too." 
I thought about that while I huddled under the lip of that ridge. I could still see my friend's face. This wasn't something she had heard.She had seen it. American women like us. Only they were civilians.Surely it would be even worse, if there was worse, for military. And then there were all the officers trying to scare us, saying, "They knowyour names. They know who you are. The VC have you on a hit list." Ithought about all the hideous things I had heard first- and secondhand,the Vietnam folk myths and the stories from other nurses, about torturevictims, mutilations, Vietnamese and Vietcong women who had beensickeningly abused by either us or them, and I felt my own body, achyand sore because it was soft, easily pierced, of how I screeched if Istubbed my toe. Jesus Christ, what was I doing here? 
The bugs were torture enough-my arms were sore from swatting at them,and big lumps itched and burned all over my face and arms andur?derneath my clothing. Even though I sat on my poncho, I wassaturated to the bone with rain and plant sap and mud. How did the grunts take it out here in this shit? No wonder people got vicious-thediscomfort alone was enough to drive you nuts. 
There had to be better things to think about, but I'd never stood guardduty before. What would Duncan do if he were with me? Probably saythat if he had his old .30-06 he would pick off the entire NVA, butsince he didn't, he'd probably leave me alone "just for a minute,kitten, while I check something out," and go off with some Vietnamesefloozy. Ahn whimpered in his sleep and crunched himself into a tightball. I wanted to whimper too. I wanted my mother. I could just hear her saying, "Now, Kathleen Marie, it's not that I don't love you, honey,but you got yourself into this. Neither your daddy nor I, nor even theArmy, forced you to go over there, so now you're just going to have tohandle it the best you can." Thanks a lot, Mom. 
She'd also tell me it was no use getting morbid. Good advice, but alittle hard to follow. I tried to mentally construct a letter she wouldbe able to relate to. 
Dear Mom, A funny thing happened on my way to transfer Ahn to adifferent hospital. The darn chopper broke down and Ahn and I had tojump into the jungle. Tony, good captain that he was, went down withhis ship, but we met this colorful character named William who's on hisway back to civilization to get reassigned, since his last post wasterminated. Little Ahn has been learning lots of new Americanexpressions from him and woodcraft tricks I'm sure will stand him ingood stead if he joins the Vietnamese Boy Scouts later on. 
Anyhow, we've been spending the day on this wonderful nature hike. Your African violets would really take to this country. 
The place looks like one big greenhouse, crammed with angel wingbegonias, spider plants, ferns, mother-in-law's-tongues, all kinds ofvines and ivies and flowers, most of which look as if they want to eatyou. Seriously, though, it's very beautiful, if in bad need of a goodpruning, and you'd enjoy the bird-watching and identifying all the kindsof spiders and lizards. We've heard monkeys too. 
Though we haven't seen them, I know that's what they are because theysound just like the sound track of a Tarzan movie. There's supposed tobe even bigger wildlife around, but so far none has crossed our path.Fortunately, it's not too hot because this is the rainy season now. A little wet, but don't worry, I remembered my raincoat! Love to Daddyand all I wouldn't mention the amulet. She might not like me acceptingjewelry from strange men, especially patients. 
I wondered if the amulet would give me aura-enhanced nightmares. At least the glow from the greenery was fainter at night than during theday, probably because, with the whole sun-chlorophyll reaction, plantsput out more energy during the daytime. That was good because all ofthat unaccustomed visual stimulus had given me a peculiar headache inthe middle of my forehead. 
Something rustled between the tree trunk and the ridge, where Williamwas lying. At least good fortune had brought him to us, I thought,raising myself to my knees to peer over at him as if he were one of mynight-shift patients. Something hard caught me across the throat andslammed my head back against the bank. 
William's face loomed above me, his forearm pinning me by the throat tothe bank. He wore a strange expression not of hatred or anger so muchas concentration. Fortunately, the bank was crumbly and gave under myhead, or I think he would have killed me right away. I kicked out and felt my boot scrape Ahn. 
"Cut it out," I said, though it didn't sound like that when it came out."William, dammit, stop!" 
Ahn flew into him, pounding him silently with bony little fists,dragging at his arm. William released me long enough to backhand theboy halfway down the rest of the ridge. 
I couldn't wait to get my breath back, but gasped, "William, goddammit,what the fuck's the matter with you?" 
He started to grab me again but I blocked him, rather feebly, with myown arms, and looked into his eyes again, trying to find out, before Idied, what in the hell was going on. My arms were surrounded by a dingymauve light that fused with his dull maroon glow and diluted it. He satback on his haunches abruptly, overbalancing himself so that hetumbled*backward a pace or two. He threw out his hands and grabbed abranch, sat up, shook himself like a wet dog, and blinked. 
Ahn scrambled around him up the hill and hid behind me, rubbing hisstump tenderly and sniffling. But he hadn't uttered a single crythroughout. 
William crawled back up the hill. I scuttled back and nearly knockedAhn over, but William just said, " 'Bout time you got some sleep, girl.I'll take watch." 
"Oh, no thanks," I said, determined not to sleep a wink around him lestI inadvertently die before I wake. 
"What you mean, 'no thanks'?" William asked. "Thass crazy. You gottasleep." He said the last like a mother cajoling a youngster. 
"I'm crazy?" I hissed. "You just tried to kill me." 
He looked blank. 
"Yeah," Ahn chimed in. "You numbah ten, GI. You get mamasan like thisand He parodied choking himself and made a terrible face, then droppedhis hands to his sides. "Hey, William, you some kinda VC?" 
"Wait a minute, wait a minute. I did what? Is this child jiving me orwhat?" 
"You tried to kill me, William," I said, and relaxed enough to try tofigure it out, now that I was pretty sure he was himself again. "Maybeyou were having a dream or something about being back at your unitagain, do you think?" 
"Yeah, yeah, could be. Hey, I'm real sorry-" He extended his fingers tomy neck as if to stroke away the bruise I could feel rising. "I didn't mean-shit, I'm real sorry." His voice broke and I realized he wascrying. He reached out a rather large paw and grasped Ahn's hand. "Sinloi, babysan." 
Ahn gave him a measuring look that was older than he was, and nodded,dismissing the whole thing. 
"It's okay, William," I said. "It's over." 
But none of us slept, and as soon as it was light enough to move withoutfalling over our own feet or tripping on one of the knots of roots andvines crisscrossing our path, we started walking again. 

"Where are we going, William?" I asked. 
"Hell if I know. I was just told, when you out in the bush, you keepmovin'. So we movin'." 
It was good enough for me. Only I wished I was sure we were movingtoward a hot meal, a nice bunk, and lots of ugly wire and sandbagsbetween us and other people's bullets. 
Ahn clung to my hand all morning, but suddenly he slipped away, lookingvery excited, and peered intently along the side of the trail. I stopped and he took hold of the tail of my uniform shirt for balance andjabbed at something with his crutch stick. I thought it was a snake,but when Ahn shuddered backward I decided it might be even moredangerous. 
"William?" I whispered. He was walking point. We were several yardsbehind him on the trail, though we were going as fast as we could and heas slow as he could. 
"Yeah?" 
"I think Ahn found a mine." I snatched Ahn back when he leaned forward to poke again, but he wriggled from my grasp and once more extended hiscrutch. 
William rejoined us and caught the stick in mid-thrust, pulling it outof Ahn's grasp so that he fell back against me. 
"You VC, kid? Try to blow us all up?" 
"No VC," Ahn said. "Look," and he made eating motions, as if he werescoopin rice out of a bowl into his mouth. 
I took about four hasty giant steps backward as William prodded themound of earth this time. I could vaguely see little round shapes atthe top. "What are they?" I whispered as William dug at the mound witha stick and flipped something loose that rolled to his feet. "They looklike Sterno cans. Homemade bombs?" 
"Don't seem like it, but almost as bad. Beans and muthahfuckers." 
"Huh?" 
"Beans an' hotdogs. See here? Some dudes, when they out in the fieldand they got C rats they hate, they just buries 'em. How you get alongwith lima beans?" 
William had the Army equivalent of a church key in his pocket. A few hundred yards farther down the ridge we found a stream, shallowlookingand only about fourteen feet wide. We choked down the cold food straight from the can. 
'$'Wisht I had my canteen cup and a little c-4," William said. "I could heat this shit." 
"What's c-4?" I asked. 
"You know, plastic explosive." 
We filled the cans with water over and over till our arms ached from dipping and lifting. The morning had been hot and muggy and the waterfelt wonderful when it splashed me. William waded into the water. "You wanna get wet, lady? Come on ahead, then. We gotta cross this fuckeranyway." He waded across without blowing ;mything up. 
Ahn looked dubiously at the rushing waters of the stream. I steppedinto the bone-chilling water and could see right away that he was goingto have a problem. The force of it was enough to knock you off yourfeet. "Come on, Ahn. Hang on to me." I let Ahn hold on to my shoulderwhile I dipped down to my knees to get wet and cold all over. The nightbefore, I'd thought I'd never be warm again, but now I couldn't believehow great it felt. Then we sloshed out. William, just a head of us,began ripping off his clothes. 
I scarcely had time to wonder what in the hell he was up to when I sawfor myself. An inch-long leech was fattening itself on my forearm. I dumped Ahn unceremoniously on the bank and started stripping too. So did he. I started batting at the bloodsuckers, trying to pull them Off. 
"Don't do that," William said. "You'll break the head off in there and it make you sick. Break up a salt tablet, put on its back. It'll pullout. Cigarette works better, but mine are long gone." 
Ahn, bare as the day he was born, bent over his clothes and pulled arather soggy pack of Kools out of his pants pocket. He also produced aZippo, with which he expertly lit the cigarette he gave me. William was already at work on his crop of bloodsuckers with the salt. For his own,Ahn just plucked them out. You aren't supposed to be able to do that,but he did, pinching them up near their heads. It worked, anyway. Whenwe were done, we had a total body count of about forty-eight leeches. 
I turned my back on the men while I did a search-and-destroy mission onthe leeches in my lingerie. I am really not all that shy, but guys whoare not your lovers can be more modest than somebody's grandma, on yourbehalf as well as theirs. It is often ridiculously difficult to get amale patient to accept a urinal from a female nurse. I waited until I had my fatigue blouse on again to turn back around. Sure enough, Williamwas buttoning up as rapidly as he could. Ahn was sitting in the grass,smoking a Kool with the savoir faire of James Bond. 
In a debonair manner, he offered a smoke to me, to William. 
"No thanks, kid. I tryin' to quit," William said. 
The only thing I hadn't taken off was the amulet, and now it had fallenoutside my uniform blouse, flashing back the sun like a mirror. Williamsat down beside Ahn to pull on his boots. "Uh, Lieutenant?" 
"Huh?" 
'Bout last night. I still don't recollect much of what happened, butwhat I reckon's I just sort of went dinky dao from all this duckin' andhidin' shit. You know I don't mean no disrespect to women, and it't gotnothin' to do with black or white. I wouldn't want you to am think I-tothink-" 
I knew what he meant, but then it was so soon after the time when blackswere beaten for using the wrong rest room or riding in the front of thebus, when civil rights workers were being murdered, that it was awfullyhard to talk about racial stuff, especially between a man and a woman,especially an enlisted black man and a white woman officer, which isjust sort of too parallel to the darky-plantation belle bullshit."William, let's not get into that shit, okay?" I said. "I am not nearlyas worried about the possibility of having you after my ass as I amabout the possibility of getting it shot off. I'm real glad we foundeach other because I don't know a damn thing about the jungle. But I gotta know: is there some real sure way to snap you out of your sleep,something maybe your mom used to wake you up when you were a little kid?Because you almost killed both of us last night. I know you didn't meanto, but-" 
He shook his head. "I never done nothin' like that in my life before. Inever even had no nightmares before I come to this place. Used to sleeplike a rock." He handed me the can opener. "Here. Maybe you can jab mewith this if I go off again. Only be careful where you stick it, huh?"As he handed it to me, his aura wavered a little into the brown and hiseyes suddenly got wet. "Goddamn, I am just fucking up all over the damnplace. First I just roll under the bed and don't warn the men and theyall get blown to shit, then I try to kill you-I don't know what the fuckis happening to me." 
Ahn tapped him on the arm and offered him a cigarette again. 
"Thanks, kid." He lit it this time and took a long drag, then offered itto me. 
I don't smoke, but I took a drag too. "Look, man, you don't have thecorner on fucking up." The chopper crash flashed across my mind. 
I pulled on my trousers and tucked the amulet inside my shirt. Williamwatched me with more relaxed interest now. 
"What's that you wearin'? Where's your dog tags?" 
"In my pocket. They got to irritating my neck." 
"Yeah, well, if I'se you, I'd get shed of that rank sewed onto yourcollar too. Officers is the first individuals Charlie try to grease." 
I cut off the ends of my collar with my bandage scissors. "William, howlong do you think those C rat cans had been there? Do you think thatunit is still nearby somewhere?" 
"Sure. I do. Them and a whole bunch of others. And a whole bunch of VC too. just depend on who we find first. You ain't talkin' to no trusty African guide, bwana. I didn't have much call to learn trackin' in Cleveland. Damned if I know how old them cans was. You the woman. You probably know more about canned goods than me." 
"Not if I can help it," I said. I've never been the domestic type. 
We walked just inside the edge of the jungle, down along the edge of avalley again that day. The valley was full of soft grass and littleround fisliponds and the rain blew gently across it, sweeping toward us,carrying a heady, fresh scent that reminded me of spring on Lake of theOzarks. The jungle smelled more like a cross between the zoo, the alleyin back of the A&P the day they tossed out the produce, and theaggressively green, earthy smell of a hothouse. "Can't we walk down there?" I asked William. "It'd be easier walking, especially for Ahn." 
"Easier to get blowed away, you mean. See, some of them things hit butthey don't explode. Plus the VC likes to set booby traps round thatkind of thing. No way, mamasan. This soldier stickin' to high ground." 
When he spoke to me, mostly William seemed perfectly okay. He was one of the nicest people who ever tried to strangle me, in fact. But when he was walking point, not looking back, not staying in touch with whatwas going on with us, his spine would twitch and his head circled anddipped like a snake's, sniffing the wind, looking for signs. We startedclimbing again, up and up into really thickly interwoven jungle withtrees growing out of other trees and vines so thickly twined togetherthat we had to stop and climb over them or separate them to climbthrough. Ahn and I had a tough time keeping up. The boy's adrenalinewas finally wearing off and his little face looked pinched again. He started whining. He wanted to be carried, regressing, the way sick kidsdo, to an earlier age, where people were supposed to take care of them. 
"No can do, babysan. You break my back," I told him. 
He screwed up his face as if he was going to cry. "No way. You carryme before." 
"Yeah, and I may have to again, but only in an emergency. I'm afraid I'm not strong like your own mama, babysan. No can carry water buffaloon each shoulder and a water jug on my head." 
He smiled a little and patted my butt. "No sweat, mamasan. Ahn take care of you." 
"Right. We're a great team." 
William swung around on us with a look of such truculence that I fearedfor a moment he'd lost it again. "You people em di," he said, andwhirled back around to take a step. Ahn was staring a little ahead ofWilliam with his eyes almost as round as mine. 
"Dung lai, William," he yelped. "Stop!" 
"What the fu-" William began, then abruptly stepped back and knelt down,feeling along a line in front of him. 
"What is it?" I asked. 
He didn't answer for a moment or two as he traced the thing back intothe trees, made some sort of adjustment, and let out a deep sigh."Thanks, kid. Mamasan, you better take a look at this." 
"William, I wish you wouldn't call me mamasan," I complained as I clawedmy way through the leaves and vines that kept smacking me in the face."Or Lieutenant for that matter. What's the good of me cutting off mybars if you go announcing it all over the place? My name's Kitty." 
"Yes, ma'am, Lieutenant Kitty, ma'am," he said snottily. "Now the private wishes to request, Lieutenant Kitty, ma'am, that you kindly takea look at this here trip wire so's you be able to spot a booby trap nexttime you be seein' one." 
"Don't be a pain in the ass," I grumbled, but I took a look. It was a nasty apparatus-a dead log with a lot of pungi sticks set at angles thatwould make a porcupine out of anyone who tripped its mechanism. The whittled bamboo sticks with the excrement on the tips were morechillingly malicious than a grenade would have been. I had already seenthe infections and damage they could cause-a man could lose his limb orlife as surely to this sort of trap as to high explosives or gunfire. 
"Right there is how these people be lookin' out for themselves," he toldme. There was no anger in his voice. In fact, it was becomingincreasingly remote and flat. The old wine color crept back into hisaura, along with a grieving umber, and I knew he was seeing himselfimpaled on that device, feeling that maybe he should have been. 
We climbed for two more days, through knots of gnarled root and twistedundergrowth that surely was usually handled with machetes. We wereconstantly climbing, tripping, trying to thread our way through it likedarning needles through finely meshed silk. I feared I was going tograb hold sometime of a fat snake instead of a fat vine, and the thoughtof that slowed me down even more as I doublechecked the aura of the growth in front of me to make sure the long things were uniformlyplant-green. A little watery daylight filtered through from thosetowering top trees, splashing onto the broad flat leaves of the treesthat grew to about half their height, and down through the undergrowthbristling above our heads, to sluice down the backs of our necks orsplat into our faces. By that time the rain was no longer cool andrefreshing but warm as sweat. As it evaporated, shivers ran down myspine without relieving the sensation of being slowly steamed. 
Ahn started sneezing that afternoon, and his stump seeped pus andtrickled smears of blood through the rough bandages I tried to keep overit. I was one big ache. My head throbbed from the constant glow of thejungle and my muscles burned. Every one of them, when asked to lift abody part over another clump of roots cannibalizing another giant log,felt as if heated lead slabs had been specially implanted in it. I had to think about how to position my fingers every time I grabbed anothersticky, bug-infested vine, I was that exhausted. 
In the dense forest we rarely saw the birds or monkeys. We heard them,like ghosts in old houses scuttling through the upper stories of thejungle, but they were almost always just out of sight, except for theflash of bright feathers or the suggestion of a tail. So much greenerylay above us that I saw animal auras only occasionally, like slightly bigger Christmas lights among the tiny glows of insects and reptiles.Much of the time all I could see of William was a glimmer of his aura, aflicker of wine or blue bobbing like a will-o'-the-wisp in the sea ofgreen surrounding us. Except for the help of the amulet, there wereseveral times when we might have become separated because Ahn and Islowed more as the day wore on. 
Toward evening the watery green light diffused even more, until you gotthe feeling of being deep under the sea, surrounded by seaweed, afeeling enhanced by being continually soaked and with the smell of wetgreenery always in our nostrils. 
Ground fog swirled up from the forest floor, and soon all I could see ofAhn was a grimy teal pool of light. William doubled back for us, hislegs lost in the fog. He'd put on his fatigue shirt, but now and thenhe shook his shoulders like a dog having a bad dream and the goose bumpsrose on my own arms. Ahn had a sneezing fit that wouldn't stop, andWilliam glared at us and disappeared into the jungle again. 
We couldn't even hear each other well because the sound of the rain blotted out everything but the shrillest cries from the creatures in thetreetops. The beat of the rain thudded and splatted but was neverregular, so that you couldn't get used to it or discount it. I was gladfor it in some ways. It kept me from being hypnotized by the monotonyof struggling through the shrubbery. Since I couldn't be sure I was following exactly in William's footsteps, I was constantly scanning thegrowth at shin level, looking for more booby traps. Once I nearly raninto trouble looking too low. I started to pass a tree vine, and aspadeshaped face surrounded by a tomato-red glow met me almost nose tonose. I fell backward so quickly I knocked Ahn into a fan-shaped fern.The snake slithered away until the last flick of red was obscured by thejungle's green glow. Mom always claimed snakes were more afraid ofpeople than vice versa, and I was glad she was right. 
After the snake, I slowed down even more, which was a good thing. We were barely moving when, a short distance ahead, a claycoloredtriangular glow popped up from the ground and into the milky, roilingfog. It wavered for a moment and bent toward the ground, then with ascrabbling noise that sounded no louder than a mouse might makegradually elongated into an oval the size of a small person. 
Ahn had to sneeze just then, and since he couldn't see what I saw, hemade no effort to muffle the noise. The brown oval bobbed back and forth, searching for us, a metallic gray tingeing its edges, but theforest redirected sound. Although Ahn was standing right beside me, hissneeze could have come from anywhere. I bent low, clapping my hand overAhn's mouth. He grew very still and we hunkered in silence, waiting. 
The brownish aura floated a few paces away from us, and I heard barefeet on damp ground. 
Then abruptly it doubled over and began coughing. I focused on the figure within the light and saw a small woman. She was pale, her skinwrinkled like a prune's, her hair caked with dirt, her pajamas black.She wore bandoliers draped across her chest and a rifle slung over oneshoulder. Her left arm was raised, the wrist daintily covering hermouth, a foot-long dagger held negligently in that hand. She coughed, and melted silently into the green at the side of the trail. Momentslater, where she had been, William's wine-colored aura bobbed slowly inon the fog, looming over a far vaster patch than hers had. It stopped ashort distance away on the other side of where she had been, and as ithovered there, it gradually changed, the wine separating into rays ofred and black, spurting from him like blood from an arterial wound. 
Suddenly a second glow rose up from the ground between us, within it aman not so well equipped as the woman. I froze with my hand over Ahn'smouth. I had no idea how much I was able to see because of the aura,how visible I was to them, how much of them William could see. But a third, fourth, fifth, and sixth person issued from the hole withoutseeming to see us, their auras blending with the mist. As a seventh rose up to follow them and carefully turned to plug the hole behind him,William struck, and the small figure crumpled over the hole. SilentlyWilliam stripped the body. Relieving the dead Vietcong of a long knife,he slit the throat with the efficiency of the neighborhood meatcutter.He took two more steps before he saw us. 
The mist boiled up around him, curling in and out of a black and redradiance pumping from him. His face was hard and his eyes cold andresentful, but he raised one arm and motioned us forward. I hoisted Ahn onto my hip and stepped over the corpse. When we came even with William, he pointed into the mist beyond him, where he had alreadysquashed some of the undergrowth. 
I started, expecting that he was going to follow and keep the VC off ourtail in case they were inclined to be there, but when I glanced back,the red and black stripes were overlaid with green as he cut into theforest in the direction the other Vietcong had taken. 
Ahn clung tightly, silently, but I was making an incredible amount ofnoise trying to carry him and follow William's course through thefoliage. I hoped if the VC heard us, they'd mistake my noise for theirown. Or for William's, if they discovered him. God, I hoped theywouldn't. What if they caught him? I prayed to God that wouldn'thappen. I wouldn't know what to do. I didn't have a weapon. I couldn'tsave him. How could I live with myself if I just let him get caught,tortured maybe? Maybe I wouldn't have to worry about it. If theycaught him, they'd probably get us too. 
If we got away this time, maybe we could try to find a villagesomeplace, somewhere where it looked as if there was enough food. MaybeI could pay them to take Ahn in at least until I could find help. Ifhe'd had two legs, he probably would have left me by then, I thought. A lot of Vietnamese kids adopted Americans, but when it looked as if thebases were going to get hit, the kids suddenly became history, alongwith a lot of other friendlies. 
We stopped dead in front of a huge snarl of roots, impassable as theGreat Wall of China. Unable to go forward, I sat on the ground andwaited. Ahn continued to cling to me, and I thought he might be crying.The wind shivered the grasses and smaller leafy plants, and the fernfronds swayed and danced, the bare trunks creaked, the leaves rattledlike Halloween skeletons, while the rain beat its erratic patter andsplash all around us, and on top of us. It had the advantage of keepingmy own trembling limbs from shaking the shrubbery like a pair of Mexican maracas. 
do we huddled there getting stiffer and stiffer, and I tried to distractmyself by remembering what it was like to be dry. We were still erilously close to the VC tunnel entrance, which was what that hole hadto be. I wondered if a second group would file out of the hole. Maybe Ishould have moved the dead VC. His body still emitted a faintmustard-colored glow, growing gradually darker, drifting on the wind,separating itself. The version of the Twenty-third Psalm that went"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shallfear no evil, for I am the evilest son of a bitch in the whole damnvalley," went through my head and I felt a rather savage rush of pridein William; then, watching the VC's feeble aura fade like an ember, Ifelt ashamed and said a generic, universalist prayer, including in thescope of my entreaties the elderly gent with the flowing beard andkindly eyes and the cosmic forces of the universe and my own idea ofBuddha, of whom I could conjure up only the image of a statue. 
We had had to kill the guy-I felt I'd killed him as much as William. Or would have, if I'd had a means. Anyway, his death no doubt saved myass, let's put it that way. But it had been nothing personal, and Iwasn't especially glad he was dead. 
As I watched, the dead terrorist's aura grew clearer, ruddier, withinthe milkiness of the mist, like fire deep in an opal. The discoloration from hatred, grief, and fear was dissipating with death .  .  .  sort oflike in the werewolf movies where the ravening wolf, after being shot bythe hero's silver bullet, slowly turns back into the innocent humanbeing infected with lycanthropy. 
I was glad William had been so thorough, because if he had left the VCalive, I knew I'd feel honor-bound to try to patch the poor SOB up. As it was, I just wondered about the wisdom of leaving him draped acrossthe tunnel entrance. Wouldn't that announce our presence? But if theydidn't know how many of us there were, maybe that would make themabandon the tunnel. 
Which shows you what an incurable optimist I am. 
Ahn's face was next to my ear. "Mamasan, we didi now, huh? 
"No can do," I mumbled back. "We wait for William." 
"William dinky dao, mamasan, we didi." 
Well, that was one vote in. Ahn, who had taken to William at first, wasscared of him. And though I hated to admit it, I was, too. What kind ofa nut would go unarmed after seven-well, six-VC? 
That was movie stuff, not what your practical, I-want-to-go-home-alivegrunt would customarily do. The only reason I could imagine him doingsuch a damn-fool thing was to get supplies and weapons. Personally,when it came to getting supplies that way, my overwhelming hunger becamea niggling little sense of peckishness, but nothing I couldn't handletill I found a particularly tasty-looking rat. 
And William's behavior had been so erratic-the coolness that I at first admired I now saw as what was referred to in psych training as a blandaffect, which meant simply that his face was usually expressionIcss andhe didn't show much feeling. Of course, that figured, considering thetrauma of watching his friends killed and being left to make it byhimself in the jungle. But the blandness alternated with swings intoirritation and I didn't know enough to be able to tell which was moredangerous: the agitation or the numbness. 
The mist blew clear across the trail. I scooted back into the deepershade of the root canopy, dragging Ahn with me. Normally I would havethought of snakes, but I really didn't care at that point, because I wasconvinced I was not going to live much longer anyway. It was just aquestion of when and how-a bite from one of those little bamboo viperscalled two-step snakes because their venom could kill you before you'dtaken two steps might be the easy way out under these circumstances. 
A curse blew toward us on the breeze. The voice was so muffled the curse could even have been a Vietnamese one, though I didn't think so.What did it mean? Had they caught William and strangled off his lastdefiant words? I wished I could see what was happening-not as me, ofcourse, but maybe as a bypassing lizard. 
Ahn's small body shook silently and I thought how different he was fromwhat he had been in the hospital, when he bawled so much the otherpatients were 'ready to throttle him. Maybe he'd been saving it up forthen, when he thought it was safe, because now he knew without anyonetelling him that weeping aloud could be fatal. I considered cryingmyself, but I was already losing too much water sweating. 
The rain intensified, rattling the leaves, misting through the screen-ofinterlocking growth, driving through the occasional opening wherecollective drops plopped like fat slugs from overburdened meaty greenleaves. The jungle floor, steaming with recondensing moisture, remindedme of a cannibal's boiling kettle, with us in the stew. 
An overhanging branch dropped one slow drop at a time on the crown of myhead, reminding me of a story I'd read about the Chinese water torture,a procedure that involved letting water drip one drop at a time on thesame spot on a victim's skull until it eroded skin, bone, and sanity. I decided not to think about that. The ground fog once more formed anopaque veil obscuring the faint path between us and the body. I could still see the outlines of the plants and the body, because of the auras.The fog hid Ahn and me from anyone else, however. 
Ahn shivered again and emitted a small whimper. When I looked down, hiseyes were closed. He'd fallen asleep. His skin felt hot against mine.His rag of a bandage had come off completely and the wound was drainingagain. Damn. There was nothing I could do about that now. 
The glow of the jungle shuddered and wilted to a shade ever so slightlybrown moments before blood-red and pitch-black light strobed throughlike the lights on a police car, silently broadcasting death, hatred,fury, malice, and murder. 
One of the VC, I thought. They'd caught William, he'd told them aboutus, and now they were circling back to get us. Before the malignantaura broke onto the trail, I pushed and prodded Ahn up over the root tangle and scrambled over after him. He whimpered once more, but assoon as I reached to cover his mouth he shut up, flipped over the top ofthe tangled root and decayed log, and cowered on the other side. Ilanded heavily beside him and lifted my face just far enough to reach ahole in the woven roots. 
Like fire and char the aura burned in the clearing, then headed straightfor where we had been. In the center of it, his face impassive exceptfor eyes watchful as a jaguar's, and as impersonal, William stalkedtoward us, a machete in one hand, a .45 automatic in the other. 
I was relieved to see him alive, but on the other hand he looked as ifhe was searching for us where he knew we ought to be, but did not lookas if he was going to be happy to see us. He stepped across the corpseand began stalking up the trail, slashing at impediments. If we had been hiding in the jungle beside the trail we would have been spaghettibefore we could say hello. I suppressed an urge to stand up and ask himwhat the hell he thought he was doing; didn't he know he could hurtsomebody that way? I didn't because obviously he knew that very well.And it looked as though he no longer cared. 
This was a bit of a dilemma. William was a swell guy when he was in hisright mind. Even though he could get killed as easily as Ahn and me, hewas a man, larger than me and with all that reassuring extra upper-bodystrength. I felt protected by him. He had training and know -how andhad already showed me a couple of things that might help keep me alive.And now he had weapons with which he could protect us all, if he was soinclined. The trouble was, I was pretty sure, from the look of him andall that riot-squad energy shooting from him, that his inclination wasto kill anything that moved, including us. Face it, William was nutsand I wasn't feeling so stable myself, which was why I sat back down,very slowly, and huddled with Ahn while William poked and prodded andeventually leaped over us, quite literally overlooking us. He stalked away, his aura blazing so intensely that he looked like a walking forestfire. 
I watched until he was a mere flashlight beam in the greenery, then drewa deep breath. I tried to rise, but my knees wouldn't support me for along time. When I put my hands out to brace myself on a log, they shookso hard it looked as if I were trying to play the bongos. Ahn pulledhimself up beside me. 
Ahn's aura was shallower than it had been, a washed-out sParrow brownwith little veins of red. He looked as tired as I felt. "What we do now, mamasan?" 
"We follow William," I told him. I didn't want to lose him entirely.Not only did we need him, he might need us. I didn't really think I'dbe able to trail him for too long, but maybe I could until he was in hisright mind and the three of us could band together again. 
"William beaucoup dinky dao, mamasan." 
"No shit," I said. But we didn't seem to have a lot of other options. 
We lost him in less than an hour. Not that we didn't know where he'd gone. We only had to follow the machete slashes to figure that one out. 
But we couldn't keep up. Even with the support of his stick, Ahn felloften. Sometimes I carried him, but at others we both needed both handsto climb or brace ourselves for steep descents down muddy slides. We drank often from the rain pools on the leaves and stuck our tongues outat the rain, but it was a far cry from having a whole cool glass ofwater from mama's tap at home. 
Soon the trail started heading mostly down, and when we finished slidingdown muddy, root-riddled banks, the ground below was less overgrown, westumbled less often, and none too soon we began treading on grass oncemore. The machete marks dwindled with the vines, and so did our abilityto follow William. 
Remembering what William had said about the other flatlands, I kept usin the trees. I kept thinking that soon the valley floor would turninto rice paddies. 
The rain blew straight at us and I took my poncho from my ditty bag andtried to cover us both with it. I couldn't bear it in the heavy jungle.It was too hot. Now, however, as a wind and rain break, it wasinadequate. Clouds like gray scouring pads blew across the top of thevalley, squirting squalls every few minutes. The bomb craters, alreadyfull, flooded and ran into one another. I felt dizzy and headachy, as Idid when I was catching cold. I wanted my mother again. I wanted her to bring me aspirins and antihistamines and a vaporizer with Vicks andcomic books and fresh orange juice. The fact that she hadn't done that since I was about ten made no difference. Sick adults regress too. 
"Dear Mom," I mentally wrote while carrying Ahn down the valley, "Ahnand I took a walk today-well, mostly I walked. He got tired. William had some business to take care of, and when he returned he wasn't in avery good mood, so Ahn and I decided we'd give him time to cool off. I bet we'll find a rice paddy today. William wants to avoid people, but Ithink the paddies are a good sign. They're so normal and agricultural,like wheat fields. William doesn't want to visit a Vietnamese village,but then, he's a city boy. I feel that, after all, these people arerice farmers just as the people where we're from are wheat farmers, sowhat really is the difference? I'm getting Ahn to teach me to say, 'Hotenough for you?" and 'Nice day if it don't rain,' in Vietnamese." 
Thinking about home probably wasn't the best thing in the world, becausemy mind began drifting. just because I didn't want to be in Nam, Istarted dreaming, with my eyes wide awake and my feet walking, that Iwasn't. I imagined I was walking through the woods by my Aunt Janet'scornfield carrying my cousin Sandy, who was now about seventeen yearsold, though to my mind she was still as I had last seen her, youngerthan Ahn. It was like a mirage except that I didn't actually seeanything that wasn't there, I just reinterpreted what I was seeing sothat it seemed instead to be something I wanted to see. I have no idea how long or how far I walked thinking myself back in good old dullKansas. It's a wonder I didn't mistake a booby trap for cow fence andkill us both. 
Ahn pulled me back to Southeast Asia by suddenly rousing to point outwhat looked like a brilliant sunset. Indulging him, I stopped so wecould admire the reds, oranges, and yellows of the sun, as I thought,reflected in the sky. 
Around the next bend, I felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and watchedtongues of fire lick at the sky as the field below us spouted flames.Acres of plants were already consumed and blackened, and the fire nowfed on earth and roots. I wondered what burned so hot and remembered napalm. But why napalm somebody's field? 
I hated the feel of it even more than I hated stumbling through jungle,so I started climbing again, up away from the fire. Just before nightfall we found another stream cutting a ridge in half. We bathed again and drank and I gave Ahn two of my Midol for his fever, andallotted us two salt tablets apiece after saving one for my new crop ofleeches. I tore the sleeve off my fatigue shirt and bound it around hisstump with a piece of his old bandage. The stump didn't look as bad asI feared, but there was a nickel-size sore where the stitches had oncebeen, and it was draining. 
We climbed back up and over another ridge before nightfall, and beddeddown between two rocks under a very large tree that gave us someprotection from the rain. I dreamed my grandpa was pointing at thefield and laughing, telling me about strip-and-burn agriculture, but hewas saying something about how they did it with crop dusters these days. 
When I woke the next morning, I felt the warmth of a small fire, smelledmeat cooking, and heard it sizzling. William squatted, Vietnamesestyle, beside the fire. 
"If I be Charlie, lady, you be dead," he said. 
"I almost was anyway," I said, prying Ahn loose so I could stretch alittle. William's aura still had a faint edge of black and maroon butwas mostly blue, a little yellow, clear green. "You remember comingafter us with a machete and a .45 by any chance?" 
"Me? Nah, I go after VC. Got some too. One got away, the girlsan withthe heavy artillery." 
"That who you thought we were?" I asked. But he just looked puzzled,and hurt, and his colors started swirling around in a confused sort ofway. 
"Never mind," I said. "How did you find us?" 
"Easy. You not exactly Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, woman. You see anyof 'em?" 
"Any of who?" 
"Our boys. They around. Who you think called in that napalm on thetaro field?" 
"Is that what it was? I wondered. What's taro?" 
"Good food. But ten to one some asshole thought it was weed. Or maybethey just wanna make sure Charlie don't eat no taro. I dunno." 
"Wait a minute," I said. "If that was one of our planes that dropped napalm, then there must be some of our guys around-" 
"You catch on quick, Sheena. I spotted a patrol of about six dudes justas I got to that taro field, but they was 'way far down the valley, andabout the time I started into that field after them the planes come upand it was weenie roast time. I had to didi mau. But that patrol ismaybe a day ahead of us." 
"Of you, maybe," I said. "I'm surprised you could backtrack far enoughto find us. You sure are one tough act to follow." 
''Yeah. Well, I think we should find them dudes." 
"If they're a day ahead of us, we'll never make it. Ahn's leg is goingbad again." 
"We all gonna go bad we don't get out of this shit pretty soon. Wantsome of this primo monkeysan here?" 
I nodded and looked back toward Ahn. He was sweating in his sleep. "Youcould carry Ahn again. That would speed us up." 
"It'd slow me down, though," he said thoughtfully. "That patrol'salready got a day's lead on us." 
We chewed monkey and thought it over. I was tempted. I wished I hadn't brought Ahn out here. And William was undoubtedly right. We'd lose ourchance at rescue altogether if we slowed down for Ahn. On the otherhand, if he was an American kid, we wouldn't even be discussing it. I decided not to discuss it anyway. 
"Well," I said, "maybe it would be better if you left us here and wentafter them yourself. I don't think Ahn's going to get very far. His stump's infected." 
"Lady, you don't seem to understand. We ain't in the world no more. This be war, baby. I leave you here and when I come back, if you here,you probably be some kind of beaucoup messed-up fucked-over corpse." 
"Okay, okay, I know, I know. Stop talking about it, okay? The whole idea makes me nervous. But frankly, buddy, I'm just about as nervoushanging out with you. That's twice you've nearly killed us." 
"Will you stop sayin' that? I ain't harmed a fuckin' hair of yourhead-" 
"It wasn't my hair I was worried about," I argued, ever as ready withwitty repartee as I was when fighting with my kid brother. 
"Nor nothin' else neither. Where you get this shit, girl? You ack like I crazy-truth is, you be the crazy one. What you tryin' to do? Set me up to get lynched for rubbin' up against your lily-white round-eyetail?" 
"Watch the names, buster," I told him. "I'll make a deal with you, youdon't call me round-eye tail and I don't call you nigger, okay?" 
The red and black was growing in his aura again and I realized that Iwas no longer dealing just with William, my fellow refugee, but with anarmed and angry man who currently killed people for a living and washaving a lot of trouble telling which people were the ones he wassupposed to kill and which ones were on his side. 
He half rose, then sat down again, his eyes full of resentment andhostility and something else that fueled both-the grief that cloaked allthe other colors in his aura, and the self-reproach that was growing inprominence. The colors were altering so quickly, shifting from oneemotion to the other, that I was having trouble naming them, although Iknew what they meant. 
"What you watchin'?" he asked belligerently. But he stayed seated andhis hands were open on his knees. "You look like you about to shityourself. What's the matter? I look like some nigger mothahfuckin'street gang rapist to you or what?" 
"You got this all wrong, William," I said when I was able to detachmyself from watching his aura. It had a hypnotizing effect that wassoothing in a purely detached kind of way. But it was alarming howquickly his soft-spoken kindliness ran to anger. I was convinced it was misdirected when pointed at me, but I squirmed anyway. If I was not exactly a bigot, it was probably more from lack of opportunity than fromactual ideals. There hadn't been any black kids in my classes untilhigh school, though the neighborhoods near us had been integratinggradually-and with much paranoid grumbling and dire prediction from myrelatives. I didn't mind talking to a black person, but the sexualstuff made me uncomfortable, all the more so because I knew that if Iwere the liberal person I thought I was, it shouldn't. But the real problem I was having was that even though William and I spoke the samelanguage and were from the same country, I knew less about the problemsand attitudes of the culture he came from than I did about the Vietnamese. Proximity to the soul brothers back at the enlistedbarracks-hard-core groups who looked like the Army equivalent of streetgangs and made nasty remarks as I passed-did not lead me to believe thatI was going to be liked just because I was in favor of the civil rightsmarches on TV. But I was damned if I was going to be lost in the junglewith enemies all around and a sick kid and a crazy man and admit tobeing a bigot on top of it. 
"Private Johnson to you," William Johnson snapped. 
"You got this all wrong, Private Johnson," I began again. "You don't remind me of anything like a street gang." 
"Nah?" he asked, sounding maybe a little disappointed. 
"Nah," I said. "What you remind me of is this nice little old lady Itook care of during my psych affiliation in training. She was just aspleasant and sweet as anything except that every once in a while sheattacked clergymen and tried to castrate them. The rest of the time youcouldn't meet a nicer person." 
He didn't seem inclined to dignify my remarks with a response, so Ispeared a piece of monkey and turned around to give some to Ahn. Hewasn't there. 
"Babysan?" 
"Ixave him alone, will you, he's probably gone to take a piss in thebrush over there," William said in the tone of an irritable fathercriticizing how I raised the kid. 
"What if he runs into a booby trap or a snake or-" 
"What would you do about it if he did? Scream?" 
It was my turn to ignore him. I scanned the brush and the surroundinghills and valleys. No Ahn. But on the other side of our ridge was avalley with rice paddies. Across the valley was another ridge, andabout a quarter of the way up this a few houses. No people that I couldsee, but curls of smoke rose from a couple of places in the village. 
"Hey, look, civilization!" I said. 
He didn't even look up from swabbing out his canteen cup with a wetleaf. 
"Did you hear me?" I asked, forgetting to keep my dukes up. "There's avillage over there. People." 
"Yeah, but what kind of people do they be is the question." 
"It's a village," I said. 
He nodded. "Yeah, but it ain't San Francisco." 
"But it's worth checking out. They might have some food we could buy,or medical supplies, or a radio-" 
"Or VC. You act like it some kinda shopping mall. Well, it ain't, nomore than I'm a platoon, even with you and babysan. You don't just gowaltzing into those villages alone. Ho Chi Minh could be the mayor forall you know." 
"Yeah, sure, but it could also be where those guys who burned the fieldare heading, couldn't it?" 
"Unh huh, and it could be they're just going to call in an air strikeand waste the place too, just like they did that field. I wouldn't saythat was a real healthy place to be, especially not for just you andme." 
"Yes, but with Ahn along-I mean, he's a Vietnamese." 
"If he's not from that village or don't have relatives there, that ain'tgonna cut no ice with them. Lotsa strays runnin' around thecountryside. People look after they own folks. Can't take care of every draggly-ass kid who wanders in." 
"Maybe not but-" In the trees below I saw movement, and Ahn broke intothe clearing by the paddies. "Jesus, there he is. He must have spottedthe village and gotten the same idea I did." I started off after him, but William was on his feet and pulling me back before I had time totake so much as a step. 
"You can't go down there. They puts mines and booby traps all along thepaddies. Babysan probably gonna get the rest of his ass blown off. No need to make it two of you." 
"I won't abandon him," I said. "And I'm sorry, but you are crazy andyou do scare me." He curled his lips and wouldn't look at me, intent onpolishing the weapon he had captured. "William, I know when you'regoing to flip out if I'm awake, but when I'm asleep I can't-" 
"That's bullshit," he said in a low voice with so much force behind it Ifelt as if he'd slapped me. "You don't know no such thing." 
"I do. Look." I pulled out the amulet and showed him. "This lets me see a light around a person that shows me what they're feeling-I cansort of read them. An old wise mana magician, kind of-who was one of myVietnamese patients gave it to me." 
He smacked at it. "What you tryin' to tell me, girl? That I should leave you go wanderin' off by yourself through the jungle 'cause you gotsome gook equivalent of a mood ring? You think I'm dinky dao!" 
"Look if you don't believe me!" I took it off over my head and handed itto him. "Put it on. Go ahead. And tell me what you see. Go on. I dare you. I double-dare you." Jesus, I was regressing to thirdgradefights with my brother again. But he slid the amulet over his rifle barrel and very gingerly slipped it over his head. 
"Now look at me!" I said. "What do you see?" 
see one crazy white chick thinks she's Sheena, fucking Queen of thejungle," he said, but his voice was a little more.reasonable as hestared.at me. He passed his hand over his face once in a weary gesture."Look, sister, you better cool down now. You so mad you glowin' alittle red around the edges." 
"Aha!" I said. "See what I told you! See what I told you. Here, gimmeit back." I felt blinded without it, like one of the mythological Graeaedeprived of her eye. He handed it back, shaking his head, and when Iput it on I saw that his aura was back to being predominantly blue andyellow again. He was beginning to understand, in spite of himself. 
"William, I have to go now. I have to go get Ahn. I'll be able to tell if those people will hurt me and I'll be careful. But even if youweren't-pardon me-crazy sometimes, I'd be no safer with you than I amalone. Nobody's safe in this shit. You know it better than I do, forChrissakes. But I can't let a handicapped kid go running around in thejungle by himself, and the longer I sit here beefing with you, theharder it will be for me to find him before he reaches the village." 
"I could hit you over the head and carry you or drag you," hethreatened. 
"That wouldn't make for very speedy progress, would it?" I said. 
"Sheeit," he said. "You go on, then, dammit. But don't go cussin'William Johnson when the VC are cutting' your womb open while you stillalive. You think I crazy and you scared. Let me tell you somethin',lady. I have been real scared travelin' with you and that gook kid. Myass ain't been worth nothin' since I took up with you. Get the hell out of here if you so het up to do it. I'm gonna contact that squad I saw.If I can get 'em to swing back by the village and there's enough left ofyou to put in a body bag, I'll see to it your mama gets it to bury." Heturned around. 
"William?" 
"Unh huh." 
"Did you maybe capture a smaller gun I could have just in case it doeslook like I'm going to be captured?" 
He snorted and handed me the machete without a word and marched off. I looked after him for just a moment, feeling irrationally abandoned, butthen I looked away and saw Ahn at the edge of the rice paddy, and aflurry of people in pajamas and conical hats running into the paddiestoward him. I plunged down the hill and into the trees, expecting tofeel the trip wire of a booby trap against my shin, or my foot stepfirst into nothingness, then to be pierced by pungi sticks as I fellinto a tiger pit. It must have been wishful thinking. I got to thepaddy in one piece, in time to see that it was not Ahn who was causingthe commotion among the villagers. -"IPen I first saw the snake Ithought, What's that fireman's ose doing here? I thought it might besomething the villagers used for irrigation. Ahn sat at the edge of thepaddy, very still, and I wondered if he was having second thoughts aboutbeing with his people again. I thought he was scared of something thatinsubstantial. Then I saw the fire hose more clearly, noticed that ithad a distinct aura pulsing from it, the dark red of old blood, anger,malice, and hunger brewed together. 
The villagers swarmed across the paddy and then stood watchinguncertainly. The snake reared up like a self-motivated Indian ropetrick to about two and a half yards above the ground. That made it taller than any of them. 
They were very small people, short and lean from hard work and hungerand intestinal parasites, and there wasn't an able-bodied man amongthem. Ancient men, ancient women, pregnant girls who looked too youngto have periods, and tiny children stood with their hoes and knives andwatched the snake. It watched them too, swaying, and I thought its auraflickered with satisfaction as it eyed an infant on its sister's hip.The snake thought it was one badass motherfucker, and it swaggeredtoward the people as if they were so many mice. 
For their part, they prudently backed up, considering, but looked at itmainly as if it was a curiosity. They chatted at one another, as ifexpecting one of their number to come up with an answer. The snake layback as if it was about to strike, and the slimmest of the pregnantgirls leaped out well beyond striking range and taunted it, flapping herarms and trying to draw attention away from the others. Meanwhile, afew of the others circled back toward the snake's tail. 
The snake was a no-nonsense-type creature. It decided that if the damn-fool girl wanted to get eaten so badly, it would accommodate her.It didn't so much strike as fling itself upon her. The others hacked at it as it flew past them, but it grabbed her in its coils and she criedout as it squeezed. Its jaws snapped onto her thigh and she abruptlystopped thrashing with her machete and collapsed within the coils. The other villagers tried to pull the coils loose, but the snake justsqueezed more tightly. One of the babies, sensing the panic of itselders, bawled. 
Ahn grabbed his stick and hobbled forward. I hadn't said any thing as Icame up behind him, and he still didn't know I was there. 
He grabbed the nearest old lady and held on with one hand and feltaround the snake with the other until he found the tail, took it in hismouth, and bit. The snake stopped biting and the coils relaxed so thatsnake, girl, and Ahn all tumbled to the ground in a heap.. 
I couldn't just squat in the bushes and watch. There was already onecorpse lying in the grass, near where the snake had risen. An old woman or an old man, I couldn't tell-just a mass of mottled skin and a Thankof long gray hair in the midst of a bundle of rags. The snake was trying to free its head to reach Ahn. The others were pulling onvarious parts of the snake while an old man and a girl of about eighttried to whack at the reptile's head without whacking the victim or Ahnin the process. Ahn continued to chow down on the snake's tail. 
I knew that however frail these folks looked, they were quite strongfrom years of work that would have killed me. I knew that they weremuch quicker than I was, and that I would likely get myself snake-bit orhacked if I tried to help. I also knew that I weighed almost doublewhat any one of them did, and that maybe dragging with all my weightbehind it might help. And I had a hell of a big machete. I also didn't think I would be able to live with myself, for however long I was goingto be able to live anyhow, if I just sat there and watched that goddamnsnake kill people who had survived bombs and bullets for so many years. 
I waded into the paddy, my boots shedding pounds of accumu lated mudinto the watery muck beneath the rice shoots. 
Ahn sneezed, releasing his hold on the tail, and it whipped away fromthe girl, sending Ahn flying. The snake's head reared up about sixinches from the girl's body to watch the kid and lunge for the nearestspectator. It had to uncoil a length of itself from the girl to makethe lunge, and when it did, I hit it with my machete, not even sure Iwas using the right end. 
The snake's body was bigger around than my neck, bigger around than mythighs even, so at first I wasn't sure I had done any good. But the blade had bitten deeply into the body just behind the snake's head andthe snake hissed, shaking a head the shape and size of a spade, bloodspattering into its eyes, and over me and several surrounding feet. Istraddled it and bent over double so I could bear down on the blade,which was hard to do. The snake's writhing knocked first one of myboots and then the other sliding in the mud of the paddy, but I held on.I had to. The machete jerked in my hands, but I held it clenched inboth fists. I heard a crack and knew one or more of the girl's bones were being crushed. She couldn't even scream with her breath cut off like that. The other villagers tried frantically to pull the coils fromher. I leaned more heavily into my machete. There wasn't enough roombetween me and the girl for me to get good leverage on the snake's head.Any moment now it would crush her to death and round on me. 
"Push her away from me. Ahn, tell them push her away." 
Ahn started yammering in Vietnamese and the other people began rollingthe girl's shoulders and legs away from my back as if they unrolledpeople from snakes all the time. I dropped to my knees and used themlike a vise against the snake, and it bucked like a rodeo brong beneathme. But from this vantage point I could put most of my weight onto themachete. If I let go and the snake's head snapped free, the war wouldbe over for me. 
I cringed inwardly every time the snake undulated, afraid the girl wasbeing pulverized. I didn't dare look back to see, and that almost gotme killed. 
Ahn's tail biting, though I didn't know it at the time, had caused thesnake to loosen its grip somewhat, and the people were able to roll thegirl out of its grip. But as soon as she was free of the tail, the tailwas also free of her, and the tip whipped up and around my shoulders,jerking me, machete, snake head, and all, backward. 
As the coils started constricting around me, my grip on my machetestarted to loosen. I felt the people mass behind me, grabbing armfulsof slippery snake. 
Then Ahn's head was beside mine, and his mouth grabbed an end section oftail and lightly chomped. The coils loosened and the villagersredoubled their efforts at straightening out the snake. That allowed me to keep hanging on to the machete and with it to bear the great headback to the ground. 
"Got him," I gasped, and wanted to laugh in spite of everything, becauseanybody looking on would have seen that I was a little confused aboutwho had whom. William was right. I did think I was Sheena, Queen ofthe Jungle, serpent slayer extraordinaire. But the truth was, I didn'texactly see a lot of other options. I was a big, strapping girl thenand accustomed to wrestling three-hundred-pound ladies in body castsonto bedpans, having knockdown drag-outs with grown men with the DTs,and subduing hysterical three-year-olds while giving them injections.The snake was bigger and more dangerous and more powerful than any ofthe situations I was used to, but not by all that much. 
"Somebody chop off his fuckin' head, for Christsake!" I rasped. It was in English, no one should have been able to understand me, and Ahn'smouth was full of snake, but the old grandfather with the hoe hit thecreature a blow on the noggin and the coils fell from me like a featherboa. I fell back against a pile of villagers and lay panting for amoment. The old man kept hacking, his aura as blood-red as the snake'shad been, his face a calm, almost kindly mask. 
I crawled over to the girl who had been bitten. Her aura was very dim,gray and muddy except for the part around where her leg had been bitten. 
That was deep black and spreading. 
The bite was larger than any snakebite I had ever seen-the snake's mouthwas bigger than mine, and almost bigger than my entire head. The standard treatment for rattlesnake bites was going to be useless, I knewit, but nevertheless I grabbed a knife out of the nearest hand andsliced at the wounds. The girl took her breath in sharply and her handshot toward me, a knife in her fist. I dropped my knife and caught herhand, barely keeping her from stabbing both me and herself. She was looking at me with what I would normally have interpreted as hatred,aura and all, but considering what she'd been through, I just figuredshe was a little unhinged, probably confusing me with her formerassailant. 
"Come on, you guys, hang on to her or I'm not going to be able to helpher," I said, and shoved her wrist into the bony hands of the nearestgrandmother. I must have made my point clear enough, because threechildren and another pregnant woman rushed to help restrain her hands.Her eyes rolled in terror as she looked down at me and she moaned andsquirmed under the blade. "Sssh, sssh, sssh," I told her, as I'd heardVietnamese women shush their babies. I sat on her leg to keep it fromwiggling, so I could do just a little incision instead of "I know thishurts, but I major surgery. have to try to get the poison out." 
All around me the women were shushing her, hissing louder than the latesnake. Hoping I didn't have any new cavities or canker sores I'dforgotten about, I bent over her leg and made like a vampire, sucking upmouthfuls of venom and blood and spitting it out again-sort of a reverseartificial respiration. It was a huge snake and there was a lot ofvenom. Even as I sucked I could see the blackness spreading through herpelvis, up her torso, toward her heart, down her knee. 
I knew I was getting nowhere, and now the adrenaline was wearing off andI was feeling the effects of exhaustion, starvation, and exertion all atonce. Helplessly I spread my hands along the perimeters of thespreading blackness of the venom, mumbling senselessly at it to stop,dammit. I was tired, muddy, and frustrated and about to lose this braveif somewhat screwy young girl in spite of everything. The venom on mytongue made it tingle, and I was starting to turn from her and try towash my mouth out when I noticed that where the bright mauve of my auratouched the blackness, it gathered before my hands as if I were herdingit. I stared at it stupidly, then ran my hands down her trunk, up herleg, and across her pelvis, as if I were sweeping the venom out of hersystem. Where I touched the black, it retreated before my palms, untilit gathered at the wound and bubbled up out of it, like an artesianspring. When it was gone I kept staring at where it had been for amoment, then ran my hand across my tongue. A sheen of black appeared onmy palm, and I wiped it off against the rice. 
The girl lay still, panting, her eyes wide and her face still terrified. 
"Ahn, tell her I think it's going to be all right," I said, my tongue sothick I had to repeat it. "Tell her I think the poison is gone." 
I hoped I wasn't raising false hopes. I hoped I wasn't hallucinating.My head seemed too heavy to lift as I looked up at the faces around me:the girl herself, as pretty as Xinhdy had been, except for a gold tooth in the front of her mouth; the old man who had hacked the snake, most ofhis teeth gone; the children, wide-eyed and looking halfscared,half-excited. Finally the old man picked up the snake's head and thechildren followed, trying to lift portions of the body. When I got tomy feet, the man shifted his grip farther back and tried to hand me thehead. I declined, and emptied my breakfast of stewed monkey into therice paddy. I hate snakes. I can't stand to look at them, much lesstouch them. 
One of the girls helped the injured woman to her feet, while Ahn leanedon his stick and supervised. I felt the wounded girl flinch as I put myarm around her waist to support her on her injured side, but ainong uswe got her back to the village. No mines, no booby traps. Just mud and rice and a concertina-wire barrier. 
Later, four of the girls took a mat back out to the field and draggedhome the snake's first victim. I watched mutely as they laid the bodyout. She was not as old as I thought, just very gray. Her face was purpled from suffocation and her body had been crushed, her features sougly with her death that I had to look away. The injured girl cried outand argued at length with one of the women who was attending the body,but was finally persuaded to lie back. Her aura radiated grieving, agray as cold and empty as a midwinter sky. 
As they cleaned the body and arranged the features back to a semblanceof normalcy before laying a banyan leaf across the face, it seemed to methat the dead woman looked nearly like the live one. No wonder the girlhad been so ready to kill the snake. 
Ahn wasn't allowed in while they dressed the corpse, and the injuredwoman looked at me, still angrily, as if I were committing a terriblebreach of manners, but the truth was I didn't have the strength to dragmyself out of there. I fell asleep while they were finishing thepreparation of the corpse. 
I awoke some time later to the groans of the girl beside me. She was on the mat and I lay beside her on the dirt floor. I was so stiff I could scarcely move, and it flashed across my mind that perhaps the snake haddone me more damage than I realized. 
But the girl's groan gave way to a sudden, panicky scream. I sat up andautomatically reached for her pulse and stared at my watch, counting.Her stomach was rolling beneath the light cotton of her pajama top, andshe clutched it with both hands. 
This time she looked at me entreatinGIy, "Dau quadi," she breathed. "Dauquadi." 
She was aborting, of course. It was actually inevitable. Even if the venom had never crossed the placental membrane, being squeezed in thecoils of a giant snake was bound to be damaging to any growing fetus. I stretched out to the door of the hut and yelled, to whom it mightconcern, "La dai, la dai," and hoped the urgency in my voice would makeup for the lack of explanation. 
It was almost over before anyone else could reach her. Blood and water gushed from between her thighs, soaking her pajamas and the mat before I could turn away from the door again. As the first village woman duckedinto the house, the fetus, a very small fetus, delivered. It was notwell developed. It could almost have been any sort of a baby creature,poor pathetic little thing. It hadn't had a chance. The women broughtcloths and we wiped her clean and I wrapped the fetus in one. 
She grabbed my wrist. She wanted to see it. I shook my head at firstand she persisted, so I showed it to her. It helps sometimes when youknow what you're mourning. 
She began to cry, then to wall, and one of the other women touched me onthe shoulder and nodded that I should leave the hut. I rose ponderouslyto my feet, feeling like an out-of-shape water buffalo behind the smalllithe figure ahead of me. We hadn't far to go-just to a hut a few yardsaway, which was blessedly empty except for Ahn, who was tucking into abowl of rice. He looked up long enough to nod at me and went back toeating. 
The woman showed me a mat with a roll of cloth at the head for a pillow.I sat down gratefully and started to go to sleep, but she sat on herheels and reached for my bootlaces, as if she thought she was my maid orsomething. 
"No, no," I said, and tried to wave her away. "Ahn, please tell thiswoman I don't need a maid, just some sleep. She should get some sleepherself or she could lose her baby too." 
"I tell her, co, but she be mad-lose face." 
I compromised by sitting back up again and helping her take my bootsoff. A little girl brought me a rice bowl and a bottle of hot Pepsi,which I opened with the church key William had given me. She took the bottle from me and poured the Pepsi into a bowl. 
The little girl put her hands together and backed off, leaving the Pepsibeside me. I put my hands together and bowed at her too. I was goingto receive a crash course in Vietnamese customs, I supposed. But tired as I was, I was elated. William had been wrong and I was right. Thesepeople seemed no more threatening than my patients. I hadn't walked into the clutches of the enemy, I thought, just into a strenuousone-woman medcap mission, with a side dish of indigenous prehistoricwildlife. 
Ahn stirred and coughed in his sleep. I felt his forehead. He was burning again. The rice and the Pepsi were something I wouldn't havetouched ordinarily, but I had to have something in my stomach if I wasgoing to renew my strength. As the food took effect, my perception ofhis aura deepened. Blackness spread from the stump up his leg. I was sure that if I disturbed him to do so, I'd find a knot in his groin.Well, now that I'd gotten the hang of the old faith healer bit by tryingit out on a perfect stranger, the amulet's power was bound to work onAhn too. I spread my fingers so that each touched the end of one of thethreads of infection and concentrated on thinking of the veins as beingclean and clear, with nothing but healthy blood flowing through them.The black threads knotted near the stump and, with a little urging,drained out the end. While I was working, the little girl was on theball. She brought me water in what looked suspiciously like the same sort of basin we used for patients at the 83rd. I supposed it was justanother of the instances of the black market moving in mysterious ways. 
I went through the bowing routine again and smiled at her. The poor kidhad fought that snake just as hard as I had and she must be just astired. I unwrapped Ahn's stump and he woke up, hissing. My old fatigueshirt sleeve was thoroughly be-nastied. 
I turned back to the little girl, who was sitting on her heels watchingwith the expression of a nursing instructor checking to see if I wasdoing everything right. Disinfectant was too much to hope for, but Imade motions of pouring some over Ahn's wound and bandaging it up again.My other fatigue shirt sleeve was grimy and slimy from the snake fight. 
She dipped out of the house, and a few minutes later, an elderly mandipped back in and sat down on his heels. He was holding a bottle' fromwhich he took a swig before handing it to me. It was Jim Beam. He passed it over, indicating that I should take a swig. I only pretendedto, because the last thing I needed was a drink that would knock me onmy can, and wiped off the bottle mouth before pouring a good inch of thestuff over Ahn's stump. He winced and hissed and started to cry. 
The old man winced and hissed and started to cry when I poured his boozeover Ahn's stump. I handed it back to him and made the steepled-handsbow again. I couldn't remember how to say thank you in Vietnamese. 
He nodded wisely and looked me up and down in the manner of dirty oldmen everywhere. "Mamasan beaucoup," he said. He sounded a little awestricken. 
"No," I said, grinning and shaking my head. "No, papasan tete." 
Which was perfectly true, of course. Walking along beside me on the wayback to the village, he stood only as high as my bust line, which mighthave been what led to the personal remarks. He laughed and shook hishead at my incomparable wit and he and the Jim Beam disappeared. 
The little girl was gone a long time and I began to think that bandageswere too much to hope for. People probably didn't have any spareclothing that was in better shape than mine, which was pretty sad. I used the rest of the basin of water to rinse the mud off myself andtossed the thick residue into the ditch surrounding the house. A regular moat. Well, I'd already met the monster. 
The old man was out in front of the house, admiring the snake again. He had technically killed the thing, though he'd never have made it withoutthe rest of the village, Ahn, and me. But he walked around it and nodded to himself. I thought he was preening until I paid attention tohis aura. It was the gray I was coming to associate with grief. I left Ahn for a moment and stepped across the ditch. 
"Some snake, eh, papasan?" I asked, nodding to our kill, which stillmade my vertebrae stand at attention. 
"Yes, numbah one snake," he said sadly, pronouncing snake uncertainly, anew English word. 
"I've never seen one that big," I said inanely. He continued staringdown at the snake as if I hadn't spoken. "Beaucoup snake," I said andspread my arms and rolled my eyes for emphasis. "Are there more like that around?" I asked, and indicated our snake, plus another beside itand another. 
The old man shook his bead sadly. "Snake fini," he said and repeated mygesture to indicate that he meant all the snakes were gone, then threwhis arms up like a child imitating a bomb, making the appropriateexplosive noises. It should have been funny, but the grieving gray andsparks of red in the aura belied his smile, and the whole demonstrationwas as grotesque as if he had plucked out his eye and asked me to laughat him. 
I looked down and nodded. Bombs might make you nostalgic for thecomparative harmlessness of enormous snakes at that. He picked up astick and drew a few deft lines in the mud and a hungry crocodileslithered within them, mouth open and tall lashing. The old man threw his arms in the air, miming the bomb again, and tapped the picture ofthe crocodile. "Fini." 
As the mud oozed back together and the crocodile sank into the mire, heflourished his stick again and eels, otters, huge fish, and a hungrytiger populated the mud. "Fine," the old man said each time, his voicegrimmer with the vanishing of each species. The tiger had figured inour word games on the ward, however, and I thought I might use it tochange the topic to a lighter one. 
"Mao bey?" I asked, pointing at the picture. 
He looked at me as if I'd done something astonishing and now his smiledeepened and some of the gray sank back into him in the same way hispictures sank into the mud. He nodded enthusiastically. An educable American. How astonishing. 
I drew a picture of a house cat. "Mao?" 
He nodded. I was on safe ground. Maos had come up frequently in theword games Xinhdy, Mai, Ahn, and I had played. 
I said, "In English, Mao same-same cat same-same Kitty samesame me," andpointed to myself. 
He thought that was pretty funny and catcalled at me. 
The little girl ran toward us, her black hair flying like a scarf behindher. In her hot little hand was a roll of gauze bandage, still in itswhite wrapper with the red cross in the blue circle. 
"Co, co, see, see!" she cried. She was such a gorgeous child, like adoll with that Kewpie mouth and little pointed chin and that shininghair. 
"Co Mao, Co Mao," the old man said. 
It was no good trying to get him to go ahead and say my nameuntranslated. I ducked back inside the house to bandage Ahn's leg. He was sitting up now, and supervised while I wrapped his stump. The little girl again watched as if her life depended on it. I smiled at her when I was done. 
"Ahn, we should introduce ourselves." 
He looked dubious but said his name and a string of words after, lookingas if he had just been elected to the dubiously honorable office ofPresident of South Vietnam. 
The little girl pointed to herself and said, "Hoa," and bowed to me andsaid, "Co Mao." 
Ahn shook his head furiously. "MamasaniKitty, chu-" I shook my head athim before he could say "chung wi." These people didn't need to know meby my rank any more than hmerican civilians did. 
"Ahn, I have Vietnamese name here. I like Mao." 
"Okay, okay," he said, as if I were very upset about it, and looked atHoa as if to say, Americans, who can tell what they're going to wantnext? 
She nodded gravely, as if, because of his advanced age, his position andwisdom were unquestionable. 
I wanted to rest a little longer, but thought I should first check on myother patient. She seemed to be asleep as I poked my head in thedoorway, but as soon as I set foot in the room she jerked awake andglowered at me. Ignoring the glower, I knelt beside her. 
Her aura was mostly a muddy jumble of anger, grief, fear, and pain, butthe basis of it was an appealing brilliant aqua and clear yellow, withtendrils of spring green and a bloom of pink. The brighter colors weresmothered beneath the layer of muddy ones, like the rainbow in an oldslick. She looked at me with a rebellious hatred that struck me as totally unfair, considering I'd helped save her life twice. 
"Okay, be that way," I said aloud. She looked healthy enough now, heraura bright and strong despite all the muddiness surrounding it. This village had managed its oh. problems before I came along and I wasn tabout to intrude on the privacy of a woman who obviously didn't want methere. 
I was turning to leave when the woman who had brought me to the hutstepped into the doorway. Ahn squeezed in beside her. She seemed chagrined and bowed two or three times. I reciprocated. She started speaking rapidly to Ahn, gesturing toward the woman on the bed withlifts of her chin, watching me anxiously. Clearly, she had expected thegirl to be rude and was apologizing for it. 
"What did she say, Ahn?" I asked. 
"This one name Tran Thi Truong, very please to meet you," Ahn 'd,inclining his head to the woman beside him. "Truong say that one sal II Dinh Thi Hue." 
Dinh Thi Hue interrupted suddenly, with a spate of imperious questions,her words sounding harsh and accusing. 
"Well, what did she say?" 
"She want to know where are other American soldiers." 
I started to say there weren't any more and then thought maybe thatwasn't such a good idea. 
"What's it to her?" I asked Ahn. 
Truong pulled us outdoors and started talking again, in low, emphatictones, her eyes full of apology, but also some anger. 
Ahn looked wise and said, "Last time Americans here they boomboom DinhThi Hue." He made a graphic gesture with a circle of the forefinger andthumb and the forefinger of his other hand as casually as an Americaneight-year-old might wave hi. "Make babysan. She no like American soldiers." 
No wonder. I turned back to her with more sympathy, which I had no ideahow to express. I murmured, "Sin loi, Dinh Thi Hue." 
Ahn was defensive on my behalf, however, and hobbled over to Hue'sbedside and regaled the girl for several minutes, nodding at me,slapping the thigh above his stump with a gesture that said it was nowsound as a dollar owing to my expert intervention, and clearly told herI was a GI of a different kind than she had known before. I hoped hewasn't telling her I was the only one of my kind. 
She let out a long sigh and lay back against the pillow, her face sweatyand her hair still matted with mud and blood. Her face seemed familiar to me, but I thought that was because she reminded me of one of thepatients. She had a banty toughness about her that reminded me of CammyDover, a four-foot-eleven biker I'd met at a folk club in Denver. 
Ahn picked up her hand and la daied me over to her, and put our handstogether. She didn't look into my eyes but inclined her head a barehalf inch and muttered something in English. 
"She say, 'Thank you, Mao,' for helping her when big snake have her. Shesay thank you to Ahn also, because Ahn hite big snake, make him let hergo. She say Ahn and Mao numbah one team and she love us too much." 
I laughed and patted his shoulder. "I say Ahn numbah one bullshitterand full of wishful thinking, but thanks for trying." 
"Com bic? What means 'wishful thinking'?" he asked. 
But about then Hoa came to the door and gestured urgently to Ahn to ladai. He turned away from the peace conference and hobbled toward thedoor, negotiating the ditch with more agility than I would have thoughtpossible. I wished we'd been able to save his crutch during the crash. 
The little girl appeared in the doorway again and this time la daied me.Truong frowned at her, but the child didn't notice. 
Dinh Thi Hue watched all of this through slitted eyes, as if takingnotes. 
"It's been great having such a warm friendly chat with you," I said,"but I gotta go now. Kids. You know how it is. Probably want me tocar-pool them to the Little Ixague game or take them to the DairyQueen." 
She blinked, mildly puzzled. Her aura looked a little less muddied now. I thought I would be able to tell from it if she was losing blood. It would be dimmer surely. The way she felt about Americans, I didn't wantto invade her privacy to check under the Army blanket someone had laidacross her. Truong bent over her, murmuring something. 
The rain started again, a thin gray drizzle. It made a pewter backdropfor the wet brilliance of the jungle. 
As soon as I was outside, Hoa took off at a run, leaving me standingbeside Ahn. 
In a few minutes, Hoa returned, her pace slow and solemn this time, herarms cradling something that turned out to be a puppy. 
"This Hoe's friend, very fierce tete guard dog, Bao Phu," Ahn told me."Protecting Hoa, Bao Phu is hurt. Hoa want Mao to make better." 
Wow. Snake charming, faith healing, and veterinary medicine all in oneday. Ought to look great on my r'esumd. 
he funeral procession for the old woman was a slow, thin line Tof peoplebareheaded and barefoot, people in conical hats and B. F. Goodrich sandals, people in what seemed like patched Sunday best, trudging,sometimes slipping, up the muddy incline, carrying smoking incense thatrefused to stay lit and stubs of guttering candle protected by openpalms or a leaf shield. Children blew noisemakers and pounded onthings-a shell casing, the basin I'd used to clean Ahn's wound. The noise, I've learned since, was meant to frighten away demons. I got thefeeling from the auras of those around me that having a funeral so latein the day was irregular-that there might be more demons out than usual.Hue limped, with Truong anxiously offering support and mostly beingspurned. Both women wore white with bits of gilt paper and red clothattached to their hair and clothing. Hue, who should have been in bedafter her miscarriage, walked with the help of two friends. She walked hunched over and I guessed that was because the snake must have brokensome of her ribs. Ahn and I joined the procession, and he leaned on theold man, Huang, for support and knocked another stick against hismakeshift crutch to make noise. I caught up with them and it was all Icould do to keep pace with an old man and a crippled boy. I was that exhausted, and the path was very slippery. 
Ahn looked up at me with the lugubrious expression of an amatellrundertaker doing his best to look depressed about an improvement inbusiness. He wasn't pleased about the old woman's death, I knew, butwith the practicality of the poor and dependent, he knew she was deadand he was alive. The cause of her death was also a chance for him to fit in, get himself adopted and become one of the villagers. He didn't want to dissociate himself from me, exactly. My world had been his homefor some time. Together we had done something that earned him a placein this world. But although he was a child, he could not afford to bean innocent. He was hedging his bets for his own survival. His faith inmy omnipotence was not what it once had been. Which was in line with myassessment of the situation. I patted his shoulder and trudged besidehim. 
I didn't understand many things about that funeral, but the need for theincense was obvious, and not just for symbolic or religious reasons. Thebody already stank-the crushing from the snake would have ruptured theorgans and hastened the decomposition. It was carried on a board and draped with a red cloth, jungle flowers scattered on top of it.Fortunately, the pallbearers walked very slowly and were as sure-footedas mountain goats. There had apparently been no time to build a coffin. 
Everyone made lots of noise chanting and weeping, but since I wasbrought up to think that funerals were hushed affairs where it wasalmost bad taste for the bereaved to weep in public, I kept still.Mostly I attended out of curiosity, and, of course, to pay my respectsto the family. My own family believed that even if you didn't know orhated the deceased, if you knew someone in the family you turned up atthe funeral to show your concern for them. But it was awkward. I not only didn't know the deceased, I didn't know the family, really. And I didn't know anything about Vietnamese funeral rites except that they hadthem rather often. 
This was apparent from the number of stone-covered graves on the breastof the hill. There were probably a hundred times as many graves-justthe newer ones-as there were villagers. Many bore small shrines ofred-painted wood, rain-sodden paper, and framed photographs, or otherobjects. We wound our way through them to what seemed to be the oldlady's ancestral burial plot where the fresh hole, already filling withwater, waited to receive her. The pallbearers were excruciatinglygentle as they lowered her, but the body still splashed a little when ithit, and the red cloth began darkening where the edges sucked in thewater. 
The people with incense wove tendrils of smoke in graceful arcs aroundthe body and laid things beside it: a rice bowl and chopsticks, acracked cooking pot, and a book with a French title. Old men in black pajama bottoms, dirty white tops, and coolie hats chanted prayers.Children in shorts and shirts, some of the younger ones wearing shirtswith no pants, kept beating on their pans and artillery shells, cryingand wailing ceremoniously, and looking up at their elders to make surethey were performing their roles properly. Their auras were bright astropical birds against the gray sky, the silver rain, and thecollectively dull aura of the adults. Huang lit a stick of incense andafter what sounded like a sentence or two would circle the incense over the body. A young pregnant woman tossed flowers, one at a time, on thecloth-covered corpse. 
At the proper time, when the old lady had apparently been given therespect due her by her own rites, Hue came forth carrying a smallbundle, the remains of her baby, wrapped in a scrap of silk. Her friends helped her kneel. Her breath came in quick gasps. Her face was ravaged with pain and anger, and wet with sweat, rain, and tears as she leaned far into the grave and laid the bundled infant beside itsgrandmother. Hue's friends helped her to her feet again. 
I waited for the people to start shoveling the dirt back into the grave,but after what seemed a time of communal prayer, Huang, Truong, and acouple of the others I recognized from the snake killing started talkingamong themselves, then broke off and looked expectantly at me. Ahn said something to them that sounded questioning, received a short answer, andturned back to me. "Mamasan, people want to know: what Americans dowhen bury dead?" 
I was so tired I felt momentarily annoyed by the question. What did they think we did?Obviously, we dug a hole and buried people, orcremated them, same-same Vietnamese. But Truong, Huang, Hoa, and therest of the village obviously wanted an answer, so I said, "Well, itdepends on your religion, or the uh-loved one's-religion, but generallywe say prayers, bring flowers, and sing a hymn." 
Ahn relayed this information. They held another discussion, then Huangsaid something to Ahn that sounded like an order. 
"Papasan say, you sing for Ba Dinh," Ahn told me. 
I started to protest but caught papasan's eye. He nodded once sharply,his aura rigidly contained in a red-violet binding of pride, the prideof face. He and the others were trying to do me an honor by includingme in the service. If I declined, he would lose face. The only problemwas, I never learned hymns. They were usually pitched too high for me.I stared into the grave. The barest glimmer of aqua leaked around thesaturated scarlet cloth, and from the baby's a tinge of blue. I remembered reading on the back of an album cover once that in NewOrleans, the slaves used to have parades and parties for the deadbecause they believed that it was a sad thing to be born into the world,a happy one to escape it. That was why "When the Saints Go Marching In"didn't sound like a funeral song. I sang the chorus and the only verseI could remember as well as I could by myself, resisting the urge to askeveryone to sing along. I doubted Ba Dinh had been a saint, but hernext life, next world, whatever, could hardly be any tougher than theone she'd just left. And the snake had probably spared the baby a sadlife as an unwanted Amerasian child of rape. 
I sneezed twice during the song, but other people sneezed and coughedand blew their noses too. Hoa threw a last garland of jungle flowers onthe grave and we all half walked, half slid down the muddy path, awayfrom the all too populated cemetery, back down to the funeral feast. 
I was given a pair of freshly carved bamboo chopsticks and a white bowlthat must have been somebody's treasure. Everyone else ate out ofearthenware rice bowls. The dinner was buffet style. We filed up tothe cookpot, and the attendant on duty-everyone took turns-filled ourbowls with snake stew and stirred while the rest of us huddled in doorways, under the nearest trees, and talked. Or rather, they talked.Nobody seemed to notice the rain soaking our clothing and running inrivulets off our faces to join the mud that caked sandals and bare feet.The fire looked more eerie than cheery and I kept thinking of thewitches in Macbeth. The sky grew black very quickly, and the fire andan occasional oil lamp or candle were the only illumination in the village. 
I choked down the snake stew. Protein wasn't to be scorned, no matterwhat it was, and cooked snake was better than raw rat. Besides, it wasonly fair that we ate the snake. It would have eaten us. Ahn scarfed down bowl after bowl. Finally there was plenty of something hot besidesrice to fill our bellies with after all these days. 
The heat of the food made my nose and eyes run and every once in a whileI had to wipe them on my remaining sleeve. I was shivering then andsneezing as often as Ahn. 
To the east, what looked like sheet lightning lit the sky, bright yellowfor a few seconds, then died. Other light, streaks of it this time,followed.,Slapping feet retreated from the funeral gathering, toward thejungle. Everyone's aura darkened with apprehension. The rollingthunder of mortars crumped, almost gently, in the distance. The sound gave me an odd sense of security. Then, almost as muted, the"ba-dada-da-da-da-da," wait a beat, "ba da dada da" of automatic weaponfire repeated many times, solo and en ensemble. 
Most of the villagers looked quite calm, very much as we did back at the83rd, as though we were watching a fireworks display. But the sludge offear oozed out around their individual auras until it lay like smogenveloping all of us. I found myself growing more afraid. Here were no bunkers, just a few flimsy houses, nowhere to go for decent cover.Suppose my countrymen didn't come through on a search-anddestroy missionbut simply opened fire? Suppose the village was suddenly declared afree-fire zone? Suppose some pilot decided to empty his old spare bombson us on his way back to base? And they didn't even know I was there, Iwhined to myself, it wasn't fair. They might ill me, and I wasAmerican. 
Old Huang was carving on a stick, with the children around him. Truongand Hue weren't in sight. I thought maybe I should go see Hue; maybe ifI paid my respects, told her I was sorry about her mother, we might be alittle friendlier. Her hostility perplexed me. I hadn't done anythingto her-just because her rapists had been American men didn't give herreason to hate an American woman. 
Hue knelt amid a cloud of incense in front of a small shrine with photosof different people, a few flowers, what looked like a militarydecoration, a bit of embroidery, and a little piece of wood carved inthe shape of an elephant. 
I stood quietly in the doorway and waited for her to finish herdevotions. The pictures were of men, two of them, and, recently added,one of her mother. A little covered bowl like a sugar bowl was theretoo. With the incense rose a gray-umber shade of mourning, and like thescent it filled the little hut, scumming the cooking pots, tainting therice, staining the bedding and the mats. 
The longer Hue knelt, the more the mourning color, and the smoke, rose,filled the room, and crept through the corners and cracks of the houseto dissolve in the rain. 
Her own aura, the bright colors, grew slowly stronger, clearer, until at last she rose. I was going to announce myself in a soft voice, butinstead I sneezed. 
Hue started and whirled around. A spasm of guilt passed through me forinterrupting her, but her mouth twitched very slightly, more acceptancethan annoyance. She was still dressed in her funeral clothing, whitepajamas, with streaks of mud at the knees where she had fallen on theway up the hill. Her black hair was combed and shining now, the blood,mud, and sweat washed away by the rain. 
I made the little hand-steepling bow. Looking troubled, she returnedit, nodding over her own hands. 
"I-I just came to see how your leg was." I nodded toward the damagedthigh. Her aura was still less strong there, with flecks of blackreappearing. Tissue damage, I thought. The venom was gone, but itstoxins would have caused some tissue necrosis, a source of infection,possibly gangrene. 
She looked down at her leg, her eyes clouding with confusion. Her auraclouded and swirled again, fogging over with shock. Well, who wouldn'tbe in shock? She'd almost been killed, sustained a terrible injury, andlost her mother and her baby all in the same day. 
I nodded toward her shrine and said as gently as I could, "Sin loi," andshe steepled her hands and bowed her head again. I wasn'tn sure the "I'm sorry" I knew was the proper one to use, but she seemed to acceptit in the spirit offered. 
The light of the oil lamp glinted off her dark eyes. 
I wanted to do something, to say something, that would let her know thatI understood at least partially, that I sympathized. I dug into mypockets and found the crumpled package containing the last three peanutM&M's. It seemed as silly as the time I'd put my costume jewelryearrings in the collection plate at church because in a movie I'd seen adeposed duchess give the church her diamond ones since God had kept herhusband alive. But I couldn't think of any other way to tell her. 
"In my country, when someone dies, people bring food to the family.Please accept this candy as a symbol of my respect for your mother andfor your grief," I said formally. 
She looked down at the crumpled package and I expected her to open herhand and let it fall. 
Instead, she slit the package as delicately as if it were an elaboratelywrapped gift, extracted the three M&M's, an orange, a green, and ayellow, and set them in a triangle on her mother's shrine. 
Then she dipped her head over her hands again and turned away from me,confusion whirling around her in a Joseph's coat of clashing emotions. Ihad to leave it at that, having done the best I could to make friends. 
Outside, the wind had risen, carrying with it the acrid scent of smoke,drifting on the ozone freshness of the storm, overpowering the heavyblossom-from-decay fragrance of the jungle, the faint stench of the sewage trenches, and the mingling of incense and snake stew. It was hard to tell now what was war and what was storm. The rumbling and theflashing in the eastern sky could have been either. Rain splattedacross the thatches on roofs, dinged on tiles, plopped into mud, andrattled the leaves, creating an ungodly din. The tops of the treesbobbed from side to side, bowing like an obsequious butler in some oldmovie. The palm-type trees bent easily, giving under the storm untilthey arched to the ground. The little ditches outside the houses were rapidly becoming substantial moats. Earthenware jars and plasticjerricans were set out to catch rain. People scuttled about like landcrabs, spring-green anticipation mingling with the fear I'd seenearlier. 
At home during such a storm the dogs would be barking, the cows stupidlyheading for trees under which to get struck by lightning, and the catscurled up watching the windows, congratulating themselves on having thesense not to be outdoors. I wondered suddenly where the animals werehere. With the notable exception of the snake and Hoe's puppy, I hadn'tseen any animals, not so much as a chicken, much less a water buffalo.Where could they all be? I was never a genius in 4-H, but I knew enoughabout farming to know that not everything went to market all at once. 
My GI patients told me that sometimes, to add to a body count or avoidshooting people, they shot animals, but that was mostly when they wereon search-and-destroy-type operations. This village did not look as ifit had been searched or destroyed. There were no burned marks on the earth, though I supposed the fast-growing greenery would have coveredthem up fairly quickly; it seemed that if the ammals had been destroyedlong enough ago for traces of other damage to be erased, the villagerswould have managed to replace at least a few of the beasts. 
My feet, legs, and hips ached from slogging around in the mud.Everything else was stiffening up too. Snake wrestling used musclesthat I had somehow missed noticing in anatomy class. 
I popped a couple of Midols without water, since I had no idea what wassafe water and what wasn't, and didn't feel like going through thecharades it would take to ask anybody, and lay back on the mat. 
Sometime in the middle of the night a rocket whistled overhead and wokeme. Ahn was not on the next mat, and our hostess, Truong, was missingtoo. White, orange, and red flashes popped up before my eyes as Iglanced toward the door. The war was getting closer. Well, if it wasgoing to kill me, I preferred that it land on top of me. I was too worn out to be curious about the whereabouts of anybody else. I rolled over on my stomach and pillowed my head on my arms, my eyes in the crook ofmy elbow so the lights wouldn't wake me, and slept again. 
woke up when they laid a bleeding man next to me. He miscreamed when they dropped him, and that's actually what woke me. I rolled over,looked at him, and looked up at Truong, who was heading back out thedoor.  "What the .  .  .  ?" I mumbled. She gave me an apologeticglance but continued on her way. In another moment an old woman with a rag tourniquet around her upper arm and a bleeding stump where her lowerarm should be was dragged in beside him, followed by another young manwith several bloody holcs in him. 
That was all they seemed able to fit for the time being, so I got up onall fours to see what I could do, since I seemed to be in charge oftriage and emergency room here. 
Waking exhausted from nightmares to a strange room filling with mangledbodies, I had trouble focusing. What was I expected to do with thesepeople? There was no soap, no clean water, not even an emesis basin;certainly no pain medication, no way to do surgery even if I knew whatto do. Maybe this wasn't the emergency room after all. 
Maybe it was the morgue. 
The glow of the corpses had been brighter than the auras of thesepeople, but the man next to me began to moan and call out what soundedlike a name. A pitiful little strip of rose beamed amid the rest of hisaura, which looked less like a spirit's glow and more like a personalfog. 
I pulled my bandage scissors from my ditty bag and cut off his shirt,though I already knew where his wound must be because the 
abdominal area was so bloody. He was partially eviscerated, his intestines perforated, mashed together, worms crawling in and out of them.Now I needed the emesis basin. Had there been a surgeon, he might havebeen one of the mid-level patients for triage-the ones who aresalvageable but take a little longer. Without a surgeon and properequipment, he was a dead man. I crawled over him to reach the old lady. 
She sat rocking back and forth, holding her stump and moaning, "Oi, oi,oi, oi," over and over. Her wound was not as bad as the man's, thoughthe blood loss and shock were a bit of a problem. Here there was no poison to herd out, no infection to rinse from her system. I was thinking that before I could start experimenting with the amulet, Ireally needed to get some clean bandages. That was when Hoa showed upwith her shirttail full of gauze. Behind her came the girl who had hadher little sister on her hip earlier that day. She was carrying thebasin, the one that had last seen duty as a funeral noisemaker, oncemore filled with water. Not hot water, but water. Whoever was playinghospital administrator was doing a pretty good job. Hoa threw the bandages at me and ran away. I took the water from the other child but followed her out the door. Along the water-filled ditch, lying directlyon the mud, were a half-dozen other injured people. I didn't even look at them. I saw Ahn with the old man and called to him. 
He looked scared, and a little reluctant, but old Huang saw me wavingfor the boy and scalled him toward me. Ahn leaned on a new crutch made of a single long tree branch, the stick I had seen Huang carvingearlier. It reminded me of a wizard's staff. 
"Babysan, I need help here. Hot water, rags." 
He leaned close in toward me, his face looming large for a moment."Mamasan, these people are-" 
"Babysan, I don't care. Just get me the stuff, okay? Ask Huang. AskTruong. I don't care. I'm too tired to argue. I don't know where anything is and I don't have anything to work with and I wish everybody would leave me the hell alone and-" I realized my voice was risingshrilly and I felt close to tears. "Oh shit, just tell them," I said,and ducked back inside to try the amulet on the patients. 
The amulet's power let me see right where the wounds were, in case theshrapnel and the burns and the bullets weren't graphic enough, butthough I tried as hard as I could to herd the blood back into thearteries, to mend the flesh, not a damned thing happened. 
I was feeling really rational. I took the amulet out of my shirt andshook it, rubbed it off in case the accumulated grime was getting in theway of the power, like dirt on a car's headlight. I couldn't see anything wrong with it, so I put my hands close to the exposed bone andmuscle of the old has stump and tried to think about healing. I closed my eyes and -almost fell asleep then, imagining I was dreaming thecarnage around me, the weird shadows of scurrying Vietnamese likeflickering demons outside the hut. 
Voices exclaimed from the doorway and a wet, chilled body squeezed inbetween the casualties, beside me. Ahn patted me on the shoulder as ifI were the child and started chattering so fast that I knew I must lookand sound like hell, he sounded so worried. "Mamasan, mamasan, no cry,mamasan. Mamasan, Truong say, so sorry put these miserable people nextto numbah one bac si. She say, you touch Hue, Hue no die. You touch Ahn, Ahn no die. When hurt people come, she say, lay them next to CoMao. They touch Co Mao, they get bettah pretty quick. No have to clean wounds, mamasan, no have to wrap. Just touch." 
I held up my hand and it was then I noticed, without immediatelyrealizing what it meant, that there were no broad bands of colorradiating from it, just thin wisps of muddy gray with an infrequentscrap of winy-pink crawling away from me like an infection creeping up avein. I sat and stared stupidly at the hand while my patients continuedto bleed to death, to moan and shriek with pain. 
Ahn grabbed my hand and forced it toward the woman's stump. "Look,mamasan, see, touch, like this," and he shoved with his own hand aroundmy wrist till my fingers brushed the wound and the old woman screamed. Igrabbed the amulet with my free hand and turned on him with all theferocity of exhaustion. "It's not me, dammit. I'm not magic. I can't heal them. It's this damned thing and it's on the fucking blink." 
Ahn reached up to touch it. Truong, whom I hadn't noticed in thedoorway, leaned over us, watching, her hand on Ahn's shoulder. The oldlady sighed. I looked down at her, thinking the sigh was her lastbreath. 
But the first thing I saw was a soft gray-pink ring surrounding her. Thenext thing I saw was that it was coming from Ahn's hand and mine. Where he touched the amulet and my fingers, the green of his aura turned tomauve-pink as it blended with mine, and where my fingers touched her,the wound was closing, dirt and drainage pouring bloodlessly out as theskin crept across the bone and nerve endings. Her breathing steadied. Ifelt as if I'd just discovered penicillin. 
Truong had been holding a lamp and now darkness flooded the room as shebacked off with a hissing intake of breath. She didn't think I'd just discovered penicillin. She thought I'd just turned into a ghost. 
But my exhaustion had turned to a sort of high and I grabbed her andpulled her back to us. "Ahn, it isn't just this," I said. "And it isn't just me. It's you and Truong too. And the patient. Come on,both of you, maybe we can save this man over here." 
But Truong fled, her voice rising in a harsh singsong of superstitiousfear. 
Abruptly the doorway filled with light again and Hue and Huang stoodthere, with Truong behind them, pointing to the old woman and walling.Well, it had been a long day for Truong as well, and she'd alreadyadapted to a lot of strange things. I realized that at the time, too,with a detached patience in my mind that had nothing to do with the wayI was able to act. 
"Oh, shut the hell up and get lost if you can't make yourself useful," Igrowled. "Come on, babysan, just like before, only this time try itwith one hand on mine and one on the amulet......... 
He tried, but the last effort had taken something out of him and hisaura had shrunk and faded, the skin of his little face pulled tighteracross his cheekbones. Hue stepped forward, protectively, and grabbedhis shoulder to pull him away. Our mutual aura at once intensified. I held out my spare hand to her. Her aura was shot with gray-violet too,slightly weaker than either of ours, but underlying it was that clearstrong yellow which spoke of high intelligence unintimidated by theappearance of magic, and a courageous, idealistic blue. She took myhand and the two of us touched the patient while my free hand held theamulet. My own aura brightened and bled into that of the man with thebelly wound. When we started, the only bright aura around him wassurrounding his intestinal worms. As we worked, his own aura throbbedinto visibility, if not vitality, the blood stopped pumping out of him,the gut began knitting together, and the worms vacated the premises. 
Ahn almost fell into the poor man before we moved on to the nextpatient. The job really was too draining for a young boy who had allbut starved for three days. 
"Babysan, you tell these people that if they want these hurt ones to getwell, they had better come and help me. I cannot do this alone, and youand Truong and Hue can't be my only help. Everyone must help." 
He nodded wearily and stumbled out the doorway. 
Hue helped me with the man with the shrapnel wounds, who wasn't as badas the others and under normal triage conditions would have been thefirst treated. By the time he was mending, no one had arrived even towatch, and I could still hear Ahn jabbering away to his countrymen tohelp. 
Truong looked back in cautiously, and hissed again, but touched theamulet with a fleeting, reverent poke as if she was afraid its powerwould electrocute her. For a second I felt a flash of terror, followedby acceptance of the terror, resignation to it, feelings that I knewfrom her face belonged to Truong, not me. When her hand dropped, she gave me a hard, quizzical look as if she couldn't quite believesomething she'd just been told, then drew close and took my hand. 
We knelt in the mud beside the first patient, a deep scalp wound andleft-sided enucleation (the eye had been poked out). Hue, Truong, and Imade very slow progress alone, and no one stepped forward to help usuntil a couple of the children leaned forward and began to play with theamulet dangling from my neck as I bent over the patient, clasping handsin a ring-around-the-rosy with Hue and Truong. I felt a blast of the children's curiosity and energy, and the circle enclosed by our handsfilled with rosy light. The eyeball could not be replaced, of course,but the bleeding stopped. 
With the closing of the scalp wound, the rose light drained to a dirtypale pink. There were still four more patients to be treated. 
I was aware of people standing around and watching, of Ahn doing hiscarnival-barker best to get help for me, but everyone else seemedafraid. The next patient had so many wounds it was a wonder she had anylife left in her. I crawled through the mud to reach her. A girl ofabout fourteen, she was so covered with mud and blood that it wasimpossible to tell what she might have looked like if half her facehadn't been missing. I tried. Hue, Truong, and Ahn tried to help me.But we were all so drained. The girl's ragged breathing stopped. Maybewe managed to ease her pain a little before she died; I don't know. I had told Ahn that what we had to do when trying to heal these people wasthink about them as they might have been when well and wish hard thatthey be that way. The other two women, to whom he had passed on theseinstructions, stared at the girl in the mud. Hue's aura waned for a moment until it looked as if she was coated all over with two inches of mud that flowed out of her skin. Truong's flared, and she took the girlin her arms and began to rock her. I crawled to the next patient,looked into the face of an eight-year-old and the devastation of anothergut wound, and turned away again. Ahn scooted on his butt to my sideand patted me on the shoulder, but his hand didn't have much forcebehind it. He looked as if he was about to cry too. He kept patting meand I kept bawling. Truong was still silently rocking the dead girl,but Hue crawled over beside us. Her face was stricken, stunned withpain, but she plastered her tough look over it and started to harangueme in a slow, angry voice, trying to snap me out of it, I suppose. 
"Babysan, tell her I'm sorry, but it's no good. We need more help.There's not enough magic in me to do it alone, not enough magic in allfour of us." 
Hue leaned over and touched the amulet as I said this and her tough facedissolved into remorse and more confusion that pierced me during thecontact, so that I could hear her asking herself a jumble of angry,bewildered questions. 
She raised her muddy hand to my cheek and touched it, then turned to herfellow villagers and spoke to them beseechingly, almost begging, butwith an underlying steeliness that insisted on respect, insisted onattention, even while she was apparently imploring the compassion of thevillage. 
Although I was far too wasted to consciously translate facial expression, tone, and aura in combination, something began clicking, andI became aware of what she was saying to the others. She told them that they were being shamed, that they were handing over the lives of theirloved ones to a foreigner and then refusing to help her save them. Therain washed clear streaks in the mud on her face, and her plastered hairmade her look as if she had drowned and returned as a banshee to haunt them. 
Huang, who had been hauling bodies, was the first to react. He quietedher, patting her hand, but she placed the hand on my shoulder. Behindhimcame Hoe's mother, and the little girl who had carried her sister on herhip, and her brother. Ahn took Hoe's hand and put it on my shoulder.She pulled away from him for just a moment, but as the others crowdedaround her, her face took on a rapt look. The power flowed, floodingfrom the people all around me, touching me, Hoa, the patients, and oneanother. Then Hue spoke again and I knew without needing to knowVietnamese that she was telling them, "These are not bodies. These are not corpses. These are not merely wounds. These are your daughters,sons, fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins,neighbors, friends. Remember them working in the fields beside you,helping you build your home, doing business with you in the market,celebrating holidays with you. This child has played with yourchildren. This child could be your child. Comfort her." 
The people stood around me, or sat on their heels beside me, their handson my shirt, my bare arms, fingers in my hair and touching my knees, myback and waist, one or two pressing too hard, most of the contact moretentative. Two of them, men I didn't recognize, touched the amulet, andfrom them I received an initial stab of suspicion and anger, rapidlyfollowed by a rush of excited, strengthening energy, indecipherable amidthe rest of it. I wedged my fingers between theirs and the amulet andtheir fingers closed over mine. 
And then I remember the little girl I was touching, her gut woundhealing, the skin coming together smooth and even clean, and herbreathing slowing, the look of pain fading to one of fear and childishanger at being abandoned. When she started demanding her mother, Inoticed the next patient. There wasn't enough room for all of thevillagers to touch the girl or me, so some of them were jammed upagainst their neighbors but touching the other patients. All but the girl who died were already healing. 
I wanted to go back to sleep, right there in the mud. But two young menhelped me inside another hut. just before I fell asleep I thought:These young men must have come from the other village, with thepatients. There were no young men in this village yesterday. 
Nothing should have been able to wake me, but the voices did. For one thing, they weren't the voices I'd become familiar with in the lasttwenty-four hours. For another thing, as tired as I was, my nerves weretaut and I had a series of half-waking nightmares. A Russian in a tall fur hat was bending over my mom. I knew it was my mom, even though shedidn't have a head. It was under her arm and she kept saying, "I hateto put you to all this trouble, sir. Really, my daughter can take me tothe doctor in the morning." But the Russian had a secret invention, andI understood it had something to do with what Sputnik had found inspace, and he was going to use this to put Mama's head back on except he 
didn't know which way around it was supposed to go. 
Our neighborhood was up in flames and the Vietcong were marching intoBethel and pretty soon they'd cross the bridge over the gully down byFoster's house, but I knew they didn't know the land as well as I did,see. I seemed to be at home alone in our house. The family had gonesomeplace, or maybe had already been killed. I slunk through thebackyard, past the crab apple tree, down the broken cement sidewalk,through the garden, and into the gully. I could hide in the gully andthe Vietcong would never find me because they hadn't grown up on ourstreet and only kids who had knew about the gully. Later, I snuck downto Foster's house in time to see them march across the bridge, and Icrossed under it and ran way down the gully behind Foster's house.They'd never think to look for me there. 
But then, even though Foster's house was two blocks away from ours, whenthe Vietcong got mad and set fire to our house because nobody was home,I could see everything clearly. The house went up like matchsticks andI thought: No, wait, let me get the quilt Grandma made and the elephantsMama had been collecting, and my scrapbook of the Kingston Trio. And mykitty, Blackie, where was Blackie? And then I saw that Blackie was dead and knew they'd shot him for fun. They were burning the crab apple treeand our garden and had started on Sortors' garden when I remembered thatBlackie had died when I was ten, so this had to be a dream. 
I thought: But I'm good. I haven't done anything to anyone. I try tohelp the others, I translate, I am friendly and helpful, I assist thoseless fortunate. And I saw that I was pounding on a door shouting that Iwanted to return to a safe place, while all around me people likezombies or lepers clawed at my clothes and tried to infect me. I was in hell, but that couldn't be right, because I had been good and done as Iwas supposed to. 
I tried to wake myself up, but I was lying on the ground and somethingwas wrong with my belly and I saw my intestines and knew there was a lotof blood, and I wondered why it didn't hurt. Patients always cried whenthey got their intestines torn out. And I said, "Hey, somebody help mestuff these things back in and sew myself up," and when I looked downagain I looked like the scarecrow from The Wizard of Oz. And all the neighbors were standing around, not looking like factory workers andsecretaries, but like farmers, wearing overalls and housedresses andcarrying pitchforks. They all had that closed-off "I refuse to discussit with you" look that Mom and Dad get sometimes -the one they get whenI think they're mad at me but later I find out they're scared to deathand don't want to think about it because it will scare them worsc. And nobody would help me, until the guy who was guarding the POW on Carole'sward at the 83rd stepped out of the crowd, still wearing his uniform butcarrying a pitchfork and wearing a nasty grin as he aimed his pitchforkat my guts. 
This time I woke up. Ahn's cane tapped me on the side. "Mamasan,mamasan," he whispered. 
"Huh?" 
"Hurry, mamasan. Run to jungle. VC here. Hue say you go to jungle,hide." 
"Okay, okay, keep your pants on," I mumbled, only half absorbing what hewas saying but feeling the adrenaline zinging back into my veins like astrong jolt of caffeine. 
I peeked out but saw nothing. "Where are they?" 
"Hue's house. Hurry. Hue fool them. Have meeting. You go quick." 
"Okay, but I pressed the amulet between our hands. A rush of inarticulate desperation, grief at losing yet another parent, and fearfor himself and me swept to me from Ahn. I tried to projectreassurance, but apparently the charm reflected only what was really inthe 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 backway I didn't know what it was. I must have slept several hours. The skywas relatively bright gray, with part of it yellower than the rest wherethe 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 togo, frightened again of mines and booby traps. Someone grabbed me frombehind and I whirled around, ready to fight. Hoa tugged on my hand andpulled me behind her. 
She was fogged in gray and muddied with olive-tinged brown, a color thatwould 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 madeby 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 withinshouting distance of the village, without all that much cover, but itlooked just like the rest of the jungle and the bush was high enoughthat 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 particularlythe space between Hue's house and Truong's. The voices continued shouting, but it was muffled and I kept nodding off, despite beingscared to death. 
How did Hoa know about this hiding place? Could that sweet little girlbe a VC? Then I remembered the puppy. Of course, this must be thedoghouse.  I should have been able to tell by the smell .  .  .  and thestuff 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 thepatients from the night before, and several young men and women whom I'dnever 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 theothers, like the guard in my dream, leaned forward and jabbed her in theleg, where the snake had bitten her, with his bayonet. 
The older man asked her another question, but she shook her head andkept talking. The younger man threatened her again, but his superiorrestrained 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 theolive-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 alighter, less definite green. And though all of these were encased in arim of brown weariness and umber depression, the yellow of theintellect, the blue of his devotion to his ideals made his aura outshineeveryone 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 lightthat 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 heron the site of her injury and planted his foot on her abdomen, settingthe bayonet blade against her face. Hoa ran shouting from among thevillagers, toward my hiding place. 
Staying alive around here appeared to be a popularity contest and I hadjust lost. I flipped the bush back, stood up, and started to run forit. 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 intoit. But then it might not have killed me. It could have been a pungistick trap, which would merely maim or poison me, not a grenade. Myreaction time was way too slow, and by the time I made the decision andavoided it, someone was twisting my arms up behind my back so hard Iheard the joints pop. The pain shot like a branding iron through thearms, 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 andone of the younger men, probably no more than a teenager, stepped infront of me while talking fast to my captor. The young man lookedvaguely familiar, and though he spoke in Vietnamese I understood thegist of his speech, which would have translated to something like,"Colonel Dinh, perhaps I misunderstand the situation, but if I mayventure a suggestion, I with my own eyes and all these people saw thiswomanxcuse me, sir, this foreign whore"-he spit at me, foreffect-"perform magic that healed last night's casualties. Perhaps theColonel 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 whohad touched the amulet, and he was trying to save me. His aura wascyanotic with fear of being thought a traitor, but it also bore a bluebrighter than that of his superior, blue that spoke of a part of hisspirit that had been revived. When he touched the amulet, when hehelped heal his comrade, he had healed a little, too. Furthermore, hewas still a little linked to me, even though time had passed and contactwas broken. He carefully avoided looking at me. 
The colonel strode in front of me, glared at me, nodded abruptly, and Iwas manhandled back to the village. The little creep who held my armshad 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 Istood up straight. So I stumbled ahead of him to where Hue sat painfully erect, watching our progress with an aura cloaked inbattleship-gray and her eyes desperately hard. Something gleamed in themud: her gold tooth. 
The others had disappeared-including Ahn. The villagers were stillprotecting him, which I took to mean that the young soldier who hadspoken to the colonel was right. The village was too frightened of theVC 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 berescued, although I wasn't sure that by the time that happened I wouldbe in any shape to know the difference. 
While I was thinking this over, surrounded by small people who weresmirking at me, poking, groping, and otherwise trying to make me Jump sothat my arms would hurt even worse, the colonel stooped and extended ahand to Hue. He said something gruff and disapproying to her. She looked up at him and spoke again. And again I understood what she wassaying without translation. The words of my captors, except for the boywho had talked to the colonel, were still a blessed mystery to me.Obviously, a detached part of me decided, the amulet formed a linkbetween those who touched it, one that conferred understanding-Isupposed it must simply get clearer and more literal with practice, orlength and intensity of contact. Or perhaps I simply underltood morebecause of the urgency of my need to know what was being said. 
Hue's face was swollen, bleeding, and covered with filth, but she saidin the calm, soft voice appropriate to a well-bred Vietnamese girl, "Ihave done nothing incorrect, Father. You are mistaken about the woman. She is not really an American. She's a magician who has made herselflook like an American, to test us, if you ask me. She saved mymiserable life. Would you have me dishonor our ancestors by betrayingher?" 
The colonel stood, and just for a moment the brilliant yellow of hisaura 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 protectthem, because bent over as I was, my face was even with the backlashingbrush 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 Ifell. 
I fell forward, face down into the mud, without being able to use myhands to break my fall. My teeth bit into my lips and cheeks and mynose started bleeding. The little bastard who had been holding on to mefell onto my back and I rolled over angrily and dumped him. "Let me alone, dammit," I squalled. "I haven't done anything to you." Myfeelings 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 howstupid it all was. I was going to get killed in an undoubtedly nastyand painful fashion by people I had absolutely no quarrel with. How many of their relatives had been killed the same way? How many of mypatients 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 hisdaughter. I saw the blow coming and ducked away from it. That was amistake. He knocked the young soldier out of the way and reached for mewith both hands. His aura didn't change, except for a few sparks ofred, and I knew that he didn't really care about me personally one wayor the other, but was angry that Hue had taken my side against him. And though no one else could see, I knew from the foggy gray encompassinghis aura that he was mourning his wife, the woman who was killed by thesnake. His movements were precise and mechanical as he cut his waythrough a swamp of shock and loss. 
He grabbed my hair first, but it was short and slick with mud and rain,so he switched his grip to the theng that held the amulet around my neckand jerked on it. The theng cut across my windpipe and I started tocough, then didn't have the breath to cough, gagged, and felt my faceswell with unoxygenated blood. My lungs pumped like crazy, my wholechest burning, and water streamed from my eyes and nose. My ears rangand everything started to cloud over. 
And that detached part of me thought: Oh boy, the press is going to lovethis one-Kitty McCulley, girl martyr. I wonder how many extra innocentpeople are going to get wasted as payback for me? The thought did notfill me with a savage thrill of vengeance. It just made me sadder andangrier and more frustrated with the whole miserable mess. I was goingto die poorly and stupidly and senselessly. Shit. 
Deadness tried to enter through the amulet, but my own fear and angercut through it like a red-hot chain saw. 
Oxygen flooded back into my lungs like water poured over a burn as thetheng was released. My head kept swimming for several moments, but noblow, no questions followed. The little bastard with the hot-lava aura griped in a high-pitched voice and was very plainly saying somethinglike "Let me at 'er, let me at 'er," but nobody was touching me anymore,and I was allowed to bury my face in my hands and gasp until myheartbeat and respirations resumed something like normal function. 
When I finally looked up, the coloel was half a step from me, staring atme. He looked as shaken as I felt. When I looked at him, he looked away. Lava-aura made a disgusted noise in his throat and growledsomething at the colonel, which earned him a glower. The colonel did bear a family resemblance to Hue, especially in his truculent expressionand the intelligence in his eyes. But he was baking on top, and hissharp cheekbones and chin triangulated to give him a closer resemblanceto the snake that had killed his wife. 
He seemed to come to a decision and, elbowing aside both lavaaura and myally, squatted down before me and spoke clearly, distinctly, andloudly-in Vietnamese. My ally protested that I didn't know Vietnamese, so the colonel raised his voice and spoke louder. But it wasn't necessary. While his individual words didn't make sense to me, I stillwas able to catch his drift. He looked into my eyes, pointedly awayfrom the amulet. 
"They say you have healing hands, woman. I should cut those hands off to keep my people from falling under your spell. But my ignorantdaughter says you mean no harm, that you use this power to help ourpeople-that you are a compassionate person. If that is so, you haveother power to help us. You come up North with us, you talk to yourAmerican press, you tell them that your men rape our women, murder them,but we treat you with respect. You tell them how wrong this war is. Yousay to them that your healing hands can make no difference when forevery person you save, thousands die. You do this, woman, and earn yourlife. Do not think to trick us. Up North they have good speakers ofEnglish." 
He kept looking directly into my eyes when he spoke, and I knew that heknew I understood what he was saying. I nodded. I wasn't lying. I was so relieved I felt faint with it. Right then I wanted to please himmore than I wanted to please my own father, more than I wanted to pleaseDuncan, more than I had ever wanted to please anyone. He could have me tortured to death or he could protect me, and he had chosen to protectme, for the time being. Once we got "up North," wherever that was, itmight be another story, but for now I was going to live. I dipped myhead and nodded, and snuck a glance at his face. He looked as relievedas I felt, and there was something else in his face too, something thathe tried to conceal from everyone-something that embarrassed andintrigued him at the same time. Without knowing anything of mybackground, family, language, or customs, he now knew me as well as heknew Hue. Better, maybe. And if he killed me, he would know exactlywho and what he was killing. Not that he hadn't killed many timesbefore, women, old people, children. But he had steeled himself not to hear those people, to think of them as something besides people, assomething he had no responsibility toward, no obligation to understand.He would not be able to bullshit himself about me. Holding on to thatamulet, strangling me, he'd inadvertently become closer than my mother,closer than a lover, and he couldn't weasel out of it without damaginghimself even more than he had already been damaged. While he held the charm, what I was had poured toward him and, taken by surprise, he hadbeen unprepared to reject it. Only now, as he began to wrestle with hisreaction to the amulet and to me, could I understand his share in thelink. 
Gruffly he ordered me to stand, but when my former guard tried tomanhandle me again, he berated him, told him to tie my hands in front ofme and lead me, what did he think he was doing, hobbling me that way sothat I slowed us down? He could get his jollies feeling me up when theyweren't in such a hurry. 
couldn't keep up. My captors breezed through the jungle as if it iwerea city park and they were the street gang in charge. They ate a handfulof rice once a day and took a drink maybe twice. I was woozy withhunger and thirst before we'd been traveling an hour. Colonel Dinhthinned his lips irritably but had my other friend give me a drink ofyellowed water and a salt tablet and off we went again. 
The first night we slept in a tunnel. I've heard there were greatcomplexes of them, but the one we were in was more like an undergroundbunker. The passage was narrow, obviously not made for an Americangirl's hips. The other men preceded us, with my village ally going justbefore me, and the colonel just after. 
Oddly, now that I knew I was in no immediate danger from the colonel, Ifelt less frightened than I had at any time since I'd come to thejungle. I didn't have to worry about booby traps or mines. These were the guys who set them. I didn't have to worry about enemy capture. Thathad already happened. I had nothing to worry about except what mighthappen when we got where we were going, which was still a long way off,and whether or not an air strike might accidentally hit us. So with myfriend from the village on one side of me and the colonel on the other,and the passage too small for any moving around, I slept better than Ihad since I'd left the 83rd. My captors could sleep soundly too. The colonel was watching the entrance. If any Americans stumbled across thetunnel, the colonel could shove me forward as a shield. 
My eyes opened on darkness, and I squeezed them shut again. I remembered that something terrible had happened, something irrevocable,but for a moment I couldn't remember what it was and I didn't want to. I smelled the earth, rich and musky, and something dead. I stretched out my hand and touched flesh and hair, withdrew the hand quickly. My heartpounded with panic. Was I dead? Buried? Was this another corpse insome mass grave? Slowly I forced myself to calm down, felt the areaaround me. Someone groaned. Someone else's sandals were in my back. Iopened my eyes. Along the tunnel passage lay the sleeping bodies of mycaptors, cloaked in their various-colored auras, looking for all theworld like the ghosts of Easter eggs lining some subterranean nest. I tried to sit up and bumped my head on something hard. A restraininghand pushed me back down. The sandals dug into my back as the colonelsat up. A pencil-thin shaft of light fell across my eyes, then avolleyball-sized shaft, as the colonel lifted the cover away from thetunnel entrance. He climbed out and extended his hand. I climbed out after him. 
He sat on a log and lit a cigarette, offered me one. I took it. He sat staring into space for a long time. He was wearing a pistol. I could have taken it during the night, I supposed, but I'm not sure what Iwould have done after that. "Babe in the woods" didn't even begin todescribe my degree of total helplessness and inaptitude. 
He caught me looking at the gun. 
"Do not force me to kill you, co." 
"I wouldn't dream of it," I murmured in English. He looked surprised,then wary, at my response. I don't think he understood precisely what Isaid. I think his comprehension was general, in the same way that mineinitially had been. I saw him wondering if perhaps I wasn't a magicianafter all, because, of course, he didn't understand the power of theamulet. He was puzzled by the sensation that he understood me, when heknew logically that he couldn't have. 
The drizzle wet my cigarette through almost at once, and I chewed on theend of it, bringing saliva to my mouth to relieve the dryness. The jungle was thick here, the undergrowth tall and twining. 
The colonel stubbed out his cigarette, field-stripped it, put it in hispocket, and poked the man nearest the tunnel entrance with a twig. 
Before we left the tunnel site, one of the soldiers, a boy of aboutfourteen, rigged a mine to the entrance. 
We spent the morning climbing. My guard and I were the very last in thecolumn, with machetes hacking up ahead of us. The trail was so steepthat my thighs started throbbing with exertion after only a few steps.Gradually the ground yielded to more rocks than brush. 
At the top of the ridge we rested, or rather, the colonel ordered a haltso that I could rest. As I caught my breath, I found I was inhalingstale smoke. It was coming from the valley below us. What I had mistaken for jungle steam was still drifting up from the charred ruinsof the village hit the previous night. Among the few buildings stillstanding or partially intact, a few people wandered dazedly. The colonel gave me a smug look. This was the village from which mypatients came. We had skirted it carefully, avoiding the survivors,lest anybody be grateful enough to help me, I supposed. I shrugged athim. He'd been overly cautious. Those people below us looked to me tobe too out of it to care. 
I was trying to be casual for the colonel's benefit, but the sight ofthose people, homeless, grieving for who knows what losses, and alone inthe jungle, shook me. Their fields were bombed and blackened. How would they eat? They were hurt. How would they work? Right now theyapparently were sympathetic to the VC and taking fire from us, but itcould as easily turn the other way, I knew. Would Hue's village bebombed soon? I wondered. Or would it be invaded again-what if Williamfound those GIs and told them about me and they returned to the villageto find me gone? What would they do to the villagers? Jesus, out ofthe frying pan into the fire for those people. It must be like livingin a Stephen King novel you can never finish-a new fate more horriblethan the last on every page. Well, I'd gotten too close and now I wasin it as well and I didn't even want to think about what would happen tome-unless William stayed sane long enough to bring help. 
Ahn would try to tell a rescue party what had become of me, I was sure,but how could he do that without condemning the people who had taken himin? I wondered if he would be alive by the time help came. His wound could break open again or, worse, someone might decide he was dangerousto them and kill him. Sometimes, I heard, children who had lost limbswere poisoned. The reasoning supposedly was that they would not be ableto lead useful lives and would be more abused as they grew older. I hoped Ahn's stubborn streak and the self-interest that had caused him toflee William would stand him in good stead. Some mamasan he'd picked.I'd wanted to protect him so that I would not have to watch him die orhear of it, but how soon after I took him to Quang Ngai would he havebeen in a situation as bad as his present one, if not worse? Theycouldn't keep him in the hospital forever. If I really cared, if I'dfought hard enough, couldn't I have adopted him? I doubted it. Even GI fathers married to the mothers of their Amerasian children had trouble moving their Vietnamese families to the States. It was a good thing Ihadn't promised to adopt Ahn. I would never be going back to the States myself now. I stopped thinking then. It was much less painful toagonize about what would happen to Ahn and the villagers than it was tothink about what would happen to me. 
We ate dry handfuls of uncooked rice, a little harder to chew than unmi'Iked Grape-Nuts, and I had another swig of water. I still needed to rest. My wind wasn't up to this. The colonel took three men aside and started pointing things out, a few yards away from me. I was staring atmy boots, feeling the mud run off me with the rain, wonder'dly if partof my shortness of breath wasn't encroaching pneumoing I I nia, whensomething sharp jabbed my left breast. I looked up and there waslava-aura, pointing his bayonet at my chest, grinning as if he'd donesomething clever. 
When I looked up he jabbed me again, on the other side. Trying todeflate me, the adolescent asshole. He jabbed again and, swinging mybound hands, I shoved the damned thing aside. It laid open the side ofmy arm, which bled freely since I couldn't even put pressure on it tostop it. He smiled unpleasantly. "Let me alone, you 'erk," I said,halfsobbing. He smiled even more unpleasantly and twitched the bayonetback and forth at eye level, my blood mixing with rain and dripping offthe tip. 
We had creeps like that on our side too, congenital sadists, probably,little boys whose favorite sport was tearing wings off butterflies ortorturing kittens, boys who finally had a little authority and used itto abuse anyone who came under their control. And he had me good. If I screamed, he might not kill me but he could very well put out my eye,just for the fun of it. He wanted to scare me and was doing a damnedgood job of it, but I was getting so angry at his bullying I wasbeginning not to care. The balance between being afraid of mutilationand being determined to shove that damned thing up his ass was rapidlytilting toward the more suicidal choice. I didn't have much to gaineither say, except satisfaction. 
I was steeling myself to lunge at the damned thing when someone pickedup my tether and jerked it sideways, slamming me down into the mud. In almost the same instant an explosion lifted my tormentor off his feetand knocked him halfway down the hill. 
I brushed the mud from my eyes as my ally helped me back onto my rockand started fussing over my cut. I lifted my hands to my neck and tookthe amulet in my fingers, brushing it against my guard while he examinedmy cut. The blue of his aura had been darkening a little, but now itbrightened and grew a fragile shoot of mauve. I could not see what was happening, but I felt the bleeding stop. I dropped the amulet casuallyback into my shirt as the guard looked back at me, awe and guarded hopein his face. He had been with the liberation movement since the Diem government executed his family. He had thought the movement would be away to avenge his family, help his country. He was not so sure now.Sometimes the scene he had watched from hiding-his parents,grandparents, sisters, and brothers being deliberately murdered-cameback to him in the things he and his comrades did. He had wanted to be a Buddhist monk and then for a while he yearned to be admitted to theParty. He had wanted to drive out foreign aggressors and their puppetgovernments. Instead, as a child, he had carried bombs to blow up boysnot much older than he who were sometimes trying to be kind, and "punished" villagers the way his parents had been punished. He had begun to doubt the good in anything until the night in the village. He was Hien. He would do for me what he could, but what was his unworthyprotection compared to that of Colonel Dinh himself? 
The colonel frowned down the hill, his .45 already replaced in itsholster. With Hien's help, I rose to my feet. The body of lava-aurasprawled halfway down the hillside. His death aura did not change orclarify. It remained black and red, almost indistinguishable from hisphysical appearance-half ' of his chest covered in blood, a black cloudof insects already gathering around him. Was I right about his beingvicious since boyhood? Was he simply a naturally talented sadisticPsychotic killer? I wondered. Perhaps his aura had started out likeWilliam's, just occasional flashes of killer craziness, and hadeventually taken over his whole personality. From my standpoint, itdidn't matter much. 
"Thank you," I said, bowing to the colonel, but he turned on his heeland walked away from me, making a small gesture that mustered the groupback into action. 
Lava-aura's body was left where it fell. I examined the auras and faces of the men around me. I was afraid some friend of his would blame me and try to kill me out of revenge. 
But the men around me didn't even look at the body. Hien hummed softlyto himself. He wasn't the only one to seem relieved. Some of these menwere hard-core dedicated troops, true, but several were virtual drafteesfrom the villages, men who had 'sined the Vietcong because to dootherwise would cost their lives or those of their families. Most of the auras never changed, just remained the same muddy brown,indifferent, numbed, and hard as nails, but without the vitality theirlate comrade had derived from hurting people. No one seemed to blame me. I would have been flattering myself to think the colonel had killedone of his own men on my account. The man had been executed for disobeying orders. Even a guard dog that doesn't mind its master andbites unpredictably has to be put down. 
just before dark we headed down the ridge, toward another village.Everyone grew marginally more tense, the colonel's aura sparking withanxiety. A few yards from the perimeter, we saw a man with a lfl . He yelled, "Dung lai," but as we got closer, he saw that this was r c notime to play High Noon and scuttled off into the village, his auraleaving a light trail of gray-violet fear. 
The colonel exchanged a few words with his men and nodded into thejungle, the paddy, up the hill. One of the men with flat, muddy aurastook the point position walking into the village. I tried not to allow myself to feel excited. If the colonel was being so wary here, thatmust mean this was not a VC village. Or at least not entirely. 
Maybe they were even hiding American troops, right now. Maybe . . . 
I was looking the other way, squinting into the hills, trying to seewhat the colonel had been nodding at, when the point man stepped on themine. I heard the explosiormo big thing, really, for Nam-and the howlof pain almost at once. Some of the others started to run forward, but the colonel stopped them with a gesture and strode over to the naan witha confidence only I could see was tinged with fear. 
He hollered to Hien, who suddenly looked as if he might faint. His aurawas whirling with teal, pale grayed olive, and violet, underlain withmustard. He believed I was special, a saint perhaps, and should beprotected and helped, but he was a simple man, not a brilliant one likethe colonel, and he was afraid. His very thoughts were traitorous. If there was help here for me-but the colonel was beckoning us across theminefield and Hien removed the rope from my wrists and took my hand tolead me forward, showing me by example that we must step only in thecolonel's footsteps. 
The colonel nodded to the injured man, telling me to do my thing,whatever it was. Then he signalled everyone except Hien to follow himinto the village. Now the yellow in his aura swirled with a sad brownthe color of an old bloodstain, and red kindled in the blue. The aurasof the men blended in similar combinations with his-the influence, Isuppose, of a leader more charismatic than he wanted to be or realized. 
I cut away what was left of the point man's trousers. His left leg wassevered above the knee, the femoral artery spurting. I started applyingpressure, as I normally would, and imagined the artery sealed, the woundmending, a smooth clean stump, but the wound continued to spurt until Itook Hien's hand in one of mine and held it, trembling, against hiscomrade's wound. Blood covered both of us now, but gradually itreceded, like a film of a flowing river shown in reverse. Hien looked from the patient to me with eyes as large as bomb craters. The injuredman had groin wounds, too. He would father no more children, but withHien holding him with one hand and holding my hand with the other, thewounds magically began forming granular tissue from the inside, one ofthe initial stages of the healing process. This time the process lookedlike a film run on fast forward. But it wouldn't be fast enough to savehim from sepsis. For that we would need more hands. My strength wasgone and Hien's had been drained with the healing we'd done together. 
I looked up from the patient to see if the colonel was anywhere close,to ask him to send us someone else to help. 
He was not close, but he was close enough for me to see what happened. 
They had gathered the village together, with the frightened perimeterguard, now unarmed and scared halfway to death already, in the center.His aura shot sickly pus-purple. He looked like a teenageragood-looking boy with his black hair parted on one side. He was probably not old enough to have been drafted by the ARVN. His eyeslooked like a frightened horse's, the twilight bouncing off them, and hekept babbling at the colonel in a tone at once apologetic andargumentative. 
The colonel gave an order and one of the VC, a man whose skin wasmottled as if he had been burned at some time, stepped forward. Anotherman pushed the boy to his knees and forced his arms up so that his headbent low. I thought they would shoot the boy, but the man with mottledskin drew a machete from his belt and started hacking the boy's neck. 
I buried my head in my hands and screamed, my screams lost in those of the others, the moans and wailing and "ol oking" of the frightenedvillagers. I didn't want to look back up, but I couldn't help it. One by one an old man and an equally ancient woman, a middleaged woman, agirl and the baby on her hip, and three older children, the boy's familyperhaps, or village elders, or both, were kicked into the center, bentover double, and butchered as the boy had been. I was on my feet now,screaming and screaming for them to stop. 
The colonel had been as coolly intent on the executions as if he weresupervising a ditch digging or a concrete pouring. Almost casually, heglanced our way and his eyes met mine, cutting through the 'I'ght. His face looked just the same, but his aura was a bare w'sp of twil drabnessaround him. 
Hien grabbed the amulet and jerked me back down beside him. His handflew up and first stung my cheek, then burned it, and I thought my head,too, would fly off as I fell across our patient, Hien still holding theamulet. The pain in my face was nothing compared to the fear pouringfrom Hien. Fear more overwhelming than anything I had ever felt floodedthrough me, and I knew what it meant to be literally spineless as mybackbone and knees turned to jelly. We'd be killed, we'd both bekilled, the worst possible deaths would be needed to set an example,deaths that would make the simple beheading of those villagers lookhumane. I must be quiet, I must pretend not to be there, ox I wouldforce the colonel to kill me and then kill Hien for not shutting me up. 
Hien released the amulet and pinned my arms as the colonel left thetroops, now firing on some of the huts, and marched toward us. I was at the same time angry with Hien for slugging me and furious with myselffor my own idiocy. Hien's recriminations echoed through every capillaryand nerve ending in my body. How could I have been so stupid, sospoiled, as to think the pragmatic mercy that had been shown the so farmeant that I had any influence on the normal course of duty? 
This village had caved in to the enemy. This village had set mines thatwere responsible for the death of a soldier of the liberation. This village had been punished, and now my foolish actions would force thecolonel to make an example of me, to show these people how worthlesstheir American allies were. 
Footsteps slapped through the mud and the colonel stood over us, thelight from a torch carried by one of the men behind him reflecting offhis head. He scowled down at us and examined the patient, who was nowconscious, briefly. Then he nodded to my guard and put his pistol tothe head of the wounded soldier. Blinding pain shot through my ownhead, breaking the auras into millions of light motes that spun likegalaxies through the darkness. 
'"T was dead. I knew I was dead. They'd shot me in the head and -Lthat's why I saw all those stars. I was nothing but an aura looking fora place to land. When I opened my eyes to darkness again, I knew I wasdefinitely dead. I had felt the shot. They shot me because of mywounds. A soldier with one leg and no genitals would slow them down andthe nearest hospital was many kilometers away.  .  .  . 
No, that was wrong. I was alive. It was the point man who had lost hisgenitals and leg. He was the one who was shot. But I was the one lying in darkness with a terrible pain in my head, scared almost literally todeath. I tried to sit up, and if there had been anything in myenvironment that could have spun, it would have. I fell back again andlost the day's rice ration, having to twist suddenly to keep fromvomiting while I was landing on my back, and choking myself. It was difficult because my hands were bound again, and my feet too. 
I did the old deep-breathing routine and sat up much more slowly. Myhead hit pay dirt before I'd done a complete sit-up, and I raised myhands. A wedge of cold black, a little lighter than the blackness in myhole, poured in as something slipped back from my palms, and hot shadowsdanced across my face. I was in another tunnel, perhaps a rice storagebin. 
I was not dead, I had not been injured, I was not even imprisoned. I washidden. My patient had been murdered and I was alive and hidden. A whole family had been murdered, and in the village beyond my hidingplace I saw that the thatch of two of the whitewashed mud houses hadbeen set afire. Had the colonel casually burned the houses to makeenough light to finish his punishment of the village? 
I could not have been unconscious very long. The people had not changedposition. The colonel had returned to the village, though the body ofmy poor patient still lay in the mud, among the mines. 
Pigs squealed and chickens squawked madly as some of the VC troops triedto round them up. Children shrieked and cried while their mothers.tried frantically to hush them. One old woman tried to crawl to one of the bodies and was kicked away. 
The colonel made a circle with his arm, and his men stopped chasingchickens and started grabbing children from their mothers or herdingthem toward the gate. The shadows of flames burned across Dinh's face and hands, making an aura of their own for him. 
The children were lined up at the village gate, facing the mined path asif they were to run a footrace. Dinh took two of the oldest by theshoulders and pointed across the minefield to my dead patient. His arm dropped as the roof of one of the houses collapsed in a fountain ofsparks and flying, flaming thatch straw, and the boys half ran, halfstumbled through the gate. 
I closed my eyes to focus. When I looked up again, Hien's agonized facecovered the opening of the hole. His lip was swollen so that his backteeth were bared. Firelight caught the gold in one of them. His eye wascut and swollen, too. He had given up on trying to be gentle. He puthis hand on top of my head and tried to shove me back in the hole. He must have been sitting behind it, or to one side, so intent on watchingthe village it had taken him some time to notice that I'd opened thehole. 
The force of the next explosion startled both of us. He jumped awayfrom the mouth of the hole. Earth and rice tumbled to the floor of the hole as the vibrations shook the ground and the smell of gunpowderjoined the acrid stench of burning thatch. A woman screamed short, staccato screams. I poked my head back out the hole again. 
The colonel stood in the midst of the executed villagers, who lay at hisfeet like so many disassembled store dummies. Four of his men held aut omatic weapons on the adults of the village. Four more held automatic weapons on the children who had been walking cautiously down the minedpathway. For a split second, the children froze as if they were playinga grotesque game of statues. Then one of the smaller ones, a littlenaked boy of about three, began crying and tried to run back to hismother. He and his screeches were lost in the flash from another explosion. 
I knelt back down in the hole and vomited bile down my legs and onto myfeet. I didn't want to look back, but I did. The guards stood menacingthe two older boys, who had reached the dead VC and were now trying todrag him between them back to the gate. Only one of them made it. 
I didn't watch the rest. I retched and retched into the hole while the crackling of a fire, the sobs of the bereaved, were punctuated eightmore times, I counted, with fresh explosions and shrieks. 
After a very long time Hien pulled me, dizzy and shaken, from the hole.The colonel and all but one of his men stood nearby, with several newrecruits from the village. Some of the new people were the mothers ofthe children; one I recognized as one of the boys who had been haulingthe body. He was reeling from shock but trying to smoke a cigarette andlook as if he'd been plucked from the unemployment line for some routinejob. No one would ever be able to tell the difference between him and a regular Vietcong, and in time he wouldn't be able to tell, either. 
The fires from the houses were burned out and I did not look for the auras of either the dead or the living. I did not look in the direction of the village at all. I allowed myself to be led away from it, througha lesser nightmare of biting insects and vines and tree roots thattripped me and made me fall. Toward morning, Hien dragged me after himinto another tunnel bunker. I felt him shaking beside me, as if he werepalsied. Even after he grew quiet, I couldn't sleep. I was afraid to. I could not believe, when Dinh had done such terrible things to his ownpeople, that he would let me live much longer. My God, what if he hadfound Ahn? What would he have done to him? He'd never find out from me. And neither would Hien. Poor Hien. He was too damned scared of Dinh to really be of any use to me. But maybe he would send some lastwords to my mom, if I could think of any. 
On my other side, the colonel flopped restlessly. I pulled as far fromhim, as close to Hien, as I could get. I could still smell the blood,the gunpowder, the smoke, on Dinh's clothing. He rolled toward me once and I flinched away. He sat halfway up in the tunnel, and tugged myrope. 
He pulled me after him into the open, where he lit a cigarette and putit to his mouth as if it were an Aqua-lung and he were underwater. 
He handed it to me after a puff, but I waved it away. I was alreadycoughing so hard my sides hurt. "Hien saved your worthless life lastnight, woman," he said. 
I nodded listlessly. I had dragged myself through most of the trip awayfrom the village. Of all the terrible things that happened, the deaths of the family and the children, I think what did the worst harm to mewas when Dinh shot my patient out from under me so soon after I hadpoured all of my energy into his cure. Part of me was still gone, outthere in the twilight zone somewhere with the augmented aura of myformer patient. I don't know if it was the same for Hien. Maybe. I never found out. 
I looked down at my filthy feet and ran my tongue around myblood-and-bile-fouled mouth. It tasted as if it had been stuffed with filthy dressings. I couldn't stand to look at Dinh. Never in my lifehad I hated anyone so much. The way he had butchered that whole family.Those poor babies in the minefield. That helpless man who thought wewere going to help him. It made me thoroughly sick to think I had everregarded such a monster as a human being, much less a protector. 
I was chilling so badly it felt as if a winter wind were blowingstraight into my marrowless bones. When he touched me I felt I'd been thrown into a pit full of rattlesnakes. I couldn't seem to stopshuddering. 
I thought he winced ever so slightly as he withdrew the cigarette, as hehad not winced at killing children in front of their mothers and one ofhis owrmo, two of his own men. His aura was little more than a thread of light around him now, the colors so smudged and muddied it was hardto tell what they had been. 
But he only smiled and blew a smoke ring that was immediately dispersedby the drizzle. And he spoke quietly, almost off handedly, inVietnamese, as you might speak to a dog or a cat, or perhaps to a totalstranger when you have something so terrible to say that you don't wantanyone you know or care about to hear. "You were displeased by whathappened in the village, co. I could not allow you to undermine myauthority there-it would have proved fatal for you if you had evenattempted to intervene. But now you can tell me what you would havetold me then." 
I licked my lips, and flicked the rain into my dry mouth. One of myteeth was loose. I started to speak and he casually leaned over andtouched the amulet. I pulled away, resenting the gesture as fiercely asif he had stuck his hand in my crotch. I didn't want this man to know me any more. I didn't want to know him. He grimaced, trying to make methink he was amused at my repulsion, but he wasn't. I relaxed just alittle with a sense of revenge. He had already known I hated him.Touching the amulet wasn't a sadistic act toward me-it was a masochisticone for him. 
"I was just going to say stop," I said. "I was going to say, don't doit. They're your own people. How could you?" 
"But I had to do it. By sparing you, by sparing the village thatharbored you, by sparing my backsliding daughter, I was already in graveerror. Believe me, I would not have done so if it was not that I thinkcertain influential men will be pleased to have you among us." 
I wondered then if he intended to lie for Hue and the village, to saythat they captured me and had the foresight to keep me alive and hand meover. I hoped he was that human, anyway. 
"You could have let me help the injured children, the ones whosurvived," I said. 
cel did not wish them to survive. I did not wish to make a folk heroine of you, to have legends of you spread over the countryside. I wish no one to know of you until we reach the North. I will tell you somethingbetween the two of us, co. I am still attached to that worthless daughter of mine. I am grateful to you for saving her and for what youdid for those people. Did you know that the entire village risked mywrath, risked having happen to them what happened to this other villagetoday, to plead for your life? They have not cared about the lives ofanyone outside their own families for decades, and now that you are gonethey will forget you as if you were a disturbing dream and revert totheir apathy. Though I try not to be a superstitious man, I believethat my daughter is correct about you. I believe that you are a holywoman in a rather unusual guise, and I respect that. If it were up tome as a man, I would take you back to your people. If it were up to youas a simple woman, I believe that you would continue to use your gift asyou have been doing, for the benefit of anyone who needs you. But it is not up to me, or to you. 
"If I release you, your gift will be discovered in time and yourgovernment will use your gift to lead my people to the false conclusionthat the Will of Heaven is with the Americans and resistance useless. Do you understand? Wandering among us in normal times, you would beamendicant holy woman. Among your people, what you mean as good is aweapon against us. Even if you do not mean to cooperate, they can forceit. You and your gift will be scrutinized, analyzed, and your talentultimately perverted to military purposes, which I know, and you know,are the thing furthest from your heart. Unfortunately, I can promiseyou that if you cooperate, my side will do much the same, but it is myside. I cannot betray it by allowing you to fall back into the hands ofthe enemy. I can protect you only so far." 
"As far as you protected that man who stepped on the mine? Or those children?" I asked. 
"It was necessary that the village pay in its most valuable currency forits treachery. The soldier would have been no good to us alive. Dead,he made it at least seem a fair trade. I have done many things to yourown countrymen you would like even less well," he said with deliberatemenace that failed to frighten me nearly so much as his gentle tone ofregret. "You are overly sentimental." 
"I am overly human," I said bitterly. "What's your problem?" 
He sighed and extended his limbs in a gesture that was more writhingthan stretching, then returned to his relaxed pose, the cigarettedangling from his fingers, which dangled between his knees. "I knew I should have killed you back at the village. I hope you don't think I'ma good example of a dedicated Communist. I'm not even a Party memberyet, though perhaps you will help me become one. I'm not really worthy.I haven't yet purged all of the reactionary Confucian notions from myheart." He grimaced when he said the last, too. Neitheir communism nor Confucianism really meant anything to him, his voice and face said. Theywere constructs that were useful because of how other people used them to define him. Then he looked back up at me, and though his aura hadbeen too slim for me to read it, I could read his eyes. They were likethose of a patient who's had a stroke and has just awakened to findhimself paralyzed, his face crooked and his mouth unable to makeintelligible sounds. "Damn you, woman," he said finally. "Do you wantto know why I really saved your life?" 
I blinked assent. 
"At first it was because it would have shamed me to kill you, shamed mydaughter, shamed my wife's memory, shamed the movement in front of myhome village. And, of course, I would have had to kill my daughter, towhom I am incorrectly sentimentally attached, before I could have killedyou. But later, in the jungle, when I intended to kill you, I did notbecause when I looked at you, started to question you, for the firsttime in years I saw another persona living person. Everyone has beenwalking corpses to me for years, even my daughter. But I think now Ishould have killed you at once after all. Life is not meant to return to a dead limb, and now that it does, it burns with the fires of hell." 
Hien crawled out of the hole then, followed by some of the others, andwe resumed our march. We were doing most of our traveling in theevening, at night, just as the American troops were making camp andstarting to assign patrols. 
I think Hien must have heard some of what the colonel said. He stuck very close to me, the blue of his aura all but buried in an avalanche ofdepressed brown. The night before must have been more horrible for himthan it was for me, must have made him relive again the massacre of hisown family. Knowing how frightened he was, and how he had acted to savemy life, painful as it was, I felt protective of him that last day. And something strange happened. We had to walk close to each other, as thebrush was very thick and the machetes slow to cut it clear. Hien held on to my tether and pretended to push me around while actuallyinspecting the damage he had done to my face and trying to slow the paceso that I could keep up. It was a great effort for him, because he was,as I say, very low. But I noticed that my aural though very weak andfaded to the dirty pink of a tenement babys sixth-hand Goodwill Easterdress, gradually engulfed his. It was like what I had seen happen withthe colonel and his men, and it confused me. 
I did not know what to do, or what to say, about the way he, thevillage, and the colonel were reacting to me. It was like when the wrong guy falls in love with you for the wrong reasons that have nothingto do with you. These people were assuming that I did the things I didbecause I was who I was, that I was making the amulet do what it did,instead of simply discovering what it would do as I went along. Even when I totally lost all my ability to use it, back at Hue's village, andthe vi'itagers and Hien had to help me, they thought I was sharing mypower, not borrowing theirs. 
And yet I couldn't just take the amulet off. The big reason, of course,was that without it I was just another American invader worthy of nospecial attention except the kind I could do without. But also, in somestrange way, I had become what I can only describe as addicted to theamulet, dependent on it. I drained myself through it into patients, butas long as it was with me, I felt as if I had a way of renewing myself. 
I realized why old Xe had waited until he was dying to give it up. It was as invested with my life as I was with its power. And of course, solong as I had it, I might be subjected to some unrealistic worship but Iwas not tortured or summarily executed as I would have been without it. 
I think that if I had had Xe's years of experience and wisdom, I couldhave done much more with the power while I had it. I wish I had at least been able to do more for Hien. 
When the ambush came, he was the one who knocked me down and threwhimself on top of me, taking my share of the bullets and frags. Dying,his body twitched on top of me, and I hesitate to say it, but it was asif he were making love to me. And I guess he was, at that. 
"Tesus tucking Christ, you ain't even going to believe what I found." 
A rifle barrel prodded me, plowed a path through the matted tangles ofmy hair, rolled my dead guard off me. A man with a blackened face, toomuch stringy dishwater-blond hair for regulations, and a gap-toothedgrin reached down to wipe the grime and blood off my arm as if I were apile of animal shit he was examining for tracking purposes. 
"Yeah?" another voice challenged. "Whass that? Don't tell me that slant had on an earring you can use for the centerpiece in yournecklace." 
"Better. Lookit." 
"Sheeit. Hey, lady. Lady, where the fuck you come from?" This from apockmarked swarthy-type kid with some kind of a New York accent mixedwith the redneck patois most of the grunts used. The auras of both men were flashing, red, brown, black, olive, mustard, orange, a confusion ofhigh emotion that blurred together for me. I sat up, feeling as if I'dbeen in an elevator that had suddenly dropped two floors. We had been wending through the jungle as we had for the last four days when all ofa sudden all hell broke loose and there I was, on the ground, with myguard bleeding on top of me and automatic bursts and hand grenadesexploding around me and my bound hands pinned down by the body on top ofme. A deep groan issued from someone nearby. 
"We got a live one here." 
"Well, pull him out. Where the fuck is Bao?" This was from other disembodied voices. I was still trying to focus on the two faces infront of me. 
"Jesus, lookit her hands. Lookit her arm. Baby, did they hurt you bad?Hey, Didi, you save that little bastard. They had themselves anAmerican woman, the little fuckers." 
"A whut. Maryjane, what the fuck you smokin' now-" 
"No, man, I found her. Let her alone. Can you get up, baby? 
Show papa where it hurts," and he tried to scoop me up and I wanted tocollapse in his arms and sob but he was flashing so heavy with all thatred and orange and black it seemed he was on fire. I looked around me. 
Dinh was half-sitting, his arms being wrenched behind him. One leg wascovered with blood, the calf lying at a funny angle from the thigh.Maryjane, the dishwater-blond, saw the direction of my stare. "That thefucker who did you, baby? I'll fix his ass." He rose and strode over to Dinh. 
"No, you don't, man. We gotta squeeze him first. He's some highrankin'motherfucker," said the man who was tying him, the one called Didi. 
"Yeah? Okay. I won't kill him, then," and he rared back and kickedDinh's injured knee. The colonel let out a sound like brakes beingapplied at high speed and fainted. The smell of fresh urine added itself to the stench of death and evacuated bowels from the corpses ofmy former captors. 
"Cut it out," I said, I thought loudly, but it came out a bare whisper. 
"Hey, you asshole. You're upsettin' the lady. She been throughenough." The guy with the New York accent helped me to my feet, but Ididn't stay up very long. I took one look around me and doubled upagain, losing the little rice I had kept down that day and retching longafter the last of the bile had poured from me. 
After a while I was able to tell them who I was. Someone got on aradio, back to base, and told them about me, about Dinh. There was a long pause, then: "Hold it right there, son. This is General Hennessey,on inspection tour. You say this is an American nurse you found? And she was in the company of these Vietcong guerrillas?" 
"That's affirmative, sir." 
"Give me your coordinates again." 
He did, and the general set up a rendezvous. I thought at the time, Ididn't think generals probably remembered how to do that anymore. I guessed I should feel honored. Maybe he'd want me to attend at party athis mess. I was dressed right for a mess then. My fatigues were intatters, and I was covered with bites and scratches and that one longbayonet wound. 
Someone picked up Dinh like a sack of potatoes and carried him,shattered leg dangling. I don't think they had a medic. Maybe he'dgotten killed. Maryjane and Zits, the guy from New York, supported me.I don't know how long it took, how far it was. I wasn't entirely withit. I kept getting confused, thinking we were still back at the villagewith the point man walking into the minefield, and that was Dinh. When I looked down at my own hand I couldn't see any color at all around it.I heard myself giggle. Maryjane grinned at me and wiggled his eyebrowsencouragingly. "I'm outa juice," I explained. It made perfect sense tome, but he drew a spiral by his ear with his finger and Zits nodded.That was pretty funny and I giggled again. 
They tied Dinh to a tree. He couldn't stand, even on his one good leg.He was out of it. They tried to question him, but he didn't sayanything. I thought he was conscious most of the time, but no matterwhat they asked, how they hit him, what they threatened, he didn't sayanything, except to groan and scream a lot. 
Some of the questions were about me. The sergeant who was running theshow would ask in broken Vietnamese, then the interpreter would ask,then they'd hit Dinh and he'd scream again. 
"Not a fuckin' thing. What we gonna tell the general?" 
Maybe he don't know nothin'." 
"He knows what they did to her. Where she's from." 
"Hell, man, she knows that." 
"Yeah, but she's dinky dao as shit." 
"Fuck it, man, he ain't gonna tell you anything. I'm tired of this 

shit. Let's play a little 'guts,' Sarge, whattaya say? That's first-class round-eye tail he was fuckin' with, man. We don't even getnone of that. He's got some payback comin'." 
"Damn straight." 
"Nah, man, the general's gonna want to question this dde." 
"You ain't been listenin', asshole. He ain't talkin'. We'll just

loosen him up a little." 

"Lookit him. You'll kill him before the general gets here, man. He's
gonna be soooo disappointed." 
"Ain't that a fuckin' shame. So we'll save him a piece. A tiny little

piece." 
I looked inquiringly at Zits. I was still having trouble talking. It 
had beenonly a few days, but it felt like forever since I'd heard
English spoken by other Americans. It seemed to be going too fast for

me. I still didn't get what they were up to. I wasn't tracking very
clearly. 
"You'll see, baby. Maybe you wanna play too." 
Oh goody. Vietnam was so wonderful. In school nobody had ever wanted

me on their team, and here the boys were, choosing me first. 
"Me first, man, I found her," Maryjane said. He cut off Dinh's clothes. 
"Hey, man, leave him a jock. There's ladies present." 
"How can I cut off his balls if I leave him a jock? Besides, she's a 

nurse. She's seen it all." 
"Don't cut him there yet, man. That's too much. He'll die too soon." 
"I don't give a fuck," he said. But he stood in front of Dinh, and when

he stood away, he was holding a bloody piece of something and there wasa long bleeding strip where the colonel's right nipple had been. Dinh made that braking sound. 
"See, baby, that's how it works. Wanna play?" Zits said. Then, "Hey,she's next, man." 
"Umm, yeah, I'd like to play guts with her," someone said lasciviously.I think he was kidding and meant something else, but my whole backconvulsed. I stood up slowly and walked over to Dinh. I started to look at the knee. Touched the amulet slowly. But my eyes were drawnback to his face. His eyelids peeled back about a quarter inch from hiseyes and he saw me and groaned. I stood up. 
"She's takin' a long time to decide what she wants. Somebody ought totell her it's spontaneous, like. Hey, baby, give somebody else a turn." 
"Shut up. You don't know what that slant bastard did to her." 
"No, but it's fun to imagine, huh?" 
"You make me sick." Zits came up beside me. "Hey, baby, you needsomethin' to work with, huh? A field knife maybe?" 
I was looking at Dinh. His eyes struggled open a little bit more. Hue'sfather, who had blown up all the children in one village, murdered afamily, shot one of my patients. I saw with a shock that while his screams might not have been faked, his degree of being out of it was. Hewas more alert than I was. And his aura, a bare thread, was.the gray ofa concrete overcoat. He stared at me steadily, challenging at first,and then, in response to whatever he saw in me, imploring, pleading,demanding, calling in a debt. Without even speaking to Zits, I liftedhis sidearm from its holster. He didn't seem to notice, he was watchingme so hard. So was everyone. I don't know what they thought I wasgoing to do. I pulled the gun out and, still watching the colonel'seyes, which lit with approval, his head nodding imperceptibly, stuck itin his mouth and pulled the trigger. 
"Damn!" Maryjane threw his helmet angrily to the ground. "Ya see? Ya see? Women! Jesus! You let them in on something and they spoileverything!" 
"Not everything, sweetheart!" 
"Aw, come off it, M.J. It's just 'cause they don't get taught how toplay football and like that." 
I handed Zits' gun back to him, returned to my rock, and sat there,staring at Dinh's body and the tree as if the whole thing were part ofsome abstract work of modern art I was trying to understand. Actually, Iwasn't seeing anything. I was resting my eyes. Resting my mind.Everybody stayed the hell away from me. The yelling died down to angrymuttering. That was okay. I didn't feel like talking to anyone. 
Sometime later the chunking of chopper blades drew my attention. A Hueydescended to hover in the clearing, blowing the hell out of everything.I just sat there and ate its wind, the rain, watching a fitlookingtanned guy with white hair jump out. Some other guy was there too, butI was watching the general as if I'd never seen one before. He wore a shiny gold buckle at his waist. I thought what a great target it would make. He was clean, pressed, authoritative, and handsome in a steelysort of way. Like the successful older man every secretary yearns tomarry. I didn't much care for the mossy-green aura camouflaging hisintentions, but at least it went nicely with his uniform. 
In a couple of minutes the chopper lifted up again and swung away fromus. 
Maryjane and his sergeant, who looked perpetually stone-bored, walked upto the general. The general stalked up to the corpse still hanging fromhis bonds against the tree, and examined him, his expression growingangrier and tighter with every second, so that I thought pretty soon hisskin would split open from the tension. Maryjane pointed at me. 
The general strode over and stood above me like a wrathful God. 
"You don't rise when a general officer addresses you, Lieutenant?" heasked. 
I just stared at him. I thought about trying to straighten out myknees, stand up again. Nope. Too much effort. 
"From what the men here tell me, I have to conclude that you're a VCsympathizer," he said as if accusing me of something shocking. I thought it over. It was at least partially correct. I had certainlysympathized with Colonel Dinh in his last moments. But generals weren'tmuch for such nice distinctions. 
"I was performing according to my MOS, sir. One of my primary goals isto relieve suffering." 
"As a member of the United States Army, Lieutenant, your primary goal isto help win this war. Do I make myself clear?" I didn't ask what war,when did we declare war. I didn't want to cause the man to have a stroke. "I understand you just executed a valuable enemy prisoner, ofyour own volition, costing us the opportunity to extract vitalinformation. Do you realize the loss of that information will result inthe deaths of thousands of Americans?" 
I shrugged. 
The moss green in his aura erupted into a study in angry, arrogant redsand oranges, mingled prettily with the mustard of a low order ofintelligence, and a swamp of deep blue and teal for fanatical devotionto selfish causes. Like his own career. His face was rapidly growingpurple. He grabbed my arm and yanked and I found that I did have asqueak left in me after all. It was my bayoneted arm. It was growingincreasingly edematous and inflamed. Might have to amputate thatsucker, I thought idly. 
He released me and wiped his hand off on his fatigues, swearing. 
"Where the hell did you say you found her?" he asked Maryjane. 
"I got her off a dead VC, sir," Maryjane said. 
"How do you know she's one of ours? I don't see any dog tags." 
"Want us to search her, sir?" someone asked eagerly. 
"Later. Young woman, I want to see your military ID." 
"Okay," I said. Then I remembered that I'd taken it out of my pocketand put it in my ditty bad and my ditty bag was long goneback at Hue'svillage. "oops," I said. "It got lost." 
"Very convenient. Men, I want you to hear this. Our enemies are veryclever. There is a report that a Lieutenant Kathleen McCulley went AWOLabout two weeks ago. She went down in a Huey headed for Quang Ngai.She, the pilot, and crew chief and all presumed dead. It's an opensecret, been talked about over the phone, over the radio. Now here isthis girl, claiming to be McCulley. How could a lone girl have made itthis far? And didn't you say, private, that when you found this womanshe was being shielded by one of her comrades? Doesn't that tell yousomething? You know, all Communists are not Vietnamese. There are even American women in the employ of the enemy. Now, I would hate to thinkthat an American Army nurse might have been so foolish as to havesuccumbed to Communist propaganda, but these women aren't real troops,after all. They can be scared and intimidated. The giveaway with thisone is that she killed her leader over there before he could tell youanything about his operation, himselfor her. Gentlemen, I think we'redealing with a traitor here. I have my doubts if this woman ever wasKathleen McCulley, but if she was, five 'II get you ten she lured thatchopper Into an ambush and then rejoined her VC buddies." 
Wait a minute, sir," Zits said. "Sounds like you're going tocourtmartial her." 
"Well, that would be one option, private." 
"Sir?" 
"If this gets into the press, it will cast a shadow over all of ourloyal girls in the service, all of our brave nurses and other femalepersonnel. You men wouldn't want to see that happen, would you?" 
There was a lot of random mumbling basically to the effect that theydidn't really give a shit. 
"Well, there's an alternative. Nobody knows about this but you men andme. Supposing this woman was killed with the rest of her comrades?Supposing for the classified files, Kathleen McCulley was killed by theenemy. For the official files, she died in a chopper crash. To spareher family, of course." 
I stared at him, hearing the words but not believing them. He had to be kidding, didn't he? No, of course not. Generals didn't kid. But he was coming to take me home. That's why he was here. I was going to goback to the 83rd and have a last swim at China Beach and get my stufftogether and go home and see my mom and Duncan. I had been driftingalong with the shock and fatigue, thinking that I was so close to beingout of all this, if not the beach, just a warm bed and a bath . . . 
"I want to go home," I said, but everybody else was talking and nobody heard me. That was just as well. Whining about home wouldn't do me anygood. Everybody-well, almost everybodywanted to go home. I was being aprivileged character again. The people I'd been among for the last weekor so were home already and a fat lot of good it did them. I felt a little strength start to course through me, a few tendrils of angerstart to warm my cold-clotted blood. 
Behind the crisply uniformed general, Dinh's body hung lifeless from thetree, like a modern version of the crucifix, his rain-diluted bloodstill flowing in pink rivulets down his chest, his mouth. What's wrongwith this picture? I wondered, and when I looked down at my own legs Irealized: the aura was missing. It wasn't clinging to the body as I hadseen the auras do so often right after death. It was clinging to me,overlaying my wisp of muddied pink with that clear blue and yellow, andsparks of red. 
No wonder the general thought I was a VC spy. I was wrapped in the latecolonel's aura, and it was a little like being wrapped in one of thosecloaks of invisibility from the fairy tales, only not quite as useful. 
still, I was beginning to feel a little stronger. It could be worse. What if I were Vietnamese, with no right and no desire to leave thisbeautiful, blighted land? If this were my home, and I had nothing to dobut stay and try to fend off wave after wave of invaders while myfamily, the culture I knew, the very landscape rotted around me like anold silk curtain in monsoon season? Nothing to look forward to butstruggle and more struggle. The last few days had been horrible, but Istill had options, another home, one of my own-but I needed to snap outof it if I wanted to live long enough to see stupid TV commercials andeat Sugar Pops for breakfast again. What Colonel Dinh had said echoed back to me from what seemed like years before, but was only thatmorning: "Life is not meant to return to a dead limb, and now that itdoes, it burns. . . ." 
"Well, young woman, if you have any explanation I'd like to hear it.What were you doing in the company of the enemy?" 
"I was a prisoner, sir," I said. "That's why my hands were tied." 
Obviously. jerk. 
"Yeah, but what about that guy on top of you, sweetheart?" 
Maryjane asked nastily. "Looked to me like he was takin' your share ofthe heat. Some enemy." Maryjane's tone had raised in pitch to theshrill and malicious end of the scale. 
"And that guy." Zits jerked his thumb at the colonel's corpse. "Why'dyou off him? Like the general says, we coulda got valuable informationout of him." 
"You didn't want valuable information," I spat back. "You'd alreadytried questioning him and you knew he wasn't going to say anything. You just wanted to hurt him." 
"So? What was it to you? Hadn't he hurt you? Or maybe you liked it,huh, baby?" 
"No, I just don't like to see people mistreated." 
Somebody laughed harshly. "Well, lady, you are in the wrong war, then." 
From being protective and solicitous, the men had become hostile,aggressive. Looking up at the general, who wore an expression of smugsatisfaction that must have been much the same as that worn by an earlywitch-hunter, I saw what was happening with graphic clarity. Theblackness in the general's aura cannibalized the other colors that hadbeen present in it, and grew, webbing out to touch the blackness thatwas the primary component of Maryjane's aura, to sprout more blacknessin Zits, to web with the hatred and anger that had become part of everyman's aura, and where the blackness met blackness, it was amplified,until the clearing was filled with it. General Hennessey sure was aleader of men, okay. He just didn't have much use for women. 
One of them looked at the other while the general thumbed his side arm.Maryjane gave me a lopsided grin and pulled out his machete. "You know,General, if the Cong had done her, they'd have made it hurt." He grinnedand winked at me. Big joke. Very funny. 
"Oh, great, soldier," I said. "What did you do when you were a kid?.Ripthe legs off of frogs? Did I take away your toy and-" I was stopped inmid-sentence by a commotion on the perimeter. The sentry was yellingsomething and somebody else was yelling back. Several of the men ran over to see what was going on. The general merely turned around,annoyed at the distraction. 
"Goddamn, sir, will you look at that? They must be havin' a fuckin'sale on 'em today," Maryjane said as two men wrestled a third betweenthem into the clearing. The third man wore crossed bandoliers slungover his bony shoulders and prominent rib cage. 
He was still fighting, and one after another flung the men who held himaway from him and jumped Zits, trying to wrest his weapon from him.Three more men pulled him off and held him down. Zits covered him. 
The general came out from behind a tree he had just happened to stepbehind. "What seems to be the problem here, men?" 
"We found this dude pokin' around the dead gooks, sir. We started, youknow, rappin' with him, and he fuckin' attacked us." 
"I was gonna off him, but Darby said since he was American we should,like, try to bring him in," the other man said. 
"Okay, soldier, what have you got to say for yourself?" the generaldemanded. 
What was left of William spit and a glob landed right in the middle ofthe shiny gold buckle. The red and black aura was strobing like crazyand so was the aura surrounding Zits. 
"Goddamn it, cut it out," I said. "He's dinky dao. He thinks you'reVC. Leave him the hell alone." I pushed past Maryjane's machete andknelt beside William. He spat at me, too, but I'd seen lots worse lately. 
I didn't have much aura left to share and there was nobody I much wantedto touch, but the general solved that problem for me. He came and stood so that his leg brushed my back. 
"Do you know this man, young woman?" He was trying to intimidate me, buthis well-fed, rested energy was what I needed. Only nothing happened.No change took place and William spat at me again. 
So I slapped him, and glared at him. 
He rolled his head back and forth, back and forth, trying to shake thataura. After what seemed like forever to me, it receded and he openedhis eyes. 
"Lieutenant Kitty, baby. Hey, girl, what's happening'? I thought youwas takin' babysan down to the ville." 
I sighed, sat back on my heels, and buried my head in my hands. 
"You know this woman, soldier?" the general asked. "What are you doingin this sector? Where's your unit?" 
William blinked several times, as if trying to focus on me. His entire aura extended only about a quarter of an inch from him and was as waveryand uneven as the EKG of a patient with a myocardial infarction. "What the fuck is going' down here? Man, I was trackin' you dudes, only Iwasn't always certain if it be you or if it be VC, dig? So I sort of follow along. Then, I dunno when, I see some other dudes humpin'through the bush and I'd have thought it was you only they was draggin'the lieutenant like she be the doggie in the window, if you can digthat? And then, man, I don't know. I was layin' down fire at someoneand then somebody else opened up, but I'll be damned if I know who thefuck I was shootin'. I got like hit, see?" He touched the back of hishead, and when he held up his fingers, they were bloody. "When I comeout of it, I go to look at the bodies and then these other dudes come atme and-oh shit, man, was that you? Lieutenant Kitty, you right on,girl. I must be dinky dao as shit to take these dudes for gooks. Ain't no gooks that ugly. That's a joke, man." 
The black radioman guffawed and two other black guys snorted. 
"He may be dinky dao but he ain't blind," one of them said. 
But William was taking stock of his surroundings now, and the sameinstinct that had told him when to roll under the bed sent bluegrayneedles of alarm prickling from his aura. "Oh hey, man, hey, now, look,I didn't-I mean, no way did I off one of our guys, did I? I-" 
The general cleared his throat and Zits and Maryjane glared at him, butthe black soldier leaning against the tree said, "No, man, nothin' likethat. just seem like the jungle full of lots of folks 'sides Charlieout for a walk today." 
"I told you we were both lost-" I began wearily, but William cut me offwith a nervous spate of chatter. It was a side of him I hadn't seen before, another defense, I suppose, besides an automatic weapon or astraryglehold. 
"Man, I dig. This is really wild. 'Cause I can tell you for dead sureI never expected to see this woman alive again. How's babysan,Lieutenant?" 
I shrugged and mumbled, "He's at the village." 
William plunged right on over my words. He was sitting up now, whilethe medic, who was one of the other black men, cleaned and bandaged hiswound. His arms flew around as he talked so that the man had trouble bandaging him as he told the story of his unit being overrun. 
"Yeah, I heard about that. Numbah ten, man. We didn't know nobody gotout." 
"Why didn't you report to headquarters, soldier?" the general demanded. 
"General, man, that's what I be tryin' to tell you. I be tryin' toreport back for weeks, man. But you know, I got me no radio and you thefirst bunch of dudes I see and I'm not sure most times whether you oursor theirs." 
"But you managed to contact Lieutenant McCulley." 
"Wasn't like she was in no headquarters, though. She was lost, justlike me." He frustrated the medic by scooting away from him to put hisarm around me. "But hey, girl, we made it, didn't we? Here we be, safeand sound in the bosom of whatever the fuck this unit be." He gave me asqueeze. "Now, I want you dudes to take notice of this woman here. She be one amazing chick. I see this chopper crash, see, and here comesmamasan, deely-boppin' through the jungle with a one-legged kid,tell.in' me her boyfriend got greased in the crash and do I know the wayto the nearest Howard Johnson's. Then she decides my company is toorough for her and goes down to this village to park the boy and ask touse a phone. I thought she'd be dogmeat for sure by now, but here sheis and she sure is somethin', ain't you, mamasan?" 
"Soldier, I want your name, rank, and serial number and your unit,"Hennessey said. 
"Whoa, there, sir, lighten up," said the radioman, whose aura was veinedwith mauve that had been deepening as he listened to William. 
"I want to know your connection with this woman, soldier," Hennesseypersisted. 
"Connection? Got no connection. Don't you listen, man? I done told you my connection. Her an' me is friends, ain't we, Kitty? My unit gotoverrun and her boyfriend's bird crash and here we be in the jungletogether. Only she had this kid to look out for, see, so we decide tosplit up-she goes to the ville to dump the kid and I come lookin' foryou dudes. Only she beats me here." 
"She was found in the company of a party of Vietcong," the general said. 
"No shit? Baby, you all right?" 
"Fuckit, man, I'm callin' in medevac," the radioman said. "My brotherhere, he's hurt." 
"You'll do no such thing," Hennessey barked. "I'm conducting an inquiryhere." 
"Man, look at him," the medic said. "He's manic as hell, runnin' on ascared-stiff high. He gonna burn himself out from that all by itself,you don't get him back home. It's not just this head, sir. This man got a bad case of exposure." 
"Me too, Washington. Send me back too," Maryjane said, and shut up whenthe medic glared at him. 
The radioman spoke up. "With respect and all that shit, sir, you do therest of your inquirin' back at HQ. You gonna hang around here longenough, somebody's gonna come lookin' for us." 
Maryjane stubbed out his smoke. "That's a-fuckin'-firmative." 
Although the general tried to throw his weight around, the men weredrifting away, marking notches on their helmets or openly taking onjoints. 
The radioman called for the medevac chopper to take us to the hospitalat Quang Ngai. He gave a thumbs-up sign as we lifted off. 
The general pulled his hat down over his eyes and affected sleep for thejourney. 
William and I leaned together on the bench seat of the chopper, butneither of us tried to speak above its noise. William had gone fromwildly talkative to dead quiet. He was so weak he stayed seated onlybecause he was strapped in. His aura was almost nonexistent. I laid myhead on his arm and tried to share strength, but Dinh's aura haddeserted me and I didn't have anything left to share. We were both carried into the hospital on stretchers, but William was taken to adifferent section. He gave me a tired wink as they took him inside. I know they asked him more questions about me, and that he was reas signedto another unit, but beyond that I've never been able to find out whathappened to him. 
Vietnamese vermin and parasites saved me more than once in the ensuingweeks. General Hennessey did not give up easily, and many times while Iwas in the hospital, people came in and asked me a lot of questionsabout what had happened in the jungle. Most of them seemed more intelligent than General Hennessey, and one or two of them even had thegrace to look embarrassed. If it wasn't obvious to the general that Ihad not been having a grand adventure running and playing with theVietcong, it was obvious to almost everybody else. My skin was a messof infected bites, my scalp lousy, and my hair falling out. The wound on my arm had to be debrided to three times its width and depth; thesuperficial puncture wounds on my breasts gave me a bad case of mastitisthat made breathing painful and coughing, from the pneumonia,excruciating. My feet were so covered with sores and crud I had to wonder how I'd been able to walk at all. I developed malaria from nottaking my pills, and intestinal parasites. The interrogators knew thatwhen I said they'd better clear a path, they'd better clear a path. 
I had been transferred out of Quang Ngal, which was set up for emergencysurgica I care only, as soon as my arm was debrided, and sent to thelarger facility at Long Binh. I don't remember the switch. I was delirious with fever during that time, and stayed that way for a week.I'm not sure why it took me so long to begin to get really sick. Perhapsthe anesthetic lowered what little resistance I had. Perhaps the amulethad afforded me some protection while I was using it for healing sointensely, but when I was knocked out, with no generative power for itto feed on, it conked out. Or maybe it was just the usual pattern, thatmy body knew while the stress was the greatest that I would not surviveif it caved in, so it kept me going until the pace slowed a little. 
At any rate, I was too sick to answer questions, too sick to do anythingbut sweat, have dreams that I knew were hideous but I couldn't remember,and mumble. 
The staff was as kind as they could be initially, as busy as they wer&My doctor was one of those bloodless men who sees medicine as a scienceand patients as specimens. His aura was almost pure yellow, with onlybits of mauve and blue, like colored thumbtacks, binding him to hiscareer. The nurses wore white uniform dresses, which I noted with pity.Nylons in I 10-degree heat will try to fuse with your legs. But my bedwas dry and had clean sheets and I had been bathed. The first day I wasable to shower, I tottered back toward my bed feeling dizzy andlight-headed, but I stopped at the desk and told the corpsman, "Thatfelt so good. Maybe I could rest a little while, then help you withyour next set of TPRs or something?" He was another of those kids wholooked as if they were fresh out of junior high, with a blond butch anda sunburned face. The face got redder when I talked to him. He wet his lips and said, "No thanks, ma'am," then, "You have a visitor who's beenwaiting for you." 
"Oh? Who?" 
"Just one of them people that's been here every day since you got here.Head nurse ran 'em off but said we had to call them as soon as you werestrong enough." 
I wasn't strong enough. Nobody is strong enough to put up with the kindof shit I took from those intelligence people day in and day out forweeks after that. They made Hennessey's accusations sound like "Tsktsk." One guy in particular started getting really hostile. They weretrying to break me down, and that was easy. I've never been able to bear mental battering. But it didn't do a lot of good. I was confused and whiny, and weepy, and even to me my story never sounded exactly thesame each time I told it. 
But Marge came to visit me once. I told her as much as I could about where Ahn was and said if she could find Heron, I was sure he could findAhn. I just wanted to know he was okay. She listened to me carefullyand nodded noncommittally. On her way out, she stopped and chatted withthe head nurse, and after that when the interrogators came, one of theward nurses made it her business to be nearby. 
Otherwise, most of the staff steered clear of me, except for treatments.I was at the end of the ward, and a curtain was drawn between me and theother patients, so I could hear them but I couldn't see them. I even hada guard, usually a woman, so she could go right into the bathroom withme, if necessary. I was surprised they spared the handcuffs, but atleast having a guard meant there was someone I could talk to. I supposethat's what they counted on, but since I didn't have anythingincriminating to reveal, it didn't do much good. Some of my guardsignored me pretty much to flirt with the corpsmen or the patients, butone WAC in particular was someone I thought I'd have liked for a friendunder other circumstances. She reminded me a little of Hue, short,tough, and very quick, deceptively young-looking, with an aura of brightyellow intellect, creative lavender, and idealistic blue slightlyoverlaid with deceptive gray-green. I almost told her about the amulet,once, but then I remembered what the inside of a mental hospital is likeand knew that that was not where I wanted to spend my first few yearsback in the world. Also, in the back of my mind, I kept hearing whatColonel Dinh had said about the way the government would use the powerto prolong the war. I thought, if Charlie Heron turned up before Ileft, maybe I would give it to him. But he never did. 
Sergeant Janice Mitchell, the one who reminded me of Hue, never grilledme. She just sat inside the curtain and chatted with me, leaving onlylong enough to light up a smoke away from the oxygen I had flowingthrough a cannula into my nose, as therapy for the pneumonia. Shelistened to what I said sympathetically, not as if she was about toindict me for every word. Every time I had another session and she wasthere, I'd blow off what little steam I had left or whimper in herdirection, so we went over the same story almost as often as I did withthe interrogators. Maybe more. Besides, we got to talking about home.She was a Midwesterner too, from Nebraska, and had joined to get out ofNebraska and to be near her brother, who had been up at Phu Bai until hewas injured. She was dating several guys, but she didn't elaborate,except in general terms. I gathered maybe she wasn't supposed to talkabout that. I told her about Duncan, repeating some of his stories, andabout my family. But somehow the conversation would always drift backto what had happened after my fight with Krupman. 
I wasn't trying to lie, but I didn't want to talk about the amulet, nordid I want to be obviously withholding anything. So I told her about the villagers, okay, but I down played the injuries and upgraded theavailable equipment slightly. We had been talking for two weeks beforewe ever got past the ambush. I started telling her about what happenedafterward, what Hennessey had said. 
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," she said. "You trying to tell me thatthe general tried to talk these men into killing you? You have witnesses?" She looked a little like a pointer who found a scent justthen. 
"Well, yeah, like I told you, William Johnson was there, but he gotthere after the general said most of that stuff. And Zits and Maryjanebut-no real names." I shrugged helplessly and stared down at my sheet."Wait a minute. There was the radioman. A black guy. His name tagsaid Brown. He'd tell you." 
"I'll check on it," she said ruefully. "There's probably only a couplethousand men named Brown in the area." 
She stood up abruptly, flipped back the curtain, and stood at the footof my bed. I heard the click of her lighter, saw her shadow take threeshort steps one way, three short steps the other, back and forth. 
She and Sergeant Llewellyn, the ward master, struck up quite afriendship while I was there. He had mentioned once when he was handingme an emesis basin that Janice had been with me most of the week I was out with my fever. They'd gotten well acquainted at that time, Isupposed. I heard him ask her if she wanted a cup of coffee and sheducked her head in and said, "Kitty, I'm going to the nurses' stationfor coffee. Want a cup?" 
I shook my head. later I heard whispers from the station and thenvoices raised in argument. I caught the words "your career" in a malevoice and then "about as subversive as you are" in Janice's clariontones, followed by "my career" and mumbles of grudging agreement. 
Before day shift ended that day, Llewellyn, a lanky, rawboned 91Charliewho had Cherokee cheekbones and a Tennessee accent, lingered by my bedafter picking up my supper tray. His aura was a rather muddied mauve,the healing rose overlaid with anxious gray violet just at the moment,belying his casual tone. 
"Well, how are you this evening, ma'am?" 
I sighed and tried to smile, but the smile drained away before it got tomy mouth. "I'll do." 
"Yeah, well, it sure is exciting having you around here, y'know that?All these visitors and such. Why, it's the most excitement we've had inthis place since the My Lai thing and all those newsmen andinvestigators all over the place. Sergeant Mitchell was on that one,too, but I didn't know her then. Noticed her, though. I don't know how you folks felt up there, but we thought ol' Calley sort of took a fallfor somebody higher up. Gotta hand it to General Hennessey, though, hewas right in there cryin' atrocity with everybody else, even though Imet this fellow used to work in the general's mess?" His voice rose inthe Southern interrogatory that means "you know?" but puts in thequestion mark and leaves out the words. "He said Hennessey was in favorof wipin' out the entire population. Not that that's an unusual idea. But it's commonly held that if it takes wipin' out all of us to wipe outall of them, he's gonna be right in there wavin' the flag and talkin'about the domino theory. Between you and me, the man ain't fishin' witha baited hook. He's been around a couple of times to pass out medalsand he's downright rude to the female personnel. Why, I remember lastspring one lieutenant got raped by a troop under Hennessey's command andshe had to go to the I.G. and have her mama write her congressman tokeep from being thrown out of the service for bein' a loose woman.Useful thing, the I.G. I believe General Torelli, same officer that wasin charge when Lieutenant LaVeau had her trouble, is still OIC. Between you and me, I think he might like to get somethin' on that bastard." 
My brain was not working at rapid speed, but the man had practicallydrawn me a picture. I had been too harassed and too out of it to wonder, but suddenly I realized I had had no letters, no calls, nosolicitousness of any kind from home since my return. Nothingforwarded. I wondered what my family had been told. 
"Well, I'd write home," I said wearily, "but I suppose it would beintercepted." 
"It might be-unless you found a way around it. I think you better try,ma'am." 
I did, because I knew he was taking a risk, and Janice was taking arisk, to try to help me. I didn't care all that much by then. It didn't seem to matter what I told anyone, they put their ownconnotations on it. I had always been a "gook lover," back on the ward.All my coworkers said so, the interrogators told me. I had no feelingsfor the GIs. And when had I learned good enough Vietnamese to see methrough my alleged ordeal? I was sick of it, but no sicker than I wasof everything else, and I was getting used to being sick of things.Having an easy time of it, having people in power be reasonable, beingallowed to get well and go back to my job began to seem like a naivedream of Disneyland proportions. 
But from what Llewellyn said, Hennessey was even more of a crazy manthan I thought, and could do a great deal more damage to a great manymore people. So I wrote some more letters and filled out more papersand eventually answered more questions. An official inquiry wasconducted, one that included other high-ranking people than GeneralHennessey. Janice told me they located Brown in Quang Ngai, just beforehe was medevaced to Japan for removal of half his radio from his back.Words were bandied, more papers filled out. William had been reassignedto I'll Corps, she said. They were still looking for him. The possibility of a court-martial hearing for me was discussed. 
In the meantime I received a letter from home. My mother was so glad tohear from me. She'd sent an inquiry through the Red Cross when Istopped writing, but hadn't had an answer as yet. 
Then gradually the interrogators, even Janice, stopped coming by, exceptto ask the odd, enigmatic question here and there. The silence made me more anxious than their presence had. I thought this was never going toend. I was never going to be allowed to go home. 
One morning the head nurse, Major Hanson, personally took my vital signsand tenderly took me in a wheelchair to the shower, straightened my bed,and helped me into a clean patient gown. I had been walking to theshower and changing my own bed for about a week, so I knew somethingofficial was going on. I wondered if my last meal was going to show upon the breakfast cart, and I about knocked myself out in the showertrying to pick up the soap, which kept slipping out of my unreliablehands. 
General Hennessey, a bird colonel, and a major proceeded down the aisleof the ward and stopped at my bed. The major ruffled a document andhanded the general a box. The general opened the box and extractedsomething. 
"Lieutenant McCulley, in honor of your . . . 
I didn't hear the rest of what he said. I was too busy flinchingbackward when I saw the pin he was aiming at my infected breast.Meanwhile, he was less saying the words than sputtering them, andstarted waving the pin around. The bird colonel, who wore insignia fromthe inspector general's office, took the object away from him and laidit on my pillow. My Purple Heart, I thought, without looking at it. Bigfucking deal. Instead of court-martialing me, they were giving me amedal. An hour and a half later I boarded an orange Braniff freedombird, back to the world. 
The airplane ride back was like a big, long, raucous party, but ITeurled up in my seat and pretended to sleep. I didn't have any moneyon me when I got to Fort Lewis, and I was wandering around trying tothink what to do when a warrant officer tapped me on the shoulder. A woman who looked about to explode was standing nearby, watching, tryingto restrain two boys about eight and five. 
"You lost, Lieutenant? The real world's that way." He pointed to thedoors. I looked at him and saw Tony, who should be meeting his wife. Ittook me a moment to refocus. 
"I forgot to get paid," I explained finally. "I need to get home and Iforgot to get paid." 
"Where's home?" 
"Kansas City." 
He looked as if he was going to say the hell with it and leave mestanding for a moment, then he said, "There's a Western Union office atSeaTac airport. If we give you a lift that far, have you got somebodyyou can call to wire you the money?" 
I nodded. They dropped me off and loaned me a quarter. I called myfolks collect and talked to the woman in the Western Union office. She had teased hair and her uniform skirt was a mini. 
I thought, it's good to be back in the world. A woman with Mary Travershair and wire-rim glasses and a boyfriend toting a guitar passed me inthe broad hall, and I smiled at them experimentally. The woman twitched the skirt of her granny dress carefully aside and looked pointedly atthe fatigues and combat boots one of the nurses had loaned me for thetrip home. 
I wandered into one of the clothing shops in the airport. All kinds of batiks and cotton-gauze ethnic things were on sale there. And gorgeouslong dangly earrings, the kind you could never wear on duty. I wished I had my back pay. 
"Is there something I can show you?" the young woman behind the counterasked. She had on a nice silky dress of some sort. 
"No, I'm sorry. I wish I could afford something, but I just got backfrom Vietnam and they didn't give me my pay before I left." 
"You were over there? It must have been terrible." I felt like snapping that no, it had been a lot of fun, really, but restrained myself. Shewas just being pleasant. "What were you doing there?" she asked. 
"I was a nurse," I said, and added, "I took care of GIs and also a lotof Vietnamese civilians." I didn't want her to think I was a babyburner. 
"How interesting." The loudspeaker came on, announcing a flight, and sheleaned forward over the counter. I leaned toward her to hear what she had to say. "You must have learned a lot about the people, then. Did you get your necklace there?" and she reached out and touched the amuletbefore I quite knew what she was doing. 
She let go of it fast, the bright mustard and green of her auradarkening like snow after a slop bucket has been emptied on it. She backed off. "Well, if you don't want anything, excuse me. I have to finish this inventory." 
I yearned to see Mom and Dad throughout the five-hour trip, but whenthey hugged me, I had to fake returning their hugs. I wasn't quite upto their smiles, so very soon those smiles faded. Kansas City looked asif nothing else were going on in the whole world. Trees grewunmolested, people dressed in suits and hats with veils and high-heeledshoes that would have made running impossible. It didn't look real to me. 
When we reached our old driveway, I felt like a teenager again. The windchimes sang cheerily in the breeze. The pine tree in the front yardlooked a little taller. All of the pets were long dead. My brother wasthere, and my grandma and grandpa. I didn't know what to say toanybody. I went upstairs to my room, sat down on the bed, and stared 
at the pink Chinese print paper I'd picked out when I was fourteen. Thelast of my cat collection, a couple of Avon bottles, sat on the blonddresser Mom and Dad had bought secondhand for me. I walked over to the dresser and picked up one of the glass cats, to stroke it for comfort.Its surface was cool and smooth, but it felt warmer than I did. I felt as if my insides had been hollowed out with an ice cream scoop, cold,numb, and empty. I couldn't see my aura anymore. I thought themuddiness I saw in the mirror probably was real dirt. It had been a long trip. 
I took off the amulet and tucked it inside my old jewelry box. I wouldn't need it here in the world. I put on a pair of jeans that hadbeen too small for me when I left and were now miles too big, and one ofDaddy's shirts, a pair of Mama's shower shoes. At least I'd lost weight. Maybe I could make money introducing the Exotic South China SeaDieting Miracle-amebiasis and tapeworms. Most of them had been flushed out of my system by various antibiotics, fungicides, and othermedications, but some of them were not easily gotten rid of. 
Mom made my favorite foods: steak and homemade trench fries, corn on thecob, and fresh green beans and tomatoes. My aunt made my favorite cake,buttermilk chocolate, and put on it the peppermint boiled white icingthat only she seemed to know how to do. I couldn't eat much of it. I didn't say, "Pass the tucking salt," as I've heard some of the guys saythey did, but I didn't say much of anything else either. 
So when Mom found the medal, she thought it was a topic of conversation."Honey, this is a Silver Star, isn't it? You didn't tell me you'd won amedal. Can I call Mr. Mingel at the Kansan and tell him? 
He's been wanting to interview you when you came home." 
I should have unpacked it myself, before she got around to it. The fatigues I had been in when I was admitted were still in there, andthat's not the kind of thing you want your mother to see. But myattitude was "burn the whole damned thing." My stuff from Da Nang wasbeing sent later. 
Mama's eyes were troubled when she opened the box someone had packed themedal in. I hadn't brought it along. I guess whoever threw my stuff inmy bag had done it. I wished Janice had come back to say good-bye. Or Llewellyn. 
"Silver Star, huh?" I asked, and glanced at it. Sure enough. I guessthe general felt I needed a little higher bribe than a simple PurpleHeart to keep my mouth shut. Those things take months to review andaward normally. It made me a little sick to think that they were tryingto buy me off with something most people earned with the loss of one ormore limbs, or maybe their lives. "Don't mean nothin', Mama. Pleasedon't call the newspaper man. I don't have anything I want to tellhim." 
"Well, if you're sure," she said uncertainly, then patted me on thecheek. "You know your daddy and I love you and we're very proud of you,honey." 
I felt as if she'd hit me. Tears stung the backs of my eyes. Proud of what? 
I'd killed a man, had been the cause of death for two others, and hadabandoned the little boy I'd been trying to save in a Vietcong village.Nothing had turned out right. The medal was a mockery. A Hollywoodhappy ending. Fuck. I'd give it to Duncan. He liked that kind of shit. I'd make up a funny story about it, and give it to him. And then later, maybe he'd hold me and I could tell him how it really was. If Icould just tell everything to him, I could really start to feel at homeagain. That was a good idea. If I could talk to him, he'd make me feelbetter and then I could be a little more normal around the folks. He was living in Independence, Missouri, now, according to the third andfinal letter I'd received from him. I sat down on my folks' bed andtried to call, but nobody answered. 
I drove out to Independence the next day. Mom and Dad disapproved. Theythought I should sit around and regale the relatives with more warstories. But I needed to see Duncan badly. If he was gone, maybe Icould wait. I stopped and called again from a 7-Eleven store. 
"Kitten! You're home!" He said. "God, that's about the most wonderfulthing I've heard. Hell, yes, come on out. I've got so much to tellyou." 
Maybe it would be all right. Maybe he cared more than I thought. Maybe he had realized how much he missed me. I drove into the parking lot athis apartment complex and felt my stomach knot as I came to the frontstoop of his apartment, rang the doorbell. The door opened. 
A mane of wild red hair held back by a blue bandanna over whelmed a girlwho wore rubber gloves, cutoffs, and an overtaxed halter top and who hadlegs up to her armpits. Maybe I-'d gotten the wrong apartment afterall. Maybe he'd moved and had kept the same phone and had forgotten totell me. 
"I'm looking for Duncan-" I began. 
She grabbed my hand in her rubber gloves and chirped, "You must be KittyMcCulley! Oh, that rat didn't tell me you'd be here so soon I've beencleaning this place all morning trying to make it look nice for when yougot here. Duncan has told me so much about you I've just been dying tomeet you." She dragged me into the hall and peeled off her rubbergloves. "I'm Swoozie," she concluded, as if that was supposed to meansomething. Duncan had definitely not told me all about her. 
"Uh-hi," I said, looking beyond her to see if he was there. Across theliving room was a stairway. Upstairs, a faucet shut off, there were acouple of footsteps, and then Duncan came bouncing down the steps,attired in fresh jeans and a starched, button-down shirt. I'd forgottenmen could look that clean. 
He grabbed me in a bear hug and, to my surprise, I didn't feel any morelike hugging him than I had Mom and Dad. I just looked at him. If hereally meant that hug, who the hell was she? 
"I see you met Swoozie. Great, isn't she?" 
"Umm," I said noncommittally. 
"She's made us chicken for lunch. You like chicken, don't you, Kitten?" 
He didn't wait for an answer. The chicken amply showed off her domesticskills, and the way she hung on Duncan showed off others. 
When she had detached herself for a second I said, "Duncan, I've got somuch I need to tell you." 
"Oh, yeah, and I really want to talk to you too, hon. But it's going tohave to be later. Swoozie and I have to run out to her folks' farm for an hour or so. You can entertain yourself, right? The TV's in the bedroom." 
I didn't say anything and he didn't ask anything. The two of them piledinto his Camaro and drove away. I wandered around the house, thinking Ishould just leave. He was behaving as if I came over every Sunday fordinner. As if I'd never been away. And to me, his apartment didn'teven look real. I drifted upstairs. I'd have to look at the TV. I think I was still hoping he'd get halfway to whatsername's farm, slaphimself on the head, say, "Oh, what a fool I've been! I need to getback and talk to Kitty. We can take care of these trivial errands later." But though I strained my ears listening, I heard nothing. I opened the closet door and the smell of his cologne and fresh-pressed clothes drifted out. I lifted a shirt sleeve and sniffed. Before I left, I'd asked him to keep my letters, and I wondered if he had. I didn't expect to find them so easily. But there they were, in a pile,with a rubber band. I picked up the pile, all written on stationerywith helicopters and Big Chief tablet-style lines. When I removed the rubber band, I understood why his letters never made reference to mine.He hadn't opened them. Incredulously, I pawed through the pile. Not one was opened. 
I picked them up, tucked them into my purse, and got back into Mom scar. I drove into the countryside, hoping by some coincidence I'd runinto them and he could explain. It had been a rainy day, and as I drovedown a small dirt road with trees on either side, it rapidly grewdarker. I didn't care. I took the curves very fast and ended upplowing through the woods. I was still focused on the letters, and onDuncan, and it took me a while to realize that I wasn't on the road andwas heading down a steep embankment. I forgot about braking until theshock of impact hit me, and the fender was crumpled against a tree, theradiator spewing water. 
I got out of the car and walked until I found a farmhouse. I called Duncan, and he and Swoozie came to get me, and called a garage. 
I didn't ask him about the letters then. But the next day I called a VAhospital in Fort Collins, Colorado, and was accepted as a staff nursealmost at once. 
I thought what I needed was to get back to work, to get back into theswing of things, to stop dwelling on my problems and help other people.I was assigned to a drug/alcoholism rehabilitation ward. The alcoholics were mostly suffering from DTs, the drug addicts had hepatitis. The alcoholics told the staff where the druggies were getting their fixes,the druggies told us where the alcoholics were hiding their hottles. I was not popular with my coworkers. I was used to getting myselforganized and getting everything done at the start of the shift andwaiting for casualties. I found myself getting irritable and brusquewith the staff, and I resented it when they asked me to help them withtheir work. It was boring. I felt no empathy for the patients, andeven wearing the amulet didn't help. Their auras were uniformlydepressingly gray-green, deep with self-deception and shit-brown withselfloathing. My own was thin and brown. Once I worked on ortho, andwas caring for a very nice man with terrible pain in his back. I tried to help him, tried to focus, using the amulet. Nothing happened. I gave him a pain shot, which did nothing either. 
The day I got the letter from Charlie Heron, I walked on air. He left a phone number and I called him. He was living on the Coast, he said, ina great place in San Francisco, and he wanted me to come and see him. Hesounded different than he had in country, aimless and unemphatic, but Ifigured he probably couldn't talk to anyone either. Maybe we could talkto each other. I could give him the amulet. He'd trained with old Xe. He'd know what to do with it. 
One of his friends met me at the airport and took me to the house heshared with Charlie. Charlie was wadded up in front of the televisionwith a joint in his hand. The house reeked so badly of pot you couldget stoned just breathing normally. I smoked with the two of them, but didn't get two coherent words out of Charlie all weekend. I didn't even consider giving him the amulet then. His aura was only a slightvariation on the ones worn by my patients in Colorado. 
I worked at the hospital for another month, but finally quit. I couldn't stand it. As the patients sobered up, the yellow in theirauras, a tendril of blue, sometimes some other healthier color, wouldbud along with sprigs of personality, only to be smothered again as soonas they were released. I found myself going home at night and drinkingto relax from the misery of it. I crashed my car another time, and wasnervous about driving for a long time after that. 
I drifted from job to job, trying to work as a night float wheneverpossible, working first on one ward, then another. I liked the varietyand the adrenaline rush of occasionally having dire emergencies to dealwith. That made me feel at home, as if I were back in Nam. But what I liked the best was that I didn't really have to get to know anybody. I wouldn't risk contaminating anyone else. 
When Nixon ended the war, I was fiercely glad. Our men could come home and the Vietnamese could begin adjusting to having one boss instead ofmany. I expected the news of the Communist takeover, but the day itcame out, I didn't go to work. I stayed in bed and tried to rememberwhat Mai looked like, wondered if having been a patient in an Americanhospital would affect Ahn's status, and hoped Hue was reinstated in thegood graces of the winners. I sat in bed and stared at the TV and ate junk food and held my knees in my arms and watched, and rocked, andwondered. Pretty soon I started to cry, just a trickle at first, andthen great gulping sobs, such as I hadn't cried since before Tonycrashed us in the jungle. Thinking about Tony and Lightfoot made me cryall over again, until I couldn't get my breath. I didn't go to work thenext day either. I didn't have the energy to go anywhere, or to doanything. I couldn't bear to brush my teeth and it was a struggle todrag myself to the bathroom. 
When I realized I was out of anything to blow my nose on, pulled myselftogether enough to return to work. Everybody was talking about this newrestaurant or that new movie. If you hadn't been there, you had nothingto talk about. I was home, but I wasn't. Everything here seemedtrivial, superficial. Life was not sweet. It wasn't even bearable. 
One night I was working the emergency room, in Gallup, New Mexico. Therewas a long lull between the night's stab wound victim and the drunkwho'd been hit and run from. The receptionist and the nurses' aide werechatting about inconsequentialities. A new boyfriend, a new soap opera,the grandparents taking the receptionist's kids to Disneyland, a newcrochet pattern. I wanted to scream. I had consoled myself by tryingto jump back into everything, into jobs, into love affairs that werelittle more than one-night stands (I was still trying to find someone totouch me), into the whole pop-culture commercial scene. I spent most ofmy days in shopping malls charging stuff I didn't need on my chargecards and worrying over paying them off, eating out so I wouldn't haveto eat alone. I lived in a singles complex with no old people,children, or pets but lots of predators of both sexes circling the poollike so many sharks, looking to score with the best body with the besttan. And I didn't give a shit about any of it. 
I walked out to my car that morning after work and found I'd left thelights on and the battery was dead. I spent a sleepy morning learningabout jump starting, and hitched a ride home with the service stationattendant. I walked into my cute little studio apartment, around thebreakfast bar, and gave the steak knives a serious once-over. I selecteda sharp one and took it into the bathroom. 
Why not? Duncan didn't love me, my parents would be better off withoutme, I was no good at my job anymore. Nobody wanted or needed meanymore. From being someone with special power, I had become someonewho was another body, in the way, who had spent a yeat of her life doingsomething that was not to be mentioned in polite conversation. I would kill myself and then they wouldn't have to worry about me. Nobody hadever taken me to Disneyland. And I had always wanted to go, too. Tears ran down my cheeks and over my hands and onto the knife blade as Ithought how unfair it was that here I'd fought for my country and nobodyhad even offered me a lousy trip to Disneyland. 
Well, goddamit, I would kill myself, no mistake about that, but I'd doit after I took myself to Disneyland. Duncan hadn't kept his promise tobe the man of my dreams, my parents hadn't kept their promise to alwaysmake everything all right, no matter what, and the Army sure as hell hadnever kept any of its promises, but I could keep my own promise tomyself. I didn't expect the place to be wonderful. I didn't expect itto thrill me. I knew it would be silly and childish and commercial, butit was something the little girl I'd been before I went to Nam wanted todo, so whatever I thought now, I'd go for her. Like going to thefuneral of Hue's mother. To honor her memory. Nobody else was goingto. 
I called in sick, and packed a bag. I drove to the airport inAlbuquerque, and handed over my plastic for a ticket to L.A. Flyingover it made me think of Nam: the mountains, the palms, the ocean. It also made me think of the line in the joni Mitchell song about pavingparadise and putting up parking lots. I had heard the city put downpretty often, but it looked okay to me. I'd heard one of the patientsjoke about returning there from Vietnam. "When you've spent time inhell, L.A. ain't so bad," he said. 
Baggage claim seemed miles from where we deboarded. People were in aterrific hurry and the auras surrounding them looked like a psychedelicnightmare. I decided that before I went to Disneyland I would removethe amulet and stick it in my jeans pocket. I wasn't ready for MickeyMouse with a black and red aura. 
I've become pretty familiar with the baggage claim area by now, but thatday I had only an impression of a large room with several entrances, oneof which had an almost tunnel-like hall, like the endless corridors inVA hospitals. 
I turned to scan the baggage racks, looking for my new tweed case, whenI heard a noise as if the streets of downtown Da Nang had been crowdedinto the room. What was this, a flashback? I wondered, as I turnedtoward the stomach-wrenchingly familiar singsong cacophony of Vietnameselanguage being spoken in frightened, angry, defensive, awed voices, andsaw what looked like half of Vietnam come pouring out of the tunnel Thefamiliar gray-violet fearful aura wrapped these people in a fog, but there were sparks of yellow around many, and clear, hopeful turquoise.Their bodies, normally small and slim, were emaciated now, some bearingsores. Children looked up at their parents with frightened eyes and theparents looked dazed, shell-shocked. Some carried small bundles, othershad nothing. No one went to the baggage claim. I had long ago stoppedlistening to the news or reading the paper, and I couldn't imagine whatthey were doing there. I thought I was hallucinating. Then I noticed several American people and a couple of fairly well-dressed Vietnameseinfiltrating the main crowd, detaching clumps of people who must surelybe family groups. Waiting behind the barrier separating the luggagearea from the rest of the room stood people with signs. "Welcome," theysaid, in English and in Vietnamese, with names below them. I wanted to cry again. Nobody had been there with signs for us. But at least most of us were familiar with airports, and heavy auto traffic, and how tocatch a cab, and had someplace to go, eventually when we got here.Surely these people couldn't all be visiting relatives in Pasadena? 
I watched until the throng disappeared. I found myself searching everychild's face for Ahn's or even Hoe's, every young girl's for Mai's orHue's, every old man's for Huang's, or even Xe's, though I knew he wasdead. I knew now I wasn't hallucinating, that these people were notghosts that had collectively come to haunt us, but I grew fascinated bythem. When they stopped pouring in and had been picked up by thewelcoming committees, I wandered off to a newsstand to see if there wasanything about it. On the third page of the Los Angeles Times, I founda story I almost ignored: "Hundreds of Boat People Arfive Daily." Butthere was a picture with Vietnamese people in it. I scanned those faces too, but didn't see anybody familiar. I didn't understand how the people I had seen could be boat people if they arrived on an airplane,but I took the paper with me back to the baggage claim and watchedseveral more planeloads of people file through the tunnel, people frommany countries, but among them some Vietnamese. 
I didn't go to Disneyland. Though I knew it was a long shot, I keptthinking, Maybe Ahn will be on the next plane and I'll take him with me.Wouldn't Disneyland knock babysan's eyes out of their sockets? FinallyI got too tired to watch anymore and I checked into a hotel near theairport. But the next day I was back. And I went back every day forthe week I had planned to stay, watching the planes, watching peoplebeing collected, -searching the faces. 
At last, among one of those big crowds, I thought I saw him, aone-legged boy with a crew cut and a thin, frightened face screwed uplike a monkey's, ready to irritate everybody by crying. I'd been leaning on the railing near the luggage carousel, and I snapped to myfeet and walked forward as if someone were pulling me on a string,toward that boy. Penetrating the crowd wasn't easy, but I did reachhim, only to have a woman snatch him into her arms and glare at me. 
"Excuse me, what are you doing?" an American voice said behind me. 
"That boy I said and then braved his mother's glare and looked at himagain. It wasn't Ahn. Too young. He looked like Ahn when he had first come to the hospital, but Ahn would be almost fifteen now. "I'm sorry,"I said to the American woman and made a steeple with my hands and bowedto the mother. "Sin loi, ba." And to the American woman I said, "Ithought he was a boy I knew in Nam. A friend of mine, a patient actually. I-" 
I felt as dazed as they looked as the people poured around me like astream around a rock. "I'm sorry," I said finally. 
"No need to be sorry. Wait a sec," the woman said and signaled to oneof her friends with the signs, then took me by the arm, out of thetraffic. "You were in Vietnam?" I nodded. "What as, a missionary?" 
"Army Nurse Corps," I said. 
"No kidding. And you're waiting for your adopted son, is that it? 
I shook my head. "I just thought I recognized him. He-I don't know where he is. I left him in a village." 
"Probably not here, then. We don't get that many peasants with thisbunch. Mostly history professors and government people, intellectualswho'd be killed by the new regime if they hadn't escaped. But you neverknow. They keep sneaking in all kinds of shirttail cousins and oldfamily retainers and what have you that they feel an obligation to. Hemight make it in with some family." 
"Oh," I said, disappointed not to find something I didn't even know Iwas looking for. But I waited with the woman, who told me her name wasShirley Nussbaum, for the next planeload, and she told me about some ofthe problems the people were having resettling: no apartments, no jobskills, worst of all no English. The government gave some hell , butchurch groups and clubs did most of the sponsoring. 
p And of course there was a lot of resistance to the presence of therefugees in some places. 
I nodded, only half listening, and took Shirley's address as sheshepherded her last group away. I lingered for a while as the crowddrifted away, then headed for the women's room. It looked empty, butthen I heard a toilet flush and somebody shrieked. My adrenaline leapedup. A mugging? Heart attack? Somebody just freaking out? I searched every stall, flapping open the doors, until I came to the latched one.Sobbing issued from within. 
"You okay in there?" I asked, knocking on the door. More sobbing."Look, can I help you? Are you ill? I'm a nurse. Please, just answerme." But the sobbing grew louder. 
Oh hell, I wouldn't catch anything on the floor of the L.A. airport Ihadn't already caught in Nam. I lay down and peered up under the door.A skinny Vietnamese girl squatted with her feet on the toilet seat. As Iwatched she leaned back against the flush button and shrieked again. To go through a war, and refugee camps, and a brave new world, only to befreaked out by plumbing. I wriggled under the door, unlatched it, andhelped her down from the seat. She couldn't have been more than seven. She tugged at my hand and I squatted down beside her so I wouldn't lookso tall, and scooped her up, t4en showed her how the toilet flushed. 
"Where's mamasan, huh, kiddo?" I asked her, and carried her to the sinkand showed her how to wash her hands, then carried her out into the lobby. I had Shirley's number, but I didn't need it. Shirley, carryinga toddler, came barreling back through the door, followed by afrightened-looking young woman with a child on each hip and anothertoddler clinging to her skirts. When Shirley saw us she stopped and puther free hand over her heart, panting exaggeratedly. "You found her." 
"Yeah," I said, looking for someone with a free hand to hold her. Therewasn't anyone and it would have needed a crowbar to dislodge herfingers. 
"Mrs. Huong has too many kids to keep track of, I think. Would youmind walking with us out to the van?" 
"Sure," I said. It didn't look as if I had much choice. When everyoneelse was seated, Mrs. Huong reached for the little girl. The child clung to the theng around my neck until she was sure her mother had her,and as I released her, her fingers touched the amulet. A warm rush went through me as we formed a triangle, and the energy formed a circuit; atentative mauve-pink light, a little grayed down, but definitely growingbrighter, sprang up among us. Mrs. Huong did not smile, but herexpression lightened with relief at another hurdle overcome. Life after war. It happened. I had seen hundreds of people in the last few dayswho had lived through it, who were still trying to live. And there wasnothing I had seen that most of them hadn't seen, nothing I had had todo that many of them hadn't had to do, and maybe worse. I couldn't contaminate them, I couldn't shock them, and yet a kid who had been bornand raised amid all that ugly, numbing horror had more awe and wonder atpush-button flush toilets than I had at the idea of Disneyland. I watched the van depart and then headed back to the hotel. Shirley wouldpick me up tomorrow morning, to see some of the temporary facilities hergroup had arranged for the refugees, and to take me to the airport tomeet more. They needed a lot of help, she said. Meanwhile, I hadthings to do, preparations to make. I wondered if Charlie Heron was still stoned all the time, if he was alive, if he was interested inmaking a trip to L.A., and if I still had his number. 
Elizabeth Ann Scarborough, a former nurse and a Vietnam veteran, is theauthorof seven other Bantam novels, all humorous fantasy. She has recently moved )lrom Fairbanks, 41aska, to the Washington coast.