Lan returned from the house and snuggled close to her husband. “She’s asleep.”
“Good.” He put his arm around her. “I am so happy that we are together.”
“As I am, my husband.”
Those were more than just pleasantries to Nguyen and his wife. To people who had been separated so long and so horribly, the words had real meaning.
For years, the Nguyens drifted from one temporary home to another, finally settling on the Gulf Coast in Porto Cristo. A number of Vietnamese had emigrated there and become shrimp fishers. Lan loved the idea; the climate and terrain reminded her of the homeland they both missed so dearly. After more than a year, and countless troubles, they began to make a go of it. The business actually showed a profit.
That’s when the trouble began.
At first it was just locals—white fishermen whose income diminished as a result of the increased competition. They complained that the Vietnamese stole shrimp by violating fishing regulations. The charges were not altogether unfounded. The Vietnamese did not at first understand the complex regulations, and couldn’t always afford to comply when they did. Meetings between the various factions were held, but no agreements were reached. It seemed the white men would accept nothing less than total withdrawal by the Vietnamese. Finally, when Nguyen and the others wouldn’t agree to abandon their new home and livelihood, someone called in the KKK.
It began with threats—frightening, yes, but no cause to leave their homes and a business just beginning to be successful. Then came the vandalism—fishing equipment stolen or destroyed, boats sunk. Homes painted with swastikas or sprayed USS VIETCONG. The KKK began to patrol the waters, theoretically helping the Coast Guard watch for violations of the coastal fishing regulations. But Nguyen and his friends knew what they were really looking for.
A week later two Vietnamese fishermen were killed. Their boat was found adrift; there were no traces of the assailants. The KKK denied all responsibility and there was no physical evidence to connect them with the crime. The DA refused to prosecute. That night Nguyen and several others found crosses burning in their front yards.
A council of the elders was held. Resistance seemed futile—the KKK was better organized, better armed. Some of the men were willing to fight, but they were not willing to put their entire families on the firing line. Colonel Nguyen hated to run, but Lan had just delivered Mary, and he couldn’t bear to see them endangered. With deep regret he agreed to leave Porto Cristo. Their home away from home.
One of the other men came up with the idea of jointly purchasing a broken-down chicken farm and settling in the Ouachitas. Here, so far from the Gulf Coast, they thought trouble could not find them. Coi Than Tien would be their new paradise—that’s what the name meant.
They soon learned that chicken farming was far more difficult than any of them had imagined. After they bought a small stretch of land, they couldn’t even afford chickens. They arranged for a major food distributor to buy (and own) ten thousand fryers; the Vietnamese would simply be paid a fee for services until the mature chickens were returned to the company for processing. In effect, they were chicken sharecroppers.
The work itself was grueling. It was beyond difficult—almost subhuman. Rising with the sun, backbreaking labor, twelve-hour days. The chickens had to be fed, watered, cleaned. Every morning the dead chickens (and there were many) had to be removed. Unlike cattle, chickens couldn’t be left alone periodically to fend for themselves. They had to be cared for constantly.
The work was harder than shrimp fishing, and considerably more time-consuming. But at least they had made a fresh start. And, they thought, they were safe.
They were wrong. Less than a year after they arrived, when the chicken farm was barely operational, local competitors began to complain. Three months later ASP arrived and established a paramilitary camp outside Silver Springs. They bought a church not a hundred feet from the perimeter of Coi Than Tien. From his porch Colonel Nguyen could hear them pray to God to “drive out the infidel.”
Random fires had been set—no serious damage thus far, but the shacks and huts of Coi Than Tien were a tinderbox and it wouldn’t take much to send the entire settlement up in flames. Acts of vandalism followed, and the ASP soldiers began executing military maneuvers just outside Coi Than Tien. A car parked on the street was firebombed; a young man walking home one night was beaten. And then, worst of all, Tommy Vuong was brutally murdered. A campaign of terror was in full force.
Nguyen had hoped the arrest of that ASP member for Tommy’s murder would cool ASP off, but it appeared to have only intensified their antagonism. Colonel Nguyen did not think the man the sheriff arrested was the murderer. He was too tall, too broad-shouldered. He was not the figure Nguyen had seen silhouetted in the flames. But he could not contact the sheriff without admitting he had been at the scene of the murder. And if he did that, he might be arrested for leaving the scene and withholding evidence, or even charged with the crime himself.
Nguyen had shown no one the papers he found at the murder scene. If those papers got out, and ASP learned he was a witness, Nguyen was certain all hell would break loose. Everyone would be in danger—including Lan, and Holly, and Mary.
He would not let anything happen to them. Not again. No matter what compromise he had to make with himself.
“What do you think we should do, my darling?” he asked Lan. Her head was tucked affectionately under his arm.
“I trust you to make the right decision,” she said simply.
“But you must have an opinion.”
She smiled. “My opinion is that you will do what is right.”
“How can you be sure? Perhaps I will be influenced by my own petty concerns. Perhaps I am not so brave as you think.”
She stroked his black-and-gray-flecked hair. “It takes a brave man to know when to show his back to the enemy.”
So that was it. She wanted to leave. Or perhaps she was just giving him the option, opening the door so he wouldn’t feel ashamed if he wanted to move on. She was such a delicate, noble creature. He cherished her. That was why it hurt him so to see her living in fear, in constant uncertainty. That was why he wanted her to be safe.
The squealing of tires took them by surprise. Nguyen peered down the central road that ended in a circular cul-de-sac defined by the shacks and huts of Coi Than Tien. It was a large black pickup, smoked-glass windows rolled up, no one in the back. The truck was moving far too fast for such a tight restricted area.
Nguyen removed his arm. “Go inside.”
“Why?” Lan asked. “What is happening?”
“Go inside now.” He gently but firmly pushed her through the door and closed it behind her.
The pickup made a sharp ninety-degree turn just in front of Nguyen’s home. The tires kicked up a cloud of dirt so dense it obscured his vision. He coughed, wiping his eyes. He heard another squealing noise and saw the back of the truck moving toward him. It sideswiped his wooden porch railing and crushed it to the ground.
“Who are you?” Nguyen shouted. “What are you doing?”
His response came in the form of a descending window on the driver’s side of the truck. Nguyen strained his eyes but could not see the driver inside. He did, however, see the barrel of the shotgun that emerged from the window.