I sighed, and used my sleeve to wipe away ice crystals. Deep shadows lurked beneath the trees out beyond the perimeter. They hid secrets from the stars. Too quiet out there. Some nights silence was a relief; but others... Nights like those a man was glad when the sun came up to find him still breathing.
I decided to listen in on the phone, just to hear human voices. Chuck had just delivered the punchline of a joke. I winced, and wondered what had led up to "—so she sucked his apples!" Laughter erupted over the line.
When the chortling died down, the platoon's Clark Kent finally decided to include me in the conversation. "Say, Barnes," Wally asked, "what are you planning to do after you leave us behind? You're getting pretty short, now, aren't you?"
"Me?" I forced a rusty-sounding laugh. "Anything but re-up." For some reason, that earned laughter.
"What, you're not tired of the Army life, are you?" Crater snickered. "How about Vernon? He's due to re-up or didi out pretty soon, too, isn't he? Do you know what his plans are?"
I sighed. "Yeah. He's going to give college a try, go ROTC, and come back to haunt you bums as a butter bar."
"ROTC?"
"A second lieutenant?"
Chuck's response was even more eloquent: "An effin' officer... ?"
"Sure. First a grunt, then a Special Forces officer, then a state rep, then a congressman, then president—and pretty soon he'll be running the whole show." Laughter greeted that assessment.
I wasn't kidding about Special Forces, though. Just because he'd resigned from the program as an enlisted man did not mean the door was closed—at least, not for Gary Vernon. For just about anybody else, yes; but not for Gary. Sneaky Peek, that was his goal, and I wished him all the luck making it to Special Forces. He probably would, too. Gary could work within the system, or at least get around it on the sly without getting into trouble.
I envied him that skill. When I saw something wrong, I needed to fix it right then. I'd already gotten busted for doing the right thing when an officer had told us to do the wrong thing. And, knowing myself, I figured I'd do the same thing again if it came down to it; which was why Gary had a future in the Army, and I didn't. At least he had a goal. The only thing I knew for sure was there was no way I was going to re-up into this Army.
"Shit, sounds good to me," Crater muttered. "Maybe things'd get done right for a change."
A grim silence followed that cheerless observation, and not even Wally seemed able to steer the conversation into something less depressing. Everybody fell silent for too long. When the phone beside my hand finally crackled to life again, I actually jumped.
"Hey, Barnes," Chuck said into my ear when I answered, "commander of the relief is coming around."
"Thanks."
That was part of our ritual. When the commander of the relief walked the perimeter to check on the towers, you warned the next guy down the line he was on the way.
Sergeant Pritchard was on tonight; he walked into view between the fences and I challenged him. He issued the countersign and I waved him on past; then, as Pritchard walked under my tower and headed on toward the next one in line, I picked up the phone and warned Crater. He acknowledged and I cradled the phone again.
And was startled stiff when gunshots rang out over toward Tower Five. I grabbed my rifle and checked the magazine as voices erupted over the phone.
"... Johnson, you stupid shit-for-brains moron!" Wally was snarling, which surprised the hell out of me. He never used that kind of language. "You shoot at Count Dracula again and I'll rip your balls off and beat you to death with them!"
Uh-oh.
"Be cool, Johnson"—that was Crater's voice—"it's just an owl. Put the rifle down. Pritchard's on his way over, you don't want to shoot him."
"Goddamn huge—no bird that big—" Johnson sounded terrified.
I grimaced. Maybe it wasn't so bad that Johnson couldn't shoot worth crap. More than one newbie had gone screaming into the night when our resident eagle owl swept down out of the dark on his five-foot wings. The Count hunted by our perimeter's lights; we'd sort of adopted him as a mascot. The largest owls in Europe, eagle owls had been extinct in Germany until recently, when the Frankfurt Zoological Society had helped sponsor a reintroduction program. Ours was one of those released into the wild, and it had been a big story in the local press.
We were all pretty proud of the bird, which we'd immediately dubbed Count Dracula; but Wally—well, hell, Wally thought of that bird as his personal friend, and had even looked up the local equivalent of the game warden to learn more about it, and find out how well it was adjusting to its new home. If Johnson shot his bird... hell, Wally just might kill him.
I'd be more than happy to help.
"Johnson!" I snapped into the phone. I heard a gulping wheeze on the other end and knew I had his attention. God alone knew he ought to listen to me by now. "It's a goddamn owl, Johnson; are you listening to me? An owl! And if you shoot it, every man on this shift will help Wally rip your brains out. I said, are you listening?" Another burbling sound indicated that he was. "Good. Pritchard is going to be coming around any second now. Have you put that rifle down yet?"
"Yes."
"Good. Don't shoot at shadows, Johnson. If you can't see what it is, call somebody else."
"All right, you made your point." His whining snarl was almost back to normal.
I gave him an inarticulate growl of disgust. Wally's voice was quiet when he spoke. "Thanks, Barnes."
I hoped I didn't sound as curt as I felt when I growled, "Sure, Wally. Any time." I probably had—nobody spoke to me for the thirty minutes it took to straighten out the mess with Johnson and do the stupid paperwork to log in the shots fired.
That suited me fine... at first.
Unfortunately, after the ruckus over the owl died down, nobody said much of anything to anyone else, either. The feeling in the air was wrong, somehow. More wrong than just bad tempers and low morale. There'd been no sound from the phone for over fifty minutes before I really noticed the change in the quality of the silence. It was almost as though the darkness were listening to us sweat. An uneasiness I couldn't define crept over me as I stood listening to my lungs in the bitter air.
The night was amazingly clear, full of stars and sharp shadows. Nothing stirred anywhere on the perimeter. Even the trees stood motionless, tall black spears stripped of their leaves. My watch dial read a quarter to midnight. For some reason, that observation worsened the tension I was feeling.
God, I was in a hell of a mood tonight.
A spurt of static startled me into glancing at the phone.
"Hey, uh, anybody out there?" Crater's voice crackled through static.
The silence held. I started to move toward the phone; then shrugged and turned back to the window. I didn't feel like talking; hadn't felt like it since yesterday's fight with Gary. Instead I wiped off more ice crystals, and let my gaze drift across the grass, down to the treeline.
Last summer we'd chased a couple of kids out of those woods. They'd been going at it pretty hot and heavy when we showed up. The boy had said something about a bet while they pulled their clothes on; then they'd disappeared without another word.
The woods had been quiet that night, too, but peaceful... . Hell, I didn't know what was wrong. It was probably just me, and my sulks had finally affected the rest of the guys. The silence in the tower grew in my ears until the skin on my back began to crawl. I rubbed both arms in an unsuccessful attempt to get the hairs to lie down flat. Finally I turned and tried my own luck.