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. Would you mind if the girls in the band shared your room? I don't want any of the 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 the entertainers, but I wanted to let you know what was going on before we set them up."
"I'll help," I said. We walked back up to the quad in a tight little group, me, jake, and the crane ockeys with the Fillpina girls from the band and the Patsy Cline-clone singer mincing behind us in their toohigh heels 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, and graduate for the best part of five years, I automatically tended to make any unmade bed that crossed my path. Besides, it made me feel useful in a 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 head in the door, "Jake said to tell you relax. Looks like the girls may get to 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 company were entertaining the Filipinas and vice versa, through the dark part of the compound to a squatty water tower. We climbed a rickety wooden ladder and lay face down on the top of the tower. He lay beside me with one arm flung across my back. His fatigue shirt was damp with clean-smelling sweat mingled with the odor of rice starch, whiskey, and cigarette smoke. He hugged me closer so that his forearm braced us against 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 of gunfire sounded like distant fireworks, an effect heightened by the red streaks of tracers streaming into the air and bursting.
"Hear that?" he asked, and pretty soon I did: a chopper, from the rhythmic beat of the blades, but a very quiet one, as if the rotor had been 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 voice low and serious. The whole scene reminded me of when I was about eight years old and my cousins and I played combat in Army surplus helmets and belts underneath my Aunt Sadie's bridge. Except my cousins didn't smell or feel like Tony.
Tony swung his hand in an are. Following it, I saw the outline of the slim nose of the little chopper, hovering overhead like an airborne cat watching 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 of the gate with burst after burst. "Jesus Christ," I said, "all that for one little guy with a gun?" It seemed like using a tank for a flyswatter.
But the Filipinas were able to go home after all, which was great, since by the time we left the water tower I had other company in the guest room.
e was scheduled for surgery my first day back. The antibiotics had helped prevent the spread of infection in his stumps, but they still had to be debrided; that is, the dead tissue had to be removed so that the new could form a clean scar.
Of course, I had no idea who the old man was or how great his power had been until it was nearly gone, even though he had already shared it with me 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 my own role in that process. That would have been a fatal mistake, in more ways than one. As it was, the mistake we all made of treating Xe like an ordinary, slightly crazy old man is only embarrassing. And though I'm sure some of his anxiety was real, I wonder now if the old man wasn't having a secret laugh at our expense.
The fracas started when Voorhees began prepping Xe for surgery. Xe had permitted Voorhees to shave and bathe him and clean his nails without a problem. Xe had never been combative before, but I'd noticed when I did his dressings his eyes were always angry and troubled. Once I caught him watching me while I did Dang Thi That's wound irrigation, and his expression was unfathomably miscrable. Mostly, though, he had been withdrawn and almost sullen. I thought perhaps he was still suffering the hostile stage of brain healing I mentioned earlier. On the other hand, it was normal enough for anyone to be angry and confused on awakening from a head injury to find his legs missing.
He sometimes spoke briefly to Mai, their exchanges no more than a few careful words, as if they were trading eggs. When he was sleeping, he mumbled and clasped his hands to his chest. When he was awake, he stared at the wall or followed us with his eyes, though if we said something 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 got us 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 to be heavy rocket attacks or when it would be unsafe to go to downtown Da Nang.
But while Voorhees didn't treat Xe with any particular reverence, he had shaved and bathed the old man with his usual stolid gentleness and patience, as if he were grooming some prize piece of livestock for a 4-H
show. The trouble began when he tried to remove the pendant the old man wore.
Xe clutched his fists to his chest and glared defiantly at Voorhees, who turned 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's incessant crying. "They borrowed her in ICU," I said. Lucky her. She was as frustrated with babysan's nonstop wailing as the rest of us. The kid hadn't stopped crying, or thwarting efforts to get him to surgery, since he arrived. Mai had told me that morning that some of the Vietnamese 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 jewelry to O.R.," Voorhees said. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to fight him for it. 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 his narrow black eyes snapped from me to Voorhees and back again as if we were threatening him with torture and further dismemberment.