“I don’t think so,” I said. “But everyone’s starting to look alike to me.”
Pop gave me an annoyed glance. “You sound like the Scout,” he said. He stepped away, moved quickly to the center Quonset, and slipped into its lean-to. I followed. Then he barged into the hut without knocking.
The Cutthroat was in a small open space in the center of the hut, surrounded by shelves packed with boxes and cans. He was sitting on the edge of a cot under a single lightbulb that hung from the ceiling, leaning over a battered coffeepot on a G.I. pocket stove. The smell was not only of coffee, but of old beef stew, seaweed, and mud. My still-knotted stomach lurched.
The Cutthroat looked up, and his slick dark hair gleamed. “You guys.” He didn’t sound surprised. “Did you bring my beers?”
Pop and I stepped farther inside, and I closed the door behind us. There were two folding stools set up on our side of the pocket stove.
“I’ll bring your beers tomorrow.” Pop went to the right-hand stool and sat down. “In the meantime, I want you to know that both the private and I are doing our best to live up to this morning’s agreements. For one thing, we haven’t mentioned your presence on Mount Moffett to anyone else.”
“I believe you,” the Cutthroat said.
“But we have a problem,” Pop continued. “So we may not be able to keep that confidence much longer. There’s a lieutenant colonel who’s trying to use that Navy man’s death to make our lives hell.”
The Cutthroat looked back down at his brew. “Yeah, I know.” He rubbed his right thigh. “Goddamn, my leg is hurting tonight. I better not climb any more mountains for a while.”
I sat down on the left-hand stool. The fumes from the stuff bubbling in the coffeepot were intense.
“What do you mean, you know?” I asked. “How could you know that?”
The Cutthroat glanced up at me. “Because I wasn’t sure I trusted you guys. So I followed you. You didn’t drive fast. I was outside the back wall of the newspaper hut when you got your asses chewed. I couldn’t hear it all, but I got most of it. He’s got it in for both of you. And I recognized his voice.”
Pop’s eyebrows rose. “That was quite stealthy of you.”
The Cutthroat snorted. “I’ve snuck up on Japs in machine gun nests, and they knew I was coming. Buncha desk soldiers who don’t expect me ain’t a challenge.”
“Nevertheless,” Pop said. “I respect a man who can shadow that well. Especially if I’m the one he’s shadowing.”
The Cutthroat reached to a shelf behind him and brought down three tin cups. “You guys want coffee before you start bothering me with more questions?”
“Is that what that is?” I asked.
The Cutthroat gave me a look almost as dark as he’d given me in the ulax. “You need to work on your fucking manners.”
Pop and I both accepted cups, and the Cutthroat poured thick, black liquid into both of them. It was something else that reminded me of what Pop had coughed up that morning.
Then the Cutthroat poured a cup for himself and set the pot back down on the pocket stove. He took a swig and smiled.
“That’s good,” he said. “This stuff will help you think better.”
Pop took a swig as well, and I took a tentative sip of mine. It didn’t taste as bad as it smelled, so I drank a little more. There was a hint of rotted undergrowth. But at least it was hot.
“Thank you,” Pop said. He took a long belt. “But now I’m going to bother you, as you suspected. How did you recognize the lieutenant colonel’s voice?”
The Cutthroat blew into his cup, and steam rose up around his face. “Because I’ve heard it before. On Attu, he was one of the shitheads who wouldn’t listen to our scouting reports. But he loved our colorful stories. Here on Adak, I’ve been bringing him and his officer pals booze and coffee while they play poker right here in this hut. And when they get good and drunk, they want me to tell more stories. Like I said, you people can’t get enough of that noble-savage crap.”
“Do those poker pals include a Navy commander?” Pop asked.
“I guess that’s what he is,” the Cutthroat said. “He and the lieutenant colonel set up yesterday’s boxing matches. They made a bet on the Army-Navy one.” He pointed at me. “The lieutenant colonel bet on this guy.”
“I know,” Pop said. “For a lot of money, correct?”
The Cutthroat scowled and took a long drink. “Maybe there were side bets for money. But the bet between the lieutenant colonel and the Navy officer was for something else. See, the Navy guy has friends and family in high places. Like fucking Congress. So if the Army boxer won, the commander promised to have these friends pull strings and help with a promotion.”
“What if the Navy man won?” Pop asked.
The Cutthroat grinned and shook his head. “Then the commander was going to have dinner with you, Corporal. That’s what the lieutenant colonel promised. You must be famous or rich or something. Gotta say, it seemed like a lopsided bet to me.”
Pop drained his cup and set it on the floor. He seemed to wobble on his stool as he did.
“Very lopsided indeed,” he said, “since I wouldn’t do a favor for the lieutenant colonel if my life depended on it.”
I had been sipping the hot coffee and listening, but now I spoke up. “What about the eagle?”
The Cutthroat fixed me with an even gaze. “I still don’t know about that. Not for sure. But nobody ever knows anything for sure. No matter who you ask, or what you find out, you’ll never know all of anything that’s already past.”
The single lightbulb began to flicker. My stomach knot had relaxed, but now I found myself feeling lightheaded. I knew I should have had some chow.
“So I’m giving you both the opportunity to know as much as the lieutenant colonel,” the Cutthroat said. “I told him the legend I told you. And once, he asked me about taking power from animals. I said I couldn’t really explain that, since I didn’t understand it myself. But if he were to take a spirit journey or have a vision, like some shamans do, he might have a chance to know all the secrets he wanted. He might die and be reborn. He might be torn apart and remade. He might meet his totem animal and be given its strength. He might gain whatever he desired. He might even see his entire life from his birth to his death.” The Cutthroat shrugged. “Or he might go crazy. Or he might just pass out and sleep it off. It all depends on the individual.”
The Cutthroat stood up from the cot, and he split into five men before me. “Here,” they all five said in harmony. They reached for Pop and grasped his forearms. “You take the cot. My mother got this recipe from the same people who told her the eagle story, and she always said that the most important part was to lie the fuck down. There’s some mushrooms and other shit in it, and you don’t want to know what I have to do to mix it right. But it hardly ever kills anyone.”
The five Cutthroats put Pop on the bunk, and Pop curled up on his side. He looked like a toy made out of olive-drab pipe cleaners with a cotton-swab head. I could see his eyes behind his glasses, and they were like hard-boiled eggs.
Now the Cutthroat condensed into one man again, and he reached for me.
“You’ll have to take the floor,” he said. “But you’re younger. It’s fair.”
As he grasped my wrist, I watched my tin coffee cup tumble from my numb fingers. It turned over and over, and brown droplets spun out and circled it. The cup turned into the sun.
The bright light was high above my eyes. I could see it between Pop’s fingers.