The colonel began to rise from his chair again.
“Goddamn slimy Red—” he began.
As quick as a snake striking, Pop reached into his right jacket pocket and came up with the bent eagle feather. He thrust it across the desk and held it less than an inch from the colonel’s nose.
“You,” Pop said. “Will not. Fuck. With us. Again.”
Then Pop reached down to the desk with his left and picked up the colonel’s garrison cap. He dropped it into the wastebasket.
The flames shot higher, and something inside the basket squealed.
The colonel’s mouth went slack. His eyes opened wide and stared at the fire without blinking. He looked like a wax statue. Or a corpse in rigor mortis.
Pop turned and put the feather back in his pocket. Then he gave me a glance and jerked his head toward the door. I turned and went out with him.
But Pop looked back toward the colonel one last time.
“By the way,” he said. “If you’ve ever thought about asking for a transfer, now would be an excellent time. I understand MacArthur wants to get back to the Philippines in the worst way. And I’m sure he could use the help.”
Then we went out. The fog was still thick, but we could see where we were going. Even this late in the day, there was a sun shining somewhere beyond the gray veil. It was summer in the Aleutians.
I looked back and saw that the ravens were gone.
The lights were burning bright in the windows at the Adakian hut when Pop and I came up the hill. They were shining down through the fog in golden beams. And as we drew closer, I could hear the clatter of typewriters and the steady murmur of voices. Pop’s staff was in there hard at work on the July 6 edition.
“I’m sorry your cartoonist has to draw his cartoon over again,” I said as we climbed the last dozen yards.
Pop coughed. “He was upset. But between you and me, it wasn’t his best work. I suspect he’ll do a better one now. Unfair losses can be inspirational.”
As we reached the entrance lean-to, a figure stepped out from behind it. It was the Cutthroat. Neither Pop nor I was startled.
“What took you guys so long?” the Cutthroat asked. “The colonel’s shack ain’t that far. I’ve been here five minutes already. Thought you might have died or something.”
Pop and I exchanged glances.
“You were listening outside again, weren’t you?” I asked.
He looked at me as if I were a moron. “What do you think? I wanted to know what you guys were gonna do. Which wasn’t what I expected, but I guess it was okay. Might’ve been better if you’d gone ahead and shot him.” He scratched his jaw. “You sure he’s gonna let you be? More important, is he gonna let me be?”
“I suspect he’ll have no choice,” Pop said. “You see, I’ve already asked my new Navy comrade to inquire with his high-placed friends regarding a transfer for the lieutenant colonel. So whether he asks for one or not, one will soon be suggested to him. Assuming he doesn’t find himself in Dutch before that happens. Because whenever the general returns, I may be having a conversation with him as well.”
The Cutthroat gave a snorting laugh. “You are one strange fucking excuse for a corporal.”
“That I am,” Pop said. “And you brew the goddamnedest cup of coffee I ever drank. Next time, I’ll make my own.”
But the Cutthroat was already heading down the boardwalk. “Leave my six beers outside my shed,” he called back. He glowed in the golden shafts of light from The Adakian for a few seconds, and then was gone.
Pop turned to me. “It was kind of you to walk back with me, Private. But unnecessary. I may seem like a frail old man. But despite my white hair and tuberculosis-ravaged lungs, I do manage to get around, don’t I?”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
“Jesus Christ,” Pop said. He pointed at me with his bottle of Johnnie Walker. “What did I tell you about ‘sir’ and enlisted men?”
I held out my hand. “Well, I’m sure as hell not going to salute you.”
He gave me a quick handshake. His grip was stronger than he looked.
“It’s been a long and overly interesting day, Private,” he said. “And I sincerely hope, you dumb Bohunk, that I only encounter you in passing from now on. No offense.”
“None taken.”
He turned to go inside. “Good night, Private.”
But I couldn’t let it go at that.
“That Navy boy is dead,” I blurted. “It was the colonel’s fault, and we’re letting him get away with it.”
Pop stopped just inside the lean-to. “Maybe so.” He looked back at me. “But sometimes the best you can do is wound your enemy . . . and then let him fly away.”
“Is that what happened?” I asked. “Is that what it meant when you showed him the feather?”
Pop rolled his eyes upward and grinned with those bad teeth.
“That didn’t mean a thing to me,” he said. “But it meant something to him.” He checked his wristwatch. “And now I really do have a newspaper to put out. Any more silly questions?”
There was one.
“How can you do that?” I asked.
Pop frowned. “How can I do what?”
All the way back from the colonel’s office, I had been struggling with the words in my head. I wasn’t good with words. And Pop already thought I was stupid. So I knew I wouldn’t say it right. But I had to try.
“How can you go back to what you did before?” I asked. “How can you do anything at all now that—” I closed my fist, as if I could grab what I wanted to say from the fog. “Now that you know what happens.”
Pop’s shoulders slumped, and his eyes drifted away from mine for a moment.
But only a moment.
Then his shoulders snapped up, and his eyes met mine again. They were fierce.
“Because I’m not dead yet,” he said. He turned away. “And neither are you.”
He opened the door with the words The Adakian stenciled on it. He raised the whiskey bottle, and a roar of voices greeted him. Then the door closed, and the long day was over.
I started back down the boardwalk. I thought I might go back to the bay and just watch the water all night. I’d probably get cold as hell without a coat, even in July. But as long as there wasn’t a williwaw, I’d survive.
In the morning, at chow, I would tell my squad leader that I was all his.
Epilogue
There was buzz for the next several days about the Navy murder, and I eventually heard that they arrested a seaman named Joe. But no one ever questioned me, and I never heard what they did with him. And I didn’t try to find out.
I saw the Cutthroat only once more, at a distance, just a few days after the fifth of July. He was boarding a ship at the dock in Sweeper Cove. It didn’t look like he was sneaking on. So I think he probably made it back to Fort Richardson and finished the war with the Alaska Scouts. But I don’t know.
The lieutenant colonel left Adak less than two weeks after that. I didn’t hear where he had been sent. But a few years after V-J Day, my curiosity got the better of me, and I made some inquiries. I learned that he had gone to the Philippines and had died at the outset of the Battle of Leyte in October 1944. A kamikaze had hit his ship, and he had burned to death. He never received his promotion.