Even the relative safety of the dry hut held no allure. She wanted to run from the village and she struggled to control that compulsion.
Bower pulled off her hat, allowing the rain to wash over her hair and face. Sitting there in a puddle, tears rolled down her cheeks. She wasn’t sure why she was crying, and she doubted anyone would have noticed in the rain, but still she cried. Perhaps it was the release of tension brought on by the storm, but Bower felt silly, and that made her cry even more. She felt small, insignificant, helpless as the storm raged around her.
The rain eased a little, allowing the sound of the battle to reach her ears. She turned instinctively at the roar of an engine and saw the rebel truck bounding up the muddy track. Flashes of light burst from the open flatbed. Ppfts and zings raced past her, but in the confusion she was powerless to do anything other than watch.
The truck lurched toward her, bouncing out of a rut and careening up the embankment towards the village. Dirt and mud flew through the air, being dislodged by the truck’s bumper as it caught the soggy ground. Bower found herself sprayed with mud as the truck slammed into the low stone wall and came to a thundering halt.
The door to the cabin of the truck swung open. A rebel slumped to the ground, dead. His body landed in the puddle on the other side of the low wall.
Bower jumped at the nightmare unfolding before her, her body repulsed by the shadow of death looming over the village.
A bloody arm hung down off the back of the flatbed truck.
Bower watched as the arm twitched.
Slowly, the wounded rebel on the back of the truck got to his feet. He staggered against the cabin, using it for support as he stood on the wooden deck. Through the sound of the rain, Bower could hear him swearing, cursing some African god.
Their eyes met.
Neither the darkness nor the rain hid her from his gaze. He saw her crouching there beside the stone wall, paralyzed with fear. His eyes widened. Smiling, he grabbed an AK-47 from where it lay on the deck of the truck.
A flash of lightning illuminated the village, turning the night into day for the briefest of moments.
Bower watched in horror as the rebel brought his rifle to bear, pulling back on the bolt to load a round into the chamber.
The crack of thunder shook the earth as the rebel’s chest exploded, a bullet tearing through the muscle, sinew and bones, coming from somewhere behind him. The rebel fell into the darkness, disappearing from sight. Demons moved around her, dark specters sinking back into the night.
Her heart raced. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. She looked around and as suddenly as it had come the violence was replaced with the soft patter of rain.
Bower stood there in the drizzle.
She shouldn’t have stood. She wasn’t even sure when she’d stood up, but somehow she was standing there by the low, stone wall. Something told her to stay down, and yet terror seized her muscles, refusing to let her crouch close to the earth.
Someone was screaming, a woman. The pitch of the woman’s voice was unearthly, piercing the night, a banshee howling with the wind. Bower felt a sense of dread washing over her, an expectation of the worst, that she would die here in Africa.
A hand grabbed her shoulder and she jumped.
“Hey, it’s OK,” said Kowalski. “It’s me. Come with me.”
And Kowalski led her away into the hut. It was only then that Bower realized she’d been the one screaming.
Chapter 04: Las Vegas
Bower didn’t know what time it was when she woke, but the sun was rising in the sky, creeping across the mud floor of the hut. She was lying on a blanket, with a rolled-up jacket as a pillow. The ground beneath her felt uncomfortably hard.
The hut was empty. Bower could hear Kowalski outside talking with one of the patients. Her neck was sore. She sat up, feeling stiff.
“The axle’s fucked,” yelled one of the soldiers. “Goddamn it, Bosco, can’t you do anything right. You fuck up the radio, you fuck up our transport. What is it, man? Are you determined to bury us in Africa? Those nice rebels deliver us a perfectly good truck and you shoot it to shit.”
Several other soldiers laughed, making fun of Bosco.
Bower staggered to the door of the mud hut and saw Smithy examining the truck that had crashed into the wall the night before. The front wheels had ridden up over the crushed stone wall, dropping the chassis down onto the rocks and breaking the front axle. Hydraulic fluid mixed with oil as it seeped out on the ground. Already, the sun had dried the puddles of water lying around the village. Cracks formed in the hardening mud.
“Hey,” Kowalski said, coming over to her and offering to help her walk to where Jameson was sitting on the remains of the wall.
“What the hell happened to me?”
“You were shaking, mumbling. Your eyes were dilated.”
Bower was silent, she knew what he wasn’t saying, ‘You were in shock.’
Kowalski handed her a water canteen.
“I gave you a sedative.”
“You gave me a headache.”
“That too. I thought it was best to let you sleep.”
“Good morning, Sunshine,” Jameson said as Bower wandered past. It must have been somewhere between ten and eleven judging from the angle and heat of the sun.
Bower was in no mood for small talk. She splashed water on her face, running her hands up through her hair, feeling a matted tangle on one side. She tried not to think about what she looked like, knowing she must look a mess.
“Sleep well?” Jameson asked.
“My head feels like someone’s been hitting it with a jack-hammer. I have a hangover without touching a drop of wine. Is there any fate worse?”
Bower squinted, noticing her backpack sitting on the grass beside the soldier’s gear. After rummaging through her pack she found a pair of sunglasses and a hat.
“Oh, that is so much better,” she mumbled.
Stretching her back, she looked around at her patients. One of the nurses had cooked up some maize and was dishing out bowls to the patients. They were merrily chatting with each other. Kowalski went back to examining the premature baby, listening to its heartbeat and respiration with a stethoscope.
“Did I miss something?” Bower asked, sitting beside Jameson.
The bodies were gone. There was no blood. If it weren’t for the holes where bullets had punctured the thin sheet metal on the side of the truck, she’d never have known there had been a firefight the night before. Villagers crashed trucks all the time, normally not this badly, but it was a common sight. This could have been any other day.
“We routed the enemy around 0100.” Jameson was clinical in his description of what had happened the night before. “Fourteen combatants neutralized. We estimate the rebel strength at no more than forty.”
“Was anyone hurt?” As the words left her lips she realized the assumption in her question, that it was only US troops that could feel pain. The enemy was depersonalized, as though they felt no more pain than a cow being led to slaughter. And yet she didn’t correct herself. He had to know what she meant. He had to agree.
“We came through the fight with little more than scratches. Bosco’s radio, though, didn’t fare as well. It took some shrapnel from a fragmentation grenade.”
Elvis was rummaging around under the hood of the rebel truck. Although Bower had seen him running wires back to the flatbed trailer, it never occurred to her to ask what he was doing. She assumed he was doing something to help Smithy, who had brought the other truck over and was trying to salvage parts.
Elvis stood on the back of the damaged truck holding a microphone. A cable led down to an old metal speaker, the kind used on military parade grounds.
“Bright lit city,” resounded from the speaker. Bower was surprised by the resonance in his voice. Singing a cappella, without any accompaniment, Elvis sounded surprisingly good. His voice had a natural vibrato, wavering softly as he sang the Elvis Presley classic, Viva Las Vegas.