Blood Lines

52

›› Intensive Care Unit

›› Las Palmas Medical Center

›› El Paso, Texas

›› 0748 Hours (Central Time Zone)

“I’d met Victor Gant several times before,” Tyrel said. He focused on the ceiling and tried not to give in to all the pain and self-loathing that filled him. The medication circulating in his system helped keep him calm and quiet when all he wanted to do was get up and start running.

The biggest hurt was knowing Shel sat there, watching him and passing judgment on him. Tyrel had never wanted to face that.

“Tell me about the night Hinton died,” Shel said.

Tyrel listened to the calm professionalism in Shel’s voice. He’d never seen this side of his son. Over the years, he’d seen Shel hurt and mad, confused and restless, but he’d never known what it would be like to face his son as a potential enemy. Even the night they’d fought in the barn hadn’t felt like this. In the barn, they’d both been mad and scared and not really in control.

Shel was in control now.

Tyrel steeled himself to be just as strong, but it was hard. He was working from a weak position and they both knew it.

“It started at the cantina,” Tyrel said. “I went there to drink. It had gotten to be a habit. Not falling-down drunk. I hardly ever got falling-down drunk. I grew up around too many people where that was a way of life, and the pastor back at our church preached against the wickedness of whiskey.”

“You went to the cantina because Victor Gant was there?”

For a moment, Tyrel thought about just saying yes and being done with that part of the conversation. Except he knew that would be a lie. Here, in this moment, he needed to tell the truth.

“No, I went there to get drunk enough not to be afraid anymore.” Tyrel made himself not look at Shel. He’d never admitted to being afraid in front of either of his sons before. “I was tired of being afraid. I got up in the morning afraid. I went to bed afraid. I had nightmares from hell itself.” He paused and let out a breath. “And every waking moment between, I was afraid.”

The silence in the room was punctuated only by the undercurrent of voices outside the room and by the monitoring equipment.

“I’ve never been more afraid in my life. I got to tell you that. I couldn’t take drugs the way some others could. Couldn’t deny that death might happen to me the way some managed. So every now and again, I drank till I was numb enough to go to bed and get a decent night’s sleep.” Tyrel paused. “That’s what I’d planned that night.”

“But that’s not what happened?” Shel’s voice was gentle.

“No, sir,” Tyrel answered. “That’s not what happened. What happened was Victor Gant come up in the cantina and started carrying on the way he always did. There wasn’t another man I ever met that was like him. I swear to God on that.

“He come in from being out in the jungle for three weeks. Him and all his crew. Victor Gant bagged him two targets that were on the list the CIA had given the penetration teams. They’d killed other Charlie too. We knew ’cause they had the stink of death on them. And that stink was coming from the fingers and ears they’d chopped off men they’d killed to prove it.”

“They weren’t supposed to do that.”

Tyrel laughed bitterly. “That what they tell you in the Marines? Not to take trophies?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, they told them not to in the Army too. But those men did. They did it to show that they were different, that death couldn’t come for them so casual-like, the way it did for everybody else.” Tyrel paused, surprised at how easy it was to remember some parts of that night and how other parts had eluded him for forty years. “I was pretty tanked up by then. So I went over to Victor Gant and offered to buy him a drink.

“He took me up on it. And I was drunk enough to tell him I wanted to be like him. Fearless and more dangerous than Charlie ever thought about being. He just laughed at me and told me I wasn’t killer enough yet. He said it was gonna take me a while longer ’cause he could see that I hadn’t yet got a taste for it.” Tyrel stared at the ceiling. “Do you believe that, Shel? that some men just get them a taste for killing? a craving so strong they can’t turn away from it?”

“Yes, sir. I’ve seen it.”

“Like them serial killers you hear about?”

“And others.”

“What about servicemen? You hear about them getting a taste for it too?”

“Yes, sir.”

Tyrel hesitated, not knowing where he was going next. “You’ve killed a lot of men.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They teach you not to talk about it and not to dwell on it.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do you?”

Shel hesitated. Tyrel heard his son’s boot scrape across the floor.

“From time to time,” Shel said, “you can’t help but think about it.”

“Do you ever wish that it didn’t touch you? that the killings you were part of weren’t part of you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“It’s worse,” Tyrel said, “when you kill a man close-up. When you can taste his breath and feel the warmth of his blood on your face.”

Shel didn’t say anything.

That didn’t matter to Tyrel. He wasn’t in the hospital room anymore. He was back in that cantina.

›› Cantina

›› Qui Nhon, Vietnam

›› 2031 Hours

›› October 15, 1967

“I want to be like you,” Tyrel repeated, looking into Victor Gant’s cold, dead eyes. Tyrel knew he was drunk enough that he should keep his mouth shut. But he couldn’t, because if he did, the fear would get to him again. “Just like you.”

The cantina was hopping. Everybody had drawn pay and was spending part of it on hooch. And all of them had their eyes on Victor Gant and his team of hard cases.

“Careful what you wish for, Country,” Victor Gant said.

Getting called by that nickname still bothered Tyrel, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. He couldn’t remember when it had started or who had given it to him-one of the sergeants, he thought-but it had stuck like road tar.

“I’m serious,” Tyrel said. He knew he was standing too close to Victor, but he couldn’t help himself. With the rock-and-roll music blasting in the background, it was hard to hear anybody in the cantina.

“Outta the man’s face,” Fat Mike said. Grizzled and thickly muscled, he stepped between Tyrel and Victor, then put a hand on Tyrel’s chest and shoved just hard enough to back him off a couple steps.

Tyrel was embarrassed, but he knew he’d been in the wrong. Still, back home he’d have come back swinging on Fat Mike for touching him. Several of the soldiers and a few of the Kit Carson scouts were watching to see what developed. Tyrel had a reputation for fighting over slights and name-calling that most men simply ignored.

Gathering himself, Tyrel pulled himself up straight. “I apologize. Didn’t mean to offend. Let me buy you a drink.”

Victor stared hard at him with those dead eyes. “I don’t drink unless my men drink with me.”

Tyrel looked at all of them. “All right then.” He unbuttoned his shirt pocket and took out a twenty-dollar bill. He pushed aside a fleeting concern that he was going to be broke by the end of the night. “I’ll buy for all of y’all.”

A slow smile spread across Victor’s face. “Much obliged, Country,” he said in that drawl that told Tyrel he wasn’t far from small towns and backwoods himself. “You can even drink that beer with us.”

A few minutes later, they were all settled at one of the back tables. Tyrel thought that every man in the cantina was envious of him.

Although Victor didn’t talk much, Fat Mike and other members of his group kept the stories flying. Tyrel hadn’t been around much, but he knew he couldn’t believe everything that was being told. Still, if even half of it was true…

During a lull in the conversation, Dennis Hinton walked into the cantina.

Tyrel was a little surprised. Denny wasn’t one to go and hang out in the bars, and he sure stayed away from the women. Some said it was because of his raising, that his daddy was a preacher out of Alabama. There were others who said Denny preferred reefer to alcohol. Tyrel wasn’t sure who had the right of it, but he did know that Denny hadn’t ever come into the cantina with him.

“Denny,” Tyrel said, pushing up from the table. “Denny. Over here.”

Fat Mike snagged the front of Tyrel’s shirt and yanked him back down into his chair.

“That ain’t cool, man,” Fat Mike said. “If you’re gonna sit at this table, you’re gonna sit here by our rules. And one of them rules is that you don’t act like an idiot.”

“But that’s my friend,” Tyrel protested.

“Maybe you want to go be with your friend,” Fat Mike suggested.

Tyrel was debating on that. He’d bought the first round and two more besides. He really was going to be broke by the end of the night. He honestly didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to afford to sit in that chair.

“No,” Victor said in that quiet voice of his, “let it alone, Fat Mike. Let him invite his friend over if he wants.”

“But that-” At a glance from Victor, Fat Mike shut his mouth and sat there silently.

Victor shifted his attention to Tyrel. “Invite your friend over, Country. I’ll buy the next round.”

Tyrel stood again. “Hey, Denny. Come on over. Victor said he’s buyin’.”

Denny hesitated a moment, then walked over. One of the other men hooked a chair over with his foot. Denny sat, but he didn’t look comfortable.

Proud of himself and his new friends, Tyrel just grinned and ordered another beer when Victor offered.

›› Atwater Apartment Building

›› Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

›› 0911 Hours

“Why did Victor Gant want Dennis Hinton to sit with them?” Maggie asked.

Richard McGovern shook his head. “Lady, I didn’t know everything Victor was doin’ back then. How’m I supposed to know now?”

The man was lying. Maggie knew that with certainty. She couldn’t tell exactly what he was lying about, but she knew the deception was there all the same.

“We all thought it was a joke,” McGovern said. “Most of us knew Hinton didn’t drink. He had him a good dose of religion. That and a good attitude. The way he acted, you’d have thought he could walk on water.”

“Why do you say that?”

McGovern lit up another cigarette from the butt of his previous one. “To understand that, you’d have had to be there. You’d have had to be in that jungle, fighting Charlie. Everybody I knew that was over there was afraid.” He paused. “Except this kid Hinton.”

“He wasn’t afraid?”

“Nope. Not a day he was over there. Probably not the night Country shot him either.”

“Why?”

“The way I figured it, Hinton thought he had a direct connection to God himself. You could tell it too, the way he came over there and sat down in the middle of us. Like nothin’ and nobody could touch him.” McGovern shrugged. “Or maybe he just felt safe because Country was sitting there with us. Anyway, he sat down, looked us all in the eye, and ordered a soda pop. Like he was Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke or something.”

Maggie waited. The hardest part of conducting an interview was knowing when to be quiet and let silence make the person being interviewed talk.

“After we had a round or two,” McGovern said, “Victor suggested we go hunting. And that’s when things started to get real interesting.”