The Price of Blood

70

The march through the dunes took forever. They had to stop frequently. Artificial legs weren’t meant to go cross-country. Broker didn’t like it. The silence. Lola had been gagged again. Her two guards walled her off. Trin trod at the back of the tiny column with the rifle and the pistol.

“What the fuck’s going on with him?” whispered Nina.

“I don’t know. Are you strong enough to run if you have to?” asked Broker.

He could feel her wince in the dark. “That bad?” she said.

“It’s possible,” said Broker. He shifted the pack to ease the straps cutting into his shoulders.

The man hobbling behind them muttered something. Broker heard his machete blade zing casually against some brush. The sound made the tiny hairs alert on his neck. Under guard, along with Lola.

He wondered if Trin had decided to fuck a bunch of white people. Lure Cyrus in. And then dump all the hon-keys in one hole. Broker’s mind raced. Christ, he’s after Cyrus’s boat? He wants it all.

Paranoia gamboled from the stunted shadowy trees and brush and joined the line of march. They hobbled past familiar landmarks. The abandoned hamlet and then the Spartan ranks of North Vietnamese headstones. Not far ahead they heard the waves breaking on the sand.

Communication was now exclusively in Vietnamese.

Machetes and wickedly curved rice sickles very much in evidence, the vets indicated that they should stop and rest in the cover of the three old round graves on the bluff above the cove. The packs were opened and food and water were doled out.

Trin stayed aloof. Not speaking. A shadow in the moonlight, he’d handed off the rifle to one of the vets and kept the pistol handy.

“It’s down there?” asked Nina.

“About a hundred and fifty yards,” said Broker.

“Maybe we shouldn’t get spooked. It could work,” said Nina, speaking with her mouth full. They scooped rice and fish from banana leaves with greasy fingers and washed it down with bottled water. Fuel. Their eyes had totally adjusted to the dark. The moon cast the surrounding terrain in silver relief.

“If he puts the militia up here, they have a perfect field of fire down that beach.” Her voice was absent, practical.

“Yeah,” said Broker. “But will we be up on the bluff here or down on that beach when the shooting starts?” He focused on Trin’s shadow. He’d freed Lola’s hands. And returned her purse. Now they were walking together down to the beach.

The man with the rifle hobbled over to them and casually tapped the muzzle against Broker’s knee.

“Watch it,” said Broker.

“Yes,” said the man politely, his smile delineated in the moonlight. Then he chided them in Vietnamese, “Ngu. Ngu.” For emphasis, he transferred the rifle to one hand and reclined his cheek in the palm of the other. “Ngu.”

Broker nodded. Exhaustion took precedence over anxiety. “Whatever happens, we need some rest.”

As the man with the rifle stood guard or watch over them-or both-they squirmed, getting comfortable in the warm sand at the base of the old cement wall.

“How’re you making out?” he asked.

“I’m hurting some,” she said frankly, “and I still have those downers in my veins, but I can hack it.”

Anger snaked in his chest. “I’ve done everything…wrong,” he blurted.

“Shhh,” she said, touching her finger to his dry lips.

He threw his arm protectively around her and she curled into his chest. Physical necessity almost immediately plunged them into a deep sleep…

Beside a grave, on the pirate beach, in the graveyard of the iron elephants.