Jungle Rules (45 page)

“Who killed Private Harold Rein?” the prosecutor then asked the witness.

“That man there,” Laddie Cross answered, pointing to Celestine Anderson.

“You saw him do it, correct?” Heyster asked.

“Yes, sir, I did,” Cross answered.

“What did you see Private Rein do before he was so brutally murdered?” Heyster asked.

“He just asked that guy there for a light,” Cross said, pointing at Celestine Anderson. “He just wanted him to light his cigarette. That guy hit Buster in the head with his hatchet, and killed him right there on the spot. They weren’t no fight. He just killed him when Buster stood there getting a light.”

“That it?” the judge asked Charlie Heyster.

The prosecutor nodded, and the colonel excused Leonard Cross from the stand.

“Sir, before the prosecution calls his next witness, the defense will stipulate that Private First Class Celestine Anderson did in fact kill Private Buster Rein by striking him in the head with his field ax,” Terry O’Connor said, standing behind the defense table. “The prosecution has listed seventy-six witnesses, and in the consideration of time and expedience, the defense will stipulate those matters of evidence.”

“Thank you, Captain O’Connor,” Colonel Swanson said as he took a brief that Staff Sergeant Pride handed to him, expressing in detail the stipulations. Then he handed a copy of the statement to the prosecution, who quietly read the document.

“Your Honor, the remainder of my witnesses simply support these stipulations; therefore, the prosecution rests its case,” Heyster said, and dropped the brief on a neatly laid pile of manila folders that Captain Philip Edward Bailey-Brown had tried to keep organized in several equally distant rows, but that Charlie Heyster kept scattering anytime he looked in one.

“Good,” the judge said, looking at his watch. “How about we quit early today, and get started with the defense arguments first thing tomorrow.”

Terry O’Connor stood and smiled as he watched the presiding judge leave, and the jury file out the door.

“You’re a motherfucker, O’Connor,” Heyster whispered to him as he stepped from the prosecution table. “That race shit will bite your client squarely in the ass come tomorrow. I hope you’re not thinking of putting him on the stand. I will rip him to shreds.”

“He’s leading off, Charlie.” O’Connor smiled and shrugged happily, and watched Major-Select Heyster stomp out of the courtroom.

Philip Edward Bailey-Brown finished stacking his manila folders back in a dark brown accordion file and tied it shut with the brown silk ribbons wrapped around the container. Tucking it under his left arm, above his briefcase, he walked to where Wayne Ebberhardt and Terry O’Connor busily put away their papers.

“Captain O’Connor, nice job,” the New England aristocrat said, and put out his right hand that the defense lawyer immediately took and shook.

“Thanks, Philip,” O’Connor said, surprised by the gesture from a man who until now had not said two words to him in the five months he had served in Vietnam.

“Tomorrow is another day, after all,” Bailey-Brown said, and smiled. “However, you are the first to ever get the shyster’s goat. The first I have seen. You beat him down to his bootstraps today, sir. My compliments.”

Chapter 12

THE MEASURE OF A FOOL

SILENCE AWAKENED HUONG Van Nguyen. He sat up in the pitch darkness from the mat where he had lain, covered by a thin wool blanket. Bao sat up, too. The sudden lack of sound outdoors had stirred him from his sleep as well. The elder Nguyen brother snapped his fingers for the dog to come to him, but Turd had long since gone from the thatched-roof house, following Mau Mau Harris as he had slipped away while the two cowboys slept.

The American tried to make the motley pooch go back to the farm, but the rotten cur would have none of it. He chose James Harris the day he met him in Dogpatch, and he stubbornly stuck by his friend. While the mutt liked Huong well enough, he devoted himself to Harris. The black man could not make the animal return to the dwelling without risking that the noise he made urging the mongrel to stay home would awaken his two Vietnamese cohorts. So with a shrug, he allowed the pet to tag along.

Mau Mau knew that if he had awakened Huong, and the cowboy saw him trying to slip out, he might put a bullet in his head. On the other hand, if he returned from his mission holding an ear or finger along with James Elmore’s gold front tooth, proof that he had killed the traitor, Huong might very well scold him for his disobedience, but would likely congratulate him, too, for his success in exacting revenge.

With Turd sniffing the ground close at his heels, James Harris had sneaked out of the farmhouse, down the two steps to the bare-earth front yard, and slipped into the forest. However, as he stepped through the tall grass and into the trees, the incessant, loud croaking and buzzing of the thousands of frogs that lurked there went silent, spooked by his motion. The sudden quietness made the Marine deserter jump. He knew that as lightly as Huong slept, he might notice the change in the night sound and awaken. Anxiety sent Harris running, with Turd loping at his side.

After awakening and finding the dog and his master missing, Huong walked outside, leaned against one of the front porch’s four support columns, and lit a cigarette.

“He’s gone after that rat Elmo,” Bao said in Vietnamese to his brother, spitting as he said the traitor James Elmore’s name, and then lighting a cigarette. “Will you try to stop him?”

“What do you think?” Huong asked, looking at Bao.

“I say let the fool go,” Bao said, blowing out a breath of smoke. “Maybe he can kill Elmo.”

Both men stood on the front porch, saying nothing and thinking as they looked into the morning darkness and listened as the voices of the frogs slowly returned.

“I think maybe the Marines that patrol the fences at Chu Lai may very likely kill our foolish friend,” Huong said, clenching his cigarette in his lips as he spoke to his brother in their native language. “If Mau Mau remains lucky, though, the Americans may only capture him. That troubles me. I worry that he may talk of our plans and our money.”

“Then we should go after him,” Bao said, flicking his spent butt onto the ground in front of the two steps that led onto the wooden porch where he stood by his older brother.

“We have no hurry,” Huong said, and flicked his cigarette onto the barren yard, too. “I know where he is going. He told us yesterday, you may recall. Even if he runs the entire distance it will take him several hours to travel forty kilometers. We can drive near that place in thirty minutes, and maybe get a shot at the fool before the guards capture him. For now, I think I would like to drink some tea and eat a nice breakfast. It will take us a good while to drive to Saigon, once we finish our business here.”

Nearly an hour had passed before James Harris ever slowed his fast jog to a more comfortable shuffle. The sense that Huong may pursue him only moments away left his anxiety level high.

Finally the Chicago native stopped to catch his breath, and took several short chugs from a flat, round canteen of water that he had filled from the farm’s well and had thrown across his shoulder after he found it in the tool shack that morning. As he left the house, he had sneaked into the shed to retrieve a bolo knife with a foot-long inwardly curved blade that he had spotted several days earlier. When he had first examined the razor-sharp weapon, he considered that with one deft whack he could lob off James Elmore’s head with it. So as he departed that morning, he grabbed the canteen along with the knife and slipped it through his belt opposite the .45-caliber Colt pistol he had hanging on his other hip.

While in the shed, Harris had noticed a dusty, oil-stained, olive green tarpaulin covering what he had thought were only machine parts and other junk belonging to a dilapidated mechanical rice thrasher that sat next to the pile. At first he started not to look under the canvas, but then he thought that Huong’s Viet Cong relatives who lived there might have hidden some worthwhile weaponry there, too. As he folded back the cover he found a grit-caked gallon can of thirty-weight motor oil and a large wooden box filled with greasy parts to the thrashing machine. Next to them, however, he also discovered two dusty cases of sixty-millimeter mortar rounds and a wooden box with half a dozen dirt-covered fragmentation hand grenades nestled on a heap of corroded .30-caliber rifle rounds, their dingy brass casings turned green with age. Mau Mau had smiled as he grabbed one of the fist-size green bomblets and dropped it in the cargo pocket on the right leg of his utility trousers.

“Why you always on my ass?” Harris whispered to the dog as he knelt on the narrow trail that he followed south toward Chu Lai, and poured water in his cupped hand for the mutt to drink. Turd lapped the liquid with great thirst, and then shook a shower of slobber onto Mau Mau’s face.

“Damn, you dumb motherfucker,” the deserter said, wiping the splatter off his brow and cheeks with his upper sleeve and shoulder. “That’s some nasty shit, Turd.”

Screwing the lid back on the canteen, James Harris let it drop again to the rear part of his hip, where it rode suspended by its green webbed-canvas shoulder strap. Then he gave the bolo knife a tug to make sure it still held tight beneath his belt, patted the hand grenade in his cargo pocket, and set off jogging again as the new day’s gray light began to show color and expose form where moments earlier shadows and blackness had surrounded him. Ahead, he could now see a greater distance of the trail he followed.

While he ran, he tried not to think of the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese patrols that haunted this stretch of countryside north of Chu Lai. Would they shoot a lone American deserter and his dog should he cross the kill zone of their ambush? Why waste all that on one man and a mutt? He considered the logic and pressed onward, gambling his safety on his Chicago street instincts and Turd’s innate sense of avoiding danger.

 
“FOR THE RECORD, please state your name,” Terry O’Connor said, standing behind the lectern between the defense and prosecution tables in the courtroom.

“Lance Corporal Wendell Carter,” the witness recited, speaking with a clear voice, just as the defense lawyer had instructed him to do.

“I see that you have recently been promoted from private first class to lance corporal. Congratulations,” O’Connor said, smiling at his leadoff witness.

“Yes, sir, thank you,” Carter answered, and beamed a smile, too. “My squadron CO pinned it on me the day before yesterday.”

“How long have you been on legal hold, Lance Corporal Carter?” O’Connor asked, stepping from behind the lectern to allow a barrier-free discourse of conversation to develop between him and the star defense witness.

“Three months now, sir,” Carter answered, and frowned.

“You miss your family, too, don’t you?” O’Connor asked.

“Oh, sir, I miss them real bad,” Carter said, shaking his head. “My mama, she pray for me every day, and just about everyone else I know in Houston, too. They all wanting me home.”

“So these three months on legal hold have taken their toll,” O’Connor said, shaking his head, too.

“I want to go home, sir, but I keep my attitude squared away. You know, I do what I got to do,” Carter said, and nodded at the captain to put emphasis to his words.

“It’s easy to let go and have your attitude slide downhill at times like this, isn’t it,” O’Connor said, nodding, too.

“Well, sir, my mama taught me to do my best, always, and let the good Lord sort out the difficulties,” Carter said and smiled.

“You got yourself promoted, even on legal hold,” O’Connor said, and walked back to the defense table and picked up his notepad, glancing at the top page. “Says here that your proficiency and conduct marks are 4.7 and 4.9 out of a possible 5.0, so you’re a pretty good Marine.”

“Sir, I pride myself at being a good Marine,” Carter said, puffing out his chest.

“I think if the prosecution wanted to investigate your record they would only find exemplary conduct, would they not?” O’Connor said, laying his legal pad back on the table. Then he walked back to the witness stand and put his hands on the rail surrounding the plywood platform.

“How many security patrols have you gone on during your tour?” O’Connor asked, and turned toward the jury as he spoke.

“More than I care to count, sir,” Carter answered, his eyes following the captain as he now stepped so that the witness’s face looked at the six men seated in the side gallery deciding the case.

“One a month?” O’Connor asked, crossing his arms.

“No, sir, more like five, sometimes six a month,” Carter answered.

“These patrols last how long?” O’Connor asked, holding the witness’s face toward the jury.

“Mostly overnight, but sometimes we get tagged with patrols that stay out for a week,” Carter said.

“You stand fire watch and guard duty, too?” O’Connor asked, now leaning his hand on the rail that surrounded the jury box.