Silver Stallion (25 page)

“Let's go home, Chandol,” Kijun said. “Looks like he's gone crazy. He may really shoot us.”

“Shoot us? You wouldn't dare, would you? Give me that pistol back if you don't want to be hurt really bad.”

“No, you're not going to hurt me. Not ever again. I will keep this pistol and use it, too, when I have to. I have enough gunpowder and cartridge shells to kill both of you.”

“Hand over the gun, I said.”

“Stay away. Don't come closer!”

“Give me that pistol.”

“Don't come closer!”

“You wouldn't fight me, would you?”

“Stay away!”

“Are you really going to fight me?”

Mansik pulled the trigger.

•   •   •   •

Mike and Fist Nose had come early in the evening, bringing strong Yankee liquor and juicy boiled meat for an advance Christmas party because they knew Camp Omaha would not remain on the islet until the holiday. A little while after the soldiers had gone into their rooms with Ollye and Sister Serpent, they heard the pistol shot. Fist Nose instantly stopped, and sprang to his feet. He snatched his helmet and underwear from the nail on the wall and dashed out to the hall to grab his carbine. Pulling on his shirt and shorts he charged out of the house and saw two dark figures fleeing toward the log bridge.

Sergeant Mike, still quite drunk, stumbled out of the other room with nothing on his naked body except the dog tag dangling on his hairy chest. He seemed to suddenly turn sober when he saw Fist Nose charge out of the Club with his rifle. He went back to the room and hastily put on his fatigues. He could not find his helmet anywhere and went out to the hall to get his rifle. In the confusion Ollye was still calm enough to gather her soldier's trousers and boots and hand them to Mike, saying, “Hubba-hubba, hubba-hubba.” What she meant to say was that she wanted Mike to promptly take these things to Fist Nose, who was out in the snow barefoot with nothing on below the waist but his shorts.

When Sergeant Mike went out, Fist Nose was firing warning shots in the air. The rifle shots rang out against the silent sky and echoed somewhere in the distance. Yelling “Halt! Halt!” in
Migook
language, Fist Nose kept firing. The two fleeing persons apparently did not understand English, but one of them suddenly stopped in the middle of a rice paddy, raising his hands high, frightened by the rifle shots. Waving his hands wildly to show the soldier that he was surrendering, he shouted, “Help! Help! A
bengko
is shooting at me! A
bengko
is trying to kill me! Help!” The other one continued to run and vanished down the bank of the stream. When they heard Kijun shout for help, the soldiers realized the two fleeing persons were mere boys.

When Sergeant Mike handed the trousers and boots over to him, Fist Nose leaned his rifle on the wall of the Club and hurriedly put them on. Mike glanced over at the boy in the paddy, blubbering, with his hands high in the air. Then he began to run toward him.

Lights went on here and there in Hyonam, Kumsan and Castle villages, as the villagers woke up startled by the gunshots. Light also went on in the Paulownia House and the papered door opened. Old Hwang leaned out and looked around the village to see what was going on.

By the time Ollye and Yonghi dressed hastily and came outside, Fist Nose, shivering in the cold, was about to go back to get his field jacket when Mike, who was going after Kijun, found someone lying in the snow. He urgently beckoned the two women over.

“Your son Mansik!” Mike shouted. “Your son is here! He's hurt bad!”

Then he rushed across the rice paddies to grab Jun. Ollye, startled to hear her son's name, ran to him. Mansik was groaning painfully, and screaming briefly, jerkily.

“Mansik!” Ollye shrieked. “Mansik! What are you doing here? What happened? Mansik! Mansik! Who did this to you?” Embracing her son in a confused panic, she saw his right hand was mangled and bloody. “You're bleeding, Mansik. You're bleeding! What happened? What happened to your hand?”

Mansik kept groaning and weeping. Ollye lifted his hand and examined it by the moonlight. Mansik screamed again. He had only three fingers left. She felt his fingers one by one to make sure. There was no doubt; the index and the middle fingers were completely gone.

“What happened to your hand, Mansik? Where are your fingers? What happened?”

Fist Nose came out of the Club again and hurried over to take a look at the boy.

“Zippo!” Ollye asked him urgently. “Zippo! Give Zippo me! I wanna see hand my son.”

Fist Nose fished the lighter out of his pocket. Either because her hands were trembling too much or because they were slippery with blood, she had to try five or six times until the lighter finally worked. She looked around for Mansik's lost fingers, holding the lighter over her head, but there were nothing but bloodstains in the snow. Fist Nose also searched around with his flashlight. He found a broken pistol on the ground nearby. He showed the crude handmade weapon to Ollye and she saw the pipe, bent from the explosion.

Mike came back dragging Kijun by the collar. When he saw Mansik's mother, the boy burst out with incoherent apologies and babbling excuses. “Honest, Mansik's mother, I was not watching alone. Chandol was with me, I swear, and it's Chandol who suggested coming here in the first place. I just came because he told me to come with him. And I never watched the real thing. I wouldn't have come to watch if Chandol hadn't told me to.”

“What are you talking about?” Ollye said, puzzled. “What did you watch, anyway?”

Fist Nose examined the pistol and put it in his pocket. He checked Mansik's bloody hand and called Yonghi to tell her something very fast.

“It was all Chandol's idea,” Jun went on. “I just followed him here, not knowing what he had in mind.”

“Fist Nose says to take Mansik immediately to Cucumber Island and show his hand to the medic at the camp. Mansik needs emergency treatment, he says,” Yonghi told Ollye.

Fist Nose slung Mansik over his shoulder and hurried down the bank to the frozen river.

“What did you watch?” Ollye asked suspiciously.

“You must go with the sarging, Sis. Hurry! You can talk to that fat boy later. Mansik is bleeding seriously. Come on. I said, hurry!”

“All right, Jun, you go home and wait for me. I want to talk to you when I come back.”

“I swear, Mansik's mother, I haven't done anything wrong! I haven't watched anything.”

“Hurry, Sis! The sargings are waiting!”

•   •   •

They went straight to Camp Omaha. Fist Nose and Mike explained to the MP guarding the main gate, showing him Mansik's bleeding hand. The MP called someone on the telephone and had a long discussion. Then he said something to Mike, shaking his head. Yonghi explained to Ollye that the two sergeants were trying to get emergency treatment for Mansik at the camp clinic but the MP would not let them pass.

“I think we should go to the town, Sis. The MP says no Korean civilian is permitted to enter the camp because of reports that some Communist guerrillas have infiltrated town.”

Mike said, “I'm sorry,” and disappeared into the camp, but Fist Nose, carrying Mansik on his back, went to Chunchon with the two women. Mansik's hand was wrapped completely in towels and clothes but blood still flowed from it, soaking the soldier's chest. Mansik did not groan any longer, but he wept on and off.

“Tell me what happened, Mansik,” Ollye asked again as they crossed the bridge to the town. “Why was your hand injured? What did Kijun and Chandol come to watch? Did you have some trouble with them?”

Ollye kept asking the same questions over and over again but Mansik would not give any answers.

The doctor Yonghi took them to was none other than the gloating bespectacled man who specialized in curing the shameful diseases of the Texas Town girls. The fat doctor came out to meet them, frightened by the loud noise as the
bengko
soldier pounded the door fiercely with the stock of his rifle. When he saw the boy's hand, the doctor was infuriated; his sleep had been disturbed for nothing. “I don't handle this kind of patient,” he said impatiently to Yonghi. “You know perfectly well what I handle, don't you!”

“But no other doctor is available,” Yonghi said. “You're the only one who hasn't fled south yet.”

“I am leaving here first thing in the morning,” he said. “So, why don't you go to a horse doctor?”

Reluctantly, the doctor started dressing Mansik's hand, apparently intimidated by the ferocious frown of the armed
bengko.
The bloody stubs of the torn fingers looked more gruesome in the bright electric light. Terrified at the sight of his own destroyed hand, Mansik started to cry louder. Ollye's heart burned with rage.

“Tell me, Mansik, who did this to you? Why did this happen to your fingers?”

Shocked by the gory sight of his ruined hand, Mansik finally began to talk in snatches between sobs, “I wanted to kill that son of a bitch Chandol and I shot him. I shot him with the pistol because I wanted to kill him.”

“Go on, tell me.”

“I think the pistol was jammed. There was an explosion. The whole thing blew up in my hand.”

“You mean the pistol burst in your hand? How come?”

“I don't know. It just happened.”

“Why did you want to shoot and kill Chandol, anyway? What did he do wrong?” Ollye asked. “Kijun said he had come to the Club with Chandol to watch something. What is he talking about? Mansik, don't faint! Pull yourself together and tell me everything!”

Ollye kept quiet while the V.D. doctor was adjusting the sling for Mansik. She kept quiet while they were crossing the frozen river, Fist Nose carrying the boy on his back. Back at the Chestnut House, she kept quiet for a long time after the Yankee had returned to Camp Omaha, brooding and watching her son who tossed in his bed and groaned intermittently in his troubled sleep. Then she said to Yonghi in a very calm and collected voice, “Please stay here with Mansik tonight and look after him if he wakes up in pain. I have to go to see someone.”

“You want to talk to that fat boy the
bengkos
caught at the Club?” Yonghi said.

“No,” Ollye said. “I want to talk to the other boy.”

“Why don't you see him in the morning? You already know the whole story now.”

“I can't wait till morning.”

When Ollye came outside, she saw the windows of the rice mill glowing with lamplight. She vaguely guessed that Kangho's family were still awake. She passed two more huts with glowing windows on her way to Chandol's house.

Ollye took a deep breath to compose herself at the gate and called out, “Chandol!”

There was no answer. When she called twice more, Chandol's mother asked, “Who is it?”

“It's me. Mansik's mother.”

Somebody else, Chandol's father, grumbled in an annoyed voice, “What is that woman doing out there?”

“You get back to sleep, dear. I'll go out and see what's up this time.”

It took a very long time for Chandol's mother to get dressed. Finally the door opened. She came out to the gate in her thick shabby sweater. She said, “Glad to see you.”

This was a rather awkward greeting on the occasion of this strange, unexpected reunion of the two women, but neither minded such trivial deviations from decorum.

“Well, I guess. …,” Ollye mumbled.

“I heard some noise and gunshots coming from—your shop over there,” Chandol's mother went on. “Some of us went to the snake hunter's house to find out what was going on, but nobody was there when we got there. Was there anything up?”

“Nothing serious,” said Ollye, peering into the house over Chandol's mother's shoulder. “By the way, is your boy in?”

“Of course he is. He's asleep in his room. Why?”

“I just wanted to make sure,” said Ollye. “Was he home when you heard the shots?”

“Why do you ask me these questions?” Chandol's mother said, offended.

“Because I have a good reason to. And I want you to wake him up. I have to talk to your boy.”

“Why do you want to see him at this hour?”

“Just let me talk to him. I want to ask him some questions.”

“Can't you come back again in the morning?”

“No. I can't wait.”

“I see,” Chandol's mother said, hesitating. “Wait here.” She went over to her son's room. She opened the door and fumbled in the darkness. “Chandol. Wake up, Chandol. Wake up.” She shook the boy.

“Uh? Who is this?” Chandol said in an extremely sleepy voice. “What's up, Mom?”

“Wake up and come out to the gate. Mansik's mother came to see you.”

“Who came to see me?”

“Mansik's mother.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. Get dressed and come out.”

“Okay, Mother.”

Chandol also took an unbelievably long time to get dressed and come out to the gate with his mother. “What do you want?” he said in a displeased tone, looking up at her belligerently.

“I have something to ask you,” Ollye said and then added, glancing at the boy's mother, “privately.”

Chandol looked back at his mother, hoping she would stay, but she did not notice the faint plea for help in his eyes.

“Whatever business you have with my son, don't take too much time. Young boys need their sleep.”

Chandol's mother went back to her room and Ollye took the boy to the alder tree grove by the road a little distance away from the house.

“Why did you fight with Mansik tonight?” she asked.

The boy glanced up at Ollye and said casually, “Fight with Mansik? What are you talking about?”

Ollye was dumbfounded by the boy's outright denial. She was speechless for a moment, wondering how to handle this boy.

“Mansik said he had fought with you.”