Death Chants (11 page)

A sudden burst of
flak from the ground caused Howton to veer sharply to the right. "Big unfriendlies with nasty
stuff!" said Howton. "We're going up and away."

He turned to me
with an apologetic grin. "Sorry about your prisoner. Guess he did in your eagle, too. I said you
can't trust the—"

He stopped talking
when he realized I had been hit.

I could feel blood
running down my neck. I didn't feel any pain, just a great coldness from my shoulders on
down.

"Oh, Christ! Doctor
Death, we got a casualty up here! The Chief picked up a package!"

"Head for home,
Hownow! We got us a blown gig for damn sure!" cursed Doctor Death, leaning out the bay door, his
heavy machine gun spitting angry death at the jungle below.

Howton increased
the chopper's speed as he spun in a wide turn, heading back for base.

Howton spoke into
the radio. "This is Nine Nine Four on the
lookseek
run. We've got one
dead VC and Mystery Guest wounded. We must abort. Requesting medical assistance."

"How bad Mystery
Guest?" I heard the radio immediately reply. It was the voice of General W. himself. I motioned
weakly with my hand at Howton, but he didn't see me. I wanted to tell the general something but
my mouth couldn't form the words.

"Very bad," said
Howton, staring at me. "Head wounds at the base of the skull. Don't know if he'll make
it."

"Get back as quick
as you can," said the general. "And I'll want a full report of just how this thing got screwed
up. You did
your best, men, considering
the assignment," said the general, signing off.

"I expected you to
get your ears pasted back," said Doctor Death. "The Man sounds like he's glad the whole thing
went into the toilet!"

I was beginning to
lose consciousness. I knew I was dying. "Tell the general we can't ..." I couldn't get the words
out. Seemed so tired, so cold.

"Take it easy,"
said Howton. "We'll be home soon."

"No," I said and
the pain began and almost obliterated me. "War . . . can't win . . . white men ... in wrong
Viet­nam . . ."

I died in the
cockpit of the UH- 1D. At the moment of death, in the village on the mountain which the white man
could not see, the women ground up my bones and flesh in a stone bowl.

The old man, the
World Knower, came to sit beside the statue of the Great Death Cat. When the women had finished
their task, they brought the stone bowl to him and he offered some of it to the Great
Cat.

Then the people of
the village came with bowls of food, and in each bowl, he put a small ancestral piece of
me.

They ate of me and
I became one with their children to be, one with the children that would live on in that world
long after the white man was gone.

In a vision, in a
rapidly moving helicopter, somewhere above a Vietnam the white man couldn't see, a Great Eagle
died in the unsensed jaws of a Great Cat. 

Wind River died in
a white man's prison in 1897. His wife died of starvation waiting to receive the bones of the man
she had loved. His bones were lost in a mass grave.

She was buried
somewhere, exactly where no one knew. It too had become no longer important.

Their only daughter
lived outside Fort Kearny, drank a lot with the white soldiers and was dying slowly of bad
whiskey and tuberculosis.

The only thing left
of the old days was Wind River's war-horse. His daughter vaguely remembered she had the horse,
watered it when she remembered. Mostly it was turned out to graze and she forgot it was
around.

The horse had no
name. He was simply Wind River's horse.

And he was
dying.

He had fallen
sick.

Because he had been
a great war-horse, the remaining survi­vors of the tribe said it would be bad medicine to kill
him, even though his hide would make fine leather and he would be very good in the eating
pot.

But honor was
honor. They would not kill him. They were hungry always, but they did not think bad thoughts
about the horse or blame him for taking too long to die.

No one came to
stroke his head or comb his long mane; no children leaned against his sides, dreaming of the days
when they might sit astride a great wind with four legs.

Only the vultures,
black and ugly creatures with dark hearts the color of their feathers, kept him
company.

Sometimes the dogs
of the village came to see him, dogs he had joined in great hunts long ago, but their visits
brought no comfort to Wind River's horse.

The souls of dogs
are ugly with too much contact with men.

Sick, alone, the
horse lay on his side in the long grass.

Nostrils quivering,
he sniffed the wind, sensing danger, and struggled painfully, stiffly to his feet.

Death was in the
wind. The old war-horse felt it burning against his bones. He whinnied in terror, eyes dilated,
nostrils flaring.

He feared
everything now. Night most of all, because death was always so strong then, and the wind, the
cruel wind which seemed ever to have the smell of decay tainting it with its sweet, acrid
sting.

The old horse
raised his head, trying to read the wind, and turned to run from death.

Neighing long and
shrilly, he tried to run.

At his back, from
the hills beyond the village, came a rustling, and a humming and a scurrying.

A black loathsome
thing, the smell of just such a thing as that, came to the old horse clearly on the
wind.

The horse bolted,
the once proud war-horse legs churning as the old horse ran to outrace death.

Now Wind River's
horse thundered across the land like a bow-driven arrow, flashing in the last rays of the setting
sun.

The sun was in
front of him, blinding him, outrunning him, seeming to be uncatchable life lived forever, and the
old horse stumbled and he nearly fell. His pace faltered and his feet car­ried him off the great
trail of war.

Now the sun was
behind him and the old horse seemed to be racing headlong to meet death.

In blind panic, the
horse turned and ran again for the sun.

To stop was to
die.

But to run farther
was to collapse from pain.

The old horse
slowed to a walk. Panic and a fear as cold as a grave urged him madly to run, but his tired old
body was unable to obey. He stood motionless, a great stunned, half-blinded thing.

Wind River's horse
lowered his head and little by little, the fear subsided. The old horse came to himself again in
the memo­ries of the great hunts, the swift runs across the long grass in the full-legged glory
of his youth. He remembered the stirring touch and warm presence of other young horses and the
blinding heat
of mating and fierce
desire. He remembered the man who had ridden him, whose soul had been a part of his, whose
triumph in life had been linked to his own. The good drove out the bad.

The sweet, rich
taste of grass, the blue cool taste of running water. The good memories flooded in again and
death seemed farther away.

Now the old horse
felt strength returning to his scarred, time-ruined legs.

There awoke in him
again a resistless desire to run. To thun­der across the great fields of grass, forever chasing
the sun. And also a desire to be one again with the man who had once ridden him in their shared
glory. The horse seemed to know purpose now, seemed to understand that he must find Wind River
once again so that together they could ride out the approaching storm.

Though he could
barely stand on his own legs, though every step caused unbearable pain, the old horse began to
run.

If the man would
come just once again and sit astride his back or smooth his coat with one kind caress, gladly
then he would lie down and die.

But dying alone
under a sky filled with black birds of death was too horrible.

Blood spattered the
ground, exhaled from his lungs in a red spray. His heart beat like a river rising against a
dam.

On he ran, toward
the dwelling of the man.

Not to die
alone.

Neighing piteously,
the old horse stumbled into the village, seeking the lodge of the man.

But a fence, built
by the white men, barred his way. He pushed against the fence, but the rails were strong and did
not give.

In despair, he
tried to bite the rails of the fence but succeeded only in tearing his mouth.

He tried to rear
up, to climb the fence, but his rear legs would not support him and he fell heavily against the
fence. He leaned there, unable to go any farther, out of breath.

The old horse's
eyes swept across the village eagerly, seeking the man, but the village seemed deserted, dying as
he himself was dying.

The man wasn't
here.

Somehow the dying
horse knew it.

But where could he
be?

Wind River's horse
shivered. His eyes rolled and his old body shook like a leaf in the wind.

Each breath was
like a knife scraping against his bones. His head sank until the damp grass touched his
chin.

A great thirst came
over him then and he wanted to lie down in water, to drink a river of it through his
skin.

A vulture landed on
the fence with a sudden flap of wings.

Wind River's horse
found new strength in renewed terror.

He backed away from
the fence, staggering onward toward the tall-spear rows of corn in the village garden.

The grass, which
had always been life to him, seemed now like the long green fingers of death, catching at his
hooves, trying to pull him down to earth.

Bushes seemed thick
and unyielding, threatening to knock his legs out from under him.

All of the things
of earth seemed to reach for his legs, to pull him eagerly down.

The soul of the old
horse fell deeper into despair. He stag­gered blindly on. The vultures flew silently behind him,
keeping him in sight, coming closer and closer, sometimes landing just behind him, sometimes just
ahead of him.

His rear legs
stiffened and began to drag behind him. Finally they failed him altogether, and he toppled
sideways to the ground. The old horse thrashed on the ground, desperately trying to get back
up.

The horse made it
up off his side, rolled at last to a sitting position, his useless legs sprawled out under him
like broken tree limbs.

The vultures flew
down from the trees and hopped along the ground, coming closer and closer.

The long rows of
corn bent in the wind and saw Wind River's horse with its many yellow eyes.

The old horse
whinnied.

Still closer came
the vultures, sharpening their claws against the hard ground.

Some flew overhead,
circling nearer, almost touching the old horse's head.

Wind River's horse
saw their dead eyes and sharp curved beaks.

He struggled to
rise but his legs would not obey.

He tried to push
his hooves against the ground and dreamed he was up again, the man on his back, racing across the
long grass with one great shared wild heart, man and horse, riding the long back of the big
wind.

Somewhere, a pile
of bones stirred in the ground, shaking the tumbled bones of the many bodies buried
there.

A great wind seemed
to go down through the earth, down deep enough to touch and move the old bones of the dead. Wind
River's horse neighed savagely and snapped his teeth at oncoming death, at the ever nearing
vultures.

The wind shook the
bones of the dead. Wind River heard his old war-horse, and as the spirit of one called to the
other, he tried to rise above the ground.

But the weight of
all the many dead weighed him down.

Wind River's heart
wanted to beat again but there was too much death. His bones stirred, danced and ached to join up
again but the other men's bones sent coldness and blackness and a despair so deep that it ate the
wind that stirred the bones. And then Wind River's bones were still and would move no more
forever.

Wind River's horse
felt the last wind leave his mouth then. In that instant, he knew the man was dead and
gone.

And then the old
horse left the warpath. His hooves fell off into nothingness.

The green eyes of
the grass stared in the horse's staring eyes.

The trees of night
approached Wind River's horse and reached out their sharp clawlike roots for him.

The vultures
came.

The black nameless
things that hum and whisper and scurry began to crawl across the old horse's body.

The soul of the old
horse rose up like smoke into the sky. On flashing hooves, it raced on a burning wind, seeking
the man that had once shared that same great burning wind.