had been only the barbs, the loops, the tight strands and the velvet space and salt and pepper heavens of the whole night sky. But now the heads. All at once the three of them in a row. Unmoving. Pop-ups in a shooting gallery.
And as Cassandra and I knelt side by side in the sand, stiff and exposed and red-eyed in our animal positions, together and quiet but vulnerable, the three heads began to move in unison, turned slowly, imperceptibly, to the right and then to the left, in unison scanning the horizon and measuring the potential of the scene before them. The tops of the heavy helmets and the tips of the chin cups reflected the moon; in the sharp little faces the eyes were white. Soldiers. Raiders. Pleased with the scene. Their whispers were high, dry, choked with sand.
“Lucky, lucky, lucky! Ain’t that a sweet sight?”
“Navy to the rescue!”
“Free ride on a Greyhound bus!”
The three of them looked straight ahead—intuitively I knew the driver was still throwing his wrenches into the air, still trying to boss the tire into place, and I groaned—and then in slow motion they began to shift. The heads sank down until the men were only turtle shells and hardly visible on the embankment; the muzzles of two carbines popped into view; the man in the center raised his helmeted head and his white hand and a pair of wire cutters, slipped and tugged and twisted while the wire sang past his face and curled into tight thorny balls. Until they could crawl through. Until they were free.
And then with heads down, shoulders down, rifles balanced horizontally in their hanging hands, they swung in a silent dark green trio over the embankment and down, down, like baseball players hitting the sand and landing not on top of Cassandra and myself but in front of us and to either side. Three sand geysers and Cassandra and I were trapped.
“Company C,” panting, whispering, “Company C for Cain,” panting and aiming his gun and whispering, “Don’t you make a peep, you hear? Either one of you!”
Three small soldiers in full battle pack and sprawled in the sand, gasping, leaning on their elbows, cradling the carbines, staring us down with their white eyes. Web belts and straps, brass buckles, cactus-green fatigue uniforms—name tags ripped off the pockets—paratrooper boots dark brown with oil; they lay there like three deadly lizards waiting to strike, and all of their vicious, yet somehow timorous, white eyes began blinking at once. The middle soldier, the leader, wore a coal-black fingernail mustache and carried his bayonet fixed in place on the end of his carbine. All little tight tendons and daggers and hand grenades and flashing bright points and lizard eyes. Unscrupulous. Disguised in soot. Not to be trusted in a charge.
“Company C for Cain, like I said. But we been in that place for twenty-eight weeks and now we’re AWOL. The three of us here are called the Kissin’ Bandits and we’re AWOL. Understand?”
And the smallest, young and innocent except for his big broken Brooklyn nose—my ghetto Pinocchio—and except for the foam which he kept licking from the corners of his mouth and swallowing, the smallest twitching there in the sand and prodding each word with his carbine and with his nose: “So on your feet, on your feet. No talking, and don’t forget the kid.”
Slowly, laboriously, indignantly I stood up, helped Cassandra, brushed the seat of my trousers, jerked the creases out of my uniform as best I could, indifferently picked off the cactus burrs, and took little Pixie into my arms.
They marched us to the cactus, in single file herded us thirty or forty feet into the shadow of that old fat prickly man of the desert and out of sight of the bus, the leader at the head of the column and swinging the carbine, slouching along lightly in the lazy walk of the infantryman saving himself, feeling his way with his feet, straggling all the distance of his night patrol-easy gait, eyes down watching for the
And as Cassandra and I knelt side by side in the sand, stiff and exposed and red-eyed in our animal positions, together and quiet but vulnerable, the three heads began to move in unison, turned slowly, imperceptibly, to the right and then to the left, in unison scanning the horizon and measuring the potential of the scene before them. The tops of the heavy helmets and the tips of the chin cups reflected the moon; in the sharp little faces the eyes were white. Soldiers. Raiders. Pleased with the scene. Their whispers were high, dry, choked with sand.
“Lucky, lucky, lucky! Ain’t that a sweet sight?”
“Navy to the rescue!”
“Free ride on a Greyhound bus!”
The three of them looked straight ahead—intuitively I knew the driver was still throwing his wrenches into the air, still trying to boss the tire into place, and I groaned—and then in slow motion they began to shift. The heads sank down until the men were only turtle shells and hardly visible on the embankment; the muzzles of two carbines popped into view; the man in the center raised his helmeted head and his white hand and a pair of wire cutters, slipped and tugged and twisted while the wire sang past his face and curled into tight thorny balls. Until they could crawl through. Until they were free.
And then with heads down, shoulders down, rifles balanced horizontally in their hanging hands, they swung in a silent dark green trio over the embankment and down, down, like baseball players hitting the sand and landing not on top of Cassandra and myself but in front of us and to either side. Three sand geysers and Cassandra and I were trapped.
“Company C,” panting, whispering, “Company C for Cain,” panting and aiming his gun and whispering, “Don’t you make a peep, you hear? Either one of you!”
Three small soldiers in full battle pack and sprawled in the sand, gasping, leaning on their elbows, cradling the carbines, staring us down with their white eyes. Web belts and straps, brass buckles, cactus-green fatigue uniforms—name tags ripped off the pockets—paratrooper boots dark brown with oil; they lay there like three deadly lizards waiting to strike, and all of their vicious, yet somehow timorous, white eyes began blinking at once. The middle soldier, the leader, wore a coal-black fingernail mustache and carried his bayonet fixed in place on the end of his carbine. All little tight tendons and daggers and hand grenades and flashing bright points and lizard eyes. Unscrupulous. Disguised in soot. Not to be trusted in a charge.
“Company C for Cain, like I said. But we been in that place for twenty-eight weeks and now we’re AWOL. The three of us here are called the Kissin’ Bandits and we’re AWOL. Understand?”
And the smallest, young and innocent except for his big broken Brooklyn nose—my ghetto Pinocchio—and except for the foam which he kept licking from the corners of his mouth and swallowing, the smallest twitching there in the sand and prodding each word with his carbine and with his nose: “So on your feet, on your feet. No talking, and don’t forget the kid.”
Slowly, laboriously, indignantly I stood up, helped Cassandra, brushed the seat of my trousers, jerked the creases out of my uniform as best I could, indifferently picked off the cactus burrs, and took little Pixie into my arms.
They marched us to the cactus, in single file herded us thirty or forty feet into the shadow of that old fat prickly man of the desert and out of sight of the bus, the leader at the head of the column and swinging the carbine, slouching along lightly in the lazy walk of the infantryman saving himself, feeling his way with his feet, straggling all the distance of his night patrol-easy gait, eyes down watching for the
Similar Books
