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Murmured voices from a nearby sandbag-encased tent reminded him he wasn't alone. In a combat situation, it would have been easy to kill Ortega and get away with it. If he killed Ortega here, he would go to prison for life. In prison, there was nothing he could do to help Tuyen. He would never see her again or know her fate. He could not live with that.
Ethan's vision blurred as dread spread through his guts. He hated feeling helpless. He shook his head to clear his thoughts and questioned why he felt guilty. He hadn't done anything wrong.
It wasn't a crime to love a woman he believed loved him back—a Viet Cong woman who might have killed American soldiers. That fact hung above his head as if it were an executioner's blade. He was in love with the wrong woman. In court, they would claim he had been seduced by an enemy and turned against his country.
The shower was an open 'A' frame constructed of two-by-fours with a pipe strapped to the top bar. Five showerheads protruded from the pipe, which snaked up the hill toward a boxy metal water tank with sandbags piled against its four sides to protect it from snipers, mortar rounds and rockets.
Ethan stepped under a showerhead and pulled the chain. Sun-warm water trickled over his body. He ran a hand over the stiff bristles of a three-day beard. The muscles in his neck ached, and he hung his head to let the water wash away the grime. If only it could wash away his problems too.
He let go of the chain and the water stopped. Listening to crickets and other buzzing insects, he lathered up with the bar of soap hanging around his neck.
The shadowy shapes of two Marines walked by, swapping jokes and laughing.
He could also hear the tonal chatter of several Vietnamese rangers. A blue Sterno flame flickered from a sandbagged mortar emplacement and the breeze carried the smell of ham and Lima rations toward him. He was reminded of the raw meat Belamy had sliced from a python during the mission.
Thinking of Gunny caused what strength was left in Ethan's legs to leak out, and he sat abruptly on the shower's wooden slat floor in a daze. "Come on, Gunny," he said. "Don't be dead."
"What?"
At first, Ethan thought Ortega had returned to taunt him, but the voice wasn't right. Looking up, he stared into a pale, smooth face. God, the boy looked as if he were sixteen or seventeen—a child, a lamb sent to the slaughter.
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§ “Running with the Enemy” was awarded an Honorable Mention in General Fiction at the 2103 San Francisco Book Festival
§ Discover a new world of Publishing–-the 2013 San Francisco Book Festival Event held on May 18 at the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in SF.
