die, and so it goes to one of these
places that’s between everything and nothing.”
“Nothin’,”
said Moody disconsolately, as if all his hopes for an afterlife had been
dashed. “Don’t make no sense to have spirits and not have no Heaven.”
“Hey,”
said Dantzler, tensing as wind rustled the pine boughs. “They’re just a bunch
of damn primitives. You know what their sacred drink is? Hot chocolate! My old
man was a guest at one of their funerals, and he said they carried cups of hot
chocolate balanced on these little red towers and acted like drinking it was
going to wake them to the secrets of the universe.” He laughed, and the
laughter sounded tinny and psychotic to his own ears. “So you’re going to worry
about fools who think hot chocolate’s holy water?”
“Maybe
they just like it,” said Moody. “Maybe somebody dyin’ just give ‘em an excuse
to drink it.”
But
Dantzler was no longer listening. A moment before, as they emerged from pine
cover onto the highest point of the ridge, a stony scarp open to the winds and
providing a view of rumpled mountains and valleys extending to the horizon, he
had popped an ampule. He felt so strong, so full of righteous purpose and
controlled fury, it seemed only the sky was around him, that he was still
ascending, preparing to do battle with the gods themselves.
*
* * *
Tecolutla was a village of
whitewashed stone tucked into a notch between two hills. From above, the
houses—with their shadow-blackened windows and doorways—looked like an unlucky
throw of dice. The streets ran uphill and down, diverging around boulders.
Bougainvilleas and hibiscuses speckled the hillsides, and there were tilled
fields on the gentler slopes. It was a sweet, peaceful place when they arrived,
and after they had gone it was once again peaceful; but its sweetness had been
permanently banished. The reports of Sandinistas had proved accurate, and
though they were casualties left behind to recuperate, DT had decided their
presence called for extreme measures. Fu gas, frag grenades, and such. He had
fired an M-60 until the barrel melted down, and then had manned the
flamethrower. Afterward, as they rested atop the next ridge, exhausted and
begrimed, having radioed in a chopper for resupply, he could not get over how
one of the houses he had torched had come to resemble a toasted marshmallow.
“Ain’t
that how it was, man?” he asked, striding up and down the line. He did not care
if they agreed about the house; it was a deeper question he was asking, one
concerning the ethics of their actions.
“Yeah,”
said Dantzler, forcing a smile. “Sure did.”
DT
grunted with laughter. “You know I’m right, don’tcha, man?”
The
sun hung directly behind his head, a golden corona rimming a black oval, and
Dantzler could not turn his eyes away. He felt weak and weakening, as if
threads of himself were being spun loose and sucked into the blackness. He had
popped three ampules prior to the firefight, and his experience of Tecolutla
had been a kind of mad whirling dance through the streets, spraying erratic
bursts that appeared to be writing weird names on the walls. The leader of the
Sandinistas had worn a mask—a gray face with a surprised hole of a mouth and
pink circles around the eyes. A ghost face. Dantzler had been afraid of the
mask and had poured round after round into it. Then, leaving the village, he
had seen a small girl standing beside the shell of the last house, watching
them, her colorless rag of a dress tattering in the breeze. She had been a
victim of that malnutrition disease, the one that paled your skin and whitened
your hair and left you retarded. He could not recall the name of the
disease—things like names were slipping away from him—nor could he believe
anyone had survived, and for a moment he had thought the spirit of the village
had come out to mark their trail.
That
was all he could remember of
places that’s between everything and nothing.”
“Nothin’,”
said Moody disconsolately, as if all his hopes for an afterlife had been
dashed. “Don’t make no sense to have spirits and not have no Heaven.”
“Hey,”
said Dantzler, tensing as wind rustled the pine boughs. “They’re just a bunch
of damn primitives. You know what their sacred drink is? Hot chocolate! My old
man was a guest at one of their funerals, and he said they carried cups of hot
chocolate balanced on these little red towers and acted like drinking it was
going to wake them to the secrets of the universe.” He laughed, and the
laughter sounded tinny and psychotic to his own ears. “So you’re going to worry
about fools who think hot chocolate’s holy water?”
“Maybe
they just like it,” said Moody. “Maybe somebody dyin’ just give ‘em an excuse
to drink it.”
But
Dantzler was no longer listening. A moment before, as they emerged from pine
cover onto the highest point of the ridge, a stony scarp open to the winds and
providing a view of rumpled mountains and valleys extending to the horizon, he
had popped an ampule. He felt so strong, so full of righteous purpose and
controlled fury, it seemed only the sky was around him, that he was still
ascending, preparing to do battle with the gods themselves.
*
* * *
Tecolutla was a village of
whitewashed stone tucked into a notch between two hills. From above, the
houses—with their shadow-blackened windows and doorways—looked like an unlucky
throw of dice. The streets ran uphill and down, diverging around boulders.
Bougainvilleas and hibiscuses speckled the hillsides, and there were tilled
fields on the gentler slopes. It was a sweet, peaceful place when they arrived,
and after they had gone it was once again peaceful; but its sweetness had been
permanently banished. The reports of Sandinistas had proved accurate, and
though they were casualties left behind to recuperate, DT had decided their
presence called for extreme measures. Fu gas, frag grenades, and such. He had
fired an M-60 until the barrel melted down, and then had manned the
flamethrower. Afterward, as they rested atop the next ridge, exhausted and
begrimed, having radioed in a chopper for resupply, he could not get over how
one of the houses he had torched had come to resemble a toasted marshmallow.
“Ain’t
that how it was, man?” he asked, striding up and down the line. He did not care
if they agreed about the house; it was a deeper question he was asking, one
concerning the ethics of their actions.
“Yeah,”
said Dantzler, forcing a smile. “Sure did.”
DT
grunted with laughter. “You know I’m right, don’tcha, man?”
The
sun hung directly behind his head, a golden corona rimming a black oval, and
Dantzler could not turn his eyes away. He felt weak and weakening, as if
threads of himself were being spun loose and sucked into the blackness. He had
popped three ampules prior to the firefight, and his experience of Tecolutla
had been a kind of mad whirling dance through the streets, spraying erratic
bursts that appeared to be writing weird names on the walls. The leader of the
Sandinistas had worn a mask—a gray face with a surprised hole of a mouth and
pink circles around the eyes. A ghost face. Dantzler had been afraid of the
mask and had poured round after round into it. Then, leaving the village, he
had seen a small girl standing beside the shell of the last house, watching
them, her colorless rag of a dress tattering in the breeze. She had been a
victim of that malnutrition disease, the one that paled your skin and whitened
your hair and left you retarded. He could not recall the name of the
disease—things like names were slipping away from him—nor could he believe
anyone had survived, and for a moment he had thought the spirit of the village
had come out to mark their trail.
That
was all he could remember of
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