Scenes from Blood Mountain                                          A Novel by Arlene Sanders A red sun rose and flamed across the China Sea. It dappled Vietnam and bathed its mountains -- blood mountains ravaged by war -- in a lovely light, as if gauze were laid upon a camera lens to soften the features of a once-beautiful woman. I met William in the emerald greens of an Appalachian spring, far from the wasted land where he found Thanh. Last night, I dreamed of William's happiness and sensed, somehow, the moment it had dropped into his heart. I wondered if he knew that moment was the one. But all that lies ahead. My name is Karen. Let me begin the story William trusted me to share with you. I tell this story with no cause to plead, save one: that men lay down their guns for all time.                                              *       *       * In an icy, driving rain, a Nash Rambler careened across Route 29, seventeen miles south of Culpeper, in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. The car skidded to a halt on the shoulder. “Get out,” William’s father said, his speech slurred, his breath fouled with whiskey. “Dad, please.” The man reached across the boy, opened the door on the passenger’s side, and kicked him out of the car. William’s head hit the ground, and his body rolled in gray slush. When his father floored the accelerator, the wheels spun mud and snow into the boy’s face. He pulled himself into a fetal curl and lay still. William was ten years old.                                              *       *       * They took their coffee to the porch and sat in Adirondack chairs, their conversation cached in smoky plumes as they breathed in the chilly air. Tiny yellow and purple crocuses had leaped through the last thin blanket of snow that covered Peola Mills, and holly trees were thick with wine-red berries. Orchards were bare, the graceful branches of apple trees not quite ready to bud. The Blue Ridge Mountains, quiet and low, undulated in a broad, black sweep across the horizon. “Donny, do you want William to come and live with you?” “Yes, Miss Betty Ann. I think William and me could do each other a world of good.”                                              *       *       * Most of the kids were poor. They came from dirt farms in the backwoods of Virginia, and their families had lived off the land for generations. They were locals and proud of it. For these families, education was not a priority. Newcomers were not welcome in the county, and in the schools, new kids were fair game. A yellow bus stopped for William at Peola Mills. The other kids stared at him, but didn’t speak. At the school, William sat by himself in a corner of the playground, reading Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. Three boys, all bigger than William, loitered on the playground after the bell rang. When William tried to enter the building, they blocked his way. “We got something for you,” the redhead smirked. “A little present for the new kid. It’s a Moon Pie.” He turned to the other boys. “Maybe this one’s too smart to eat a Moon Pie. Whaddy’all think? Robbie, what do you think?” Robbie looked William up and down. “I dunno, Red. I heard he’s in the gifted class. In addition to the stupid class all the rest of us is in. Ain’t that right? What’s your name, new kid?” “My name is William.” “Billy Boy!” Robbie cried. The others took up the song. “Can she bake a cherry pie, charming Billy?” Red spat on the ground. “Since you’re in the gifted class, we got a little gift for you. You just eat this here Moon Pie, and then we can all go in, nice and easy like.” “No, thank you,” William said, and then they were upon him. Robbie yanked William’s arms behind his back while Red smeared a glob of mud in his face. “She can bake a cherry pie,” they sang, “quick as a cat can blink an eye, she’s a young thing and cannot—” Suddenly the boys froze. “Well, now,” a new voice cut into the scene. William’s eyes were caked with mud, but he could feel another pair of hands replace the redhead’s grip. Easy hands, moving him gently away from the group. What happened next was fast and ferocious. “You goddam motherfuckers!” the new voice said. Through the mud haze that blurred his vision, William saw the shape of a boy—a big boy—several inches taller than the others. The big guy delivered two quick punches, one to the face and one to the solar plexus of the redhead, then he punched William’s second tormenter, and then the third one. He gouged their faces with mud and kicked them in the shins. William’s attackers scattered and fled. The boy wiped mud off William’s face with his fingers, picked up his books, and handed them to him in a neat stack. Now William could see the kid. He was big, all right. His bib overalls were starched and pressed, and after beating up three other boys, he didn’t have a smudge of dirt on his clothes or a scratch anywhere on him. He grinned at William, and his eyes were brown and warm and dancing with mischief. “I’m Buck Carson,” he said.                                              *       *       * Wild strawberries spilled down the banks of the Thornton River. Red-orange poppies flamed the hills, and cobalt mountains loped along the sky, like waves in a gently rolling sea. Buck’s rod bent into a curve, and he reeled in his line. “Decided where you’re going to college yet?” “Yep.” “Where?” Buck caught another bluegill and tossed it into William’s pail. While Buck reeled in the next fish, William lifted a blacksnake from his own cooler and slipped it into Buck’s. The snake, harmless, was six inches long— a baby snake. “So where will you go?” Buck asked again. He opened his cooler and reached for more vodka. When he saw the snake, he screamed, bounded to the bank, and plunged into the Thornton River. William howled with laughter. “You sadistic little bastard!” Buck spluttered.         Still chuckling, William picked up the snake and carried it to the nearby woods. “So where will I go for what?” “Come on, Flanagan. This is like pulling hens’ teeth.” Buck yanked off his clothes and wrung them out. "West Point."                                              *       *       * "Buck will go to West Point with you in the fall, but he'll drop out before he graduates," Allison said. "I don't believe that," William said. "Buck has two strikes against him. He's gay and alcoholic. West Point is not going to tolerate either one. But I accept both." "So do I," William said. "I do love him, I honestly do. But the gay part -- I just -- that part isn't there for me. But what about you? How can any woman. . ." "There are all kinds of women," Allison said. "The gay part is okay with me. The alcohol is a sickness he can't help. As long as he doesn't get out of control and hurt me, I mean physically, I'll consider it his problem, not mine." "But. . .why?" William asked. "Because I love him," Allison said. "It's as simple as that."                                              *       *       * William's first two months at West Point were harder than butchering a hundred hogs in a week. He didn't think he was going to make it, but Donny, who had dropped out in the sixth grade to work on the farm, never doubted William's ability to succeed at The Point. West Point is like slaughtering hogs or shoveling horse manure. Donny's writing looked like a third-grader's. You take it one hog at a time, one shovelful at a time, and just do it -- like I taught you. Remember? West Point is just one shovelful of shit at a time.                                              *       *       * It was a spy ship. In the Year of the Dragon, American barbarians forayed into the Gulf of Tonkin to foul our waters and shatter a civilization. A ship manned by men without hearts and minds, their lenses thick as ice, trained on our shore, panned across the sails of our sampans, the anxious faces of our fishermen, the breasts of our women. My familiy lay facedown in our boat as I rowed, in terror. I pulled my wife and daughters close against me as bullets whizzed by, and we fled into our village, leaving our nets in a rumpled heap on the shore. Our livelihood. The Gulf, the fish. How can we work if we are afraid? How will we find food? Would I dare to bring my daughters here again? My wife? Vietnamese women are modest. Sweet and shy. We cherish our women. It is said that Americans hate and fear their own women, and I believe it. It is said that they crush women in their schools, in their marketplace, even in their homes, and I believe that, too. If they hate their own women that much. . .what will they do to ours? Men who lie to us, to each other, and even to themselves. It was a spy ship.                                              *       *       * "Sit down, Bob," the general said. "How are Julie and the girls?" "They're fine, thank you, sir." "Bob, you're the highest ranking attorney we have at The Point, and I want you to handle this hazing case. . . ." “Yes, sir.” Greenwood had mastered the art of chewing gum so that no one could tell he had gum in his mouth. He had become increasingly skilled at this as he’d risen in the military ranks. Now he shifted the gum to the left side of his mouth, a maneuver he felt sure was imperceptible to the Superintendent of West Point. Greenwood spoke with a Boston accent, parted his hair in the middle, and—at the age of 53—still denied his wife’s request for the surgical removal of a tattoo that proclaimed, in scarlet letters, his devout allegiance to Mother. “Washington is fucking up this war in Vietnam,” the general said. “The military didn’t start the war—the politicians got us into this fiasco. The Army doesn't make policy. We just carry it out. But the public doesn’t really understand that. We could win the war and get out of there in a heartbeat, but this president would rather fuck than fight. The American public won’t stand for much more of it, and I don’t blame them. The Army is under the gun—and that means West Point is under the gun. We can’t afford any bad publicity. Do you follow me, Bob?” "Yes, sir." The gum slid to the right. The general leaned forward. "West Point is not going to take the rap for this. The U.S. Army is not going to take the rap for this. That Nashville boy acted on his own, and he is entirely responsible for all of it." "I understand, sir," Greenwood said. "Do you have any questions, Bob?" the general asked. "Yes, sir. The girl is indigent. Her attorney will be court-appointed. Probably one of those legal aid boys -- hippies, all of them -- do we know who he is? I'll check him out." The general picked up a dossier and adjusted his glasses. "Well," he said, "this is good news. It's only a woman. Black girl from Memphis. Nothing to worry about there." Greenwood stared at the general. "Do we know her name?" "Angela Garcia." Greenwood paled. His knuckles whitened on the handle of his briefcase. "Oh, shit," he said.                                              *       *       * Angela Garcia’s law degree was from Harvard. She was a tall, slim, gorgeous  young woman of African descent, and she had graduated at the head of her class. Harvard Law Review—the works. Her professors said she was brilliant, a word not much bandied about at Harvard, and they still wondered why she had turned down lucrative offers from top law firms in order to represent minority clients who were poor, homeless, and—more often than not—guilty as charged. Garcia was not a Radcliffe girl. As an undergraduate, she was enrolled in Harvard University, where she majored in biology and wore to class each day a freshly ironed white shirt and a man’s necktie which she tossed over her left shoulder, just like the men at Harvard did, to poke fun at the boys and distinguish herself from the Cliffies. Besides that, Radcliffe girls always wore black—black leotards, black skirts, black turtlenecks—and Angela loved bright colors. This afternoon, she wore a royal blue silk blouse, cashmere slacks, and blue lapis lazuli earrings, set in silver, that contrasted beautifully with her glorious mane of shiny black hair. . . .                                              *       *       * In the Year of the Horse, President de Gaulle of France traveled to Cambodia to beg the Americans to leave Vietnam. Half a million U.S. troops have invaded our country, supposedly to defend us against Communists in the north, but we know better. . . . Americans savaged Hué, lovely city by the China Sea, sacked Da Nang, and bombed oil depots near Hanoi and Haiphong. . . . They burned my village to the ground and murdered my mother and my father and all of my family. . . . I am eighteen in the Year of the Horse.                                             *       *       * Ding Rodriguez, a GI from Texas, stared at the bodies of Linh and Le. Tears streamed down his face. He took off his right boot. "What the fuck are you doing!" Ronnie shrieked. "Chain of command," Ding said. "What?" "Command is who gives the orders, all the way up to the Pentagon, to the White House, maybe to God --" Ding surveyed the carnage at My Lai. "But I'd question that." "Yeah, well, this ain't the time," Ronnie said. "And all the way down to the bottom -- and that would be me -- until the lowest man, theoretical anyhow, would command hisself alone." Ding took off his flak jacket. "For God's sake, Ding, put that thing back on." Ding pulled off his right sock and his shirt. "Okay, man. We'll talk this out later. All of it. Just -- please, God -- put your clothes on. Come on, Ding." Ding leaned down and covered the bodies of Linh and Le with his jacket and shirt. His bare chest, drenched with sweat, gleamed black in the sunlight. He looked up and watched the sky until a dustoff chopper appeared. He waved his arms, signaling the chopper to land. When it did, he drew his .45 from its holster and fired into his own foot. "You goddam crazy motherfucker!" Ronnie screamed. "I ain't gonna do this shit," Ding said. "I just ain't gonna do it." He dropped his gun on the ground and limped to the medevac.                                              *       *       * The tip of the python’s tail was a splintery sliver that blended innocently with bits of foliage rotting on the ground. When Hung’s boot bore down on it, the snake exploded out of the brush and coiled around his leg. In an instant, the boy’s lower body was fully wrapped by the tail. The snake doubled back on itself, and its head came into full view of the GIs—nearly all country boys who had grown up terrified of snakes, the largest of which, in the U.S., was harmless and a fraction of the size of this one, a full-grown reticulated python, three-hundred  pounds, thirty feet long. Buck froze. Danny screamed. “Shut the fuck up!” Roger yelled. “You’re a goddam soldier on a battlefield. You’ll get us all killed!” “Fuck that shit!” Danny slammed his machine gun on the ground. “This ain't no battlefield. This ain’t no war. The Army never trained us for this. I never went to no snake school!” “Get the head!” Hung rasped. “Snake. . .no poison. Cut off. . . head. Then. . .” The coils had reached his stomach, and Hung struggled to breathe. “Slice. . .him. . .up.” Hung gasped for air. Each time he exhaled, Buck saw the coils tighten, so he knew the boy had less lung capacity for his next breath. The GIs backed off. None of the men would approach the snake. Danny picked up his machine gun and aimed at the python, but the M-60 shook violently in his hands, and there was no way to fire at the snake without hitting the boy. “Don’t shoot!” Hung panted, the body of the snake now one coil away from his neck. As the snake encircled this throat, the boy rent the air with a horrifying primal scream. “MAAAAAMA  SAN!!!!” Buck, dazed, with no thought or plan of any kind, suddenly moved toward the snake. His machete was in his hand.                                              *       *       * The boy had aged, and in the low light, his face looked chiseled and hard. . . . "We have to think Thanh's gonna be okay," Buck said. "There's nothing we can do. My Lai will be guarded." "I know," Hung said. His eyes met Buck's. The silence, knifed by night sounds in the jungle, lay heavy and empty between them. Hung did not look away. Neither did Buck. "Hung. . ." Buck said. The boy shoved the lantern to the right with his foot. Buck felt the light brighten on his own face. "How old are you?" Buck said. "Seventeen." The silence intensified, then emptied itself again. "Go ahead. Say it," Hung said. "You ever been with a man?" Buck asked. "No." "Have you wanted to?" "I. . .don't know." "Know something?" Buck smiled. "What?" "That means yes." Hung's face softened. "Okay." Buck lay down on his own cot and pulled the blanket back. He opened his arms. "C'mon if you want to. We won't do anything. I promise. Just get used to me." Hung held Buck's gaze for a long moment before he blew out the flame in the lantern. Then he lay down beside the big soldier without removing any of his clothes, not even his boots. Buck pulled the blanket over them and wrapped his arms around the boy gently. Blood Mountain, copyright 2007 by Arlene Sanders