“Okay,” I murmured softly. “I’ll tell you a story about a tiny town in Texas called Hobie where everyone knows everyone and all the little old biddies are in each other’s business.” I’d told him plenty about the ranch, but not much about my hometown.
He smiled softly, his eyes closed again. “Yes. Hobie. Sounds nice.”
So I told him about the popular soda fountain at Walsney Drug and the old drive-in movie theater out past the Hobarts’ place. I told him about Old Man Ritches, who ran his hardware store like a fiefdom and whose son wasn’t much better.
As I spoke, the major seemed to relax into his bed and sleep easier, the stories of an idyllic all-American small town half a world away giving him respite from the awful situation around us in Vietnam. When he was finally asleep, a doctor checking the patient next to Major looked over and nodded at me.
“Sounds like they did the right thing when they made you a medic.”
I thought about how wrong-footed I’d felt when they’d assigned me to the medical detachment, but then I thought of the training I’d excelled in and the rescue missions I’d already performed. Helping people gave me a high like a good drug. It was addictive.
“I guess sometimes the powers that be know better than we do,” I said with a chuckle. “Who woulda thought it?”
The doctor nodded down at the major. “He was involved in the Battle of la Drang Valley in ’65, did you know?”
The news shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. “No, I didn’t know.”
“Yes. Earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for flying in super hot like a hundred times to perform medevac. During one of the loads, he held the bird off the ground with one hand and shot out the window with his other like some kind of movie star. He personally killed like seven VC that day who were trying to take the Huey down. The man’s a hero. After that, he pretty much writes his own ticket. I treated his crew chief for shrapnel wounds and got to hear all about it.”
I was stunned. When I’d asked him if he’d ever killed anyone, he’d told me the story of the night he left home. I’d thought he meant he’d felt responsibility for killing Clayton and Mrs. Burns. So if he’d already killed VC during the war, was that the battle he was remembering in his fevered mumblings?
I made a point of visiting Major Marian the next day after returning from a flight. He was more lucid which made things a bit more awkward between us. It was as if the realities of our ranks were settling back over us, leaving us unable to forge the friendship I was so keen to have again.
Thankfully, within days of his return to the duty roster a couple of weeks later, things seemed to settle back to normal. We were kept together, thank god, and assigned a new crew chief and pilot.
I found myself following Major Marian around like a devoted puppy and doing everything in my power to stick by his side. Was it hero worship? Maybe. But something deep down inside of me wanted, needed, to be there for the man who had no one, who was on the run from a guilty past, the man who’d begged to be discharged from the hospital in favor of returning to duty, the man who didn’t have anyone but me to call out for in the deep dark tangle of the jungle night.
Chapter 8
Weston “Major” Marian
I couldn’t get rid of him, and I secretly thanked god for that.
When I returned to duty after finally kicking the infection, I was angry and irritable. For the first time in all my years in country, I resented the war. I hated it deep down to my very soul and wanted to rage against every damned part of it. When I’d been half-delirious with fever, I’d overheard a nurse say the life expectancy of a combat medic in a firefight was six seconds and a medic’s life expectancy in Vietnam was only fourteen days. I thought of Doc Wilde’s smiling face the day I’d first seen him. He deserved better than that. Hell, we all did.
So when I returned to duty, it was with a renewed vigor to protect my men and rescue as many soldiers and injured civilians as I could. I’d heard scuttlebutt at the hospital about the protests back home, and I hoped like hell our country’s leaders knew what they were doing. In the meantime, all I could do was stay alert and do my job.
It took me a good five days back on duty before I realized the two of us had become inseparable. At first, I’d thought Doc was simply checking up on me to make sure I wasn’t overdoing it after my injuries. But then I realized he was feeling unsure about our two new crewmates, Dial and Lynch.