First Blood

Finally the old man spoke. 'Matthew. I suppose you better run up to the house and bring back what he says.' His voice was not very happy.

'And bring a can of kerosene,' Rambo said. 'Since you're helping, let's make sure you don't get hurt for it. I'll douse the clothes with the kerosene and let them dry before I put them on. The kerosene won't stop the dogs from trailing me, but it will keep them from picking up your scent on the clothes and following it to see who helped me.'

The boy's flashlight beam glared steady on Rambo. 'I'll do what my pa says, not you.'

'Go on do what he wants,' the old man said. 'I don't like him either, but he sure knows what the hell he's got us into.'

The boy's flashlight beam remained steady on Rambo a moment longer, as though the boy were deciding if he would go, or maybe saving face. Then the beam swung off Rambo into the bushes and the light clicked off and Rambo heard him set out brushing through the undergrowth. He had probably come and gone from home to this spring and back again so many times that he could do it with his eyes shut, let alone without a light.

'Thanks,' Rambo told the old man whose light remained shining on his face. Then the light went out. 'Thanks for that too,' Rambo said, the image of the light remaining on his eyes a few seconds, slowly fading.

'Just helping the batteries.'

Rambo heard him start to come forward through the underbrush. 'Better not come closer,' he said to the old man. 'We don't want to mix your scent with mine.'

'I wasn't about to. There's a log here I wanted to sit on is all.'

The old man lit a match and touched it to the bowl of a pipe. The match did not stay lit very long, but as the old man puffed on his pipe and the flame from the match got high and low, Rambo saw a tousled head of hair and a gristled face and the top half of a red-checkered shirt with suspenders over the shoulders.

'Do you have any of your stuff with you?' Rambo asked.

'Maybe.'

'It's cold like this. I wouldn't mind a swallow.'

The old man waited, then switched on his flashlight and heaved over a jug so that Rambo could see in the light to catch it. The jug weighed like a bowling ball, and in his surprise Rambo almost dropped it. The old man chuckled. Rambo pried out the cork, wet and squeaking, and in spite of the jug's weight he drank with one hand the way he knew the old man would respect, shoving a forefinger through the hook at the top, balancing the jug on the crook of his elbow. It tasted like two hundred proof, golden-strong and burning his tongue and throat, flooding hot every inch down to his stomach. He almost choked. When he lowered the jug, his eyes were watering.

'A little strong?' the old man asked.

'A little,' Rambo said, having trouble getting his voice to work. 'What is it?'

'Corn mash. But it's a little strong though, ain't it?'

'Yeah, I'd say it's a little strong,' Rambo repeated, his voice giving him more trouble.

The old man laughed. 'Yeah, it's a little strong all right.'

Rambo lifted the jug and drank again, gagging on the hot thick liquor, and the old man laughed one more quick burst.

3

The first songs of the morning birds wakened Teasle in the dark, and he lay there on the ground by the fire, huddled in the blanket he had brought from the cruiser, peering up at the late stars beyond the treetops. It had been years since he slept out in the woods. Over twenty years he realized, counting back to 1950. Not the end of 1950: sleeping in frozen foxholes in Korea hardly qualified. Hell no, the last time he had really camped out was that spring when he got his draft notice and decided to enlist in the Marines, and he and Orval hiked into the hills for the first weekend it was warm enough. Now he was stiff from sleeping on the rough ground, his clothes were damp from where the dew had soaked through the blanket, and even near the fire, he was bone-cold. But he had not felt this alive in years, excited to be in action again, eager to chase after the kid. There was no point though in rousing everybody until Shingleton came back with the supplies and the rest of the men, and for now, the only one awake, he loved being alone this way, so different from the nights he had been spending alone since Anna had left. He wrapped himself tighter in the blanket.

Then the smell reached him, and he looked, and Orval was sitting at the end of the fire, dragging on a thin self-rolled cigarette, the smoke drifting toward Teasle in the cool early breeze.

'I didn't know you were awake,' Teasle whispered, not to disturb the others. 'How long?'

'Before you.'

'But I've been awake over an hour.'

'I know it. I don't sleep much anymore. Not because I can't. I just begrudge the time spent.'