First Blood

He returned up the dark tunnel toward the light at the mouth, studying the roof. When he found where it was dangerously cracked, he pushed away the support beams, lurching back before the ceiling could cave in on him. He was not worried by the risk. If the collapse was so great that it buried the entrance and blocked off his air, he knew that they would dig him out before he died. But when he pushed away the beams, nothing happened, and he had to try the next beams ten feet farther down, and this time when he pushed, the roof did collapse, barely missing him with a crash and rumble of falling rock that made his ears ring. The passage was filled with dust and he was choking, standing back coughing, waiting for the dust to settle so he could see how much rock had fallen. A faint beam of light was radiating through the dust, and then the dust was clouding to the floor, and there was a foot of space between the barrier of rocks and the nearly demolished roof. More rocks dislodged, and the space dwindled to six inches. The reduced breeze that was coming through wafted some of the dust down the tunnel. It became colder. He slid down the wall to the damp floor, listening to the roof crack and settle, and very soon he heard the dim voices out there.

'Do you think it killed him?'

'How would you like to crawl in and find out?'

'Me?'

Some of them laughed then, and Rambo smiled.

'A cave or a mine,' another man said. His voice was loud and deliberate, and Rambo guessed that he was talking into a field radio. 'We saw him run inside, and then the place dumped in on him. You should have seen the dust. We have him for sure. Wait a minute, hold it a second.' And then as if to someone outside, 'Get your dumb ass away from the entrance. If he's still alive, he might be able to see to shoot at you.'

Rambo inched up the rockfall, his knees pressing hard on the blunt tips of stone, to peer through the space at the top. There were the sides of the entrance which framed the shale slope and the bare trees and the sky outside, and then a soldier ran into view from the left to the right, his canteen thumping on and off his hip as he ran.

'Hey, didn't you just hear me say to keep clear of the entrance?' the one man said, out-of-view on the right.

'Over there I can't hear what you're saying on the radio.'

'Well Christ.'

He might as well get this finished. 'I want Teasle,' he called through the small opening. 'I want to give myself up.'

'What?'

'Did you guys hear that?'

'Bring Teasle. I want to give myself up.' His words rumbled in the tunnel. He listened carefully to the ceiling in case it might crack and drop onto him.

'In there. It's him.'

'Hold on, he's alive in there,' the man said into the radio. 'He's talking to us.' There was a pause and then the man spoke much closer to the entrance, though still out of sight. 'What do you want in there?'

'I'm tired of saying it. I want Teasle out here and I want to give myself up.'

They were whispering now, then the man was talking into the radio, repeating the message, and Rambo wished they would hurry and get this over. He had not believed that surrendering would make him feel this empty. Now that the fight was over, he was positive that he had exaggerated his fatigue and the pain in his ribs. Surely he could have gone on longer. He had in the war. Then he shifted position and his ribs bit and he had not exaggerated.

'Hey, in there,' the man called, out-of-sight. 'Can you hear me? Teasle says he can't come up.'

'Dammit, this is what he's been waiting for, isn't it? You tell him to get the hell up here.'

'I don't know anything about it. All they said was he can't come.'

'You just told me it was Teasle. Now it's they. Have you been talking with Teasle or haven't you? I want him up here. I want his guarantee that nobody shoots me by mistake.'

'Don't you worry. If one of us shoots you, it won't be by mistake. You come out of there careful and we won't have any mistakes.'

He thought about it. 'All right, but I need help pushing away these rocks. I can't do that all by myself.'

He heard them whispering again, and then the man said, 'Your rifle and knife. Throw them out.'

'I'll even throw out my handgun. I have a revolver that you don't know about. Now I'm being honest with you. I'm not stupid enough to try fighting my way past all of you, so tell your men to keep their hands free of their triggers.'

'When I hear you throw that stuff out.'

'Coming.'

He hated to shove them through. He hated the feeling of helplessness he would have without them. Peering through the space at the top of the rockfall, looking at the bare forest and sky out there, he liked the cool breeze on his face as it came in and down the tunnel.

'I don't hear that stuff yet,' the man said out of view. 'We have tear gas.'

So. And that sonofabitch wouldn't bother himself to come up.