A Private Little War(40)

It was dawn when everyone found out that Durba hadn’t been killed outright as had originally been suspected. Apparently, the shelling that Carter’d originally witnessed hadn’t been the first to hit his position, but the beginning of the second round, followed by a third and a fourth and a fifth. Barrage upon barrage. It was hard to believe he hadn’t seen the first, what with it being blushes of rosy light in a dark place and all that, but he hadn’t. It wasn’t like he’d been looking.

“Might as well have been looking for Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, right?” Carter had asked, hardly noticing the odd looks this inspired. “But I’ll tell you: From now on, I’m keeping a sharp goddamn eye out for flying fucking reindeer as well. I mean, artillery on Iaxo? Fuck that.”

Around the tent line, his small soliloquy had been listened to with something like reverence. As though it were poetry, or something finer. Almost a philosophy, though the only part of it that had any resonance was the last line. Fuck that. Like “Think warm thoughts,” for an hour or two, it’d become a saying: “Artillery on Iaxo? Fuck that…” Then there had been laughter that almost always trailed away into uncomfortable silences. Then it’d gone away. Still too soon.

The initial strike had caught Durba’s First IRC completely unaware, either above ground or lounging in their open, shallow fighting positions. Their first thought had been that they were being bombed by the pilots accidentally and Tony Fong had put in a frantic wave-off request to Flyboy control, which had been taken by Tanner, passed along to Diane, and had been what had inspired her to send for Ted and bring him in. It’d taken less than a minute to get things straightened out, but a minute was all it’d taken for the lot of them to get blown to bloody chunks. A good number of Durba’s men had run, no doubt thinking that the sky was falling—though, in the confusion, they’d advanced rather than falling back and had charged headlong into a unit of bad indigs waiting just out in the darkness. They’d been cut to pieces. Then the artillery had hit the survivors again and again. It was a mess. One of Durba’s indigs had made one final distress call on an open channel, then gone silent.

It took all night, but eventually what was left of Durba’s Rifles—thirty indigs plus two of his command element—found their way back to the headquarters area five miles from the ford on the friendly side of the river. They’d carried about ten of their wounded along with them on their backs. For Durba, they’d made a travois out of rifles and shattered timber, tied with nylon belts. Antoinne had apparently spouted scripture the whole way—raving, promising hell and damnation for those who’d laid him low—and called out for his daughter, Marie. He had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his head just above his right eye and a foot-long hardwood splinter run through his guts, but he was alive when they brought him in.

Died not long after, but he was alive when they brought him in.





When Carter’d landed Roadrunner, Vic had been there to do the postflight check. He’d smiled at her (which he knew, in retrospect, had probably been unwise), lifted his goggles, and winked as if to say, Survived another one. Like that was something special. It was just part of the habit of being a pilot—the swagger, the arrogance, the laughing at death once death is safely in one’s slipstream. Reflex. Like running across empty airstrips or rolling through turns as if always under fire.

He’d taxied into his spot outside the longhouse, climbed jauntily down out of the cockpit, and flipped his scarf back over his shoulder. They’d said a few words to each other, Vic and Carter, before he’d gone to the field tent and she’d gone back to the flight line. That, he knew, had probably been a mistake, too.

Later, once he’d switched from pop-skull to coffee, from the field house to the mess, and after most of the other revelers had finally retired or simply dropped in their tracks, Vic had come in grinning. She’d stood across the table from him and laid down three stubby arrows. Having been half-asleep sitting up, still hearing the sound of engines in his head and feeling the phantom vibrations of nine cylinders cranking in his bones, he’d just blinked dumbly at her, thinking how nice it was that she’d come to visit him in bed.

“Crossbow bolts,” she said. “Steel tip. Aluminum shaft. Imported, apparently.”

Carter picked one up and rolled it between his palms, trying to make some kind of connection, to appear thoughtful even though he had no idea what she was on about. “Imported, apparently,” he parroted. “Apparently, apparently, apparently…” He wasn’t trying to be difficult, wasn’t mocking. He just liked the way the words sounded popping off his lips. It was a nice arrow, he supposed, but could come up with nothing particularly insightful to say about it, so he looked at her instead. He thought about how pretty she was when he was mostly asleep. He smiled at her again, thinking how he’d just done that not too long ago and that twice in one night was a lot. He looked away. One fresh glance had been enough. Like looking directly at the sun.