Chapter Thirty-Eight Marion
thirty-eight MARION
C an’t move. Can’t move. Trapped…
“Marion!”
That voice. It sounded like it was coming from far away and through a pillow. Hands were shoving her, moving her. She smelled smoke. An unfamiliar sense of urgency bloomed.
“Marion! Open your eyes!”
She did. Daniel loomed over her, his hands clenched on her biceps. Fresh blood painted the scarred side of his face, and his helmet was gone. Hers was, too, she realized dazedly.
“Are you hurt?”
She blinked at him, confused. Then she remembered the helicopter, free-falling to the earth while she screamed and prayed.
“Are you hurt, Marion?”
She did a mental inventory of her body. She tasted iron, but felt no specific pain. She must have bitten her tongue when they crashed. She had no idea. “I don’t think so.”
“Can you move?”
She sat up, toppled back, then roused herself again, noting she was about twenty feet away from the crash site. The burning chopper was on its side, smoking amid a shattered stand of trees. Its tail was missing. She counted half a dozen soldiers standing at a distance from it, guns on their shoulders, eyes on their scopes as they scouted the trees.
“We gotta go,” he said quietly.
“How did I get over here?”
“I carried you,” he said, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”
But where? Everything looked the same. Beyond the throbbing in her ears, she heard gunfire. The American soldiers fired back and yelled directions at each other.
Daniel helped her stand, then he pointed. “Do you remember that old temple you saw? The broken wall? It’s that way. No matter what happens, I want you to go toward it. You have that compass they gave you in your pack? Good. Pull it out and follow it.”
A new panic seized her. “What about you? I can’t go without you.”
“I will be right behind you.”
“How far is it?”
He shrugged. “Just keep running.”
The gunfire was louder now, coming from both sides. “Come with me,” she begged.
His expression hardened. “Go. Be as quiet as you can. Don’t stop.” He gave her a gentle push. “I’ll be there in a minute. We can’t let these guys follow us.”
She stumbled forward then turned to see what was happening. Daniel had an M16 in his hands and was striding purposefully toward the soldiers. Where had he gotten that from?
He glanced back. “Go!” he shouted, then fresh gunfire burst from the trees, and he began running toward the other men, shooting.
Marion wiped away her tears with a blood-smeared hand, studied her compass, then, going against every impulse, ran away from Daniel. Toward the broken wall at the top of the hill. Or at least she hoped that’s where she was headed. So often she had marvelled at the soldiers on television, navigating the impossible sameness of the jungle. Now she floundered in the midst of the tangled trees and vines, the knotted roots, all of it seething with Vietnam’s impenetrable heat, and it was so much worse than she’d imagined. There was no straight path to navigate, only obstructions made blurry by the sweat rolling into her eyes. Branches scraped her, clawed at her, and her rattled brain played tricks, forcing her to study everything on the ground and in the air. Daniel had said the Vietcong became part of the jungle itself, they knew it so well. She never should have read that National Geographic article about Vietnam, with its venomous vipers and cobras, malarial mosquitoes, battalions of angry weaver ants, and even killer plants, like heartbreak grass. Tigers, elephants, and crocodiles could be anywhere. Not to mention booby traps and the tunnels Daniel had told her about, all of them rigged. The enemy could be anywhere.
She saw nothing, but she imagined a thousand threats watched her.
Out of breath and slick with sweat, she paused to search the space behind her. Daniel was nowhere in sight. Terrible thoughts filled her brain, but she knew not to call out for him and reveal her position. Except she couldn’t help wondering: What if he never came? The possibility caught in her throat. She had no time to panic, let alone cry, she reminded herself. She’d come this far. Staying put would only get her killed. When she’d caught her breath, she faced forward again and continued along the nonexistent path, following the tiny, quivering needle of her compass.
After what felt like an eternity of trudging through the jungle, Marion heard a familiar sound and froze. Men’s voices. Hardly breathing, she homed in on the sound, and dread curled like a serpent in her stomach. That was not English. With the dense foliage blocking everything, it was difficult to tell where the men were. She took a few very slow, very cautious steps then stopped again, trying to get a feel for where they might be. There . Closer now. But in which direction? With no other options, she walked on, checking the compass every few steps. The worst possible thing would be to get lost out here.
No, she thought. There were probably much worse things, but she didn’t want to think about those.
A movement among the trees about twenty feet to her left caught her eye. Vibrating with fear, she squatted and counted two darkly clad Vietnamese men—no, there were more. Three more walked behind them, talking softly. They were headed directly toward her, so close they would step on her soon if she didn’t move. So she crawled, studying the ground, fearing the jaws of a predator by her hands or a mouth of a gun at her head at any moment. When she thought she might be out of their sight even a little, she stood, hunching low, and picked up as much speed as she could.
They hadn’t seen her, but that couldn’t last. She gasped with surprise when the canopy of trees magically opened up ahead, and sunlight beamed down on a wide, swiftly flowing, brown river. There would be nowhere to hide once she got there, but she couldn’t stop. She scanned the shoreline, seeking a bridge, but there was nothing. Downriver, she spied a sort of path extending out into the water, made up of different-sized stones. Maybe it was shallow there. She headed toward it, because her only hope was to cross the river before they saw her.
A shout cut through the air, and her heart pounded. They’d spotted her; she heard their boots stomping through the forest floor behind her. At the sound of a gunshot, she sprang from the trees like a flushed rabbit, blind with terror. Another shot cracked, and bark blasted off a tree beside her head. Two more shots were fired as she sprinted to the water’s edge. If she could cross it before they caught her, maybe she could run downstream and hide. She neared the rough bridge of stones then splashed into the river toward it, feeling warm water rush against her legs. When she reached the rocks, the path was slick with algae, but she kept running, arms outstretched to help her balance, holding her breath as more shouts and gunshots followed.
All of a sudden, the river bottom was gone, and Marion dropped without warning. Her boots were caught and bound by weeds, her body bashed against rocks she couldn’t see, and the current swept her steadily downstream. When she finally got purchase, she braced her boots on the bottom then kicked so she shot straight up, gasping for air. Bullets skimmed past her head, plopping into the water, and she remembered Daniel’s story that day: I heard bullets hitting the grass around me. Like sharp whispers. He had jumped into the water to escape them, but it wasn’t deep enough for him to swim, so he had to get out.
Marion’s river was plenty deep. But she couldn’t swim.
The enemy was on the shore now, lined up five in a row. She paddled madly to keep her head above the surface of the water, and the men kept shooting and laughing, as if it was a sport and she was target practice. She heaved for breath, but the current snatched at her, dragging her under again. She kicked and splashed, reaching for the sunlight, but the glow of the corona kept getting farther away. She was wearing down. She shoved off the bottom again, and as she reached the surface, she felt a searing pain hit the top of her arm. In a daze, she noticed blood filling the brown water, turning it a deep burgundy. She began to sink again, feeling heavy and bone-tired.
A burst of machine-gun fire jerked her out of her stupor, and she sought the surface again. In a brief moment above the water, she saw two of the Vietnamese men crumple to the ground.
“Marion!”
“Daniel!” she wanted to yell, but she was battling too hard to breathe for any sound to come out. He stood on the shore she had just fled, staring at her while keeping an eye on the enemy at the same time. She wanted to tell him she was shot, but she was so, so tired. She wanted to tell him she thought she might be in love with him. She wanted to weep, but she had nothing left.
He fired again, and the remaining three men dove under the brush. They shot back, but Daniel held them in place while he yelled at her.
“Marion! Swim back to me, dammit! Don’t you give up!” He was cut off by gunshots. He returned fire before turning back to her. “Swim, Marion! Swim! Please, Marion! I need you!”
In those three words, Marion found a kernel of strength. Holding her breath for as long as she could, she kicked and splashed toward the shore, hauling herself through the water until her arms screamed with the effort. The battle continued on land, but she couldn’t waste time looking to see what was happening. Her focus was on a large boulder ahead, which offered an anchor. She tried to time her arrival at the rock with the speed of the current, but when she finally reached it, her hand slipped. With a cry, she went under again.
Then she felt him there. His hands gripped her under her arms, dragged her up and out of the water, then held her tight against his chest.
I’m alive.
She was too tired to open her eyes. Too tired to thank him, but he didn’t seem to notice. She lay limply in his arms as he carried her to a safe place, where he pressed down on her gunshot wound. He pulled a bandage from his pack and applied a field dressing, assuring her the wound was minor, but by then, shock had set in. She began to shake. Daniel was her blanket, keeping her safe and alive and warm.
“You did it,” he murmured into her ear. “You swam, Marion. You defeated the river.”
She moaned, unable to articulate any thoughts. Then she felt him press against the top of her head, and she realized, He kissed me .
“Daniel,” she whispered, her eyes still closed. Maybe she was dreaming. If she was, she wanted to hang on to it a little longer.
“I’m here, Marion,” he said. “I got you.”
She felt her control give way, and she clenched her jaw, trying to hold back the rush of tears she knew was coming. That’s when his fingers went to her cheek, softly caressing her wet skin.
“Don’t cry, Marion,” he said. “You made it.”
She opened her eyes at last, and he was gazing right at her, his expression tender. It felt like the most natural thing in the world when he leaned in and kissed her. She closed her eyes again, offering an invitation for both of them. His lips touched hers, and she answered, finally letting everything she’d been feeling for him rise to the surface.
“Thank you,” she whispered against his mouth.
“Never thank me, Marion. Please.”
“You saved my life.”
“You saved mine, too,” he told her, his arms tightening around her. “Rough first day, huh? We can rest here a few more minutes, but then we gotta go.”