WIREMAN Read Free

his leg and popped his knee, the birds flew into a different set of branches.
    What if the gooks heard Nick's knee-popping trick as they paused beneath the tree? Daley wondered. The night would light up like the Fourth of July and two sitting pigeons would be grounded with guts full of lead.
    Sweet Christ!
    "You ready for a nap, Daley?" Nick sounded almost cheerful.
    “I’m pretty jittery.”
    Nick snorted and slapped the branch with his palm. "You're a master of understatement," he said. "Try to get some rest anyway. It's my watch."
    Daley scooted near to the trunk and pressed his chest against the rough bark as if embracing a woman.
    "What kind of tree is this?" he asked, tracing the sharp whorls of bark with his fingers.
    “Vietnamese oak. How the fuck should I know?"
    Daley smiled. He felt Nick's arm hold him steady. His brother's fingers were wintry. ”You must be cold.
    I'm sweating and your hands are freezing."
    "Fear, little brother. It drains all the warmth. Haven't you ever noticed?"
    Daley silently agreed, but what good did it do to talk about it? It only caused the fear to become more urgent.
    Nick's knee popped again. A bird jeered and flew through pitch blackness with a flutter.
    Suddenly a twig snapped at the bottom of the tree. Daley's eyes snapped open. His heart pounded fiercely and he struggled for breath.
    "You hear that?" he asked in a low whisper.
    "Some animal," Nick reassured him. "Get some sleep while you can."
    Daley's eyes closed and his heart slowed until it no lower thumped against his rib cage. Sleep, sure, sleep.
    But how? He had nightmares of falling, his body riddled with bullet holes.
    All the odds were against their survival. Big shot recon snipers cut off from safety. One M-14 with a broken breach. Nick had buried it. One M-14 lost in the murky depths of a creek while crossing. He would never live it down if they ever got back to the platoon. He could have told them he would fuck things up.
    Where the sergeant saw potential, Daley only saw incompetence. Losing his weapon proved it.
    “I’m gonna die,” he breathed, but Nick did not hear him. The frightened birds that nested all around the brothers thought the animal in their midst had only breathed a weary sigh.
    #

    Daley woke groggily, clawing his way out of his nightmare to stare blankly at the trunk of the tree right before his eyes.
    "Smell 'em?" Nick whispered harshly.
    Smell what? Daley wondered. Then his mind slipped into place and he remembered where he was.
    The Cong! You could always smell them before you could see them or hear their approach. They stank of wet stagnant rice paddies and they stank of human excrement. Their own shit betrayed their presence.
    Daley touched his brother to let him know that he knew the enemy was close. He strained to hear a sound, but be could not tell where they were. The aroma was still faint so he knew they were not at the base of the tree. Please Jesus save us, he prayed.
    "Stay." Nick said the word so softly it might have been a puff of wind passing Daley's ear. He wanted to scream, No! Don't go down there! Don't let me die alone! But Nick already was shimmying expertly down the tree, swinging from limb to limb as he lowered himself to the ground. Daley watched his brother becoming a dark shape going down, down, descending silently to death.
    Daley decided not to do as Nick had commanded. He could not sit in the branches while his brother stalked the enemy. There might be too many of them. It was probably a night patrol from a nearby tunnel.
    The stink grew stronger. The enemy was closer, not more than twenty yards north of their tree. Daley could hear them, the footfalls barely disturbing the thick vegetation of the forest floor.
    He looked for Nick, but his brother had vanished. Oh for godssake, Nick, this is it. This is how it ends. And I don't even have a goddamn gun.
    Daley moved like a wraith down the tree trunk and concentrated on the darkness in the direction of the oncoming