for a really great-smelling boy. I was pretty sure neither of the Jens would have found me all that attractive right about then.
We finally came out of the jungle, and there was this field stretched across in front of us. Neat rows of plants stood maybe a foot high in a layer of water across the whole field. The water looked to be about fifteen centimetres deep. Maybe more. The old man came up alongside me.
“Rice paddy,” he said. “There was one in about this area the last time I made this walk. May be the same one.”
I was thinking who cares.
Then he pointed. There was another stretch of jungle on the other side of the rice paddy, not very big this time, and a hill that kind of rose up out of it. Behind that hill there were a couple of good-sized looking mountains.
“That’s where we’re going. Hill 453. Not a very exotic name is it? Not like Hamburger Hill, the one they made the movie about — that’s over there.” He waved an arm in an arc to his right, but there were lots of hills and mountains in that direction, so I didn’t know which one he meant. I’d seen the movie but I couldn’t remember very much about it, other than the name.
I looked at the hill we were heading for. Not a real big deal. Hill 453 definitely didn’t look like it was worth fighting for. Or dying for. I wondered if people had died on that hill during whatever happened when the old man was there. And I wondered if I’d find out.
“Stay as close to him as you can,” the old man told me, nodding toward Mr. Vinh. “And don’t decide to stroll off the path any.”
“What path?” I wasn’t trying to be funny. If there was a path, I was having a tough time seeing it. Yet there had to be one since Mr. Vinh’s machete was hanging from his belt as he walked through the growth.
“Just stay in his line. Step in his footsteps if you can.”
I looked at him. I was going to ask why, but he beat me to it. “Unexploded ordnance. Shells and stuff that didn’t explode. An average of five people a day die in this country from coming in contact with unexploded ordnance. And this is a bad area. Walk where he walks.”
No kidding. Unexploded ordnance. Doesn’t sound all that nasty. Oh, look a shell. Make a great souvenir. Think I’ll just … BOOM!
I hustled after Mr. Vinh at pretty close to a sprint. I didn’t want him out of my sight. This was one time I wasn’t going to argue with the old man. If he said walk in Mr. Vinh’s footsteps, that’s what I planned to do. I wondered whether the old man had mentioned unexploded ordnance when he’d talked Mom into letting me go on a little summer road trip.
We set out across the rice paddy. No hip waders this time. Just sloshing water up to your ankles and in your shoes and soaking your socks. Just as we got to the other side, a woman came running up to us. She was yelling and waving her arms. My guess was that she was pissed off about us walking through the rice paddy. Her rice paddy. I didn’t know if we had wrecked any of the plants or not — I’d tried not to — but I could see her point.
The old man kept walking, and I figured I’d better follow along. Don’t forget the unexploded ordnance. We left Mr. Vinh to deal with the rice paddy lady. Almost immediately we were once again surrounded by dense jungle growth and animal noises. This part of the jungle seemed noisier than any we’d been in so far. I wondered why that would be. The water maybe. Greater number of animals because of the water right close by. Although water didn’t seem to be something that was in real short supply in the jungle. We’d walked through lots of little puddles and pools.
The old man hadn’t been BS-ing. There actually was a path in this part of the jungle. It wasn’t very wide, and sometimes you had to duck your head, but it was a path.
Mr. Vinh caught up to us and went right by without saying anything. Took the lead again. I never found out what happened with him and the rice paddy lady after the old man and I got our butts out of there.
3
I’d had this piece of jungle figured right. It didn’t go for long, and pretty soon we were at the base of a hill. I’d lost track during our trek, but I figured this was the hill the old man had pointed to. Hill 453.
There were some trees and brush on the lower part of the hill, but it wasn’t nearly as dense as in the jungle. The old man spread one of the slickers on the ground and motioned for me to sit down. He pulled out the sandwiches — I’d almost forgotten about them — and passed them around. Mine was jam.
“Sorry, there’s no meat. I figured it would go bad in this heat, and we’d all get sick if we ate them.”
“Jam’s fine,” I said.
Mr. Vinh didn’t say anything, but he pretty much attacked his sandwich. And for the next twenty minutes we had this weird picnic, sitting on a slicker at the bottom of Hill 453. We polished off one entire canteen. All of us were thirsty.
After we finished eating, the old man dug out the briefcase again. This time he didn’t bother with the map. He mostly seemed interested in the photographs. He’d look at a photo, then at the hill, craning his head around like he was trying to get some sort of bearings. Mr. Vinh was mostly ignoring him. Kind of nodding off.
I watched, but I didn’t say anything.
“Okay, let’s go.” The old man stood up. He didn’t pick up the duffel bag this time. Just moved it over beside Mr. Vinh, who hadn’t moved a muscle except to unfasten the machete from his belt and hand it to the old man. It was obvious the old man and I were on our own from here on.
I wasn’t sure I liked that. Mr. Vinh knew his way around, that was clear. The old man hadn’t been here for forty years, couldn’t possibly remember. I was hoping he wouldn’t get us lost or up to our chins in quicksand or something. Is there quicksand in the jungle? Probably — right next to the unexploded ordnance.
He took the briefcase, and I grabbed the backpack and one canteen.
“Let’s go,” he said again.
We started across the lower face of the hill going up a bit of an incline as we walked. Okay, first of all, Hill 453 wasn’t really a hill. More like a mountain that hadn’t totally grown up.
I discovered this as the old man and I were working our way up the slope. It wasn’t too bad at first, not real steep and not tons of jungle growth. Neither of those lasted long. It got steep pretty fast, and at about the same time, it seemed like we were having to fight our way through major growth.
The old man stopped to catch his breath. Or maybe it was to let me catch my breath. “Triple canopy. That’s what you call jungle that’s got growth along the ground, at about head height and overhead as well. We’re in triple canopy here. Makes for hard going.”
Ya think?
A couple of times I lost sight of him but could still hear the swish-whack of the machete as he carved a path up the side of the hill.
It wasn’t long until I couldn’t see the sky at all. And a weird thing was happening. I was scared. Okay, maybe not scared but nervous. I still didn’t know what had happened here, but I had this strange feeling, like when you have the flu, and you’re hot, and then you’re cold. It just felt like this was a bad place.
I tried to stay behind the old man, but the truth is
