Tunnel Rats_Episode One_The Diggers Read online

  “Stop it!” whispered Mr. Vo. “Stop it this very instant. Do not say that word, not ever, in my presence. Do you understand? In this country, among my people, that word is a death sentence. Don’t say it.”

  Jim leaned forward and tucked Communist away.

  “All right, then I’ll ask you again, Mr. Vo. Did you smoke the entire time you were in Vietnam? ‘Cause if you did, then maybe you were VC and maybe you weren’t. But if there was a time when you didn’t… a time of about, say, two years, then that means something. Says a lot about you. See, the VC didn’t smoke down in the tunnels. One, it was too dangerous. And two, they needed to smell us coming for them. In the dark, in the black, you can’t see nothin’ down there. But you sure can smell. You can smell a frightened to death G.I. who had a cigarette on guard duty the night before. That was probably real helpful down there in the dark. So, one more time, did you smoke the whole time you were in Vietnam? ‘Cause if you didn’t, if there was that two year break I’m looking for, well, you might just be a very rich man one day, Mr. Vo. Very rich.”

  Mr. Vo lit another cigarette, never taking his eyes off the strange man from Texas. The man who had beaten him at cards and then insisted on buying him a nice dinner. The man who had been apparently following him all week.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Vo quietly. “There was a time in Vietnam when I was not… able to smoke.”

  After a moment of silence Jim took up his wine goblet again. “That was a long time ago, wasn’t it, down in the tunnels?”

  Mr. Vo said nothing.

  “I was just visiting,” said Jim swirling and considering the wine. “But it felt like a prison sentence in hell. You on the other hand, you lived down there. Knew everything about the tunnels and how to live underground. How to make ‘em and fill ‘em with traps so that anyone who came looking for you was gonna die. You knew all about that, Mr. Vo.”

  Still nothing from the tiny Asian dragon-man.

  “I’m not with the government, Mr. Vo,” said Jim, leaning forward and whispering. “I’m just an ex-soldier, like you, who got the short end of the stick for his efforts. Maybe if I’d dodged the draft and gone off to Russia or college I coulda been makin’ money, enough money to have kept my ranch. Maybe if you’da played your cards right you’d be back in ‘Nam, head of the party, or some high government job. Whatever, but I’m guessing you’re a lot like me, Mr. Vo. I’m guessing the American Dream ain’t workin’ out too well for you right about now.”

  There was a long silence in which Mr. Vo took three drags of his cigarette, spilling clouds of white smoke out across the table and into the candlelit gloom of the fine room.

  Jim knew that Vo smoked the cigarettes the way he did because the man had gone two, maybe three years, down in the dark without a cigarette. The VC didn’t smoke down there. Now he smoked with relish and fear, savoring the forbidden as he incessantly chain smoked. Free of the tunnels.

  “No,” whispered Mr. Vo almost to himself. “It isn’t working out like I thought it might. Suffice it to say.”

  The duck arrived and the waiter began to carve tableside, on a silver platter, selecting tender cuts and rewarding them with deft, almost beautiful movements.

  Once the waiter was gone, and after a bite had been taken of the delicious duck, Jim leaned forward and said, “Well, Mr. Vo, things are about to change for you and me, that is if you’ll take a drive with me and listen to a little proposition I have.”

  Mr. Vo remained intent on the duck he was cutting. He was listening. But he said nothing.

  Chapter 13

  Jim checked the rearview mirror as they merged out onto the big empty of the 405 at nine o’clock that evening. They drove south with the night, passing sleeping towns and spreading orange groves and the big rigs pulling through the night for southern ports. At San Diego they turned left, found the lonely Highway Eight, and headed out into the emptiness of the Southwest.

  Mr. Vo watched the night pass and smoked, cracking the window every time he did so. Later, in a diner east of Tucson as the morning sun turned to high hot afternoon, over thick club sandwiches and cold beers, Mr. Vo said, “And you hope no one will ever think of the tunnels.”

  Jim put down his sandwich, wiped his mouth and smiled. “No Mr. Vo, I don’t think they will. America is… let me put it this way. We don’t think like you do. We’re different. Back in your country, I’d watch your people. I always felt like you guys were thinkin’ the same thoughts the same way. Knew the same things each other knew. I guess I would say you understood each other. Better than our side ever did.”

  “We just wanted war to be over,” mumbled Mr. Vo, fumbling for his lighter. “Whichever side you were on.”

  Jim thought for a moment.

  “Yeah, I guess there was that. But it’s somethin’ else, though. Somethin’ more than that. We’re different. We see things differently. Some guy explained it to me once, back in the jungle. He said you could show an Asian a picture of a tiger in the jungle and the Asian would tell you it’s a picture of a jungle. Right?”

  Mr. Vo barely nodded.

  “See, that’s not how Americans see things. If you showed most Americans a picture of a tiger in the jungle, they’d tell you it was a picture of a tiger. Why? I don’t know why. We’re just different that way. See things two ways. We see singular things and assign a value to them. Your people see the whole picture.”

  Mr. Vo shook his head, raised his smoldering cigarette and drew its smoke into his lungs. He turned his head as if he was watching the wide nothing of the Arizona desert, and after a bit, smoke spilled out against the yellowed window of the diner.

  “What that have to do with digging tunnels in Texas?”

  Jim finished his sandwich and said nothing.

  Later, at speed, roaring out into the desert wastes, the top down, Jim Howard shouted over the hurricane winds that raced across the white leather of the beautiful old Cadillac. “Diggin’ tunnels down in Texas means, Mr. Vo, that we can play outlaw and we might… never get caught. That’s what it means, Mr. Vo. It means getting away with robbery.”

  Mr. Vo cast a strange look at Jim Howard and continued to smoke and watch the alien desert and the big wide nothing that was larger than anything he’d ever seen in a land of rice and rivers and yellow skies that smelled of jasmine. A place he knew in his heart he could never go back to again. Ever.

  They made Texas that night. Mr. Vo wanted to stop and buy cigarettes, and Jim asked him to wait for “just a stretch”.

  “In Texas, Mr. Vo, everything’s far away. We’ll go get some cigarettes after I show you the reason for my plan, which is just up ahead, off this road here a bit.”

  They turned off the county road, the big headlights rolling across wind shifting plains of grass in the night and a sudden barbed wire fence dotted by old weathered posts. Then they were in the chalk of the road that led out to his Dad’s old place.

  What was left of the barn was boarded up and empty. To Jim it looked wounded. Like a thing that had been hurt so badly it might never live again.

  “I never shoulda gone,” said Jim, and heard himself above the night winds that seemed to thunder and roll across the grassy plains, buffeting everything from their clothes to the old boards that creaked and groaned.

  They left the car and walked out into the headlights that rested on the sagging sides of old clapboard.

  “The only reason we ever found your tunnels, Mr. Vo,” yelled Jim. “Found ‘em back in your country, was because the Australians found ‘em first. Didn’t occur to us that you guys would just tunnel under a battlefield. I don’t know why. Just didn’t. So for a long time, as you well know, you could move around whenever and wherever you wanted. You could choose when and where to shoot at us when it was good for you to do such.”

  Silence.

  “Yes,” said Mr. Vo, fidgeting and feeling more talkative without his c
igarette. “For a long time it was very safe for us down there in the dark.”

  “Well Mr. Vo, that’s what I was thinking too. You see, this was my home. It is my home. Bank took it away from me and now I want it back. I busted my hump for years after the war, down in the gulf trying to make the mortgage and pay the back taxes. But see, the game was stacked against me. Big bunch of ranchers banded together with some corporation called Allied Growing Concern. They’re buyin’ up all the land in the Basin. Wasn’t no way in hell I was gonna keep this land as far as they were concerned. They were all in on it together. Local government, the land commissioner, Wall Street, all of ‘em makin’ a buck on my land.” Silence. The wind grew and pitched, and somewhere within the ruins it found a scream. “This land’s been in my family since Texas was its own country. Did you know that, Mr. Vo.? Did you know Texas was once its own country before America? It’s the only state that ever was.”

  “So what that have to do with tunnels?”

  Jim watched the old place. Watched all the memories come in and out of its doors. The Fourth of Julys. The winters. The funerals. The children. Dogs he remembered following him everywhere.

  Where did they all go? he asked himself again. Where do they all go?

  “I’m gonna build tunnels and take back what’s mine, Mr. Vo. I’m gonna steal from them what they stole from me. I’m gonna rob banks and steal equipment and do whatever I can to take their money away from them. And maybe one day, if I get enough, I’ll buy this back.”

  “You going to become a cowboy?” asked Mr. Vo. “Like the wild west days and John Wayne?”

  Silence. The wind. The night. The big Texas starry sky.

  “I always was a cowboy, Mr. Vo. Since I was a kid, I rode horses and worked this ranch alongside my dad. I’ll die a cowboy, no matter what. Same as if I’d never made it out of those tunnels back in your country.”

  Jim Howard turned toward Mr. Vo.

  “No, Mr. Vo. Now I’m gonna turn outlaw. Like Jesse James and Pancho Villa did. Y’know them ol’ boys, Mr. Vo? I’m gonna make war on my enemies ‘til I have what’s mine again.” He paused for effect. “And then some.”

  Mr. Vo walked back to the Cadillac, opened the door and slid into the passenger seat. Jim took one last look at the old place and walked back to the Caddy.

  Behind the wheel, he muttered, “Alright, let’s go get you some cigarettes.”

  They found a gas station that was like an island of bright white hot light being drowned in a sea of darkness and wind. It was still open and Jim parked next to the pumps.

  Mr. Vo went in alone as Jim topped off the Caddy, listening to the guzzle, thump, and ding of each devoured gallon.

  That was dumb, Howard, Jim thought. Real dumb. What if he tells someone later? He don’t seem like he wants to play outlaw. No, he don’t seem that way at all.

  A few minutes later, Mr. Vo came out tapping a fresh pack of cigarettes. He wore a big black Stetson cowboy hat he’d purchased inside. He slid into the Cadillac and closed the door.

  Jim finished filling the Caddy and paid.

  As they drove away, Mr. Vo said, “Outlaws all wear black hats, right Mr. Texas?”

  Jim smiled to himself and then chuckled a bit because he couldn’t help it.

  “Yes, Mr. Vo. Outlaws do wear black hats.”

  “So, where we dig tunnels?”

  They drove on. Jim dialed in a station out of Abilene. Buddy Holly sang, “Everyday, it’s a gettin’ closer, goin’ faster than a rollercoaster.”

  The night and the wind consumed them and all that was left were two red taillights that in time were gone, almost seeming to disappear.

  “Well Mr. Vo, we’re gonna start far off the beaten track. A strange place, high up on a mesa. The government was gonna make it into a state park because of the land features, but they never did. It’s a high valley no one really knows about up along some cliffs, and there’s a beautiful river there me and my Dad used to take trout out of. We’ll have to tunnel under the river to access the main county telecommunications tunnels.”

  “Tunneling under rivers is very dangerous,” said Mr. Vo.

  “But it can be done, right?”

  Mr. Vo lit a cigarette. Then, “Yes, it can.”

  “No one ever goes out that way. We can work as much as we like and once we start earning some money, we’ll take time off and spend it down in Mexico on the other side of San Antonio.”

  The bright headlights made the old highway speeding in front of them seem like the spotlight on a stage in the moments just before someone might enter and sing.

  “So, this place, it will be our outlaw hideout?” asked Mr. Vo.”

  Jim Howard laughed. “Yeah, Mr. Vo. That it will be. We’ll start up at the top of the place, in these rocks, and make a lookout. Then we’ll start digging a tunnel that leads down toward the river. We’ll tunnel everywhere and no one will ever know until we’ve run off with all their money. We’ll be outlaws, like Jesse James and Pancho Villa, Mr. Vo. And we’ll be rich and no one’ll ever figure it out ‘cause they won’t be lookin’ for tunnels. They’re Americans. They only think on the surface.”

  Chapter 14

  Now.

  As he passed from the pasture through the makeshift gate and into the long garden, Ellis heard a shriek and some yelling. His mental alarms were triggered—just for a micro-second—but he relaxed when he saw Amy running from the barn with two mens hats clutched in front of her. She was sprinting as fast as she could, and as she ran she was laughing so hard there were tears in her eyes and rolling down her face, and Ellis heard Chuck and Shooter yelling, “Rooster!” as they sprinted after her, too late and too slow to catch her. Shooter slowed up a tad and threw a ball they’d once made from a pig’s skin and stuffed with lamb’s wool and it missed her by nearly a foot but only made her laugh louder and run faster.

  Chuck and Shooter pulled up and Chuck yelled after Rooster, cupping his hands so she might hear him over her cackling, “We’re going to take you out to the Nowheres and leave you there, Rooster! I promise we will!”

  Rooster realized she was no longer being chased and stopped running, dropping head and hands. She wasn’t scared of being left in the Nowheres, but the game wasn’t fun if no one was chasing her. She dropped the hats in the pasture and moped back toward the house. She wouldn’t take the hats back to the boys. They’d have to go get them themselves. If she gave the hats back, then next time they wouldn’t chase her, and what fun would that be?

  Ellis watched as Amy skipped up the front stairs of the house. As she walked by, she swung her hips and bumped Renny off the porch. He’d been bending over, trying to carefully pour some dirty dishwater on bean plants that were growing in the small garden next to the porch. Renny yelled, “Rooster!” as he tumbled off the porch and spilled some of his water a little less cautiously than he’d originally intended. “You’re gonna make me waste water, Rooster you old dummy!” He pushed his glasses back up his nose, climbed back up to his knees and finished pouring out the rest of the bucket before he popped up onto the porch and ran back inside.

  Ellis shook his head at Rooster’s shenanigans, then he followed Chuck and Shooter back into the barn. The two young men were shaping forked branches into a Y, like comically large slingshots, using machetes to scrape off the remaining bark.

  Ellis picked up one of the finished devices and examined it. The young men had drilled holes in the two “Y” ends and had strung them with some homemade twine.

  Chuck grunted as he saw Ellis examining their work. “These go around the goats necks and the string is tied in a way that keeps it from coming off. If it works like it’s supposed to, then they can’t jump or crawl through fences. But, we’ll see about that.”

  Ellis nodded his head. “This is genius, brothers.”

  Chuck pointed his machete. “Shooter read it in one of the homesteadin
g books.”

  Ellis placed the finished Y back with the others and walked further into the barn.

  “Where are all the spreckle tins?”

  Shooter pointed toward the far wall. “In the cabinet there, near the bottom.” His hands went back to scraping the bark.

  “You both should be using pocket knives or whittling blades or something else for that. You’re going to cut an artery and bleed out.

  Both boys looked up and Chuck sighed. “Yes, sir.”

  “Whatcha got goin’ that you need spreckle?” Shooter asked.

  Ellis waved him off, as if to say don’t you worry about it. He found the right cabinet. He had to push away some of the straw that was piled on the old wooden floor in order to open the cabinet door, but when he got the cabinet open and looked inside he saw the neatly stacked tins of spreckle. Pulling out two of them, he popped them open one after the other to make sure they were full. Satisfied he had what he needed, he waved at Chuck and Shooter, ducked out the back door, and headed toward the house.

  Spreckle, the word the family used for its unique, all-purpose grease/oil/fuel mixture, had gotten its name by accident. The substance was made of a carefully measured combination of mostly re-rendered bacon grease mixed with precise portions of pressed pecan oil, chicken fat, and pitch made from pine tree resin. The resulting product was used by the family for everything from fat lamps to making torches, to waterproofing pipe or anything else that needed patching. The name was coined by Renny one day when they were making the substance as a family project. The twelve year old boy had noted that the melty, greasy slime had “spreckles” in it. He’d meant to say speckles, but it had come out spreckles. From that point on, the finished product was called spreckle. A glorious salvaging find from out in the Scraps of over one hundred old metal fudge tins had given them the perfect containers for storing their spreckle in easy to use quantities.