For the Sake of All Living Things Page 8

  “Children,” Chhuon called.

  “Yes Father,” they both answered.

  “You must be ready when I return.”

  “Yes Papa.”

  “And...and...” Chhuon reached out and pulled his offspring to him. He hugged Mayana and then Samnang. He held his boy at arm’s length and said, “Take care and watch over Yani. Never forget our family legacy or the Path of the Elders. Remember our family, our village and our people.” Chhuon untied the yellow-checked krama from about his waist and pushed it into Samnang’s hands. “If anything should happen to me...remember how you want to go to school in Stung Treng. Become all you’re capable of becoming. Whatever happens—do not cry.”

  Y Bhur pulled Samnang back under the longhouse. The sun had begun its descent yet cloud-filtered sunlight still streamed in from the southwest and filled the canyon. The air was heavy with the smell of cinnamon and pig shit.

  “No,” Y Bhur said. At twelve years old he was only one year Samnang’s senior but he was both large for his age and the product of a culture where boys take over men’s duties earlier than in Khmer society. “That’s backwards. Let’s retie it.”

  Samnang put his crossbow on the ground and unwound the long strip of cloth. Earlier he had removed his sandals and clothes and had tied the loincloth as he thought it should be tied. As he had emerged from beneath the house the cloth had begun to unwind.

  “Between your thighs like...yes, that’s right.” Y Bhur tugged at the cloth in back. “Around you it goes three times.” He chuckled. He made sure it was tied properly before they emerged again to where Mayana sat with Sraang. Each girl had a quiver of arrows and a bushhook, a short-bladed scythe with a three-foot bamboo handle.

  “Ha,” Y Bhur laughed good-heartedly. “You almost look Jarai—but you’re too thin.”

  Samnang hefted the crossbow and smiled back. He said nothing. He felt strange and exposed in the tribal dress and he felt uncomfortable before Y Bhur’s sister, Sraang. Sraang was as tall as he. Her black hair was combed straight and it caught the southwest sun and glistened. She had adorned herself with additional bracelets and a bead necklace which lay at the top of her breasts, and Samnang wondered if she had added the ornaments for him.

  Mayana remained in Khmer dress. She tugged at her brother’s arm and said, “We have to be here when Papa comes.”

  “Don’t worry,” Samnang reassured her. He drew himself up to full height and puffed out his chest. “We’ll return from our expedition long before Father does.”

  At that the small force set out. They crossed through Jaang’s garden and through the courtyard of the adobe commonhouse to the village watering spot which was a small natural pool at the base of the canyon-terminus cliff. There, long ago, Jarai women had pounded thick bamboo tubes into the cliff at head height. The natural hydrostatic pressure within the mountain released into the tubes. Instead of water trickling down the rocks or bubbling up from a spring below the pool, a shower flowed continuously from the bamboo.

  Playfully Y Bhur led his patrol through the water, across the shallow ford and up the east slope to a small plateau. Older, sweat-shiny women bent over dry-rice stubble, their bodies and hand scythes swinging monotonously. Y Bhur gazed upon the women with an air of disdain. To him their sweat was a totally undignified condition, at least for a Jarai man. Samnang looked at the field. “One moment, Brother,” he said to Y Bhur. He walked into the field, knelt. The stubble felt sharp against his bare feet, feet not unaccustomed to going without shoes but not peasant feet used to such rough walking. He inspected several uncut rice stalks. “With more nitrogen,” he said authoritatively, “the stalks would be stronger and the grain fuller.”

  “Ha,” Y Bhur laughed, and smiled in his sincere yet jocular, hillbilly manner. “Just like your father.”

  They continued their climb up a narrow path to a second plateau where village buffalo and cattle were grazing. Y Bhur led, followed by Samnang, Sraang and Mayana. “When we return,” Sraang said, “we must herd the animals back to their pens.”

  “Can’t they stay here?” Yani asked.

  “Oh no,” Y Bhur answered for his sister. “If we leave them their smell will attract the tiger.”

  “Or the yuons?!” Samnang said it softly, hesitantly, both as a statement and as a question. They continued to climb, now into the forest, along a steep trail. Y Bhur halted on a false peak. The trail ended. He looked into the forest then back down the trail. The vegetation was thick. Through breaks he could see the roofs of the longhouses below. Samnang was thirty feet back. He had stopped to give his hand to Sraang who feigned finding one steep rock difficult to negotiate in her long skirt. Yani was another twenty feet below, spunkily trying to keep up, afraid of being alone in this unknown forest yet telling herself, Afraid of nothing.

  “Here we must stay close,” Y Bhur said as the column closed. “We should have a chicken to sacrifice to the Spirit of the Forest.” He spoke solemnly. “Here the Cloud Forest begins. Here the Spirits live.”

  “Is it here where the yuons camp?” Samnang asked quietly.

  “Yes,” Y Bhur said. “But the Cloud Forest is vast. They camp at the Canyon of the Dead Teak, which is half a day’s walk. We’ll walk the ridge and I’ll show you where to find small game. Now that you’re Jarai, you must be a good hunter.”

  Again they set out. Below them the longhouses fell to shadow but on the west slope of the east ridge, light remained. Above them, the mountain peak alone was shrouded in mist. Y Bhur led them deeper and deeper into the Cloud Forest. As they walked Samnang first pretended he was hunting roebucks, then tigers. Then he imagined he was leading Sraang to a beautiful valley which was theirs. Finally, as they entered the lower mist, he saw himself as a soldier out to kill the hated yuons or the corrupt Royal troops. For all eternity, he thought, our blood will call for revenge.

  “ssshh.” Y Bhur held up his hand. He stopped. Ahead there was a clearing. He crouched. Froze. His eyes did not blink, did not for an instant leave the scene before him.

  Almost by instinct the other children also stuck fast in their tracks. Slowly, ever so slowly, eyes still fixed, Y Bhur backed to Samnang. Samnang said nothing, whispered nothing. Without moving his head he scanned the vegetation about the small clearing, about his own position. Sraang silently crept up behind him. Two uniformed soldiers were setting up aiming stakes before a metal tube. They made little effort to be quiet. Mayana, immobilized with fear, remained fifteen feet back. She had not, could not, see the clearing but was certain they had come upon a tiger. Her face puckered, squinched. Her eyes shut tight. Inside she whispered a prayer to the Blessed One. Then Sraang tapped her hand. Mayana’s eyes opened wide. She was about to speak but Sraang’s look strangled her as effectively as if someone had tightened a noose about her neck.

  Sraang tapped lightly and pointed to the quiver of arrows Yani carried for Y Bhur. Yani blinked. The arrows and Sraang were gone. She blinked again and the Jarai girl was leading her silently back toward the village.

  Quietly, ever so quietly, the boys settled back and watched as the soldiers and their porters set up a radio and a landline telephone. Y Bhur recognized the tube but he did not know its name. He counted the soldiers—only four—and the porters, who seemed to number at least eight. He counted the rounds of ammunition as best he could but he lost count at forty-five. He looked for other weapons but saw only one rifle and one pistol.

  Samnang squatted just behind his friend. He did not count. At first he was afraid to notice anything, but the longer they sat the more comfortable he was watching the soldiers and the more secure he felt they could not see him. He noticed other details. The uniformed men spoke Viet Namese. The coolies, the few who spoke, spoke an unfamiliar mountain dialect. He was sure it was not a language of any of the tribes of the Srepok Forest. Perhaps, he thought, they are Lao. Perhaps...His thoughts wandered. One moment he imagined he was watching fish in a basin; the next he looked at the sky and thought, Even if we leave now, it will b
e dark before we reach the village. If I’m not there when Papa returns, I’ll disappoint him. I always disappoint him.

  Y Bhur cocked his crossbow. He glanced at his lowland brother. Suddenly Samnang’s arms shook. His chest tightened, his legs felt leaden. Y Bhur’s right hand slipped a second arrow from Samnang’s quiver. He turned it up in his hand indicating they should fire, reload and fire again. Samnang, as if the fibers and fragments of this day had finally spun into a single strand, understood. He cocked his crossbow. Y Bhur raised his weapon, aimed. Samnang raised up the stock. The bow ends caught in branches to his sides. His arms shook. He forced the stock up. It leveled and the man with the pistol was small at the tip of the arrow. He shut his eyes, heard the cord of Y Bhur’s bow spank forward. He squeezed. He fumbled for the second arrow. Rifle shots cracked.

  The village and canyon were dark with shadow but overhead the clouds were still gray. Y Ksar pulled his blanket more tightly about his neck and shoulders, sucked harder on his bent pipe. Where are the children? he thought. Chhuon will be here soon. He looked at the sky. A lone blackbird swooped down from the cliff, effortlessly glided the length of the village street, winged over, flapped and glided back to alight on the roof of Y Ksar’s longhouse. The bird cawed loudly once. Then it seemed to jump from the roof and slide through the air to the roof of the new commonhouse. Then it disappeared. Y Ksar shook his head. Everything which blooms...his thoughts began, but before they could be completed they were halted by Sraang’s and Mayana’s shouting from the cattle pasture.

  The girls were breathless as they ran to the courtyard. Y Ksar, Jaang, Chung, Mul and two dozen villagers gathered about them.

  “Breathe deep,” Y Ksar said. “Then your words will come.”

  “There are soldiers...” Sraang gasped in Jarai.

  “A tiger...” Mayana exhaled in Khmer. She did not understand Sraang’s words.

  “No...in the Cloud...Forest...”

  “Stop. Breathe deep,” Y Ksar repeated.

  Chung put his blanket over his daughter’s shoulders. “Women should winnow rice,” he said angrily in Jarai, “not meander in the woods.”

  “Y Bhur...” Sraang began again. “Y Bhur and Samnang...There are many soldiers just over the ridge. They stayed to see while we came to warn...”

  “What is this of a tiger?” Y Ksar said in Khmer to Mayana.

  “We’re running from a tiger,” the little girl said.

  “No,” Sraang interrupted. “Not tiger. Soldiers.”

  “I thought...”

  “Okay,” Y Ksar said. He questioned Sraang but she knew few details.

  “I’m certain they were yuon,” Sraang said.

  “Perhaps,” Y Ksar said. There were now seven young men listening, watching, as Y Ksar transformed from village old man to village chief, from Iron Age Jarai to modern tactical leader. “Perhaps,” Y Ksar repeated. “Warn the children,” he said to his wife. “Y Tang, Y Tung, follow the path into the forest. Djhang, ride to Plei Pang and prepare them to reinforce us or to defend themselves. K Drai, ride to the airfield at Andaung Pech. Tell them we’re being attacked. If they aid us we’ll know the attackers are yuons. If not, perhaps the attack comes from Royal Khmer.”

  Immediately the two soldiers jumped on their Hondas and sped from the village. Others ran from house to house rousing the people. Still others sounded a village-specific alarm pattern on the gongs—an eerie dirge which to the uninitiated could mean the sacrifice of a pig or the announcement of some social event but to the people of Plei Srepok meant return from the woods and fields immediately.

  For a quarter of an hour men, women and children scurried—men with rifles to defensive positions along the village stockade, women to the communal center to prepare a secondary defense, and children into concealed holes beneath granaries or chicken coops. Then all was silent.

  Before the first mortar rounds exploded the early evening was quiet and peaceful. Chhuon was feeling particularly good. On the trip from Plei Srepok to the sawmill at Buon O Sieng, he had made excellent time. Two FULRO troops on gray Hondas had escorted him to the edge of the Cloud Forest where he was met by an NVA roadblock. But the Viet Namese did not search him, did not even slow him but waved him on as if they knew his truck was empty and he in a hurry. He had kissed his Buddha statuette seven times and said a prayer of thanks. Then at Buon O Sieng he again had luck. The men at the mill wanted to leave quickly to check their fish traps and thus loaded the truck without the usual formalities or haggling, and by five-thirty Chhuon was again on the road to Plei Srepok. With luck, he thought, I will be at the village gate by only a few minutes past six.

  Chhuon hummed a tune as the small truck struggled to raise the heavy load of fresh-cut teak up the mountain road. He hummed as he laid out in his mind consecutive images of the remainder of his journey. Certainly another roadblock. He checked the roll of counterfeit riels in his pocket. And he told himself to make it appear painful to part with the money. Then he saw the soldier inspecting the top fifty-riel note and fear flashed through him. He stopped the truck. From beneath the seat he removed an envelope and from it took a single good bill. Chhuon rehid the envelope, wrapped the good note around the wad of counterfeits, then drove on thinking, humming, seeing himself with Kdeb and Yani speeding from the high plateau, crossing the bridge to Phum Sath Din.

  Chhuon reached into his shirt and grasped his statuette of Buddha. He lifted it to his lips, kissed it seven times. The higher onto the mountain he drove the lighter the cloud cover seemed, yet with the setting sun the light lessened. The vibration of the small truck seemed constant. The road seemed to stretch on forever yet not move at all. For one moment he felt as if physical movement were an illusion, as if he, everything, were standing perfectly still. He tried to make the truck go faster. He checked his watch. It was only three minutes since the last time he’d checked yet he felt he had been driving for an hour. He was still a few kilometers from the turnoff to Plei Srepok. The road dropped into a shallow valley, then rose. As he crested the second knoll a squad of soldiers blocked the road.

  “Hello,” Chhuon called out. He stuck his head and left arm out the window and waved. “Hello. May I pass. I have...”

  “Halt!” a soldier yelled. He raised his rifle and aimed through the windshield. Other rifle bolts snapped, pointed at him from behind log fighting positions beside the road.

  From the third round, Y Ksar knew the mortar barrage would not, was not meant to, destroy the village. The first round impacted just beyond the village gate. The second, nearly a full minute later, also exploded outside the village. The third landed in the cornfields west of the road. Plei Srepok had no artillery to answer the attack. KkkaRrump! KkkaRrump! Back and forth across the canyon just beyond the bamboo stockade.

  He stood before his house and listened carefully. The sky was late-evening dark. His scouts had not returned. From his messengers no word, no signal. The village warriors, with an assortment of rifles and two machine guns, had deployed along the front stockade and the treeline above the dry-rice fields on the slope of the east ridge. Nothing had been heard from Y Bhur and Samnang. More explosions jarred the fields before the gate. The mortars were firing from at least two positions, of that Y Ksar was certain. Who was firing, of that he was not sure.

  Flash! KkkaRrUMP! A shout. One, two, three rounds landed on the stockade, blowing bamboo slivers, earth and blood into the mango orchard and the first line of longhouses. Then the barrage ceased. Y Ksar called for a runner. “...to each position,” he instructed the young man. “We’re no match for their arms. Tell all not to fire until they’re on top of us.” Now, he thought, the assault will begin. Now we’ll know.

  For a time nothing happened. Then from the east ridge small-arms fire erupted. Several short bursts. Then several more. A pause. More firing. Then from the west ridge. Repeat burst. From the high cliff. Longer bursts. Consistent, methodical, lower and lower as the cordon tightened on all sides. In it all Y Ksar could hear the buffalo and
cattle lowing, falling. He could see muzzle flashes and tracers, green light balls seemingly floating down from the blackness, stinging the periphery of the village, carefully avoiding firing into the people. Closing down. Not yet presenting a target he wanted his soldiers to engage. A village defender fired off a single round. Six weapons fired onto the muzzle flash. Two RPG, rocket-propelled grenade rounds exploded near the village well. The U-shaped cordon tightened but the enemy stayed unseen in the trees on the slopes above the village.

  On the road to the village there was great clatter. The road’s sealed, Y Ksar thought. We’re trapped. He saw headlights. They’re good, he thought. They cannot be Royal troops. Let them get closer before we fight. A single jeep drove up, stopped fifty meters before the gate. Oh, for a few rockets, he thought.

  Mayana and Sraang had come from their concealed hole near the well. Sraang’s left arm was badly scraped and bleeding. Before Y Ksar could tell them to go back, a powerful spotlight mounted on the jeep illuminated the village road all the way to the adobe building.

  “PEOPLE OF PLEI SREPOK,” an announcement in Jarai blasted from bullhorns beyond the jeep. “WE MEAN YOU NO HARM. ALL MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN, ASSEMBLE IN THE COURTYARD BEFORE THE COMMONHOUSE. STACK ALL WEAPONS ON THE ROAD BEFORE THE LONGHOUSE OF Y KSAR! NO ONE WILL BE HURT.”

  The light went out. “Stay where you are,” Chung, Y Ksar’s son, shouted. A few women jumped from their secondary fighting positions within the village and advanced to reinforce the stockade.

  Again the bullhorn blasted, repeating the demand to assemble and the promise that no one would be hurt. No one moved. Y Ksar felt satisfied at their performance. The spotlight again came on. There was the clatter of tank treads in the blackness beyond the jeep. A second light crossed the first and its beam flooded the tiers of longhouses.

  “WE WANT ONE MAN. ONE MAN WHO HAS COMMITTED THE MOST GRIEVOUS CRIMES AGAINST HIS OWN PEOPLE. ONE INGRATE WHO HAS INSULTED US. YOU SHALL BE THE JUDGES. TRY Y KSAR BEFORE YOUR VILLAGE COUNCIL. TRY Y KSAR WHO SENDS BOYS INTO THE FOREST TO HUNT US DOWN. GRANT HIM A FAIR TRIAL AND NO ONE WILL BE HURT. WE WILL LEAVE YOU IN PEACE.”