Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (english novels to read .TXT) 📕

callused hands and handed them around. Harry did not decline.

Hector gazed through the shimmering heat at the far mountains.

Watching him, it struck Harry that Hector was probably 368 / CHUCK LOGAN

the future. The golden mud of his skin had been spit in by African slaves, Mexican Indians, Chinese coolies, and white trash.

“Okay,” said Hector softly. “This is for Gunny Cox.” The reflexive sneer went out of his handsome, ravaged face.

“Who is he?” Harry pointed to the Adonis marine with his arm around Bud Maston.

“Martin Kessler,” said Hector with a wistful smile. “We called him Fearless Faggot.” Hector waffled his hand, loose at the wrist. “A homo.” Hector paused and a pocket of memory deepened his eyes.

“Didn’t put it on Front Street but didn’t deny it, either. He had this tattoo on his thigh, two little cherries. Three months in the bush and he added some words. KILL MORE GOOKS.” Hector gave a dry laugh. “He was a crazy fucker, you know, from loving and hating the war. But he carried the platoon radio. He took care of us all.”

“And Jay Cox?” asked Harry.

“Gunny,” said Hector. “Platoon sergeant. On his third tour when I met him. His nerves were shot after we hit the shit at Cam Lo.

Other two platoons in the company got really torn up. The skipper and all three lieutenants got wasted. Martin and Gunny pulled us through. Didn’t lose a single guy from our platoon except the lieutenant. We got so we were superstitious about Martin. And then, we drew Maston as our new lieutenant…” Hector stopped.

“What’s wrong?” asked Harry.

“The chica. Maybe you should send her away,” said Hector.

“Talk,” said Becky.

Hector took another sip of beer. “Lieutenant Maston. You could just see it the minute he showed up. He had that look. That Kennedy light on him. He was going to do everything at least once. The war was his dime store and we was his toy soldiers.”

A desert hawk drifted over them and Harry watched its shadow sail across the sand and a cloud covered the sun and the hawk’s shadow metastasized and covered everything.

HUNTER’S MOON / 369

Hector lit a cigarette. “This is a war story. You know about war stories. That’s where everybody lies.” He smiled tightly at Becky.

“Just as soon not talk in front of her.”

“Fuck you,” said Becky.

Hector appraised her. “You’re tough, huh? Okay, so Maston. At first we thought, cool. He’s a good head. Like he went out of his way to take care of us. He remembered everybody’s name and where they were from. But then stuff started to happen.”

“What kind of stuff?” asked Harry.

“Creepy things. Even for over there. We captured this sniper. Some of the guys were gonna shoot him, I mean, he was wounded and all. And he was a fucking sniper. But Maston had this idea—he wanted to hang him.” Hector shrugged and hugged himself like he had bumped into a sudden chill in the 90-degree heat. “He said he’d never seen anybody hanged before. Like curious, you know. Woulda too, if Gunny Cox hadn’t talked him out of it.”

“What else?” Harry felt the goose bumps start at the base of his spine, radiate out his shoulders, and pop down his arms.

“There was this ville the zoomies blew to shit, and we made a sweep through it. Some civilians were killed, and ah, some cows and pigs…” Hector licked his lips and drank greedily from his beer.

“And Maston, he carved this hunk out of this dead lady’s leg and was roasting it on his K-Bar over these embers. He just took one bite though—you know, curious again.”

They watched Hector drink half his beer. Then Hollywood asked,

“What about Martin and Lieutenant Maston?”

“Well, it was like the other stuff. Maybe he was curious. Maybe he wanted to try Martin, too. Just one bite.” Hector shook his head.

“But Martin never fucked around in the field and anyway, I think he was like, only into niggers. We kidded Martin about it, you know.

How Maston was gonna stick him on his K-Bar like a weenie and put the fire to him and eat his ass up.

“But it wasn’t funny. We were all getting strung out.”

370 / CHUCK LOGAN

Hector bared his teeth. “They left us out there too fucking long, man.

We needed a break. Gunny Cox was losing his shit. And the way it got to Maston is…I guess he like, fell in love with Martin. Which was really flaky because Martin was the one holding us all together.”

The cloud passed and white-hot sunlight transformed Hector Jefferson Cruz’s face into a twitching Mayan sculpture.

“We were sick. Guys had fevers of a hundred and one, a hundred and two. Guys had dysentery and malaria. Afraid to take their boots off because how bad their feet looked. Maston tried to get us a stand-down. Instead they gave us another brilliant fucking operation.

Everybody was just too…fucking…strung out.

“This goddamned hill. Company night position up by the Rock-pile. Everybody was spooked because there were these rumors that the NVA had tanks. My squad got stuck on an exposed finger. The flank. Hanging in the goddamned air. Martin and Maston set up with us.”

Hector’s voice took them into the time machine. “Gets so damn dark like night is older there. Then the crickets stop and you hear the bamboo clicking, those little rice-propelled fuckers signaling.

Then the whistles. Tough bastards, they came right through their own mortars. In five minutes we had 50-percent KIA, everybody wounded. But we held. Maston said we had to pull back. Martin said we had to hold that ridge ’cause if the NVA got a machine gun up there, they could enfilade the whole company, it’d be all over.”

Hector stood up, gesturing with his hands. “Then they came again and it was just too hairy. We grabbed our wounded and booked.

Maston ran. I ran. We all ran.

“Martin stayed. On that ridge with the radio and the machine gun.

The crazy fucker held them off. Cox come by checking the line and found us. He was furious