The Hill

Roberta Flack is softly singing, “He was strummin’ my pain…yeah, he was singin’ my life…” And, like a waking dream, as if summoned by the music, it all comes drifting back again–

Ron starts wearily up that same old hill, eyes intent, walking carefully, his senses alert. At an odd noise, long dormant feral instincts kick in and he feels his ears twitch as they try to swivel and pinpoint the sound.

“My God,” he thinks ruefully to himself, “I really am becoming an animal.” It’s the third time they’ve climbed this particular hill, but familiarity has not bred contempt. He knows who’s waiting somewhere up on those heavily forested slopes; he can feel their eyes on him. No wonder his ears twitch.

He moves steadily on, keeping his distance, following the grubby, slightly ragged figure ahead of him as they warily climb higher and higher through the green gloom. They've been in the field for days. Sweat starts to form under his helmet and run into eyes. He brushes it away with an impatient swipe. No time for blurred vision.

As he takes another step, shots suddenly ring out, and a blow slams into his hip, jerking him off stride. He hits the ground and rolls over onto his unhurt side. “Well, I’ll be damned!” he thinks, as he tries to gasp air back into his shocked lungs. Something wet is running over his throbbing hip, and he doesn’t want to look.

Finally, he does, and sees the water trickling from his punctured canteen, which has been twisted around almost completely behind him.

He keeps still, breathing deeply for a moment, as bullets whip through the air all around him. Then, anger boils up, red and hot, and he fires into the dark foliage off to his right, hoping to hit something, anything. The firing stops as suddenly as it began, and he lies there, cursing softly to himself.

Turner, who had been trailing Ron and saw him twist and go down, crawls up to him. Seeing the dark, wet stain spreading down Ron’s pants leg, Turner exclaims, “You’ve been hit, man!”

At that, Ron starts to laugh, a little bit hysterically. Turner thinks he’s going into shock; Ron sobers at the concern showing through the dirt on his friend's sweaty face and shakes his head. “No,” he says, “but you’ll have to share your water with me.” He shows Turner the ruined canteen, and they both start to laugh with the release of tension.

Turner rises to his knees, then his head jerks oddly and he falls backwards in an awkward sprawl. He lies motionless on the ground as blood slowly wells beneath his head and out of the hole where his right eye had been.

The memory of that single shot hangs heavily on the muggy air. For a split second, there is no other sound. Then Ron drops the canteen, screaming for Doc, knowing full well it’s useless.

He shakes his head abruptly and pushes the ‘Stop’ button on the remote as Roberta croons, “He sang as if he knew me, in all my dark despair…”

The music stops, but the memories play on.

© 11/9/2006 T. P. Woodfork