The Path Changes the Traveler

*****

It's probably a question in the reader's head by now why I called this a Non-Human story. That part will become clearer a ways farther on.

For now, our bunch of fugitives is racing down a dirt road as fast as the driver can get it to go and still stay on the road at all.

Remember that this is set in 1974 and there wasn't as much infrastructure where they are back then.

Darotai is still taking them along as they use a tank for this since their truck disappeared and left them 120 miles from their transport plane - which is in another country.

But she's got a lot of drive and she's determined. In a person like she is, that counts for a lot.

Once again, fiction, people, fiction.

0_o

*****

Priest looked around and tried to squeeze his way forward toward the front of the shaking, crashing tank interior as it rumbled along . He found barely enough room to kneel if he was careful so after heading back again and returning with his cloak, he put it on the floor in a bit of a pile to save his knees. He was behind the forward machine gun, but the seat was folded up and he didn't want to screw around with having to figure it out.

Then he looked at the kid.

Morgan had been busy with the bargaining and all, and afterward, well, he was even busier, so he'd missed something.

Priest didn't miss it at all, especially now, from this close up.

The kid looked over at him a few times, expecting him to speak. Finally, the amateur tank driver just looked straight ahead and spoke in English, "You have trouble or something?"

Priest smiled. He just had to.

The kid was a girl, and not as juvenile as Morgan must have thought.

"Russian?" he grinned, "If there's a story there, I'd love to hear it if you ever want to tell it to me. My name is Maddox. Some folks call me Priest. That's my last name."

She nodded, looking over for half a second when she had the chance, "I am Sonja.

Maddox," she repeated thoughtfully, "I never hear this name.

Why you talk different to Morgan? You are not really Amirikanskaya?"

He nodded, "I am. We just come from different places, that's all. He's from out west, Wyoming, I think.

Me, I'm just a transplanted Georgia redneck."

Sonja tilted her head as she drove, "What is redneck?"

Priest smiled, "I didn't mean to confuse you. It means that the back of your neck is always red from the sun while you're working. Originally, it meant that you were a farmer. And you don't have to be from Georgia to be a redneck."

"I don't see red neck," she said, "You look different from Morgan."

He shrugged, "Americans can look lots of ways, Sonja.

Morgan, he's all pure, white-hat cowboy. Yippee kai-yay."

She glanced over as she tried to hold in a laugh, "And you are ... not? What then?"

He smiled and Sonja liked it.

"My mother's people came from Ireland over a hundred years ago. They were dirt-poor when they arrived and the only work that the men of her family could find was in the Union Army. It was back in the Civil War. My father is Shawnee."

She clearly didn't understand.

He said, "I'm half Indian - Shawnee. That's the name of the tribe.

Sonja stared for a second and then she nodded more to herself, repeating the word 'Shawnee' as though trying to memorize it.

"Georgia is name of place south of Russia, by Black Sea," she said.

"I know," he smiled, "but I think that my Georgia is a lot warmer than your Georgia. I come from a bit closer to the equator."

She thought about it for a moment, "Can you tell to me name of big city where you are from? Is little hard to remember now, but I had to study Amerika in school."

"I don't come from a big city," he said "though I'd guess that there's one close by. I was born in a little place called Thunderbolt, Georgia. It's close to Savannah. Well, Savannah is so big that Thunderbolt is just about swallowed up now.

When I was ten, we moved to Montgomery, Georgia, not far away, really. And now Savannah is spreading near to that too."

"I know where Savannah is," she said, "I remember that I think it is nice name."

He nodded, "We moved to La Grange, Texas when I was thirteen. That's when my life turned to shit. I stayed there until I was eighteen and a half. I left and I've never been back. I don't plan on ever going there again, either."

"I am from Moskva," Sonja said.

He nodded with a smile, "I think I've heard of that one."

"Why you say your life was shit?" she asked, "What happened to you there?"

He shrugged, "Long story. Mostly, I think we moved at a bad time for me. We weren't rich or anything and for boys, you have to make your place a little bit.

Only I was ok back in Georgia. Nobody messed with me much. I was like just about anybody my age. I don't think that I'd have even noticed if a new kid was different, and if I did, it probably came to me as a surprise that I hadn't thought of it.

In La Grange, most of the people were white and there were a few black people and some Spanish. I didn't see many Indians around. I guess it's the same all over; everybody dislikes the one who's alone."

He rolled his eyes, "And if I ever even looked at a girl ...

Jesus, I'd get called out to fight just for that. This one guy walked up to me, maybe on my second day at school, or maybe the third. He said, "You'd better stay away from my girl."

I laughed and said, "Well alright. You show her to me so I know who you're talking about and I will."

He shook his head, "You know, there's nobody in the world who's better at not understanding something and thinking that it shows him for the idiot that he is than an idiot.

That goof thought that what I'd said was some kind of insult somehow, either to him, his girlfriend, or his mom's apple pie, I don't know. But I had to fight him. There was no way that I could get around that.

Turned out, he was easy. Nobody had ever called his bluff before. I wasn't calling it; I was just trying to defend myself.

Must be that's some kind of crime or something at that school. Then I had everybody and their dog calling me out, wanting to take on the new kid. I never lost one of those fights, but my list of new enemies never got any shorter.

She grinned for a moment and then she looked over, "What for you say Morgan is captain? I hearing you say it."

Without knowing it, she was charming him a little. She'd pronounced it "Keptin" and he liked that.

"He is Captain?"

Priest shook his head, "No. Back in the army when I met him, Morgan was a major. But to get there, he was a captain once. But that's not really it.

There is a brand of rum in the states called Captain Morgan. He has nothing to do with that, but a lot of people just call him captain because of it. He hates it - except from certain people."

Priest sat for a moment before he looked up with a smile, "He does like the rum, though."

Sonja laughed, seeing that it was funny.

"Why aren't you wearing a shirt?" he asked in a tone that he hoped sounded as though it wasn't a big deal or anything. It wasn't and he didn't wish for it to become one. He was just curious.

She shrugged, "I do not have one."

He nodded, "If we make it to the plane, you can have one of mine if you want."

She smiled, "It would be nice to have, if where we go to is cold and there are many men there. Here? I do not care. I have nothing to see anyway."

She had him there. He could see how she thought of it, but he knew that she was wrong. "You'll want one when we get there for sure," he smiled, "And you're a little wrong, Sonja."

She shook her head as though she refused to consider it, "I have nothing, they are same now as when I was girl." She looked at him, "How they are called in English?"

"Breasts?" he suggested, but she shook her head again.

"No. This word is for doctors. How other people say it?"

Priest tried not to look uncomfortable and also not interested - or even disinterested too much, since that would be faking it. He tried to be a little clinical while staying as conversational as he could, hoping that his drawl might carry him through.

"The vernacular or plain term among farmers when speaking about cattle is teats - and that has turned over time to tits. But that's being a little crude for around the dinner table."

Sonja smiled and nodded.

"And girls themselves probably don't like to use that word either - unless they're farmer's daughters talking about cows. So these days, I've heard girls and women refer to them as boobs."

Sonja thought that was a funny word, "Boobs?"

He nodded, "And I think that I can see where it came from, too.

Maybe a hundred years ago or so, that word was used in polite company to mean a hopeless fool. Like two fine ladies might sit at tea, maybe a mother and her daughter as they spoke about good marriage possibilities for the girl.

The mother might mention one man, but the daughter might say, 'Reginald? Not a hope, Mother. Why, the man is such a boob.'

Now, I don't know quite how the term made the jump from meaning a dolt or a useless fool to where it now refers to the swell of a woman's bosom.

I had a lady friend once who told me that boobs aren't very bright, but I was never sure about her meaning."

Sonja was smiling, even chuckling a little.

"Of course, I have heard another word used only once in my life.

It was said to me by a young boy, the son of a single mother who lived two doors down from us. He'd found a copy of National Geographic which had an article about some tribe of natives or other.

I was working on my bicycle and he came over because he liked to talk to me whenever she saw me. Nice kid. Anyway, he held up the magazine opened to the right page and he pointed to the women in the pictures.

He called them chee-chees.

But that was the only time that I've ever heard them referred to in that way, you must understand."

Sonja was laughing by then. "Maybe is good word too."

She looked at him again. "Why you don't have shirt?" she asked.

He looked out at the landscape through the machine gun sight for a moment, "I wanted to impress a girl."

He sighed, "But I don't think that it's working well at all. It's probably Morgan's fault. He gets all the girls."

He held his palms up, "I guess I don't have anything to see either."

She looked over, "But - "

He waved his finger at her, "Don't say it - or I'll say the same thing right back."

"Yes you do," she said, "I mean, you are good to look at. I like to look at you."

He smiled, "Uh-huh. That's exactly what I was thinking about you."

She nodded with a rueful smile to give him the point, but he saw that after a moment, she changed it to a very sweet-looking smile once she'd gotten it.

"Thank you, Maddox," she smiled as she looked at the road ahead, "I never hear something like this before."

He was pleased, because he'd managed a way to make his compliment without sounding too much like an idiot.

He leaned over and pushed on a handle to get one of her driving periscopes opened. Fresher air streamed in immediately and she thanked him. "I could not open them. I think these others will never open again."

He nodded, "Too many idiots in the past. It doesn't matter which army, there are always some officers who are truly stupid. They have no war going on, but they see a lot of men and they think that those men must be busy with something.

So they think of stupid work and never ask anyone if it's a good idea. We have a saying for that kind of thinking. We say, "If it moves, salute it. If it doesn't, paint it."

This tank has probably been painted more than a dozen times for not moving. You're lucky they didn't paint over the glass."

"What is -"

"Twelve," Priest smiled just before he started looking around the interior a little, "the English word for twelve of something is a dozen."

He tried to stretch out one of his legs which was not really possible. He did his best and found that he could reach into the cargo pocket of his pants.

Sonja watched as much as she could, wondering if he had a leg cramp or something like that. But then she saw what he'd been after.

"Ohhh," she moaned a little as he pulled a cigarette out of the pack and lit it with a lighter, "It smells beautiful. I have not had one in ... longer than year and ... mmm.

Can ...?"

"Oh," Priest nodded as he reached for the pack again, "Sure."

She shook her head, "This tank drives like he is crazy. I need both hands to steering him. You can ... share with me little bit?"

Priest found the next five or six minutes rather interesting - and odd. He had to stretch a good deal to hold the cigarette so that Sonja could get to it with her lips and overall, it felt something like the times that he had to share a joint with somebody.

So they went down the road with Sonja driving and Maddox holding the cigarette for her, He didn't get more than a drag or two, but he didn't mind. It wasn't long before Morgan called over and asked if Priest was crazy or just stupid. "We're in a tank. There's a whole big fuel tank to this - never mind that we're carrying explosives."

Priest looked back, "Thanks Captain. I'll be sure to use the factory-installed ash can right here."

Morgan was trying to see, and not believing it when he saw it.

"Is true!" Sonja called back, "Almost all Russian soldiers smoke. They sell tank and it comes too."

Morgan shook his head, "No wonder this thing smells like shit." He turned away without another word.

Priest chuckled, "Guess we told him, huh?"

She was looking straight ahead, not wanting to make any mistakes, but she smiled and looked over for a short second, "I like very much how you talk, Maddox.

Is ... different from what I thought."

Priest grinned genuinely, "And I like that way that you talk. I know that you haven't got English nailed down yet, but you will if you keep using it. That isn't what I meant.

I like your accent the same way that you like mine, I think."

She was surprised, "It is not bad?"

He shook his head, "Because you're trying to remember a language that you probably never really had to use until now, you'd think it's terrible - but that's because you'd want to sound perfect - absolutely like an American."

He chuckled, "Let me tell you something. Americans speak a little differently in a lot of places there, like the way that you noticed that I don't speak the same as Morgan. So it's not that important anyway."

He sighed, "But I know that you'll keep trying anyhow. I just like the little things in how you say anything."

He shifted a little to try for more comfort, "When I was a kid, there was a television show about a moose and a flying squirrel, just a cartoon show for children. They had adventures and their enemies were a couple of Russian spies; Boris Badanov and Natasha ... Nogoodnik or something, I think."

Sonja burst out laughing, "Those are not even Russian names!"

He smiled, "They were just the bad people in the show. When the show was made, America and Russia were bitter enemies, like two old men making faces at each other over a fence. They're still doing that, but it's a little better now.

They didn't make Boris and Natasha like real people - though Natasha was a little good-looking as I seem to recall, enough to make me like her. Boris was an idiot, but they were both smarter than the moose. Really, the only two who had much of any brains were Rocky the squirrel and Natasha.

She used to torture the English language. You don't sound anything like that, ok?"

Sonja smiled over with a pleased expression, "Ok.

How did you meet the blonde one - Morgan?" she asked.

He thought about whether it was correct to tell her for a moment. Then he shrugged, "Well, he came to visit my outfit because he needed to go somewhere inside North Vietnam. Big secret.

They told me that he needed volunteers. I was bored out of my mind. And I was getting REALLY tired of painting rocks."

Sonja laughed, "They not move, yes?"

He nodded, laughing a little, "Now you're getting it. Anyway, the whole place where I was, it was hot all the time. Then it would rain and it would be even hotter and sticky. If I volunteered, I knew that I'd get couple of rides in a helicopter up where it was cooler, so I went to meet him and I volunteered."

She looked over, "But ... you would have to fight maybe - where you would go, no?"

He nodded with a sigh, "Yeah. You figured that out right off. Hey, I never said that I was very smart."

Sonja laughed, "So what was big secret?"

He shrugged, "I dunno. It looked the same to me. Same bugs, same snakes, everything.

We flew at night and landed someplace at the northern edge of the demilitarized zone. They let us off and the helicopter left. We walked around for a day until the North Vietnamese saw us. After that, they chased us and we ran everywhere that we went.

Once we got away from them, Morgan got on the radio to call the helicopter and an hour later, we flew away.

I learned something from it. I never volunteered to go on one of his crazy running around missions ever again. But it was too late by then because he remembered my name.

After that, he used to come and ask for me to go with him. I asked him once, you know. I wanted to know why what we were doing was a secret.

He told me that he liked to run around in North Vietnam. He said that he could run a lot faster if he had somebody shooting at him.

I told him that I'd be happy to shoot at him if he wanted. We wouldn't even have to go anywhere. He could run around all day, and I could shoot at him to make him go faster.

He didn't like my idea though. Some people just don't know how to laugh, I think."

He watched her laugh for a moment and he decided that he liked her a lot. He had no idea what to do about it, but that was what he decided.

"It didn't really go like that, did it?"

"No," he admitted, "But I like it my way better. In my story, nobody died."

She took a long time, but somehow, he knew that she'd ask him eventually.

"In ... in real story, somebody died?"

He nodded.

"How many?" she asked quietly.

"That time," he said softly, "Two is all that were there when the helicopters came.

We had eight to start, but they fell one by one. We had to keep running to get to the border. American planes couldn't attack over the border by then.

When we were down to four, I told Morgan to go on and lead the others back. I told him that I'd catch up if I could. I wasn't being heroic. I just thought that I could do more to give them a better chance."

Sonja looked over again, "What did you do? You cannot stop an army."

Priest shrugged, "I didn't have to. There were ten or so chasing us and they'd call back on their radio so that the main body knew where to follow."

He sat quietly for a minute or so, just looking out.

Sonja said his name and he looked over, so she said, "You didn't tell to me what you did then."

He nodded, "First, I waited for them at the edge of a trail. They ran by and the guy with the radio was last. I tripped him. He fell at my feet and I shot the radio and then him - which was really the same thing. I ran off the trail into the trees.

After that, I just started hunting. Morgan and the guys were running, the NVA were chasing them.

I stayed just out of sight and ran along, taking out whoever was slowest. They sent two men to hunt me, but that didn't last long. I left them alive and gutted, screaming."

He looked over at Sonja, "I'm ... I'm not like Morgan. He's a fine man and he was a great officer to serve under. I'm ... not much good at regular things, Sonja.

Before I joined the army, I was just a wild asshole, always in trouble with the law and if I wasn't ... then they just hadn't heard the latest news yet.

I'm half Indian. To a lot of people where I come from that spells trouble right there because they look at you and decide that they don't like you. I kept my hair really long, and I looked scruffy, so that didn't help any.