Tylenol#3 along with the forms to document each tablet of that last. “Have you ever had an adverse reaction to a painkiller or to any medication?"
"Not allergic to nothing, Doc."
Mike's shadow fell over him. “Zulu."
"Sorry. Zulu."
I kind of liked Mike for not fucking with the kid until his fingers had been fixed. And I took a perverse pleasure in signing the controlled substance sheet Zulu.
I made Echo eat a squirt-pouch of cheese over a retort brownie so the pills wouldn't hit an empty stomach.
Then, while Echo played with something he found extraordinarily funny on his computer, I learned my way around the rest of the medkit. It was nonstandard in all the right ways and good in every other way, except there was neither morphine nor any effective equivalent. I guess having to track and account for a narcotic would probably ratchet the paperwork to a higher level than anyone wanted to deal with.
I had also inventoried and rearranged my assault pack by the time Golf arrived with his horse trailer.
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Chapter Eight
Chunks of the road had broken away every few yards. To anyone who insisted on staying in one lane, the road would be impassable, at least without doubled tires or treads.
Golf soldiered on, driving on the left here and on the right there, sometimes driving down the middle while Toyotas and bicycles and donkey carts swerved left and right around him. He recited zaboor —psalms—in English under his breath the whole way, so quietly only two or three words at a time reached me in the sweaty center of the backseat. Beside him, Mike held a pistol on his lap and his rifle between his knees.
Golf swerved to pass a troop of camels bearing rolls of carpet, with a heavily robed woman in purple riding atop each stack of carpet rolls. Some of the women shouted at him as he squeezed past. One urged her camel into a trot to intercept us, then flung a dish of fresh sloppy-wet dung onto the windshield. Golf hit his wipers and his horn and blasted through.
Camels don't drop turds that wet. Nor does any healthy animal I knew of. Low-tech biological warfare. From Golf's white-lipped face, he knew.
In the backseat I clenched my teeth and waited for an explosion or a bullet through the glass. Or a scream from the trailer saying a bullet had found one of the horses.
Echo bounced in his seat. “How long was she carrying that fresh shit, waiting for someone to pitch it at? You got to wonder."
"Shut up, Echo."
"We could have ridden this far by horseback in half the time, I bet. Why didn't we, huh?"
Mike half turned in his seat. “What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I just wanna know why!"
Golf circumnavigated another crater. “Von Steuben said what makes an American soldier different is the need to tell him why. In some of the districts we've passed through, NATO horses would have been shot, if not hamstrung by some bleeding ankle-biter in the street."
Then he went back to his verses.
Late in the afternoon, we'd finally navigated all the way across the green farmland on the other side of the river. At the khaki foot of the mountains, Golf let us unload.
For a man who said he wasn't afraid to be out after dark, he was gone with a quickness.
We rode on while the sun set behind the mountains, and kept going even after the lingering sky glow faded, to find a caravansary Mike and Oscar knew of. We found it with the scent of peppers, garlic, cinnamon, and tomatoes cooking. The two eastern corners of the structure had been reduced to rubble, along with the wall between them. What was left was a shallow U shape with two partial walls facing one another and a whole wall connecting them.
There was a fire near the southwest corner, with five men about it, and horses were clustered in the middle of the west wall.
Mike pulled a small scope from a belt pouch and studied the men about the fire.
They'd seen us. One man was reaching for their horses, and three of the others were reaching for guns.
"Not allergic to nothing, Doc."
Mike's shadow fell over him. “Zulu."
"Sorry. Zulu."
I kind of liked Mike for not fucking with the kid until his fingers had been fixed. And I took a perverse pleasure in signing the controlled substance sheet Zulu.
I made Echo eat a squirt-pouch of cheese over a retort brownie so the pills wouldn't hit an empty stomach.
Then, while Echo played with something he found extraordinarily funny on his computer, I learned my way around the rest of the medkit. It was nonstandard in all the right ways and good in every other way, except there was neither morphine nor any effective equivalent. I guess having to track and account for a narcotic would probably ratchet the paperwork to a higher level than anyone wanted to deal with.
I had also inventoried and rearranged my assault pack by the time Golf arrived with his horse trailer.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Chapter Eight
Chunks of the road had broken away every few yards. To anyone who insisted on staying in one lane, the road would be impassable, at least without doubled tires or treads.
Golf soldiered on, driving on the left here and on the right there, sometimes driving down the middle while Toyotas and bicycles and donkey carts swerved left and right around him. He recited zaboor —psalms—in English under his breath the whole way, so quietly only two or three words at a time reached me in the sweaty center of the backseat. Beside him, Mike held a pistol on his lap and his rifle between his knees.
Golf swerved to pass a troop of camels bearing rolls of carpet, with a heavily robed woman in purple riding atop each stack of carpet rolls. Some of the women shouted at him as he squeezed past. One urged her camel into a trot to intercept us, then flung a dish of fresh sloppy-wet dung onto the windshield. Golf hit his wipers and his horn and blasted through.
Camels don't drop turds that wet. Nor does any healthy animal I knew of. Low-tech biological warfare. From Golf's white-lipped face, he knew.
In the backseat I clenched my teeth and waited for an explosion or a bullet through the glass. Or a scream from the trailer saying a bullet had found one of the horses.
Echo bounced in his seat. “How long was she carrying that fresh shit, waiting for someone to pitch it at? You got to wonder."
"Shut up, Echo."
"We could have ridden this far by horseback in half the time, I bet. Why didn't we, huh?"
Mike half turned in his seat. “What the fuck is wrong with you?"
"I just wanna know why!"
Golf circumnavigated another crater. “Von Steuben said what makes an American soldier different is the need to tell him why. In some of the districts we've passed through, NATO horses would have been shot, if not hamstrung by some bleeding ankle-biter in the street."
Then he went back to his verses.
Late in the afternoon, we'd finally navigated all the way across the green farmland on the other side of the river. At the khaki foot of the mountains, Golf let us unload.
For a man who said he wasn't afraid to be out after dark, he was gone with a quickness.
We rode on while the sun set behind the mountains, and kept going even after the lingering sky glow faded, to find a caravansary Mike and Oscar knew of. We found it with the scent of peppers, garlic, cinnamon, and tomatoes cooking. The two eastern corners of the structure had been reduced to rubble, along with the wall between them. What was left was a shallow U shape with two partial walls facing one another and a whole wall connecting them.
There was a fire near the southwest corner, with five men about it, and horses were clustered in the middle of the west wall.
Mike pulled a small scope from a belt pouch and studied the men about the fire.
They'd seen us. One man was reaching for their horses, and three of the others were reaching for guns.
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