Blackburn wished it was luck. He sat down next to the first man he’d killed; those eyes beginning to glaze over, staring lifeless up at the canopy. Blackburn watched the life fully leave his eyes before he closed his own and took a long drag. Death had become something he was intimately familiar with. He looked up into the jungle, “I don't know, sir. I guess you could say I got a ‘guardian angel’ of sorts. He won’t let me die out here.”

  The LT chuckled, tossing his cigarette onto the body of the dead machine gunner. “Either way, good job, sergeant. Catch your breath, we’re moving out in ten.”

  Sergeant Josiah Blackburn stared into the jungle, meeting eyes with his “guardian angel” who crouched just a few feet in front from him. A pale face and glazed eyes of a murdered thirteen-year-old boy met his from the thick underbrush.

  That was his secret, the “six sense” as his platoon said. It was how he was able to sniff out every trap and foil every ambush the Vietcong tried to set. It's how he kept them all alive. He was owed many lives and more beers than he could count. It's how he, Josiah Blackburn, stayed alive.

  Was it real? He didn't know. He would never actually admit to his fellows and leadership that he was “seeing a ghost.” Trust in combat is a path walked on a razors edge. In Nam, survival was always in doubt, you needed to trust the man to your left and right with every fiber of your being. He had seen how that could fall apart the minute people began to doubt each other. The jungle is a land of wolves. No sane many wanted to trust someone who couldn’t even trust their mind. So, the pointman kept his mouth shut, his secret unknown to all but him. After all, maybe it was just blind luck…and insanity?

  But insanity and war made dangerous bedfellows.

  On the wrong side of town, Detroit had been a lot like Vietnam. A kid on the edge of poverty with parents who cared more about their next drink than their two sons sleeping on the floor of their dirty apartment. As a result, Josiah and his older brother, Martin, were often on their own. The future pointman’s older brother was as much a parent as he was a brother. A man far before he should have been, Martin regularly reassured Josiah with a simple phrase: “I’m your guardian angel.”

  Those words were a whisper in the back of his mind, they haunted the pointman’s silence. After hiding the bodies, the platoon crept away from the dead VC, but they didn't creep far before establishing their patrol base before it got dark. That night Josiah dreamed the same dream he had every night since he’d come to Nam, a nightmare on repeat every time he closed his eyes. Two unsupervised boys our after midnight, stealing cigarettes then selling them for pennies outside seedy bars. A night like many others, until they were suddenly fleeing for their lives through the back alleys of the city. A dead end, and Martin shoving a terrified Josiah into a trashcan. Martin hissing at him to keep quiet as he closed the lid. The angry shouts of a struggle, the terrified and desperate voice of his brother. A ghastly gurgle.

  Then there was silence.

  Josiah stayed in that reeking trashcan until daylight, tears and urine collecting at the bottom of his protection. When he finally discovered the courage to emerge, the alley was empty except for the ruined body of his brother. A pale face drained of blood and glazed eyes stared into his face as Josiah heard from nowhere and everywhere, “Let me take care of you.”

  “Wake up.”

  “Sergeant,” Sgt Blackburn awoke to someone shaking his shoulder, “it’s your turn to pull security.” Blackburn opened his eyes to a red flashlight, sounds of a jungle night refilling his ears. A full moon was still painting the bush in its white. The dream had begun to fade.

  He looked at the soldier who’d woke him, giving him a pat on the shoulder. Blackburn rolled over and reached for his canteen. Taking a swig of lukewarm water, he settled back into the prone of his fighting position. The platoon was set up not far from where Blackburn had killed the two Vietcong. The LT had hoped their friends would come looking for them eventually. The men’s blood had blended with the filth and sweat of Blackburn’s uniform, another memory stained upon the pointman’s soul. A soldier next to him was awake; kneeling next to his ruck, searching for something under the dull red of his flashlight.

  “They can see him.”

  “Get down!” Blackburn moved quickly, grabbing the soldier and jerking him to down. A burst of gunfire ruptured. Tracers shot over their heads.

  “Contact!” someone yelled.

  An RPG sailed over Blackburn, impacting behind him. Another machine gun opened up, its muzzle flash like lightning.

  “I’m hit!” screamed someone else in the dark.

  “Man down! Man Down!” a soldier yelled frantically.

  “Medic!” pleaded another.

  “Enemy fire to the north!” the LT shouted above the chaos.

  As bullets flew overhead, someone came walking up on Sgt Blackburn’s left. He didn't need to look to know who it was. A voice spoke softly.

  “They are in front of you, fifty of them.”

  The pointman yelled out, “Contact at my twelve o’ clock! Platoon-sized element, two hundred meter!” Blackburn hugged the dirt and returned fire with his M16, letting off several bursts towards the muzzle flashes in front of him. He looked to his left and then to his right and saw more muzzle flashes suddenly blossoming within the jungle. The numbers weren’t looking good. Luckily, the vegetation and the hasty fighting positions the Americans had dug provided enough cover and concealment.

  The M60 next to Blackburn opened up as its gunner fed the pig. The heavy slams of its receiver were like thunder-claps as red tracers cut into the jungle. More M16s joined the fray. Several “thumps” from M79 grenade launchers resulted in bursts of light and shrapnel along the lines.

  “Holy shit, we really kicked the hornets’ nest, Black-burn!” grinned the soldier whom he’d saved, a cocky southern boy with a crooked smile. “Can't wait to tell the girls at Trigger Jacks this war story,” he laughed. A bullet then entered his skull and destroyed it in a shower of blood. The pointman reached out to him, gasping.

  “Don't bother, he’s dead.”

  Blackburn stopped himself and refocused down the sights of his rifle. He didn't give a second glance, what was done was done.

  A shrill whistle rose above the gunfire, and a roar of yells followed suite. Several illumination flares went up into the sky, painting the jungle in a dull bluish light. Men started to emerge, running and firing madly. He put his sights over a man in black pajamas and pulled the trigger. A bark and a flash and the man fell, but soon more appeared behind him. The Vietcong were charging the patrol base. It was becoming plain to Blackburn that the platoon was outnumbered. But as it seemed they were going to overrun their positions, and explosion of dirt and fire appeared all around them. Artillery fire. Danger close.

  A cry of “Fall Back!” sounded over the gunfire and sev-eral men repeated it.

  Blackburn got up and started hauling ass to his fallback position, more explosions beginning to slam around him. The rounds were landing too close, practically on top of the Americans. Blackburn sprinted as fast as he could as dirt and sparks rose from the earth in geysers. A whistle suddenly filled his ears and he found himself rising into the air.

  Not rising. Flying. Flung by a wayward arty round. He landed on his back. He couldn't feel anything nor could he move. His ears ringed in shell-shocked silence. He turned his head and saw that his leg was lying next to him, an amputated piece of flesh. His vision began to fade into dark-ness. But above the ringing he heard that familiar voice whisper:

  “You won’t die today.”

  Josiah Blackburn awoke days later. At first he thought he was dead, and this was finally heaven. He looked around and saw the rows of hospital beds and ruined men he was still in Vietnam. So that had to mean hell or maybe purgatory, he thought, but he knew he wasn't that lucky.

  He tried to get up and the shock of pain reminded him he was very much still alive. He fell back into the pillow, wincing in pain. He felt around with his hands: he was heavily stitched up and bandaged across his abdomen and torso. He remembered seeing his leg lying right next to him. He looked down and his heart skipped a beat, a bandaged stub revealed his leg really was gone. The pain now was starting to radiate throughout his whole body, as if it now suddenly remembered it was in, indeed, pain.

  A nurse noticed he was awake and writhing. Soon he was swarmed by orderlies. The morphine they gave him put him back into a blissful sleep.

  Sometime later he awoke. He was propped up now with a steady morphine drip in an IV. He glanced around and noticed he was now alone. Truly alone. No ghostly image of a dead boy keeping him company. No voice whispering to him that only he could hear. Maybe it really was all in his head. It was a strange feeling, and without the constant specter of Martin, he felt vulnerable.

  A familiar voice caught his attention. “Blackburn! They told me you were waking up. I came as quick as I could.” His platoon leader was walking towards him.

  “The fellas wanted to come to, but these docs are only letting first sergeants and above visit. They wanted me to give you these.” His platoon leader handed Blackburn a stack of magazines and a carton of cigarettes. “It’s good to see you awake, I didn't think you were going to make it out of there.”

  “Thanks, sir,” Blackburn said, accepting the gifts. He lifted up a news magazine to see that the stack was primarily of the pornographic kind. He smiled as he slipped them under his covers. “What happened, sir?”

  The lieutenant looked down. “Well, after our artillery decided to drop rounds on top of us, we fell back as Charlie did.” He stared at the floor, “When we regrouped we were all pretty torn up. We were almost overrun and we had to retreat. Leave you behind.”

  The lieutenant turned and wiped a tear away. For a brief moment, he seemed stared off into another please, before sighing and regained himself. “Charlie,” he said, “tried to counterattack again but they retreated once the shells started landing right. We took our chances and retreated back to the rally point.”

  The lieutenant paused and silence between the two men soured the air.

  “I thought I died, sir,” Blackburn said.

  The lieutenant chuckled, “Me too. And then the stran-gest thing happened.”

  Blackburn was puzzled, “What do you mean?”

  The lieutenant looked around, nervously. Then he got closer and lowered his voice to a whisper. “We heard a voice, a kid’s voice, yell Hey! behind us. And not a Vietnamese one. This voice was good old American. All of us whipped aro-und, and there was this kid just standing in the jungle, just feet behind us.”

  Blackburn stuttered as his heart began to beat faster and his stomach dropped.

  “It was a kid, man, he looked like he was plucked off the street back home and dropped in the jungle.”

  Blackburn felt his throat begin to tighten.

  “But before we could say anything, he fucking vanished. Like one minute he was there and the next he was gone. Like he was made of mist. We all saw him.”

  Josiah felt like he wanted to throw up.

  “And there you were, bleeding and battered. Torniquet on your leg. But no one claimed to have carried you, no one saw what had happened to you. You were missing that leg and there’s no way you could’ve crawled to us.”

  Blackburn felt the color leaving his face as he stared up at the ceiling of the tent. He was breaking into a sweat.

  The lieutenant continued, “We ran up to you and you were still breathing. The medics did what they could and we moved like hell to get you on a bird. You were torn the fuck up, Blackburn…which, I guess, you know. I didn't know if you were going to make it.”

  The LT got up and put a hand on Blackburn’s shoulder, “We just all chalked it up to a miracle. Your guardian angel coming through for you.”

  The pointman said nothing.

  The lieutenant patted him on the shoulder. “Get some rest, Blackburn. You earned it.” The lieutenant left and soon Blackburn was alone.

  Sergeant Josiah Blackburn laid in his hospital bed unmoving and in silence. So much was running through his head. He didn't know what to think.

  But then he felt something on his hand. As he felt a chill come over his body, he refused to turn and look. He shook his head in denial.

  But it was one cold hand, embracing another. And he heard the voice whisper:

  “I’m your guardian angel.”

  Reunion

  He began to panic.

  This was supposed to be a fun weekend, one of play and games. A weekend with his family, a weekend about them. Not about the past and the pain that welled up every weekend such as this one, the type of pain he once looked to drown in the bottom of a bottle. The type of pain that had almost robbed him of his family and his life.

  He had taken his seven-year-old daughter away from the campsite, leaving his wife and their youngest behind to nap under the shade of swaying pines. He wasn't worried to leave them behind, his own mother and father kept them company by the fireside. He wanted to go fishing, but his little girl wouldn’t leave his hip. She always wanted to be with her daddy. He called her his “little shadow.”

  The two of them walked away, skirting the river. Thirty minutes later, they picked a secluded place and searched for a spot to cast a line into the babbling waters from the banks. She was more interested in looking for worms and rocks, and he let her wander if she promised to stay close. He didn’t think anything of it, they were the only ones he had seen out here. He welcomed this return to nature. His mind, sharpened by the anxiety of combat, felt at peace.

  As he waded up to his ankles, he soon lost himself in the tranquility of it all. The soothing current of the river calmed him as he searched for an unlucky trout. So lost in the blissful moments was he, he soon realized he didn’t hear little giggles and sounds of play. He turned around.

  His daughter was gone.

  The flowing waters were no longer peaceful, they were raging rapids in his ears. He ran through sloshing water closer to shore and called out her name, waiting in desperate hope for a response.

  Nothing.

  He yelled some more, looking left and right. He walked up into the brush along the bank. Nothing. He began to look and scream her name. He did this relentlessly, each second becoming more frantic then the last. But she was nowhere to be seen.

  That’s it. She’s gone. She’s fucking gone, a panicked voice repeated in his head. The same voice that haunted him, fed on his guilt, prodded him to anger, and that whispered in his nightmares. He fought off the voice, trying to push it away. Hyperventilating, he put his hands on his head. His knees began to weaken, and he felt he couldn’t stand.

  That voice started to get louder. He had no cell service. Should he run for help? Leave the spot where he last saw her? He began to imagine the panicked look on his pregnant wife’s face; her eyes welling in fear as the infant in her arms began to wail. He couldn’t dare himself to confront her. To tell her what had just happened.

  To admit he didn’t know what to do. That he had failed. That someone who he cared about was gone. Again.

  The damn was breaking, and the flood was nigh.

  The silence of the forest was interrupted by the haunting sound of a sobbing man.

  For an endless number of moments, he cried. Grief, shame, agony mixing together in a dark storm upon his soul. But over his sobs, he heard something. The high-pitched squeak of a girl.

  “Daddy?”

  He looked up and the storm was broken. His little girl was emerging from the bushes, running back into the safety of his arms. A surge of anger flashed through him as she returned to him, fueled by parental frustrations. But like a flash of lighting, it has there and gone as he felt a euphoric relief. He grabbed her in an embrace and determined to never let go. He held her out to take a look at her.

  “Alexis, what happened!? Where did you go?”

  He looked her over, she seemed no worse for the wear. Dirty from the forest. Just the look of a concerned and scared little girl. “Sweetheart, what happened?”

  Tears began to well up in those beautifully innocent brown eyes. In between the gasping sobs of a child, he pick-ed up details. She had chased butterflies into the woods, ignoring her fathers warning to stay close, straying away from the river, and out of sight. She hadn’t seen the sudden drop into a ravine, tumbling down the steep slopes.

  His anger got the better of him. He had specifically told her to stay close, that the woods could be dangerous if she wasn't careful. His face began to harden. Poorly buried dem-ons began to claw out from their cages. Barking and how-ling. Ones that craved and feasted on anger. Ones that were born long ago to run free on a battlefield that he had left behind. Demons that had almost destroyed his marriage and almost ended his life. But that was a story for another time.

  His hands grasped his daughters shoulders a little tighter, his face poorly concealing his growing anger.

  His little girl took a dirty hand to her face, wiping away the snot and tears. “Daddy, I’m sorry I made you mad…”

  The demon’s howling turned to a pitiful whine. He felt his heart break. He embraced her. How could he have been so careless, so angry at himself that he projected it on her. Shame washed away the anger.

  “I’m not mad at you,” he soothed. “Daddy just got scared.”

  He regained his composure and stood up, still holding her close. He silenced those demons that threatened to destroy him once again. But his hackles went back up as he scanned into the woods with suspicious eyes. Every swaying branch suddenly seemed potentially dangerous now. He wouldn’t let something like this happen again.

  “Let’s go back to the camp,” he said ushering her along. “I think it's time to get some s’mores.”

  And with this a small smile returned to her face.

  His daughter clutching on to him, he turned and began to head back to their campsite.

  Alexis began to wiggle in his arms, “But Daddy, aren’t you going to wait for your friend?”

  He stopped and looked her in the eyes. “What are you talking about, sweetheart?”

 

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