Strays Read online

  “We are, sir.” Chuck smiled. “I can’t take credit, though. Ajax is the best there is. I hope we’ll get assigned to your platoon again before this is all done with.”

  “You don’t understand, Chuck,” said Lieutenant Maxwell. “You won’t be assigned to any platoon again. The Fiftieth Scout Dog Platoon is pulling out.”

  Chuck felt the earth shift beneath his feet. He felt lightheaded. “Sir?” was all he could muster.

  “All the infantry scout dog platoons are pulling out,” the lieutenant explained. “The South Vietnamese army is taking over. I’m sure the rest of us will be going home soon after you.”

  Chuck felt like he had slipped into a dream. Nothing felt real. The wind off the river, the rustle of the mangrove trees, the call of nervous birds in the canopy, none of it made any sense to him. He couldn’t be leaving. He’d been in-country so long, it was all he knew. He looked down at Ajax, who looked right back up at him, licking his black doggy lips.

  “You ready to go home, boy?” the lieutenant asked the dog, but Ajax didn’t react at all. Maybe he didn’t respond to voices other than his master’s, or maybe he didn’t have any idea what the word home could mean, but he just kept staring up at Chuck, who stood unmoving on the riverbank as the water rushed by.

  The Fiftieth Infantry Scout Dog Platoon was home away from home for fifteen dogs and their handlers. They had a small barracks, a cluster of sandbag-ringed defensive positions, a headquarters building, and a dog kennel with an obstacle course for training, all tucked away in a quiet corner of a big base that housed thousands of other soldiers, an entire combat brigade. Chuck liked spending time with the other dog handlers. They never asked him why he kept reenlisting for more tours of duty.

  Each dog team came and went from this base to attach to different units for a time, until their assigned mission was done or they couldn’t do their mission anymore. The higher-ups usually left the scout dog platoon to itself, so it wasn’t a bad place to spend the war, except that it didn’t have a ping-pong table. The little outpost where he’d left his mark in the tree was a long helicopter flight away, and he guessed he’d never see it again.

  When Chuck came into the barracks, Griffin, a red-headed sergeant who was on his second tour in Vietnam, lay on his cot with no shirt on. He didn’t look up as Chuck tossed his pack down onto his own cot. He was throwing a chewed-up baseball into the air and catching it again. His dog tags rested on his chest next to the scar he’d gotten from an enemy grenade thrown into his foxhole a few months back. His first dog, Champ, hadn’t survived the attack. His new German shepherd, Bruno, was snoozing across his feet at the end of the cot, his paws twitching as he dreamed.

  “Where’s Ajax?” Griffin asked.

  “Back in the kennel, asleep,” said Chuck. “Heck of a patrol. First day, we couldn’t go ten yards without a trip wire and then had some serious contact with the VC. After that, two long days of nothing. Just boots and mud, and suddenly I’m sent back here, told the Fiftieth is done. What’s that about?”

  “I hear they might give you a medal,” said Griffin.

  Chuck shrugged. He wasn’t in this war to pin shiny medals to his chest.

  “I’m serious about the medal.” Griffin caught the baseball with a hard smack into his palm. Bruno opened his eyes to consider it for a moment, then went back to sleep. The big dog had a reputation for being lazy. Platoons groaned when they saw Griffin and Bruno sent out with them. He could make a patrol take twice as long because he needed to rest all the time. But the laziness wasn’t Bruno’s fault. German shepherds just weren’t meant to work in the wet jungle heat. Neither were people, for that matter, but here they were.

  “I heard Lieutenant Stockman on the radio with that platoon lieutenant, Maxwell,” Griffin said. “He was saying how you saved their lives, stopped an ambush, and recovered a fleeing prisoner. Says you should get the Bronze Star. What do you think of that?”

  Chuck didn’t know. If anyone deserved the Bronze Star, it was Ajax. Chuck was just the guy at the other end of the leash. He repeated his question. “What’d I hear about the Fiftieth pulling out? Are we going home?”

  “Sure are,” Griffin sighed. “Back to the world. Home sweet home, where the only explosions are on the Fourth of July.”

  “What about our dogs?” Chuck asked, ignoring what Griffin thought of as humor.

  Griffin didn’t answer. The corners of his mouth twitched.

  “What? Tell me.” Chuck stepped over to Griffin’s cot, towered above him.

  “They’re classified as military equipment,” Griffin said. “Like generators or artillery or —”

  “Yeah, I know all that,” Chuck cut him off.

  “The generals have made a decision,” Griffin sighed. “The cost of shipping certain military equipment back to the States is too high to make it worthwhile. We’re leaving our generators behind, some artillery, and —”

  “No.” Chuck’s stomach felt like a heavy stone sinking in a cold pond. “The dogs are getting shipped to other bases or something? Guard duty in Okinawa? Something.”

  “Morris will check them all out,” said Griffin, sadly. Morris was the platoon veterinary technician. “Some of the dogs who are still fit will be turned over for service with the ARVN.”

  ARVN stood for the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, the South Vietnamese army, who were the American’s allies in the war against the Vietcong and the North Vietnamese Army.

  Chuck sat down on his cot and let his head fall into his hands. “What does the ARVN know about dogs? They eat them!”

  “That’s just a rumor,” said Griffin. “I’ve been on ARVN bases. Never eaten dog.”

  “That you know of,” said Chuck, bitterly. “Anyway, what do they know about caring for dogs? There’s not even a word in Vietnamese for veterinarian!”

  Griffin looked at Bruno, sleeping. He set the ball down next to Bruno’s nose and watched the black folds twitch at the end of his snout, the scent of the toy working its way into his dreams. Dogs never stopped smelling, even in their sleep.

  Chuck’s throat was dry. He looked up at Griffin. “And the ones they don’t give away?”

  Griffin just shook his head.

  “Put down?” Chuck’s voice cracked.

  Griffin nodded. “They can’t risk them bringing back weird jungle diseases to the U.S.”

  “I’m not letting that happen,” said Chuck. “I won’t.”

  “Morris has orders. He’s sick about it.”

  “What’s the lieutenant say?”

  “Stockman’s a career officer,” said Griffin. “He wants a promotion to captain. He’s not going to make waves on behalf of some surplus military equipment.”

  “I’m going to talk to him. He can’t do this.”

  “What choice does he have?”

  “These dogs saved our lives.” Chuck stood. “Mine. Yours. More GIs than I can count. They’ve been through hell doing it, the heat and the damp and the long humps through the jungle. And they never signed up for this. They didn’t choose to be here.”

  “They’re dogs, man,” said Griffin. “They don’t choose anything. It’s not like they plan for the future or nothing. All we can do is take care of ’em while they’re alive and comfort them when they go.”

  “No!” said Chuck. “That’s not good enough, not for Ajax. He deserves a Bronze Star, not to be put down like some kind of rabid mutt.”

  Griffin exhaled slowly. “Chuck, it’s done. The generals have made the call. You’re a fart’s width above the rank of private. There’s nothing you can do.”

  “I’m going to talk to Stockman. And Morris. I’ll talk to the colonel and the generals if I have to. Nobody’s putting Ajax down, and nobody’s handing him over for stew.”

  “We lose them all eventually,” Griffin said. “You know that. You’re not going to change a thing. Not in this war.”

  “No!” Chuck snapped, like he was scolding a bad dog. Bruno even woke up to look questioningly at him.
Chuck looked down at Griffin. “Champ’s death wasn’t your fault,” he said. “But Bruno’s will be if you just sit there and do nothing.”

  “Don’t you dare,” Griffin said as he shot to his feet, fists clenched. Bruno sat up on the bed, his ears perked up. He growled at Chuck. Chuck looked from one to the other and backed away toward the door, holding his palms out in a gesture of surrender.

  He didn’t want to fight Griffin and Bruno.

  He wanted to fight the generals and the politicians, the men in the shiny shoes who’d never slept in a foxhole, who’d never counted on a four-legged fur ball with a cheerful grin to pull them out of the bush alive, to keep them alive through a thousand muddy miles. Men who would never know what real loyalty meant.

  Ajax was not “surplus military equipment.” Ajax was a soldier, and he was a great one. If the enemy killed him, well, that was a risk all soldiers faced. But Chuck hadn’t stayed in Vietnam for two years, one month, and nineteen days just to let Ajax get put down by the people he trusted.

  Chuck stormed out of the barracks, looking for Lieutenant Stockman. He’d made a promise never to leave his dog, and he was going to keep it.

  It was a bad time. Lieutenant Stockman shook his head and apologized, so Chuck went to see Colonel Guinsler.

  Colonel Guinsler said there was nothing to be done.

  Vet Tech Morris wept, openly, right in front of Chuck, and he pleaded for forgiveness, but he was going to do what he’d been told to do. He was going to ship some dogs off to the ARVN and he was going to put down the rest.

  “I have to, Chuck,” he said. “I hate to do it, but I have my orders.”

  “Refuse the order,” Chuck told him. “Just refuse it.”

  “And get court-martialed?” Morris said. “Thrown in jail? I’ve got a wife. Did you know that? I want to see her again. The sooner this is done, the sooner I can go home to see her. The sooner you can go home too. I know you’ve been in-country a while, Chuck, but this ain’t your home.”

  “They trust you,” Chuck said. “Every one of these dogs trusts you. Hell, Bruno doesn’t like anyone and he likes you. And Ajax … You’ve wrestled with him, what, how many times? He’d never let anyone but me wrestle with him before he met you. He did his job, he served with honor. He followed the rules. How can you do this to him?”

  “Better it’s me than someone who doesn’t care, right?” Morris sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

  Somewhere in the jungle, out past the barbed wire, a monkey screeched. Right and left, guys were hauling crates and packing up supplies. One guy dropped a box of rations, and cans of beans and peaches and chili spilled all over the ground, rolling away from him. He cursed and chased after them. The Fiftieth Infantry Scout Dog platoon was taking itself apart all around them, but Chuck just stared at Morris.

  At that moment, Chuck hated the veterinary technician. In fact, he hated Vietnam and everyone in it. He hated the war and everyone who wasn’t in the war too. He hated everyone who was for the war and everyone who was against it. At that moment, he hated every human on earth. He hated himself too. He couldn’t do anything to save Ajax from the machinery of the army, from its very human cruelty.

  His head felt hot. His eyes pulsed. He gnashed his teeth. No one was as kind and good and loyal as they should be. No one would stand up for Ajax. Everyone just followed the rules, just like Chuck always had. But how could he follow this rule? How could he obey an order to turn his best friend over to be killed? But how could he disobey? He hardly even knew how.

  He spat on the ground at Morris’s feet and stormed off toward the kennels to hold his dog as close as he could hold him, just like he had in the foxhole.

  The days passed in a blur of soldiers coming and going. The war had its own rhythms, and in spite of Chuck’s despair, the beat went on. He spent all his waking hours in the kennels with Ajax, talking to him, grooming him, playing, and training.

  He let Ajax eat extra rations of dog food. He let him try some of the human rations too — canned meatloaf and chili — but Ajax didn’t seem to go for them. Tabasco sauce made him sneeze and lick his snout, which made Chuck fall over laughing.

  Whenever one of the other handlers would come into the kennel to take his dog outside, Chuck and Ajax would watch them in silence. Sometimes the handlers looked like guys did before a patrol — jaws locked, eyes set forward, faces betraying no emotion. Sometimes the handlers looked like guys did after a patrol — eyes sunken with exhaustion, shaking hands, and wobbly feet.

  “Hey, Chuck,” they’d say.

  “Hey,” Chuck would say back.

  One by one they came and took their dogs, and then they came back alone.

  Chuck started sleeping in the kennels, right beside Ajax. The others let him be. He’d been in-country longer than any of them. But the day would come when it was his turn. He knew it. They all knew it.

  Lieutenant Maxwell’s platoon came back from their outpost in the hills and Chuck didn’t go out to greet them. Griffin brought in a message that some of the grunts wanted to see him.

  “They hauled some raggedy ping-pong table out with them,” Griffin said. “A medic and some grunt named Beans, and a specialist called Double O. What kind of names are those?”

  Chuck just grunted. “It wasn’t their ping-pong table to move,” he said. “I won. They should have left it by our tree.”

  “What tree?” Griffin squatted down beside him. Ajax let out a low growl and Griffin smiled sadly at the dog.

  “Never mind,” said Chuck.

  Griffin went to get Bruno from his cage and spoke to his dog in whispers that Chuck and Ajax couldn’t hear. Then they left together and they didn’t come back. Another day passed. Or maybe it didn’t.

  Grief did that. Sadness tugged at the thread of time until it unraveled like a sweater. It either slowed down or sped up. Or sped down and slowed up. Chuck wasn’t sure. There was only the present anyway, only he and Ajax. Chuck felt like he was living in dog years. Nothing but now. Except now went so fast.

  When Lieutenant Maxwell came by the half-empty kennels for a hello–good-bye type of thing, Chuck didn’t even bother to salute the young officer, a disobedience he never would have deliberately shown before. Chuck knew he was sitting on the floor of a kennel on a military base, dressed in his jungle camouflage, but in his mind, he was no longer a part of this army. It was the army’s rules that made Ajax into a thing that could be put down, and Chuck didn’t want any part of those rules.

  He kept grooming Ajax, making the dog’s black-and-brown coat smooth. It shined like a general’s boots.

  “I put you up for the Bronze Star,” the lieutenant said, trying to make small talk.

  Chuck grunted and kept brushing. Ajax panted in the afternoon heat. As soon as he was clean, he’d roll onto his back, kicking his four legs in the air and pressing himself into the dirt of the floor, covering himself with filth again. He was a jungle dog. He didn’t like to be clean.

  “Lieutenant Stockman asked me to come by,” Lieutenant Maxwell said.

  Chuck shrugged.

  “We owe you our lives,” Lieutenant Maxwell said. “You’re a good soldier. A damn good soldier. But this —” He made a broad gesture that included Chuck and Ajax and the kennel. “This is no way to end an honorable tour. Four tours. You’ve got to pull yourself together.”

  Chuck didn’t answer. Lieutenant Maxwell left. Lieutenant Stockman came by and said most of the things Lieutenant Maxwell had said. Sergeant Cody came by. He repeated what both the lieutenants had said, but he did it with more curse words. It was hard to take him seriously. Ajax kept growling at him. The sergeant was holding back tears as he cursed at Chuck to pull himself together.

  Chuck dozed off. He dreamed of a big piece of land back in the States, a big ranch where he and Ajax could run — no leashes, no land mines, no orders. No rules. Just a guy and his dog and the sun and the grass.

  But he woke with a start. It was dark in the kennel, but something h
ad disturbed the darkness. His combat reflexes kicked in. His hand gripped his utility knife. Adrenaline raced up his spine. Beside him, Ajax sat up, wide awake, alert. He growled.

  Someone was there.

  Was it time? Had they come to take Ajax away?

  Chuck could fight. If he fought, he could slow them down. But he knew they’d win. They’d win in the end. He’d go to jail, and Ajax would still be put down, and the dog’s last moments on earth would be filled with anger and fear, and Chuck wouldn’t be there to help him through it. Ajax would be all alone when he needed his friend most.

  Or he could do like Griffin said: take care of Ajax now, comfort him until the end. Stay by his side as his eyes closed and stroke his fur and let him go with dignity. Chuck couldn’t fight the US Army. All he could do was give Ajax some peace. The dog had earned some peace, after all.

  He had to decide.

  They were here for him.

  It was fight or let them take Ajax.

  “You can’t take him.” Chuck stood and spoke into the darkness. “You can’t just stick a needle in him. Not now. Not tonight.”

  “Ain’t no needle sticking in nowhere,” the darkness answered. Double O stepped from the shadows, with Billy Beans and Doc Malloy behind him. “Ajax ain’t going out like that.”

  Billy smiled. “Hi, Chuck.”

  “We heard how they doin’ Ajax,” Double O said. “And we heard how you were takin’ it, and, well … Doc had an idea.”

  “It’s not really an idea,” Doc Malloy explained. “I just had a thought, and Double O took it and had one of his … plans.”

  “It was my idea,” said Billy Beans. “Double O had the plan, but I had the idea that started the plan.”

  “Yes, true,” said Doc Malloy. “This madness has two fathers, and I’m not one of them.”

  “Don’t be modest, Doc,” Double O said. “You planted the seed. And the seed be growin’.”