Slash and Burn

out.
    “Exactly how old are you?” Dtui asked.
    “Seventeen and eleven months.”
    “You see?” said Civilai. “If she was from the tribes she’d have four children by now. But how did the daughter of a missionary learn to drink, little daughter?”
    “Mom and Dad did the remote village thing,” she told him. “They schooled my brothers and sister and me at home and let us run wild with the local kids. When we grew up they trusted us to have the common sense to know what was right. But by then our right was more the village’s right than theirs. We did stuff we still haven’t gotten around to telling the folks about. Best they don’t know, I say. I guess it’s what you deserve for naming all your kids after fruit.”
    “Boys too?” Civilai asked.
    “Melon and Mango.”
    “Poor lads.”
    “And where’s your family now?” Daeng asked.
    “They were asked politely by the local cadre if they wouldn’t mind leaving the country. Most of the independent missionaries were thrown out when the PL took over. They were too poor, I guess. Your authorities only turned a blind eye to the religious groups with enough money to invest in development projects.”
    Siri smiled. She was fearless. If ever Haeng stopped drooling for five minutes to listen to what she was saying, he’d hate her.
    “Why didn’t you go with them?” Phosy asked.
    “Where to? Indiana? No way. I wouldn’t know what to do there. I don’t know those people. This is my home. I applied for a teaching job on local rates and got it. Not enough to live on but these little junkets sustain me when they come along. Mom and Dad are pissed at the communists. They’re fund-raising right now to support the insurgency. How Christian is that?”
    “I don’t think you should be telling us,” said Dtui.
    “What can I say? You can’t choose your father.”
    “A father’s goodness is as big as a mountain,” said Daeng, who had a Lao saying for most occasions.
    “I had my own ears and eyes, auntie,” Peach replied. “First you hear it, so you must see it. Once you’ve seen it, so you must make a judgement with your heart. This is my judgement. I’m staying here.”
    A counter Lao saying.
    “Very well,” Siri said. “As Madame Daeng quite rightly points out, candles are not forever. So, before we are forced into our bunks, probably to be blown to kingdom come if any of us walks in our sleep, I’ve asked Peach to tell us what she’s learned from the American contingent about the mission we’re here for.”
    “At last,” said Comrade Lit.
    “I’m glad somebody knows,” said Civilai.
    “All right,” said Peach. “Your Judge Haeng was supposed to pass all this on but he’s not in the mood, for some reason. He asked me if I’d do it. This is what I’ve learned. Or, at least, what they told me at the briefing. We are here to find one Captain Boyd Bowry or his remains. When he disappeared in 1968 he was twenty-four years of age, which would make him thirty-four if he’s still alive. He was a helicopter pilot attached to the Air America program out of Udon Thani in Thailand. I assume you all know about Air America?”
    “Perhaps you could give us a quick overview so we know how the Americans see it,” Siri suggested.
    “OK,” Peach went on, “I hope I can remember it all. Briefly, Air America was—still is, for all I know—an airline funded and operated by the CIA. They flew what they called “aid” missions inside Laos after the Geneva accord banned foreign military personnel. Of course the CIA continued to recruit military people, mostly marine pilots like Bowry. They took them out of uniform and maintained that they were civilian pilots working for a private company. They carried a lot more than rice, mind you. Captain Bowry was flying helicopter missions in and out of Laos for two years. As I’m sure you know, not a hundred kilometers from here were two CIA bases. One was at Sam Thong where there was a refugee camp for displaced hill tribe families. The other was at Long Cheng, the home of the CIA’s secret army. It’s where General Vang Pao and his Hmong troops were based. It’s where the CIA trained them up to fight you guys. At one stage, Long Cheng, with all its troops and US advisors and pilots, was the second most populated city in the country after Vientiane. There were so many spies there it collected the name Spook Heaven or Spook City. But that’s the big picture. We’re all here for the little picture.