Slash and Burn

to kill. But I usually just wound ’em. Then they can limp home and tell their friends not to come. If they’re dead, people come looking for ’em, right?”
    “Right.”
    They heard footsteps on gravel and the sentry reached for his weapon.
    “Relax soldier,” said Lit. “I think that’s the rest of our party come to see if we’re alive.”
    “Phosy! Phosy, are you all right?” came Dtui’s anxious voice.
    “I’m fine,” Phosy yelled.
    “Lit?”
    “I’m fine too,” shouted Lit. He shrugged at Phosy. “Thanks for asking.”
    Dtui, aided over the rocks by Sergeant Johnson, appeared around a huge boulder. When she saw the state of her husband she scrambled alone over the last few meters. She could hardly catch her breath.
    “What’s he doing here?” the soldier asked when he saw Johnson.
    “Prisoner. Don’t worry about it,” said Lit.
    “Who did this to you?” Dtui screamed.
    “That was me, comrade,” the soldier grinned. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
    She glared at him, grabbed the cloth from Lit and began her own inspection.
    “Always have to be the hero,” she mumbled. “Always have to run off on your own to show how clever you are. Can’t wait five minutes. Safety in numbers, ever hear of that? Heavens, Phosy, you’ve got a lump of rock sticking out of your face … and you’ve cracked a tooth. How, pray tell me, is that not as bad as it looks?”
    “Could have been a bullet through his skull,” said the shooter looking over her shoulder at the wound.
    She reached into her pack for her own medical supplies and pointed a bandage at the soldier.
    “You,” she said, “I’ll get to you later.”
    “Be nice to have the support of a good woman,” said the soldier.
    “So what exactly is it you’re guarding up here so enthusiastically?” Lit asked.
    “You don’t know, comrade?”
    “If I knew I wouldn’t ask you, would I?”
    “That’s true. It’s gold, sir.”
    “Gold?”
    “Lots of it.”
    “We have gold?” Dtui looked up in surprise.
    “It’s all around,” said the sentry. “The mountains in Xiang Khouang are chock full of the stuff. Locals have known about it for centuries but, until the war, nobody knew how to get to it. No heavy equipment. No roads. Some of the villagers would come up here to do a bit of mining. Trek a week up, a week back. All they could carry on a donkey. But by the time they’d sold it to the Chinese dealers, it barely covered the cost of sticky rice for the journey. Not worth it.”
    “What do you mean, ‘until the war’?” Phosy asked.
    The sentry looked at John Johnson.
    “American, is he?” he asked.
    “Yes.”
    “Speak Lao, does he?”
    “No.”
    “All right. Well, it was them, you see? The Americans. They got wind of the fact that the mountains of Xiang Khouang were full of gold. So they picked themselves the mountain nearest to Thailand and bombed the shit out of it. As you can see.” Dtui was shocked. She asked John Johnson whether such a thing was possible. He thought about it and laughed.
    “No question,” he said. “The bombers were just offloading where they were told to. The Raven would lead them to a target, give them the coordinates and they’d drop their load. All you’d need is one Raven on your payroll and he could lead strike after strike on any mountain you had a mind to blow to smithereens. The pilots would have no idea they were bombing a hunk of empty rock. I mean, look at this. There must have been a hundred strikes here.”
    Once they heard Johnson’s opinion, both Phosy and Lit became animated.
    “Wolff,” said Phosy. “The Raven drinking with Boyd and Leon that night. The pilot was killed a few weeks later. I bet he was the FAC who led the strikes on this mountain.”
    “And once he’d done his job, they didn’t need him any more,” said Lit.
    “In fact, it would have been better for everyone if they could shut him up permanently,” Phosy agreed.
    “And who better to make sure his plane had an accident than the chief flight mechanic, Leon?” said Johnson. “That’s why he’d been transferred to Long Cheng. To keep an eye on the pilots. You know? I bet he fixed Boyd’s chopper that night too. The young pilot was starting to get edgy. He was a liability.”
    “But what was Boyd’s role in all this?” Phosy asked.
    “He was the gofer,” said Johnson. “He ferried in the super napalm from Thailand. Did all their odd jobs. Might have even dropped the canisters to clear