A CLASSIC STORY OF GOOD AND EVIL
A Classic Story of Good and Evil by Sarah Black
I’m very pleased to have this story available through the Kindle store! (an oldie but goodie)
http://tinyurl.com/6j4tmyh
Blurb: Hutch and Dog are hot-shot Marine pilots, trying to get out of Vietnam alive. Dog wants to fly Apollo, and Hutch won't let anything get in the way of his dreams. But you can't always control what happens in a war, or what happens when brothers-in-arms fall in love.
Excerpt: A Classic Story of Good and Evil
The ground mist was thick, and the sticky mud, rank with rotting vegetation, was sucking at his boots. It was an hour before dawn. Between the dark and the rising mist, Hutch couldn’t see his way through the jungle, and he was making too much noise, crashing through the bamboo and elephant grass, trying to find him before they got to the river.
Daniel had been gone for five hours, captured, dragged off with a rope around his neck and his elbows wired together behind his back, a squad of NVA bringing him north to the prisons outside Hanoi. A Marine pilot, quite a catch, and Hutch could see again the broadcast that they had watched in the California desert before they deployed to Vietnam, CDR Jeremiah Denton, one of the senior POWs held by the North, blinking out the word TORTURE TORTURE TORTURE in Morse Code.
Hutch stopped, took a mouthful of water from his canteen. He was close. The NVA loved taking American pilots prisoner, dragging them through the villages, but they were going to have to do without Daniel. He could smell the river now, wood smoke rising from a campfire, hear morning sounds from the fishermen. Then he heard Daniel’s voice. “You’ve made a bad mistake, man. The Marines don’t leave anyone behind. And you don’t know my co-pilot, he is one crazed Marine killer, and he’s coming after me…” And Hutch could make out one of the NVA, peeing up against a tree three yards to his right, and then the K-Bar was in his hand…
“Wake up, Hutch.” Someone was shaking his shoulder. “Chill out, man. You’re okay.”
He opened his eyes, stared up into bamboo thatch. Bamboo? What the…? Then he rolled over and Daniel was smiling at him. His head was nestled in the pillow on his side of the bed, dark hair falling across his forehead, looking just like he had when he was twenty-three. Or very nearly.
“Nobody says chill out anymore, Dog. You’ve got to keep up with popular culture, with slang, or you’re gonna sound like an old man.”
Hutch sat up, rooted around on the bedside table. No cigarettes. Of course not. He hadn’t smoked for nearly forty years. But he felt the craving like heat in the middle of his chest, like he’d just had his last Lucky. He flopped back down on the bed, stared up at the thatched roof. “Where are we again?”
“Thailand.” Daniel slid his hand across Hutch’s chest until it settled warm and heavy over his heart. “Maybe we shouldn’t have come here. We’re too close. It smells too familiar. You aren’t sleeping good.”
Hutch sat up on the side of the bed again, gave Daniel his back. “Don’t fuss, Dog.” But his voice was gentle, and Daniel crawled across the bed, wrapped his arms around his chest and rested his chin on Hutch’s shoulder.
“You want to tell me about the dream?”
Hutch shook his head, smiling. “You ready for some breakfast? I wonder if this place can stretch to bacon and eggs.”