I awoke in darkness, bringing up my Gus Grissom watch more for the tiny bit of illumination emanating out through the crystal than to see what time it was. I quickly oriented myself to where I was and how Iā€™d come to be there. I heard the wind and river sounds wafting by the entrance to the cave. I breathed deeply in and out, gently sitting up and pulling away from Fusner, whoā€™d apparently slept next to me unmoving through the night, or at least until five a.m., which it was. I remembered that Gunny said he was going downriver to pick up the remaining Kilo bodies just before dark the night before. I hadnā€™t heard anything since quieting Fusnerā€™s crying and falling unconscious myself. I blinked my eyes rapidly. I felt vital, alive and so filled with an energy I wanted to get up and move about. I needed food and water, and I needed to get out of the cave. I hadnā€™t heard the CH-46 leaving or return, if it had returned. Iā€™d heard nothing, and that fact was hard to believe since my nineteenth night had been the first Iā€™d truly slept through since Iā€™d been in Vietnam.

I almost whispered behind me to wake Stevens but then remembered he was dead. Zippo was there but I decided to let him sleep as long as possible, and Fusner too. The boy had shown me his age and how much he was holding inside himself. Why I had thought of him as a stoically tough figure I didnā€™t know, but I had. That he was just another young scared kid bothered me, although I knew it shouldnā€™t. My job, not his, entailed being the stoically tough figure, and I had to get better at playing that role.