Old Man by David A. Poulsen

Author:David A. Poulsen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 2013-01-07T05:00:00+00:00

The A Shau Valley

1

I woke up and freaked.

In the pre-dawn semi-light, I was sure of one thing — I’d been carried off to a giant jungle spider’s web. The spider’s webbing was all around me. I tried to move my eyes without moving my head so that whatever it was that had taken me prisoner wouldn’t know I was still alive. Or awake.

I didn’t see a spider. But I did hear the old man’s voice outside the tent, talking softly, and Mr. Vinh’s high-pitched singsong answering.

“Uh … morning,” I called out. I didn’t want to let on that I might need to be rescued from a bloodthirsty insect, but I wouldn’t have minded if the old man happened to look into the tent right about then.

He didn’t. “Hey, Nathan, gather up that mosquito netting as you’re getting up. We’ll need it again tonight.”

I pulled my hand out from under the covers and gently reached up, touched the spider’s web. Mosquito netting.

“Uh, yeah, mosquito netting. I’ll gather up the mosquito netting. I’ll just gather it up. No problem.”

“Good.” I heard the old man saying something to Mr. Vinh. I was pretty sure the phrase “strange kid” was part of what he said.

I gave up on the netting long enough to pull on the rest of my clothes. It didn’t take long since I hadn’t totally undressed the night before. I’d pulled off my shirt and running shoes and that was it. I had this feeling that sleeping in your gonch in the jungle was an open invitation for some creature to sneak into your sleeping bag and start gnawing on some private area best left un-gnawed.

I’d just finished getting the shirt and shoes back on and picked up the jumble of netting when the old man and Mr. Vinh stomped into the tent, wearing slickers but looking wet anyway. Raining outside. The old man was carrying the briefcase. He opened it and pulled out what looked like some maps … and a couple of old photographs.

They both sat on the floor of the tent. The old man was sitting cross-legged with the briefcase in his lap, lid down, and one of the maps lying on its surface. Mr. Vinh sat next to him. Both were staring hard at the map.

The old man pointed at a couple of points on the map. Mr. Vinh nodded and spoke in a mix of Vietnamese and English that was pretty well gibberish to me. The old man answered him also with a mix of words, most of them one syllable. As usual, I understood pretty well nothing.

But it was quite an animated conversation. A couple of times Mr. Vinh didn’t seem to know the answer to whatever the old man wanted to know. When that happened, he shrugged and shook his head. The old man’s voice got pretty loud right about then. After maybe the third time it happened, the old man looked up at me. It was like he suddenly realized I was there, still sorting mosquito netting and watching the two of them.

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