Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam

  “Sure thing. Especially if you promise to keep exercising that leg for the next few weeks. Heel to floor! It’ll keep your tendon stretched out.”

  “Deal. I gotta write some letters and find my dog.”

  “Oh, I heard about you.” She even stopped to stroke his face. “You poor thing. Don’t worry, hon, I’ll get you all the stationery you want.”

  She walked him back to his bed. The guy next to him said, “What, is that some kind of trick for picking up girls?”

  Rick didn’t reply.

  All that week he wrote to anyone he could think of. Occasionally, he stopped to walk up and down the ward, even on his own with the cane. He knew the faster he recovered, the faster he’d be let out of this place. The nurse who’d first walked him had explained the situation to the other nurses. They got him addresses, contacts. He wrote Willie, explained the situation. He wrote Camel. He wrote his parents. His sister. His sister’s dissertation chair. Twenty-Twenty. His congressman. The nurses’ congressmen. Everyone he could think of. How was that for applying himself? How was that for being a specialist? A dog-finding specialist.

  It took him a long time to write each letter, because his handwriting stank and because he’d never done something like this before. In fact, it was kind of embarrassing, because one of the nurses had to show him how to format a letter properly. But it felt good as she leaned over him.

  The nurses got so involved, they even had some clerical personnel typing up letters. The other guys in the ward got jealous—how could some guy who was dinky dau over a dog be getting all the ladies’ attention? Rick basked in it a little, but mostly he got excited. According to one nurse, he’d mobilized the whole staff about it. If that wasn’t a specialist, there wasn’t any such thing. If that wasn’t applying himself, what was? And the nurses practically competed to be the one to exercise him every day, cooing to him about his dog. He felt a little like his grandfather with the cane, but the girls cooing in his ear sure was nice.

  Twenty-two

  WHEN CRACKER OPENED HER EYES, SHE COULD TELL it was later than she usually woke up. The pounding in her head was softer now. A few intense beams of sunlight stretched downward through the trees. Everything looked just as she’d figured it had the night before. It looked like many of the jungles she’d seen since she’d come to this place with Rick. Anxiety gripped her hard at the thought of Rick. She got up, stretched, shook off, stretched again, and began to run. She raced through the jungle, even though Rick had taught her never to rush. She had to find him.

  Eventually, she needed to stop because she could no longer ignore her thirst. She pushed at rocks and dug at roots, but she didn’t find any water. She smelled the air and also listened to it. She saw a snake and knew to back away. Then she listened again and heard a soft drip of water through the bush to her right. She went that way and found a few drops falling from some rocks. It wasn’t much, but it wet her mouth enough to help her move on.

  She felt a little sick but couldn’t stop now. Maybe she was hungry, or maybe it was because she drank from one of those rice paddies the day before. She thought again about how Rick always scolded her when she tried to drink from anywhere but his helmet. But his helmet wasn’t here, and she was thirsty.

  But there was another reason she felt sick, and the sick feeling kept growing stronger. She could tell, she just knew, that Rick was no longer where she had last seen him. At the same time she didn’t know where this was. Again she pushed away a feeling that she was passing the same place twice, that maybe she was lost. She paused and whined again, but there was nobody to hear her. She needed to keep going. But which way?

  After a while she struck out in the way she felt she must have seen him last. The sun was already setting when she finally arrived.

  She slowed down as she neared the place. Easy. This was the place that had caused all this trouble in the first place. She peeked out of the jungle and saw people just leaving the field. She crouched down so they wouldn’t see her—humans here seemed to get quite excited when they did. She could smell freshly dug dirt, and she could smell decaying bodies underneath that dirt. But no matter how much she concentrated, she couldn’t smell Rick.

  There were other smells, however, that interested her. The smell of chickens, for instance. She lay down and waited for darkness. But when darkness fell, a bunch of men dressed in black went through the homes talking to people. Sometimes she heard shouting or a gunshot. When the men left, the village was silent of human sounds. Yet she sensed that people were awake. She waited more.

  After the men had been gone a long while, she crept along the edge of the field and stopped at a small house. There were chickens underneath, and they were sleeping. She lunged and grabbed one, setting off a ruckus of chickens and pigs and humans and who knew what else. She just ran and ran, back into the jungle with the chicken in her mouth. She knew nobody would catch her. She heard human voices crying after her.

  She ripped into the chicken’s throat and ate the insides and even some of the feathers. The feeling of ripping into this chicken flooded her with energy. She loved the taste of blood. For a moment she forgot everything else in the world except the feeling of life flooding through her. She crunched on the bones, and when she was finished, she felt a little disappointed to have no more food. She always felt that way when she finished eating. But she was stronger than before.

  She went deeper into the forest and fell asleep. In the morning she felt better. The pounding had almost gone away. She felt confidence returning. She knew what to do: head back to where she lived with Rick. The trucks they’d come in had made a clear path through the jungle. People were already using the path, but whenever she saw or heard a person, she simply stepped off the path and waited until they went by. Then she moved again. Later, when there was no jungle to hide her, she had only a small window of time to travel if she wanted to avoid humans. She didn’t want to wait, but she knew she had to. At night there seemed to be more human activity than during the days. During the day the humans worked in the fields, but at night she saw a different type of person, the ones with guns kind of like Rick’s. They were everywhere at night. Some wore uniforms and some didn’t.

  Every so often she passed a hole in the ground that reminded her of the hole she’d been in when she was captured, and she would run fast from the hole. Once, she passed another village and waited until everybody was asleep before stealing a chicken again and running off to eat it. Then she ran until early morning, when people began waking up.

  She felt a little more hopeful now, because she knew that she was getting closer.

  Then she finally saw the place where she had lived with Rick. Happiness swelled up in her, and she broke into an unthinking gallop. She didn’t stop until she was right at the place.

  It was empty.

  Twenty-three

  THAT IS, IT WASN’T EMPTY. THERE WERE PEOPLE who weren’t Rick’s friends going through the garbage, gathering pieces of wood or metal into baskets, and generally swarming over the camp, taking everything they could. She saw men yanking at wooden stakes stuck into the ground. She saw children dragging huge cans. She recognized some of the people from before, when she and Rick used to watch the locals pick through the trash.

  But Rick and his friends were gone. Someone spotted her and started talking in an excited voice, but nobody moved. Instead of running off, which was her first instinct, she charged toward where Rick’s home had been. People scattered as she snarled at anyone who didn’t move out of her way. When she reached Rick’s former home, she stood still a second to smell. She found where his bed had been. She could smell him. She whined … but turned around just as several men were trying to creep toward her with big wooden sticks in their hands. She decided it was time to go.

  She ran off past the rice paddy and didn’t stop until she’d reached a jungle. Then she lay down behind a canopy of leaves and didn’t move. She just thought. She knew she was in the right place, because she’d smelled Rick’s
bed and because she just knew. Except for when her head pounded, she always knew exactly where she was in relation to where she’d been. She didn’t know how she knew. She could still hear, in the distance, the sounds of people ripping up the camp. Something exploded. Someone screamed. Nothing unusual.

  Cracker’s mouth had grown parched, but she ignored it. Her stomach grumbled, but it didn’t matter. She lowered her head to the ground and thought about all the different places she’d been with Rick and whether he might have gone to one of those places. The only other place they’d stayed a long time was “Tonsonoo,” when they’d first arrived. They’d been there another time for a visit to a man who poked her for some reason. Rick called him “vet.” She saw vets all the time since being in this place. But then there was also “Benwa” and the man who scratched her ears so well. Should she go there?

  She hardly moved until night, and then she crawled all the way to the camp, just the way Rick had taught her to move when there was danger. The camp was now truly empty. She lay where Rick’s bed had been, which was now an open field with a few bits of paper flying in the wind like moths. She didn’t feel like moving, even when she saw bugs the size of mice scurrying across the field.

  She ached for Rick. He was the source of everything. When morning came and she heard people approaching, she ran back into the forest. Again, as thirsty and hungry as she was, she didn’t search for food and water. And again when night fell, she returned to the camp and longed for Rick, but her longing was different from the previous day’s. Hope was draining from her. She remembered that Willie had never come for her, and now she wondered whether Rick would ever come for her. She didn’t understand why people left her. What had she done? Her tongue was getting so dry, it was starting to stick to her mouth.

  The next morning when daytime came and just a few people arrived to search through the rubble, she ran again to hide in the jungle. But when night came, she felt too weak to walk to the camp. Her tongue was changing. It was bigger and harder—it didn’t curl right anymore. But she didn’t feel like searching for water. She felt like just lying there, the way those dogs in the pound had just lain there. At the time she had wondered why they had lain there that way, but now she understood. She didn’t care if she died. She didn’t want to be killed by any of those people, though; instead, she would just lie here and die of thirst. She laid her head on her front paws, and her body shook a bit as it did when she whimpered. But no whimpers came from her.

  When morning arrived, she was still alive, but her tongue had changed even more. It hung out of her mouth, bloated and unbendable and dry, like a dead thing that was attached to her. She didn’t move, for there was nowhere to go and nothing to do. There was danger everywhere, but even if she could avoid all dangers, what would be the point? Willie had let her go, and Rick had abandoned her. She could feel that she was closer to death today than yesterday. Her tongue was useless, and her throat felt like that time she swallowed a rock and Willie’s father had to take her someplace to get it out. And she was having trouble getting air into her: Every time she inhaled, she felt as if she couldn’t take in quite enough air. The trees seemed to wobble, but not really the way they wobbled when the wind hit them. She saw sparkles in the air. As she lay, dying, she saw a man with a box click it at her. She didn’t know what that meant, and she didn’t care.

  Then rain began to drizzle from the sky. She could see it filling a hole in the dirt near her. Despite everything, the rain in the hole beckoned her. She watched the drops splash occasionally into the hole. Occasionally, a drop fell on her tongue. She pushed herself to her feet and almost fell over. She waited a moment, but she couldn’t resist the chance to live longer. For what, she didn’t know. But she went to the hole and dropped her tongue inside. She felt her tongue soften as it sopped up water. She waited for the hole to fill again as she hung her tongue in it. A soft foam filled her mouth. Her tongue began to soften. But the drizzle ceased, and her mouth began to dry out again.

  Later that day she heard a noise and saw a boy standing near the edge of the jungle. Her vision still wobbled. For a moment she wasn’t even sure she saw him. He was staring at her and saying something, but not in the excited tone that those other people had used with her. He was holding a bucket.

  She growled softly but didn’t move as he set the bucket halfway between them and then stepped back. Then she vaguely remembered seeing him around camp. He was one of the people who went through the garbage, not one of Rick’s friends. But she remembered that Rick had thrown him some cans of food once. He was dark, small, and slender. He had only one leg, and he walked with a stick. She wondered if he had come to kill her.

  “Name Quan,” he said. “Name Quan.” He patted his chest. “Quan.” He pointed to the bucket. She knew what “name” was, sort of. “You hunt? You help Quan?”

  She didn’t know what he was babbling about. But she could smell food in the bucket. Cracker knew danger, and she knew opportunity, and she knew that sometimes they could exist in the same place. Despite everything, that food in the bucket beckoned her. She walked over; the food tasted new, different, but she dipped her entire nose and mouth in, causing a sensation almost like pain and pleasure at the same time. Then she swallowed over and over until the bucket was empty. She could almost feel the food spreading throughout her whole body.

  When she was finished, the boy was waiting patiently. He said again, “You help Quan?”

  She shook herself out. Her whole body felt stiff, the way it had after that first long ride to this strange land. She started to peek out of the jungle, but the boy said something excitedly. She looked at him curiously. He put a cigarette butt in his mouth and lit it with a lighter, just like Rick used to.

  Cracker waited. She didn’t expect anything at all, she just waited. She felt her body strengthening. She didn’t trust the boy, but on the other hand, he had just helped her. So she waited. Then she heard someone behind him shouting, and she knew it was about her.

  She ran off, alone again.

  Twenty-four

  CRACKER HAD TO FIND RICK. SHE LISTENED TO every sound she could hear, smelled every smell she could smell, and—most importantly—searched inside of herself for where Rick could be. But she couldn’t find an answer. Mostly, all she heard and smelled were birds and monkeys, which she admitted were pretty interesting. But they weren’t Rick. She could head for that Tonsonoo place, but she had no idea if he was there. And many people lived there, and people were dangerous. Anyway, she didn’t think he was there. She could just tell.

  She thought about the Camel man. He and his friends had petted her and called her “good girl.” And she could never forget the man who was so good at scratching her ears. She and Rick had been several places with him, but they had started out at “Benwa.” Everybody at Benwa was nice to her. She stood up and faced in the direction of Benwa. She turned her ears this way and that and raised her nose into the wind. She stood very still and concentrated on Benwa. Then she decided. Once she decided, that was that. Benwa it was. She walked all day in what she thought was the right direction. Her head hurt less, yet occasionally, the pounding came back, and she doubted she was going in the right direction. But she ignored the doubt, stopping only for water. At night she rested in the jungle. She pushed deep into a bush, letting some twigs jab her. She lay down and stayed still. She thought of Rick saying, Easy, Cracker, easy.

  In the morning she ran off. She kept running and running, forgetting the word “easy.” She knew she was making too much noise, and at some point she heard human voices crying out. She ran as fast as she could. Running, running, running. Soon the forest fell silent again. She hid in some bushes but didn’t lie down. She just stood there. Easy.

  Finally, she lay down and slept, and in the morning she continued to Benwa.

  Twenty-five

  THE FIRST WEEK HAD PASSED QUICKLY, AND RICK actually started to feel optimistic. By the time the second week passed, he figured that when he went stateside, he woul
d mobilize the whole rehab clinic. Or if they weren’t as helpful as the staff here, he would do it all himself. On the other hand, mixed with his optimism was doubt. Could a dog—even a great dog like Cracker—survive this long out there in the jungle?

  A few days before Rick was to be shipped back for stateside rehab, his mouth dropped open as U-Haul—U-Haul!—walked up to the bed carrying a manila file. He patted Rick’s good leg just like a friend might. Was the universe going completely insane? U-Haul hadn’t bothered to stop by even once since Rick had been injured.

  “I’ve got news,” the sergeant said. Rick hesitated—in Nam “news” usually meant “bad news.”

  “You found Cracker,” Rick said. The only question was: Dead or alive?

  “All we know is she’s been spotted. Somebody found this near our base.” He handed Rick the file.

  Rick opened it to find a black-and-white picture of a bedraggled Cracker lying in a forest, her tongue hanging out of her mouth but a dull spark of life still in her eyes. He cried out, “Cracker!”

  “There are some Vietnamese photographers who travel alone, taking pictures of the war for Charlie to use as propaganda. They hang the photos on trees sometimes. I tell ya, it’s pretty damn bizarre to be walking through a forest and see a bunch of pictures hanging from the trees. A guy from the 199th Light Infantry found this.”

  Cracker looked strange—limp but definitely alive. “I gotta get out of here and save her!” cried Rick. It was possible she was alive. He searched the picture for more information but didn’t find anything. Then he searched his intuition and found nothing. Or rather, he found something: He thought she was dead.

  Rick pushed himself all the way up. “Sergeant, they want to send me home. Is there any way I can stay to search for Cracker—?” He’d started to say Cracker’s body but stopped himself.