One day he stopped still. He was going through the still-remaining jungle without his things and he came to a tree with glasses, cups of china on its branches. Someone lived there, but where would they get the cups and blue bottles? They even had a teapot. It was their kitchen hidden in the jungle where it was easy to disappear and hide a foot away from everything and anyone. He could not wait around to see who lived there, if they were dangerous, if he should shoot them. He was touched by this and his heart hurt, but he disappeared quickly by ducking down and getting away as fast and silent as he could. He became a snake in his movement, a lizard with his eyes, seeing, seeing. He thought like a lynx. He was covered at times in mud and he thought it was good, it kept him unseen, the insects away, and he wandered into mists not knowing what would be there, just feeling with a part of himself he’d never known as he entered darkness. His body had eyes. His back had eyes. His fingers had eyes. But so did the trees, the leaves, the moss and stone.

Because he was a lynx and snake, the other men began to tease him and call him a “brave.” The sergeant gave up on him and called him the walking dead. He was already decorated and promoted, though god knows he didn’t care. He’d won a medal for saving a man. Now he tried to sleep in trees and pretty soon they thought maybe it was smart, not carrying all that shit. But he also knew when to dig in. Maybe they joked, but they knew in truth he could feel what was there. He could feel what was around and so everyone followed him and if he stopped, they took cover.

His thirst was constant even though he breathed water. It was hard to see through the smoke of things burning, but there were the skeletons of trees, of homes once with large doors and gardens, of people now in huts somewhere, or dead.

They made fun of the dead, sitting them up with a canteen and cigarette in mouth, spreading their legs, and he, Thomas, felt nervous about it. Men at home didn’t touch the dead. It wasn’t permitted. He felt singled out because they knew he didn’t like it, because they had instincts there they hadn’t felt before and they could read a man’s mind and face. He looked at the plants. Even the roots destroyed. The trees turned over. He thought nothing would grow back in that world. It went against everything that was in him. Thomas, the grandson of Witka, who respected life, grieved.

His own comrades were leery of him.

“You’re a sorry excuse for a man,” said someone. And everyone looked at each other and laughed.

Anyone could see the Americans coming, hear them, even smell them, but they had force on their side, and machines. Fire. Bombs. But not the intelligence of living on that land. If they jumped out of a chopper in daylight, they were targets. If they jumped at night, they had dye so they could be seen by each other, but then they could be seen by anyone else “out there,” and out there was everything, everywhere, the surrounding heat of noon sun, the dark silences of night.