An Old Fashioned War td-68 Page 4

  "It is a shame that members of our society can feel so alienated as to express such sentiments," General Buel had said publicly. Privately he planned to grind the bastards into Dakota mud under the treads of his Pattons. He was only sorry that he probably would not be able to let the artillery mangle them for long. He would attack at dawn, approach in five columns, and where they would meet would be the last live Indian. General Buel would finish him off personally. Maybe a shot to the belly and watch him squirm, probably the way his own ancestor had squirmed.

  He would then recommend people for medals and make a wonderful speech about how horrible war was, perhaps adding the sentiment that from this horrible battle all mankind might learn to live well together.

  That night he did not sleep. Just before all the columns began moving, he got a direct call from the President.

  "Bill," said the President, "I've got good news for you."

  "What?" asked General Buel warily.

  "I think we can stop this thing without bloodshed."

  "Good," said General Buel, his voice cracking. "How are we going to do that?"

  "Just hold your fire and wait for the results. I've got it covered."

  "May I know how, sir?" asked General Buel.

  "No," said the President.

  "As you say, sir," said General Buel. "But those Indians seem pretty hostile. I'd hate to have to be on the defensive in this case, Mr. President, sir."

  "I guarantee that everything will be taken care of," said the President.

  "And if it isn't?"

  "Ah, but it always is," said the President.

  "Perhaps I can give some assistance."

  "They don't need help. It's all taken care of."

  "Very good," General Buel said, and hung up laughing. He knew the last crew who had tried to enter the tight Indian bivouac ended up tied to a tree with their throats cut. He would give the President until noon and then open fire. A battle at high noon, he thought.

  It would be like an inferno in these Dakota hills. The sun would be directly overhead, and fighting men always consumed more water anyhow. He would drive them away from the riverbank. He would get them into a small valley without water, then let them suffer under the sun as his great-grandfather must have done in these very hills, many years ago.

  Chapter 3

  It was a long way from Oklahoma to the Dakotas, but as the stranger said:

  "It's always a long way into courage."

  He always made so much sense just when someone was ready to call the whole thing off. After all, how could a small band of Indians beat the United States government today, when the odds were even worse than a hundred years ago? But he pointed out that the odds were never good at the beginning of a victory, only at the end.

  An engineering student from a college in Iowa pointed out this was absolute nonsense. He was a Plains Indian who had felt overwhelmed by his studies and just enlisted in the cause to get away. He was willing to fight alongside his brothers, but he wasn't going to believe nonsense.

  "Look around you. That's the real U.S. Army out there. They got tanks miles deep, and behind them infantry, and behind them artillery. We're not trapping them like a hundred years ago. They're trapping us."

  "We beat 'em before," said one brave.

  "Custer was outnumbered. We had the numbers then. Now they got 'em."

  And some of the young men, who had been thinking there would be only victories and glory, suddenly had second thoughts.

  "I thought they always outnumbered us, but we beat 'em because we were braver, cleaner, closer to the earth. But finally their numbers prevailed."

  "We outnumbered them at the Little Big Horn. Custer was the one showing foolhardy bravery. That's why he died and we didn't."

  The revelation threatened to send panic through the new Indian army, but as always the stranger seemed to be able to turn things around.

  He pointed out that the Israelis were almost always outnumbered, but they won regularly. The engineering student commented that they were better trained. How much training did this new army have?

  "It has the training of its fathers. It has the rightness of its cause. Others may want to spend time playing with guns, but the Indian nation has wasted too much time already. You wouldn't be living in reservations today if you hadn't waited too long. What do you have to lose? The white man's pickup trucks? The white man's whiskey, which makes you crazy? You have nothing to lose but your shame."

  The stranger in the suit was brilliant, better even than back in Oklahoma, Little Elk and Running Deere had to admit. He could take anyone and make him want to run straight into the guns.

  They had decided by now that the stranger had to be an Indian spirit come back to help them in their struggle. After all, he did appear in the sacred fire, and the sacred fire went out when he arrived. He did come with the chanting of the medicine man. He did seem to have some very special powers. He never tired, and he knew who everyone was.

  The question was, which Indian spirit? And the answer was to ask the medicine man, if they could find him. But somehow the stranger found out about their concerns and got them aside just before the big battle with the federal troops, even as the sun was breaking over the Dakota plains, even as the tanks over the hills made the ground tremble and half-tracks created dust storms that looked like the end of the world.

  "Look," he said, his face almost shining with joy. "What are you guys worried about? Do you care who I am? Would it help to know who I am? I've got my needs and loves just like the rest of you. I'm a lot like all of you. Maybe with you guys I've found a place I haven't had for a long time. Whatever it is, know this, above all: I am with you in your war."

  "Do you have a name?" asked Little Elk. He had a clipboard in his hand. He was going to let the first waves of tanks go through into the center, and then break out along a U.S. highway and try to circle back on the rear of the federal columns. The stranger had thought it was a brilliant plan. Little Elk was discovering, as the stranger predicted, that he was, after all, a military genius. If so many people didn't get killed in wars, he would like to fight one a week.

  "What name would you like?"

  "You have more than one?" asked Running Deere.

  "Sure, but lately I haven't had one. I think you great guys ought to have your own name for me. Your special name."

  "We asked your name. This isn't playtime," snapped Little Elk. He had became a brusque, efficient leader in the last few weeks, and he didn't like to waste time anymore. Losing time was like losing life itself, especially when a major battle was about to begin.

  "Arieson," said the stranger. "Call me Mr. Arieson. And I'm an old friend of the Ojupa."

  "Well, we certainly need you now," said Little Elk, going back to his command post, back to his new platoon leaders, back to all the braves who looked to him now that their hour of destiny was near. He loved it.

  Chiun was worse than ever. It was more than the complaining. Remo had never seen him attack furniture and machines before. While packing, he broke the washer-dryer that came with the villa in Flora del Mar. He said he was not a washerwoman. He shredded the air conditioner. He sent the television flying five times, until he finally ended up throwing the pieces into the steamy canal outside their stucco abode.

  It took fifteen golf carts to carry Chiun's steamer trunks to the airport limousine. The resort's registration desk had lost their account and thought they could make Chiun wait.

  He just walked out. They made the mistake of sending a manager after him. Chiun kept the manager.

  "You can't keep someone. It's called slavery," said Remo. "I'll carry the trunks."

  "I didn't give you Sinanju so you could be a slave," said Chiun.

  "You've got to give back the manager. He's not yours. It's stealing."

  "They sent him. He's mine."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Have you read the histories of Sinanju? Have you examined the stars? Don't you know what's wrong?"

  "
No," said Remo.

  "Then read our histories. At least you didn't let them get stolen."

  And then, in South Dakota, at the airport, Chiun seemed to go too far, even for Chiun. He refused to leave the parking lot, refused to let any cars move by him, and looked around, ready to take on the world. "There. Even here in this backward part of America they desecrate your parking lots with those signs. You are a decrepit culture. And you're going to get worse."

  Chum's long fingernail pointed down to a painting of a wheelchair in the parking lot. The sign showed the space was reserved for the handicapped.

  "What's wrong with that?" asked Remo. Even as they were landing, Remo had seen the army forces massing for miles down the roads leading to the Little Big Horn. It was a war he intended to stop. And if he wanted to succeed he didn't have much time to waste in parking lots.

  "These are the best spots. They are closest to everything. And they are reserved for the wrong people. They should be given to your best people, your prize athletes, perhaps even to your assassins if your culture had advanced far enough to start producing them."

  "Handicapped people are not our worst people. They're people who have been denied certain physical abilities, and as a decent country, unlike some vicious Oriental ones, we take care of them better. If they have a hard time walking, we give them the shortest route. I like it. It's one of the sanest things we've ever done."

  "Ruination," said Ghiun. He was not moving.

  "What's wrong?"

  "You do not see it?"

  "No. C'mon."

  "Your whole country is doomed."

  "You always said it wasn't worth saving anyhow. Let's go."

  "And this doesn't bother you?" said Chiun, smiling wanly and shaking his head.

  "No. I said so. Let's go."

  "I'll explain then," said Chiun. "Many of these people who are in wheelchairs have been injured because perhaps at a moment of' crisis their minds wandered. Maybe they thought of something else while they drove their cars and did not have time to avoid an accident. You are rewarding lack of excellence. And in so doing you are promoting lack of concentration in your populace."

  "Chiun," said Remo, "a lot of people suffered accidents that weren't their fault, and a lot of people were born with problems, so let's go."

  "There is no such thing as an accident. There are events you have failed to control."

  "Chiun, will you tell me what's wrong?"

  "Read your histories."

  "I'll read the histories. Let's go."

  "You promise now because you want to get on to another silly little assignment."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Armies. I hate armies."

  "You loved the assignment back in Flora del Mar."

  "I would like anything that would get us out of that dump," said Chiun.

  "It was a nice resort. Let's go."

  "An army," said Chiun, "steals the bread out of the mouth of an assassin. An army-"

  "I know, Little Father. I read the histories of Sinanju," said Remo, and to get him moving repeated that armies terrorized populations, promoted amateurism, instability, and loss of wealth to a host nation, and worse, gave a monarch the idea that perhaps an assassin wasn't necessary. A monarch often thought, wrongly, if he could have a hundred thousand killers for a pittance each, why would he need one assassin who would cost a fortune? There were many examples in the histories of Sinanju of a Master having to show a monarch his army was useless before he could get hired.

  And as they drove a rented car toward Little Big Horn National Park, Chiun repeated the examples, with exactly what tribute was given, and at the end of each account he would mention that that tribute too was lost when Remo was off doing other things while Chiun was hot on the trail of the thief.

  "We're never going to find that treasure, so stop carping about what you can't do anything about, and let's get on with this assignment."

  "I can do something about it," said Chiun.

  "Good. Let me know so I can help."

  "You can never help."

  "Then what is it you're doing?"

  "I'm reminding you," said Chiun, nodding in sour satisfaction.

  The entire national park was sealed off by military police. No one could enter without a pass. No civilians could stay on the road.

  "All civilians should evacuate to the nearest area designated safe, sir," said the MP, his white helmet glistening in the sun, his sidearm polished in its holster, his boots immaculate.

  "Thanks," said Remo, gliding past him. He wore his usual dark t-shirt and gray slacks. Chiun had on his gray traveling kimono and refused to wear the black kimono with red trim indicating a Sinanju Master was performing work. He did not think armies should ever be considered work.

  The MP issued the threat again.

  "Civilians are not allowed in the designated combat zone," he said.

  Remo grabbed his brass belt buckle in two fingers and yanked the MP after them to a nearby jeep. Another MP ran up to help, his sidearm drawn. Chiun got him with his fingernails, and pressing nerves in the MP's neck, convinced him that driving them both into the combat zone was in their best interest.

  Thus did they pass the miles and miles of cannon, tanks, and half-tracks, with Chiun complaining constantly.

  "When I think of the billions your country spends on its armies, every tank costing many millions, every artillery shell costing five thousand dollars apiece, I am appalled at what a mere four hundred billion dollars would do in tribute to Sinanju."

  "What would it do? Sit there?"

  "The treasures are living things. They span all ages."

  "They sit there," said Remo, and Chiun refused to answer such a low and base insult. Of course, he could have said he was planning to move them to a bigger building to show the glories of Sinanju to the rest of the world. But Remo knew that almost every Master for the last twenty-five centuries had planned to do that and never gotten anywhere, so Chiun could not dispute Remo's charge. Instead, he chose to sit in wounded silence.

  As they approached the perimeter of the army encampment they heard groans. The morning attack had been called off. Some of these young volunteers complained that they might never get a chance to fire their weapons in combat.

  "Armies," scoffed Chiun. "Soldiers."

  "I was once a marine," said Remo.

  "And that's why it took so much more time for me to break you of so many absolutely bad habits. You used to think enduring pain was a virtue, not the stupidity of ignoring the wisdom of your body talking to you."

  Several soldiers, their M-16's cradled in their arms and the dust of the day on their khaki uniforms, their eyes blackened so they could see better in the glare of the sun, warned the two not to proceed farther.

  "There are hostiles up there," said one frecklefaced lad with a bayonet stuck in his belt.

  "I'm with one," said Remo.

  "He an Indian?" asked the young soldier.

  Remo saw Chiun thinking of explaining the difference to the young man between the heavenly perfect people and others, like Africans, Indians, and whites. Chiun could be physical in his lessons at times.

  "We don't have time, Little Father," he said.

  So instead, Chiun simply endured another injustice from the ungrateful society he served and followed Remo along the little valley. Up ahead they could sense the river. There was a way the earth responded to its water. Some people using divining rods could, crudely, sense the water too. But Remo and Chiun just knew the water was there, and they also knew there was a large encampment of people.

  A young man with dark hair and high cheekbones, and a hunting rifle with a big bore, fidgeted inside a foxhole and then chose to rise from it as though trying to surprise Remo and Chitin.

  "White man, your time has come," he said, and Remo just walked over him, pushing him back down into the hole. No talk was needed.

  They both knew what they were looking for and they both knew how to find a command headquarters. It was a
lways the same. Command headquarters might be in different places on different battlefields, but they were always located in the same relationship to the units they controlled. There were always subordinates running to and fro, from the low in rank to those not-quite-so-low, and from the not-quite-solow to those higher up.

  One only had to find someone giving an order and ask him who gave him his orders. Then it was easy to follow the chain of running messengers to the head man.

  That was it.

  All armies were the same.

  This was the wisdom of the lessons of Sinanju. The difference between sides was only in the imagination of those sides.

  When Remo had first learned this, he became angry. He had fought in Vietnam in the early days as a marine, and said he certainly wasn't like the Vietcong.

  "If we're all alike, how come one side wins and one side loses?"

  "Because some are trained better and some are trained worse. But they are all trained. And they are trained the same way. Not to think. Not to feel. Not to be. Only to act in some crude way that will make them more effective. An army, Remo, is a mob with its mind taken away."

  "A mob doesn't have a mind."

  "It most certainly does," answered Chitin, "That is why it runs around in hysteria, blindly attacking anything in front of it. What a mob does not have is control. But it does have a mind."

  "So why am I learning this? When am I ever going to need this? I'm in training to fight criminals, not soldiers."

  "And I am teaching you Sinanju. Let your silly courts decide who is a criminal and who is not. I am teaching you reality. You will learn armies, because that is the way Sinanju teaches. It teaches thought first, then the body."

  So Remo had learned about armies, and dynasties, and how one approached a pharaoh, even though there hadn't been a pharaoh around for over three thousand years and there was little likelihood there would ever be one again. He learned Sinanju, and some of it he learned better than the rest of it.

  What he forgot quickly and became bored with was the legends of the Masters, which, as any American over thirteen would recognize, was promotional material for the oldest house of assassins in the world.