Nonoy turned inward once more, and I did, too. The forest was a private place. I thought of Vangie and felt my longing. I thought of deaths and betrayals and unkept promises and humiliations. I felt them deeply; later I would be astonished at how clear and whole my emotions were, not just that night but all those bright days and murky nights. So unlike me. They were never more clear and whole than in the minutes when I lay along the side of the gully. I can be snappish, but I need time to work up a good head of anger. In the forest I had time. I had never hated, never had reason to hate; but in the forest I found reason. All this, with the muted sounds of violence in my ears, murderous and suggestive.

     Thirty minutes, Penney had said. Maybe—hard to tell. But however long it was in coming, it came sudden and shocking. First it was helicopters, two of them, racketing in from the east. One launched a parachute flare from high above the bungalow. The forest became a black and white mosaic, shadow and light swaying as the flare rocked slowly to earth. The second chopper swung in low overhead, shaking the trees and raining brass shells from the machine gun that fired out of one hatch. It had hardly passed when a T-28 attack plane ripped overhead, bellowing, guns clattering, so low it shook trees and earth.

     Through breaks in the forest canopy I watched the helicopters rake slowly back and forth over the battlefield, lacing down tracer streams. The T-28 flew a pendulum path, swooping low to fire, climbing and turning and swooping low again: the sweeping of a scythe. On the ground the firing was scant and suddenly irrelevant.

     Dalzell and Penney were up at the edge of the ditch now, whooping and shouting.

     “This is the World Series, man, this is goddamn Indy and the Derby.” Dalzell was shaking my shoulders, yelling into my face. “This is the freaking Super Bowl, baby, and we've got sideline passes.”

     One of the choppers broke off and climbed over the