Off Limits (4 page)

McKenzie heard the fear in her voice. Even in the waning moonlight gradually being replaced by dawn, Alexandra Vance was beautiful. The way her full lips moved, the fear in her eyes, touched him as nothing else had since that horrifying incident—Jim savagely shut down his thoughts, not wanting to relive that tragic day. Taking a deep breath, he whispered, “Alex, we aren't going anywhere. We can't.”

Her eyes rounded. “Why not?” she demanded, her voice going off-key.

Jim pointed to his leg. “I busted up my left leg three weeks ago. My recon team was hattin' out for our prearranged pickup point when the VC discovered our presence. We were runnin' hard, and I told my lieutenant, Matt Breckenridge, that I'd hang to the rear to protect the group. I got pretty far behind, and I wasn't watching where I was going as closely as I should've been.” He grimaced. “I fell into this underground tunnel. It knocked me out. The next thing I knew, I woke up five hours later in the bottom of this place, my leg busted up, and alone.”

“My God. Didn't your friends come back to get you?”

Jim shrugged. “Normally, no marine leaves a buddy in the field, but I think the tunnel brush hid the hole after I'd fallen into it, and they couldn't find me. With the VC hot on their heels, they couldn't spend the time to look long for me, anyway.”

“That happened three weeks ago?” Alex gasped, her gaze flying to his poorly splinted leg.

“Yeah. Recons are taught to be self-sufficient. I regained consciousness, realized I was in this place—” he raised his arm to encompass the space “—and started thinking about survival. This is an old, caved-in tunnel the VC used years ago, probably in the fifties, when they were fighting the French. That stream eventually weakened the dirt walls and the tunnel caved in. The VC haven't been in here for years, from what I can tell.”

Alex could see more now that dawn light was cascading through the hole in the roof. The tunnel was about ten feet across and thirty feet long. At one end, loose dirt was evidence of the cave-in. She looked up.

“That ventilation hole doubles as an emergency exit,” Jim offered. “Probably was a ladder there at one time, but they took it with them when they left. When you fainted, I lowered you down here as carefully as I could. I didn't want to start that shoulder of yours bleeding again if I could help it.”

Alex met and held his exhausted blue gaze. The ceiling was about five feet high, and she began to understand and appreciate Jim's strength and vigilance. “You splinted your leg yourself?”

“Yes. There were plenty of sticks lying around on the floor. I had my knife, so I made these splints.” Pride sounded in his voice.

With a shake of her head, Alex whispered, “Did you have any pain pills?”

He patted the webbed belt at his waist. “All recons carry a pretty good first-aid kit. I had some pain killers, and used a couple of them, but they made me too groggy. VC were all around the place. I had to keep a clear head.”

“But...how did you eat that first week or two?” He wouldn't have been able to get far with a broken leg.

With a one-cornered grin, Jim said, “Well, now, I'm not sure you want to know.”

“I do.”

With a shrug, he said, “There were a number of banded kraits—poisonous snakes—that were makin' this place their home. That and rats...”

“Oh, dear...” Alex's stomach surged and nausea overwhelmed her. She shut her eyes, fighting the reaction.

“Sorry,” Jim apologized. “Now, this past week, I can get around with the crutch I made, and I've mostly been living off edible roots topside. I found a VC camp nearby and stole some rice from them. Recons are taught to grub off the land in order to survive.”

“Where are you from?” Alex asked, purposely changing the topic.

He grinned boyishly for the first time. “I'm from the Show Me state, Missouri.” Pointing to his bare feet, he added, “I come from hill folk, and my ma and pa still live in a little cabin in a place known as Raven Holler. Ma makes quilts, and Pa, well...he makes ends meet by making white mule.”

“White mule?”

Jim smiled fondly, thinking back to his family and the growing-up years he'd loved. “Ever heard of white lightnin'?”

“Corn liquor?”

“The same. Pa makes two-hundred proof in stills he's got hidden around the hills. So far, he's avoided the law. He sells all he can make. He's kinda well known for his white mule.”

Alex smiled gently, seeing Jim's features relax in that moment. There was a burning flicker of hope in his eyes and a kind of dreaminess, as if he were back in Missouri.

“I like your Southern accent,” she offered. His voice, the softness of his drawl, was in direct opposition to his rough-hewn features.

“And you've got a voice like a nightingale,” Jim returned.

Alex smiled, feeling heat nettle her cheeks. “I wish I could sing like one. Thanks, anyway.” For the first time since the crash, she felt hope thread through her. “I've never met anyone from Missouri.”

“Outsiders call our people hillbillies, but—” Jim looked significantly around the tunnel “—everything I ever learned from my pa has helped keep me alive these past three weeks. None of those people who made fun of us or our lack of book learnin' would have survived this long.”

Alex hurt for Jim. “People can be cruel,” she whispered. Her father came to mind.

“What about your family?”

“I'm the only girl,” Alex offered.

“Don't make it sound so bad.”

She grimaced. “I've got two older brothers in the marines. My father is—well, he's a hawk,” she explained, using the term that had recently become common for referring to those in favor of the war. “He believes wholeheartedly in this conflict.”

McKenzie looked at her strangely. “And you? What do you believe about Nam?”

“You'll probably laugh at me, Jim, but I think it's all wrong. I don't believe we should be sending more and more troops over here. It just means that many more men who will get killed.”

“Your pa's a hawk and you're a dove?”

“You might say that.” Alex was suddenly thirsty. “May I have some of that water, please?”

“Sure.” Jim reached down and placed his hands beneath her shoulders. “Let me help you sit up. You can't be feeling very strong right now.”

Alex was grateful for his sensitivity. Biting back a groan, she sat up with his help. Jim took the handleless wooden cup, badly chipped around the rim, and filled it with water. Alex drank thirstily. After several more cups, she felt sated. She wanted to remain sitting upright, and Jim released her. He located a rucksack along the wall and opened it. Producing another well-worn wooden bowl, he scooped some rice from a pocket in the canvas bag.

“I think you ought to eat,” he said, offering her the bowl of rice. “It isn't much, but it could be worse. You'll have to use your fingers.”

With a nod, Alex traded the cup for the small wooden bowl. The rice was gummy and tasteless, and she didn't feel like eating, but she knew she had to keep up her strength. Jim McKenzie's skin shone in the gloom, and she realized she was sweating constantly, too. The humidity was high and unrelenting in the tunnel, the air stale. When she'd eaten, Jim gave her a clean cloth to wipe her fingers and mouth.

Looking around, Alex asked in a small voice, “There aren't any more snakes, are there?”

“Not right now.” Jim glanced up at the entrance. “Sometimes they fall into the tunnel.” When he saw the terror in Alex's face, he added quickly, “But that doesn't happen often. The rats are gone, too.”

Shivering and not sure if it was from her wound or the thought of sharing the tunnel with such creatures, Alex said, “Somehow, we have to get to the firebase.”

“There's no safer place than right here,” Jim warned her darkly. Sitting down, he untied the strong, slender vines that kept the splints in place around his leg. Each morning he checked the progress of his leg, reset the splints, which had a tendency to move on him, and retied them into place.

“But,” Alex whispered desperately, “I
have
to get medical help, Jim!”

Jim's hands hovered over the knot he'd just tied in the vine. Grimly, he raised his head and met her large, luminous eyes. “We couldn't make that ten miles in the shape we're in, Alex.”

“But...I'll die if I don't get surgery to remove this piece of shrapnel. We've got to try!”

Terror deluged Jim, and he crawled back to the tunnel wall opposite Alex. Adrenaline poured through his bloodstream, and his heart started slamming against his rib cage, his breathing turning ragged. Her cry of desperation triggered the entire terrifying sequence, and suddenly he was helplessly snared in the grip of the nightmare.

Alex watched Jim in confusion. His eyes had turned dull, as if he were no longer hearing or seeing her. Sweat popped out on his face. His nostrils flared, and as Alex continued to watch, his chest began to rise and fall as if with exertion. She didn't understand what was happening as he collapsed against the wall, caught in the throes of something beyond her comprehension. His eyes tightly shut, he brought his good knee up and buried his brow against it, wrapping both arms tightly around it. Minutes after his retreat into silence, he slowly began to relax.

“Jim?” Alex's voice was off-key. “What's wrong? What happened?”

Shakily, Jim released his bent leg and raised his head. He blinked his stinging eyes and tried to detach from the repulsive scene and its accompanying feelings. Alex's voice was soft—a healing balm. He clung to it, not hearing all her words, but honing in on the reassuring sound. Gradually, the scene he fought to forget began to dissolve. Wiping his mouth shakily with the back of his hand, he straightened. Finally, he forced open his eyes. Alex was staring at him in puzzlement.

“Look,” he began in a rasp, “I can't
ever
go back, do you understand?”

“Back?”

“Yeah. I—I can't handle it anymore, Alex.”

Completely confused, Alex held on to her own disintegrating patience. “You're not making sense, Jim. What are you talking about?”

He rubbed his sweaty face with trembling hands. “I joined the marines three years ago. Because of my hill background, they sent me to the recons for training and duty. I—I've been in Nam for almost two years—” He couldn't say the words; they jammed in the back of his throat. The black feelings, the grief and the profound sadness finally released him enough to whisper, “Recons are taught to kill a hundred different ways. I did—kill. The enemy. Men. VC who wanted to kill me.” He raised his gaze to the earthen ceiling, his voice low and unsteady. “It always bothered me, even though they told me I was doing my duty. Killing bothered me.... Sure, it was the enemy and I knew it was often kill or be killed. But every time...every time, it got harder. I tried to remember the good that recons do, how we save hundreds, maybe thousands of other marines from dying with the information we retrieve from enemy sources, but I was hurtin'.

“This last recon patrol...it was hell. When I fell in this hole and busted up my leg, I knew it was all over. I thought I'd died. But then I woke up, and I knew I couldn't go back. I couldn't go to a marine firebase, recover and get sent back to the field.” He shut his eyes tightly. “I just couldn't.”

Alex sat a long time digesting his emotional confession. Jim had been trained to kill in a professional sense. She stared down at her hands and then over at his, clenched tightly into fists against his thighs.
A hundred different ways to kill.
Her mouth grew dry and she hung her head. “Then,” she rasped, “you're deserting?”

Jim nodded. “Right now, I'm MIA, missing in action. They can't find my body, so they can't tell my ma and pa I'm dead. No one knows of my decision. I—I wish I could let them know....” He looked at her grimly. “If I take you to that firebase, they'll take me to Da Nang for recovery.”

“But, Jim, if you could just get me close to the base, I could make it there on my own,” Alex pleaded.

“You don't understand,” he said heavily. “That firebase is ringed by VC. I couldn't just drop you nearby. You'd probably step on a land mine or get shot by VC before you even got close to safety. Even if you made it that far, one of the marines is liable to shoot you for not knowing the right password. No, you'd get killed, Alex.”

Frustrated, Alex glared at him. “If I don't get out of here, I'm dead, too! So what's the difference?”

Jim winced at the anger in her voice. He couldn't blame her. Shame flowed through him. She deserved better than him—a better chance at surviving. Why had she been thrown into his arms? All he'd wanted was to continue to survive without being detected—by VC or friendly forces. “Look,” he rasped, “I need time—”

“I don't have time!” Alex cried softly. “In a week, I could be dead! Is that what you want? Are you willing to throw my life away so you can stay safe?”

Jim couldn't bear the tears glimmering in Alex's haunted eyes. Anger mixed with his grief. “No, dammit, I don't want to let you die! But I
can't
go back. I can't!”

“Why not?”

Jim's breath came hard and fast, the pain in his chest so great it felt like a heart attack. He could see the anger flashing in Alex's eyes. Frustration showed in the set of her stubborn lips. “I can't talk about it,” he whispered defensively.

“Can't or won't?” Alex hurled back hotly. She jerked the blanket aside, and the movement cost her dearly.

Jim's eyes narrowed. “What do you think you're doing?”

“I'm getting out of here, that's what. Get me my blouse and that flight suit! I don't care if they're wet or not!”

He stared at her, dumbfounded. “You won't be able to walk ten feet without falling on your nose.”