Across the Mekong River by Elaine Russell Read Free Book Online Page A

people’s cause will be safe .
    They came again in the second month of the New Year. We were working in the fields, slicing the buds of the opium poppies and collecting the thick, milky sap. I had Fong, almost a year old, tied to my back. He bounced and kicked, babbling unformed words in my ear. Sri was telling me again about Chor, the boy from a neighboring village. He had been courting her since they met at the New Year’s celebration. As soon as Pao returned home again, Chor would send his marriage negotiators.
    Auntie Nhia’s son Gia, only five years old, stepped into the woods to relieve himself. We heard a loud crack like an axe splitting a log. Gia ran into the field, shouting there were soldiers in a ravine. They were cutting a path up the hill. One had fired a rifle at him. I dropped my knife on the ground and raced with the others into the forest. We ran up through the trees and over the rocky peak. My sides ached. I thought my lungs would burst. We did not stop until we reached a thick grove of bamboo and buried ourselves in the middle. I put Fong to my breast to quiet his cries. That day we were lucky. They did not find us.
    Two months passed. This time they caught us unaware as we harvested the last of the corn. Soldiers ran into the field yelling, firing guns. I thought I heard someone laughing. We fled into the trees once more. Sri clung to my arm, pulling on me harder and harder until I stopped. She fell slowly, first to her knees then on her side. A bullet had passed through her middle, leaving a large, red hole in her back. Blood gushed onto the mossy ground. My hands shook as I stroked her cheek, the tears spilling down my face. She asked me to say goodbye to Chor. My mother-in-law collapsed next to us, rocking back and forth, moaning.
    Smoke drifted through the trees. The soldi ers had set fire to our field. When at last it seemed safe, we carried Sri back to the village to bury her. We found our houses burned and the rice and animals gone. From that day on, time and seasons had no meaning. Survival meant escape. Running away. Farther and farther away. Hiding in the jungle.
    We walked through th e night and half the next day. We were fourteen women, ten children, and Uncle Mang. It took all my effort to convince my mother-in-law to come. She wanted to die right there next to her youngest child. But I held her arm and led her along the path.
    On another, taller mountain deep in the woods, we built small shelters, tying bamboo poles together against the trees and covering them with thatch. I think we were there six months, maybe longer. We could only plant a small vegetable patch and search for food in the forest. But somehow our husbands found us and brought whatever supplies they could carry. Sometimes they sent small planes that buzzed overhead and circled low, dropping bags of rice and baskets with live chickens that floated down in big silk umbrellas. The American pilots waved to us.
    The Pathet Lao always followed. Soldiers surprised us one evening in June as we came back from gat hering mushrooms and firewood. My belly was beginning to bulge with our second baby. Fong was strapped to my back. Bullets flew and rang out from every direction. I had no thoughts: I took my mother-in-law’s arm and dragged her along. We ran across the wooded hill and down a knoll to a stream, crouching down in a patch of high grass in the water. I held a hand over Fong’s mouth, but he seemed too stunned to cry out, his eyes enormous as he stared up at me. I smelled the soldiers coming, their sweat sour with garlic and hot peppers. Their footsteps sounded like galloping horses as they trampled through the brush. I was sure they would hear my heart pounding. Minutes or maybe an hour passed, and still they pushed through the growth. Fong fell asleep on my shoulder. My mother-in-law sat down in the stream, her eyes closed as if drifting into another world. My legs ached from the icy water. At last the men gave up, swearing