In his dream the boy came, and he was hopping down the road. But it was the road to Stonehands' home. Then the boy was engulfed in a ball of darkness that spun like a whirlwind. Stonehands awoke and sat upright in the dark.

Grofield shook his shoulder. "You awake, Harvey?"

"Yeah, Sarge."

"You sure? You were talking in your sleep."

"I'm sure."

"Come on then," the platoon sergeant said.

Stonehands pulled his boots on, tied them and crawled out. Grofield took Stonehands' M-60, handed over an M-16 and told him to follow.

A fog had crept over the valley and sealed it in. At the perimeter, a guard spread the concertina and handed over a commo wire. Running the wire through his palm, Stonehands walked in silence with Grofield a step behind. Two hundred meters later they reached the listening post, a foxhole large enough to accommodate one man and equipped with a field telephone.

Smith challenged them. Grofield said, "Slick silver." Smitty told them to advance and said he was glad to leave—the fog and all. "Times I felt I wasn't alone," he said.

Stonehands sank down into the damp hole and called in a brief commo-check. By the time he finished, the fog had swallowed Grofield and Smitty. Left alone, he touched the commo wire, then laid the barrel of the M-16 on the sandbag.

The first hour seemed to go quickly. He thought about anything he could but the boy. He recalled the soldier he'd boxed at Benning, a white youngster with a boy's face and man's body, the one he was afraid to hit because where he came from blacks didn't hit whites. He'd knocked him to his knees, then held him from going down until the referee urged him to a neutral corner so the count could begin. Later the soldier had congratulated him, had shaken his hand and smiled affably as if they were now friends.

Stonehands thought he heard footsteps coming from somewhere in the damp night, footsteps nearby. But when he concentrated on the sound, he heard nothing, for the fog-heavy air quelled sound. In this soup Charley could walk up on him before he'd hear anything. He'd heard of soldiers going crazy at a listening post, but figured they just didn't have strong minds or had just had enough of it all. Maybe, like his buddy Howkert, they were just looking for escape.

He missed Howkert, Howkert the reader who'd quote Camus and Sartre, the hippie who'd been drafted, who'd come to 'Nam with a what-the-hell shrug and medic's bag and more guts than sense, "Why not," he'd said, "I hear the dope's good." He had a way of seeing things that made the lunacy of war seem absurdly logical—like the old wood carrier they'd stumbled upon on the way to Oak Chat, an old man who stepped on a toe popper, a mine meant to shatter the foot and ankle. Howkert had treated the wound and called for a dust off. As they waited, he'd asked the interpreter to ask if the old man was authorized to sweep mine fields, if he held a union card. The interpreter said he didn't understand. "That's the trouble with this country—no unions," Howkert had said.

Howkert hadn't deserted because he was a coward. One thing Stonehands and the others were certain of was that Howkert was brave. But he'd deserted. What would he have thought of the boy who'd lost both limbs on the left side, both, so that no matter what aid he used to walk, he would always list to the right. How would Howkert see it?

A noise distracted Stonehands, indistinct, but sound nonetheless. He was sure, so certain he pressed the rifle butt into his shoulder and looked out over the barrel. Something was out there, an animal, a deer or wild pig. This hadn't stopped being a forest just because of the war. But the sound was gone and eventually he lowered the M-16.

The fog was hypnotic. His eyelids drooped from staring into the dark. To keep alert, he tried to recall every movie he'd ever seen. That proved too tiring. In the distance five-hundred pounders fell to the west somewhere over Laos. He counted the explosions, seven in all, dropped from B-52s so high up their engines were silenced.

Think strong, Stonehands muttered as he cranked the field phone to make a commo check. The voice on the other end seemed disinterested. Anything out there? No, nothing, except fog and . . . noise. "Nothin'," Stonehands reported. That was the last human sound for another hour.

He remembered the march to Hai Drong—the ARVN soldiers taking over the prisoner, slapping him and shouting. The V.C., helpless to protect himself, had balled up on the road. His enemies had merely seen that as an excuse to use their feet. They kicked the side of his head as if practicing soccer, straight on or sideways with an instep or backward with a heel. His squad mates, ashamed they'd handed over the prisoner, talked about shooting the ARVN soldiers and turning the prisoner loose, but that was crazy talk. Still they were ashamed and angry. You could see it in their eyes. Perhaps that's why they'd taken to the boy so quickly—to make up for their shame.

But the boy had only brought them more shame.

Stonehands turned his attention to what he thought was movement in the fog, a swirling current. A wind. A sound. No, just imagination. Think strong. Stay awake. As a boy he'd memorized facts about presidents. His mother had bragged on him to her friends, called him into the kitchen to show the skeptics, especially Naomi Slaughter, the county Mrs. Know-Everybody's-Business. Learning facts was a trick, but they'd stayed with him. Now he drew them up—Andrew Jackson, birth date March I5, wife's name, wife's name?—Martha, no, Mary. Rachel, yes. He wasn't sure. Jackson followed by Van Buren. No one knows about him. Next was Polk. No, Tyler.

Again he thought he heard something moving out there and had a passing desire to call out. He didn't. He choked the rifle stock and listened but heard only his breathing and an annoying sound in his ears. At first he couldn't figure out where the sound came from, then realized it was in his head. It was an alarm.

It coughed, not a cough exactly, but something low and guttural that seemed to vibrate out of its belly. It sat less than a meter away behind him. Though mostly shadow, it had shoulders and a head and small half-moon ears. What amazed him most wasn't that it was there, but that its head was so enormous. Like a moon with tufted ears. He could taste the animal smell of it, see its hot breath move the fog. Time orbited around such a creature.

He considered calling the command bunker. And say what? There's a tiger here. What could anyone do about it? They'd just think he was scared. Hell, he was. Clutching the M-16, he slowly settled into the hole until his buttocks hit bottom.

He checked the safety, squeezed the rifle, thinking to use it—just shoot—but that presented a different set of problems. The enemy was somewhere, a regiment perhaps, hiding in shadows, or maybe they were ghosts. Maybe all of this is shadows or, as Howkert had said, shadows without essence. If so, what is the tiger? Doesn't matter. He'd see if a ghost bleeds.

Stonehands listened to its breathing, fast and heavy, double his perhaps. He appealed to God that it didn't make sense, his dying this way, that he'd come to fight Charley, and if he was to die, Charley should do the killing. Strong mind, he thought, and repeated over and over in his mind the same three names—Tyler, Polk, Taylor; Tyler, Polk, Taylor—like novenas.

On tottering knees, he stood to look about. It seemed gone—an hallucination, perhaps, as the boy might have been, and the prisoner and Howkert. What did Smitty say? Felt he wasn't alone. Alone gets to you. Causes delusions. A man could imagine anything seeing what he'd seen in 'Nam. That boy might show up in the Smokeys looking for a home, another shadow looking for its essence.

The animal materialized again, at first a vague shadow. Some of his initial fear gone, Stonehands waited, rifle at the ready. Twice it stepped from and retreated back into the fog. The third time it appeared, Stonehands felt a sensation, a knowing of sorts and trusted it. He knew for certain that it was a she as she circled sniffing the air.

He recalled an encounter on a trail near his home when a curious sensation had pulled him to a deer trapped between a tree and boulder. He'd talked to it gently to ease its struggle until he'd freed it. It'd stood, dazed, its bulb-like eyes staring at him until Stonehands flapped his arms and sent it scurrying into the brush.

But a mother tiger's no white tail deer, and this one's no ordinary one. His mind was drawn to the tales of the princess, the restless spirit of the tiger that must leave one behind to assure a way into heaven. No legend. Just an animal, and a big one. He swallowed down a dry throat and stood still as the animal inched to his left so close the feel of her was on his flesh as if she'd brushed him with her aura. Be quick, be strong. Taylor, Filmore .  .  .  Pierce. Her tail flicked and grazed his cheek. She turned her head, opened her broad mouth as if to snarl and showed her teeth without uttering a sound.

Then as if unburdening herself of a great heaviness, she dropped to the ground no more than a foot from the foxhole, yawned once and stared away from him into the fog. Her breathing was slower now, and from inside her rose a deep rumbling purr that made the hair on his arms rise.

Stonehands soon forgot everything but her. There was no sense of the world, no sense of the past or the future. Just his breathing and her deep rumbling. Occasionally she'd flick her tail. She was so near he could reach out and stroke her. How would she react?

She lay calmly beside him. Relaxed now, he recited presidents' names all the way up to Grant, and explained how Mark Twain had found Grant living in poverty. He described the boy with no left arm and half a leg, the V.C. they'd captured, and explained how Howkert had gone over the wall to be with a boom-boom girl in Quang Ngai, a girl he'd planned on running away with though there was no place to run when you were a six-foot-two-inch American, a deserter.

Sometime later she rose into a crouch, her powerful legs locked, ready. He held the rifle, but had no intention of shooting. Her body twitched. She flicked her tail once again and an instant later bolted into the fog.

She'd left. What would he tell his squad? Who'd believe him?

A roar broke the stillness. Then a man dashed by, followed by another. A third toppled into the foxhole, his rifle clattering when it landed. Stonehands gripped the man by his neck, said he was sorry, then with a powerful twist of the hands, snapped the man's neck. He heard soldiers emerge from the fog and laid the dead soldier aside.

He rang up base camp and whispered, "Jus' put ever'thing right on top'a me."

He cloaked his shoulders with the dead man and sunk down into the pit. He heard the distinct pop, a mortar round leaving the tube. A moment later the ground became a flash pot; the sound traveled through his bones; he felt a stabbing pain in his right eardrum. He clasped the dead man, closed his eyes, and prayed.

It was still dark, but not pitch black as before. The air smelled of nitrate. The ground remained immersed in fog, and smoke hung just above the fog, trapped by the dense net of limbs and leaves. He'd lost sense of time and fact. The barrage could have been ten minutes or two hours. He couldn't say. He listened for evidence that the enemy was gone or there, something, some sound, but there was nothing.

He slowly rose up. The dead man on his shoulders was a painful weight, but one he was grateful for. As he readied to toss the body off his back, he felt it lift away. He hoped for a bullet to the head, a quick death, but when he opened his eyes and peered out, he caught a fleeting glimpse of her as she dragged the dead man into the fog bank.

The phone line was severed, so he waited until dawn to crawl from the foxhole. When at last sunlight infiltrated the forest, he saw through the fog men lying in grotesque poses. Thin vapors of smoke curled out of the ground like spun silk. Flies appeared to do their mischief. At the edge of the trees the tigress sat staring at him, her expression bland. She lay down, rolled to her side and began licking her paws. He thought of the legends mentioned in the tent and grasped at last what Howkert knew the night he'd gone over the wire, what it was like to be summoned.

Stonehands walked, paying no mind to the bodies he sidestepped or the ground rent by craters or the blood that trickled from his ear. These obstacles, inconsequential parts of an aberrant world, matters of limited possibility, were measurements of a past he saw evaporating with the fog. At the perimeter, he shouted the password several times, gave his name, said he was coming in and told them not to shoot. The platoon swarmed about him, patted his back and asked what had happened. Drammel told him his ear was bleeding, said it without stammering.

The lieutenant pushed his way to the front. "How many?" he asked.

"Sir?" Stonehands looked uncomprehendingly at him, shook his head and grabbed Donatello by the arm.

"Easy, Stoner," Donatello said, "We thought you'd bought it, pal, chet roi."

"Where's the cub?" Stonehands asked.

"Hey, bro . . .”

He lifted Donatello off his feet and stared into his eyes. Donatello pointed to a bunker nearby.

Stonehands swooped the cub up and walked toward the woods, his long strides devouring earth. The lieutenant ordered him to stop, but Stonehands paid no attention, and when Halverson caught up and told him to go back, Stonehands merely shook his head. Donatello hurried behind telling him to put the cat down, that it wasn't his. Stonehands fired a single glance that sent Donatello reeling backwards. No one made further attempt to stop him. At the wire he threw his rifle aside and a few steps further disappeared into a fog bank at the edge of the forest.

At the inquiry Donatello claimed Stonehands had returned a week later and caught him by surprise in the latrine, just appeared out of nowhere with the cub in arm.

"What did he want?"

"To have me tell his mother he wouldn't be coming home."

"That's all?"

"That's all, sir."

“Anything else you'd like to add, soldier?"

"No, sir." Donatello looked at his squad mates. He swallowed. "Yes, sir. His eye was on the woods. He kept watching like someone who might miss a bus, worried like. Something kept moving back and forth in the shadows. I can't be sure, but I think it was a tiger."

"But you aren't sure?"

"No, sir."

The board, a colonel, a major and two captains, looked at one another. Saying soldiers love to make up stories, the colonel dismissed the inquiry. Officially Stonehands went mad in the A Shau Valley, was missing in action and likely dead. That's what Donatello later told Stonehands' mother.