Old Dog Page 2

  Perry Countians were known as rugged people. Provincial as hell, they fought, loved, and married each other. If you weren't born there, you never could really be one.

  The Dog Carlisles were the heart and muscle of the American military. They went in and did whatever had to be done. Then they went home and, with little fanfare, took up where they had left off. Tough, often semi-educated, God-fearing Americans—Phil Klein guessed the country would be crippled and weak without them.

  Lieutenant Carlisle had known it was coming. Intelligence reported communist troops massing, and air strikes worked on them. Before dawn, too many lights (of cigarettes, flashlights, even lanterns) glittered before dousing, and engines were detected by listening posts.

  Light had barely broken when trumpets and whistles sounded behind the first ridge. Artillery began landing within American barbed wire and mined approaches. Friendly fire rustled overhead and thundered down unseen, hopefully among the enemy preparing to strike.

  When they came, the earth seemed to march. A solid wash of green and brown uniformed, pressed-together humanity surged over the ridgeline, flowed across the low ground, and rose upward like a tide into the hail of American rifle and machine gun fire.

  Dog Carlisle had his men ready. Mines would help, and their barbed wire was good. Both would channel the enemy into the final protective fires of his machine guns. His platoon's three Browning automatic rifles were on line, and the squads were deployed in well-dug two-man foxholes. He had the weapons platoon on sound-powered phone, and the 60mm mortars were pre-zeroed to dump hard and fast on a number of probable trouble spots.

  There was a lot more.

  Artillery was already pounding the attack, and battalion had their 81mm mortars and recoilless rifles working. Those weapons ranged all along the front. They could devastate, but Dog knew through experience that despite the intensity of artillery, even aerial napalm strikes, the North Korean and Red Chinese would keep coming. It was claimed that if they faltered, their own officers would execute them. Dog doubted most of that, but for whatever reasons, the Reds came hard.

  Smoke clouded visibility. Dog's riflemen began firing too hastily. Squad leaders scurried, settling the fire, even as enemy mortar shells began raining on their positions. Then the enemy reached them. Wave-like, they flung themselves ahead. Bodies crushed the concertina wire and flattened the double apron fences. Dog's machine guns tore and ripped enemy uniforms into unmoving piles. Friendly mortars and artillery fell into the churning mass, so close that fragments whistled among the defenders.

  The enemy was through and among them. Dog dropped the friendly fire as close as permitted, and the reserve platoon behind Dog's line began a ripple of shots that almost instantly exploded into a roaring blast of supporting gunfire.

  Lieutenant Dog Carlisle became a rifleman. Enemy infantrymen appeared behind his squad lines, and Dog began killing them. He fired swiftly, but taking the extra instant necessary to find his target. More appeared, seeming to rush blindly ahead, not bothering even to fire into the foxholes they were passing.

  Dog slapped home a fresh clip, aware of his radio man's rifle thumping beside him. He cleared targets in front of them, but others ran past. Dog snatched his pistol, and its recoil jarred his hand.

  He felt the enemy weakening. More than seeing, Dog sensed the disintegration of the charge. Fire slackened almost as quickly as it had begun. Then it again rose, lacing retreating enemy while targets remained visible. Gradually the firing dribbled away to individual shots. Observers were moving artillery and mortar fire away, back down the slope, pounding the enemy's withdrawal. Dog holstered his empty pistol and fought a loaded clip into his hot-barreled Ml rifle.

  The radio operator kept repeating "Holy God! Holy God!" as if he was amazed that they had survived. Dog Carlisle felt the same. It had been close and brutal. Bodies sprawled, and the cries of wounded rose amid the rumble of receding artillery.

  Partly deafened and physically drained, his mind numb and barely responsive, Dog battled himself alert, to take stock, to regroup. To counterattack? To surge down the hill with his surviving remnants, to drive the beaten enemy across the open, over the ridge, and through their own positions—how could they manage? But, the order might come.

  Dog called to a squad leader busy with wounded. A pair of medics scrambled by, and the sound-powered phone began buzzing. The radio operator held out his handpiece. "Old Man is on."

  Dog said, "Lieutenant Carlisle, Captain. We're in one piece. I'll . . .

  The bullet struck him with a huge hollow booming impact that seemed to balloon somewhere inside him. There was an instant of—What the hell? Before he knew he had been shot. Dog saw his left arm out-flung for some unrecognized reason. He felt his knees against the side of his hole, and then his face was down on the parapet, and he heard his radio operator calling, "The Lieutenant's hit!"

  Dog was embarrassed. He was unceremoniously rolled onto his back and his upper clothing ripped away. The medic kept saying, "Son-of-a-bitch," with metronomic regularity as he labored. Someone was bellowing for a stretcher, and all Dog could do was lie like an empty shell casing while the tasks went on.

  The medic got plastic on him—you tried to stop a chest wound from sucking air. Then the corpsman stabbed a morphine syrette into him but there was no pain, just a monumentally huge numbness, as though most of his left side had been hollowed out and only the skin left in place.

  He was on a stretcher. The medic had a tag on him telling when morphine had been given.

  The medic leaned close, and Dog could smell his cigarette breath. "You're OK, Lieutenant. Not even bleeding much." Then the bearers lifted, and Dog saw the medic dash away.

  They had won, fought off the enemy at least. Artillery whispered overhead, but the impacts were far away. Friendly uniforms were arriving, and Dog got his head up to see enemy dead or wounded lumped in ungainly piles and sprawled throughout the position. His radioman waved an encouraging hand, and Dog saw his Platoon Sergeant moving in to take command.

  The effort to think and see exhausted him. Dog collapsed in on himself, only half aware of the bearer's struggles across the chewed and broken terrain. On the reverse slope of their ridge, Korean bearers took over and seemed to do better.

  A needle stung his arm, and Dog was aware of a saline or maybe a plasma bag dangling above him. Looking harassed and too busy to linger, his Captain said a few encouraging words.

  The flump-flump of helicopter blades caught his hearing, and he hoped he wasn't being given first treatment because he was an officer.

  The ride was barely up and down. MASH units stayed close. White coats appeared, and words were said. Orders passed, but he probably slept a little.

  Dog couldn't recall the doctor's name, but the face came clear through the narcotic fog, and Dog felt suddenly in good hands. He was barely aware of their conversation. As an anesthesia cone closed over his nose and mouth, he hoped he had not sounded slow and stupid. He sure wasn't feeling as sharp as usual.

  Chapter 3

  Doctor Philip Klein had again drifted Dog Carlisle from his thoughts. Home, courting a friend of long acquaintance and nourishing a growing medical practice absorbed Klein's attention. He doctored, dated, and worked out at the YMHA for nearly a year before Adam Carlisle reappeared.

  "Doctor, there is a young man insisting on seeing you."

  "Send him down the hall. No patients on surgery day."

  "He says you are his doctor."

  Klein was almost impatient.

  "It doesn't . . ."

  "Something about Korea, Doctor." The secretary saw Klein's attention sharpen and looked to her notes. "His name is odd. Dog Carlisle."

  Klein sat back in his chair. "Well I'll be blasted. The Lazarus of our latest war."

  The secretary appeared confused.

  "Lazarus, Miss Hawn. A man gentiles believe was raised from the dead.

  "Oh."

  "Show him in." Then suspiciously, "He isn't bleeding, is h
e?"

  "No, at least not much, but he is all scraped up and he . . . " Klein went past her through the door.

  Scraped was an understatement. Dog Carlisle appeared to have been dragged behind stallions. Motorcycle wreck! Klein knew the signs—leather jacket road-rashed almost through; hands and knees skidded into raw meat; and one side of the face scratched and oozing blood. Apparently, no head injuries, although the victim stood funny. Classic motorcycle trauma.

  Dog said, "Hey, Captain, it's me again."

  "I made major, Carlisle." Klein waved toward a treatment room. "Get in there."

  Dog limped, favoring a knee, and he held his left forearm tight to his chest. Kline called for assistance, and a nurse hurried in.

  The leather jacket had to be eased off because Dog's left arm hurt badly.

  Klein said, "We ought to cut it off."

  "Easy, Doc, it'll come. This jacket cost seventy-five bucks."

  "Then you should have taken care of it. I could read a paper through the elbows."

  "I'll sew on patches." Clad only in his boxer shorts, Dog sat on the edge of the examination table.

  "Where are you hurt?"

  "Left shoulder aches like hell, and my left knee pains and is swelling. The scratches don't matter."

  Klein snorted. "Don't matter? Skin matters, and you've ground a lot of it off."

  The doctor touched the healed over bullet wounds on Dog's chest and back. "Nice work there."

  "Yeah, a surgeon in Tokyo fixed it up."

  Klein's lips quirked. He doubted the wound had been opened since he had cleaned and stitched.

  The shoulder did not take long. "Collar bone's broken, Dog. I can feel the movement."

  Dog's breath whistled. "Damn, so can I. Quit wiggling it around."

  "Quiet! Sergeants don't talk back to majors."

  "I made lieutenant"

  "I forgot that. Come to think about it, this is the first time I've seen you upright." Klein examined his patient critically. "Thought you'd be taller."

  The knee required X-raying, but Klein was optimistic. "My guess is your knee just twisted a little too much, and it'll heal itself. Let's hope so. We can't do much with bad knees. You ought to stay off motorcycles. Damned things should be outlawed."

  "I was doing fine until some fool pulled out in front of me. I went over the curb avoiding him, lost control, and skidded along the sidewalk. Bent my fork, dented the tank, and broke my headlight. The car driver never knew anything had happened. He just drove on happy as a clam."

  "Where was this?"

  "On Front Street, almost down to Market."

  "So, you just walked on down here. Why didn't you go to Emergency?"

  Dog appeared surprised. "Why would I do that, knowing you worked here? In Emergency I'd get some intern still learning about adhesive tape."

  Logical! Klein muttered, "I don't have patients wandering in. I'm a surgeon, not a general practitioner."

  Dog was unfazed. "I follow the Chinese principle of medicine."

  "What principle? Probably tea leaves and pin sticking."

  "The principle that if you save a life you are responsible for its presence from then on."

  Klein grimaced. "If I'd known that I'd have passed you to another cutter."

  The doctor watched the nurse scrubbing and picking at Dog Carlisle's abrasions.

  "You'll have to have your arm strapped down for a couple of weeks to let that clavicle set. Assuming nothing is chipped in your knee, you can soak it in your bathtub . . . "

  "I'm a shower man."

  "Shut up, Dog. Soak your knee and try to keep the filth out of all these raw places. Keep 'em protected and give them a chance to grow new skin."

  Klein again looked suspicious. "You aren't mucking around in barnyards or anything, are you?"

  "Not me, Doc. Right now I'm staying home, waiting for opportunity to knock."

  "Good! Stay home, listen to the radio, and use the ointment. Those are orders."

  "Yes, sir, Major, sir!"

  That had been back in . . . oh, in the middle 1950's, the doctor mused. Dog had shown up with some regularity since then. Now, here they were, old men, friends for some forty years. Forty years . . . it seemed like yesterday.

  Unlike earlier times, Doctor Phil Klein had no good news for his friend and patient. This was not a bullet wound or a broken bone to square away. Dog Carlisle had cancer. The disease had metastasized. It was devouring Dog's innards. Cancer was flourishing in his bone marrow, and it was clogging his lymph system. Except for pain control there was nothing sensible medical science could do about it.

  Yet, Old Dog looked good. Most cancer victims passed through a point where fat had melted away and features looked young and taut. The healthy appearance did not last, of course. To the trained eye, the leaned-down look spoke of imminent demise. Usually it was cancer, but some AIDS patients also experienced the "looking good" phase.

  Physical appearance was often deceptive, and in terminal cases like Dog Carlisle's, it could sometimes raise false hopes. Some patients were helped by false expectations. They required all the support, legitimate or otherwise, that could be mustered. Old Dog Carlisle was not one of those.

  Klein sighed heavily and pushed back in his squeaky old swivel chair. His hands gestured expressively. Resignation as well as distress were clear in the body language.

  "There is no argument, Dog. Every symptom, every test, every opinion agrees. It's as clear-cut as any case I've encountered.

  Klein slapped the padded chair arms in frustration. "I'd give anything to have it otherwise."

  Old Dog nodded acceptance, sighing in turn and exhaling in his own resignation. Still, he asked. "No radiation or chemotherapies, Phil?" They had passed name formalities decades earlier.

  "Oh hell, Dog. We could go through all the treatments. Some think it's a doctor's duty. More than a few oncologists believe in straw grasping, and I've got to admit the occasional miracle does appear.

  "But, Dog, the medical miracles are so rare they about equal the magical cures of those who choose to do nothing. We can shoot you full of the best stuff available and nuke you till you glow in the dark, but the truth is we won't cure and we probably won't even delay.

  "What is sure as taxes is that whatever time you've got left will be miserable. Stiff chemo can make you so sick you'll wish you were dead, and radiation—especially in the doses they would be beaming into you—could be as bad."

  "Would you try it, if you were me, Phil?"

  The answer was swift and as positive as Klein could make it.

  "No! I wouldn't let them touch me."

  "What would you do?"

  This answer was harder, and the doctor leaned back to think a little.

  "I'm sure of only part of it, Dog. I'd keep myself pain free . . . and I'll take good care of you there, old friend. There is no need for god-awful suffering these days. We've got powerful painkillers, and I believe in using them.

  "What would I do beyond that? Enjoy myself, I think. Maybe I'd travel, but, maybe not. Most, it seems to me, just keep on doing pretty much what they've always done, as long as they can. Familiar things appear to become more important and comforting than seeing new I places. That makes some sense to me.

  Old Dog asked the big question. He had asked before. Hell, they had gone over all of this more than once, but it still seemed necessary to hear it again.

  "How long have I got? The best you can guess, Phil."

  The doctor did not have to ponder an answer. He had evaluated and judged, as well as guessed, until he knew the best response.

  "You won't have more than three months on your feet, Dog, and some of that won't be pleasant. You'll have to dope up heavier all the time to keep the pain down. That'll leave you woozy; you'll sleep a lot, and you'll lose track of time.

  "Once you are down, it'll just be a matter of pain control till you die. How fast that will be is harder to guess. More months, probably."

  The doctor hated his wor
ds. "God, Dog, I wish I could say something encouraging, but it isn't there."

  "I know, Doc, I know. Sorry to put you through telling it again, but I wanted one more assurance. I've got it set now, and I know how I'll handle myself."

  Carlisle paused, raising his eyes to hold those of the doctor's. "You know how I feel about dying slowly, Phil. I'm not doing it."

  "I understand, Dog. Hell, I agree, and I've got my own plans." The doctor struggled for words.

  "I'm pleased you're planning carefully, Dog. I've known too many who liked to claim they'd just shoot themselves before they would suffer, but they never did. They waited too long and lost will, or their religion loomed up and scared them off. A man has to have a serious plan and have what he needs ready. If he doesn't, he will end up letting nature and medical science fight it out. That can get really lousy, Dog."

  "I'm a Hemlock Society member. I intend to use their methods."

  "Fair enough. I've read their literature. When you are ready, I'll have the stuff. Pick it up early, Dog. Don't wait until the last minute. You might misjudge, and in a hospital, living wills and powers of attorney won't do what you want."

  "I'll pick it up in a couple of weeks. Right now, I'm functioning, and I've got things that I need doing."

  "Call me, Dog. If I don't hear regularly, I'm going to call you."

  "I'll be down, Phil, and soon."

  Chapter 4

  He might be dying . . . hell, he was dying. It was time to dump the maybes, but at the moment, Dog felt decent. A sort of dull, barely-noticeable ache lay somewhere deep in his guts. It was always there, sometimes flaring, but still tolerable most of the time.

  It was a special February day. Brisk but spring-like weather had been cropping up a lot in recent winters. Years back, Februarys had always been bitter, an ice and snow month important to miss if you could make it down to Florida.

  A pair of young boys crouched beside the parked Harley-Davidson, staring raptly at the bright chrome and mystery-black paint job. Unnoticed, Old Dog watched them, zipping high his leather jacket and closing the zippers on forearms. He gripped his battered black helmet between his knees and tugged on padded riding gloves that sported stiff gauntlets extending well beyond his wrists. They kept the cold wind from running up the jacket sleeves.