It didn’t matter.
He had to give that little girl her father back and he needed to figure out how to do it.
That’s what his mission was.
Before getting back to his friend, Rambo waited insofar as to regain his composure.
He couldn’t let his friend sense his anxiety.
This was especially true because Jorgenson was even worse off than he was.
Far worse.
***
After going up and down for the millionth time – with Jorgenson across his shoulder all the while, – a new landscape finally unveiled itself right in front of their eyes.
That new piece of jungle between Laos and Vietnam was unlike any they’d seen until then.
Being as flat as a billiard table, it would certainly make looking for clean water much harder.
The upside was however, that at least walking would be much easier.
After a while, the two finally stopped for a break. Carl could barely find the strength to even sit himself down so he decided to literally fall to the ground instead.
They sat quietly and rested for a few minutes until Rambo noticed, from the corner of his weary eye, a snake slithering around on the trail. Despite his fatigue and other ails, he found the energy to attack it, the way any other predator would have.
Rambo managed to catch it on his first try by grabbing it right behind its head. On his way back to where Jorgenson was waiting, he finished decapitating the snake with his Baker knife.
In no time at all, Rambo had skinned it, sliced it in half, and was now trying to make his friend eat the guts.
“Hey dickhead, aren’t you gonna’ eat?” said Jorgenson with blood around his mouth.
“I’ll eat the leftovers. You need it more than I do.”
Jorgenson swallowed everything eagerly and as quickly as Rambo’s pale, blood stained hands could feed him.
“I’m good,” he said when he’d had his full.
Jorgenson let out a hearty belch and purposely blew his breath at Rambo. It reeked of blood.
“There you are, lunch is served,” he said.
Jorgenson handed Rambo what was left of the out-of-joints snake.
“Hey prick, how far have we gone today? In total I mean,” Jorgenson asked him.
“’Bout twenty miles I’d say.”
“That’s not bad at all asshole, especially in the state we’re in.”
As Jorgenson went on insulting him, Rambo handed him the second thermos containing the only water they had left.
Jorgenson risked dying from both dysentery and blood loss and it wouldn’t have taken long either. If Rambo hadn’t given him precedence over their food and water, he’d have dropped dead a lot faster than they cared to admit.
The problem now was that they were almost out of water, and given the new terrain, they weren’t going to find water any time soon.
In other words, despite all the food and water Rambo was giving him, thus not consuming himself, Jorgenson probably wouldn’t make it anyway.
Rambo was sacrificing as much as he could, but Jorgenson needed more than what was readily available. Without better treatment and more to consume, he most likely wouldn’t survive that much longer.
Rambo, who was severely sick as well, risked concluding this adventure, all on his own.
Fucking Hell, – he thought.
The idea itself worried him, but he could think of a multitude of scenarios that were much, much worse. That was, in a nutshell, the whole fucking problem with the Vietnam War. There was always, without question, ‘something worse’.
A part of him hoped his friend would just hurry up and die already. No kidding.
There was no other way to put it.
He wished Jorgenson would get on with it already, because he was sick and tired of carrying him and on his own he could go back to marching at a slower and much easier pace again. He was fed up with sharing and couldn’t wait to eat and drink everything he caught or found himself. He couldn’t even look him in the eyes anymore. Those were therefore, a few of the reasons everything would be easier for him to do alone, and if they we’re sufficient, he could list at least a thousand more.
Rambo could toy with whatever idea he pleased, but the hard truth of the matter was, if Jorgenson died, his chances of surviving went up tenfold.
His rational side was the one that worked twenty-four seven, making no exceptions even in light of losing a friend.
That part of him knew how things really stood.
As such, it diligently reminded Rambo about the stats, over and over again.
Just get fucking rid of him.
Get rid of him and maybe, just maybe you’ve got a chance.
He would never have offloaded him intentionally that was obvious. Not in a million years.
His head was just toying with the idea whenever he felt like complaining.
Besides, it was just the reality of things, the cold hard facts.
Regardless of what circumstance may have presented itself, Rambo wouldn’t and couldn’t, deliberately ignore the facts.
Like the fact that Jorgenson was going fucking mad, for instance.
He hadn’t been himself for a while.
“I hate you, Johnny. I fucking hate everybody, but you the most.”
He’d gone on like that saying those kinds of things for days at a time.
As one point, Rambo had contemplated taking their last handgun, away from him.
He’d been somewhat obliged to leave the 1911 with Jorgenson for self-defence purposes. As it stood now however, Jorgenson had reached the point where he was no longer capable of pulling the bow the same way he wouldn’t be able to stab someone either.
This time, as Rambo looked his friend in the eye, he wondered if he was thinking about killing himself.
Jorgenson was sitting there with his back up against a muddy wall, with the handgun on his lap, trying to catch his breath even though they’d been sitting a while already.
Who knows.
Jorgenson was sick and just being alive seemed to require impossible efforts.
Not to mention his eyes.
He continuously shot looks, looks that could kill, at everything and anything around him.
They were just oozing with hate. He gave you the impression that there was something not working inside him.
There was something not fucking right.
He looked exhausted and worn-out most of time with the only exception being when his expression changed into blind fury, and for no apparent reason.
He wasn’t the same Jorgenson who’d made it through Fort Bragg with them, back in the day.
No way, not by a long shot.
He was an entirely different person.
He wasn’t right.
He was like a dog with rabies, on the brink of death.
This had gone on for days on end. Even though Rambo could manage him, he worried the whole time that sooner or later, he’d fly off the handle.
Sure, he’d been successful so far, but there was something odd about how Jorgenson was actually changing.
He was becoming a monster.
Once he’d polished off the snake, Rambo stood up, grabbed his bow and went patrolling again. He wanted to get a better idea about which direction to carry Jorgenson in.
*
Whenever Rambo walked, he kept his bow and arrow pointing downwards, but always at the ready.
Sooner or later, he was bound to run out of arrows too, and would need to craft some up himself. That would have meant even more work for him, not to mention the time he’d need to actually do it. That would slow them down further and he just didn’t want to think about it now.
He began his tour walking the area around Jorgenson’s hiding place.
He was going around a giant old tree that looked like an American secular-oak when two Vietcong appeared, they were standing right in front of him.
A man and a woman dressed as civilians but armed to their teeth. It only took Rambo one look at their weapons to realize they were two Goddamn fucking Vietcong.
Rambo thought he’d just made the last fucking mistake of his life. A mistake that had only come about because he was starving and sick for fuck’s sake. Regrettably, war wasn’t like being at school, it didn’t give a shit what your fucking problem was, whether the whole fucking thing was really wrong or right, or how much you deserved it for that matter.
Rambo hadn’t managed his hunger, thirst and fatigue, and now he’d pay the price.
The couple stood there without moving until together they pointed their Kalashnikovs both at once, at him.
With that, Rambo let his bow drop to the ground.
The man started screaming at Rambo in Vietnamese, telling him to put his hands up, but Rambo pretended no to understand. John had fucked up once already so there was no way he planned on doing it again.
When the VC gestured his AK rifle upwards, Rambo eventually did what he asked and put his hands up in the air.
They asked Rambo where ‘the others’ were, but Rambo didn’t reply.
They went on to ask his name, what unit he was in, and insisted he tell them where everyone else was. Rambo kept the blank look on his face the whole time however, almost as though he wasn’t listening.
The man exchanged a few words with his female comrade, who was, all the while looking around quite nervously, almost in fear.
Rambo thought it was quite funny actually funny how scared she was of him.
In reality, they both were.
They were expecting an ambush to pop out of nowhere at any moment.
Captured by a couple of Vietcong – thought Rambo to himself.
Not by the North Vietnamese, but by a couple of fucking Vietcong.
Everyone knew the Vietcong were far worse than the North Vietnamese.
VCs weren’t soldiers they were fucking war criminals.
Nothing more than a bunch of armed-psychopaths, who were backed by a bloody dictatorship.
Anything but regular soldiers.
They were a lot like the kind of far-right militias you might find in the US.
They were motherfucking fanatics without rules.
That’s why they’d probably end up doing whatever they bloody well wanted to him.
Now that Jorgenson was alone, he was a dead man too.
Rambo started contemplating any and all the offensive scenarios available to him. There were many to choose from but he wanted to use the simplest and easiest one to knock that guy off.
He could try to kill the first with his bare hands but that would get him shot by the second.
He could make a desperate attempt to escape, but get shot in the back as he did it.
Being unarmed, the first thing to do – no matter what he decided, – was to shorten the distance between them.
So he moved his hands, which were still up in the air, closer to them every chance he could get.
“I am a civilian. Geneva Convention. Civilian,” he said to them.
They yelled (Keep your distance you dirty pig! Stay where you are!), but Rambo, true to his character, advanced further still pretending he couldn’t understand a word.
He could go after the woman first, hit her, and push her AK straight at the other guy, all at the same time. That could put her at risk, either by her reacting emotionally to him, or by becoming a target herself if her comrade started shooting.
Rambo drew slightly closer to them, keeping his hands high up above him.
One step at a time, he shortened the distance between his hands and her barrel. The further forward he managed to go, the higher her barrel unavoidably went.
Rambo could change the direction of fire with little effort if the barrel pointed upwards rather than straight ahead or at him. After all, dodging a gun that was pointed at his head was always less complicated than dodging one at shoulder height.
He slowly took his first step.
Then another.
Another one still, then the last.
Rambo struck as fast as a snake.
With one hand he hit the barrel of the woman’s rifle so hard that it ended up pointing right in the man’s face. With his hand still firmly against the barrel, Rambo kicked the man in the chest knocking him over.
As the man staggered backwards, Rambo grabbed the woman’s AK barrel by the fly and pushed it violently backwards, breaking her nose. When she finally let go of her AK for good, it slid right into Rambo’s hands. John spun around to face the man the moment he landed on the ground.
The Vietcong rolled over toward Rambo, but instead of pointing his AK at Rambo, he covered his face trying to protect himself, no longer interested in the girl.
With that, Rambo went ahead and shot him in the face.
The shot echoed distinctly in the jungle, rumbling between the valleys.
A covey of birds rose to fly away.
Rambo looked up at the sky with a worried expression on his face.
That shot would get the attention of whoever happened to be in the vicinity, both good and bad.
Damn it.
The woman, who, in reality, was only a girl, got down on her knees, surrendering.
As she looked over at her dead friend in horror, she joined her hands in a prayer.
Almost instantly, she burst into tears.
Now Rambo was really in fucking trouble.
He had no idea what the hell those two Vietcong were doing on their own in that part of the jungle. Nor did he know where they might have been going. What he’d bet on however was that there were others around for sure and they couldn’t be far.
He had to get back to Jorgenson. On second thought however, he needed to figure out what was really going on first.
He had to make her talk and then decide if killing her was a good idea or not.
Could he find any use for her? Perhaps.
Maybe he could use her as a human shield if need be.
Since that probably wasn’t the case however, she may have had some food with her (food that Rambo and Jorgenson would waste no time in eating). She was bound to become another mouth to feed and if she did, Rambo would be obliged to kill her.
Shit.
Rambo hoped that mission would come to an end before having to go as far as that.
The girl looked like she was in perfect shape she’d survive a while without eating and wouldn't get sick before getting sick, and Rambo was sincerely hoping to get out of that damn jungle long before that. Perhaps dragging her along as a prisoner was the best solution.
Rambo turned his back on her just long enough to pick up the AK lying there on the ground next to him. When he looked back at her, he saw Jorgenson lifting her off the ground by the neck with his bare hands.
He was strangling her.
His nails where piercing her skin and he was trying to split her throat wide open.
It wasn’t long before blood started squirting everywhere, and when it did, it followed the rhythm of her heartbeat.
I’m gonna’ kill you, you stupid Vietcong whore.
Jorgenson lifted her higher up with his hands and it didn't come as a surprise when her neck bones began to give under pressure.
I'm ‘gonna kill you.
He could feel her heart pounding under his fingertips as her heart rate went faster.
The blood was making his hands warmer and warmer.
Then, without warning, they heard a CRACK! and with it, everything stopped. The pulse under his fingertips stopped. Her jerking and twitching stopped. Even the blood streaming down his arms had stopped.
Everything had stopped.
Jorgenson let go of her eventually and she fell to the ground the same way a puppet would.
His hands were full of blood.
At the time, Rambo couldn’t bring himself to speak.
When he gathered enough strength however, he said:
“What the fuck have you done?”
Jorgenson didn’t say anything.
“For God’s sake Jorgenson, what the hell have you done?”
“I don’t know. What’s the matter?” was his answer.
Neither spoke after that as Rambo, who was still somewhat dumbfounded, continued to stare at the body in disbelief.
They had to get the hell out of there and they had to do it fast. It may have seemed like the logical thing for the both of them to do, but neither could move.
They stood where they were without muttering a sound until Jorgenson, – as if in a trance, – finally said:
“She was attacking you.”
“Oh my God, no she wasn’t. She was already disarmed, I’d already disarmed her.”
With a confused look on his face, Jorgenson glanced back and forth from his bloodstained hands to the mangled body.
“She was attacking you,” he repeated again, like an robot.
There wasn’t time for that.
There wasn’t even enough time to think about what had actually just happened there.
With great difficulty, Rambo forced himself to look away. He’d seen and done so much in his life but as he walked away from the battered body, that was one of the hardest. He reached into his pocket for his Baker knife, unscrewed the handle and pulled out the compass.
“We should almost be there by now,” he said to Jorgenson.
He kneeled down next to the bodies and hurriedly searched them. Without any hesitation, he pulled out two flasks full of water and a little more than five balls of rice neatly wrapped up in paper from the pockets.
There were probably about six rations in rice alone.
Six whole rations - it seemed too good to be true.
An actual ration, they’d get a whole one each for God’s sake.
Rambo made space for them in his jacket.
“Ready?” he said getting back up.
Jorgenson nodded so Rambo lifted him back over his shoulder, for what must have been the millionth time.
“Wait Johnny, wait.”
Rambo paid little attention to the request and tossed him over his shoulder like a lamb again.