The Hunters

by James Salter

Men often know what their destiny is to be, and perhaps Cleve knew his. If not, perhaps his eyes alone had seen it, for they were unusual eyes. They could be deeply, almost sadly, receptive, or as impervious as marbles. They were the most striking feature in a face that had composure, but of the mildest sort. Cleve wore no mask against the world.

Friends on the outside were always asking why he stayed in, or telling him he was wasting himself. He had never been able to give an answer. With the fresh shirt on his shoulders still cold as ice, chilled from an hour in an unheated radar compartment at forty thousand feet between Long Beach and Albuquerque, the marks from the oxygen mask still on his face, and on his hands the microscopic grit of a thousand-mile journey, he had tried to find an answer sitting alone at dinner in the club filled with administrative majors and mothers talking about their children, but he never could. In his mind he carried Saturdays of flying, with the autumnal roar of crowds on the radio compass and the important stadiums thirty minutes apart and button-small, the wingmen like metallic arrows poised in the air above a continent, the last sunlight slanting through the ground haze, and cities of concrete moss; but never any reasonable reply. Or, sick of the stars and bored with speed on those nights in the great black sea, the surf of which was cities bubbling on the wave, listening to the others who were up, two unseen killers perhaps, calling themselves Butcher Red and seeking themselves in the darkness, he had tried to think of one—brief, understandable—but never could. It was all a secret life, lived alone.

He was thirty-one, not too old, certainly; but it would not be long. His eyes weren’t good enough any more. With an athlete, the legs failed first. With a fighter pilot, it was the eyes. The hand was still steady and judgment good long after a man lost the ability to pick out aircraft at the extreme ranges. Other things could help to make up for it, and other eyes could help him look, but in the end it was too much of a handicap. He had reached the point, too, where a sense of lost time weighed on him. There was a constant counting of tomorrows he had once been so prodigal with. And he found himself thinking too much of unfortunate things. He was frequently conscious of not wanting to die. That was not the same as wanting to live. It was a black disease, a fixation that could ultimately corrode the soul.

Everyone was leaning toward the nearest window to see the land below, which lay calm as wreckage in the clear winter air.

They had fought down there, on foot, taking weeks to move the distance he went in an hour. He was arriving like a tourist, in comfort.

When he had finished, he smoked a cigarette. This was, so early, contrary to a mild resolution of his, but he did not resist the desire. He made of it the first of that day’s concessions to the shortness of life.

“Victories mean a lot, but as far as I’m concerned, there’s something more important to be gotten out of Korea.” “What’s that?” “My ass.”

“It looks like they came up early in the morning for a change,” Desmond said when they had landed and were waiting for the truck to throw their equipment on and ride back to operations, “but it wasn’t much of a fight.” “No, it wasn’t,” Cleve agreed, although he felt very spent. “They were too cagey today. It’s usually like that when the fight is in the cons. They can see you too easily, and you can’t get close to them. Not only that, but they just didn’t seem to want to mix it up this time.” “I thought they were doing their share.” “What do you mean?” “It seemed we were playing it pretty safe,” Cleve said. “You got back, didn’t you?” Desmond said flatly. “So did they.”

DeLeo came from a tough mining town in West Virginia. He was one of those men who seem to have arisen from a place spontaneously, with neither family nor enduring friends having marked his growth. He would shrug when asked what he had done before being in the service. It was authentic. He seemed to be completely independent of obligations.

It was all over him, the unfortunate wisdom of knowing enough to think he knew everything. Cleve could see that Pell was somewhat older than his fellows. It was to develop that he was twenty-five, and as free of idealism as a boy raised in the slums, although he actually came from open country in Michigan.

The room had become confining for him, a regular closet. He stood up. He felt like a man who puts weight on a bad leg for the first time. Suddenly he was conscious of his position, uncomfortably. He was the leader. There seemed to be something artificial and repugnant about that, as if he were wearing a bright shirt with the word printed on it. Everything had been so effortless until now. Unexpectedly, the simplicity of things was gone. It had been a bad day.

Their names were gilded. They had shot down at least five MIGs apiece. Bengert had seven, but five was the number that separated men from greatness. Cleve had come to see, as had everyone else, how rigid was that casting. There were no other values. It was like money: it did not matter how it had been acquired, but only that it had. That was the final judgment. MIGs were everything. If you had MIGs you were a standard of excellence. The sun shone upon you. The crew chiefs were happy to have you fly their ships. The touring actresses wanted to meet you. You were the center of everything—the praise, the excitement, the enviers. If you did not—although nothing was shameful about it, and there were reasons, allegedly valid, for any man, no matter how capable and courageous, to have failed to get victories—still you were only one of the loose group in the foreground of which the triumvirate gleamed. If you did not have MIGs, you were nothing. Every day as he walked among them, Cleve knew it more truly.