Cherry sat alone, in awe of where he was and how he had arrived. Up the hill behind him soldiers were laughing and cursing loudly. He sat quietly, alert, half-hidden, scared. His forearms ached. He rolled his arm over and looked. Both forearms were scraped and burned and bruised. Below his right elbow there was a two inch long incision surrounded by blood and a crusting scab. Cherry did not remember it happening. Thinking about it now he figured he had bruised himself while jumping from the helicopter. He looked down into the jungle then to his sides then to the laughing men. Since the moment after insertion when Jackson had given him the chocolate candy disc and he had checked in with El Paso, no one had spoken to him.
Just north of where Cherry sat, slightly higher up the peak, Jackson
