Part 4 – A Letter Never Sent
March 1965 – En route to American firebase, Central Vietnam
Rain made the earth slick and the forest thicker than it was the day before.
James leaned hard on the stick Quân had carved for him, each step a throb in his healing leg.
But Dusty walked ahead, not leading — accompanying.
He paused at forks in the path, looked back for a signal, then continued.
The compass spun slowly in James’s palm — needle trembling under cloud-thick skies.
He remembered Quân’s voice: “Three kilometers. Don’t look back.”
They moved slow, but steady.
The jungle closed in like a lung.
Once, Dusty froze — ears perked — then veered left, pulling James into a bamboo grove.
Moments later, bootsteps passed to their right. Vietnamese. One man coughed. Another spat.
They waited in silence.
James could feel Dusty’s heartbeat beneath his hand.
Not fear — instinct.
By late afternoon, the river came into view — wide, brown, full of rain.
Across it, a low ridge. Beyond that: the faint echo of a helicopter.
American territory.
James’s breath caught. He was close.
He crouched at the riverbank, cupped the compass like a relic, and looked at Dusty.
“I made it,” he whispered. “We made it.”
Dusty wagged his tail once, then sniffed the wind.
James stood, took a step forward — then stopped.
He looked back.
Not at the trees.
At something in his chest.
He reached into his rucksack and pulled out a letter — folded in plastic, written in shaky French, smudged by sweat and rain.
He read it silently. It was addressed to “Madame Nhàn.”
Nhàn,
You saved my life. You gave me rice, water, rest. But you also gave me something I didn’t expect — a reason to question everything I thought I knew.
Your son pointed a gun at me, and still chose not to shoot. That is something I will carry for the rest of my days. But more than that — I will carry Dusty. I don’t know what kind of creature he is. Not just a dog. A spirit, maybe. A soul that walks between borders and doesn’t take sides. If only we were more like him.
If I live, I’ll send this. If I die, I hope someone finds it.
James Edward Riley
He sealed the letter again and looked across the river.
Then down at Dusty.
“No postal service in war zones,” he muttered.
Dusty sneezed — or maybe laughed.
He fashioned a raft from fallen bamboo, tied with jungle vines.
It was crude. Barely enough for one man and a dog.
Dusty hesitated. James climbed aboard, then patted the space beside him.
“Come on, hero.”
Dusty jumped in — muddy paws slapping bamboo.
The raft tilted. Balanced.
The river took them.
It was nearly dark when they reached the far side.
American soldiers spotted him. Rifles drawn. Shouting.
Then they saw the flag patch on his uniform — soaked, torn — and rushed to pull him ashore.
A medic cursed. “Christ, Riley, we thought you were dead!”
Another said, “Where the hell’d that dog come from?”
James smiled. “Long story.”
They tried to grab Dusty.
He backed away, growled — only calming when James touched his head.
“Easy,” James whispered. “We’re home.”
But Dusty looked back across the river.
That night, under canvas and morphine, James asked for a pen.
He rewrote the letter, carefully, despite his shaking hand.
He sealed it in an envelope and addressed it to “Madame Nhàn, Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam.”
He handed it to a corpsman.
“Send this,” he said. “Please.”
The corpsman nodded.
But somewhere between that field hospital and the military mail system —
the letter was lost.
Back in Vietnam, Nhàn waited by the window each night for weeks.
No one returned. Not her son. Not the dog.
Only the wind.