All In (15 page)

And there were lots of them in Num Chang. Soldiers sped through the streets at all hours, firing their guns into the sky just as those in Hin Haw had. Most looked more like teenage boys, and their highest form of entertainment appeared to be scaring us.

My father and uncles went to the local market to try to buy food. At least that's what they said they were doing.

My father knew our lives were in serious danger. The Pathet Lao commander could change his mind at any moment. Even if he forgot about us, it was simply a matter of time before one of the other bands of soldiers patrolling the town decided they were tired of the sight of such a large group of dirty, smelly Hmong dressed in their mountain rags. Even before the fall of the Royal Lao family, the Lao people who lived on the plains had looked down on the Hmong.

My father and uncles, knowing they had to act fast, used their trips to the area markets as a way of gathering news about the war and the Communist soldiers' locations near the Mekong.

During one of these trips to the market in a nearby town, my father came in contact with an old relative, a Yang just like us. He, too, had once served as an officer in General Vang Pao's army but felt he couldn't leave Laos because he had brothers who were part of the Pathet Lao.

When this old relative offered to help us, at first my father refused his assistance. Time and again, my father said, “You are wrong about us. We don't want to go to Thailand. We love Laos and are perfectly content to stay here.”

“I know you don't mean that,” the man replied. “Let me help you. I must. I cannot bear the thought of you being dragged away by the soldiers.”

With little time and nowhere else to turn, my father finally decided to trust him.

“Here's what I'll do for you,” the relative said. “I'll provide trucks to take you and all of your people to the Mekong. I also know two men with boats who will agree to ferry you across the river to Thailand.”

“I want to see these boats and meet the men before I risk the lives of my family.”

“Of course.”

Later that week, my father and two of my uncles traveled to the Mekong with the man. Secretly, before their scouting mission, my father told my uncles, “If his story checks out, we'll pay any price they want. But if you sense something isn't right with this guy, eliminate him right away, before he can turn us in to the authorities.”

Thankfully the man's story checked out and the boats were hired.

“Tomorrow night we leave,” my father announced.

I was elated and scared to death.

In order to slip out of town unnoticed, we planned to leave around two or three in the morning. The relative told my father to have us walk on the main road. Once we were out of town, a pair of trucks would pass us, then double back to pick us up. They would drive us to the Mekong River, where we
would hide until the next night. Then boats would ferry us across at the next sundown.

The plan seemed foolproof until the Pathet Lao and NVA soldiers in town decided to hold a party in a large field not far from the main road. The moment the sun set, the celebration kicked off.

I could see the bonfires from my house, and the music was so loud I felt as if I was at the event myself. I looked out my window and saw the soldiers dancing with a bunch of women. Every so often, they shot their guns into the sky and laughed and danced some more. It was the biggest party I had ever seen. From the looks of things, it would last all night.

Unfortunately, we had no way of contacting our relative and telling him to scrub the plans for our escape. If the trucks came this night, they would drive right into a large group of drunk and trigger-happy soldiers.

I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. None of us could. I walked into the main room of the house where we were staying and found my father and mother on their knees, praying. “God, help us,” my father said. “We must leave tonight, but we cannot because of these men. Please do something. We need Your protection, Your guidance.”

I got on my knees and joined them. I was so scared; I didn't know what else to do.

Even though we'd faced many hardships during our escape, I knew God was with us. He'd led us to a shelter in the jungle when the rains had come, and He'd delivered us from the soldiers when we'd been caught.

On this night, He sent another miracle. The soldiers' party had just become even wilder when all of a sudden, the skies opened and sheets of rain fell. The soldiers and party women went scrambling, looking for someplace dry.

Almost instantaneously, the fires went out, the music stopped, and the night became completely silent, except for the sound of the pouring rain.

Sometime around three in the morning, as the rain still fell outside, my father gathered us. “It's time. Let's go.”

As quietly as we could, everyone from our village slipped into the main street of Num Chang and headed out of town. Half an hour later, a set of headlights came toward us.

“Move to the sides and keep walking,” my father said.

I didn't quite understand why. If these weren't the trucks that were supposed to take us to the Mekong, we should have jumped off the road and hidden. If they were the trucks, we should have stopped and let them pick us up.

One truck then another drove past us, headed in the opposite direction. A few minutes later, I glanced back and saw headlights coming from behind us.

My father saw them, too. “Stay on the road and run as fast as you can.”

The headlights turned out to belong to the same two trucks that had sped past us a few minutes earlier. Instead of passing us again, the two trucks slowed. One of the drivers rolled down his window and shouted something to my father.

“Don't stop,” my father called. “Keep running and jump
into the trucks.” Then he yelled, “Get in the trucks
now
.”

Chaos ensued. Parents tossed their children into the trucks, then dove in after them.

My father jogged alongside, my baby brother on his back and my older brother just in front of him. “Hurry, hurry!” He kept running along, making sure everyone was in one of the two trucks before he climbed in.

My mother, sister, other brother, and I dove into the second truck. As soon as I landed in the back, I turned around to help with my little brother. Suddenly, the trucks hit the gas and sped up.

“No, wait!” I yelled, but it was too late. I watched my father, my baby brother, and my older brother disappear into the darkness. I feared I would never see them again.

Just in time, our old relative looked back from the front of one of the vehicles to see my father running desperately in the rain. The truck slowed down.

My father later told me how it felt to see the fading taillights of the two trucks: it was the worst moment of his life.

We drove through the night. As our vehicle rocked along the bumpy road, I tried to sleep, but my growling stomach kept me awake. Rain beat constantly on the tarp covering the truck bed.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, the driver was shouting, “Out, out, out. Everybody out!”

As the sun rose, I jumped out of the truck with my family. The moment my feet hit the ground, my father yelled, “Follow me. Quickly. Run!”

With no time to look around, I found myself racing down a steep hill, across a rice field, past a couple of houses, and into a small hut surrounded by tall grass, bamboo, and palm trees.

“We must wait here for the sun to set,” my father said.

But the sun hasn't even come up yet
, I thought.

Gunfire echoed outside as the Thai and Pathet Lao armies shot at one another from opposite sides of the Mekong. The little children in our group cried. Angry adults snapped: “Shut those kids up before you give us away.”

I started to ask if I could have something to eat but stopped myself. No one had brought any food with them, since no one had really known how long it would take to get from Num Chang to the Mekong.

We couldn't go out without getting caught. We had no choice but to sit and wait. No food. No water. Nothing.

It was one of the longest days of my life.

Finally, night came. Just after dark, two men walked to the hut and said, “Come with us. We're here to take you across the river. Do you have the rest of the money?”

“Yes, of course,” my father replied. “I will give it to you once we are safely across the river.” My father had already given them half of the price he'd agreed to the day he'd come to the Mekong with the old relative.

“No, we want it now.”

“After we cross the river.”

“You give us the money now, or we will leave and you can swim across.”

My father held his ground. “I will happily give you the rest of your money after the last person in our group steps on the Thai shore. That's what we agreed to.”

For a moment I wondered if the two men with the boats were going to back out and walk away, leaving us stranded in this horrible little hut.

Finally, they gave in. “Okay, okay, whatever you want.” I could tell they weren't happy with my father.

As the two men left to get their boats, my father gathered everyone from our village. A few friends of our old relative had also joined our group. They, too, wanted out of Laos.

“The boats cannot carry everyone at once,” my father announced. “We're going to do the same thing we did when we crossed the roads in the jungle. Divide into groups. The boats can take no more than ten people at a time. The mothers and small children will go first. My family will go last.”

For the first time since we left our village, I saw hope on some people's faces. Yet most of us were still frightened.

My father sensed the fear in our group as well. He led us in prayer, then said, “All right, the first group needs to head out.”

I think it must have been about nine o'clock at night. We hadn't had anything to eat in almost two days.

The first two groups piled into the boats. No sooner had the last person climbed aboard than the boats took off across the river. They meandered along, doing their best to look like a couple of fishing boats working the river.

Sitting on the bank and waiting for our family's turn to come, I heard the gunfire filling the air and watched the tracer
bullets flying from both sides of the Mekong. As the night grew darker, I heard the distinctive
whoosh
of mortar fire followed by an explosion on the opposite side of the river. From time to time, the shells fell short and exploded in the river.

Yet the worst sounds of the night, the ones that haunt me in my nightmares, were the wails echoing along the river. “Save me! I'm drowning!” Off in the distance, a mother crying out, “Save my child.”

The voices never stopped from the moment the sun went down until it came up again. The cries, so desperate, so filled with pain, came from those with no choice but to try to cross the Mekong without a boat.

Most of these people didn't make it. Those who didn't drown were shot by the Pathet Lao. So many people died in that river, especially children. Oh, so many of my people.

When I close my eyes, I hear the cries.

About an hour after they'd first set out, the boats returned to pick up the next two groups. They ferried people across the river through the night until my family, along with three of my uncles, were the only ones left on the Lao side of the Mekong. By the time we climbed into the boats, the eastern sky was starting to light up.

I didn't realize how small the boats really were until ten of us crammed into this little fishing boat built for no more than two. With so many people, the boat floated low in the water and the slightest wave splashed over the side, soaking us all. I thought for sure we would sink.

Our boat had barely set out from shore when the driver said to my father, “I don't think we can do this right now. It will be light before we get to the other side. We'll be shot.”

“So what are we supposed to do?” my father asked. “We can't go back and press our luck staying where we did yesterday.”

“I know of an island in the river where you should be safe. Lots of brush. No one ever goes there.”

“Whatever you think is best.”

Another night had passed, and still we had no food, no water. Nothing.

The boat owners hid their vessels in the reeds off the shore of the island. Around noon, they came to my father and said, “We're hungry. There's no sense in hiding here on this island with you all day. Without you in our boats, the soldiers won't bother us. We're going back to Laos to get something to eat. Once the sun sets, we'll come back and take you the rest of the way to Thailand.”

“I know you must be hungry,” my father said, which to me was the understatement of the year; our last real meal had come the night before we'd left Num Chang, which felt like a week ago. “But I prefer that you stay. If you must go, please leave one of the boats here, just in case something happens to you. Otherwise, we'll be stranded.”

“Nothing will happen to us. Listen, we're hungry, and we're taking our boats to get some food.”

“Please take only one boat.”

“Stop telling us what to do with our boats.” I could tell the
man was getting angry with my father. He was already mad that my father hadn't paid the entire price in advance for ferrying us across the river.

“I'm not trying to tell you how to run your business, but we are vulnerable here. We can't stay on this island, and you're our only way to the other side.”

The driver cursed. “We're leaving, and there's nothing you can do to stop us.”

My father looked at my mother. “Now.”

She reached under her dress and pulled out a .38 my father had strapped to her leg before we'd left our village almost a month earlier.

I couldn't believe my eyes, and neither could the boat owners.

My father pointed the pistol at the two men. “This is the way it's going to be. One of you can get some food, but the other isn't going anywhere. Do you understand me? I gave you your chance. I tried to be reasonable, but you gave me no choice. Now you'll do things my way.”