Reunion : A Santa Barbara story
By Kevin Hardy						Accueil   Home

October 31, 2022

Salt Lake City, Utah

Cain Garver’s desk was filled with paper files, although none were work related. Since Pearl’s return, that idiosyncratic man had been Columbo, Jim Rockford and Jessica Fletcher all rolled into one. Pearl’s senses seemed unusually sharp, and he was working tirelessly. He refused to talk about what transpired in Oregon, but it had clearly transformed him. Although cases were getting solved, Cain did not know if it was necessarily for the better. He had known guys like Pearl in ‘nam. When they encountered a significant trauma, they just turned off that side of their brain and plowed forward, often becoming unconscionable killing machines. Cain had been one of those and even to this day, the man known as Adam Garver was as out of reach to him as his beloved Andrea. He supposed he and Pearl shared something in common; they both had spent their lives running away from their pasts.

So here a bearded Cain sat, feeling particularly rudderless on this day, yet another horrible anniversary to commemorate. It had been 34 years since Andrea lost her life and Cain was still not able to make sense of it. Such a capable woman, such a skilled fighter, and she had been granted the final indignity of falling by the hand of a cowardly man in a black ski mask. Cain had never been able to shake the feeling that it was his fault, that his treatment of her, his loathsome behaviour, had weakened Andrea somehow, distracted her.

Shaking his head tiredly, Cain opened his desk drawer and pulled out a bottle. He stared at the empty vessel, imagining it filled with a precious copper fluid. He removed the cap and breathed in what could have only been phantom fumes at this point. It was the last bottle Cain had consumed and had been downed on one dreadful evening, although this had not been an especially unusual evening at the time. After leaving Santa Barbara he had returned to Utah, to his cabin in the Wasatch Mountains, to the only place that had given him any peace post-Vietnam. In between those four earthy walls, the first half of the '90s were comprised of a haze of blackouts; how he had survived he could not begin to comprehend. But then one day the door to his combination sanctuary/hell pushed open and in walked the most unlikely of saviours. Pearl Bradford had been a godsend. He had cleaned Cain up and he & Alice had welcomed him into their home: an alcoholic, suicidal, battle-scarred veteran, a man who had driven away everyone in his life. They gave him food, shelter and love; in other words, a home. And most importantly, they got him into a program. Now here he was, 27 years later, 27 years sober. He lived alone now, but he no longer felt alone, except on days like today, that was. Days where all he wanted was a drink, any drink, to dull the pain that still lived within him.

“Shit, Cain, snap out of it,” the man murmured, as he absently rubbed the bronze sobriety chip that was fastened to a rolo chain looped around his neck. His eyes moved to a copy of The Plain Dealer, which lay on his desk, the Ohio publication dating back to November 20, 1969. Next to it was the December 5, 1969 issue of Life Magazine. Inside were several pictures taken during the massacre at Mỹ Lai, an atrocity which Cain suffered through during his first tour in Vietnam. He had been thinking a lot about Vietnam lately, which was invariably bad for him. His current obsession with that godawful place from another time was unexpected, it having arisen due to Pearl’s mention of the name Nick Hartley a few months back. Cain could not get the man’s name out of his head, and when Pearl had taken the reigns at The Last Resort, Cain decided to do some digging, and scratch that irritating mental itch. He discovered this Hartley had been a photojournalist in Vietnam from 1972-74, but he could not shake the feeling there was more to it, that they had some type of personal connection.

Mý Lai

March 16, 1968

If there was such a thing as Hell on Earth, this was surely it. The piercing screams, the tacky texture of blood, the smell of burnt human flesh, even the taste of it, assaulted Nick Hartley’s senses. The young man could barely see through the smoke and orange bursts of M16 fire, the sulphury odour wafting in the wind. His minimal basic training forgotten, he ran blindly, his finger unconsciously pushing down on the button of his Nikon Photomic as he flailed.

Nick raced through the dirt roads of Sơn Mỹ village, this referred to as Pinkville by the U.S. troops. Nick was not a soldier, but a fledgling photographer, who had been keen to make his mark. He had thought he found his place with the grizzled Charlie company, under the watchful tutelage of Sergeant Ronald Haeberle. But that would prove to be so sickeningly wrong, he realized, as he staggered through muddy streets lined with burning hootches and stacks of corpses, that numbered into the hundreds. These were not the bodies of the 48th Battalion of the Viet Cong. Nor were they the bodies of Viet Cong sympathizers, which is how the army press corp. would soon spin it. These were women, children and elderly men who just an hour before had been cooking breakfast rice over outdoor fires.

Those innocent villagers that had temporarily escaped death were living a worse hell, as they watched their homes burned, their livestock slaughtered, their drinking supply fouled, and their bodies violated.

"Hey, Nick," Private Lance Wiggins called to him, "want a go?" Wiggins, who could only be described as having been swept up in some kind of mass hysteria, was pushing a naked 13-year-old-girl into the willing hands of another enlisted man, a grotesque smile plastered onto his prematurely aged face.

A dazed Nick turned away and raced blindly forward. He soon felt a hand grab his arm and he was pulled into the brush, wet leaves scraping his smooth cheeks. He began to flail about, his camera scraping the jungle surface.

“Shh,” a man spoke bruskly, he dressed in an American service uniform.

“What’s going on?” Nick mumbled, as he cleared the sludge, which caked the jungle trees, from his aching eyes.

“All hell is breaking loose, that’s what’s going on,” Private Adam Garver, his voice small against the constant machine gun fire and occasional M79 grenade explosion. Despite the 20-year-old’s fresh face, there was already a lifetime of experience etched into those weary features, he and his buddy having lied their way into service three years before.

“But these are innocent people,” Nick cried, “children! They’re being butchered, raped!”

Adam lowered his head and nodded. “This ain’t what I signed up for,” he growled.

“We have to do something,” Nick pleaded, he caught in the grips of emotional impotence.

“It’s too late for that now,” Adam explained tiredly. “Right now we have to think about your survival.”

Nick recoiled. “What do you mean?” he shouted.

Adam pointed to Nick’s camera, this coated in wed mud. “After what happened here, do you think these guys are going to let a journalist out alive?” he grilled him.

Nick looked around himself, his vision unfocused. He was petrified beyond belief, his pants soaked not only in jungle muck, but also from his emptied bladder.

“We need to get you out of here,” Adam pushed, “and perhaps more importantly we need those pictures out there. Otherwise, this shit is just going to get covered up.”

“Wha, what do I do?” Nick stammered.

“You are going to follow this trail,” Adam directed, pointing southwest, “and get to the Quảng Ngãi airfield. I have a buddy with the third marine division there. He’ll make sure you get onto a flight to Da Nang.”

Nick was struggling to hold it together, the fear paralyzing. “Why are you doing this for me?” he yelped.

Adam studied Nick, his world-weary gaze soothing. “Because the truth has to be known,” he declared. “And because you’re just a kid. What are you, 15?”

“How did you know?” Nick asked, the spoken truth coming as a huge relief.

“I’ve seen a lot of kids out here like you,” Adam reflected, “I was one myself.”

"I wanted some glory,” Nick softly stated, his whole being overcome by regret. “I wanted to make my mark.”

Adam nodded knowingly. “Yeah, well, this place has a way of blinding you until you actually make it here. Me, I just wanted to get away from my son of a bitch father, and to make a difference. Now for the first time, after meeting you, I’m thinking that’s really possible,” he added, as he motioned to Nick’s camera. “C’mon,” he beckoned, as he slung his water bottle over Nick’s shoulder and handed him a compass and his service weapon.

“But what about you,” Nick inquired, “how will you explain this?”

Adam shook his head. “With the cover up that’s going to happen here, my gun will be the least of their worries. And your body, well it was never found. Quick, you’ve gotta get going. Follow that trail for about 10 miles. When you get to the airfield, ask for Corporal Thomas Redding.”

Nick nodded, as he craned his head to the thick foliage, his lack of confidence showing in spades. But before he could will his aching feet to move, the brush hiding them was suddenly pushed back. Exposed, Adam grabbed for the gun from Nick’s trembling hands and held it straight in front of him, the muzzle inches away from an older American’s face.

“It’s okay,” Nick asserted, as he pushed down on the firearm and stepped between Adam and this man that he had come to know and respect. “Sergeant Haeberle,” he greeted.

“Peters, thank God,” Haeberle exclaimed, using Nick’s assumed name. “Nick, are you okay?”

“I am, sir,” Nick confirmed, as he searched Adam's uniform for his name and rank. “Private Garver, here, kept me out of the line of fire.”

The quietly imposing Haeberle stepped around Nick and held his hand out to Adam. “Private Garver, thank you.”

“We have to get him out of here,” Adam insisted, as the sounds of gunfire moved closer.

“I’ll take care of him, Sergeant,” Haeberle promised. “Trust me that he will be safe.”

“And what about those?” Adam challenged, pointing to Nick’s camera. “The world needs to see what happened here.”

Haeberle patted his own camera, which was nestled in the scuffed leather bag slung over his bony shoulder. “I have no doubt the army will confiscate their cameras, but Nick and I, we have our own. Trust me, they will be seen, you have my word.”

There was something in Haeberle’s quietly commanding tone, an inherent goodness that immediately washed over him. Adam smiled and pulled Nick towards him. “Peters,” he voiced, “you’ll be fine.”

Nick returned Adam’s smile, although his was more timid. “It’s Hartley, actually,” Nick confessed, keeping his voice low.

"Hartley,” Adam repeated, his unshaven face growing a slight smirk, “okay, I'm Adam. Now go blow the lid off this motherfucker.”

As Haeberle radioed his friend, Warrant Office Hugh Thompson, Jr., for helicopter extraction, Nick smiled wider and squeezed Adam’s hand. He then raced off into the jungle, following closely behind Haeberle. Adam, meanwhile, turned and walked back into the clearing, bracing himself for the hellish moments still to come.

October 31, 2022

Salt Lake City, Utah

A disillusioned Cain leaned forward, his eyes rimmed with tears. Following a gunshot wound in 1987, courtesy of Cruz, he lost much of his memory. He had fought so hard to fight the return of his memories once they began to filter back into his consciousness. The fall of Saigon, the slaughter of his men, the loss of Soo Li, his unconscionable treatment of Eden in the very mountains his office backed onto, they ate away at him a little bit every day. He had been so blessed to find people to care about him and more unbelievably enough, even to have forgiven him. They had helped him to face his past and to do so without the crutch of the bottle. The massacre at Mỹ Lai was one of those memories that had not come back to him then, but now existed in its full technicolor shame in his mind. He was shocked to have not remembered Nick or Ronald before, their images having been so prevalent in exposing the horrors of the massacre to the American public. He had really hoped at the time the revelation would stop that senseless war, but on it had gone, year after interminable year, them falling further into the quagmire. Despite the dozens of court-martials only one loathsome man had been convicted, his life sentence commuted after just three years by the criminal Richard Nixon.

Cain tapped on the purple post-it note that was lightly tacked onto his desk, this having been assembled from a kit courtesy of Staples, which was in sharp contrast to the antique roll-top his partner worked at. On the piece of sticky paper were 10 numbers, the first three being the 714 prefix. Cain picked up the phone and dialled Nick’s California number, this obtained via the most basic of sleuthing.

"Hello,” Nick Hartley soon answered, his greeting tone to a stranger as amiable as it would be for his best friend. Nick was sitting in the garden of his Laguna Beach home, having just arrived back from dropping Kelly off at the airport. His gorgeous new wife was on her way to Santa Barbara, where Sophia was proposing a potential move of the Armonti offices to L.A.

"Nick Hartley?” Cain questioned.

"Yes,” Nick confirmed, Cain’s voice striking a chord in Nick that he could not immediately define.

"My name is Cain, I work with Pearl Bradford in Salt Lake.”

"Yes, Kelly has mentioned you,” Nick recognized, “I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure.”

“Actually we have, although I’m not sure you’d call it a pleasure. Mr. Hartley, you might know me by another name. Adam Garver.”

Nick leaned back, his face opened up in shock. 54 years of his life rewound in a blip. He found himself back in the dank jungles of Vietnam, a 15-year-old child frightened beyond measure. A 15-year-old who had been saved by an angel. “Adam Garver,” Nick spoke in unfiltered surprise, “my God. I thought you had died back in ‘nam. After the war I couldn’t find a trace of you, even with a government connection.”

“By choice,” Cain acknowledged, “I was pretty fucked up.”

"I understand that,” Nick empathized.

"I never put it together,” Cain continued, “your name. Nick Peters, or Nick Hartley, did not receive a photo credit for the Mỹ Lai piece.”

"Well, they were mostly Ron’s pictures,” Nick explained. “And any contributions I made, well, I asked for them to be kept quiet. I made my own mark later, I suppose, with my pictures from 1974.”

Cain’s eyes drifted to a copy of Time from 1974, this having highlighted Nick’s own beautifully horrific images from his second tour, the cover featuring a young Vietnamese boy.

"I never understood why I won the Pulitzer and Ron didn’t,” Nick pressed on pensively, as images of that sweet 10-year-old boy flashed through his head, the boy who would just seconds later be lying face down on the jungle floor, the napalm having burned Nick’s candy wrapper into his smooth flesh. “My subject may have been alive for the shot, but seconds later he could have been one of the kids from Ron’s roll.”

"Why did you go back?” Cain queried.

Nick laughed, although this sound was empty and devoid of humour. “I was drafted, I didn’t have a choice. Although luckily, I was able to go back with my cameras and not a rifle. How about you, did you serve another tour?”

"Several,” Cain confirmed regretfully, “all the way to the fall of Saigon.”

In California, Nick sat rigidly, his fingertips pressed tightly into his eyes. “Look Adam, or Cain, there was so much I wanted to say to you,” he expressed, “I couldn’t really grasp it then. Can we meet?”

Cain clenched his own eyes shut, fearing this may happen. But then he looked to Andrea’s picture and, as always, the answers became clear. “Yeah,” he confirmed. “Yeah, I think we can.”

Based on characters created by Bridget and Jerome Dobson in association with New World Television and the National Broadcasting Company.