The rest of the trek to Nong Fa is long and slow. Khiem spots a red-bellied squirrel in a fight for its life with a tree snake, or maybe it’s the other way around. Either way, he kills both with his machete and roasts them on sticks over a small fire Phuong lets him make. He divides the meat for him and her, and acts annoyed when Phuong shares hers with me. He speaks to her sharply in Vietnamese, but she doesn’t respond. I don’t care, as long as he doesn’t hit me again. I eat snake and squirrel for the first time and am happy to have both.

My injuries heal quickly, making me think my ribs aren’t broken after all. Breathing gets easier, though the deep bone bruise in my chest is still painful to the touch. Other bruises, the ones I can see, fade to blue, then green, then yellow. I have no idea what my face looks like. My hair has grown out so long that I tie it back into a ponytail with a piece of string from Phuong—until she offers to chop it off with her knife. I figure it will be easier to have it short, so I let her.

We keep to mountain trails, crossing streams on more shaky cables, dragging ourselves up stone steps carved into limestone cliffs, scrambling over and around boulders blocking the path, sleeping in caves or under rocky overhangs. It doesn’t rain again—still months until the rainy season—but it’s nice to have the cover just in case.

Twice we meet columns of bo doi making their way south, bent forward under their supply loads, staggering up the trails we walk down, sometimes tumbling down the stone steps we ascend. We help bury two who die from their falls. Others who are injured just find a way to continue. Some express surprise to see an American on the Trail, but most are so fatigued, with so far still to go, that they don’t bother.

Every step closer to Nong Fa fills me with dread. There will be a rescue attempt. Maybe. Or maybe it will just be a break in the trip north and nothing more. I don’t know which one to hope for. I don’t want anyone to be killed trying to save me; I don’t want to be buried in a Hanoi prison. How could they ever let me go in a prisoner exchange? I probably know too much. I replay the conversation with Phuong over and over in my mind. A squad or a company or maybe a whole battalion of NVA commandos will be there to ambush the American rescue team. If there is any truth to one of those men being a spy back at the Cambodia supply station, I know Dad will do whatever it takes to rescue me. Maybe he’ll even come to Nong Fa to save me himself.

But what if he does come? He could be killed. The rescue team could be slaughtered. And it will be my fault. I have to think of something, anything. But even if I run away right now, somehow get away from Phuong and Khiem, I have no way to warn anybody.

The only chance I have is to go to Nong Fa and look for an opportunity to somehow signal the rescuers that it’s a trap. Maybe Phuong is tired of the war, tired of all the killing. Maybe she told me about the spy and the rescue and the ambush not to stop me from warning the Americans, but to make sure I do, so they can escape. So that I can get away, too.

I shake my head to clear it out, because even as I have those thoughts, I know how ridiculous they are. Stupid daydreams about playing hero, saving the day, being John Wayne. Why don’t I just grab a machine gun and shoot down all the bad guys while I’m at it?

I have a distant memory of having prayed not long after I was captured, but no memory of any prayer being answered. But maybe that isn’t the point of prayer. I haven’t been to church enough to know, but I think maybe it’s a comfort thing. I decide to try again, and start off well enough: “My God.” Only the prayer doesn’t progress any further. Just “My God,” over and over, like a heartbeat. After a while it is my heartbeat. My God, My God, My God. My God.

Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu.

The trail takes us to high ridges as we continue our journey, with long views of rolling mountains, rising one after another like a pod of great whales swimming through a green ocean. In the early mornings, the world is soaked in mist, which gradually settles into valleys, leaving the mountaintops exposed as if they’re resting on clouds and not connected at all to the same earth as us. There are narrow waterfalls, gothic rock formations, terraced rice paddies, and forest canopy as far as I can see. We hear thunder some days that isn’t really thunder but bombing raids over the horizon on other sections of the network of trails. Twice at night the sky blazes with lightning that isn’t lightning, either, and more thunder. We see gashes in the jungle where jets have been shot down, and crashed and burned; black napalm smears on mountainsides; ghost valleys bleached white by Agent Orange.

But for all that, there’s still more jungle that will never be destroyed or burned or erased, still more hidden trails and paths and roads and supply stations and columns of bo doi making the anguished months-long trek, carrying the war through the Wild West of Laos and Cambodia down into South Vietnam.

The terrain gradually changes as we descend from the high trails, until we find ourselves winding our way through groves of giant bamboo. Phuong says it means we’re getting closer to Nong Fa. She says she was there once before, but she doesn’t remember to warn us that the bamboo will be alive with ants. And that they will rain down on us as we brush the stalks and leave us bloody with their deep bites. We try going faster, but slapping at the ants, brushing them off as soon as they land, or trying to, makes that impossible. They’re everywhere. In my hair, all over my face and arms, inside my clothes. I slap and dance and curse. We all do. But there’s no escape except to keep going.

The forest floor is strewn with razor-sharp bamboo slivers that are another hazard, our sandals barely enough protection for the undersides of our feet, and no protection at all for the sides, or our ankles and calves. Every step brings more cuts, more ant bites, more misery. We leave a bloody trail and practically cry with relief when we finally emerge out of the bamboo nightmare and into pine forest, with soft needles cushioning the way forward.

We come to another village, with a circle of men drinking through long green bamboo straws from a metal container fashioned from a bomb casing. Phuong says they’re Taliang people, and they’re drinking fermented rice, something called lao hai. They grunt when we approach but wave us off when Phuong tries to negotiate with them for food. We leave empty-handed, though they do let us wash off our blood in a small stream that snakes through their compound, with a small footbridge connecting their huts and animal pens on each side. Khiem looks longingly at a fat boar and caresses his machete.

That afternoon, we come across an enormous python in the process of swallowing a barking deer. Only the forelegs and head are still visible. The deer is somehow alive, its eyes wide with silent panic, its tongue hanging out as it gasps for air. Phuong lets Khiem use his machete this time, and he puts the barking deer out of its misery. We take the front half; the python keeps the rest.

A couple of hours later, after a sharp descent through the evergreen forest, we reach the rocky shore of Nong Fa, a clear blue bowl at least a mile across to more distant green hills—islands or peninsulas, it’s impossible to tell. I sink to my knees in the face of it, the ridiculous beauty opening before us like a dream. Cloudless sky. Cool cross-breezes kissing the water, stirring up intersecting ripples. Phuong and Khiem sit on rocks next to me. We slip out of our sandals and slide our feet into the lake. It wouldn’t surprise me if all my wounds are healed when I pull them back out.

“Are you going in?” I ask Phuong.

“The bottom is too soft for wading,” she says. “So this may be as far in as I go. But you’re welcome to swim—as long as you stay close to the shore.”

She puts her sandals on, stands up, and studies the boundaries of the lake. I follow her gaze, picturing American gunships blasting over the horizon, swooping in low over the lake, while NVA commandos in camouflage burst from their hiding places with their antiaircraft weapons, Phuong and Khiem and me caught in the middle.

But the afternoon stays quiet.

Khiem leaves to gather firewood, so he can roast the barking deer. He didn’t bother to dress the carcass before, but just slung it over his shoulder and carried it with us, blood and guts dripping behind him. Phuong follows him to help. I stay at the water’s edge, with nowhere else to go, and try wading in. Like Phuong said, there’s no solid bottom, though, just soft ground that gives way so that almost as soon as I start in, I’m up to my chin and treading water. Clouds of sediment rise around me like a dirty bath. I swim out to clear water, duck under, and scrub my face and hair clean of all the sweat and grime. Then I turn over and float on my back under the pale blue sky.

No gunships come into view. No bombs. No automatic weapon fire. No rescue attempt. No ambush.