Winning The Hearts And Minds

“Like Mike here was saying, I come out, try to help these folks out in the village here. But then, tell y’all, just a day ago, a kid came out from a hut and pulled on me.”

“A kid with a grenade?”

“Nothin’ like that. This young boy was begging for me to help his mama. I don’t speak the lingo, but I got the meaning.”

“So what did he want?”

“He pulls me toward his hut. Could tell he was for real.”

Rye had a more cautious approach. “Time for pulling away and not getting sucked in, JoJo!”

“Well, I follows him anyway into that hut.”

“You’re nuts, man. Coulda been a trap.”

“Turns out nothin’ like it. There’s this woman, guess she must be his mama. She’s lyin’ on a straw mattress, full-blown labor. You know, like the baby’s coming right out.”

“Seen it a number of times,” Thor said.

Rye asked, “What’d you do?”

“What y’all goin’ to do…I had the kid fill a bucket a water and I grabbed clothes from a pile to wipe it down. Had to do somethin’.”

“And?”

“That mother delivered…you know, an ugly little thing, but sure ’nough, to her a beautiful baby.”

“No help…no family, all alone…no husband?”

“No, you see, Rye, they were all out there fightin’.”

“Fighting us?”

“Can damn well answer that, for it wasn’t an hour later I was in a firefight down the road. And would y’all believe I come to find out I killed her husband.”

“No shit.”

“You see, y’all, one hour later, I done killed this baby’s father, all in winnin’ the hearts and minds of these here people.”