A long time ago, a boy rode naked through an early morning desert. Hot sun and cold wind competed deliciously, fire and ice against his skin. He spun his motorcycle across the ground, kicking rooster-tails of sand against scrub brush and cactus. There was no fear of sandpaper earth, no sense of danger from a bare-skinned spill, for the boy was a child, a six-foot, one-inch growing child who knew nothing of accident, injury, dismemberment, death -- who would study those lessons tomorrow, thank you, but not today. Today it was sufficient to be wild and free.

His eyes turned up to the hawk. Its muted white underside was almost lost against the brightness of the sky. He veered sharply to stay beneath the bird. He whistled up a parched arroyo, shimmied across loose gravel at the top, nearly lost it there, nearly laid the machine on its side, but powered the rear wheel around and came upright. He wound his way up a mineral path, past ocotillos, creosote bushes, jumping chollas, paloverde trees, past giant sentinels of saguaro cactus, to the top of a hill.

He slid broadside to a stop. He surveyed the living desert, the great Sonoran Desert of Arizona. Saguaro-stubbled mountains diamond-etched their profiles across his retinas -- brown, beautiful brown, against an enormous overturned bowl of crystal blue sky. He could not understand; he was awed that such a plain color as brown could be so varied, so beautiful, so inspired. The pungent odor of a creosote bush wafted through his nostrils. The hawk soared above.

Today was the end of freedom. High school had fallen behind; college loomed ahead. Tomorrow he traded freedom and Arizona for Colorado and discipline.

The hawk folded its wings and dived, stooping to a hapless desert rabbit. The boy envied the bird its everlasting wildness, wished he, too, could soar forever through these canyons of saguaro. The hawk struck its target and rose heavily into the air beating the white feathers of its under-wings against the wind, carrying a furry packet impaled on razor talons.

The boy gunned the cycle down the other slope of the hill, got airborne over a small hump as he picked up speed. The wind played cool fingers through short brown hair, pinched his nipples. He loved the power between his legs, the feel of leather and metal, the dominance over a machine -- and was oblivious to the machine's reciprocal power over himself.

And he loved the desert. He was its child, it was his home. He'd lived there all his life.

Seven years later, he walked across a black asphalt sea, older and a bit taller, a gangling young man. He was a fledgling hawk now, shaped by the art and discipline of military flying, but a boy was still there inside.

White block letters over the entrance to the air terminal shouted at his eyes:

Probably a greeting. He puzzled at the meaning and smiled inwardly. The sign undoubtedly said "Welcome and Affectionate Salutations to All Who Enter the Glorious Tan Son Nhut Air Base, Home of Seventh Air Force, Only Minutes From Beautiful Saigon." Or perhaps not; he had no way of knowing. It might have read "Welcome to the Dungheap of Despair -- Abandon Cheer, All Ye Who Enter."

First Lieutenant Steve Mylder paused on the tarmac, lifted the front of his blue serge flight cap above a widow's peak of close-cropped brown hair, and wiped a film of moisture from his forehead. Deep-set English blue eyes glanced down past a slightly oversized nose and surveyed the front of a tall, Lincolnesque body. He smoothed his khaki shirt at the belt line of khaki trousers and checked that fly, buckle, buttons made a proper military line.

The air smelt of rain and felt of mugginess. A solid overcast hid the mid-afternoon sky. Steve tacked around oily puddles dotting the shining wet tarmac. Asphalt ripples and patches rode across the surface like waves and froth, washing against a terminal building which sank slowly into the frozen blacktop sea.

Desolate, he thought, working a metaphor. The whole country is sinking.

Steve found his bags imbedded within a pile of suitcases, trunks, duffels, and hangups dumped into the middle of the dusty concrete floor of a large room inside the terminal. The only illumination was from dishwater light filtering from the bottom of the gray overcast through grimy windows. He wryly wondered that someone had found the optimism to bring a tennis racquet; it was sloppily tied to the handle of an overflowing duckbilled flight bag by heavy brown twine. Another optimist had brought a golf bag.

They're not going where I'm going, he realized. Somewhere the sun shines and the grass grows, but it ain't Danang.

Steve saw no need to change his opinion or depressed mood on the ride to the Visiting Officer's Quarters. On his way into the office, however, he was pleased to find a familiar face. Vaguely familiar, that is, because the last he'd seen it, it had been smoothly shaven; now it was prolifically mustachioed.

"Don," he called to the flight-suited man who brushed by him on the way out. "Don Casper."

Don turned abruptly and smiled. "First Lieutenant Steven W. Mylder!" he mocked pleasantly. "My, my, look what the cat dragged in. I haven't seen you since the Academy."

"Couldn't let you guys have all the fun." There was much more gusto in Steve's reply than he felt.

"How long you been here? What're you flying?"

"Just arrived. I'm going up to Danang in F-4s," Steve said. "How about you?"

"Oh, I've been around a couple of months." There was a faint but unmistakable swagger in Don's attitude. "I'm in Thuds. Out of Korat."

Steve suffered a pang of envy. "Thud" was the endearing name given to the F-105, a high-performance fighter otherwise known as the "Thunderchief." It was a hot plane, sleek and clean, although not as hot as the F-4C "Phantom II" that Steve flew. The critical difference was that the Thud had but a single seat, while the Phantom was a two-pilot plane with an "aircraft commander" in the front seat to do most of the flying and a "pilot" in the back seat to do almost everything except pilot. Steve was in the back.

"Meet me at the O-club tonight," Don said. "We can drink and yak about the Blue Zoo. We could troll for girls, too, but there's not many you'd look at twice unless you're snockered."

Steve found his quarters -- an austere but comfortable single room and bath. There was an Army blanketed bed, a small closet, a chest of drawers with a mirror, a desk and chair, and a brown painted steam radiator that had probably never seen use. He flung his cap onto the dresser, unfolded his long frame onto the bed, yawned and stretched his arms overhead, intending to rest just a few minutes.