Geronimo

From Irk at Sobaka:

...So we were hitting at the hard dirt, not even a knife, just our bare hands and a circle of tin that bent at wicked inclines every time it hit a stone. Murat, a soldier, wanted me to teach him English, so to tie up my mind I said class was in session.

"Dirt," I said. "Stone. Snow. Ice..." If I desired escape, I picked a pretty lousy way to go about it.

"I'd like to know," Murat asked after I'd lapsed into silence, "what do the Americans say before they die?"

Can't say I'd thought too much about that before. I thought of amusing myself with something blue - "Oh shit!" was my first thought - but comedy wasn't always appreciated when you're basically human cargo, and your value to your buddies is worth considerably less than a good box of ammo.

"We say Geronimo," I told him. I said that it was a word with deep meaning that couldn't be explained to foreigners.

Eleven years later, Murat waved. Two Abkhaz, now wearing pretty good looking uniforms, were holding me at the border. It was a familiar feeling. I was still unwanted cargo.

Murat waved from across a line we couldn't cross.

"Geronimo!"