Combat infantryman Dick Dixon crouched in a foxhole, the Vietnam War waging around him. Suddenly, something tripped the wire along the defensive perimeter and sent up a flare.

Dixon grabbed his gun and jumped up, ready to meet the enemy. But he was completely unprepared for what he was about to face.

“I was looking a tiger right in the eye,” he said. “He had no sign of fear. I was sure he had me in mind for his supper. I was so mesmerized by this cat, I couldn’t move.”

Years later, now an author, Dixon has completed work on his new book, “Dillon’s War, the Weretiger of Kontum.”

He wanted to document his memoirs of Vietnam but didn’t want to write a war book. He wanted to create a fictional story with a fictional character and use the war as a backdrop. Hence, the story’s protagonist, Mike Dillon, was born.

“He’s a strange kind of loner,” Dixon said. “He’s a lieutenant in the war that graduated from the University of Washington.”

But as the story began to take shape and characters formed, odd things started to happen.

“As I started to write about my time in Vietnam, there were things that came out that I hadn’t remembered until then,” he said. “The book was very cathartic. While I was writing, I’d mention things to my wife and she’d say, ‘You never told me that before.’ ”

Even though his personal encounter with the tiger was very brief, he wanted to include the majestic beast in his story. As the pages began to fill with words, the memory of the beautiful cat kept moving to the forefront of the author’s conscience.

“More and more, the tiger kept coming back,” Dixon said. “The tiger took over. The more I wrote, the more I sensed that the tiger was in charge.”

The feline presence was so overwhelming that it literally became enmeshed with the main character. Out of the pages of Dillon’s War, the weretiger emerged.

“When he meets the tiger, the tiger attacks but doesn’t kill him,” Dixon said. “They bond together in a preternatural alliance and hunt together.”

Dillon gets into trouble when the Montagnards, the indigenous people of the Central Highlands of Vietnam, become aware of the unusual relationship. Mired by ancient notions, the Montagnards don’t distinguish man and tiger as two separate beings.

“They’re very superstitious, and they see them as one,” Dixon said. “They think he’s a weretiger — a shape shifter.”

Dillon’s real dilemma begins when, spurred by the Montagnards’ beliefs, a hunter is brought in to track down and kill the weretiger.

“The story moves pretty fast,” Dixon said.

The setting is geographically correct.

“All the places in Vietnam are real,” Dixon said. “They’re all real cities, and the battles are real.”

The book’s characters are all fictional except for one, Dave Duryee, who appears as himself.

“He was a college classmate of mine,” Dixon said. “When I told him he was going to be in the story, he was absolutely thrilled.”

Dillon’s War is available in hard copy and on Amazon.com. It has consistently received five-star ratings from its online readers.

Dixon will sign copies of the book at 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Gig Harbor/Peninsula branch of the Pierce County Library System alongside Karen Lovett, Key Peninsula author of “Beneath the Surface,” a romantic suspense story set in the shadow of the Olympic Mountains.

Dixon’s previously published work, “My Heroes Have Always Been Dogs,” also has roots in Vietnam. It follows a pair of real-life war dogs that eventually become casualties of the war.

Dixon is a member of Lakebay Writers and spends his spare time working with the low vision program through the Gig Harbor Lions Club at Harbor Optical on Point Fosdick Drive NW.

He has two more books in line to be published: “Into the Valley of the Shadow,” a collection of short stories about war and peace, and “A Wet Bird Never Flies at Night, Confessions of an Infantry Soldier.”

Book signing
Author Dick Dixon will sign copies of his new book, “Dillon’s War, the Weretiger of Kontum,” at 2 p.m. Feb. 26 at the Gig Harbor/Peninsula branch of the Pierce County Library System, 4424 Point Fosdick Drive NW in Gig Harbor, along with Key Peninsula Author Karen Lovett, who will sign copies of her book, “Beneath the Surface.

Lifestyles Coordinator and reporter Susan Schell can be reached at 253-853-9240 or by email at susan.schell@gateline.com.