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First Blood (novel)First Blood is a 1972 American action-thriller novel by David Morrell about a troubled homeless Vietnam War veteran, known only by his last name of Rambo, who wages a brutal one-man war against local and state police in Kentucky. It was notably adapted into the 1982 film First Blood starring Sylvester Stallone, which ended up spawning an entire media franchise around the Rambo character.

Plot
The story centers arounds a homeless Vietnam veteran known only by his last name, Rambo. He wanders into Madison, a town in fictional Basalt County, Kentucky, and is quickly intercepted by the local police chief, Wilfred Teasle, who drives him to the town limits and orders him to stay out. When Rambo repeatedly returns, Teasle finally arrests him on charges of vagrancy and resisting arrest, and gets permission to hold him for 35 days in jail. Stripped naked and kept inside a claustrophobia-inducing cell, Rambo experiences a flashback to his days as a POW in Vietnam, and he attacks the police as they attempt to cut his hair and shave him, grabbing a straight razor and using it to disembowel an officer. Still naked, he forces his way out, steals a motorcycle, and hides in the nearby mountains.

Teasle, not wanting the state police to capture Rambo before he does, gets a helicopter pilot to search the woods and organizes a posse consisting of himself, his officers, and Orval Kellerman, an experienced hunter with a pack of highly trained dogs, to hunt Rambo down. Meanwhile, Rambo stumbles across an illegal still and persuades the moonshiners operating it to provide him with clothes and food; he also talks them into giving him a lever-action rifle. The posse catches up with Rambo, who is cornered by the helicopter and fires on it in self-defense; the pilot panics and loses control, causing the chopper to crash and explode. When the posse arrives, Rambo shoots two of Orval's dogs; the frightened animals leap off a cliff, taking an officer with them, and Orval is fatally wounded when he goes to check on them.

After Teasle's officers start firing wildly and waste most of their ammunition trying to kill Rambo, several desert their posts and try to make their way back to town as a violent cloudburst stirs up. Rambo obtains a hunting knife, canteen, and pistol by looting the bodies of the dead, and ambushes the fleeing officers, killing them one by one until only Teasle remains. The chief loses his gun, but Rambo's caution, the rain, and Teasle's own determination not to die enables him to escape with his life. He is rescued by the state police and, once his condition is stabilized, gets the National Guard to send several detachments of troops to assist with the manhunt.

It is eventually revealed to Teasle that Rambo was a member of an elite Green Beret unit in Vietnam; he has extensive experience in guerrilla warfare and survival tactics, and received the Medal of Honor for actions above and beyond the call of duty while in Vietnam. Since his discharge from the Army, he has been unable to hold down a job, thus forcing him to live as a drifter. Teasle, bitter over the deaths of his men but also finding himself sympathetic to Rambo's plight, insists on helping capture him even though his health is beginning to deteriorate from the injuries he suffered while pursuing Rambo. Rambo also finds himself torn between his instinct to keep fighting and his sense of self-preservation; he refuses to take the opportunity to escape because the rush of battle is simply too much for him to resist.

Teasle meets Colonel Sam Trautman, the director of the Green Beret program; Trautman helps reorganize the National Guard units to better track Rambo, who is struggling with his wounds and starving. Two civilians hunting him alert the Guard to his presence before being killed, and Rambo seals himself inside an abandoned mine, where he is badly bitten and scratched by a bat colony while looking for a way out. Teasle finally collapses and is taken back to town, where he wakes up in his office after having a vision that reveals where Rambo is headed next: Madison. Having stolen a police car and a supply of dynamite, Rambo starts blowing up most of the town, including the police station, and sets fire to two gas stations.

Teasle, anticipating his path, manages to surprise Rambo and shoots him in the chest, but is himself wounded in the stomach by a return shot. Rambo flees town, and Teasle follows. Both men are essentially dying by this point; the only thing keeping them alive is a mix of pride and a desire to justify their actions. As Trautman and the Guard arrive, Rambo makes his way out to a shed, where he prepares to commit suicide using his last stick of dynamite. Seeing Teasle walking towards him and deciding that it would be better to die fighting, Rambo fires at him to get his attention, but to his surprise and disappointment, Teasle is hit and falls over. For a moment, Rambo reflects on how he had missed his chance of a decent death because he is now too weak to light the fuse, then suddenly feels the explosion he had expected � but in the head, not the stomach. Rambo dies, satisfied that he has come to a fitting end. Trautman returns to the dying Teasle and tells him that he managed to finish off Rambo with a shotgun. Teasle relaxes, experiences a moment of affection for Rambo, and then dies.

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