The moment we got within earshot, Shorty popped on up like Wonder Bread out of a toaster, all grins. “Well, if it isn’t our favorite WAC! Come on and join us, Miss Hightower.”
Others seemed wary, edging away from the log Shorty gestured to.
“Now tell me, boys, do you do this every night?” Dorie asked, settling neatly on the log, her legs crossed at the ankles.
“Just Fridays,” Second John volunteered. “We have a later start before chores tomorrow morning, and then . . .” His eyes suddenly widened, and I turned. Please don’t let it be another raccoon in the cookhouse trash.
Only to see Jimmy Morrissey shuffling over, hands jammed in his coat pockets.
When I looked at Dorie, she was smirking back, bringing out the dimple on her left cheek.
I stepped aside to widen the circle and let Jimmy in. “Welcome. We’re glad to have you.”
One quick glance up at my face as he passed, that was all. “Thanks.” He looked at the other fellows, who were openly staring. “I heard there was popcorn.”
And even I had to admit that, for all her faults, Dorie Armitage had done at least one good thing tonight.
Later, after the fire flickered to glowing embers and some of the banter had died down, Shorty made his usual request: “Who’s got a story?”
It was no surprise when Dorie stood to a few hoots of appreciation for the “new girl.”
But it was a surprise when the first words that left her mouth were, “Gather round, my children, and listen to a tale that’s truly true.”
I saw my frozen expression reflected in a ring around the fire.
We’d heard those words before, nearly every week. And we all knew perfectly well who usually spoke them.
In the sudden quiet, Dorie’s eyebrows lurched up just a fraction. Did she realize what she’d just done?
Help her.
But what was I supposed to do?
“Say,” Third John piped up, “who do you think you are? Jack?”
Only the barest second of a pause passed before she tilted her head and asked, “Who’s Jack?”
I knew she was only covering for herself, but it still rankled, hearing her dismiss her own brother so easily.
“The fellow who started every story with that line,” Lloyd finally answered. “He’s gone now.”
“Ooh,” she said slowly, turning to me with a smile. “So that’s why Mr. Hooper told me to say that. I thought it was just a tradition.”
They relaxed, even Lloyd . . . all except me. Ah, that makes sense, they were thinking, accepting the quick lie because they wanted to trust the woman telling it.
The distraction dealt with, Dorie launched into a saga of the imaginary cat her fellow WACs pretended to have by setting out dishes of milk—Bogie, named after Humphrey Bogart.
But I couldn’t focus, couldn’t laugh along with her punchlines or the caricatured imitation of the furious cook searching for a cat who never appeared. Sure, I wasn’t speaking the lies, but I sat there while Dorie did, not contradicting her, which felt just as bad. At least that’s what Quaker ethics would tell me.
“To this day,” Dorie said, her voice all mischief and merriment, “Cook still inspects us for cat hair when we come on KP duty, and she swears she’s heard a cat in the hall. Just like this.” Her voice changed to an inquisitive meow, then a rumble of a surprisingly realistic purr.
This drew appreciative applause, and Dorie threw herself into a bow.
I busied myself with adding another log to the fire as the others debated who would have to follow that act. Shorty, not taking the hint that I wasn’t volunteering, piped up. “How about you, Gordon?”
I fell back on the line my own mother had used a hundred times: “Nothing dramatic has ever happened to me.”
As I said it, I relived it all again in my mind: the limp hand sticking out just past the back tire, the choking fumes, the sirens, too late to do any good.
Hadn’t I said I never lied?
That’s personal. A family matter. They don’t need to know about that.
“Why don’t you tell them about Clara?” Dorie suggested.
I stiffened. Nora Hightower wouldn’t know about Clara Hooper, not if we’d just met.
But I didn’t say that, of course. If they questioned her, Dorie would throw out another lie, and they’d all believe her. Again.
And I would say nothing. Again.
“Oooh, Claaara,” Shorty singsonged, batting his eyelashes furiously, the way he always did when the conversation turned to girls back home. “Who’s that?”
I raised a brow. “She was my great-great-grandmother.”
“Oh.” Shorty deflated, but only temporarily, having a large backup stash of hot air to refill with. “Well, go on. What was so special about her?”
“I don’t tell stories.” Not like Jack.
Dorie clicked her tongue. “Oh pish. That’s no excuse. We want to hear about her, don’t we, boys?” There was a general chorus of agreement.
I glared at her. She smiled warmly. And all the others waited.
There was nothing to do but to launch in. “My Quaker ancestor Clara Hooper was born all the way back in 1821. Nearly every slave who passed through her doors made it all the way to freedom in Canada.”
I told them what I knew, the stories my mother had passed on about a relative with real courage and conviction. About the false-bottomed wagon she used to deliver her husband’s carpentry work—along with extra cargo. About the hidden root cellar dug deep and wide and filled with blankets and provisions. About one man who’d come all the way from Louisiana, nearly mad from being bit by a rabid animal, and how she had nursed him back to health without getting caught by Hiram Bates, the shifty local sheriff.
“Seems too crazy to believe,” Shorty said, shaking his head. “You’re not making this up, are you?”
I shook my head. “My mother found and transcribed Clara’s diary, recording the names of the freedmen and women she helped, along with stories of their escape.”
Lloyd stood and stirred the fire, casting a long and eerie shadow. “What happened to the ones who didn’t make it?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You said that ‘nearly’ all of the slaves escaped. That implies that some did not. What about them?”
Leave it to aspiring lawyer Lloyd to notice a detail like that. I searched my memory through all of the tales Mother had told about Clara as she referred to her diary with its spindle-thin handwriting. I couldn’t think of an answer.
“Guess I never asked. I’m sure they were caught somewhere along the way and sent back. Mother always did like stories with happy endings.” Probably because her own life didn’t have enough of them.
“I know all about that,” Dorie chimed in. “I about threw my umbrella at the screen when the credits rolled on Casablanca. What’s the point of crying when you can laugh?”
“And that,” Shorty broke in, tossing a candy bar wrapper into the fire so it flared up, “is why I ought to get to go next.”
Despite groans, Shorty insisted that Miss Hightower, at least, hadn’t heard this one, and regaled us all with the time Sarah Ruth Morrissey, in her lumberjack alter ego as Paulette Bunyan, tamed and rode an elk through the Cascade Mountains to deliver an urgent message to the national park there.
All of it nonsense, but Shorty told it with a perfectly straight face, and it was nice to hear a woman’s laughter weaving in with ours.
By the time curfew approached and we’d doused the fire—checked and double-checked for any embers—I’d almost forgotten some of my worries about Jack, about the future, about what Dorie was doing here.
Almost. But it never quite left me, the feeling that things weren’t what they should be.
Don’t worry. He’ll recover and be back here in no time. That’s what Dorie would assure me, and that night, I chose to believe it, because I didn’t want to think about the alternative.
CHAPTER 13
&nb
sp; Dorie Armitage
January 20, 1945
Typically, a detective’s initial investigation produces a long list of the victim’s enemies, indiscretions, and clandestine activities. Jilted lovers, mobster cousins, gambling debts, embezzlement, blackmail, that sort of thing.
But my interview with First and Third John as they swept the mess hall hadn’t produced a speck of dust on Jack. Oh, we’d gotten around to the subject of the fire. An enthusiastic description of the thrill of smokejumping had turned suddenly sober when I asked if anyone ever got hurt. But they’d passed along the party line: One of their men was injured in an accident a week before. He’d been well liked, responsible, and hardworking.
The only fragment of information I’d gained was simple but possibly useful: Thomas Martin hadn’t gotten along with Jack.
“He doesn’t get along with most people, though,” Third John added, ducking his head at a reproachful look from First John. “Anyway, I heard them fighting not too long before . . . you know. The accident.”
I was fairly sure I remembered a Thomas from the bonfire the night before, the dour-looking fellow with a short, dark beard and an ugly bruise under his eye. His glare had fallen often enough in my direction that I suspected my military credentials didn’t impress him. “Do you know where Mr. Martin might be now?”
“Behind the ranger station. He got sent to chop wood with Jimmy Morrissey.”
To keep my cover of an official report, I asked them a few meaningless questions about the food quality and medical care, taking notes as if all of it mattered. By the time I’d broken away, Jimmy was alone, leaning against a stack of newly cut wood with his nose in a comic book, which he tried to hide behind his back when he saw me.
“You just missed him,” he said when I asked after Thomas. “Started the walk into town only ten minutes ago to go to the hardware store. Why d’you want to talk to him?”
“Nothing much. I just hear he’s the one to go to for lighthearted conversation.”
Jimmy frowned and cocked his head, like he was wondering why the War Department would need that. Then his face brightened. “Say, I was thinking of going into town today. If you want someone to walk you there.”
That was a thought. Sure, I could wait until Thomas came back, but this could be a good chance to get him alone—and to ask Jimmy Morrissey a few pointed questions along the way.
So that’s how I ended up jaunting down a dirt road toward civilization, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face and listening to Jimmy recall the entire plot of the latest Superman comic to me after I foolishly feigned interest. It took me the whole trip to find a gap to transition the conversation to what I really wanted to discuss.
“Did Superman ever rescue anyone from a fire, Jimmy?”
You could see him mentally flipping through a dusty archive of hundreds of dogeared comic books before blurting, “Sure! The one about the circus. They made a Technicolor cartoon of it. Lois Lane was cornered by a giant gorilla, see—”
“Oh my,” I said, trying to head this one off, “but what about—”
“—and Superman tried to rescue her, only he wrestled the gorilla right into the power lines and set the tent on fire.” Jimmy gestured to an imaginary canvas stretching up above him. “Then he saved the day by snatching Lois out of the flames just in time.”
“Fascinating.” By now, we’d made it from the dirt road to the paved main street of Clayton, two miles from the national forest’s entrance. It reminded me of my own hometown: the storefronts faded but neat, inviting displays in their windows, and folks who nodded at you as you passed by.
I tried again to gain control of the situation before I heard a summary of every Technicolor superhero cartoon ever made. “Wouldn’t it be nice if all fires were that easy to deal with? No one getting hurt?”
If he caught my implication, he sure didn’t show it as he nodded eagerly. “I’d take Superman over our crew any day. Wouldn’t that make digging the fire line easy!”
I sighed. Apparently, subtlety wasn’t the right approach. Time for another attempt. “Speaking of which, I heard about an awful fire just last week. Were you there, Jimmy?”
Almost instantly, the excitement faded from his eyes. “No.”
“But a man was injured fighting it.”
“Yeah,” he said, staring down at the sidewalk.
We’d gone from full soliloquies to one-word answers in the space of a single question. Normally, that would look suspicious, but Jimmy looked more afraid than guilty. He was, after all, just a kid, and I imagined Jack’s burns had been terrible to look at.
“Do accidents like that happen often?”
He shook his head. “Hardly ever, especially with a fire that small. That’s what I tried to tell Ma.” His voice rose defensively. “She wants me to quit smokejumping now.”
“Ah. I see.” That explained his sudden sour mood.
“It’s not fair.”
“Very little in life is.” I instantly hated myself for quoting Sergeant Bloom’s favorite line.
“Well, we’ve made it.” Jimmy pointed down the road a piece to a storefront so crowded with signs—Varnish and Paint, We Have Batteries, Plumbing and Electrical Sale—that there was no room for the goods they claimed to stock. “And there’s Thomas.”
Ahead of us, I recognized the bearded man in a dark coat on his way out of the hardware store.
Excellent.
Now, how to get rid of Jimmy?
I quickly scanned the signs until I saw one I could use. “Would you mind leaving me here and catching up with me later?” I asked innocently. “After I speak to Thomas, I have to stop by the drugstore to pick up some . . . lady things.”
Sure enough, I saw heat creep up the back of Jimmy’s neck toward his face to match his nose, red from cold. “Is twenty minutes long enough?” From the panic in his expression, he clearly had no idea how long it took to purchase “lady things” and wasn’t about to ask for details.
I tried desperately to contain a laugh. “That would be plenty.”
“Okay. I’ll be . . .” Whatever reason, real or invented, he’d originally had for coming to town had apparently fled his mind. “Going to Casey’s. Sure. You want a soda, Miss Hightower?”
Excellent. An interrogation followed by a personal beverage delivery. “I’d love that,” I said, adding extra charm to my smile. “If they have any Grapette, I’ll take one.”
Two swaggering teenagers crossed the road in front of us, the sort who probably got detention at least once a week.
One of them jerked a nod at Jimmy as he passed, and he barely raised his hand in response. In fact, I thought I’d imagined it, until I stepped off the sidewalk and Jimmy said, real quiet, “Hey, Miss Armitage? Stay away from those fellows, all right?”
I played innocent. “Friends of yours?”
He muttered something I couldn’t quite make out, then hurried away in the other direction, on a quest for Grapette.
Of course, there was almost no chance I’d be avoiding his cronies, because they were headed directly for Thomas Martin, who clutched a small brown paper bag.
It wasn’t hard to figure out what was going to happen next. Jimmy’s friends had voices that carried to me as I crossed the street, raised several notches by bluster and bravado.
“Aren’t you gonna answer me, conchie?” The fellow with curly dark hair tore the bag from Thomas’s hand, and as the paper fell away, it unleashed a rain of small, dark pebbles that scattered across the sidewalk and into the gutter.
No, not pebbles. Sunflower seeds.
“Nah, I bet he hasn’t got a tongue or a spine.” The blond one shoved Thomas square in the middle of his chest, and he stumbled off the curb, falling to the pavement.
Blondie was raising his boot-clad foot to kick Thomas while he was down when I brought out my best sergeant snarl. “What’s going on here?”
And didn’t they jump like the schoolboys they were, turning to face the wrath of the teacher. Du
nce caps for both of them.
They relaxed a bit once they realized I was a stranger, not one of their mothers or the preacher’s wife or any other female with real authority in their lives.
“He’s a yellow-bellied conchie, lady,” Blondie said, clearly expecting that to be enough of an answer. Thomas struggled to his feet, slightly favoring his right leg.
I smirked, keeping their attention squarely on me. “Oh, I’m seeing a display of cowardice, all right, but it’s not from him.”
The leader’s attitude changed almost instantly from bravado to hostility. “This is none of your business.” He grabbed my arm, as if to yank me away.
In a flash, I flexed my arm against his, tightening my grip before twisting loose like we’d learned in training. He rubbed his arm where I’d broken free. “Say, what’s your problem?”
That does it. I took off my coat, yanking my arms out one at a time, and the brown-haired stooge hooted, “She’s gonna fight you, Elmer!”
Elmer’s bravado and shoulders drooped, as if he was contemplating whether he should hit a girl, until he noticed the uniform I’d revealed. “Y-you’re a soldier?”
“That’s right. A bona fide GI Jane. And I’d like to order a retreat.” When they didn’t move, I added, “Yours. Now.”
And didn’t they just scatter like dandelions in the wind.
I chuckled to myself. By this time tomorrow, the whole town would know a WAC had arrived in Flintlock Mountain District.
Thomas was trying to brush the dirt from his pants where he’d hit the ground. He looked up only briefly, and I noticed bruising around his right eye. From the bullies? No, it had been there before, at the bonfire. “You shouldn’t have done that. ‘Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’”
I smiled jauntily. “Well, what do you know? God decided to repay by sending me to shout some sense into two knuckle-headed bullies.”
When he bent down to scoop up some of the scattered birdseed, I joined him. He shoveled a few handfuls into his pocket, but much of it had gotten into the gutter or was scattered in the slush-ridden dents and dimples of the street. “Are you going back to buy more?”
The Lines Between Us Page 12