“I’ve slept on the ground before.”
I laughed brightly. “Yes, I’m sure you’ve roughed it on logging expeditions with Paul Bunyan.”
She stared. “Paul Bunyan wasn’t real. And he lived in Minnesota and the Dakotas, not Oregon.”
She clearly hadn’t heard the nickname Shorty had given her. “Well, I suppose it’s time to get our beauty sleep.”
“You’ll need a blanket.” Her eyes roamed the length of me with one eyebrow cockeyed, and I realized how I must seem to her, dressed in blue silk pajamas with a bow at the waist and a pair of calfskin slippers, all against the backdrop of the rugged exposed beams of the lookout. Could I help it if having a paycheck for the first time in my life had driven me to the irresistible Bon Marché window displays in downtown Seattle?
“If you have an extra one, I’d appreciate it.” I tried not to shiver. Terribly drafty, these lookout towers, with just the one potbelly stove and windows for walls.
She knelt by the cot and dragged out a wooden crate. I peered over her shoulder to take a look at the contents: a first aid kit, a coil of thick rope, a shovel, matches, a lantern—and a blanket that looked like it was made from the wool of a sheep who had lost a fight with a gully full of brambles.
“Thanks,” I said, trying to sound sincere as I shook it over the cot . . . and sneezed from the cloud of dust it loosed into the lookout.
There wasn’t much to use for an evening toilette, just a basin of water and an old dishcloth that I cringed to touch to my face. Oh, for the porcelain sinks and tubs of the Stratford Hotel. Thankfully, I’d remembered to toss in my tin of cold cream, which I patted on afterward.
Time to “sleep.” Faking an elaborate yawn, I eased onto the cot . . . then sprang up with a cry.
“What’s the matter?” Sarah Ruth said, reaching for the pistol in her belt, instantly tense and alert.
By that point, I’d made it to the wall behind the stove, which was as far away as I could get without flinging myself out onto the outside platform. I indicated the warm lump under my blanket. “S-shoot it! Something alive is under there.”
Sarah Ruth watched where I pointed. “Did you feel it move?”
I nodded, eyeing the lump under my blanket. “Could it be a mouse? A squirrel? Or . . . or . . .” What sort of small animals did they have up in the mountains? “A vampire bat?”
“I think,” Sarah Ruth said, stepping around the cot to head the thing off, “it’s much more likely to belong to the rare species called a . . .” With a flick of her wrist, the blanket flew through the air. “Hot water bottle,” she finished and burst out laughing.
There, nestled cozily on the cot, was the lumpiest hot water bottle I’d ever seen. “I was sure it moved,” I grumbled. Or at least, it was meant to be a grumble, but in between, I’d lain down on the cot, and it was difficult to be cross when snuggled up to a hot water bottle.
“Let me know if you hear anything during the night,” Sarah Ruth said, pulling her own blanket over herself and blowing out the lantern that made our lookout glow like a frontier homestead. “It might be a teakettle or a pillowcase on the warpath.” She chuckled in the dark.
I huffed silently so she wouldn’t hear. We’ll see who’s laughing once I get what I came for.
It was only after several minutes of scheming my next move in the dark that I realized: There had been only one hot water bottle warming near the stove. And Sarah Ruth had given it to me.
Characters were always sneaking here and there in detective novels and romances. All of them would tell you it was easy for an eavesdropper to decipher when a person’s breathing shifted from “awake” to “asleep.” Almost as clear as a light switching on or off, or so I’d always thought.
That was a lie.
Or at least, lying on the lookout cot with Sarah Ruth bundled up only a few feet away, I couldn’t hear a single snore over the creaky floorboards as the platform groaned in the wind.
So there was nothing to do but wait for my hot water bottle to go stone cold and hope enough time had passed to be safe.
When I stood, the floor gave a loud shriek, and I stayed motionless for a few heartbeats. When the shadowed form stretched out on the floor didn’t rise or call out, I breathed again.
I’d tucked my small chrome flashlight inside my slippers and drew it out, holding it like a policeman’s baton but not turning it on, trying to move around the shadows based on my memory of Sarah Ruth’s “tour.” For a room of five yards on each side, that had mostly meant an exhaustive description of the Osborne FireFinder and how a gadget that looked like Columbus must have toted it around could determine the precise location of a blaze. I hadn’t seen a logbook out in the open anywhere, but Gordon had told me it was usually kept on the bookshelf beside the door.
I placed each slippered step with care, until a sharp pain cracked through me as my toe connected with a chair left askew from the small table in the center of the lookout. I froze, biting my tongue, but no sleepy call of “What’s going on?” interrupted me.
After a few agonizing moments, I moved again, this time more quickly. I flicked on my flashlight, shielding and focusing the light with a cupped hand, and aimed it at the shelves. Two different copies of the Bible, one in something that looked like German. A Farewell to Arms. Pilgrim’s Progress. Being and Time. The Conquest of Violence: An Essay on War and Revolution. Ugh. No wonder Gordon and his fellow COs turned out so dull, if this was what they had for light bedtime reading.
Wait.
There, resting flat on the second shelf, was a brown leatherbound book. I picked it up, glancing behind me. The heap by the stove still didn’t stir.
No embossed gold lettering, but on the interior flap, someone had written Observation Log in bold strokes. Underneath it was Roy Winters, May 18, 1937. Share what you dare. The creator of the log, I assumed, one of the CCC men who had lived at the camp nearly a decade ago.
Carefully, I paged through the book. Even though I knew what I was looking for—something the week before January 12—I couldn’t help but pause on some of the pages. Several early love poems, a hand-drawn crossword puzzle, two terrible attempts at self-portraiture, and a five-stanza epic entitled “Ode to the Commode,” signed by Shorty. A few pages later, a pencil sketch of an owl swooping in for the kill caught my eye, every detail sharp and lifelike. The tiny GH beneath its claw identified the artist.
Too talented for his own good, that Gordon Hooper. His drawings for the brochure had been breathtaking, capturing motion and beauty in a few simple lines. What could he be doing right now if Japan hadn’t bombed Pearl Harbor?
Silly. War had come, and Gordon had made his choice. So had Jack. There was no sense getting sentimental about it.
I licked my finger and paged quickly to January 1945, scanning for Jack’s familiar handwriting: neat, blocky capitals, because he hated trying to scrawl out cursive.
There. I’d found my bedtime story. Jack’s last entry, a page of musings set off in pairs.
If we participate in evil (killing) to prevent more evil (killing), how can good triumph?
Followed by the next line: Can we justify turning aside while innocents die?
Jesus said, “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also.”
And yet, “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.”
And finally, all alone and centered at the bottom of the page without reply or rebuttal, the familiar words: This is what happens when a good man does nothing.
The very same sentence I’d scrawled on that last newspaper article.
Conscientious objector or not, he was at war, all right, my brother. Not with the Axis powers. With himself.
Maybe Jack would have torn these pages out of the logbook at the end of his shift so his fellows wouldn’t know about his struggle. Or maybe he was tired of pretending and meant to let them stand.
We’d never know. Because he never ca
me back to the tower.
“I’m sorry.”
The words were spoken aloud, but only in a whisper. I breathed in deeply and blinked the tears away, thinking of the military recruitment brochure still tucked in my coat pocket. Thomas was sure Jack was on the brink of joining up. I could see upraised lines through the observation log page, showing writing on the other side. What had Jack decided?
But when I turned the page, there was no conclusion, only a headline, still in Jack’s handwriting: Spotted January 11.
The day before the fire that killed him.
There was a drawing scrawled underneath. The only parts I could identify were rough, triangle-like trees. I turned the book to the side, trying to see what it could be. It looked like a blob of mystery meat served up at a mess hall. Jack apparently hadn’t picked up any of Gordon’s talent for art.
Still, I recreated it as best I could in my notebook, tucked in the waistband of my pajamas.
Underneath the sketch was this note: Silk? Then, Report to Morrissey.
Silk. In my interviews, several men had talked about “hitting the silk,” referring to going on a parachute drop.
If that’s what Jack had spotted, why would a parachute be hidden in the woods?
“I’ll find out what really happened,” I whispered to the pages, tracing Jack’s handwriting. “You’ll see.”
“What are you doing?”
I sucked in a breath, dropping the logbook, and turned to see Sarah Ruth, blanket draped loosely around her shoulders. The dim light my flashlight threw in her direction was enough to see that she was glaring at me.
Rookie mistake. Not hearing an enemy approach over the sound of howling wind.
“I . . . I was having trouble falling asleep. So I thought I’d do some reading.” All technically true. Gordon would be proud.
Sarah Ruth took a step closer and nudged the logbook with her foot, which was covered in a thick wool sock. “I hate that book.”
Good. At least that meant her ire wasn’t directed at me personally. “What, the woodpecker sketches are a bit too much?” Her face didn’t soften, and I realized my joke had fallen on an unappreciative audience.
“The man who started it was a first-class cad.”
“Ah,” I said. Because “ah” is always the safest response where hated men are involved. If she wanted to say more about Roy Winters, she would.
“Mark my words, there’s nothing worth reading in there.” Before I could stop her, she bent down to pick up the book by its spine, straightening the bent corner on the page I’d been looking at—and inhaling sharply. “The parachute . . .”
Not “a parachute.” “The parachute.” One glance, without even time to read the words, and she’d known what the vague drawing was supposed to represent.
“What do you know about what Jack saw, Sarah Ruth?” In the pause, I snatched the Observation Log away from her. She didn’t resist, her arms retreating into the blanket again. “And don’t you dare say nothing.”
It was risky. PFC Nora Hightower, army investigator, wouldn’t have said that. But if this was my chance to crack the case, I couldn’t worry about details like that.
She was a Morrissey. This was her forest, her mountain. And that meant she might know some of its secrets.
For a moment, we stood staring at each other. Then, instead of answering, Sarah Ruth turned, floating across the lookout, her blanket cape trailing behind her, and lit a match. The kerosene lantern glowed again, and she set it on the table next to the FireFinder, studying me in the dim glow like she was peering at coordinates through its sights.
“You’re Jack’s sister, aren’t you?” she whispered, as if someone might hear us.
My hand seized the flashlight in a death grip before I could control my instincts. Could I lie my way out?
No. The way she stared at me, those too-large hazel eyes calm and certain, I knew there was no use. “How did you know?”
“Jack mentioned his sister once, when he asked me for . . .” Whatever she was going to say evaporated as she shook her head. “And you look like him. Not your features. But the way you gesture when you talk. Your laugh. That sort of thing.”
I fought my rising panic with logic. Maybe this was good. I could use this. Yes.
I held up the log. “Jack saw something the day before the fire. Did he report it to your father? Or you?” After all, she was the national forest secretary.
Her eyes darted away. “I . . . I don’t think I can answer that.”
“I see. Because your father set the fire himself and you’re trying to cover for him.”
My below-the-belt accusation, carefully aimed, connected. “No! He would never do that.”
“Oh?” I asked coolly, meeting her eyes. “Then convince me otherwise.”
She hesitated, but I was ready for that. “I’ve got nothing against you or your family, I swear. But my brother died and I don’t know why. You can’t understand how that makes me feel,” I said.
And the look in her eyes just then . . . it was like a wildcat transformed into a kitten, small and vulnerable. “Yes, I can.”
Of course. William Morrissey. A fallen hero buried in some unknown overseas location.
Don’t get distracted. Sympathy can wait. “I just want the truth. Please.”
For a moment, she stared out of the windowed wall, as if hoping the stars would rearrange to tell her what to do.
Then she creaked the lone chair away from the table. “Sit down. I’ll tell you what I know.”
I didn’t dare say a word and ruin the moment. Just sat, pulled my knees up to my chest for warmth, and listened.
The day before the fire, Morrissey had burst out of his office, demanding to know if all the parachutes were accounted for. Surprised, Sarah Ruth had checked the storage shed, comparing the inventory to her list. Every parachute pack was neatly lined up on the shelf in its place.
When she brought back the report, her father had immediately made a call to the regional supervisor’s office, leaving his office door cracked open enough for Sarah Ruth to hear every word.
“‘Our lookout’s spotted something odd, Baumgartner. A downed parachute in our district.’ He paused. ‘No, it’s not one of ours. Do you think it could have—’ Another pause, longer. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Why would the army need to get involved? I’m sure the Forest Service can handle whatever—yes, sir. I’ll tell him you’re reporting it. Can you tell me anything else?’
“And then,” Sarah Ruth said, shrugging, “he ended with, ‘Yes, sir. I understand.’ But it didn’t sound like he understood. He sat there for a while, quiet. Then he called the lookout.”
“Jack.”
She nodded. “I heard him say, ‘Armitage, under no circumstances should you investigate that parachute.’ Then, ‘I don’t know. But it’ll be taken care of. There’s a time for asking questions . . . and there’s a time for following orders.’”
As a WAC, I’d heard statements like that before. “You’re sure?”
“Wouldn’t you remember, if the next day there was . . . that awful fire?”
Of course I would. Especially if the lookout my father talked to had later died from his injuries.
“I don’t know what they were talking about, but it was like . . . like someone knew what was going to happen.” Sarah Ruth’s voice, once steady as her trigger finger, actually shook, and she wrapped the blanket tighter around herself. “Like they could have stopped it but didn’t.”
“Is that what your father thought?”
The edges of the blanket rose with her shrug. “I waited for him to come home that night, after the fire. It was late.” Her voice caught. “He . . . he didn’t look good.”
I could picture that, all right. Earl Morrissey, smelling of smoke with the hangdog look of a soldier dragged out of a failed mission. I’d met them at the hospital, men who’d woken up on a battlefield, trapped under debris and fallen bodies, who’d watched their buddies die in front of them
. . . but they’d survived. Alive but marked by guilt. Maybe that was why Morrissey’s shifting expression had seemed so familiar. I’d met a hundred other men like him, plagued by guilt they shouldn’t have to bear.
“I asked him what happened, and all he said was, ‘Something’s not right, Ruthie. The army’s coming. Here. To this forest.’”
That fit with what Lloyd had told Gordon, seeing the jeeps at dawn the day after the fire.
“When I asked why,” Sarah Ruth continued, “he said he didn’t know. Swore—which he’s only done in front of me one other time that I can remember. Told me no one was answering his questions, everything was classified. ‘They’ve got no right to keep secrets, not when it affects my forest, my boys,’ he said.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“I thought so too. But we Morrisseys—well, we’re not the nosy sort. We stick together, do our duty, and don’t ask questions. So I let it be.”
The perfect motto for a mobster clan . . . but maybe one that was on the side of good all along.
If I believed Sarah Ruth’s story.
“Have you learned anything since then?” I pressed.
“Dad’s been working late, typing his own letters instead of dictating them to me, and making more calls than normal.” Her smile was wry and brief. “Mama’s going to have a fit when she sees the bill. To strange places too. Some of the other national forests, but also Washington, D.C., and Seattle and a library in Portland, plus a few newspapers and an old war buddy. I searched through the outgoing mail. Didn’t have the guts to open them. I don’t know how many wrote back, because that’s when you showed up and I left for lookout duty.”
My mind was jumping ahead. Letters. That meant documentation. Probably kept with the photographs from Charlie’s camera.
How could Gordon and I get to them without raising Morrissey’s suspicions?
“But you see . . .” she said, stepping back into my line of sight and snapping my attention back. Her face was somber, searching. “Whatever happened to Jack, it’s not my father’s fault.”
I should have just agreed, to pacify her. No sense being stuck in a tower with an angry daughter. But I couldn’t help asking, “Then whose was it?”
The Lines Between Us Page 20