Still, she’d be busy on the farm. She would need the work clothes more than dresses.
Foremost on her mind, however, was her father and the questions that she couldn’t stop from churning in her head.
Why had she lost so much in three years? First Mom, now Dad. And her brother? She’d discovered, after calling Lloyd on Monday night, that he was too sick to travel home for the funeral. He had been taken to the sanitarium in Mt. Vernon, Missouri, with a possible diagnosis of tuberculosis. The test results wouldn’t be final for several weeks, and until then, he would be kept isolated from his family. Typical of Lloyd, he had decided not to call Bertie or Dad about it until he had the results.
Instead of coming to Dad’s funeral, Lloyd was being forced to grieve alone.
Bertie could only pray the final diagnosis was negative. If it was positive, her prayers would be that her sister-in-law, Mary, and her little niece and nephew, Joann and Steven, hadn’t contracted the horrible disease from him.
How much was one family supposed to take?
She felt Edith’s arm around her shoulders. Edith was such a comfort, always knowing when Bertie needed to have her mind distracted from painful thoughts.
But even Edith’s presence didn’t cheer Bertie when she caught sight of two familiar faces in the small crowd waiting to board. She should be glad to see people she hadn’t seen in nearly ten months. Instead, she avoided their gazes.
She couldn’t bear to see the sympathy in their eyes. Even worse, what if those gazes held accusation of her German heritage?
The thought stunned her, and she swung away quickly. Where had that come from? Was she really that consumed by the fear that her own country could turn against her, dragging her, the daughter of a German immigrant, off to some internment camp? What nonsense!
There was something else going on here. Her government wouldn’t have murdered Dad.
If that was even what had happened to him. How was she supposed to know for sure?
A wave of loss smacked her hard yet again, as it had numerous times since she’d left California. Home would never be the same, because she wasn’t coming home. Family was home. How could Hideaway be home without her loved ones there?
She turned and scanned the crowd for Red’s brick-colored hair and broad shoulders, but instead she caught sight of someone hailing her from the parking area in front of the rail station.
Heavy arms flapped in the air as Lilly Meyer waved to her from the open window of a shiny black Chevrolet pulling into the lot.
Bertie stood on tiptoe and waved back, relief washing through her.
“You know that woman?” Edith asked.
“Red’s mother.” Bertie looked at the driver. He was bent over, and all Bertie could see was a head of short blond hair. Not red. She looked into the backseat of the car, but it was empty.
The enormity of her disappointment surprised her. Red hadn’t come. All those letters about how he’d missed her, and yet when it came right down to the moment of truth, he didn’t show up to meet her.
Why not?
She picked up her suitcase and carried it toward the car. “Looks like Red decided he didn’t have time to meet us.” The bitterness in her voice surprised her. What an ugly trait in a lady. But what an ugly act for a man not to appear when the woman he’d sworn to be missing all these years was finally arriving.
He’d had the chance to see her get off the train, to greet her and let her know how glad he was to be with her again, to hold her in his arms. But he hadn’t found the time for that.
“Don’t you let a man get you down,” Edith said. “You’ve got more important things to…” her voice trailed away and her steps slowed.
Bertie looked up to see what had distracted her friend’s attention, and saw her staring at the car’s driver, who was rushing around the front toward the passenger door to help Lilly out. Lilly, however, was already making her own way out.
“If that isn’t Red, who is it?” Edith asked.
“Lilly’s obviously gotten someone else to drive her.” As they drew closer, Bertie recognized that muscular frame and that characteristic grin, and felt another rush of relief. Ivan Potts was home from the war. When had he arrived?
“How long ago did you say Red’s father died?” Edith asked.
“Twelve years.”
“And his mother still doesn’t know how to drive?”
Bertie shook her head. “She always said that if she needed to get anywhere farther than her horse could take her, she’d better get her head examined.”
Edith chuckled. “Sounds like quite a homebody.”
“She is,” Bertie said, admiring the car. So Gerald and Arielle Potts had followed through with their promise to buy Ivan a new car when he arrived home from the war. From the looks of it, they’d gone all out. Of course, that couldn’t be a brand new car, since no new cars had been manufactured since 1942. Still, a three-year-old Chevrolet was the newest thing out there.
Nothing had ever been too good for Ivan, according to his parents.
“Remember I’ve told you that we folks in Hideaway live at a little slower pace than you’ve been used to in California,” Bertie said.
“Sounds good to me.” Edith’s gaze remained on Ivan as they approached the car. “That’s a friend of yours?”
In spite of all, Bertie felt a grin spread across her face. How good it was to see Ivan again! Her old friend seemed to have matured. With his broad shoulders, short, golden hair and dark brown eyes, he could pass for a star of cinema.
“You’ve already been introduced, silly,” she told Edith. “You’ve even written to him a few times. I’ve known Ivan Potts since first grade. His father, Gerald, is the mayor of Hideaway.”
“So that’s the eloquent Marine with the neat handwriting and the heart of a poet.”
Bertie grinned. “I’d’ve never thought that about Ivan. I’m surprised he didn’t tell me he was coming home.” She glanced at Edith. “In fact, I’m surprised he didn’t tell you, if he’s writing you poetry. Come and let me introduce you to Ivan and Lilly.”
Edith linked her arm through Bertie’s once more. “That’s my girl. Now you’re talking.”
Chapter Thirteen
The ripe odor of the Moennig’s barnyard filtered around Red in the warm sun as he knelt beside the closed gate. Curious cows and calves snuffled at his head. He paid them no mind. He’d found what he was after—footprints that matched those in the backyard at home. Leastways, he was pretty sure of it.
He’d discovered quickly that he’d get no help from the sheriff on Joseph’s case. There was no case, according to Butch Coggins. As it had turned out, the hole in the side of Joseph’s head wasn’t made by a bullet, but a nail in a piece of wood. Butch decided Joseph had simply had an unfortunate accident and fallen on it.
Red knew Joseph would never have kept anything like that in the cattle lot, because it could have injured one of the animals. No farmer in his right mind would be so careless, and certainly not Joseph. Cattle were a precious stock, always had been, but especially now, when most of the beef was being sent to the armed forces to help keep their fighting men well fed.
The lot itself, where Joseph had fallen, was useless to show tracks. The animals had destroyed anything Red might’ve found there. But he did pick up on some dried mud on the wooden gate, where someone had climbed over. From there he had followed tracks through the grass and into the woods south of the house. They led him downhill to the James River and then disappeared.
Had whoever it was left by boat or swum across?
Red knelt again in the mud at the edge of the woods, and reached for a layer of bark he’d peeled from a tree. With another piece of thin bark, he gently dug and lifted the dried mud around the shoe impression, until he placed the whole, unbroken print into the makeshift holder.
Back at home, he could make a plaster impression of the print, trace it on paper, and quietly make some comparisons.
He didn’t doubt someone in this town
was up to no good. He’d find out who the dirty rascal was before anybody else was hurt, or his name wasn’t Charles Frederick Meyer.
He might not be able to return to the war, but he could still fight in his own special way. The war had come to his home turf. He’d have to turn it away as best he could.
Bertie sat in the backseat of the car behind Lilly Meyer on the drive back to Hideaway. The backseat wasn’t as comfortable as the front seat, and though Lilly had tried to convince Bertie to take the front, Bertie wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’ve been reading about how busy you girls have been out in California,” Lilly said. “Makes me almost wish I was the kind of gal to go out there, myself, helping with the blood drive, working on the very airplanes that might win us a war. I’m so proud of what you’ve done.”
“You’re doing plenty,” Bertie said. “You’ve kept up the business with everyone gone. And a son in the Army.”
“Yes, but you know how backward we are out here in our own corner of the world. Never catching up with the news of the war until a day or so after the rest of the country already knows about it.”
Lilly seemed to have put on some weight since Bertie left for California, but she was as kind as ever, and as pretty. Her red hair was more golden than her youngest son’s, and her clear blue eyes often shone with the same good humor that characterized Red. Lilly’s eyes also frequently glinted with her own special brand of wise observation, which she seldom kept to herself. But there wasn’t much evidence of brightness in her expression now. Her sorrow about Joseph and her tender compassion for Bertie shadowed her face.
Lilly Meyer was a strong woman who Bertie had always admired. After her husband’s death, in the middle of the Great Depression, she’d refused to ask for help. Though neighbors had tried to do as much as they could, Lilly stood firm in her self-sufficiency.
She cared for her children the best way she knew how, with her garden and guesthouse, her innate business savvy and other talents.
Lilly could cook like a dream, and she kept her house spotless. Her guests ate like kings and queens, and the many entertaining activities she offered in her establishment brought the same folks back year after year from all over the country. That was how she’d supported her kids.
Though Red had seemed content to remain at home and help Lilly after his brother and sister flew the coop, Bertie guessed he simply could not bring himself to leave his mother without good help at the house.
“I’ve got a room ready for you at my place,” Lilly said. “Had a traveling couple move on this morning, and—”
“That’s very kind of you,” Bertie said, “but I need to get home and settle in. I’m sure there’s work that needs doin’ around the place, what with—” To her embarrassment, her voice cracked.
“No problem there,” Lilly said, gesturing toward Ivan, whom Bertie had caught watching Edith in his rearview mirror. “Ivan and Red plan to do those chores themselves. They’re no strangers to hard work, and after what they’ve been through in the war, a little farming won’t tire them out.”
“But I know how to farm,” Bertie said. “I’ve not forgotten how to work.”
Ivan and Lilly exchanged a glance in the front seat. Bertie narrowed her eyes.
“Bertie, I sure could use your help at the guesthouse for a few days,” Lilly said. “The men know all about farm chores, but they don’t know how to bake. That’s what I need help with right now.”
Bertie gave her a suspicious glance.
“Those black walnut cakes of yours’ve won plenty of blue ribbons at the fair,” Lilly said. “And we have guests right now who are a might too demanding for me.” She slung her heavy arm over the seat and turned to pin Bertie with a long look. “Think you could do that for me, just this once?”
Bertie knew she was being had, but she couldn’t argue with Lilly. She didn’t have the strength. “Not sure what I could bake that you couldn’t do better.”
“I’ve got me some black walnuts I held over from last year. We’ve got honey and molasses aplenty, though there ain’t much sugar. Don’t guess you’d have much trouble baking without sugar, knowing what a good cook your mother was.”
“I have a recipe for molasses oatmeal cookies with black walnuts.”
Lilly nodded. “Sounds like it’ll work.”
“It’s at the farmhouse, so I’ll have to go get it.”
“What say we stop in there on our way to town?” Lilly suggested. “I know you want to make sure everything’s being cared for, anyway. ’Sides, Red’s out there, doin’ him some huntin’, and we could give him a lift back to town.”
Bertie stiffened. “Hunting?” He’d rather go hunting than greet her at the railway station? “What’s in season this time of year?” Didn’t he care any more than that?
She felt Edith touch her arm, and she pressed her lips together. She couldn’t let on how much it hurt that Red didn’t seem to want to see her.
Again, Ivan and Lilly looked at each other across the front seat—a serious look of shared understanding.
Bertie leaned forward. “Is there something going on you two oughta be telling me about?”
Ivan sighed. “Well, I guess you could say some of us are taking the law into our own hands.”
“What?”
“Red’s huntin’ tracks,” Lilly explained. “Around your farm. Just seeing what he can come up with.”
“What kind of tracks?”
“Human ones, Bertie,” Ivan said, giving her a troubled look over his shoulder. “He’s not let up since he got home and found your father on Monday.”
She sat back in her seat, lips parting. “Oh.” Some of her bitter disappointment eased, to be replaced by that tightening in her stomach that she’d felt so many times in the past two days. “He still thinks somebody killed Dad.”
“He’s not ready to agree with the sheriff that Joseph’s death was some clumsy accident,” Ivan said, then nodded toward Lilly. “Neither are we.”
Edith placed an arm around Bertie’s shoulder, protective and comforting.
“I called the sheriff yesterday from the train station in Albuquerque,” Bertie said. “He told me he didn’t find any evidence that would make him think there was foul play.”
“I know what Sheriff Butch Coggins said.” Lilly’s tone told everyone in the car what she thought of the man. “Some folks in Hideaway have got other opinions, and I happen to be one of them.”
“That’s right,” Ivan said, glancing over his shoulder at Bertie and winking at her. “You let us take care of things, buddy. You’ve gone through enough for a while. You’ve got friends here who are going to help you.”
Bertie bit her tongue, touched, but at the same time frustrated by Ivan’s attitude. Did he think she was so delicate she couldn’t take the truth? Why couldn’t they tell her plainly what they’d found?
But she let it go. There’d be time to get to the bottom of things after she got settled in. And she had to admit that she didn’t feel quite up to facing much more today, though she wouldn’t let on about that to anyone, not even Edith.
She would corner Red soon enough, and he would tell her what she needed to know, or she’d know the reason why.
Chapter Fourteen
Red frowned at a small mess of limbs scattered at the edge of the Moennig’s wooden front porch. Joseph never placed his firewood next to any buildings, and he especially would not allow a stack beside his home. He’d taught Red that termites got into houses that way.
Besides, when Joseph stacked wood, whether it be kindling or chopped logs, he did it with the kind of precision Red had only ever seen before in the military. These limbs looked a mess, sticking out every which way, slender hickory switches too green to use for kindling.
He kicked one of the branches with the toe of his shoe, and then frowned. Hickory switches. Something about those little limbs…
He remembered feeling the sting of a hickory switch on his backside a few times when he was a kid. T
here was never any damage done, but it sure hurt.
There was something else hovering in his mind that he thought he should be gettin’. Some sign…some message…but for the life of him, he couldn’t pin down what that could be.
He searched through the house for any clue about what might’ve happened, then walked around the yard again, in case he’d missed something.
Though Joseph Moennig took good care of his fields, his garden, his livestock, Red didn’t figure Bertie’s father had given up a lot of time to cultivate a green lawn—and there was not a lot of space left for a lawn after the heap of gardening Mrs. Moennig had always done. With the mature shade trees surrounding the house, the grass grew awfully sparse in some patches.
The Moennigs were practical. They’d used their cattle and mules to mow the lawn when the grass grew too tall. That made for some good fertilizer, too, and recent rains had caused what grass there was to shoot up in lush clumps.
In one patch of dirt a couple of feet from Joseph’s bedroom window, Red discovered part of a heel print. Someone had been standing out here, watching Joseph.
If Red wasn’t mistaken, the print matched one he’d found at the edge of the barnyard and in the backyard at home.
He didn’t bother to collect this one. He had enough to convince himself that Joseph’s death was not an accident.
Red stepped around the rear north corner of the house and stopped. Something pop-pop-popped through the trees, softly at first, like the wings of a moth flitting against the window on a summer night. Then it grew louder, more insistent.
Red’s breath caught. He froze, clutched by fear as surely as a rat in a trap. He knew that sound. It was familiar, close and threatening. Snap-pop, snap-pop…the sound of distant artillery fire…It was drawing closer….
His hand lost its grip on the cane. He hit the ground quick as a burned cat, and tasted the grit of dust between his teeth, felt the pain in his leg as he rammed it into the ground, preparing to fight, even though he had no weapon.
The Germans couldn’t have found him here, not in the middle of America. They’d surrendered. This didn’t make sense.
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