The Cadet

by Doug Beason

  He unbuttoned his jacket, took off his tie, and walked down the hallway to his room. It was one twenty in the morning, and with taps ten minutes away, the dorm was as quiet as a church. It didn’t seem as if he and his classmates were soon to experience the biggest day in Academy history.

  Six hours ago he’d left the Academy after the evening meal formation; it was hard to believe that it had been his last.

  Light splashed from his room as he padded down the hallway. He heard low voices talking inside. Even this late at night, his classmates must be comparing notes, still excited about receiving their diplomas and commissions as new second lieutenants.

  Entering the room, he stopped cold.

  Captain Ranch sat on his bed. One of the Third classman who was filling in as Senior Officer of the Day leaned against his desk. Sly sat on the other bed.

  The Third classman straightened as Rod entered the room. He looked to Captain Ranch.

  Sly stayed sitting and looked away. His hands were folded and his eyes were red, as if he had been crying.

  Rod frowned. “Sir? Is anything wrong?”

  Captain Ranch stood, his face deeply lined and bags under his eyes. He stepped over to Rod and put an arm around his shoulder. “I have something to tell you, Rod. And I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  ***

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  “Tiger”

  May 31st, 1959

  McCluney residence

  East of the USAF Academy

  No one delights more in vengeance than a woman.

  —Decimus Junius Juvenalis, Satires, XIII

  George Delante rapped loudly on the McCluney door. He looked over the sprawling property as he waited for Mary McCluney to answer. It still grated him that his idiot partner, Jim-Tom Henderson, had ever sold this land to the old general; Jim-Tom should have done his homework and dug into the third-party cutouts that the Air Force had used. The moron should stick to running that damn toy airport and just sell him his interest in his property.

  The prime acreage sat on a bluff overlooking an arroyo with unlimited views in every direction—especially of the Air Academy. The Rampart Range dominated the horizon to the west, and the prairie unfolded to the east. And if he was successful today, once the golf course was under construction, he’d have more than enough money to bring in the best lawyers to fight whatever indictment that federal grand jury might hand down.

  George composed himself as he waited, taking care not to give the widow McCluney any indication of his anger, especially after the way that bitch had hosed him down in the courthouse stairwell.

  But a smile grew on his face as he remembered reading about the old general’s airplane crash in the Colorado Springs Gazette. He sniggered to himself. What was the chance of that happening so soon after last seeing Hank? It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.

  His black limo was parked ten feet behind him on the driveway. A feeling of déjà vu swept over him as he remembered showing up at Margaret Henderson’s ranch, seven years before. Jim-Tom’s drunken sister had been an elusive debutante, but with her father’s death, she’d squandered the family money and signed over her share of this land for dollars on the acre.

  He was certain the widow McCluney could be persuaded, much the same way he had convinced Margaret to sign over her land. He’d come to know the favors of many women in Colorado Springs using this tactic. He’d discovered that lonely wives valued long-term security over just about anything, including the marriage vow they’d made to their husbands, if they were under enough financial pressure.

  With Hank’s death, Mary McCluney would be too rattled to attend to the affairs of her substantial estate, too broken up to make the necessary investments to watch after her future. He was sure she’d want to move, leave this forlorn prairie, and return to California. And he was there to take this property off her hands, make the transition smooth.

  Best of all, on a personal level, when George bedded the grieving widow it would be his final blow at that bastard Hank McCluney for destroying his original fortune.

  The wooden door creaked open. George saw a tuft of Mary McCluney’s red hair as she peeked out the door. This was almost too easy. The similarities to the way he steamrolled that drunkard Margaret Henderson made him feel cocky.

  Mary squinted cautiously. “Mr. Delante,” she said with a thick Scottish burr.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. McCluney,” George held his chin up. “I wanted to convey my deepest regret at your husband’s untimely death—”

  The door slammed in his face.

  George frowned. This was unusual. She had shut the door so fast that he hadn’t even had time to shove his foot in the opening, a move he’d perfected after years of foreclosing loans. Maybe she was embarrassed at the way she was dressed and was putting on something more becoming. Or perhaps she’d gone to freshen up. No matter. She’d been polite, and she was sure to be back.

  Holding his head high in anticipation, he knocked sharply and started to whistle.

  The door opened. George drew an insincere smile. “Mrs. McCluney!”

  “Are you alone, Mr. Delante?” Mary said.

  “Why … yes, I am.” This would make things much easier.

  Suddenly, the steel-gray metal barrel of a shotgun was thrust through the slit in the door. “Get off my property, you bloody carpetbagger! And stay away!”

  George jumped out of the way of the twin barrels. He sputtered, “There must be some mistake. Mrs. McCluney, do you remember who I am?”

  “You’re damned right I do!”

  “Then surely you don’t intend—”

  A blast erupted from the shotgun, and George staggered back from the shock. At first he thought he’d been hit, but he realized that fortunately the huge twin-barreled rifle had not been aimed at him, and was probably just meant to scare him.

  He heard a hissing sound behind him. Turning, he saw that the front tire on his limo was in shreds. The front part of the limo was peppered with holes. George’s mouth dropped. The bitch had ruined his car! He angrily twirled, only to see the shotgun leveled at his groin.

  He heard the rapid chung-chung of the double-action pump as the shotgun was loaded. He had trouble understanding Mary’s thick Scottish burr, but her intent was crystal clear.

  “You have ten seconds to get off my property, Delante, or you are going to be singing soprano the rest of your life. Never come around here again! Now run!”

  Not wanting to risk ignoring her demand, he held up his hands and slowly backed away, staggering. Shortly, he turned and ran, not stopping at the disabled limo.

  ***

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”

  June 1st, 1959

  1,000 feet above the USAF Academy

  Come dear children, let us away; down and away below.

  —Matthew Arnold, The Forsaken Merman

  “Hold on, folks!” The small plane bumped as it hit a pocket of turbulence.

  Rod grasped the urn with both hands and twisted in his seat to look at his mother. “Are you all right?”

  Mary’s face was white. She held a handkerchief to her mouth. “I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure, Mrs. McCluney?” Jim-Tom said over his shoulder. The grizzled old airport manager held the plane’s yoke with both hands. For the seriousness of the situation, he looked as if he was having the time of his life.

  Rod’s mother burred, “I’ve handled worse situations. Much worse.”

  Jim-Tom leaned to the right, and keeping his hands on the yoke, nodded at the windshield. The Academy campus sprawled below them. “See the flag?”

  Rod quickly scanned the area. He spotted the huge American flag undulating in the breeze below them. “Yeah. The wind’s blowing to the southeast, and from the way the flag’s flapping it looks like about twenty miles an hour.” They had had to replace the flag every few months because the terrific mountain winds caused the flag to tear itself apart.

 
“Ok. I’ll take her on down, and when we pass over that long building—”

  “Vandenberg Hall?” Rod asked.

  “I don’t know what the hell it is, just that east-west structure at the bottom of the L.”

  “That’s the cadet dorm.”

  “Okay, when we pass west of the cadet dorm, dump the ashes. The winds should lay a pattern down over the entire campus.” He turned his head to the back. “Is that what you wanted, Mrs. McCluney?”

  She removed the handkerchief and spoke softly. “It’s what he would have wanted.”

  “Damn straight,” Jim-Tom said. He picked up a tin can stuffed in the console and spat. “I’d rather be scattered over the place I loved than sitting six feet under a layer of dirt. Your husband will be here forever. But be quick. They’ve closed the airspace and I don’t want to get shot down by any trigger-happy Air Force pilot.”

  He pushed the steering wheel forward, and they started a steep glide down, toward the middle of the Academy campus. The plane bumped in the turbulence, and they were tossed from side to side.

  “Whoo-ee!” Jim-Tom squinted at the approaching campus, as if he were a fighter pilot making a strafing run.

  Rod glanced back at his mother. She grasped the seat to steady herself. Looking back at Jim-Tom, Rod was ready to grab for the yoke if it appeared that the old geezer flew too close to the buildings.

  “Open the door, cadet. It’s time!”

  The ground came rapidly up. Rod pushed against the door handle, but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s stuck!”

  Jim-Tom leaned over and struck the door with a fist. “Put some weight behind it, boy. It’s supposed to be hard to open, so you don’t fall out.”

  Holding the brass urn with his left hand, Rod put a shoulder against the door. Grunting, he twisted the knob and pushed. The door swung out into the slipstream, and banged back against Rod’s arm.

  Shoving the urn out the door, he untwisted the top. Below, two construction workers on top of the six-storied cadet dormitory hit the deck as the plane buzzed not more than fifty feet from the top of the building.

  “Come on, cadet!” Jim-Tom yelled as he pulled the plane up.

  Rod pushed the urn as far as he could and turned it on its side. Ash swirled out the top, tumbling into the slipstream. Outside, the view darkened through the window as a cloud of grey spread from the plane.

  Rod shook the remains from the brass receptacle. “Bye, Dad,” he said. He felt a pain in his chest remembering all the times they’d fought.…

  His mother put a hand to the window as she watched the last vestige of her husband leave her presence. The cloud slowly drifted over the Academy grounds, as if embracing the cadet area. Below, no one moved as everyone stopped to watch the strange sight.

  Rod caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He spotted a lone prairie falcon dart below them, as if escorting the settling cloud like a fighter would a flight of bombers.

  Mary’s spoke low, her voice barely audible over the propeller’s thrum. “I’ll miss visiting his grave. We should have had a wake.”

  Allowing the air pressure to slam shut the door, Rod turned the locking mechanism. He twisted around and put a hand on his mother’s arm. “You’ll visit him every time you see the Academy from your house.”

  ***

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  “Gotta Travel On”

  June 2, 1959

  USAF Academy

  Brothers all

  In honour, as in one community,

  Scholars and gentlemen.

  —William Wordsworth, The Prelude, IX

  The day before graduation, Rod met Julie and her parents at the base of the Bring Me Men ramp. Rod wore his summer formal mess dress uniform of white jacket, black bow tie, white ruffled shirt with studs, black cummerbund, and black pants. Mr. Phillips’ white suit and gold-striped tie were perfectly coordinated with his wife’s and daughter’s outfits: Mrs. Phillips and Julie wore matching long summer dresses with prints of yellow flowers on a white background, and large, floppy white hats; Mrs. Phillips wore white high heels while Julie wore tennis shoes in an attempt to give her feet relief from the extra weight of her pregnancy.

  Cadets, parents, brothers, sisters, girlfriends, and other relatives milled around the ramp. The parking lot and quadrangle were packed with people; traffic on the perimeter road next to the cadet dorm stood at a standstill. Underclassmen dressed in class-A blue jackets, ties, and white gloves, moved through the crowd and tried to connect family members with their cadets.

  The day before, Julie had moved out of her small apartment on Cache le Poudre to share a suite at the historic Broadmoor hotel with her parents. Mr. Phillips had grudgingly accepted the fact that Julie was going to marry Rod, with or without his approval. Immediately after Captain Ranch’s barbecue, Mr. Phillips had said he would have to miss both Rod’s graduation and his daughter’s wedding, insisting that his firm was too busy for him to attend. Rod wasn’t sure if Mr. Phillips’ change of heart had been at his wife’s insistence, or if he had discovered which dignitaries were staying at the Broadmoor, and he now had the chance to conduct business on the side.

  Mrs. Phillips placed both of her hands on Rod’s. “I’m so sorry about your father.”

  Rod drew in a breath, once again wishing that Hank was here. “It’s still hard for me to believe he’s gone. Mother sends her regrets that she won’t be able to join us until the swearing-in ceremony tonight.”

  “I understand.”

  “She’s still trying to get ahold of some of dad’s relatives back in east Texas.” Rod was quiet for a moment. “I just wish he could have seen my class graduate. It meant everything to him.”

  Julie slipped an arm around his waist. “After all he’d done to help establish the Academy, it was General McCluney’s dream to swear Rod in as an Air Force officer.”

  Mr. Phillips cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable discussing Hank’s death. “We’d understand if you didn’t want us to join you for dinner tonight, Rod, if you would rather be comforting your mother.”

  “Actually, it helps keep my mind off him.” Rod said, still regretful that he hadn’t apologized to his father sooner. It seemed they’d argued most of their lives, but over what? Nothing they disagreed on mattered now. “They say you’ve got to get on with your life.” He put his arm around Julie.

  Mrs. Phillips lifted her chin at Rod’s gesture. “Yes, we all do. Isn’t that right, Edward?”

  Mr. Phillips grunted.

  Rod held back a smile and said, “We have an hour before dinner. If you don’t mind walking I can show you around the campus.”

  “As long as you don’t mind me waddling,” Julie said.

  Rod gave her an elbow. “As long as you don’t go into labor early.”

  Rod escorted the Phillips through the Academy, showing them the dorms, the academic building and Arnold Hall, all the while saying goodbye to his classmates and underclassmen. Things were happening too fast, and he wished he could slow time to a crawl.

  Mitchell Hall went all out for the graduation buffet, not only including every type of food known to man, but by placing gigantic ice sculptures throughout the dining area. Tables were heaped with exotic meats, shellfish, pasta, ornately cut vegetables, rich sauces, and a dizzying array of sweets. Holding Carol’s hand, Sly stopped by Rod’s table and whispered that now he knew why Mitch’s had been so stingy with their food budget the past month—they’d been saving it for the buffet.

  After the buffet and graduation ball, Rod’s squadron gathered in Arnold Hall precisely at midnight. Rod’s mother arrived and introduced herself to the Phillips, as Master Sergeant Coltrin tactfully pulled the graduating seniors aside. He explained in a low voice that although they would officially be officers after being sworn in, they still needed to follow cadet regulations. The Commandant had suddenly gotten concerned that the cadets would not stay in the dorms that night.

  The Comm’s solution, explained the grizzled master
sergeant, was to pull any senior out of the graduation ceremony who did not follow the regs. It had never occurred to Rod to take advantage of this loophole, and he wondered if the Academy might be going overboard trying to enforce it.

  When the cadets rejoined their families and friends, precisely at midnight they were called up one-by-one to be sworn in as officers.

  Sly, Goldstein, Rojo, Sanders—Rod’s mind wandered, thinking about all the changes that had occurred over the past four years, how much his classmates had bonded into a cohesive group. They were about to scatter throughout the world, and after tonight, it might be years until they saw each other again, if ever.

  Captain Ranch was the OIC tonight, so Captain Whitney was administering the oath of office to those who did not have a relative present that was in the military. Rod felt a sour knot at the bottom of his stomach, feeling the irony of having Whitney give him the officer’s oath when both he and his father had never respected the manipulative man.

  For an uncountable number of times over June week, once again Rod wished that Hank was still alive.

  Julie squeezed his hand when his name was announced and looked at him proudly. Rod stepped forward; Whitney raised his right hand to administer the oath—

  The back door burst open, banging against the wall. Everyone turned.

  Captain Ranch strode in accompanying a brigadier general dressed in a cotton flight suit. A red scarf was tucked around the general’s neck; black boots clomped down the aisle. The general chewed on an unlit cigar. “Sorry I’m late. It was damn near impossible getting clearance into Peterson with all the VIP aircraft.”

  “Room, atten’hut!” The military pushed back their chairs and bolted to attention.

  “Take seats,” the general growled, taking his cigar out of his mouth. “I’m already messing up your ceremony.” He waved at them to sit down.

  Captain Whitney looked dazed. “I say … come in, please, sir.”

  Rod’s mother rose to greet the man. “Oh, Speedy! Thank you for coming.”

  The general strode forward and kissed her on the cheek. “Hello, Miss Mary. Sorry I’m late. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.” He looked around the room and tried to speak in low tones, but everyone heard his booming voice. “Where is the young scamp?”