The Keeper's Son

by Homer Hickam

  “Well, mostly you would be, Dosie,” Josh said. “There’s a war on, you know. I’ll be at sea a lot of the time. Hell, I might even get myself killed.”

  “Don’t say that!” she snapped.

  Josh’s lip went out. “I don’t mean to say that I will,” he muttered, “just that I might.”

  “Look, Josh, there’s more to that pretty story I told you. If you knew it all, you’d jump up from that rocker and you couldn’t get away fast enough.”

  “There’s a lot you don’t know about me, either. For instance, I was married to an Eskimo woman. Of course, they don’t say ‘Eskimo’ in Alaska. She was an Aleut.”

  Dosie hid her face in her hands. When she parted them, he saw, to his consternation, that she was laughing. “Oh, Josh, everybody knows you were married to a woman named Naanni in Alaska, married according to her tribe, that is.” Her expression sobered. “I even know she was killed by renegades and you went after them and killed them one by one.”

  Josh was astonished. “I didn’t think anybody on the island knew all that except Bosun Phimble!”

  “I knew it almost from the first day I was back.”

  “Who told you?”

  “Everybody!”

  “And you’ve still had anything to do with me at all?”

  “Poor man. You have no idea how a woman thinks, do you?”

  Josh hung his head. “I guess not. Are you going to tell me?”

  “No. I can’t give up the secret. I would be drummed out of the sisterhood.”

  “Look, Dosie,” Josh said, “I don’t care about any of that. I mean, we could be friends, couldn’t we?”

  That struck Dosie as insincere, although she couldn’t put her finger on the reason why. “Friends, is it? Like rolling in bed real friendly-like every time you came in from patrol? Yes, I can see me now, me sitting here on this pizer—why the hell do you call a porch a ‘pizer,’ anyway?—looking out to sea thinking, ‘Oh! I can’t wait until my lover sailor boy Josh comes home and takes care of little me.’ Well, no thank you.”

  “You drive me crazy,” Josh said truthfully.

  “Well, I like the hell out of you, Josh Thurlow, and that scares the shit out of me, so there. We’ve had our tumble and I’m done with you. Good-bye.”

  Josh jumped up from the rocker. “Fine with me, sister! You’ve seen the last of this sailor boy.”

  Dosie’s expression dropped and then she threw herself into Josh’s arms. “Josh,” she said, “hold me.”

  “I’ve got you, Dosie,” he said.

  Then she pushed him away. “No, you don’t. Nobody’s got me.”

  “That’s it!” Josh cried, and stomped down the steps.

  Dosie called after him, “You want to know more of the pretty story? I’ll tell you. It wasn’t just the trumpet player. I let myself be passed around the entire band. How do you like them apples?”

  Josh just stood in the sand, his mouth open. “Apples is not what comes to mind,” he said at last. Then he asked, rubbing the back of his neck, “How many were in the band?”

  “Six. Seven, counting the manager. You better run, Josh Thurlow.”

  “That’s the first thing you’ve said all day that makes a lick of sense,” he replied, then came back up on the porch and snatched her before she could get away. “I don’t care. I ain’t no angel, either.”

  She kissed him so hard their teeth clicked together. Then she tore his shirt open, the buttons flying. “Ah, Josh, you crazy, crazy boy.”

  He reached under her sweater and drew it over her head, then threw it into the yard where it snagged on her sign, Dosie’s Delight.

  They both nearly tore the screen door off getting it open.

  24

  Cowboy Rex Stewart, carrying his pants, shirt, and boots, gratefully sat down in the chief medical officer’s office of the Los Angeles Armed Services Recruiting Center. For the last four hours, he had been poked and prodded until he felt as if the next thing would surely be a brand on his butt. The chief medical officer, whom Rex had been told was the last doctor he would see, was a chubby little man with thick glasses who wore a white lab coat over a brown army uniform. Rex thought he looked a bit like Oliver Hardy, or maybe Fatty Arbuckle. Rex had worked with both of the movie comedians, one time or another.

  The doctor tapped Rex’s paperwork with a stubby finger and made an observation. “According to this, you’ve broken nearly every bone in your body.”

  Rex scratched his head, losing the grip on his boots, which fell to the floor with a double thump. “Well, you work the rodeos and do the flicks, that’s pretty much what happens, Doc. All them bones are healed, though.”

  “What do you do in the flicks?”

  “Stuntman, trick rider, gags, you know.”

  Rex picked up his boots, an ornate, carved pair he’d got down in Arizona while working on Stagecoach. John Wayne, the kid who had been the star of the flick, had given the boots to Rex as a gift on wrap day. Rex figured he’d earned them. In a scene where Wayne’s character was dragged beneath a wagon behind a thundering team of horses, the director, John Ford, had insisted on take after take. Rex had been the stuntman, and it was only after he was pretty much beat to death that Ford, the fat bastard, finally declared himself satisfied. He had come over and pondered Rex lying in the dirt, groaning. “Get him a drink, he’ll be fine,” the director snapped, then stalked off. Rex’s back had been broken.

  The doctor’s eyes drifted away from Rex to look out on Hollywood Boulevard. Sports cars were driving up and down and the occasional big Rolls. “I used to work for one of the studios,” he said wistfully.

  “Yeah? Which one?”

  “MGM. I was the physician on call for all the Marx Brothers movies.”

  Everybody in Hollywood had a story. Rex didn’t mind hearing one more, especially if it meant he could sit for a while longer. All the standing in line had been hard on his knees. “So what happened you stopped?”

  The doctor shrugged heavily. “One of the brothers came down with the clap. I treated him but then I asked him how he got it. That’s the law, you know. Next thing I knew, I was out on my can.”

  “Let me guess. The producer’s wife.”

  “Close. The director’s girlfriend.”

  “Well, it’s a dirty business, Doc,” Rex said, and then remembered the real purpose of his visit. “The marines is my first choice, Doc, but I’ll be just as happy with the army. Which one am I going to get?”

  The doctor sighed, still apparently thinking of his studio days. “Well, you can’t be in the marines or the army. And not the navy, either. You can’t be in the military at all. You’re beat to death. Why, you can hardly walk.” He studied Rex’s file. “Rex? Is that your real name?”

  “It used to be Frank but I got it changed, all legal. I figured Rex had more of a ring to it. But, Doc, never mind about my name. It don’t make sense what you’re saying. Why, I’m sound as a dollar. I can still ride a bronco with the best of them, lasso a lizard if I had to, and even shoot the eye out of a gnat from a hundred paces. I’m from Montana where they grow us boys tough. Why, surely you can see I can fight, can’t you, Doc?”

  The chief medical officer could see no such thing. What he could see pretty clearly was the stunt cowboy breaking down in a trench somewhere and two healthy boys having to carry him back to the hospital tent. The doctor took a rubber stamp and inked it on a pad and applied it to the top document in Rex’s stack. He gathered the papers and put them in a manila folder. “Go in there”—he indicated a door—“and get dressed. Leave this folder with the clerk just outside. I’ve stamped you 4-F, unfit for military service.”

  “Well, damn, Doc, that’s a pisser!”

  “A lot of men would be happy to be 4-F,” the doctor replied amiably. “Go back to work in the flicks and enjoy yourself. I wish I could do the same.”

  Rex could hardly believe what he was hearing. “Look, Doc, I got to go fight. It’s my patriotic duty!”

&nb
sp; The doctor shook his head. “Well, you can’t and that’s that.”

  Rex got to his feet, although slowly. The doc was right about his bones being broken and all. And he had this trick knee, too, which he’d failed to mention. He carried his clothes inside the little toilet, got dressed, and went on past the doctor, who was talking on the telephone while looking out the window. A lot of folks tended to look out the window in Hollywood, recalling what they’d once been, and they talked a lot on the telephone, too, mostly about nothing. Hollywood was filled up with people who’d once been one thing or another and now talked on the telephone about nothing. Rex stepped out of the office and was about to drop the folder on the clerk’s desk and go about his business when a man dressed in a dark blue uniform came up to him. Rex guessed he was in the navy.

  “You Rex Stewart?” the man asked.

  Rex said he was. “What of it?”

  “The doc in there called me. I work in an office right around the corner. I hear you’re a stuntman.”

  “You ever hear of Gene Autry?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, he ain’t never done a thing on the screen what I ain’t actually done it.”

  “So you can ride a horse?”

  Rex thought maybe the man was a bit slow. “Before I started doing gags for the studios, I was a champ rodeo rider. But that don’t seem to cut much ice around this place. They say I ain’t good enough to fight.”

  The man indicated the manila folder in Rex’s hand. “Could I see that, please?”

  Rex didn’t see the harm in it so he handed over the folder. The man looked through his papers. “Did you ever think about joining the Coast Guard?”

  Rex rubbed his jaw. “You mean like with boats?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I don’t know nothing about boats. I’m a trick rider, mister.”

  The man—he had some stripes around the sleeve of his jacket that made him into an officer, Rex supposed—nodded toward two chairs along the wall. When they sat down, the man said, “Look, Rex, my name is Captain Phil Revelez, United States Coast Guard. I’m on the scout for boys just like you. The Coast Guard’s organizing horse troops to patrol along the coast. How’d you like to join up?”

  Rex never liked to give a quick answer to anything. He mulled it over and came up with a question. “What the hell does the Coast Guard know about horses?”

  Revelez shook his head. “Not a blamed thing. We’re looking for someone like you to help us out.”

  “Would I carry a rifle?”

  Revelez shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Well, what do you know, Cap’n?”

  “I know that we’ve got a couple thousand miles of coast to guard and we need boys on horses to do it.”

  Rex chewed on that one for a second. “What kind of horses?”

  Captain Revelez shrugged again. “Do you have a horse?”

  “Sure. His name’s Joe Johnston, named after the Civil War general. He’s a trick pony.”

  “Could you bring it? That would save us having to get one for you.”

  Rex liked the idea of keeping Joe Johnston with him. Joe was a smart horse, although he was from Texas, which accounted for the fact that he could get sullen from time to time. “I reckon I might. But if I did, I’d want to carry my rifle. I’ve got a good one, a Winchester ninety-three. I can hit a fifty-cent piece a hundred yards away backwards over my shoulder using a mirror.”

  “I’ll make a note of that. So, are you and Joe Johnston going to join up?”

  Rex looked around, saw all the other boys, children really, walking around in their Skivvies and bare feet. They would soon be slugging it out with the enemy, teeth and toes. He was being offered a beach to ride along where there probably wouldn’t be anything more than seagulls to watch, but it was helping out the war and it was better than nothing. “I reckon we might be,” he said before he could think of a reason why not other than the likely boredom.

  Revelez gave Rex a document to sign. Rex signed it without reading it. He never read his contracts with the studios, either. There had to be a little trust in the world and nobody trusted others like a cowboy, for good or for evil.

  “There’s something else, Rex. I have a little boy . . .”

  “You want Gene Autry’s autograph, don’t you?”

  “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  “What’s your boy’s name?”

  “Uh . . . Phil.”

  “It’s for you, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Just don’t forget I’m going to carry me a rifle.”

  “I won’t.

  Rex thought it was time for more particulars. “When will I leave and where will I go?”

  Captain Revelez took the form with Rex’s signature and put it in his inside jacket pocket. “We’ll send you a letter with a train ticket for you and Joe Johnston,” he said. “It could be a week from now or even a month. Where? Well, one coast or the other, I guess.” He stood and helped Rex to his feet when he saw the cowboy was having trouble with his knee. “Welcome to the Coast Guard, Rex.”

  “So I just wait?” Rex asked.

  “Yes. Your pay and allowances won’t begin until you get that letter and you go on active duty.”

  “What do I do until then?”

  Captain Revelez handed Rex a card. “That’s got my address and phone number on it. If you know of any other stuntmen or trick riders or cowboys who might want to get in on this, send them my way, especially if they’ve got their own horses. Otherwise, you can keep making movies until you hear from us. Oh, and get that autograph, please. Just send it to the address on the card.”

  “When do I get a uniform?”

  Revelez looked embarrassed. “I don’t know. It would help if you got your own.”

  “OK. I supply my own horse and rifle and uniform. This Coast Guard’s a pretty cheap outfit, Captain. Sort of like one of those independent producers, I reckon. Can I wear cowboy boots?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  “Chaps?”

  Revelez thought it over. “That might be pushing things.”

  “OK.” Rex put on his hat, a big white one like Gene wore, shook the captain’s hand, then clomped through the recruiting station and headed home, which was a little place he had over in the San Fernando Valley. Some youngsters were sitting around waiting for their physicals. When they saw the bowlegged man with his ornate leather boots and tall white cowboy hat, they were stirred with curiosity. “Say, mister,” one of them called, “you join the cavalry?”

  “Naw,” Rex said. “The Coast Guard. Don’t I look like a sailor?”

  The puzzled expressions of their faces told Rex they didn’t think he looked like a sailor at all. “Well, damn,” he said as he went out on the sunny street. Of all the things he’d figured would happen when he’d come down to the recruiting station, this sure wasn’t one of them. Then he got excited about his uniform. It had been a while since he’d seen Cindy, the costume lady over at Columbia, and now he had a good reason for a visit. She was a sweetheart. He’d even offered to marry her once. She’d laughed in his face and then taken him to her bed and kept him in it for a day and a night. What a sweet little place Hollywood was, all in all, filled with pretty swell folks. He’d miss it and them, a little bit than more. And wait’ll Gene hears what I’ve done, he said to himself, and it made him laugh. Ol’ boy will have to do some riding on his own for a change!

  25

  The conning-tower control room of the U-560 was silent except for a few clicks and whirs emanating from the periscope gears. Krebs pressed against its eyepiece and surveyed the night sea above. Though the sun had set, it wasn’t dark. A carnival of lights from the tall buildings and the buoys and the ships at anchor lit everything in a dazzling yellowish glow. This was the entrance to the harbor of New York City. Krebs had never seen anything like it. He offered the periscope to Max. Max looked for a moment, then shook his head. “Maybe the war’s been called off,” he said.


  “No. The Americans just haven’t figured out they’re in one,” Krebs said. “We beat all the Type Nines across.”

  A lookout reported, “A big freighter standing in, Kaleu.”

  Krebs watched the freighter coming closer, then said, “The water’s too shallow here for us to attack. The Americans might be asleep but we’d surely wake them up with a torpedo. Let’s get a little sea room.”

  The Chief put the U-560 into a slow turn. The freighter wallowed past, heading in. It took no note of a German U-boat passing just a hundred yards away even though the harbor lights made it completely visible. “I could hit that tanker with a rock,” one of the lookouts murmured.

  “Sir,” Max said, “it is my duty to remind you that the operation isn’t supposed to begin until tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, Max,” Krebs replied. “But this is too good to wait. Nobody’s expecting any German submarines around here. Let’s make some noise.”

  An hour’s run and they were in deeper water. They had never been out of sight of a freighter or a tanker during the entire time. Krebs felt the old excitement stir his heart. “Well, let’s pick one out,” he said. “How about that big one over there?”

  Max thought it seemed wrong to determine whether men would live or die on a whim, but Krebs was right. There were so many targets, there was no other way. “I agree, Kaleu,” he whispered. The lookouts had put down their binoculars and had their arms draped over the fairing. Max thought the youths had no sense of danger whatsoever. In truth, neither did he. Everything was tranquil.

  This is it, Krebs thought. The start of the American campaign. He called down his calculations to the bow torpedo room. The report came back that all was in readiness. “Tube one,” he called. “Los!”

  The torpedo leaped from the tube with a spew of bubbles, its electric motor zinging. Krebs watched its white trail disappear into the gloom and counted off the seconds. But nothing happened. Krebs heard one of the lookouts whisper, “He missed her.”

  “Shut up, you,” Max ordered.

  Krebs found himself shaken. He had never missed such an easy shot before. He used the torpedo aimer again, called down the numbers to the chief, who reported that another eel was in tube two. He ordered, “Los!” and there was a spew of bubbles forward. Finally, orange flames blossomed on the side of the big freighter and thunder rolled across the placid water. “I think we just woke America up,” the Chief said.