by Soren Petrek
Sam drove the squad over to his parent’s farm and pulled onto the gravel drive way and followed it up to the modest farm house he’d grown up in. It was nothing fancy but was lovingly maintained, from the cedar siding to his mother’s gardens spaced throughout the yard. Funny how the chores still seemed to get done, even though he and Tracy had moved out long ago, he thought. His father stood on the front porch talking to Nathan Harper. It never failed to amaze Sam to see Nathan standing next to any other human being; he just dwarfed everybody. But Sam and everyone in the know knew the old man was the far more dangerous of the two. John Trunce retired from the U.S. Army, a three war vet, a paratrooper and a ranger. He’d been a career soldier. When the old man’s army buddies talked to Sam about his dad it was with an almost mystical reverence, with a strong ‘do not piss him off’ message. Sam was glad to have him on his side.
“Samson, come over and hug the old man.” Nathan gave Sam a playful grin. Sam only allowed his father to call him Samson. The thought to ask him not to had crossed his mind, but his practical side told him that they’d be wasted words. Of course Nathan took the opportunity to call him Samson too. Sam smiled back with a ‘that’s going to cost you look’.
“Dad, Sideshow,” Sam said bantering back.
“I feel great sorrow for you, Samson. Your wit diminishes with your age much like your attraction to women. I see it’s more pity that motivates them now, whereas a great Masai warrior becomes more powerful and magnificent with age.”
All three men laughed out loud.
“Hey, I’ve got a situation with Virgil Ward. He’s AWOL.” Sam said.
“And that’s a problem?” John asked.
“Martha says he’s been gone awhile now, a couple of days. I found some drug lab crap at the old saw mill where Martha said he went up to check on some cars going up there.”
“Meth?” John asked his own anger building. “It can’t be the same people as before. Nobody would come back after the welcome we gave them.”
“Yah Dad, like before, but I don’t think it’s the same people. The remains of the lab that I just looked at seemed more organized. They burned their trash and tried not to leave much evidence. They must have left in a hurry. The place still stank of chemicals, but they didn’t leave any empty chemical cans or other equipment. My guess is they know better than to attract attention. These are professional cooks. They won’t be easy to spot.”
“What’s your plan?” Nathan said.
“I thought we could go up in your plane and look for Virgil’s truck. We also need to see if we can spot any more active labs.”
“Are you going to call in any outside help?” Nathan asked.
“I think gentle persuasion would be best.”
“The usual subtle Trunce message?”
“Of course,” Sam said.
“Fantastic, I get to blow something up,” was the old soldier’s beaming response.
“No crime in Patience,” Sam responded.
An hour later, John was circling around the area in a restored P-47 Thunderbolt. The plane just roared. It was the kind of thing Zeus would fly around in if he needed transport. John loved the old Thunderbolt and called it the Angel. Of the few war stories that John shared with noncombatants was how during the Second World War, as a barely nineteen year old paratrooper, a lone Thunderbolt had impossibly come out of the sky and saved his company’s collective ass. John had said that of all the times he’d faced death as a soldier, that time he’d just accepted it as given. Ever since that day, every problem in his life had been insignificant in comparison. John was not glorifying war; he hated it as most combat vets do, knowing it for what it is. Sam had seen some limited combat during his stint in the Special Forces, and was told how worried his father was when Sam had been sent into a combat zone. Sam also accidentally heard his father apologizing to his mother, finally understanding how it felt to be the loved one left behind when the person you love is off at war.
The old plane had a great roaring sound that carried for miles. John scanned the ground and radioed back to Sam.
“I don’t see anything obvious yet,” John said.
“The trees give too much cover. We’d better just concentrate on the clearings where we’ve got some old homesteads that aren’t occupied,” Sam observed.
“How much space do these maniacs need?”
“Not too much. It’s more the smells, trash, and byproducts. You remember that strong chemical smell.”
“I suppose when you make drugs with lye, solvents, and god knows what else someone nearby is gonna know it,” Sam said.
A few hours went by and John noted a few places Sam wanted to check on a plat map. After a couple of barrel rolls and wing overs John landed. Sam was ready for a chair on Nathan’s deck and some meat.
Sam drove out of the small airport where John and his buddy Cecil Tripoli stored their planes, and Tripoli kept things in order. Tripoli was another one of John’s war buddies and had been a p-47 pilot in the waning days of WW2. He’d spent the rest of his career first as an airline pilot and eventually as an executive for a national airline. He’d taught John to fly, all the way up to some hours in a commercial jet, but both men liked planes with some teeth. Sam had never asked these men if the machine guns were operational. He didn’t want to know. He did sneak a peek from time to time to see if there were any cartridge belts in the wings, but so far there were none.
Sam picked up his radio and called his office to tell the Lisa to contact the on-duty deputies and have them stop over at Nathan’s for dinner at the end of their shift. Sam’s plan was to cover possible meth lab sites John had seen from the air and to start asking around about old Virgil.
Sam rumbled onto the highway and saw a mini-van pulling a U- Haul off to the side of the road. There was a woman kneeling in front of a flat tire struggling with a tire iron. Always one more stop, Sam thought, intending to help get her back on the road. As he pulled in behind the trailer the woman stood and turned. A wild mane of curly jet black hair framed her dark eyes. As she stood, Sam could see that she was tall and athletically built, with a darker, almost gypsy-like complexion. Sam found himself transfixed in his seat, openly staring at the woman. Some little signal jarred him into action and he almost forgot to put the vehicle into park as he got out.
“Can I help?” He heard himself say.
“Je ne comprends pas,” she said, pointing to the tire.
“You’re French.”
“Oui, je suis francaise.”
Just as Sam’s trance deepened, John drove up in time to hear the young woman speak.
“Comment ca va?” John said as he walked up.
The woman walked past Sam. His father and the woman immediately engaged in an in-depth discussion that absolutely flabbergasted Sam. This was without a doubt the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and his father was speaking to her in fluent French. He didn’t even know the old man could speak French that well.
“Don’t just stand there boy, fix the tire.” The old man smiled and made some off-hand comment to the woman and Sam got a glance and a smile from her that just made it worse. Sam looked down at his feet, picked up the jack, and addressed the tire. As he was getting started a small boy popped up in the back seat and stared down at him. Sam looked at the traffic on the road and saw that it was light and the car was far enough off the road. Besides, his bubble lights were on.
“Dad, ask her if her son can help me with the tire.”
Sam heard another string of high speed French and the woman called to the boy. Sam had him step out and stand beside him, and walked him through the tire change. The boy said nothing but watched intently with intelligent and interested eyes. Sam loosened the lug nuts and then showed the boy how to loosen them. Sam and the boy worked together and soon the tire was changed. John and the woman were laughing and smiling and having a great time. He stood up and with the boy walked over to them.
“C’est mon fils, Samson,” John said, gesturing to Sa
m.
“Samson?” the woman said, smiling and raising her arms up in a very intriguing double biceps pose. She was obviously a weight trainer, but her size was fluid and balanced.
“Thanks you mean old man,” Sam said.
“And this is Christine,” John said.
Just as John said that the woman leaned over and kissed Sam on both cheeks. Shocked, he murmured, “God love the French.”
“Christine is Madeleine Toche’s granddaughter,” John said and immediately translated. “She’s here to help with the restaurant.”
Madeleine Toche ran Patience’s only upscale restaurant. The food was uncomplicated but lovingly prepared. The flavors were bright and the ingredients fresh that day. It was just like a neighborhood restaurant that every little French town has. It was full every night with townspeople and visitors who had heard about Patience’s secret.
“Let’s show her the way to the restaurant then,” Sam said, the tire fixed and the flat stowed in the trunk of his squad.
“A little French wine would be great,” John said.
“Ah oui un peux du vin,” Christine said smiling.
“She said…” John started to say.
“Got it Dad, she said wine and that’s good enough for me.”
Sam led the way about half a mile back into town to a larger looking house that Madeleine Toche had converted years ago into a quaint, serviceable restaurant, with a stream that rambled past it through a thicket of cottonwoods and oaks. As the little caravan pulled up, Madeleine Toche came out and walked over to greet her granddaughter. She was slight and petite and was ramrod straight, an absolute bundle of energy. She cooked and ran her restaurant with the help of three women from town. The menu was what she wrote on the chalk board and it was ready when you were. Sam had eaten meals there that had lasted hours. She was no nonsense and took her food, especially the ingredients, very seriously. Nathan Harper grew most of her produce and her meat came from the farms in the area. The trout was local, and when she felt like ocean fish she bought it fresh with a phone call to St. Louis, seasoned with the herbs she grew around the building.
Everyone followed Madeleine into the restaurant by way of the kitchen. It was immediately obvious to Sam that Christine more than knew her way around a kitchen by the way she looked at the equipment and the food that was underway. While Christine stayed in the kitchen the rest of the party walked into a small family dining area and sat around a large oak table.
“John, you know where the wine is,” Madeleine said.
“Mon plaisir, Madeleine,” he answered with a smile.
“Sam, your father is a rogue.”
“He says that’s why my mother married him.”
“But of course. Why marry a boring man?”
John came back and set several ordinary glasses on the table and a large carafe along with a pitcher of well water. He poured wine for everyone including a little for the boy that he thinned with some water.
“How come I never got any wine as a kid?” Sam teased.
“You got plenty. I just didn’t give it to you.”
As they chatted for a while Sam kept glancing back towards the kitchen. Madeleine noticed and smiled.
“Christine won’t come out of that kitchen for some time, Sam. She is a chef, a Cordon Bleu. She makes my humble country food seem ordinary.”
“She’s remarkably beautiful.” Sam was beyond pretending disinterest.
“She has left her husband, also a chef in France. I think he couldn’t stand it that she was a better chef than he. He gladly demonstrated that by sleeping with just about every young woman around.” she said acidly.
“I thought being a rogue was good,” Sam offered back.
“There is a difference between being a rogue and a pig.” Madeleine’s assessment of Christine’s former husband was also a message that Sam picked up on immediately.
Sam made up his mind immediately. He stood up, laid his hand tenderly on Madeleine’s shoulder and walked back to the kitchen without another word.
“You know Sam’s a one woman man,” John added.
“If I thought otherwise he would be busing tables.”
“You could get him to do it too.”
As Sam walked back to the kitchen he noticed a familiar sight out the window. Nathan had driven up on a large tractor with the seat modified to hold his huge frame. Nathan rarely used the tractor for anything except the heaviest farm work. Everything else from moving big rocks to clearing trees, he did by hand. It made him stronger than hell and gave him an enormous appetite.
“Oh no you don’t,” Sam muttered as he hurried through the kitchen and out the back door. “Stop right there you big African bastard.”
“So, the granddaughter has caught the attention of ‘he who entertains wayward women on Saturdays’,” Nathan giggled.
“I saw her first. Besides you get enough anyway, so I guess I’d have to fight you for her,” Sam said.
“I have seen pictures. Her beauty would drive you to great fierceness. How would you plan your attack?” Nathan said.
“I would hide up in a tree and drop down and hit you over the head with a log, “Sam said continuing the charade.
“That might work, but in the interest of saving my head and you the trouble of climbing a tree, I will be like a big brother to her.”
“So when did you see pictures and why didn’t you say anything?” Sam asked.
“She lived in France. I didn’t know she was here until Madeleine called me. Now let’s go in. I’m thirsty,” Nathan said as he lifted up an earthenware jug cupped in his hand, unable to get his smallest finger through the handle.
“A delivery?” Sam said.
“Just some sugar and corn and stuff,” Nathan smiled. Sam shook his head. Ever since Nathan first saw a still he had been mesmerized. Sam figured it reminded him of his childhood back in Africa, where the women brewed beer for the village.
As the two men walked back through the kitchen, Nathan said, “You’re in trouble Sam. If you didn’t notice she barely even glanced at me. I caught her looking at you when we walked on by.”
“Man, I feel like a kid in school,” Sam said.
“Lots of other hound dogs around here not as nice as me. Better not wait,” Nathan said.
Sam was already back down the hall to the kitchen.
Things were picking up in the kitchen for the evening meal. Sam had eaten at the restaurant so many times throughout his lifetime that he recognized many of the dishes. There was often something new that Madeleine would present to her customers. Sam smelled lamb and looked over to see Christine adding some final seasoning to an earthenware pot of Daube, a Provencal heavy stew, one of Sam’s favorites. One of the women was preparing some trout that would be fried in one of the heavy iron skillets heating up on the range.
Christine saw Sam walk into the kitchen and gave him a friendly, brief smile. She was in her own world like a captain at sea, with a finger on everything at once, like a conductor, melding the strings and woodwinds at just the perfect moment. The little boy had wandered into the kitchen and sat in the corner, watching his mother and keenly aware of what was going on.
“Yves, un peu du thyme, s’il vous plait.”
The boy got up off the chair and motioned to Sam to follow him outside.
Sam followed and the boy and he walked over to a knee high planter just around the corner. The boy pointed to a thick patch of low shrubby thyme.
“C’est du thyme,” the boy said, snapping off some twigs.
“Oh,” Sam said, pretending not to recognize the plant. Everybody loves to show what they know. It was a nice moment and Sam didn’t want to do the stupid adult thing and say, “yes, I know,” or something equally pointless. Sam remembered showing both of his parents all of the herbs in these gardens when it was he that ran and picked for Madeleine.
Sam tried something else.
“Do you fish?”
The boy knew it was a question but shrugged his
shoulders.
“Poisson?” Sam knew that from reading the menu over the years. He also made the universal casting and reeling of an invisible rod.
“Ah oui!” the boy said, very excited.
“We poisson,” Sam said, pointing to the boy and himself.
The two of them walked back into the kitchen, the boy ran over to his mother with a small clutch of thyme, and with a rapid fire exchange the fishing date was decided.
Christine looked at Sam and pointed at the ground and said, “maintenant?” Her gesture suggested immediacy like, “right now?” Sam wished it meant “come over here so I can kiss you again.” No such luck.
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Au jour du matin,” Madeleine said as she walked into the kitchen, settling everything with a wave of her hand as she put her arm around Sam and led him out of the kitchen. Score one for me, Sam thought, some fun with the kid and a chance to see mom again.
The next morning Sam got up, dressed, and went over to Nathan’s to do a little work before they took the boy fishing for trout in the creek. He wanted to check a couple of the potential lab sites, and he hoped like hell that the cooks had moved on and they’d come up bust. Sam was not the kind of cop who wanted to find illegal activity, imagined or otherwise, as he had seen some nut cops do, the ones who wore the leather driving gloves and carried a giant side arm. Knowing how and when to shoot meant a lot more than having the blasting power. His father had told him that if rifles and machine guns don’t do it, you’d better have armor. His father knew what he was talking about, having seen Tiger tanks rolling in his direction on more than one occasion in France.
Nathan was standing at the entrance to the Kraal when Sam drove up. He walked over to the car, carrying a spear the size of a large sapling, and strapped it to the top of the squad on two small rails that had been welded to the roof. He also had a holster attached to his side that held a short barreled shot gun, a 10 gauge side by side that had been modified so Nathan could get his finger on the trigger without discharging it.
“I see you brought the blunderbuss. Expecting trouble?” Sam smirked.