And If I Die

by John Aubrey Anderson

  “What’s he named?”

  “We jes’ calls him Dawg.”

  “Hmm.” She took the dog’s face in her hands and held it so they were nose to nose. “That’s a good name. Does he like to walk?”

  “Now you mention it, he likes walkin’ long as he got somebody to keep him company.”

  “I’ll keep him company if he’ll behave.”

  “Well, he can behave pretty good, but he don’t like to walk nowhere ’cept on the road ’tween here an’ yo’ house.”

  Trudy looked back up the road. “My sister’s not behavin’.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “She was riding Tony and told me to stay in the yard.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I told her not to boss me, and she did anyway.”

  “You don’t mean it?”

  “Mm-hmm. I figure to go tell my daddy.”

  “Where’s yo’ daddy at?”

  She thought about the question for a bit, then turned her attention back to the dog. “Does he like to swim?”

  “Some.”

  “Well, he can go swimming in my pool if he won’t knock all the water out.”

  “If I was to guess, I’d say he won’t knock out a single drop. You wantin’ to go right now?”

  “Maybe.” Trudy looked back where she’d come from then looked at Mose’s house. “I think we better get something to eat before we go.”

  “You might be right. You like chocolate cake?”

  Ten minutes later, AnnMarie Roberts came down the road on Tony and found her sister in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch; her timing was perfect. Trudy was finishing up her chocolate cake and feeding every other bite to the Redbone hound. The girl rode the paint up to the porch and leaned on the pommel; Mose stood up and removed his hat.

  AnnMarie nodded at Mose. “Trudy, I told you not to leave the yard.”

  “I was coming back.”

  “You can’t be running off like that.”

  “You’re too bossy.”

  “One of us is.” AnnMarie took a breath. “Thanks, Mr. Mann.”

  Mose smiled and made a gesture that took in the dog. “Our pleasure. You want some cake?”

  “No, sir, I gotta get back to the house and take Sweet Thing up to the barn.” She glared at Trudy. “It’d be nice if I could get it done before he gets in the yard and tears up somebody’s wading pool.”

  “It’s a swimming pool.” Miss Trudy did not seem inclined to leave.

  “Whatever it is, Momma’ll kill me if he tears it up.” The thirteen-year-old was bearing the weight of the world. “C’mon, Trudy. Get up behind me.”

  “I’m busy.”

  “I’m in a hurry, Tru.”

  “You’re too bossy, an’ my name’s not Tru.”

  “Well . . .” Mose was watching the little girl feed the last of her cake to the dog. “I was jes’ thinkin’ I needed a little exercise. How ’bout if me an’ Dawg walk back up that way with Miss Trudy soon’s she ain’t too busy. Maybe you can git to Sweet ’fore he gits to the pool, an’ me an’ the dog can git us a little stroll.”

  “Thanks,” said AnnMarie. She pulled the paint around and galloped off to rescue the wading pool.

  Clark Roberts pulled into his carport and found Trudy in her pool with the dog; the dog was behaving. Mose was sitting nearby in a lawn chair.

  “Howdy, Mose. You get roped into lifeguard duty?”

  “Yassuh.” Mose stood up. “An’ enjoyin’ it.”

  “Where’s AnnMarie?”

  “She taken Sweet up to the barn. I ’spect she be back here directly.”

  “Is she on Tony?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  Roberts pulled off a good-looking straw cowboy hat and wiped his brow. “I’d give a week’s pay if that girl got along with me as well as she does those two animals.”

  Mose remembered his own daughter’s early teens. “She be awright soon enough . . . maybe a year or two.”

  Roberts put the hat back on. “If Millie lets her live that long.”

  “Miss AnnMarie’s a fine girl, Sheriff; I watched the way she handle that paint . . . an’ that bull. She got a right gentle hand.”

  “She gets along with Morris.”

  “Yassuh, but he don’t never tell her to do somethin’ she ain’t wantin’ to do.”

  Roberts exhaled loudly. “How many years?”

  “Two at the outside.” Mose took his own hat off and ran his hand through his hair. “But she jes’ practice.”

  “What?”

  Mose waved his hat toward the pool. “That’n there is the one.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She the one what’s gonna teach you how to be a daddy.”

  Roberts watched Trudy fill a plastic bucket and pour the water over the dog’s head. The dog sat still and behaved. Roberts groaned, and Mose smiled.

  The pattern of summer school established itself at NTSU, as did the lunchtime meetings of Patterson and Epstein. They met on Tuesdays and Thursdays for sandwiches. As often as not, because the sandwiches were plentiful—and made by Missy Patterson—Griffin would wander in during their discussions and help himself to the food. Epstein asked questions; Patterson showed him where to find the answers; Griffin spent most of his time looking out the window. Mann ate somewhere else.

  In mid-July, on a Thursday, the clock was moving toward twelve thirty when Epstein patted his Bible and said, “Dee’s started watching over my shoulder while I study this thing.”

  Patterson knew about Delores Epstein from her brother. She was only twenty-five and had been responsible for herself and her brother for the past five years. During that time, she finished college, earned her CPA certification, and provided the lion’s share of the money for her brother’s education. What Epstein felt for his sister bordered on worship.

  “And?”

  “And . . . the gal ain’t too keen on the New Testament.”

  “The New Testament in its entirety, or some passage in particular?” asked Patterson.

  Epstein had crammed a handful of potato chips in his mouth. “Mofwee meewahcuz.”

  “Miracles?” asked Pat.

  Epstein nodded and swallowed.

  “All of them, or just selected ones?” asked Patterson.

  “She didn’t say.”

  “Mm-hmm. Okay, we’ll take the one by which all others can be measured. The Resurrection is the hinge point of the Christian faith—if it didn’t happen, then we have no reason to believe anything else the Book tells us—none of it would matter.” Patterson looked at his watch. “I’ve got a class in two minutes. Get with your sister—if she’s interested—and write down all the objections y’all can come up with and bring them back here next Tuesday. We’ll start there.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  When Patterson got home that afternoon, Missy surprised him at the door with the news they were meeting someone for supper.

  “Well, I suppose it’s safe to assume it’s someone at the Cabinet level or higher, because you don’t get this spiffed up for the common folk.”

  She grinned and flipped her fingers at her hair. “All I did was get my hair cut.”

  “Remember, dearest, your nose gets longer if you lie.” He grinned back. “That’s a new blouse, those are new slacks, and you’ve got on earrings and lipstick.”

  She couldn’t hold it any longer. “Bobby called from some place in Tennessee at one o’clock. We can pick him up at Carswell an’ take him out for supper.”

  Patterson understood her excitement . . . and shared it. Except for their not getting to see him often, the couple thought Bobby was near perfect in his roles as brother and brother-in-law. The fighter pilot had returned from Southeast Asia the previous October, and this would be the first time they’d seen him in almost two years.

  Missy’s brother entered the Air Force Aviation Cadet program as a teenager and was flying jet fighters in Korea before he was twenty-one. His superiors in the fighter pilot
community, most of whom were general officers, were acquainted with him and his reputation. For Lt. Colonel Robert L. Parker Jr., promotion to a higher rank would always take a back seat to the well-being of his troops, and getting the job done well was more important than getting the credit—and his putting seven MiGs in the bag would never hurt his résumé. If he stayed on his current track, he was destined to be the youngest general in the air force.

  Patterson delayed their departure for Ft. Worth as much as he was able, but it finally came down to leaving with Missy or watching her drive off by herself. They drove onto Carswell Air Force Base an hour early and were standing on the flight-line side of Base Operations when Bobby led his formation of F-4s screaming in over the runway at four hundred knots. Half a dozen student pilots and their instructors—teams from the training wing at Reese Air Force Base who were out on navigation hops—took a moment away from their flight planning and weather briefings to come out and watch the “real airplanes” taxi in.

  The hulking camouflaged fighters parked in a line facing a row of sparkling white T-38s . . . battle-ready broadswords, confronting dress daggers.

  Parker dismounted from the lead airplane. He took a minute to stow his G-suit and helmet in the cockpit, then walked across the ramp to hug Missy and greet Patterson. “Let’s get inside where it’s quiet.”

  They stood near a flight-planning table and made small talk while Parker waited for his GIB (guy in back) to get on the phone and make arrangements for their overnight stay.

  The other spectators were back at their tasks, planning their flights back to Reese; the room was a swirling collage of colorful unit patches plastered on a background of olive-green flight suits. A student pilot standing a few feet away sported a shoulder patch depicting the roadrunner cartoon character wearing flight boots and carrying a helmet. The stenciled nametape on the kid’s chest read ASHBAUGH. He was staring at Parker.

  Patterson watched as a light came on in the young officer’s eyes.

  Ashbaugh grabbed a scrap of paper and wrote “MIG KILLER!!!” on it with an arrow pointing at Parker. He nudged the kid standing to his left and eased the note over to him. The other student was engrossed in his paperwork and pushed the note out of his way. Ashbaugh elbowed his friend and shoved the note back. The recipient didn’t appreciate the interruption and pushed back—too hard. The would-be messenger lost his footing, grabbed for the table, and missed. He let out a loud Whoop!—thereby attracting the attention of every airman in the room—windmilled his arms enough to prolong the moment, then augered in. He hit his head on Parker’s flight boot when he landed.

  The young instructors were shocked that one of their charges would attack a field-grade officer. The other student pilots laughed out loud. Ashbaugh turned lobster red.

  Parker bent over, offering a hand and smile to the wreckage. “I see you’ve learned the first lesson.”

  Ashbaugh wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “Sir?”

  Parker said, “You can’t learn anything when you’re flying straight and level.”

  Ashbaugh let the lieutenant colonel pull him to his feet and nodded seriously, “I won’t forget, sir.”

  The MiG-killer winked. “Daggum right, you won’t.”

  The dinner guest wanted Mexican food, so the three went downtown to Joe T. Garcia’s.

  They swapped news and gossip over beef enchiladas, and Bobby seemed more pleased about Pat’s elevation to chair of the department than he was about his own good news—he was on the colonel’s list and would pin his eagles on in late September.

  He waited until they were dropping him off in front of the Visiting Officers’ Quarters before sharing the news about the assignment change that would come with his promotion.

  He stood by the open passenger’s door and said, “Scuttlebutt says I’ll probably be heading back to Thailand before Christmas.”

  “For what?” asked Missy. Her brother was a veteran of two years in Korea and one in Southeast Asia.

  “Some wing-weenie role, no doubt. Pushing a pencil and inventorying toilet paper.”

  The last time he’d gone to Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base “to fly a desk,” he’d logged a hundred and ninety-one missions—a hundred and eight of them over North Vietnam. “You’ve already been over there once. They can’t send you back.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “This isn’t fair, Bobby.”

  “I told them you’d say that.”

  “This is not funny.” Tears were threatening.

  “I know, kid.” He leaned into the car and kissed her on the cheek, then stepped back. “If I’m proud of anything, Missy, it’s being your brother—I always have been, I always will be. I’m convinced that God has singled you out to do something really special . . . and I’m anxious to see what it’s going to be.” He smiled at her and shrugged. “He called me to drive fighters.”

  Patterson and Missy drove back to Denton in silence.

  When Patterson stopped in their driveway, neither of them moved to get out. Patterson said, “We all have our own calling; his is to lead men who protect our nation.”

  “War,” she sighed.

  “Speaking of which . . . did you hear what he said?”

  “What?”

  “He said, ‘God has singled you out to do something really special.’ You and I are starting to hear a lot of people use words to that effect.”

  “I’ve been hearin’ that all my life,” she said. Her eyes were on a groundskeeper on the other side of the fairway. He was staying late, working near one of the cart paths.

  Patterson took her hand. “You want to pray here or in the house?”

  “Both.”

  They bowed their heads and prayed for her brother.

  The man who’d been standing in front of Nettie’s Café pretended to scrape at some dirt out on the golf course.

  The kids who lived near the golf course called the groundskeepers “greenies,” and stayed out of their way. Greenies were bad about using their little maintenance carts to chase people who were caught playing games other than golf on the manicured course.

  Two angels, hidden from all eyes in the physical world, watched while the greenie stayed at his task for a few minutes after the couple went into their house. When he’d waited long enough, the worker started his maintenance cart and drove back to the groundskeeper’s shack.

  Patterson’s guardian angel said, He has seen neither the old man nor the boy.

  True, said the angel who had been standing at Missy’s side since before her birth, but the time soon comes.

  A line of thunderstorms passed through Denton on Tuesday morning, and small showers were continuing to make things messy at lunchtime.

  Someone’s shoes made squishing sounds in the outer office, and Epstein stuck his head into Patterson’s office at eleven thirty; the sandwiches were waiting. “Morning, boss.”

  “Hey, Supe.” Patterson waved at the box of goodies. “Help yourself while I go wash my hands.”

  Epstein stepped back to let a young lady precede him, and she met Patterson in the doorway. “Hi.”

  Epstein said, “Sis, this is Dr. Patterson. Boss, this is Dee Epstein, my mouthpiece.”

  “Very funny,” she said to her brother. She offered her hand to Patterson. “My brother tells me you’re a good man to work for.”

  “Thanks. He speaks well of you too.”

  She was wearing a yellow plastic poncho. Her hair, black and curly like her brother’s, was rain-plastered to her head.

  “May I take your raincoat?”

  “I’ll just put it on the floor. Do you allow females to barge in on your bull session?”

  “By all means.”

  Hugh Griffin was down the hall when he heard a woman’s voice and chose that moment to saunter into the office. He helped Dee out from under the poncho and said, “Hi, I’m Hugh Griffin.”

  “Hello,” she said. “Dee Epstein.” She didn’t offer to shake hands.

  “My pleasure,
” said the cool philosophy instructor from California.

  Patterson returned in time to complete the introductions. “Griff came on staff this summer.”

  As far as Griffin was concerned, Dee Epstein had everything it took to warrant his attention—Bambi eyes and a beautiful face, dark skin, and a body that would do justice to a bikini. The woman was definitely doing her share to uphold the Texas tradition. He decided to sit in on the theology discussion.

  While the others got settled, Dee leaned close to her brother and said, “Supe?”

  “My namesake’s a baseball player—a real slugger. Mike Epstein—Super Jew.”

  “Boys,” she said and rolled her eyes.

  Minutes later, hands were washed, introductions were complete, and sandwiches distributed. Patterson said, “We can look out the window and tell what the weather’s like, it’s too soon to predict who’s going to win the World Series, and the presidential election is in the far distant future. I propose we use the whole hour to talk about our chosen question. C. S. Lewis said, ‘If Jesus Christ rose from the dead, all other miracles are incidental.’ So . . . did He?”

  Dee put her plate on the floor, picked up a paperback book, and pulled out two sheets of typed notes. “Who goes first?”

  Patterson knew the answer. “The ladies, of course.”

  “It’s interesting you phrased it that way”—her smile exuded confidence—“because it touches the basis for one of my questions. The Biblical account says two women discovered Jesus was not in the tomb. No one in that culture gave any credence at all to a woman’s word . . . no one would’ve believed them, so why should we?”

  “That’s a great start,” said Pat, “and in one sense, you’re correct. Too often in that culture, ladies were thought of as little more than chattel. However, the writers who recorded the Resurrection account appreciated that fact more than you or I . . . and they told it like it happened. Had they been more interested in deceiving their readers than in communicating God’s truth, don’t you think they’d have told us the empty tomb was discovered by a handful of trustworthy men?”