by David Kersey
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX
Afghanistan is a fairly large country, about the size of Texas, just the tiniest bit smaller. Too large and too many hot zones for a soldier to bump into someone known from the States. Joan Robertson served in that horrible country at the same time as he did. Not surprising that he had not encountered her over there. According to Military Women she was stationed north of the province of Kunar which is where Minnick dug in at the Korengal Mountains. She was in the province of Nuristan where the bloody battle of COP (Combat Outpost) Keating occurred in October, ’09. Kunar and Nuristan are neighboring provinces, so Robertson and himself would have been close, not that many clicks away, about the distance from the north end of Dallas to the south end.
He had googled the Little Rock Democrat-Gazette and struck pay dirt. Front page photo of Joan Robertson in the November 12 issue of 2009. The accompanying article disclosed her near death experience during the Keating assault by 300 Taliban soldiers. The COP was so overrun the American soldiers retreated and abandoned the camp, leaving behind tons of ammunition the enemy confiscated for their own use. Eight Americans died, twenty seven severely wounded, a hundred more with minor wounds. She escaped with only a turned ankle but some riding with her were not so lucky. In her own words, according to the article, “it was Hell.” A concise statement, but he sure as hell knew what she meant. The army never recaptured the camp as it was on the dismantle-withdrawal list anyway. The newspaper story then went soft citing her prowess in math and science at Little Rock Central High School. Minnick wondered if she wet her pants. Of course she did. It had to stop, this total senseless weakening of what once was a proud, mean, lean, fighting machine.
He took the sweeping left turn from I-40 onto the north-south Interstate 30 that would lead him through the heart of Little Rock, over the Arkansas River, past the historic MacArthur Park, and according to MapQuest, would lead him to I-440, then east to the Days Inn just south of the Bill and Hillary Clinton National I did not have sex with that woman Airport. How nice. The Days Inn would put him less than a mile away from Robertson’s last know workplace, that being FedEx, where she was, maybe still is, employed as a bookkeeper. So far that’s all he had to go on. He was in no particular hurry. He passed the airport sign which showed the pictures of the former President with his wife. The thought of a woman running his country, and it looked like a real possibility in the near future, caused him to wonder if we weren’t being attacked from within. He knew Hillary was a proponent of Obama’s gender equality military experiment. This had to stop. Now. Before we lose the whole damn country.
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“Well, the history books won’t bear me out much cause there is a chink along the line, an’ I hope you don’t mind me callin’ him Jeff, that’s all the family has ever did.”
“Yes, that’s quite alright, have heard it the same way,” John added.
“Tragic it was, just like Lincoln in so many ways. Both of them born in log cabins in Kentucky just months apart, Jeff and Abe. An’ both lost so many children as to be broken men. Anyway, Jeff married Zach Taylor’s daughter and that didn’t set well with ole Zach, so Jeff moved Sarah to Mississippi. She died soon after with the malaria. Jeff was tore up for a good long while cause of it. Later on Jeff married Varina, an’ I’m too embarrassed to say the family joke about that, just change a letter an’ you’ll see. So they called her Winnie, and Indian name meaning bright. Him an’ her had six kids, four boys, two girls. None of the boys lived past 21 years old, most of ‘em died way before that, malaria and measles took ‘em, an’ one just plain fell off the steps an’ died. The girls lived full lives but not the boys. Now here’s where you won’t find me in the line. Jeff junior was the one who lived to 21. He schooled at Virginia Military Institute an’ was a hard to figure out kid. He never married but there’s a family secret there. He had a son by an improper courtship up in Virginia and the son carried on the name. That’s my line, where I come in. When junior died he was a banker in Memphis. Yellow fever went through there at that time an’ that got him too. His son was named Samuel after Jeff’s daddy. Samuel married and had three children, one boy, an’ two girls. The boy he named Joseph after Jeff’s brother, and he married and had a son that’s my daddy’s granddaddy, and so on all the way to me. Don’t wanna wear you out.”
“Interesting. I had never heard of an illegitimate child before. I have a book on Jefferson Davis if you’d like to see it.”
“For sure, but it’s probably one I’ve already seen. My daddy has hundreds of things that’ll come to me when he passes cause I’m the last of the line, ain’t no more boys to carry it on. Letters and memoirs and diaries and such, an’ a ton of books an’ trinkets. I’ve got a lot of them already. I’ll tell ya that most history type people will say this ain’t true. Heard that all my life. They say that Jeff junior’s kid was made up or else Samuel was from another father. But daddy showed me a letter from junior to Kitty, that’s the mother who bore Samuel, and it sure looks like he knew he was the father.”
John said in reassurance, “I believe you Tillie. Quite an enlightening conversation but I have a question for you?”
“Does your family talk about him never wanting to fight or become the President of the Confederate States?”
“For sure. He was a pacifist in his heart really, even though he graduated West Point and fought a slew of Indians before the War. He wanted to work things out peaceful but he couldn’t get Lincoln to give in on the slave thing. An’ when the Yanks wouldn’t turn over Fort Sumter he went ahead an’ got things started, but it broke his heart to do it. An’ he got pushed into being President but he stayed until the end, then wound up in prison for a good stretch cause of it. I feel sorry for him.”
“I do too, Tillie. I feel sorry for the whole affair. A very black mark in our history. Well, that’s enough for tonight and you get some sleep. You’ve got quite a ride to do tomorrow.”
“Thank you so much, sir and ma’am. I am really excited and can’t wait to git here.”
“Goodnight honey, the robe is laying out for you. See you in the morning,” Marlene said.
After John and Marlene left to go upstairs, Tillie whispered to me, “Hey Buck, show me some more words.”
I asked Cassie to type hayride, which she did without a hitch. Tillie had put on Marlene’s robe over her clothes, which made her look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. “I’ll be a monkey’s uncle,” she said when she saw what Cassie had typed. “Think we can all three fit on this one chair?”
“Hello John, Frank Cagnetti here. Hey, I have had a lot of inquiries to do a follow-up on your training camp down there. What can you tell me that’s new?”
“We are almost ready to open, Frank, just days away. We get calls every day about canines we could be taking on but now we are in the process of picking and choosing. Some are too old to train and then expect a market for them. We hired our first employee yesterday and she is a pistol, a former K-9 Ops handler that did a stint in Iraq. She came all the way up here from Sweetwater, Tennessee to ask for the job. It’s been that way since you ran the article, which was nicely done, by the way.”
“John, I’m working on a story about the post-traumatic stress disorder. I remember you saying you may have a segment of your business dealing with that. Is that still a go?”
“Yes it is. I sold some property and we’re going to use some of the proceeds, once the property closes, to fix up the old farmhouse. We’ll house some veterans there that are undergoing stress and in return they’ll help us out with the dogs, then be able to keep them. I’m working out a bartering system. They help at the kennel and help with a little bit of farming, and in return they get a trained dog for free and hopefully on their way to restoration. Not everyone will want that gig, but some will, and it’s a short turn around, just a month or so, longer if they want to stay on.”
“What’s your new employee’s name
, just for my file?”
“Matilda Davis, but she goes by Tillie. She says she’s a descendant of Jefferson Davis which might add some color to a story, but there is the caveat that Davis historians will deny one of the births in her lineage.”
“Yeah, I hear that, and it would be colorful if true. Probably won’t go with that. Ok, listen John, have a favor to ask. I told my wife about your place and the fishing hole. We’d like to come down there and stay the weekend come the middle of April. It would be a fun getaway for us both from the madness that is Cleveland. What do you think?”
“Sounds like a plan. Would love to have you both. Count on it.”
“Super. I’m gonna finish banging out a story today for tomorrow’s print. It’ll mainly focus on PTSD, but you’ll be in there somewhere. Ok?”
“Have at it, can’t wait to read it. Be nice.”
“Of course. See you in April.”