Dorothy Garlock (2 page)

Ominously, one side of the burning barn chose that moment to give way, and a cascade of wood crashed to the ground with such
force that Sophie jumped in fright. The sound was so raw that it seemed as if the barn were in pain. Once the rubble had settled,
she could see that all that remained of the building was part of one wall and the frame of the front doors.

“We are not leaving!” Hermann shouted defiantly.

“Then you’ll die.”

“Goddamn right, ya will!” the one to the left echoed.

Sophie looked hard at her father. She could sense the anger rising in his breast. He and his family had been hounded and threatened
out of one home in the nation where he had been born, and now his new life in America was also in jeopardy. She had never
seen him so angry. She also knew that he meant to act, and that made her blood run cold.

“Ya ain’t got no other choice.”

“You will not tell me what to do!”

Hermann Heller strode across his property toward the three men. With each step he gained determination, his heavy hands clenching
and unclenching with a rage that threatened to consume him. The two men to either side of the gunman stepped backward; the
sight of their prey pursuing them was unsettling. The gunman, however, stood his ground. For Sophie, time seemed to stand
still.

Her father was going to die!

She cringed, waiting for the shot that would rip her father from her life, but still it didn’t come. Instead, Hermann moved
closer and closer to the men, his strong hands before him as if he meant to wring the life out of them before he even got
them in his grasp.

Finally, when Hermann was only a couple of feet from them, the hooded leader stepped quickly forward and, with both hands
and all the strength he could muster, swung the rifle’s butt at his attacker. The hard wooden stock hit the side of Hermann’s
head with an audible crack. The farmer fell hard to the ground, his face striking the earth. With great effort, he struggled
up to his hands and knees, his body quivering. In the light of the still raging fire, Sophie saw a wetness on the side of
her father’s face and knew that it was blood.

“Hermann!” Maria shouted as she fell sobbing onto her knees.

“Father,” Sophie said, her voice little more than a whisper.

The armed man stepped behind Hermann, raised the rifle high above him, and drove the butt of the gun into the back of the
wounded man’s head. The blow knocked Hermann back to the ground, where he lay silent and unmoving.

“Stupid son of a bitch,” the gunman snarled.

Watching her father being savagely beaten struck Sophie as worse than seeing him shot and killed. Death would have been final,
but his suffering from the blows that had felled him continued. Unsure whether her father was dead or alive, she felt consumed
by anger.

“Just shoot that Nazi bastard!” the smaller of the masked men shouted as he danced from one foot to the other in excitement.
“What in the hell’d he think he was doin’ chargin’ after ya like that?”

“He weren’t thinkin’ at all.”

Hot tears began to run down Sophie’s cheeks and fall onto the coarse fabric of her nightshirt. She could hear her mother’s
sobbing mix with the gulping breaths Karl was taking to control his panic, but she couldn’t bring herself to look at either
of them… she couldn’t look away from her father and the men who had done him harm!

Her parents had taught her to know the difference between right and wrong. If you were to see a wrong being done, and you
had the ability to stop it, you had to act! To do otherwise was as great a sin as the wrong itself! As she stared at her father’s
motionless body, Sophie felt the full force of her parents’ lesson.

She stepped off the porch.

The dew that covered the grass was cool against her feet but Sophie couldn’t feel anything; even the heat of the roaring fire
was beyond her. Her anger at the heinous acts of the three men propelled her forward.

“Sophie!” her mother shouted. “No!”

“Well, would ya lookee here?” The gunman chuckled.

As she approached, Sophie could see the man’s hands tighten on the stock of the rifle and she began to brace herself for the
blow she would certainly receive. There was nothing she could do to stop them, to hurt them like they had hurt her family,
but she didn’t care. Her father was defenseless, and he needed someone,
needed her
, to protect him.

She covered the distance quickly, falling hard to the ground next to her father. Running her hands across his back and up
to his neck, she tried to give all the comfort she could. Faintly, she could see the rise and fall of his chest and thanked
the stars that he was still alive. With a start, her hands found the wound on his scalp. When she held her hands up to her
face, she could see the bright crimson blood. Tightly holding one of her father’s rough hands, she turned her face to glare
at the three hooded men.

“I won’t let you hurt him again!” she shouted.

“Ain’t nothin’ ya can do about it!” the smaller man said with a laugh.

The leader stepped closer, raising the rifle until the barrel was pointed right at her head. Now that she was close enough
to the man, she could see his eyes through the holes in the burlap bag; they danced wildly as they sized her up. Anger continued
to rise inside her. No matter what was about to happen, she’d face it with her head held high!

“It’s like I always say,” the man said. “The only good Kraut is a dead one.”

There wasn’t even time to say a prayer before her whole world went black.

S
OPHIE
H
ELLER HURRIED
down the busy street, oblivious to the hustle and bustle, the cars and trucks, the daily life of Victory. Her eyes passed
from one sight to the next quickly, not alighting on anything or anyone for long as she kept moving ever forward. She could
not, would not be late!

Above her, the summer sun pounded down mercilessly. Rain had been promised for days, but those promises had proven to be every
bit as empty as the cloudless afternoon sky. This day was a scorcher if there ever was one! Red, white, and blue American
flags hung limply from every storefront, stirred by only the slightest of breezes. Pushing one errant strand of hair from
her eyes, Sophie wiped the back of her hand across her brow. Her simple blue blouse clung tightly to her skin, the fabric
as wet as if it had just been pulled from the wash.

“Good afternoon, Sophie,” a woman’s voice called to her from somewhere near the bakery.

She gave no response save a nod before hurrying on, clutching her purse tightly to her chest, aware that whoever had spoken
to her would find her behavior rude. Still, her concern was not great enough for her to stop. She had a task that would afford
no wait, and, moments later, she finally reached her destination.

Ambrose Hardware sat in a long, thin brick building on a corner of Main Street, right next door to the grocer. With its wide
display windows, crisp sign, and long awning, Robert Ambrose’s business was as familiar a sight to the town’s residents as
Marge’s Diner, McKenzie’s Barber Shop, or the post office, and every bit as vital. Victory’s lone hardware store served everyone
from the town’s most venerable families to the newest arrival.

Stepping into the welcome shade provided by the awning, Sophie looked through the large show window. Past the stenciled lettering
on the glass, she could see hammers, saws, several buckets of paint, and a pair of shovels, but it was the centerpiece of
the display that grabbed her attention, sending a chill racing across her skin, even on such a hot summer day.

Two large posters stood side by side on a pair of chairs, their bright headlines shouting a clear message to every passerby.
The first showed a smiling man holding a treasury bond in one hand under the banner of:

WANTED—FIGHTING DOLLARS

MAKE EVERY PAY DAY BOND DAY

The second poster was far more sinister-looking than its companion. On it, the dark eyes of a German soldier looked out from
under the brim of an iron helmet, his steely gaze clearly showing his harmful intentions. The poster read:

HE’S WATCHING YOU

Sophie had seen these posters and others like them in the windows of stores and homes across town, attached to lampposts and
telephone poles, and even in the back window of a pickup truck. While she shared their sentiment as a proud American, she
couldn’t help but worry that the more sinister poster had it backward; she and her German family were the ones being watched!

Faintly, Sophie caught her own reflection looking back at her in the glass. She looked haggard, bone-tired from lack of sleep.
She hadn’t bothered to put on any makeup or do a thing with her hair. To do so had suddenly seemed so unimportant, so trivial!
But she certainly looked a mess. Gingerly, she rubbed the swollen knot at her temple; the slightest touch was enough to send
sharp ripples of pain racing across her head.

Now, even a week after the burning of her family’s barn, the wound was still angry and tender. She hadn’t so much as seen
the blow coming! When the gunman brought the butt of his rifle down upon her skull, the brief flare of pain had not been as
bad as the pounding headaches that had plagued her for days afterward. Thankfully, the wound was hidden in her hairline, far
enough out of sight to keep anyone from asking any questions.

As she stood before the hardware store, Sophie knew that the physical pain she had suffered was nothing compared to the shame
and hurt she still felt at the indignities that had been visited upon her family. These wounds were deeper and more difficult
to heal. She wondered if their scars would ever truly vanish. Taking a deep breath, she pushed open the door.

Sophie entered Ambrose Hardware to the sound of small bells ringing above the door. The blistering heat of the summer day
followed her inside as if it were a shawl wrapped around her shoulders. After the bright glare of outdoors, it took a moment
for her eyes to adjust to the store’s darkened interior.

The store was crowded with goods in every nook and cranny; pots and pans, spools of thread, wire and rope, buckets of paint,
and tin pails full of nails. Small compartments ran the length of the nearer wall, rising from the worn wooden floor to the
high tin ceiling, their treasures hidden behind the smoky dark glass of each drawer. The very air carried with it the scent
of available goods—oils, soaps, and wood—all gently pushed by the ceiling fans that turned lazily above her head.

“Afternoon, Miss Heller.”

Robert Ambrose stepped from the store’s stockroom, wiping his hands upon the dark vest that covered his button-down shirt
and matching tie. Though Sophie felt certain that the store owner was nearly as old as her father, he carried himself like
a much younger man. He was betrayed only by the slightest of hints to his true age; the silver hairs that were sprinkled across
his black mane, the round, wire-rimmed glasses that sat high upon his thin nose, and the deep wrinkles that spread from around
his mouth when he smiled all spoke of a man in his early fifties. Of medium height and build, he had a reputation about town
as a bit of a teetotaler; no tobacco stained his long fingers or teeth and he would never be found staggering from a tavern
as the morning sun broke the horizon. Decent and hardworking, he had built his business with his own two hands.

“Good afternoon to you, Mr. Ambrose,” she answered.

“Still blazing away?” He nodded toward the front door.

“I’m afraid so.”

“I swear it’s not fit for man or beast out there,” he remarked. “It gets a mite lonely in here when folks aren’t brave enough
to venture outside on days like this. Between the war and this darn heat, I’m going to have a bear of a time this year!”

“Did you have enough time to go over my father’s list?” Sophie asked, a bit too anxious to engage in talk of the weather.
“I know you asked me to come back today, but if you need more time—”

“No, my dear, it’s fine,” Mr. Ambrose said as he slid a pencil out from behind one ear and consulted the list she had left
with him earlier in the week. “I’ve managed to round up most of what your father was asking for, all except for the roofing
pitch. That will have to be ordered from Springfield, but it shouldn’t take more than a week at best.”

“He’s certainly grateful for all that you can do.”

“Your father’s been coming here from the first day you and yours set foot in town.” The hardware store owner smiled. “Darn
shame losing a building like that, but I’ll do all I can to get him back on his feet.”

“He’ll be glad—”

“Gosh darn it all,” the man suddenly blurted, snapping his fingers across the piece of paper with a crack. “I forgot all about
those hammers! I best check and make sure I don’t…” He mumbled to himself as he disappeared back into the inky darkness of
the storeroom.

As much as it shamed her to admit it, Sophie was thankful that Mr. Ambrose had left her when he did; casual talk of what had
happened on that fateful night made her skin crawl. Remembering the flames that had stretched toward the night sky, the sounds
of the barn collapsing, the armed and hooded men, and the dark crimson of her father’s blood as she cradled his head in her
arms still made her tremble. She knew that she should go forward with her life, leave the past in the past, but she found
it too hard.

Her father had no such trouble. The morning after their lives had been forever changed, Hermann Heller had been out picking
through the still smoldering wreckage of the barn, his head swathed in thick cloth bandages. Within days, he’d written a list
of things he would need to reconstruct what they had lost. He would harbor no talk of the police or of following the advice
given to them by the hooded men to leave their home, to leave Victory behind. Whenever he was asked about that night, he became
upset, his voice quickly rising in anger. Sophie could not understand her father’s defiance; she could not stop asking the
questions her father refused to give voice.