Exile Hunter (66 page)

Passing through the
parlor and out onto the veranda, Caroline noticed her guardian,
Warren Linder, seated with his business partner, Jay Becker, and a
male visitor she had never seen before. Standing behind Linder,
serving coffee to the men, was Linder’s sister, April, who had
devoted herself over the past year to becoming Caroline’s second
mother.

Caroline delivered the
pastries quietly to April, who arranged them on a silver tray while
the visitor presented his ideas for publishing a memoir Linder had
recently written under the title,
My Book of Revelations
.

“I can see
positioning it as a sort of modern
Gulag Archipelago
,” the
visitor proposed. “Like Solzhenitsyn, you take a path of nonviolent
protest against the labor camp system. And, like his
One Day in
the Life
, you show us the life of the individual camp inmate
as no one has before. Your book is going to be highly newsworthy, Mr.
Linder, no doubt about it.”

Caroline caught of
glimpse of Linder listening intently to the visitor with an
expression she often saw when he disagreed with her but did not want
to offend her by saying it outright.

She stole a pastry from
the tray April was arranging, and gave her a kiss on the cheek before
starting back toward the door with a sigh of resignation.

“Sorry to interrupt,
but I’ve got to go out again,” she said to April. “Time for
dance class. Is there anything you’d like me bring you on my way
back?”

“No, sweetheart,”
April replied, smiling warmly. “But do remember to be kind to the
boys. These dances mean a great deal to them and you must be careful
not to shatter their illusions.”

“I’ll do my best,
Aunt April,” Caroline promised with a mischievous grin as she left
the room.

But on her way back
through the parlor, when she passed the desk where she usually did
her homework, a padded book envelope caught her eye. It must have
come in the morning mail, she thought, and she picked it up to
examine the return address. It was postmarked Coalville, Utah, and
bore the address of Sharon Unger’s bungalow.

She tore open the
envelope and found inside a book on nutrition and health that she had
once seen her mother reading. She could barely contain her
excitement. Ever since leaving Coalville, but especially after that
night aboard the freighter on Lake Erie when Warren had told her of
her mother’s death, Caroline had longed to own something, no matter
how insignificant, that had belonged to her mother.

But there was more.
Tucked between the pages was a sealed letter, unstamped and
apparently unsent. It was addressed to Roger Kendall at the CLA’s
western mail depot.

Caroline hesitated,
then slit open the envelope.

“Dear Roger, I hope
this letter finds you well, though I have no basis for believing it
will find you at all, as my other letters to you have been returned.
Since receiving your postcard with news of your transfer to Kamas, I
have been unable to find anyone in the government who will confirm
your whereabouts.

“If by some
unfortunate circumstance this letter finds you still in the Yukon, I
am deeply sorry for the hardships you have suffered there. Should
anything happen to you or to me to prevent our meeting again, I want
you to know that I forgive you everything there is to forgive. As I
hope you will forgive me.

“But, as I have said
before, I refuse to accept favorable treatment from the state in
return for forfeiting Caroline’s birthright. So please abandon any
thoughts you might harbor to that end. I will not participate in any
legal actions the government may launch under my name to usurp our
family’s property.

“It saddens me to say
that I have sacrificed more than you will ever know to protect
Caroline during the past year at Kamas. If I have accomplished
anything in this life, let it be that. Our parole came not a moment
too soon, for I doubt I could have held on much longer. And the
thought of leaving Caroline alone at a place like Kamas tormented me
more than I could bear.

“Recently, however, I
have met a man whom I knew as a young girl and have lately grown to
trust. I expect he may soon make me an offer that I am inclined to
accept, for it is a rare thing when two people discover that each has
held feelings for the other over many years without any hope of
satisfying them.

“Accordingly, if I
hear no more from you in the coming days, I intend to file for
divorce and ask that you not place any obstacles in my path. I leave
you in God’s hands.

“Sincerely, Patricia”

I wrote
Dynamite
Fishermen
and
Bride of a Bygone War
to clear my head after
eleven years of government service in places like Beirut, Cairo,
Tunis, Jeddah, and Amman. I had already decided to write novels at
age fourteen, during my first year as a boarding student at Exeter.
My English instructor, a World War II combat veteran, advised those
of us who wanted to follow the path of Melville, Conrad and Hemingway
to first go out and live some adventures so that we would have
stories that people might want to read. My adventures started in the
Middle East and continued in Washington, Europe, the Russian Far
East, Maui, Utah, New York and Boston. Particularly in the Middle
East and Russia, I saw failed states and failed societies but was
often surprised at how much their people had in common with
Americans. This made me think about whether America might someday
suffer its own breed of failure. During the 1930’s, Americans
watched Germany, Italy and Russia and asked, “Could it happen
here?” Today, one might look around and ask the same. In writing
The Kamas Trilogy
, my greatest concern has been that the
novels gain a readership before the events they describe come to
pass.

A Final Word:
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With best wishes,
Preston Fleming