Pages of Promise (10 page)
“I think so.” Richard looked toward the line of distant hills.
The men began their retreat again. The lieutenant did some talking, and soon word was out how Richard had thrown himself against the enemy to save the rest of them.
Smith said, “I thank you, and Molly thanks you.”
“Keep the change, Jack.”
They continued the withdrawal for thirty minutes, and the enemy seemed to have broken off the pursuit. A strange silence fell over the broken fields, and Richard and Jack stopped simultaneously and looked at each other. “The quiet sounds funny,” Smith observed.
Richard turned and looked back over the hills. A flock of small birds was silhouetted against the sky, flying low. They lit on the ground twenty feet away and began pecking industriously in their search for food. “I sure would like to see—”
He never finished the sentence. He felt something strike his left side and thought that Jack had poked him with his rifle butt. It was in his mind to turn, but then the flock of small birds disappeared. Not so much that they just vanished, but they were suddenly covered by a cloud of dust. At the same time, a dull thud ripped his ears and the ground under him seemed to heave. He felt himself strike the earth, and in one instant, a flash of insight, he realized that a shell had exploded. At the same time he became aware of a terrible pain in his side, and as he was rolled over twice, he thought,
I’m being killed!
He lost consciousness for a few seconds. When he awoke, his face was in the dirt, his nose clogged with it. He opened his eyes and tried to sit up, and pain made him gasp. He pushed himself up on one elbow and pulled his sleeve across his face. The acrid smell of cordite was in his nostrils, and he could not see for a moment for the white smoke. Then it cleared, and he saw bodies lying like bundles of old clothes around him.
“Jack!” he cried out. “Are you hit bad?” He forced himself into an upright position; looking down, he saw that the left side of his uniform was quickly soaking with bright, crimson blood. Ignoring it, he dragged himself to the body that lay closest to him.
Smith was lying face down, and when Richard pulled him over with his right hand, he saw that Smith’s eyes were open. There was a slight upward turn to his lips, as if he had heard something that amused him secretly. Richard touched Smith’s face, and the features did not move. The pain in Richard’s side struck him then, and he collapsed, half sitting, beside the dead marine. He could see Keller and Evans nearby, both dead, and Sergeant Johnston, too, a little farther away.
The enemy artillery boomed, and there were geysers of dirt and mud further on down. The American artillery began to answer, and in the middle of this duel, Richard Stuart lay in the mud holding a dead man’s hand.
Reaching over painfully with his wounded left arm, Richard took the picture of Molly from Smith’s pocket. He opened its soft leather cover and looked from the picture to the smile on the dead man’s lips. “You won’t see Molly now,” he whispered. He thought he would cry, but the tears would not come, and he felt himself passing out.
I
n October 1952, Truman declared drought-stricken Oklahoma a disaster area, and in music,
Billboard
magazine picked “You Belong to Me,” by Pee Wee King, as the most popular song. Gary Cooper starred in the western
High
Noon,
which was destined to become a classic and to win Cooper another best actor Oscar.
On November 8, the Republicans won the White House for the first time in twenty years. General “Ike” Eisenhower, a World War II hero and the first commander of NATO’s military, was elected president of the United States, with Richard M. Nixon as his vice-presidential running mate. Adlai Stevenson was defeated in a landslide vote. During that same election, John F. Kennedy upset Henry Cabot Lodge in Massachusetts and began his career in the U. S. Senate.
There was a spirit of hope in America. The war appeared to be winding down. It was a time of plenty. Wages had never been higher, employment was at an all-time high, and people came to the Christmas season happy and looking forward to a rosy future.
Merle Baxter, proprietor of the Delight Hotel in Mountain View, a small town settled in the heights of the Ozarks, never worried about Christmas business. For years his entire establishment, which included fifteen rooms and the restaurant, was bought out by the Stuart family. Merle said to his wife, Arlene, early on the morning of the twenty-fourth, “I wish we had more folks like them Stuarts.” He spat a stream of tobacco juice toward the glass cuspidor and made a direct hit, then grinned. “They’s enough of ’em got money, and they don’t mind spending it at least once a year.”
The Stuarts had already begun arriving, and by midday the hotel was swarming like an anthill. Cars with plates from states as far away as California were pulled up in front of the Delight, and the extra help that Baxter had hired to put on the big dinner and serve at the table were already busy.
Stephanie flew in from Chicago almost at the last minute, with Jake Taylor. They rented a car at Fort Smith, Arkansas, and drove over the frozen roads that wound up through the foothills and into the highlands of the Ozarks. As they talked, she was, as always, amazed that this tough-looking man was so well-read. He was telling her now about a newly published book by Hemingway called
The Old Man and the Sea,
and his sharp brown eyes glowed with excitement. He told about a sad episode in the book, and to her amazement she saw tears fill his eyes.
Amazed, she said, “Why, Jake, you’re crying.”
“Something in my eye,” he growled. He changed the subject at once, but it revealed a side that she had noticed about Taylor. He was extremely sentimental and emotional, and he fought like a tiger to keep it concealed from the world. In order to do this, he had cultivated his reputation as a sharp, hard-bitten man with few illusions.
Stephanie reached over and put her hand over his. “It’s all right to cry,” she said gently. “My father cries sometimes, and he’s one of the toughest men I’ve ever known.”
“Does he really?”
“Yes, and he’s not ashamed of it either.”
“Well, if I ever cried, I’d be ashamed of it.”
She laughed at him. “You’re a fraud, Jake Taylor!”
Stephanie was delighted at the snow that had fallen, and they stopped on a rise and looked down at the small town of Mountain View nestled in the valley. “Isn’t it beautiful! Just like a calendar, isn’t it, Jake?”
“Mighty pretty.” He eased the car down, for the roads were a little icy. As they drove into town, he took in its one street with a line of one-story buildings on each side. When he got to the Delight he broke into laughter. “Look at that!” he said. The sign outside said: Delight Hotel—Mountain View’s Tallest Skyscraper. Since the hotel was only two stories high, Jake found this amusing. “They’ve got a sense of humor around here.”
“You better watch out, though. They don’t take to Yankees. Try to talk southern if you can.”
“Yes, ma’am. Y’all—shucks—grits,” Jake spun off the list. “How’s that?”
“Just terrible! Come on. Oh, look! There’s Uncle Owen!”
Stephanie got out and ran forward to greet Owen, who hugged her, then she introduced him to Jake, and he shook hands with his odd left-handed shake—he turned his hand over because most people were right-handed. He looked the tall man in the eye. “Glad to meet you, Jake,” he said. “I hear you’re teaching this young woman how to be a reporter.”
Jake smiled crookedly. “Well, Mr. Stuart, she’s practically a veteran by now.”
As they walked on, Stephanie said, “Somebody ought to write a book about Owen. He won the congressional Medal of Honor. That’s how he lost his hand—in the First World War. He’s done everything. Been a prizefighter, like you, and an evangelist.”
“Maybe you should write it,” Jake responded. “Fine-looking man. He looks you straight in the eye, doesn’t he? Made me feel like he knew all about me.”
Stephanie giggled. “I hope he didn’t. He’d probably run you off with a shotgun.”
Jake turned and looked at her directly. “Now, Steph,” he said, “we’ve worked together for a year and a half, and in all that time have I ever made a pass at you?” He was wearing a camel’s hair overcoat and a brown felt hat. There was something fiercely masculine about him. “Well, have I?”
“No, you haven’t.” She studied him for a moment, then her eyes twinkled, and her lips broke into a grin. “I have to look in my mirror once in a while to be sure I haven’t turned into a hag.”
Studying her curly black hair, which came out around her shoulders from under the green tam, and the blue-green eyes that he had learned more and more to admire, Jake said simply, “You’re not a hag, Stephanie.”
Stephanie’s face flushed at his solemn reply, and she said, “Come on. You’ve got to meet everyone. We ought to wear name tags, but we never do. You’ll just have to remember. We’ll start right here.” Stephanie stopped him in front of a cheerful-looking woman in a wheelchair, who was talking with an especially beautiful and well-coifed younger woman. “Hello, Aunt Lenora! Lenora Stuart, this is Jake Taylor, a reporter that I work with. Jake, this is my great-aunt I told you about who’s in the Salvation Army.”
“Nice to meet you, Miss Stuart.”
Lenora extended her hand to him. “Please call me Lenora, Jake. I’m glad to meet you, too. My brother Amos mentions you, so it’s nice to put a face with the name. And this is Stephanie’s cousin Mona. You may have heard of her.”
After more greetings and small talk, Stephanie and Jake moved on. Lenora and Mona resumed their conversation. They only saw each other at the Christmas reunions, but they usually found time for a friendly talk. Lenora said, “I’m sorry you never knew your grandmother. You were just a baby when your granddad died, and Mother had been gone many years already by then. I was only fifteen myself when she died.”
Mona enjoyed talking about the family history with Lenora. Names always popped up that she couldn’t place, and Lenora filled her in. Lenora seemed such a kind and—well—spiritual soul. She was always urging Mona to visit her in Chicago, but Mona could never quite envision herself walking into the Salvation Army headquarters.
The dinner took place in the restaurant of the Delight, and the room was packed. In one corner of the dining room a fifteen-foot cedar tree stood covered with ornaments, silver ropes, and lights that the children and young people had worked on all afternoon. The tables were loaded with the traditional southern-style Christmas dinner—turkey, cornbread dressing, sweet potatoes, ham and greens. For dessert, pies, cobblers, and cakes filled one special table.
Amos sat at the head of a table, next to his wife, Rose. They were both seventy-three, and Rose had the beauty that remains in old age. She whispered, “I don’t think we’ve ever had so many people here, Amos.”
“Yes, it’s a good crowd, but there’s more Stuarts as the years go by, remember.” Amos looked across at Jerry and Bonnie and murmured, “They’re a fine-looking couple, aren’t they? And I’m glad Richard got back from Korea in time to be here. He looks good, doesn’t he?”
“I don’t know. A little bit too pale maybe, but his wound’s healing all right, isn’t it?”
“Yes, he’ll be fine.”
Amos’s eyes went around the room, finding where Owen sat with his wife, Allie. Amos stood up and tapped on a glass, and when the room grew quiet he said, “We’re going to eat first and have the speechifying later, and some music. So, eat all you can hold, but don’t get stupefied. Owen, I guess you can ask the blessing. Don’t use the same one you used the last five years running. And let’s keep it short.”
Owen rose, grinning, and a laugh went around the room. He bowed his head and said, “Father, thank you for this food. Thank you even more for our family, for the young and for the old. You said in your Word that you put the solitary in families. Lord, I love that verse. You’ve put us into a family so that we don’t have to be alone. In the name of Jesus.” He looked up and smiled. “Was that short enough, Amos?”
“About right. About right. Now, y’all lay your ears back and go at it,” Amos said.
His wife laughed. “When you come to Arkansas, you start talkin’ like the hillbilly you were sixty years ago.”
“Not a bad way to be,” Amos said.
Jake took a slice each of ham and turkey breast, some cornbread dressing, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, then piled on celery stuffed with pimento cheese and olives; finally he had to draw the line. “If I get around this, I won’t be able to walk much!” he said. He began eating but between bites said, “I liked what the preacher said about setting the solitary in families. I never had family, not really.” He looked around the room and said, “It must be wonderful to grow up with uncles and aunts and grandparents and cousins. I never had anybody.”
From Jake Taylor, this was the equivalent to another man breaking down and squalling. There was a sadness in his brown eyes, and he had stopped eating. Stephanie reached over and put her hand on his and squeezed it. “I’ll share my family with you. They’ll be glad to have you.”
“A Yankee like me?”
“Yankee or not, they’ll have to if I say so. That’s the way we Stuarts are.”
Jake’s eyes crinkled, and the scars around his eyes seemed to intensify. He touched his puffed ear and said, “Even a beat-up thug like me?”
“Yes. You do have your moments,” Stephanie said.
After the family had stuffed the last of the pies and cakes down their throats, Amos stood up and said, “Now for some singin’, and we got a professional here. Bobby Stuart, I reckon this is where you let your light shine.”
Bobby felt his father nudge him in the ribs and heard him whisper, “Go to it. Let’s have some real music out of you, boy.”
Bobby rose and went over to the piano and sat down. He said nothing but began playing “Jingle Bells” and singing in his clear tenor voice. Everyone joined in, and for fifteen minutes, they sang the old favorites. When he played “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas” there was something in the way he phrased the words, something in his eyes as he looked out over the crowd. Everyone stopped singing to hear him.
