The White Knight (10 page)

“Isn't that the truth!”

“How about the Germans? The pilots, I mean. Are they any good?”

“Plenty good. Their planes are better than ours too. They had us outgunned and outmanned. We just didn't have the equipment. We really didn't have a chance, Captain.”

Ketchum cursed, then demanded, “Did you get any of them?”

“I got my share.”

The man nodded and they drove several miles in silence.

“What are you going to do now?” the captain asked.

“Why, I don't know. I just got off the boat. I'm going home first.”

“I know some people in the air corps.”

Something stirred within Luke. “I might be interested in that. I've got to go home first, though. Get my bearings.”

“We need men with experience like you. But I've gotta tell you, I feel about airplanes the same way you do about tanks. I'm scared of 'em.”

Luke laughed. “I guess everybody's scared of something, Captain.”

****

Luke went around the car and shook hands with Ketchum through the window. “I appreciate the ride, sir.”

“You've got my address. I'll expect to be hearing from you, Luke. I'm also going to give your name to a friend of mine. He'll be getting in touch with you.” Shaking his head, Ketchum said bleakly, “It's going to blow up pretty soon. The quicker we get ready for it, the better. Hope you'll be a part of it.”

“I'll keep in touch, Captain. Good luck to you.”

Ketchum nodded and drove away. He had driven Luke right through the heart of Liberty, and it had given Luke an odd feeling as he had passed the high school where he had graduated, the stadium where he had set a state record for touchdowns scored in a single game. The main street had not changed much, and Luke had looked for familiar faces as they'd made their way through town and out the other side to the more exclusive part of town. Luke thought he had detected that Ketchum had been surprised at the expansive home and grounds of the Winslow house, but the man had politely said nothing. No doubt he wondered why a son of a rich man had specifically gone to Spain to get involved in a conflict a world away.

As he walked up to the door, Luke was tempted to turn
and walk away. He had not been home for more than two years, and he knew it would be hard to get involved with his family and old friends again. Still, he loved his parents and his brother and knew he had to mend some fences. He rang the doorbell and was soon greeted by his overjoyed mother. She threw herself at him as she cried his name.

“It's great to see you, Mom.”

“Is it really you?” she asked. “I can hardly believe it.”

“Luke Winslow in the flesh,” he joked.

At the age of fifty-one, his mother still didn't have a gray hair. She had large expressive eyes and had kept her figure. Tears were in her eyes as she kissed him on the cheek and hugged him again.

“You look starved,” Jolie said. “They haven't been feeding you.”

“I guess I am pretty hungry.”

“Come on in. There are plenty of leftovers from supper.” She took his arm and dragged him down the hallway into the dining room, where his father was enjoying a cup of coffee.

“Look who I brought in,” Jolie said proudly.

Peter got up at once. “Luke, I can hardly believe it. You're back!” he cried. He reached out to shake Luke's hand and then ended up hugging him.

“It's great to see you, Dad.” Luke was taken aback by how good both of his parents looked. Peter Winslow, a couple of inches taller than his six-foot-tall son, had hazel eyes and auburn hair. His face expressed relief and great joy.

“Here, son. Sit yourself down and I'll get Luana to bring you something to eat. There's plenty left—as there always is.”

Before Peter could leave the room, a black woman wearing an apron entered.

“Mr. Luke!”

“Luana!” Luke said with a grin. He got up and went over to hug the woman. She was heavyset, and her face was as round as the moon. Her eyes were suddenly filled with tears.
“Now, don't you start squalling just because I'm home and you're going to have to take care of me again,” Luke teased.

“You hush! Look at you—skinny as a bird! What them folks doin', starving you?”

“Well, pretty much, but you're going to fix that, aren't you, Luana?”

“I sure am. You sit right there.”

Luke sat down and for the next hour he ate when he could and answered the questions that were fired at him. “How's Tim?” he asked when there was finally a break in his questioning.

“He's great,” Jolie said. “Of course you know he and Mary have given us two grandchildren now. Gerald will be two next month, and Carolyn is ten months old.”

“He's practically running the plant now,” Peter put in, “which is great. I'm gradually letting him take over more of the decisions.”

Peter Winslow had been a famous race car driver, but Jolie had always been fearful for him. More as a courtesy to her than anything, he had given up racing and had built a factory that made parts for automobiles. He had discovered to his surprise that he was an excellent businessman, and the factory had made him and Jolie wealthy beyond anything he could have imagined.

“Do you have any plans for your future, son?”

“I plan to be a lazy bum.”

“Good!” Jolie exclaimed. “You deserve it. Now, have another slice of this cherry pie. . . .”

****

Going into his old room gave Luke an odd feeling. It was exactly as he had left it. He walked around the room looking at the athletic trophies he had won, the news clippings formed into a montage, the books—everything from his old life.
It would be nice if I could just go back and be eighteen
years old again and move into this room and let my folks take care of me like they used to.

Even as the thought crossed his mind, it irritated him, and when a knock came at the door he got up at once. “Come in, Dad,” he said as he opened the door.

“I just wanted to be sure you had everything you need. Since you're the same size you were when you left—or pretty close—I guess you could wear the same clothes.”

“Yep. I can't think of anything that I need.”

“And don't worry about going to work right away or anything like that. Just rest up. Say, maybe you and I should do some fishing while you're around.”

“Sounds good.”

Peter looked down at the floor and when he looked up, his voice was unsteady. “I'm glad you're home, son. Your mother and I . . . we worried about you.”

A lump came to Luke's throat. “I'm okay, Dad.”

“We prayed for you every day.”

“I know. That's probably what got me back.”

“Well, good night, son. We'll talk more tomorrow.”

After his father left, Luke looked out the window. The street looked alien to him. After seeing the bomb-damaged buildings and the barren landscape of Spain, everything looked neat and tidy and untouched.
This isn't the real world,
he thought.
If something isn't done soon with that maniac Hitler, this street could be one of the next ones bombed.
He couldn't imagine how horrible it would be to worry for the safety of his own family the way he had worried for the Chavez family. And now . . .

As he turned away, an old photo caught his eye. He and Tim were shoulder to shoulder, with big grins on their faces. He wondered how long it would be before Timothy insisted that he go to work at the factory. He smiled grimly. “It won't be long if I know Tim!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

Unheeded Warnings

Pale beams of sunlight filtered through the window, striking Luke on the face. During his week at home he had simply soaked up the food, the quiet, the rest. Sleeping in a good bed with clean sheets was a luxury, and he was guessing he had already gained a pound or two.

Sleepily he rolled over and found the knob of the radio. He would listen to the radio while he decided whether to go back to sleep. A strange song was playing on the radio. The lyrics were something about three little fishies in a little bitty pool.

The inane lyrics amused Luke, and he smiled faintly. Next he heard, “Roll out the barrel; we'll have a barrel of fun.” The announcer said the rousing polka was called the “Beer Barrel Polka.”
A bit much for this early in the morning,
Luke thought.

“Song writers are sure covering all the bases and coming up with deep thoughts about important topics,” he said to himself sarcastically. The next song was much more mellow, a sad ballad called “South of the Border Down Mexico Way.” At least this one told a story. It was about a young man who had left his sweetheart but would eventually meander back to Mexico and pick up his love life again.

The meaningless lyrics of popular songs suddenly seemed to Luke like a counterpart to what the American public was thinking. Even in the short time he had been back, it had become obvious that the people back home had little interest in and even less knowledge about what was happening
in Europe. He had always felt you could sense the pulse of a nation through its popular art, and as far as he knew, the war was not mentioned in a single song on the popular radio show called
Your Hit Parade.

“Three little fishies and a mama fishy too,” he grunted with discontent and sat up on the bed abruptly. He rubbed his eyes and tried to think of a movie that dealt with the subject of the juggernaut called Germany that threatened to envelop the world. There was nothing like that. Hollywood was in a tizzy over the soon-to-be-released film called
Gone With the Wind,
based on a novel by a woman named Margaret Mitchell. Out of curiosity Luke had read the book while he had been in Spain and found it to be completely ridiculous. A step back in time glamorizing a time that was never glamorous, as far as he was concerned, and turning its back on the real war to fantasize about the clash that had taken place decades ago.

Luke got to his feet and slipped into some new clothing he had bought, including a pair of gray slacks, a dark blue polo shirt with an emblem over the pocket, and a pair of white deck shoes. He went downstairs to the kitchen, where he found Luana rolling out some dough, humming to herself. She didn't hear him come in, and he reached around her to steal a piece of dough.

She jumped and declared, “You scared me!”

“That's good dough, Luana.”

“You stay out of my cooking. You hear me?”

“What are you making?”

“That's none of your business.”

“Oh, come on, Luana. The poor old soldier all beat up from the war has come home. The least you can do is be nice to me for a change.”

Luana had been adamantly opposed to Luke's leaving Arkansas to go fight. She had never understood the war in Spain and for some unfathomable reason had decided that the war was over the sinking of a battleship. Luke had tried to explain that she was thinking of the Spanish-American War,
but nothing convinced Luana. She was a stubborn woman, but he knew she cared for him.

“I'm hungry. What's for breakfast? Is there any of that pie left?” Luke asked as he started for the refrigerator.

“You stay out of that pie. I'm keepin' your breakfast warm in the oven. You go sit in the dining room and I'll bring it right there.”

Luke ignored her and opened the refrigerator. “Ah, there it is.” He pulled it out, grabbed a plate out of the cupboard, and cut a large slice of pie.

“You're gonna spoil your breakfast, and I made pancakes just for you.”

Luke put a bite of the pie in his mouth. “But I might die of a heart attack on my way to the dining room,” he mumbled around the pie. “Just think, for all eternity I'd be wishing I'd eaten that pie.”

“You ain't supposed to be talking like that about heaven.”

“Do you think there's apple pie in heaven?”

Luana glared at him but then broke out in a chuckle. “You are
bad,
Mr. Luke!”

“No I'm not. I'm good, and this is the best apple pie I've ever had in my life.”

“That war didn't make you no better!”

“You're a hard woman, Luana.”

“You gonna find out hard if you don't stay out of my cookin'.”

Luke carried the rest of his pie to the dining room to enjoy after his breakfast. Luana brought him a plate with three large pancakes and another plate with sausage and then sat down to chat with him while he ate. For as long as he could remember she had been there for him. She must have been a teenager when she came to work for the Winslow family, and she had been as responsible for his upbringing as his parents were—sometimes even more, he thought.

“I prayed for you every day while you was gone to that old war,” she told him.

“I knew you would be. Probably the reason I came back alive was your prayers.”

“I ain't got no doubt about that. I had my whole church praying for you too.” Luana went to a Pentecostal church and sang in the choir every Sunday. She didn't always sing exactly in tune, but she did sing loud, which seemed to be a common attribute for members of her church choir.

“Did you ever think you'd get kilt while you was over there fightin' in that war, Mr. Luke?”

“I thought about it a few times, but there wasn't much I could do about it. I just had to do my job.” Luke was not entirely truthful about this but didn't want to alarm her.

“Well, I don't want you goin' off to no more of them old wars in Spain or any of them other foreign places. You stay here and you go to work with Mr. Timothy and your daddy. It's high time you find you a good woman, get married, and have some chil'uns.”

“That sounds like a good plan to me.”

Luke's mother came into the dining room with a smile on her face. She leaned over and kissed him. “You're having pie with your breakfast? Luana, I can't believe you let him get away with that.”