“We were told to wait, for you. Now that Mr. Barrow is gone, we’ve got a letter that’s been waiting for you for a very long time.”
“A letter?”
“I think it’s time you finally got some answers.”
45
Hood’s Cabin, Cascade Mountains, United States
September 8, 1945
W hen Beth Calloway pulled into the weedy yard of her cabin hermitage, ten thousand miles from where the nightmare had begun, the gas gauge on the ’29 Ford Woody was hovering on empty. The truck’s panels were stained and mossy, its bed holding only her backpack. No matter. It was interesting what didn’t matter when the end was finally near. They’d come sooner than she’d hoped, later than she’d feared. Once she read about the atomic bombings, she knew they’d want more magic. The world had gone nuts. She’d done her best, and now it was in God’s hands.
Whatever God really was.
She eased herself out from behind the wheel and stood, her knees almost buckling. Duncan Hale had been quick and she’d been quicker, but the bastard had still put the bullet in her gut that changed everything. She’d wrapped a girdle of bandages around her waist and worn a pea jacket to hide the bleeding so her neighbor Margaret wouldn’t be spooked any more than she already was… but Christ on a Crutch it hurt! Perversely, Beth smiled at the pain.
She’d known a man like Benjamin Hood was bad news.
And she’d still fly him anywhere, if she still had a plane.
Limping, she crossed the yard and stumped up onto the porch, wincing as she did so. She wished she still had the pistol, for comfort if nothing else, but she’d had to entrust it to Margaret to add to the other things in the safety deposit box. She couldn’t fight anymore anyway.
“I’m moving, Gertie-moving back to Nebraska tonight,” she lied to her friend. “You tell ’em you’re just running an errand for me, and don’t let ’em see the gun when you lock it in the bank.” She’d rehearsed these instructions many times in her own head. “Then you get my kid down to Seattle and leave her with the Sisters until I can come back. That hundred dollars will more than cover it, I know.”
“But why can’t you do it, Beth?” Margaret had wailed. She wasn’t the strongest of women, but there hadn’t been time for a better choice. Margaret was just five miles down the road, and Beth dared not risk more time or blood loss. Poor little Sadie, short for Palisade, would likely wind up in an orphanage no matter who she picked, but that was a better chance for safety than she had here. It broke Beth’s heart to hand her over, but it was a relief as well. Would it ever make a difference?
That was in God’s hand, too.
“And you mail that letter. That’s the most important of all. You mail that. You hear?”
“I will, Beth.” Her voice quavered. She was alarmed at the pallor of Calloway’s complexion. What trouble had she brought here? Why this sudden run back to her family? She’d always been a little fascinated by Beth Calloway, but a little afraid, too. “When you going to come back for Sadie?”
“When I finish what I have to do.”
But you didn’t get back. Not from eternity.
Beth knew the end had finally come that morning, when Duncan Hale had driven up in the pale light of predawn. His hair was greasy from lack of washing, his face city-pale, and his suit looked about as appropriate as a hickory shirt and caulk boots on Wall Street. But he’d skipped up her deck slick as Eliot Ness, badge out and hand in one jacket pocket, the snout of his little pistol poking against the fabric like a tiny erection.
Girl’s gun, that’s what Beth had thought. She’d slipped Ben’s heavy. 45 automatic in her backpack before she opened the door.
Hale had been arrogant as snot, informing her that he was a by-god-genuine government G-man of some agency or other-who could tell which one, since Roosevelt and Truman had spawned all those bureaucracies?-and that he was looking for one Benjamin Grayson Hood, a special agent who’d gone missing for uh, seven years.
“You haven’t found him in seven years, city boy?”
“I have now, sweetheart, haven’t I? Or do you want to go to jail?”
She’d shrugged. “Sure, I can show you Ben. Or rather, what’s left of him. But that’s not what you really want, is it? Aren’t you after what he found?”
“I’m after both. Benjamin Hood has a lot of questions to answer. It’s a matter of national security, Miss Calloway. We live in a dangerous world. A very dangerous world. Hitler was bad, but Stalin is going to be worse. If there’s something that might help America, Uncle Sam has a right to it.”
“Does that include paying for that right?”
The G-man smirked. “Mr. Hood volunteered to bear most of the expense of his expedition himself. Nothing has changed that arrangement.”
“He never paid me, you know. I flew him there.”
“I can help you file the necessary paperwork for possible compensation.” He glanced around. “We’ll have to do it downriver. We’d need a typewriter.”
“I got all day.”
“You take me to Hood first.”
She looked him up and down. “He’s a bit reclusive. It’s up a mountain and down a mine. No offense, but you aren’t dressed to even trek across my yard.”
“He lives in a mine?”
“It’s safer that way.”
Hale looked suspicious. “Is there a trail?”
“Miner’s trail.”
“Then don’t worry how I’m dressed, Miss Calloway.”
“How do you know I’m not a Mrs.?”
“I checked the records before I came. All the records.”
She’d even fixed him breakfast before they went, thinking over what she had to do, and not liking the way he eyed Sadie so intently. She’d have run the child down to Gertie then, but she couldn’t risk him knowing where the child was in case things didn’t go as planned.
“Sadie, you stay in the cabin here and play while Mama goes up the mountain with this man. Understand?”
The girl nodded. The seven-year-old had been alone before and was precociously independent. “When will you be home?”
“By lunch, I hope. If I’m not, you fix yourself a peanut butter sandwich. Just stay here and don’t open the door to anybody or anything. You want to be a cupcake for a black bear?” It was a running joke between them.
Sadie giggled. “No, Mama! Is the suit man a friend?”
“No, honey. Just a man.”
She’d turned so Sadie couldn’t see her cry. It spooked her, every time she looked into the child’s eyes.
Then they drove down the brushy lane, Sadie at the window watching them go.
Hale was in shape, she’d give him that. He’d kept up with her brisk stride up the crude trail in country that stood on end. And even city boy Hale had marveled when they came over the rise and first saw Eldorado, wiping his face on his handkerchief as he viewed the glorious panorama of the North Cascades. Then they’d cut downhill on the eastern side, carefully working over to the mouth of the mine. It was halfway up the cliff face, with a bank of old tailings providing a crude ramp.
“What is this place?” he asked.
“Old gold mine. Probably didn’t produce much more than cheap copper. Nobody’s going to work it in today’s economy, so it’s a good hidey-hole.”
