20
Leiston Army Airfield
Monday, March 13, 1944
Bill Beckenbauer screwed the cowling panel in place over Texas Eagle’s Merlin engine. “What kind of idiot used faulty engine mount bolts?”
Standing beside Beck, Adler poked a little screw-like Dzus fastener through a hole in the panel, twisted it until it engaged with the coil under the panel, then gave it a turn with a screwdriver. “Don’t look at me. This was after my time in Inglewood.”
Recently, all four bolts had failed on a 354th Fighter Group Mustang. The engine assembly had broken away in flight, and the pilot had been killed. Now the Army Air Force had grounded all P-51s to replace the engine mount bolts.
Thank goodness Beck had given in to Adler’s sweet talk and let him assist. Reminded Adler of his youth helping the truckers and of his year at North American. Felt good to change from slick officer’s duds into grease-stained coveralls and a mechanic’s ball cap.
Adler filled his pocket with more fasteners. “You ever want to do more than this?”
“More? Than being crew chief? Nah.” He held out his hand for a refill. “My fool brother keeps trying to put me in charge of some big repair depot, but I don’t want it. Paperwork and requisitions and nonsense. Nope, give me one plane, one pilot.”
Adler gave the mechanic a handful of Dzus fasteners. In the distance, a few Merlins puttered as ground crews put them through their paces. A couple of seagulls squawked at each other as they flew overhead. A chilly wind ruffled the hem of his coveralls. And a question burned its way out. “Ever bother you, being second to your brother?”
Beck looked back over his shoulder, a streak of grease down his nose and one graying eyebrow cocked at Adler. “Second? You have crazy notions, kid.”
Adler’s mouth hung open due to the foot jammed in it.
Beck fitted another cowling panel in place. “My brother never could have gotten in the air without me, and neither can you.”
“I know that, sir. I know that full well.” Adler screwed the top corner of the panel into place. But the question still smoldered. All his life the quest to be first had driven him, both to good and to evil. Why did that urge still churn? He controlled it in combat, but he still wanted to make ace.
“I wanted to be a pilot.”
“Hmm?” Adler said.
“In the Great War.” Beck studied his screwdriver, the wooden handle smooth and dark with age. “I washed out, but I stayed in the Air Service. I wanted to serve my country, I wanted to be close to planes, and I wanted to be with my brother. That’s why I became Johnny’s mechanic. Discovered I had a knack. Johnny never once turned back with mechanical problems.”
“Neither have I, sir.”
“Don’t you forget it, kid. When it comes down to it, both Johnny and I do something we’re good at, something we love. And”—he pointed the screwdriver at Adler—“not once has anyone ever shot at me.”
Adler laughed. “There’s something to be said for that.”
Adler followed with the bucket of Dzus fasteners, then helped Beck replace a panel on the other side of the fuselage.
“Do you have a brother?” Beck asked.
“Two of them.”
“From your tone of voice, you don’t get along.”
Adler pulled a fastener from his pocket. “We used to. As fine as brothers do, I reckon.”
“Used to? This have anything to do with why you don’t want your name in the paper?”
Maybe he shouldn’t have come out here after all. “I can’t go home again, and I’d rather they didn’t know where I was.”
“What on earth did you do?”
Adler’s shoulders squirmed. “Let’s just say I hurt everyone in my family and then some.”
Beck whistled and shook his head. “Ever tell them you’re sorry?”
For the second time in a short span, someone asked a question he hadn’t considered in almost three years. For the second time that afternoon, Adler’s mouth hung open.
With firm twists, Beck fastened the panel shut. “I don’t know how they do things in Texas. But where I come from, if you do something wrong, you own up to it and apologize.”
That sliced even deeper than Violet’s suggestion. Because Beck was absolutely right.
Beck leaned to the side, looked past Adler, and waved. “Well, hello there.”
A jeep parked in front of Eagle’s nose, and Violet Lindstrom stepped out.
Boy, did she look pretty in her gray-blue skirt and jacket and cap. Not as pretty as she’d looked in his arms though, with her cheeks flushed from dancing. Holding her so close, he could see gold and green radiating in the blue of her eyes.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” She leaned into the backseat of the jeep and bustled about. “We heard what you were doing today, how hard you’re working to get the planes back in the air, not even taking breaks. So we’re bringing out snacks—coffee, sandwiches, and donuts.”
She carried a tray to them with a bright smile that didn’t hold even a hint of recognition.
Greasy coveralls were a great disguise if he ever needed one. “Howdy, Violet.”
She stopped and stared. “Adler?”
He flicked his chin toward the jeep. “They let just about anyone drive a jeep nowadays, huh?”
Her smile shifted.
Uh-oh. She wasn’t used to being ribbed like one of the fellows. He gave her his most dazzling grin and took a sandwich.
Violet’s eyes narrowed, and she turned to Beck. “They let just about anyone wear that uniform nowadays, huh?”
Beck and Adler cracked up, and Beck slapped him on the back. “She’s got you pegged.”
Pegged right through the heart, and he gnawed off a bite of sandwich.
Beck pointed his thumb at Adler. “You know these glamour boys. Sometimes they want to play dress up, and we humor them.”
Adler swallowed the bite and a snappy comeback. “Violet, this is Technical Sergeant Bill Beckenbauer, my crew chief. Beck, this is Miss Violet Lindstrom.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Violet said.
“The pleasure’s mine.” Beck clapped Adler on the shoulder. “In all honesty, this kid knows his way around a wrench and a P-51.”
“I’d better, since I used to build them.” He took another bite and savored how it fell into his empty belly.
“Build them?” Violet frowned. “P-51s?”
“Never told you that?” He smiled. After all, she hadn’t told him she’d been engaged. “Worked the assembly line at North American Aviation in my year of exile. After I left home and before I enlisted.”
Violet considered him, her eyes soft but appraising.
Adler considered his sandwich, ate it.
“Say, Miss Lindstrom . . .” Beck dipped his donut in his mug of coffee. “Doesn’t the Red Cross help connect servicemen and their families?”
“Oh yes. That’s a very important job we do.”
“Great.” Beck pointed his donut at Adler. “Make this oaf write home.”
Adler almost choked.
“I’ve tried.” Violet put on a cute little pout. “But he’s a mule-headed oaf.”
Adler coughed and hit his chest with his fist. “Everyone take a shot at me, why don’t you?”
“Listen, miss. You bat those pretty eyes at him, and he might break.”
Those pretty eyes turned his way—a bit shy, a bit mischievous, a bit . . . flirtatious. “I could try flattery.”
For the third time, his mouth flopped open. Only the knowledge that his mouth was full of chicken salad made him close it. Why had he told her his Achilles’ heel? “You wouldn’t.”
The mischief disappeared. “I’ll save that for a last resort, but you really should write home.”
“Y’all have made your opinion quite clear on that matter.” So had Nick.
“Oh!” She darted back to the jeep, set down the tray, and bustled around some more. “I have stationery. We always carry some. Now you have no excuse. How many sheets would you like?”
Adler’s head swung back and forth. “A whole ream of paper wouldn’t be enough.”
She tossed a sympathetic smile over her shoulder and then closed one eye as if sizing him up. “How about three?”
“Sure. No, wait. I didn’t say I would.”
“But you should.” She brought over the stationery. “Think how much better you’ll feel. And they’ll finally have the chance to forgive you. Give them that chance.”
He’d never thought of it that way before, and he couldn’t stop staring at her.
She lifted his arm and slipped the stationery into his hand. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for them. I know you love them.”
Adler fought the bending, but he was losing under the warmth of that hand. “If I write home, will y’all stop haranguing me and calling me a mule-headed oaf?”
Her eyes shone. “I promise.”
“I’ll stop calling you mule-headed,” Beck said, “but I stand by oaf.”
Adler shrugged. “Fair enough.”
Violet squeezed his wrist.
Everything in him wanted to pull her close and thank her for believing in him, for sweet-talking the sweet-talker. But that wouldn’t be wise. What if she fell for him and disobeyed God to be with him? He’d already led one woman into temptation, and he refused to do so again.
He spun away to the plane, stationery in hand. “All right, Red Cross, you did your job. Now let us do ours.”
Beck grunted. “Oaf.”
Adler glanced behind him, but Violet smiled as if he were anything but an oaf.
He was in deep, deep trouble.
That night, Adler sat on the dirt floor of the crew shack by the flight line, hunched over Red Cross stationery that was lying on a crate of spark plugs.
What could he write? “Howdy, folks. How are you doing? How’s Paxton Trucking?”
He tossed aside the ball cap and ran his hand through his hair. “Lord, I don’t know what to say. I only know I’ve got to tell them I’m sorry.”
Maybe that was it. He uncapped his pen.
Dear Daddy, Mama, and Wyatt,
I am so sorry. How else could I start this letter? After what I’ve done, the only thing to say is I am deeply sorry.
For almost three years, I refused to think about my past because it hurt like blazes. But now I can’t stop thinking about it. Yes, it hurts. Not like a stab in the heart, but like a dislocated shoulder being wrenched back into place. It had to feel worse before it could feel better. I’d been living with that dislocation for years, which made the wrenching all the more painful and all the more necessary.
About a month ago, I asked God to do that wrenching. I asked him to forgive me and to save me, and he did. Miracle of miracles.
Now I’m asking you to forgive me. Not because I expect you to do so, not in the least, but because you deserve to know how sorry I am.
This first part is to Wyatt. When Oralee died, I turned my anger on you, which wasn’t fair or right. Sure, I was angry at you for interfering, but mostly I was angry because you were right and I was wrong and Oralee paid the price.
You stood up for Oralee and protected her, as I should have done. Wyatt, please know I never really blamed you for her death. I’m the only one at fault.
I am so sorry and ashamed that I tried to kill you. How can a man forgive his brother for attempted murder? I don’t know, and I don’t expect you to. I wish you all the best at Paxton Trucking. You’re a fine man, and I know you’re doing a great job.
Daddy and Mama, I didn’t address Clay because I know he isn’t in Texas. I saw him on the troopship, although I made sure he didn’t see me.
As for what happened that night in the garage, I don’t even know where to start apologizing. I was so angry, and there was Ellen with a bottle of medicinal whiskey from her daddy. I have no excuse. I gave in to every base instinct and did the worst thing I’ve ever done.
Instead of being grateful to Clay for stopping me from murdering Wyatt, I betrayed him and stole the woman he loved. I will always be ashamed of what I did, ashamed that you all saw me in my depravity, that I drove Clay to try to kill me, and that my mother had to pull a gun on him to save my wretched life.
That’s one reason I’m writing. That night you all saw a drunken, vengeful, lecherous traitor. I’ll never be able to erase that image from your heads any more than I can erase it from mine. But please be assured that my remorse runs deep.
However, my sins don’t stop with my family. What I did to Ellen was vile and wrong. I took advantage of her and destroyed her future with Clay. Then I fled and left you all with the wreckage—with Wyatt fearing for his life, Clay betrayed, Ellen ruined, and with the knowledge that your middle son is a rat.
On top of it, you never got your truck back. I drove to California and sold it to get food, clothes, and a room. I’ll enclose a check with this letter.
In case you wonder what I’ve been doing, I worked at North American Aviation in California for a year. Then I decided it wasn’t right for me to be safe in a factory with a war on. So I enlisted in the Army Air Forces, and they made me a P-51 fighter pilot. I’m based on the same island as Clay.
I don’t know why Clay is in the Army and not in college, but I pray he’s all right. Let me know if you think I should write him. He deserves an apology, but I’ll let you decide if a letter from me would make things better or worse.
Listen to me with all this talk about “letting me know,” as if I were ordering you to write me back. I certainly don’t expect a reply.
I’m writing because, as a wise man reminded me today, when you do something wrong, you own up to it and apologize.
I’m also writing because I love you and respect you. My disgusting sins don’t reflect how you raised me. You are the best parents a man could hope for. Your examples of faith, strength, and integrity have always been there, and now I’m finally becoming the man you wanted me to be. At least I hope I am.
Somehow I know—I feel it in my bones—that you’ve never stopped praying for me. That may be the only contact we’ll ever have again, and I’m fine with that. Please keep praying for me, and know that I’m now praying for you as well. I’ll never stop.
All my love,
Adler
With a groan, Adler capped his pen. Then he flopped onto his back on the dirt floor, staring at the lightbulb dangling from the ceiling.
He’d never felt so depleted and drained.
Yet he’d never felt so right.