Excerpt From Jo Grant’s Journal:
…And now an unrelated question: Why do Tom and Alan, and Jack too, despite his troubles, seem more interesting than the men who stayed home? It’s something behind their eyes, no matter how different they are from each other. You can see the danger, and the suffering, and the hard edge that got them through it. The peace they want is niggling at them too, that some seem to make for themselves. That others seem afraid of.
I wonder what WWI did to Dad? He never talked about it that I remember. But memory’s a strange thing. I can see Gabe trotting home without Dad – and Daddy lying dead in the woods with an arm flung wide. I know he would’ve wanted it just that way. A heart attack on the back of a horse, not in some cold white hospital room. But why that comes to mind every few weeks, but not Mom’s death nearly that often I can’t begin to explain…
Wednesday, April 18, 1962
Even though she’d gotten very little sleep, Jo was in the kitchen early, in one of Tom’s T-shirts and her softest sweat pants, looking for whatever information Toss might’ve left – while Emmy leapt and scooted around the side yard.
Jo found his note on the office desk, then walked out into the yard from the kitchen, and sat on the old wooden swing Tom had made her after her dad died. As soon as she sat, Emmy flew straight at her, tan ears flapping, and threw herself in Jo’s lap.
They sat there for quite awhile, Jo’s bare feet sliding through the grass, her long legs straight in front of her, the small white-chested boxerish puppy quietly watching the view as they gently swayed three feet forward, then three feet back.
“Well, Emmy…” Emmy looked up at Jo, as Jo sighed and rubbed her chest. “I better go get it done.”
“This is Jo Grant, Mrs. Johns. I wanted to catch you before you left Louisville. I’m sorry to inconvenience you, but I’ve decided not to sell Sam… I know. Yes… If I change my mind I will. Thank you for being understanding.”
She’d actually sounded irate. But Jo stood in the brick-walled kitchen after she’d hung up, her back to the big brick fireplace, and smiled without noticing, before she went off to get a shower.
Alice Franklin sat at her desk at Blue Grass Horse Vans and read the letter for the third time. She tucked it back in its envelope, then slipped it into the safe behind her desk, carefully twirling the heavy black dial to reset the combination.
She stared out the window for a minute – her blue-gray eyes worried, her wide mouth tense – till her secretary rang to tell her she’d gotten her a doctor’s appointment early the next morning.
Alice thanked her. And picked up the plans for the booth she was designing for a national horse equipment convention where all kinds of equine products were showcased every year, and their company would use the booth to promote their vans and trailers.
Her reading glasses were on her nose and her whole face was concentrated, the classic oval, fine-boned face of a woman somewhere around sixty who must have been beautiful when she was young, and was still striking now. She laid a sheet of tracing paper across the booth elevation, and was beginning to draw a different kind of counter – when her older son, Richard, walked through her door.
“Can I speak to you for a minute?” He’d already sat before he asked, as though it never occurred to him that the answer wouldn’t be yes.
“Of course.” Alice took her glasses off, then smoothed her salt-and-pepper hair toward a large oval chignon, considering the tension radiating from Richard, the tightly crossed legs, the jiggling foot, the hands gripping the arms of his chair, the weak chin set hard, the forehead wrinkled above sandy brows – before she said, “So what’s on your mind?”
“I wanted to ask you something that—” He swallowed fast, and stared out her window, then started again. “It’s nothing new. It’s been in the back of my mind for a long time.”
“Yes?”
“I feel it’s time I had more responsibility. You’re head of Personnel. It should come from you to Dad.”
“You haven’t talked to him?”
“No! No. Not till I spoke with you.”
“It normally happens the other way ’round, don’t you think? Managers inform the people who work for them when they’ll be given a new position?”
“It doesn’t have to in a family business. Sometimes you have to speak out.”
“Maybe. But—”
“Dad’s not getting any younger, and it’s time he took things easier.”
“He doesn’t think so, I can tell you that.”
“I know he doesn’t. But if he gave up administrative control, he could concentrate on engineering. That’s what he likes best, and then—”
“What position did you have in mind for yourself?”
“General Manager. I’ve been Office Manager for five years. I’m the one with the degree in business, and yet you consult Spencer more than you do me, and he’s just the Production Manager.”
Alice wanted to say, You think design and production are less critical than the office? But she didn’t say anything. She folded her hands on her desk for a minute. Then leaned back and pulled her suit coat together, and crossed her arms across her waist. “May I ask you a personal question?”
“Yes.” Richard didn’t look at his mother. He stared at the wall to her left.
“Is this you asking, or Lily?”
Richard flushed, and his narrow shoulders squeezed even closer together before he said, “I don’t know what you mean,” in a higher than normal voice.
“Lily’s been dropping hints for quite awhile. I get the impression she thinks I should retire too. That she’d do a much better job than I do at Personnel and Public Relations, and that running event planning at the country club palled for her a long time ago.”
“She’s talented. She’d be wonderful at it.”
“I think we should discuss this another time, when we can talk in real depth.”
“I was hoping we could—”
“Blue Grass Horse Vans is a small family business, Richard. We can’t promote like a big business. There’re very few layers between the men building trailers and the CEO, which your father and I think is the way it should be. Opportunities are limited. And have to be seen to be hard-earned, especially with family members. I’m sorry we can’t discuss this properly now. I’ve got an appointment in five minutes.”
“I had to bring it up. You must be able to see that.” Richard still hadn’t looked his mother in the eye, not for more than a second, and he gripped the arms of his chair again, while his soft pale face turned toward the door as though he’d rather be anywhere else. “The accounting department needs another vertical file.”
“I’ll get one ordered this week.”
“Good. I also wanted to let you know I’ll be taking Friday off to attend a model train meeting up in Cincinnati.”
“So you’re taking a day of vacation?”
“Of course. Heaven forbid I should break the rules.”
“That’s right, because—”
“It’s a meeting of the whole Eastern Division of the national organization, and the presentations should be really good.” He was interested now, and easier with himself, talking about what he loved.
Alice saw it, the way she always had, and told him she hoped he had fun.
After he’d left she sighed and closed her eyes, then put on her glasses and went back to redrawing the convention booth counter, till a deep voice said, “Alice?” from just inside her door.
She looked up at her younger son – tall, broad-shouldered and smiling at her, as he sat down by her desk. She said, “You’re looking pleased about something, Spence.”
“Maybe. Except you know me. Never satisfied.”
“Yes, I do.” She laughed, and set her glasses on her desk. “So what’re you thinking about this time?”
“The morning meetings.” Spencer was leaning back in his chair, his strong-looking legs set squarely in front of him, his hands behind his head. “What do you think about tightening them up?”
“You think they ramble, do you?” She was smiling when she asked, smoothing the tracing paper on top of the plan as though she liked the feel.
“Yeah, I believe they do.”
“We started them when your dad and I were working here alone. Going over the mail, and what had to be done that day. But the business is so much more complex now, I s’ppose it makes sense that they’d need more structure.”
“The whole staff is in there. That’s a big commitment of time and money. We could use organized agendas, and set daily and weekly goals that have actual execution deadlines. The next day results could be reported, and more goals set. Tasks that cross over between departments could get the conflicts hammered out with everybody there to discuss the details, and the long-term effects.”
Alice gazed at Spence for a minute, seeing the calm and the concentration, as she played with a colored pen. “Have you talked to Booker?”
“Dad’s out with a distributor, but I will when he gets back.”
“Good. I know we need to become more professional. I can see that myself. Less ma-and-pa making it up as they go along.”
“I think that’s exactly right.”
“But we’ll both need to talk to Booker. He hates anything that even suggests bureaucratic constraint.”
“I’ve noticed,” Spence said, and laughed. “But nobody else can touch him when it comes to innovation and engineering, not in the whole industry.”
“Even our competitors have been known to say that. So what else is on your mind?”
“There is something actually.” Spence leaned forward with his eyes fixed on his mom’s, and pushed his shirt sleeves up his arms, exposing three puckered shrapnel wounds. “I’ve decided to ask Tara to marry me.”
Five seconds of silence followed while Alice took the blow to the chest she’d been waiting for for sometime. “I don’t expect she’ll turn you down, do you?”
“No. Probably not.” The smile was gone, and the blue eyes were careful, as the deep voice got quieter. “Is that all you’ve got to say?”
“Spence, you know I want you to be happy.”
“Yes.”
“And that I’ve always hoped you’d marry someone who complements you, and completes you too, if that makes any sense. The way your dad and I do each other. Not in our way, I don’t mean that. In whatever way fits you. It’s the greatest gift you get on this earth, the right husband or wife. And I hope she’s the right one.”
“But…”
“You’re thirty-eight years old. You fought your way through the Second World War, for heaven’s sake. It’s not up to me to say.”
Spencer leaned forward, his arms on his thighs, his wheat-colored hair falling toward his eyes. “Then I guess that tells me where you stand. If you were thrilled you’d say so.”
“If there’s anything I can do to help with the wedding, or to help her in some way, you know I will.”
“Yes, I do. Thank you. I’m going to tell Dad tonight. You coming out to ride?”
“Yes.”
“Alan Munro will be there to watch me use their experimental de-wormers. I think he’s someone you’ll like.”
“Good.”
“Mom? Is something bothering you? You haven’t seemed quite yourself the last two or three weeks.”
“Nothing urgent really. There’re a couple of things I think you should know. We just haven’t had time to talk. Maybe we could have dinner when Booker’s up in Boston.”
“Sure. Just let me know what night.”
Spencer Franklin had fifty acres of rolling pastureland on the south side of Versailles on a narrow road that meandered east from the main route to Shaker Village.
He had two horses of his own, and boarded two for his parents. And it was his lifelong love of horses, from what Alan had pieced together, that helped him make real contributions to the design of trailers and horse vans, in spite of the fact that he’d studied history instead of engineering.
Alan had met Spencer and his dad twice, though he’d only seen his mother in the hall at Blue Grass Horse Vans. But when Alan got to Spencer’s a little before six he saw Spencer’s mom, with a braid down her back, trotting a large bay gelding out of a patch of woods.
She brought him down to a walk, dropped her reins and leaned forward over his withers and rubbed both sides of his neck, as she walked him toward Alan across a large grass riding area, where he watched just west of the barn.
“Mrs. Franklin? I’m Alan Munro. Spencer is helping us test some de-wormers, and I’m here to see how the packaging works.”
“I thought that’s who you must be. I’m glad to meet you.”
“It’s good of Spence to help.”
“Spencer almost lost a horse years ago to an allergic reaction, and Bobby Harrison saved him with an experimental steroid. So Spence has worked with him ever since when whatever he’s testing won’t hurt a healthy horse. Ah… I see we’ve got company.”
By the time she’d dismounted, a red car had driven up behind Alan, but not before he’d seen the look of resignation on Alice Franklin’s face, as a young woman and a little girl climbed out of the car.
Spencer came out of the tack room carrying two tubes of de-wormer, and found his mom and the woman and child looking as though there was circling going on, like dogs the first time they meet.
Spence said, “Alan, this is Tara Kruse who works in accounts payable at Blue Grass. This is her daughter, Giselle. Mom, you know Giselle.”
“I do. How are you?”
Gigi smiled but didn’t answer. And Spencer said, “Alan works for Equine Pharmaceuticals. That’s what I was telling you earlier, Tara, we’re testing two new products of theirs. That’s why he came tonight.”
Everyone made polite conversation for a minute as Tara leaned against Spencer, making it clear to everyone there that they were more than employees, or friends, and she wanted everyone to know it.
Spence’s mom led her horse around the outside of the barn to the other end to unsaddle him and squirt him off with a hose, while Tara and Giselle stuck close to Spence as he led his own gelding out of a stall and put him in the cross-ties at the west end near Alan.
Spence leaned down to Tara, who was talking to him in a small high voice, and put his arm around her waist. “Why don’t you take Giselle outside and go see Dad’s horse in the paddock while I give the two in here their medicine? They’re not going to like getting it, and I don’t want Gigi to get hurt, wearing sandals and all. I need to talk to Alan too. That’s why I said tomorrow would be better.”
Tara looked embarrassed first, but then irritated as well, as she glanced once at Alan. It seemed to him that she wanted to say something, but then decided not to, before she took Giselle’s hand and walked out of the barn, long dark hair curling down her back, high-heeled boots clacking on the concrete, tight jeans making it obvious what her appeal might be.
Spencer said, “We’ll treat my horses now, and I’ll do Mom and Dad’s later.”
“So you’ve used the de-wormers before in both types of packaging?”
“I have. Both of them are much better than the old method of tubing a horse to worm them, but neither of these is good enough. Wormer A-110 is too liquid. When you put the cardboard tube in the horse’s mouth and push on the plunger, even if you cut the plastic tip so the hole is really small, it squirts out too fast and leaks out of their mouths before you can get them to swallow it all.
“Wormer A-227 is thicker, which is good, but the plunger is either too weak, or it doesn’t fit right, and the wormer squirts out the back. You’ll see what happens with Tracker. I’ll give him the A-110.”
Tracker, who was a big dark bay Thoroughbred with two white feet, was watching everything the tall, blond-headed man he knew well was doing as though he was sure something was coming that he wasn’t going to like.
Alan watched as exactly what Spencer had predicted happened. Tracker’s de-wormer was too liquid. The other squirted out the back of the tube when Spence gave it to Bella, his young Thoroughbred mare. Both of them managed to avoid a lot of paste as they tossed their heads and squirmed.
“I probably got enough into them to do the job, but—”
“More work has to be done before we can market either one.”
“That’s my opinion.” Spencer went on to suggest possible modifications, then asked Alan if he’d like to stay for dinner, saying he’d toss some burgers on the grill – as Tara and Giselle stepped back in the barn.
“I wanted us to go out to dinner.” Tara was looking straight up at Spencer. “’Course, Alan could come too.”
“Thanks, Tara, I appreciate it. But I’ve got to go see someone in the hospital before visiting hours are over.”
Tara didn’t hide the fact that that was fine with her. Her chocolate eyes and straight black brows turned on Alan non-committally, her well-made mouth smiling, finally, when Spencer walked up to her again, after putting Bella in her stall.
Alan asked Giselle how old she was, as Spencer’s mom stepped out of the tack room, and Giselle said, “Almost six,” as she skipped down the aisle-way, waving her arms and singing to herself, which made all three horses jump and spin in their stalls.
Spencer’s mom told Giselle in a quiet voice that she shouldn’t run and make a lot of noise, because it made the horses nervous.
Spencer glanced at all three women – and went back to talking about dinner. “I need to stay here, Tara, tonight. I’ve got chores to do in the barn, and I’ve got to worm Mom and Dad’s horses too, and cooking here for all of us would be faster. Tomorrow we could go out.”
Tara said, “That’s fine. I understand,” in a tiny quiet little girl voice.
But it didn’t look to Alan as though she meant it. And then she asked Spence what else he was making for dinner, as though it were a foregone conclusion that he’d be the only one cooking.
Alan walked into Jack Freeman’s hospital room half an hour later, and pulled a chair closer to the bed, as he told Jack who he was – thinking that Jack looked ashen and weak, and probably shouldn’t be trying to talk.
“Jo was here this morning. She stopped in to see me on her way to pick up her uncle. She said I seemed much improved.”
“Good.” Alan paused and laid his hands on his thighs, and told himself if that were true, he might as well get on with it. “So. I hear she told you I knew Tom.”
“Yes.” Jack pushed himself higher on his pillows and pulled up his covers.
“She said you came to talk to him about what happened to you in France, and ask if he could help.” Jack didn’t say anything and Alan tried again. “Tom was in Holland and Germany. I was in France like you. Before and after D-Day. She said we were both in Wild Bill Donovan’s outfit. So maybe I can help.”
“What did you do?”
Alan didn’t answer right away. He took off his jacket and laid it in his lap and leaned back in his chair. “I was personally recruited by Donovan. I’d spent time in France, I spoke French, and I’d been trained as a chemical engineer. They stuck me in R&D to begin with, then moved me to an O.G. group and dropped me into France two weeks before D-Day. When the Allies were moving east after D-Day they attached me to an American army to help establish local governments.”
“Why had you spent time in France?”
“My mother’s French, and we visited her family.”
“Where were you wounded?”
Alan smiled and asked, “Where or how?”
“How.”
“I got in the way of a grenade that was thrown by a Resistance hothead after we’d taken his town.”
“F.T.P.? Tied to Soviet intelligence?”
“Yep. How’d you guess?”
“They did everything they could think of to take control of France after the war.”
“Exactly.”
“Fortunately they didn’t.”
Alan and Jack looked at each other, but neither said anything else.
Jack drank some water, his face sunken and tightly controlled, his eyes fixed on the window. “Donovan’s people recruited me because they needed agents to send into France to prepare for the Allied Invasion who’d be able to—”
“Agents who were undercover? Not in uniforms like we were?”
“Yes. I wasn’t French, but I’d lived there as a boy, and had spoken French all my life.” Jack started coughing.
Alan asked if he could get him anything.
Jack shook his head, and struggled to catch his breath before he spoke again. “I was parachuted into France three months before D-Day to organize supply for the Resistance groups in my area. Those who didn’t live on farms were starving. All the French in cities were—”
“Yeah, everywhere you turned.”
“And the Resistance desperately needed arms. I was to help coordinate their efforts, too. German battle order had to be documented constantly, and communicated back to O.S.S. Prostitutes helped with that. Noticing uniform insignias, and steering pillow talk to what we needed—”
“Since war makes strange bedfellows.” Alan smiled.
Jack said, “Yes,” and smiled behind his tubes. “I was also to help establish priorities for the Resistance in preparation for the invasion when—”
“That’s not to say you were in charge?”
“Absolutely not. The Resistance groups had far more experience than we did. But I could be somewhat persuasive because they needed our materiel.”
“Where were you located?”
“The Loire Valley. Outside Tours. I used the undercover name of Maurice Clement, and worked with the local Resistance for almost a month.” Jack scratched his chin and reached for a Kleenex. Then turned toward the window without saying more.
“Was it a Resistance coalition? Not one predominant group?”
“Yes. Moderates, leftists, and rightists.”
“Which didn’t necessarily make it easier.”
“True. Where was I?”
“You’d been in France a month.”
“Yes. A routine meeting was scheduled at which I was to initiate planning for specific acts of sabotage. They were to be implemented just before the invasion, once radio messages from O.S.S. came through instructing immediate action.” Jack stopped and turned even paler.
Alan waited before he asked, “So what happened then?”
“The local Resistance leader, a moderate from F.F.I., he arranged the meeting as usual, using well-established precautions. Only he knew the location ahead of time. Every security procedure was followed. Nothing was left to chance. But when we’d gathered in the café—” Jack coughed and sat up straighter and wiped his mouth again.
“A café in Tours?”
“Yes. We came in singly, or in predetermined pairs. We made sure all was as it should be, watching the room for signs that we were being watched. Waiting till we received a signal to go upstairs to a private room – when all hell broke loose.
“An informer had alerted the Gestapo, and they swarmed in with the Vichy police. They shot the F.F.I. leader as he tried to escape and rounded up the rest of us.”
Jack couldn’t stop moving, pushing his hair back, adjusting his oxygen tubes, his hands tugging at his sheets, till he finally sat up on the edge of bed facing away from Alan. “Everyone was thrown into prison and tortured more brutally than… Every one of them. Except for me.”
Jack couldn’t say anything else for a moment. He finished the rest of his water and poured himself another glass. “I didn’t know who the traitor was. But they…”
“What?”
“They… I was deliberately incriminated. The only American. The only one who… I can’t discuss it now. I can’t.”
“That’s okay. Whatever you want to do.”
“There was no way I could clear my name. The O.S.S. had to pull me out immediately. And I spent the rest of the war in Europe under a cloud of half-hidden criticism translating for Allan Dulles at headquarters in Switzerland.”
Both of them sat in uncomfortable silence till Alan finally cleared his throat and picked his words with care. “It must’ve been even harder to find out what happened once you got home.”
“Impossible. No matter how I tried.”
“And that’s when you moved up north? Jo told me you were living near the Canadian border.”
Jack nodded, and sat for a minute, his back slumped, his hands by his sides, his face hidden from Alan. “Until I could prove I’d been wrongly accused, I didn’t want to live near anyone who knew who I was, or where I was from, or anything about my family. I didn’t want anybody pitying me. Or watching me drink, and thinking what a shame it was.”
“And that’s why you came to find Tom.”
“Yes. I thought perhaps together, with the people he knew at O.S.S. who went to the C.I.A. as soon as it was formed, that he could help me uncover the truth.”
Neither of them said anything else as a nurse brought in a new pitcher of water, till Alan leaned forward and put his elbows on his knees, staring hard at Jack. “You know it’s still impossible, for all practical purposes.”
“Probably. Unless—”
“If you couldn’t find out then, it’ll be even harder now. There’s been a deliberate, persistent cover-up in France ever since the war. I mean, think about the blind eyes that’ve been turned toward collaborators. And the countless thousands who weren’t in the Resistance claiming now that they were. The waters are thoroughly muddied.”
“I know.”
“The national government’s locked away all the records that had to do with all the Vichy governments in every city and town, and a great deal more as well. Police records are sealed away. Execution records. Collaborator investigations.”
“I know.”
“So what do you think you could do?”
“I don’t know. First, I need to get a job. And build up a nest egg. And then perhaps—”
“I don’t see how you can find out much of anything unless you go to France.”
“I realize that.”
“And if you were hated then and accused of being an informer, who would help you now?”
“I don’t know. No one I know.”
“It’ll be dangerous to look into it too. The real informer won’t stand by and watch. That’s the kind of crime someone today would still kill to keep hidden.”
“I realize that, but—”
“Is that what you meant when you said you didn’t want Jo to be harmed? That getting her involved in some kind of investigation would put her at risk?”
“Yes. I was so ill at the time I said more than I intended.”
“You didn’t say anything you shouldn’t have said, although—”
“Perhaps there are O.S.S. records or occupying army records that could show me where to start.”
Alan didn’t say what he was thinking, that the chances of that were slim to none. He chose to change the subject. “So what kind of job will you look for, once you get out of here? If you went to college—”
“I did. But I can’t work inside. I don’t care what I have to do, as long as I’m able to be outside.”
“Well, first you’ve got to get well. And then find a place to stay.”
Jack nodded and leaned back in bed as though he didn’t have the strength to sit up any longer.
“I’ve rented a house in the country. It’s got a second bedroom, and if you want to try that for awhile, I’m willing to put you up.”
“You’d do that?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you.” Jack sat silent for a moment as he wiped his forehead with a Kleenex. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You’ve told me drinking’s an issue for you, so that’s my one condition. You start drinking again, you move out.”
“I understand.”
“When do you think they’ll release you?”
“Perhaps day after tomorrow.”
Alan stood and put his jacket on, then wrote his home number on the back of his business card. “Call me when you know for sure and I’ll come pick you up. Let’s talk more about France when you’re feeling better.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“We were both friends of Tom’s. I’m renting a house that’s bigger than I need—”
“But—”
“And when someone gets put in front of you that you can see how to help, I think you’re supposed to try. Don’t you? Wouldn’t you do it for me?”