Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] (47 page)

Read Dorothy Garlock - [Dolan Brothers] Online

Authors: With Heart

• • •
“Can I give him some scraps, Gran? Please—”
“Sure, if you want to.”
“He’s so skinny and . . . scared.”
“He’ll be all right.”
“Can I keep him? I can’t give him a name if I don’t keep him.”
“What do you want to call him?”
“I’ll have to—” Kathleen opened her eyes to see Johnny bending over her. “Oh, Johnny. I was dreaming. Where am I?”
“In the doctor’s rooms in Frederick. He stitched your head. I’m afraid you’re going to have a bald spot for a while. Would you like a drink of water?”
“Oh, yes.” She licked her dry lips, and Johnny put a glass straw in her mouth. She sucked up the water greedily. “That was good. What time is it?”
“Ten o’clock.”
“Do we have to stay here?”
“For a while. The doctor said if you woke up and could see all right, talk rationally, and weren’t sick to your stomach, we could leave this afternoon.”
“I can see all right. So far, I’m not sick to my stomach.”
“You were talking kind of silly when you first woke up. I thought uh-oh, she’s out of her head.”
“I was dreaming about a little dog I found long time ago. Grandma said we had two dogs and didn’t need another. Grandpa let me keep it.”
“What did you name him?”
“We called him Zack, but he answered to anything. Zachary Taylor was one of Grandpa’s favorite men in history.”
Barker Fleming’s body blocked the doorway. “She’s awake,” he said, and came to the bedside and held out a small sack to Johnny. “I wasn’t sure if you’d had anything to eat.”
“You needn’t of—”
“It’s only a sandwich.”
“A lot went on last night that I don’t know about,” Kathleen said.
“Louise shot you.” Johnny placed the paper bag on the bed and took Kathleen’s hand. “The bullet grazed the side of your head. I didn’t see the gun until it was too late, but I got to her before she could shoot again. Paul heard the shot, came running, and held her so I could get to you.”
“Poor Louise—”
“You’re too softhearted,” Barker said. “She tried to kill you. A half inch to the right, and she would have.”
“He brought us here.” Johnny glanced at the man on the other side of the bed. “I couldn’t have done it alone.”
“I wouldn’t have wanted to ride with him last night.” Barker spoke confidentially to Kathleen. “He hardly knew which end of him was up after you were shot.” He laughed at the dark look on Johnny’s face. “I’ll have the car out front when the doctor says she can go.”
After Barker left, Johnny ate the sandwich.
“He had spotted that blue cape and figured it was Louise. He followed her to the
Gazette.
She’s a big woman. It took both him and Paul to hold her until the sheriff and one of the marshals got there to take her to jail.”
“I like Barker.” She chewed on her lower lip and waited for him to say something.
“Not too much, I hope. I’d hate to have to shoot him after he brought us over here last night.”
Kathleen sighed with relief when she saw the glint of humor in his eyes. He finished the sandwich, bent over her, and kissed her mouth.
“Do you think that we’d hitch well together, sweetheart? Last night, I almost died when that crazy woman shot you.”
“Is this a proposal?”
“Kind of. I’ve never proposed before. I’ve never loved a woman before either. I want you so badly that I hurt. But I’m afraid that after a while you may have second thoughts when you really get to know me and . . . how different we are.”
“I won’t have second thoughts. I know you to be gentle and kind. You face up to your responsibilities. My grandpa always judged a man by whether he was lazy or not. He’d love you. I worry that you’ll be disappointed in me. I’m stubborn and fly off the handle. And I’ll—have a bald spot.”
“Shhhh . . . You’re sweet, and beautiful and smart. I love you very much, and I wouldn’t care if your head was completely shaved.” He kissed her lips lingeringly.
“Does this mean that we’re engaged?”
“Hummm. . . . I guess so. I want to do a little work on the house before I bring you home.”
“Can I help?”
“If you come out, I’ll not be able to keep my mind on my work. I’ll be thinking about getting you in bed.”
“Well . . . what’s so bad about that?” She reached up and pulled his lips down to hers.
Dear Reader Friend,
Instead of writing an epilogue to this novel, I am writing a complete book continuing the story of Kathleen and Johnny. The time is 1945. Johnny has returned after serving in the United States Seabees. He has been in the South Pacific for four years. When war broke out Kathleen left the newspaper in the capable hands of Adelaide and Paul and became “Rosie the Riveter” in a defense plant along with thousands of other women.
All was not well between Kathleen and Johnny when he went to war. Their baby had died. Grief had torn them apart. Kathleen’s hope was that the breach could be healed when he returned.
The men who served in World War II came home to America to take up their lives, seldom speaking of the killing that had been forced upon them by our enemies, or the atrocities they had witnessed. Without whining and self-pity, they went to work building their communities.
AFTER THE PARADE, to be released by Warner Books in the spring of 2000, is the story of such men.
More Dorothy Garlock!
The following is a chapter
from
AFTER THE
PARADE
The Continuing Story of
Kathleen and Johnny Henry
who met and fell in love in
WITH HEART
Chapter One
October 15, 1945
Rawlings, Oklahoma
“Hurrah for the flag of the free.
May it wave as our standard forever.
The gem of the land and the sea,
The banner of the right—”
The Rawlings high-school band, decked out in full uniform and lined up beside the platform at the depot, played with gusto John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.” A crowd of a hundred or more had gathered to greet the men who had fought to keep them free. When the huge WELCOME HOME banner that stretched across the front of the depot was loosened by the wind, willing hands hurried to hold it in place.
The gigantic engine, belching smoke, its whistle blasting, its wheels screaming against the rails, slowly passed the station and came to a jerking halt. There was a sudden, expectant quiet. The conductor stepped down from the coach and stood with his hands clasped in front of him.
When the first of the weary war veterans, a surprised Marine, came through the door, the music from the band mingled with the cheers of the crowd and the horns of the cars parked along the street. The Marine stood hesitantly before he bounded down the steps, swung the heavy duffel bag from his shoulder to the platform and was soon surrounded by laughing and crying relatives.
At the back of the crowd, Kathleen Dolan Henry watched six more veterans alight from the train. All were greeted by loved ones. She waited anxiously for her first glimpse of Johnny Henry in more than four years. Someone waved a flag in front of her face; she hurriedly brushed it away just as a tall sailor, his white hat perched low on his forehead, a duffel bag on his shoulder stepped down and stood hesitantly on the platform. His eyes searched the crowd. There was a sudden hush, then the band began to play the Civil War song they had practiced for a month.
“When Johnny comes marching home again, hurrah, hurrah.
We’ll give him a hearty welcome then, hurrah, hurrah,
The men will cheer, the boys will shout,
The ladies, they will all turn out,
And we’ll all be gay, when Johnny comes marching home.”
The band stopped playing and the crowd took up the chant: “Johnny, Johnny, Johnny—”
The hero of the small Oklahoma town had come home from the war.
Johnny Henry was stunned. At one time the people of this town had blamed him for bringing disgrace and death to one of their own. Now they were cheering him.
Everyone had heard how Johnny Henry, on an island in the Pacific, had lifted the blade of the bulldozer he was operating, and amid a shower of gunfire, had driven it straight toward an enemy machine-gun nest that was preventing his platoon from building a landing site so the Marines could land. The powerful dozer had buried the Japanese and their guns inside the concrete structure.
Johnny waved to acknowledge the crowd, then walked slowly toward a small group at the end of the platform. His father, Barker Fleming, his black hair streaked with gray, stood with his arms folded across his chest, his Cherokee pride preventing him from showing emotion. The lone tear that rolled from the corner of his eye was seen only by his daughter, who stood by his side.
Kathleen watched as Johnny shook hands with Barker and his young half brother. He said something to his pretty half sister that made her laugh. As proud as she was of him, and as thankful as she was that he had survived the war, Kathleen couldn’t force her feet to carry her to the platform and greet him with all the town looking on. Feeling vulnerable, knowing that some in the crowd were watching her, she hurried off down the street to observe the parade from the window of the
Gazette
office.
• • •
Kathleen had been working at the Douglas Aircraft plant in Oklahoma City when the war ended two months ago. She had saved the front page of the August 15, 1945,
Daily Oklahoman.
JAPS QUIT, WAR IS OVER
TRUMAN TELLS OF COMPLETE SURRENDER
.
WASHINGTON, August 14. The Second World War, history’s greatest flood of death and destruction, ended Tuesday night with Japan’s unconditional surrender. From the moment President Truman announced at 6 pm, Oklahoma time, that the enemy of the Pacific had agreed to Allied terms, the world put aside for a time woeful thoughts of cost in dead and dollars and celebrated in wild frenzy. Formalities meant nothing to people freed at last of war.
Tears had filled her eyes, overflowed, and rolled down her cheeks. She had hurriedly scanned headlines.
DISCHARGE DUE FOR 5 MILLION IN 18 MONTHS.
Another headline had made her smile.
OKLAHOMA CITY CALMLY GOING NUTS!
Johnny would be among the first to come home because of the time he had spent in the combat zone. Kathleen thought of the ranch outside of Rawlings where for a while she had been happier than she had ever imagined she could be and where, later, she had sunk into the depths of despair. She had thought that she could never go back there, but she knew that she must . . . one last time.
Kathleen folded the newspaper carefully. This one she would keep to show to her children someday . . . if she ever had any more. The ache that she carried in her heart intensified at the thought of the tiny daughter she had held in her arms that night five years ago while the cold north wind rattled the window and tore shingles from the roof.
The war was over.
She was free to leave her defense job, to go back to Rawlings, to tie up some loose ends and decide what to do with the rest of her life. She was still part-owner of the
Gazette.
Adelaide and Paul had kept it going during the war, but they’d had to cut it from an eight-page paper down to six pages once a week.
On this wondrous day that the war ended, Kathleen had volunteered to work an extra shift in the payroll department of Douglas Aircraft. The pay was double overtime for today. The money would come in handy when the plant closed.
Tired after the twelve-hour shift and the long bus ride into town, she had stepped down onto the Oklahoma City street thronged with shouting and cheering people. Cowbells, horns, and sirens cut the air. Hundreds of uniformed airmen from Tinker Airforce Base and sailors from the Norman Naval Base mingled with the crowd. Hugs and kisses were exchanged by total strangers.
“How ’bout a hug, Red?” A young sailor threw his arm across her shoulders and hugged her briefly. “You got a man comin’ home, honey?”
“Thousands of them.”
“Bet one of ’em can hardly wait to see ya.”
The sailor went on to hug another girl, and Kathleen stood back against a building and watched the jubilant crowd. Her eyes filled with tears, and her heart flooded with thankfulness. This celebration was something she would remember for the rest of her life.
Music came from a loudspeaker on the corner.
“When the lights come on again, all over the world,
And the boys come home again, all over the world—”
Kathleen stood for a short while and listened to the music. When the next song was, “Does Your Heart Beat For Me?” she felt a pain so severe that a lump formed in her throat. The last time she had been with Johnny before he went overseas they had sat in a restaurant and listened to that song.
Kathleen hurried on down the street to get away from the music. She waited on the corner to catch the bus that would take her to the rooming house where she had lived since coming to the city to do her bit for the war effort. Not many people were leaving the downtown area, and the bus when it arrived was almost empty.
After she was seated, Kathleen looked at her reflection in the window and wondered if she had changed much during the war years. Her hair was still the same bright red. She had tried to tame the tight curls into the popular shoulder-length pageboy style, but had given up and let it hang. Johnny had teased her about the color of her hair, saying that while he could always spot her in a crowd, so could a bull; so she’d better carry a head scarf when she went to the pasture.
Walking up the dark street to her rooming house, Kathleen felt . . . old. In a few months she would be thirty-three years old. It didn’t seem possible that seven years had passed since Johnny had saved her from the hijackers on that lonely Oklahoma road outside Rawlings. For a few years she had been extremely happy, then her world had fallen apart.
Why hadn’t he loved her when she had loved him so much? He had allowed his suspicion of an affair between her and Barker and the fact that their baby had been born without a chance to survive to come between them. And his stupid feeling of inferiority had deepened the chasm. After this length of time, it could never be bridged.
Kathleen had not filed for a divorce, even though he had asked her to, and had sent every penny of the family allotment money provided by the government to Johnny’s bank in Rawlings. He would have a small nest egg to help him get started again.
Johnny would be free to make a new life for himself and with whoever he chose to share it. As for her, she was sure that she would never be completely happy again, but she could, if she tried hard enough, find a measure of contentment in her work. She had kept her connections with her editor at the pulp magazine where her stories had been published.
• • •
Johnny had not expected the welcoming party and was embarrassed by it. He wished that he had stayed on the train until it reached Red Rock and avoided all this. In the back of his mind had been the hope that Kathleen would be here. It was a stupid hope. She had probably met and fallen in love with a 4-F or a draft dodger. The last news he had heard was that she was working in Oklahoma City. He wondered if divorce papers were waiting for him.
During the ceremony at the depot, the mayor welcomed the veterans home, gave each an envelope containing gift certificates to be used at various businesses in town, then escorted them to the hayrack that had been decorated with flags and welcome-home signs. Johnny sat with the other returning veterans and waited patiently for the ordeal of being paraded through town to be over. He searched the crowd that lined the street for a head of bright red hair, and chided himself for hoping that she cared enough to be here when he came home.
Two months earlier, Johnny with the rest of his battalion had watched the Japanese plane with the huge green cross painted on the bottom fly over Okinawa on the way to meet with General MacArthur on the battleship
Missouri
and realized that a phase of his life was over. The siren that in the past announced an air raid blew that day announcing that the war was over. The celebration had begun.
• • •
The racket was enough to raise the dead!
Lying on his cot, Johnny grimaced at the thought because there were plenty of dead on the island
to raise.
“Damn fools are going to shoot themselves,” he muttered, but the other man in the tent couldn’t have heard him over the racket in the camp.
“The war’s over, Geronimo! We’re goin’ home!” The exuberant shout reached Johnny over the sound of the gunfire.
The only Native American in the construction battalion of Seabees attached to the 3rd Marine division, Johnny had of course been dubbed Geronimo.
“Yeah, we’re going home.”
Four years was a long time to be away from home, yet he could clearly visualize the clear blue sky and the broad sweep of rolling prairies of southwestern Oklahoma. He longed to get on his horse and ride to a place where there was not another human being within miles and miles.
There was no doubt that war was hell. Could he ever forget the bombings on Guadalcanal while they were trying to build an airstrip so Allied planes could land? Could he forget the steaming Solomon Islands, studded with coconut plantations and hut villages of ebony-skinned natives, mostly bearded, short, stocky, and superstitious? He knew that he would never forget the stench of burning flesh as flame throwers drove the enemy out of the caves of Okinawa.
“Ya know what I’m goin to do when I get home, Geronimo?” The excited voice of Johnny’s completely bald tentmate interrupted his thoughts. “I’m going to take my woman and my kid in the house, lock the door, and not come out till spring. Do you think my kid will remember me? Hell, she was only two years old when I left. It’s hard to believe that she’ll be startin’ school.”
“Sure, she’ll remember you, Curly. Goddammit!” Johnny exclaimed as a bullet tore through the top of the tent.
Shortly after that a voice came over the loudspeaker. “Cease fire! Cease fire at once!”
“It’s about time,” Johnny growled. “Damn officers sitting up there with their heads up their butts!”
He had come through the war with five battle stars for major engagements and had only a few shrapnel wounds to show for it. He was grateful for that. But, hell, he had no wife to go home to. If Kathleen hadn’t divorced him by now, she would as soon as he reached the States.
His sister, Henry Ann, had written every week and would be glad to see him, but even she didn’t need him anymore. Her life was with Tom and their kids. Barker had sent him a package about once a month. One package had had a camera and film. He’d enjoyed it. Adelaide had sent him copies of the
Gazette.
Sometimes they were a month old, but he had read every line looking for news of Kathleen.

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