Take Me Home (9781455552078) (13 page)

“You reckon the Cubs will have much of a team this year?”

“I'm hoping to win the pennant,” the sheriff replied.

“I've got my fingers crossed.” Turning to Peter, she asked, “How about you? Are you much of a baseball fan?”

“I've always rooted for the Athletics,” he answered proudly, remembering his father's passion for the game and the Philadelphia team he'd grown up cheering, a love he'd taken great pains to instill in his son.

“I never much liked that Connie Mack,” the waitress said with a frown. “Those bushy eyebrows he's got look like they belong on a mule.”

While Denise went to start their order, John unfolded the newspaper and quickly scanned through the pages. From his side of the table, Peter stared at the headlines on the front.

Peter couldn't believe what he was seeing. Even when he'd been fighting in Germany, freezing in the snow, his belly and rifle both nearly empty, he'd known that it was only a matter of time before Hitler and his cursed Third R
eich
fell. From the moment of his capture, he'd only heard snippets about the war, usually about gains that Allied forces had made; he'd wondered whether it was the truth or just propaganda to help further demoralize the Germans. But now, reading and rereading the headlines, he knew which it had been. Emotions, some of them contradictory, raced through him; elation, fear, shock, and hope, all at the same time. In that moment, Peter was filled with questions.

What does all of this mean for me?

If the war ends, would I still be considered the enemy? A prisoner?

Could I…could I stay here…?

To all, he had no answers.

When John folded up the newspaper, Peter tentatively said, “Looks like the war in Europe isn't going to last much longer.”

“It's a shame it's gone on this long,” the sheriff replied, shaking his head. “But then, even when I was on the boat back from France in '19, I just knew those damn Germans were going to drag us over there again someday.”

“You fought in the Great War?”

“The ‘War to End All Wars,'” John spat. “The worst year of my life is more like it. I hadn't but just turned eighteen when I signed up. Thought I was going on an adventure. Instead, I ended up slogging through rain and mud up to my knees. I've hated the Germans ever since.”

Peter nodded. While John's honesty wasn't easy for him to hear, it at least helped explain where some of his daughter's fear and disdain for his country came from; Hitler had surely done the rest, and deservedly so. Though Peter knew it'd be best to hold his tongue and agree with everything the sheriff said, he felt something in him stir.

“My father fought in France, too, but after the fighting ended, he decided to stay…for a while…” he began, catching himself. “Eventually, he traveled to Germany and lived among the very people who'd been trying to kill him months earlier. When I was a boy, he told me that it hadn't taken long for him to understand that while there were many who loved the kaiser, who'd wanted the war as bad as they'd wanted anything in their lives, not everyone agreed. He cautioned me not to blame them all for the mistakes of their nation.”

John's eyes narrowed. “Are you telling me that you don't blame the Germans for all this?”

“I'd gladly give my life to be the one who put a bullet between Hitler's eyes,” Peter explained. “But I cannot bring myself to believe that every German is as evil and sadistic as him. Not all of them are guilty. Some have to be innocent.”

For a long moment, John sat silent, watching him. Peter thought he was weighing whether to argue further, to defend his hatred of Germans, but instead he said, “Olivia mentioned that you have a military deferment.”

“Yes, sir.”

John glanced down at the newspaper headline. “I know most folks stare sideways at a young man your age who isn't in uniform, but I don't judge. I've been there. I know what hell war is like, and as long as you're doing your part, you'll get no grief from me.” The sheriff smiled. “Take it from an old soldier,” he said. “It's an honor to fight for your country, but let's hope that you never have to.”

Peter didn't answer. How could he possibly admit to John that he knew exactly what it was like to fight on the battlefield? That it was because of that service that he was right here, sitting across the table from him at a diner, thousands of miles from home?

“I look at you and can't imagine I was ever that young,” the sheriff continued, flashing a wry smile. “Men like you and Billy don't seem near old enough to be going off to fight.”

Confused, Peter asked, “Who's Billy?”

“Olivia didn't mention him?” John replied. “Billy Tate? My daughter's fiancé?”

Peter was stunned speechless. All he could do was stare blankly at Olivia's father. He would have sworn that his heart had stopped beating. Time stood still.
Fiancé?
She'd never mentioned anything of the sort, he was sure of it, but he had no doubt of the truth of John's words. “I…I don't remember…” he mumbled.

Now it was the sheriff's turn to look puzzled. “Huh,” he said, absently scratching at his arm. “I reckon that she must've, but that maybe you were still too addled to take it in.”

“That must be it…”

But Peter was sure that it wasn't. Over and over, he pored over the moments he'd spent with Olivia, replaying their conversations, searching for something, any clue that she might have dropped to the fact that she was promised to another man.
She kissed me!

There was only one thing that gave him pause; her ring. She'd kept it hidden out of sight, and when he had finally noticed it and asked, she had given him an evasive answer, but he'd known that it wasn't the truth. Now, he understood.

It had been her engagement ring.

Just like that, Peter knew that there was no reason to keep up the charade he'd been playing. In his heart, he knew it had been a fool's errand, anyway. No matter how much he wished otherwise, there was no changing who he really was: a German prisoner, a fugitive of the law. There was only one thing left for him to do.

He'd tell the sheriff the truth, right here and now.

“There's something I need to tell you,” Peter began, looking right at the sheriff; if he was going to admit to lying to John and his family, he'd do so as a man, eye-to-eye. “I'm not—”

But that was as far as he got before the front door to the diner flew open and a large, sweaty man came rushing over to their table.

“Sheriff!” he shouted. “We got a problem!”

John had already risen out of his seat. “What is it, Huck?”

“Carl Hendrickson called in and said Roy Lafferty's barn is on fire! He seen Roy tryin' to get his horses out, but the flames was growin' fast! You can see the smoke from here!”

“Did you call Mike?”

The other man nodded. “He said the truck's comin'.”

As if on cue, the sound of a siren rose in the distance.

John looked down at Peter. “We don't have much of a fire department here,” he said. “More than likely, we're going to need every hand we can get. You up for it?”

Even though he'd been about to turn himself in, Peter stood without hesitation. Revealing his true identity and taking whatever punishment he had coming to him could wait until after the fire had been put out. He owed that much to Olivia and her family.

“Let's go,” he said, and they did.

P
ETER SAT BESIDE
J
OHN
in his squad car, racing south of town. They whipped across a wide, wooden bridge, the tires slapping hard and fast across the boards, before speeding alongside the gurgling creek, heading toward the fire. In the distance, black smoke rose into the sky. Behind them, Huck and another volunteer followed in the deputy's vehicle. The road followed the route Peter had used to enter Miller's Creek; when they passed near the cabin, he strained to get a look at it, still wondering what had become of Otto, but it shot by so fast that it was gone in a blink.

“Roy's place is a couple miles out of town,” John explained as the car dropped down onto a long straightaway; the lawman pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, making them go so fast that the scrum in the ditch blurred past Peter's open window. “Because of the way the roads are around here, we'll have to cross back over the river to get there.”

“Any idea what might have started it?”

“I got a hunch,” the sheriff answered. “Back during the days of Prohibition, Roy's old man had a still set back a mile or so from the barn. Used to sell his moonshine liquor to everyone within a ten-mile radius. Every couple months, I'd come along and make sure things hadn't grown bigger than I was comfortable with, but I never arrested him. What would've been the point? I hadn't had the job long and the last thing I wanted was the whole damn county mad at me. I'd have been voted out on my rump.”

John paused his story as he turned the car into a sharp curve, the wheels skidding slightly, before the car righted itself and again shot forward.

“Old Theodore passed away about seven years back and since Roy was raised up with it, I figure he'd know every trick in the book. Problem is, he's always been lazy as a summer afternoon. It's been a few years since I trudged out into the woods to look at the family operation. Maybe Roy moved it into the barn to keep from having to make the walk himself. If everything's on fire, it might mean that the still blew.”

“What was that about horses?”

“I've never understood how he's done it, but Roy's managed to keep at breeding horses. That's a job that requires more gumption than I'd expect to find in a man cut from Roy's cloth. But he's been lucky to have had a couple of sons who aren't as worthless as he is. This time, the apple fell far from the tree. They're big boys, strong as the animals they tend. Problem is, they're all off fighting overseas and Roy's been left to do it all himself. Maybe he started falling behind on his bills and thought he'd fire up the still to make the money back. We'll find out.”

Just as John had explained, they had to drive back over the creek in order to reach the Laffertys' farm. But unlike the bridge leaving town, this one was narrower; when they raced over it, Peter leaned inward as the car's mirrors came within inches of the bridge's railing.

They passed through a thick stand of trees, majestic elms and oaks, their branches sprouting the first leaves of spring, rounded a bend bordered by a weathered length of fence, and drove down a short hill. From the open window, the acrid smell of smoke reached them. Seconds later, John pointed ahead.

“There it is,” he said.

The barn was set off a bit from a two-story home up a gravel drive from the main road. The house had seen better days; one of the upstairs windows was boarded up and the whole thing leaned to one side. A mangy dog sat on the porch, watching as its owners ran around like chickens with their heads cut off, frantic.

The barn's front doors stood open; black smoke poured out of them and up toward the sky. The fire raged a brilliant array of colors—crimson reds, deep oranges, and even a smattering of yellows and blues. Most of the windows had shattered from the heat. A couple of men and an elderly woman raced back and forth sloshing buckets of water at the blaze, a futile gesture. Another man struggled to hold the reins of a panicked horse as its nostrils flared wide and its eyes rolled white with fear; several others whinnied in a corral safely away from the fire's fury.

The squad car skidded to a stop in the gravel and both of them were out of the car before the dust began to settle. A man near the barn doors spotted them and came running. He was short, balding, with a pot belly that pushed against his overalls. Sweat slicked his skin and grime caked his clothing. His face was beet red from the heat. One of his eyebrows looked to have been singed off.

“That's Roy,” John said before the man got too close.

“It's all burnin' to the ground, sheriff!” Roy shouted, distraught. “Everythin' I got in the world is goin' up in smoke!”

“The fire truck should be right behind us,” John answered calmly, looking over the chaotic scene. Peter could see that Olivia's father was a natural leader; not rattled, even in the face of danger, he was the type who'd look for a solution as others complained about the problem. Peter also noticed that John wasn't concerned with why the fire had started, at least not yet; there'd be plenty of time for that once it was extinguished.

“Ain't gonna be nothin' left by the time it does!” the man wailed.

Ignoring Roy, the sheriff directed Huck and the man who'd accompanied them from town to take control of the bucket line; maybe if they focused the water they might be able to save something. Turning to Peter, he said, “We'll rescue the horses still inside.”

But then, just as they started toward the barn, they heard the shrill sound of sirens behind them. Turning around, they saw the fire engine make its way down the drive, bouncing along the rough road. John frowned. “I'll need to coordinate things with the chief first,” he said. “Give me a minute to get them set up and then we'll go in.”

“I'll start without you,” Peter said.

“Are you sure?”

Peter nodded.

“It'll be dangerous on your own.” Peter thought that he saw a flicker of concern pass across the lawman's face. “If something happens…”

“There isn't time to wait.”

In many ways, Peter was a lot like Olivia's father; whenever he saw a problem that needed solving, he wanted to confront it sooner rather than later. Waiting meant that fewer horses would make it out of the barn alive. He'd witnessed too much death over the last few years; now he wanted to save something.

“Be careful,” John told him before hurrying toward the engine.

Peter took a deep breath and ran for the barn.

Peter slammed into the wall of heat radiating from the burning building; it was so hot that it forced him to narrow his eyes and momentarily turn away. Through the smoke, he made out Huck pointing and shouting as he directed the line of buckets throwing water against the barn's side. One after another, they went back and forth to a nearby duck pond, slipping in the mud they made, dredging up loads of the murky water.

Shielding his face, Peter hurried to the pond. When the next man approached, he took the bucket from his hand, filled it, and then poured it on himself. It wasn't much, but if he was going to enter that inferno, he'd need whatever protection he could get.

Back at the barn doors, he hesitated. Even over the sounds of the fire, he could hear the horses whinny in fear. A few feet away, a man was on his knees, spent, coughing up smoke; he was the one Peter had seen when they had arrived, the one who'd been tasked with rescuing the horses. Peter was on his own. He knew that the longer he waited, the worse things were going to be, and the greater the chance that he wouldn't make it out alive.

Then stop standing here! Go!

Pulling in a deep breath, Peter dashed into the barn. Past the doors, the flames were everywhere at once; the heat was so intense that the water he'd doused himself with began to steam from his clothes and skin. Covering his eyes and mouth with his arm, he kept going forward, making his way toward the horse stalls.

Several of the stalls stood empty; they'd either been unoccupied or belonged to those the Laffertys and their hands had managed to get outside. But it didn't take long for Peter to come to one that still held a horse. It was tawny with black spots, huge in size, deeply muscled across its back and down its flanks. The poor animal was so terrified by the fire that it was kicking, desperate to get free; its powerful hooves slammed into the planks of its pen.

Without thinking, Peter reached out and grabbed the latch that held the gate shut, but the moment he touched it, he drew his hand back in pain; the metal had gotten so hot from the fire that it burned. Silently cursing, he yanked out the hem of his shirt. Wrapping it around his hand, he punched at the latch until it finally came loose. A second later, the horse came charging out of its pen as fast as a bullet. Peter had only an instant to dive out of the way to keep from being trampled. He gave thanks that at least the horse headed straight for the open doors and safety.

Peter did the same at the next two stalls, remembering to stay well clear when the animals rushed out, but when he opened yet another gate, the horse remained inside. It was younger than the others, smaller, a white pony with a black smear down the middle of its forehead. It snorted fearfully, watching him with wide eyes, its ears back. Already backed into the far corner of the stall, it kicked up loose straw with its hooves, trying to get farther away. While hoping that the animal would come to its senses, Peter heard the unmistakable snap of a beam somewhere overhead. There wasn't much time left for the frightened horse to change its mind.

He was going to have to go in after it.

“Easy now, boy,” Peter said, inching his way into the stall, doing his best to ignore the fire all around them.

The horse whinnied loudly in answer.

With the gloom momentarily thinning, Peter was relieved to see a bit in the animal's mouth and a leather lead dangling beneath its muzzle. Until then, he'd had no idea how he might entice the horse out of its stall; grabbing for its mane or slapping its flank might have resulted in his own leg being broken.

Inch by patient inch, he moved closer, one hand across his nose, the other held out in front of him, reaching toward the lead.

“I'm not going to hurt you,” he said, but when he spoke, the horse suddenly rose up on its back legs, kicking the air with its front hooves. Peter stopped, unsure what to do now.

Without thinking about it, he began to speak to the terrified animal in German, saying things his mother had once uttered to soothe him.
“Das wird schon wieder,”
he said, telling the horse that everything would soon be all right. For whatever reason, and to Peter's great relief, it worked. Though still clearly terrified, the horse stayed still long enough for him to grab the lead. Tentatively, he placed his hand against the animal's face, which seemed to calm it further.

“Let's get out of here,” he said, leading the horse out of its stall.

In the few moments he'd been inside the barn, the fire had worsened. Flames were everywhere. The heat seared the air in his lungs. Black smoke tried to smother him. One loud crack was followed by a crash as another part of the structure gave way. The water that he'd doused himself with had long since evaporated, leaving his skin to burn.

Once he and the horse were within sight of the door, he peered through the inferno, looking outside. John stood there, frantically waving his arms, shouting something that Peter couldn't hear. Behind the sheriff, firemen stood and watched; clearly, they'd decided that the blaze was too far along to try putting it out.

“Go on!” Peter shouted, swatting the animal on its rump.

The horse did as he insisted, bolting for its freedom. But it was so traumatized by the fire that it careened to one side, slamming into the barn door before making its way outside.

Peter had been just behind the horse, but when it hit the door, he'd stopped. He watched in horror as part of the barn's front crumbled, sending burning beams and planks crashing to the ground at his feet. The noise was deafening. By the time everything had settled, there was a gaping hole high above where the hay loft should have been, but where the open doors had beckoned moments before, it was now blocked with burning debris. He was trapped.

Just like on the battlefield, Peter was once again faced with the prospect of his own death. But unlike then, when he'd thought of his parents, of the peaceful life they'd lived together in Bavaria before the Nazis had come to power, of his dreams for the future, he now thought of Olivia. When John had told him that his daughter had a fiancé, his first inclination had been to surrender, to come clean about who he was and never see her again.

But now he wanted to fight.

Too many things remained unanswered. Peter wanted to know why Olivia had never told him about her engagement. He wanted to know who this other man was and why she'd chosen him. He wanted to know if he had only imagined the attraction he'd felt between them. Most intensely, he wanted to know why, if she was promised to another, she had kissed him the way she had…

The only way to know these things was to live.

Peter looked at the burning rubble in front of the barn doors. Splintered wood mixed with broken glass and nails, all of the things that had once held the building together. Now it all burned. To get out, he had to find a way past it. Turning around, he considered trying the opposite direction, to see if there was a rear exit, but he couldn't see through the smoke and flame. Heading that direction could mean succumbing to the fire or, if it was also blocked, not having enough time to get back. He couldn't take the risk.

Doing his best to ignore the heat, Peter began looking for a way out. He was about to give up, to go against his better judgment and try the rear of the barn, when he saw it. A thick beam had gotten wedged sideways; plenty of wreckage lay on top of it, but there was a small gap beneath. From where Peter stood, he wondered if he wouldn't have to force himself through, but it was the only option he had left.