CHAPTER 21
So, Mac and Jamie were necking at about the same time that Darla and I were. Fine and dandy, except that someone was supposed to take the map up to Shaun's place.
My cellphone rang. "What the—?" I stopped kissing Darla, grabbed my phone and answered it. "Hello? Shaun? What . . . ?" I sighed. "Yes, I'll call him. There's no telling what he's up to . . . But before I call Mac, there's something I need to tell you . . . Just calm down and listen! My brother and I have decided not to call in the cavalry. . . No, we didn't chicken out. We just decided . . . they're a bunch of old geezers. What'd be the point?" Shaun was ranting. I couldn't believe it! I was beginning to understand how Darla had felt when she was trying to talk me out of it.
"Okay, fine, Shaun, fine. If you wanna be the one to call in the Feds and give all those old men a heart attack, be my guest. But I promise you, if anything goes wrong, you're gonna roast for it, buddy! I'll personally throw you to the dogs! . . . Yeah? Same to you!"
I slammed the phone shut and glowered. I could feel my brow furrowing—deep, nasty furrows. I wanted to swear a blue streak, but I wouldn't do it in front of Darla.
"So, O'Shaughnessy is going to go through with Operation: Revenge on his own?" she asked me. Darla, I was discovering, was very intuitive and alert.
"How'd you guess?" I asked caustically, not meaning any offense to Darla's question. I was just madder 'n a decrepit old lion that's had its prey stolen by a pack of hyenas. "Maybe I should've let you talk to him," I said. "Maybe you could've talked him out of it like you did me."
She shook her head. "It was all I could do to talk you out of it, Jack. I only succeeded because Pete and George are your family and they love you. As such, they deserve to be treated better than that. All I had to do was remind you of that fact. Shaun isn't family, and he's pretty miffed at them right now."
"And he was looking forward to seeing them get what he thinks they deserve."
"You were, too, at first."
"Yeah, I was. But, the more I thought about it, the more I realized it's not a good idea. They're a bunch of old men. I wouldn't wanna be responsible for giving any of them apoplexy."
"Well then, as I see it, you have three options available to you . . . no, make that four."
I raised my eyebrows. "Four? Really?"
Darla nodded. "The first is to go up to Bear Log Hollow and warn your dad and your uncle. . . Tell them the original plan, why you had a change of heart (feel free to mention me, if you do), and why Shaun O'Shaughnessy is determined to go through with it whether you and Mac are involved or not."
"Option number two?" I wasn't averse to option number one, but I did want to hear the rest . . . just in case.
"Contact whichever group or agency you think Shaun's going to use and warn them that they're about to get a prank call about some terrorists. Let them know that it's only a bunch of old men having a campout."
"Shaun knows I was planning to call Homeland Security. Something tells me he'll opt to contact someone else . . . just because. I have no way of knowing who. I could call all of them, I guess, just to be on the safe side; but that could take hours and would be problematical. All the groups that Shaun doesn't call might think that I'm the prankster."
"True. . . Okay. Third option: cancel the gathering altogether."
"What? Send out more telegrams? That'd cost a fortune!"
"If you remember the names of all the men you sent the telegrams to, you and Mac could just phone them and tell them it's off. . ."
"We could, but . . . why spoil their fun? How often do octogenarians get an opportunity like this?" I shook my head. "No, calling it off isn't the answer."
Darla sighed. "Okay, then. Option number four: move the festivities to a different location. It would still require your going up and telling your father and your uncle everything, but they wouldn't have to just sit there and wait for the Feds to show up. They could move to a different campground and leave a map (or some other kind of directions) at Bear Log Hollow for the rest of the guys to follow. If you weren't planning to call Homeland 'til after they'd had an hour to settle in, I doubt Shaun will, either. It's a practical idea, because it pretty much guarantees that all twenty of them will be there by the time the raid goes down. If anyone is late arriving, they might get surprised by some troops, but I don't think it'd take long for the raiders to realize that they've been had."
I sighed. "I think I'll go with option number one and leave it up to Dad and Uncle George to decide whether or not they want to move their encampment—and the gathering—to a new location. Something tells me they won't. You know how feisty those two can be."
Darla nodded. "I do, indeed!"
"Question now is: do we still take the map up there to Shaun?"
"You said he was planning to go and watch when the raid went down. That must mean he knows where Bear Log Hollow is . . . unless he just figured he'd find out from the map himself . . ."
"He knows where it is," I said, nodding. "He was just a kid—doing odd jobs at the Outpost for his old man—when Dad and I first went there and gave the place its name. But, we went back there a few times after that, so Shaun and his dad both came to know what place we were referring to. . . Oh, yeah, he knows where it is, all right."
"So, if Mac doesn't take the map up to him, do you think he'll post one of his own?"
"No doubt. He sells maps of Pike at the Outpost. He's an experienced woodsman and knows how to read a trail map. I'm sure he can manage an 'X marks the spot.'"
"You haven't called Mac yet. He may've suddenly remembered and—"
"Crap!" I flipped my cellphone open again and called my brother.
It took three rings for him to answer. "Jack? What's . . . Oh, crap! I'm supposed to be taking the map up to Shaun's place right now! Jack, I'm sor—"
"Can it, bro. Shaun's decided to follow through with the plan on his own."
"What?!"
"Don't take him the map, Mac, for any reason. He has plenty at the Outpost. He can get one, mark it and post it himself. If he really wants this thing to go down as planned, he'll do just that. I'm going up to Bear Log Hollow tomorrow morning to let Dad and Uncle George know what's going on. I'll even show them the phony packet I created. They should get a kick out of that. Once they know what they're in for, they can decide for themselves if they wanna hang around and wait for the Feds to show up or move the campout to a new location. I just wanna make a clean breast of things and try to keep twenty old men from having a heart attack."
Mac let out a sigh of relief. "You know, I hadn't even thought about that: that some of those guys could be so surprised by the raid that they'd have a heart attack or a stroke or something. . . Man! What were we thinking?"
"We weren't; that's just the problem. Dad's not as young as he used to be, and neither of us has been around him enough in recent years to notice. Numbers don't tell everything about a person. Some men are strong and spry at eighty. Others are worn out, sickly and downright decrepit. . . Now, I firmly believe that Dad is in the former category. Nonetheless, we should have respect for his age and treat him better than we have. There's no telling how much longer he's gonna be around. Even seemingly healthy people have been known to drop dead suddenly from a heart attack."
"I know; I know—you got through to me earlier; Jamie put in her two cents' worth, too. I was (and still am) behind you on calling off the raid. But, if Shaun's determined to go through with it, then you're right: the least we can do is warn Dad and Uncle George." He sighed. "I guess we oughta go up right after breakfast and—"
"I say we go up for breakfast. When was the last time you ate breakfast over an open campfire? I know it's been a long time for me . . ."
"But, we'd have to get up at the crack of dawn! You know how those two are!"
"So, we lose a little sleep. Big deal! Haven't you ever gotten up at the crack of dawn to try and stop bulldozers from plowing under something you and your friends were trying to protect?"
"Well, yeah; but that was my job."
"Being a good son is also your job. . . But, hey, if you don't wanna get up that early, I'll just set Dad's alarm clock and head up there myself. If I'm not back by the time you're up, you can get in your Jeep and join us. It'll give us a chance to do some serious bonding with our old man."
"You really know how to lay a guilt trip on a guy, you know that?"
"I've been taking lessons from Darla. . . See you later, bro. And don't keep Jamie up too late, either. She has a job to go to tomorrow, you know."
"Same to you!"
"Good night, Mac. Tell Jamie I said hi."
I closed my phone and slipped it into my pocket, a softly satisfied smile on my face. "You know what, D.? I feel better now than I have in a long time—inside, I mean. . . It's been ages since I've done anything that made me feel like a truly worthwhile person—and not just somebody's idea of a war hero."
"I can't believe that, Jack. You honestly mean to tell me that you've never helped an old person across the street? You've never picked up and returned something that someone has dropped? You've never smiled at someone who was looking down, depressed, or worried and seen them lighten up a little at the sight of your warm, friendly smile?"
"Well, when you put it that, way, yeah. But those are just little things, hardly worth mentioning."
"Even little things matter to the people you're helping. And it does feel good to do nice things for people. That warm glow can make the whole 'helping others' thing become a habit."
"After we're married, maybe you and I can find other little acts of . . . kindness or charity or . . . whatever . . . that we can do together—between stories, of course."
She smiled. "Of course. But now, if you intend to get up and go to Bear Log Hollow at the crack of dawn, you'd better go home and get some sleep."
"Yeah, I know," I said with a sigh. "But . . . could I have maybe . . . five more minutes? We kinda got interrupted . . ."
"Okay. Five more minutes," Darla agreed. I set the alarm on my wristwatch to go off in exactly five minutes. Darla then turned her face toward me and I began kissing her again.
By the time the alarm went off, most of Darla's makeup was gone, her hair was a mess, and her dress was a bit rumpled, but she didn't seem to care. She just gazed into my eyes with that love light I'd come to know so well and smiled that soft, warm smile. After we said our final good nights, I left—filled with a warm, fuzzy glow . . . very uncharacteristic for me.
Young people think that older folks can't possibly fall in love the way they do—that love is only for the young. They couldn't be more wrong. The longer you live and the more of life you experience—if you're not embittered by it—the more capacity for love you develop, so you start to understand the need for love in your life. And, if you've been alone for a while and you're fortunate enough to find someone you can connect with in your later years (i.e., over age fifty), it's a blessing, if not an outright miracle.
I was beginning to realize that there'd been a lot of miracles in my life. For instance, I'd been spared numerous times while involved in aerial combat. There were so many times I could've—maybe even should've—been killed . . . but I wasn't.
On some level, I guess I'd always believed in God—in His existence. But finding Darla again and discovering how much we genuinely love each other (and always had) made me a true believer—in God and in miracles.
Darla was my miracle. Just as I had always been her hero and the center of her world, she was now the center of mine. I knew now—in the depth of my heart and soul—that my life had been spared all those times for her sake, not for my own. I wasn't even worthy to be called a humanitarian, let alone a Christian, even though I'd been raised in a strongly Protestant family.
God had His own timetable and had planned all along to call Frank home. Furthermore, being omniscient, He knew Darla wouldn't do well alone. She would need looking after: protection, love and caring. And Darla herself had said that I was the only man in the world that she would ever respond to. God had known that, too.
As I started the Cherokee's engine and slipped it into gear, I whispered a prayer of gratitude and thanksgiving. I hadn't done that since the last time I'd been shot down in a war zone and survived. God had saved me for Darla. It was a sobering realization. Her heart—and her life—were in my hands. It was time to step up to the plate and be the man she'd always believed in—the man she needed me to be. Tomorrow morning, at Bear Log Hollow, I would begin.
