Tags:
Mystery, horses, French Resistance, Thoroughbreds, Lexington, WWII, OSS historical, crime, architecture, horse racing, equine pharmaceuticals, family business, France, Christian
special weapons needed for covert warfare. It was a safe job State-side that plenty of guys wouldâve wanted.
âIf you ever get to know Alan, Josie â and the day finally comes that heâs free to talk about what we did â ask him about his work on the gadgets called âCasey Jonesâ and âAunt Jemima.â Most of what they did didnât require what he was best at, though, at least in his opinion, and after not very long, he talked the muckety-mucks into letting him switch to an Operations Group. The O.G.s were basically commandos, and Alan parachuted into France shortly before the invasion. He blew up bridges, took out railroads and phone lines, and used the Casey Jones heâd help invent to blow up enemy trains. It was dangerous work, believe me, that heâs rarely talked about since.
âHe speaks French really well. Why Iâm not sure. Anyway, after the invasion, he was attached to a U.S. Army unit in France to help referee the process of setting up local governments.
âThere was armed conflict still going on between the political factions in the Resistance in whatever area he was in. I donât remember which now, but this I do know. Some French woman, who, as it turned out had been wrongly accused of being a collaborator, someone whoâd actually worked undercover for the O.S.S., Alan saved her from a live grenade. He threw himself on top of her when he saw what was happening, and thatâs how he was wounded in the leg, the shoulder and the head.
âI know he nearly died, but heâs only mentioned it once in passing. I know what I know from a buddy of his. Alan spent a year or two in U.S. hospitals getting put back together. And something else happened in the hospitals that affected him significantly, though I donât know what that was. Alanâs quiet to begin with, and rarely talks about himself.â
Jo thought,
There speaks the pot, calling the kettle black.
And turned off the tape.
Her face was hot â though the rest of her felt icy â as she heard herself telling Alan why she wanted to do what she wanted, and not stay with Toss.
There was a hard, heavy weight in her chest that shifted painfully when she thought about Alan and what he must think of her. Which irritated her too, as she sat and held Emmy in her lap â till Buddy knocked on her kitchen door and made her jump in her chair.
âWe gotta call the vet out. Brown Berryâs water broke, and the foalâs stuck good.â Buddyâs face was smeared with blood and manure, and his eyes were tense and tired.
âIâll call Woodfordâs, and meet you at the barn. Iâll make us a pot of coffee too.â
âThanks.â
âWhenâs the lady coming for Sam?â
âTomorrow, from what Toss said. What time I donât know.â
Chapter Four
Excerpt From Jo Grantâs Journal:
â¦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? Itâs 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 memoryâs a strange thing. I can see Gabe trotting home without Dad â and Daddy lying dead in the woods with an arm flung wide. I know he wouldâve 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 Momâs death nearly that often I canât begin to explainâ¦
Wednesday, April 18, 1962
E ven though sheâd gotten very little sleep, Jo was in the kitchen early, in one of Tomâs T-shirts and her softest sweat pants, looking
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