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“Oh, damn you, Cletus,” Doña Dorotea said as she went to her husband. They embraced.
Martha Howell handed the baby to Marjie and went to Jimmy.
“You get a hug, too, sweetheart,” she said, and embraced him. “You all right?”
“I’m fine, thank you, Miz Howell,” he said.
Marjie, holding the baby, was looking at him.
Not at me. Into me.
“The other hero and I require liquid sustenance,” Clete then announced. “Why don’t we all go in the bar?”
—
“So we took Dieter and Antonio to the hospital,” Clete said, finishing his after-action report as he held up an empty bottle of Don Guillermo Cabernet Sauvignon ’40 to indicate another was required. “Mother Superior says they’re both going to be all right, but neither—especially Dieter—is going to get out of bed for a while.”
“I should have been with you, Don Cletus,” Enrico said.
“We could have used your riot gun, that’s for sure,” Clete said. “What did you learn in San Martín de los Andes?”
“Excuse me,” Cletus Marcus Howell said. “Where was Jimmy when all this was going on? I must have missed something.”
Jimmy shook his head at Clete to ask—tell—him to leave his role out of the narrative.
The request was denied.
“By the time I was able to crawl out of the station wagon,” Clete answered, “Jimmy had stolen my Thompson and was chasing the bad guys through a cornfield. By the time we caught up with them, he’d put four of the bad guys down.”
“By himself?” Marjie asked.
“Yeah, Squirt, by himself,” Clete said. “He really gets a gold star to take home to Mommy.”
“Speaking of that,” Jimmy said, aware that Marjie’s eyes were again looking at him. Into him. “There’s no reason my mother has to hear any of this, is there?”
“Well, I certainly won’t tell her,” Martha said. “And neither will Beth and Marjie.”
“That won’t work, Martha,” the old man said. “Not only do Jimmy’s folks have a right to know something like this happened, but not telling them is tantamount to lying, and I won’t be party to that.”
Martha considered that for a moment.
“You’re right, Dad. And it would eventually come out anyway.” She turned to Jimmy. “And your dad is entitled to be proud of you, sweetheart.”
“Getting back to what you learned in San Martín, Enrico?” Clete asked.
“Suboficial Martinez told me something interesting, Don Cletus,” the old soldier reported. “He said the worst Nazi in the Tenth Mountain is an Irisher.”
“An Irishman,” Colonel Garcia corrected him. “Captain Guillermo O’Reilley . . .”
“Now that is interesting,” Frade said.
“. . . who hates all things British and, by extension, American,” Garcia finished. He then asked, “Why interesting, Cletus?”
“I saw Captain O’Reilley earlier today,” Clete replied. “Nolasco had him handcuffed to a table in the gendarmerie barracks asking him why he and his men were so interested in Estancia Guillermo and the people going back and forth to it.”
“Presumably, that was before you were attacked?” General Martín asked.
Frade nodded.
