The driver of the truck wore a uniform. He jumped down and ran to help and the two men lifted up the big splintery board, tossed it aside. Each man grabbed a door. They grunted and strained and pulled and finally both doors were wide open. The soldier hurried to the back of the truck, let down the metal back.
Gretchen strained to catch glimpses of the soldier as he moved back and forth past the flashlight. Tall and skinny, he had a bright bald spot on the top of his head, short dark hair on the sides. His face was bony, with a beaked nose and a chin that sank into his neck. He had sergeant stripes on his sleeves. He was a lot smaller and skinnier than the deputy, but he was twice as fast. They both moved back and forth between the truck and the shed, carrying olive-green gasoline tins in each hand.
Once the sergeant barked, "Get a move on. I've got to get that truck back damn quick."
Even in the moonlight, the deputy's face looked dangerously red and he huffed for breath. He stopped occasionally to mop his face with an oversize handkerchief. The sergeant never paused, and he shot a sour look at the bigger man.
Gretchen tried to count the tins. She got confused, but was sure there were at least forty, maybe a few more.
When the last tin was inside the shed, the doors shoved shut, the chains wrapped around the board, the deputy rested against his car, his breathing as labored as a bulldogger struggling with a calf.
The sergeant planted himself square in front of the gasping deputy and held out his hand.
"Goddamn, man—" the deputy's wind whistled in his throat—"you gotta wait till I sell the stuff. I worked out a deal with a guy in Tulsa. Top price. A lot more than we could get around here. Besides, black-market gas out here might get traced right back to us."
"I want my money." The sergeant's reedy voice sounded edgy and mean.
"Look, fella." The deputy pushed away from the car, glowered down at the smaller man. "You'll get your goddamn money when I get mine."
The soldier didn't move an inch. "Okay. That's good. When do you get yours?"
The deputy didn't answer.
"When's the man coming? We'll meet him together." A hard laugh. "We can split the money right then and there."
The deputy wiped his face and neck with his handkerchief. "Sure. You can help us load. Thursday night. Same time."
"I'll be here." The sergeant moved fast to the truck, climbed into the front seat. After he revved the motor, he leaned out of the window. "I'll be here. And you damn sure better be."
• • •
Grandmother settled the big blue bowl in her lap, began to snap green beans.
Gretchen was so tired her eyes burned and her feet felt like lead. She wiped the paring knife around the potato. "Grandmother, what does it mean when people talk about selling gas on the black market?"
Grandmother's hand moved so fast, snap, snap, snap. "We don't have much of that around here. Everyone tries hard to do right. The gas has to be used by people like the farmers and Dr. Sherman so he can go to sick people, and the army. The black market is very wrong, Gretchen. Why, what if there wasn't enough gas for the Jeeps and tanks where Jimmy is?"
There wasn't much sound then but the snap of beans and the soft squish as the potato peelings fell into the sink.
Gretchen tossed the last potato into the big pan of cold water. She scooped up the potato peels. "Grandmother, who catches these people in the black market?"
Grandmother carried her bowl to the sink. "I don't know," she said uncertainly. "I guess in the cities the police. And here it would be the deputy. Or maybe the army."
Gretchen put the dirty dishes on the tray, swiped the cloth across the table.
Deputy Carter grunted, "Bring me some more coffee," but he didn't look up from his copy of the newspaper. He frowned as he printed words in the crossword puzzle.
Across the room, the officer who looked like Alan Ladd was by himself. He smiled at Gretchen. "Tell your grandmother this is the best food I've had since I was home."
Gretchen smiled shyly at him, then she blurted, "Are you still looking for the Spooklight?"
His eyebrows scooted up like snapped window shades. "How'd you know that?"
She polished the table, slid him an uncertain look. "I heard you yesterday," she said softly.
"Oh, sure. Well," he leaned forward conspiratorially, "my colonel thinks it's a great training tool to have the troops search for mystery lights. The first platoon to find them's going to get a free weekend pass."
Gretchen wasn't sure what a training tool was, or a free pass, but she focused on what mattered to her. "You mean the soldiers are still looking for the lights? They'll come where the lights are?"
"Fast as they can. Of course," he shrugged, "nobody knows when or where they're going to appear, so it's mostly a lot of hiking around in the dark and nothing happens."
Gretchen looked toward the deputy. He was frowning as he scratched out a word, wrote another one. She turned until her back was toward him. 'They say that in July the lights dance around the old Sister Sue mine. That's what I heard the other day." Behind her, she heard the creak as the deputy slid out of the booth, clumped toward the cash register. "Excuse me," she said quickly and she turned away.
The sheriff paid forty-five cents total, thirty for the Meatless Tuesday vegetable plate, ten for raisin pie, a nickel for coffee.
When the front door closed behind him, Gretchen hurried to the table. As she cleared it, she carefully tucked the discarded newspaper under her arm.
"A cherry fausfade, please." She slid onto the hard metal stool. The soda fountain at Thompson's Drugs didn't offer comfortable stools like those at the Victory Cafe.
"Cherry phosphate," Millard Thompson corrected. He gave her the sweet smile that made his round face look like a cheerful pumpkin topped by tight coils of red hair. Millard was two years older than she and had lived across the road from her all her life. He played the tuba in the junior high band, had collected more tin cans than anybody in town, and knew which shrubs the butterflies liked. Once he led her on a long walk, scrambling through the rugged bois d'arc to a little valley covered with thousands of monarchs. And in the Thompson washroom, he had two shelves full of chemicals and sometimes he let her watch his experiments. He even had a Bunsen burner. And Millard's big brother Mike was in the 45th, now part of General Patton's Seventh Army. They hadn't heard from him since the landings in Sicily and there was a haunted look in Mrs. Thompson's eyes. Mr. Thompson had a big map at the back of the store and he moved red pins along the invasion route. Mike's unit was reported fighting for the Comiso airport.
Gretchen looked around the store, but it was quiet in midafternoon. Mil-lard's mother was arranging perfumes and powders on a shelf behind the cash register. His dad was in the back of the store behind the pharmacy counter. "Millard," she kept her voice low, "do you know about the black market?"
He leaned his elbow on the counter. "See if I got enough cherry in. Yeah, sure, Gretchen. Dad says it's as bad as being a spy. He says people who sell on the black market make blood money. He says they don't deserve to have guys like Mike ready to die for them."
Gretchen loved cherry fausfades (okay, she knew it was phosphate but it had always sounded like fausfade to her) but she just held tight to the tall beaded sundae glass. "Okay, then listen, Millard . . ."
Gretchen struggled to stay awake. She waited a half-hour after Grandmother turned off her light, then slipped from her window. Millard was waiting by Big Angus's pasture.
As they hurried along Purdy Road, Millard asked, "You sure it was Deputy Carter? And he said it was for the black market?"
"Yes."
Millard didn't answer but she knew he was struggling with the truth that they couldn't go to the man who was supposed to catch bad guys. When they pulled the shed doors wide and he shone his flashlight over the dozens and dozens of five-gallon gasoline tins, he gave a low whistle. Being Millard, he nicked up a tin, unscrewed the cap, smelled.