Amerikan Eagle

A good question. How to explain that choking feeling in the smoky room, feeling desperately alone even in the midst of that crowd? “We all stood up like good little boys, raised our right hands, took an oath, and now I’m in the Guard. Along with practically every other able-bodied male in the city.”

Sarah sat down heavily on the ottoman. “And everyone went along? Nobody put up a fuss?”

“Sarah, your dad was there. Marshal Hanson was there. Hell, two of Long’s finest were sitting up front. It wasn’t a place for anyone to be brave.”

“Oh, Sam… And you’re not going to like this, either. We’re going to have a visitor tomorrow night. Sam, it’s just for the night and—”

He shoved Tony’s message back into the desk so hard the cardboard crumpled. “You heard what I said last night, right? No more. We’ve got Legionnaires in town, the Party and my boss know there’s an Underground Station here, and you want to keep shuttling people north? Sweet Jesus, Sarah, do I have to make it any clearer? I even went out on a limb today with Hanson, telling him I knew the station was shut down. Hell, what more do you want? Do you want to see me standing next to Brett O’Halloran, begging strangers to buy wooden toys?”

“No, I don’t want that.” Her voice was frigid. “I know you’re trying to protect me and Toby. But I told you there was one in the pipeline, and I couldn’t do anything about it—”

“Oh, come on—”

“What happened to that guy I knew back in high school? The one who kept on playing football even with a broken finger? Where did he go?”

“He grew up, Sarah, and got a whole bunch of responsibilities. Back then the worst thing would have been losing the finals. Now… Have you been to the hobo camp lately? Children barefoot in the mud? Moms and dads starving so they can give their kids whatever food they can scrape together?”

“I’ve been to the camp. All of us at school have, with used clothes and some extra food. We do what we can, to fight back, and part of that is our little cot down in our basement. I’m sorry, Sam, he’s coming. The last one, I promise. It’s an emergency and—”

The choking feeling was back, as if he had no choice in anything. “Fine. Last one. An emergency. Whatever you say.”

“Sam, please, keep it down. Toby—”

“Sure. Don’t want to wake him. Okay, one more, tomorrow night. Who is he?”

She said, “I don’t know. Some famous singer named Paul. On the arrest lists for sedition. Usual nonsense. He’ll be here tomorrow night; I promise he’ll leave before dawn. You’ll never even know he’s here.”

He looked at his wife, his very smart and pretty wife who would sometimes have afternoon card sessions with fellow secretaries and teachers from the school—“the girls,” she called them—where they would talk and gossip about marriages and births but also about politics and Long and Stalin and Marx. Her face was impassive, and for a terrifying moment, he looked at her and it was like looking at the face of his boss, Harold Hanson, not having a clue what was going on behind those eyes.

Sam took a breath. “So this guy, this stranger, is important to you. To get him to Canada, to keep him out of jail, is important enough to you to endanger my job, our house, and our son. Is that what you’re telling me?”

Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were tight, and he braced for the inevitable blowup, but instead she nodded and said, “Yes. He’s that important. And… I thank you. With him, we’re done. This Underground Railroad station is closed. I swear it to you.”

He waited for a heartbeat. Then he said, “How long have you known?”

“Sam?”

“This wasn’t a surprise sprung on you in the past few hours. So how long have you known?”

She hugged herself, seemed smaller. Her robe slipped open and he noted the long smoothness of her legs, felt a flash of desire despite his anger. “A… a few days. I told you about him being in the pipeline.”

“But you knew there was no way to stop it. And still you’ve kept it secret from me, haven’t you?”

“I… I was afraid you’d say no. So yes, I’m sorry. I kept it a secret.”

“I see. And you thought by letting me know now, in the middle of the night, that I couldn’t do anything but say yes.”

“Sam—”

“I’ve got to go out for an hour or so. Don’t wait up.”

“Why?” she asked, bewildered. “What’s going on?”

Sam didn’t look at her as he put his coat and hat on, reached for the door. “Sorry, sweetheart. It’s a secret.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later he was in his Packard, rumbling over a wooden bridge to Pierce Island, in Portsmouth Harbor. Earlier he had paid a quick visit to a truck stop on Route 1, just before one of the bridges going over into Maine. In the rearview mirror he could make out the apartment building where he, Tony, Mom, and Dad had lived years back. The Packard’s headlights carved the small brush and trees out of the shadows. The steering wheel shook violently as he turned off the dirt road.