Inside was the largest knife Drake had ever seen, with a black wooden handle smooth as glass. He slid the blade free of the sheath and held it up to the light, the stainless steel shiny as chrome, the top of the blade a line of wicked saw teeth, the curved cutting edge sharp enough to shave with.
“That’s a survivor Bowie knife an old friend of mine custom made for him back in the day. The man was a master, long gone to his reward. Twelve-inch blade, Pakkawood handle. You could practically use it as a machete. Indestructible,” Jack said with reverence. “Feel the heft? Balanced. Fits neatly in your hand, and all business.”
“This was his?”
“He loved that knife. Had a thing for it.”
Drake slipped it back into the sheath and inspected the hand tooling.
“Your dad stamped that himself,” Jack said.
“What do the initials stand for?” Drake asked, noting the stylized script.
“He named it after the two most precious things in the world to him. His son and his wife. DAR. Drake and Anna Ramsey. He used to parade around the campfire, waving it like a pirate after a few drinks, saying it over and over. Dar. Darrr. It was funny, but it got old. Anyway, there it is. DAR’s yours now. Which is as it should be.”
Drake set the knife on the table and sat back against the soft sofa cushions. “Thank you, Jack. You know my mom passed away six years ago?”
“I heard through the grapevine. I’m sorry. She was a saint.”
Drake swallowed hard. “She was. Cancer got her, but for a long time I thought it was heartbreak. She never got over him. You could tell. She had plenty of offers, but she wasn’t interested. I used to hate my dad for it. I blamed him. And now that I know that he abandoned us to go chase after some stupid dream…”
“It wasn’t a stupid dream. He believed he knew where the treasure was, and that it would secure your family’s future for generations. He made a sacrifice. And he did it for you. That was all he ever talked about. You and your mother, and how different your lives would be once he’d found the treasure.” Jack glowered, and then his expression softened. “You probably see it as a selfish decision. It was anything but. I understand how you feel, but you couldn’t be more wrong.”
“It doesn’t feel wrong.”
“It should now that you have all the information.” Jack paused. “Son, I’ve been around for a while. Let me tell you something. You don’t have the right to judge others. You can only judge yourself. I know at your age you think you know it all, but you’re not the absolute barometer of good and bad, and you got your dad plain wrong. Was he perfect? Hell no. But he was a good man, and you can take that to the bank.”
Drake didn’t say anything. He reached up and rubbed his eyes, tired from only three hours of sleep the prior night and the long day.
“I should go. I would like some of the pictures, thank you. And thanks for keeping the knife for me, and for giving me a feel for who my father really was. It means a lot to me.”
“He would have wanted you to have it. Drake, he loved you more than you can imagine. Both of you.”
A crash sounded from the kitchen, followed by a muted curse from Allie.
“Honey, are you okay?” Jack called, pushing himself to his feet.
Allie’s voice rang out. “Yes. Sorry, Dad. Damn slippery fingers. I dropped a dish. Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
Jack lowered himself back into the chair, and they sat quietly as Drake paged through the photo album. After a few minutes he set it down next to the knife.
“Jack, thanks for the hospitality. If it’s all right, I’ll be back in the morning. Is there a decent motel around here?”
“Hell, boy, you don’t need to go to any motel. If you don’t mind a little dust and Allie’s snoring sawing through the walls, you can take the third bedroom. Got plenty of space.”
“I feel like I’ve imposed on you enough.”
“No skin off my back.”
Drake smiled. “I thought you were going to shoot me earlier?”
“You try to sneak into Allie’s room, you can damn sure bet that prophecy’s going to come true. Knife or no knife, a double load of twelve-aught buck’ll stop you dead.”
“I can hear you threatening the guest, you know. I’m not deaf,” Allie called from the kitchen.
“You mind your beeswax. I was just laying down the ground rules.”
The kitchen doorway darkened as her slim form moved into it, the warm glow of the lights behind framing her like a soft halo.
Her brow scrunched as she frowned. “Right. I heard. No rape. Good rule. We should have it stamped on the soap. Or I could embroider it on the pillows. Y’all come back now, but no rapin’, ya hear?”
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea—” Drake started, but Allie cut him off.
“No, now I insist. And you better bar your door. Double lock it. Because those Texas women can eat you alive, like a black widow. Wanton lust on the plains. Isn’t that right, Dad?”
Jack regarded Drake with a tired expression and shrugged. “You may need that little knife of yours.”
Drake looked at Allie and grinned. “I’ll be fine. I know karate.”
Chapter Eleven
The night crawled on as Drake tossed and turned, his mind running at hyper-speed to process Jack’s revelations about his father. He eventually drifted off at two a.m., no soft knock on the door and invitation to romantic interludes forthcoming.
He awoke to pans clattering in the kitchen and the mouthwatering smell of bacon and coffee. After a hurried shower in a claw-foot antique tub, he ran a comb through his wet hair, pulled on a shirt and jeans, and made his way down the hall to Allie in the kitchen. Jack was watching her go about her chores from the dining room table, a steaming mug of coffee before him.
“There he is. How did you sleep?” Jack asked.
“Fine. Like a baby,” Drake lied, surreptitiously eyeing Allie as she broke three eggs into a bowl and expertly whipped them with a fork.
“Hope scrambled’s okay. It’s the only thing I know how to make,” Allie said.
“I love scrambled eggs. Especially with bacon.”
“Then you’re in luck. Coming right up.”
Breakfast was delicious. When Jack had finished, he moved into the living room with his second cup of coffee and took up his familiar position in the easy chair. Drake joined him after being shooed out of the kitchen, his offer to help with the dishes rebuffed. He sat down across from Jack and went through the photo album again, carefully removing a half-dozen snapshots before closing the cover.
“I’ll get these copied and bring them back. I’m sure there’s some place with a scanner around here,” he said.
“No need. They’re yours. With my compliments, young man. Your father would have wanted that.”
“No, really. They’re just as much yours as mine. A part of history.” Drake paused, having grappled for most of the night with whether to come clean with his father’s friend. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Jack, I haven’t been completely honest with you. When I told you that Patricia left a few notes, I mean. She left a lot more than that. I’ve…I’ve also got my dad’s journal.”
Jack stared at him and leaned forward, his tone hushed. “The journal? You have it?”
“Yes. Patricia left it to me. I just didn’t understand its significance until I spoke with you. I didn’t realize that it was anything more than the notes of a deluded man chasing a dream.”
As Jack took a pull on his coffee, Drake could have sworn that his hand shook, just a little.
“So you’ve read it?”
Drake nodded. “I have. Taken in context, it’s a remarkable document. What was missing was context, which you provided.” Drake hesitated. “But there’s more to the story than just Paititi. Which might explain why ex-KGB thugs were in the mix.” Drake told him about the government forcibly recruiting his father, and when he was done, Jack looked like he’d been gut-punched.