“May I help you?”
The young man stopped to look around. An old black man—hair frosted white, face heavy with age—sat alone on a bench beneath a pine tree, a half-smoked cheroot dangling between the gnarled fingers of his right hand.
“That’s okay, thanks.” The visitor started to walk off. “I think I can find my way.”
“That’s not what I asked,” the old man said.
The young man turned around again. “Excuse me?”
“Should I?”
“What? I don’t… I’m sorry, but I don’t…”
“Excuse you.” The old man puffed at his cigar, exhaling without taking any smoke into his lungs. “In case you missed seeing it, there’s a sign over there that says, ‘Private Property, No Trespassing.’ Since this is a family gathering, so to speak, and I don’t recognize you as being a family member, that means you’re a trespasser. Furthermore, you’ve just stated you can find your way, which is a falsehood considering your status. So I’ll ask again… may I help you?”
The two men regarded each for a moment. “I’m not trespassing,” the younger man said at last. “I was invited here.”
“By whom?”
“Dr. J. Jackson Jackson.”
“Why?”
“I… I’m a writer. My name’s Douglas Walker. I’m working on a book about the first American manned spaceflight.”
“The Lucky Linda mission.” A last drag from the cigar, then the old man dropped it on the ground and carefully ground it out beneath his shoe. “I assume you’ve already done much of your research, so you’re already aware of most of the facts, hmm?”
“Well… I’ve tried to do my best, but I need to learn more.”
The old man’s dark eyes locked on like a missile seeking a target. “Then you’ve come to the right place because, if you don’t recognize me, then you don’t know a damn thing.”
Walker’s face became ashen. For several moments he was unable to speak. “Oh my God,” he murmured at last. “Dr. Jackson, I’m so sorry, I…”
“I certainly hope so.” Jackson glared at the writer. “If you do this badly with someone who’s been waiting for you for the last half hour, my colleagues are going to chew you up and spit you out.”
“I’m sorry I’m late. I had to stop to get directions. And I didn’t recognize you at all.”
Jackson smiled slightly. “I can’t really fault you either way, I suppose. A bear would get lost in this neck of the woods. As for the other”—he sighed and shook his head—“well, astronauts make TV commercials while engineers get a fuzzy group photo. And since we’ve only been in touch with each other through e-mail…”
He didn’t finish the thought but instead picked up an onyx-headed walking stick resting against the bench and used it to slowly push himself to his feet. Walker rushed forward to help him, but Jackson waved him off. The old man was too proud to accept any assistance, but nonetheless he smiled and shook Walker’s hand.
“Well, c’mon then.” Jackson began shuffling toward the lodge’s back door. “Lunch will be starting soon. You’re in time for this, at least. Once we’ve chowed down, you can have that interview you came for.”
“Is the rest of the team here?” Walker fell in beside him, matching his slow pace.
“Yes… or what’s left of us, anyway.”
The picnic table had been set by the time Walker and Dr. Jackson got there. Covered by checkered tablecloths, it seemed as if every spare inch was taken by platters of food: not just hamburgers and hot dogs, but also fried chicken, potato salad, corn on the cob, baked beans, turnip greens, corn bread, coleslaw… everything one might expect at a summer holiday feast. Sweating pitchers of homemade ice tea had been put out, with bowls of sugar cubes in easy reach if anyone cared to sweeten theirs. No one would walk away from the table hungry.
Although there was plenty of room for everyone, Walker soon discovered that it was not easy to find a seat. Little cardboard placards had been strategically set up at each place setting, identifying the person who’d be sitting there. When Walker looked closer, he noticed that beneath each name, printed in smaller letters, was another name: one of the ten men who belonged to the 390 Group. Since most of the people there were second- or third-generation descendants—children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, along with a few cousins or distant relatives—their surnames were often not the same as those of the team members.
Thus, when Walker finally located an unclaimed seat near the center of the table, he discovered that he was sitting across from David and Eileen Kisk; the second name on their cards was Robert H. Goddard, and once Walker began talking to them, he discovered that David Kisk was related to Goddard’s wife, Esther. Which made sense: the Goddards themselves never had children. To his left were Gerry Mander’s granddaughter and her fiancé, and to his right were Omar Bliss’s stepson Ronald and his children, with Ron Bliss nearly the oldest person at the table.
But not quite. Surrounded by their families, J. Jackson Jackson and Henry Morse occupied the seats of honor at opposite ends of the table. Both were in their nineties, and although they appeared to be in good health for men approaching their centennial years, Walker noted that their relatives took pains to make sure that they were comfortable. Beach umbrellas had been placed beside their chairs to shade them from the midday sun, and neither of them had to reach for food; platters magically appeared at their request.
Lloyd Kapman was nowhere in sight. When Walker asked where he was, Ron Bliss told him that the elderly chemist—the team member who’d spotted Silver Bird that fateful morning seventy years ago—was confined to a wheelchair and could no longer come down to the beach. He had his own table in the lodge, with his family keeping him company.
“Don’t worry,” Ron said quietly, “you’ll get to meet him later.” He shared a knowing look with the Kisks and Melanie Mander. “When they tell the Great and Secret Story.”
The others smiled, but no one explained what he meant by this remark.
As lunch went on, it became clear that everyone there knew everyone else. There was a lot of catching up, with news being traded about what they’d been doing lately. The conversation was light, with nothing being said about June 1, 1943. And yet Walker couldn’t help but notice that, from the opposite ends of the long table, J. Jackson Jackson and Henry Morse often glanced in each other’s direction. And when one man caught the other man’s eye, an enigmatic smile passed between them. It might have simply been the shared pleasure of two old men who’d lived long enough to be feted by their families, but Walker wondered if there was something deeper, a secret no one else was allowed to share.
The meal ended informally after ice cream was served, with people getting up and leaving the table to carry their paper plates and plastic utensils to trash barrels. Walker was surprised; he’d been expecting someone to stand and deliver a speech commemorating the historic events that brought them all here. But there was nothing of the sort. A handful of women start clearing the table. A volleyball materialized from somewhere and began to be batted back and forth among the kids, who were obviously itching to divide up on either side of the nearby net. Several people strolled down to the dock to have a smoke, courteously distancing themselves from those who didn’t share their habit. But no speeches, no ceremonies. Flag-waving and breast-beating had no place here.
Jackson and Morse were the last to leave the table. Escorted by their families, they slowly made their way toward the lodge. Still confused by all this, Walker approached Jackson again, just before his grandchildren helped him climb the short flight of steps leading to the back porch.