He crouched, knife at the ready, half expecting to see a man emerge from the moonlit shadows. But this creature had four legs and antlers. Hess held himself very still, in awe of the enormous stag. The deer did not see him, but seemed to sense his presence, pausing to sniff the air. And then it disappeared again into the woods.
Hess relaxed and lowered the knife. The farmer had warned him that there were bears in the woods and he had been half-amused at the thought of being stalked by one of them. Besides the knife, he was also armed with the Luger, so he really wasn’t worried about bears. But the stag had been a good omen, he thought. He retraced his steps more quietly than the deer, without so much as the snap of a twig in his wake. Tomorrow, it would be time to hunt.
Ty had no sooner gotten Yancey settled in than he found himself invited to dinner with the general and Mrs. Eisenhower. He received the invitation with mixed feelings — Ike worked, ate and slept with Ty and his other staff members round the clock in England. The reason they had fled Washington for a few days was to give the general some time alone with Mamie and his son, John, who was a cadet at West Point. Ty would have gone to visit his own family if there had been any hope of getting to Orange County and back in such a short time. The roads were a mess because of the snow.
The mixed feelings came from the fact that Ike’s sojourn with Mamie was not going well and having a few staffers on hand for dinner was obviously intended to serve as a kind of buffer zone between the general and his wife. The rumors that Ike was having an affair with his WAC driver — Kay Summersby — had preceded the general’s visit. A man would have to be blind not to see that there was something between Ike and Kay. But even Ty, close as he was to Ike, wasn’t sure if he was witnessing a romantic affair or a kind of avuncular relationship between the middle-aged general and Kay. What he did know was that it must have been painful for Mamie to hear rumors of an affair between her famous husband and another woman while she was stuck on the wrong side of the Atlantic.
On the train coming down from Washington Ike had called his wife “Kay” — a slip that had sent Mamie into a spell of door slamming and angry glares. It was humbling to see Ike try to patch things up by smothering Mamie in kindness and compliments.
Kit Henderson thought it was amusing. “Ike could get on the phone right now and order fifty thousand men to invade France or send hundreds of bombers over Germany,” he commented. “He could have any woman in England short of the queen — hell, we could have any woman short of the queen just by being on his staff. But I bet old Ike is sleeping on the couch tonight.”
It was a little funny — and a little sad. Ty believed Ike was a straight shooter who would never hurt his wife on purpose, but he wouldn’t be the first soldier to give in to temptation when he was far from home and lonely.
The dinner was held in a cozy dining room deep inside the hotel. Ty had been all over the cavernous resort in the last few days, even exploring the basement and prowling the kitchen until he made the cooks nervous, but he had somehow overlooked this dining room with its walls paneled in rich walnut and a massive stone fireplace where a roaring blaze crackled. The fire reminded him of the last time he had seen Eva on the night Ike had almost been assassinated. Eva. For all he knew, that might be the last time he saw her until after the war.
An elegant Kentucky rifle hung above the mantel, its burled maple stock reflecting the candlelight. It felt as if the clock had been turned back at least a hundred years, and Ty could almost imagine wolves howling and Indians lurking beyond the walls.
“That rifle belonged to Daniel Boone,” Ike announced, pausing to admire the antique weapon. He had a glass of scotch in one hand. “John, come look at this. I’ll bet he shot a bear or two with that rifle.”
Obediently, the young man in the gray uniform of a West Point cadet approached the fireplace. He was not drinking, but Ty thought he could have used one. It couldn’t have been easy having Dwight D. Eisenhower as a father. Ty knew a little something about how living in your old man’s shadow. You might long to step out of it, but even when you did, the sun wouldn’t always shine for you.
Side by side, there was a great deal of resemblance between the general and his son. Same height and build, but the younger man had a full head of hair — even though it was cut high and tight as a boot camp recruit. Ike was very nearly bald, except for a few wispy strands that hung around like stragglers at a party. Ike’s enthusiasm seemed forced, the way it never did when he was working with his staff. He glanced at his wife, with whom Kit made polite conversation as he buttered a roll. Mamie smiled at the two men in her life.
The food arrived, carried in on silver platters by two old black men wearing waiter’s jackets. They served Cornish game hens, the skins nicely crisped and draped with slices of salty country bacon. There were potatoes mashed with real butter and stuffing made with sage sausage. Green beans with more butter. Ty hadn’t thought he was hungry, but the sudden smell of the hot food made his stomach rumble. He wasn’t the only one; there was almost a rush to the table.
The waiter poured wine and the mood turned festive, almost like a holiday dinner.
“Bet they’re not eating like this in Berlin,” someone said.
“Or in London,” Kit added under his breath, topping off his glass of wine after immediately gulping half of it down.
“I want to do some cross country skiing tomorrow,” Ike said. “John, you remember the last time we did that?”
“You mean that time you got so tired I had to tow you back?” His son had some of his father’s trademark grin.
Ike laughed at that. He turned to Mamie. “How about you, Kay? We could find you some skis —”
At the mention of Kay’s name, a chill swept through the room as if someone had opened a window to the winter wind. Conversation stumbled to a halt. Ike realized his mistake at once and was busy staring into his mashed potatoes.
“Would you rather have her here?” Mamie said quietly.
“Mamie, I —
The general’s wife bundled her napkin next to her plate and quietly excused herself. Ike pushed away from the table and went after her.
The polite thing to do seemed to be to focus on the meal. For several minutes, the only sound was the clatter of cutlery and the crackle of the fire. John Eisenhower picked sullenly at his food — it would have been impossible for him not to have heard the gossip about his father and his attractive driver. Then Ty asked him a question about West Point and started a conversation that was better than the silence, if a bit stilted. John asked them about the war and they answered as best they could.
“Hell, war is nothing,” Kit muttered to Ty once they had polished off a second bottle of wine. “Being married is what’s really dangerous.”
After dinner, Ty retreated with Kit to the hotel bar, which served as a de facto Officer’s Club. They had asked John Eisenhower along, but he had begged off, seeming embarrassed about the scene between his parents. Ty couldn’t blame him — what was supposed to be a happy family reunion had gotten seriously off track.
The bar was packed with convalescing officers who seemed to appreciate the medicinal purposes of bourbon. Having seen something of the local countryside, Ty was pretty sure the hotel bar was the busiest place for twenty miles around. Ty overheard some of the men talking about there being a heavy snow in the forecast. He wouldn’t mind seeing a foot of snow, but they were supposed to leave the resort soon to get back to Washington. A heavy snow would interfere with the general’s travel plans.