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Authors: Kathleen Benner Duble

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BOOK: Phantoms in the Snow
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CHAPTER FOUR

N
oah waited for his uncle. The snow picked up, until it was a wall of white, the flakes melting into dark spots on Noah’s pants and coat.

No one came, and the cold and wet soon penetrated Noah’s flimsy coat. He decided to walk into the camp by himself. He took several steps forward and then suddenly felt sick to his stomach. His head began to ache, and it was all he could do not to fall to his knees.

In front of him, in the middle of the swirling snow, a shape began to take form. It was white from head to toe, no face, no eyes, nothing.
A ghost,
Noah thought, too ill to feel fear.

Light-headedness swept over him, and Noah sank to the ground. The last thing he felt was the snow against his cheek.

He woke to the sound of laughter and the smell of coffee. He tried to sit up, but his head was pounding fiercely. He fell back against the bed he was lying on and moaned slightly.

Someone came and hovered above him. Noah focused on a man, a man who was deeply tanned and very tall with large bony hands and eyes with heavy wrinkles around them. His uncle?

“You okay, son?” he asked.

Noah tried to nod, then stopped. “My head hurts.”

The man smiled. “Yeah, it happens to a lot of new ones here. It’s the altitude, gives them headaches, makes them faint or dizzy. Don’t worry. You’ll get used to it.”

Noah wasn’t so sure. He couldn’t imagine anyone getting used to a drum being played in his head.

The man drew up a chair. “My name’s Harold Skeetman. Around here, they call me Skeeter. Can you tell me what you’re doing here? We weren’t due any new recruits for a while.”

“My name’s Noah Garrett,” Noah said, holding on to his head. It even hurt to talk. “Do you know my uncle? James Shelley?”

A cautious look crossed Skeeter’s face. “Yeah, I know him. Is he expecting you?”

Noah nodded. “I think so. My minister was supposed to write him that I was coming.”

Skeeter looked Noah up and down, his eyes carefully assessing him. “How old are you, Noah?”

Noah paused. He remembered the soldiers on the train and the fact that at least for the time being, until he could figure out a way to live alone, he had to find a way of staying here.

“I’m sixteen,” Noah answered. He was surprised at how easily the lie tripped off his tongue. He hoped his parents, if they were watching him now, would forgive him this small untruth. He would be sixteen soon enough.

“You visiting?” Skeeter asked.

“No,” Noah said and then paused. “My parents died so I was sent here. I’ve never met my uncle before.”

“Ah,” Skeeter breathed.

Noah looked quickly at Skeeter, but there was no pity there, just sadness and an odd look of understanding.

“My parents are dead, too,” Skeeter explained.

Noah nodded.

“Well,” Skeeter said finally, “why don’t you try and sit up? I’ll take you to your uncle, and we’ll straighten this all out.”

Skeeter helped Noah to his feet. Noah’s head pounded even harder. He felt like a complete weakling. Even his legs were shaking.

Skeeter handed him a wool coat, thick and warm. “You’ll need this. That jacket you brought won’t do you much good until early summer.”

Noah slipped the coat over his arm, picked up his duffel bag, and followed Skeeter into a room filled with tables. Boys, a little older than he was, sat in the room, laughing and drinking coffee. Their cheeks were bright with color and heavy with stubble.

On the walls were life-size pictures of Hitler and Hirohito, their faces marked by pinpricks from darts that had been thrown their way.

As they walked by one of the tables, Noah heard someone say, “Yeah, the wind was so strong on that island that at night we tied our tent ropes to the wheels of our jeeps just to keep them down.”

Other boys, listening, nodded.

“So anyway,” the boy continued, waving his hands about as if he were a king holding court, “one morning, some soldier from another division gets up and forgets about those tents. And he gets in his jeep and drives off, pulling Wiley here” — he pointed to another boy sitting next to him with pale skin and a shock of red hair — “and his tent to the ground. So there was Wiley wiggling around inside like a worm and being dragged across the camp.”

The boys at the table burst out laughing. Noah couldn’t help it. In spite of his aching head, he laughed, too.

“Oh, you think that’s a good story,” the boy with the red hair retorted, putting his arm around the one who had told the tale. “Let me tell you one on Roger here.”

Skeeter pulled open a door and motioned Noah out. They stepped into the cold. The camp was strangely silent, blanketed with the newly fallen snow. Skeeter didn’t even pause but took off at a fast pace. Noah hurried to keep up with him, throwing on the heavy wool coat as he stumbled along. His feet sunk into the light powdery snow, and the thin air made the going difficult.

“Mr. Skeetman,” Noah called out, breathing heavily, “at the train station, when I was standing there, I thought I saw something, something all white.” He wasn’t about to add “something that looked like a ghost.”

Skeeter’s chuckle drifted back to Noah on the crisp air. “It’s Skeeter, son, just Skeeter, and that something was me. Our uniforms are all white. It keeps us invisible in the snow so we can escape or attack our enemy unseen.”

Noah thought about the pilots he had met on the train and their derogatory comments about the worthlessness of these skiing soldiers. He wondered if these boys had heard some of that kind of talk. Noah knew he would hate for people to think of him as completely useless. Did it bother these soldiers?

Skeeter opened another door, to a much smaller barracks than the one they had come from. Noah followed him across the threshold.

The first thing that hit Noah was the smell, an awful burnt rubber smell. And then the girlie pictures, thousands of them pinned up all around the walls of the barracks — girls in bathing suits, girls in bras and underwear, girls with almost nothing on.

“Real men don’t treat their women like that, looking at them half-naked. And women who pose like that, well, decent men don’t consort with the likes of them,” his father had once said.

Noah flushed.

Skeeter didn’t give the pictures a glance. Instead, he quickly walked between the rows of bunks, and Noah found himself hurrying after him again. Finally, Skeeter stopped in front of one of the beds.

On a bare mattress with two crumpled blankets and no sheet, a radio clutched tight against him and liquor bottles on the floor
all around, lay a huge bear of a man, snoring loudly enough to wake anyone within fifty miles.

Noah looked over at Skeeter.

Skeeter smiled apologetically.

“My uncle?” Noah asked, dropping his bag.

Skeeter nodded.

CHAPTER FIVE

S
keeter bent over the man and began to shake him awake.

Noah’s uncle moaned and turned over, swinging an arm out at Skeeter, like someone trying to get rid of a buzzing mosquito.

Skeeter backed off until James Shelley lay still again. Then Skeeter went around to the other side and shook him, hard this time.

“What? What?” roared Noah’s uncle, his eyes flying open. “What is it? Can’t a man get any sleep in this place?”

Skeeter gave a slight laugh. “You got company, Shelley.”

“Yeah?” Noah’s uncle said, raising himself up on one elbow to peer at Skeeter. “Well, if it’s that blonde from town, Skeeter, you get rid of her, okay? I ain’t in any mood or condition for a woman’s company right now.”

“It’s not a woman, Shelley,” Skeeter said, nodding toward Noah.

“Yeah, well, then what?” asked the big man, swinging himself onto his other side and coming face-to-face with Noah.

James Shelley stared at Noah, and Noah stared back in shock. His uncle’s eyes were glassy in his heavily bearded face, and his breath was terrible. But still, his uncle looked just like his mother.

“So, who’s this?” James Shelley asked. “Is this a joke of some sort? Is that fool Pete trying another of his tricks?”

“No, Shelley,” Skeeter said. “I guess this is your nephew, Noah Garrett.”

“What?” James Shelley asked.

“I’m Celeste Garrett’s son,” Noah said.

“So?”

Noah’s stomach lurched uncomfortably. These were hardly the first words Noah had expected to hear from his uncle.

“Your sister,” Noah said, hoping that his uncle had just misunderstood. “I’m her son. She’s dead, sir, and I’ve been sent to you because I don’t have any other living relatives.”

His uncle frowned. Noah waited. Would his uncle not tear up a little? Maybe welcome him here? Shake his hand? But the man said nothing.

Noah closed his eyes and took a deep breath, reminding himself that while sending him here had obviously been a mistake, his minister, Reverend Patterson, and his neighbor, Mrs. Norman, couldn’t have known. This wasn’t anyone’s fault.

“Look,” Noah managed to say in a patient voice, “I guess this isn’t what you were expecting. It wasn’t what I wanted, either. If
you just give me a place to sleep for tonight, maybe we can figure out something else tomorrow, sir.”

Suddenly, James Shelley’s hand shot out, gripping Noah’s arm tightly. His uncle pulled Noah closer, looking him up and down, still not saying a word.

Noah couldn’t believe he was being treated so shabbily, especially by someone who looked so uncannily like his mother. “Forget the place to sleep!” he managed to choke out in a tight voice. “I’ll just leave now.”

“Whoa, whoa,” Skeeter interrupted, holding up his hand at Noah’s words. “Wait a minute, son. I’m sure your uncle is happy you’re here. He’s just surprised is all. Right, Shelley?”

James Shelley glared up at Skeeter. Skeeter glared back.

Noah waited. What was he supposed to do? Would he have to sleep out in the cold at the train station? Noah suddenly felt exhausted and overwhelmed and embarrassingly near tears. Determinedly, he gritted his teeth. He
refused
to break down in front of this unfeeling man.

Then James Shelley sighed. “All right, boy. I’ll do something with you. We’ll work this thing out.”

“Good,” Skeeter said, smiling. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted.”

Skeeter walked toward the door and then turned to face Noah. “You come see me if you need anything, okay?”

Noah paused. Should he stay? What choice did he really have? There was no other place to go, at least until morning. Reluctantly, he nodded his agreement.

Skeeter opened the door and then was lost in a blast of cold air.

James Shelley swung his legs out from the blankets and stood up. “So, you say my sister’s passed on, huh? You got a father?”

“He went, too,” Noah said.

“Ah,” James Shelley said. “You got any brothers or sisters I should know about? I mean, ten or twelve kids aren’t going to suddenly descend on me or anything, are they?”

Noah shook his head. How could this man act so callous about his own sister’s death?

“You hungry?” James Shelley asked.

The question threw Noah off guard. He nodded.

“Well, let’s head on over to the mess hall, then,” his uncle said. “I know I could use some grub.”

Noah followed his uncle to the door of the barracks, where Shelley grabbed a jacket. His uncle went to open the door and then stopped.

“How’d she go?” he asked, not looking at Noah.

“What?” Noah asked.

“My sister,” his uncle repeated impatiently. “What took her?”

“Smallpox,” Noah answered.

James Shelley stood for a minute, his hand resting on the doorknob. Then without another word, he whipped the door open, sending it smashing into the wall.

“Let’s go, boy,” he said.

CHAPTER SIX

T
hey headed back to the mess hall. When his uncle opened the door and stepped into the room, everyone looked up and started cheering.

James Shelley threw open his ski jacket and swept off his wool hat. He stood with his feet planted apart, grinning from ear to ear.

“Toast! Toast!” the boy, Roger, yelled, grabbing a bottle of whiskey and handing it to Shelley.

Noah’s uncle lifted the bottle high. “To the mountains!”

The boys suddenly fell silent as they raised their own glasses. “To the mountains!” They each took a drink.

Noah watched his uncle put the bottle to his lips and drink half of it down. Everyone cheered again. Noah wondered what they were celebrating, but nobody seemed to want to enlighten him.

James Shelley turned and handed the whiskey to Noah. “Here, kid.”

Noah stared at the liquor his uncle had given him. He was only fifteen, had never had a drink before in his life, and didn’t want one now. He gazed at the bottle, wondering what he should do with it.

Skeeter came forward and took the whiskey away. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea, Shelley.”

But James Shelley wasn’t paying attention. The boy, Roger, had begun chanting, “Tell it! Tell it! Tell it! Tell it!” and the other boys stood and joined in.

James Shelley grabbed a chair and swung it around. He sat down backward on the seat, Roger and Wiley and the others all gathering close around him.

Skeeter touched Noah on the shoulder and motioned him toward the back. “Let’s get you some food, kid.”

Reluctantly, Noah followed him. As he moved farther away, toward the kitchen, he tried to hear what his uncle was saying, but the words were soon indistinguishable.

In the back, Skeeter handed Noah a tray and some utensils. He began dishing food from the cafeteria-style buffet onto Noah’s plate.

The food made a loud plopping sound as it landed on the dish. Noah stared at the big brown glob. He wasn’t sure if he was being served stew or slop.

Skeeter caught his look. “Not too appetizing to look at, eh?” He grinned. “And unfortunately, it’s even less appetizing to eat!”

Noah laughed.

Skeeter handed Noah a glass of milk. “So, do you mind my asking? How’d your parents die?”

“Smallpox,” Noah said. “Within a week of each other.”

“Couldn’t live without each other, huh?” Skeeter asked.

“Wish they’d realized that
I
couldn’t live without one of them, either,” Noah said.

Skeeter nodded. “It’s awful hard when you lose your whole family.”

“How’d you lose yours?” Noah asked.

“Car crash,” Skeeter said. “Drunk driver hit them on some back road in Ohio. My older sister and her baby were with them, too.”

Noah knew firsthand how Skeeter felt, but he had not lost a brother or sister and a niece or nephew at the same time he’d lost his parents. Noah wondered if the pain of that would be doubly hard. He imagined it just might be.

Skeeter sighed. “There I was, in the blink of an eye, an orphan at age eighteen. And I thought if life was that uncertain, why not throw all caution to the winds? So I joined up with the 86th. Now, like it or not, these guys are my family.” He laughed ruefully.

Noah didn’t say anything. The thought of replacing his mother and father with anyone, let alone a bunch of boys and men at an army base, seemed wrong.

A shout of merriment rose from around Noah’s uncle.

“What’s going on?” Noah asked, nodding over to where James Shelley sat surrounded. “Why is everyone so interested in my uncle?”

Skeeter paused. “You’ve come at a funny time. Shelley just got back from two days’ leave.”

“Why is everyone cheering for him?” Noah persisted.

Skeeter laughed and rubbed his fingers through his hair. “Well, it’s like this. On his leave, he and another guy who’s still somewhere sleeping challenged each other to a hike.”

Noah shrugged. “So?” He and his father had frequently hiked into the hills near their farm to go fishing.

“They hiked from a town called Pando to Glenwood Springs,” Skeeter said. “It’s a distance of seventy-five miles in deep snow. They made the hike in twenty-one hours, without any sleep at all.”

“That’s pretty good,” Noah said. The longest hike he remembered making with his father had been around ten miles.

Skeeter laughed again. “Yeah, that’s pretty good. But what’s even more incredible is this: See, Pete was the one who had challenged your uncle to the hike. He picked how far they would go, and he set the pace. Your uncle, though, he was responsible for the provisions on the trip.” Skeeter grinned. “You know what your uncle brought?”

Noah shook his head.

“A candy bar,” Skeeter hooted. “Just one candy bar. Nothing else. I guess Pete nearly died when he saw what your uncle had packed in his knapsack. The rest of it was filled with paper.”

Noah thought about hiking seventy-five miles in deep snow in twenty-one hours with only half a candy bar to eat.

“That’s crazy,” Noah said.

“Yeah,” Skeeter said, “it sure is.”

Noah looked at Skeeter and saw his face shining with admiration. Then he looked at his uncle, his head thrown back, his eyes gleaming wildly out of his big, bushy face.

His uncle had taken a chance that was both foolish and dangerous. Were all soldiers like this? Or just this group that had been ridiculed by their peers? Would these soldiers do anything to prove themselves? A shiver ran down Noah’s back, and he wondered just what Reverend Patterson and Mrs. Norman had gotten him into.

BOOK: Phantoms in the Snow
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