It wasn’t long before you would see women mechanics and taxi drivers along with assemblers in the aircraft and tank factories.
There was a new sense of being among the womenfolk, and it would carry over after the war, even when the soldiers, sailors, marines, and coastguardsmen returned to claim those precious jobs. The females returned to being housewives but they would soon find a champion to change their world forever, and eliminate the word subservience from their vocabulary.
Back in the thirties Jeb Lee had changed his name. At the time it was to hide his real identity, since he had become a murderer. In 1940 he made the change legal. So when he signed his enlistment papers there was no problem. He was accepted into the Navy after passing his physical, and he was sent immediately to the San Diego Naval Training Center. Phillip Atchison III no longer existed. It was as if he had died too, that day in 1929, in that dingy railroad car. It was only by luck he survived that trip.
Charlie Redbird had been there that day too, but he had not witnessed what happened. He’d been knocked unconscious by one of the two men who were then threatening the seventeen year old boy. Phillip had been given no choice but to fire the pistol that had come into his possession when his own father was killed by an intruder at his bank.
The hobo on the train had been killed in self-defense, as had his partner when he charged Phillip. In the seventeen year old boy’s mind though, he was a killer. He knew he had to fire the gun or he would be the one lying dead beside the tracks somewhere in West Virginia. That’s when he took the name Jeb Lee, after the two great Civil War heroes Jeb Stuart and Robert E. Lee.
Charlie Redbird didn’t try to convince his friend to join the Navy with him. He had a reasonably good life in the Nevada town. The Indian himself had no ties. No one would miss the go-fer at the rodeo. There was no woman who would care or grieve for him.
The unbreakable bond between Charlie and Jeb Lee was formed years before on that railroad car. The Indian had saved the young teenager from a beating or worse by intervening when the two thugs tried to steal any money from the boy. Jeb returned the favor after Charlie had been hit over the head and knocked unconscious. When Charlie came to, and questioned the boy about where the other two had gone, Jeb said they had jumped from the train as it slowed climbing a grade. They weren’t anxious to stick around when the bigger man woke up, and maybe looked for revenge. In reality he had shot and killed them both, and pushed their lifeless bodies to the ground adjacent to the train tracks.
The two unlikely friends were nearly inseparable after that. They both found work in the booming oil town of Nacogdoches, Texas, Jeb as a cowhand, and Charlie in the oilfields. Jeb had fancied himself as a cowboy back when he was tied to city life in Richmond. He would often dress up with chaps and two toy pistols strapped to his waist. So when his daydreams were finally realized he was happy. He worked hard to become, if not the cowboy of his dreams, at least a journeyman hand, better than his peers. Had it not been for Charlie’s restlessness Jeb likely would have stayed on the ranch. Whether or not his past would catch up with him became a moot point as he moved on farther west.
When the big Indian became restless, he convinced Jeb to follow along to Hollywood, California, where Charlie had been offered a job as a stuntman for the many western “B” movies that were being cranked out in the thirties.
Eventually Charlie lost his job to white Indian lookalikes, who seemed to have an in with the producers and directors, and an opportunity presented itself to join the Reno Rodeo. Jeb, bruised and almost broken by then by his many tumbles from horses, again followed along. On one of his head-first falls he had broken his nose. So it wasn’t too hard to convince him to join his Indian buddy on the trek west.
In Reno the maturing young ruggedly handsome ex-cowboy, even with his un-straightened nose, took up with an even younger housemaid named Ruth Emerson. She was deeply in love with him but he had become a social-climber. His scruples seemed to have disappeared even before he reached Texas. He’d left a waif in Nacogdoches who was in love with him without one pang of regret.
In Reno, Margaret Bell a banker’s daughter, had become interested in him. Her father, wanting to help his child, offered to set Jeb up in a business if he would marry Margaret. She was not as pretty as Ruth, but she was not unattractive. He took the banker’s offer, bought a leather and carving shop on the main street naming it Lee’s Saddlery, and left Ruth behind.
By 1941 he had become disenchanted, even though the marriage had produced a son, Matthew. He felt he had made a mistake leaving the young, amorous housemaid for a woman who had become uninterested in sex after the birth of their child. It didn’t occur to him that it might be his fault because he had begun looking elsewhere for companionship, and drinking heavily.
Unfortunately for him Ruth Emerson had moved on, finding a more suitable man whom she married, and then they both left Reno for good.
Jeb often felt guilty for not telling his friend the truth about what happened on the train while the Indian was unconscious. There were times during their journey from Texas to Hollywood when he almost let it slip. They had become very close and depended on each other.
Charlie himself had had a rough period in his early years, spending some time on the mean streets of Richmond, Virginia, when he was only twelve. He was also sent to prison for seven years for statutory rape, a charge for which he was innocent. The seventeen year old girl had forced the issue and not stood up for him when he, at eighteen, was arrested. It was an especially sad state of affairs, because Charlie had been taken in and given a home by the girl’s father, who was a policeman for the city of Richmond.
When the two friends reported for Navy duty it was as if everything that had gone before was washed away, and they began a new life cleansed of all their past indiscretions. But with the war just beginning, and enemies more than willing to shoot at them, it might turn out to be a short life for them both.
Chapter Three
Harold Lambright was not exactly a model citizen. He had served his time in prison for the wounding and attempted murder of Rachel Embree, but he still harbored a deep resentment toward her and that detective Ivan Dunn, feeling everything that happened after the gumshoe arrived in town was not only his fault but hers as well.
It wasn’t likely he would be able to do anything about it however, because he was bound to Richmond by a court order that he report regularly to his parole officer. He’d already gotten in hot water for leaving the State and not notifying anyone, even though he was just looking for work. He almost found himself back in prison for that error in judgment. As it was he had to talk fast to avoid being sent back. Lucky for him the parole officer was sympathetic, realizing how hard it was for a parolee to transition back into a hostile society not required to give him a second chance.
He’d been a promising newspaper reporter before the trouble began, but now no paper would hire him with his criminal record. Thank Ivan Dunn and Rachel Embree for that. He took no blame for anything. Rehabilitation was non-existent in his mind. There was only one way the slate could be wiped clean in his mind. Prison had taught him to be patient however.
He had to support himself, so he took the only work available, that of a dishwasher and clean-up man for one of the local restaurants. The owner had himself been in prison long ago, and he hired the twenty-seven year old out of pity.
He only worked four nights out of the week, which gave him plenty of time to devise a plan to take his revenge on that bitch Rachel and her husband, the same Ivan Dunn who had got him sent up. Yes he had heard they got married. You learn all sorts of things in the lock-up. Working in the laundry there was more gossip than an old biddy’s card party. The guards in that part of the prison were dumb. As long as you kept your voice down you could be plotting a takeover for all they knew.
He learned that the detective had moved to San Diego on the West Coast. He even knew what part of town the creep had relocated to, though he didn’t know exactly where La Jolla wa
s. He assumed it was in a low income part of the city. One thing the grapevine didn’t reveal about his quarry was that he was now rich.
There’d been a lot of time to think about what had happened, and what he was going to do about it. He couldn’t just leave it alone. Dunn had ruined his life, the warped way he looked at it, and there was no doubt in Lambright’s mind that he would pay. After he found Dunn and the one who had started it all, there would be time to plot the revenge that would send Rachel Dunn and her new husband to hell.
They should never have met. He, Harold Lambright, the twenty year old son of successful parents, was well on his way to the life he had always wanted. He’d already been with the paper a little over two years, having begun an apprenticeship while still a senior in high school, when Dunn waltzed into the office. Like an idiot he had jumped up to help the man, thinking it was advertising that had brought him in. The commission for signing the new customer up was the only thing on his mind at that point. There was no inkling their lives would become intertwined in ways neither of them could have imagined.
When Dunn flashed his detective credentials, a bell should have gone off in his head, but it was quiet. He’d retrieved the copies of newspapers that had been requested, without a second thought. He was disappointed it wasn’t about the advertising he’d originally thought, but it was when the Chicago detective returned the next day looking for an address, that sirens blared in his brain. He was looking for Rachel Embree. Had it been anyone else, that would have ended their association. But Rachel was sitting on a secret that would ruin him, Harold, were it to leak to anyone, but even more so if it was someone connected that closely to law enforcement.
Dunn had needed to go back to the airport to rent a car, so he cleverly offered to give him a ride, a plan already forming in his mind. The dumb detective had no clue he was anything more than a good Samaritan, who was going out of his way to help a visitor to his city. When he dropped his passenger, he went quickly to his parent’s property to retrieve a rifle from the gun case. Neither his father Rodney, nor his mother Louise, was home at the time, so he was undetected. He knew his father seldom looked at the gun case, even forgetting it was there, so he was confident he could return the weapon to its perch, minus one or two shells, without anyone being the wiser.
He arrived back at the Embree place outside of town just as his two quarries emerged from the small house, stopping on her porch. He had no idea if she had told him anything, but it wouldn’t matter if they were both dead.
He’d taken a spot hidden from sight in the woods adjacent to the front of her house, behind a thick fallen tree limb, and he was sure he couldn’t be seen. Combined with the reduced visibility of dusk, his concealment was pretty much assured.
He was going on emotion, and self-preservation. Had he given more thought to what was going to happen, he might not have gone through with it. However the die had been cast earlier when he had been seduced by the Embree woman.
It was all by chance that he had even been there that evening. His parents were having a high school reunion party, and it was up to him to invite Rachel. He knew there was no love lost between his mother Louise, and the Embree woman. He just didn’t know why. Had they been friends, she would have just picked up the phone and called the other woman. By sending her son, Louise Lambright wouldn’t have to stoop to invite a person she considered below her class. It was just too bad the rest of her friends didn’t feel that way. They actually seemed to like Rachel Embree.
He’d seen her before around town, and her beauty and sexiness struck him, even though she was old enough to be his mother. Most women her age were more matronly, even sloppy, in his mind. Of course he didn’t feel that way about his own mother. This woman could still have been a model. She was almost as tall as him, and perfectly proportioned, as far as he could tell.
He’d had no intention of entering her house, intending to hand her the written invite, but when she answered his knock in a robe, with enough cleavage to distract any man, he could feel his manhood bulging. She apologized for coming to the door dressed the way she was, and even appeared to cover up, as she uttered a feeble excuse she’d been expecting another woman. He saw through that right away. She must have known he was coming that night somehow. Maybe she had dreamed of their meeting just that way.
“Aren’t you going to invite me in?” he’d asked.
He didn’t hear her say no, as he brushed by her into her small living room.
“My son will be home any minute,” she had said.
“I know for a fact he won’t be. My mother told me he joined the Army, and is in Korea.” He said it with a smirk.
“Please,” she implored, “you must leave.”
He ignored her, and sat on her faded brown couch. Why do women play this game? First they want you, and then when they have you interested, they play hard to get. That’s all right, he didn’t mind chasing her.
When she didn’t join him right away he rose and grabbed her arm.
“What are you doing?” Her voice raised an octave, and she was obviously nervous. Well he would take care of that.
He grabbed her by both arms and whipped her body onto the couch he had just left. Before she could escape he was on top of her, his left hand covering her mouth just as a scream was to escape from her lips.
“shh. You know you want it.”
With her now free arm she reached up to pull his hand away from her mouth. Her strength was waning, and she couldn’t free herself. As she took her hand away, he mistook the motion as a sign of acquiescence, and he himself moved his left hand away from her mouth, and to the belt of his pants.
She was able to shift her body and at the same time push him off the couch onto her carpeted floor. His eyes showed his fury and determination as he was on her again before she could react, slapping her hard with his right hand. Okay, you want to play rough, I can do that, too.
Both her hands were free, as were his as he fumbled with the zipper in his pants, while trying to keep her pinned beneath him. She took the opportunity to scratch the left side of his face, leaving long streaks that brought blood to the surface.
Enraged now, he hit her in the jaw full force with a closed fist. She stopped fighting, and just laid there, her eyes closed. It was obvious the blow had knocked her unconscious.
After he had his way with her, and the tension was gone, he shook her until her eyes reopened, though she had a blank look as if she wasn’t there but off somewhere else in her mind.
He realized, now that the adrenalin had subsided, along with his excitement, that she might tell someone about what had just happened, so he reached behind her head, pulling her face to within a few inches of his own, and growled, “tell anyone about this, and I’ll come back and do it again, and then I’ll kill you!”
Back in his small rented room he examined the scratches he had sustained, after wiping off the now dried blood with a damp washcloth. He realized he must come up with an excuse. The deep thin cuts wouldn’t just disappear right away. He went to an animal shelter out of town and purchased a kitten. Then he told everyone who would listen that the cat had scratched him while he was playing with it. No one suspected a thing, and Rachel Embree remained silent, at the time. Before their encounter on her couch he had seen her around town, when she was shopping and such, but afterward, her excursions outside the sanctuary of her home stopped for the most part. He had seen the grocery delivery boy take supplies to her when he had stationed himself in the woods adjacent to her place, spying to make sure their secret remained just that.
Before their fateful encounter there had been others, and he had convinced himself they had wanted him too. They were silly frivolous waifs, and he had felt nothing but physical desire for any of them. None could compare with the dark-haired older woman. He even felt some remorse for having struck her. Of course the remembrance of the pleasure he felt from the act itself overcame any guilt in his mind.
None of the younger girls ever came forwar
d to expose him. If they had, his encounter with Rachel Embree might never have happened.
Chapter Four
The idea came to me on the way home while we were cruising at twenty-five thousand feet, give or take a few hundred, midway across the Pacific. At least that’s where the deep-voiced captain of our TWA flight said we were. The point of no return, he had announced, rather ominously I thought.
I had glanced over at Rachel, who was sleeping fitfully, with her head on my shoulder. Funny, every time I looked at her I was proud that this beautiful woman had chosen me with whom to spend the rest of her life-and I looked at her a lot.
I wouldn’t be able to spring it on her now, this brilliant idea, because I would have to wake her to do it, and I wasn’t crazy. She coveted her sleep, she’d had so little lately.
First there was the long flight north, the three hour layover in Seattle, and then the seemingly endless journey over water, which we couldn’t see because of the clouds that stretched from the Pacific Northwest all the way to the Japanese coast. The pilot on that flight hadn’t bothered to announce when we arrived at the halfway point of our long journey.
We had a double bed in our Tokyo hotel room with the world’s thinnest mattress. We almost welcomed the lumps where the cotton congregated. I don’t think management had ever heard of box springs. Fortunately we spent only two nights in that God-awful room.
Anyway the flight to the States was somewhat smooth, though I think Rachel missed most of it. She did catch up on her shuteye though, and she was in a cheerful mood when we reached Los Angeles. We would have had a two hour layover before boarding our flight to San Diego so I hailed a Yellow Cab and we drove the rest of the way. What the hell, I was never going to run out of money.
Rachel was really talkative in the cab, so I decided to wait to spring my idea on her. Once a woman gets going, unless you put your hands up and say stop, it’s hard to get a word in. I was reminded how beautiful the bride was and “didn’t Thomas look tall in his tuxedo.” She also remarked as to how friendly everyone in Tokyo seemed. She did breathe long enough to find out the cabbie’s name, Tony, and that he had five kids, a mix of boys and girls. She even invited him to visit us at our La Jolla home. I just sat there smiling. It was good to be on U.S. soil.
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