One More Sunrise

Jr. Landon Michael

Description

Michael Landon Jr. and Tracie Peterson--a Winning Team!After his dreams of being a WWII flying ace are dashed, Joe settles for a dead-end job, crop-dusting his neighbors' farms and finishing out the evening slouched at the bar in the local tavern. One morning Joe's usual crop dusting routine turns into something else entirely when his beat-up Stearman begins a long spiral toward dearth...Joe doesn't die that mroning, but he begins an odyssey whose twists and turns head him back toward life, love, and true devotion.

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441203267
• Langue: English

Extrait

One More Sunrise Copyright © 2008 Michael Landon Jr.
Cover design by The DesignWorks Group, Charles Brock
Published by Bethany House Publishers 11400 Hampshire Avenue South Bloomington, Minnesota 55438 www.bethanyhouse.com
Bethany House Publishers is a division of Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan www.bakerpublishinggroup.com
Ebook edition created 2011
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means for example, electronic, photocopy, recording without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
ISBN 978-1-4412-0326-7
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
On Earth there is no Heaven, But there are pieces of it.
Jules Renard
(French writer, 1864–1910)
Chapter 1
Kansas farm country, August 1941
Joe Daley crept through the dark upper story of the farmhouse that had been his home for his entire seventeen years. His six-foot frame cast shadows on the wall as he passed the nightlight illuminating the back staircase and the family pictures staggered parallel to the steps. He started down in his stocking feet, counting ten steps, then positioned his foot carefully over the far-left edge of number eleven to avoid the familiar loud creak. The last thing he needed was any questions from his sleeping parents and brother about his predawn mission.
“Better to skip it than creak it, little brother.” The loud whisper out of the shadows above him nearly caused Joe to stumble. He grabbed for the banister and turned to look back up the staircase. He could just make out his brother’s grin in the glow from the small light. Rob, three years his senior, was normally his hero. Right now he was a pain in the neck.
“What are you doing up?” Joe whispered back fiercely.
“What’s in the clenched fist?”
Joe tightened his grip over the small object in his left hand. “How’d you know?” he whispered louder.
“You told Bo. You might as well have taken out an ad in the Greenville Gazette.”
Joe could hear the amusement in Rob’s voice. “Let me be the one to tell Mom and Dad, Robby. Okay?” He was pleading now, but anything to get his brother back to bed and out of his hair.
“Sure thing.”
Joe turned to start moving down the steps again.
“Hey, Joey! Go for the glory!” came one last comment from above.
Joe lifted a hand over his shoulder and scooped up his shoes near the bottom of the stairs. He quickly crossed the large country kitchen and checked the hands of the clock above the stove in the waning moonlight. He was slightly behind schedule. Timing was critical or his whole plan would fall apart. Grabbing two jackets from the hook beside the back door, he deposited the small item from his hand into the pocket of the smaller jacket, then stepped out into the humid predawn summer morning. A rush of adrenaline ran through Joe as he glanced at the sinking full moon. Still in his stocking feet, he bolted from the porch and raced across the yard to his dad’s ’38 Ford pickup.
With a vigilant eye on the horizon, Joe shoved his feet into his loafers, pushed the truck out of the yard before starting the engine, and drove as fast as he dared along the dirt road connecting the neighboring farms and cornfields. He had taken extra care with his appearance. He’d had his dark brown hair cut the day before and shaved the stubble from his chin. “Cleanshaven and well kept,” his mother liked to say. He stomped on the brake when he reached the end of the cornfield, a cloud of dust swirling around the tailgate of the truck. He ducked his head to the right to look through the passenger window at the eastern horizon. A saffron hue linked earth and sky in a narrow strip and highlighted the thin, low ceiling of clouds barely visible above. With renewed urgency, he hit the gas and swung onto County Road 7. With asphalt now under his tires, Joe ramped up the Ford to forty miles an hour for the short run to his destination.
A mere two miles away, Joe’s best friends, Larry Ledet and Bo Gene Conroy, were doing their part for Joe’s mission under the same fading moon. Their cars were parked strategically to shine their headlights on opposite sides of a long strip of hard-packed dirt. Both young men kept their eyes on the ground as they walked along slowly, their conversation punctuating the quiet dawn countryside.
“I ain’t seen a thing worth mentioning, Larry,” Bo Gene said through a wide yawn. He scraped a small clod of dirt flat with the toe of his loafer and pushed back his straw boater so the wide navy ribbon around the band showed no more than a narrow stripe.
“Me neither,” Larry admitted. “But we gotta make sure there’s nothing out here that’ll cause him a problem. Especially this time.” The white T-shirt and Levi’s Larry was wearing contrasted in more ways than one with Bo’s madras short-sleeved shirt and pressed khaki slacks.
“I don’t remember this check ever taking so long before,” Bo complained.
“That’s because we always do it after the sun’s up, you dope.”
Silence.
Larry and Bo continued slowly along the dirt strip, carefully inspecting the ground beneath their feet. Bo began to hum, then sing in a rather nice baritone, “When skies are cloudy and gray, they’re only gray for a day, so wrap your troubles in dreams, and dream your troubles away.”
Larry groaned. “Okay, I’ll admit you do sound like the Crooner, but I’ll be awful glad when Bing’s got another hit and you move on from that dumb song.”
“You’re not going to sound so high and mighty when I’m famous and making thousands of dollars each gig. I might even get to be a movie star. You’ll be begging for my autograph, and I may just turn you down.” Bo finished his point by placing a homemade Savinelli knock-off pipe in the corner of his mouth.
Larry laughed and shook his head. “And I suppose you think we’re on The Road to Zanzibar and Dorothy Lamour is waiting for us just up ahead.”
“It could happen,” Bo insisted, the pipe clenched between his teeth.
“Whatever you say, Bing.” Larry knocked Bo’s hat forward. “Let’s just hurry up and finish our job. We need to get back to Betty so everything’s ready when Joe shows up.”
Joe killed the engine and cut the headlights as he rolled to a stop in the Johnson farmyard. He hopped out of the truck and dashed toward a two-story house silhouetted against the dark western sky. He stopped to scoop up several small stones from the ground, then took careful aim at a second-story window and let the first pebble fly. A second later he was rewarded with a sharp ping on the glass. No one appeared in the window. He tried again, this time with a larger pebble. Another ping on the glass, but no response. With one more stone curled in his palm, Joe drew back his arm and took aim. It left his fingertips at the same time he heard the window sliding up its sash. He winced at a surprised “Ouch!”
“Meg! It’s me. You okay?” he called softly.
“Joe? Are you crazy? You hit me with a rock !” was her agitated reply. But he was glad she kept her voice down he wanted to deal with her parents’ questions even less than his own family’s third degree.
“I was just trying to wake you up,” he called back in a hoarse whisper.
“Good job. I’m awake. What are you doing here?” Meg was obviously irritated.
“I need you to come with me. Hurry up.”
She leaned farther out the window. “Where are we going? The sun’s not even up yet.”
Joe cast another glance at the skyline, where the glow on the eastern horizon had widened since his last check.
“I know. That’s kind of the point. Now shake a leg,” he urged as loudly as he dared. After the slightest pause, Joe sighed in relief as he heard the window slide shut. Though it seemed like forever to Joe, it wasn’t long before seventeen-year-old Meg Johnson came through the screen door, shaking her head, a scowl firmly in place. She wore a pair of clam diggers and a white T-shirt. Joe swallowed hard, marveling that she could be so beautiful and yet completely unaware of it. Her long hair was the color of summer wheat, combining the palest of straw with golden hues that tumbled over her shoulders. The color of her eyes somewhere between blue and green changed with her moods. Something Joe found both intimidating and wonderful.
As Joe moved quickly toward Meg, he saw her holding a white rag against her forehead. He gently pulled back her hand with the ice-filled cloth and grimaced, then leaned down to kiss her on the cheek.
“I’m so sorry, Meg. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything, you know.” He looked into her face, hoping she would believe him.
“I know,” she said.
He let out a relieved breath.
“But tell me how I’m going to explain this knot on my head to my folks,” she asked in a severe tone. “ ‘By the way, Dad, Joe stopped by in the dark and pelted me with a rock’?”
Joe grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the truck.
“When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound so good,” he acknowledged. “But now we really do have to hurry. We’re running a few minutes behind schedule.”
Meg sighed, still sounding out of sorts. “Where are we going? What schedule?”
Joe helped her into the truck. “You’ll see” was all he would say as he climbed in beside her and started up the truck.
She glanced at the two leather jackets lying on the bench seat between them.
“Joe? What are we doing? It’s too warm for jackets.”
“Down here it is,” he acknowledged, “but we’ll need them when we get to Betty.”
“You might have warned me we were taking Betty. Or maybe you were worried I wouldn’t come along if you explained is that it?” It appeared she wasn’t going to give up her scolding tone yet.
Joe glanced over at her and beamed. “You can’t resist me, Meg Johnson, and you know it.”
Meg’s mock frown said even more than her words. “I know it. I just wish you didn’t know it.” She gave him a playful punch on the arm.
The two turned at the sound