For the next couple of months, I will serialize my current novel, A
Coup in Paradise. Each installment will be numbered so the reader can identify where they are in the story.
A brief introduction might be helpful.
ran wild. In some measure, it was due to TV. In particular, a series entitled Adventures in Paradise. It lasted for three seasons starting in 1959. It can be viewed on YouTube.
This novel is based on that program, however, it is not the series’s star Adam Troy played by Gardner McKay who is my protagonist; it is his son Trace Troy. He travels to the South Seas hoping to find what his father found and experiencing what made him into the man he became.
Episode 2
It was about 3:30 in the afternoon when Trace exited the plane and walked through the gate. He gave his dad, Adam, a hardy embrace and handshake.
“That’s a Texas handshake,” Trace said. “I’ve missed them.”
“I’ve missed you,” Adam said.
“How are you doing, Dad?”
“I’m fine,” Adam said. “Saw the doctor a few weeks ago and he said I’m in better shape than guys half my age. Then he checked our cattle.”
“Let’s go get my luggage,” Trace nodded down the corridor. And they began walking.
“Luggage? That’s sounds expensive,” Adam grimaced.
“Okay,” Trace said, “it’s two dirty bags smelling like a cargo ship.”
“That’s better,” Adam grinned.
“How’s Grandpa?” Trace looked side-eyed at Adam.
“I told him to stay home. Every time he comes to San Antonio, he coughs and sneezes for a week. And complains about the odor all the time he’s here.”
“The man would rather smell a cattle barn than a flower shop,” Trace said.
“Grandpa always said the smell of cattle means money and the smell of flowers means he’s about to lose all his money,” Adam said. “You go to a flower shop when you’re about to be married and when they’re about to bury you. Both times, your pockets are empty.”
“Does he still ride?” Trace asked.
“Every time he gets a chance.”
They talked while walking to the baggage claim. Trace grabbed his bags from the carousel. Adam offered to take one, and Trace obliged.
When they reached the parking lot Trace raised his head at spotting a ’65 blue Ford pickup. “Still have the Blue Bird, eh?”
“You got to have a good woman, a good horse, and a good truck,” Adam said. “And in that order.”
“I think that woman you’re talking about is my mom and your wife,” Trace said. “She picked out your horse and bought that truck.”
“That she did,” Adam said. “And she picked me. I never questioned her judgment. She knew how to pick things good for the long hull.”
Trace and Adam tossed the bags on the bed of the truck and climbed into the cab.
“I wish she was around now,” Trace said.
“Me too,” Adam said. “I think you got some things on your mind that might be beyond my expertise.”
Adam started the truck and steered out of the parking space.
“I don’t think you give yourself enough credit, Dad. You took over where Mom left off when she passed.”
“Well, I tried my best, but most of the time I was shooting from the hip, but your mom was always taking dead aim at the target.”
“Mom always told me you were the anchor of the family,” Trace said. “You were steady, thoughtful, and reliable.”
“Ah, she always gave me too much credit.”
Adam paid at the booth and complained to Trace that they charge enough for tickets and coffee to park a car for free. He drove from their parking lot and onto the highway.
“You hungry?” Adam said.
“Is that steakhouse on the way home still around?”
“Sure is.”
“I haven’t had a good steak since the last time I was home.”
“I’m buying,” Adam said.
Trace and Adam sat at a table in a small diner about forty miles outside of San Antonio, eating two T-bone steaks.
“I’ve missed good steaks,” Trace said. “Not that I haven’t had good ones, but there’s something about a Texas steak.”
Adam paused to chew and think. “When I was in the South Seas we sailed down to New Zealand; I don’t want to say they were better, but they were different and definitely good.”
“So you went as far south as New Zealand?”
“If somebody had the money, chartering a sailboat isn’t that expensive. All you pay for is the crew, the food, and the time. We only used fuel for a generator and to motor in and out of a port. Well anyway, they have some good beef.”
“So things aren’t working out for you in the Bering,” Adam said.
“The broker promised the captain years ago he’d send him to the South Seas if he spent a year on the Bering first,” Trace said. “That’s why I signed on. I stayed because it was a good crew. But now I’m taking what I have saved and going to the South Seas.”
“Brokers,” Adam huffed. “And I suppose this has all to do with my time there.”
“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t. You told me it was important to break away for a while. Get off on your own and find out who you are and what you’re made of.”
“Four years on the Bering and you’re still wondering?”
“You spent a year in Korea. That had to be like ten years on the Bering and you still wondered,” Trace retorted.
“Point taken. Korea tested me one way and the South Seas another. When I was done, I was ready to settle in. Before you can run a spread like ours, you have to be tested. Most importantly, I wanted to start a family. I wanted to be solid. Grandpa gave me all I needed, but you’re never quite sure. I suppose that’s about where you’re at now.”
“Good steak,” Trace said spearing the last cut with a fork and putting it into his mouth.
“Dessert?” Adam said.
“Nah, but I think about the time we’re back home. I’ll be ready.”
They finished, paid their bill, and headed west.
A few miles down the road toward home, Trace smiled, looking over the southwest Texas landscape. It ran flat, brown, and long.
“The only thing this land hides is the water,” Trace said.
“That reminds me,” Adam said as he drove. “I bought that five hundred acres spread north of the knoll.”
“A nice little lake to go with it, right?” Trace said. “How long has our family been after that land?”
“Since God created water,” Adam said. “Fact is, my great-granddad claimed that land, and the Ballard ancestors were willing to shoot it out to get it. They say great granddad wasn’t going to kill a man with a family over a piece of land that he merely claimed.”
“What happened to Ballard? He grabbed land from a man who wasn’t quite as noble. That guy got shot and somebody else took it up. Grandpa always said we never try to get the land back until the stain of blood was gone. It runs deep but I think it’s gone now, so when it went up to action, I bid on it. Ended up paying less for it than the day my granddad claimed it?”
“What?” Trace said.
“Our family didn’t have to take a life to get it back.”
“That’s a lesson that reaches beyond the ranch, isn’t it.”
“When I was in Korea, me and my men were told to take a hill—a hill! A few miles away, some North Korean guy was told to take the same hill—a hill! Nobody was on the hill; maybe a couple of goats. The way I looked at it that hill was not worth one of my men’s lives and it wasn’t worth a North Korean’s life. I’d seen enough death. Up to that point, I was only asked to prevent the enemy from advancing. Funny thing, nobody advanced where we were. Finally, we were supposed to advance.”
“The hill?” Trace asked.
“Yeah,” Adam said. “The hill. I had a squad of twenty men. I asked all of them if the hill was worth their lives. Nobody said it was. I think the North Korean commander must have asked his men the same thing. None of them tried to take the hill. I told my men just to fire their ammunition into the hill and we’d report we couldn’t take it. A strange thing happened; the enemy did the same thing. We did that for a couple of weeks. We even called in artillery and air strikes. We couldn’t get any. I’m going to assume the enemy did the same thing. You see, that hill was not worth anybody dying for. There was some talk about disciplining me for disobeying an order, but I told them how could I move on without support. That was something the brass over me would have to answer to. They sent me and my men to Japan for R and R. Then there was a shuffle in orders and before any of us had time to think about it, we were all state-side. We all got medals for it. That’s real irony; we got medals for not taking a hill, not killing the enemy, and doing absolutely nothing.”
“That’s uncommon bravery,” Trace said.
Adam twisted his expression and cocked his head. “I guess it was. I’ve never heard it put that way. I didn’t think of it as bravery, I just thought of it as the right thing not to do. It’s a hard thing to think things out on your own when everybody else is mindlessly blind to the obvious.”
“Did you learn that in college?” Trace smiled.
“I never learned anything in college that was useful in the real world,” Adam said. “My medieval European philosophy class did nothing to broaden my horizons, understand the world around me or afar, or help me round up strays and move them to market.”
“I wanna see what I’m made of before I take over the ranch,” Trace said. “Here I’m under your wing and Grandpa’s.”
“I think four years on the Bering would be enough,” Adam said. “That’s not for the faint of heart.”
“Well, there is more than one kind of bravery that marks a man,” Adam said. “I had a buddy in school. I always stuck up for him. His name was Kyle Thomas. He wouldn’t fight, but he was never afraid. He was one of those Jehovah’s Witnesses. I remember this one time he was getting picked on. We were in high school. He got pushed around and took a couple of punches. He ran away. I followed him home to see if he was okay. There was this old shed behind their place. He rammed his fist through the door. If he’d hit one of those kids, he’d have killed him. We talked. and I understood the brave thing for him to do was not to let his temper take over. When the draft came along, he was a consciences objector. People called him a coward. Those boys who picked on him called him a coward, only now it was worse. He moved to San Antonio and became a fireman. Those guys leave the fire station and are never sure if they’ll come back. Back about twenty years ago, he ran into a burning house and saved three kids. I’ve served with brave men but none braver than him.”
“Is there a reason you told me that?” Trace asked.
“No particular reason,” Adam said. “It’s been in my mind for a long time and now seemed like a good time to let it out. One thing is sure, I’m sure glad ole Kyle didn’t lose his life on some nameless hill in Korea before he had a chance to save those three kids.”
“It’s what you value, right?” Trace said.
Adam paused. “Something like that.”
“I’ll remember that,” Trace said.
They drove in quiet for a few miles.
“How long you plan on staying?” Adam asked.
“Not long,” Trace said. “I don’t have any particular place to go or time to be there.”
Adam chuckled. “But you don’t want to be late.”
“That’s about it,” Trace said. “Wherever it is I’m going, I got the feeling something’s going on there and I’m missing it.”
“I had Consuela make sure your room was ready and how to fix that stuffed French toast you like,” Adam said.
“Nobody made it as good as Mom,” Trace said.
“That’s for sure,” Adam smiled.
“What happened to Maddy?” Adam said. “I thought she’d be with us until we locked her out.”
“She married some cowpoke, and they moved to El Paso.”
“I thought she had a husband in Mexico.”
“That’s what she always said, but that was her story to keep the worthless cowpokes away. Finally, one came along that was not quite as worthless as the others.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She came by the ranch about six months ago; doing fine. That cowpoke of hers owns about a dozen laundromats, they come in every other day and empty the money from the dryers and washing machines. She’s doing good.”
“Does Consuela measure up?”
“Oh yeah. First day on the job, asked me, do you want me to take care of the house or run the house? I figured a gal with that much grit oughta be running things. Just so you know, take your shoes off when you come in, and don’t leave your underwear lying around. She speaks English better than I do but she lets loose with all kinds of Mexican words I haven’t heard since my bachelor days. But she knows where the line is.”
“Sounds like you trained her well.”
“Humph, something like that,” Adam grinned.
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