The Intruders Read Online Free PDF Page A

a
war.”
    “Boys? Jake Grafton is no boy. He’s a man!”
    “He doesn’t think” Professor McKenzie said, his voice dripping contempt.
“He can’t think. I don’t call him much of a man.”
    Callie sank to the steps. She had never heard her parents address each
other in such a manner. She felt drained, empty, but their voices held
her mesmerized.
    “Oh, he’s a man all right,” her mother said. “He just doesn’t think
like you do. He’s got the brains and talent to fly jet aircraft in
combat. He’s got the character to be a naval officer, and I suspect
he’s a pretty good one. I know that doesn’t impress you much, but
Callie knows what he is. He’s got the maturity and character to impress
her.”
    “Then she’s too easily impressed. that girl doesn’t know.”
    “Enough, you fool!” said Mary McKenzie bitterly. “We’ve got a son who
did his duty as he saw it and you’ve never let him forget that you think
he’s a stupid, contemptible fascist Your only son. So he doesn’t come
here anymore.
    He won’t come here. Your opinion is just your opinion, Wallace-you
can’t seem to get it through your thick head that other people can
honorably hold different opinions.
    And a great many people do.”
    His wife raised her voice and steamed on. “I’m going to say this just
once, Wallace, so you had better listen. Callie may marry Jake Grafton,
regardless of our wishes. In her way she’s almost as pigheaded as you
are. Jake Grafton’s every inch the man that Theron is, and he won’t put
up with your bombast and supercilious foolishness any More than Theron
does. Grafton proved that here tonight I don’t blame him.” -Callie
won’t marry that-2′ -You damned old windbag, shut up! What you know
about your daughter could be printed in foot-high letters on the head of
a Pin-”
    She shouted that last sentence, then fell silent. When she spoke again
her voice was cold, every word enunciated clearly:
    “It will be a miracle if Jake Grafton ever walks through that door
again. So I’m serving notice on you, Wallace, here and now. your
arrogance almost cost me my son. If it costs me my daughter, I’m
divorcing you.”
    Before Callie could move from her seat on the steps, Mrs. McKenzie came
striding through the study door. She saw Callie and stopped dead.
    callie rose, turned, and forced herself to climb the stairs.
    After a MISERAbLE NIGHT IN A MOTEL NEAR O’HARE, JAKE got a seat the next
day on the first flight to Seattle. Unfortunately, the next Harbor
Airlines flight to Oak Harbor wasn’t for two hours. So he had two hours
to kill.He headed for the bar and sat nursing a beer.
    The war Was over, yet it wasn’t. That was the crazy thing.
    He had tried to keep his cool in Chicago and had done a fair job until
the professor goaded him beyond endurance.
    Now he sat going over the mess again, for the fifteenth time, wondering
what Callie was thinking, wondering what she felt.
    The ring was burning a hole in his pocket. He pulled It out and looked
at it from time to time, ” to shield It in his hand so that casual
observers wouldn’t think him weird.
    Maybe he ought to throw the damned thing away. It didn’t look like he
was ever going to get to give it to Callie, not in this lifetime,
anyway, and he certainly wasn’t going to hang on to it for future
presentation to whomever. He was going to have to do something with it.
    He had been stupid to buy the ring in the first place. He Should have
waited until she said Yes, then taken her to a jewelry store and let her
pick out the ring. Normal guys got the woman first, the ring second. A
fellow could avoid a lot of pitfalls if he did it the tried-and-true
traditional way.
    Water under the bridge.
    But, God! he felt miserable. So empty, as if he had absolutely nothing
to live for.
    He was glumly staring into his beer mug when he heard a distant voice
ask, “Did you get that in Vietnam?”
    Jake looked. Two stools down sat a young man, no more than