Sinking Suspicions

Chapter 17

94 Chapter 17 The sun climbed higher in the sky and Buck wrestled with his predicament. He pulled a piece of venison jerky from his stash, tore it in half, and returned the rest to his pocket. He chewed it slowly, allowing the salty taste to linger in his mouth. His father had taught him well. He’d taught him how to survive—a lesson that had served him well in the war and every day since. It was as if he had an extra sense, an intuition of survival in battle. Buck, always prepared, gained the respect of his Marine buddies, who looked to him for strength, instruction , and advice, even though he was younger than all of them. Buck relived the war every day, but he hadn’t thought about the days leading up to it in a long time. It was strange to him that he couldn’t remember how he’d got into a sinkhole the day before, but he could remember his childhood, when he was known as Ben instead of Buck, and he could remember the days of war as if they were yesterday. In the summer of 1942, a few months after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, the war had begun to affect everyone, including the Skinner family. News from the front lines arrived slowly to the rural areas of northeastern Oklahoma, but when it did, the stories of combat, carnage, and deadly sacrifice cast a pall over the community. 95 Times grew tough, but the Skinners knew how to survive. They and their Cherokee ancestors had been living off the land for centuries. This was no different. Ben and his older brother Jake stopped going to school and started hunting every day to help provide food for the family. They harvested every kind of meat they could find for their mother’s cast-iron skillet—rabbits, squirrels, venison, and even an occasional raccoon . They made jerky out of the extra venison and stored it for those winter days when they returned from hunting empty-handed. When the fishing was good, the brothers came home from nearby Lake Eucha with a stringer full of catfish, perch, crappie, and anything else that would bite. Their mother and younger sister took turns tending the garden , which provided an abundance of vegetables for both eating and canning . Ben gathered eggs every evening from a few hens, and the Jersey cow provided rich milk that yielded both butter and cream. They shared what they had with their neighbors and traded for what they could at the Eucha General Store. Jake had been born with a clubfoot. Though he walked with a limp, he could move as fast as anyone, even when challenging his brother in a game of stickball. When he reached the age of eighteen, he tried to enlist, but the U.S. Army rejected him and his clubfoot. He sulked for weeks. Ben didn’t want to be in the U.S. Army; he wanted to be a Marine. Only sixteen, he might have to lie about his age, but he knew he could fight just as well as, if not better than, the rest of the eighteen-year-old boys. He believed when the Marines found out how well he could shoot a rifle they wouldn’t care how old he was. He was right. Two weeks later, his mother stood beside their farm truck in front of Kirby’s Service Station wringing her hands. Buck remembered how uncharacteristic it was for her to show much emotion, but he could see the pain in her eyes. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. “I have to go,” he’d said, hugging her again. “It wouldn’t be right for me not to go, and you know it.” “I don’t know why you can’t stay here like your older brother.” “Jake’s got a clubfoot, Momma. He limps.” He let go of his mother and turned his attention to his father. 96 “You be careful, son. Keep your head down when the bullets start flying.” Ben shook his father’s hand. “Don’t worry. I know how to take care of myself.” “We’ll be here when you get back,” his father said. Ben turned and walked to the waiting bus. He took the steps two at a time and grabbed the first empty...