A Treasure of Their Own

  Chapter Five

  As the laughter and the comments died down, Jake entered the room carrying the general’s volcano burger like it was a coronation crown. Very gently, he set it down in front of the general. “Here ya go your majesty,” he quipped. “Now if Master Arthur would do the honors of blessing this delicious repast, I would like to stay long enough to see what you think. BECAUSE, my dear general, me thinks thee to be of the culinary persuasion. Could I be right?”

  A sly grin came across the general’s face as he answered, “Oh, a little.”

  “And, I can also tell that you don’t play poker.”

  “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

  “You came in here with your clothes on.”

  The general laughed as much as everybody else did and then asked, “Have you ever thought about going into the service?”

  “Not with you in it, Charlie my boy. Now Arthur, pray.” Jake commanded as he stuck his hands out. Everybody followed suit and joined hands.

  Arthur prayed, “Father, we are so grateful to have this time of fellowship with each other and with You. We thank You for this food You have supplied for us to eat. We ask that You sanctify it to the nourishment of our bodies. Bless the hands that prepared it and us to Your service in Jesus name we pray, Amen.”

  Instead of digging in to their own meals, everyone’s eyes were on the general and Jake. Aunt Millie commented, “General you know that you are the one that is at center stage at this very moment, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Ma’am, I most certainly do,” he answered her politely. He looked at Jake and declared with a big grin, “And I am particularly confounded as to how you knew that I cooked.”

  Reggie reminded him, “I’m retired from the service myself, sir. You know as well as I do that servicemen can recognize each other even if they are in civilian clothes and walking through an unfamiliar town. It seems to me that cooks can do the same thing.”

  The general nodded and agreed, “I guess you’re right.”

  “And besides that, Jake wants to see if you can guess the secret ingredient. So far, no cook in Elmhurst has been able to,” commented Aunt Millie.

  The general looked up at Jake. All Jake did was rock back and forth on his heels and snicker in defiance. “Nobody.” he repeated his Aunt Millie.

  The general gave him one of those we’ll- see-about-that looks. With a little fanfare he leaned over, closed his eyes and inhaled the aroma. “You obviously use the same hamburger recipe with the addition of…….garlic……ketchup…..tomatoes, with the Jalapenos. I can see those of course.”

  “Of course,” echoed Jake.

  “A-a-a-a-a-nd……” the general looked up at him and said, “grape jelly.”

  “U-u-u-u-h, that’s one no and two left to go.”

  “Does he always change the rules as he goes along?”

  “Yes,” quoted the seven piece ensemble.

  “H-m-m-m-m,” the general stated, “that means I need to engage the use of my taste buds.” He gently plied a couple of beans along with a smidgeon of the broth and pulled it to his lips.

  “Engage away, my friend,” Jake boasted.

  The general gently chewed the beans and swallowed. He furrowed his eyebrows and shot Jake a this-is-harder-than-I-thought look. With his spoon, he carefully moved the beans away and scooped up a spoonful of broth. He first brought it to his nose for a whiff and gently sipped half of it and swallowed. His eyes widened with another guess but decided that he needed a full spoonful to make sure. He swished the small amount just a bit before swallowing. Then, like a chess player about to declare ‘check mate,’ he put the spoon down, folded his hands and looked at his competitor. Very deliberately, he uttered the words, “Bay leaf.”

  Jake rolled his eyes upward and grinned real big. He put one of his hands on his hip and raised the index finger of his other hand as he declared, “If that secret leaves this room, I’ll haunt you the rest of your life.”

  “He’s right?” Taylor asked with a wide-eyed stare.

  “He can’t be right. Tell me you’re joking, Jake,” added Ramon.

  Aunt Millie fessed up, “Nope, he got it right. I’ve been right there every day for the past couple of weeks helping him fix it. And, he is so secretive about it that he turns his back to the kitchen door as he adds the bay leaves in there.”

  “Jake, you may as well go to Albuquerque with us at the end of the summer. Those folks out there can show you lots of good stuff to make out of their green chilies. These folks back east would never guess,” suggested Uncle Reggie.

  “I….I…..” stuttered Jake.

  “All’s not lost,” Charles said as he raised his hand to stop everybody, “there is still a secret to be had. The only way I figured it out was because I used to help my grandmother cook. When I was going to grade school and junior high, I would spend my summer vacations with her. She lived in the mountains of Tennessee and loved to cook on an old wood stove she had behind her house. Except for the bay leaves, you practically copied her recipe."

  Like a poker player who got the fourth ace on his one card draw, the general leaned toward Jake and almost declared defiantly, "There was one secret that she let me in on. Everybody ranted about the way she cooked her pinto beans. She confessed to me one day she had accidentally scorched the beans a little bit. Well, everybody made such a fuss about them; she kept scorching them just a tad every time she cooked them. And, she used the same pot. She called it her bean pot. She wouldn’t cook anything else in it just beans.”

  Aunt Millie jumped in, “You know, my mama always used the same pot to cook grits in every morning. Come to think of it, I don’t remember her cooking anything else in that pot either. How about that? That’s one secret she didn’t pass down to me.”

  “That’s just it,” replied Charles. “Most great cooks would rather take their secret to their grave instead of giving it out. It’s not the first time it’s happened.”

  “So, what you’re telling me is that to give my special chili a taste...NO ONE...could copy, I need to scorch them a little bit every day,” surmised Jake.

  “Honey Bun, me and you got our work cut out for us,” added Aunt Millie with a devious chuckle.

  Uncle Reggie warned, “You’ve got to the end of August to get it done, my darling. That motor home pulls out of Elmhurst on the thirty-first and heads for New Mexico. There is no way that yours truly is going to miss that Balloon Fiesta in October. And, I got plenty more sites to see before we get back home.”

  Aunt Millie walked around to her Jake and put her arm through his and said, “Don’t worry about that, Sugar. By the time me and Reggie leave, me and you will have that recipe down pat.”

  Jake snuggled up real close to her and said, “That’s my Aunt Millie for ya. Cain’t nobody beat her.”

  “The only thing that Granny’s chili had over this that I doubt you could copy is that hickory smoke flavor. She only cooked with hickory wood and always left the top off of the pot so the smoke flavor could get in there,” Charles added.

  Jake snapped his finger and said, “Y’all just start enjoying your burgers before they get cold and I’ll be right back.” He darted through the door before anyone could say anything else.

  Millie said to Reggie, “C’mon. We’d better go watch what that little bugger is up to.” They left right behind him.

  “Let’s see how much he is up to a challenge,” Charles said.

  Arthur replied, “I don’t know, Charles. Jake’s pretty sharp. I’d say from the look on his face when he left that he’s got a pretty good idea brewing in that noggin of his.”

  Taylor added, “Arthur’s right. One thing I’ve learned about him. You just don’t challenge Jake. It will eat him inside and out until he gets an answer. You watch.”

  Then she looked at Charles and said, “He’ll come close to the taste somehow, you just wait and see.”

  Ramon had already dug into his with a vengeance. He boldly declared, “I don’t know if I could e
ver like it if he changed it. This right here is exactly what I want.”

  “Yes,” agreed Charles, “This is absolutely delicious. I couldn't ask for anything better.”

  Taylor plopped her burger down in a huff as she looked over at Arthur, “Arthur, I meant to ask you when we got on those nick-names but I got side tracked.”

  Arthur had just taken a bite out of his pizza burger and was trying to break the trail of melted mozzarella cheese in some gracious manner. He couldn’t do it. It broke and flopped down on his chin. “What is it, Taylor?” he asked as he tried to gentlemanly stuff it in his mouth.

  “Just what did Grandpa mean when he called me Little Bit?”

  Ramon wondered, “Yeah, just what did he mean. There ain’t a little bit of anything……..”

  “That’s enough of that, ‘Mone” Taylor declared with half a grin.

  “Taylo-o-o-o-r,” Tish teased with her hand over her mouth.

  “Now, Mama, don’t you start either,” Taylor giggled. “Before you know it you’ll be done said something that’s downright embarrassing.”

  With a tell-tale grin on her face, Tish continued, “Why Taylor, all I was going to say was that you had………”

  “MAMA!” Taylor wanted to say more but she busted out laughing and turned beet red. She leaned her head on Tish’s shoulder and covered her face with her hand. She and Tish started laughing so hard that they had to hold on to each other for support. Obviously, this was a subject they had talked about before.

  “Well…..,” began Arthur.

  “Stay out of it, buddy-boy,” Marci chuckled. “But, you know, Grandpa did call her that several times now that I think about it.”

  Arthur admitted, “You’re absolutely right but, I can’t remember the circumstances or figure out any correlation to what we were doing at the time.”

  “Me neither,” Ramon added. “It would be different if there was a specific time or something we were doing that would give us a clue. They all seemed to be random times, the best that I can remember.”

  As she finally made an attempt to calm down, Taylor admitted, “I’ve tried to wrack my brain to remember specifics as to what and where. I agree. He just called me that sometimes just because he wanted to.”

  Jake entered the room carrying a small bowl of chili as if it were a diamond. “Try this. I think me and Aunt Millie got it pretty close.”

  Charles dug his spoon into the dish and brought a spoonful up to his nose for a whiff. His eyes widened and he looked at Jake and gently nodded. He put the spoonful in his mouth, closed his eyes and savored the taste. “Jake,” he said as he put the spoon back into its dish, “except for the slight scorch taste, that is the closest to my granny’s chili that I have ever tasted since she passed away.” He held out his hand to Jake, “Great job. A great, great job.”

  Jake shook his hand and gave back the compliment, “I couldn’t have done it without the challenge, sir. Why don’t I take your burger back and let me doctor it up for you.”

  “U-u-u-u-h, thanks, but no thanks, Jake. I really need to talk to Taylor and the group very seriously,” Charles answered.

  “I-I-I-I-I-I-I tell you what. We’ve got a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign to put outside the door that we use for occasions like this,” Jake suggested.

  “I would appreciate it,” Charles said.

  Jake left and they could hear him stacking chairs in front of the curtain to further indicate that no one was to enter.

  Taylor had finished her burger already and was munching on her fries. Charles took a spoonful out of his volcano burger and chewed on it for a moment before he began. “Taylor, the Army is looking for some special people for a special assignment. Oh, before I go on, I am going to trust that what is discussed in this room will stay here, no matter what decisions are made. OK?”

  Everyone nodded in agreement.

  “The powers above have given us orders to get a group of snipers together. I’ve looked at your Army Reserve records and you fit the pattern of soldier that we’re looking for. Your marksmanship is excellent. Your physical conditioning exceeds our requirements. You would have to go through six weeks of sniper training and do exceptionally well to nail down the assignment that I need you for. I can’t guarantee that you will get it. That will be up to you and how hard you compete for it. Another stipulation is that you’ll have to be on active duty for the remainder of your enlistment. Do you have any questions so far?”

  Taylor didn’t hesitate, “What’s the assignment you‘re asking us to go for?”

  Charles continued, “In areas such as the Air Combat Engineers, there is a strong requirement for expert marksmen to operate as what they call ‘security.’ Their job is basically the same as a sniper. As the Combat Engineers move into an area to clear a field or construct something, drones and ground intelligence scan the area for possible enemy action. We place our ‘security’ forces between our Engineers and the reported enemy advance. Their job, of course, is to be undetectable to the enemy and take them out before they can do any damage to our mission. There wouldn’t necessarily be a whole lot of overnight surveillance.”

  Taylor leaned forward and put her elbows on the table, “What’s the assignment?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “First, you have to perform to the standards that we think this job demands. As we watch you perform through the six weeks, we’ll make our decision. This particular job is so critical that we might not even make a decision until the last day. On the other hand, there’s a time window that we’re working with. Taylor, that’s all I can tell you,” he told her in a firm voice.

  After a moment of serious reflection she asked, “When do I have to report to Ft. Bragg?”

  Half of a smile played across his lips, “You won‘t be going to Ft. Bragg. You are going to an area of the United States that most resembles an area in Afghanistan. That‘s all I can say.”

  She exchanged looks with Ramon. Both of them were unsettled about the lack of information they had received so far. But the challenge was intriguing and taunted at her.

  “How much time do I have?” she asked in her stone faced manner.

  Charles looked at his watch and answered with no emotion, “To get a vehicle here in time to get you to the appointed place at the appointed time,” he reached into suit pocket and pulled out a set of orders and answered, “I would need your signature on these orders within thirty minutes. You would have to be picked up by car at 6.p.m. today and put on a chartered jet to get you to Kirtland Air Force Base so you can site in your weapons. Then we’ll go by helicopter to the sniper training area before supper. That way you can get acquainted with everybody and get a good night’s sleep.”

  Everybody’s eyes were turned toward Taylor. She looked at Marci and nodded her head ever so slightly. You would have thought that fear would be making an appearance, but it was nowhere to be found. Ramon, who had been with her more than anyone else, noticed her jaw jutting out just a bit. She cut her eyes at him. They both smiled. He knew she was going to go for it.

  “Who’s going to be my spotter?”

  “I haven’t picked anyone right at this point in time. I have a couple of ladies that I thought might make good……..”

  He stopped talking as Taylor raised her hand and shook her head. She leaned back and folded her arms and declared, “No deal unless Ramon goes with me to be my spotter. I don’t feel comfortable with anyone else. No matter what my scores are that you saw, I couldn’t have done it without Ramon being there. This mission sounds………”

  Charles raised his right hand to stop HER, this time. He straightened up, reached into his pocket again and pulled out another set of orders. As he tossed it down in front of Ramon, he said with a sly smile, “We now only have 28 minutes before I have to make a call.” Now it was his turn to lean back and cross his arms.

  “You snake in the grass,” Taylor said as she opened up her set of orders to look them over. “It’
s absolutely obvious that you have spent way too much time with Tom Dandridge.”

  “And, that’s all bad?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “Not as far as I’m concerned,” Arthur answered with a chuckle of his own.

  Marci just shook her head in disbelief, “I’m going to have to have some more Dr. Pepper on that one.”

  Tish said as she leaned over to give Taylor a big hug, “I’ll go tell Romeo….I mean ‘Berto to bring refills all the way around. It’s time for me to go. You two come by to see me and get your final checks. Oh, no….I’ll pay you cash. Sure can’t cash a check before 6 p.m. this afternoon can you?”

  As she rose to go, Taylor said, “Hey, if we go, that’s going to leave you short-handed. Who will you get to take our place?”

  She got one of those I-beat-you-to-the-punch looks and replied, “I’m going to interview your replacement right now as a matter of fact. And he’ll be in with your drinks as soon as I get through with him, thank you very much.” She blew the others a kiss and said, “See me” to Taylor before she turned and left.

  Marci sat up a little straighter, “Did I just…….Hey…….God had this all planned out didn’t He?”

  “Wow. How right you are,” Arthur agreed. "Grandpa told. He told us time and time again."

  Charles pulled a pen out of his pocket and held it up. “Which one of you wants to go first?”

  “I will,” Taylor answered quickly as she reached for the pen. When she finished she handed it to Ramon. He signed his orders, collected Taylor’s from her and handed them to the general.

  As he accepted the orders from Ramon, he commented, “Ramon, I’ve seen your scores, also. You’d make a great officer in the intelligence department, you know.”

  “As soon as I get back from this mission, I’ll give it some thought,” he replied.

  Charles pulled out his phone and began to send a text message to get the Army in gear. “You know that you two are going to take a lot of guff from some of the guys. That I know you can handle. But, there is the possibility that you two will be alone together for hours at a time, all night, maybe. Before those days come, you need to make up your minds how you’ll deal with it. In hostile territory, you can’t separate for a moment. You very well could be stalked by the enemy.”

  Charles looked at Ramon until their eyes met. “That’s where I’m counting on you the most, Ramon. Taylor’s best at the technical aspect of sniping. You’re best with your intuition. We saw it in your cognitive aptitude scores. You are going to have to hone your abilities to the max during your training. From your very first day, look for things that don’t look exactly right. Don’t say anything about it to anyone. Just keep them in the back of your mind. Start learning to take notice of things without letting anyone know that you noticed.”

  “Just what are y’all looking for?” Ramon prodded.

  Charles was careful about the way he answered that question, “Let’s just say that we’re not just looking for sharpshooters. We are looking for………..sharp……snipers. Everyone that passes the course will have a specific assignment to do. But, keep in mind that there’s a particularly dangerous assignment that we are looking for one team to go on.”

  He took a deep breath before he went on, “Now, if you get into the school and you begin to have some doubts about whether you want to go on, by all means, find a way to flunk out. Nobody will think any less of you. There are 23 teams being assembled right now. None of them will know as much as you do. But, all of them will be told the very same thing. There’s no disgrace in flunking out.”

  Ramon looked at Taylor with raised eyebrows and asked, “Whatcha think, soldier?”

  Taylor gave one of those crooked smiles and answered, “I think I can’t wait to get there.”

  Ramon dropped his smile and got a worried look on his face. He hesitated slightly and spoke to the general, “I….I just have one more question, sir?”

  “What’s that?”

  He bent forward and began to reach for the general’s burger, “Are you finished with that volcano burger?”

  “As you were, soldier,” Charles tried to sound gruffly official. He dug his spoon into the chili portion of his burger and reminded him, “The Army travels on its stomach, you know.”

  Laughter broke the tension and no more was mentioned about their assignment until they got up to leave. The general reminded them of their departure times, what to bring and what to leave home.

  Prayers, hugs and kisses were given for quite some time. Yes, tears were shed, too. The four of them were venturing off on treasure hunts of their own. Very soon, the lessons Tom Dandridge taught them will become more a part of their future than they thought.

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