Reacher nodded. Lifted the ninth and tenth bag out of the pick-up bed. He was sweating lightly, and worrying about the state of his shirt when Jodie next saw it.
‘Victor was a very straight kid,’ Steven said. ‘A very straight and normal kid. And like I say, for comparative purposes, that was back when the rest of us thought we were the bee’s knees for staying out until half past nine on a Saturday night, drinking milk shakes.’
‘What was he interested in?’ Reacher asked.
Steven blew out his cheeks and shrugged. ‘What can I tell you? Same things as all the rest of us, I guess. Baseball, Mickey Mantle. We liked Elvis, too. Ice cream, and the Lone Ranger. Stuff like that. Normal stuff.’
‘His dad said he always wanted to be a soldier.’
‘We all did. First it was cowboys and Indians, then it was soldiers.’
‘So did you go to ‘Nam?’
Steven shook his head. ‘No, I kind of moved on from the soldier thing. Not because I disapproved. You got to understand, this was way, way before all that long-hair stuff arrived up here. Nobody objected to the military. 1 wasn’t afraid of it, either. Back then there was nothing to be afraid of. We were the US, right? We were going to whip the ass off those slanty-eyed gooks, six months maximum. Nobody was worried about going. It just seemed old-fashioned. We all respected it, we all loved the stories, but it seemed like yesterday’s thing, you know what I mean? I wanted to go into business. I wanted to build my dad’s yard up into a big corporation. That seemed like the thing to do. To me, that seemed like more of an American thing than going into the military. Back then, it seemed just as patriotic’
‘So you beat the draft?’ Reacher asked.
Steven nodded. ‘Draft board called me, but I had college applications pending and they skipped right over me. My dad was close to the board chairman, which didn’t hurt any, I guess.’
‘How did Victor react to that?’
‘He was fine with it. There was no issue about it. I wasn’t anti-war or anything. I supported Vietnam,
same as anybody else. It was just a personal choice, yesterday’s thing or tomorrow’s thing. I wanted tomorrow’s thing, Victor wanted the Army. He kind of knew it was kind of, well, staid. Truth is, he was pretty much influenced by his old man. He was Four-F in World War Two. Mine was a foot soldier, went to the Pacific. Victor kind of felt his family hadn’t done its bit. So he wanted to do it, like a duty. Sounds stuffy now, right? Duty? But we all thought like that, back then. No comparison at all with the kids of today. We were all pretty serious and old-fashioned around here, Victor maybe slightly more than the rest of us. Very serious, very earnest. But not really a whole lot out of the ordinary.’
Reacher was three-quarters through with the bags. He stopped and rested against the pick-up door. ‘Was he smart?’
‘Smart enough, I guess,’ Steven said. ‘He did well in school, without exactly setting the world on fire. We had a few kids here, over the years, gone to be lawyers or doctors or whatever. One of them went to NASA, a bit younger than Victor and me. Victor was smart enough, but he had to work to get his grades, as I recall.’
Reacher started with the bags again. He had filled the farthest shelves first, which he was glad about, because his forearms were starting to burn.
‘Was he ever in any kind of trouble?’
Steven look impatient. ‘Trouble? You haven’t been listening to me, mister. Victor was straight as an arrow, back when the worst kid would look like a complete angel today.’
Six bags to go. Reacher wiped his palms on his pants.
‘What was he like when you last saw him? Between the two tours?’
Steven paused to think about it. ‘A little older, I guess. I’d grown up a year, it seemed like he’d grown up five. But he was no different. Same guy. Still serious, still earnest. They gave him a parade when he came home, because he had a medal. He was real embarrassed about it, said the medal was nothing. Then he went away again, and he never came back.’