Verwandte Artikel zu Eagle & Crane

Eagle & Crane - Hardcover

Rindell, Suzanne

 
9780399184291: Eagle & Crane
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0399184295 ISBN 13: 9780399184291
Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2018

Inhaltsangabe

Two young daredevil flyers confront ugly truths and family secrets during the U.S. internment of Japanese citizens during World War II, from the author of The Other Typist and Three-Martini Lunch.

Louis Thorn and Haruto "Harry" Yamada--Eagle and Crane--are the star attractions of Earl Shaw's Flying Circus, a daredevil (and not exactly legal) flying act that traverses Depression-era California. The young men have a complicated relationship, thanks to the Thorn family's belief that the Yamadas--Japanese immigrants--stole land that should have stayed in the Thorn family.

When Louis and Harry become aerial stuntmen, performing death-defying tricks high above audiences, they're both drawn to Shaw's smart and appealing stepdaughter, Ava Brooks. After the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and one of Shaw's planes mysteriously crashes and two charred bodies are discovered in it, authorities conclude that the victims were Harry and his father, Kenichi, who had escaped from a Japanese internment camp they had been sent to by the federal government. To the local sheriff, the situation is open and shut. But to the lone FBI agent assigned to the case, the details don't add up.

Thus begins an investigation into what really happened to cause the plane crash, who was in the plane when it fell from the sky, and why no one involved seems willing to tell the truth. By turns an absorbing mystery and a fascinating exploration of race, family and loyalty, Eagle and Crane is that rare novel that tells a gripping story as it explores a terrible era of American history.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Suzanne Rindell is the author of two previous novels, The Other Typist and Three-Martini Lunch. She earned her Ph.D. in literature from Rice University, and divides her time between New York and California.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Newcastle, California * September 16, 1943

They bump along the country road, rolling through golden hills that are punctuated with granite boulders and dotted with clusters of oak trees that appear blackish green from afar. Every so often the road dips through a marshy patch here, a thicket of wild blackberry bushes there. Broken branches and nibbled leaves; the signs of beaver and deer. Verdant meadows and white flashes of cabbageworm moths. As they near the orchard, clouds of sparrows and finches make nervous, disorganized dives at the soft yellow weeds around the plum trees, little groups of them assembling like constellations and abruptly breaking up again, each and every tiny nervous body keeping one eye turned to the sky for the shadowy shape of a hawk soaring high above.

When they reach the break in the low split-rail fence, the sheriff steers the car onto the property and along the dirt drive, through the many rows of trees, and toward the leaning peak of the largest foothill. The morning air is laced with the sharp, peppery scent of dry grass burning.

"Awful smoky out," Agent Bonner remarks, once the automobile comes to a stop.

"Rice fields," the deputy says as the three men step out of the sheriff's old Model A. "Somewhere down in the valley. It's after harvest, see. This is when they burn 'em. Smoke gets trapped up here, against the foothills. Kind of sets around a spell."

The sky is indeed filled with a thick haze, turning it the color of dull gunmetal; the sun is a flat white disc, small as a dime and lost in a sea of gray.

"It's routine farming business. The rice fields aren't Jap-owned," Deputy Henderson continues. "Or if they were, they aren't anymore."

He is young, the right age for a soldier, but there is an air of being excluded about him, and of lingering teenage angst. Probably flat-footed. Or poor eyesight, Bonner thinks. Those are the most common 4-Fs, when you can't tell by simply looking at a man. Henderson's hair is the color of tarnished brass; his face and neck are very pink, the flesh cratered, ropey and swollen with acne. Just to look at him, a man could feel the sting of what it must feel like to shave.

"Let's get this over with," Sheriff Whitcomb says. At least it is obvious why he isn't marching around in a uniform on the front: too old. He is thin, with haunted blue eyes. A pair of jowls and one tuft of white hair sprouting from an otherwise shiny dome. Bonner spied the tuft back at the station, before the sheriff reached for his hat and offered to drive the group out to the ranch. Every town seems to have a pair like this, Bonner thinks. Henderson and Whitcomb. One will eventually replace the other, and the cycle will begin again.

"You said Louis Thorn is living in the old farmhouse now?" the sheriff calls over his shoulder, speaking to Henderson. He is polite enough to Agent Bonner, but it is clear he prefers to pretend the agent is invisible.

"Yes." Deputy Henderson answers the sheriff in a quick, eager voice. "Old Man Yamada signed it over to him, before they lost legal rights. So Louis owns it fair and square."

"That's mighty interesting," Agent Bonner remarks. Bonner's certainly heard of cases where Japanese families had signed over their property to their white neighbors before being evacuated to the camps. In every single case, the Japanese were hoping to eventually have their land, homes, and cars returned to them, which implied a kind of special trust in one's neighbors.

"It ain't how you think. The whole town was mighty shocked the Yamadas did that," Henderson says. "The Thorns and the Yamadas had a long-standing dispute over this land."

"Why'd he sign it over to the Thorn family, then, if there was bad blood?" Bonner asks. He looks to Whitcomb, but Whitcomb shrugs and looks away, his gaze dilating with disinterest. Bonner can tell the sheriff finds explaining town gossip to an outsider tedious.

"Louis Thorn and Harry Yamada was friends-sort of," Whitcomb says, dispassionately. "Maybe Old Man Yamada put some stock in that. The old man didn't have any friends who weren't Japanese, himself. Maybe he figured it was worth a shot."

"Took a fat chance on that," Deputy Henderson grunts, reaching one hand up to rub at his pimply face. "I say Louis ain't givin' this land back. His father and grandfather always told him this land was Thorn property in the first place. They'd likely roll over in their graves if he was to think about giving it back."

"All right," Whitcomb says, pulling out his revolver, spinning the cylinder to ensure all six rounds are there, and putting it back in his holster. "Let's just see if he knows anything. Keep it civilized. Should be pretty straightforward. We're talking about a law-abiding citizen here; I don't have any reason to believe Louis Thorn'd lie to us."

They begin walking up the incline of the foothill toward the tidy white clapboard house nestled into the hillside just below the top. Louis Thorn might be living in it now, but Old Man Yamada had originally built it half a century ago-back when the latter was still a baby-faced young man, an early settler to the area. The house sits into the hill in a slightly cantilevered fashion, with a small wraparound porch from which a person can look out over the orchards below; neat rows of plum trees extend below one side of the house, a grove of satsumas in the middle, and almond trees on the other. The property consists of some fifty-odd acres, and as the three men climb the foothill now, they can see that the trees eventually peter out to reveal a wide, flat pasture some distance away. As they pause to look, three sets of eyes fall upon the far-off shape of a small, impromptu hangar down below, looking as though it had been thrown together hastily from available materials.

It is the place where the Yamadas kept their biplane, and where Louis Thorn purportedly still keeps it now. Or so Agent Bonner has been informed. The F.B.I. took special note of the biplane after the two remaining members of the Yamada clan-Kenichi and Haruto "Harry" Yamada-broke out of the Tule Lake Relocation Center, where they were being detained. The plane made the F.B.I. more nervous than usual, but either way the Yamadas were to be tracked down and returned to the segregation center, and as soon as possible.

The three men arrive in front of the house and climb up the twenty or so stairs that lead up to the porch. No need to knock; their boots make a good deal of noise on the wooden planks. The screen door swings open on creaking hinges before the third man reaches the top stair.

"May I help you fellas?"

The door claps shut. Louis Thorn, dressed in a long-sleeved undershirt and trousers, his suspenders hanging beside his hips, looks at the men standing on his porch, glancing searchingly from one to the next. One half of his face is dewy, clean-shaven. The other half is covered in lather. He is still clutching the straight razor in his left hand.

At the sight of the razor, Whitcomb lightly touches a hand to the butt of the gun on his own hip. "Mornin', Louis. The way I hear it, you got the run of things here these days," the sheriff says, taking the lead.

"That's right," Louis responds. There is a note of caution in his voice. He looks over the sheriff's shoulder, taking in the...

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Verlag
G.P. Putnam's Sons
Erscheinungsdatum
2018
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0399184295
ISBN 13 
9780399184291
Einband
Gebundene Ausgabe
Anzahl der Seiten
448
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Verantwortliche Person
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