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“Woody, I would be pleased, and not at all ashamed to be a deputy in Tinyville, under your command. I would only hope and pray that I could be as good an adjutant to you as you were to me.”
Colonel H.F. Lee and Major Ironwood Hamilton were talking about their police careers in Lofton County, VA in light of their Army careers and all that had happened – both were captains, a position they had worked as in Judge Advocate General before semi-retiring into the Special Forces Army Reserve, making a full circle in their careers … only to go another 180 degrees again and end up in law enforcement in their civilian lives.
“By all means, Harry – let's really confuse our old Army buddies and have you taking orders from me!” the major said and laughed. “But seriously, Harry: you are over-qualified for the job you have in Big Loft, and they knew that when you came in and messed around and found out!”
“That was true for both of us … we have had a huge impact since coming home, indeed,” Col. Lee said.
“But what do you want to do, Harry? If you want to remain a police captain in Big Loft, I imagine you could work that out.”
“I shall be glad to see James Longstreet succeed to my place as head of Special Investigations. He is ready, and he will not have the resistance inside the force that I have, and so will get so much more done in the new conservatorship situation now that it has been decided that the department must be spared. I put my energy into that, Woody.”
“So, then, what?”
Col. Lee sighed, deeply, and was honest with himself.
“I'm tired, Woody. It's like how your grandfather four times removed and my great-uncle four times removed got home from the Civil War and just slept for a week. I need to do that before making my next work decision.”
“Our little Ludlow cousins are really working y'all, eh?”
“Not at all. I'm not tired from them although they have pretty much cured my insomnia. I'm tired in a much different way. I need to not be immersed in corrupt situations for a while. I may just settle down on my pension with Maggie … you know I have made my appointment to reverse my vasectomy.”
“Yes, you told me. Aggie has been over here rejoicing because she wants some 'Harry and Maggie' cousins to our brood … and, she and Maggie have been praying and praying and praying.”
“Women,” the colonel said, “but, God bless them all.
“It is a very corrupt world in order to take the responsibility of bringing another life into it, Woody. I almost feel that would be enough work – between backing up Robert and Thalia with their seven grandchildren, and a child of my own with Maggie, or two, because she is still young enough, I almost feel it would be enough to do that and be about some life-affirming labor. I am going to get recalled to the Army sooner or later anyhow, but in the meantime … .”
“In the meantime, Harry, what else do you have left to prove? Had Vanessa and Victor lived, you never would have stayed in the Army all these years. You are a Lee-of-the-mountain born … a kind, powerful family patriarch in the making, with no need to work for anyone else for money. Sure, the Lofton Trust would be glad to take you on full-time as a paid board member with duties commensurate to that. Sure, the Army is going to take you back as a general, but as an instructor, at some point. Your police department may not even be done with you; if I were the new superintendent from the state, I wouldn't let the department's most incorruptible man leave so easily.
“But in the meantime, Harry, you can choose to put your family first, and build the rest of that in … and heck: when we have bad days in Tinyville, you've been here and you know we have them, but most of the time, you know you would have your desk job that you wanted and the few pennies to come hang out with me and train our replacements. Law enforcement now in Lofton County is finally going to get good and boring like it is supposed to be, because we put in the work!
“Listen to me, Harry. With Vanessa and Victor, you didn't get to choose. But in this case, you have already chosen to love your Ludlow cousins with Maggie, and add whatever family life you have to theirs. In the back of your mind, you've already made your decisions. Just walk in them. Sleep for a week, and then get up and do whatever best fits what you have already chosen to do. You're a Lee-of-the-mountain born. Just take care of the family. It's what y'all and the I-Line Hamiltons, all out of Ilene Slocum Lee-of-the-valley, do.”
“Thank you, Woody. My cousin, my brother-in-arms, my friend from cradle days between the valley and the mountain … only God can repay you for how much of a friend you have been to me, and I pray daily that He will.”
“Maybe make it every other day, Harry. You're the reason I have eleven kids, and Aggie is not yet 42, though we're rooting for you and Maggie now!”
Mrs. Maggie Lee, elsewhere in the house, heard her husband laughing and knew he was talking to Cousin Woody, and said a prayer for her Hamilton cousins, that God bless them in measure for everything they were doing for her husband and her … so, the every-other-day plan backfired before it started, and Aggie would get her 'Harry and Maggie' cousins that she wanted, soon enough!