Radio Mirror: The Magazine of Radio Romances (Jan-June 1943)

ill wait nu\n Ann walked the streets bravely with the ghost of her love by her side — then Ross came back, his laughter changed to bitterness, to test her courage and her faith 1 WALKED down the hot, sunny, busy street, and it was like walking with a ghost. Every step I took, it was as if Ross walked beside me. I could hear his deep laugh and feel his nearness. Everywhere I looked, I saw his face, and every place I passed had its own special memory that brought him closer. Over there was the building where he'd had his small real estate office — his own successful business, closed now for the duration, the clients turned over to one of the larger firms. Here on the corner was the Mexican cafe where we'd given him the last of the farewell parties, and once more I felt his arms around me as we'd danced in the patio under the Arizona stars. Even the faces that I passed — the familiar, friendly faces of our small city where everybody knew everybody else — brought him back. People stopped me: "Hi, Ann. Heard from Ross yet? How's he like the Army?" "Hello, Ann — how's Ross? Sure some party we had, wasn't it?" The president of the bank, a flyer in training at a neighboring field, a cowboy in for the day from a nearby ranch, Miss Ralston who had taught both of us in grammar school — everybody knew him and liked him. Ross . . . Ross . . . Ross. It was like a refrain, unendurably sweet, unendurably painful. I clenched my hands and tilted my chin and made myself walk on, calm and composed. Yesterday, seeing him off at the station for the induction center in Tucson, I hadn't cried even when he'd kissed me for the last time. I wouldn't cry now. Other girls were giving up their husbands to the service. I'd give up my fiance with a smile as brave as theirs, and be as proud. And whatever tears I shed would be where none could see them. I'd known it would be hard, for a long time now. Ever since Pearl Harbor, Ross had been crazy to go. He would have enlisted if it hadn't been for his mother. Mrs. Coleman was as brave as anybody, but widowed and nearly helplessly crippled with rheumatism as she was, it didn't seem fair to leave her until he was called. That decision to wait somehow made me love Ross more than ever. For sometimes that is the braver thing to do — to wait, when every instinct is urging you to go. Wait. That's what I had to do now. And it was going to be harder even than I'd thought. Go on with my job in the bookstore, go on living at home, MAY, 1943 working four nights a week at the USO — go on covering up the aching loneliness that had started yesterday at the station. Waiting till Ross came back. Waiting till we could really belong to each other. For, "We've our faith in each other, Ann," he said, "and somehow it would be a lesser faith if we hurried and got married now. It wouldn't be fair to you, either. This way — well, you'll be free if something should happen to me or if — if another guy would come along — " "Don't!" I said, and covered his lips with my fingers. "Don't talk like that. There won't ever be 'another guy' for me. I'll be here when" you come back if it takes forever. You know that, my darling." Yes, we each knew that. The faith we shared was a real and living thing, and it would carry us through the long separation. It would carry us through everything. So there'd been disposing of the business and arranging for his mother to live at one of the boarding houses in town where she could be with friends, and there'd been the farewell parties and saying good-by to an old life, and there had been our moments alone together . . . And now there was only I, walking with a ghost beside me. "Hello, Ann. Ross get off all right?" This time it was Buck Turner, one of the few old-time ranchers still left in our part of the country, and I stopped to talk with genuine pleasure. I'd known Buck all my life; he'd taught me to ride and he'd spanked me once or twice when I'd needed it, and his grizzled, weather-beaten face was as dear and familiar as my own dead father's. "I hope the Army's got the sense to put Ross in the cavalry," he went on. "The boy's the best hand with a horse I ever saw. But I reckon he'll be a good soldier wherever they put him." "Yes," I said, "he was crazy to go." His shrewd, kindly ey"es swept my face. "You come up and see me when you get lonely. I'll put you to riding herd on some of the wild horses I'm breaking for the government reclama "I'll Wait Forever," an original story by Helen Irwin Dowdey, was suggested by a program of war information heard on NBC. tion project. Can't get any hands these days, with the boys all off to war, and I'm getting too old to handle those critters myself. And by the way, let me know as soon as you hear from Ross. I want to lease his land up there next to mine — I'll need it to water the stock, with the season as dry as it is." I watched him walk off with that short stiff -kneed stride of the cowboy and thought affectionately how typical it was of him to start working for the government now. Too old to fight, he could still make himself useful in the war effort. The land he'd mentioned adjoined his own, up in the hills, and had been left to Ross by his father. It wasn't good for much now, but some day Ross wanted to raise and breed horses up there. There was an adobe shack on it — a primitive, little three room place, that we'd used for weekend parties when a bunch of us had gone up and broiled steaks over an open fire and sung old songs and ridden the horses Ross had kept. The horses and the wrangler were gone now, and the shack was just another place of memories for me. The sweetest memories of all, for it had been there on a moonlight night with the scent of the flowering desert sweet about us, that Ross had asked me to marry him. It was there that the faith that must sustain me now had started. I walked on home. The May sun already held the sting in it that those of us who live in Southern Arizona learn to half dread, half welcome. It promised the blast-furnace heat of the dry days to come, when the temperature climbs to a hundred and ten and water comes steaming from the faucet marked "Cold" and all living things seek shelter from the noon-day sun. The living room was shaded against that broiling sun, and coming into it I was blinded for a moment by its shadowy coolness. And then my vision cleared, and I was staring at the long, lean figure slumped in the big rawhide basket chair by the side porch door. My heart jumped wildly, and then was quiet except for the thick, thunderous pulse in my neck, that kept the words from coming out of my throat. It was as if the ghost that had walked the streets beside me had now materialized out of nothing, had sprung from nowhere. Ross! He stirred and got up, and I knew that he was real. No ghost of the laughing, eager boy I had known could have looked so bitter. 37