The Hesitant Hero Read online

  © 2006 by Gilbert Morris

  Published by Bethany House Publishers

  11400 Hampshire Avenue South

  Bloomington, Minnesota 55438

  www.bethanyhouse.com

  Bethany House Publishers is a division of

  Baker Publishing Group, Grand Rapids, Michigan

  www.bakerpublishinggroup.com

  Ebook edition created 2011

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the prior written permission of the publisher and copyright owners.

  ISBN 978-1-4412-7062-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

  Scripture quotations are from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Cover illustration by William Graf

  Cover design by Josh Madison

  To Rev. James Golden and his companion Murlene—

  my Golden Missionaries—

  Your faith witness to the glorious gospel of Jesus

  has been a wonderful testimony to me for many years.

  I keep my memories of you among my most

  prized possessions—so thanks for the memories!

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  PART ONE

  October 1939-May 1940

  1. The Colony Club

  2. Flunking Out

  3. An Unwanted Good-bye

  4. More Disappointment

  5. A Birthday Party

  6. Round Trip to Paris

  PART TWO

  June 1940

  7. A Change of Plans

  8. A Slow Start

  9. “Everybody Off”

  10. Stuck in Nevers

  11. End of the Line

  12. An Ancient Bus

  PART THREE

  June-July 1940

  13. A Horse Named Crazy

  14. Antoine

  15. “Get Off the Road!”

  16. Stories of Africa

  17. Germans!

  18. A Place to Hide

  PART FOUR

  July 1940

  19. House-to-House Search

  20. Jean Clermont

  21. A Prayer Answered

  22. Despair

  23. Leota

  24. On American Soil

  About the Author

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Colony Club

  “Come on, Tyler, have some dinner with me. I’m starving!”

  Tyler Winslow lolled back in the seat of the yellow cab and grinned faintly at the woman who was pulling at his arm and urging him to get out.

  “I should go home. I’ve had a little much to drink.”

  Caroline Autry was not in the habit of begging for favors. As the daughter of Denton Autry, one of the richest men in New York City, she was more accustomed to having her smallest whims fulfilled. “None of that!” she urged. “Come on. I’m famished.”

  With a groan, Tyler allowed himself to be pulled out of the cab. He stood there for a moment swaying, then closed his eyes, muttering, “Is the whole world turning around, or is it just me?”

  “You’re all right. Here, driver, keep the change.”

  “Thank you, miss.”

  Tyler opened his eyes and looked at the building in front of them. “This is the Colony Club. You know I can’t afford it, Caroline.”

  “Well, I can.”

  Indeed, the jewelry that adorned Caroline Autry could probably have made a good start toward buying the famous restaurant. Diamonds glittered at her ears and an enormous ruby necklace decorated her throat, and when she moved her hands, more diamonds caught the reflections of the lights of the club and flashed like stars. The October night was chilly, and she wore a chinchilla coat over her shoulders. Looking up at Tyler, she said, “The night’s young and so are we, so let’s live it up.”

  “All right, honey, if you say so.”

  A tall, handsome doorman greeted them with a smile. “Hello, Miss Autry. And how are you, sir?”

  “Hello, George,” Caroline said. “Is it a full house tonight?”

  “Pretty crowded, but they’ll find you a good seat, I know.”

  They went in and were greeted again by a small, dapper man in a tuxedo who smiled slightly. “Ah, Miss Autry, so good to have you.”

  “We want good seats, Henry.”

  “The very best that we have available. If you’ll walk this way, please.”

  As the two followed the maître d’, Tyler was only vaguely aware of the ornate decorations. The Colony Club was located on Sixty-Second Street and was one of the most famous and fairly notorious restaurants in America. Vogue magazine had stated, “It’s harder to get a good table at the Colony than it is to hit a hole in one.”

  Indeed, nothing was too good for the clientele who willingly paid the enormous prices. The famous guests were treated like visiting royalty. Every time Bernard Baruch dined at the Colony in the heat of a New York summer, the management had the air-conditioning turned off because Baruch hated it.

  Something about the atmosphere of the Colony Club was displeasing to Tyler Winslow. Having been brought up in the more primitive parts of Africa, he had spent most of his life in a simpler way. Now as he glanced around the crowd, noting that the waiter was taking them to one of the better tables, he thought of how snobbish some people in New York were. He was well aware that there was a section of the Colony Club known as Siberia. It had gotten its name when socialite Peggy Hopkins Joyce had been shown to one of the less-than-desirable tables and had demanded, “Where are you taking me to? Siberia?”

  But there was no way that Caroline Autry would be taken to what had been dubbed the penal section in the Colony Club—where the common people ate as opposed to the stars.

  They reached a table and the waiter bowed. “I trust this will be satisfactory.”

  “Yes, of course,” Caroline said as she nodded carelessly. She sat down in the chair, which the waiter held for her, and then glanced around. “Look, Tyler, there’s John Barrymore,” she said. “I think he’s the handsomest man I’ve ever seen.” Then she turned and smiled. “Present company excepted, of course.”

  Tyler grinned. He had been told he was a roughly handsome man, although he had none of the smoothness of Barrymore. He was exactly six feet tall and carried a trim, hard one hundred seventy pounds of muscle, put on over years of an active life in Africa. His thick brown hair had a very slight curl, and women always told him they liked his intense blue eyes.

  Caroline leaned forward and playfully tousled Tyler’s hair but then stopped, lightly pulling his hair straight up. “I never noticed that before. Where’d you get that scar, Tyler?”

  He touched the scar on his forehead that was usually covered with hair. “A leopard.”

  Her eyes widened. “Are you serious!” she exclaimed. “You mean a real leopard?”

  “It wasn’t imitation.”

  Caroline stared at the scar. “I can’t imagine such a thing.”

  “I didn’t have to imagine it.”

  “Were you out in the jungle?”

  “No, sleeping in my bed.”

  “He came into your house? Didn’t you keep the doors locked?”

  “I don’t think we had any locks on the doors. And we had to keep the windows open for air.”

  “And he just came right in?”

  “Sure he did. I was just a kid, and we were out in a village, my folks and I. Leopards often come into villages at night. Lots of children have been stolen away. I was lucky, though,” he sai
d. “Dad always kept his gun by his side. We were all sleeping in the same room. When the leopard made a grab at my head, I hollered, and Dad shot out of bed, grabbed his gun, and killed it. I was a bloody mess. There was no doctor, so Dad had to sew my head up himself.”

  Caroline was fascinated by Tyler Winslow. Ordinarily she would never have given the son of poor missionary parents a second look, but she had encountered Tyler at an art show and had been struck by his rugged good looks. She had flirted with him, and he had asked her out. Since then she had found it a pleasure to show him the more expensive sides of New York, which he would never have been able to afford. He was an artist studying painting, but it was too soon to tell if he had enough talent to make it.

  Aware that she was studying him, Tyler said, “I can read your mind, Caroline.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re wondering why in the world you put up with a poor, struggling artist when you could be running around with rich bankers.”

  “Bankers are boring.”

  “Painters can be boring too. I’ve met enough of them who are.” He toyed with his glass of water, turning it in his hand and studying the fine crystal. “Some of them can’t talk about anything but art.”

  “You’re not like that. You can talk about all kinds of things.” She winked suggestively and laughed. Looking around the room, she motioned to the waiter, who came scurrying forward. “What’s good tonight?” she asked.

  “Almost anything you desire, Miss Autry.”

  The food at the Colony Club was legendary. Waiters were pushing carts of hors d’oeuvres, roasts, soups, and even ice sculptures through the dining room. One waiter was flamboyantly displaying food skewered on flaming swords.

  “I think I’ll have a hot dog on one of those swords,” Tyler said. “Set it on fire, will you, please?”

  The waiter stared with astonishment. “Sir, we don’t serve hot dogs.”

  “I thought you served everything.”

  “Nearly everything, sir, but not hot dogs.”

  “He’s only ribbing you,” Carolyn told the waiter.

  “May I suggest the pheasant Souvaroff.” The waiter reeled off a list of other choices, and finally Caroline ordered eel ragout, and Tyler ordered roast lamb.

  “And bring us a bottle of your best wine,” Caroline instructed. “I’ll let you choose.”

  “I will do my best to please you, Miss Autry.” The waiter bowed and left.

  Tyler leaned back in his chair and shook his head. “All this rich eating’s going to make me fat.”

  “You’ll never be fat. What did you eat in Africa?”

  Tyler grinned. “When we were visiting the Masai, the host would milk a cow, then he would open a blood vessel in the cow’s neck and fill the rest of the cup up with blood. Mighty tasty.”

  “Not really!” Caroline shuddered. “How awful!”

  “Well, the Masai men were some of the finest I’ve ever seen. All of them over six feet, strong, and more guts than you can imagine. Who knows? Maybe it was from drinking all that blood.”

  “You’ve come a long way, Tyler. All the way from drinking blood and milk to being a promising art student in New York.”

  “I don’t know how promising I am. My teachers don’t seem to think so.”

  “They are teachers because they can’t paint themselves. You know what they say. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” She laughed aloud. The waiter soon came back with the wine, allowed Tyler to taste it first, then poured them each a glass.

  “My brother’s been after me to stop drinking,” Tyler said as he picked up his glass. “You met him once, but you may have been a bit too drunk to remember him.”

  “Of course I remember him. His name was Chance. A very proper, upright man. Not like you at all.”

  The remark struck something in Tyler, and he drank half of his glass in one gulp. “You’re right. He’s not like me. He’s the good one. I’m the bad apple.”

  “Don’t put yourself down.”

  “I don’t need to put myself down. I’ve got plenty of other people doing that.”

  “You mean your brother?”

  “For one. He’s trying to convert me.”

  “Your family are missionaries, all of them? Your parents and your brother too?”

  “Pretty much. I’ll be glad when Chance goes back to Africa. I’m nothing but a disappointment to him.” He drank more of the wine and shook his head. “Our folks won’t be happy when he tells them what I’ve been up to, although he’ll think of something good to say about me to make the folks feel better.”

  “Come on. Let’s dance while we’re waiting for our food.”

  As they walked to the dance floor, Tyler said, “It’s hard for two drunks to dance well together.”

  “We’re not drunks!”

  “We get drunk all the time. What do you think makes a drunk?”

  “That’s your family talking. There’s nothing wrong with drinking and having a good time.”

  “Sometimes they’re not the same thing.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Most of the time when you drink you don’t have a good time. You just think you are. And then you wake up the next day with your mouth tasting like a birdcage and someone trying to drive an ice pick through your skull. You call that having a good time?”

  Caroline laughed at him. “Talk all you want to, but we are having a good time. I am, anyway.”

  As they moved around the floor, she seemed to be studying him in a strange way. Finally she said, “You know, we could get married.”

  Tyler’s mind was not clear, and he blinked his eyes with surprise. “We can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “In the first place, I couldn’t support a wife.”

  “But I can support a husband.”

  Tyler flashed a sour grin. “That’s all I need, Caroline, to be a kept man.”

  “You’re too old-fashioned. This is 1939, not the Middle Ages.”

  “I know what year it is. I know what month is it too.”

  “Why, it’s October.”

  “Does that mean anything to you—October 1939?”

  “No.”

  “Ten years of the Depression. It was ten years ago in 1929 that the Depression hit. The whole country’s gone downhill. I wasn’t here for most of it, but there are still hard times in this country.”

  The music ended and they went back to their table just as the food arrived. Tyler only picked at his food. He was troubled, and finally Caroline shoved her own food away. “You’re not much fun tonight.”

  “I know it. I’m feeling guilty.”

  “What are you feeling guilty about?”

  Tyler looked up, a disturbed look on his face. “My folks sacrificed a lot to send me over here to college to learn how to paint. They had to do without. Chance had to make some sacrifices too.” He suddenly shoved the plate back, poured another glass of wine, and gulped it down. When he put the glass down, he said with determination, “But when I make it big as a painter, I’ll make it up to them.”

  “You’re funny about some things,” Caroline said. “Maybe that’s why I like you.”

  “Funny about what?”

  “Well, most struggling young artists wouldn’t mind marrying a rich woman. You wouldn’t have to worry about money. Daddy’s got oodles of it.”

  “It’s not the same thing. I wouldn’t want to have to depend on your dad.”

  “You’ve got some archaic ideas.” She stood up. “I’m going to the ladies’ room.”

  Tyler watched as she got up and made her way through the crowd. He sat there and stared at the wine bottle. He started to pour himself another drink but stopped. “What’s the matter with you, Tyler Winslow?” he muttered. “You didn’t used to be a drunk.” Indeed, he didn’t especially like to drink. When he had first come to America, he had drunk very little, but in Caroline Autry’s circles, alcohol was just part of the atmosphere. The years of p
rohibition had somehow changed America, and now it seemed that people were trying to make up for the lost years by drinking more.

  He pulled his billfold out of his pocket and opened it. A grimace touched his wide mouth and he shoved it back. I’ll have to ask the folks for more money. The very thought of it was abominable, and with grim determination, he thought, I won’t be any more of a burden on them. I can’t.

  He sat there unhappy and heavy in thought until finally he looked up to see Caroline coming across the floor. As she moved through the crowd, a big man suddenly stepped in front of her. She tried to get by, but the man laughed and took her by the arm.

  Despite his alcoholic haze, Tyler hastened toward the two, anger running through him like a jolt of electricity. Even above the loud music he heard Caroline crying, “Let go of me!”

  “Ah, come on, pretty lady—don’t be so stuck up.”

  Tyler clamped his hand on the man’s wrist and squeezed hard. The man winced and turned around.

  “What are you doing?” the man growled.

  “Let the lady alone or I’ll send you to the dentist.”

  The big man released his grip, and his face was flushed. “Get out of here, sonny. I’m talkin’ to the lady.”

  “Come on, Caroline.” Tyler reached for her hand, but the big man knocked his arm away. Without thought, Tyler swung and caught the man right on the mouth with a devastating blow. He watched with satisfaction as the man went reeling backward, the back of his legs striking a table.

  The blow would have put most men down, but Tyler saw that despite the blood on the man’s lips there was a light in his eyes. He came forward with a shuffle, and his stance warned Tyler that this man had done his share of fighting.

  Tyler managed to get his arms up and turned, but the fist caught him on the shoulder with frightening power, driving him backward into another table, which collapsed beneath him. The two women at the table screamed as they tried to get out of the way. Tyler scrambled to his feet and threw himself at the big man in a frightening fury. Only vaguely aware of what was happening, he threw blow after blow and received many in return. Both men were bleeding now, but Tyler was getting the worst of it. He saw the big man pick up a chair and he tried to dodge it, but the edge of it caught him on the head. He sank down, his surroundings growing darker. He could hear Caroline’s voice but could not make out her words.