Quinn's Story
Copyright© 2026 by writer 406
Chapter 25
The Jeep was red, not a subtle red, but a glorious fire engine red.
Quinn stood in the driveway and looked at it in disbelief.
The Colonel walked up to him and tossed him the keys.
He had no words.
The Colonel must have recognized that not having words was its own statement of profound gratitude. He smiled a rare smile.
“You earned it. Smith took some of your brass to a jeweler in Reno and had that coin made as a memento of your month at the ranch.”
The key fob was attached to a heavy bronze coin with a “Mil-Dot” reticle engraved on both sides.
“Thank you,” Quinn said. The words seemed so inadequate that he had to repeat them. “Thank you.”
Sullivan stood behind him, a slight smile on his face. “You did good, Quinn. Real good.” Rare words of praise from him.
The kitchen door opened.
Maria came across the drive.
“You men,” she said, “get out of the way.” She looked at Quinn with her bright, welcoming smile. “My boy here is taking me for a ride in his new red Jeep.”
He drove her to the ice cream place on Clement Street. It was Tuesday afternoon and February cold. They were the only two people in the place.
She got two scoops of something chocolate and complicated. He got one scoop of vanilla, which she looked at with theatrical concern.
“Vanilla,” she said. “You are such an old man.”
“I like vanilla,” he said.
“You like vanilla because it doesn’t ask anything of you,” she said, settling into the booth with comfortable authority.
He thought about this for a moment. “That might be true,” he said.
She laughed the full laugh. They had their treats. Afterward, they drove home through the winter streets. Maria told him about the time Sullivan had gotten his first car and filled him in on the latest doings of her sister and nieces.
He did not talk about Nevada.
He had decided this sometime in the last week of the month, not because there was anything to hide, but because the month had the quality of things that belonged to him, things whose meaning he knew would take months to process.
The Colonel had his reasons for sending him there. But he had his experience of it, and the experience was his to understand in his own time.
Nobody asked.
Sullivan had his own history and would not ask, probably because he had followed the reports that Jones was sure to have sent.
Maria would not ask because she had decided not to know, which was a different thing.
The Colonel would not ask because the Colonel never asked about his assignments once they were complete.The work was the work, and the conversation at the dinner table was all about ideas.
He told Maria about passing the driving license test. She was appropriately satisfied with this.
Sullivan did show him the hidden gun safe in the library and made him memorize the combination, an acknowledgment of his new status.
The three girls recruited him the minute they saw his new
Jeep.
The conversation about the driving arrangement took four minutes and had the quality of a negotiation that had already been concluded before it began.
“You go right past my house,” Katherine said.
“Okay,” he said.
“And Sheila’s is basically on the way,” Katherine said.
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