Chapter 29

Fran was up first, showered, and out the door so fast I barely got to thank her and wish her well. She went out like someone had set fire to her rear end, so embarrassment might have been a motivating factor.

Roberta took her time.

We stayed in bed and talked about nothing for over an hour and then got up, showered, and faced the trials of the day. I had to begin the process of contacting the DeBusque clan, under the guise of tracking down relatives. Roberta had to oversee me doing that, so making sure that I was fully briefed and on board with the plan was critically important.

It was so critical that we lost track of time in the shower and got all sweaty, all over again.

The things I do for my country...

Having studied the family tree, and knowing as much as I dared know about The DeBusque Company without looking like a predator, I was ready to make contact. Roberta gave me some last minute advice, and I was on my own and on my way to Jonesville, Virginia.

If you ever get to Jonesville, do not blink. If you do, you will have missed it. Jonesville lies along Virginia Highway Fifty-Eight, which hugs the southern border that Virginia shares with Tennessee. There is so little there, when you get there, that you are tempted to keep going without giving it a second thought.

Which is probably more than it deserves.

As I drove into town I was struck by how little (of anything) there was to see in Jonesville. With a population nearing one-thousand – nine-hundred and ninety five at last count – Jonesville is a tiny town, but an old one. It is so small and forgotten that it was incorporated twice. Presumably the first one didn't take. Strangely enough, it is the second oldest town in Virginia west of Roanoke, but even that was not enough to make its original incorporation permanent.

Lodging in Jonesville consisted of the small, old, very clean, and well-kept Jonesville Motor Lodge. It was so small and well-kept that I opted to drive to Middlesboro, Kentucky, and stay at the Holiday Inn Express. I still wrestled with a good way to make contact without setting off any alarm bells, but the straightforward approach still made the most sense, so I checked in, cleaned up, drove to Jonesville, and looked up Tom DeBusque at his office, located not far from Jonesville's country club.

The views of the mountains were pleasant, and the morning mist hung over the meadows in every direction, but there was NO THERE, there, when you got there. I couldn't begin to imagine what people who lived there did to avoid suicide.

The DeBusque Company took up two relatively small buildings to the south of the golf course and along County Road Six-Sixty Two, commonly known as Curt Russell Road. The DeBusque clan occupied homes within sight of the company headquarters, and all were off the state highway to avoid the traffic, which approximated a relatively slow driveway in any other American city.

Many locals noted how rarely Jonesville residents used their turn signals. Everyone knew everyone else's car, and by extension, certainly knew where they were headed at any given time of the day or night, so what purpose would using the turn signal be, anyway? With so few educational or career choices, Jonesville's youth stampeded out of town almost before the High School graduation festivities had officially concluded, so anxious were they to get somewhere - anywhere - else.

Those who remained did so out of familial obligations, health challenges, or they had already surrendered to a lifetime of farm work, social services, and/or, the occasional job in nearby Pennington Gap, population nineteen-hundred and twenty- two, so you can see the attraction. Others, more willing to brave the outside world, left for places like Virginia Tech at Blacksburg, or the University of Tennessee, in Knoxville.

The down and dirty truth was, and still is, everyone who could get out of Jonesville, did. And they got out as fast as they could.

It was a hot summer afternoon when I arrived in Middlesboro and checked in. The drive to Jonesville took less time than I thought, and it was still rather early in the afternoon when I walked up to the office door at The DeBusque Company. The receptionist looked like an old time bookkeeper in a Jimmy Cagney movie, complete with a bill-only style cap and suspenders.

He looked me over like I was a salesman and asked, "What can I do for YOU?" His voice was as tired as he looked. When I said that I was trying to locate relatives, and that Ancestry Dot Com had sent me to Jonesville, because Tom DeBusque was supposedly a second cousin, he perked up and hurried to inform the boss of my arrival.

While I waited, I looked around the front entrance and reception area. Tom DeBusque wasted no money of frills or finery. Everything was necessary and necessarily Spartan. The seating area was complete with four folding metal chairs and a photograph of the building I was sitting in.

That was it.

It didn't matter much, because the receptionist was back in a flash and led me down a long hall, to a large, but utilitarian office, where the man himself waited behind a metal desk, rifling through the mail. I would have thought a billionaire wouldn't read the incoming advertisements, but Tom DeBusque apparently kept his hand on everything.

When I had been properly introduced by the receptionist, who took his leave as if his tail was on fire, Tom looked me over from top to bottom, then slowly smiled. "You have got to be one of Mable's daughter's sons. You've got the DeBusque forehead and chin." He said it like it was the gospel. He wasn't asking. It was decided.

"I am Tom DeBusque, and you are???" He said, giving me his hand to shake, but not standing up.

"Sir, I am Noah Guthrie." I wasn't sure what to say, so I started to hand him the Ancestry Dot Com documents, thoughtfully printed by one of Roberta's assistants, but he waved them away.

"Young man – Noah, is it? I can already tell you're kin folk, so keep your papers and grab a seat. We need to get acquainted."

And that is exactly how it went.

Tom DeBusque wanted to talk, and he expected me to listen, so that is how it went. "You drove all the way out here from where, young man?"

"North Dakota, sir," was all I got out and he was off and running.

"North Dakota is a cold, god-forsaken, wasteland, full of nuclear bombs and crazy northerners. I am glad you've got the good sense to get the hell out of such a cold and impersonal place. I spent far too much time in North Dakota, because some of our defense contracts require site visits, and I can tell you, young fella, that I couldn't wait to get home and shake the dust of North Dakota off my shoes..."

Tom was happy. I could see the happiness in his face as he talked about Jonesville, the family he'd been able to meet over the years, and what The DeBusque Company did that was so profitable. "We make things that the missile makers have to have, or their million dollar bombs won't work. We do it well. We do it in America. And we do it for a far better price than anyone would even think about, because we do it right."