“That’s what I’m going to find out, Squirt,” he said.
“Can I drive it?
“Why not?”
“And me?” Beth asked.
“Females in love should not drive,” Cletus said solemnly.
“What makes you think I’m in love?”
“You have been in love ever since you discovered there are two sexes,” he said. “And I saw you making eyes at that gaucho at the stable last night.”
“Oh, you go to hell, Clete,” she said, blushing.
“What gaucho last night?” Cletus Marcus Howell demanded.
“I was just pulling her chain, Grandpa,” Clete said quickly. “Yeah, Beth, you can come, if you want.”
Is Jorge Guillermo Frade spinning in his casket, Father Welner thought, at the thought of two young norteamericano females driving his beloved Horch?
Two maids began serving empanadas, half-moon-shaped dumplings filled either with chopped, seasoned meat, or blue cheese and ham.
“Is this lunch?” Cletus Marcus Howell asked, looking at the dumpling on his plate with suspicion.
“This is what we Argentines think of as an appetizer, Grandpa,” Cletus said.
“They’re delicious,” Marjorie said. “I love them!”
“I hate to think what might be in them,” the Old Man said.
The faint sound of an aircraft engine caught Cletus’s attention and he tried to look up at the sky. The roof of the gazebo blocked his view. After a moment, he pushed his chair back and walked out of the gazebo and stood looking up at the sky.
Enrico, who had been sitting in a wicker chair in the shade of a tree twenty yards from the gazebo, got out of the chair and walked to where Frade was standing. He had his shotgun cradled in his arms.
“Binoculars, Enrico?” Clete asked.
Enrico went to the wicker chair and returned with a pair of leather-cased binoculars. Clete searched the sky and then put the binoculars to his eyes.
A moment later, Marjorie Howell, then the girls, and finally Mr. Howell and Father Welner joined the two men. They all looked skyward, where they saw a high-winged, single-engine monoplane flying in the general direction of Estancia Santo Catalina.
“May I please have those, Cletus?” Cletus Marcus Howell asked, and Clete handed him the binoculars. He started a moment. “What the hell is that, Cletus?” the Old Man asked.
“It’s an airplane, Grandfather.”
“With an iron cross on the body, and a Nazi—whatchamacallit?—swastika on the tail!” the old man announced.
“Really?” Clete asked innocently.
“Who was that, Clete?” Martha Howell asked.
“The Luftwaffe,” Clete said. “They come over regularly. And once a week, tit for tat, I buzz the German embassy.”
“What was that, Cletus?” the Old Man demanded.
Clete ignored him.
Martha Howell took the binoculars from her father-in-law and looked skyward. By the time she found the airplane, it was too far away to pick out what the Old Man had seen.