For all that they'd finally gotten her here, Minnie really didn't want to keep on coming to the school. She had only agreed to attend the reception in her own honor on condition that she could sing instead of socialize after the speeches. They had compromised. First, she would sing. Then she would go around the room, with Doreen next to her, and say one single polite thing to every person there. Something like, "Thank you for coming."
The compromise was possible because he'd figured out one thing that worked. Weeks that she didn't make too much trouble in school, Wynne Nisbet would give her a hammer dulcimer lesson on Saturday morning. Defining "too much trouble" could be a bit touchy, sometimes. There was always at least some trouble. Trouble followed Minnie around. But you had to grant that she picked her targets.
Benny grinned and shifted over to Mother Maybelle. No matter what else he played in a set, he tried to finish up with a Mother Maybelle Carter piece. This reception was really for Minnie and the other kids, though, for all that Henry and Enoch and Reverend Jones, Benny's family, and several of the teachers were here. Kids weren't crazy about ballads. They liked something livelier.
He rolled into "Worried Man Blues."
* * *
The steps up to the temporary platform didn't have a rail. Minnie didn't jump and run—she stayed right there, carefully handing Benny down. Joe Pallavicino, watching, thought that one thing was sure in life. Anybody who offered, or even seemed to offer, a threat to Benny Pierce would have to deal with Minnie.
Anybody who offered, or even seemed to offer, a threat to anyone whom Benny cared about would have to deal with Minnie.
Joe would put his money on Minnie, any day.
Benny went over and sat down next to Louise on one of the metal folding chairs. She had a plate of crackers and a root beer for him. Minnie and Doreen started to circulate. Out of the corner of his eye, Joe spotted someone who shouldn't be here, given that she wasn't in the ESOL program and the noon bell dismissing the kids for Thanksgiving hadn't rung yet. He started across the room, drawing in his breath, prepared to start a sentence with, "Denise." Behind him, a voice said, "Cool it, Joe. Princess Baby was determined to come, so I wrote her an excuse and took her out of class. Her and Minnie have gotten to be best friends."
* * *
Here came Minnie and Doreen; time to be polite. Henry Dreeson fished his cane out from under his chair; he and Enoch heaved themselves to their feet. Minnie and Doreen and—the two girls with their arms thrown casually around one another's shoulders—Denise Beasley.
You learned a lot of things, being mayor. Henry knew that, contrary to the general assumption, Denise's parents were married to each other. Had been for fifteen years. He looked around. Yep, there was Buster Beasley, all right, keeping an eye on his Princess Baby.
Now Buster—he was the one who ought to sing, "there's nothing in this world I do not know." He'd ridden with one of the big motorcycle gangs for years before he came back to Grantville and settled down. Part of the self-storage lot's business had been perfectly legitimate, with local people, but both Henry and Dan Frost had always suspected that part of it was an entrepot for—other things. None of it had ever come out into the community, though, and the last dozen years of Buster's tax returns before the Ring of Fire were impeccable. Dan knew. After it, well, Buster had called the Emergency Committee and opened a few of those down at the far end, where the lot fronted on the old dirt road. They knew that all those counterfeit-brand car and truck parts would come in real handy, so they hadn't asked what was in the others, right then. The 250 Club had cigarettes for sale long after everyone else in town had run out. What else? Who knew? Buster owned the lot free and clear.
All of which probably answered the question of where Buster had gotten the money that he plunked down to buy the lot in the first place, when he and Christin came back. He'd had backers.
But Buster wasn't a nasty guy, not the way his uncle Ken was. Standing there, leaning against the wall, his reddish hair balding and graying, his thumbs stuck into his belt below his beer belly, tattoos showing on his arms below the short sleeves of his tee shirt, he looked like he would be. Or worse. But Buster was good to his grandparents. And, boy, did he look out for Christin and Denise. Henry felt sorry for the boys who might try to date Denise. Buster really had been 'round the world, and he didn't intend for his Princess Baby to go there. He'd made sure that Denise could take care of herself, if he wasn't around to protect her.
* * *
Buster had been watching across the room. Denise and Minnie, tossing their hair back and giggling. Minnie and Denise, doing a little tap dance step in front of Ceci Jones and Paige Clinter, with Tina Sebastian clapping a rhythm for them. He was glad that Princess Baby finally had a best friend. She hadn't had a best friend since she got so sick in fifth grade and had to repeat a year. When she went back the next fall, a new class had moved up to be the first-year middle school kids and she didn't know them that well. And she was a bit fierce for the taste of most of the families around Grantville. He'd brought her up by his rules. First, do what needs doing; second, don't agonize about it.
The door opened. Chris had locked up the lot for lunch hour and come over. They'd take the girls and the Pierces out for lunch. Not at the 250 Club. She came over and leaned against him, saying, "I picked up Johnnie Ray and Julia and dropped them off at Cora's. She's put in some cushioned booths. They'll be nice and comfy, with people to talk to till we get there."
* * *
Chris stood there, watching Minnie and Denise. She was real glad that Denise finally had a best friend. Her mind wandered.
After a truly spectacular blow-up with her parents, she rode off with Buster on his motorcycle in September 1986. They covered most of the country the next year, Arizona, California, Montana, all sorts of places that she'd never expected to see, until her pregnancy advanced to the point that it got uncomfortable for her to ride and they stopped for the winter in Colorado Springs. They had a pretty nice motel room, on the outskirts. Somewhere, she'd heard that natural childbirth was good for the kid, so she did it. There had to be better ideas. Buster came to the hospital for the delivery; it was just a couple of weeks before Christmas. When the nurse put Denise into his arms, all wrapped in pink flannelette and trimmed with a sprig of holly, he got a strange, helpless, sort of look on his face and muttered, "Y'know, Chris, I kinda think we oughta get married."
The nurse, who considered this to be a good idea under the circumstances, arranged everything with the hospital chaplain before Christin was discharged. The guy had a whole set of forms for pulling it off in two days—must not have been the first case of acute fatherhood that the hospital had treated.
Buster also got a vasectomy while he was at it, saying that he didn't want to see Chris go through that again, ever, no way. It was close enough to the delivery that she hadn't argued a bit. They stayed in Colorado Springs for a year and a half, Buster handling the local end of a bunch of things for his pards, until Denise was old enough to ride comfortably in the sidecar and needed more space than a motel room to run around in. Then they came back to Grantville.
Buster had accumulated enough money, what with one thing and another, to open the storage business. He said that old Coleman Walker's chin had dropped right below desktop level when he'd handed over the receipts from the Colorado Springs bank and asked to have the accounts transferred.
She'd had another spectacular blow-up with her parents. They hadn't even asked if she was married to Buster, so she hadn't told them. She didn't intend to, either. Ever. Let them stew. She still went by Christin George, which really got their goat. The marriage certificate was in the safe deposit box, along with their wills and other business papers.
Chuck Riddle's jaw would have dropped, too, when they went to get the wills drawn, if they'd gone into detail. Instead, they just asked for plain mirrors—everything to each other and then to Denise. KISS. They'd just needed a lawyer to make sure all the formalities were right. That was one
thing that Buster had learned from his pards; keep your paperwork in order.
* * *
Buster kissed Julia and shook hands with Johnnie Ray, then backed out of the booth. He loved his grandparents. He hadn't invited his Uncle Ken to lunch, but his cousin Everett was here. As many of them as could scrunched into the booth; the waitress pulled over a table and some chairs to extend it for eleven. Cora's was a nice place for a family-type party. While everybody else was sitting down, Buster went over and shook hands with Doc Adams. They'd been through a lot together. He'd never been so stinkin' sick in his life as he got that first winter after the Ring of Fire.
* * *
Jeff Adams was having lunch with old Doc McDonnell. H.M. had retired from practicing medicine nearly ten years before the Ring of Fire hit, but he'd come back to do what he could—he took the rounds at the extended care center and the assisted living homes—even dropped in on some of the old people who found it hard to get around. Even old Doc Sims, the dentist's father, from whom Jeff had bought the practice, and his wife, who were older than McDonnell, did well baby clinics at the Red Cross twice a week. Every bit helped.
McDonnell also doubled as coroner, at least for the obvious cases. Down-time, they hadn't had many exotic cases. It was mostly pretty obvious what people died from. The Beasleys, though-nobody knew yet what the Beasleys caught and died from, living out in that old farm house together. Johnnie Ray's brothers and sister, Ev, Hank, Dewey and his wife, Wilbur, and Dorothy—Sugar, everybody called her. Ev and Wilbur were widowers; Hank was an old bachelor; Sugar was a widow. Clinging together. Dewey's kids had all been left up-time; Wilbur and Sugar never had any.
It had been February, in 1632. Johnnie Ray and Julia got worried when none of them came in for groceries that week. It was cold, but not bad under foot and the telephone lines weren't down. When they didn't get an answer after two days, they sent Buster out to check. He found them all frozen solid. It looked like Sugar went last and had laid the others out all neat, turned the heat off, then lay down next to them to wait—no sign of foul play or poison.
The phone was working—Buster used it to call Dan Frost to send someone out—so it must have come on them fast. Or else, they caught on that it was something real bad, and contagious, and deliberately decided not to call. They'd found another body in the barn—a hobo, from the look of his clothes, with a plate of biscuits next to him. The house door was locked. Buster opened it with his key. He'd put the locks on himself, after the Ring of Fire; said that he and Everett, Ev's son, had split the cost. There wasn't anything missing or ransacked.
Dan had sent Fred Jordan out, since it was in the country. Town and country didn't make any real difference after the Ring of Fire, since the county government was gone, but Fred still did a lot of the stuff outside the town limits. He knew the people better.
Jordan had called his office; Leslie had taken the call and sent him out. The three of them had looked around. He'd suggested, pretty strongly, that it would be better just to bury them out there—not bring the bodies into town for an autopsy. Fred had agreed, and said that they should keep everybody else out of the house and barn, too.
Then Buster asked for a bit of privacy. They gave it to him, so they didn't know just what he'd said to Everett when he called the video store. But he came back and said not to bother digging graves in the frozen ground; if they left the house and barn standing, his Uncle Ken would rent it out the minute that Fred took the guards off it, or some refugees would just move in. No telling how long the germs for whatever it was would hang around.
He put the torch to it himself. Laughed and said, "This way, if Ken sues, at least it will be all in the family."
They'd quarantined everybody who had been out there. He, Buster and Fred got pretty sick, but they got over it, with fluids and more of the town's precious antibiotics than they had probably deserved and stuff to bring the fever down. Hell, tell the truth. He'd never been so sick in his life. If that, whatever it was, had reached Grantville without any advance warning, half of the town would have been gone in a month.
* * *
Over at the party table, Buster Beasley laughed uproariously at something Minnie had said. His gruff voice filled the whole café, "Oh, no, Minnie, girl, there damn well is something you don't know."
Minnie looked defiant. "What? Nothing that I need to know."
"Something I betcha' that you want to know. That would make the rest of it worth your while. You may not believe it right now, but it's important to know how to keep your paperwork in order. I had a time believing that, too, at first, but it's true."
"What?" Minnie persisted.
"You don't know how to ride a 'hog.' If you'll settle down and learn the grade school stuff as fast as you can, I'll teach you to ride, along with Princess Baby."
Minnie and Denise squealed with delight.
Benny Pierce beamed.
"And if you go on and learn the middle school stuff, there's something interesting in one of those triple locked sheds on the lot."
Three wide eyes and a piratical black patch stared at him—Doc Adams hadn't inserted Jim Dreeson's glass eye for Minnie yet.
"Two brand new 'hogs.' Never uncrated. For the day the two of you get your diplomas."
Jeff Adams and H.M. McDonnell flinched.
Von Grantville
By Russ Rittgers
Chad sat on the front porch swing staring blankly ahead. He held a tumbler of Kentucky's smoothest bourbon and water. It was like a cruel joke. I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is, those thirty-five new cars you have on your lot? You won't have to pay for them. The bad news? They're going to sit there and rot until you take them apart and sell them piece by piece. Or, you can sell them to the government for pennies on the dollar because nobody's got gasoline or money for cars except the government. Funny, yeah, Mr. Big Time Auto Dealer.
He'd never intended to live out his life in Grantville. When he studied marketing at West Virginia University, Chad wanted to go into international business. Then Dad had his stroke the day after Thanksgiving in Chad's senior year. He lived, but with the left side of his body partially paralyzed. Mom couldn't handle it mentally or physically at that time. Wes, his older brother, had a full-time job in Charleston working for the government. So rather than taking a few easy courses his final semester to pump up his GPA, Chad petitioned to graduate early because he had all his required courses completed. He received his diploma through the mail. Didn't even go to commencement. Three years later he bought the car dealership for a pittance. Lou Prickett had grown too fond of booze and was about to lose the franchise anyway.
Now, here he was. A businessman without a business. In Germany. Strange world we live in.
Debbie came over to the porch swing and sat next to him. "Penny for your thoughts, dear."
Chad smiled wryly and put his arm around his wife's small shoulders. "Just thinking. Never thought, heck, never imagined I'd ever get to Europe after I came back to Grantville. Much less live in Germany with you and the kids."
Debbie pulled his arm a bit tighter by tugging his hand. "Have you thought about what you're going to do? Some of the Methodist Women have set up an assistance committee for those German people who've been wandering into town."
"Don't know." Chad took another sip of bourbon. "All the cars and trucks I don't sell to the government, I'm going to have to disassemble for parts. I'll get Bob Szymanski and my other mechanics to do it. Added to my current parts inventory, it'll be worth a fair amount eventually. Trouble is, in the short run, we're going to be hurting for money because I'll have all the costs of tearing those apart but damn little income. We'll probably have to sell some land just to buy groceries."
Debbie pulled away from him. "Don't you dare!" she snapped. "Don't you even think about selling a single lot!"
Chad stared wide-eyed at his wife. She never . . .
"I had an interesting talk with that nice Scottish cavalry captain after he brought ov
er one of his troopers to interpret for us today. He asked who was the laird who owned the land outside town. When I told him that most of it was owned by individuals and coal companies, he looked at me like I was crazy. Then I told him Dad owned 160 acres and you had, here and there, over seventeen hundred acres with houses on some of them. He said you must be a laird to own so much and live in a huge mansion in town. After that, he started treating me as if I was some kind of nobility. He must have said something to his trooper because the next thing I knew, the Germans we'd taken in started bowing their heads to me when I approached them."
Chad grunted a laugh. "Oh, yeah, that's me, Charles Hudson Jenkins von Grantville. Senior."
"I'm not kidding, Chad. In that captain's mind, we're nobility."