Supervolcano: All Fall Down

by Turtledove, Harry

  “I’m gonna put her in the crib. Fix me one, too, would you? Not quite that much,” Kelly said.

  He gave her a surprised look. “You don’t drink this stuff.”

  “Tonight I do.”

  Deborah went into the crib with another mutter, but no more. Kelly hurried back to the kitchen. Colin handed her the dose of scotch. That was how she thought of it, all right. They clinked glasses. She drank. She still didn’t see how he could enjoy the taste, but she wasn’t drinking it for the taste. She was drinking it for the booze.

  “How was the rest of your day?” she asked. “Better than this, I hope.”

  “Not so you’d notice,” Colin answered. “Darren Pitcavage . . . deals everything this side of real estate and old Buicks. Setting up a buy is gonna be a piece of cake, looks like. Not just a felony bust—a big-time felony bust.”

  “I’m sorry.” Kelly felt the inadequacy of words.

  “Yeah, me, too.” Colin’s eyes slid toward the stairway. “But I’m not sorry Vanessa doesn’t know thing one about this. Way she is right now, if she did she’d probably get hold of Darren and let him know we were looking at him.”

  “She wouldn’t do that!” Kelly exclaimed.

  “Oh, I think she might,” Colin said.

  “But that’s illegal, isn’t it?”

  “Sure, if you get caught. Lots of things are illegal if you get caught.”

  “Mm,” Kelly said. “Uh, does Marshall know not to talk with her about this?”

  “Well, I haven’t told him not to,” Colin answered. “But I don’t think he wants to talk about it with anybody. He wants to make like it never happened and he never had anything to do with it. And he doesn’t talk to Vanessa any more than he has to, in case you didn’t notice.”

  “I did,” Kelly said. “I wondered if you had. Shows what I know, doesn’t it?”

  “She will get a place of her own pretty soon,” Colin replied, which might or might not have been a non sequitur. “We’ll all be happier once she does, too. She’s okay in small doses—and she’ll decide we’re okay in small doses, too.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kelly said once more.

  He shrugged. “Nothing to be done about it. Yeah, she’s prickly. But she’s honest as the day is long. I don’t have to worry that Mike’s getting ready to come after her the way I’m going after Darren.”

  “That’s so,” Kelly said, which was as much praise as she felt like giving Vanessa just then. She changed the subject, or at any rate deflected it a little: “What will Mike do after you grab his son?”

  “I’m not looking forward to that.” By the way Colin set his jaw, he really wasn’t looking forward to it. He went on, “When Darren got in trouble before, Mike always dickered it down to a misdemeanor. Five gets you ten he tries it again. But I don’t care how hard he tries. Not a chance in church the DA will play along, not this time.”

  “Can he stay chief if his son gets arrested for something like this?” Kelly asked. Under that question lay another one, one she left unspoken. If he does have to step down, will they offer you the job? Will you want it if they do?

  “I don’t know. I don’t think there’s any rule that would make him quit, but it wouldn’t be easy for him to go on like nothing was wrong.” Colin also heard the underlying question, which surprised Kelly very little. He went on, “If he does resign, I wouldn’t take the slot on a bet. No way, not after I went and knocked him off his perch. Besides, I don’t want it any more.”

  He’d told Kelly the same thing before, and more than once. But when he’d told her before, he’d had about as much chance of being elected Pope as of being named Chief of the San Atanasio PD. If Mike Pitcavage did have to resign now, in offspring-induced disgrace, the city council and the DA and the other people who ran San Atanasio might well want to put him in charge of the department for a while so he could straighten it out and get it back on its feet.

  And she could see how, with his strong sense of duty and responsibility, he’d be tempted to accept the job, at least as a caretaker. But his reasons for steering clear looked good to her. There was also one he hadn’t mentioned: “If they did name you chief, you’d start telling them to piss up a rope in about three days. Or if you didn’t, you’d want to so bad you’d explode like the supervolcano.”

  “I wouldn’t tell ’em to do that in three days.” Colin affected righteous indignation—brief righteous indignation. “I’d hold out for a week, easy. A week and a half, if everything went good.”

  Laughing and liking him very much in that moment, she gave him a hug. “Think so, do you?”

  “Darn right I do.” He laughed, too—again, though, not for long. “Mike, he can tell those people what they want to hear. What they need to hear, the way they need to hear it. That’s an art. Honest to God, it is. I’ve watched him do it, and I’ve watched him get what he needs ’cause he can do it. When I realized he could and I can’t—and you’re dead right; I can’t, not for beans—that was when I figured out I was barking up the wrong tree when I put in for chief to begin with.”

  “You’re fine the way you are. Better than fine,” Kelly said. “I’d rather have you than somebody who pats me on the back so he can feel where the best place to stick the knife is.”

  “Well, I’m glad you think so. Not everybody does—you don’t believe me, all you’ve got to do is ask Louise.” Colin let out another sharp, short chuckle. “And I make a pretty fair cop, if I do say so myself. But if you’re gonna be chief, you have to know how to handle all the political stuff. I can’t, and Mike Pitcavage can. If he’s got to step down on account of his rotten kid, they’d better pick somebody a lot like him to take his place.”

  Kelly listened hard. She couldn’t hear any rancor or bitterness. She thought she would have if they were there. Colin could hold things in, but only by keeping quiet about them. When he did talk, he meant what he said.

  “I am sorry I had the row with Vanessa,” Kelly said. Unlike her husband, she wasn’t altogether blind to the power of positive hypocrisy. “I wish it hadn’t happened.” That much was true. The rest? Maybe not quite.

  “If she wants to give you a hard time, that’s between her and you. Meeting my new wife and getting along with her, it can’t be easy for a grown kid,” Colin said.

  “Marshall hasn’t had any trouble I’ve seen,” Kelly said tartly.

  “Marshall’s Marshall. He doesn’t get himself in an uproar about stuff. Vanessa . . . does. She’ll go to war over commas. Makes her a darn good editor. Makes her kind of a pain, too. And she’s a woman, and so are you.” Colin set a fond hand on the curve of her hip. But then he said, “That’s not where I was going with this.”

  “Where were you going, then?” Kelly asked.

  “If she gives you a hard time, that’s her business, hers and yours,” Colin said. “But if she gives a little tiny baby a hard time, that’s a whole different ball game. That’s being mean for the sake of being mean. She knew what she was doing when she slammed the front door, all right. I called her on it, too. She didn’t like that very much.”

  He hadn’t raised his voice. Kelly would have heard if he had. No, Vanessa was the one who’d started yelling. But Colin didn’t need to make a lot of noise to get his message across. Kelly’d known that as long as she’d known him. Vanessa wouldn’t have cared for his opinion, even delivered quietly.

  “As long as it happens just the once, I’ll forget about it,” Kelly said.

  “Sounds about right.” There, Colin’s agreement seemed reluctant. He went on, “Since she has landed a job, she will want a place of her own. She’ll want one, and she’ll get one.” And if she had some not-so-discreet encouragement from her father to speed her on her way, that wouldn’t bother Kelly a bit. Not even half a bit, Kelly thought as she started fixing dinner.

  * * *

&nb
sp; Dick Barber eyed Rob in mock reproach as they came up to the Episcopal church. Snow swirled through the air. It was one of the months with a vowel in it, so of course snow swirled. “The things some people will do to get out of climbing a ladder every time they want to go to bed,” Barber said.

  “Don’t listen to him, Rob,” Justin Nachman said. “Now that you’re officially moving out of the tower, I’m gonna sublet it. I’ll be rich, man. Rich! He chortled unwholesomely and rubbed his mittened hands together in gloating anticipation a ham Shylock would have envied.

  “I wasn’t listening to him. You don’t need to worry about that,” Rob answered. “Of course, I wasn’t listening to you, either.”

  “Hey, there you go,” Charlie Storer said. “Equal-opportunity discrimination.”

  Rob waited for the next smart-ass crack to come from Biff Thorvald. But Biff was less into them than his bandmates and the proprietor of the Trebor Mansion Inn. And he had more distractions. He was making sure his little son, Walter, didn’t trip on the rough sidewalk. He was also shepherding Cindy along. His wife’s belly bulged again. That made her balance less sure, but she at least knew enough to be careful. Walter wanted to go running all over creation. It wasn’t as if he even walked very well, because he didn’t. Toddlers always wanted to do more than they possibly could, though.

  And this makes them different from other people how? Rob wondered.

  Others going into the church waved to him and called congratulations. Some were people he knew in Guilford. Others—more—taught or worked at Piscataquis Community Secondary School with Lindsey.

  “When was the last time you were in a church and it wasn’t for a town meeting or something like that?” Barber asked.

  “Oh, wow.” Rob had to think about it. Like most of his family, he thought freedom of religion implied freedom from religion. Mom drifted from one New Age almost-faith to another, but Rob, like his father and sister and brother, pretty much did without. Then a memory came back. “My senior year in college, I went to a wedding at an old mission north of Santa Barbara. Don’t jinx me—that one didn’t last.”

  “This isn’t a church wedding, anyway, even if it’s in a church,” Charlie said.

  That was also true. They went into the church. Standing up at the front, instead of a minister in his clerical vestments, was Jim Farrell in his decidedly secular ones. The fedora and fur-trimmed topcoat set him apart from the crowd at least as well as a white dog collar would have.

  The wedding was the event of the winter social season: from lack of competition, as Rob knew perfectly well. Lindsey’s mother had come over from Dover-Foxcroft to attend. Her father had come down from Greenville—even farther—with his girlfriend. Said girlfriend was a smashing brunette, and was about Lindsey’s age. Whether she’d caused the breakup between Lindsey’s folk or come along afterwards, Rob didn’t know. Maybe I’ll get the chance to ask later on, he thought. For the moment, the atmosphere was what the diplomats called correct. With luck, it would stay that way.

  Having winter guests in Guilford from such distant towns (Dover-Foxcroft was ten or fifteen miles away, Greenville about twenty-five) brought home to Rob how tightly his mental horizon had contracted since he came here. Guilford and its immediate environs were all that concerned him from day to day. News from other places north and west of the Interstate trickled in every so often. It was well out of date by the time it did. He cared no more than the people whose families had lived here for generations. When it did trickle in, it was news to him. What else mattered?

  When most of the snow melted and the roads cleared during Maine’s short stretch of alleged summer, news from the great big wide world came in along with canned goods, sacks of flour, gasoline, condoms, and other vital supplies. Once upon a time, Rob had been a news junkie. Now? Hey, it was a long way away and it had happened a while ago. He couldn’t do anything about it. So why get excited?

  For this performance, Dick Barber was playing the role of his father—nowhere near the worst casting in the world. Justin was his best man, Charlie and Biff his groomsmen. Lindsey’s principal, who looked like a pit bull with gold-framed glasses but actually seemed pretty nice, did duty as the matron of honor. Her bridesmaids were a couple of teachers. She’d told Rob her dad’s new arm candy had tried to volunteer for one of those slots, but was more or less politely discouraged.

  Next thing Rob knew, he was standing in front of Farrell. He couldn’t quite recall how he’d crossed the intervening space. Teleportation seemed unlikely, but he couldn’t rule it out. Lindsey stood beside him, so everything else receded into the background. Her dress was white, if not exactly a wedding gown. He’d borrowed a blue blazer and tie from Dick Barber. Weddings, funerals, and gunpoint—yes, this was one of the happier reasons to don a tie.

  Jim Farrell beamed at the two of them. “I have the honor to be standing in this place by virtue of authority invested in me as the law west of the Pecos—or at least west and north of I-95. If I say you’re married, you’re as married as you’re ever going to be in these parts. Have you got that?”

  Rob managed a nod. Next to him, Lindsey did, too. Her eyes sparkled. Rob doubted he would have got on with her so well if she didn’t think Jim was one of the funnier critters on two legs.

  “Along with marrying you, I’m supposed to stuff you with good advice like force-fed geese,” Farrell went on. “That’s a hot one, isn’t it? I never tied the knot myself, and I stopped caring about the amusement value of the fair sex a few years ago. So you’re thinking, Well, what the devil does he know? We might as well be at a town meeting, hey?”

  This time, Rob didn’t nod, but he came close. Laughs and chuckles rippled through the pews.

  “But I am an escaped—excuse me, a retired—historian, so I may possibly have learned a little something. Possibly,” Jim Farrell said. “People do seem to get along better when they’re willing to put up with each other’s foibles. If you’re convinced you have The One Right Answer”—Rob heard the capital letters thump into place—“good luck with the rest of the human race. If you think you’re going to impose it on everybody else No Matter What”—more loud caps—“even good luck won’t help.”

  “Amen,” Dick Barber said quietly: pious agreement to a secular thought.

  “Oh!” Farrell raised a gloved forefinger, as if at an afterthought he liked. “People have been screwing each other for as long as there’ve been people. You should probably do some of that, too.”

  More laughter came from the audience. Rob had all he could do not to snicker out loud. Lindsey did squeak.

  “You can laugh, but you can’t hide,” Farrell said with mock severity. “Since you aren’t even trying, you must want to go through with this. Rob, do you take Lindsey as your wife for richer and poorer, in sickness and in health, and for as long as you both shall live?” He might have been thinking or until one of you reaches for a lawyer, but he didn’t say it.

  “I do,” Rob answered. Official it was, yes.

  “Lindsey, do you likewise and likewise, respectively, and for just as long?”

  “I do,” she said. Yes, it was very official.

  “Then I do, too—pronounce you man and wife, that is,” Farrell said. “Mr. Ferguson, you may kiss Mrs. Ferguson.”

  Rob did. Lindsey still hadn’t decided whether she’d take his last name or keep Kincaid. Rob wasn’t about to commit litcrit, though. He’d got a ring on a trip of his own to Dover-Foxcroft. He slipped it onto Lindsey’s finger. That was another way to make things official. And there was one more, but that would have to wait till after the reception.

  Moose meat. Roast goose. Stewed squirrel. A home-smoked ham. Potatoes. Parsnips. Pickled mushrooms. Sauerkraut. Moonshine vodka and applejack. Store-bought whiskey somebody’d been saving for a snowy day.

  Squirt Frog and the Evolving Tadpoles provided the dance music, with a loc
al kid filling in for Rob. The kid wasn’t terrible, but Rob didn’t think he needed to worry about getting booted out of the band. On the dance floor, he was no threat to the ghosts of Michael Jackson and Fred Astaire. He didn’t worry about that, either.

  The reception was a success. Everyone had plenty to eat. Nobody punched anybody else. No one groped Lindsey’s dad’s hot girlfriend (or if anyone did, she didn’t squawk about it). What more could you want?

  Jim Farrell laid on his sleigh to take the newlyweds back to Lindsey’s apartment. “How about that?” Rob said as she unlocked the door. “We’re really married.” He picked her up and carried her over the threshold.

  “Darn right we are,” she agreed. “And what do you propose to do about it, Mister?”

  “I already proposed,” he pointed out. “Why don’t we go back to the bedroom, huh? I expect I’ll think of something.” They did, and he did.

  XXI

  Louise Ferguson hadn’t heard from her eldest son more than a handful of times since the supervolcano erupted. He seemed content to stay up there in Maine. That struck her as somewhere along the range between masochism and madness, but it was his life.

  The postcard she found in her mailbox today bore a picture of the business end of a mosquito silhouetted against the sun. Beneath it was the legend THE STATE BIRD OF MAINE. She grunted laughter. That was the kind of thing he’d send, all right. She would have recognized the style even if she hadn’t recognized the spiky script on the back.

  By the time you read this, I’ll be a married man, he wrote. Her name is Lindsey Kincaid. She teaches at the high school in town. So maybe one of these days you’ll have grandkids running around under the snow here. Say hello to anyone you happen to run into.—Rob.

  From the postmark, the card had taken almost three weeks to cross the country. The USPS was one more outfit that had been in big trouble even before the supervolcano erupted. Trying to cope with all the insanity since the eruption hadn’t made it run better, or more efficiently. What could you do? The postcard had eventually got here.