Grantville Gazette Volume 25

by editor Paula Goodlett

  Press nodded. That made sense. "How much fulminate of mercury are we talking about?"

  "Your people found empty containers for enough mercury to make over fifty pounds."

  "That much?" Press wasn't really questioning Celeste's estimate. It was more of an expression of horror. He took another look at the devastation. It looked worse in the light of day. He could believe it was that much.

  * * *

  Erika had spent part of the morning trying to locate her friends. Nobody had seen them and she feared the worst. She had Pluto with her now—for all his size he usually made a useful ice-breaker. She knocked on the door to Anna Leah Robinson's house.

  There was the sound of somebody with a walking stick approaching the door, and then it opened to reveal a small-framed white-haired woman. Pluto was the first to react. He advanced, butting her gently with his head until she started to scratch just behind his ear.

  "Frau Robinson?" Erika asked.

  "Yes, dear." Anna Leah gestured down at Pluto. "And who is this?"

  Erika grinned. Her dog was going to earn his keep today. "Pluto, shake."

  Pluto sat and lifted his right paw for Frau Robinson to shake.

  "Oh, isn't that sweet. Pluto you say? That's a funny name for such a handsome dog. What is he, some kind of German Shepherd?"

  Erika smiled kindly at Frau Robinson. Most people seeing Pluto tended to compare him to a wolf, but her betrothed, who had given her Pluto as a pup, claimed any wolf in his ancestry was at least two generations back. "Yes, some kind. Now, Frau Robinson, if it's convenient, I'd like to ask some questions about last night."

  "Well, don't stand out in the cold. Come on inside."

  "Stay," Erika told Pluto before bending to remove her boots.

  "Oh, let the poor thing come inside where it's warm."

  Erika didn't need to gesture to Pluto. He was already making up to Anna Leah. She followed the pair into the front room. Pluto made straight for the open fire and flopped down in front of it as if he belonged there. Anna Leah settled into an armchair beside a window with a commanding view of the road outside while Erika pulled out her notebook and sat down opposite her.

  "About last night. Did you notice anybody coming or going from the property last night?" Erika asked.

  "Not last night. They built a log cabin just by the creek and usually stayed there."

  Erika grimaced. It was sounding more and more likely that her friends were dead. "We're trying to establish how many people might be missing, and who they are. Did you know any of the people working there?"

  "I'm sorry, dear, but I don't get out much these days. I've only seen them as they walk past and my eyes aren't what they were. They were mostly down-timers. That much I'm sure of."

  "Mostly? And how can you be sure?"

  "It's the clothes. Not many down-timers wear black T-shirts and blue jeans."

  "Can you describe the people in the up-timer clothes?"

  Anna Leah shook her head. "I only saw them the once and I didn't get a really good look. There were two of them. Both of them with beards and enough beer-belly to do a woman nine months pregnant with twins proud."

  Erika noticed Anna Leah's hesitant glance towards a pair of binoculars beside her armchair. "Is there anything more you can add? What about a logo or slogan on the T-shirt?"

  Anna Leah touched the pair of binoculars. "I'm always nodding off in my chair these days. I think one of them had 'Support the' above what might have been a female on the front of his T-shirt. I couldn't read the rest."

  "Can you give me an idea of the number of people who might have been living in the cabin, and were they males or females?"

  "About six all told. Four males and two females, and all but two of the men were dressed like down-timers. I'm sorry I can't be more help."

  Erika closed her notebook and put it away. "You've been of considerable assistance, Frau Robinson. If you remember anything that might help, anything at all, please get in touch." She passed Anna Leah one of her cards and got to her feet. "There's no need for you to get up. We can find our own way out. Pluto, come."

  Anna Leah ignored Erika and pulled herself out of her armchair, reaching out a hand to rub Pluto's ears. "Such a sweet dog. It must be nice having him around the house."

  Erika grinned. "The trouble is he eats us out of house and home."

  Meanwhile

  Ape Hart knocked and walked into his brother's house. "Monkey, you around?"

  "He's in the workshop, Ape," Monkey's wife called back.

  "Thanks, Cora Lee." Ape headed for the shed where Monkey had his workshop.

  "Monkey, you seen the . . ." Then he saw his brother sitting dejectedly with the paper laid out in front of him. "You've seen it."

  "Yeah. No known survivors. And the police wanting to question anybody who might be able to identify the people involved. What the hell are we going to do?"

  Ape grabbed a chair and sat down. "Nothing. We didn't do anything wrong. The silly bastards must have made up all the mercury in one batch. We sure as hell didn't tell them to do that."

  "Yeah, but four people dead."

  "They're only down-timers, plenty more where they came from. Meanwhile we're out nearly five grand that we can't afford."

  "You're sick. They were human beings."

  "Yeah. Well, they're dead human beings because they didn't do what we told them. And if I don't start repaying the money I borrowed from Wilda soon, I'll be joining them."

  "We could always get a job," Monkey suggested.

  Next day

  The Grantville Police Chief, Dan Frost, looked up from the report he was reading. Dropping it to his desk he pushed his chair away from the desk so he could stretch out. "I think I know who Anna Leah saw."

  "From just the description she gave?" Erika asked.

  Dan grinned. Anna Leah's description was a little lacking in specificities. "I think she saw the Hart brothers. They fit the basic physical profile, and I've seen Monkey in a black sleeveless T-shirt that fits the description. We also know they've been selling percussion caps."

  "So what do we do now? Haul them in for questioning?"

  Dan shook his head. "No. We don't have any reason to."

  "No reason? But they were responsible for the deaths of four people on Salt Lick Run."

  Dan leaned over his desk and placed a hand over one of Erika's. "No, they weren't. Look, Erika, I know two of the dead were friends of yours, but even if the Harts were running the plant, the evidence is that stupidity caused their deaths. Whatever anybody wants to say about the Harts, nobody would call them stupid, at least not stupid enough to make up and store fifty pounds of fulminate of mercury."

  "So we do nothing?"

  "I didn't say that. I intend sending Neubert and Tipton to ask if they know anything about the accident. Not that there's anything we can do even if they admit being involved—it's not illegal to make percussion caps—but Neubert and Tipton will enjoy annoying Ape and Monkey."

  The Employment office, Grantville

  Ape watched Kathryn Riddle pull an index card out of her box and read it. She flicked her eyes between him and his brother and shook her head. "What's that job?" he asked.

  Kathryn looked back down at the card in her hand. "Someone is looking for German speaking up-timers to help supervise the introduction of new technology in his factory. But you don't speak German, so that rules that out."

  "We do too speak German," Ape protested.

  "Not well enough though, Ape." Kathryn put the index card she was holding back where it belonged and continued searching. Pulling out a card every now and again and reading it, before shaking her head and putting it back. "The trouble is, you don't have any qualifications. You both dropped out of high school and have been scraping by doing, well . . ." She looked both Ape and Monkey in the eyes. ". . . who knows what."

  "We was making hooch," Ape answered. "The best hooch in the district, it was."

  "Unfortunately, while there is demand for
people who know about distilling, most companies in that field require that their employees speak the language of the company, and more and more, that language is German," Kathryn said.

  "So what do you have that we can do, Kathryn? We both need work," Monkey asked.

  "Well, your lack of German and your poor education means you're best suited to laboring jobs, and quite frankly, there are plenty of young, fit down-timers competing for those jobs. That leaves . . ." Kathryn passed over the last index card she had pulled out of her file.

  "Street sweeping?" Ape looked up from the card in his hands. "Pooper scooping for horses? I thought that was a punishment detail?"

  "It was, and still is, but the courts don't always sentence enough people to cope with the problem, so there are paid positions available for 'street sweeping.'"

  Ape passed the card over to his brother. "Is that all there is?"

  "I'm afraid so." Kathryn shrugged. "If you'd made an effort to learn German I could probably find you something better, but for now, that's all I have to offer."

  "When can we start?" Monkey asked.

  Ape glared at his brother. "Start? Are you seriously thinking of taking the job?"

  Monkey nodded. "If it's all that Kathryn has to offer, sure."

  "It is, and I suggest you both find time to take German lessons if you want to improve your employment prospects," Kathryn said.

  September 1633

  Rodney Jessup waved a finger under Ape's nose as he spoke. "And this time, don't let your workers screw everything up, understand?"

  "Sure, Rod, we won't leave all the mercury and stuff where the dumb krauts can get it this time. Instead we'll only give them enough for a few batches at a time."

  "And I want you to do more than just go round once a week to collect the week's production and give them their share of the previous weeks sales," Rodney said.

  "Hey, the krauts don't like me and Monkey sniffing around all the time." Ape thumped his chest. "They don't like being around real Americans."

  Rodney snorted his disbelief. "Yeah, sure. Well just keep a better eye on your workers this time. I lost a lot of money when your last bunch blew themselves up."

  "We will, Rod. We will," Ape promised.

  December 27, 1633

  There were eleven down-timers in the barn that represented the Hart brothers' latest primer and percussion cap factory. Last week they'd had twelve employees, but just before Christmas one of them, they'd nicknamed him Pickles because his real name was Heinz Green, blew himself up when he fell on a batch of fulminate of mercury he was stealing. That should still have left eleven eager krauts pumping out primers and percussion caps. Except they weren't working, they were packing in preparation to leaving.

  "What the do you mean, you quit? You can't quit. We've got contracts to fill." Ape glanced over at his brother, Monkey, who looked just as stunned.

  Georg Schrapel shook his head. "You have contracts to fill, Herr Hart. We were only employees, and we have decided to take our highly marketable skills elsewhere."

  "What highly marketable skills?" Ape demanded. "All you have is the ability to follow simple instructions."

  Georg nodded. "And all without blowing ourselves up. Rohrbacher Pharmaceuticals are most impressed."

  "Who the hell are Rohrbacher Pharmaceuticals?" Monkey demanded. "I haven't heard of any company by that name making percussion caps and primers?"

  "That would be because they are a family of apothecaries who have a facility to extract drugs from plants in Saalfeld and are not into anything so dangerous as fulminate of mercury. We were informed that they were looking for suitable staff," Georg answered.

  "You expect us to believe some pokey little family firm of apothecaries needs eleven new workers?"

  "Of course not, Herr Hart. They only have places for half our number. No, the rest of us have decided to go out on our own and produce primers and percussion caps," Georg said.

  Ape clenched his fists. "You little bastard. I ought to push your fucking face in."

  "That would of course be assault, and I would be forced to make a complaint to the police." Georg smiled.

  Ape ground his teeth. The bastard was asking for it, but he couldn't afford any more trouble with the police just then, not with Pickles dying suspiciously . . . just a minute. Who the fuck would want to screw around with their workers? Then he had it. That kraut police officer investigating Pickle's death. . . "Fucking Officer Neubert put you up to this, didn't he?"

  Ape didn't bother waiting for a response. For some reason the kraut cop had it in for him and Monkey. Talking their work force into quitting would be just like the kraut bastard. Certainly he couldn't think of anybody else who might have it in for them. "If you quit now we aren't going to pay you anything for the last lot of primers and percussion caps."

  "That was expected, Herr Hart. Consider it payment in lieu of notice."

  * * *

  Monkey looked around the now empty barn. "What the hell are we going to do now?'

  "At least everything is clean and ready for the next batch, except there isn't a next batch. We're going to have to get ourselves another bunch of krauts, and we're going to have to get them quick. We still have to fill those orders from Santee and Johnson."

  "Yeah, but the new krauts are going to take time to get up to speed."

  Ape spat on the floor. "Bastards. They could at least have waited 'til after we finished the orders for Santee and Johnson. There's only one way we can fill those orders on time."

  "You mean make them ourselves? We'll never do it," Monkey said.

  "Of course, we'd never do it. No, the only way to fill Santee and Johnson's orders is to buy from one of the other producers."

  "We'll lose money if we do that."

  "Sure. And what do you think Santee or Johnson will do if we don't fill our contracts with them? Either of them'd be happy to sue the shirts off our backs."

  January 1634

  Boom.

  Monkey fell backwards at the explosion. Fortunately it was just a small explosion as he'd been working with less than a gram of fulminate of mercury. "Shit, that's it. I've had enough. This stuff is too damned dangerous. I say we quit this shit."

  Ape looked over from where he was loading primers. "It would have been okay if we could have got some krauts to do the work—who cares if they blow themselves up? You got any idea why we haven't been able to get new staff?"

  "I bet it's fucking Officer Neubert again. The krauts always stick together. He's probably put out the word that nobody should work with us."

  "Well, what are we going to do? I don't know about you, but buying those primers and percussion caps to fill Santee and Johnson's orders wiped me out."

  "Me too. I guess it's back to the old standby."

  "Ah, shit. Not clearing the streets after the horses again? It's freezing outside."

  "You got a better idea?" Monkey asked.

  "How about asking Jessup if he knows of anything?'

  "We were lucky Jessup was willing to help set up this operation after the fiasco on Salt Lick Run. He sure ain't gonna help us out if we screw up again."

  "Salt Lick Run wasn't our fault. How were we to know the fools would stockpile the stuff? We told them it was dangerous often enough."

  "Maybe, but I sure bet he'll think having all our trained workers walk out was our fault," Monkey said

  "It's not our fault Officer Neubert has it in for us," Ape protested.

  Two weeks later

  Monkey swept the pile of horse droppings onto the shovel his brother was holding. "Jessup sent a letter."

  Ape looked up hopefully. "He's got us a new job?"

  "Tom Frost at Brennerei und Chemiefabrik Schwarza has worked out how to make an explosive called RDX and they're set up a factory to make it. Jessup says Garland Alcom and Dennis Stull are involved. If we're interested he thinks there might be a place for us in the new factory."

  "Are we interested? You bet we are."

  Monkey
nodded. "Yeah, that's what I thought. I've already sent a telegram."

  March 1634, the explosives factory, Schwarza Industrial Zone

  The four men had been playing for two hours when they heard the door open.

  "And this is where . . . whoops, sorry guys, but Miss Siebenhorn wanted to be shown around."

  Ape carefully placed his cards face down on the table and turned round. He noticed the smug look on Carl fucking Duvall's face and started to worry. There'd been rumors that somebody was going to replace the absent Garland as manager of the explosives factory. "Who the hell is Miss Siebenhorn?"

  "I am."

  Ape studied the young woman pushing her way past Carl. He didn't recognize her, which meant she was a down-timer, and with a name like Siebenhorn, definitely a kraut. Ape didn't like krauts. Krauts were the cause of all of him and his brother's financial troubles. He just hoped she wasn't going to cause them any more trouble.

  "As neither Garland Alcom nor Dennis Stull are available to handle the day to day management of this factory Brennerei und Chemiefabrik Schwarza have appointed me as the new manager," Maria Anna announced.

  Ape barely managed to hold back a groan. The krauts had installed one of their own to manage the company. Why hadn't they installed an American as manager? What the hell made them think this kid knew how to run the company? He and Monkey were going to have to keep an eye on the girl. They couldn't afford for this company to fail, it was the only decent job they were likely to get.

  * * *

  "You'll want to be careful around the Harts. They're a couple of redneck dinosaurs and regulars at 250 Club," Carl Duvall informed Maria Anna as they walked away from the stockroom.

  "And they don't like down-timers," Maria Anna said.

  Carl snorted. "They like down-timers fine, just as long as they aren't . . . Germans."

  "No need to be polite, Carl. You mean they don't like 'krauts.'"

  "Yeah, well. No, they don't like 'krauts.' But they are good workers," Carl continued. "Don't take any notice of the fact they were playing cards. They do that whenever they have a break."