The Crimson Sky

by Joel Rosenberg

  “Good. Dinner tomorrow?”

  “It’s Wednesday,” he said, agreeing. Jeff liked the regularity. There was Wednesday supper at the Aarsteds; Sunday dinner with his parents, right after church. The first Monday after the first Tuesday of every month was the official town council meeting, followed by the unofficial bull session over at the Dine-a-mite. Women’s Club on alternate Thursdays, which gave Kathy more time with her mom and sisters, and Scouts every Friday.

  You tended to count your life with ticks of regularity in Hardwood, and while that wasn’t for everybody, it suited Jeff Bjerke just fine.

  “Am I the last?”

  Minnie didn’t look up. “Michael’s late, but I don’t think we should wait.” She glanced up at the ceiling, as though she could see through it. It wouldn’t have entirely surprised Jeff if she could; back when she was his second-grade teacher, she had apparently had eyes in the back of her head.

  “Let’s begin,” she said, her voice carrying.

  Doc Sherve and Thorian Thorsen trooped in from the kitchen, Dave Oppegaard trailing. For once, Thorsen seemed uncomfortable; he stood, uneasily, next to the fireplace, as though he felt like he didn’t belong.

  Well, normally he didn’t.

  “Okay.” Doc Sherve set his coffee cup down in his usual spot next to the outflow. “Unless anybody’s got something I don’t know about, we’ve got five major items on the agenda tonight.”

  “Five,” Minnie nodded.

  “Well, do we take the obvious problem first, or last?” Aarsted asked, jerking a thumb toward the ceiling.

  “Last,” Dave Oppegaard said. “I’d be uncomfortable deciding on that without Michael.”

  Aarsted nodded, and took a last long swig from his coffee mug before setting it down, empty, on the coaster. He sat back and folded his hands over his ample belly. “Okay. Let’s take the Peterson boy first.”

  Jeff nodded in agreement. “Yeah, we’re going to have to do something, although I’m not sure what.”

  Doc Sherve’s forehead wrinkled. “Which Peterson boy, and what’s been happening?”

  “Well…” the clicking of Minnie’s knitting needles slowed. “… it’s David Peterson, Brian and Etta’s son, and he—”

  “I thought he was at Macalester.”

  “Nope. He decided to go to Hoople instead.” Jeff shook his head. Idiot. Macalester had offered him Early Decision, and he went to Hoople.

  Minnie’s mouth set itself in a straight line. “Barbara Ericson went to Hoople, as well.”

  “Yeah.” You could only do so much to save somebody from his own stupidity. David had followed his girlfriend, and predictably, she had dumped him for an upperclass-man—or, to hear the gossip, several upperclassmen—within the first couple of weeks. What hadn’t been predictable was the depth of the tailspin he’d gone into.

  “Well, I got a call from an old classmate of mine,” Jeff said.

  “You don’t have old classmates, Jeff—you only graduated two years ago—”

  “—who is now working Security, while he goes for his MSW.”

  “Really?” Doc grinned. “A cop-turned-social worker? I like it.”

  “Shhh.” Minnie Hansen glared him to silence. “Go on, Jeff, please.”

  “Well, David’s pretty well screwed himself up there. Got into a few fights—and got the shit kicked out of him in each and every one—and then flunked all his midterms, and didn’t say a word to Brian or Etta about it.”

  This was the sort of thing that should be handled by the Petersons themselves—if they had two clues to rub together.

  But they didn’t. Assholes—they had always been more concerned with appearances than anything else. House always immaculate, kids always clean and well-dressed, schoolwork always in on time and never talk about problems with outsiders. Much better to cover over problems, and let them hide and fester in the dark?

  No.

  “Well, hell,” Bob Aarsted said, “I don’t see what the big deal is.” He shrugged. “All he has to do is drop out before final exams, and come home. No grades, good or bad. Now, he probably can’t get into Macalester this year, but next fall shouldn’t be a problem—not with his SATs.”

  “You know what his SATs are?” Minnie Hansen raised an eyebrow. “Is this a special case, or do you try to memorize them all?”

  “I am on the school board, after all, but no, I don’t know the SATs of every kid in town—but I do go over the scores, and we don’t get a lot of 1480s.”

  Thorian Thorsen did his best not to look smug as he stood, silently waiting. Torrie had done even better than that, and while Thorsen probably never did quite understand what the SATs were all about—although Jeff would have bet heavily that he knew what the numbers were—Thorsen did understand competition and winning better than most.

  “The problem,” Doc said, patiently, “is going to be with his parents. ‘Uff dah! Oh, for shame, oh for disgraceful.’ ” He put the back of his hand to his forehead. “ ‘My son and heir has dropped out of school; surely the world will now end.’ ” Doc spread his hands. “I wouldn’t put it past Brian to kick him out of the house.”

  “Yeah.” Jeff sighed. “Throwaway kids are supposed to be a city problem.”

  “They are a city problem,” Minnie Hansen sniffed. “And a city problem they’ll remain. We, no, I won’t have that, not here.” Her voice was level, but she had put down her knitting, and her hands were clenched, knuckles white, in her lap.

  “Well, of course not.” Bob Aarsted shook his head. “But easier said than done, that is.” He raised a hand to forestall an objection. “Still, yes, I know, everything is easier said than done, we’ve fostered kids before, and we can do it again. Sandy and Sven have a bit of an empty nest right now, and Sven can use another hand on the farm.”

  “Over the winter?”

  “Sure.” Aarsted nodded. “Wouldn’t cost that much more to pay David to take care of the place and let him live there than it does to board the animals over at the Quists. And Sven’s pretty much back on his feet since the harvest—had a good year, for once.”

  “He paid up?”

  “Almost.” Aarsted nodded. “With any luck he’ll be clear by this time next year.”

  And the chances of him saying no to Bob—who had bullied the Hardwood S&L board to approve the loan that had saved Sven’s farm four years before—were minimal.

  That would be good. Sandy‘s parents had given them their usual Christmas present of tickets down for a month-long Florida vacation, and Jeff liked having farmhouses occupied. In town, it wasn’t a problem, but unoccupied farmhouses had a tendency to draw trouble, and it wasn’t just embarrassing but downright maddening when one of his people came home to a ransacked house, and worse if he couldn’t identify the culprits—that would leave everybody a suspect, on one level or another.

  “But how’s Brian going to take that?” Aarsted shook his head. “Not well,” he said, answering his own question. A big sigh came out with a whoosh.

  Dave Oppegaard nodded. “I’ve always thought he’d be a better father—and a better Christian, for that matter—without that broom stuck up his ass.” His eyes twinkled for a moment. Dave liked shocking people every now and then with a bit of coarse language. “Sounds like we need a sermon on the family this Sunday. Prodigal son and all that.”

  “You think that will do it?” Doc Sherve said, his tone and eyebrows making very clear that he didn’t think that could possibly do it.

  “No, I don’t.” Oppegaard puffed his pipe back to life. “On the other hand, if the church is packed, pews to rafters, and if everybody gives me something just this side of a standing ovation when I reach the crescendo, and when somebody points out to Brian Peterson that about half his accounting business is barely restraining itself from standing and clapping—well. I think he’ll accept a word to the wise.”

  “And if not?”

  Minnie Hansen had picked up her needles again. “And, if not,” she said, her voice thin and icy
, “he will lose all his local business, and he will move away, and be an object lesson to anybody else who forgets that we take care of our own.” Her expression was unreadable. “And that would be a great disservice to Etta and the girls, as well as David, so you men had better be sure he listens.” Her eyes rested on Jeff’s.

  Jeff nodded. Understood, Minnie.

  She eyed Dave Oppegaard steadily. “And it hasn’t escaped these ancient ears that, once again, your solution to a problem involved a church packed—floorboards to rafters, is that the phrase?—to hear you speak.”

  Oppegaard nibbled at his coffee cake. “Guilty as charged. Let’s move on.”

  From the Peterson problem, they moved to the school bond issue, and then the ongoing difficulties with the Sven-son clan, and Jeff found his mind wandering until Doc Sherve jerked his thumb toward the ceiling.

  “We’ve got two sleeping up there. One’s Ian Silverstein; he’s just got a wrenched shoulder, and he’s sleeping off some Demerol. The other,” Sherve said, with a shake of his head, “well, the other is what Thorian says is a vestri, Ian calls a dwarf, and I think looks like a Neanderthal. It—he came out of the same damn hole the Sons popped up out of.”

  “Who has seen this Neanderthal, this … vestri?” Minnie asked.

  “Well, I have, if you’ve any doubts.” Sherve’s mouth twitched.

  “That was not what I meant, Robert.”

  Sherve accepted her correction—it was as close to an apology as he would get—with a nod. “So far, not a lot of folks. Me, the Thorsens, Ian, Donna, and Martha. But—”

  Minnie interrupted him with a sniff. “I don’t see that as a serious problem; a closer-mouthed bunch it would be rather hard to find.”

  “But, as I was saying before I was interrupted, during the two minutes it took to get him from the examining room and into my car, that was the time that Orphie Hansen had to wake up and stagger out into the hall.” He spread his hands. “Donna hurried him back into his room, and I don’t think he noticed anything, but…”

  Minnie cocked her head to one side. “So why bring the vestri here? Why not just call Grand Forks General, and have them send out an ambulance? It’s not like he’s one of our people. I’d like to be able to stand guard over the whole wide world, but we can’t. We’re…just a small town, trying to keep its business to itself.”

  Aarsted nodded. “I don’t see the problem, not really. Maybe he got shoved out of a car on the county road. Nobody saw the license plate.” He spread his hands. “You told me he doesn’t even speak English.”

  “No,” Dave Oppegaard said, shaking his head. “Bob told you that he doesn’t appear to speak English.”

  Thorian Thorsen shifted uneasily on his feet, but Reverend Oppegaard and Doc Sherve and Minnie Hansen were so involved in the friendly bickering that flowed around them constantly that they didn’t notice.

  “Excuse me. I think Thorian has something he wants to say,” Jeff said.

  “Well, then, speak up, Thorian,” Minnie Hansen said. “Don’t just stand there with your mouth open; if you have something to say, well then, say it.”

  “He—Valin is his name. Valin, son of Durin, he claims to be.”

  “That means something?”

  Thorsen pursed his mouth—a thoughtful expression, fairly rare for Thorian Thorsen—and then furrowed his brow. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Both of those are very old names; the Folk always have more than a few Valins and Dvalins and Durins in every family and clan, in each generation. But when Thorian and Maggie and I went in search of Ian and Hosea, we were helped by a vestri named Durin, who claimed a particularly ancient lineage. And this one says that his father had him sent through the Hidden Ways to warn me that Sons have again been sent after my blood.”

  “And this father? Does he owe you such a blood-debt?” Minnie asked.

  “No.” Thorsen shook his head. “He may think he does, but if he and his did owe me and mine, the debt was long ago paid, and paid doubly.” He looked from face to face. “But that does not obligate any of you.”

  “Stop talking nonsense,” Minnie said. “Of course it does. I don’t have to like it, but of course it does, as a matter of practicality, forgetting ethics for a moment.”

  Dave Oppegaard nodded. “And if it’s impractical to abandon this … vestri to the authorities, then we don’t need to concern ourselves with whether or not it’s permissible.”

  It was strange for a Lutheran minister to prefer to dismiss something on practical, rather than moral, grounds, but that was the way Dave was.

  He pulled the plastic tube back down from the Nutone wall panel with one hand as he fumbled for his pipe with the other; he had sat in that battered leather chair often enough that he didn’t have to look for the vacuum panel any more than he had to look for his pipe.

  Doc Sherve snorted. “Well, I’m glad of that,” he said. “Because I’d have an ethical problem with dumping one of my patients on a bunch of folks who wouldn’t have the slightest idea what to do with him.”

  “Oh?” Oppegaard raised an eyebrow as he puffed his pipe back to life. The Nutone sucked the smoke silently away into the wall. “And you do?”

  “Yeah.” Sherve nodded. “You know of any other physician who has treated any nonhumans?”‘

  “I do,” Minnie Hansen said. “Dr. MacMurtry, over in Hatton.”

  “Minnie.” Sherve looked at her over his glasses. “Minnie, he’s a veterinarian.”

  Bob Aarsted laughed. “Yeah, not one of those narrow specialists.”

  “Valin is closer to human than anything Mac’s treated, and he’s my patient. Ever hear of the Hippocratic oath?”

  “Yes, in fact, I have heard of it. But are you sure that applies to vestri?” Oppegaard puffed thoughtfully away for a moment, watching the smoke being sucked away down the tube, and away.

  “Shit. Dave, it applies to dogs, in spirit.”

  “But not in letter.” His eyes went vague for a moment. “ ‘Whatever I see or hear’—and here’s the part I like—‘in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret.’ ” Oppegaard nodded. “Father Olsen over in Hatton doesn’t have anything on you, eh?”

  “You left out a few words. But are you saying that we can and should throw that little man out into the cold just because he’s not human?”

  Oppegaard shook his head. “No, I’m saying nothing of the sort. What I am saying is that, as usual, we’ve got to figure out what it is that makes sense to do, and not just try to find some rule to apply to it.” He sighed. “Because when you go looking for rules, there’s always too damn many of them.” He raised a palm. “And I don’t particularly need to hear—again—how strange that is coming from a minister’s mouth.”

  Jeff Bjerke nodded. That was the trouble with the rest of the world—it had long since gone rules-happy.

  Jeff didn’t have anything against rules, not in themselves. But he didn’t sign on to this insanity everywhere else had gotten itself into, where the rules counted more than the substance.

  That wasn’t the way you did things, not in Hardwood. Taking care of your own wasn’t something you had to do because it was written in a rule book somewhere; it was something you did because you just had to, and if the rules got in the way of that, well, then, the rules be damned.

  That same Hippocratic oath would have prevented Doc from giving thirteen-year-old Lilly Norstedt an abortion, and the law would have required that he either get permission from her father—the man who had made her pregnant; her mother—the woman who had ignored what had been going on under her own roof; or find some judge who would more likely than not have made everything all public.

  But you took care of your own. And if that meant pretending to believe that Mel Norstedt had actually lost his balance and fallen into the swine pen while feeding the pigs, well, then you did that, too, and told the busybodies for the State Police that if they wanted to do a full autopsy, they would
have to start by slaughtering a dozen pigs, and besides, the deputy medical examiner had signed off on the death certificate anyway, and in case they didn’t know, Doc Sherve was a living legend in these parts …

  The clicking of Minnie Hansen’s needles stopped, and all eyes in the room turned toward her.

  Her lips curved in a rare smile, but she raised her coffee cup in answer to the silence, then took a sip.

  “Thorian,” she said, “we’re not disposed to throw anybody to these wolves—or any wolves—and we’re not going to. So,” she said, setting down her coffee cup and picking up her knitting, “stop shuffling around like a second-grader that has to go to the potty, and sit down.”

  She punctuated that last with a particularly loud click of her needles. “I don’t much like craning my neck.”

  Oppegaard turned to Jeff. “Well?”

  Jeff shook his head. “Well, we’ve got two extra men on duty at the Hidden Way, just in case. That was the first thing I did. I spent the rest of the day driving and scouting around, trying to find some tracks. Scared up an eight-point buck, and I think I know a real good place for a tree stand that nobody’s been using lately, but no sign of wolf at all.”

  “Is that good or bad?” Doc Sherve asked.

  Jeff wasn’t sure whether Doc meant it rhetorically. “I wish I knew.” Of course, Sons could change into human form, but he hadn’t seen any signs of barefoot humans, either. Nor much of anything.

  Jeff would have shivered, but the Law wasn’t supposed to look scared.

  Minnie pursed her lips for a moment. “The last snow was four days ago. So it would either have to be before that, or he’s not here yet.”

  “Or I missed it.”

  “Just what I was thinking,” Doc Sherve said, with a too broad used-car-salesman’s smile, “but I was too polite to mention it.”

  Jeff nodded. “I’ve considered that. Sven Hansen is bringing his snowmobile into town tonight; he’ll be staying with us.” He glanced at his watch. “In fact, Kathy should be feeding him supper right about now.”