by Eric Flint
"Thank you, young lady. But there was no need for you to come out here with anything. We have plenty of canned vegetables. I've a very full root cellar from the last couple of years in the garden. And the rhubarb is almost ready for pies. Flour, sugar too. Plenty to eat. Reminds me of when I was a girl. And now we got some help now, too."
"Can we please come in?" asked Maureen again.
"John, why don't you get them settled in the barn for now?" Millie said. "We'll work out the details later." She gave him a little softer version of "the look."
The children saw "The Look" this time, and they took a collective step back.
John grinned. Children are perceptive. This old lady was used to being listened to. He waved a hand and Heinrich and the children followed him to the barn.
***
In the kitchen, Maureen and Millie unpacked the things that Maureen had brought with her. Millie noticed that there was some applesauce that had been put up by someone last fall, the Mason jar had the hand written date on the top. Then Maureen pulled out a white sack with several plastic bottles of medications inside. "Doc Adams said I should give you these."
"I can't afford those," said Millie. "How can I pay for them? I don't want any charity, young lady. I've never taken charity, and I am not going to start now."
"These didn't cost anything, Millie. They were prescribed for someone else, and they weren't inside the ring when it hit. We found them, and Doc Adams thought you should have them." Millie was peering at the bottles. She reached for a pair of glasses on the windowsill above the sink. She wobbled a bit, unsteady on her feet. Maureen came to her side. "Millie," she began, "are you sure that this is what you want to do?"
"Yes. I am sure of it, Maureen. Very sure."
"Millie, three weeks ago I would have called social services to see what they could do for you. Take you in the hospital, or something, but that was before the Ring of Fire. Before we were cut off from civilization. Or we became civilization. That's kind of scary to think about. Our little backwater West Virginia town becomes the core of scientific learning in the world overnight. I overhead some people in a meeting yesterday talk about the number of books we have and what it represents. Everything is priceless. There's only one of everything in this world, and once it's gone, it's gone. Forever."
Millie looked out the window at John, Heinrich and the three children "It has always been that way young lady," said Millie. "You just never realized it before."
July, 1631
After a few weeks, things settled down. John was happy that Heinrich was learning to communicate reasonably well. Men had come to the house one day from the town and they had bought the gasoline and the refrigerant out of the car. They had paid very well for the precious fluids, but John knew what it meant. The end of his mobility.
John had started the car a week ago and taken Heinrich for a short ride around the property. They went down the hill to the point where their gravel road intersected Route 250 at the bottom. From there, all that could be seen was the old West Virginia landscape. Germany was no longer visible. John stopped the car at the bottom of the hill and paused. He turned right to head away from town. Towards the border of the Ring of Fire. It was a very short ride, and after a couple of turns following the creek they came to the wall of dirt that was seventeenth-century Germany. John stopped the car, and turned it off. It was nosed up to the now crumbling dirt. The dirt of another age and time.
"What is wrong, Johan?" asked Heinrich. "Are you, um, okay?"
John was staring straight ahead. In his minds eye, he could see every turn and tar strip in the road as it wound its way towards Wheeling. He could see the long downhill section, the chemical plants that had been there since before he was born, and the stoplight by his daughter's house. It was so close, yet so far away. He slowly got out of the car and shuffled to the embankment, staring straight ahead, his old eyes boring through the dirt, trying to move it away with his force of his will. In his imagination, it parted, and he drove the road briskly, smoothly. Not so fast as to alarm Millie, but fast enough that he was tested ever so slightly. This late June day, he would have had the windows down, as he cruised through the West Virginia Mountains.
"Is dirt wall," said Heinrich, who was now beside him. Heinrich looked at the old man, and sensed the pain that was in him. He remained quiet.
After a moments pause, John said, "Ya know what, Heinrich?"
"What, Johan?"
"This stinks. This really stinks to high heaven." He paused. "It stinks." His voice trailed off.
"It smells like good earth to me, Johan. Gute Erde"
John turned and looked at Heinrich. His deeply wrinkled face, which was a moment ago a weathered picture of despair, was now looking at Heinrich with shining eyes and a smile. "Yup, Heinrich. Good earth, Gute Erde. " He turned back to the dirt wall and sighed. He stared at it for another few minutes, then finally turned and got back in the car. Heinrich followed.
August, 1631
John traded some old scrap, angle iron and a chunk of aluminum for a few good car batteries and set to work. He disappeared into the shed for a few days, and wouldn't tell Millie what he was up to. A week later, he pushed a new electric cart out of the shop. He had used the garden cart as a template, and built one with two seats and a small windshield made out of clear plastic. The tires were the hard part, but he had a pair of ten inch boat trailer wheels and tires stashed away that worked very well for the front, and a pair of wheelbarrow pneumatic tires for the rear. Speed control and gearing was going to be tricky, so he approached it mechanically with a v-belt drive. An old knife switch served as the on-off switch. The cabling was welding cable that had been at the bottom of a pile, and the motor was off a larger trolling motor for which he had traded three boxes of nails. It looked like a cross between a horse cart and a naked golf cart. He ran it around the lawn once or twice. It was a rough ride over the gravel, but once they were on the main road it would be fine. They had their mobility back.
Heinrich smiled as he watched John run it around the front of the house. John dropped it down to low gear and the cart came to a crawl, but it was a speed that would allow them to inch up the steeper transplanted West Virginia hills.
"How do you stop it?" Heinrich yelled across the front lawn.
"I'll show ya," replied John. He increased speed and started heading for Heinrich. As he approached Heinrich, who looked as if he were deciding which way to run to avoid getting flattened, John reached down and pulled a long lever on his left. As he pulled back, the cart slowed quickly, and came to a gentle halt a few feet in front of Heinrich. "Ever been to San Francisco, Heinrich?"
"It's a Spain saint, no?" Heinrich wasn't certain if he was being asked seriously or as a joke. Frustrating language, English.
"Nope, a whole city. And in that city they had a public transportation system sort of like wagons, which were pulled along by cables just under the street. I used the same kind of brakes they did. A block of wood! Ha!" John laughed triumphantly. The wood block was levered against the axle. The harder he pulled on the lever, the more pressure he put on the wood, slowing the cart.
"Ist like wagon," Heinrich said, "but we put it on wheel." He was speaking very loudly, as the hearing aid batteries had run out.
"Same idea, son, same idea," replied John. Turning to the house, he yelled. "Hey, Millie. Come out here, I want to show you what I been working on. Millie. C'mon out here, woman. We're going to town!"
A few days later, John proudly drove them into town. John and Millie were astounded at the change since the Ring of Fire. The town was absolutely buzzing with activity and energy. And people. People everywhere. Storefronts long since shuttered, were open and businesses were beginning to occupy them. There were people in the streets. And children. More than they had ever seen before. The energy was contagious. John felt his sprit soar with the life around him. This town was alive once again.
They stopped at Doc Adams place, and he welcomed them into his office.
He was able to give Millie some suggestions on herbs to use when the medicines ran out. He told them it would help, but not at the same levels as before.
John had stopped by one of the machine shops in town, to see if he could swap out some more of his scrap, including the old "wagon wheel" pulleys. He did pretty well, as he had another large chunk of aluminum.
August, 1631
The days passed by, and summer came to the hilltop. The town had planted the remaining flat areas, and there had been some interchange of seeds from Millie's stock. The garden flourished, as did the surrounding crops. John sold a lot of his scrap metal, old bearings and parts of machinery for income. Millie managed her meds as best she could and took aspirin for a blood thinner. Her weight dropped off, and her already dark skin grew darker with the summer sun. It was a curious sun, bright but without a lot of warmth. She was used to the heat of West Virginia, and her native Greece. This sun was just not as warming as she remembered it.
Heinrich and the children had become part of the flow of the summer, and they all were living in the house. Soon the children were to start school, and they were excited. They picked up some English and Millie and John picked up some German.
They had a pleasant dinner of the last of the ground beef. Heinrich was astounded at the chest freezer in the back of the barn. It stayed a freezing temperature all year round it the large white box. Food could be kept there indefinitely it seemed, but it required the mysterious "electricity" to make it work. As near as Heinrich could tell, electricity was some sort of ether that was transferred through wires and suspended on poles. All very mysterious and metaphysical.
The town had helped the Trapaneses bring in the harvest, including their own garden. They spent hours putting up the vegetables in what mason jars and good lids they had available, and carefully storing the rest in the basement of the house. It would be cool and dry down there all winter long, a perfect root cellar. It had been after all, what it was designed for when the house was first built in the 1920's.
For John and Millie, their main concern was the winter. They had both spoken of it during the long quiet summer evenings, sitting on their porch. They knew that they could heat the house with the natural gas that was already provided to them from a nearby well. They wouldn't have to cut massive amounts of wood to heat the place.
Heinrich and John had shot and dressed several whitetail deer, along with two boars that had been foraging near the house one night. The boars made that mistake as John and Heinrich were on the front porch, watching the evening sky darken. The first time Heinrich had seen the shotgun fire was at one of the boars. He didn't like guns, he said. He had told John that they were cumbersome and slow. But this one was able to fire as soon as it came to bear on the animal. It dropped in its tracks. The second boar turned to charge at the porch, and Heinrich began to pull his blade from the scabbard. He stood between the old man and the charging animal. Behind him, he heard a metallic cycling sound and to his utter astonishment, the weapon fired again. The second boar dropped before it could make the first step of the porch. Heinrich turned to face John, and watched him smile as he cycled the mechanism through again, ejecting the spent shell to the floor of the porch to meet the first one.
"This thing will hold five, but I still haven't taken the old plug out that the fish and game people make you keep in them. I may need more than three shots in the future" said John, still smiling.
"F-F-Five?" gasped Heinrich, his ears ringing.
"Yup." John smiled with a face that was a crinkly bundle of mischievous lines. "Five."
Heinrich looked at the saber in his hand. He then looked back to John, and to the old shotgun in his hands. And then back to the saber. He sighed. "I have always preferred my saber to firearms. They always work, and are always at the ready. No matches or cumbersome locks." He held up the blade in the light of the mercury vapor barnyard lamp. "I am going to have to rethink the time that I have spent learning to be proficient with a blade."
November, 1631
The winter was a cold one. Cold to the bones. Especially, Millie thought, old bones from the south. The home was sheltered from the wind by the barn, tree line and the ridge, but it didn't stop the cold. The dryness was something that they were not used to. In the cold weather, the humidity was low, and that in turn made any moisture on the skin evaporate even faster. It made the cold colder. John compensated for it by putting a pot on the stove to simmer as much as possible. The temperature even dipped to zero and below for a time, and the incoming water pipe froze. After that, he kept it running with a small drip to keep it from freezing.
Heinrich found a job to help support the family, working in town. Briefly he worked for a man making something called microwave ovens, which didn't work out. But John had helped Heinrich find a job at a machine shop in town. He seemed to enjoy the work, and Millie was glad that it gave Heinrich and John something more in common. She watched as Heinrich learned of the many technologies and wonders the town of Grantville had. Curiously, she noticed, he avoided all churches.
The television had returned via a local cable channel brought back to life by students at the high school studio, and the old movies were fun. They passed the time watching the old films, playing records and cassettes, and just sitting, looking out the front window.
It was the night that they watched a film about the Alamo, and the brave stand of Americans against a massive army that seemed to be Spanish. John explained that it was Mexico, a land in North America. The heroes were brave, but they eventually were overwhelmed.
There was a deep quiet snow that night. As John slept that night, the quiet was broken by the noises of a child's nightmares. It woke Millie.
After tending to the child, Millie went into the kitchen for some water. Heinrich sat at the table in the darkness. She looked at him for a moment, and made a decision. She sat across from him. He avoided her eyes.
"You were a soldier, weren't you Heinrich?" It wasn't really a question.
He didn't speak for a long while. Millie waited. She was patient. He finally answered. "Yes, Millie, I was a soldier. Do you wonder why I disappear every time Father Mazzare comes to visit?"
"I think I might know why," she said quietly.
He looked at her and shook his head. " Nein. Not possible." He paused again. "My real name is Heinrich von Fremd. My father is of the nobility in Ferdinand's court. I was brought up as a Catholic, a follower of the true faith. My father raised me, along with my older brothers. I was the youngest son of four. My mother died in giving birth to me. I was going to go into the priesthood one day, and my studies were directed that way. Then the war. It was such a simple and noble thing. Defeat the armies of the heretics and save the souls of the people. It was so simple. There is one true faith," he said mockingly. "And I was a soldier of that faith." He snorted before continuing. "We were going to rid the world of the heretics, convince them of the error of their ways, defeat their armies, and bring them to the church for the glory of God and the Emperor. That is what my father had said, what the priests had said, what everyone had said. For the glory of God and the Emperor." He stopped and considered before continuing.
"You are Catholic. I've seen the crucifix and the bibles. I've seen the Father Mazzare come to visit and bring you comfort. But you tolerate the… others… the Protestants."
"It's our way," she said quietly. "We're sometimes taught tolerance. It doesn't always work, but we try. The church of my time is not the church of this time."
"To tolerate is not how I was taught." He turned to her. "I was with the army for only a short time. Because of my standing, I was made an officer, an aide to a general.
"The only things that mattered were killing, and keeping fed. It was like being a part of a horde of locusts, swept along and devouring everything in your path. That is how I saw myself. A giant locust. An insect. And I was one of them, swept along. So many bodies, so many burning homes, cottages. Why? Why do we do this? Why did I do this? Oh yes, I did the
se things. I had no idea that there could be that much evil in men. I was able to keep some control of myself, and some of the men, but after Magdeburg, after that, I was lost."
"What happened there?" she asked after a pause.
"They opened the gates for us. I had heard that they had paid a ransom. It was a Protestant town, and punishing them by taking their money to fund our army had a justice to it that was correct to me. Until the fires started. I do not know who, or when they started, but
… I was assigned to a general under Tilly. The old man had tried to stop them, but they were out of control. They were killing, and raping, and burning and… and… Mein Gott… " He choked down a small sob as he lowered his head back again to the table. Millie reached out to brush his hair back. It reminded her of the same motion she used when her daughter was little and crying from some slight.
"I saw the parents of those children killed in front of their eyes. I saw the entrails of their parents smeared across the ground. They were wet with blood, and the burning buildings were reflected in the dirty gore. The middle one had a sister, maybe fifteen years old. She, I couldn't save."
Heinrich sat up, pleading. "I tried to stop it, I tried. Lieber Gott in Himmel, der er wei?, dass ich versucht habe." He gasped for air and began sobbing. "I killed. I killed those men, and tried to kill more. I killed a captain… what kind of a God does these things, Millie? What kind of a God allows such pain and agony in his name?" He sank down again.
"You have the children," said Millie. "You have lead them to safety. And you have helped us." The winter silence was long, and his quiet weeping slowed to a stop. Finally, she spoke. "I lived through a world war. It was devastating. Millions died in death camps, in combat, and of disease. You know Hamburg?" He nodded. "In Hamburg our aircraft killed forty thousand people in one night. The Germans did much the same and worse to the other side."