1635:The Dreeson Incident (assiti shards)

by Eric Flint

  Benny, Joe Pallavicino, and the Reverends Jones shook hands and assured one another that they would have another try at straightening this out tomorrow.

  A half block from their goal, Inez and Veronica saw Chandra running out toward the girls; then right back in again, Denise following her. Minnie headed back toward them.

  "Clara's having the baby. With no one to help her except Ron and Missy and Chandra. Chandra has to keep an eye on Weshelle because she's learned how to climb out of the playpen and Lenore can't keep up with her. Weshelle took a long nap this afternoon and is probably good to go until midnight. Lenore keeps trying to phone for help, but she can't get a dial tone anywhere."

  "My mother was a midwife," Inez said. "I've delivered plenty of babies. Just get me to her."

  Veronica started to push the wheel chair faster. Minnie grabbed the handles, which definitely picked up the pace. Once they got to the house, Ron and Missy carried Inez, wheelchair and all, up the front steps.

  From the vantage point of the front hall, they looked up an intimidating flight of stairs, too narrow for them to stand on either side of the wheel chair.

  Lenore called from the other end of the hallway, where she was trying to fasten a wriggling Weshelle to a tether, that Clara was upstairs by herself, that there was no way that Clara could possibly come down, and that somebody had to do something right now. Like, preferably, getting hold of Kortney Pence, who was scheduled to do this delivery. And getting hold of Dad, who had called before the phones went down to say that he had scheduled a late meeting down at the legislative chambers, in the senatorial office.

  Ron and Missy formed a chair with their arms and carried Inez upstairs to where Clara was. Ron ran back down for the wheel chair.

  Denise, spotting her motorcycle next to the front steps, grabbed the stacks of paper someone had stuffed into the sidecar, dumped them into the playpen that Weshelle had obviously outgrown, and headed for Leahy. If she couldn't get Kortney, she could get someone medical at the hospital.

  Kortney, thank goodness, was there. Denise had a funny feeling that there wasn't much time to spare. Kortney picked up her own baby, loaded her into a chest sling, and grabbed the kit she used for home deliveries.

  From the things Clara was saying, loudly, clearly, and entirely in German, it was obvious that she had a firm grasp on who she held ultimately responsible for the whole situation.

  "Minnie," Veronica said, "Go downtown and find Wes. Get hold of Wes Jenkins, somehow. I don't care how. Legislative chambers, senator's office. Now."

  To Minnie, the obvious solution was the other motorcycle. She dumped the second set of papers out of the sidecar into Weshelle's abandoned playpen.

  Minnie braked to a stop. Thinking back briefly to the obvious ire with which several policepersons had viewed her motorized dash through the "pedestrians only" section of town, she decided to take the motorcycle into the building with her.

  Its arrival was not greeted with a smile of welcome by the security guard.

  To whom she said, "Stuff it, dimbulb. Make sure none of the law and order types haul it off, either. Mrs. Jenkins is having a baby right now and I've come to fetch her husband. Where is he?"

  Leaving them both, man and machine, in the over-full hallway, she pelted up the stairs and right into the middle of a rather large meeting of political higher-ups before the guard could verbalize his protest.

  Her arrival got their attention. Her statement riveted it.

  "Clara is fully dilated according to Mrs. Wiley, she's at home because Lenore couldn't get anyone on the phone, and Mrs. Dreeson wants Mr. Jenkins to come before the baby does, so cough him up. Denise went off to Leahy to get Kortney Pence. Ron Stone and Missy Jenkins are helping Mrs. Wiley, since she's still in a wheel chair, and Chandra is chasing Weshelle."

  Wes dashed out the door. Minnie followed him.

  "Not exactly a cast of thousands," Ed Piazza grinned, "but it seems to be mounting up. Reaching, at least, a level equivalent to the number of extras in a Jesuit outdoor drama."

  "I do believe he forgot his briefcase," Arnold Bellamy said. "First time in his life, probably. I've always enjoyed working with Wes. He's so methodical."

  "Well, put it in his office so he can pick it up tomorrow," Ed said.

  Arnold frowned. "Is this kind of thing getting to be a habit? First Anita Masaniello in the middle of a field, now Clara Jenkins in the middle of a phone outage? It can't be good for the public image of the Department of International Affairs."

  "Fascinating," Francisco Nasi said. "Relevant information only, arranged in order of importance, and condensed into a terse report. And she's the same one who provided the splendid description of the assassin. Who is that girl?"

  Chapter 62

  Grantville

  In the sidecar of Minnie's hog, Wes was having the first motorcycle ride of his life. He profoundly hoped it would be the last.

  By Minnie's standards, it was quite sedate. Of course, because of the artificial eye, she had only limited depth perception. Even though she compensated very well, as Buster had told her when he was teaching her, it still added a certain something to the way she approached stop signs, other vehicles, and pedestrians. Especially after dark.

  Half way there, she leaned over and said, as she slowed slightly for a stop sign, "By the way. You can forget that Holloway guy who beat up your daughter. He bought it."

  "I should have done something, considering how he treated Lenore."

  "You'd have blown a fuse if you'd caught him, Mr. Jenkins. Pardon my saying so. You'd have messed it up. Let it go."

  "What happened?"

  "You know he was mixed up in what happened at the synagogue? Or, at least, in what was going on at the hospital that pulled all the police away?"

  Wes nodded; then realized that she couldn't see him. At least, he hoped she wasn't going to glance down at him while she was steering this mechanical beast through the dark at the speed to which she had now accelerated. So he said, "Yes."

  "Denise didn't get mad. She got even. And he started it."

  Wes nodded. Then he remembered again that Minnie couldn't see him and said "Yes."

  Somewhere, back in college, he had read a play. The Furies. Three women. Bringers of retribution. Three of them. Gretchen Richter, so tall and blonde. Denise Beasley, so tiny and brunette. And one-eyed Minnie Hugelmair, who had started to sing.

  "His chariots of wrath the great thunderclouds form,

  And dark is his path on the wings of the storm."

  He shuddered a little. He had sung that hymn a hundred times in the Methodist church. He had never understood it until now. It sounded different when Minnie sang it.

  Bryant Holloway had been far from the only person "mixed up" in the events that had led to Henry Dreeson's assassination and Buster Beasley's death. He wondered how even Denise and Minnie intended to get.

  "Thanks, Ron." The boy had enough lab training that Kortney had found him to be the most practical help of all the people here when she called for this and that out of her bag. Inez's mobility was still pretty limited. "That's it."

  Kortney handed the baby off to Inez and, with Veronica's help, went back to taking care of Clara, who was still hearing and speaking only German. Veronica stubbornly repeated " gesundes Kind " and deftly evaded " ein Maedchen " until Kortney waved a little sponge under the new mother's nose. In Veronica's opinion, every new mother wanted to hear "healthy child," but "it's a girl" was the kind of news best delivered by the father. Who wasn't here yet.

  Inez, who was no slouch herself and fully cognizant of the general speculation about the precise nature of Missy Jenkins' and Ron Stone's intentions toward one another, drafted Missy to help with the process of cleaning up the newborn. Once that was done, she literally left her holding the baby, with Ron peering over her shoulder with great interest.

  "Hang onto her until Clara is ready," she said brusquely. "God only knows where they've put the cradle. It isn't in here."

&
nbsp; "It wouldn't be in here," Missy said. "This is Chandra's old room, here right at the head of the stairs. That's why there's only a single bed. I wonder why Clara is in here. She must have been trying to go down to Lenore and then realized she couldn't make it." Suddenly, she fell into helpless giggles. Abruptly, she handed the little pile of blankets to Ron. "Take her. Before I drop her."

  "What on earth?"

  "On Thanksgiving." Missy was sputtering. "I'm sorry. I can't help it. On Thanksgiving, after dinner, Gran called me 'littlest granddaughter.' I told her that I'd outgrown it. That she'd have to promote one of her great-greats. But…" She giggled again, a little hysterically, reacting not just to this but to everything that had gone during the past week. Death and birth "Just look. I've got another girl cousin. Gran has a 'littlest granddaughter' again."

  Wes came running up the stairs, ignored the rest of them completely, and headed straight for Clara.

  "She's perfectly fine," Kortney assured him, all the while muttering technical things to Inez about hard contractions, pulse rates, the baby coming faster than was ideal for an elderly primipara, pulse rates again, and a little tearing to be sutured.

  He started to turn pale.

  "Wes! Everything's okay. All right?"

  "But?"

  "She's a little out of it. I gave her a whiff. We don't have any locals anymore, really, and she's been through enough this evening. Let me get these stitches in. She'll be back with us in a jiffy. I don't want to use a second dose if I don't have to. Ether on a sponge isn't exactly scientifically measured anesthesia."

  Wes wiggled himself onto the narrow bed, on the side next to the wall, and slid an arm under Clara's shoulders. Kortney spared enough time from what she was doing to give him an odd glance.

  "She'll want to be held when she comes to," Wes said. "She always wants to be held when it's over. It's the only favor she's ever asked. 'Please don't go away. Stay with me.' "

  Ron was distinctly feeling that he probably should not be here, that he should definitely not be hearing this, and that Missy's Uncle Wes, if he was paying any attention to anyone except Clara, would be of the opinion that he absolutely should not be here. But he couldn't really go away, because he was still holding the baby and nobody else seemed to have any interest in taking it.

  Kortney snorted. "If that's the only piece of heavy baggage she carried with her out of that first marriage, you're a damned fortunate man. Okay, stay put. Her blood pressure is stabilizing nicely now."

  Wes didn't care who else was there. As far as he was concerned right now, all of Grantville could be in this room, as long as Clara came through in good shape. Even if she did see things her own way. Even if she did argue with him now and then. Even if she had moved down the hall for a while. He tightened his arm around her a little. She was beginning to regain consciousness. He leaned over and kissed her.

  Missy stood next to Ron, almost paralyzed. That wasn't the kind of kiss she would have expected of Uncle Wes. She wouldn't have thought him capable of it. If she had really thought about it at all. And Clara was, um, kissing him right back. Not quite awake and after everything that had been going on here. And after the big fight everyone knew they had after Bryant beat up Lenore.

  They were old. Her mind went back to the birthday party. Clara was thirty-eight. That was old. Exactly twice as old as she was herself. And Uncle Wes was way older. Older than Dad. Older even than Mom.

  She didn't remember much about how things had been before Mom and Dad separated. Except that Anne was always a pain. Anne hadn't ever wanted to be part of their family. Didn't want to be a big sister. Did want to go to Nani and Pop's by herself. She hated it when Chip and Missy came too.

  Then Mom and Dad had separated. Gotten back together. And she had learned the why of it when she was twelve. Since the reconciliation, they had always been… matter-of-fact… toward one another. At least out where she could see them. But somewhere, way back at least, they must have, uh, done something of the sort. Mom had hinted at it, back in April. That is, she and Chip were here, after all. There had been a time when they were really preoccupied by something of the sort. That was, ah, definitely what Uncle Wes had been implying at Easter. Something like what Uncle Wes and Clara were doing right now.

  Uncle Wes was still kissing Clara like that. Right in the middle of their having a baby, so to speak. Well, of course, kissing each other like that was probably what had led up to the baby. Which was probably why the guys downtown had been running Uncle Wes through such a gauntlet.

  Which meant that a person didn't get rid of feeling the confusing stuff she felt about Ron. There wasn't a day when you suddenly woke up and were a grownup and all that was behind you. Which, at some level, she had been hoping that there was.

  Mom must have done it with Anne's father when she was, uh, way younger than Missy was now. Mom? Irrationally, absurdly, the old TV commercial ran through her head. Mom, what on earth were you thinking?

  She grabbed onto Ron's arm rather hard.

  Clara came back to full consciousness, ascertained that Wesley really was there rather than a dream, closed her eyes again, and went to sleep.

  Through the fog of her thoughts, Missy heard Mrs. Wiley saying something to Kortney.

  "In a way, hospital deliveries take place in a sort of artificial setting. They limit the ways that people behave.

  "Since most of the immigrant women won't go near the hospital to have their babies, it really couldn't hurt for you to suggest to Beulah and Garnet that they might bring some of the older midwives, Germans and Grantvillers both, into the curriculum. To talk to the new nurse-midwives like you whom they are training."

  Missy glanced up. Mrs. Wiley was looking at Uncle Wes and Clara.

  "Sometimes, when you're doing a home delivery, there's really no way to predict exactly what you'll run into."

  For a minute, Missy suspected that Mrs. Wiley was teasing Kortney. But her face was as placid as her voice.

  Wes looked around. Where was the baby? Ron Stone was looking back at him, trying to shrug his shoulders without disturbing the little bundle of blankets.

  "Want it?" Ron asked.

  "Not yet, I think."

  "Uh. Then, if you have a minute, Mr. Jenkins?"

  Wes looked at the boy. He might as well. He really didn't want to look at what Kortney and Inez were doing to Clara right now.

  "Ah, we got the stuff. You know. What we went to Frankfurt for. It's downstairs, I guess, wherever Denise or Minnie put it when they went to get you and Mrs. Pence. And, I expect, someone ought to do something about it as soon as possible."

  "Are the phones still down?"

  "As far as I know, yeah."

  Wes glanced around the room. "Veronica?"

  " Ja."

  "Is Minnie still here?"

  " Ja."

  "Send her down to the legislative chambers again, will you? To bring Francisco Nasi back here. She'll find him in the same room where she found me. I've never seen that young man flustered." He paused. "I think he deserves to spend some time in the sidecar of a motorcycle that has Minnie Hugelmair at the helm."

  Don Francisco came and went, taking the materials that would go down in the history books as the "Playpen Papers."

  Veronica Dreeson took Denise and Minnie away with her.

  Weshelle finally went to sleep, so Lenore went to bed too.

  Chandra stayed downstairs watching Kortney's baby. She hadn't seen her own kids yet since they got back from Frankfurt. They were safe at Aunt Debbie's and could wait until morning.

  "We're done," Kortney said. "I'm going to nurse my own little lady and then go lie down. The motto of the midwife. 'Never miss a chance to take a nap.' "

  Clara moved restlessly, half asleep, trying to turn over toward Wes.

  "What?" Kortney asked sharply.

  Wes put his other arm over the top of his wife. He looked at Kortney a little apologetically. "She wants my leg over hers, too."

  "Well, keep the wei
ght on her ankles. Below the knees, at all costs."

  Wes leaned over and kissed Clara again. She settled down.

  Kortney glared at them briefly. She then disappeared down the hall, thinking to herself that those two were at least indirectly responsible for the "little lady" she was about to nurse. After they had spent the Christmas party in Fulda last year dripping their uncontrolled sex hormones all over everyone else, blast them, she and Fred had duly escorted her mom and Clara to the upstairs apartment in the house Fred rented, gone down to Fred's rooms, and proceeded to forget about proper operating procedures for the remainder of the night.

  Talk about an embarrassing outcome for one of Grantville's prime banner carriers for birth control. Jared was eight and she and Fred had only ever wanted one child. But he had already been in Fulda when Susannah Shipley really got the "Snipley" campaign going. Once he got back home, that was damn well going to be his first port of call.

  Blast them both, again. Mom had thought it was so funny that she nearly had hysterics and been very flattered when she and Fred named the little lady Andrea Rose.

  Chandra was coming upstairs, carrying said Andrea Rose. "I've locked up," she said. "If you don't need anything else, I'm going to sleep. It's been a long day."

  Inez Wiley looked at Ron. "Sit there," she ordered.

  He thought he was probably sitting on a toy chest. Missy sat down next to him.

  "I don't hold with that early bonding mystique. As long as the baby is asleep, she'll be as fine with you as with her mother. Human arms, human body temperature. Don't disturb her, but the minute she wakes up and starts to want to eat, have Missy rouse me so I can get Clara up. I'll be next door with Kortney, on a folding bed in Lenore's old room. I do believe in getting them on the breast right away. You can't miss it. She'll open her mouth, start to make noises like a little sump pump, and then start rooting at your chest like a piglet."

  "Yes, Ma'am," Ron said.

  Mrs. Wiley rolled down the hall in the same direction that Kortney had gone.