Aurora Quest

“Sure was. Lori never got the breaks she deserved. Trouble was, she looked too young for her years. Casting agencies said she was too pretty to play mothers and too old for the romantic parts. Didn’t seem fair.”

Nanci Simms, at his other side, leaned closer. “Know my strongest memory of Christmas, Jim?”

“No.”

“I was working out in Central America. Kind of undercover stuff. Destabilization and political subterfuge. I hated it. Never loved hot jungles.”

On the other side of the dying fire, Henderson McGill was leading all of his family in hesitant versions of some of the favorite Christmas carols. Nanci talked on through the nostalgic singing.

“I was in this hut. Had a fever and I had to answer a call of nature. Staggered off into the edge of the trees and squatted. My skull was like a helium balloon, and I didn’t know which way was up. The counterinsurgents came calling.” She laughed, shaking her head. “They could have been the insurgents, I guess. They changed their politics a lot more often than they changed their shirts. They’d heard there was a yanqui spy around—me. Christmas morning. There was a priest there from the city, leading the whole village in communion.”

“Tidings of comfort and joy, comfort and joy, Oh, tidings of comfort and joy,” chorused the McGills, but their singing was soft and ragged, as if touched by the memory of those who could no longer sing along with them.

Jeff Thomas had stood up and was rubbing his hands together, his breath hanging in the air around the thin, rather petulant lips. Jim wondered again what was going on inside the intelligent, devious mind.

Nanci continued, the closest to being sociable that Jim had ever seen her. “Actually promenading along the line of kneeling figures, everyone in their Sunday best, girls in pretty white confirmation frocks. Offering the host and the wine from an engraved silver chalice. I was still down in the undergrowth, wondering if the world was going to fall out of my bottom.”

Sukie sat on Jeanne’s lap, sucking a thumb and smiling at the other members of her family, nodding her tousled head from side to side in time with their singing.

“Of all the trees that are in the wood, the holly wears the crown.”

Nanci saw where Jim was looking. “Really on the mend, isn’t she? Where was I?”

“The priest was offering the chalice.”

Sly was next to Heather and he caught Jim Hilton’s words. “Me remember the old, old vid we had. Mom didn’t like it. Her friend…” he looked puzzled. “Me don’t know his name. He threw my vid away, Jim.”

“What vid?”

“Chalice from palace has brew that’s true and flagon with dragon has pellets of poison.”

Nanci laughed. “I know that, Sly. Danny Kaye vid. I like it, too.”

The teenager clapped his hands. “You show it me, Nanci, will you?”

“No, Sly. I don’t have the vid. But if I ever see it and we can find a machine to watch it, then I promise you we’ll watch it together. Just you and me.”

“Be shit-hot, Nanci. Shit-hot to hit spot.”

“Finish the story, Nanci,” said Jim.

“Sure. Not much more to tell. The other side came out of the trees on the far side of the clearing. Didn’t waste time. Threw a dozen frag grenades and a couple of ignites. Few jars of napalm. And goodbye was all she wrote. Ten seconds later, and there weren’t more than ten people alive in the place. And most of those had terminal third-degree burns. I headed out and never went back. That was a Christmas to remember, Jim, I tell you.”

“All was calm, all was bright….”

Heather joined in, her voice soaring, high and pure, above the others. Jim and Carrie also started to sing, and after a shrug, Nanci followed suit. Only Sly, swaying contentedly backward and forward, and Jeff, by the leading horse trailer, didn’t join in the final carol. After the last echoes had faded away into the stillness around them, they all started the final preparations to get back onto the road again.

ONE OF THE MECHANICS responsible for servicing the supply-carrying Chinook had been caught asleep when he was supposed to be working on the stranded machine. Margaret Tabor decided that it would be no bad thing to make an example of the middle-aged man to encourage the others.

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