Dan nodded. “He told me, and swore me to secrecy. He didn’t want anyone fussing over him. Now I’ll have to tell everyone. Did he tell you who was to see to his affairs?”
The doctor nodded. “I am. He didn’t have much of a will, and I brought it with me. We wrote it up about three months ago when the last of the blood thinners ran out. Here.” The doctor handed over a single sheet of paper, notarized and witnessed as was proper, and the chief read the single sentence.
“I, George Armstrong Blanton, being of sound mind and failing health, upon my death do bequeath all of my worldly belongings to my adopted granddaughter, Anna Braun.”
CURIO AND RELIC
by
Tom Van Natta
May, 1631
“Hello? Anybody there?”
Paul Santee took off the holstered .45 when he heard the call. It came again, nearer. “Hello, the house!” No sense in scaring someone who probably meant well. He tucked the .45 behind his belt in the small of his back. No sense in being stupid, either. Stupid tends to kill people, and he was still alive. Something strange had happened last weekend, and he didn’t know what it was. It was good to hear another voice, especially one that seemed friendly.
“Hello! Mr. Santee?” The caller turned out to be a kid, a gangly blond teenager who stood at his gate. Santee stepped out on his porch and waved the boy in.
Eddie Cantrell carefully closed the gate behind him. He wasn’t too happy about finding this cabin—he’d secretly hoped it was outside the Ring of Fire—but when Mike Stearns asked about war veterans, Santee’s name had come up, and Eddie had been asked to go see if his backwoods cabin was inside the Ring, and if he was still alive. Obviously, yes to both. Eddie walked up the path carefully, slowly, trying to figure out how to explain things. He’d heard that Paul Santee was a survivalist, a loner, mean as hell. The man in front of him was small and wiry, grizzled, graying. He didn’t look particularly mean, or particularly anything, except for his piercing eyes.
Santee stared at the kid appraisingly. “What can I do for you?” he said gruffly. The kid looked alarmed. Should have made some small talk first, Santee thought. That was a bit abrupt. I’m sure out of practice.
“Mr. Santee, do you know what happened?”
That was what Santee wanted to know. Give the kid some minimum information and see how he responds. “Well… Five days ago, thunder and a big flash of lighting from the clear blue sky. Path to the road disappeared about a hundred feet down the way. Weather’s been strange. Phone is dead. My bedroom window faced south, but not any more—maybe the earth’s axis of rotation shifted. There’s a big wall of dirt that seems to go on and on.” A long pause there, as he looked at Eddie. “And some damn bird was out there yesterday that sounded exactly like a cuckoo clock. Do you know what happened?”
“Uh, well, Mr. Ferrara—he’s my science teacher—says we were moved to Germany, in the year 1631. And that there’s a war on, with us in the middle of it.”
Santee looked hard at the kid, trying to find some sign of repressed mirth that would indicate a joker. He saw none of it, just an anxious teenager repeating what he’d been told.
“Who is ‘we’?”
Eddie was confused at first, then figured it out and responded. “About a six-mile circle around Grantville. Everybody inside—everything inside—moved here. Gas wells, coal mine, power plant, everything.” He looked up the path on the other side of the house. “I guess your driveway leads off to Butterchurn Road. That didn’t make it.”
“Oh. Okay. Damn. Shit. Take some thinking on.” That story was totally unbelievable, but so were the plain facts all around him. Goddamn it. The kid clearly had more information, but it would take awhile to get it, and Santee didn’t like standing for long stretches. “Would you like something to drink? I just have water, but it’s clean and cold.”
Eddie nodded. “Thanks. That sounds good, but then I’ve got to get back.” Santee still scared him a little. “Mike Stearns is the head of the committee. He said if you were here inside the Ring, he’d, uh, like to meet you.”