Year's Best Scifi 2 Part 37

Brook put in, "I'll stay here, Dad. I'll be all right."

Emery shook his head. "So would we, Jan. In the second, I think the women who shot me will be back as soon as the storm lets up. If no one's here, they'll break in or burn this place down. It's the only home I've got, and I intend to defend it.""Sure," Brook said. "Let me stay. I can look after things while you're gone."

"No," Emery told him. "It would be too dangerous."

Emery turned back to Jan. "In the third place, I won't do it because I want to so much. If-"

"You were the one that gave those people my car."

"To get Aileen back. Yes, I did. I'd do it again."

"And you took it without my permission! I trusted you, Emery. I left my keys in the ignition, and you took my car."

He nodded wearily. "To look for Aileen, and I'd do that again too. I suppose you're already planning to bring it up in court."

"You bet I am!"

"I suggest you check the t.i.tle first."

Aileen herself glanced at him over her shoulder. "I'm really hungry. Can I have the rest of your hash?"

Brook said, "There's more here, 'Leen. You said you weren't, but I saved-"

"I haven't had anything since yesterday except some bread stuff."

Jan began, "Aileen, you know perfectly well-"

Emery interrupted her. "It's only been a couple of hours since they caught you, honey. Remember? We talked about that before we got here."

"I was in there, in the sleep thing-"

Jan snapped, "Aileen, be quiet! I told you not to look around like that."

"It's only Daddy in his underwear. I've seen him like that lots."

"Turn around!"

Trying to weigh each word with significance, Emery said, "Your mama told you to be quiet, honey. That wasn't simply an order. It was good advice."

Brook brought her a plate of corned-beef hash and a fork. "There's bread, too. Want some?"

"Sure. And milk or something."

"There isn't any."

"Water, then." Raising her voice slightly, Aileen added, "I'd get up and get it for myself, but Mama won't let me."

Jan said, "You see what you've started, Emery?"

He nodded solemnly. "I didn't start it, but I'm quite happy about it."

Brook washed his wound and bandaged it, applying a double pad of surgical gauze and so much CurityWet-Pruf adhesive tape that Emery winced at the mere thought of removing it.

"I might be a doctor," Brook mused, "big money, and this is fun."

"You're a pretty good one already," Emery said gratefully. He kicked off his boots, emptied his pockets onto the table, and stuffed his trousers into a laundry bag, following it with his s.h.i.+rt. "Want to do me a favor, Brook? Sc.r.a.pe my plate into that tin bowl on the drainboard and set it on the back porch."

Jan asked, "Are you well enough to drive, Emery? Forget the fighting. You wouldn't want to see any of us killed. I know you wouldn't."

He nodded, b.u.t.toning a fresh s.h.i.+rt.

"So let me drive. I'll drive us into town, and you can drive Brook back here if you feel up to it."

"You'd put us into the ditch," Emery told her. "If I start feeling too weak, I'll pull over and-"

Brook banged the rear door shut behind him and held up a squirrel. "Look at this! It was right up on the porch." The tiny body was stiff, its gray fur powdered with snow.

"Poor little thing!" Jan went over to examine it. "It must have come looking for something to eat, and froze. Have you been feeding them, Emery?"

"It's a present from a friend," he told her. Something clutched his throat, leaving him barely able to speak.

"You wouldn't understand."

The jeep started without difficulty. As he backed it out onto the road, he wondered whether the dark-faced women who had Jan's Lincoln had been unable to solve the simple catches that held the jeep's hood. Conceivably, they had not seen the jeep when they had been in his cabin earlier. He wished now that he had asked Aileen how many women she had seen, when the two of them had been alone.

"Drafty in here," Jan remarked. "You should buy youself a real car, Emery."

The road was visible only as an opening between the trees; he pulled onto it with all four wheels hub-deep in virgin snow, keeping the transmission in second and nudging the accelerator only slightly.

Swirling snow filled the headlights. "Honey," he said, "your boots had ice on them. So did your snow pants. Did you wade in the lake?"

From the crowded rear seat, Aileen answered, "They made me, Daddy."

The road was visible only as an open s.p.a.ce between trees. To people in a-Emery fumbled mentally for a word and settled on aircraft.

To an aircraft, the frozen lake might have looked like a paved helicopter pad or something of that kind, a more or less circular pavement. The black-looking open water at its center might have been taken for asphalt.

Particularly by a pilot not familiar with woods and lakes.

"Emery, you hardly ever answer a direct question. It's one of the things I dislike most about you."

"That's what men say about women," he protested mildly.

"Women are being diplomatic. Men are rude.""I suppose you're right. What did you ask me?"

"That isn't the point. The point is that you ignore me until I raise my voice."

That seemed to require no reply, so he did not offer one. How high would you have to be and how fast would you have to be coming down before a frozen lake looked like a landing site?

"So do the girls," Jan added bitterly, "they're exactly the same way. So is Brook."

"That ought to tell you something."

"You don't have to be rude!"

One of the twins said, "She wanted to know how long it would take to get to town, Daddy."

It had probably been Alayna, Emery decided. "How long would you like it to take, honey?"

"Real quick!"

That had been the other one, presumably Aileen. "Well," he told her, "we'll be there real quick."

Jan said, "Don't try to be funny."

"I'm being diplomatic. If I wasn't, I'd point out that it's twenty-two miles and we're going about fifteen miles an hour. If we can keep that up all the way, it should take us about an hour and a half."

Jan turned in her seat to face the twins. "Never marry an engineer, girls. n.o.body ever told me that, but I'm telling you now. If you do, don't say you were never warned."

One twin began, "You said that about-"

The other interrupted. "Only, it wasn't an engineer that time. It was a tennis player. Did you do it in your head, Daddy? I did too, only it took me longer. One point four and two-thirds, so six six seven. Is that right?"

"I have no idea. Fifteen is smaller than twenty-two, and that's an hour. Seven over, and seven's about half of fifteen. Most real calculations outside school are like that, honey."

"Because it doesn't matter?"

Emery shook his head. "Because the data's not good enough for anything more. It's about twenty-two miles to town on this jeep's odometer. That could be off by as much as-" Something caught his eye, and he fell silent.

From the rear seat, Brook asked, "What's the matter, Dad?" He sounded half suffocated.

Emery was peering into the rear view mirror, unable to see anything except a blur of snow. "There was a sign back there. What did it say?"

"Don't tell me you're lost, Emery."

"I'm not lost. What did it say, Brook?"

"I couldn't tell, it was all covered with snow."

"I think it was the historical marker sign. I'm going to stop there on the way back.""Okay, I'll remind you."

"You won't have to. I'll stop."

One of the twins asked, "What happened there?"

Emery did not reply; Brook told her, "There used to be a village there, the first one in this part of the state. Wagon trains would stop there. One time there was n.o.body there. The log cabins and their stuff was okay, only there wasn't anybody home."

"The Pied Piper," the twin suggested.

"He just took rats and kids. This got everybody."

Jan said, "I don't think that's much of a mystery. An early settlement? The Indians killed them."

The other twin said, "Indians would have scalped them and left the bodies, Mama, and taken things."

"All right, they were stolen by fairies. Emery, this hill looks so steep! Are you sure this is the right road?"

"It's the only road there is. Hills always look steeper covered with snow." When Jan said nothing, he added, "h.e.l.l, they are steeper."

"They should plow this."

"The plows will be out on the state highway," Emery told her. "Don't worry, only three more mountains."

They let Jan and the twins out in front of the Ramada Inn, and Brook climbed over the back of the front seat. "I'm glad they're gone. I guess I shouldn't say it-she's been pretty nice to me-but I'm glad."

Emery nodded.

"You could've turned around back there." Brook indicated the motel's U-shaped drive. "Are we going into town?"

Emery nodded again.

"Want to tell me what for? I might be able to help."

"To buy two more guns. There's a sporting-goods dealer on Main Street. We'll look there first."

"One for me, huh? What kind?"

"What kind do you want?"

"A three-fifty-seven, I guess."

"No handguns, there's a five-day waiting period. But we can buy rifles or shotguns and take them with us, and we may need them when we get back to the cabin."

"One rifle and one shotgun," Brook decided. "Pumps or semis. You want the rifle or the scattergun, Dad?"

Emery did not reply. Every business that they drove past seemed to be dark and locked. He left the jeep to rattle and pound the door of the sporting-goods store, but no one appeared to unlock it.Brook switched off the radio as he got back in. "Storm's going to get worse. They say the main-part hasn't even gotten here yet."

Emery nodded.

"You knew, huh?"

"I'd heard a weather report earlier. We're due for two, possibly three days of this."

The gun shop was closed as well. There would be no gun with which to kill the woman who had shot him, and none with which to kill himself. He shrugged half-humorously and got back into the jeep. Brook said, "We're going to fight with what we've got, huh?"

"A hammer and a hunting knife against my thirty-thirty?" Emery shook his head emphatically. "We're not going to fight at all. If they come around again, we're to do whatever they want, no questions and no objections. If they like anything-this jeep would be the most likely item, I imagine-we're going to give it to them."

"Unless I get a chance to grab the gun again."