Chapter 29
Last Chance became a town in flux. Weeks went by, and then months passed. The Guard moved into the mountain pass, and then they moved through it, and yet more Guard arrived to replace those who left. Many local youths joined the Guard and left town. New people arrived. A large number of farms were sold piecemeal to provide land for more homes.
Another store opened, and Aaron refused to raise his prices so they would be close to those of his competition. Another inn was built, but it soon closed its doors since it received only a few overnight guests. Nobody visited it during the days or evenings because The Traveler's Rest was too popular with the locals, and the locals pulled all the new arrivals to the inn's door.
Aaron bought the new inn, stocked it, and then he built a stage at one end. Afterward, he pulled out one of his reading books, rewrote Death of a Merchant to suit the local customs, and gave the play to several of the newcomers who were out of work. They presented the play once a week. After the third week the house was always full. Other people asked if they could perform. Some wanted to juggle; others wanted to tell jokes, and one young woman had written her own one act, one person play. Within the first month sixteen people approached Aaron who wanted to play instruments or sing. Since he felt that music belonged to the Traveler's Rest, Aaron did not allow the musicians to perform except during plays. He saw no reason to cut Missy's future profits.
During late midsummer he paid to have a playground built. In late fall Missy tearfully aborted her coming out party. What would have normally been a happy time in her life was not. Doyle had caught a virus and died despite everything Doc could do. Even the use of Doc's Talent Stone was not enough to save him. Unhappily, Doyle was not alone when they laid him in the ground. In all, more than a dozen children and two adults died during the outbreak. Aaron was sad to note that only three of the children and neither adult were female. Something in this land hated men. Males died too easily from too many diseases, and he had not the least idea why. Someday, he vowed, he would find out.
The University professor spent a good deal of time questioning Aaron about his birth world while waiting very impatiently for Mister Bronson's arrival. The man was determined to follow the load of Aaron's books on their journey to the University. Feeling stubborn, Aaron insisted that no one but his personal freighter ship them.
Once Bronson did arrive, Aaron talked with him and provided funds for Bronson to buy forty wagons with the mules to match. Last Chance and several of the surrounding towns needed supplies delivered more frequently now that they were all growing in size. Because nobody stepped forward to fill the gap, Aaron took it upon himself to do so. He figured he would most likely lose money on the deal, but that was a matter of small moment. After all, he made so much money from so many areas that a loss here and there did not matter. Truthfully, he no longer had a clear idea of exactly what he owned. He mostly counted on his various partners to come in and hand him some cash every now and again. Afterwards, he usually threw the money in the money box without counting it. Once every week or two he took the lot over to the bank and put it in his account. To his way of thinking that was the best way to do business. It was a good deal less stressful than trying to keep his books straight.
When Sarah discovered his method she instantly hired two accountants and wrecked his perfect system.
Kit went back out to the Manor but before she left she told him that she was pleased with all the furniture Aaron had left her. She was not, however, quite so happy about the work involved in moving the furniture around so carpenters could replace sections of wall and floor and collapsed roof. Once again, it was rubbed in Aaron's face that he had pulled far too much with them when they escaped from Beech and his friends.
Kit did not always stay at the ranch. Usually, she made a point of visiting town every couple weeks. However, she usually stayed over for only a day or two, during which time she grumbled and bragged about getting pregnant without Doc Gunther's help. Once, she pulled Aaron out to the Manor for two weeks, insisting it was only right that he know something about the business. It was a dirty ruse. She stuck him on the back of a horse every single day. After all, she chortled, if she could survive the rolling wagons in his world, he could learn to ride a horse. To Aaron's way of thinking, her argument was not exactly fair since she would never have to face an automobile again while Aaron would be surrounded by horses and horse people for the rest of his life.
Their days at the ranch were short and filled with laughter. After they spent their first night together without Sarah, their nights were spent sleeping alone. That one night let them know there really was no sexual chemistry between them without Sarah. Kit loved Sarah. Aaron just came with the package. Though she valued him as a friend, she could not wrap her mind around the fact that he really was her husband. Truthfully, that was fine by Aaron. He hated feeling disloyal to Sarah--and--in some strange way--to Cathy.
When he returned to town he was bruised, dirty, and sore. Sarah was delighted with Kit's lessons. She thought going for recreational rides was a tremendously good idea. After all, she needed the exercise, and there were those two hunters eating hay in the stable. Pleeeeze.
So he learned to ride, and while he hated horses in general he learned to actually be fond of Surefoot. Surefoot and No Bit were two very docile and contented horses, proving to be easy to control and very responsive. Probably, Aaron reflected, they were so docile because they each had a good thirty or more little horsey sons and daughters running around the countryside--with more on the way. Pure contentment resided in both their horsey faces.
Turner House filled to capacity, and Mary Cunningham asked Aaron if she could purchase a new building to handle the overflow of orphans. He agreed.
Mary became a greatly changed woman. Off drugs and with no access to new ones, her eyes glowed bright and intelligent. She became interested in everything around her once she discovered that her past profession was lost. Being stubborn, she made one attempt to thank Aaron with her body and another to use it with a newcomer in order to raise money. Both attempts failed. Aaron had vowed that he would remain faithful inside his marriage, and female prostitution was unknown in a land where men made up less than a quarter of the population.
In late fall a delegation from Burnridge approached Aaron and requested that he build an orphanage to house the growing number of castoff children the returning Movers had left behind. Aaron hated to leave Last Chance, especially with Sarah and Kit growing larger, but they insisted he go. After Sarah delivered a passionate kiss goodbye, he rode Surefoot to Burnridge and actually enjoyed the ride in the cool fall air.
Once there, he bought another Turner House and found new help. This new Turner House was large enough for thirty children, and it was soon half full. Aaron made and posted rules that had to be obeyed if its residents expected to remain. Everyone over seven had to work, if only for a few minutes a day. Older children cared for the younger ones, and since the place was not a farm, they had to spend a segment of each day cleaning the streets and sidewalks of the town.
No one refused. Following his rules beat starving.
More than two months passed before the house was set up to Aaron's satisfaction. While in Burnridge, he bought another inn and changed it to match the Traveler's Rest. On a sudden inspiration, he insisted that the members of Turner House provide entertainment at the inn every Sunday afternoon, figuring that his kids would have to learn to read in order to perform the plays. Also, the money they took in could help support the House. He hired a teacher to visit daily, and then he found a performer who taught several different musical instruments.
Since the inn would not support the entire cost of Turner House, Aaron bought another general store, and then he spent a week hiring people to start a lumbering company. Miss Churnfelt, a woman well over fifty, who had spent forty years hanging around and working in lumber camps in over four nations, agreed to oversee the project. Aaron had a lot of confidence in her.
Burnridge boasted two lawyers. Aaron hired one to oversee his local interests and to handle his Turner House finances.
When he finally returned to Last Chance a December snow fell heavily. Despite her huge belly, Sarah gave him a very private and very enthusiastic welcome home.
While he was gone Perk had bought land and built herself a home with a separate attached gym. Once the gym was finished she opened classes. When he heard this Aaron was only slightly interested. However, his interest increased when Perk stopped by to inform him that his sessions were on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays from four to six. During that time slot Aaron would be her only student so he had better not stand her up. Aaron informed her that there was no way she was going to get her sadistic hands on him.
Sarah said yes there was.
Aaron went.
The winter snows fell with a vengeance, and the Guard found that deep snow put a big damper on chasing murderous savages over hostile terrain. On the plus side, the depredations of the savages dampened too. The two factors nicely balanced each other out.
To give them their due, the Guard had suffered heavy losses. They inflicted some losses of their own, but they were the definite losers in the matter of numbers killed. The savages had two known Talent Stones to contend against the eight owned by the entire Isabellan Guard. Unfortunately for the Guard, one of those stones belonged to Beech, now universally recognized as The Talent Master. Beech had enough Talent and power to offset every advantage the Guard had in numbers and Stones. Aaron knew the difference between the two forces was as simple as a sword stolen from Sarah. The Talent Stone holders in the Guard said they received some boost to their ability when they held a rifle, but the boost was not equivalent to what the sword provided the Master. Perhaps the shape and design had something to do with the magnifying capabilities of steel. Maybe it was because the sword was made of carbon steel instead of stainless.
Aaron thought about breaking out a few of his spare Stones to pass to the Isabellan forces. He and Sarah spent more than a week wrestling with the morality of giving the Stones to a force that would ultimately use them for violence. Since she had once been a member of the guard Sarah wanted to give them over. She held too many memories of serving with people similar to those who died now. Many of the people she had served with died during their skirmishes, and she remembered holding a lover in her arms while the woman bled out the last minutes of her life.
Aaron did not have much of an argument against that. His best argument was that he did not want more deaths caused by changes he initiated. Scoffing, Sarah pointed out that deaths caused by inaction were just as much his responsibility as those caused by his actions.
In the end they both relented. Aaron gave the Guard seven Talent Stones. The Guard Commander thanked him and then politely requested that he hand over the rest of his supply. Not trusting any government overly much, Aaron had prepared for this event. When the Guard came looking there was nothing for them to find. They brought in a sniffer, a woman who had the ability to sense the presence of Talent Stones through the amazing strength of her singular Talent. She found nothing either. The lead wrapping did a more than adequate job of hiding them from her.
Aaron had also had the forethought to move all his and Perk's silver into the bank. Maybe he was paranoid, but he did not fully trust any government body. Governments were made of people, and all people were fallible at some point in their lives.
In March, a rifleman caught Beech and the other Talent Stone holder in his sights. His first shot killed the lesser Talent. His second shot flattened on Beech's shield, as did his third and his fourth shots. There was no fifth. Showing nothing but faint disdain, Beech's power reached out and folded a cliff over him. The rifleman's spotter managed to escape detection and return to tell the tale.
Kit gave birth first. In early April, not long after the snows began melting, she came into town driving a wagon and looking as big as a tub. When she walked, she waddled worse than Mistress Turnbull, and she grunted when rising from a chair.
Her face was the same one Aaron remembered, though. Pert and freckled pretty. After their months apart, the smile she flashed on them was bright when she saw him and Sarah. The two women were like huge blimps crashing together when they met in a welcoming hug. Aaron made sure not to get between them.
Despite her condition, Kit insisted on being friendly that night because she felt some responsibility to fulfill her wifely obligations. Feeling slightly repulsed by her reasoning and her advanced condition, Aaron politely declined her invitation.
Three days later Kit gave birth to triplets, two boys and a girl. Four days after that Sarah gave birth to another boy. Aaron named them Autumn, Bret, Chet and Ernest.
Even though it was the women who delivered the children, Aaron was treated as the local wonder. Three boys out of four children was unheard of. Over the next month Aaron was propositioned at least twice a day. Every woman who approached him assured him that she was not interested in marriage. Two were already married but wanted a secret bedding anyway. Most had no interest in ever getting married. They belonged to that twenty or thirty percent of the female population who not only would never marry, but they had no interest in men except for the begetting of children.
Claiming fidelity as his excuse, Aaron refused every offer. When word of what was happening made its way back to Sarah and Kit, they laughed their heads off. Sarah told him to go ahead and have fun if he wanted to. Aaron decided not to play the fidelity angle on her. He told her the last thing he wanted was to have children out in the world he could not personally take care of. She seemed to understand that argument.
Despite Aaron's protests, Kit took her three babies to the Manor in mid May, leaving Aaron with the promise that he and Sarah could come for weekly visits. After she left the house somehow seemed empty when he had only one wife and one child.
Ernest was intensely spoiled.
Eventually, Sarah went back to work at the store. Ernest slept in a crib behind the counter when his Grandpa David and Grandmas Beth and Cindy allowed him to sleep. Jorrin was almost as bad except he was so gentle when he picked Ernest up that the baby seldom woke. Jorrin was still pained from Doyle's death. Having no living male children, Doyle had filled a hole in Jorrin's life as well as in that of his wives'.
Although she was only three months pregnant Cathy miscarried shortly later. Seeing her pain tore at Aaron's heart, and he had to admit to himself that he did still love her, even if those feelings were not so strong as they once had been. He was jealous of her husband even though he still did not know who the man was. As yet, by deliberate choice, he did not even know what last name Cathy went by. He never saw her walking with someone who acted as if he were her husband, and they seldom spoke during those times when she purchased something at the store. When they did business, he simply addressed her as Mistress.
But he did worry. Much of Cathy's fire was gone. She was still the queen of her Emporium, but outside her castle she had become quiet and withdrawn.
Reinforcements arrived for the Guard in mid May. The Guard began a bigger push into the new land.
A couple weeks later the ammunition for the .375s ran out, and they were returned to Aaron. By that time the guns had done their jobs. More than half of the savage leaders were dead. Aaron put the worthless weapons away.
With their leadership devastated and Beech's promises discredited, the tribes separated during the second week of June and moved back to their traditional lands, leaving Beech in the unenviable position of having almost no soldiers to prosecute his war. A few isolated war bands tried raiding for a few short weeks, but then they faded away, taking all knowledge of Haarod Beech's whereabouts with them. Peace was declared. Treaties were signed, and the footings were set for the savages to become part of a new nation governed by a council instead of the dictatorship provided by Mister Beech.
Aaron hated the sound of the man's name. Beech reminded him of that morning in the Manor when Kim and Sarah and he
had come close to dying.
In July Miss Bivins arrived with the much delayed papers she wanted to personally see him sign. The government of Isabella did hereby place in abeyance all taxes due on any and all future enterprises that Mister Aaron Lee Turner, presently residing in the town of Last Chance in the prefecture of Minimanisac in the state of Glencow, did now and in the future cause to exist through his efforts or through the means of certain unnamed sources that were at his disposal.
There was a good deal more to it since the entire document ran on for one hundred and thirteen pages. The thing had been written up by government lawyers, so Aaron only understood about every fifth word. Fortunately for him, Miss Bivins understood it all. She had him sign his name in twenty-seven places. She also informed him that the only clause in the entire document that truly limited his actions was the one preventing him from undertaking any financial endeavor outside the boundaries of Isabella for the next ten years. To offset that clause, Isabella agreed to finance twenty-two percent of all the Turner Houses that he cared to establish.
On a more somber note, she informed him that the Balandices, a very politically influential family, were doing everything they could to damage Aaron's claims. Apparently, Miss Bivins said, two of their more distant relatives had been hung in Last Chance over some minor issue quite some time back. Since there was nothing they could do to harm the actual town, they had set their sights on the town's most visible member.
Not to worry, she informed Aaron, because with the papers he had just signed, there was very little they could do. Aaron would have been reassured if she had not looked worried when she said it.
Later that day, Aaron mentioned to Sarah how impressed he was with Miss Bivins dedication. She had made one fairly long journey just to make sure he signed those papers. Laughing, Sarah pointed out that the woman no longer wore bottom of the barrel clothes. Miss Bivins' fortunes were rising at the same proportional speed as Aaron's. Yes, the young miss was certainly diligent. She was also very mercenary. Before long she would turn Aaron's fortune into something phenomenal and make herself very rich along the way.
Aaron was still impressed.
And then, two days after Miss Bivins headed back to N'Ark, he did something he had put off for far too long. He sat down and wrote a long letter to the Minister of the Interior that detailed everything the Militia had planned. Then he wrote another letter that informed the Minister of Helmet Klein, feeling both traitorous and angry as soon as he put Helmet's name down on paper. The man had treated him like a son. Helmet had given him trust and love, but he had also left Aaron in a position where he had been deliberately crippled to further the Militia's cause. The contradiction confused Aaron, and despite all his efforts, he was not sure if he could find it in his heart to forgive the man.
Just as well, Aaron supposed, since with the writing of this letter Aaron was doing Helmet dirty. Payback, perhaps, but Aaron hoped he was motivated more by a desire to do the right thing.
Gritting his teeth, Aaron continued writing because, unlike Aaron, Klein was intent on conquest and rule. He had a greater tech base, more other-world personnel, and one hell of a lot of drive. There was no way around the question. Klein was dangerous to the established powers of this world. The harm he and the Militia had caused Aaron was minor in comparison to the harm Klein's ambitions could cause a large part of the world.
Still, in his deepest heart, Aaron hoped Klein had been ignorant of what Field had done to a ten year-old boy.
When Aaron finished, he went to bed. He lay down beside his wife and looked at her while she slept. Sarah's face was soft, composed, and gentle beneath faint light coming through the open window. Starlight and moonlight framed her and softened her, and Aaron was happy. He knew this was his world and his woman.
It was his twenty-sixth birthday and he was content.