Libby thought about that for a moment. Woody, the kindly old man who hung around at the bar all day, chatting with people and dispensing advice. That little old man was not just the richest man in town, but richer than the entire town. She just sat there, nonplussed, staring at the two of them. Eventually, Jimmy tried to break the silence, "I know, wild, huh?"
Libby nodded and said, "Yeah. That's really something. I never would have figured. But ah . . . I don't want to seem rude, but what has that got to do with me?"
Mr. Lajoie gave her a hard stare for a moment, "You really don't know? He never mentioned it to you, not even once?"
"I'm telling you, this is all news to me. He never talked about his claim, he didn't like to talk about money. He just chatted with people in the bar."
"Ms. Carter. Woodrow Wilson Smith left no family. There was no one to claim his money. He bequeathed it all to you."
Chapter 25
Libby didn't go back to work that day. She spent her time in bed, curled up and staring at the wall. It was too big to think about. Too much to take in. She was effectively the richest woman in town, one of the richest in the solar system. The thought frightened her.
She thought about just giving it all up, signing it over to the first person who would take it. Or, if not that, perhaps hiring bodyguards and building security systems around the rock to protect her property. A dozen possibilities ran through her mind, but none of them seemed to make sense in the long run. Minerva came in once, and left a bowl of soup for her. Libby started to say something, but Minerva just ran one hand through the girl's hair and smiled. She walked out without a word. Libby stared at the door for a long time, then it dawned on her.
The next day, Libby got the Davis family together in the kitchen, and laid out her plan. It took a long time to explain it all, and she had to stop several times as argument and debate flew across the table. Once they were in agreement, she flew back to Blessed and set up a base of operations in the Hail Mary. She sat down with Bronson and told him what they would do, his eyes getting bigger with each step. When it was over, he flew into activity, organizing everything. The first thing he did was open a non-profit corporation called 'Windfall Inc.'
Then they started spending. Libby ordered more mining machinery, the largest order the company had ever seen. There would be enough new machinery to put everyone back to work on their own claims in just a few months. The foundries on Blessed weren't prepared for an order that large, so she helped them by hiring new workers for the foundries, and miners to dig raw materials for the equipment. She started hiring like mad, building up the largest construction force Blessed had ever seen, and she set them to work on housing and rebuilding the commercial district. She commissioned the building of a firehouse, library, school buildings. She even built a town theater, with no hopes more grand than just seeing what people did with it.
She bought everything with money borrowed off of her new rock. She loaned out the money and equipment with one caveat. Everyone who used her equipment paid one percent of their profits to her until that equipment was paid off. Every mortgage she backed had to be paid off, or she wouldn't do business with the defaulting party again. She hired dozens of men to start excavating the new platinum mine, and she paid the Davis family back for their rock.
There was more work in those next few weeks than Libby had ever done in her life. There were all kinds of legal hoops to jump through to protect the claim, and once people knew about the size of Woody's claim, she actually had to hire guards against piracy. Some people treated her differently, and she felt bad about that. Most of those who were friends before, though, didn't change at all.
***
Libby sat on the observation deck of the house built in the center of the Windfall Compound. The room was large and spacious, thick carpet covering the ground, and two recliners that she never used. Above her was one clear hemisphere, a dome showing the compound stretch out all around her. She sat cross-legged in the center of the room, taking in the view of it. Her head hung back as she propped herself up on her arms. She stared intently out at the swirling light show of working claims and construction. Despite all the activity and motion going on in her sky, Libby was staring at just one quiet spot, where she could just barely make out a tiny rock in the distance. Beside her, Jimmy was laid out, still panting from the day's work. He said, "You know, I've been meaning to ask you. Aren't you done now?"
She looked at him, "Done?"
He put one arm behind his head and rested on it, "Yeah, you were going to strike it rich, then go home and show them all . . . whatever it was."
She smiled slowly, "Yeah, that was pretty dumb."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, the whole idea. That I would strike it rich, then go home." She shook her head slowly, “What home? What did I have on Earth that made me so desperate to get back?” She looked up through the dome at a tiny circle in the sky, "You know what Woody's last words to me were?"
Jimmy turned to her and frowned, "Uh, no. I never thought about that."
"He said, 'I'm sorry'. He was really insistent about it, too." She stared sadly out at the tiny circle, "it took me a long time to figure out what he meant."
"What did he mean?"
"He . . . Well, I think you have to understand his position. He wasn't really a community kind of guy. He was a loner. You have to be, if you're going to be one of the first miners in deep space. He wasn't built for a lot of community stuff. He was made to work alone for hours on end, with nothing but the sound of his own breathing to keep him company. It takes a special breed of person to do that."
"Okay."
"He had this phenomenal work ethic, which said that anything you win from luck doesn't count. All that counts is the money you get from hard work."
"Understandable."
"So he hits it rich, right? There he is, his first time out, and he finds one of the largest platinum mines in the solar system. He's got no more reason to scratch and save. His work ethic says that it's not real money, but if he worked the rest of his life, he couldn't possibly match the money that he got through dumb luck."
"Huh."
"So he was stuck like that. When he saw people in need at the Hail Mary, he didn't know what to do, because he figured that charity was just a way of keeping people from reaching for their own goals. So he's sitting on a pile of money, and it weighs on him all the time."
"You really feel sorry for him, don't you?" Jimmy frowned at the distant rocks, "Or, felt sorry for him. Or something."
She stared out at that one rock and nodded, "I feel sorry for him. He was trapped. The fact that he was set for life doesn't make his trap any easier to live with." She took a deep breath, "So then he and I start talking, and he sees me doing what he wanted to be doing the whole time. He's watching me struggle and work, and he's envious, if you can believe that. He wants to do something for me, but he won't allow himself to give me charity, and I wouldn't have let him if he tried. Instead, he just suffers as he watches me struggle."
"Okay, so why would he -"
"I'm getting to it." Libby smiled as the rock she was staring at came into the light, and began flickering madly with a glint of tin reflecting off of it. "So, in a momentary lapse of reason, he decides to give me all his money. In his mind, he's able to help me, and it doesn't feel like charity, because he's not going to be around to use the money or even to give it away."
"That's some odd reasoning."
"Yeah, and I don't think he ever really bought it, either. He was probably thinking about changing his will after that, but before he could, the comet blew through here, and messed all that up."
"Oh. I get it."
"So he knows he's dying, he sees me there in his shack, and he's thinking, 'this poor girl is going to be burdened with my unearnable money. She's like me, she works for her money, she'll be in the same position I was in.'"
Jimmy rolled over to look at her, "That's why he apologized?"
"Yeah. He wa
s sorry for sticking me with his curse. Poor guy."
Jimmy frowned again, "Wait, if you're the one stuck with the curse, then why say 'poor guy'?"
She finally looked away from the rock and grinned at him, "Because there's something Woody didn't know. See, I'm not like him, not really." She frowned and looked back at the tiny, rotating stone. She watched it's tin flicker like a tiny strobe, or a beacon, calling her home. "I thought I could be like Woody. I can deal with the work, the boredom, the alienation. But I never wanted it. It wasn't who I was. It's just that I did it because I had to." She shrugged, an absurd gesture when propped up on one's arms, "I want to do things. I want to go places. I don't care about having money, I just wanted the money as a way to help people. To help myself."
She took a deep breath, "But I'm not really like him. I like people, and I want to surround myself with them, enjoy myself with them, take risks with them." She looked back over at him, a wry smile on her lips, then she leaned over and kissed him easily. It was quick, warm, and short, as she returned to staring at the rock in the distance.
Jimmy sputtered for a moment before sitting up and gaping at her pleasant smile, "Now, um, what was that for?"
She grinned, but didn't look at him, "I don't know. And I don't really care at this moment. It's just what I wanted to do. From now on, I'm going to see how much I can do what I want to do. After all, I've felt trapped a long time."
Libby grinned up at the spinning rock in her sky. About a half a mile away from her home, in perfect synchronous orbit, the rock spun. She had hunted for it, used a lot of money tracking it down, and paid even more to have it dragged all the way back to her compound. It tumbled madly in the night, a single shack resting on it. Names were carved all over the surface of the rock, except for one spot, where a platinum plate had been bolted into place. The plate read:
Elizabeth Carter - The last Tumbler
Tumbler Page 19
