by Mark Eller
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 di
d 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.
Chapter 30
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
Jorrin's tireless pounding resonated through the streets, sending echoes bouncing off the wooden buildings. Aaron smiled to himself. The sound of Jorrin's work was an old familiar noise.
"Did you hear about Miss Flinders?" Sarah asked. She joggled Ernest in her arms, making the baby giggle.
After setting his broom up against the counter, Aaron watched his son as Ernest grabbed at his mother's covered chest.
"Lucky boy," he said enviously, just loud enough so Sarah could hear. "No, I haven't heard a thing about Miss Flinders."
Smiling, Sarah pulled Ernest's hands away and then fastened the two buttons Ernest had pulled loose. Since it was expected, Aaron deliberately allowed her to catch him ogling. She mock glared at him and then slowly turned so he could see her in profile.
Yep, Aaron decided, breast-feeding had done wonders for her figure. Though not yet impressive, her shape had definitely improved.
"You sir," Sarah said, "are incorrigible. Rest assured, the pillows are still plenty comfortable, as you will find out tonight." She laid the tired baby down for a nap. Ernest fussed in his basket.
"Getting back to the original question, it seems that our Miss Flinders went and married on us. Exactly one week after she turned fourteen she corralled your guitar player, Team Haggerty, and forced him to propose."
Aaron winced as he thought about how that particular event could have happened, and then he thought of Team Haggerty's first wife, a true harridan in everyone's opinion. Young Ann would have her hands full with that one.
While he mulled that over, Mistress Hornway came in. He weighed out fifteen pounds of cornmeal for her while the Mistress asked Sarah if they still sold those female things that improved the figure. Sarah directed her down to the Seamstress shop, telling her Miss Hale handled those now. All the female specific items had been moved down there the same way all the rope and tack had been moved to the livery. With all the changes, Jorrin's smithy had turned into more of a hardware store and repair shop. Fortunately, Jorrin seemed to like it that way. It gave him more money and more free time, something Jorrin needed since he refused to take on another apprentice.
Aaron smiled. Jorrin's idea of utilizing free time was to make interesting new devices in his smithy. In other words, he worked as hard as he ever had; only now he worked on his own designs and hobbies.
"Fourteen seems awfully young," he said after Mistress Hornway left. "Women can die when they give birth so young."
"I took her to Doc's, and we talked about that. He says there's no problem because Ann is sterile. Thankfully, she doesn't seem too upset about it." Sarah's eyes sparkled. "I think you're just upset because Missy is thirteen. You'll have to call her Miss Bayne soon."
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"I already do," Aaron admitted. "I gave Mistress Flo Halfax forty silver yesterday and sent her and Mistress Bun Halfax to Centrail to open a new Turner House. Between us, we decided that this House is going to be an inn, and the kids will help run it. I tell you hon, from the reports I've seen this inn is amazing. It has thirty-seven rooms to let and a ballroom. I figure we will use fifteen of the rooms for staff and to house the kids. The rest will be rented out. As a present from us, once they finish opening the house and hiring the right staff, Flo and Bun are going to roam the country on a year long vacation."
"So who runs the Traveler's Rest now?"
"I handed that to Missy. She's more than capable of running it if the staff helps a little."
CLANG CLANG CLANG CLANG
Listening to Jorrin's hammering, Aaron remembered when he was new to Last Chance, back when the constant noise of Jorrin working had been an irritant that set his nerves on edge and made him want to climb the walls. That time was long past. Now, the sound of hammer on anvil was soothing. It was a comfortable sound that brought memories of slow days and warm evenings and reminded him of the friends he had made and the life he had developed here in Last Chance. Yes, he was being altruistic with Missy and with Flo and Bun. He was doing good things for them, but the way he saw matters, he would need to do ten times as much before the books of their debts to one another became balanced. He owed them for their support and friendship. He owed them for their time and their care and for their acceptance of who he was. He owed them more than any money or gift he threw their way could repay.
They had given him their friendship and love. No material thing he could give them would ever equal that gift.
