A Company of Heroes Book Five: The Space Cadet (2 page)

Now the molten rock had spread in a vast, incandescent sheet almost to the door of the farmer’s small house. Where there had once been the stubble of shriveled crops, there was now an endless black plain, simmering, steaming and bubbling through its sintery crust like a hot meat pie.

Obviously, something had gone very wrong.

The farmer and his wife watched the daily eruption with a kind of bovine resignation. The volcano proper was invisible, since it was only a relatively low dome easily hidden behind the smoldering horizon, but during the day the heavy column of ash and smoke that poured from its vent boiled high into the sky. At night its location was marked by a lambent shimmer, like distant lightning or forest fire. At every hour, day or night, its discontented grumbling made the earth shiver like a chastened dog.

“We’d be almighty rich if there was somebody who’d want to buy magma,” said the farmer. “I suspect that we got more than ‘bout anybody has any right to.”

“Now, Dittmer,” said his wife, “you know that there ain’t magma. Magma be molten rock that be still underground. That there be lava.”

“Well, if it ain’t one damn thing, it be another.”

“That be true.”

“You gotta keep a look on the bright side, though.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not much chance the bank’ll ever want to foreclose on
that
,” he said, gesturing toward the plain of steaming cinders. Somewhere under it lay the carbonized remnants of a sign advertising a sheriff’s sale.

“No, we ain’t be going to be hearing much from them no more, I guess.”

“Already wasn’t worrying much ‘bout taking care of the cow, now I ain’t having to plow under, nor plant nor harvest no more neither.”

“It’s going to be like a vacation, Dittmer.”

“Ain’t never had no vacation before.”

“Where should we go?”

“We ain’t never been over to that there hill over there before.”

“Just feel that there heat, Dittmer! Come winter, it’ll keep us snug as bugs. Why, you won’t have to be chopping hardly a lick o’ wood!”

“Why, I ain’t never thought o’ that! Now that there
is
good news. That’s a chore I always found a mite intoler’ble.”

Smiling, the farmer and his wife sat back in their chairs, rocking them on their back legs, appreciatively contemplating the scab-like mass that stretched to the horizon, where a vast grey column of smoke and ash marked the distant volcano. Silent lightning laced the cloud in a lazy weave.

They thanked Musrum for such a wonderful blessing.

“Kinda pretty, ain’t it?” she asked.

“Yep. Feel like I could just sit here and do nothing but watch ‘er for days.”

“Me, too.”

They appreciatively watched the eruption for a few days more.

“Kinda miss the chickens,” she said.

“Whatever for? Nothing but a bunch of trouble.”

“Well, they sure looked kinda nice, out there, scratching in the dirt and all.”

“Gotta admit, a chicken’d go down right nice, right about now.”

“Or a egg.”

“A egg would be right nice.”

“But they ain’t be no chickens no more.”

“A egg, curling up all brown ‘round the edges, swimming in butter.”

“Ain’t be no butter neither. Cows is all gone.”

“Kinda miss those cows. Chickens, too, now I think of it.”

“Bet you could fry a egg on that
lava
, there.”

“Bet you could!”

“But we ain’t got no eggs.”

“Nor any soft, sweet, yellow butter.”

“We’d have some pancakes or biscuits or cornbread if we had a crop this year.”

“Ain’t got a bit of flour nor corn neither.”

“Not a bit.”

“Got plenty of lava.”

“Can’t complain ‘bout that!”

“Shoot. All this talk has done made me peckish.”

“Me, too.”

“Wished I had something to eat.”

“That’s just from all this talk ‘bout food, Dittmer. It’ll pass.”

“No, Helmla, I do b’lieve I really am peckish, I believe. What we got to eat in the house?”

“Ain’t be much, Dittmer. We only been getting credit at the store for what no one else wants.”

“Well, old Grobbarger ain’t got much to complain of—we been doing him a favor. Where else he going to be getting rid of that stuff? Shouldn’t have stocked it in the first place, if no one wants it, is what I say.”

“You sure are right, there, Dittmer! You sure are!”

“Wished you hadn’t mentioned them chickens, though. Makes a man peckish thinking ‘bout them chickens.”

“Got some nice creamed okra for tonight, Dittmer.”

“That sounds real nice, it surely does. But okra ain’t a chicken.”

“No it ain’t, that’s a fact.”

That evening, during dinner, the farmer’s wife seemed distracted and nervous; she merely pushed her okra around her plate with her fork. Knowing how partial his wife was to okra, the farmer asked her if anything was wrong.

“I just been waiting for just the right time to tell you something, Dittner.”

“We ain’t outa okra, are we?”

“No, Dittmer, it’s something good. Just when it seems like we’re more blessed with good luck than we have any right to be, Musrum has decided to bless us one more time.”

“What do you mean, Helmla? Is the chickens back?”

“No, Dittmer,” she said, suddenly blushing, shyly looking down at her plate. “The chicken’s ain’t back. I am with child.”

“With what child?” he replied, looking around the empty room. They were alone.

“Our child, Dittmer.”

“You is bearing a child?”

“I is.”

“Great Musrum! How long you been with this child?”

“Why, I wanted to wait ‘til I was right positive sure before saying anything to you.”

“Well, what d’you know ‘bout that? A baby! When you specting the little booger?”

“Long ‘bout two-three days now.”

“Two-three days? Great Musrum!” he leaped to the feed company calendar and stabbed a bony finger at it. “Just what I thought! Looky here! Looky here! The baby broker’s due just ‘bout then!”

“Are you sure?”

“Sure as anything!”

“It do seem like a murckle, don’t it?”

“The little booger’ll hardly have time to hit th’ floor ‘fore th’ broker’ll have it an’ we’ll have enough money t’carry us clear through th’ summer. We can be eating us some chickens for sure!”

“What’ll we do with all this okra, then, Dittmer?”

Instead of answering, Dittmer peered out the open window, where the lowering sun was making the fresh lava beds even more lurid, which scarcely seemed possible. “Musrum wouldn’ta given us so much of something,” he continued, “for no good reason. By th’ time th’ broker’s money runs out, I’ll have surely figured out some way we can make some money off that there magma.”

“That there be lava, Dittmer.”

True to her word, in three days’ time the woman gave birth to a healthy baby girl and the broker was there to catch her on the first bounce as it were. He wrapped her up in a swaddling cloth, passed over an envelope filled with crumpled blue banknotes, climbed back into his wagon and was off down the road. The farmer and his wife watched him go. The whole exchange hadn’t take more than fifteen minutes.

The farmer thought he felt something touch his face and turned to look at his wife, in time to see a drop of liquid roll down her cheek. He thought for a shocked and distressful moment that she was crying, then realized it was only a raindrop.

The first of many, it turned out. The dust and ashes with which the volcano had been filling the atmosphere had provided the necessary nuclei upon which the scant moisture in the tired, desiccated air had finally condensed. A trillion more drops were soon pattering around the couple—each making a tiny crater in the dusty ash in the bowl of which rested a muddy grey spherule—drawing a hazy curtain across the landscape, withdrawing their view to a few hundred yards. The sound of the rain on the hot lava was like the sizzling of bacon. It made the farmer feel right peckish.

A mile away, the baby broker cursed his luck, pulled his wide-brimmed hat further down over his eyes and his cloak tighter around his scrawny neck. His horse steamed like a fresh meatloaf; it looked dejected, an expression for which horses are peculiarly well-suited. The surface of the road, collecting dust for months, quickly became a soupy glue and the animal sank into it as far as its ankles. Each time it withdrew a foot, there was a repulsive sucking sound that seemed to depress the horse even more. It reconciled itself, however, by thinking of its many cousins and acquaintances who were now sealing envelopes and satiating overstuffed cats and tried to be glad that it at least had honest work. From the caravan behind the broker came a confused caterwauling as the day’s collection of infants protested the dampness (both atmospheric and personal), cold, noise and rough road.
The hell with ‘em
, thought the broker, glumly.
The hell with ‘em all
, thought the horse, morosely.

It was almost four hundred miles to the capital, Blavek, and the broker had intended to have had half of that distance covered by now. But the damned shifting lava flows had forced him into innumerable detours. That in itself would not have been intolerable had not the detours circumvented the villages and hamlets that were his customary haunts. Not that it really mattered all that much, he thought resignedly, since most of the inhabitants had long since fled from the noxious products of the eruption.

There was an inn, he knew, only a few miles down the road and, though it was still early, he was in no mood to prolong his journey further. He might as well stop now and make this evening no more miserable than it already was. Something hot to eat and a little more than enough to drink would suit him very well.

It still took more than an hour to reach the inn and neither the broker’s mood nor that of his horse was improved by the delay. The pall cast by the ashy sky had caused an early nightfall and it was already dark by the time the caravan came to a creaking halt in front of the dilapidated building. The horse sighed, but tried to not get its hopes up in case this was just a temporary respite from its labors. The thought of continuing the miserable journey was almost more than it could bear.

The innkeeper came out just as the broker was descending.

“Well, well!” the former said. “If it ain’t old Gerber! Haven’t seen you by this way in two-three years I s’pose.”

“It would have been another two or three years if it’d been up to me.”

“Tsk, tsk,” the innkeeper clucked in an ill-conceived attempt at wit. “I suppose you don’t approve of our volcano?”

“You think I’m an idiot? This might be my last load. Just may give up the whole business after this trip. Barely worth the effort in the best of times anyway.”

The innkeeper rapped the side of the caravan and was rewarded with a choral howl.

“Got a full load?”

“Enough. Can you get your old lady to feed ‘em and hose ‘em down? I’m bushed. Gotta get something to eat and drink.”

“The missus is a bit laid up right now. Old girl’s getting along, you know. Not as spry as when you were last here. Daughter’s full of pep, though. Growed like a weed since you last saw her. She’ll take care of your goods for you, don’t you worry.” He winked knowingly at the broker with those last words, but if they meant anything to Gerber, or if Gerber even noticed, he gave no sign.

“Fine. Don’t want to even think about ‘em ‘til morning.”

“Don’t worry ‘bout a thing, Mr. Gerber. Get on inside where it’s warm and dry. I’ll have the boy run the caravan ‘round back an’ take care of the horse, too.”

“Fine, fine.” Without another word, the broker strode into the inn. He unfurled his cape, shook it dry and hung it from a peg just inside the door, hanging his big-brimmed hat over it. The room he turned to face was small, low-ceilinged and dark. It smelled of spilled ale and stale tobacco. Along one wall was a bar made of unvarnished wooden planks. A half dozen small tables and a dozen chairs comprised the remainder of the furnishings. There were only three other people in the room: a trio of badly-worn old men who sat apart and, for all the broker knew, were as strange to one another as they were to him. They seemed unaffected by the fire that was filling the room with acrid fumes from a poorly-damped fireplace. For lack of any other fuel, the innkeeper was burning dung. The old men glowered at the newcomer through red, gummy, weeping eyes.

The innkeeper followed Gerber into the room and closed the door behind him.

“Have a seat anywhere you like an’ I’ll get some hot food for you right away.”

“I need a drink first.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Gerber, sir. What’ll be your pleasure?”

“Give me brandy. I need to get the chill out of my marrow.”

“Right away, Mr. Gerber,” said the innkeeper as he stepped behind the bar and rummaged among the bottles that crowded the shelves. Finding a likely-looking, bulbous flask, he blew the dust from a snifter and poured into it a generous portion of dark liquid. The broker accepted it wordlessly, frowning at the greasy fingerprints on the glass.

“It’s always hard to believe that you can find something to do with all them squalling brats,” said the innkeeper. “Can’t imagine what anyone’d want with ‘em all.”

“Where do you think baby oil comes from?”

The innkeeper started, frowned, then laughed. “You
are
the kidder, ain’t you! Ha! Ha!”

“Sure I am,” the broker lied.

A heavy-set blonde girl peeked through the curtain behind the bar and asked, “What about that there wagonload of squallers, dad?” Gerber thought that if this was the daughter who’d grown like a weed, it had been a highly apt metaphor.

“They’ll hold, Gelkie. First get this gentleman here something hot to eat.”

“Sure, dad. There’s some meat just comin’ to the boil an’ a potato an’ a cabbage.”

“Well, what are you waiting for, then?”

“All right! All right! It’s on its way! It ain’t the King of bloody Tamlaght,” she added from the other side of the curtain.

The bartender refilled the broker’s snifter and leaned his elbows on the scarred counter.

“I ‘pologize for my daughter. She’s a good girl but just a little rough ‘round the edges. She don’t get much advantage of society out here. Needs a bit of sanding, I guess you’d say.”