"I know, Beth. And you know what? It's a good feeling. A very good feeling."

George's health problems were a secret that he carefully kept from Anna and Tilda. He made regular trips into town, riding the tractor since the gas for his truck had been siphoned off by that pirate Sterns and his men for the army. Doctor Adams kept track of his blood pressure and coagulation factors, subst.i.tuting one medicine or another when his prescribed medications ran out.

Anna's father hovered near death for weeks. The damage that had been done to him was slow to heal, but eventually it did, and George was introduced to Jurgen Braun.

Jurgen listened in silence to what his wife and daughter had to say about the man who had taken them in. He was reluctant to stay in George's house, fearing the debt that his family was acc.u.mulating with the obviously rich man, but found that he had little choice in the matter. He was free of the doctors, but still so weak that he could hardly stand on his own.

The planting was done long before Jurgen joined them. Seedlings were sprouting and George joined Tilda and Anna in the fields, hand weeding the tender young plants. It was a ch.o.r.e for George's back, and as often as not he spent his evenings cuddled up with a heating pad.

Jurgen was in the guest room that George had tried to get Tilda into, and Tilda had finally moved in with him. That still left just three of the six bedrooms occupied, and George soon had other boarders as well.

After the Battle of Badenburg, or the Battle of the c.r.a.pper as it was irreverently called, he was joined by four more families, and Anna moved in with her parents. The men who joined George and the Brauns were all farmers who had been pressed into service with Tilly's mercenaries. The women were their families and camp followers. George shook his head at that, but kept his peace. Strange times made for strange arrangements. The big farmhouse that George and Mary had rattled around in started to seem mighty small with eleven adults and thirteen children crowding it.

George's pastureland was also pressed into service. The army had captured horses and oxen along with the men, and an a.s.sortment of other farm animals that ranged from chickens to goats and pigs. The chickens were scrawny things compared to the birds that had come through the Ring of Fire with the Americans. The pigs and goats were, well, pigs and goats. George's new boarders quickly cobbled together pens and a chicken coop from supplies that had been lying around the barn since before George and Mary had bought the place.

The barn was cleared of its decades-long acc.u.mulation of junk, often yielding odd treasures. The people who had owned the farm before George and Mary had been real farmers. Buried among the clutter and junk were farm implements that the Germans understood. Good steel shovels. Steel rakes and hoes. A scythe with a broken handle. Old tack, with its leather brittle from age and neglect. The men and women tsk-ed at the state of George's tools, but kept their mouths closed. Tilda and Anna had told them of the wonderful machine that could plow a whole field in half a day. If George could let good tools rust this way, it must be a wonderful machine indeed.

The Brauns' farm was also being tended now that there were enough hands to tend it, and soon George found himself not being allowed to do anything but drive the tractor. It was still his ch.o.r.e because he was the only one who knew how all of the attachments worked, but the men and women who were living in his house insisted that it was more than he should have to do. After all, he was their host, and they saw it as their duty to tend to his lands while they lived under his roof. He was also just about the oldest person that any of them had ever met, and they were genuinely concerned about him.

The newcomers found George every bit as strange as Anna had in the beginning, and Anna took great pleasure in showing them all of the modern conveniences that George's home had to offer.

George and the Reardons learned bits and pieces of the German language as the year progressed, and the Germans learned English as well, so that by fall and the harvest the babble in George's house would confuse just about anyone. Still, they communicated well enough, and George found himself relegated more and more to the roll of Grandfather to All.

Little Jim was serving with the army now, and it was a source of constant worry for all of the Reardons and for one German girl in particular. Anna had a crush on Little Jim, and waited impatiently for his visits. Little Jim, fortunately, had just as big a crush on her and visited as often as he could. This made for some interesting times as the two negotiated. It didn't help that Jim's sisters, mother and grandmother were all on Anna's side.

The time finally came as winter gripped the land that Little Jim, all six feet three inches of him, came hemming and hawing to stand in front of Jurgen Braun.

"Well, Mister Braun, I, well, I would like to have Anna's hand in marriage," he finally managed to say, swallowing hard to fight down his nervousness.

Jurgen looked at Jim closely and shook his head. "Anna ist too younk. She ist only sechzehn. Zixteen. And you, younk man. You are but a boy. Too younk. You haff no land or trade off you own."

Little Jim looked at Jurgen with evident confusion. "Sir, I'm eighteen. I'm legally a man now, and I'm old enough for the army. And as for a trade, I've been working for Uncle Ollie in his machine shop off and on for years. The only reason that I wasn't working there this year was that he didn't have enough business to keep me busy. But now, with him starting to talk about making cannons and rifled muskets, he's going to have more business than he can handle."

Jurgen looked at Jim carefully. The boy was big enough, obviously strong, and even good looking in an overfed, American way. And he was financially well off. His father's eldest son, he would have land of his own one day.

There was a flicker of sadness at that last thought. His son, born when Anna was three, hadn't lived through his first year, and Tilda hadn't quickened again in spite of all of their prayers and efforts. To have this boy as his son, even by marriage-it was a thing worth considering. But still, was he really interested in Anna, or did he wish to marry her to acquire more lands for himself? After all, Anna was his only child, and would one day inherit the farm. There was one way to find out. "You unterstand, younk man, dat Anna ha.s.s no mitgift."

Jim was perplexed by the German word. He had never heard it before, but Grandma Beth quickly looked it up and showed him the page in the dictionary. "If you mean dowry, yes sir, I understand. It don't bother me none. We can live with my parents until I can get a place of my own."

Tilda looked at Jim as if she were measuring him for a coffin. "Anna ist a goot girl. St.u.r.dy and strong. She vill make goot wife for ju, even if she ist too younk and comes wit no lands yet."

"Missus Braun, you've got a lovely daughter, and when the time comes I'm sure that we'll have as much land we'll need. As I said, I'll probably be working in Uncle Ollie's machine shop rather than farming anyway, so land isn't a big issue for me."

Elizabeth entered into the negotiations in earnest now that Little Jim had gotten things rolling. "Jurgen, Tilda, Little Jim is a fine young man. He is a skilled machinist, and has been working during his summers since he was twelve. That's quite a while by our standards. And please remember that we have different a.s.sumptions about when it is proper to marry."

She looked at Little Jim with a definite frown on her face. "Sixteen is too young, by most standards. Well, today's standards. I was sixteen when I married your grandfather. He was nineteen then. But that makes no difference as far as these two are concerned." She looked smiled at Little Jim. "What makes a difference to me is that they seem to be truly in love. They can wait a bit before the actual ceremony, but I, and his parents, wouldn't be against an engagement." She looked in the dictionary and came up with the German word for betrothal. "A verlobung."

Jurgen and Tilda consulted quietly for a few moments before Jurgen answered. "Ve ist not in goot times. Dis var ist not to end zoon. Ze school, they say it ist many years to come before it ist end. But ve are Americans now. Ve vill liff like Americans, ja? Zo we decide. She may be verlobung. Engage. But not to marry until she ist achtzehn. Eighteen."

Tilda continued at her husband's nod. "Anna ist not rich girl, but not beggar. In tee years ahead she vill make her mitgift. She vill not come to altar vith empty hands."

Elizabeth nodded and stepped aside to let Little Jim speak again. "Mister Braun, I am willing to accept these conditions. As a token, I offer Anna this ring. It's Grandma's engagement ring that Grandpa gave her." He smiled broadly at Elizabeth, then at Anna.

Anna stepped forward at her father's nod, and Little Jim went to one knee. "Anna, will you marry me?"

Anna looked confused for a moment. "I haf already say yes."

George smiled at her. "It's kind of tradition, Anna. He proposes on one knee and you say yes, then he gives you the engagement ring. That makes it official."

Anna looked slightly confused, but said, "Yes, my Jim, I vill marry you." Jim put his grandmother's ring on the ring finger of her left hand, then stood and took her gently into his arms.

Elizabeth and George stood to the side, smiling at the scene. She smiled at the proud smile on his face and patted his arm, then went to hug her grandson and his future bride.

George continued to secretly see Doctor Adams as his health, once propped up by modern medicine, continued to decline. As the medications that were stocked in the town pharmacies ran out, herbal remedies were tried. But as the winter wore on, even the herbs could not control his blood pressure.

George awoke in the middle of the night. He was gripped by a crushing pain that was driving the breath from his chest as he struggled to reach the few nitroglycerin pills that Doctor Adams had managed to find for him. They were there on the nightstand, he could see them, but they were out of reach. The pain eased slightly as his sight dimmed, and he managed to whisper one word with his last breath. "Mary."

Anna found George the next morning. With the cold weather they had all taken to sleeping in late, snuggling under blankets until the sun was well above the horizon. George was usually the last one up, but when he hadn't appeared by ten she went to find him.

"George? Ist you goink to sleep all day?" she asked playfully. Then she saw his face. There wasn't anything obviously wrong, but she knew before she touched his cool cheek. A choked sob escaped her lips as she backed away, and she finally turned to scream, "MUTTI!" before she collapsed beside his bed.

Tilda and everyone else in the house crowded into George's room. The old man looked so peaceful, but there was no question about his death. One of the elder boys was sent to town to inform the authorities, and soon Doctor Adams and Chief Frost were driving up in a natural-gas-powered police cruiser.

Doctor Adams looked at George and took his pulse for form's sake, but he knew it was far too late. "He went quietly," the doctor said, as he noted the pills still on the nightstand. "He has been expecting something like this. Ever since his medications ran out he has known that he was living on borrowed time."

Dan nodded. "He told me, and swore me to secrecy. He didn't want anyone fussing over him. Now I'll have to tell everyone. Did he tell you who was to see to his affairs?"

The doctor nodded. "I am. He didn't have much of a will, and I brought it with me. We wrote it up about three months ago when the last of the blood thinners ran out. Here." The doctor handed over a single sheet of paper, notarized and witnessed as was proper, and the chief read the single sentence.

"I, George Armstrong Blanton, being of sound mind and failing health, upon my death do bequeath all of my worldly belongings to my adopted granddaughter, Anna Braun."

CURIO AND RELIC.

by Tom Van Natta

May, 1631.

"h.e.l.lo? Anybody there?"

Paul Santee took off the holstered .45 when he heard the call. It came again, nearer. "h.e.l.lo, the house!" No sense in scaring someone who probably meant well. He tucked the .45 behind his belt in the small of his back. No sense in being stupid, either. Stupid tends to kill people, and he was still alive. Something strange had happened last weekend, and he didn't know what it was. It was good to hear another voice, especially one that seemed friendly.

"h.e.l.lo! Mr. Santee?" The caller turned out to be a kid, a gangly blond teenager who stood at his gate. Santee stepped out on his porch and waved the boy in.

Eddie Cantrell carefully closed the gate behind him. He wasn't too happy about finding this cabin-he'd secretly hoped it was outside the Ring of Fire-but when Mike Stearns asked about war veterans, Santee's name had come up, and Eddie had been asked to go see if his backwoods cabin was inside the Ring, and if he was still alive. Obviously, yes to both. Eddie walked up the path carefully, slowly, trying to figure out how to explain things. He'd heard that Paul Santee was a survivalist, a loner, mean as h.e.l.l. The man in front of him was small and wiry, grizzled, graying. He didn't look particularly mean, or particularly anything, except for his piercing eyes.

Santee stared at the kid appraisingly. "What can I do for you?" he said gruffly. The kid looked alarmed. Should have made some small talk first, Santee thought. That was a bit abrupt. I'm sure out of practice.

"Mr. Santee, do you know what happened?"

That was what Santee wanted to know. Give the kid some minimum information and see how he responds. "Well... Five days ago, thunder and a big flash of lighting from the clear blue sky. Path to the road disappeared about a hundred feet down the way. Weather's been strange. Phone is dead. My bedroom window faced south, but not any more-maybe the earth's axis of rotation shifted. There's a big wall of dirt that seems to go on and on." A long pause there, as he looked at Eddie. "And some d.a.m.n bird was out there yesterday that sounded exactly like a cuckoo clock. Do you know what happened?"

"Uh, well, Mr. Ferrara-he's my science teacher-says we were moved to Germany, in the year 1631. And that there's a war on, with us in the middle of it."