"What about his gun?" Minnie asked.
"Take it. No reason for anyone to know he dropped it here, and one more can always come in handy."
That was about the time they saw the others coming.
They didn't panic in the least. Just finished what they were doing and waited until the others came down toward the truck.
They gave a quick description of what had happened.
Ron looked into the truck. There wasn't as much blood as you'd expect in there. Probably because Holloway had already bled out before they muscled him into the cab, as many times as he'd been shot.
You could recognize him, but just barely. Two of Denise's shots had hit him in the face.
Ron and Missy looked at one another. It was perfectly clear that the girls were of the opinion that they had not done anything wrong. As they saw it, Bryant Holloway had helped bring into Grantville the demonstrators who killed Denise's dad, had helped the people who arranged the killing of Mayor Dreeson, who gave Minnie her eye.
Minnie was pretty Old Testament herself. She reached up into the socket, popped it out, and held it out for them to look at. None of the others had ever observed this phenomenon before. It did have the effect of taking their minds off Holloway's death for the time being. "I owed him," Minnie said.
"No different from killing a mad dog," was Denise's summary.
The four others stood there, wondering if there was any way to salvage the situation.
Minnie and Denise looked at one another. There was no telling how long the others were going to stand around. With the possibility that someone else could come along any minute and find them there. Shots tended to attract attention. Since they were of the opinion that the papers were now available to the people who had gone looking for them and that they had already taken care of the rest of situation quite adequately, they climbed back on Buster's cycle and started for home.
"See you later!" Denise called over her shoulder.
For one thing, they were cutting school. They saw more of the truant officer than they wanted to even without side trips to Frankfurt. Mrs. Dreeson and Mrs. Wiley would be pissed. Mrs. Dreeson and Mrs. Wiley had a tendency to compare their behavior at considerable length to the far more responsible and thus infinitely preferable manner in which Annalise Richter and Idelette Cavriani approached life.
Having a mentor could be a real pain.
"I don't believe it, quite," Missy was saying, "but he has Dumais' papers thrown in the back here. Just tied up in bundles with red tape around them. Without so much as a camper cover. What if it had started raining?"
"He wasn't thinking straight when he left Grantville," Ron answered. "That's pretty obvious. Reach over the edge of the truck bed and lift them out. Try not to snag your sleeves or anything. Pack them into the sidecars. I hope there's not more than will fit."
"There's more than will fit into one. I think that we can put the rest into the bottom of the other one and then the full gas cans on top. But we can't leave the empty gas cans here."
"Give the empty cans to Nathan to carry," Chandra said. "He might as well be of some use, for a change."
"That's it, then. Let's get out of here before someone shows up to investigate those shots. Prickett, we're going back to your place." Ron started his cycle. On the way out, he was once more careful to follow one of the tracks that the truck tires had made on the way in. Missy followed the other one.
Nathan Prickett was sulking, insofar as an adult could be said to sulk. That kid Ron had started giving him directions. Notify the Frankfurt authorities where he found the vehicle; say that he found Bryant dead in it; had no idea who'd killed him; say that he had gone looking because he knew that his brother-in-law was coming and he was getting worried because of the delay; remind them that Bryant had been here before on that firefighting detail.
Ron ran through it again. "Tell them that you were expecting him again and were getting worried because of the delay. Tell them you saw tracks where the truck ran off the road. Before you notify them, hide the empty gas cans-and make sure that you send them back to Denise and Minnie when you get a chance, because they are practically irreplaceable. Let the authorities worry about what to do with the truck next. It has a fire department sticker on it, so that will back up your reminder that Bryant was here in connection with that the last time."
"At least," Missy said, "I'm Chandra's cousin. It may make some minimal sense that I would have come to give her a ride back home. If anyone asks you why we were here. If nobody asks, don't bring it up."
Then she glared at Nathan.
"Which reminds me, Prickett you prick. Exactly what did you think you were doing leaving Chandra to sit there shivering in front of the Post Office, waiting for some way to get back home, not having the slightest idea when a ride would come along? What were you expecting her to do if none came along today? Sit there all night?"
"I told her not to come," Nathan said sullenly. "I've told her that all along."
"He doesn't want us to live together any more," Chandra said. "He doesn't want any more children. It's not in his plans."
Ron turned around and stared. "You know," he said. "That is really stupid. You could always take a couple of weeks off. Go back to Grantville for a few days. Go to Dr. Shipley and get a vasectomy if you really want to go back home. Or if you want to have Chandra and the kids come here. Unless you're so attached to keeping the family jewels as an option, even though you already have more kids than you want, that you're willing to ruin all of your lives."
"Look, Stone," Nathan said. "None of this is any of your business at all."
"Chandra is Missy's cousin."
Nathan blinked. "What does that have to do with it?" He had a strange feeling of being out of the loop. Why should it make any difference to the Stone kid that Chandra was Missy's cousin?
Missy interrupted. "And, now that the possibility of doing something about it has been pointed out, if you tell her to go have her tubes tied instead so you can keep the jewels, I personally will tell the whole world that you're willing to risk her life unnecessarily. That's abdominal surgery. Something they can do these days, if they have to. But no joke. Way too high risk, compared with your option. You're not worth it to her. Believe me, you are not. She doesn't have to put up with you. She has people around who love her."
Ron kept going. "Face, it, Prickett. It's one thing for couples who want kids, but not yet. Or still want more kids, but not right now. They have to deal with the whole spacing thing. Timing thing. Inconvenient timing thing. But where are you getting off on this? The whole point is that you don't want any more at all. If you don't intend to do anything sensible, you at least ought to have the common decency to ask your wife for a divorce and let her get on with her life. Talk about being a dog in the manger."
Chandra looked from one to another. She had not wanted to come quite as far as that word. Divorce. At least not yet. She'd thought around it, of course. Back last fall. Talking to Paige Modi. Talking to Aunt Debbie at Thanksgiving. Skipped around it. Skirted around it. Never quite looked it in the face. She hadn't quite wanted to think that it was something that could happen to her.
Divorce. Now Ron had said it for her. With Nathan in the room. She couldn't pretend that it didn't exist. Not any more. Maybe she was as bad as Nathan, in her own way. It wasn't something she had planned on.
Nathan's reaction to Ron's unsolicited advice was far from favorable.
Particularly when Ron expressed the opinion that in all probability he was just using this as an excuse-that if he didn't have it, he would be finding some other reason to skip out on his responsibilities.
"What in hell do you know about it?"
"If someone wants to dump his kids-or hers-he will. Or she will. He'll find a reason. Or she will. What did you want? Not real sons, apparently. A couple of little wind-up toys to pat on the head at the end of the day?"