"Jeez, but it's cold out here," Wade Threlkeld said to Elizabeth Biermann, flapping his arms and stomping his feet next to the large bonfire that late January 1632 night. Their week-long assignment was to keep the fire in this mountain pass large so that all travelers coming to Grantville from outside would be attracted to it. Once there, they would be put into the old barn, fed and then held until one of the immigration medical staff could check them over. A few small bouts with typhus and now the entire community was wary of newcomers until they'd been cleared.
"Ja, but at least we have the fire," she confirmed, secure in her unbelievably warm army clothes and well-made insulated boots. Small and dark, her face was cold but her hands and feet stayed warm as long as she kept using them. The small family who'd come shortly after dark last night was only the third set of "immigrants" they'd seen this week.
"You know what this place is?" Wade asked.
"Ja. It is your Ellis Island. You tell me this every day," she grumbled. Ellis Island, the Gateway to America before the Ring of Fire. The Island of Tears as well because ten percent of the people who'd made it that far were sent back to their country of origin, mostly for medical reasons, Wade had told her. Fortunately, that didn't happen here. But they could be quarantined until their health cleared.
Elizabeth hadn't needed to worry about that. She'd been christened Elzhbieta Piwowska, one of the camp followers at the Battle of the Crapper six months earlier. When she'd gotten the opportunity to join the army, she had, changing her name to one which had about the same meaning and whose sound was comfortable in the mouth of Americans. She'd known and respected Gretchen, but Julie Sims was her role model. Vibrant, athletic and a dead shot.
Elizabeth had a lot of men she'd like to touch on the opposing side of a battlefield. Yes, reach out and touch a few mercenaries from a couple hundred yards away. Touching as in removing his brains from his head. Or better yet, a couple feet lower. She knew she'd never find the ones responsible for killing the rest of her family and raping her four years ago, but she'd take substitutes. She'd very reluctantly become a camp follower to a different group of mercenaries. One of them had lost her in a card game to Adam a year ago. Of course, what was left of Adam was now fertilizing a field outside Bamburg, she thought with quiet satisfaction.
Father Mazzare said it was not healthy to dwell on the past. Nor was it healthy to plan your future around making someone else's death. So each time she went to confession, she told him of her sins and he gave her penance. She wouldn't think along those lines again until she next picked up her rifle. Her smooth, sleek, steel-barreled rifle, capable of . . . Stop, she thought. You can't even remember their faces anymore. A moment later she looked away from the fire and into the darkness, imagining looking down the sights from a concealed position at some oncoming mercenaries . . . Line up the shot, breathe smoothly, slowly and squeeze . . .
"Hey, Lizbeth," Wade interrupted her fantasy. "Where did you say that last family was from?"
Elizabeth wasn't out here on a mountain pass next to a huge fire because she was a good shot. She was here because she could speak four different German dialects as well as Polish. "From a town called Lositz. The Swedes, mercenaries, they claim, burned their town before Christmas and they've been traveling from town to town since then. When they heard there was food and jobs in Grantville, they took a chance and went through the mountains. As usual, they have nothing but needs," she bitterly commented, her mouth tight. It wasn't a new story. Only the point of origin and the destroying army had changed.
"Lighten up, Lizbeth. I haven't seen a single one coming through the pass who was a, a mercenary or b, someone who wanted to just sit on his butt. Lots of solid citizens in the making."
"Hmpf," she grumped. "Increase the fire," she told the younger soldier. That he'd actually do it came as a revelation four weeks ago. They were both privates, he a 1631 graduate from Grantville High, technically senior to her. She, well, she was three years older than him. Back in the old days . . . She shook her head and smiled as she watched him. America has it better.
Wade threw four more chunks of dry split wood on the fire. "Don't think we're going to get any more business tonight," he said, taking off his gloves to warm his hands directly on the fire.
Elizabeth walked away from the fire in the moonlight to the edge of the clearing and looked to the south at the white snow. Had there been a dark spot to the left of those trees earlier? "Wade, komm hier!"
"Papa, I'm cold," Drina complained, her six year-old hands, feet and legs bundled in pieces of an old blanket sewn together. Her teeth were chattering as she followed her father and older brother on the trail they'd broken through the snow.
Three weeks ago her mother had died of illness in the village where they lived. It had taken Drina's papa two days to dig her grave. That night he told Joshua and her that the next day they were leaving the farm and going to find somewhere to live, somewhere the soldiers would not find them. Somewhere the memories would not hurt.
So, with all the possessions they could carry on their backs, the family began moving carefully. They rarely traveled by the day even if it was warmer, reasoning that soldiers would be able to see them from a distance and at night, they would see the soldiers' campfires and avoid them. But mostly they traveled the trails high in the Thuringian forest.
"We're all cold, Drina," her eleven-year-old brother briefly turned his head to say. Joshua wore an old coat of his father's covering his own clothing and like Drina, his hands were covered by mittens sewn together by his father two weeks ago. Also like her, he had outer trousers made from old woolen blankets.
"Quiet, you two," Papa said, breaking the trail in the snow between the trees. "There are real wolves out here who'd like nothing better than to eat you. Not to mention the human wolves who are even worse."
That was as much as Papa had said at one time while walking on the trail in the past two days, Drina thought. He was stumbling and was leaning on Joshua more and more often. They'd ground, boiled and eaten the last of their wheat a week ago. Before stopping each day, they set snares to catch rabbits and twice they had. They boiled it up with some grass and herbs in the small pot Papa carried. The last was three days ago and since then they had passed by two devastated villages.
Papa had gone down into the villages looking for food, coming back empty-handed the first time and with a freshly killed dog yesterday morning. "It's food," he said briefly, silencing any opposition. "It had been tied up. It was starving but still alive. Better than the pigs the wolves fed on." Drina didn't understand but Joshua shuddered.
"Did I tell you about Grantville?" Papa asked for the third time today, picking up Drina for a moment as Joshua took the lead. "I heard all about it when we were at that town a little over a week ago. The one where the bad man wanted to touch you, Drina."
He'd only put his hand on her shoulder but she'd cried out immediately. Papa turned quickly and hit the man with his shovel. She didn't know why the man had touched her but he shouldn't have. That's why they left that town.
"People in that town claimed that Grantville, no, it's not a French town, was populated by witches and wizards. Then I talked to a man from there who called himself an American. Grantville is filled with magic, he said, the good kind. Lights everywhere, machines that do the work of hundreds, all at your fingertips. Even carriages that didn't need horses. I asked about the streets of silver and he just laughed. Not silver, just black tar with stones in it. He said the people there are just like everyone else but each and every one went to school for ten or twelve years! They were all older than Joshua when they stopped, he said. Can you imagine? And it doesn't matter what your religion is, Catholic, Protestant or Jew, he said. All are equally welcome. That's where we're going."
Papa put Drina down again. "Come on, we've got to catch up with Joshua," he said, taking her hand. "Grantville can't be far now. Probably just on the other side of that pass."
Half an hour later Drina stumbled in the darkness and would have fallen if Papa hadn't grabbed her. "Just a little farther, darling. It's bound to be just over there. All we have to do is go up this pass and then down. Then you'll be warm and fed. Just a little farther," Papa said, breathing heavily in the cold mountain air.
Shortly after that, Papa stumbled and fell. "Papa!" Joshua looked back to see his father come slowly to his hands and knees, Drina standing next to him.
"Look, Papa," Joshua came back to him. "It's just over the hill. Not much farther now," he desperately urged. But Papa was slow to rise. The moon was out now and Joshua could see the hollows in his father's bearded cheeks. Suddenly he felt guilty for having taken that last piece of boiled dog. He knew it had been Papa's but he'd been so hungry.
"I'm exhausted, Joshua." Papa spoke slowly with great effort. "We'll stop here for the night. Build a back wall before we make a fire. It'll help hide the light from any soldiers. We'll sleep until afternoon and then go through the pass. Grantville has to be on the other side."
"But Papa, we don't have any food to eat," Joshua protested. "You'll just be weaker when you wake up."
"I'll be weaker but I'll be rested. So will your sister. We'll make it easily tomorrow," Papa answered, not really seeing him. "Go to the top of the pass and find Grantville. There will be lights, many bright lights, far more than any town or village you can imagine. The people, men and women will be happy to see us and we'll be safe. Go, Joshua and I'll keep your sister warm inside my arms."
Joshua knelt down, hugged and kissed his sister before rising and kissing his father on the cheeks. "I'll be back soon, I promise." His father hugged him and then turned to begin building a bank for shelter and to reflect the heat of the fire.
The boy looked toward the pass and, using the hoe as his hiking stick, steadily began moving forward.
"Found him passed out and he looks half-starved. Hope he doesn't have bad frostbite." Wade had carried the burden on his shoulder into the small cabin heated by a pot-bellied stove. He rolled the boy down onto one of the two bare cots. It wasn't the first time he'd brought in people unable to take the last few steps.
"This one looks much more than half-starved," Elizabeth grunted. "Here, let me see if he will take a little of this warm broth. Come on, open your lips and let this warm you up inside," she crooned in German, putting the spoon to his mouth. The boy's lips twitched and unconsciously sucked in the nourishment.
"Mama," he muttered.
"Not quite. But with a lot of rest and feeding up you'll probably live."
"Ever the optimist, aren't you, Lizbeth?" Wade looked over her shoulder at the boy.
The boy's eyes popped open. "Papa, Drina! Where are they?"
"Shit!" Elizabeth muttered in English. "He has family out there." Then switching to German, "This man behind me and I will find them and bring them here. Is it just the two of them or are more with you?"
"No, only two. Only Papa and Drina." He struggled to get up but Elizabeth stopped him with a hand on his thin chest. "We will find them and bring them here. You drink this broth and rest. We will bring them."
"Is Grantville?" the boy asked, looking around the small room.
"This is Grantville," Wade responded. "The city is not far. We will find your family. We will bring them here."
"Grantville." He sighed and laid back, relaxing into a sleep.
"If he was the strongest, God help his father and sister," Elizabeth said, quickly dipping broth from the kettle into an insulated flask. "We will follow his trail back. Put on snowshoes and grab some blankets."
"Teach your grandma to suck eggs," Wade muttered inaudibly as he strapped on snowshoes. Damn bossy women! Only reason he . . .
It was midmorning when the light shining through the single window in the small cabin hit Joshua's eyelids and woke him. Drina's small dark head was visible in the cot opposite his.
"Awake, are you?" Elizabeth's feet were propped up and her chair tipped back in the corner of the room where she'd been dozing. She'd kept watch outside alone from midnight until dawn while Wade slept. Now Wade was on watch. She pushed a chamber pot towards Joshua with her boot. "Use this or go outside. Doesn't matter much up here but down in the city, well, you'll see the difference."
"But where's Papa?"
Elizabeth sighed and shook her head. "He didn't make it. We found your sister wrapped in his arms and the blanket that should have gone around both of them was doubled across her. It was a very loving thing he did for her. Just for the record, what was his name?"
"Moses. Moses Amramsohn," Joshua answered and began sobbing.
Two days later, the sky was a bright blue and the morning sun reflected off the snow into Wade's eyes. He stood with his arms folded next to the much shorter Elizabeth as they watched Joshua and Drina walk with the medic down the hill. "The folks at the synagogue will take them in."
Wade took a breath and put his arm over her shoulders. "Going to America wasn't always easy," he slowly began. "Back when I was growing up you'd see reports of Haitians drowning, trying to cross a few miles of ocean to get to America. Chinese dying in cargo containers and Mexicans dying of thirst in the desert, all for the chance of a better life, mostly for their kids. The first generation of people coming in illegally generally had it really hard."
He lightly gripped Elizabeth's shoulder and she looked up at him. After a short pause she said, "Our reliefs are coming up this afternoon for their week at the fire. I want a long shower, clean clothes, food I do not have to make and four large beers. What do you think?"
Wade bent over, kissed her at the hairline and shook his head. "Two beers. You fall asleep after three."