Eddie’s Prize (3 page)

“What?” demanded Carla. “No phones? Why not?”

Mrs. Madison scooped some water out of the kettle heating on the old-fashioned stove and came to the table. She set a basin down on the floor in front of each of them. Lisa put her bare, blistered feet in the lukewarm water and closed her eyes in bliss.

Mrs. Madison smiled at Carla as she took a seat at the table. Her eyes were serious and sympathetic. “What year is this?”

Carla stared for a minute. “2014, of course.”

Bree gasped. “No, it isn’t!” she protested. “That’s the year the Terrible Times started.”

Mrs. Madison nodded. “It is 2064. I don’t know what happened in 2014, but I was taught evil men and women made things explode in the cities around the world. A lot of people died. Those who lived ran away from the cities. And people starting getting sick.”

Lisa wanted to laugh, but Mrs. Madison looked so serious she forced it back. Carla, on the other hand, didn’t look like she thought it was funny, and she might forget Mrs. Madison was their hostess. She hurried to say, “Who would do such a terrible thing?”

“Terrorists,” Bree answered promptly. “Mr. Gray told us all about it in school. He was alive then. He called them terrorists. The terrorists used new-clee-air devices to kill millions of people. Their great plan must have killed them too, but not until after they made everyone sick. The Woman Killer Plague is why there aren’t too many women now.”

“That’s ridiculous!” Carla snapped.

“It’s true,” Mrs. Madison insisted quietly. “You told my husband you walked for over a day. How many people did you find during that day? How many empty homes did you find?”

A wave of cold raised goose bumps on Lisa’s arms. “But that’s impossible,” she argued weakly.

Carla’s arguments were louder and stronger. “
You’re
taking this pretty calmly. If it were true, it would be pretty amazing to me to have two women show up out of nowhere and claim to be from the past.”

“You’re not the first people from the Times Before to come to this area,” was Mrs. Madison’s unruffled reply. “There were some women who came to Colorado about ten years ago. My friend saw them and told me about it.”

Carla continued to argue, but she kept her feet in the soothing water. She went on for quite a while, until Mrs. Madison left the table to go to the steaming kettle on the stove.

Bree said sympathetically, “You can go to the library and look up everything. Mr. Gray has newspapers from the Times Before and the Terrible Times. I’m sure he’d let you look at them. And you should talk to my brother. He’s studied all about it.”

“Come wash up, girls,” the mayor’s wife said. “You can have nice hot baths and wash your hair tonight after supper in a real bathtub, but for now you can wash up here. Leave your clothes behind, and Bree will get them washed for you while you’re napping.”

“But what about the people at the plane crash?” Carla said angrily.

“My husband will know what is best to do for them,” was Mrs. Madison’s tranquil answer.

“It’s nice of you to offer to put us up,” Lisa said with desperate courtesy. “But we’d like to go to the hotel.”

The older woman looked at her with cool eyes a little bluer than Eddie’s. “If you went to the hotel, you’d be raped and married by morning. Women are scarce here because of the plagues, and some men are unscrupulous in their methods of finding a wife. You’re far safer here. Hurry now and get washed up.”

Bathing in public was embarrassing, but not as embarrassing as the compassionate remarks Mrs. Madison and her daughter made about Lisa’s slenderness.

“Have you had bad harvests?” the teenager asked sympathetically. “We have plenty, so be sure to eat your fill.”

It made Lisa glad to pull the much-too-big flannel granny nightgown over her head to hide a body once celebrated in the swimsuit editions of sports magazines.

“Now you go on upstairs and take a nap until supper,” the mayor’s wife ordered. “Bree, do you have their clothes in the washtub?”

“Sure do, Mom,” Bree said brightly. “I’ll let them soak a while before I scrub them.”

Lisa cringed at the thought of her cashmere sweater being scrubbed until she remembered the bloodstains. It was already ruined. Scrubbing couldn’t make it any worse.

Mrs. Madison waved them out of the kitchen. “Then show the girls to the guestroom on the north side.”

Lisa followed Bree up the beautifully carved staircase in a numb daze. But she could see that Carla was stiff with anger. As soon as Bree opened the door of a room and ushered them in, the singer let the anger loose in furious words.

“How stupid do you think we are?” she demanded. “2064? Seriously?”

Bree paused in turning down the blankets on the double bed, frowning at Carla with obvious confusion. “Stupid? I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Then why would you think we’d swallow your story about us being fifty years in the future?”

Bree’s plump, previously cheerful face hardened. She straightened with a snap. “Because it’s the truth! I don’t know how you got here. Maybe
you’re
the crazy ones! Why should I believe you’re from the Times Before?”

When Carla glared, speechless, Bree softened. “It
is
2064. Think about it. Does this seem like 2014? Mr. Gray taught us what it was like in the Times Before. There were lots of women. They could go anywhere they wanted, even by themselves, and sometimes they didn’t even get married. There were so many people that some cities had a
million
people living in them. And houses had things we don’t have, like lights that didn’t need oil or candles, and furnaces that didn’t need wood or chips to burn to make heat. You could wash clothes without any work, and you could run a car to travel to far off places, and you could talk on a sail fun to people a thousand miles away. Right? That’s what Mr. Gray says, and he lived back then.”

Sail fun? “You mean a cell phone?” Lisa said.

“Yes. When you were walking, did you see anything like that? Were there lots of people everywhere you looked? Lots of women? Cars?”

Lisa exchanged a look with Carla. The singer looked more stunned than angry. She said weakly, “It’s impossible.”

“You don’t need to worry.” Bree patted her arm comfortingly. “Honest. My dad will take care of everything. He’s busy right now doing what needs to be done. Later, you can talk to Eddie. He loves to fiddle with the things from the Times Before. He can tell you lots more. Come on, get into bed and take a rest.”

“But what about doctors?” Carla said more strongly. “Are there doctors to take care of the injured at the plane?”

“Of course we have doctors. We have two doctors besides the midwife and the veterinarian. Two vets, if you count Eddie. He’s studied animal doctoring with Dex Entilt since he was twelve years old. Really, it’s going to be okay. You just sleep now. I’ll call you for supper.”

Lisa got into the bed as Bree tiptoed out. The mattress sagged as Carla sat down. “Do you think it could be true?”

“Of course not,” said Carla stoutly. “Planes don’t jump fifty years into the future when they crash.”

“Should we leave?” Lisa asked hesitantly. “Try to find someone else?”

“Not without our clothes,” Carla replied grimly, plucking at the collar of the granny nightgown.

Good point. Lisa tried to sleep, but so many thoughts were whirling around her head that she couldn’t. Except she did, and dreamed of a four year old boy who looked a lot like Eddie smiling up at her as he died.

Eddie followed his father out to the yard where several of his father’s men waited for them. Steve Herrick straightened up from his lean against the barn and came forward alertly.

“So what’s with the women, Ray?”

Eddie watched his father closely. The mayor took in a deep breath, puffing his chest out importantly. “Gentlemen, we will be hosting a Bride Fight to see who will have the honor of making these two ladies their wives.”

“Dad,” said Eddie. “Lisa—Miss Anton, I mean—I want to marry her.”

The mayor peered at Eddie consideringly. “Well, I could see you was took with her. No reason you shouldn’t enter the Bride Fight, I reckon. We’ll talk to your mother, see what she says.”

“Dad,” he began again.

But his father cut him off, voice stern. “If you want Miss Anton to be your wife, you’ll enter the Bride Fight and win her, fair and square, just like any other fella.”

Eddie nodded and stepped back, considering who was likely to enter the Bride Fight. He could beat them all. Maybe it wasn’t fair, all things considered, but he wanted Lisa. She had the most delicate, beautiful face he’d ever seen, but she was so skinny most men would prefer the other woman, Carla. On the other hand, there were close to two thousand men in need of a wife in a fifty mile radius. They might think the way he did—a few months of hearty meals would put some meat on her bones. They could think that if they wanted, but Lisa was his. Something about her made his primitive side want to roar.

“Okay?” his dad said to the six men crowded around. “The entry fee will be ten gold or the equivalent. Anyone can apply to enter, but me and the missus will have final say over who gets to fight. Applications gotta be turned in by nine tonight, and we’ll announce who gets to fight right before breakfast.”

Ten gold? Eddie was startled but not displeased. He had the money, but that was a lot of cash for most men. It would cut the entries down considerably.

“That’s pretty fast,” Steve said doubtfully, smoothing a brown hand over his long, silver-blond hair. “We won’t be able to get the word out to everyone.”

“It’ll get out to enough,” Eddie’s dad declared. “I don’t want them gals in my house longer than they need to be. Don’t wanna tempt any outlaws to mount an attack to take them gals by force. Even if that didn’t happen, we’d have half the country traipsing through our yard to take a look at ’em if we keep them more than a day.”

Faron Paulson folded his arms over his barrel chest with a frown. “That’s something else, Ray,” he pointed out. “Men will want to see what they’ll be fighting for.”

“Uh-huh. Tell ’em they can come to my outer office from seven to eight tonight. They can look through that mirror-window and decide. Aright, get a move on and get the word out about the Bride Fight.”

Eddie watched the men file through the gate to spread the news through Kearney. “Dad, what about the plane crash people? How are we going to help them?”

Ray Madison turned. “We’re not. They ain’t no concern of ours. Unless you was wantin’ to go off and find them?”

Not with the fight for Lisa to be won. But some of his friends didn’t have the money to enter the Bride Fight. They could go, and if there were more women there, maybe they could find wives they didn’t have to fight for.

His father placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I know you’d like me to just give you Miss Anton. But I can’t do that. The whole town would think you didn’t deserve her, and they’d think I was playing favorites. You’ll fight for her, same as anyone else. Now, you go on and head out to spread the word. You got the west end of town and the farms out that way. Be back home by seven, hear?”

Eddie saddled a horse and dutifully travelled all over the western section of town telling everyone he saw about the Bride Fight and the conditions his father had set. But while following his father’s orders, he dreamed about pale blonde hair and a delicate face with big blue eyes. Now, at nearly seven o’clock, he hurried up the steps to the back porch and into the kitchen, anxious to see Lisa. But the only person in the kitchen was his sister, emptying the tub she and their mother used to bathe.

Bree let the empty tub settle on the floor and went to the stove to pull a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and creamed corn out of the warming tray. “Here, eat your supper.”

It smelled good, and normally Eddie would have lingered over it to savor his mother’s cooking, but now he bolted it down as quickly as he could so he could go find Lisa. Where was she?

His sister must have seen the question on his face because she shrugged. “Lisa and Carla are in dad’s office, and they’re not happy. Dad told them about the Bride Fight, and for a minute I thought Carla was going to bite him.”

“What about Lisa?” he asked quickly.

“She cried. A lot.” Bree shook her head. “I don’t know how she manages to look so angelic when she cries. When I cry, my nose turns red and runs like a pump.”

As he headed out of the kitchen to the office, his sister called, “You can’t go in there right now. Mom lit the fire in the stove, and they’re combing their hair to dry it. You better go into the outer office. Dad says he wants some men he trusts in there in case the men who apply to fight get out of hand.”

Eddie set his jaw when he got to the well-lit outer office and saw half a dozen men there, all staring intensely at the one-way window behind the desk. A few of them, like Steve Herrick, were his father’s trusted men—there to be sure any visitors didn’t get out of line. Steve stared through the glass.

“Steve, are you guarding the women or just staring at them?” Eddie asked sarcastically.

Steve smiled slowly. “No law against looking.”

A flicker of jealousy moved through Eddie. “Are you entering the Bride Fight?”

That made Steve tip back his head and laugh. “Me? Uh-uh. Those girls are too young for me. If I ever marry, I’d like someone more my age, a little more mature.”

He knew Steve was over forty, but that wasn’t too old to want a young, pretty wife. His work as a carpenter kept his body fit, and he made a comfortable living between his carpentry business and leading Kearney’s maintenance force. His sister said Steve was a handsome man. So why didn’t he have a wife already? Steve arched a brow at Eddie’s intense glare and backed away to look over the other men in the office, back in guard mode.

Eddie knew all of the men present by sight, and some of them he knew well, like Doug Gray, who had been his classmate in school. Taye Wolfe from north of town was there too. Wolfe seemed fiercely intent on what he saw through the window, too caught up to notice Eddie. Eddie turned to follow his gaze and found Lisa and Carla wore flannel nightdresses, towels draped over their shoulders to protect their clothing from wet hair, in his father’s private office.