Ring of Fire(164)

Gretchen smiled broadly. "We are having a party, ja?"





"You bet!" Julie gestured to her. "Come in and give me a hand!"





"I know little of parties," Gretchen said, striding across the room. She was tall and vibrant, her honey-blond hair clean and shining, her light-brown eyes dancing. "But I will do whatever you want."





"Well . . ." Julie nibbled on the end of her pen. "I'm trying to decide what local customs to include."





Gretchen pulled out an orange plastic chair and sat across the table from Julie, her brown eyes now puzzled. "Customs?"





"What people do for Christmas," Julie said. "Presents and decorations, trees, stuff like that."





Gretchen rubbed her forehead, concentrating. "It has been long since we thought about anything but trying to keep alive." She sighed and closed her eyes. "But when I was little, I remember putting out shoes for presents." She opened her eyes and met Julie's. "Is that what you mean?"





"Shoes?" Julie shook her head. That sounded Dutch. "Well, never mind. I'm probably trying too hard. We have plenty of decorations and we'll just make it up as we go along. If we leave out something local, we can put it in next year."





Gretchen nodded, then rose to capture Wilhelm before he toppled a pile of Home Ec books. "So what do I do?" she said over her shoulder.





"Well, we need presents," Julie said. "I had Melissa give me a count of orphans and we're already up to two hundred thirty-three. You could go door to door and see what folks could spare in the way of toys and clothes and anything else that kids would like. Most of the local children arrived with so little. They could use almost anything."





"Okay," Gretchen said and swooped Wilhelm up. "Whatever we find, bring back here?"





"Yes." Julie stood and then leaned down to tickle the boy under his chin. His dazzling blue eyes crinkled and he crowed with laughter. One of these days, she told herself, she would have a baby of her own and it still made her head swim to think about it. "Thanks for helping."





"No problem," Gretchen said, sounding uncannily like her young husband, Jeff. "I'll get a lot, you'll see. We will have a good time!"





Julie had no doubt about that. She'd already seen Gretchen in action often enough to have a good idea what her friend was capable of. "You go, girl!" she said softly as the door closed, then turned her attention to the next on her list of knotty problems:





Where to find turkeys?





And who could she get to play Santa?





* * *



After two days in Grantville, Gottfried Pappenheim had been able to ascertain several facts. First, there were indeed a number of Jews in this outlandish town, as reported, but they were scattered throughout, as the boys had maintained, not sequestered in their own ghetto. No one seemed to make any fuss here about who was Catholic, Lutheran, Calvinist, or Jew. In fact, no one had even asked them to state their religion since they'd arrived. Several churches already existed within the city limits, although nothing as grand as the cathedrals in other cities, and a Jewish synagogue was currently being constructed.





Second, the marksman whom they sought actually was female, as reported. He found this harder to accept than the existence of these bizarre metal carriages constantly rattling about, but everyone who professed to know anything about the attack at the Alte Veste agreed: Jew Lee Mackay had done the shooting and she was a woman, a young one at that. Several even maintained she was presently with child and had been so even at the Alte Veste.





On the morning of the third day, Pappenheim motioned his two men outside after they had broken their fast in the huge dining hall of the refugee center attached to the school. The sky was gray, ominous with snow, and it was so cold, their exhaled breath hung like low clouds in the air.





He could still taste the breakfast served this morning. The food was extraordinarily good here, if sometimes strange. He rubbed his hands together in the cold, then stared ruefully at his blistered palms. In payment for food and bed, they had labored the last two days with other refugees to build a fortress guarding the northern approaches to the town. The Americans, clearly enough, were taking no chances of being surprised by another Croat cavalry raid.





Their hands were raw, their backs sore, but no one else seemed to mind the hard work so Pappenheim and his two companions had been careful not to utter any complaints themselves.





"I know now where she is," Durst said, blowing on his hands to keep warm.