Raindrops Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO



Jake's General Stores was a place that few would call inviting. The owner, Jake, was a heavyset man who seemed to take pleasure in the fact that what he had was needed, by anyone. Most of his wares were the essentials, food, travel stuffs, and so on, but some were objects that appealed to luxury and vanity.

If there was one, simple name to describe the place and almost everything inside, it was junk.

A thin beggar glanced at Raphael as he dismounted his vehicle, but scurried away as the large figure of Jake came threateningly with a dagger.

"Raphael!" The man cried, his voice complete with false enthusiasm.

"I have some goods to sell," Raphael slung the bag over his shoulder, "Some pots, a plate or two, and a lot of the bronzeware."

"Thirty-four marks for the whole lot," Jake said evenly.

Raphael's heart sank, "You know I have the best goods, they're worth at least fifty!"

Jake sighed, "Come inside, before I lose a customer."

Raphael seriously doubted that he would cost the shop owner a customer, especially while the large man was holding a mean-looking dagger our where everyone could see. If anything, Raphael, thought, he would bring one in, but wisely decided not to say a word on either matter.

The inside of the shop was no more appealing than the outside. Piles of mechandise were strewn about the rough tables, while food was kept in bins that offered little in the means of protection against the damp or insects.

"You better have something good," Jake was saying as he stepped around the counter.

"I always do," Raphael set his bag on the worn wood and undid the string. He began to unwrap the objects inside, setting each one where the light could fully illuminate it.

"Of all the men who come with stuff to sell, you're the only one that doesn't take what I offer to begin with." Jake lifted a ceramic bowl and studied it. "But I will admit, you do bring better than average goods. I'll give you fourty-nine marks, but no more."

Raphael's heart sank lower, "I have more than the normal things, but I won't take your token price for them." He unbound the swords. Jake's eyes grew wider, he reached for the blades, but Raphael pulled them away. "Seventy marks." He said evenly.

"For the goods and the blades?" Jake asked hopefully.

"For the blades apiece," Raphael said cooly.

Jake was figuring the possibilities. He glanced from the plates to the swords to Raphael, then back to the swords. Finally, he spoke, "How 'bout a hundred ten marks and I'll throw in some Luresi powder for your swiftrider."

Raphael debated this, he needed the powder to keep searching the desert for treasures, his vehicle, the swiftrider as Jake had called it, used the faintly glowing powder as a fuel. He was down to a quarter of a tank. "How much powder?"

"A load-and-a-half sound fair?"

No, you bastard, Raphael thought. That much powder would fill the swiftrider's tank half-way, but the swords alone were worth more than that. He stared into Jake's, cold, souless eyes. "Two loads, and we'll call it a deal."

"Fine, but you'll send me over the edge one of these days." Jake began counting the coins as an assistant gathered up the goods. He handed a filled bag to Raphael and motioned for another assistant to come forward.

"Can I help ser?" The boy's eyes were dull, as if life held niether hope nor joy. Raphael found himself avoiding the emotionless gaze.

Even Jake's eyes are like that, he realized.

"Carry two loads of Luresi powder to Raphael's swiftrider."

"Yes ser," the boy lifted a ceramic container and headed for the shop's back entrance, where Jake probably kept the powder.

Raphael wandered among the shop's cabinets and displays, keeping well away from the stale, and most likely half-rotten foodstuffs. Several times he passed a glass covered display case, but his seeking eyes did not find what they sought. He searched the other cabinets, but with the same dissapointing results.

"Jake, did you move the locket that was in this cabinet?" Raphael asked, pointing to the worn display.

"The one you've been lookin' at since last winter?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

Jake flipped the pages of an ill-kept and worn ledger, "No, I think someone bought it. You see anything else you want?"

"No, see you later," Raphael said as he left through the open door..

The young boy had already poured one load of powder into the swiftrider, and was struggling to pour the second load into the tank, which was located about a foot from the control mechanisms in front of Raphael's seat. Raphael, seeing the boy's trouble, lifted the full container and emptied it into the vehicle's tank.

"Ah, thank you, ser," the boy said as he numbly took the container.

"No problem," Raphael stored the now light canvas bag and swung into the seat. He started the turbines and drove onto the road, leaving a cloud of dust behind him.

The road wasn't designed for swiftriders, but the old machines were a considerable chunk of the road's traffic. The grasses that grew on either side of the road were bent, the results of many swiftriders speeding by.

Raphael breathed in the warm air, he was glad to be out of the desert. Around him the hills were green, the occasional cow providing a break from the emerald landscape.

The road bent suddenly and the swiftrider nearly turned sideways as Raphael tried to keep from colliding with a tree. The three turbines whined, but didn't stall.

All of this was watched by a lean mare in the next roadside field and when Raphael sped past, she began racing the swiftrider. He smiled and shook his head as the animal skidded to a forced stop when she came to the fence. He accelerated and continued on his way.

It was just after noon when he pulled under the arch that marked the entrance to Eva's Spring. He reached past the swiftrider's steering wheel and pulled a small lever towards himself. The outer two turbines died down, leaving only the larger, middle turbine to hold the craft up. Several horses whinnied, stepping sideways to avoid Raphael, but they did not bolt. One of the farmers tipped his straw hat to Raphael as the young man passed and he waved in return.

He turned off the main road and eased the swiftrider down a path almost half as wide as the streets of Eva's Spring had bee. The grass here was brown and stunted, suffering from a lack of water. It had been a long time since the ground had felt the cool touch of the rain, long before Raphael's relatively short lifetime. As it blew, the wind lifted clouds of dust from the path.

As he approached a sun-bleached farmhouse, Raphael slowed the swiftrider. A dog barked from the shade of a withered oak tree, but Raphael merely smiled, pulling the swiftrider into a curve. He stopped in the middle of the rough-looking yard.

"Scuffen! You quit that, you hear?" A boy about eight yelled. The dog ran off at his shout, but kept a watchful on Raphael.

"Willum!" Raphael called, "Where's your dad?"

"Raphael!" The boy laughed. He ran to the traveler as the swiftrider's turbine died.

"Where's Darren?" Raphael asked again.

"He's in the fields. How was the desert?"

"Dry," Raphael pulled a bag from his belt pouch like the one Jake had given him, "I brought you some sand."

"Wow!" The boy could barely contain the excited energy welling up within him, "It's still warm!" He ran off to hide his treasure before Raphael could speak again.

From the doorway, a woman waved to Raphael, “Come inside! Don’t stand there all day!” Raphael suppressed the urge to grin as he heard the woman mutter, “Men!” He followed her into the main foyer of the farmhouse.

“You still trading with that thief, Jake?’

“Unfortunately. Why is Darren in the fields?”

She let out an exasperated sigh, “one of the irrigation pipes bust an he tries to kill himself fixin’ it!”

“Sounds like Darren.” Raphael replied.

His hostess sat him down at a large wooden table while a girl on the verge of womanhood brought a plate of rolls and butter to him.

“What brings you here?” the girl asked shyly. Her golden curls were held in place by a blue headband that went over her ears and tied in the back.

“I thought to buy some produce from Darren as well as some of your mother’s baking.”

“She is teaching me to bake.” The girls said, blushing slightly.

The woman spoke from the kitchen loud enough for the entire household to hear; “How’s Amber? Are Drew and Susan still with you?”

“Good and yes,” Raphael replied, “You know, you make the best bread around.”

“Hogwash,” the woman said, but she beamed as she returned to the room.

“Do you have any onions or potatoes left?” Raphael cut another roll open.

“Yes, and we still have tomatoes, though the lord only knows how.”

“Great, do you know what Darren was charging for them?”

She winked, “Who do you think set the prices? It’s twenty-three a bag of onions, forty a bag of potatoes and twenty-nine a bag of tomatoes.”

“I’ll take a bag of potatoes and one of tomatoes, and how much for some of your sweet rolls?”

“Let’s say seventy-eight for all of that,” the woman fetched a piece of paper and wrote down the prices and goods with ca charcoal stick.

“Deal,” Raphael counted out the coins.

“Have Carl help you loads the bags while Tessa helps me with the rolls. The bags should be in the red barn.”

“Right, thanks!”

He started the swiftrider and pulled it in front of the large building. The point might have once been red, but so much of it had peeled away that only flecks of the original coloring remained.

“Carl, I need a bag of potatoes and one of tomatoes!”

Despite his tremendous girth, Carl was a gentle soul. He pushed the barn door open, a bag in each hand. Raphael stood back as the giant loaded the bags into the swiftrider with a grace that was unexpected in such a being.

Unfortunately, the swiftrider could have cared less. The turbine moaned shrilly as the weight was added. The vehicles were not made for heavy loads, especially when only one turbine was being used.

“That doesn’t sound good,” Carl observed, his voice was dull and mellow.

Raphael gave him a reassuring smile, “This old thing’s had worse so don’t worry.”

“If you say so,” but the large man didn’t sound convinced. He returned to the barn and began to shift several crates.

Raphael closed the swiftrider’s hatch and drove it back to the front lawn where the girl was waiting. She offered a tentative smile as she handed him a wrapped package.

“Here are the sweet rolls, Raphael.” She said.

He took them from her hand and tossed the package into a bin attached to the back of the seat. After giving the girl a thumbs up, Raphael sped off.

The main square in Eva’s Spring was busier than it had been when Raphael had passed through earlier.

“Shut up,” Raphael slapped the swiftrider’s casing as the turbine’s whine picked up in pitch. Almost obligingly the machine complied.

Once out of town, the landscape quickly became forested as it angled. Through the canopy of leaves, Raphael could see several low-lying mountains but the road did not head up these. Instead, it turned and circled around the base of the lowest one, an old hill that barely remembered it’s days as a glorious peak that was nothing more than a large rock now.

Sunlight almost blinded Raphael as the path turned and the trees ended. The air was thinner and the ground too stony for anything to grow.

A cool wind rushed across the slope, chilling Raphael’s sweaty brow. He wiped it with his jacket sleeve and decreased the throttle a he approached the crest of the road

From this vantage point, he could see all of the surrounding countryside. The trees were thinner on the side he was headed to, and beyond them, like a pearl in the ugly shell, was his home, Singer Vale.