Dominion by Fred Saberhagen (spiritual books to read TXT) 📗

   If Saul had noticed either of these reactions he was being diplomatically silent about it. The joined boats had drifted out from between islands, and now it was possible to see the relatively distant shore on both sides. Saul was gazing toward the shabby house where Simon stayed during vacations. “Your uncle’s car’s not there,” he observed.

   “My aunt and uncle had to go into Blackhawk. Just like your folks. Said they prob’ly won’t be back till late.”

   “Your grandma go with ’em?”

   “Yeah.”

   Saul was silent, with the air of one who has just made some kind of subtle point. The hot, humid air seemed to be somehow supporting the suggestion that somewhere in Blackhawk, population about one hundred thousand, there was a gathering today of the adults of the clan, and that gathering might have a secret importance.

   It might be true, thought Simon, and so what, and anyway Vivian was throbbing in his blood. He said: “Look, how about it we both go over there in the canoe? It’ll be faster. I’ll tie up the rowboat first.” He released his grip, letting the two craft separate.

   “Okay.” Saul wielded his paddle again. Rowing and paddling, they worked their respective vessels toward the landing at Frenchman’s Bend.

   As if returning to a dropped subject, Saul asked: “What do your aunt and uncle do in that shop all day?”

   “Jeez, Idunno. Putter around. Sometimes they get a customer. Why?”

   “I bet they don’t have too many customers.”

   “I guess not.”

   “But they make enough money to get along. Or they get money from somewhere else.”

   “I guess so. Why?”

   Saul paddled, looking straight ahead. “Does your grandma have a job?”

   “Yeah, in an office down in the Loop. Some days she works at home. Why?”

   Saul shrugged. “Just that some of our relatives have a lot of money, and some don’t.”

   “Which ones have a lot?”

   Saul just shrugged again.

   They were nearing the shore. “I guess,” said Simon, “your folks are some who do.”

   Watching Simon closely again, Saul said. “They’re my step-parents, actually.”

   Simon nodded at this information, then did a double take. “Both of ’em?”

   “Yeah, both. The way they tell me it happened was that my real father died before I was born, and then my mother married again. Then she died, when I was still real young, and my stepdad got married. So I got a full replacement set.”

   “You and Vivian both did, then.”

   Saul never answered that straight out. The prow of the canoe grated gently at the shoreline, and he braced his paddle against the river bottom to hold the craft against the gentle current. He said: “Our whole family’s kinda crazy, you know? I mean the way it’s organized. There’s about a couple thousand people all related to each other. Like you and me. And the funny part of it is, almost nobody has any really close relatives. Except for husbands and wives.”

   Simon grunted, rowing one last hard stroke, driving the old tub of a rowboat firmly into the shore. Then he shipped oars and hopped out into the muddy shallows, grabbing a length of chain to tie up the boat at its usual place, the ancient willow trunk. He said: “There’s not really a couple thousand.”

   “All right. Maybe there’s really about a hundred people. Littlewoods and Collines and Picards and Wedderburns. Hell, old Gregory’s actually some kind of a cousin to both of us.” Carefully shifting his seat in the canoe, Saul made ready for Simon to get in. “You wanna do the paddling?”

   “Sure.” Simon had learned to use a canoe the previous summer. He was in a hurry now to get across the river, and also eager to see how fast he could paddle, with another year’s growth of muscle to call upon. Jeez, Vivian was thinking about his big muscles. “I guess you’re right, about the family.” But he wasn’t really able to think about the family now. Not now, when Vivian wanted to see him. Maybe there would even be some way that Saul could be got rid of for a while…

   Saul, relaxed now, sat in the bottom of the canoe, watching the water go by as Simon swung the craft downstream and headed it out from shore.  “Yeah,” Saul said, “maybe my folks will be the ones who own the castle someday, and we’ll be rich.”

   Simon paddled. To have something to talk about, to relieve his mind from Vivian, he asked: “So just who owns the castle now?” He felt sure it was someone in some branch of the family.

   Saul sighed faintly, as if he didn’t much care about that point. “They say it’s all tied up in the courts and things. We can come and stay in it whenever we want. There’s a little furniture and stuff.” Pause. “That room still looks burned, and screwed up, you know, where old man Littlewood blew himself up. He was like our great uncle or something.”

   “Yeah.” After using the old rowboat, the sleek canoe was a joy to handle. Simon drove the paddle fast and hard, angling between islands, taking advantage of quicker current wherever he could. Between strokes he asked: “Gregory don’t mind you using the canoe, huh?” He’d asked for its use himself and had been turned down; he knew his aunt and uncle went out of their way sometimes to do what Gregory wanted.

   Saul shrugged again, as if what Gregory minded or didn’t mind was no concern of his. “He don’t use it much himself. Hey, Si?”

   “What?”

   “You ever see Gregory outdoors in the daytime?”

   “In the daytime?” Simon repeated mechanically. He yearned to ask Saul what Vivian was wearing today. On a hot day like this, it wouldn’t be much, probably. “In the daytime? Hell, I dunno. I guess, sometimes. He usually comes around at night. Why?”

   Again Saul’s shrug; it was a