Page 9 of A Rose of Steel
“They won’t leave,” the twins said almost in unison.
They were identical in every aspect, even their thinking. I didn’t think anyone could tell them apart, and listening to them, it sometimes seemed that they shared a brain. Identical flowered, button-down shift-style dresses covered their thin frames, pink scarves were tied around their waists and corsages were pinned to their lapels. Their mostly gray hair pulled back in identical buns.
“Everyone wants to wait to make sure Bumper is okay,” Leonard said. “Chester and Flannery are helping, too.”
I looked around and those two were nowhere in sight either. Hopefully they were in the backyard. Chester Young was the only male in the Roble Belles, but he was proud to wear their insignia on his group jacket. And Flannery Poole was Roble’s first every beauty queen. Even in her fifties, she was beautiful, with her smooth skin, shiny black hair and emerald green eyes.
“Well, for him to be okay, everyone will have to be sure to make room for the paramedics to get to him.”
“Yes, we know,” they said together.
“We’ll remind them,” Mark said.
“And all these cars are in the way,” I said. “I don’t know what to do about that.”
They looked at each other and then at the cars.
“Maybe we should tell Babet?”
“Where is she?” I said.
“Manning the armory,” they said together.
How do they do that?
I didn’t know what that meant, but it wasn’t easy to miss that my task had just become that much bigger with having to get cars instead of people out of the way, and I didn’t have time to figure out what they were talking about.
As I moved to the edge of the driveway to determine how deep the obstructing cars were, I saw Auntie Zanne, her five-foot-three frame too diminutive for me to initially see over the big trucks encircling the property. She had a line of people in front of her and was digging in a big box.
“I thought you were moving people out of the way,” I said after making my way over to her. “And I hadn’t realized all these cars were out here so we’ve got to get them moving.”
“I’m doing my part,” she said.
“And what is that?” I asked and peeked over into her box.
“I had a cache of weapons I had to get back to their owners if I wanted them to leave.”
Her box was filled with guns. It appeared she was giving them back to the people she collected them from.
“And when Delores started yelling what the Alvarez’s had done to her son and Bonnie Alvarez disappeared, I figured I better check on my stash,” she said. “Hey! Get your hand out of my box. One gun per person.” Her attention was diverted from filling me in to a man reaching his hand into her box. “I’m the only one passing these out.”
“Auntie,” I said. “That does not look like a good thing.” I looked at her cache.
“You telling me. I didn’t want a Hatfield and McCoy shootout happening around here.” She looked at the man standing in front of her, he held his gun in his hand but hadn’t moved. “Is that your gun?” she asked. He nodded. “Well, then, get! Next!”
I shook my head. “Maybe the paramedics will just be able to squeeze through the cars and people,” I said.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve got the Belles getting people out and once people collect their belongings, it’ll clear out fast. You’ll see.”
“Okay,” I told her, but still decided I should try to find or create a clear path.
As I walked further down the street, I saw Piper for the first time. She was standing with the military-clad best man. He beckoned and started to walk my way.
“Hi,” he said. “Piper told me you were the doctor.”
“Hi,” I said. I wondered why either one of them weren’t concerned enough to be in the back. They had even left from close to the house. It had to be obvious to them that the groom’s asthma attack was pretty serious.
Shouldn’t they want to see how he was doing?
