Grantville Gazette, Volume IX Read online

  "I wish I could go for a drive. Somewhere. Fast. Push it to some limit, screw conserving resources. Fast." He paused, surprised that he had been speaking out loud. "Way too frigging quiet. I am talking to myself, for heaven's sake. Out loud." He walked to the front yard, and shouted at the top of his lungs. "This SUCKS! It REALLY SUCKS! I WANT EVERYONE TO KNOW THAT THIS REALLY, REALLY SUCKS!" He paused to listen.

  The cow mooed again, off in the distance.

  Trent gave the unseen cow a defeated shrug, walked back into the house, and flopped onto the couch.

  Face down on the couch, he mumbled into the cushions, "This still sucks." He rolled over onto his back, and put his feet up and stared at the ceiling. "What are you going to do with your life, Trent, old buddy? What the heck does a gearhead like you do for a living? There is absolutely nothing here that goes fast. Nothing." He paused, looked out the front window, and sighed again.

  At least before the Ring of Fire, when his old man would have him make a run over the mountains into Clarksburg to drop off some of his special distilled spirits, he could have some fun. But since the Feds went away, and Clarksburg went away, and the racetrack went away, motor sports excitement was hard to come by. He smiled as he remembered some of the high-speed runs he made. Dad liked to use him for runs. At the time, he was only sixteen and still a minor. He wouldn't get in as much trouble if he got caught.

  The thoughts of those good times made him itchy. He jumped up from the couch, went to his room and grabbed a few dollars, and headed out the door.

  He finally ended up at a little joint on Main Street. He took a seat at the window and watched the traffic go by. Foot traffic. Occasionally a horse. Some sheep went by. He grimaced. A couple of years ago, he would have been astounded at a bunch of sheep being driven through town, down to the banks of Buffalo Creek. From where he was sitting in the front window, he could look down the street. He could see the place in the streets where the Croats were cut down as they tried to take the town At the end of the street, the road split into a Y shape and each road crossed Buffalo Creek on a pair of concrete bridges that had made the trip, along with everything else from up-time.

  Between the bridges and across the creek, there stood an old brick three story building that was once part of the early mining industry in town. It was now four or five retail shops on the first floor, with apartments jammed onto the upper floors.

  The way that the building was situated, made the side of it an ideal billboard at the end of the street, in the crotch of the Y. For as long as Trent could remember, that sign had read "Welcome to Grantville. Worship with us". And then it listed the six or so churches in town. Several had been added, including a synagogue, since the Ring of Fire.

  He recalled that his old man had stood in front of that sign when Trent was a kid, and cussed out Reverend Wiley, the Presbyterian minister for the town. Something about his first wife. Or maybe his second. Trent wasn't too sure. But Trent's old man had stood in the same place and cussed Reverend Wiley, that Dan Frost had stood when he opened fire on the raiding Croat cavalry. He had taken out several horses, enough to stop the charge cold. Trent wondered how many of the Croats were able to read that sign before they died. He shook his head slowly. He had been detailed as part of the burial crew. It was not something he ever cared to repeat.

  It was while he was staring at the sheep as they made their way down Main Street, that he had the idea. THE idea. His beer was halfway to his lips, when he stopped to listen. He heard a small motor, sounded like a Honda motorcycle, put-putting from around the corner. The sheep took an instant dislike to the noise and began to get fidgety. They parted for the vehicle that was coming down the middle of the street. It had everything that he needed to make a car! Four wheels and a motor, brakes, suspension, everything. Why didn't he think of it before! There was an old LP gas tank on the back of the vehicle, so it was powered by natural gas. Of course. It was a four-wheel drive All Terrain Vehicle. There were hundreds of them in the county! Why didn't he think of it before? There was his racecar. With a few modifications, more horsepower, larger chassis and steering assembly, someplace to sit . . .

  He looked at the ATV as it scooted past the sheep and took off down the road, across the bridge and softly rumbled up the hill and out of town. He smiled. For the first time in a while, he smiled widely.

  * * *

  Trent was going to go fast again, and a highly modified ATV chassis was how he could accomplish his goal. And, like a true gearhead, there was nothing that was going to stand in his way.

  He started out by selling his old performance V8 from the racecar to the mine. The mine needed it to operate one of the pumps, and at three hundred horse power, that engine was the only thing that could do the job. That money bought him the basic components; a pair of clapped-out, beat-up, skanky, old ATVs, that looked as if they were pulled out of a creek. They were just about junk. But both engines turned over, they had compression, and the gearboxes were in good shape. He bought them from Mitch Kovacs. Mitch, who Trent knew was not the brightest crayon in the box, thought he had gotten a great deal. Trent knew better.

  He dragged the two pieces of junk home by hiring a tow truck. He refused to call it a tow wagon. It was an old rear end off of a tow truck grafted to a harness and a pair of large horses. The driver was proud of what even Trent recognized as very large horses.

  Trent scoffed. "I don't see what the big deal is. Hell, it's still only two horsepower."

  The tow-wagon driver was unimpressed with the observation.

  He disconnected the two ATVs from the tow-wagon, paid the grizzled and now grumpy German, and pushed them into the garage one at a time. He stripped the two machines down, cleaned everything and took inventory. He had purchased what amounted to about three fourths of an ATV between the two junks. Still, it was enough. He even had parts left over, which he promptly sold. Both of the ATVs had good transfer cases and selling those brought in nearly twenty percent of what he had spent on them.

  It helped that his old man had the handyman business. Bartering was a large part of that business, so Trent bartered too. Sometimes doing two or three deals to achieve the part, or the welding rod, or the fasteners he needed. It was difficult and sometimes it seemed impossible.

  But nothing distracted him. Girls? Nope. Hanging out at one of the bars downtown? Nope. Bustin' ass all day to pay for some minor part, or to buy something to trade, was the only thing he was focused on all summer. And after working like a dog all day, he would come home and work well into the night, by candlelight at times, until he would drop. He would get up and do it all again the next day. He never seemed to tire. He was a gearhead on a mission.

  He needed rod end bearings for the steering and tie rods. For those, he acquired a fancy halter, which he traded for an air conditioning compressor that he rebuilt, and then traded for some rod ends that were "acquired" from some piece of mining machinery. His old man always told him never to ask many questions. He didn't.

  He also enlisted the help of the boys next door, the Marcantonios. The three grubby pre-teen boys turned out to be excellent scroungers.

  With his father's connections, and working "favors," he was able to pay for much of his machine work. He re-roofed three houses that summer for his old man. It took work. Hard work.

  He didn't need a lot of drawings before he started the build. He had visualized the entire project in his head on the very first day. First, he lengthened the frame. He then relocated the motor mount, built a roll cage from pipe and tubing, improved the brakes, fabricated the new seating mounts, changed the controls from motorcycle type to car type, including adding a sequential shift that he controlled by hand. He grabbed an alternator and built an electrical system out of the remnants of the old racecar and the Fairmont. Even used some glass for the front windshield. He spent quite a bit of time on gearing and tire size, and he ended up using the old racecar wheels and tires to get the correct gearing for the speed he wanted. They were tough dirt track tires
with only a few laps of use. They would be good for a while. The chassis was done. All that remained was the power plant.

  What fuel should he choose? Granted, he could use LP Gas, like the other ATV. Conversions were not that hard, he had seen several around town, even before the Ring of Fire. All he needed was a nozzle in the carb, and a pressure compensated regulator. Everything would be easy except the regulator. He looked at other installations; there were plenty to look at around town. But with gasoline now in production, and the old man's former side business of distilled spirits going strong, he chose to stick with gas. Horse-trading the two commodities was already shaping up as a lucrative side business for the family, and everyone did their part.

  When the motor finally came back from the machine shop, he could hardly wait to put it together. But he controlled his excitement, and closed up the garage to assemble the new motor. If everything was done correctly, if all of his calculations and the performance engineering handbooks were correct, the motor would produce over one hundred twenty-five horsepower.

  Gently, he laid a clean sheet on the workbench to provide a pristine altar for the final assembly. He laid the precious and gleaming components out on his workbench and began to carefully measure everything with his micrometers and calipers. He positioned everything, head, valves, connecting rods and pistons, wrist pins, crankshaft, carefully and in an exact order.

  He measured and recorded all that was measurable, and compared it to the ideal. He had carefully figured the copper-and-lead head gasket crush by testing several different combinations. If the gasket was too tall, he would lose horsepower. If it crushed too much when he tightened the head down to the block, the valves could strike the pistons and ruin the motor. He looked at every angle, every measurement, and every dimension as carefully as he could. He knew that there would be no way to go back to the auto parts store and get a new set of valves. If he needed that, he would have to get a motor from somewhere and disassemble it for parts. Finally, after three days of painstaking trial assembly, final assembly, and mounting the motor in the chassis, he was ready to fire it up.

  There are times in the life of a gearhead that are special. And when the motor leapt to life without a moment of fuss, exactly as it was supposed to do, Trent knew that this was one of those moments. It was his project, his release, the thing that he had poured his energy, brainpower, and (too much) money into. His very soul finally revved back to life on that late summer evening. The exhaust tone even sounded right, slightly dissonant, unusual, and sharper than it should be as the motor ran. Trent caught his reflection in the rear view mirror as he revved the engine in the back. He looked tired, he thought. Older somehow. His reflection would vibrate as he revved the engine until it disappeared, and then returned when the revs dropped. He checked everything carefully, let the entire thing come up to operating temperature, and shut it down. He began to look at every hose and gasket, inspecting it for any signs of leakage.

  It wasn't long before Trent noticed the three faces peering into the open garage door, drawn there by the harsh engine noise. The faces belonged to the kids that lived next door, the Marcantonios. One was an up-timer kid, Joe Marcantonio, the other two, Hans and Manny, were down-timers. All were dressed in cutoff jeans, sneakers, T-shirts and ball caps, and were between ten and thirteen years old. Trent couldn't tell the original hillbilly from the two German ones. And he had done everything he could to turn them into little hillbilly gearheads the past couple of months of summer.

  "Damn, Trent," Joe said. "We didn't know that you had the motor back yet. That sounds like . . . Trent, I have no idea what that sounds like. It sounds—well—nasty."

  "Ya. That sounds loud! And fast. How fast can it go?" Hans was nearly shouting.

  Trent gloated. Just a little. "Aww, I told you racing virgins that the old racecar was louder than a shotgun going off, except that it's constant. You two smarty-pants said that I was full of Scheiss. Told'ja it was louder than anything that you ever heard. We used to rev up the racecar in the garage and the dust would fall out of the rafters from the sheer noise. But no, you guys said it was just another story. What d'ya think now, boys? Ha!"

  Joe stepped across the threshold of the garage door, and the two down-time boys looked at each other and crossed over too. The garage had been verboten to them until now, but if Joe was crossing, and the door was open, maybe it was now okay. They stepped carefully across the threshold.

  Joe crouched down to Trent, as Trent was checking some connections in the back, making sure it was all tight, no leaks, and nothing had vibrated loose. "Uhh, Trent. Is there any chance that I might be able to have a—"

  "No. No rides. Not yet anyway. I built this for me. For a reason." Trent looked away from the kids, and seemed to focus more than necessary on the task at hand.

  Joe scratched his head. "C'mon Trent, we stayed out of the garage and out of your way like we promised. You said that—"

  "I never promised you guys rides."

  Manny stepped up. "Not exactly, but you said if we left you alone, you'd take care of us when it was done. It looks done. And it's not like you built it all by yourself. Me and Hans scrounged the metal for the brackets off of old Mr. Lawler's fence. And Joe got the drill bit you needed for the steering rack, and I got the seats from—well, don't ask where I got the seats, okay? I just found them. I told you that."

  Hans stepped beside his brothers. "We could, ya know, sort of un-find them."

  Trent squirmed. "All right, all right. You guys are right. I couldn't have done it without you. But nobody else drives. I drive." He stood up and faced them. "Only I drive this thing. I have no idea how the car is going to handle. It could be pretty squirrelly. I set it up to have a low polar moment of inertia, so it will rotate quickly, and the spring rates are too high for the weight—"

  Joe giggled. "You call this thing a car? Looks more like a dune buggy than a car."

  "Yeah, what do you know about a car, you doofus? You'll probably never drive anything faster than a horse and buggy." Trent looked at Manny and Hans. "And it is going to be twitchy. I made it that way. And it will take a beating, or at least it should. This motor doesn't have a lot of horsepower, but this thing is lightweight. It should fly with the modifications I've done."

  Mannys' eyes grew even bigger. "You mean this will fly too! Holy crap! How high?"

  All three of them took turns hitting Manny.

  * * *

  Trent was up before the sun the next day, moving by memory in the cool of the pre-dawn darkness. He opened the garage door, and when the sun was peeking over the hill to the east, he pushed the car out onto the drive for the first time. He looked at his checklist. He rechecked the tire pressures, walked around the car one more time, mentally going over each system that he had built or modified. Finally he was satisfied. He stepped back and looked at his creation. It did look a little like a dune buggy. Lower by a bit, too small of wheels and tires, but the thing did have a roll cage, two seats, and a steering wheel. He sat further forward and lower than he would have with a typical dune buggy, a compromise with the ATV roots of the chassis. He simplified things by keeping it only two wheel drive, and lost the extra weight of the transfer case and the drive shaft. Besides, four wheel drive is nice, but it is a little more difficult to hang the tail out through a corner. Maybe on the next design. He took another step back. Yeah, a dune buggy or maybe something out of one those old Mel Gibson movies, with the post-apocalyptic road racers. Come to think of it, his whole situation wasn't that far off from those movies. He smiled in anticipation.

  The sun was now fully over the hill, and the dew was disappearing as soon as the light hit it. It was time. He double checked the fuel level, and snaked his way into the seat around the rollcage. The seatbelt was scavenged from some GM car, it still had the emblem on it, he noted as he snapped it in place. He wasn't sure about the windshield, or if it would fully protect him from the wind. But this was the time to find out. He took a deep breath and let it out. He
could hear his heart pounding as he reached for the ignition switch.

  "Okay, Trent. You're as nervous as you were the first time on a racetrack. This is just a test drive. You're not going to push this thing very fast, you're just going to check everything out and make sure nothing is going to fall off. Take it easy, okay, buddy? Just take it easy."

  He pushed the switch for the starter to crank and the motor instantly jumped to life. The sound was different with the motor behind him; in the open air it was less nasty, not as harsh. But it was clearly not your typical ATV either. He blipped the throttle a couple of times and allowed the motor to rev and then fall. With the machining he did on the flywheel, and the increased compression, the motor lost revs quickly. It sounded nasty.

  He caught sight of the three brothers from next door, running across the yards toward his open garage. The noise of the motor brought them out of the house at a dead run. He waved them to the front porch of his old man's house. They hesitated, but he waved them there again. They finally complied, dejectedly.

  He sat in the car, listening to the motor as it came up to temperature. Since the Ring of Fire, he'd felt like he was on another planet. That is how different things were. He smiled and waved at the boys. You want different? Here is different. Look out 1634 Germany, and all of you pedestrians, oxcarts, and buggies. Mario Haygood is back in business.