Parable of the Talents

things we buy, but they're also the most necessary. We are, as Bankole says, a healthy, young community, but the world around us isn't healthy. Thanks to malnutrition, climate change, poverty, and ignorance, a lot of old diseases are back, and some of them are contagious. There was an outbreak of whooping cough in the Bay Area last winter, and it came up the highway as far north as Ukiah down in Men­docino County. Why it stopped there, I don't know. And there was rabies last summer. Several people in squatter camps were bitten by rabid dogs or rats. They died of it, and a couple of teenagers were shot because they pretended to have rabies just to scare people. Whatever money it costs to keep us healthy, it's worth it.

When our business in Eureka was finished, we went to meet the slaver at the place he and I had agreed on, just south and east of Eureka in Georgetown. The squatter settlement called Georgetown extends well back from the high­way in coastal hills. The place is a human-made desert, dusty when the weather is dry, muddy when it rains, almost treeless, plantless, filled with the poorest of the poor and their open sewers, their malnutrition, their drugs, crime, and disease. Bankole says it was once a beautiful area of farms, trees, and bills. That must have been a long time ago. The settlement is called Georgetown because the most permanent-looking thing in it is a cluster of shabby-looking redwood buildings. They're on a flattened hilltop and can be seen from just about everywhere in the settlement There's a store, a cafe,  a games hall, bar, a hotel, a fuel station, and a repair shop where tools, guns, and vehicles of all kinds might be restored to usefulness. The whole complex is called George's, and is run by a huge family surnamed George. At the cafe, George's has a lot of rentable cubby­hole mailboxes where packages and paper messages can be left, and there's a big bank of pay phones where, for a seri­ous fee, you can access almost any network, service, group, or individual. This service in particular has made the place a combination message center, meeting place, and Old West saloon. It's natural to arrange to meet people there to trans­act business of all kinds. Elroy George and his sons, his sons-in-law, his brothers, and his brothers' sons see to it that people behave themselves. The Georges are a formidable tribe. They stick together, and people respect them. Their prices are high, but they're honest. You get what you pay for with the Georges. Sad to say, some of the things that get paid for in the cafe or elsewhere at the complex are slaves and drugs. The Georges aren't slavers, but they've been known to handle drugs. I wish that weren't so, but it is. I just hope they don't go the way of the Dovetrees. They're stronger and more entrenched, and better connected politically than the Dovetrees, but who knows? Now that Jarret has been elected, who knows?

Dolores Ramos George, the matriarch of the tribe, runs the store and the care and she knows everyone. She's got a reputation for being a hard, mean woman, but as far as I'm concerned, she's just a realist. She speaks her mind. I like her. She's one of the people with whom I left word about the Noyer girls. When she heard the story, she just shook her head. 'Not a chance,' she said. 'Why didn't they keep a watch? Some parents got no sense at all.'

'I know,' I said. 'But I have to do what I can—for the sake of the other three kids.'

'Yeah.' She shrugged. 'I'll tell people. It won't do no good.'

But now it looked as though it had done some good. And in thanks, I had brought Dolores a basket of big navel or­anges, a basket of lemons, and a basket of persimmons. If we found one or both of the Noyer girls as a result of her spreading the word, I would owe her a percentage of the re­ward—a kind of finder's fee. But it seemed wise to make sure she came out ahead, no matter what.

'Beautiful, beautiful fruit,' she said, smiling as she looked at it and handled it She was a stout, old-looking 53, but the smile took years off her. 'Around here, if you don't guard a fruit tree and shoot a couple of people to prove you mean it, they'll tear off all the fruit, then cut down the tree for firewood. I won't let my boys kill people to save trees and plants, but I really miss oranges and grapes and things.'

She called some of her young grandchildren to come and take the fruit into the house. I saw the way the kids were looking at everything, so I warned them not to eat the per­simmons until they were soft to the touch. I cut one of the hard ones up and let each child have a taste of it so they would all know just how awful something so pretty could taste before it was ripe. Otherwise, they would have ruined several pieces of fruit as they tried to find a tasty, ripe per­simmon. Just yesterday, I caught the Dovetree kids doing that back at Acorn. Dolores just watched and smiled. Any­one who was nice to her grandkids could be her friend for life—as long as they didn't cross the rest of her family.

'Come on,' she said to me. 'The shit pile that you want to talk with is stinkin' up the cafe.  Is this the boy?' She looked up at Dan, seeming to notice him for the first time. “Your sister?' she asked him.

Dan nodded, solemn and silent.

'I hope she's the right girl,' she said. Then she glanced at me, looked me up and down. She smiled again. 'So you're finally starting a family. It's about time! I was 16 when I had my first.'

I wasn't surprised. I'm only two months along, and not showing at all yet But she would notice, somehow. No mat­ter how distracted and grandmotherly she can seem when she wants to, she doesn't miss much.

We left Natividad in the housetruck, on watch. There are some very efficient thieves hanging around Georgetown. Trucks need guarding. Travis and Bankole went into the cafe with Dan and me, but Dan and