part0025

N ed and the chief stood atop Mount Cashmore and surveyed with satisfaction all the work the coins had completed since they arrived. After laboring around the clock for weeks, they had enlarged Camp Coin, leveled the eagle runway, and laid the groundwork for the Coin Broadcasting Network. They hadn’t yet figured out how they would light CBS’s sacred fire, but the sacred reflecting pool would be operational once spring thawed the snow that currently filled it.

“There he is again,” Ned said, indicating with a nod of his chin to a man sitting alone on the park bench across from Coin Island.

The chief grunted. “He makes me nervous.”

“It used to be once or twice a week, now it’s nearly every day. You don’t think he suspects anything, do you?”

“Hard to believe,” the chief answered.

“Then why would you say he makes you nervous. ”

“It’s the way he stares at the island. Like he sees something, or maybe is planning on seeing something.”

“You mean developing it somehow?”

Ned frowned in incredulity. “The island is too small for even an outhouse, Chief. If you ask me, I think it’s a simple case of nostalgia. Two Loons said that he’s certain he’s the same Hugh that stranded him and the others.”

“So, that was one day some thirty years ago. Are you telling me he comes to relive that puny moment every day? Sorry, but that’s nuts.”

“I’m not saying that, but there’s a sadness about him. I hope everything is okay with his wife and kids. Things happen, you know?”

“Sure, every coin knows how messy peoples’ lives can get. We see it all the time. Humans are a sloppy lot. A penny has more common sense than most people, and decency too.”

“Yes, but buck a mile in their moccasins, Chief, and you might cut them a little slack. They have to deal with a lot more than we do—growing up, family, earning a living, sickness, getting old, and dying too. We coins have our own trials and tribulations, but compared to people, we have it pretty easy.”

“I have as much sympathy for people as the next coin, Four. But remember, to humans we coins are just twenty minutes on a parking meter, one pull on a vending machine, or the deposit back on their Pepsi bottle. Whether they have more of us than they can spend, or not a penny for a birthday candle, people seem to always find a way to be less happy than they ought to be. ”

“Are you happy, Chief?”

“As long as I don’t think about it I am. And I got Buffalo, who’s always happy and can cheer me if I’m not.” He eyed Ned suspiciously. “Aw, Four, not again with this Franny business.”

“I don’t have a Buffalo, and I can’t stop worrying about Franny.”

“Four, the Peace Dollar could be anywhere by now. You have as much of a chance of finding her as that Hugh fellow over there does finding answers to his problems by staring at some memory left on this shabby island.”

“I found her once, Chief. It took a long time, but I can find her again. Besides, I promised her. The Four must always keep his promise. I have to try.”

The chief sighed. “Do you have a plan?”

“Yeah, I do. Pete has volunteered to help me, and so have some of the others.”

“I see,” the chief muttered, displeased he was left out of the loop.

Ned recognized the look of hurt on Chief Iron Tail’s face. “But I could really use your help too. And like Pete told me, the mission could be about more than finding Franny…”

Ned let the sentence trail off, having used the word ‘mission’ as bait. He knew that for the chief ‘the mission’ was everything, and that the chief disapproved of anything that he thought distracted him from his sworn duty.

“Go on,” the chief said, biting.

“Since we are planning to mount our first expedition this spring anyway, why not combine the two? We need to establish bullion bases on the mainland, and to do that we have to recruit more coins, especially those with eagles on their backsides. Washington quarters are plentiful, but they aren’t full-bodied like Camille. Where do we find such coins today? Quarters like Camille were discontinued in 1930, and half dollars like Hannah in 1947. Some are still out there, sure, but finding them would be hard to do, and very time-consuming.”

The chief nodded slowly, chewing his cheek in thought. He saw where Ned was going and said, “Collectors…numismatists.”

“Bingo. Why waste time sniffing in every pocket, purse, bank, or till, when we know exactly where such coins could be had?”

The chief fixed Ned with a stern, cold eye. “You’re talking about stealing, Four.”

“No, Chief. I’m talking about redeeming coins. I’m talking about liberation.”

“For a coin, few things are worse than theft.”

“Extinction is,” Ned replied. “If we are going to save Coinworld, we are going to need those eagles, and we are going to need more than a couple of bucks of loose change.”

Ned and the chief heard grunting and the rough scrabble of metal on rock. They turned and saw Pete Penny’s Lincoln head pop over the ridge. Pete heaved a final buck and flipped onto the mountain’s snow-capped summit. He twirled to shake off the slush and mud he had accumulated, and spat out a pebble.

“Hi, guys,” he greeted.

“You’re late,” the chief scolded.

“Sorry, but I was helping some of the braves and Lincolns set up the catapult on the west side of the island. Then on my way over here I ran into Deirdre. She wanted to discuss some ideas she’s been working on at CIA headquarters.”

“We don’t have a headquarters,” the chief said.

“We do now,” Pete said. “Deirdre took over the biggest cave in Coin Gulch and calls it headquarters. She got some Lincolns and nickel braves to expand the cave. It’s ten times the size now.”

“What does she need something so big for?”

“Like I said, she has plans. Lots of plans.”

Ned chuckled. “She’s a firecracker, that one.”

“Oh, yeah,” Pete said. “Very, er, conscientious.”

“A bossy bit,” the chief said.

“She takes her job very seriously, anyway,” Pete said. “And she really is smart. I think she’s going to be a big help.”

“I still don’t get why she needs such a large space,” the chief said. “I don’t have an office, and neither does anyone else. It’s not like there is anything we can do in an office anyway.”

“Deirdre is looking ahead. For instance, she plans on installing her own reflecting pool so that she has a hotline to agents in the field. She doesn’t want to have to clamber over to CBS every time she needs to talk to someone. She also plans on having Brave Frail Feather etch detailed maps on the cave’s walls so that she can track coin movements. Frail Feather is the best artist on the island. His buffalo, Limp Paw, is a little temperamental—you know artists—but he can wield a hoof and the two make a good team.”

The chief grunted. He didn’t like all these coins around him making decisions without his input. Ned and Pete sensed his concerns and exchanged guilty glances .

Pete cleared his throat. “By the way, Chief,” he said, “Deirdre told me to ask you if you wouldn’t mind bucking by her office. She wants to get your okay on a few matters.”

“What kind of matters?”

“She wouldn’t tell me. She said only someone as wise as you would know.”

“That doesn’t sound like the know-it-all dime to me,” the chief said. “Nice try, penny, but I wasn’t minted yesterday.”

“It’s about teamwork, Chief,” Ned said.

“I think I liked it better when we were the three buckaneers,” Iron Tail groused.

“We still are, but we were led here for a reason. Gam zu l’tovah , right?”

Pete glanced skyward. “Incoming!”

Hannah Half Dollar and Camille Quarter sailed into sight. The two coins swooped down, the sun splashing off their silvery bodies. The coins banked and came in for landing, buzzing the three coins standing on Mount Cashmore. In Camille’s talons trailed a shoelace and a strip of leather, and Hannah carried a wine cork in one talon and a small box of matches in the other. The girls whistled to their friends and headed towards the landing strip.

“What’s that stuff for?” the chief asked.

“Island fortifications,” Ned answered. “And if there are matches in that match box, maybe the answer to lighting the sacred fire.”

“Excellent,” the chief said, “but I thought we put the fortifications on hold. ”

Pete said, “I think that other stuff is for the catapults and slingshots.”

As the chief pointed out, the coins concluded that the walls and other earthworks he saw in his vision would have to wait; that $1.57 in change was too little coinpower to complete such a large job. Instead, the coins decided that for now a few lookout posts would have to do, and that they would concentrate on constructing an arsenal to defend the island from some future foe they weren’t sure even existed.

The artillery consisted of catapults and slingshots devised by Hannah the Walking Liberty half dollar, who was proving to be as clever as she was big and beautiful. Only Hannah and her Standing Liberty ‘kid sister,’ Camille Quarter had hands and feet, and so only they had the dexterity required to fashion such weapons.

More animated though they were, however, the gals were still limited in what they could do, and by Coin Island’s resources. Constructing such devices was a slow and tedious process. It also entailed the eagle-backed coins venturing into cities to search for materials that the island lacked—discarded string and wire, scrapped strips of rubber and leather, lost elastic ponytail bands, and the like.

The two coins soon learned that flying held its share of dangers. Gusts of wind proved treacherous for them. A good blast sent them tumbling, or into a steep nosedive. They couldn’t fly in heavy rain or snow, and their metallic bodies made them winged lightning rods. Skill and common sense could prevent most catastrophes, but what they feared most was birds .

Small birds generally left them alone, but big birds, especially birds of prey—condors, falcons, hawks, osprey, and owls—were attracted to their shiny, snack-sized bodies. The animal kingdom was neither impressed nor intimidated by the coins’ eagles, each of which was smaller than a moth. Red in tooth and claw, the predator birds considered the soaring quarter and half dollar an exotic hors d’oeuvre that they’d eagerly devour, despite the gastric consequences.

Camille Quarter, being the smaller of the two, was particularly at risk of getting gulped down or snatched. The raptors were big, strong, fast, and agile. In the sky, the coins were like crop dusters trying to evade a Japanese Zero.

The girls weren’t completely defenseless, however. In addition to flying in close formation to appear bigger, Camille was handy with her shield, and their eagles, though tiny, could bite and claw like cornered alley cats. They flew high when traversing open countryside, but when carrying out operations in cities, they followed the flow of street traffic or hugged the sides of buildings. The gals had several close calls at the beginning, but after logging hundreds of hours they had become expert pilots.

The chief said, “The liberty ladies really got this flying business down pat. Did they sign onto your meshuggana rescue scheme too?”

Ned nodded guiltily.

“I see. Well ‘buckaneer,’ the last thing I want is a mutiny.”

“Do what you’ve got to do, Four. I’m not going to stop you. Couldn’t if I wanted to. Go get your Franny.” He turned and bucked down the mountain.

Ned sighed and flicked at the ground with his rim.

“He’ll be okay,” Pete said consolingly. “Once we get Franny and he sees all the new recruits and other stuff we bring back, he’ll act like nothing happened.”

“Maybe, but I still feel bad. I owe him everything. Without the chief I’d never have learned to buck. He steeled my nickel soul and gave me confidence. He gave me freedom. I didn’t mean for him to take any of this personally.”

“He’s bigger than that, Ned. You’ll see. You’re more than The Four to him. He loves you like a son, and he worries about you like every father does his child. But he knows that as you progress along your path, you’ll have to make your own decisions.”

“Still, I shouldn’t have gone behind his back, Pete. I think that’s what smarts him the most. I should have taken your advice and gone to him first. It was a cowardly thing I did.”

“No use beating yourself up over it. Franny must have a part to play in all this. After all, had it not been for her we’d never have found you, so you see, as the chief always says—”

“Gam zu l’tovah .” Ned grinned weakly. “I wish I had your degree of faith, Pete. How do you do it?”

Pete shrugged. “Believe me, I’m no stranger to doubt. But when you’re only a measly cent, hope and faith is about all you’re worth.”

Ned gave Pete an affectionate shove. “There’s nothing paltry about you, Pete Penny. You may only be one cent to a banker, but you’re a million bucks to me.”

From a distance, Hannah Half Dollar and Camille Quarter looked like glittering butterflies. When they flitted by, they had caught the attention of Hugh Stewards. He stood, squinted, and rubbed his eyes.

That was the third time in two weeks that Hugh Stewards had spotted the strange objects. The first time he thought he saw a pair of flying cufflinks. It was absurd, of course, and he dismissed the puzzling sight as the glint of the sun off the lake. The second time he saw them he decided they were insects, dragonflies most likely. This time, however, the creatures passed just over his head, and they appeared to be carrying some sort of payload.

Odd, he thought, very odd.

He saw their shadows trace across the ground and water, and then disappear over the island’s shrubbery. He was certain that the creatures landed somewhere near the far end of the islet.

Hugh peered at the island, but all was still. Except for an occasional sparrow that alighted on the tallest branches of its lone tree, the place seemed as calm and tranquil as the lake that surrounded it. He stuffed his hands into his front pockets for warmth and absently rubbed two coins between his fingers, like one might a rabbit’s foot for luck.

To the common eye the scrap of land was a thicket of tangled shrubs and weeds, desiccated by winter’s harshness. But for Hugh Stewards, the island sparkled amidst the January frost, and seemed to exude a kind of magic .

He felt inexplicably drawn to the spot, and thought that if only he had the eyes to see, something of great importance was underway there. Stranger still, he thought that whatever it was, he had a part to play.

Hugh wanted to cross over to the island, but the gulf that separated the brambly patch of land from the shore was too large. Even if he didn’t have a bad leg, he couldn’t have leapt the distance. A plank might do the trick, however, and he made a mental note.

Seeing nothing and hearing nothing, Hugh Stewards returned to his park bench and sat down. He tucked his chin into the collar of his wool, navy-colored peacoat and contemplated the island. When the sun dipped behind the park’s trees Hugh stood to leave. He crammed his hands back into his pockets, and started for his car.

Hugh Stewards paused and glanced over his shoulder. He turned and hobbled towards the water’s edge. He withdrew the two coins he had been fondling and tossed them into the center of the island.