Chapter 5

Toph and Will left the lawyer's office and rode out of the car park on their motorcycles. They headed towards Fremont to meet with their brother and grandfather. He had raised them since they were all below the age of 10. Their grandfather was the grandson of Elijah Harmon who had first tried to take his first grandson away from his mother in the early days of Seattle. When Dorn had married a saloon girl and had twins one died young the other survived. Dorn was killed in a fight and so, Elijah had taken the other boy to raise him. Elijah did not forgive easily and raised this boy, Steven Harmon, to carry on the silent hatred for the Bolt brothers. Steven went to school with one of the sons of Joshua Bolt and was always on the lookout for ways to get Joshua's son Jonathan into trouble. When Steven and Jonathan were ready to marry, Steven decided to take Jonathan's girlfriend away from him and through a series of miscommunication, he succeeded in taking Dolly Sanders as his wife. Leaving Jonathan Bolt to either stew or move forward. Jonathan for his part had decided that Dolly had not been the girl for him. After the first world war, he had found a nice young woman Mary Kite and they fell in love and married. Steven and Dolly's relationship did not last long. They had three children, and his oldest son was named after his father Elijah. Elijah Harmon grew up and became the father of three boys who were named William, Christopher(Toph) and Jimmie. Of the three Jimmie was the quietest and also the one with some special needs. He could talk, hear, and see, but he was unable to learn past the 3rd grade. So, Elijah pulled him out of school and set him to working on the farm they had. Jimmie loved the farm animals and soon was running the farm and very happy.

Meanwhile Toph and Will usually rode their motorcycles to the nearest bar and picked up girls and fights. Neither had been in the second war since they both were declared 4F. When that was granted to Toph and Will there was some question as to how they received that, but no one really knew they just accepted it and let it go. The people in the city figured that the boys would find a way to live or not. They were not well liked.

Toph and Will found their grandfather in the bar waiting for them. They ordered a pitcher of beer and sat down with him.

"Well, what did you find out?" said their grandfather Elijah.

"It seems as if the young Mrs. Walton is actually a Bolt! Her mother was a native American related to the Bolts and had a child out of wedlock!" Said Will taking a sip of his beer.

Elijah looked at Will and the Toph. Then he said:

"It seems that we can get CPS on our side then we can get the kids taken from her. She is a single mother after all?"

"I don't think so. There is a family in Virginia, and I heard that this family has at least 6 or 7 siblings who would be able to help if she were to have problems. And now Aaron Stemple is her lawyer, and I don't see how we can go up against him or the Walton family!" said Toph as he too took a swig of beer.

Elijah thought about this predicament. Then said.

"Well, Boys! We just have to divide and conquer. Which of the boys would be the easiest to take without a problem?"

Will and Top looked at each other and said together:

"The youngest, Jeremy!"

"Why?" Elijah said.

"For one, he is the youngest, and another he stutters, we can put him on the ranch with Jimmie and they will never know where he is and…" Will said thoughtfully.

"They will have to put his face on a milk carton and never ever find him. And by the time they find him he won't remember who he really is, and he will be a Harmon!" said Toph excitedly.

Elijah looked at both of them. That was a great idea he thought but then he asked another question of Will and Toph:

"Okay, why not one of the other brothers?"

"The oldest is 11, he will remember, and he seemed pretty set on making sure his mom and his brothers were safe. He may want to run away, and we would have a heck of a time tying him down, we might have to kill him! The other, he is well, it seems that he would be easier he is about 8 but he too may end up resisting too much but the youngest, he is 5. We can keep him on the farm and tell him his family is dead and other things until he believes that he is a Harmon and then raise him as a Harmon openly!" said Will, with a smile on his face. Elijah thought hard on that. It did sound reasonable and if the child was never found, even on a milk carton some children are never found, but if he was, he would have no memory of his real parents. That might be a good idea.

"Okay, let's get home and we can talk about the details there!" Elijah said as he got up and left the bar.