“It’s pride,” said Max. “They won’t give up. They won’t let Oak Manor beat them. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford are quality. They have some steel in them.”
“They couldn’t sell the place, of course,” said Nora. “There would no one buy it. But they don’t need the money. They could just walk away from it.”
“You misjudge them, Nora. The Crawfords in all their lives have never walked away from anything. They went through a lot to live here. Sending Johnny off to boarding school when he was a lad, since it wouldn’t have been safe for him to go to school with the Punks out there. I don’t suppose they like it. I don’t see how they could. But they won’t be driven out. They realize someone must stand up to all that trash out there, or else there’s no hope.”
Nora sighed. “I suppose you’re right. But it is a shame. They could live so safe and comfortable and normal if they just moved to the city.”
He finished eating and got up.
“It was a good meal, Nora,” he said. “But then you always fix good meals.”
“Ah, go on with you,” said Nora.
He went into the basement and sat down before the short-wave set. Systematically, he started putting in his calls to the other strongholds. Wilson stronghold, over in Fair Hills, had had a little trouble early in the evening—a few stink bombs heaved across the fence—but it had quieted down. Jackson stronghold did not answer. While he was trying to get through to Smith stronghold in Harmony Settlement, Curtis stronghold in Lakeside Heights began calling him. Everything was quiet, John Hennessey, the Curtis custodian told him. It had been quiet for several days.
He stayed at the radio for an hour and by that time had talked with all the nearby strongholds. There had been scattered trouble here and there, but nothing of any consequence. Generally it was peaceful.
He sat and thought about the time bomb and there was still that nagging worry. There was something wrong, he knew, but he could not put his finger on it.
Getting up, he prowled the cavernous basement, checking the defense material—extra sections of fencing, piles of posts, pointed stakes, rolls of barb wire, heavy flexible wire mesh and all the other items for which some day there might be a need. Tucked into one corner, hidden, he found the stacked carboys of acid he had secretly cached away. Mr. Crawford would not approve, he knew, but if the chips ever should be down, and there was need to use those carboys, he might be glad to have them.
He climbed the stairs and went outside to prowl restlessly about the yard, still upset by that nagging something about the bomb he could not yet pin down.
The moon had risen. The yard was a place of interlaced light and shadow, but beyond the fence the desert acres that held the other houses lay flat and bare and plain, without a shadow on them except the shadows of the houses.
Two of the dogs came up and passed the time of night with him and then went off into the shrubbery.
He moved into the backyard and stood beside the sun dial.
The wrongness still was there. Something about the sun dial and the bomb—some piece of thinking that didn’t run quite true.
He wondered how they knew that the destruction of the sun dial would be a heavy blow to the owner of the stronghold. How could they possibly have known?
The answer seemed to be that they couldn’t. They didn’t. There was no way for them to know. And even if, in some manner, they had learned, a sun dial most certainly would be a piddling thing to blow up when that single bomb could be used so much better somewhere else.
Stony Stafford, the leader of the Punks, was nobody’s fool. He was a weasel—full of cunning, full of savvy. He’d not mess with any sun dial when there was so much else that a bomb could do so much more effectively.
And as he stood there beside the sun dial, Max knew where that bomb would go—knew where he would plant it were he in Stafford’s place.
At the roots of that ancient oak which leaned toward the fence.
He stood and thought about it and knew that he was right.
Billy Warner, he wondered. Had Billy double-crossed him?
Very possibly he hadn’t. Perhaps Stony Stafford might have suspected long ago that his gang harbored an informer and, for that reason, had given out the story of the sun dial rather than the oak tree. And that, of course, only to a select inner circle which would be personally involved with the placing of the bomb.
In such a case, he thought, Billy Warner had not done too badly.
Max turned around and went back to the house, walking heavily. He climbed the stairs to his attic room and went to bed. It had been, he thought just before he went to sleep, a fairly decent day.
The police showed up at eight o’clock. The carpenters came and put up the dance platform. The musicians appeared and began their tuning up. The caterers arrived and set up the tables, loading them with food and two huge punch bowls, standing by to serve.
Shortly after nine o’clock the Punks and their girls began to straggle in. The police frisked them at the gates and found no blackjacks, no brass knuckles, no bicycle chains on any one of them.
The band struck up. The Punks and their girls began to dance. They strolled through the yard and admired the flowers, without picking any of them. They sat on the grass and talked and laughed among themselves. They gathered at the overflowing boards and ate. They laughed and whooped and frolicked and everything was fine.
“You see?” Pollard said to Max. “There ain’t nothing wrong with them. Give them a decent break and they’re just a bunch of ordinary kids. A little hell in them, of course, but nothing really bad. It’s your flaunting of this place in their very faces that makes them the way they are.”
“Yeah,” said Max.
He left Pollard and drifted down the yard, keeping as inconspicuous as he could. He wanted to watch the oak, but he knew he didn’t dare to. He knew he had to keep away from it, should not even glance toward it. If he should scare them off, then God only knew where they would plant the bomb. He thought of being forced to hunt wildly for it after they were gone and shuddered at the thought.
There was no one near the bench at the back of the yard, near the flowering almond tree, and he stretched out on it. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but the day was warm and the air was drowsy. He dropped off to sleep.
When he woke he saw that a man was standing on the gravel path just beyond the bench.
He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes.
“Hello, Max,” said Stony Stafford.
“You should be up there dancing, Stony.”
“I was waiting for you to wake up,” said Stony. “You are a heavy sleeper. I could of broke your neck.”
Max sat up. He rubbed a hand across his face.
“Not on Truce Day, Stony. We all are friends on Truce Day.”
Stony spat upon the gravel path.
“Some other day,” he said.
“Look,” said Max, “why don’t you just run off and forget about it? You’ll break your back if you try to crack this place. Pick up your marbles, Stony, and go find someone else who’s not so rough to play with.”
“Some day we’ll make it,” Stony said. “This place can’t stand forever.”
“You haven’t got a chance,” said Max.
“Maybe so,” said Stony. “But I think we will. And before we do, there is just one thing I want you to know. You think nothing will happen to you even if we do. You think that all we’ll do is just rip up the place, not harming anyone. But you’re wrong, Max. We’ll do it the way it is supposed to be with the Crawfords and with Nora. We won’t hurt them none. But we’ll get you, Max. Just because we can’t carry knives or guns doesn’t mean there aren’t other ways. There’ll be a stone fall on you or a timber hit you. Or maybe you’ll stumble and fall into the fire. There are a lot of ways to do it and we plan to get you plenty.”