Al Hardy broke the silence. “It doesn’t look as if the U.S. Cavalry will come charging over the hill to rescue us.”
Deke Wilson’s laugh was bitter. “The Army’s turned cannibal. What we saw of it, anyway.”
“We’ll have to fight,” George Christopher said. “That goddam Montross—”
“George, you can’t be sure he’s in charge,” Al Hardy said.
“Who cares? If he’s not, it’s worse, it’s the fucking cannibals. We’ll have to fight sooner or later, we may as well do it while we’ve got Deke’s people on our side.”
“I’ll go for that,” Deke Wilson said. “Unless…”
“Unless what?” Christopher asked, his voice suddenly suspicious.
Wilson spread his hands. Harvey couldn’t help noticing. Wilson had been a big man, who was now two sizes too small for his body and clothes. And he was scared.
“Unless you’ll let us in,” Wilson said. “We can hold that gang off. You’ve got hills to defend. I don’t. All I’ve got is what I can build, no ridgelines, no natural boundaries, nothing. But in here we can hold the bastards off until they starve to death. Maybe we can help that along. Go on raids and burn out what they’ve stored up.”
“That’s obscene,” Harvey Randall said. “Aren’t there enough people starving without burning crops and food? Jesus! All over the world, what the Hammer didn’t get, we’re doing to ourselves! Does it have to happen here, too?”
“We couldn’t feed all of your people for the winter, Deke,” Al Hardy said. “Sorry, but I know. The margin’s just too thin. We can’t do it.”
“We don’t know enough, not yet,” Jellison said. “Maybe it’s possible to come to terms with the New Brotherhood.”
“Bullshit,” George Christopher said.
“It is not bullshit,” Harvey Randall said. “I knew Montross, and dammit, he is not crazy, he is not a cannibal, and he is not an evil man even if he did come onto your land and try to help the farm workers organize a union—”
“That will do,” Jellison said. He was very firm about it. “George, I suggest that we wait for Harry. We have to know more about conditions out there. I gather that Deke knows almost nothing he hasn’t told us. Harvey, have you time to help, or do you have other work?” Jellison’s tone made it plain that Harvey Randall wouldn’t be needed in the library just now.
“If you can spare me, there are a few things…” Harvey got up and went to the door. He almost chuckled when he heard George Christopher coming behind him.
“I’ll see the maps when they’re done,” Christopher was saying. “I have some work too. Nice to meet you, General Baker.” He followed Harvey out. “Just a minute.”
Harvey walked slowly, wondering what would happen now. The Senator had obviously been unhappy about Harvey’s outburst. As well he might have been, Harvey thought. And he tried to separate us, and it didn’t work…
“So what do we do now?” Christopher was saying.
Harvey shrugged. “We just don’t know enough. Besides, we do have a few days. Maybe if we went out with Deke we could come up with enough fertilizer and greenhouse materials to keep all of Deke’s people going through the winter—”
“That wasn’t what I was talking about,” Christopher said. “We’re going to have to fight those damned cannibals, and we may as well do it before they get any stronger. Take every gun and every man big enough to carry one and go out there and get it the hell over with. I don’t want to spend the winter looking over my shoulder. When somebody scares you there’s only one thing to do, knock him down and stomp on him until he can’t hurt you anymore.”
Or run like hell. Or talk a lot, Harvey thought, but he didn’t say anything.
“I used to get nervous about you and Maureen,” George said.
“I want her too,” Harv said. He stopped short of the closed kitchen door and stood facing Christopher in the narrow hallway. “If you knock me down and stomp on me a lot, we’re all going to be terribly embarrassed. Your move.”
“Not yet. When you get me mad enough, you’ll be for the road. Right now we’ve both got a problem.”
“Yah. I noticed that too,” said Harvey. “Are you going to put him on the road?”
“Don’t be stupid. He’s a hero. Come on outside.” Christopher led the way through the kitchen. There was no one there at the moment. They went out into the dusk.
“Look, Randall,” Christopher said. “You don’t like me much.”
“No. I expect it’s mutual.”
Christopher shrugged. “I got nothing against you. I don’t think you’ll shoot me in the back or slug me when I’m not looking—”
“Thanks.”
“And unless you do, you can’t lick me. Question is, suppose she decides to marry General Baker. What’ll you do about that?”
“Cry a lot.”
“Look, I’m trying to be polite,” Christopher said.
“Well, what do you want me to say?” Harvey asked. “If she marries Baker, she marries Baker, that’s all.”
“And you’ll leave her alone? Not sneak around seeing her?”
“Why the hell would I do that?” Harvey demanded.
“Look, you think I’m some kind of bumpkin fool, don’t you?” Christopher said. “And maybe I am, the way you see things. I lived out here before I had to. Went to church. Minded my own business. No swinging parties, no girl friend in every city to go see on expense accounts…”
Harvey laughed. “I didn’t live that way,” he said. “You’ve been reading too many playboys.”
“Yeah? Look, Randall, I’m a cornball, I guess, but I happen to think that if a man’s married, he stays at home. Now I never got married. Engaged once, but it didn’t work, and then I found out Maureen got her divorce, and while I wasn’t exactly just waiting for her — I knew better than to think she’d want to come live in this valley again or that I could live in Washington — I never found anybody. Then this happened. Now she has to live here. Maybe she could live with me. We would have married, once, only it didn’t quite work, we were too young…”
“Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because I’ve got something to say. Dammit, Randall, if I ever do get married, I’ll stay married. Yeah, and I’ll be faithful to my wife, too. Maybe Baker will be. You sure as hell wouldn’t.”
“Now what the hell… ?”
“I know what goes on in this valley, Randall. I knew before the goddam comet hit us and I know now. So you just leave Maureen alone. You’re not the kind of man she needs.”
“Why not? And who appointed you the guardian of public morals?”
“I did. And you’re not good enough for her. You sleep around. All right, it was with her. I don’t like that, but I had no claim on her. Not then. But you were a married man, Randall. What the hell was Maureen to you? Another one to add to your scorecard? Look, I’m getting myself upset, and I didn’t want that. But you leave her alone. I’m telling you, leave her be.” He turned and walked away before Harvey could say anything else.
Harvey Randall stood in shock, and barely restrained himself from running after the big rancher. I ought to be mad, he thought. I ought to hate the bastard…
But he didn’t. Instead he felt a wild impulse to run and catch up and explain that it hadn’t been that way at all, that Harvey Randall thought about marriage the same way George Christopher did, and all right, so he and Maureen had…
Had what? Harvey wondered. Maybe Christopher was right. But Loretta never knew, and she wasn’t harmed, and neither was Maureen, and it’s all a pile of excuses because you knew damned well what you were doing.