“It won’t be the end of the world,” Harvey said automatically. He caught the gleam in Vance’s eye. “And anyway, if that Hammer doesn’t fall and I haven’t been busy covering it, it’s the end of my world. No can do, Gordie. God. I’d like to get away, but no.”
“Figures,” Vance said. “Loan me your kid.”
“What?”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it?” Vance said. “Suppose that thing does hit. Andy’d have a much better chance up in the hills with me. And if it doesn’t — well, you wouldn’t want him to miss a good hike just to hang around in the L.A. smog, would you?”
“You make plenty of sense,” Harvey said. “But… where’ll you be? I mean, in case something does happen, how do I find you and Andy.”
Vance’s face took on a serious look. “You know damned well what your chances of living through it are if it does hit and you’re in L.A…”
“Yeah. Slim and none,” Harvey said.
“…and besides, I’ll be just about where you’d want to go. Out of Quaking Aspen. The old Silver Knapsack area. Low enough to get out of in bad weather, high enough to be safe no matter what happens. Unless we’re under it, and that’s a random chance, isn’t it?”
“Sure. You ask Andy about this?”
“Yeah. He said he’d like to go, if it’s okay with you.”
“Who all’s going?”
“Just me and seven boys,” Gordie said. “Marie’s got charity work to do, so she can’t come…”
Harvey envied Gordie Vance just one thing: Marie Vance went on hikes. On the other hand, she wasn’t very easy to live with in town.
“…which means under scout rules the girls can’t come,” Gordie was saying. “And some of the others — well, they’re just not available. Hell, Harvey, you know the area. We’ll be fine.”
Harvey nodded. It was safe trail and a good area. “Right,” he said. He drank most of the beer. “You all right, Gordie?” he asked suddenly.
Vance’s face changed, subtly, and he was trying to hide the change. “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You just don’t seem yourself lately.”
“Work,” Vance said. “Too much work lately. This hike will fix everything.”
“Good,” Harvey said.
The shower felt good. He let hot water pound on his neck and he thought: Too late. The sensible, phlegmatic ones would stick it out, with the odds still hundreds, maybe thousands, to one in their favor. The panicky ones had already bought supplies and struck for the hills. There were also the sensible, cautious ones like Gordie Vance, who’d planned his hike months before, and who could say he wasn’t letting a comet spoil his vacation — but who’d be in the hills anyway.
Then there were the ones in between. There must be tens of millions, and Harv Randall was one of them, and look at him now: scared too late, and nothing to do but wait it out. In five days the nucleus of Hamner-Brown would be past, on its way to that strange, cold region beyond the planets…
Or it wouldn’t be.
“There must be something.” Harvey said, talking to himself in the privacy of a roaring shower. “Something I can do. What do I want out of this? If that damned dirty snowball ends the blessings of civilization and the advertising industry… okay, back to the basics. Eat, sleep, fight, drink and run. Not necessarily in that order. Right?”
Right.
Harvey Randall took Friday off. He called in sick, and by sheer bad luck Mark Czescu was in and took the call.
Mark got obvious pleasure out of asking it. “Hammer Fever, Harv?”
“Knock it off.”
“Okay. Making a few plans myself. Meeting a couple of friends, getting to a nice safe place. Forgot to tell you. I won’t be around on Hot Fudge Sundae, which falls on a Tuesdae next week. Want we should swing by your place after — if, as and when?”
He got no answer, because Harvey Randall had already hung up.
Randall went to a shopping center. He made his purchases carefully, and all on credit cards, or with checks.
At a supermarket he bought six big round roasts weighing twenty-eight pounds, and half their stock of vitamins, and half their stock of spices and considerable baking soda.
At a health-food store two doors down he bought more vitamins and more bottled spices. He bought a respectable amount of salt and pepper, and three pepper grinders.
Next door, a set of good carving knives. They’d needed new kitchen knives for a year. He also bought a sharpening stone and a hand-operated knife sharpener.
There was a tool kit he’d been wanting for years, and this was the time, he decided. While he was in the hardware store he picked up other odds and ends. Plastic plumbing parts, cheap stuff, that would thread onto iron pipe. There might be a use for it one day, if; and it would be handy around the house if not. There wasn’t a camp stove to be had, but the clerk knew Harvey and obligingly fetched out four hand-pumped flashlights and two Coleman lanterns that had just come in, along with four gallons of Coleman fuel. He also gave Harvey a knowing look that Randall was coming to recognize.
At the liquor store he bought a hundred and ninety-three dollars’ worth of everything in sight: gallons of vodka and bourbon and scotch; fifths of Grand Marnier, Drambuie and other esoteric and expensive liqueurs. He loaded everything into the wagon and then went back for bottles of Perrier water. He paid by credit card — and got another knowing look from the clerk.
“I’m ready to throw one hell of a party,” he told Kipling. The dog thumped his tail on the seat. He liked to go places with Harvey, although he didn’t get the chance as often as he wanted. He watched as his master went from store to store; to drugstores for sleeping pills and more vitamins, iodine, first-aid cream, the last box of bandages; back to the grocery for dog food; back to the drugstore for soap, shampoo, toothpaste, new toothbrushes, skin cream, calamine lotion, suntan lotion…
“Where do we stop?” Harvey asked. The dog licked his face. “We have to stop somewhere. Good Lord, I never thought much about the blessings of civilization before, but there are just a lot of things I wouldn’t want to live without.”
Harvey took his purchases home, then went back down the hill to collect the TravelAII from the mechanic who usually worked on it. If Harvey hadn’t been a very old and valued customer, he’d never have got squeezed in for tuneup, oil change, grease job, and general before-trip checkup; the garage wasn’t taking on new jobs for a week, and there were dozens of cars waiting for rush jobs.
But he got the TravelAII, and filled both tanks with gas. He filled the strap-on tanks for good measure, but he had to go to three service stations to do it; there was unofficial gas rationing in the L.A. basin.
After lunch it was bloody work. Twenty-eight pounds of beef had to be sliced into thin strips — thin! The new knives helped, but his arms were cramped by dinner time, and the job still wasn’t done. “I’ll need the bottom oven for the next three days,” he told Loretta.
“It is going to hit us,” Loretta said firmly. “I knew it.”
“No. Odds are hundreds, thousands, to one against it.”
“Then why that?” she asked. It was a good question. “My kitchen is just covered with little slices of raw meat.”
“Just in case,” Harvey said. “And it keeps. Andy can use it for hikes, if we don’t.” He got back to work.
The easy way to make beef jerky is not the way the Indians used. They employed a slow fire, or a summer sun, and their quality control was poor. Far better to set a modern oven at 100° to 120° and leave the thin strips of beef in for twenty-four hours. The meat isn’t supposed to cook; it’s supposed to dry. A good strip of beef jerky is bone-dry, and hard enough to kill you if you file the end to a point. It will also keep practically forever.