“He was dead when he hit the ground,” one of the boys shouted. “Dead, dammit, you can’t do anything.” They seemed dazed now as they stared at the bodies and the fire.
“Who?” Harvey asked. He pointed at the dead boy near the truck cab. The boy lay on his face. His back was on fire.
“Bill Dummery,” Tommy Tallifsen said. “Shouldn’t we… what do we do, Mr. Randall?”
“Do you know where Bill planted the charges downhill?”
“Yes.”
“Show me. Let’s go light them.” They moved down the hill. Visibility was increasing fast. A hundred yards, two hundred. They found a rock that overhung the road. Tommy pointed. As Harvey bent down to light the fuse, Tommy grabbed his shoulder. “Another truck coming,” he said.
“Aw, shit.” Harvey reached for the fuse again. Tommy said nothing. Finally Harvey stood. “It’ll be light before they get up here. You go on back up the hill and alert the troops. They can’t get past that burning truck anyway. Don’t get close to it until you know who it is.”
“All right.”
Harvey waited, cursing himself, Deke Wilson, the New Brotherhood. Bill Dummery, with a scholarship to Santa Cruz and a girl named Marylou. My fault.
The truck came on up the hill. It was loaded with people. No household goods at all. In a cartop carrier on top of the cab, two children in bulky raincoats hunkered down against the wind. As the truck got closer Harvey recognized the man standing in the bed next to the cab. He was one of the farmers who had come with Wilson to the Stronghold. Something Vinge?
The people in the truck were all women and children and men patched with bloody bandages. Some lay in the truck bed, not moving as the overloaded vehicle ground its gears and crawled uphill. Harvey let it pass him, then lit the fuse. He followed behind it. He could walk almost as fast as it could go. The dynamite went off behind him, but the boulder didn’t roll onto the road.
The truck stopped at the log maze. There was no question about who was in this truck. The boys came out of cover. Vinge jumped down. He looked exhausted, but showed no obvious wounds or bandages. “You weren’t supposed to block the goddam road until we got through!” he shouted.
“Fuck yourself!” Harvey screamed in rage. He fought for self-control. The truck was filled with wounded and with women and children, and all of them looked half dead from exhaustion. Harvey shook his head in pity and resentment, then called to Marie Vance. “Get the TravelAII! We’ll have to use the winch to clear a way for them.”
It took half an hour to saw through two logs and snake them out of the way so the truck could get through. While they worked, Harvey sent Tommy Tallifsen down to try again with the boulder. At the rate they were using the stuff, they’d run out of dynamite right here, with miles of road still to block. This time the boulder rolled. It formed a formidable obstacle, with no easy way around it. Others with chain saws dropped more trees on the road.
“All clear,” one of the boys called. “You can roll.”
Vinge went up to the truck cab. There were four people crammed into it. The driver was a teen-age boy, fourteen or so, barely big enough to reach the controls. “Take care of your mother,” the farmer shouted.
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered.
“Get moving,” the farmer said. “And…” He shook his head. “Get moving.”
“Goodbye, Dad.” The truck crawled away.
The farmer came back to Harvey Randall. “Name’s Jacob Vinge,” he said. “Let’s get to work. There won’t be any more coming out of our area.”
The fighting sounded much closer. Harvey could see across the hills and out to the San Joaquin Sea. There were columns of smoke to mark the burning farmhouses, and a continuous popcorn crackle of small-arms fire. It was strange to know that men and women were fighting and dying not a mile away, and yet see nothing. Then one of the boys called, “There’s somebody running.”
They spilled over the top of the hill half a mile off. They ran haltingly, not in any order, and few carried weapons or anything else. Running in terror, Harvey thought. Not a fighting withdrawal. Run away! They flowed down into the valley, and on toward the hill held by Task Force Randall.
A pickup truck came over the top of the next ridge. It stopped and men jumped out. Harvey was startled to see more men on foot to each side; they’d come over so carefully that he hadn’t noticed them. They gestured to the people in the pickup, and someone in the back of the truck stood up and leaned on the cab. He held binoculars to his eyes. They swept over the men fleeing uphill toward Harvey, paused only a moment there, then swept up along the road, examining each of Harvey’s roadblocks with care. The enemy had a face now; and the enemy knew Harvey Randall’s face. So be it.
In less than five minutes the valley and ridge beyond swarmed with armed men. They walked carefully, they were spread out half a mile to each side. They advanced toward Harvey.
The fugitives staggered uphill, to Harvey’s men and trucks and past them. They breathed like terminal pneumonia cases. They held no weapons, and their eyes were blind with terror.
“Stop!” Harvey shouted. “Stand and fight! Help us!” They staggered on without seeming to hear. One of Harvey’s boys stood up, looked back at the grimly advancing skirmish line below, then ran to join the fugitives. Harvey screamed at him, but the boy kept running.
“Lucky the others stayed,” Jacob Vinge said. “I… hell, I’d like to run, too.”
“So would I.” This wasn’t going according to plan. The New Brotherhood wasn’t coming up the ridge to clear the road. Instead they were fanning out to each side, and Harvey didn’t have nearly enough troops to hold the ridgeline. He’d hoped to delay them longer, but there was no chance. If they didn’t get out fast they’d be cut off. “And we’re going to.” He lifted his whistle and blew loudly. The advance below broke into a run even as he did.
Harvey waved his command into their truck and the TravelAll. Jacob Vinge took Bill’s place. Harvey sent the truck out, then hesitated. “We ought to try. Come on, a few rounds…”
“It won’t do any good,” Marie Vance said. “There’s too much cover and they aren’t showing themselves enough. We’d be trapped and we wouldn’t have hurt any of them.”
“How do you know so much about strategy?” Harvey demanded.
“I watch war movies. Let’s get out of here!”
“All right.” Harvey turned the TravelAII and drove away, down off the ridge and into the next valley. The truck stopped and let the running men get aboard.
“Poor bastards,” Marie said.
“We fought them for a day,” Vinge said, “but we couldn’t hold them. Like the ridge back there. They spread out and get around you, behind you, and then you’re dead. So you have to keep running. After awhile it can get to be a habit.”
“Sure.” Habit or not, Harvey thought, they had run like rabbits, not like men.
The road led down to a stream swollen with the rain of Hammerfall. The low parts of the valley were deep mud. Harvey stopped at the far side of the small bridge, and got out to light dynamite sticks already in place.
“There they are!” one of the boys shouted.
Harvey looked up on the ridge. A hundred and more armed enemies boiled over the top and came down the hill at a dead run. There was a staccato chatter, and a rustle in the grass not far from Harvey.
“Get it done!” Jacob Vinge shouted. “They’re shooting at us!”
It was nearly a mile up to the ridge, but that sound was familiar from Vietnam: a heavy machine gun. It wouldn’t take long to walk its fire over to Harvey and the TravelAII and then they’d be finished. He flicked his Zippo and blessed it when it caught the first time, even though it was filled with gasoline rather than regular lighter fluid. The fuse sputtered, and Harvey ran for the TravelAII. Marie had slid over into the driver’s seat and was already rolling. Harvey caught on and hands grabbed him and pulled him inside. There was more of the chatter, brup-brup-brup, and something roared past his ear.