He awoke dazed, almost totally blind, and unable to determine whether he had been shot as well as slugged and beaten. He waited to die and wanted to die. When he didn’t die he sat for a long time trying to decide which way was home. It required great effort to concentrate on the simplest matter. He would have preferred to stay where he was and complete his dying. But the sight of ants wheeling excitedly around the drying blood on the road made him uneasy. If he died there the ants would be all over him and in him by the time he was found. It would be better to die at home, cleanly. The sun was setting. The Sunbury house was east of Fort Repose. Therefore, he must go west. With the orange sun as his beacon, he began to crawl. When darkness came he rested, bathed his face in ditch water and drank it, too, and tried walking. He could walk perhaps a hundred yards before the road spun up to meet him. Then he would crawl. Thus, walking and crawling, he had finally reached the Bragg steps.
When Dan finished, Randy said, “It had to come, of course. The highwaymen killed off travel on the main highways and so now they’ve started on the little towns and the secondary roads. But in this case, Dan, it sounds like they were laying for you personally. I think they knew you were a doctor, and you’d be going way out River Road to the Sunburys’, and certainly the woman knew you kept a couple of bottles of bourbon in the car.”
“All they had to do,” Dan said, “was hang around Marines Park, look at the notices on the bandstand, and ask questions. I didn’t know any of them, but I think I’ve seen one before, the youngest. I used to see him hanging around Hockstatler’s drugstore before The Day.”
“They didn’t have a car?”
“No.”
“I guess what they wanted most was transportation.”
“They won’t get much. We had only two or three gallons of gas left.” He added, apologetically, “I’m sorry, Randy. I was careless. I shouldn’t have stopped. I’ve lost our transport, our medicines, and my tools.”
Leaning over the bed, Randy’s fingers interlocked. He unconsciously squeezed until the tendons on his forearm stood out like taut wires. He said, “Don’t worry about it.”
“Worst of all,” Dan said, “I’ve lost my glasses. I guess they smashed when that goon slugged me with the bat. I won’t be much good without glasses.”
Randy knew that Dan’s vision was poor. Dan was forced to wear bifocals. He was very nearsighted. “Don’t you have another pair?” he asked.
“Yes—in the bag. I always kept my spare glasses in the bag because I was afraid I might lose or break the pair I was wearing, on a call.” He sat up straight in bed, his face twisted. “Randy, I may never be able to get another pair of glasses.”
Randy stood up. “I’ve got to start working on this, Dan.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Find them and kill them.” He said this in a matter-of-fact manner, as if announcing that he was going downtown to have his tires checked, in the time before The Day.
Dan said, “I’m afraid you’re going at this wrong, Randy. Killing highwaymen is secondary. The important thing is the typhoid in the river. If you think things are bad now, wait until we have typhoid in Fort Repose. And it’s not only Fort Repose. It goes from the Timucuan into the St. Johns and downriver to Sanford, Palatka, and the other towns. If they are still there.”
“All I can do about typhoid is warn people, which you have done already and which I will do again. I can’t shoot a germ. I’m concerned with the highwaymen right now, this minute. Next, they’ll start raiding the houses. It’s as inevitable as the fact that they left the main highways and ambushed you on River Road. Typhoid is bad. So is murder and robbery and rape. I am an officer in the Reserve. I have been legally designated to keep order when normal authority breaks down. Which it certainly has here.
And the first thing I must do to keep order is execute the highwaymen. That’s perfectly plain. See you later, Dan.”
Randy turned to Helen. “Take care of him. Feed him up,” he said, a command.
Walking beside him toward the Admiral’s house, Lib found it difficult to keep pace. She had never seen Randy look and speak and act like this before. She held his arm, and yet she felt he had moved away from her. He did not seem anxious to talk, confide in her, or ask her opinion, as he usually did. He had moved into man’s august world of battle and violence, from which she was barred. She held tighter to his arm. She was afraid.
The admiral, freshly shaven and pink-faced, was in his den, touching whale oil to the recoil mechanism of an automatic shotgun. “I was wondering,” he said to Randy, “whether you would be around here or I should come to you. How’s Dan?”
“He’ll be all right. We lost the car and the medicines and the last of the bourbon but we didn’t lose our doctor. The most important thing we lost were his glasses. He’s very nearsighted.”
“You forgot something,” the Admiral said, hardly looking up from his work. “We not only have lost transport but communications. We no longer have a way to recharge batteries. This battery I have now”—he nodded at the radio—“is good for perhaps another eight to ten hours. After that”—he looked up—“nothing. Silence. What do you plan to do?”
“I plan to kill them. But I don’t know how to find them. I came to talk to you about it.”
Lib said, “May I interrupt? Don’t look at me that way, Randy. I’m not trying to interfere in your business. I just wanted to say I brought the Admiral’s coffee. While you’re talking, I thought I’d boil water and make a cup for him.”
The Admiral said, absently, “Kettle’s in the fireplace.”
She went into the living room. It was silly, but sometimes the Admiral irritated her. The Admiral made her feel like a mess boy.
Sam Hazzard laid the automatic sixteen gently on the desk.
“Ever since I heard about it, I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You have to go get them. They won’t come to you. Not only that, they may be a hundred miles from here by now.”
“I think they’re right around here,” Randy said. “One of the gang was a local drugstore cowboy, now toting two real guns. And they don’t have enough gas to get far. I think they’ll try to score a few more times before they move on. Even when they’re gone, others will come. We have the problem whether it’s this particular gang or another gang. I’m going to try to form a provisional company.”
“Vigilantes?”
“No. A company under martial law. So far as I know I’m the only active Army Reserve officer in town so I guess it’s up to me.”
“Then what do you do?”
Lib came in and set a cup beside each of them. She found a clear space at the far end of the room-length desk, boosted herself up, and attempted to appear inconspicuous.
“Suppose I organized a patrol on foot? Set up roadblocks?” Randy suggested.
“The highwaymen were mobile, you’re not,” the Admiral said. “If they see an armed patrol, or a roadblock, they’ll simply keep out of your way.”
Randy said, “Well, we can’t just sit here and wait for them.”
“All this I’ve been thinking,” The Admiral said. “Also I was thinking of the Q-ships we used in the First World War.”
Lib started to speak but decided it would be unwise. It was Randy who said, “I remember, vaguely, reading about Q-ships but I don’t remember much about it. Enlighten me, Sam.”
“Q-ships were usually auxiliary schooners or wornout tramps, targets on which a German submarine captain wouldn’t be likely to waste a torpedo but would prefer to sink with gunfire. Concealed a pretty hefty battery behind screens that looked like deck loads. Drill was to prowl submarine alley unescorted and helpless looking. The sub sees her and surfaces. Sometimes the Q-ship had a panic party that took to the boats. Best part of the act. Soon as the sub opened fire with its deck gun the Q-ship ran up the flag and unmasked the battery. Blammy! It was quite effective.”
“Very ingenious. But what has it got to do with highwaymen?”
“Nothing
at all, unless you can put a four-wheeled Q-ship on the roads around Fort Repose.”
Randy shrugged. “We’re not mobile. Plenty of cars we could use—for instance, yours, Sam—but gasoline is practically nonexistent. We might have to cruise around for days before they tack led us. I might be able to requisition a gallon or two here and there but then the word would get around and they’d be watching for us.”
Lib had to speak. “Could I make a suggestion? I think Rita Hernandez and her brother must have gasoline. They’re the big traders in town, aren’t they?”
Randy had tried to wipe Rita out of his mind. They were even, they were quits. He wanted nothing from Rita any more. He said, “It’s true that if anybody’s holding gas, it’s Rita.”
“Not only that,” Lib said, “but they have that grocery truck. Can you imagine anything more enticing to highwaymen than a grocery truck? They won’t really think it’s filled with groceries, of course, but psychologically it would be irresistible.”
Sam Hazzard smiled with his eyes, as if light from within penetrated the opaque gray. “There you have it, Randy! Nice staff work, my girl!”
“Also,” she said, “I think it would be a good idea if I drove. They’d be sure to think it was easy pickings with a woman driving.”
“You will like the devil drive!” Randy said. “You will stay at home and guard the house, you and Ben Franklin.” And the two men went on talking and planning, as if they already possessed the truck with full tank, and she was left out of it again. At least, she thought, if it really worked, she had contributed something. The Admiral emphasized that whatever was done must be done quietly. Randy decided he could not go to the Hernandez house until after dark. It was not impossible that the highwaymen were holed up in Pistolville, or had contacts there. If Pistolville saw him drive off in Rita’s truck, the news would be all over town within a few hours. Finally, the Admiral asked the crucial question—would Rita cooperate? Was she discreet?
“Rita wants to hold what she has,” Randy said. “Rita wants to live. She is realistic.”
There was one more thing he must do before he left the Admiral. He sat at the typewriter and pecked out the orders.
ORDER No. 1—TOWN OF FORT REPOSE
1. In accordance with the proclamation of Mrs. Josephine Vanbruuker-Brown, Acting President of the United States, and the declaration of Martial Law, I am assuming command of the Town of Fort Repose and its environs.
2. All Army, Navy, and Air Force reservists and all members of the National Guard, together with any others with military experience who will volunteer, will meet at the bandstand at 1200 hours, Wednesday, 20 April. I propose to form a composite company to protect this town.
ORDER No. 2
1. Two cases of typhoid have been diagnosed in the Sunbury family, upper River Road. It must be assumed that both the Timucuan and St. Johns are polluted.
2. All water will be boiled before drinking. Do not eat fruits or greens that have been washed in unboiled water.
ORDER No. 3
1. Dr. Daniel Gunn, our only physician, has been beaten and robbed by highwaymen.
2. The penalty for robbery or pillage, or for harboring highwaymen, or for failure to make known information concerning their whereabouts or movements, is death by hanging.
All these orders he signed, “Randolph Rowzee Bragg, 1st. Lt. AUS (Reserve) (02658988).”
Lib reading over his shoulder, said, “Why wait until Wednesday to form your company?”
“I want the highwaymen to think that they have plenty of time,” Randy said. “I want them to laugh at us.”
There were a number of ways by which Randy could have traveled the three miles to Marines Park, and then the two additional miles to the Hernandez house on the outer fringe of Pistolville. The Admiral had offered to take him as far as the town dock in his outboard cruiser, now converted to sail. But Sam Hazzard had not as yet added additional keel to the boat, so it would sideslip badly on a tack. Sam could get him to Marines Park all right, but on the return trip might be unable to make headway against current and wind and be left stranded. Randy could have borrowed Alice Cooksey’s bicycle, but decided that this might make him conspicuous in Pistolville. He could have ridden Balaam, the mule, but if he succeeded in persuading Rita to let him have the truck and gasoline, how would Balaam get home? Balaam didn’t fit in a panel truck. Besides, he was not sure that Balaam should ever be risked away from the Henry’s fields and barn. The only mule in Timucuan County was beyond price. In the end, he decided to walk.
He set out after dark. Lib escorted him as far as the bend in the road. She had tacked his notices firmly to a square of plywood which he was to nail to the bandstand pillar. Thus, she had explained, they would not be lost or overlooked among the offers to trade fishhooks or lighter flints, and the pleas for kerosene or kettles. Across the top of the board she had printed, “OFFICIAL BULLETINS.”
Randy wore stained dungarees, old brown fishing sneakers, and a floppy black hat borrowed from Two-Tone. His pistol was concealed in a deep pocket. When walking Pistolville at night, he wanted to look as if he belonged there.
When he told Lib it was time to turn back, she kissed him. “How long will it take you, darling?” she asked.
“Depends on whether I get the truck. Counting the stop at the park to nail up the orders. I should get there in less than two hours. After that, I don’t know. Depends on Rita.”
“If you’re not home by midnight,” she said, “I’ll come after you. With a shotgun.” She sounded half-serious. In the past few weeks she had been more tender to him, embarrassingly solicitous of his safety, more jealous of his time. She was possessive, which was natural. They were lovers, when there was time, and place and privacy, and respite from fatigue and hunger and the dangers and responsibilities of the day.
He walked on alone under the oak arch excluding starlight, secure in night’s black velvet cloak yet walking silently, eyes, ears, and even nose alert. So he had learned, in the dark hammocks as a boy hunting game, in the dark mountains as a man hunting man. Before The Day, except in hunting or in war, a five—or tenmile walk would have been unthinkable. Now it was routine for all of them except Dan and after Dan got out of bed it would become routine for him too. But all their shoes were wearing out. In another month or two Ben Franklin and Peyton would be without shoes entirely. Not only were the children walking (or running) everywhere but their feet inconsiderately continued to grow, straining canvas and leather. Randy told himself that he must discover whether Eli Blaustein still held shoes. He knew what Blaustein wanted—meat.
Marines Park was empty. As he nailed up his order board an animal scuttled out from under the bandstand. At first he thought it a possum but when he caught its silhouette against the starlit river he saw it was an armadillo.
Walking through the business section, he wondered whether armadillos were good eating. Before The Day he had heard someone say that there were several hundred thousand armadillos in Florida. This was strange, because before the first boom there had been no armadillos at all. Randy’s father had related the story.
Some real estate promoter on the East Coast had imported two from Texas for a roadside zoo. Knowing nothing of the habits of armadillos, the real estate man had penned them behind chicken wire. When darkness fell, the armadillos instantly burrowed out, and within a few years armadillos were undermining golf greens and dumping over citrus trees from St. Augustine to Palm Beach. They had spread everywhere, having no natural enemies in the state except automobiles. Since the automobile had been all but exterminated by the hydrogen bomb, the armadillo population was certain to multiply. Soon there would be more armadillos than people in Florida.
It was Saturday night, but in the business blocks of Yulee and St. Johns no light showed nor did he see a human being. In the residential area perhaps half the houses showed a light, but rarely from more than one room. He had not seen a moving vehicle since leaving home, and not until he reached the pine shanties
and patchwork bungalows of Pistolville did he see a person. These people were shadows, swiftly fading behind a half opened door or bobbing from house to house. It was night, and Fort Repose was in fear.
He was relieved when he saw lights in the Hernandez house. Anything could have happened since he and Dan had stopped there. Pete could have died and Rita could have decamped; or she could have been killed, the house pillaged, and everything she was holding, including the truck and gasoline, stolen.
He knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” Rita’s voice said. He knew she would have the shotgun up and ready.
“Randy.”
She opened the door. She was holding a shotgun, as he guessed. She stared at his costume. “Come in. Looking for a handout?”
“In a sense, yes.”
“What happened? Your two women run you off?”
As she laid down the gun the burn still showed on her ring finger. He said, “How’s Pete?”
“Weaker. How’s Doctor Gunn?”
“You heard about it, then?”
“Sure. I hear all the bad news in a hurry nowadays. We call it lip radio.”
The word had come to town, Randy guessed, via Alice Cooksey, earlier in the day. Just as Alice brought the town news to River Road, so each day she carried the news from River Road to town. Once spoken in the library, the news would spread through Fort Repose, street to street and house to house. He said, “You know Doctor Gunn lost his bag with all his instruments and what drugs he had left, and his glasses. So, if we can, we have to get those highwaymen and that’s why I came to you, Rita.”
“They’re not Pistolville people,” she said. “These Pistolville crackers hardly have got gumption enough to rob each other. Now I heard them described and one of them—the young one with two guns—was probably Leroy Settle, a punk who lived on the other side of town. His mother still lives there, I think. Maybe if you stake out his house you’ll get a shot at him.”
Alas, Babylon Page 26