The Valley-Westside War ct-6

by Harry Turtledove

  Bang!… Bang! Bang! That wasn't a machine gun. But it was an Old Time rifle, fired from the Westside position. Dan needed a few heartbeats to figure out what was going on. Then he did. The Westsider was trying to pick off the machine gunners the way the Valley men had nailed the artillery crew.

  He tried, yeah, but he didn't have much luck. The machine gun was just at or just past the extreme range of his piece. His bullets could reach about that far, but not with any accuracy. And he could also fire only one round at a time, though he managed several shots a minute.

  When the machine gun answered, it put out a lot of lead. If one bullet didn't get the rifleman, the next would, or the one after that. A Westsider threw up his hands and then flopped down limply over the rough barricade behind which he was shooting. Was that the troublesome fellow with the rifle?

  The machine gunners must have thought so. They kept shooting to make sure he'd been killed. Dan watched the body jerk several times. By the time the Valley machine-gun crew turned the weapon in a new direction, the Westsider had to be dead.

  Another Westside soldier scrambled over the barrier to rescue the valuable Old Time rifle. The machine gunners shot him before he could get his hands on it.

  “Serves him right,”' Sergeant Chuck said. “There's a time to show how brave you are, and there's a time to use your brains. You don't go sticking your head in the cougar's mouth, not more than once you don't.”

  Dan nodded. The machine gun was much more deadly than any cougar ever born. Cougars would have climbed trees to get away from the Westsiders' mutant dog. The gun had killed it easy as you please.

  “Oh, wow!” Somebody pointed ahead. “Look at all the houses and stuff.”

  Some of those buildings were too big and fancy to be houses. UCLA was down there somewhere. Its bear had gone into the Westside flag- Dan knew that much. It was supposed to be a store of wisdom, too.

  How much good had its wisdom done the Westside. though? If the people who lived there were wise, would they have picked a fight with the Valley? Dan didn't think so. The Westsiders were probably sorry now. Being sorry was easy, but it usually came too late to do any good.

  The other soldier pointed again, this time to the southwest. “Oh, wow!” he repeated. “Is that the ocean? Can it be?”

  Dan 's eyes followed the man's outstretched index finger. Off in the distance, where things got blue and hazy, the land did seem to end. Something even bluer lay beyond it. The Pacific? “The sea,” Dan murmured, awe prickling through him. “The sea!”

  In a moment, all the Valley soldiers were chanting it: “The sea! The sea!” How many of them had ever seen it before? Maybe a few of the officers had, and some who came from widely traveled merchant families. But for most of the Valley men, the sea was only a vast mystery-or it had been, till now.

  One reason they could see it was that a bomb had flattened Santa Monica. Whatever tall buildings had stood there were nothing but melted stumps now. Dan wondered why no bomb had come down on the rest of the Westside. That would have taken care of those people once and for all.

  Did the Westsiders feel the same way about the Valley? Wondering whether they did never occurred to Dan.

  More and more panicky Westside soldiers ran through West-wood Village. All of them went from north to south. None seemed interesting in fortifying the area against an attack from the Valley. Was that good news or bad? Liz wasn't sure.

  “I think we're going to get occupied,” her father said.

  Liz thought so, too. “What will the Valley soldiers do?” she asked nervously.

  “Well, they won't shoot up the village and smash things with cannonballs,” her mother answered. “If the Westsiders tried to make a stand here, they would.”

  As the sun set, somebody knocked on the Mendozas ' door. Dad opened it. There stood Cal in his trademark white Stetson and plaid jacket. A couple of bodyguards with rifles followed him. “You boys can wait outside,” he told them as he stepped over the threshold.

  “But-” one of the guards began.

  “It's okay,” Cal said flatly. “If I have to worry about these people, no place is safe for me.” As Liz 's father closed the door, Cal muttered, “And maybe no place is. The way things are going…”

  “What can we do for you, sir?” Dad asked.

  “I hear you have a way to keep things safe for people,” Cal said. “Is that so?”

  A stout safe, one that looked as if it came from the Old Time, was hidden in a storeroom. In fact, it came from the home timeline. The locals wouldn't be able to break into it… though they might torture the combination out of someone. Dad could also take stuff back to the home timeline if he had to or wanted to.

  He picked his words with care: “There's safe, and then there's safe. If someone puts a gun to my head, I won't get killed to hang on to something for somebody else.”

  “No, no. I understand that,” Cal said. “But within reason, you can, right? And you can make things hard to find, right?”

  “Sometimes. If things work out the way they should.” Dad was playing it as cagey as he could. Liz didn't blame him a bit.

  Cal didn't seem to be fussy. “Here.” He thrust a large leather pouch at Liz 's father. “Hang on to this till I can come back and get it. I hope that won't be long. I hope I can rally our forces and lead us to the victory we deserve. I aim to try.” He suddenly ran out of bluster. “But you never can tell. Hang on to it, like I said. If I don't come back for it, I'll see if I can find some kind of way for you to get it back to me. Is that a deal?”

  “That's a deal,” Dad said. It wasn't one that committed him to much.

  “Good!” Cal stuck out his hand. Dad shook it. Cal made as if to tip his hat, then went out the door and hurried away. He and his bodyguards trotted around a corner. After that, Liz couldn't see them anymore.

  “What did he give you?” she asked her father.

  Dad hefted the pouch. “A lot of what's in here has to be gold. Nothing else that takes up so little room is so heavy.” He grinned wryly. “Oh, it could be lead, but I don't think so.”

  “Why don't you look?” Liz said. “He didn't tell say you couldn't or anything. He didn't even ask you not to.”

  She watched Dad fight temptation and lose. The expressions chasing one another across his face were pretty funny. “You're right,” he said after maybe ten seconds. “Let's go in the kitchen, where we can spread stuff out.”

  Mom was chopping up tomatoes when Liz and Dad came in. Everything here got done by hand. Liz had found out about chickens the hard way. But there were no food processors here. No fancy bread machines, either. Making food was work, a lot oi work. Keeping it fresh was even more work-no refrigeration, either. If you didn't want to eat it the day you made it, or the day after that, you had to salt it or smoke it or dry it.

  “What have you got there?” Mom asked. She seemed glad of any excuse to knock off for a while.

  “ Cal gave it to Dad,” Liz answered.

  “He's heading into, ah, political exile,” Dad added. “He hopes he'll be back, but he's not making like Douglas Mac-Arthur.”

  “He'd better not, not with that hat and that coat,” Mom said. “So what did he leave behind?”

  “We're going to find out.” Dad opened the pouch and spilled its contents onto a table with a Formica top and iron legs with peeling chrome trim: an Old Time relic. Some of the gold that spilled out was old coins. Some was rings and bracelets and necklaces. Some was just lumps, where a goldsmith had melted stuff down.

  “So you're deeper into the banking business,” Mom said to Dad.

  “Looks that way,” he agreed.

  “Anything else in the pouch? Hope, maybe? “ Liz had been studying Greek mythology, and it rubbed off.

  “I'll find out.” Her father reached inside. He pulled out a folded sheet of paper. It was modern, not from the Old Time. Ironically, that meant it would last better. It wasn't cheap wood pulp that started turning brown the day it got made. Instead, it
came from old rags, the way paper had when it was just invented.

  As Dad turned it over, Liz saw a wax seal and some upside-down writing on the other side. “What does it say?” she asked.

  “ 'Open only if you know I'm dead,'“ Dad answered.

  “Are you going to pay attention to that?” Mom asked.

  He thought about it, then nodded. He didn't look very happy, though. “I guess I am,” he said. “ Cal might come back and get his stuff.”

  “Yeah, and then you wake up.” Mom wasn't sarcastic very often, but she could be dangerous when she let fly.

  As if to underscore what she said, bursts of gunfire came from the north-from not nearly far enough away. Screams said somebody'd been wounded. Running feet and galloping hooves added to the racket outside. As far as Liz could tell, they were all going from north to south. If those weren't more Westsiders getting out while the getting was good, Liz would have been amazed.

  “See?” Mom said.

  Dad spread his hands, palms up. “This is now. Who knows what things will look like next year, or even next week? Maybe the Valley's machine gun will break down. Maybe it'll run out of ammo. Or maybe the Westsiders will scrounge one of their own. Cal won't be happy if he comes back and finds out we've been snooping.”

  “You're no fun,” Liz 's mother said. “Besides, can't we match the seal and put it back so he never finds out we peeked?”

  “It's not as simple as you make it sound,” Dad answered. Liz happened to know he was right. Sealing wax was low-tech, which didn't make it a bad security device. Oh, you could beat it. If you took a mold of the existing seal before you broke it, you could replace it with one that looked the same. If you didn't put the replacement in just the same spot, though, somebody with sharp eyes or a suspicious nature could tell what you'd been up to.

  “Hold it!” Somebody out there yelled. Was that the nasal whine of a Valley accent? The man went on, “Don't you move, or you'll be sorry!”

  Somebody must have moved, because a musket boomed a second later. And an anguished cry from right in front of the house said whoever had moved was sorry now.

  “Search that man!” ordered the fellow who'd warned against moving.

  “For sure, Sergeant!” That had to be a Valley soldier talking. They were here in Westwood Village, then. Cal had got out just in time. A moment later, the soldier said, “He's got silver!”

  “Well, save me my share,” the sergeant said.

  “I wouldn't hold out on you-honest.” The soldier sounded offended.

  “Okay, Dan. Keep your shirt on.” The sergeant, by contrast, seemed to be doing his best not to laugh. He went on, “That guy need a doctor?”

  “Nope,” Dan answered. “You got him in the neck, and he's dead. Nice shot.”

  “Thanks.”

  They both seemed casual about death. How much of it had they seen before? How much had they dealt out? Liz 's stomach did a slow lurch as she thought about that.

  And then her heart leaped into her mouth, because the soldier- Dan -was banging on the front door and yelling, “Open up! Open up in the name of King Zev!”

  Four

  “Open up!” Dan shouted. “Open up in the name of King Zev!”

  He didn't know what he would do if the people inside didn't. He couldn't shoot through the door, not with a bow and arrows. The windows were narrow, shuttered slits. Like most modern houses, this one rejected the street. It would have a courtyard inside from which to draw light and air.

  He might start a fire if the people inside proved stubborn. That would fix them. Trouble was, it might fix them too well- them and all their neighbors, and maybe the Valley soldiers, too. Starting fires was easy. Putting them out once they got going… That was a different story.

  Back in the Old Time, there'd been underground pipes full of water. The pipes were still there. The water wasn't. You couldn't fight fires with buckets and cisterns, not if you expected to win. Everybody dreaded them.

  And so Dan dropped any thought of arson, even if he was in the enemy's country. He banged on the door again, louder this time. “Open up!”

  Sergeant Chuck had a gun. He could fire through the door if he felt like it. Would he? Dan doubted it. Why should this house be more important than any of the others around here?

  Then, to Dan 's surprise, the door opened. A middle-aged man with glasses-not common these days, but not unknown- looked out at him. “Yes?” the fellow said in a mild voice. “What do you want?”

  “Uh-” Dan felt foolish, which was putting it mildly. He'd been making noise and acting tough-that was all.

  Chuck knew what was what. He pointed his musket at the local and growled, “Who are you? What have you got in there?”

  “My name is Mendoza,” the man with the glasses answered. “I'm a trader. I'm a peaceable man. I don't want any trouble. All kinds of things are here. If you want them, take them. Things are just-things. They aren't worth getting killed over. I won't try to fight you.”

  “Like you could,” Dan said scornfully.

  But Sergeant Chuck was thoughtful. “He might cause trouble if he felt like it, Dan,” he said. Then he spoke straight to the trader: “You've seen the elephant once or twice, I expect.”

  “Could be,” Mendoza said. “I've fought bandits. Not a lot of traders who haven't. But only a fool or a desperate man takes on soldiers.”

  “Especially after they've won,” Chuck said.

  “Yes, especially then,” the trader agreed. “So come in-you would anyhow.” He stepped aside. “Take what you want-you'd do that anyhow, too.”

  His voice still easy and calm, the sergeant went on, “Suppose we don't just feel like plundering? Suppose we still feel like killing?” Dan didn't, and looked at Chuck in surprise. He'd had his fill of killing for a long time, maybe forever. But if the sergeant hadn't…

  “I hope you won't, not in cold blood,” Mendoza replied, a certain bleak calm in his voice. “But if you do, well, if that wouldn't make me a desperate man, I don't know what would.”

  How dangerous would he be in a fight? Maybe more dangerous than he seemed at first glance. He was worried, plainly. He might well be afraid. But he wasn't panicked-that seemed obvious. And anybody who could keep his head in a tight spot could cause a lot of trouble.

  Was Sergeant Chuck making the same calculation? If he brought up his musket now, what would Mendoza do? What could the trader do?

  Two or three more soldiers from the Valley pushed up behind Dan and Chuck. That made everybody relax. The trader might have had some chance against two men. Against so many more? Not a prayer, and he had to know it.

  He did. With a sigh, he said, “Well, come on. Here's what I've got. I hope you'll leave me something when you're through.”

  “You stay here, Jerry,” Chuck told one of the new arrivals. “Guard the door. Don't let anybody else in.” Jerry didn't look happy. Chuck slapped him on the back. “Don't get all bent out of shape, man. We'll share with you, and you won't get any less than these guys.” He didn't say anything about what he would get himself. He was a sergeant, so he was entitled to more. If you didn't believe it, you just had to ask him.

  But his promise did make Jerry happy-or happier, anyhow. “Okay, Sarge. I guess that's fair,” he said.

  The trader led the Valley soldiers from the entry hall out into the courtyard. Standing there were a woman about Mendoza 's age and another one who couldn't have been any older than Dan. “My wife and my daughter, Liz,” Mendoza said carefully. Even more carefully, he added, “They aren't loot. That's part of the deal.”

  What could he do about it if Sergeant Chuck decided they were loot? He could get himself killed, that was what. But how much of a ruckus could he (and the women?-they looked uncommonly alert) stir up beforehand? Maybe Chuck decided he didn't want to find out, because he nodded and said, “Sure. Plunder's one thing, but that'd be something else.”

  Dan nodded, too, toward Liz. “Hi,” he said. She might not be gorgeous, but she was
a long way from ugly.

  “Hello,” she said soberly.

  “You're not, like, real friendly,” he said.

  She shrugged. “I bet I'd like you better if you weren't robbing my house.”

  She sounded polite and matter-of-fact, so he couldn't even get mad at her. She was telling the truth, too. One of the other soldiers had gone into a storeroom. He came out with a big grin on his face, a box in his hand, and a cigar in his mouth. “They've got smokes, Sarge!” he exclaimed.

  “Far out!” Chuck said. Tobacco was an expensive luxury. The Valley didn't grow much, because it needed land and water for crops that didn't just go up in smoke. But it traded for cigars and pipe tobacco when it could. Old people said the stuff wasn't good for you, but that didn't keep a lot of them from smoking. Dan figured other things were more likely to do him in than a cigar every once in a while.

  When the other soldier gave him a handful of them, he stuck one in his mouth and the rest in a front pocket. Chuck had a flint-and-steel lighter. Dan leaned close to get his cigar started. It was a good one, the flavor fine and mild. He blew out a happy cloud of smoke. Then he offered Liz one of the other cigars.

  “No, thank you,” she said, her voice still polite but now with an edge in it. “For one thing, I don't smoke. For another thing, don't you feel funny about trying to give me something that's really mine to begin with?”

  His ears got hot. “I didn't think of it that way.”

  “I guess not,” she answered. Three words, and she made him feel about three inches tall. Not even his mother could do that.

  When the soldiers found bourbon and brandy, Chuck limited the plunder there to one bottle apiece. “We are not going to get too drunk to do our jobs,” he growled. “We are not-you hear me?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” Dan chorused along with the rest of the men. Like most people, he drank beer or wine instead of water when he could get them. He would mix wine with water if he didn't have enough wine to drink by itself. Drinking water without something in it was asking for the runs.