Len glared out into the shadows. “They’re going to stop you,” he told the people of Refuge. “The Shads won’t let you grow. That’s why they’re here tonight.” His voice went up a notch until it cracked. “I don’t care who’s afraid of them,” he said. “I’m not.” He jumped over the rail onto the ground and charged into the crowd. All the helpless rage of the morning was back on him a hundredfold, and he did not care what anybody else did, or what happened to him. He butted his way through until a path was suddenly opened for him and the Shadwell men were standing in a bunch in front of him. Dulinsky’s voice was shouting something in which the names of Shadwell and Refuge were coupled together with the word fear. The crowd was beginning to move. A woman was screaming. The Shadwell men were pulling clubs out from under their coats. Len sprang like a panther. A great roar went up from the crowd, and the riot was on.
Len bore his man down and pounded him. Legs churned around them and people fell over them. There was a lot of screaming now, and women were running away out of the square. Clubs, fists, and boots flailed wildly. Somebody hit Len on the back of the head. The world turned upside down for a minute, and when it steadied again he was staggering along in the midst of a little boiling whirlpool of hard-breathing men, hanging onto somebody’s coat and punching blindly with his free hand. The whirlpool spun and heaved and threw him up against a shuttered window and passed on. He stayed there, confused and shaking his head, blowing blood out of his nose. The crowd had broken up. The lanterns still burned around the pulpit in the middle of the square, but there was nobody in it now, and nothing left on the grassy space around it but some hats and some gouged-out places in the turf. The fighting had moved off. He could hear it streaming away down the streets and alleys that led to the docks. He grunted and began to run after it. He was glad Pa could not see him now. He felt hot and queer inside, and he liked it. He wanted to fight some more.
By the time he reached the docks the Shadwell men were piling into their boats as fast as they could, shaking their fists and cursing. The Refuge men were all lined up at the water’s edge, helping them. Three or four Shads were in the river and being hauled up into the boats. The air rang with hoots and catcalls. Mike Dulinsky was right in the middle of it, his good dark coat torn and his hair on end, and a splatter of blood down his shirt from a cut mouth. “You going to stop us, are you?” he was yelling at the Shadwell men. “You going to tell Refuge what to do?”
The men on either side of Dulinsky caught him suddenly and hoisted him up onto their shoulders and cheered him. The Shadwell men pulled slowly and sullenly out into the dark river. When they were out of sight the crowd turned, still carrying Dulinsky and cheering, to where the fires burned around the framework of the warehouse. They marched round and round, and the guards cheered too. Len watched them, feeling dizzy but triumphant. Then, looking around, he saw a blaze of light in the direction of the traders’ compound. He stared at it, frowning, and in the intervals of the noise behind him he could hear the distant voices of men and the whickering of horses. He began to walk toward the compound.
Lanterns and torches burned all around to give light. The men were bringing their teams out of the stables and harnessing them, and going over their gear, and getting the wagons ready to go. Len watched a minute or two, and all the feeling of triumph and excitement left him. He felt tired, and his nose hurt.
He saw Fisher and went up to him, standing by the head of the team while Fisher worked.
“Why is everybody going?” he asked.
Fisher gave him a long, stern look from under the brim of his broad hat.
“The farmers went out of here primed for trouble,” he said. “They’ll bring it, and we don’t aim to wait.”
He made sure his reins were clear and climbed up onto the seat. Len stood aside, and Fisher looked down at him, in something the same way Pa had looked so long ago.
“I thought better of you, Len Colter,” Fisher said. “But them that picks up a burning brand will get burned by it. The Lord have mercy on you!”
He shook the reins and shouted, and his wagon creaked and moved, and the other wagons rolled, and Len stood looking after them.
12
Two o’clock of a hot, still day. The men were laying up sheeting boards on the north and east sides of the warehouse, working in the shade. Refuge was quiet, so quiet that the sound of the hammers rang out like bells on a Sabbath morning. Most of the shipping was gone from the docks, and the wharves were empty.
Esau said, “Do you think they’ll come?”
“I don’t know.” Len looked searchingly at the distant roofs of Shadwell across the river, and up and down the wide stretch of water. He didn’t know exactly what he was looking for, Hostetter, a friendly face, anything to break the emptiness and the sense of waiting. All morning since before sunup, cartloads of women and children had been leaving the town, and there were some men with them too, and bundles of household goods.
“They won’t do anything,” said Esau. “They wouldn’t dare.”
His voice carried no conviction. Len glanced at him and saw that his face was drawn and nervous. They were standing at the door of the office, not doing anything, just feeling the heat and the quietness. Dulinsky had gone up into the town, and Len said, “I wish he’d come back.”
“He’s got men out on the roads. If there’s any news, we’ll be the first to know it.”
“Yes,” said Len. “I reckon.”
The hammers rang sharp on the new yellow wood. Along the edges of the warehouse site, well back in the trees, men loitered and watched. There were more of them on the docks, restless, uneasy, gathering in little groups to talk and then breaking up again, moving back and forth. They kept looking sidelong at the office, and at Len and Esau standing in the doorway, and at the men working on the warehouse, but they did not come close or speak to them. Len did not like that. It made him feel alone and conspicuous, and it worried him because he could feel the doubt and uncertainty and apprehension of these men who were up against something new and did not quite know what to do about it. From time to time a jug of corn was pulled out of a hiding place behind a stump or a stack of barrels, passed around, and put away again, but only one or two of them were drunk.
On impulse, Len stepped to the end of the dock and shouted to a group standing under a tree and talking. “What’s the news from town?”
One of them shook his head. “Nothing yet.” He was one who had shouted the loudest for Dulinsky last night, but today his face showed no enthusiasm. Suddenly he stooped and picked up a stone and threw it at a little gang of boys who were skulking in the background watching hopefully for trouble. “Get out of here!” he yelled at them. “This ain’t no game for your amusement. Go on, git!”
They went, but not far. Len returned to the doorway. It was very hot, very still. Esau shuffled, kicking his heel against the doorpost.
“Len.”
“What?”
“What’ll we do if they do come?”
“How do I know? Fight, I guess. See what happens. How do I know?”
“Well, I know one thing,” said Esau defiantly. “I ain’t going to get my neck broke for Dulinsky. The hell with that.”
“All right, you figure something.” There was an anger in Len now, a vague thing as yet, and undirected, but enough to make him irritable and impatient. Perhaps it was because he was afraid, and that made him angry. But he knew the way Esau’s thoughts were running, and he didn’t want to have to go through every step of it out loud.
“You bet I’ll figure something,” said Esau. “You bet I will. It’s his warehouse, not mine. Let him fight for it. He sure wouldn’t risk his skin for anything of mine. I——”
“Shut up,” said Len. “Look.”
Judge Taylor was coming along the dock. Esau swore nervously and slid back through the door, out of sight. Len waited, conscious that the men were watching, as though what happened might have great significance.
Taylor came up to
the door and stopped. “Tell Mike I want to see him,” he said.
Len answered, “He isn’t here.”
The judge looked at him, deciding whether or not he was lying. There was a pinched grayness about the corners of his mouth, and his eyes were curiously hard and bright.
“I’ve come,” he said, “to offer Mike his last chance.”
“He’s somewhere up in the town,” said Len. “Maybe you can find him there.”
Taylor shook his head. “It’s the Lord’s will,” he said, and turned and walked away. At the corner of the office he stopped and spoke again. “I warned you, Len. But none are so blind as those who will not see.”
“Wait,” said Len. He went up to the judge and looked into his eyes, and shivered. “You know something. What is it?”
“The Lord’s will,” said the judge, “will be made clear to you when it is time.”
Len reached out and caught him by the collar of his fine cloth coat and shook him. “Speak for yourself,” he said angrily. “The Lord must be sick to death of everybody hiding behind Him. Nothing happens in this town that you don’t have a finger in. What is it?”
Some of the fey light went out of Taylor’s eyes. He looked down with a kind of shocked surprise at Len’s hands laid roughly upon him, and Len let him go.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I want to know.”
“Yes,” said Judge Taylor quietly, “you want to know. That was always your trouble. Didn’t I tell you to find your limit before it was too late?”
His face softened, became compassionate and full of a genuine sorrow. “It’s too bad, Len. I could have loved you like my own son.”
“What have you done?” asked Len, moving a step closer, and the judge answered, “There will be no more cities. There is a law, and the law must be obeyed.”
“You’re scared,” said Len, in a slow, astonished voice. “I understand now, you’re scared. You think if a city grows up here the bombs will come again, and you’ll be under them. Did you tell the farmers you wouldn’t try to stop them if——”
“Hush,” said the judge, and held up his hand.
Len turned to listen. So did the men under the trees and along the docks. Esau came out from the doorway. And at the warehouse, one by one the hammers stopped.
There was a sound of singing.
It was faint, but that was only because it was still a long way off. It was deep, and sonorous, a masculine sound, martial and somehow terrifying, coming with the solemn inevitability of a storm that does not stop or swerve. Len could not make out any words, but after he had listened for a minute he knew what they were. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. “Good-by, Len,” said the judge, and was gone, walking with his head up high and his face white and stern in the heat of the July sun.
“We’ve got to go,” whispered Esau. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
He bolted back into the office, and Len could hear his feet clattering up the wooden stairs to the loft. Len hesitated a minute. Then he began to run, up toward the town, toward the distant, oncoming hymn. I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel . . . Glory! glory! Hallelujah, His truth is marching on. A tight, cold knot of fear cramped up in Len’s belly, and the air turned icy against his skin. The men along the docks and under the trees began to move too, straggling up by other ways, uncertainly at first and then faster, until they were running too. People had come out of their houses. Women, old men, children, listening, shouting at each other and at the men passing in the street, asking what it was, what was going to happen. Len came into the square, and a cart rushed past him so close that the foam from the horse’s bit spattered him. There was a whole family in it, the man whipping up the horse and yelling, the women screaming, the kids all clinging together and crying. There was a scattering of people in the square, some heading toward the main north road, some running around aimlessly, women asking if anybody had seen their husbands or their boys, asking, always asking, what is it, what’s happening? Len dodged through them and ran out on the north road.
Dulinsky was out on the edge of town, where the wide road ran between fields of wheat almost ripe for the cutting. There were perhaps two hundred men with him, armed with clubs and iron bars, with rifles and duck guns, with picks and frows. They looked grim and anxious. Dulinsky’s face, burned brick red by the sun, was only ruddy on the surface. Underneath it was white. He kept wiping his hands on his trousers, one after the other, shifting his grip on the heavy club he held. Len came up beside him. Dulinsky glanced at him but did not speak. His attention was northward, where a solid yellow-brown wall of dust advanced, spreading across the road and into the wheat on either side. The sound of the hymn came out of it, and a rhythmic thud and trample of feet, and across its leading edge there was a pricking here and there of brilliance, as though some bright thing of metal caught the sun.
“It’s our town,” said Len. “They’ve got no right in it. We can beat ’em.”
Dulinsky wiped his face on his shirt sleeve. He grunted. It might have been a question or a laugh. Len looked around at the Refuge men.
“They’ll fight,” he said.
“Will they?” said Dulinsky.
“They were all for you last night.”
“That was last night. This is now.”
The wall of dust rolled up, and it was full of men. It stopped, and the dust blew away or settled, but the men remained, standing in a great heavy solid blot across the road and in the trampled wheat. The spots of brilliance became scythe blades, and corn knives, and here and there a gun barrel. “Some of them must have walked all night,” said Dulinsky. “Look at ’em. Every goddamned dung-head farmer in three counties.” He wiped his face again and spoke to the men behind him. “Stand steady, boys. They’re not going to do anything.” He stepped forward, his expression lofty and impassive, his eyes darting hard little glances this way and that.
A man with white hair and a stern leathery face came forward to meet him. He carried a shotgun in the crook of his arm, and his walk was a farmer’s walk, heavy and rolling. But he stretched up his head and yelled out at the Refuge men waiting in the road, and there was something about his harsh strident voice that made Len remember the preaching man.
“Stand aside!” he shouted. “We don’t want killing, but we can if we have to, so stand aside, in the name of the Lord!”
“Wait a minute,” said Dulinsky. “Just a minute, now. This is our town. May I ask what business you think you have in it?”
The man looked at him and said, “We will have no cities in our midst.”
“Cities,” said Dulinsky. “Cities!” He laughed. “Now look here, sir. You’re Noah Burdette, aren’t you? I know you well by sight and reputation. You have quite a name as a preacher in the section around Twin Lakes.”
He stepped a little closer, speaking in an easier tone, as a man talks when he knows he is going to turn the argument his way.
“You’re a sincere and honest man, Mr. Burdette, and I realize that you’re acting on what you believe to be truthful information. So I know you’re going to be thankful to learn that your information is wrong, and there’s no need for any violence at all. I——”
“Violence,” said Burdette, “I don’t seek. But I don’t run from it, neither, when it’s in a good cause.” He looked Dulinsky up and down, slowly, deliberately, with a face as hard as flint. “I know you, too, by sight and reputation, and you can save your wind. Are you going to stand aside?”
“Listen,” said Dulinsky, with a note of desperation coming into his voice. “You’ve been told that I’m trying to build a city here, and that’s crazy. I’m only trying to build a warehouse, and I’ve got as good a right to it as you’ve got to a new barn. You can’t come here and order me around any more than I could go to your farm and do it!”
“I’m here,” said Burdette.
Dulinsky glanced back over his shoulder. Len moved toward him, as though to say, I’m with you. And then
Judge Taylor came up through the loose ranks of the Refuge men, saying, “Disperse, go to your homes, and stay there. No harm will come to you. Lay down your weapons and go home.”
They hesitated, looking at one another, looking at Dulinsky and the solid mass of the farmers. And Dulinsky said to the judge in weary scorn, “You sheepfaced coward. You were in on this.”
“You’ve done enough harm, Mike,” said the judge, very white and standing very stiff and straight. “No need to make everybody in Refuge suffer for it. Stand aside.”
Dulinsky glared at him and then at Burdette. “What are you going to do?”
“Cleanse the evil,” said Burdette slowly, “as the Book instructs us to, by burning it with fire.”
“In plain English,” said Dulinsky, “you’re going to burn my warehouses, and anything else that happens to take your fancy. The hell you are.” He turned around and shouted to the Refuge men. “Listen, you fools, do you think they’re going to stop at my warehouses? They’ll have the whole town flaming around your ears. Don’t you see this is the time, the act that’s going to decide how you live for decades yet to come? Are you going to be free men or a gang of belly-crawling slaves?”
His voice rose up to a howl. “Come on and fight, God damn you, fight!”
He spun around and rushed at Burdette, raising his club high in the air.
Without haste and without pity, Burdette swung the shotgun over and fired.
It made a very loud noise. Dulinsky stopped as though he had struck against a solid wall. He stood for a second or two, and then the club dropped out of his hands and he lowered his arms and folded them over his belly. His knees bent and he sank down onto them in the dust.
Len ran forward.
Dulinsky looked up at him with an expression of stunned surprise. His mouth opened. He seemed to be trying to say something, but only blood came out between his lips. Then suddenly his face became blank and remote, like a window when somebody blows out the candle. He fell forward and was still.
“Mike,” said Judge Taylor. “Mike?” He looked at Burdette, his eyes widening. “What have you done?”
American Science Fiction Four Classic Novels 1953-56 Page 52