The World Ends In Hickory Hollow

by Mayhar, Ardath

  They were well out of sight, and I was mulling over the myriad things I needed to do tomorrow besides going to war, when I heard a sound. It wasn't a whippoorwill. Almost, but not quite. An inexpert whistler was trying for that call. Someone was watching the men move away across the fields. I sat, very slowly and cautiously, and eased the barrel of the 30.06 through the vines to cover the area behind the fence. But nobody moved into the field from the dark bulk of the river woods. Whoever it was had been sending a signal to someone else. And that was a much brighter thing than the Ungers had ever been known to do.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Though I watched until my eyes created their own illusions, there was no movement in the fields until Zack's tall shape came glimmering toward me in the moonlight. I hissed at him before he could speak to me and betray the fact that I had been there, and he opened the wire gap in the fence, closed it firmly, and set off up the path toward the cabin.. In a few minutes, I slid into the deepest shadow I could find and followed. Nobody had moved into our woods that I could detect.

  It was late. The moon was high, and all the children were safely asleep in the Burrow when we gathered about the table in the cabin for our parley of war. Bill had had the idea that we felt was most useful.

  "We're going to set up an ambush. It'll take some doing, but we want to draw those who are watching the houses down toward their own headquarters. Then we want to bring them all pelting upriver, so mad and excited that they aren't thinking. Which isn't that hard to do, Cheri or no Cheri," he sighed. "The question is, what will be so irresistible that they just can't help following us to see what we do with it?"

  "Whiskey!" said Lantana, firmly. "They ain't got sense enough to make their own–never did. The old Unger'd buy from moonshiners all up and down the river. Now they're all gone, nobody there to get it from, I'Il bet those women are havin' shakes and pink elephants and everything that goes with it. Probably had enough for months stashed away. But I'll bet they haven't got much left by now. Whiskey would bring 'em runnin', I just bet."

  Well, I'd thought guns, and I could see that Zack had thought of food. But given the Unger mentality–if you can call it that–whiskey was probably the very thing.

  "But all our stuff is in fruit jars. How will they know what it is?" That was Nellie, practical as ever.

  Mom Allie burst into laughter. "You remember how shocked Vera was when I insisted on bringing home all those empties from behind the Starlight Bar in Nicholson? I thought then, and I still do, that a glass bottle will be worth its weight in gold, until somebody can come up with a glass factory again. I've got ten cases of whiskey bottles sitting behind the cabin in the old tool shed, right now. Labels and all. Won't even have to waste our alcohol, either. It's clear as water. Might as well be water."

  We got up very early the next morning and filled bottles. By the time the sun was well up, we had four cases, which was about all that the new boat could haul, along with several adults.

  "Where should be the best place to put the boat into the water and load the cargo?" Zack asked Skinny.

  "Back when I was bootleggin'," that worthy replied, "we used to run our moonshine up to Boggy Slough. There's a good slope to the riverbank there, good for puttin' boats in, and for puttin' things into boats as well. Everybody all up and down the river knowed that Boggy Slough was the place to watch, if you wanted to know what was goin' on."

  "You suppose the Ungers still watch it'?"

  "I'd guess the old 'un kept a lookout there all the time. Probably they never have realized that now she's gone and they don't have to do what she told 'em anymore."

  Well, given the Ungers, that made some sense. Boggy Slough wasn't too far from the present location of the boat, either, back behind Grandpa Harkrider's place in that big loop.

  Zack looked at me. "If this works, you're going to have to organize the ambush.. There's a narrow spot in the river just below the Greens' boathouse. The land's still fairly well cleared all the way down to the water on our side of the river, then there's thick woods just this side of it. Anybody trying to catch up with a boat on the water will be pelting along the river track and will have to come out into that clearing. It'll be ... like shooting fish in a barrel."

  I shook my head. "Nothing's that easy," I said. "But I'll tend to things at this end. You get the whiskey loaded and the boat moving. That ought to pick up every sentry Cheri's got posted along the line of houses. Who's going with you?"

  "Skinny. Elmond used to fish every inch of the river along here, and he's going. The three of us ought to be enough. Once we get past your position, we'll tie the boat and come to help you. God, Luce! I hate this!'

  I put my cheek against his. "I know. I didn't sign up to be an ambusher, either, but it looks as if that's what it's going to take," Then the three men were gone, and I got busy getting our ambush going. Every child from our place and Fanchers' who was too small to shoot was barricaded into the Burrow. Lantana stood guard there, and I pitied anyone who might try to get past her. Sukie was a crack shot but too small for our business, so she was the "rear guard" for the Burrow. That gave them a field of fire from both front and side. There wasn't another opening into the place.

  We hitched up Maud to the wagon and took with us food, enough ammunition to start a good-sized war, every gun on the place except for those in the Burrow, and bedding. Just in case. Also a lot of bandage material. But I refused to think about that.

  Annie and Tony met us at the fence line, and we went together, though spread cautiously and taking advantage of the cover, along the upper reaches of the fields. That meant cutting more wire and making more gaps to keep the cattle in, but we had never used this way before, and we knew that we couldn't be seen from the river.

  Bill and Horace met us at the Sweetbriers', and we cut out to the road, as that was shorter, here. We all gathered at the Greens' house, invisible from the river because of the jumble of useless buildings. There were fifteen, counting Jim and Bill's Tony and Lisa. Not a bad little army, all things considered. While we waited for the boat to do its work of clearing away watchers, we assigned positions.

  Sim had stayed at the Jessups', being simply unable to move about fast enough to take part in an ambush. He had pots of water ready to boil and every clean rag available stacked up ready to make into bandages or compresses. Nellie elected to stay with him, as she was the world's poorest shot. Lisa, too, looked greenish and ill, and I went to her and put my arm around her.

  "We have plenty of guns. Why don't you go and take care of Sim and Nellie for me? They'll need a pair of young legs to do their running. How about that?"

  She looked up at me, her face grim and set, far too old for its years. "That ... that'd be better. If you can do without me."

  When I nodded, she looked as if she might faint with relief, and I packed her off with Nellie while internally blaming myself for letting her leave the Burrow in the first place. It hadn't reached the point, yet, when we would make a child kill its own family, no matter how that family deserved killing.

  So that meant there would be fewer. Josh and Lucas were stationed behind us, because of their eyes. They were dead shots, but they couldn't see their prey until it got fairly close. Any we missed, they'd get, I knew. Mom Allie and Suzi and Horace we decided to dig into emplacements wherever the bank offered thick cover. Bill and Annie and Carrie and I would take the woods just past the clearing. We went up into that musty and dead-smelling house and peeped from upper windows to pick out exact locations. Then all we could do was wait for the boat to pass.

  It came by about noon, and it was really moving, It put my heart into my throat to think what might happen to that fiber-glass bottom if they hit a log end-on or hung a half-submerged stump. But Elmond was at the helm, and I knew that his eyes, old as they were, would put all the rest of us to shame. I caught a glimpse of Zack's long shape lying beside Skinny.

  From our high perch we could see down into the boat, which those along the embankment couldn't. Th
e whiskey cases stood up boldly, proclaiming their famous brands to any who could read and their logos to those who might not. As I watched, I saw a distant figure step free of the trees to look after the speeding craft. Then she took out after it, her rifle trailing from a careless hand. In a minute, six more shapes bounded past, one after the other, following the lure we had set for them.

  "You think that's all?" I asked Lucas.

  He nodded. Then he added, "But let's wait another ten minutes, just to be on the safe side."

  No more Ungers came past. So we went down and dug ourselves into cover, literally for our advance spotters, and at least partially for the rest of us. The cover was really good ... thigh-sized young hickories grown up with stands of huckleberry and haw to make a screening blind that would have been the envy of any duck hunter.

  That was the longest afternoon I ever spent in my life. As the sun went low and sank, I became less and less sure of our plan. In the dark, our firepower was going to be far less accurate. We were going to miss a lot of them, that was clear. While I tried to ease tense muscles without betraying my position, I was mulling over a back-up plan. Just in case it might be needed.

  We heard the motor when it must have been at least a mile down the twisting course of the stream. The flutter came clearly at times, then was muffled by intervening forest. But that sound brought us all alert at once. We gave short, sharp whistles to indicate that we were awake and ready. Thirteen whistles, including mine. All in order. I fixed my eyes on the glint of the water in moonight, the pale patch of dusty clearing.

  With incredible suddenness, the boat zoomed into sight downriver, moving toward our position, the bow waves pearly white under the bright moon. It swished past us, into the deep shadow of the overarched channel just behind us. The motors were cut, leaving sudden silence. Surely that might warn the pursuers!

  But they were making so much noise, crashing through undergrowth and splashing into shallow spots at the river's edge that they evidently didn't hear that at all.

  Our troops at the point were good, steady people. They held their fire and let the first group get into the clearing, dead in our sights. I knew that they'd take care of any stragglers that showed up in the next few minutes, and I took aim, waited for a half second of pure agony, and fired. One of the women threw up her hands and went down, upsetting a good handful of her companions. While they were sorting themselves out, all of those were picked off. Then we were firing into the bunch, and they were wriggling off into the brush behind them. There they met fire from Suzi and Horace and Mom Allie.. Others were snaking into the river to get upstream. I knew that our rear guard would tend to them, along with Zack and his navy.

  The clearing still seemed to swarm with struggling shapes. The moonlight was almost too bright. I hated to see the carnage we were making. And then something took my left leg from under me, and I hit my head as I went down against the tree I was using for a gun rest.

  I came to to find Zack beside me, running his hands over me to find where I was hit. There was no sound of shooting at all.

  "Left leg," I grunted. Then: "It's over?"

  "This part is," he said, just as his fingers found the hole in my leg.

  That took my mind off the battle for some time. Then I realized that I was hearing no moans or cries of pain.

  "Surely we didn't kill them all dead?" I asked.

  His face was in shadow, so I couldn't see his eyes. "Eventually," he gritted..

  "Oh. " Some things make being shot look suddenly worthwhile. I don't know if I could have given the coup de grace to a fallen enemy. Even Ungers.

  Then there was a lot of pain and flashes of moonlight between periods of fainting. And at last I found myself on Carrie's kitchen table, looking up into Sim's monkey-like eyes. I could hear someone breathing very raggedly over toward the other table.

  "Who?" I asked Sim, as he dolloped alcohol into my leg. I didn't catch his answer the first time around. Then I got it.

  "Skinny?" I gulped. "How bad?"

  "Pretty bad. Not that bad, now, Miz Hardeman. He ain't gonna die. Not unless we have some purely bad luck. But bad enough. You're not really hurt much a'tall. Just a little old leg wound and a bump on the head. And that's all. I'm really amazed. I thought I'd be patchin' up people until sunset tomorrow."

  For a little old leg wound, it hurt an awful lot. I'd settle for that and not complain that I didn't get a hero's dose. But I was able to go home in the wagon next morning. Annie had got a pressure bandage on the leg as soon as Zack found it, so I didn't lose much blood. They told me that Skinny would have to stay put for a while. Poor Carrie. Her hospital was keeping up its reputation.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  The ride home wasn't a bit of fun. To ease my mind, if nothing else, Zack told me the tale of his naval adventure. It had worked like a charm.

  "I don't know if they had a watcher at the Slough or not," he said. "But they caught onto us before we'd gone a half mile downriver, which probably means that somebody was keeping an eye on the spot. Elmond was running the boat as if he were all alone in it. Skinny and I fixed us up a place to lie between the cases, with slits to look out of without being seen. I had the old field glasses Pa brought back from World War I, and I definitely saw two of them following us before we got down as far as our place. Then, of course, we were outdistancing them, because the channel got wider and there wasn't so much litter in the water. The river is still up a good bit from the last rain, so the snags were covered pretty well, and that is one shallow-draught boat.

  "We just pelted along, and the closer we got to the lake, the more I got to wondering how we were going to stir up the big bunch of them. Finally, once we got out into the lake itself, we pulled over into some brush and had a parley. We decided that if we looked like somebody trying to locate other survivors, that might make them think we had something they wanted. That would make them chase us. And if we ran, they're too much like wild beasts not to tear out after us, just because we ran. That worked, too. We yelled and whooped and slapped each other on the backs when we came in sight of their houses.. They were coming out of doorways and sliding out of the underbrush, staring at us with those white eyes. It was scary enough to make it seem really natural when Skinny yelled, "Them's Ungers!"

  "Then Elmond revved up the engine again, and we hit the river's channel with everything we had. We passed the bunch that had been chasing us about a mile and a half upriver. They just turned right around and took off again, with the rest coming after them. But I imagine the ones who'd run all the way down the river after us gave out before they got here. So that's one bunch we still have to reckon with."

  "Do you have any idea how many there were of them–from the size of their place and the number you actually saw?" I asked him. Not that I cared, right then, but it was something to think of besides the hot poker up my leg.

  "Must have been thirty or thirty-five, at least. " He looked over his shoulder at me as I lay in the bed of the wagon. "We buried eighteen. Some that got away into the river and the woods were wounded. Those will likely die, unless they're mighty lucky. We ... may have to lick this cat over again, some of these days."

  I forgot the leg. I pulled myself up halfway, sitting so he could hear me clearly. "No. Now is the time to stop this thing in its tracks. Not that we can winkle out all the ones that have gone to earth in the woods. But we can stop it at the source. We've got to hit their compound, down there on the lake. Tomorrow, before any of them get their wits together and go back. The children, Zack! If we take away the children, there aren't any men around to give them any more. They'll die, and their whole stinking way of life will die with them. They won't be able to be anything but a minor nuisance, from here on out."

  He turned on the seat and stared at me. Then he nodded, once, decisively. "You're right. Now's the time. But you can't go. No way!"

  Zack and Lucas and Elmond and I went downriver the next morning. I'd made Lucas rig up Cheri's old walker for me, and once Zack un
derstood that I'd walk, bad leg and all, if he didn't let me go in the boat, he gave in. The leg throbbed like all the toothaches in the world rolled into one, you understand, but something inside me had to go, no matter what.

  The river channel hadn't ever been terribly wide. Rolling hills on both sides had held it in. But it was a fairly deep stream, mud-bottomed, as were all East Texas rivers and creeks for most of their length. Button willows lined the banks, and the larger willow trees waded out into the channel, making it narrower still. Water weeds and cattails grew in the shallows, and small islands of every size lay like alligators at every bend. We went slowly, and seeing the route made me cringe at the thought of the reckless speed with which Elmond had navigated the thing the day before.

  We didn't use the motor, simply guiding the big boat with oars from our own rig, and fending off snags and drowned trees with the blades. The channel widened, and you could tell by the pull against the hull that the current was both swift and strong. Here we found ourselves among the snags and stumps of the forest that had been drowned when the catchment behind the dam had been filled.

  Elmond tapped Zack on the shoulder. "Better pull in along here and sneak across that tongue of land to see if any of the Ungers have come back to the houses."

  There was a narrow channel back into the button willows. Zack pulled us into it, and I waited there, holding the boat against the bank, while they crept away to reconnoiter. It seemed a long time. The sun was hot, reflecting off the water, and I pulled the boat further into the shadows of the bushes and cursed the leg that was now beginning to feel as if a cougar were gnawing on its bone.

  In time the two returned, quietly as cats. I had the boat eased along the bank so they could step in by the time they reached me.

  "Well?" I asked, pushing away from the bank.

  "Nobody there. Not that we could see, and no smoke from the chimneys, either. We'll go right in. I don't think there's anyone there at all.