by M J Engh
“Not too bad.” I waited; sooner or later he would have to ask about his son.
“Of course, Jean keeps us pretty well posted about Hunt,” he said reluctantly, “and I know he’s in good hands at your house. The best thing we can do for him now is not make waves.”
“He’s in General Arslan’s hands,” I said.
He threw a furious look at me and checked himself. “Fortunately, Hunt has been brought up to think for himself. He’s a very mature boy.” He settled his hat more firmly on his head, and added, “All this must be pretty hard on your ulcer.”
“It’s not an ulcer. It’s a spastic pylorus.”
“I beg your pardon.”
What that came to was that Arnold Morgan was in no hurry to get his son back. A bright, polite, good-looking child was an asset, no matter how much it took to support him, but now Hunt was tainted. It wasn’t a question of morals. It would have been the same if he had lost his looks, or his grade average. But Jean was dying for him.
It wasn’t often Hunt was alone with Luella and me, or either of us. But sometimes Arslan would trot upstairs for a few minutes, or swing out of the house for half an hour, leaving Hunt unoccupied. He would sit in his little pool of self-consciousness, waiting for whatever somebody might choose to do to him next. I always took the opportunity to speak to him and try to get some reaction, if it was nothing but a faint nod in response to some remark on the weather.
“Isn’t there a poem with something about Bukhara in it? Something about ‘lonely Bukhara’?” Arslan had just gone out with one of his officers, and the word Bukhara hung in the air.
Hunt nodded. He got up silently, took an old high school literature book from the shelf, and leafed straight to the page he wanted. He held the book out toward me without a word.
“Will you read it to me, please, Hunt?” I didn’t want him to feel that reading was just part of the regimen Arslan inflicted on him.
He sat down, docile as always. “Matthew Arnold,” he said quietly, smoothing the page. “‘Sohrab and Rustem.’” He began to read. I didn’t pay much attention to the words at first—
My terrible father’s terrible horse—
But Hunt was reading it as if he’d been born to read it.
O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I;
For thou hast gone where I shall never go,
And snuff’d the breezes of my father’s home.
And thou hast trod the sand of Seistan—
It didn’t sound exactly like what I remembered.
—But I
Have never known my grandsire’s furrow’d face—
His voice shook with feeling. It was a question whether he would make it through.
But lodged among my father’s foes, and seen
Afrasiab’s cities only, Samarcand,
Bokhara, and lone Khiva in the waste,
And the black Toorkmun tents; and only drunk
The desert rivers, Moorgab and Tejend,
Kohik, and where the Kalmuks feed their sheep,
The northern Sir; and this great Oxus stream,
The yellow Oxus, by whose brink I die.
He stopped. “That’s all,” he said, without lifting his eyes. “It’s not much.” But he was struggling to bring out something else, so I waited. “He,” he began, and swallowed hard, and then got it out steadily enough, “he told me they really do ferment the milk of mares. I was surprised.”
It didn’t matter much what he had said; he had said something. His hands jammed the book shut convulsively, and he shot me a naked, stricken look—confessing everything, that he was a child, that he was alive, that Arslan was his grown-up. His eyes fell again; his shoulders shook, but before I could cross the room to him he stiffened again, and the look he flung at me this time stopped me dead—it was so plainly a look of fear.
I held out my hand for the book, and I saw his shoulders relax. “Thank you, Hunt,” I said.
CHAPTER 6
“That Morgan boy’s a pitiful case, isn’t he?” Fred Gonderling made it sound sympathetic, which was better than most people managed to do.
“He’s in a tough spot, if that’s what you mean. But he keeps his wits about him. I think he’ll come out of it all right.” It made me a little mad to hear Hunt Morgan dismissed as pitiful, like a failing patient in a nursing home. There was no telling what kind of a future lay ahead of that boy, except that it wouldn’t be an easy one; but I thought he had more of a future than most of the people who were shaking their heads over him. There was something in Hunt that could hold out for a long time against everything Arslan was doing to him—given a little luck, long enough to come through on the other side.
By midsummer, he had been granted some of the trappings of freedom. He was never locked up now. He was allowed to come and go pretty much at will, except when Arslan had a use for him. He was even allowed to take a horse out of the Russians’ stable and ride anywhere in the district, apparently. But the district was sown with soldiers, and I thought one of the permanent duties of every one of them was keeping an eye out for Hunt Morgan. Every time Jean had tried lying in wait along his usual routes—and she had tried it often enough, if not more—some Russian or Turkistani had sent her about her business. After a while I persuaded her to quit trying and wait till I could arrange something. Partly I wanted to keep her out of official trouble, and partly I wanted to keep her from finding out in the bluntest way that Hunt didn’t want to see her.
“She’s on your side, Hunt,” I told him. “Forget about everybody else.”
Usually his answer was silence; but once he brought himself to say, “I know her opinions.”
“Forget about opinions. And when you do see her, never mind what she says to you. When it comes to family, those things don’t really matter—not if you can remember they’re just words.”
“Sticks and stones,” he said.
In a way, Arnold Morgan had been right when he called Hunt mature, but not in a very important way. Compared to most of his classmates, with their raw country boyishness, he’d always seemed both younger and older. But that had been superficial, just the self-confident sophistication of any well-bred child. Now he was definitely, irreversibly older. It had been close, but Hunt had proved me right. He had had just barely the necessary toughness to get him through. He didn’t blush any more.
Hunt would survive, no doubt of that. What I worried about now was what kind of a person he would survive as. He listened when he was talked to—listened seriously but distantly. There was a kind of impediment in his communication. He volunteered practically nothing, and when he answered a question it was most often with a shrug, a sidelong look, or a cool stare.
Toward Arslan, he had the manner of a well-trained servant—sometimes he was disconcertingly like the little orderly. Arslan was the sun around which Hunt had to revolve, and it was only on the side illuminated by Arslan that he showed much sign of life. On that unique subject he was able and willing to talk, or at least answer questions articulately. And then again he would clam up, and I couldn’t get any more out of him except a shrug and “He doesn’t tell me everything.”
Either he told him an almighty lot, or Hunt had a very fertile imagination and didn’t mind farming it. “He says he has American troops in Russia and China, and Chinese troops in Europe, and European troops in the Middle East, and Arab and Israeli troops in Africa. All commanded by his officers.”
“Hunt, I don’t see how he could have that many officers.”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Why does he stay in Kraftsville? Has he told you that?”
One of the things I’d noticed about Hunt lately was that he held his head upright even when he bowed it. His shoulders might hunch and droop, his eyes and chin might sink, but his spine stayed straight and tall. Now he lowered those big eyes and shrugged his little shrug, and his mouth stirred briefly.
“Of course,” I said, “we don’t have to believe everything he says.”
“And common sense. If he’d really conquered the world, would he set up his capital in Kraftsville, Illinois?”
He took on a struggling look—trying to enunciate an answer that would suit me—but after a minute he gave it up and relaxed in silence.
“And what’s he doing with those troops, if he commands them all?”
“Dividing the world into small, self-sufficient communities,” he parroted patiently.
“How ready does he have to be, General?”
Arslan looked up blankly from his coffee-tableful of papers. He had sent Hunt upstairs a few minutes before, and he had called for a bottle, but it still stood unopened. Lately he had started to break his unstated rule of no hard liquor while there was still work to do. “How ready?”
“How strong. Strength was the idea, wasn’t it?”
He fingered the top of his bottle. “He is ready now,” he said finally. “Let him go to his people.”
I wasted no time setting up a meeting between Hunt and Jean—and when it came right down to it, Hunt raised no objection. They talked in what had been the music room at school and was now an office supply storeroom. (The Turkistanis used a considerable amount of memo paper.) Hunt was back in twenty minutes, and I felt better as soon as I saw his face. There was a freshness and childhood there that had been missing for too long. And a vulnerability. He didn’t say anything; he just started to pack a little toilet kit. Hunt didn’t have very many belongings. Still, he managed to put off his departure till after supper, dawdling through his preparations and taking individual leave of every animal on the place. Arslan wasn’t there.
And when Arslan came in at last, not half an hour after he finally left, he didn’t mention Hunt.
A little after dark (it would have been about eight—there was no Daylight Saving Time this year) we heard a single rifle shot, not far away. On the couch Arslan swung himself upright, his face gone hard, and spoke an order. Two soldiers jumped to put out the lights, and another one rushed past me and out of the door. I heard low voices, running feet, one cautious shout; then in scarcely a minute the man was back with a word to Arslan, the door was shut, the lamps being lit again.
“What’s the matter?” I demanded. But Arslan was giving more orders, brisk and easy. One man disappeared through the kitchen door, another up the stairs. Luella came in from the kitchen, white-faced. There was a pause. We were all on our feet, except Arslan.
He knew too damned well what was coming, and I knew it, too. Anger was building up in me like compressed air, so tight I could hardly hear the slow steps on the porch. A guard held the door open for Hunt and closed it after him.
He looked straight towards me. “Would you mind if I came back, Mr. Bond?” His voice was clear, level, and bitter.
“As far as I’m concerned you are back, Hunt, and always welcome.”
Luella came to him anxiously. “What happened, Hunt?”
“Forget it.” He was leaning against the door, his little bag in his hands. His eyes flared at me as he burst out, “He’s willing to take me back—on conditions! How about that? If you’ve got any conditions, I’d appreciate hearing them now.”
“No conditions, Hunt,” I said. “Never.”
Luella gasped wordlessly, and I followed her look. Hunt’s left pant leg was streaked with wet from thigh to ankle; the blood dribbled silently off his shoe onto the rug. “Yeah,” he said. She was trying to help him away from the door, but he leaned against it stubbornly. “I can walk very well, thanks.” His eyes were alight with fury. I touched Luella’s arm, and she stepped back.
It was Arslan’s turn now. He stood up at last, and Hunt limped across the room and allowed himself to be let down onto the couch. Arslan was on his knees beside him in an instant, ripping open the pant leg with his knife.
Luella surprised me. “You get your hands off him!” she snapped. “You’re the one that had him shot!”
“My own fault,” Hunt said calmly. “I know the curfew rule. I’m surprised, though,” he added to Arslan. “I thought you had better marksmen. Or don’t they shoot to kill?”
Arslan glanced up appreciatively. “Not to kill, no. To immobilize. It is often desirable to question those who break rules.”
“I wasn’t even immobilized,” Hunt said tightly.
“Yes. The sentry will be reprimanded.” The guards were reappearing with water, bandages, medicines. There was a well-rehearsed air about the whole thing. “For your information, Hunt,” Arslan was saying, “I have given standing orders not to fire on you unless you should actually attack me. Otherwise you would have been shot as soon as you left your parents’ house. But the man who fired was unable to recognize you in the darkness. I consider him justified.”
“How about a doctor?” I said.
“Unnecessary. It is a very simple wound.”
Maybe it hadn’t quite been rehearsed. Conceivably—just conceivably—the shot had been accidental. But, to whatever extent he had manipulated for it, I didn’t doubt that this was exactly the scene Arslan had planned. But Hunt had come to my house for shelter, and I’d given it, without conditions. That was what mattered.
I went to see Arnold Morgan first thing the next morning. He looked half relieved to see me and half belligerent. “Did Hunt get back to your place all right?” he demanded.
“Well, he got there, and by good luck he’s only got a bullet hole in his leg. Didn’t you people ever hear of the curfew?”
He went as white as if he’d been bleached. “We tried to keep him, Franklin. I did everything I could. How is he?”
“He’s all right. What I’d like to know is, if he started off intending to stay with you, and you did everything you could to keep him, what made him come back?”
He firmed up at that, and flushed angrily. “When Hunt comes home, it’s going to be the real thing, Franklin. Nobody’s going to use my house as a … a …”
“In other words, you sent your son out to be shot at because he couldn’t promise he wouldn’t be assaulted.”
“No, sir—and you ought to know me better than to say that to me. I didn’t send him anywhere. The only thing I asked for was that he wouldn’t volunteer himself to that greasy devil. For God’s sake, Franklin, what do you expect me to do—encourage him?”
“I did expect a little Christian charity and a little understanding for your own child. But it looks like that was too much to ask for.” We weren’t quite shouting yet, but we were getting close.
“You’re not in a very good position to—”
“—So how about a little common sense instead? The only things you’ve accomplished are convincing Hunt he can’t get back to a normal life—not that anything’s normal these days—and pushing him right into Arslan’s corner. His own father drives him out, and who takes him in? Arslan! Arslan! Just putting it bluntly, Arnold, anytime Arslan wants his body he can have it, and neither you nor I nor Hunt can stop him; and it doesn’t matter whose house he’s living in, either. What you’ve done is help Arslan get hold of his soul.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to say to me.” His voice shook. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to stop. He wouldn’t even agree—” He broke off, waving his open hand spasmodically, as if he was looking for something to hit with it. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s not too late even now. My door’s open whenever he’s ready to come home.”
“On your terms.”
“Now, listen, Franklin. If you’ve got anything practical to tell me, go ahead and say it. But if you’re just here to pass insults, let’s call a halt right now. Jean’s upstairs trying to get some rest, and I’ve got better things to do.”
“Yes, I’ve got one thing very practical—”
But he was so worked up now that he couldn’t let me go on till he got in his counterattack. “And I’ll tell you something, Franklin, there’s a lot of people who don’t think much of the way you’ve toadied up to that stinking Turk. Collab
orator’s a dirty word, but that’s exactly—”
“I didn’t come to discuss myself.”
“No, you came to pull that holier-than-thou act because I’ve insisted on a little basic morality and loyalty—and coming from you it doesn’t look very good. Ever since they came shooting their way in here—”
“Nobody shot their way in.”
“—you’ve been preaching. ‘Cooperate! Cooperate!’ Well, I say that’s just the coward’s way to pronounce ‘collaborate.’”
“If you think so, why haven’t you done something about it?”
“If we’d had a chance, we would have! You were so damn quick to inform on anybody who had a gun.”
“Do you have any idea what this town would look like now if we’d tried to fight?”
“We’d be able to hold our heads up, anyway.”
“After you’d scraped them out of the mud, maybe. I’m not hanging mine. Now, just shut up and listen to me for five seconds. For God’s sake—for Jean’s sake, Arnold—get word to Hunt that you want him back, no strings attached. Don’t do it through me if you don’t want to. You’re welcome to think whatever you want to about me, but it’s more important what you do about your son.”
I left that little scene with a feeling of satisfaction, all in all. Collaborator. Well, in a sense I certainly was. I’d gone all out to get people to do what Arslan and his henchmen demanded, and I’d been working hand-in-glove with Nizam on the economic plan. What Arnold Morgan didn’t know about—what nobody knew much about, I hoped, except a few people like Sam Tuller’s family and Leland Kitchener the junk man—was a little nonexistent organization that we called the Kraft County Resistance.
Arslan’s pistol and its eight cartridges were hidden in nine separate spots. They might as well be separate, for now. There was no possible way for that gun to do us any good tangibly, except the way I’d failed to use it in the Land Rover; but the fact that it existed was a solid rock to build a faith on. Sam Tuller and two of his boys had crawled in that oat field night after night, till they found every last cartridge. It had to be careful crawling, too. Aside from the matter of getting out of the house and back in again without disturbing their billeted soldier, it was likelier than not that Arslan would have the field watched. But we got them all, and got them safely squirreled away, without rousing the least suspicion. Or so we had to tell ourselves.