The convoy sped toward Natnet’s Omaha studio. As they approached, Peter tried unsuccessfully to suppress a hope that this mission might somehow help him get back his wife. When they arrived, the soldiers moved out smartly, strategically surrounding the building.
Inside, Peter confronted the station manager, Reg Holly, a plump, balding man, who was soon sweating profusely. Jeffrey joined them in the office, clutching the film he and his crew had shot at the psychiatric unit of People’s Acceptance Hospital.
“I don’t see how we can possibly run that report,” the station manager protested.
“Why not, Mr. Holly?”
“In the first place, it’s sickening. Those patients are like . . . zombies.”'
“It’s strong,” Peter agreed. “Tough, dynamic TV— great for your ratings.”
“To hell with my ratings,” Holly said. “In the second place, the PPP would never approve it.”
“Mr. Holly, you don’t seem to understand the situation,” Peter said. “I’m the governor-general of this region. I don’t give a damn about the PPP censors; I’m ordering you to run that film, or I’ll take over this studio and run it without you. Do I make myself clear?”
The station manager wiped his sweaty brow. Peter could appreciate his distress. Nothing like this had ever happened before. Except for Peter, the top political officials had always been loyal PPP members, so there had been no reason for conflict.
“When do you want to go on the air?” Holly asked.
The footage was powerful, brutal. The camera missed nothing: the drugged, deathly figures with tubes in their arms, Amanda’s anguish, Justin’s pitiful condition, even the hospital administrator’s protestations of innocence. Jeffrey’s commentary was cool and understated: as he well knew, the pictures said it all.
When the twenty-minute report was finished, Jeffrey appeared on the screen live. “That is our report, from the psychiatric unit of the People’s Acceptance Hospital,” he intoned. “Now we have here in the studio, for his comments, the governor-general of Heartland, Mr. Peter Bradford.”
Peter sat at a desk, with some law books and the new Heartland flag behind him. He wore a dark blue suit, a light blue shirt, and a red-and-blue regimental-striped tie—the politician’s basic TV outfit. As county administrator in Milford, Peter had made a point of dressing like everyone else—jeans, plaid shirts, windbreakers, an old tweed coat on the most formal occasions—but he’d changed that now that he was governor-general.
Peter felt supremely confident as he began to speak. He’d been thinking about this ever since he heard of the Capitol bombings and the trouble that Marion’s thugs were causing. He knew that he would have a large and responsive audience. In the wake of the massacre at the Capitol, people were anxiously watching TV, wanting more news. And he would give them more: he’d give them one hell of a show.
“My fellow Heartlanders,” he began. “Some terrible things have been happening. We just saw a dramatic report on the cruelty and inhumanity that can result when people stop caring about their fellow human beings. I say to you that this sort of inhumanity has no place in Heartland, and I will put an end to it, once and for all!
“We saw another instance of inhumanity at the U.S. Capitol, when invaders bombed it and slaughtered scores of our elected representatives. It isn’t clear yet who was guilty of that attack, but this much is certain: they represent an alien philosophy, whether it’s homegrown or foreign.
“Now, in the streets of many of our cities, we face demonstrations, riots, vandalism, hooliganism. Why? Because of real grievances? Or because certain political zealots are trying to twist national concern to serve their own ends?
“I say the troublemakers are politically inspired, and they must be stopped. It is time for the decent, hardworking, law-abiding Heartlanders to say no to anarchy and opportunism. If the extremists call a strike, then go to work early that day. If they demonstrate, then get your Mends and neighbors to form a bigger and better demonstration. If they start fights or break windows or otherwise break the law, then see that they’re arrested—if you have to do it yourself. Speaking as commander-in-chief of the Heartland Defense Force, I promise you that my full authority will be used to support the law-abiding majority of Heartland.
“But I need your support. I intend to tour all the major cities of Heartland in the days ahead, to meet with local officials and ordinary citizens. Please come meet me; give me your ideas, your support, and your prayers. Thank you and God bless you.”
Marion Andrews and Mike Laird watched the newscast in her library. “Why didn’t we stop him?” she asked, keeping her anger in check.
“As I told you, he had the national guard surrounding the studio. I can’t send my men to fight a war with them.”
“Call all our people—get them into the streets. I want a general strike! We’ve got to topple Bradford before it’s too late.”
“It may already be too late,” Laird said. “He’s going to have bis own people in the streets, the way it looks.”
She looked at him, her eyes burning with a fierce determination. “You can give up,” she said. “But I won’t; the people are counting on me.”
The Milfords listened to the broadcast on the radio, huddled around the fire in the root cellar. “What do you think?” Alethea asked all of them as Peter Bradford finished.
“Just another slick damn politician in a three-hundred-dollar suit, if you ask me,” Will declared.
Dieter Heinlander’s face was sad. “That part about going into the streets, it frightens me. That is the way it all started back in Germany.”
“What do you think, Devin?” Alethea asked.
Devin was wrapped in blankets, eating some potato soup. He considered the question for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Peter’s become quite a politician,” he said finally. “I know he means well, but sometimes meaning well just isn’t good enough.”
Peter’s office called later that afternoon to alert Amanda of the fact that the film of her dramatic visit to the psychiatric unit would be shown that evening, followed by comments from Peter. Amanda took the portable TV upstairs so she and Jackie and Justin could watch the show together. She thought that perhaps seeing that hospital on the TV screen might rouse Justin froip his apathy. Ever since they’d been home, Justin would sit up and sip milk or soup, but he did not speak or give any sign that he could recognize anyone.
It wasn’t easy. You talked to him, you fed and bathed him, you read to him, but nothing came back. Amanda knew how tired and discouraged she was, but Jackie’s blind faith filled her with pride and the will to continue. About the only consolation they had was the improvement in his appearance. They had shaved him and trimmed his hair, and he was gaining back some weight and color: his body was improving but apparently not his mind.
So Amanda decided to risk the TV program; perhaps seeing pictures of the unit, indeed of himself there, would shock or frighten him—by now Amanda was ready to settle for any response at all, even fear. But despite the horrific images that appeared on the screen, she didn’t even get that response: Justin might have been staring at the wall.
After Peter’s speech, Jackie switched off the set and said, “I’ll read to him; you get some rest,” and picked up the copy of Lonesome Dove that they’d been reading, at Amanda’s suggestion. Amanda loved the novel, because the story was so exciting, and because its portrait of America in the 1880s meant so much more to her now. Those people in the west had lives filled with incredible danger and, at the same time, lives of almost total freedom. Perhaps danger went hand in hand with freedom, and somehow in modem times their mistake was in thinking there could ever be real freedom without great risk.
Amanda went down to the kitchen to straighten up and have some time to herself. The house seemed awfully big and quiet without Peter and Scott stomping around. She poured a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, looking out at the fields. The sun was out, slowly melting the snow, leaving
the yard a muddy quagmire. Soon she’d have to think about planting her garden. Sometimes she thought that human beings were intended to live on farms and raise their own food, and somehow “civilization” had turned them away from that—and brought with it the Nuclear Age. She needed the garden, not for the tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and lettuce, but because she needed to feel some contact with a simpler, better past.
Amanda couldn’t keep the images of the psychiatric unit from her mind. When they had come on the screen, she had turned away: she had lived that nightmare once and had no wish to experience it again, even on film. But she couldn’t force those images of deathly pale men and boys from her mind. They were far more real to her than the speech Peter had made on TV just a few minutes before. In truth, when Peter appeared, she barely paid attention to his words. Her real attention was on Justin. Since she had returned to Milford, Peter’s political battles had become quite unreal to her. They were like a movie, playing in some distant theater, one she chose not to patronize. Peter was trying to save America, or Heartland, and she was only trying to save that pathetic speechless boy upstairs in her guest room.
Amanda put away some dishes and hoped no more of her neighbors would drop by that day. People had been nice, they had brought food and offered to help with Justin, and they tentatively asked questions about Chicago and Omaha or Peter’s job. No one seemed quite sure why Amanda was back in Milford when Peter was still in Omaha. She had to laugh at herself. She knew how people gossiped in small towns. She just hadn’t often been someone who people gossiped about.
My turn at last, she thought.
And the truth was, she welcomed the gossip, in one way. She wanted to hear about Devin. She knew he was back, that they’d rescued him from People’s Acceptance, and she guessed he was in pretty good shape. Ward and Betty had been by that morning, to visit Justin, and they’d spoken of taking him home, but the truth was that they had no home now, and Amanda convinced them it was best to leave their son with her. Ward feared for the safety of the farmland, with Devin there, and Billy still hiding nearby. No one trusted the fact or understood the reason why the SSU had stayed in its barracks, and Ward constantly wondered when its tanks and helicopters might come charging forth.
Amanda promised to speak to Peter about the dangers, but Ward didn’t seem to think Peter mattered anymore. He and his friends were armed, he said, and they were prepared to deal with the SSU on their own terms.
Amanda wanted to see Devin, to talk to him; she thought that he could make sense of what was happening, if anyone could. She knew that Devin and Peter embodied profoundly different philosophies of how Americans should deal with the Russian takeover, and she wanted to hear Devin’s side of it. She’d heard Peter’s side often enough.
He was out at the remains of the Milford house— they were already starting to build a new cabin, Ward said—but she couldn’t go there. She felt an allegiance to Peter, their home and their marriage. She felt too vulnerable to go to Devin.
“Mama! Mama! Come quick!” Jackie called from the head of the stairs, snapping her out of her reverie.
Amanda dashed up the stairs. Jackie’s face was flushed—alive and animated, filled with hope. “What is it, darling?”
“It’s Justin. He ... he sort of smiled at me. Come see!”
Justin was in his wheelchair, facing the window, his unblinking eyes fixed on the rolling countryside where he had spent so many carefree years. Jackie put her face close to his, and Amanda knelt beside him.
“Justin, it’s me, Jackie, my mom and I are here with you. Can you see us? Are you okay?”
Amanda’s eyes were fixed on the boy’s thin, pale face, but she saw nothing; he might have been a Greek statue, of the purest white marble.
“See, Mama? See?”
Amanda searched his face, almost pore by pore, looking for the miracle, but she saw only the same, agonizing immobility.
“Don’t you see? His mouth? He’s smiling; he’s trying to talk.”
Amanda looked even closer. Was that a twitch at the comer of his mouth? Had those lips seemed to move, to tremble? Or was it only her—their—imagination?
“Can’t you see . . . he’s trying to talk to us!” Jackie declared.
“Yes, I see,” Amanda said. “You’re right, he is trying to talk. And he will, Jackie, any day now. You just keep giving him your love.”
Jackie threw her arms around her mother and began to sob, her tears wet and hot against Amanda’s old U of N sweatshirt. “Mama, I can’t stand it if he doesn’t talk to us soon,” she cried.
Amanda stroked her daughter’s soft, chestnut hair. “Yes, you can, darling,” she said. “Yes, you can.”
The next day broke windy and bright, the sky a deep, cloudless blue, the sun hot on their faces, a sweet foretaste of spring.
“What day is it?” Devin asked.
“Friday,” Ward told him. They were out by the bam, savoring the morning’s gentle paradox: the warmth of the sun and the chill of the breeze.
“Friday,” Devin repeated. “Then I declare a holiday. And on this Good Friday we’ll all take a walk.”
“Gonna be muddy out there,” Ward cautioned.
“You don’t know how I’ve missed mud,” Devin said. “I’ve been places where mud was against the law. Let’s go slogging around. Show Billy the sights.”
Alethea joined them. “Dev, you sure you’re up to this?”
Devin grinned. “It’s all that soup you been feeding me,” he said. “I’m full of piss and vinegar. Ready for a ten-mile hike, anyway, if you civilians can keep up.”
“A couple of miles is my limit,” Ward said. “Us law-enforcement types aren’t much for forced marches.”
“I’ll see what food we’ve got,” Alethea said. “And I’ll break the news to Dad: he’s not one of the world’s great hikers, either.”
She turned back to their root-cellar home. They had a canvas roof over it now, and a wooden floor in it. Mostly, they just slept there, because they spent then-waking hours hunting food, working on the new cabin, or planning for their defense when the expected SSU attack came.
Before Alethea could descend the ladder, a car came roaring up the poplar-lined drive.
“Who’s that?” Alethea demanded.
Ward squinted at the oncoming car. “Well, it’s not the SSU, unless they’ve taken to driving banged-up old Pontiacs.”
The car stopped and three men and a young woman climbed out, looking around uncertainly. One of the men sported a modified Afro and a wide grin on his broad, black face. Clayton ran up to Jeffrey, embracing him.
“Well, I guess we can start some trouble now that the press is here.”
“I want you to meet my friends,” Jeffrey said, pointing to the three others. “That big lummox is Ken, my cameraman. Those two beautiful people beside him are Kimberly and Cliff, a couple of actors who’ve joined up with what we laughingly call the resistance. You may have heard we did a little broadcast over in Omaha the other night.”
“Good to see you again, Jeffrey,” said Devin.
Devin looked at the three newcomers, then greeted them warmly. “You turned out the people who took over the hospital and got me out of that hellhole. Thank you.”
Kimberly clung to his hand, her face glowing with affection and awe. Looking around, at the burned-out house, the cellar with its canvas roof, the gun that the big, white-haired man carried on his hip, all she could think was that these people looked like the survivors of a war. “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Milford,” she said. “We . . . when we heard what happened at the Capitol, we felt like we had to come here, to see what you’d say.”
“The fust thing I say is you damn well better call me Devin,” he told her. Kimberly was wearing jeans and a parka, but her head was uncovered and the sunlight sparkled on her blond hair.
“I want you to meet my family,” Devin continued. “Then all of you can join our picnic celebration!”
Thus began one of the best days any
of them ever knew, a day for memories and magic. With the bright sun melting the snow, with the breeze playing on their faces, they trudged through the trees, over the hills, across the land that had once been the Milfords’ domain, past many of the milestones of their family members’ lives.
Alethea could not recall a better day. Not in her whole life had she ever seen her family together like this, happy and laughing and affectionate. She had grown up knowing her father to be an angry, embittered man, most often barely speaking to his two sons, or to her either. But on this sun-bright day, all three of his children, and his grandson too, walked gladly across the fields arm in arm with Will. It was as if losing his land, even the burning of his home, didn’t matter, because he had been reborn with the love of his family.
Devin led them to the dugout where Billy and Clayton had been hiding, and Will explained its history to the visitors. They picnicked there, and Devin and Billy and Kimberly went down to the pond to skip rocks on the water. Jeffrey, Cliff, and Clayton napped after they ate, and Will went and sat by himself at the top of the hill. Alethea was moved to see him up there, alone, gazing down at them with all the wisdom and courage of a long, hard life. She saw his mortality then, as if he were already dead and he had come back to watch over them. The thought did not depress her or seem improper. Will would die, just as they all would; the tragedy would have been for him to die before enjoying this one magnificent day with his family.
For a time, Jeffrey took Devin aside and talked to him—interviewed him—while Ken filmed them with his portable camera. The others stayed a respectful distance away, granting them their privacy, except for Billy, who delighted in making faces at his father, poking gentle fun at the solemn tone of the interview. When the interview stopped, Devin chased the boy around a tree, pretending great ire at his disrespect. In truth, Alethea thought she had never seen a sweeter love flow between two people.
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