Primarily he carried the American 180 rifle. The effect of soundless assault was devastating and the hardiest groups reeled and fled when companions dropped before an unheard and unseen enemy.
There were no rules for the nasty warfare, and Toby Shatto observed only a single condition. Before he began shooting he gave one warning. In that declaration he claimed ownership and promised that unless withdrawal was immediate and permanent he would begin killing them until they were all dead or beyond his reach.
Usually the intruders seized their bundles and counter marched, with Toby paralleling their route unseen until he felt certain that they intended no return.
Often he approached such groups further down the valley, and without identifying himself as the warner, exchanged news and information. If they spoke of their recent threat he told them that a crazy family lived back there and that the warning was no joke. He encouraged them to pass that information on to others.
A few bands chose to resist. Perhaps they blustered in disbelief, or they may have discounted the danger of a single voice. Toby did not speak again. He tried first to kill the obvious leader. Executed cleanly and silently, the loss caused disorganization and probable flight. As the leader was usually out in the open beating his chest and making pronouncements, the shooting was easy.
Even if flight was spontaneous and panicked, Toby shot everyone he could. From cover he fired into their running figures and followed to quickly terminate any attempted regrouping.
Knowing his land, his advantage was great and he employed it vigorously. Where he had once faltered or hesitated, he now took aim and fired with calculated deliberation. No outward emotion challenged his accuracy as no latent sympathy limited his shots. Forever burned away were the trappings of the ordered and structured civilization of the preceding year. If the earth belonged to the one who could hold it, Toby Shatto intended to remain occupier of all he had inherited.
From the dead he took what was useful, and when they were not too close, he left the bodies as warning. He did not count, for some inner reluctance precluded it, and he aggressively worked at putting the combat and the killing behind him, lest his mind be too strongly assaulted by their memory.
+++
Continual patrolling destroyed Toby's hopes for a garden. A man turned earth poorly with a slung rifle, and alone in a field he was too vulnerable. He postponed planting until safer times.
He went often to adjoining farms, finding some abandoned or with strange tenants, but many of the valley people had collected at Chop Clouser's and were pooling their abilities and resources. Toby feared their efforts were not too successful, but they were trying.
That they needed the materials he had stored was more than clear, but their grip on stability was so tenuous that he doubted their prospects and chose not to waste his resources on a doubtful effort.
It was painful to observe Chop's struggle to provide and direct. Clouser's abilities lay in physical strength and endurance as a team member, not in planning and administration. The big man knew it, and where he had once enjoyed his clan's gathering to him, he now found their requirements beyond his means and talents.
Chop's group too fought their small wars against the unwelcome. Because they were many they endured, but the costs were high. Chop's farmhouse burned for undiscovered reasons and a number of lives had been lost in the shootings. Despite their combined effort, food remained scarce and there was continual sickness.
There were some small encouragements. A station more powerful than any he had heard began continual radio broadcasts from shelters near the site of the national capitol. The speakers purported to be the surviving government and blared repetitive instructions to return to constituted authority and to normalize living conditions. As neither applied well to Perry County, other announcements were more important.
The great station called itself "Heartbeat America" and it attempted news broadcasts. America lived, it claimed, and spoke of the end of nuclear strikes and renewed communications with other lands. That was welcome. It was alleged that normalization was creeping outward from most state capitols and many major communities. The listener longed for details but they remained conspicuously absent.
Locally, an army Colonel was said to be taking charge in the Harrisburg area. Better armed, he had already obliterated a number of opposing forces. Whether this was progress, Toby and others waited to see, but it was at least something.
+++
The discussion around their fire was confused and angry again this night, and Chop Clouser failed to control it. He sat back in the old wooden lawn chair he claimed as his own and morosely prodded the fire into new flame.
Most of his people were there as they were every night. They gathered to discuss and plan, but he guessed the chance to socialize outweighed the need to organize. Without other escapes, the nightly fires became outlets for gossip and venting frustrations.
Despite chaos, life continued with all of its emotional complexity and the meetings had served useful purposes. Lately, however, the discussions had assumed a shriller tone, and as plans failed and hopes were continually thwarted, discontent and frustration dominated.
Discomfort was certainly part of it. That "they lived like damned hogs," repeated Chop's own description.
The old dug well gave them water and the outhouse wore its hinges in dutiful service, but the loss of the farmhouse had been a severe setback as it had provided a steadying familiarity as well as a center to work from. Now they all lived in the assorted outbuildings that had once housed chickens, tools, and machinery, or they endured in ragged tents and truck campers that had once sheltered them only on lengthy vacations.
A hardy people, they could stand inconvenience if their condition promised improvement, but it did not.
All were hunger-leaned and a harvest was yet to come.
The planted gardens were large but rain persisted unnaturally and growing was desperately poor.
Game was almost unseen. Even the small creatures were so thinned by winter's duration and perhaps the radiation that sight of a ground hog initiated the most cautious of stalks and careful shooting. Everything living was now edible, and more than a few were sorry the dogs had all died. Their few cows, swine, and horses were earnestly guarded, for in them lay future hopes of milk, meat, and transportation.
Picking at his fire, Chop Clouser weighed his options. The fact that he could not properly lead his people no longer churned his spirit. That sort of dominance was beyond him, as it always had been. As a strong right arm he could excel, but he made a poor commander. Just why that was he no longer cared. What to do about it was the important thing and how to convince his people and make them understand what must be done was the problem.
He listened to their wrangling a little longer, working out his words before he sought their attention.
Standing, he loomed above them, and knocking his stick against his chair arm eventually silenced the last of the arguers. He waved his stick in general directions to emphasize what he had to say and his words, so often unsure and self-questioning, this time rang with angry certainty.
"If anybody here isn't sick to death of all this yammering and squalling it's 'cause he's deaf!
"There ain't a word been said tonight that hasn't been chewed over a hundred times before—and just look at us!
"The facts are, we're getting nowhere. If anything, we're going downhill. We've got more sick all the time, and what little we've got of anything is getting less every damned day.
"Now does anybody here say that's not so?" There was discontented grumbling but no one disagreed and Chop continued.
"The next thing to face up to is that there isn't a workable plan among us. If we just split up we'll all go under a few at a time, which is what brought us together to start with. But, we can't go on like we're doin' that's for sure.
"I've got an answer that may work, but there's hard conditions to it that I've got to make plain before we go too far, and if agreed to, t
here's no turning aside for the most of us."
He sat down, taking time to add wood and raise the flames to new heights. He could see their intent faces in the dancing light, the hunger and worry-hollowed eyes and sunken cheeks showing strong. They'd agree to about anything, he supposed, but he didn't want a lot of later on claiming that they hadn't known how it would be.
He cleared his throat noisily and got down to it.
"Now you all know Toby Shatto, and you all know he's got a cave full of stored things on his place,"
There were nods and almost greedy licking of lips.
So Chop smiled grimly. "You also know that Toby is my friend and our neighbor and that he's cleaned out everybody that came after what's his. For those that ain't been over there, there's dead bodies layin' all over that farm. Toby Shatto's nobody to fool around with, so I'm not suggesting we go over and shoot it out for his goods.
"What I am proposing is this: I'm proposing that we join up with Toby into one community. That means that we'd all work together for the common good and that we'd share both hard and fair times.
"Now that implies that Shatto'd open his cave to us for anything we thought we needed, but I can tell you now that it wouldn't be like that. Toby Shatto will be hard about it, you can bet a shirt on that!
"Still, what I'm warnin' about isn't how much or how little he'll provide. If he joins in he'll be expecting to succeed and Toby ain't no loser!
"The problem is that Toby Shatto has to be in charge, that's his way. If he plays, he's team captain, and if he agrees, we will join him, not the other way around. We'll do it Shatto's way or else."
He grinned to soften his words a little. "I'm not just sure what 'or else' will be as I haven't put this up to him yet, but a man or family that has any doubts about putting themselves all the way under Toby's thumb better stay away 'cause that's what'll be required."
Chop paused to take stock. "About all I can add is that my feeling is that Toby Shatto can get it all rolling again where we can't.
"Don't ask me how!" Chop held them off with raised hands. "If I knew, I'd do it. It's just that Toby sees things most don't. He's got a sort of ordered mind—like those computers he fiddled with.
"I figure if he leads, we do what's asked, and when we have what we need to work right, we can start moving ahead."
Again he paused. "I'm not figuring on sitting around here jawing over this. You've all heard my thoughts. Now I'm leaving this fire. I'm going over to my shack and wait. You can chew on it or forget it, but those that want in will come over, and I'll put your names down.
"Tomorrow I'll go over and put it to Toby. My feeling is that he'll go for it."
A man hopped up quickly. "Ok, Chop, but one question that don't start any arguin'.
"Why'll Shatto agree? Hell, he's got it all now. All I can see is work for him while his goods get used up."
"Well, John, maybe he won't agree. Toby's a solitary man and always was. But it must be lonesome over there, and he don't get to do much except fight off movers.
"Toby also likes running things—about as much as I hate it, I reckon. He just might be wondering how long he's got to sit on his goods before he can use 'em or trade 'em.
"Finally, he's over here a lot because he cares at least a little about us valley people. He's gotten hard from all this killing, but he's the same Toby Shatto we grew up with. He thinks ahead, and my reasoning is that he already has ideas, maybe plans, on how to get things moving again.
"Anyhow, I figure it's worth a try."
+++
Wind-blasted and wave-torn, the island steamed under the new tropical sun. The great storm had blown through, sweeping all before it, and disappeared across the Caribbean.
Even the birds had suffered grievously this time, as great numbers had been swept away by winds beyond the islanders' measuring. Buildings that had stood unbowed by a generation of hurricanes lay flattened or had disappeared, and all 200 tons of the company freight boat had been lifted and deposited a hundred yards above the highest tide.
Strangely, the simple native huts survived better than the timber or concrete block homes, just as most tin roofs had ripped away while the palm thatched ones appeared little damaged.
Jeff Towling understood that mystery. When things got violent you either gave with the forces or you broke. Trees that bent to the wind still grew. The big, stiff ones had been jerked out and were now drifting as logs somewhere between here and Panama.
Towling understood it because he'd been bending all his adult life. When the going got tough, Jeff leaned away. The only stand he'd ever taken was in deciding not to take a stand.
Being pliable didn't gather much moss in the old civilized world and when the company had exiled him to their island plantation, his former associates figured he had gotten more than he deserved.
Well, here he stood, barefoot in the warm sun while most of them were long blown to hell by a missile or trampled under by some mob somewhere. Even before, most of them who used to arrive sneering at his insignificant responsibilities, had saved up their measly two weeks vacation to get to where he spent all of his time. Yep, it paid to bend.
He examined the battered hulk of the freighter, seeing how its huge anchor chain had stretched and parted like a fresh cooked noodle. Powerful, that ocean.
He supposed the beached ship was still his responsibility even if the company didn't exist anymore. Later on he'd come down and hang a sign on it, but chances were good that everyone would help themselves to whatever they wanted anyway. Maybe he'd take the good kitchen knives and things like the fire axes over to his place. Good blades were always worth having.
He walked the beach, enjoying the crisp cleanness of new washed sand with waves still coming in big and powerful. During the storm they had come right across the elbow of the reef that normally gave the harbor protection, and the tide had risen until it had flooded around some of the stilted huts. The long company dock had completely disappeared but the natives launched off the beach anyway. Another day and their small crafts would again be out fishing and their bigger boats that had sailed off to safety would reappear undamaged and ready to trade in the timber, shells, fish, bird guano, and a thousand other things they found markets for.
It had been one hell of a storm all right. Even the mountain top looked blasted clean of the green spiny stuff that grew there. The big antenna was down but with his radio batteries long dead he didn't see much use in fixing it. He stretched, scratching at his beard, and wondered how the lee of the island had fared. Should have done better, as the eye of the hurricane's counterclockwise winds had passed to their south. It might do to look though.
The walk was not long and except for many downed palms it was easy traveling. At first there was nothing remarkable but as he got a better look he saw that there was a boat aground. A catamaran, it looked like, only the mast appeared down. No one moved near it and he hurried along the beach.
Closer now he saw that the boat wasn't aground at all, it was just anchored real close in where it had gotten the best protection from wind and wave. Three anchors were out. Two were right up on the beach while the third paid out into deeper water making sure the boat didn't wash ashore. All lines hooked onto a bow so that the boat could turn but wouldn't drift or go rocketing back and forth between anchors. Good system, he decided.
Hell, the mast hadn't fallen either! It had been lowered to the deck on its hinged tabernacle then lashed fast. Getting that big stick down had left the sailors a stable raft that could ride out pretty fierce conditions.
He waded to the boat, noting bent stanchions and a smashed side port. A rudder was gone as well; ripped clean off it looked like. The boat hadn't gotten off scot-free.
He could just imagine the catamaran giving easily with the sea, riding on the water instead of fighting and struggling. That's how it had survived all right.
Only knee deep in the warm water he knocked on the hull and announced a cheery good morning as though the damnedest s
torm God ever created hadn't graciously spared them all.
After a minute a dark skinned youngster poked a head from the cabin, and then the loveliest blond woman Jeff Towling had ever laid eyes on popped into the cockpit and thrust out a deeply tanned and calloused hand for shaking.
"Good morning, to you. I'm Hanna Weigel and just where on earth are we?"
Towling formed an answer, powerfully aware of the shotgun the boy held ready in both hands.
+++
Chapter 19
For this special night the meeting fire had been started early and allowed to build a thick bed of hot coals.
The close-in hardwoods had long been stripped of easily gathered wood, and chopping and splitting enough to have a real rip roarer of a blaze wasn't so simple.
The ax men cussed a lot as they hacked away, everyone reminding the others of how easy it had been when they had gas and they just fired up a chain saw and laid by cords at a time.
Still, this promised to be a special occasion and weak and worn though they were, at least they could offer a comforting fire.
They all needed comforting. The terrible storm that had come out of the south had just about done them in.
The last such hurricane had been back in 1972. This one they believed was considerably worse and this time there had been no early warnings. Heartbeat Radio had announced it just about the time it arrived. If Toby hadn't given them a radio they wouldn't have had any warning, not that they could make many preparations, but at least no one got caught living on low ground.
How it had gone over on the rivers no one chose to investigate, but Cocolamus Creek went so far over its banks that it looked like the Juniata in spring. Worst was the washing out of their fields. Already half rotted and soured by the soggiest spring any could remember, the monumental deluge flooded out most of what was left and killed off any lingering hopes that they'd raise enough from their planting to see everybody through the next winter.
Tonight they had a new hope because Toby Shatto was coming over to discuss what he and Chop had been working out before the storm knocked everything to hell.
Shatto's Way Page 13