Shatto's Way

by Roy F. Chandler

  There was only one certified teacher in the village, but Toby found that unimportant. This school would be taught by many. He intended to oversee most of the mathematics instruction and be certain that those with ability received thorough grounding. During their lifetimes computers would be back. The technology was known, and it would rise phoenix-like to again dominate business, banking, and government. He was certain of that.

  He supposed the school would be quite unorthodox but times were different. Reading, writing, and history would be stressed, and he intended to involve anyone who had knowledge and showed teaching ability. There would also be classes in self-defense and shooting. Those for certain weren't in the old curriculums.

  Since the raid on Kin Kora they had enjoyed peace, but a swallow did not make a drink and other brigands were afield.

  Harrisburg's Colonel Kellog worried him considerably. The man was a pirate, unmerciful in victory and hungry for power. The stories of the Colonel's activities that reached them were not soothing, and Toby feared that if the man's strength grew to allow lengthy campaigning, Shatto's Way would not be overlooked.

  Just as they spoke of Millerstown as Burned Town, his people now called Kin Kora the Killing Place. The name fit because they had wiped that viper's pit pretty clean.

  Astonishingly, at least three survivors had escaped the dynamite and his men's encirclement. In addition to Praying Mantis, whom only Toby had seen, two others scrambled down the embankment and disappeared. John Freet was fit to be tied, for although his men fired at the fleeing duo within reasonable range, both had kept going.

  To all who had seen the guard tower blown sky high and the guard's long fall back into the ruins, the greatest astonishment was the same man's immediate leap to his feet and successful dash through the shotgun cordon. It was ruefully agreed that tough's time had simply not come.

  Humor became associated with the attack when the party discovered that Toby's safety hollow had apparently been a popular latrine for the Kin Kora thugs. Toby already knew it, and as he scrubbed clothes and body in Sherman's Creek he loudly vowed that the next hole he dove into would first be carefully checked by shoving someone else's nose in it.

  Except for Toby's wounds, the Shatto men had escaped the Killing Place untouched, One man sprained an ankle on the march home and was more or less carried in. Toby's burns and cuts healed normally but his right ear remained irregularly deaf. Most days he heard all right but occasionally it would act blocked up and ring unendingly. The doctors examined and conferred. They decided it might clear up or it might not.

  Chop Clouser worried about his friend. Despite willingness to delegate authority, far too much detail fell to Toby. Unwittingly, grown men played the games of their children and attempted to maneuver Toby or his delegates to personal advantage. Everyone was quick to turn to the final authority, and there was a tendency to get Toby to decide if another's decision was not pleasing.

  Toby was as sour as a pickle most of the time. If he began to loosen up and enjoy something it seemed somebody pranced up with a problem that would have stumped King Solomon. Chop figured Toby was lonesome. He tried siccing a girl or two on his friend but Toby gently redirected their attentions. He saw to it that Toby was invited to family gatherings and encouraged others to just go over and talk with Toby for a while. It might have helped—Chop couldn't tell—but he darned sure hadn't found a cure.

  Coming back from the new school Toby tried to put his current dark mood behind. He had little to be angry or sad about. He guessed maybe he needed a vacation. The thought bleakly amused him because vacations were for now a thing of the past.

  He recognized a need for a little mothering, he supposed. Someone to pat his back or rub his head. Someone to whom he could unburden his thoughts, his plans, his frustrations. He could do all that with Chop, but Chop . . well, Chop wasn't his. He just needed his own . . . person. A wife? He shied from the thought.

  He had another marriage to perform and babies were arriving. Result of the early winter apparently. Winter . . . what would it deal this year? Deer were reappearing a little. Hogs gone wild were rooting in herds of increasing size. He might turn some hunters into them, but they'd go with bows. Ammunition might be irreplaceable for a long time. He wondered if old time crossbows might be a best solution? If a crossbow bolt pierced medieval armor, it should drop a hog in its tracks.

  He had to meet with the land committee and finalize the new boundaries for the farms that would surround them. Old borders meant nothing now. Most had been ridiculous things anyway that cut awkwardly or inconveniently here and there.

  A man had come in offering knowledge of a really large electric generator once used by the old penitentiary at Lewisburg. They could use that; electricity was still a limiting facility. He wondered for a moment where all the convicts had gone? Maybe the man knew about the generator because he had been one of them.

  There was so much to do that he couldn't take time to sort things out. He'd delegated about all his people could handle and still the jobs piled up. Remaking everything almost from scratch needed time and none of them, himself included, wanted to allow it. There were tasks he itched to get after and he was stuck with a thousand and one nit-picky, nothing decisions that robbed him of opportunity.

  More radio stations were coming on each week and New Washington, as some called it, claimed to offer local television. He ought to have scouts out discovering what was developing. If Harrisburg was rising from its own ashes they might develop profitable trade. If their grain increased as they planned, down river shipments by boat might reach quite distant markets. A number of travelers had reported the Conowingo dam destroyed by a local group who wanted the fish to run as they once had.

  He was wondering how on earth they had blown up such a huge structure when his thoughts were distracted by excitement down along the high road.

  People were gathering in a knot, hooting and hollering back and forth. As they moved it looked as though a pair of blacks wearing big, floppy sun hats had arrived. Not many blacks left the urban areas and exceedingly few had been seen this far out.

  A woman and a boy he judged. There was something about the way the woman moved that tickled a memory he couldn't place, but he saw Chop down there and whatever the reason for the excitement, he could handle it.

  He cut across toward the cave, pausing a moment for a drink at a water tap, only to find a mob pouring his way with big Chop in the lead. Behind, the blacks were lost amid laughing and shouting people, and Toby wondered half irritably just what in hell was so wonderful that everybody quit their work to mill around.

  Chop reached him with a rush, blocking Toby's sight of what was going on, his teeth shining like a line of polished gravestones and his eyes about jumping out of his head with eagerness to talk. Instinctively, Toby stuck out a straight arm to hold him off but Chop took no notice.

  "Toby! God damn, Toby! I can't believe it. It's Hanna, Toby! It's Hanna!"

  The name brought a rush of bittersweet memories and he wondered aloud, "Hanna who?"

  Incoherent with excitement, Chop reached out and pulled Toby into a crushing bear hug. His face sunk into Chop's sweaty shirt, Toby heard him say, "Hanna, Toby! Our Hanna!"

  Still uncomprehending, he let Chop pull him away so that he faced the group only yards away. They had come to a stop and waited, poised silently, faces bright with expectation.

  As Toby brought his attention on them, the woman reached up and pushed her floppy hat onto her back. Hair as golden as ripened corn brightened the sun and Toby was shocked to his soul. His breath sucked in and his heart seemed suspended. His mind reeled in disbelief while it fought to accept what his eyes told him was really there.

  +++

  They had come off Wildcat Ridge, crossed the valley, and walked up to the guards waiting for them. She knew neither but said, so matter-of-factly that she startled herself, "I'm Hanna Roth and I belong here."

  Their appearance created increasing tumult as lifelong acqu
aintances rushed to welcome her. Carter stayed close by her side, trying to smile away his unease, and she kept his hand in hers reminding him of her caring.

  Chop Clouser appeared utterly stupefied, as if she had risen from the dead, but his astonishment became absolute satisfaction and he kept repeating "Just wait 'till Toby finds out! Just wait!"

  Then she had seen him, walking across in his alert, on-toes stride, and she had started for him. He seemed to look at her for a moment but then continued on and her heart thudded mightily until she realized he couldn't tell it was her, all tanned black, wearing old sailor pants and a Caribbean sun hat.

  Chop got in front, and his big body blocked everything,

  He waved around, hugged Toby so hard his feet danced keeping balanced and she stopped to wait, unaware of the sudden silence that waited too.

  When Toby got a chance to look, she pulled off her hat and let her hair fly so he'd know. She saw his face freeze and watched his knees buckle a little. His hand rose to scrub at his eyes, then reach toward her. Through a sudden rush of tears she knew the terrible voyage had been right and that she'd come home to a man who wanted her.

  Toby managed a single step and a still disbelieving and almost soundless, "Hanna?"

  She nodded, unable to speak, and ran to him. His voice stronger again questioned, "Hanna?" while she was still coming and finally, as she reached him, he choked, "Oh Hanna! Oh my God, Hanna!" and enfolded her within his strong arms.

  For moments they rocked there reveling in the rediscovery of each other, then she became aware of his chest heaving and gently patted his back and stroked his neck with loving tenderness. The months of anticipation could not approach the fulfillment and special beauty of the long-dreamt-of moment.

  Chop took Carter in tow, and with the others, walked away. For them it was again a first, for they had seen Toby Shatto crying.

  +++

  Chapter 27

  THE FIFTH YEAR

  Just beyond the cave entrance had proven a good place to stop and look around. From there Toby had an overview of most of Shatto's Way. Often he would just stand there and marvel at the difference a half decade made.

  How clearly he could remember the lines of sheds and the community bathhouse. The original medical clinic had always leaned a little no matter how they jacked it around. People had lived nose to nose back then, with too few rooms and fewer privacies,

  Why in those days they were following their few farm animals around making certain no fertilizer was wasted. Then, the fields had been tiny and worked by hand. No manicured crops of wheat, corn, and barley rolled from ridge to ridge.

  Off to the right, the medical center sprawled in a web of connected buildings that its directors assured him was efficient in operation and energy conservation. Toby took their word for it. The installation had burgeoned beyond his imagination and had been granted autonomy during the third year. The directors reported to him only as a part of their original agreement, and perhaps as a way of granting him a sort of director emeritus status.

  He was wise enough to appreciate the courtesy and stay out of the hospital's management.

  Hmm, the third year? Obviously he was as bad as the others. Everybody got to measuring history from the year of the collapse. The teachers rightly complained that no one thought in terms of BC and AD anymore and implied instead that the world started when the truckers went out, or when Washington was destroyed, or when Shatto's Way was put together. Toby agreed that it was inaccurate and extremely provincial, but most kept right on doing it.

  So, this was called the fifth year. At least such dating kept the great catastrophe clear in their minds. He wondered if other communities did the same.

  The medical center, the school, and the engine works had eaten up their available labor and new families had joined the community. Despite his wish to remain small, Shatto's Way had steadily grown.

  Increased population did offer improved security, and the village was able to encompass many times the land area originally held. Farms were allocated and buildings went up in an explosion of construction that was difficult to oversee.

  Toby appointed a construction committee authorized to immediately dismantle any building not properly engineered and was able to prevent erection of poor grade homes or outbuildings. His ruling that no buildings would be placed on farmable ground inevitably caused grumbling, but he enforced it as a law of the land, placing a healthy and productive environment ahead of short sighted convenience. Having no choice, the people built right and after absorbing the added labor were invariably glad they had. The homes of Shatto's Way were strong, comfortable, and energy efficient.

  Chop's place lay just beyond his own land, and Toby considered his friend's home the best yet conceived. Into it they had incorporated the finest passive solar techniques and the result was a mostly underground residence with its face open to the south, but enjoying great wide verandas that looked across the fields toward Wildcat Ridge. When they got around to building their own home, Toby expected that he and Hanna would plan to model it a lot after Chop's.

  Farmers working fields raised the only sounds across the valley and the muffled rumble of their tractors was sweet music to Toby's ears. Burning alcohol, the engines were almost pollution free and needed only a minimum of maintenance.

  Far to the left, the towers and pipes of the alcohol distillation plant wrapped serpent-like around each other, it's solar furnaces were probably the best around, and although they still had need of wood and coal firing, each improvement reduced that dependency a little further.

  If the medical center had become the village heartbeat, the alcohol plant was its circulatory system. Although Shatto's Way shipped grain, their alcohol trade brought the better profit. They had the jump on other communities trying to produce industrial alcohol and the plant's directors were busily increasing their advantage.

  But alcohol needed engines and engines required wheels, so their reclamation shops comprised a dozen buildings close against the ridge. At the moment, a meeting was underway or that area would have been resounding with the hammering and hissing of metal work.

  Lord knew what the meeting was about but because those who labored in the place owned a percentage—and always would—there was no debilitating conflict between management and labor. Owning a piece of the action, the workers were motivated to keep things humming.

  It was peaceful looking across the valley. He saw a doe skulk into deeper shade and a few hummingbirds magically appeared and reappeared at Hanna's feeders.

  As he watched, a class boiled onto the school playground and began the frantic darting common to the young. He looked for Carter or his own boys but didn't see them.

  Well, it hadn't always been this peaceable and secure. He guessed the worst time had been the last time, back there in the second year, and his hand went unconsciously to the center of his chest where the bullet had struck. They had named it the Governor's War, which he thought pretentious for a single battle, but it had been a time fraught with danger, for to have lost would have meant the end of Shatto's Way and probably the deaths of most of them.

  Momentarily caught up on work, he decided to just walk around and talk with people. In his younger years he hadn't cared much for idle chatter, but responsibilities wore at him and, too often to suit, he lost touch with his people's feelings about matters.

  Hanna was much better at dealing with people than he was. Where he tended to be abrupt and peremptory, she enjoyed listening and becoming involved in others' emotional entanglements. As a result, she often had a clearer picture of how people felt about things than he did, and long ago most had realized that one way to penetrate Toby Shatto's armor was to gain his wife's support.

  If he got to thinking about it, he suspected that Hanna had arrived just about in time. His nerves had been getting ragged back then, and he doubted conditions would have allowed any miraculous recovery.

  He could still shudder at the thought of life without her and wonder
ed sometimes just how he had been so stupid to let her marry away the first time. Hanna gave him direction and purpose. Their two sons made them a family and mellowed his outlook, as a hundred years could not have. If there were such a condition as contentment, he thought he now closely approached it.

  Of course Hanna had steadied the village almost as strongly as she had him. Her months of sea command and the two hundred mile trek through unfriendly countryside had burned away any self-doubt she may have harbored.

  Hanna moved into the community like a powerful tide that simply picked things up from where they had settled and re-deposited them where it desired.

  They were married within a week of her arrival. It took that long to convince Toby that he wasn't rushing Hanna and for Hanna to accept that Toby really was finding it hard to wait. There was some discussion about certifying Ken Weigel's death and Doctor Bernard James's credentials to perform their marriage. In the end, they just wrote in the village record that it was so. They had no outsiders to answer to anyway.

  The women took Hanna to their bosoms and dressed her properly for the occasion. Toby spruced himself until Chop snickered, and he in turn guffawed at Chop's loose fitting best man's suit.

  They were married facing the steel-doored cave that would be their home while Bernard James rolled his voice across the assembled community with his customary bare condescendence and insufferable arrogance; each of which, by some mysterious alchemy, pleased them and made the moments even more memorable.

  Hanna Shatto made an immediate difference. Toby perked up and quit glooming around. About everyone expected that. What no one had anticipated was Hanna's quiet ability to affect most of their lives.