Jane and Gladys had Palomar replete with chintz curtains and lace doilies in no time. Zimmerman and Frank worked in the companionable silence of mountain men, clearing small fields, trying to get the economy self-sustaining. Wheat was out of the question at that altitude but they sowed rye and barley.
The men practiced archery against the day when ammunition would be old and unpredictable. When Gladys pointed out that ingredients for black powder were available, they abandoned the bows and Zimmerman reworked several rifles into muzzle-loaders at the observatory’s machine shop. Distrusting flint, he installed rechargeable silver batteries and coils in the stocks. A spark plug replaced the bolt. Interlocks in both grips made certain that microswitch triggers could not discharge accidentally. Finally, powder, wad, and ball packets were made of waxed paper. A jagged projection in the chamber ripped open the “cartridge” when a ramrod drove it home.
Gladys had a boy.
Frank and Zimmerman cleared as much land as they could work. Grain production scarcely balanced consumption and they were spending too much time at it, in spite of the thresher Zimmerman had rigged from a fan and concrete mixer. There was only one thing to do. When the women had learned to shoot they did it.
Knowing their indispensability, Frank and Zimmerman took exaggerated precautions on the walk to the coast. The Palomar mountain road was badly out of repair where windfallen trees blocked hairpin curves, promising much perspiration on the return trip.
The men walked far apart, one covering the other as they crossed each clearing. Scouting, peeking cautiously over every rise before exposing themselves, they reached San Diego in three uneventful days. They gave Yerrington’s farm a wide berth.
They skulked fearfully through the twisted remainder of San Diego, expecting discovery at every step but nothing happened. As a final precaution, Zimmerman set fire to a small shed in the Naval Supply Depot and they hid some distance away. When flames and the rattle of exploding small arms ammunition brought no watchers they felt reasonably safe.
After two weeks of pirating they were ready to return. The two caterpillar bulldozers made slow progress with their strings of tank trailers. Filling washouts, clearing windfalls, doubling up to get the trailers around switchbacks, the caravan was audible before it arrived at the village. Gladys and Jane alternated watches, expecting at any moment to see Aalstrom burst from the woods, attracted by the snarling roar of tractors, but nothing happened. The light plant would run again. Fields would be cleared and more rye and beans planted.
Gladys had another boy.
Jane had another girl.
Gladys had a girl.
Jane had a girl.
Jane started teaching first grade. Gladys worked out genetics charts for the coming population and began to feel vaguely worried. She told Zimmerman and Jane told Frank. Then everybody worried.
After two nights of grim and preoccupied bridge, Jane broached the subject timidly. There was a sudden babble of conversation and suggestions. Zimmerman talked of artificial insemination without much conviction. Gladys pointed out how impractical it was for unskilled people to attempt complex techniques for doing what comes naturally. Without neighbors to disapprove, the new arrangement caused no friction. It was almost as much fun as bridge.
Gladys had a girl.
Jane had a boy.
Zimmerman worried about the lack of domestic animals. No cow had been seen since Yerrington’s abortive attempt to perpetuate the breed. Aside from bear and deer no edible fauna existed on the mountain. Frank tried to tame a pair of fawns. They wondered if deer could ever be bred up to produce milk efficiently. When a doe came fresh Zimmerman swore it was as good as goat’s milk but his was a minority opinion. The babies continued breast feeding, occasionally augmented with canned milk which was growing scarce.
Gladys had a boy.
Jane had a girl.
Frank had gray hair.
Zimmerman had none.
Young Frank was fifteen. A line of blond fuzz ran down each side of his face, disappearing just before it reached his chin. Above and below his mouth a few coarse hairs heralded the advent of a beard. The younger children had been teasing him about it, making odious comparisons with the luxuriant growth which sprouted between Zimmerman’s biweekly shaves.
At length, Young Frank could stand it no more.
“I want to go down to the coast and get some razor blades,” he insisted. He couldn’t trust himself with the straight-edge razors the men used—or so he wished to believe.
They stalled him for several weeks but one day Gladys discovered that her son was hiding clothing and food in a tree crotch, some distance from the house.
“He’s got to be on his own sooner or later,” Zimmerman said; “we might as well make it legal.” So Young Frank was properly outfitted.
Two days later he stepped off down the switchback road, sleeping bag, pemmican, powder, ball, and an electrically triggered rifle slung over his youthful shoulders.
With a boy’s lighthearted ability to borrow trouble, he headed straight for Yerrington’s farm. He wondered if President Aalstrom was still alive but mainly, he wondered if there was—just possibly—some fifteen-year-old girl he hadn’t played, worked, and fought with every day of his life.
There was.
Her name was Alice Aalstrom. The President wasn’t really her father but he said he was so it amounted to the same thing. Her mother was a widowed Mrs. Adams, formerly Zuniga. When the alphabetical mess decree came, during the period of martial law, Senorita Zuniga was one jump ahead of President Aalstrom. When he looked askance at “Adams” she announced that she was the widow of John Quincy Adams. Aalstrom didn’t know how many hundred years President Adams had been dead but he knew when he was licked.
At that time President Aalstrom was 52. La Zuniga was 23. Untoward circumstances had forced her to seek employment as a dancer on North Main Street at an early age. For those who know Los Angeles it is unnecessary to explain that North Main Street dancers are seldom senoritas in the strict Spanish meaning of the word. At any rate, she was magnificently endowed and well instructed in the best ways to convert such endowments into cash. Had there been any other place to go, the women of Yerrington’s farm might have asked her to. But the widow Adams had had experience in subverting the designs of meddling welfare biddies so it is doubtful if they would have gotten very far.
When she waggled a hip at Aalstrom he decided the White House needed a first lady. The widow Adams accepted. What amazed the president was the number of perfectly logical reasons she had for needing a private room. After six weeks of waiting Aalstrom decided to enter the nuptial chamber, invited or not.
When he found the first lady in flagrante delicto with a presidential aide, one Pvt. Alvarez, he was aghast. By the time he unghasted, Alvarez had grabbed his pants and was out the window. For reasons of state the affair was hushed up. When Alice was born the President handed out cigars.
Fifteen years later she was a lovely latin doll with no hint of Aalstrom’s towheadedness. The founders of Palomar all tended to fair and ruddy complexion.
Young Frank lay in the weeds near the spring. She had come twice that morning for water. The second time he had seen her from quite close up. He had scouted the farm carefully. There were four men, all old. None carried arms. The water bearer was obviously the eldest of the postwar generation. With insight rare for his years Frank deduced that they would not willingly part with her. He also knew that a sudden acceleration of pulse and respiratory rate meant that he could not leave without her.
When she came for water again he made believe she was a deer and worked around until he stood between her and the village. She was startled but not nearly as frightened as he was. “Who are you?” he asked.
“Alice Aalstrom. Who are you?”
“Frank Zimmerman.”
“I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
Frank gawked at her, wishing for words. Reason said “express your thoughts.” Instinct said
if he did she’d run.
“Ma’s waiting for this water,” she said after a moment.
“You’ll come back?”
She nodded.
“Don’t tell them about me,” he cautioned.
Without knowing why, she agreed.
Gone as he was, Frank did not throw caution to the winds. As the girl walked back to the White House he flag-tailed through the brush to a vantage point atop the hill where he studied the farm for unusual activity.
Alice deposited the pail of water beside the mud oven where her mother was kneading bread. “Who’s Zimmerman?” she asked.
The First Lady pursued her lips with a glance at a splintering lawn chair where the ancient President ruminated in the sun. Alice understood that it was one of the subjects to be avoided lest the old man start banging his cane about. She often wondered why they didn’t let him get good and mad so he’d have another stroke but her mother explained that they felt an irrational affection for the irascible President who had, in spite of his limitations, piloted them through the first terrible years.
That night Alice crept from the house and made her silent way to the spring. Frank stepped from a shadow into brilliant moonlight and they looked at each other in mute awe. There had never been this awkwardness with brothers and sisters at home.
Alice asked Frank where he came from. Frank was instinctively vague but he spoke of electric lights which Alice had never seen. He talked of reading which she’d never had time to learn. He described the television programs which they played through tape recorders on winter evenings. Alice had heard of TV but she thought it was one of those half-forgotten legends like the god the old people occasionally talked of.
When she came for water the next day Alice brought him a fresh loaf. Frank had never tasted wheat bread before. He didn’t much care for it but, like vanished millions of young martyrs, he praised a young lady’s cooking extravagantly and devoured it under her watchful eyes. That night they talked again.
Frank redoubled his accounts of Palomar’s marvels until she was thoroughly convinced he was lying. Still, on the third night she brought the remains of a GI blanket and her other dress. As they walked toward Palomar Frank still thought she was coming to watch TV but, of course, Alice knew what she was doing. With the casual cruelty of the very young she gave not a hint to her mother.
Next morning her mother thought it odd that the girl should go fishing or hunting cactus apples so early but she didn’t worry until later when she detected the missing blanket and dress. She remembered how her daughter had asked about Zimmerman and it was suddenly clear. To her surprise, Mrs. Aalstrom caught herself wondering how her own mother had felt twenty years ago when a daughter had left home to dance on North Main Street.
The President stirred long enough to ask why in blazes Alice hadn’t brought his gruel and the news could be withheld only so long. He had another stroke in the midst of his vituperation against the despicable, rank-breaking Zimmerman. A day and a half later he roused momentarily, muttered something about “goddamn BAR” and heaved a tremendous rattling sigh. They didn’t bother to elect a new president.
It wasn’t until Alice had been settled in Palomar for several weeks that Frank remembered he still didn’t have any razor blades. Zimmerman flashed a toothless grin and stopped working on his new plate long enough to show the boy how to hone and strop a cutthroat razor. By tacit agreement safety razors were never mentioned again. Meanwhile, Alice had her troubles.
Though it had never been put in so many words, two Palomar girls had always known that one of them would someday bear Frank’s children. After the shock wore off these former rivals united. Alice blossomed with bruises and scratches. Jane and Gladys watched anxiously, wondering what to do and how to do it. While they wondered the younger of the local girls magically acquired a mangled ear. Two days later the elder tormentor had the glazed look of one who has known horrors not meant to be seen. She had a cross incised in one cheek and a disinclination to discuss it. Alice taught the smaller girls to pierce their ears and the two older girls were on the outside, looking in. After a sufficient time Alice let them back in. Once again the succession had changed.
Like most husbands, Young Frank knew nothing of his wife’s affairs. When the elders asked him to take a second and a third wife a year later, he did so with some trepidation.
Alice had a girl.
The cauliflower-eared girl had a boy.
The cheek-marked wife had a boy.
Much to Frank’s surprise, the three got on beautifully.
The marked wife’s boy stole a girl from Yerrington’s farm. It was the first time he’d ever stolen a wife so he wasn’t very expert. A half mile from the farm he slackened his grip a moment and the girl broke loose. In the excitement she ran so fast he couldn’t catch her. Back on the farm, she resolved not to be in such a hurry the next time but he never came back. She spent her declining years frightening children with tales of the Zimmermen.
After bungling his wife-stealing, the marked wife’s son came home. An unfortunate concatenation of chromosomes made him Palomar’s most eligible candidate for village eightball. Eventually he found a soulmate and they produced nine mediocre children.
The Zimmerman-Zybysko strain bred true again in the third generation. The eightball’s first grandson showed promise of an ability comparable with that of the original Zimmerman. At ten months he walked. At fifteen years he walked east, following the sunrise from waterhole to waterhole until he reached Arizona and—people.
He stayed to unravel the damage which isolation had done to their English and returned with a treaty and eight packdeer loads of cotton cloth.
When he was seventeen he pulled off an even greater coup.
The Aalstroms of Yerrington’s farm lived in an isolation beyond the wildest dreams of midwest senators. With daring equal to Perry’s opening of Japan or, possibly, Jason’s foray into the Black Sea, this Zimmerman opened Yerrington’s farm. Lesser men had tried but the frustrated bride had done her work well. For generations noisy children had been sent supperless to bed with assurances that the Zimmermen would get them. All hard luck and every misfortune was attributed to the Zimmermen.
After an initial period of adjustment, stolen Aalstroms invariably surrendered soul and body to the comforts of mountain civilization. Nothing could induce the girls to return to the farm for missionary work. Zimmerman the explorer, Zimmerman the empire builder, broke this impasse.
One morning the Aalstroms awoke to the accompaniment of a minor fusillade and found themselves besieged. That a sole Zimmerman was attacking made it all the more marvelous. Brushing sleep from their eyes, they saw the Zimmerman standing carelessly in their yard. When an Aalstrom moved cautiously forward with a spear the Zimmerman gestured. Thunder spoke forth from the hill where he pointed.
As the elders scrambled backward the Zimmerman stood, godlike in his calm, muttering a mystic litany, “One mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi,” waiting for the fuse to burn down on his next bomb. He pointed majestically and the outhouse erupted.
To the Aalstroms, for whom the legend of gunpowder had retreated to the vanishing point, the effect was devastating. The Zimmerman distributed his skillets and scythe blades and left with a token pack-deer load of wheat.
An Aalstrom elder spent several days burning green willow smudges in the Zimmerman’s footprints, making ritual gestures of exorcism with a burned-out scintillometer. He wanted to destroy the scythe blades but was voted down. They were needed too badly. When the Zimmerman came back a month later the elder said, “I told you so,” but the others shook their heads knowingly and said the priest had used the wrong words.
The Zimmerman had a son.
Fifteen years of commerce with Palomar brought the Aalstroms a step or two back up toward civilization but mothers still frightened children with tales of the Zimmermen.
Zimmerman the Explorer’s son came down from the mountain. He hung around the Aalstroms’ sev
eral days, trying to scrape up an acquaintance with one of those delectable lowland girls but with a name like Zimmerman it wasn’t easy. He toyed with the idea of stealing a girl but he was afraid it might queer one of his father’s deals. His father was favorably impressed with such a display of foresight at fifteen so he decided the boy deserved a break.
This break took the form of another expedition into Arizona. It was a long, dry trip and they lost two packdeer on the way but when Zimmerman the Explorer saw the look on his son’s face he decided it was worth it. The young Zimmerman stood frozen as a pointer, gazing in absolute awe at the Mexican girl. While he puzzled how large dark eyes and shiny hair could have a wonder he’d never noticed in the results of Senorita Zuniga’s chromosomes back home, Zimmerman the Explorer gazed with equal reverence at the burro she rode.
He had seen burros in TV transcriptions but never in the flesh. Trim as the girl was, a packdeer could never have carried her. Burros would give Palomar a boost until such time as they could again build machinery. Father and son looked at each other.
It took a bit of haggling and the young Zimmerman couldn’t understand Arizona English very well so he never did find out how many of the scythe blades were for the pair of burros. Since the girl came with them, he didn’t care.
They headed back a week later, picking their careful way through the remains of Highway 80 with a deer-and-burro-trainload of cotton. On the fourth night out they camped by a spring in one of the switchbacks near the summit. The elder Zimmerman had been watching the packdeer carefully for the last hour. He suspected a carnivore of some kind was paralleling their trail from the way they spooked.
While the men hobbled the animals the bartered bride was gathering firewood. When she shouted the Zimmermen came on the run with rifles at ready.
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