Maybe it wasn’t Mark. If Al Hardy decided that Harvey Randall was upsetting his neat patterns…the Stronghold couldn’t survive without Hardy’s mania for organization. The road was always there, and nobody ever forgot it. Harvey shifted nervously in the hard chair.
Al Hardy sat across from him, pointedly not taking the big chair behind the desk. No one but the Senator would ever sit there if Al Hardy had any choice in the matter. He waved toward the big desk with its Utter of paper. Maps, with penciled lines showing the current shore of the San Joaquin Sea; manpower assignments; inventories of food and equipment, anything they could locate, and another list of needed items they didn’t have; planting schedules; work details; all the paperwork associated with keeping too many people alive in a world suddenly turned hostile. “Think all that’s worth anything?” Al asked.
“It’s worth a lot,” Harvey said. “Organization. That’s all that keeps us alive.”
“Glad you think so.” Hardy raised his glass. “What shall we drink to?” Harvey waved toward the empty chair behind the desk. “To the duke of Silver Valley.”
Al Hardy nodded. “I’ll drink to that. Skoal.”
“Prosit.”
“He is a duke, you know,” Hardy said. “With the high, middle and low justice.”
That knot of fear in Harvey’s stomach began to grow.
“Tell me, Harvey, if he dies tomorrow, what becomes of us?” Hardy asked.
“Jesus. I don’t even want to think about it.” The question had startled Harvey Randall. “But there’s not much chance of that—”
“There’s every chance,” Hardy said. “I’m telling you a secret, of course. If you let it get out, or let him know I’ve told you, it won’t be pleasant.”
“So why tell me? And what’s wrong with him?”
“Heart,” Al said. “Bethesda people told him to take it easy. He was going to retire after this term, if he lived that long.”
“That bad?”
“Bad enough. He could last two years, or he could die in an hour. More likely a year than an hour, but there’s a chance of either.”
“Jesus…but why tell me?”
Hardy didn’t answer, not directly. “You said it yourself, organization is the key to survival. Without the Senator there’d have been no organization. Can you think of anyone who could govern here if he died tomorrow?”
“No. Not now…”
“How about Colorado?” Hardy asked.
Harvey Randall laughed. “You heard them in there. Colorado can’t keep us alive. But I know who would take over.”
“Who?”
“You.”
Hardy shook his head. “It wouldn’t work. Two reasons. One, I’m not a local. They don’t know me, and they take my orders only because they’re his orders. Okay, in time I could get around that. But there’s a better reason. I’m not the right man.”
“You seem to do all right.”
“No. I wanted his seat in the Senate, and he’d have arranged that for me when he retired. I would have been a good Senator, I think. But not a good President. Harvey, a couple of weeks ago I had to go up to the Bonar place and evict his wife and two children. They cried and screamed and told me I was as much as killing them, and they were right, but I did it. Was that the right thing to do? I don’t know, and yet I do know. I know because he ordered it, and what he orders is right.”
“That’s a strange—”
“Character deficiency,” Hardy said. “I could go into my childhood in the Catholic orphanage, but you don’t want to hear my life story. Take it from me. I do best when I’ve got someone else to lean on, somebody else to be the final authority. The Old Man knows that. There’s not a chance in the world that he’d designate me as his successor.”
“So what will you do, when…”
“I’ll be chief of staff to whomever Senator Jellison designates. If he hasn’t designated anyone, then to whoever I think will be able to carry on his work. This valley is his life work, you know. He’s saved us all. Without him it would be like Outside here.”
Harvey nodded. “I expect you’re right.” And I like it here, he thought. It’s safe, and I want to be safe. “What has all this got to do with me?”
“You’re ruining things,” Hardy said. “You know how.”
Harvey Randall’s teeth clenched.
“If he dies tomorrow…” Hardy said. “If he does, the only person who could take over would be George Christopher. No, before you ask. I will not like being his chief of staff. But I’ll do it, because nobody else could hold this valley. And I’ll see that everyone knows that George is the Senator’s chosen heir. The wedding won’t trail the funeral by more than a day.”
“She wouldn’t marry George Christopher!”
“Yes, she will. If it means the difference between success and ruining everything the Senator has tried to build, she’ll do it.”
“You’re saying that whoever marries Maureen ends up in charge of the Stronghold…?”
“No,” Hardy said. He shook his head sadly. “Not anybody. You couldn’t, for example. You aren’t local. Nobody would take orders from you. Oh, some would, if you were the Senator’s heir. But not enough. You haven’t been here long enough.” Al paused for a moment. “It wouldn’t work for me, either.”
Harvey turned to stare at the younger man. “You’re in love with her,” he said musingly.
Hardy shrugged. “I think enough of her that I don’t want to kill her. Which is what I would be doing if I married her. Anything that disorganizes this valley, that splits it into factions, will kill everyone here. We’ll be a pushover for the first group that wants to come in—and, Harvey, there are enemies Outside. Worse ones than you think.”
“You’ve heard something that wasn’t told at the meeting?”
“You’ll find out from Deke when he comes,” Al said. He reached for the bottle and poured more bourbon into both their glasses. “Stay away from her, Harvey. I know she’s lonely, and I know how you feel about her, but stay away from her. All you can do is kill her, and ruin everything her father has built.”
“Now damn you, I—”
“It does no good to shout at me or be angry with me.” Hardy’s voice was calm and determined. “You know I’m right. She must marry whoever will be the new duke. Otherwise, Jack Turner will try to assert his rights, and I will have to kill him. Otherwise, there will be factions who will try to take power because they will believe they have as much right as anyone does. The only possible chance for a peaceful transfer of power is to appeal to loyalty to the Senator’s memory. Maureen can do that. No one else can. But she cannot control everyone. Together, Maureen and George will be able to.”
Finally Hardy’s icy calm broke, just slightly. His hand trembled. “Do you think you are making things any easier for her? She knows what she must do. Why do you think she will see you secretly, but will not marry you?” Hardy got up. “We’ve been long enough. We should join the others.”
Harvey drained his glass, but did not get up yet.
“I have tried to be friendly,” Hardy said. “The Senator thinks highly of you. He likes the work you have done, and he likes your ideas. I think if he had a free choice he might…That doesn’t matter. He does not have a free choice, and now I’ve told you.” Hardy went out before Randall could say anything.
Harvey sat staring at the empty glass. Finally he stood and threw it to the carpet. “Shit!” he said. “Goddammit to hell.”
When the meeting adjourned, Maureen went outside. There was a fine mist, so fine that she hardly noticed. No one bothered with mist. Visibility was good, several miles, and she could see the snow in the High Sierra, and lower. There was snow on Cow Mountain to the south, and that wasn’t quite five thousand feet high. There would be snow in the valley soon.
She shivered slightly in the cold wind, but she wasn’t tempted to go inside and get warmer clothing. Inside she’d have to see Harvey Randall again, and look away. She didn’t want to see a
nyone or speak to anyone, but she smiled pleasantly as Alice Cox rode by on her big stallion. Then she felt, rather than heard, someone come up behind her. She turned, slowly, afraid of whom she’d see.
“Cold,” Reverend Varley said. “You should get a jacket.”
“I’m all right.” She turned to walk away from him, and saw the Sierra again. Harvey’s boy was up in those mountains. Travelers said the scouts were doing well there. She turned back again. “They tell me you can be trusted,” she said.
“I hope so.” When she didn’t say anything else, he added, “Listening to people’s troubles is my main business here.”
“I thought you were in the praying business.” She said it cynically, not knowing why she wanted to hurt him.
“I am, but it’s not a business.”
“No.” It wasn’t. Tom Varley pulled his own weight. He could claim a larger share than what he took from his own dairy herd; and many of the valley people gave him part of their own rations, which he distributed. He never said how. George thought he was feeding outsiders, but George wouldn’t say anything to Tom Varley. George was afraid of him. Priests and magicians are feared in primitive societies…“I wish this were really the Day of Judgment,” she blurted.
“Why?”
“Because then it would mean something. There’s no meaning to any of this. And don’t tell me about God’s will and His unfathomable reasons.”
“I won’t if you say you don’t want to hear it. But are you sure?”
“Yes. I tried that. It doesn’t work. I can’t believe in a God who did this! And there’s just no purpose, no reason for anything.” She pointed to the snow in the mountains. “Winter will be here. Soon. And we’ll live through it, some of us. And another after that. And another. Why bother?” She couldn’t stand looking at him. His collie-dog eyes were filled with concern and sympathy, and she knew that was what she had wanted from him, but now it was unbearable. She turned and walked away quickly.
He followed. “Maureen.” She went on, toward the driveway, but he kept pace with her. “Please.”
“What?” She turned to face him. “What can you say? What can I say? It’s all true.”
“Most of us want to live,” he said.
“Yes. I wish I knew why.”
“You do know. You want to live too.”
“Not like this.”
“Things aren’t so bad—”
“You don’t understand. I thought I’d found something. Life consists of doing one’s job. I could believe that. I really could. But I don’t have a job. I am thoroughly and utterly useless.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. It always was true. Even before…before. I was just existing. Sometimes I could be happy being a part of someone else’s life. I could fool myself, but that wasn’t any good either, not really. I was just drifting along, and I didn’t see much point in it, but it wasn’t too bad. Not then. But the Hammer came and took even that way. It took everything away.”
“But you’re needed here,” Varley said. “Many of these people depend on you. They need you—”
She laughed. “For what? Al Hardy and Eileen do the work. Dad makes the decisions. And Maureen?” She laughed again. “Maureen makes people unhappy, Maureen has fits of black depression that spread like the plague. Maureen sneaks around to see her lover and then destroys the poor son of a bitch by not speaking to him in public because she’s afraid she’ll get him killed, but Maureen doesn’t even have the guts to stop fucking. How’s that for worse than useless?”
There was no reaction to her language, and she was ashamed of herself for trying to…to what? It didn’t matter.
“Isn’t it true that you do care for something?” Varley asked. “This lover. He is someone whose life you want to share.”
Her smile was bitter. “Don’t you understand? I don’t know! And I’m afraid to find out. I want to be in love, but I don’t think I can be, and I’m afraid even that’s gone. And I can’t find out because my job is to be the crown princess. Maybe I ought to marry George and be done with it.”
This time he did react. He seemed surprised. “George Christopher is your lover?”
“Good God, no! He’s the one who’ll do the killing.”
“I doubt that. George is a pretty good man.”
“I wish…I’d like to be sure of that. Then I could find out. I could find out if I can still love anyone. And I want to know, I want to know if the Hammer took that, too. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have spoken to you. There’s nothing you can do.”
“I can listen. And I can tell you that I see a purpose to life. This vast universe wasn’t created for nothing. And it was created. It didn’t just happen.”
“Did the Hammer just happen?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“Then why?”
Varley shook his head. “I don’t know. Perhaps to shock a Washington socialite enough to make her take a strong look at her life. Maybe only that. For you.”
“That’s crazy. You don’t believe that.”
“I believe it has a purpose, but that purpose will be different for each of us.”
“We’d better go in. I’m freezing.” She turned and walked rapidly past him to the stone ranch house. I’ll see Harvey tonight, she thought. And I’ll tell him. Everything. I have to. I can’t stand this any longer.
Journey’s End
In the imminent dark age people will endure hardship, and for the greater part of their time they will be laboring to satisfy primitive needs. A few will have positions of privilege, and their work will not consist in…cultivating the soil or in building shelters with their own hands. It will consist in schemes and intrigues, grimmer and more violent than anything we know today, in order to maintain their personal privileges…
Roberto Vacca, The Coming Dark Age
Ding!
The kitchen timer went off, and Tim Hamner put down his book and picked up the binoculars. He had two sets of binoculars in the guard shack: the very powerful day glasses he now carried, and a much larger night glass that didn’t magnify so much, but gathered a lot of light. They’d have been perfect field-viewing astronomical glasses, except that there were always clouds and Tim rarely saw the stars.
The hut had been vastly improved. Now there was insulation, and more wood frame; it could even be heated. It contained a bed, a chair, a table and some bookshelves—and a rifle rack at the door. Tim slung the Winchester 30/06 over his shoulder on the way out, and only momentarily felt amusement at the thought: Tim Hamner, playboy and amateur astronomer, armed to the teeth as he ventured forth to search out the ungodly!
He climbed up onto the boulder. A tree grew next to it. From any distance away he’d be invisible in the foliage. When he reached the top he braced himself against the tree and began his careful scan of the terrain below him.
Trouble Pass appeared on no maps. It was Harvey Randall’s name for the low spot in the ridges surrounding the Stronghold. Trouble Pass was the most likely route for anyone invading on foot, and Tim scanned it first. He’d looked into it no more than fifteen minutes before; the timer was set for fifteen-minute intervals on the theory that nobody, on foot or horseback, could get over the pass and out of sight in less than fifteen minutes.
There was nobody there. There never was, these days. In the first weeks, walkers had tried to come in that way, and they’d be spotted, and Tim would use the bugle to sound an alarm; ranchers on horseback would go out to meet the intruders and turn them away. Now the pass was always clear. Still, it had to be watched.
Tim spotted two deer and a coyote, five jackrabbits and a lot of birds. Meat, if hunters could be spared. Nothing else in the pass. He swept the glasses on around, over the tops of the skylines and along the barren hillsides. It wasn’t too different from looking for comets: You remember what things ought to look like, and search for anything different. Tim knew every rock on the hillsides by now. There was one shaped like a miniature Easter Island statue
, and another that looked like a Cadillac. Nothing was on the hillsides that shouldn’t be there.
He turned and looked down into the valley behind, and grinned again at his good fortune: better to be a guard on top of the ridge than down there breaking up rocks. “I expect the guards at San Quentin thought that, too,” Tim said aloud. He’d taken to talking to himself lately.
The Stronghold looked good. Secure, safe, with greenhouses, and grazing herds and flocks; and there was going to be enough to eat. “I am one lucky son of a bitch,” Tim said.
It came to him, as it often did, that he was far luckier than he deserved. He had Eileen, and he had friends. He had a secure place to sleep, and enough to eat. He had work to do, although his first scheme, to rebuild the dams above the Stronghold, hadn’t worked out—no fault of his. He and Brad Wagoner had worked out new ways to generate electricity—always assuming they could get Outside and find the wire and bearings and other tools and equipment they’d need.
And books. Tim had a whole list of books that he wished for. He’d owned nearly all of them, back in a time that he barely remembered, a time when all he had to do if he wanted anything was to let someone know it, and let money do the rest. When he thought about books and how easy it had been to get them, his thoughts sometimes strayed further, to hot towels and the sauna and swimming pool, Tanqueray gin and Irish coffee and clean clothes whenever he wanted them. But those times were hard to remember. They were times before Eileen, and she was worth a lot. If it took the end of the world to bring them together, then maybe it was worth it.
Tim was sad only when he thought of life Outside, when he remembered the dead baby and the police and nurses working at the Burbank hospital. Those memories of driving past helpless people sometimes rose to haunt him, and he couldn’t help wondering why he’d survived—more than survived; lived to find security and a lot more happiness than he’d ever expected…
Movement caught his eye. A truck was coming up the road. It was full of men, and Tim almost leaped down into the hut to call a warning. The air was clear of lightning except for the constant flashes up in the High Sierra; the little CB radio would work, but he wasn’t supposed to use it more than necessary. It was damned tough hauling batteries up and down this hill, and it took precious gasoline to recharge them. He let the impulse pass. The truck had a way to go; there was time to examine it through the binoculars.
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