“Well, that’s original, at least,” Cofflin said quietly. He moved forward half a step, so that the clergyman could see him. It cut through the exaltation on the man’s face. The rest of the sermon was a call to pray for guidance.
“Man’s dangerous, Jared,” Martha said.
“Ayup. On’t’other hand, I was a policeman, and now I’m head of state, God help me-but this isn’t a police state. So long as the man does nothing but talk, I can’t stop him.”
“Later might be too late.”
Cofflin took his bicycle by the handles, and they turned and walked toward Martha’s house, not far from the Athenaeum with its white columns. The house she was using, rather; she’d moved into one of the fancy pensions on Broad Street, since the owners weren’t there and neither were the guests booked for the summer. A number of teachers had followed her; one thing the Town Meeting had been firm about was that the schools had to continue, somehow, at least part of the week. She and they weren’t the only ones that had switched dwellings. Some families were doubling up, and many single people were taking over the empty boardinghouses in groups. It saved on cooking and housework and made child care easier, and without television or radio or recorded music, or even electric light, most people found a whole house too cheerless for one person.
“No sense in allowing perfectly good broiled scrod to go to waste,” Martha said practically. “Held off on it when I heard you had trouble with Deubel.”
“Ayup,” Cofflin said, and nodded greetings to several of the people passing by.
She pulled back a cover on the basket she was carrying. “Dandelion greens, chicory, and pigweed, with sliced raw Jerusalem artichokes. Salad.”
Cofflin’s mouth watered, and he swallowed. “Thoughtful of you, Martha,” he said.
“Ought to get some use out of being a Girl Scout leader.”
They walked up the porch, through the dining room, and out into the backyard. Several of the teachers were sitting around, fiddling with a whale-oil lamp. They’d found hundreds of the lamps, maybe more, in antique shops, in the hotels as ornamentals��� most of them functional, with a little work. The whale oil was abundant now, since they were harvesting the whales for their meat more than anything else. More of the oil had started off the wood in the barbecue, but the coals were low and glowing now. A pot burbled on one corner of it, sending out a savory, almost nutty odor.
“Dulse,” Martha said, jerking her head toward it and picking up a platter with two large breaded fish on it. She slipped them onto the grill. They began to sizzle immediately. Meanwhile she rinsed the wild greens from a bucket of water standing in the kitchen-the running water was on one hour a day-and dumped them into a bowl, adding something else from a Styrofoam cooler. “Sea grass,” she added. “Ulva lactuca.” She tossed them with a little oil and vinegar.
Both her own suggestions. Bless her, Cofflin thought. He’d never considered seaweed as anything but stuff that washed up on beaches and smelled, and him a fisherman and a fisherman’s son.
“Well, make yourself useful, Jared,” she said.
He flipped the fish, which were just firming up, and then slid them back onto the serving platter. They went into the dining room and sat; it was just about sundown, and someone had lit the lamp bracketed to the wall. It cast a puddle of yellow light around their table.
“Fine eating on these scrod,” Jared observed after a moment. “Haven’t been doing this well myself.”
“Bachelor,” Martha observed, serving the dulse.
There were some mussels cooked with it, in a thickened broth. Jared savored the green nutty taste of the cooked seaweed and the contrasting flavors of the wild herb salad. His forehead was sweating slightly, and not from the eating or the mild spring weather. Martha ate with the same spare economy she did most things; he was a bit surprised when she brought out a half-bottle of white wine and poured them both a glass.
“Ill wind that blows no good,” he observed after a moment. “Been meeting people I wouldn’t have, before the Event.”
Martha nodded. “Think I can guess what you’re leading up to, Jared,” she said.
He paused with a forkful of fish on the way to his mouth. The sweat rose more heavily on his forehead. Christ, man, what sort of a fool are you? he thought. A high school graduate fool. Just because the world had turned upside down didn’t mean everything was changed. If Martha Stoddard wanted someone, it would be someone from her own level.
“And I’m not saying no,” she added.
“You’re not?” An effort of will prevented his voice from turning into a squeak.
“Wouldn’t have asked you over if I were,” she said. “Or seen this much of you since the Event. I’m not a cruel woman by nature, though I can’t abide fools. Which is why I’m still single, despite a few offers. There was a man in university, archaeologist, did some excellent work on Mogollon pots, but then he started to talk about football��� Mind you, I’m not saying yes either.”
An even greater effort of will prevented him from saying You’re not? in idiotic counterpoint to his last contribution to the conversation.
“And the world was crowded enough as it was,” Stoddard went on meditatively. “None of that applies now, of course��� and I’d say you’re not any kind of a fool, Jared. But we do have to find out how we’d suit, and that should take a while. Plus we’re none of us ourselves, right now. Best not to be hasty.”
“Bundling’s a little out of style, even here,” he said, feeling a laugh welling up. He let it out as a dry chuckle, and felt his shoulders relax. It seemed that some things went on despite glowing domes of light and journeys into the past. Even tentative middle-aged romance, apparently.
“It may come back, with a cold winter and no central heating,” she replied. They touched their glasses.
The Cappuccino Cafe was still open, although the days when it served what Cofflin had always thought of as yuppie fast food-quiches and such-were long past. There were still customers, although the food was made mostly from the same basic rations as everyone was eating. A new exchange system was growing up using the work chits the Council issued. They could be exchanged for food and fuel, but a lot of people preferred to trade some of them in and eat at a place like this now and then, rather than cook at home. Barter, too, he thought, watching two teenagers come in with a brace of rabbits and a duck and begin haggling with the proprietor. Their bicycles were leaned up against the lampposts on Main Street outside, and they had slingshots stuck in the back pockets of their jeans. It was the end of a chilly, foggy spring day; outside a few windows showed lit against the gray gloom. The light had an unfamiliar yellow tinge, lanterns or candles rather than the white brilliance of electricity.
“At least we’re not short of whale oil,” Cofflin said to Dennis Brown, the manager-owner, when the youngsters had collected their chits and IOUs.
“I should hope not,” Brown laughed.
He jerked his head toward the counter behind him. The pots and warming pans were suspended over improvised whale-oil heating lamps. Back in the kitchen an equally improvised stove with a chimney of sheet metal had replaced the electric ranges. It burned wood well doused with the oil, and twists of rendered blubber. The smell of the blubber was a little more ripe than the nutty odor of the oil itself, but they’d all gotten used to it��� a little, at least. Here it was just an undertang to the scent of cooking.
“What’ll it be, Chief?”
“A turkey club sandwich, and a fresh green salad, with a banana and a couple of peaches for dessert,” Cofflin said. They both laughed. “What’ve you got?”
“Lentil soup with rabbit, mixed seafood chowder, and whaleburger. Or whaleloaf, if you want to call it that. And biscuits.”
“Rabbit and biscuits! Hot damn! The lentil with rabbit, and biscuits,” he said. “Three hour-chits do it, or do you want some sort of trade?”
Dennis shrugged. “I’ve got two kids, Chief; I figure we’re pulling through becaus
e of the way you got things organized. It’s on the house.”
“The town pays me to do my job,” Cofflin said gruffly. “I’m not taking freebies.” He held up a hand. “Not even when it’s all right. Bad example. Thanks anyway. Two orders, then.”
Dennis nodded. One of his people dipped out ladlefuls of the soup into bowls and surrounded them with the biscuits. There were only two each, but he still felt saliva spurt into his mouth at the sight and smell of them. Flour was getting scarce; there just wasn’t much on the island.
He took the tray and ambled over to a table, sitting with a bit of a groan of relief. He’d been on his feet all day, or pedaling the damned bicycle, and whatever Coleman said about it being good for them, he still missed cars. For a moment he sighed and remembered; you just got in, turned the key��� and suddenly five miles wasn’t all that far. Less than ten minutes’ travel, warm and dry and comfortable. The power seemed almost godlike. At least Nantucket was relatively flat-although he’d become painfully conscious, mostly in his calves and thighs, that a rise that was barely perceptible behind the wheel was all too obvious when you were pushing pedals. Cofflin looked at his watch. Martha had said she’d be here at six, and it wasn’t like her to be late.
The bell over the door rang, and a man pushed through. Cofflin looked up, and smiled to see Martha behind him. The smile ended when he focused on the man’s face again. It was scraggly and unshaven, but no more than many in town these days-Cofflin had given up shaving more than twice a week himself, what with the razor blade situation, until he found an old cutthroat straight razor in the attic. The man stank of dried sweat, too, for which there was less justification, and his coat was crusted with food stains and dirt. Before the Event, Cofflin would have figured him for a bum-homeless, the jargon was-and seen that he got on the ferry back to the mainland first thing. These days, he looked like an islander who’d been letting himself go a bit.
Have to see about that proposal for bathhouses, he thought. It was just too hard to heat water yourself and then haul it upstairs to a bathtub, particularly when you were exhausted already.
A few people gave the man room, wrinkling their noses at his smell. He marched over to a table, one where a quiet-looking woman in her thirties was sitting with a half-eaten bowl of chowder and a book. She was as worn as he, but considerably cleaner. When she looked up at him, she frowned and snapped:
“Donald, what part of no don’t you understand? It’s over. Learn to live with it.”
“Do you understand this, bitch?” the man said.
Something in his voice froze Cofflin’s smile. His head was turning even as the Glock came out. Time slowed; he could even see the rims of dirt under the man’s fingernails, and the yellow color of his teeth as he snarled through a matted beard glued in clumps with old food.
“Do you?” the man-Donald, Cofflin supposed-said thickly. “Do you understand this?”
Donald Mansfield, he remembered. Up on assault charges for attacking Angelica Brand a couple of weeks ago. Sentenced to extra hard labor and reduced rations; his wife had left him shortly after that. Evidently he hadn’t been adjusting to the Event as well as she had. There was a fair amount of that. Men seemed to be slightly less psychologically flexible, on average.
All that took just long enough for the expression on Martha’s face to freeze and her eyes widen as they slid sideways toward the man with the gun. Cofflin’s hand dropped toward his, and found only an empty belt holding up a pair of blue jeans. George Swain was head of the police these days. Maybe I should have kept the gun. He began to surge forward, cursing the decades that had slowed him down.
The woman’s face had gone fluid with shock; her hands came up in a pushing gesture in front of her and she turned her head aside. That left it facing toward Cofflin. He could see the features twist, not so much with pain as incredulous shock as the bullets punched into her torso. Blood leaked from mouth and nose. She toppled backward and the man grabbed at her. He caught her with one arm around her body and staggered backward himself, to rest with his shoulders against the rear wall of the restaurant, sliding down to sit on the built-in couch. The dying woman slid across him, lying in his lap in a parody of affection. Somewhere in the room a scream tailed off into a choking, retching sound. Ricochet, Cofflin thought. No time to turn around and check who.
“You wouldn’t listen to me, Michelle,” the gunman crooned. “It’ll be better now. We’re together again. I’m sorry I had to hurt you���”
The gun came up and trained on Cofflin. He stepped slightly sideways, putting himself between it and most of the people in the room; those to the side were moving away on their own.
Now, what do you say to someone who’s utterly, completely, incontestably bugfuck? Cofflin thought.
“Mr. Mansfield, why don’t you put the gun down before anyone else gets hurt?” he said, his voice calm and controlled. High pucker factor here. “You can’t hold on to it forever.”
“Michelle will be with me forever!” he said. “You’ll never take her away from me!”
He was a little over twice arm’s length away. Cofflin was quite close enough to see his hand begin to clench on the gun, much too far to cover the distance needed to stop the 9mm bullet punching into him.
Whack. Something struck the wall near Mansfield. Whack. This time it hit him in the body, bringing a grunt of surprise and pain. The gun roared, loud in the confined space of the restaurant, and the bullet went by with an ugly flat crack. Then they were swaying chest to chest, grappling. Even then Cofflin had time to notice the man’s sour stink. The frenzied wiry strength was inescapable, wrenching and twisting at his hand where it held the automatic by the slide and strove to force it upward. Then blackened fingernails clawed for his eyes. He ducked under them and jammed his head into the filthy cloth of Mansfield’s coat. Can’t let go. Too many people behind him, Martha behind him. He hooked an ankle behind the madman’s and pushed. They fell, toppling bruisingly through chairs and marble-topped tables and rolling about.
Whump. This time the gun’s discharge was muffled by the press of their bodies. Cofflin felt hot gases burn his skin, and waited for the battering pain of ripped flesh. Nothing happened except a fresh set of stinks. The body locked against his began to thrash convulsively, and blood spurted into his face. He rolled free, spitting and wiping at his face, his hands coming away red as crimson gloves. One look told him that Mansfield was dying, his body jerking as he drowned in the blood pouring into his lungs. The messy, undignified process would be over in less than a minute. His wife-ex-wife-was already limp beside him, in the crimson pool that was spreading around them; Cofflin put fingers to her throat to check for a pulse, knowing it was futile. Blood was splashed everywhere, walls, the mirrored pillars, even droplets on the pressed steel flowers of the ceiling. More on Martha, where she stood with the teenager’s Y-fork slingshot in her hand. He moved toward her.
“None of it mine,” she said, in a voice like ash.
One of the teenagers lay at her feet, with his companion and another islander giving him first aid; from the way he clutched at his lower stomach, he’d need it to survive until the ambulance got here. And there should be a helicopter to take him to a hospital on the mainland. This shouldn’t have happened at all.
He stooped to pick up the Glock, ejecting the magazine. Three cartridges left, out of twelve. “Damn,” he said hoarsely. “We’ve got to do something about this.”
The vehicle arrived, sirens wailing; someone must have heard the gunshots. The paramedics leaped into action, injecting a painkiller, cutting away cloth, and rigging a plasma drip. One swore softly as he exposed the wound in the youngster’s stomach. They moved the torso quickly, slapping a pressure bandage on the larger exit wound and lifting the victim onto the stretcher. Another was already calling instructions into her radiophone from behind the wheel of the ambulance.
Martha dropped the slingshot, shuddering. Cofflin slipped an arm around her. “You saved my life,” he
said quietly.
“Had to,” she said. “Wasn’t anyone else. You saved us all. Take me out of here, please.”
He did. We’ve got to do something about this, he thought grimly. People were just too near the edge. Get the guns and explosives under control for a while.
“Thought so,” Cofflin said to himself, as the phone in his jacket buzzed.
They were sitting side by side in the chair swing on the front porch, holding hands. The grin he’d been suppressing-he’d never live this down, and several people had passed by close enough to see him in the light of the whale-oil lanterns-slid away unnoticed. The expression left behind was one generations of Cofflins had shown to the sea in its wilder moods, or to a boatload of Papuans trying to storm a whaler cast aground in the South Seas. Charles Fs troops might have recognized it, coming at them behind a three-barred lobster-tail helmet at Marston Moor.
He pulled the phone out and listened. “Go ahead with it,” he replied briefly, then rose and tucked it away. He checked the action of his pistol and reholstered it.
“What’s wrong?” Martha said sharply.
“You weren’t wrong the other day, about Deubel,” Cofflin said shortly. “I couldn’t arrest him before he did anything��� but that didn’t mean I couldn’t have him watched. Now he’s doing something. I’m a cop again, for a little while.”
“Setting fires?” she asked.
He looked at her sharply. “Deduction,” she replied. “The town was nearly wiped out by fires in the 1830s, and he knows it. And it’ll serve his crazy purpose if we’re just damaged enough to die off. The history he’s interested in protecting ends after 30 A.D., and he doesn’t care about what Europeans will find in the Americas.”
That is one hell of a woman, he thought. The grin threatened to come back for a second.
“We do think alike, Martha,” he said. “Have to go. See you at the Council meeting tomorrow. Thanks for the dinner.”
The man fumbled with the oil-soaked rag. One match went out, then another. At last the cloth caught, flames running up it in sullen yellow and red. It dropped to the ground as the yard-long club made solid contact with the back of the arsonist’s head.
Island in the Sea of Time Page 12
