“I got what was necessary.” Durant felt overpoweringly weak as Sadler gently helped him from the car. The two Picked Guards supported him, almost carried him up the two shallow white steps toward the door. He closed his eyes momentarily against the light, and felt himself lifted. There was a chair under him, and all about him was silence. He opened his eyes.
He was in a large and firelit living room, very pleasant, not lavish as Lincoln’s home was lavish, but comfortable and gay. A ring of people was before him, a short fat man, bald and calm, in a chair, and beside him a middle-aged woman with a white and appalled face, her stark eyes desperate with fear and grief. Behind these two a couple of young and buxom farm women and a man about thirty stood in rigid quiet. They were all staring at Durant, and their mouths were pressed hard together in stubborn wariness.
Durant watched them as Sadler expertly cut away his right sleeve. He did not glance at his wound; he was only vaguely aware that Sadler had rolled up a handkerchief and was pressing it hard against his shoulder. The pain was nothing to him; his eyes moved slowly from one face to another. Then he said, flatly, looking at the older man: “Your son, Ken, is dead.”
The woman uttered a shrill and anguished cry, then put her hand to her mouth. Vossen puffed at his pipe and said nothing. One of the girls whimpered, but was almost immediately silent. The dark thin man near her tightened his mouth and glanced away from Durant. The other girl merely blinked.
Durant went on: “In a few minutes, he’ll be brought in. But I want to question all of you. Your son tried to kill me, Vossen. He set up a road block. Did any of you help him?”
Vossen took his pipe slowly from his mouth, cleared his throat. He showed no sign of sorrow, and his rough voice was even: “None of us helped him. We’re law-abiding people, Colonel. We don’t like what you’ve done to us farmers in this Section, and we hope that Washington’ll soon overrule you. Morrow’s down there, now. But we don’t go around trying to kill the Military; you’ve always been our friends. Up to now,” he added unemotionally. If he was frightened there was no sign of it.
His wife burst into tears and rocked in her chair, moaning. The daughter nearest her put her hand on her mother’s shoulder.
Now the older son spoke, as unemotionally as his father: “You’ve taken our crops, and fixed the price, and we get just about what the city workers in the plants get. But we hope the Military will soon change its mind. We’re not killers, we farmers. We work legal, and if we got to sacrifice, we’ll sacrifice.”
Durant contemplated them thoughtfully. “Very good,” he said at last, with contempt. “I believe you.” He hated them, hated their docility. They were regarding him with fixed attention, even the weeping mother. He could read nothing from their faces. They were pale, but they were not too much afraid of him. He began to wonder, to take hope.
The older son said: “There was always something wrong with Ken. Two years ago we took him to a psychiatrist, who said he was a psycho. That is, not adjusted. They sent him away for a year, and then he came home and we thought he was all right. Had his moods, but did his work, and kept his mouth shut. We don’t know where he got the gun, sir, that he fired at you. We don’t know anything at all about it.” He drew a deep breath, and stared hard at Durant. “It’s better this way, his being dead. No telling what he might have done if he’d got away.”
There was hatred and enmity in this room, and a cold determination. Durant began to feel better by the moment. Vossen was nodding. “Better this way,” he agreed. But the mother was sobbing again, her hands over her face. The older son looked at her, and his hands clenched. The daughter near her helplessly patted her head.
“Well,” said Durant, “I suppose I’ll have to take your word that you knew nothing about your son, or any of his activities. I could put you all under arrest, and hold you for questioning. But we need the farmers, and I’ve had no report against you.”
He turned to Beckett. “Get the soldier and bring in young Vossen’s body.”
He waited, and the others waited with him, silently. Only the mother’s weeping made any sound in the room. The fire crackled loudly, and somewhere a dog barked. Vossen was smoking again, and gazing at the floor; he showed no interest in his wife. Tears were running down the girls’ faces; the older son stood stiffly and looked at nothing. Then heavy footsteps were heard, and Beckett and the soldier entered the room, hauling the dead body roughly between them. They laid him on the floor near his parents’ feet, and his body fell, sprawled and grotesque, the filmed eyes open, the clothing sodden with blood. The mother screamed, pulled herself from her chair and knelt by her son. She took his head in her arms and held it passionately against her meager breast, as she had held it not so many years before. She smoothed the wet hair with her hands; she kissed the white face over and over. She called to her son wildly, in a heartbreaking voice, and her gray hair straggled over her cheeks.
They all watched. No one moved. The boy’s blood was on his mother’s hands, on her print dress. She rocked him in her arms, holding him protectingly. Durant examined the faces of the father and the son and the daughters. They were expressionless; their eyes were fixed on the mother and her dead child. But Durant felt the cold violence that lay behind those impassive faces. Then, all at once, as if some one had commanded it, every eye turned upon Durant and he found himself looking at hatred.
No, none of them had helped young Vossen; none of them had known of what he had set himself to do. They regretted only that Durant was not dead, that the brave boy had not succeeded. So, thought Durant, the farmers are just about ready to move. He had no illusions that they were inspired by any ideals, for they had lost them decades ago, or had destroyed them deliberately for profit. The old-fashioned farmer was gone. These hated the Military because of what the Military had done to them, curtailing their power and their position and their incomes. It would be in an effort to regain these that they would strike. Good enough, commented Durant to himself, somberly. He had no pity for them, no pity for the sorrow they were repressing because he was present, and because they were shrewd and cautious. He had pity only for the mother.
A car roared up to the door outside, and he knew his officers and the doctors had arrived. He said to Beckett and the soldier: “Take the body away, and the family with it. I can’t stand the sight of them.”
He closed his eyes. His strength was gone; he had lost too much blood. A dizzy darkness whirled about him. He heard voices, but was too listless to care. He felt a stabbing in his arm, and movements around him. He fainted again.
Despite the objections of his doctors, Durant insisted upon returning to work within a few days. The Philadelphia newspapers were enthusiastic about “our Colonel’s devotion to duty.” They explained that “our Colonel is engrossed in making the coming celebrations on Democracy Day the most spectacular and eventful of any previous celebration, and is determined that the people of this city shall have happy reason to remember our Day of Days.” The papers, at Durant’s command, gave full coverage to the account of the attempt on his life, and, at his private order, attacked “some irresponsible farmers, long accorded special privileges by a benevolent State, who, because they are asked to sacrifice in this present emergency, are displaying violent symptoms of rebellion. A long-suffering and patient people have, too long, endured the arrogance of wealthy farmers, and this crime against our Colonel is an ominous sign that they believe they can control The Democracy and need obey no laws but their own.”
The tormented people were aroused by editorials such as this, and especially by accounts of the “unlawful concealing of food by our local farmers, and the unlawful withhholding of food from the people.” It was no coincidence, then, that several barns were mysteriously set aflame during the week or two following the attempt on Durant’s life, and that huge supplies of foodstuffs disappeared from farm warehouses. Durant, remembering the grief of the Vossens, felt a twinge of regret that their house was, a week before Democracy Day, burnt to the g
round. Fearful that his popularity with the people might become too dangerous, he ordered that all “criminals” connected with the fires and the stealing of farm goods be apprehended immediately. As a consequence, over one hundred men and women were thrown in prison on mere suspicion. His popularity was extinguished at once, and he was relieved. But there were more “outrages” against the farmers, in spite of harsh punitive measures, and two State warehouses, filled with food left there for decay, were raided one dark night by “bands of subversives who carried off tons of meat, butter, eggs, and other commodities being carefully reserved by the Government for equal distribution to the people in accordance with law.”
Well, thought Durant, quite a number of families are eating ravenously these days, and gathering strength for the great revolt.
Other incidents, even more grave, occurred throughout the Section, and were followed by military raids on homes and factories. Durant, however, was careful that these raids did not result in the imprisonment of potential leaders. He imprisoned only the obviously stupid and innocent, and gave wide publicity to their punishment. He preferred that young girls and boys be the recipients of vengeance by the State, and so it was that at least ten children were sent away to labor camps from which it was known they would never return.
Now even the most obtuse could feel and see the submerged hate and rage of the crowds on the street. Heads of bureaus called for extra guards for their persons and their homes. The streets were full of soldiers, on twenty-four hour duty. It was odd, however, that the soldiers now never seemed to be able to apprehend criminals before “crimes” were committed, and that their raids netted fewer and fewer victims. But the newspapers did not write of these things. They spoke of the “enthusiasm” being shown for “our most popular commanding officer, and the increased efforts being put forth in the war plants by labor in response to Colonel Curtiss’ pleas.”
Three days before Democracy Day, Durant received another letter from Carlson. It was very affectionate, and expressed the Chief Magistrate’s concern for the health of Colonel Curtiss and his hope that the wound had been only superficial. The Chief Magistrate regretted that his “best commanding officer” would not be able to participate in the celebrations of Democracy Day in New York. “We expect at least three million people to pay special homage on the Day to the Statue of Liberty. I have never seen such vigor and spirit among New Yorkers, and such determination that this Day must surpass all other Days.” The Military and the bureaucrats were especially enthusiastic, and the MASTS, farmers in the immediate vicinity of New York and important members of the Social Economic Planning group were particularly fired by patriotism and have promised unusual demonstrations and assistance. “After all,” wrote the Chief Magistrate, “these groups have a peculiar devotion to The Democracy.”
Durant carefully decoded before destroying the letter. Three million Minute Men were preparing to lead the people when the third alert was sounded by Carlson. The people were ready. The new and secret organizations formed by the bureaucrats and the farmers and the MASTS, were, independently and without knowledge of the work of the Minute Men, almost ripe for revolt, and were awaiting their own guarded signals, which, unknown to them, were being readied by the Minute Men in their own ranks.
There was a postscript to the letter: “We hear, from authentic sources, that Europe will soon stabilize herself, and that the hordes of Asia are subsiding and that new and sound governments will soon be established. This is excellent, in view of our war with the South American republics.”
Durant decoded: “European leaders have finally succeeded in alerting their people to move for free government and order on signal from America, and this is true of Asia, also. Our agents on both continents have signified that they are confident that the European and Asiatic peoples, on our signal, will coalesce instantly.”
Durant’s depression and sadness were considerably lightened by his news, and he became extremely excited. He was still weak from the loss of blood, and the blood transfusions which had been given him had not agreed with his constitution. He had suffered a slight jaundice, which had not increased his strength. But now that events were moving so rapidly his spirits rose deliriously. He listened intently to all rumors brought to him by his men, and evaluated them, especially rumors which leaked out from other Sections. Bishop told him that “the grapevine” stated that in various Southern Sections the people were particularly obstreperous, even more so than usual. Confederate flags were appearing everywhere, cheap flags contrived of old rags and paper, handmade and crude, and that the Military could not tear them down fast enough. “They say,” said Captain Bishop, “that if they arrested everybody who was suspected of showing those flags, or making them, they’d have to kill off millions of people because the jails and the prisons wouldn’t hold them.” The grapevine also declared that young Southern soldiers were disappearing faster and faster from their regiments, and that officers were only half-hearted in attempts to apprehend them and punish them.
Good, thought Durant, grimly. The old Southern states had not been particularly alert or concerned when they had lost their sovereignty decades ago. They had shouted about “States’ Rights,” but their venal and treacherous representatives had steadily abrogated those rights at the command of the Government. When their Rights had gone completely, and they were reduced to faceless Sections, they had vented their tardy and futile rage on the Negro populations. Nearly one hundred thousand innocent Negro men and women and children had been slaughtered in a vengeance which ought to have been directed against the evil plotters in Washington. The State had not interfered, though it had “deplored” volubly. Let the people’s fury expend itself on innocence, so that the State could become stronger! While the mob murdered, the plotters could work undisturbed on the program for the destruction of the liberty of the whole country. It was an ancient maneuver, but the Southern states, like their brother states in the North, had been stupidly and humanly blind. They never learn, they never learn, thought Durant, as he listened to the rumor about the Confederate flags. The time for action is when the disease first appears; an epidemic is almost impossible to control.
So now, in this desperate day, when the whole world lay in ruins, and America was in the full grip of a Communist Military dictatorship and its economy wrecked by wars, the Confederate flags appeared in thousands of villages, towns and cities! Good, brave gesture! A gesture almost too late for effectiveness, but still a gesture that men were living among docile slaves. What if the Southern states had forgotten their silly factionalism twenty years ago, and had joined with their Northern brethren in the preservation of freedom, and the unseating and the uncovering of vicious traitors and potential tyrants in Government? There would be a peaceful, prosperous and orderly world now, and not a world of despair and slavery. But the Southerners, even in the face of monumental and sinister evidence of the plot against all men, had vehemently defended their Senators and Representatives who were betraying them in Washington, and had denounced Northern Republican Congressmen who were warning them of the betrayal. How dared “Yankee politicians” defame the “good Southern gentlemen who represented Dixie in Washington?” The good Southern gentlemen, chuckling among themselves, had eagerly voted for monstrous taxation bills, bills shackling the press, bills restricting Constitutional liberties, bills giving the Military unlimited powers, bills abrogating the rights of the states, and had been among the very first to give assent to wars. In these, at any rate, the gentlemen of Dixie had concurred with their fellow plotters from the North, and had denounced, with them, any Senator or Representative who had lifted his voice in a cry of protest.
Tyrants never seize power, thought Durant. The people give it to them with hosannahs.
There were rumors that swarms of people were actually daring to gather together in the villages and towns and cities of the Southern Sections to sing old Christmas hymns in defiance of law. Their soldiers “tried to disperse the unruly and unpatriotic groups,” and h
ad their orders to fire on the law-breakers. But somehow, probably because of the night darkness, when the singers assembled, the soldiers were able to arrest only a few, and their shots never appeared to wound anyone.
There were rumors that in the great lumber regions unseasonal forest fires were breaking out and destroying large stands “essential for the war effort.”
There were rumors that in various sections of the country crudely printed copies of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence were being “seized” by the Military. There was even a rumor that a copy of the Declaration had been nailed right on the house door of the local commanding officer in Section 14, though the officer’s residence was closely guarded. In Section 12, it was rumored, a “huge mob” had been fired upon for gathering together and singing the proscribed “Star Spangled Banner,” and “had been dispersed with many casualties.”
There were hundreds of these rumors from other Sections. The newspapers in Section 7 did not publish them. They spoke only of the enthusiasm of the people for the approaching Democracy Day and their dedicated work “in behalf of the war effort.”
Two days before The Day, Durant sent for Walter Morrow of The Grange, Mr. Woolcott of the Bureau of Mobilized Labor, Captain Alice Steffens of the Department of Women’s Welfare, and Karl Schaeffer of the FBHS, to consult with them about their speeches to be given in the City Stadium on December twenty-fifth.
Karl Schaeffer of the FBHS was the unknown quantity to Durant. He had had only routine contact with him, by telephone, on FBHS matters. He was still uncertain about the reason which had prompted Schaeffer to lie in his testimony against Alex Sheridan. Was Schaeffer “one of ours” or had he only desired Sheridan’s position? Durant, in these momentous days, decided to find out.
The head of the FBHS was bland and pleasant when admitted to Durant’s office, his large fair face expressing nothing but interest. He shook hands warmly with Durant, said he hoped that the colonel was completely recovered from his wounds, and that he was glad of this opportunity to discuss his speech with the colonel. He sat down, smiling amiably, and lighted a good cigar, waiting respectfully, however, until Durant’s cigaret had been lit.
The Devil's Advocate: The Epic Novel of One Man's Fight to Save America From Tyranny Page 34
