V 14 - The Oregon Invasion

by Jayne Tannehill (UC) (epub)

  And then it was dawn.

  He had dreamed of going home and knew he could not. He was committed to Earth as a prisoner condemned to an island jail, having full freedom of his territory, but not of his life.

  He had dreamed of going home.

  And there, over the forest to the east, just beyond the ridge of the far plateau, there in the morning blush, haloed by the first gold of daylight, there in the too-blue morning sky hung the mother ship.

  Chapter 2

  Hadad stared at the disk in the sky. Part of him wanted it to be there to rescue him, to take him home. But that did not fit his notion that they could not go home. And they would never have sent a ship for him. And no one knew where he was; they couldn’t have traced him this far north. Logic told him the ship was there as the ships had been everywhere, to launch yet another invasion.

  It was not that Hadad was particularly concerned for the plight of the people of Prineville. They were polite to him, gave him work, accepted him on the fringe of the community. But it wasn’t that he really cared whether or not they maintained their pioneer determinism, their small-town spirit, their control over the county, over their corner of the world. If his people took control as they had elsewhere, then it was only because of some superior force or numbers or organization. He had never questioned the concept that might makes right. He had been recruited, taken from home, because that was the will of The Leader. He had been diverted from his role as a commander by the will of logic, Diana’s logic! That was the way of events. Power was a product of political influence. He accepted that. And power in the hands of those he knew frightened him. Not because of Prineville, but because the food balance was so precise in the desert. There would not be enough small rodents to feed the ship. The larger predators would be eaten. And then the desert would be overrun with rodents and the crops would begin to die, and then the small animals. The land was already showing the signs of depletion.

  Junipers dotted the plateaus. Prineville was not being invaded; Hadad’s territory was being invaded, and he was afraid.

  He reached behind his rocks to find clean clothes. The night’s tossings had ground the desert soil into the ones he wore. He changed quickly, noticing that the bandage he had put on his hand in the night had come loose. He replaced it, able to see now that the rip was more serious than he had thought. He worked the bandage round and round, giving the appearance of a severe wound, but covering the unmistakable green beneath.

  The morning was sharp and clear. He had learned that on mornings like this Earth ones wore jackets. He put on a jacket and took the folded leather container that held his earned money. He tried to remember the name of the leather package, but the word “wallet” would not come to him.

  He needed a medicine plant. He would go to Erickson’s. It was easier to follow Crooked River down to Deer Street into town than to trace the neat squares of streets and houses, and so he followed the gulley down to the river, crossed the park, and avoided civilization until he had reached the western end of town. In taking that route he avoided seeing the groups gathering at the fairgrounds, at the county high school, at the courthouse. His first encounter was with the shoppers at Erickson’s.

  There is a feel to a supermarket at 10:30 on a Wednesday morning. The shelves have been restocked; the carts are almost all in the store instead of scattered around the parking lot; there may be a few ladies in line, an older man, no kids, a trucker, perhaps, getting a pack of cigarettes, but none of the usual menfolk.

  It was not a usual Wednesday morning.

  Erickson’s was crowded. Lines formed at the three open checkouts, and the manager was filling a fourth

  register to open himself.

  “No, we aren’t dosing at noon.”

  “There aren’t any tomatoes.”

  “They've gotten them already.”

  “But they don’t eat tomatoes.”

  “That’s beside the point. You eat tomatoes. What good would it be for them to take only the things they eat? The idea is to starve us out.”

  “No, I can’t leave the checkout to help you, Mrs. Grundy.”

  “Better board up the place, Pete, they’ll be here in no time. Better board it up. I’ve got an extra rifle. We can stand them off.”

  “I wouldn’t let the children go to school this morning. I’ve got to get home.”

  “Shirley, I have the same problem. It’s not going to get you out of here any sooner pushing past everyone.”

  “I have to get home. My children are alone.” “They set one foot in this town and we’ll let them know they can’t take over a decent town like Prineville.”

  Everyone talked at once. Acquaintances who had only nodded to one another for years compared strategies for protecting the children, barricading doors, stockpiling arms.

  Hadad walked into the chaos and in an instant the store was silent. He looked from one face to the next as the fifty people or more stopped their shopping to watch him. He buried his hand in his jacket pocket, afraid that his bandaging was not enough. He suddenly thought about the liquid for his lenses. His pulse accelerated. Body reflex stopped all extraneous muscle movement. He tried not to bolt.

  “Oh, that’s just Dave.” The manager’s recognition came in that next moment and the crowd moved back to their individual projects, the conversations muffled for a bit until the fear that he was one of the Visitors had subsided.

  Hadad watchfully began his shopping. He passed women grabbing food and piling yet more into overcrowded baskets. He looked for some logic in their choices and found none that he could grasp. The shelves were sparse, looking like a late Saturday evening before a Sunday holiday. Everywhere there were spoken or whispered concerns: The teenaged girl would be raped, the county official would be replaced, the railroad that was the county’s pride would be taken over, the children would be brainwashed, the farms would be turned into vermin-infested breeding grounds for rats, the produce from the valley would be cut off, the rodeo would be canceled, no one would come, the motels would go bankrupt. Every concern predicted the town’s impotence to withstand the invasion; no hope of turning back the unwanted Visitors.

  There were no sundries on the shelf. No drops for lenses, none for eyes. Hadad looked around for the few plants that sometimes stood near the checkouts. They had been replaced by special displays of chocolate and peanut-butter cookies.

  He stood in the line, waiting to pass the inspector lady at the checkout who would ask him for his packages and let him pass because he had none. “Don’t you have no packages?”

  “No, I couldn’t find what I wanted.”

  “I know what you mean. Isn’t it awful? It was like this when they had the truckers’ strike a few years back. It’s like a stock-market crash is on the banks, you know what I mean? People just can’t see that everything will be all right if they just take things in stride. Always out for number one, you know what I mean? You don’t have to stand in this line. Just go on through, over there, that’s what I do when I don’t find

  anything; yeah, over there by the carts, go ahead.”

  Hadad took the lady’s advice and ducked under the bar that demarcated the cart racks. The manager looked up and smiled at him as he headed for the door.

  The air outside was still. The ship hung over the hills, but there was no movement, no landing party, no military invasion, no armed resistance. A few cars moved through the streets, obeying the usual rules, pushing the limits in the usual ways.

  Hadad headed up to Fourth. He would try the Posie Shop. Sometimes they had medicine plants there.

  The flower shop was empty. He rang the little bell that always called someone from the back room, where they made up bouquets. No one was there. He went around behind the cash register and looked into the back room. No one. He looked outside, in the shops to either side. No one. He found the medicine plant that he wanted. It was a small one, but it would do. He could grind the sticky substance and get enough for his hand. That was all he needed. He wo
uld water it and keep it beside the cave. If it did not die, he would have it for later. He left the money on the cash register, carefully counting the bills and coins to be sure he had the correct change.

  He still needed to find the liquid for his eyes. And then he must go to the lumberyard and tell them why he was late to work. He went back to Third and over to Bob’s Market. He could always find what he needed there. And then he could go on down Third to the mill.

  There was a group gathered around the counter at the front. Like the shoppers at Erickson’s, they all stopped talking when he walked in. He felt the same pressure, the fear that he was the first attacker invading their refuge. He walked past the group and began a search in the back of the store, looking through the frozen foods, though there was nothing there he wanted or needed. He wanted time to let his pulse slow before he tried to find the little bottle, afraid his own fear would make him clumsy.

  “Who is he?”

  “lust a guy from down at the mill.”

  “He’s all right.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “He’s not. . .”

  “Nah, they call him ‘Arab.’ Drifted into town months ago.”

  “You know him then.”

  “Trust me, I know him.”

  “There hasn’t been a landing yet, that means we still have some time.”

  “I say we shoot first, ask questions later. Maggie says I’ll get in trouble that way, but the way I see it, if we wait to find out what they plan to do, they will already have done it. They made all the promises before. They were here to destroy us. I say we destroy them first.”

  “Fine, but how?”

  “We’ve got guns.”

  “And so do they.”

  “We need to get everyone together. They’ll beat us with numbers as long as we’re all strung out all over the county.”

  “But if we gather in town, who’s gonna protect the ranches? i can just see it, we hole up in the courthouse and wait for them to surround us. What do we gain with that?”

  “He’s right. They clearly have the advantage. We don’t know what they’re gonna do.”

  “So what are we supposed to do, just wait?”

  “It’s better than spending all our energies fighting ghosts that never show up.”

  “But we have to be prepared.”

  “What are we preparing for?”

  “Well, one thing we know, they’re gonna come out of that spaceship and take over. The only thing we can do is kill them before they kill us.”

  “That’s for sure. You can’t argue with those fascist techniques of theirs.”

  “Then we ought to surround ’em rather than let them surround us.”

  “How do you surround them; they’re up in the air!” “We have to let them start somethin’ on land so we can get on ’em and strike them down.”

  “Fellas, you’re not talking about some religious end-of-the-world freaks who think they are going to save us all for some great guru. You’re talking about a trained army designed to take over the whole territory. They’ve done it before. We are small potatoes to them. Look, when they first came, they tried the peace and sugar-coating routine. We exposed that. So now they aren’t hiding; they want to destroy the Earth and ail of us with it. They’d rather eat us for breakfast than mess with us.”

  “You’re wrong. We’re useful to them somehow, or they would go away.”

  “We are food for their table, Clyde. That’s all we are: food for their table.”

  “Look, something else must have happened. Something we don’t know about yet. Something that hasn’t been on the news. Why is the ship here? Why here? Crook County isn’t big enough to interest a food-scouting party. We’re all spread out. Why not pick a big city where they can find all the food they need?” “They’re after more than food; they’re after control.”

  “It doesn’t matter what they’re after; we can’t let them have it.”

  “But if you don’t know what they’re after, how can you keep them from getting it?”

  “Look, we need a plan.”

  “We need people. Figure all of Madras, all of Redmond, all of Bend; then we might have a chance.”

  “How are you gonna get all those people to come up here and fight?”

  “If they don’t come here and fight, then they’ll have those fascist redcoats in their backyards!”

  “Fib not arguing with you about that. I want to know how you are gonna get them to come and help us."

  “We’ve gotta call people. We stili have the phones, haven’t we?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And we need a centralized location—-a place we can meet and find out what we need to do.”

  “Let’s use Cary Fisher Hall. That’s big enough at least.”

  “And we have to make some attempt to gather weapons. One shotgun by itself doesn’t cut it against an army. We need to group whatever strength we have, plan how to use it.”

  “Most of my ammo is out at the ranch. A couple rounds and I’d be a gone goose.”

  “We have to assume they aren’t afraid to die. That makes them harder to fight. You can’t scare them.” “That’s what 1 say, make every shot count.”

  “But the other thing is, we can’t make it look like we’re organized or they’ll see how piddly our forces are. We have to fight underground, just like they report on the news. Strike when they’re not looking.” “But the thing is, everything has to look normal on the surface or the whole operation looks suspicious. The kids have to be in school, the people have to be in their offices and shops, the banks have to open as usual. We can’t declare a holiday. It has to look normal, at least as normal as possible.”

  “Why don’t we just shoot the sons of bitches?” “Because they can shoot back.”

  “I'd take out a dozen a’ them before they could get me.

  “But they’d still have got you, and you’re more use

  to us alive than dead.”

  “Hey, lady, you figuring to win this war without a few casualties, you’re crazy. We’re gonna die out there. That’s what we’re talking about. You can have your organization, all you want. You can beg people to come and help us, and they might be dumb enough to i do it. But don’t give me this ‘better alive than dead’ garbage. We have one chance in a million of coming out of this alive, no matter what we do. The only safe way out of this is to run away before they get some notion this place is inhabited.”

  “I haven’t noticed you running, Joe.”

  It wasn’t until Joe had identified the one voice as a lady that Hadad had realized she was. She was as tall as any man there; she wore boots, pants, a leather work jacket, and a cap like anyone down at the mill. He realized she had been the one suggesting organization. He watched, waiting for her to take over the way Diana would. She didn’t. She added her ideas and stood her ground, but she wasn’t in charge. Hadad was curious.

  The market was long and narrow. Three aisles ran the length of the store toward the street. In the back, one little room contained all the freezer chests. He had chosen that space as refuge from the stares as he came in. Now the townspeople were absorbed in their planning and he was forgotten. He walked slowly up the far aisle, looking at the shelves, holding his plant under his arm, edging closer to the group so that he could hear more than the louder voices.

  The front of the store was glass, and through it he could see across to the county courthouse set back behind the fountain. A group of men were gathered on the courthouse steps in an animated conversation. One man kept walking away and coming back. Another paced on the steps, first toward the group, then two steps away, then back with another suggestion or comment. The man below him on the ground pointed

  his finger up at him and waved it forcefully to accentuate every point he made.

  Hadad found his eye drops and took them from the shelf. He had no intention of interrupting the conversation to get to the cash register, but he wanted an excuse to stand in the
group. He was not yet confident that they would accept his being there. At some point he must leave, go to the mill.

  And then he saw his boss at the mill, Mr. Ripley. The man crossed the street over to the courthouse, then crossed back to Bob’s Market. He looked inside, then called to the men on the courthouse steps. They all came across the street and crowded in the door.

  Now there were several conversations at once. Everyone had an idea, no one had a plan. Everyone had a solution, no one had a clear picture of the problem. Everyone had a point of view, no one had a concept of the forces or the issues they were about to fight.

  Mr. Ripley quieted the group. He was used to large groups of men, used to giving orders and being heard. He was used to taking charge. He did what he was good at. It did not matter that his ideas were no more thought out than any others.

  “Men, we haven’t time to . .

  “I don’t get it. What’s the big hurry?”

  “Larry, shut up and let the man taik.”

  “No, you shut up. He’s talking about going out there and getting killed, and he says there isn’t time to consider that there might be an alternative. There isn’t a man in here who’s been in a war in the last twenty years. You gather your guns and play cowboy come springtime, shoot a few rabbits, maybe a deer during hunting season. But not one of you has killed a man.”

  “These aren’t men.”

  “Maybe they aren’t men. But they dress like men, and they walk like men, and they talk like men, and I

  even hear they breed like men. We are not talking about shooting some dumb animals that can’t outrea-son us. We are talking about inviting well-trained soldiers to shoot at us by shooting first at them.”

  “So what’s your big alternative, Larry? What would you have us do? What was your suggestion: that we all run off into the hills, just give up Prineville? Just walk away and let them have it? Maybe you haven’t lived here long enough yet, boy. But I was born and raised here. This is my home and it was my daddy’s home before me. That ranch of mine is all I have in this world, and no red-suited infiltrator is going to take it away from me whether he comes from this world or some other.”