by Ward Moore
Four of them. The fifth must have bounced out, it could not be far away. Methodically, tenderly he put everything back in; careful not to move his feet he searched for the missing shell. It must not be lost.
Priceless artifact of brass and copper and paper, lead and gunpowder. A half-wit, an idiot who could no more understand an actuarial table than the second law of thermodynamics or the tactics of the battle of Salamis, could refill the rejected shells with some sort of makeshift (what was gunpowder? saltpeter and …?) and preserve his shorter distance from the bow-and-arrow users that much longer. The half-wit would do it in order to blow out the brains of some other savage who had a hide or a piece of meat or a woman he coveted. Whereas the man who took thought for tomorrow was unable to safeguard the heritage of yesterday.
He squatted on his heels, splaying his fingers through the grass. Give it up? Write off two shells on the jackrabbit? Accept the double, no, triple loss?
“Got to find it.”
Boxes and boxes of shells lined the shelves of hardware stores in a hundred towns and villages. Except that they no longer did. If he had not been forethoughtful, provident, he too might have all the weapons and ammunition he needed for the taking. He had been too quick, too intelligent to survive.
Staring down into the grass, he stared back into the past. The vitality he’d had when he and Molly, Jir, Erika, and Wendell had started off in the station wagon, gaining new force with the sloughing off of Molly and the boys, reaching its peak with the attainment of the hiding place and the almost mystic propriety of the relationship with Erika, had really seemed to change him from man the commuter and taxpayer to man the lair finder, man the dweller maker, man the provider. How long had this impetus lasted? A few months? Less than a year, certainly; it was long gone before Erika found herself with child.
It had begun to fade when Monterey went off the air; perhaps with the final realization that there was no longer any faint hope something would be spared, that he was truly on his own now. What had happened to Monterey? Or, for that matter, to Salinas and Carmel and Fort Ord? There had been no bombing; they were close enough to have seen the flash. Besides, long before actual transmission ceased he’d had the queer feeling that the broadcast was … hollow. A one-man operation perhaps (was that possible?), from a ghost town. A madman pretending that the little city still existed, that people walked its streets, patronized its stores, rode its buses, slept in its beds, docked ships at its wharves. The local news might have been true; it might equally have been fiction. No hint of an exodus was given but no voice other than the announcer’s was heard relaying world news (how did it come in? was it true? its vagueness was equally characteristic of genuineness or falsity) and government directives, some of them recognizably months old. Then one day no call letters were transmitted; there was no scratched record of the anthem, no news, no hearty signing off. Nothing but silence that day. And the next. And the next.
Had the power failed? Or the engineer finally given up his deception—if it was? Or succumbed to illness? Erika impulsively had wanted him to drive the station wagon north and find out. Her childish obstinacy had ignored the adult reasoning; for the first time he saw signs in her of her mother’s blindness to facts. She could not argue with his deduction of the dangers, she merely repeated that they ought to get in the car and see for themselves.
Even when he pointed out that they no longer had a spare tire she perversely turned the situation around: All the more reason; they could find a way of fixing it there. He’d been appalled—no other word fitted—appalled at her unrealistic attitude.
He had not understood how strong her obsession with the idea of a makeshift residuary civilization had grown until he discovered she’d been turning the radio on four or five times a day. “Don’t you realize you’re draining the battery?”
She had answered carelessly, “Oh, we can always start the motor and run it again.”
He’d tried to make her understand, to see the picture whole. About two gallons left in the gas tank. Vital for an emergency; irreplaceable. (On her terms, supposing her daydream were true, he had no money to buy gas; he’d given the entire contents of his wallet, the 200 hundred-dollar bills, to Molly in that final gesture. And since her daydream was illusion there was no gas to be had anyway.)
He had known wry triumph when the battery finally failed and the radio no longer sucked in empty static. The station wagon had become a useless relic. “But we can push it and start the motor that way. Of course if you’d done as I wanted.…”
Push the inert monster over half a mile of trackless, bumpy ground, obstructed with fallen boughs and rotted stumps. Impossible. Difficult even for five or six husky men. Out of the question. “Besides, the tires are soft.”
Her answer had been to pump all four with the hand pump. He felt both admiration and irritation; perseverance in a stupid cause. Naturally they couldn’t budge the wagon over the first hump (he had not held back an ounce of effort, even knowing the futility of it). She had not been stopped by the failure; somewhere she’d heard of starting a car by jacking up a rear wheel and spinning it while in gear.
For months it had stayed petrified in that canine position. He had given up as soon as he realized it wouldn’t work, but she spent hours vainly twirling. It was a long time before her thrice-daily attempts became daily, and the daily weekly. If he remembered, her pregnancy was well advanced before she gave up entirely.
“No salvation by mechanical means,” he muttered. Only by dogged reliance on his own will. That was why he couldn’t give up the search for the shotgun shell. It was not only priceless in itself; it was a symbol of his determination to resist reduction to the primitive level as long as possible.
What had he expected? The swiftly built prototypical cabin, the dammed stream, the planted vegetable garden, slowly extending, the ownerless herds coaxed into control and redomesticity, the masterly defense against marauders, discovery of others rejected by barbarism, the joining of forces—couples and young children only, no single males in any circumstances—under his leadership which couldn’t help but be acknowledged after his single-handed mastering of obstacles, the final triumph when the group as last emerged from hiding and established themselves openly in an abandoned village or town? Romantic.
His fingers touched the ridge base of a shell. Lucky, was his first thought; incredibly, unbelievably lucky. To find the shell which might have hopped and rolled anywhere. Not the needle in the haystack, perhaps, but the shell in the grass.
Not luck. There wasn’t any. Persistence.
His finger found the hole in the shell’s mouth. The used one rejected from the gun.
Mr. Jimmon sat down on the grass. This was no absolute tragedy, no cause for final despair. Two shells had been wasted instead of one. The toll of fruitless pursuit had been doubled. He still had—how many? Enough for a careful year yet, perhaps. Not despair; discouragement.
He had been foolish and adventurous to start out so late after game; it had been a gesture to show—himself or Erika—that he was the Admirable Jimmon after all. Pride goeth before an empty belly.
What was the difference between x shells and x-1 shells? Why does a fireman wear red suspenders? “Put it down to experience,” he muttered, tucking the disabled briefcase under one arm and the shotgun under the other.
Back at the stream he paused judicially. This was one job he had no doubts about. By moving the soft dirt—it would be better to make some sort of reinforcement of brush and stones on the downstream face first—he could build up his dam on either side of the flow to the required height and thickness before interfering with the course itself. Deepening to one side above the upstream face would give him a shallow reservoir where the water could be diverted while he feverishly plugged the bottom of the outlet. Then he could keep ahead of the rising level until the dam was high as he wanted it.
It was a good project; he’d put it off no longer. Begin at dawn tomorrow, jumping up without admonition, hurryi
ng eagerly. When the dam was finished he’d make the shelter into a proper cabin. They would sink no further; from now on, no matter how slightly, their progress would be upward. Recivilization.
His ears, adjusted to the accustomed noises, the insects’ scraping, the whir and call of birds, the frogs’ croak, the distant surf, the brook’s purl, caught the sounds of Erika and the boy. He would say nothing of his determination. Match her fantasy of survivors with the reality of their own survival.
Instead of stepping gingerly from stone to stone, he leaped across the stream and walked briskly toward the shelter. Erika had a good fire going and was settling the kettle on top of it. Blacken it worse. Told her often enough about waiting for the coals.
“Did you get anything, Dad?”
Something not quite right in her voice. The question should have been put sharply in a faintly contemptuous tone, with shadings or irritation and tolerance. Not with an undercurrent of … what? Non-recognition bothered him momentarily.
“Nhnh-nhnh.” He put away the shotgun carefully. “Straps broke on the briefcase again,” he called over his shoulder, taking out the shells, knife and flint. “Try to sew it stronger this time, ay?”
“If I get a chance. Brought back some abalone for you.”
If she didn’t leave the undersized ones alone there soon won’t be any at all. Have to go way out; dive for them. I couldn’t. Univalves; all muscle to hold the half shell to rocks. Expand outward, opening to suck in food; knife slips, fingers caught, the shell clamps back against the rock self-protectively; drowned.
Complaint and fear threaded through his gratefulness. Dutiful daughter; I have nourished my father. Lenore? Electra? Erika’s breasts were small; did this have anything to do with the boy’s poor start? Think not; Molly had never been able to nurse for long. Pediatricians; supplementary feedings; formulas. Erika had had to; no choice.
He accepted the saucer-like shells, noting with surprised pleasure that she cooked them for him. He drew in the meaty smell, scooped the rubbery flesh out and chewed thoughtfully. Better pounded; not so essential in these immature.… Careful my tooth; not that side.
“’M going fishing right away,” he announced, mouth full.
“Why?”
Startled, he paused in his chewing. “Why?” It was a pointless question. Why am I going fishing. To catch fish. “Duty to provide,” he mumbled jocularly.
She stuck a testing finger into the kettle. “Duty,” she echoed thoughtfully, withdrawing the kettle from the fire. She knelt, letting her hair fall forward into the water. Both Mr. Jimmon and the boy watched.
She sopped and wrung, dipped again; cupped her hands and poured the water over her scalp, rubbing it in. Over and over. How can she expect to get her hair clean without soap, thought Mr. Jimmon; and what for? Same reason I shave; preserve the amenities. Still. Odd thing to do in the middle of the day.
She rose to her feet and began massaging the loose strands between her palms. “Duty,” she said; “why?”
“Ay?” For a moment he didn’t understand the connection. “Oh. Responsibility. Biological. Social.”
She held a handful of dripping hair up and away from her face to peer at him. “And Mom?” she asked levelly. “Wendell, Jir and Mom?”
Impulse. The impulse at the exact moment of opportunity at the end of a day when inhibitions are relaxed. He could never have forced Molly and the boys out of the car, could never have driven off with a startled Erika beside him if he had had to state anything, justify himself, argue. He could not have done it if they had even been in sight, if their knowledge of his betrayal and abandonment had been coincidental with the act instead of delayed till after accomplishment.
What was the relevance of all this now? If Erika didn’t know these things how could he possibly communicate them to her? Certainly there was no way in which he could recreate, even if he wanted to, the peculiar emotional atmosphere of that day of escape.
It was not arraignment which astonished him so much as the “Mom.” From the electric moment of awareness in the station wagon, Erika had spoken aloofly of “Mother.” This sudden reversion to the locution of childhood must mean … what? Guilt had become so pervasive a word in the books Molly used to read it had no meaning at all.
Carefully he said, “Survival would have been impossible. I also owed a duty to you and to myself.” For a strange moment he felt it was the man of eight years back talking; D.A. Jimmon who had a home in Malibu and an office on Spring Street. “Besides,” he added weakly, “I gave her all our money. Twenty thousand dollars.”
“Money you thought would never buy anything again,” she commented neutrally, working vigorously on her hair.
“And still think. Know, in fact. That’s not the point. Molly could never see that I might possibly be right; she was convinced it had and would always have value.”
She divided her still-damp hair with quick, sure motions and began braiding one side. “They would have been quite impossible,” she admitted dispassionately. “But that isn’t the point either. If you hadn’t been ruthless—”
“Unsentimental,” corrected Mr. Jimmon.
“Unsentimental, then. You had to be, in order to survive.”
“For us to survive.” But he was pleased with her understanding.
She finished braiding one side and started on the other. He waited for her to continue. She took both braids and wound them around her head, tying them with a bit of torn blue cotton. “I don’t see.…” he began at last, puzzled.
“Take the boy along with you, will you?”
“What?” he asked, more confused than before.
“Fishing. Didn’t you say you were going fishing right away?”
“Oh. Yes. But.…” He looked at the empty abalone shell in his hand, turned it over and inspected without seeing the delicately stitched row of blow holes. “You want me to take him along?”
She’d never asked him before. Have to carry the boy at least part of the way. Nuisance. But she was right, of course. Have to begin teaching him.
He rose. “Well. All right.”
“Don’t want to go back fishing.”
“But we weren’t fishing before, dear. Just looking for shellfish and stranded crabs. Dad’ll take you really fishing.”
“Don’t want to go.”
Undersized for four. If he was four. What standard did he have for comparison? Faded memories of Jir and Wendell and children seen-unseen on the street. Boy was probably exactly average. Even his health, considering the diet. Sickly was only a revulsion, or a wish he might have been sturdier, brighter than most. The nineteenth-century folktales opposed to historical knowledge. Ptolemies and Incas. Or didn’t the Incas? Think they did.
Erika put her arms around the boy and kissed him. None of the Jimmons was demonstrative. “Go with Dad,” she said. “I want you to.”
“Come on,” suggested Mr. Jimmon, not unkindly. “Come on if you’re coming.”
“He needs eggs,” said Erika; “milk really, but there’s no milk. And greens; the dandelions are pretty well gone now, but there’s other stuff around here. You can tell by chewing on them raw if they’re good to eat. And warm covers at night.”
“You haven’t done badly with him, Erika,” said Mr. Jimmon. “Fact is, I’d say you’d done very well.”
Lack of the briefcase was a nuisance. He would have to take knife, flint-and-steel and string in his other hand; forget extra gut, hooks, sinkers.
“Come on,” he repeated; “carry you piggyback.”
The arms around his neck seemed frail; certainly his weight was light. If I could have gentled a cow the milk would have made all the difference. Perhaps even now—was that what she was getting at? Maybe when the dam was finished. The cattle might not have strayed too far or learned too great a wariness.
“Luck, Dad,” Erika called out, with the same strange undertone in her voice. “Don’t let him get cold.”
“Mm.” He was partly choked by the boy’s clutch
.
He jogged thoughtfully downhill. Despite his efforts and warnings a definite path had been worn from the shelter to the highway. He would have to conceal it again as best he could, with pine needles and debris. Speak to her again of the seriousness of exposing themselves so. If only he could regain communication with her.
“Don’t want to.”
“All right,” he agreed absently. A strange smell drifted under his nostrils. Familiar, but not smelled recently. Acrid, faint, almost sweet; not a skunk, far off though. “You don’t have to. Just watch me catch fish for us all.”
“Don’t want to watch.”
Annoying little.… No wonder Erika wanted to fob him off for the afternoon. He tried to adjust the boy’s position on his back to make carrying a little easier, but his filled hands thwarted the attempt. “Try not to pull back against my neck,” he urged.
Even before he stepped out from between the trees into the thick brush smothering what had once been the shoulders and ditches of the highway, he knew something was wrong. Was the unfamiliar familiar smell stronger here? “Shsh; quiet,” he whispered.
“Don’t—”
“Shsh!” he hissed.
He waited silently to see if the foreign presence, if that was what it was, would betray itself before he went forward into the open. Imagination? Hunch? Worth going back for the rifle?
“I—”
“Shsh, I told you. Mean it.”
The trees were as they should be: forbearing, imperturbable, unindicative. Whatever was wrong—if indeed there was anything wrong and his startle had not been completely unwarranted—had not touched the redwoods.
Nor the brush, he thought as he pushed his way through it, deliberately avoiding the path Erika had carelessly trampled. The upstart growth was arrogant. “No one been here,” he muttered under his breath.
“What you say, Dad?”
“Shsh, shsh. Quiet.”
“But.…”
“Be qui—”
It was the road itself which told everything. Even before he stepped out on its surface, before he read what was so plain to see, Mr. Jimmon felt the contraction of dread in his chest.
