The Long Loud Silence

on the prevailing mood of high brass and the state of medicine on the day bridges are reopened. If the stragglers can be cleansed and cured by some revolutionary medical means — well then, welcome back to the United States!” And “The patrols would gather up residue and test it for contamination; when the tested matter no longer revealed a danger, the crisis would be over except for mopping up the stragglers.”

A lost dream with a brutal awakening for many people; people like the Hoffmans who clung to their farm and what few possessions that remained to them, awaiting the day of deliverance. He didn't want to be here when that day came. He didn't want to see the terrified expression on Sandy's face again. And now he was convinced that day was coming, that kind of day… Judson May glibly spouting his lines had all but said it. Judson May was parroting the words and schemes placed in his mouth by high brass. High brass and the lamentable state of medicine had left no room in their blueprints of reconstruction for surviving stragglers, and a good many “enemy agents” would need be eliminated before Akron, Ohio, could be rebuilt again.

He wanted to be a thousand miles from Sandy when that day arrived. Sandy wouldn't be nineteen for seven more years.

With a start he came to, saw that snow was falling. The eastern glow was gone, diffused by the clouds, but day had arrived over the fields. He stepped to the corner of the barn and looked back toward the house, looked up at the patched chimney where a thin curl of smoke drifted upward. Hoffman's wife was cooking breakfast before damping the fires for the day. She needn't worry now, not with the snow. A fairly heavy snow would conceal the smoke a reasonable distance away.

He was hungry and turned his steps toward the house, casting one last glance behind him to see if the marauder's trail was disappearing. Sandy poked about the barn occasionally and he didn't want her to see that.

Come spring, he promised himself aloud, the first sign of spring, and he was going to have a look at the heroes hiding in the Washington cellar. To hell with this weather.

10

BLUE-SKY summer. Warm, mellow, peaceful and relaxing, summer in Ohio. He supposed he was in Ohio — someone had chopped down the highway markers and probably used them for firewood the previous winter. He made it a habit to avoid the cities. It didn't matter; if he wanted to think he was in Ohio, then he was there. He lay flat on his back in the tall uncut grass watching the shapeless clouds drift along. A wandering ant explored the skin of his hand but he was too content to brush it away. The sky, the rolling clouds and the smell of the grass.

He had really intended to be here sooner, had wanted to be nearer Washington by this time. Taking leave of Sandy and her parents had been a difficult thing; they had kept him long past his decided departure date, long past the day his eyes began searching the far horizon in eager yearning. He had finally got away from them only by promising that he would return in the early autumn.

Gary watched the slothful clouds in the blue and doubted very much that he would keep that promise.

He would like to go back in perhaps eight or ten years — if he were able — to see Sandy. That would be worth going back to; but to return sooner than that, as early as next winter, no. Next winter he intended to exercise common sense and head back to the Gulf coast, perhaps back to that fisherman's shack on the water where an invitation awaited him. And after that, as deep into Florida as he could go. There he would not freeze unless the weather tricked him, would not starve as long as fish swam in the sea.

Ohio was fine in the warm, lazy summer… so fine and comfortable that he felt no alarm when the distant sound of shooting broke out. He lay still, listening to it, knowing that a sizable party was involved by the number of the guns and knowing too that it was too far away to involve him.

An answering machine gun brought him to his feet.

Machine guns! Machine guns meant soldiers, unless somewhere a band of marauders had come into possession of such a weapon. Barring that, soldiers meant…

He was running lightly and swiftly toward the firing. Soldiers this far from the Mississippi could mean the mopping-up process had begun, that the river had been crossed and high brass was clearing the land of enemy agents and contaminated survivors. Gary leaped a sagging barbed wire fence and sped across the field. As he ran he found himself praying — praying not to any Creator he may have believed in but praying in his own expressive, violent tongue that it was not so, that the Western states had not come to reclaim the bombed land. The land was harsh, hungry and terrible but he suddenly didn't want to lose it, to give it up in exchange for what they offered. He had hated it but now he didn't want to lose it; had often cursed it and the obscene fate which had placed him there but now it was preferable. The remainder of his lean, starved life there was better than the firing squads. Hell, he was only thirty… Thirty-something. He didn't want to die now!

Gary flung himself down behind a knoll and inched his way toward the grassy top. The firing was loud in his ears. He paused just short of the crest, ready to leap and run in retreat, and then hitched his shotgun forward to part the grasses shutting off the view. He stiffened.

A battered, paved highway wound along the valley floor less than half a mile distant and nothing but two small trucks occupied that highway. Two trucks! With mounting excitement he wriggled forward to gain a better view. Two green-paneled army trucks somewhat resembling that armored mail truck he had used years before; two trucks, halted and under siege in the lonely road. He looked to see why they had stopped. One truck was partially nosed over into the roadside ditch, and from this distance it looked as if a tire had been shot away, leaving it helpless. The second had stopped a few yards ahead. Gary studied the tableau. Rifle fire was pouring from the cabs of both vehicles, snapping the tall grass along the nearer ditch and searching out the terrain behind it.

After a moment he located the machine gun. It was barking from a small broken window in the rear of the disabled truck. He saw a body lying on the road.

Army trucks, their blunt noses pointed west toward the distant Mississippi.

Instantly he concocted a plan of action. Half rising, he sped several yards downhill toward the raging battle and dropped again into the concealing grass — waited long seconds before rising and running again, following a zigzag path down the slope. As he worked his way in hasty, cautious spurts toward the stalled trucks he knew he was visible from the road, knew they couldn't help but see him, yet no bullet spat his way. As he drew nearer he ran shorter distances before dropping to earth again, put up his head for quick reconnaissance before making another dash. His method of approach should be obvious to the men in the trucks, should be familiar to them.

Finally he located five men on the ground before him, fairly well hidden from the roadway but in positions that were open to his view. Four of the five were firing at the road; the fifth lay still.

When he was within easy range he fell flat on the ground and opened on them a murderous fire.

Startled, they turned to stare at him, half rising in their sudden fear. He fired again and one man fell. Rifle fire from their now unprotected rear increased sharply and the surviving three jerked around, aware of the trap. Abruptly the three broke cover and ran, attempting to flee along the ditch. Gary rose to his knees and loosed a final blast before sinking to the ground. The machine gun opened up once more as the three ran into its range, and then it was quiet.

Gary could almost feel the solid silence.

Without moving, he shouted, “Hold your fire!”

Someone in the truck answered him. “Come out with your hands up.”

Very slowly he rose to his feet, his hands high, still clutching the shotgun in a doubled fist. He cautiously made his way across the ditch to stand at the edge of the roadway, peering at the two men in the nearer cab.

“Put down the gun.”

Gary hesitated. “Not until you cover me — I don't want to get shot in the back.”

“You're covered. Put it down fast!”

He stooped to lay it on the cement.

“All right now, who are you?”

“Corporal Russell Gary… used to be with the Fifth in Chicago.”

A helmeted head appeared in the window of the cab. The helmet bore a stripe of white paint. Gary absently added, “Sir.”