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Very tight. We're going to have to cut back on everything, people. Down to the bone. We certainly aren't going to have anything to spare for the refugees who seem to be flooding the area.'

Mike saw Simpson cast a quick glance toward him and his little cluster of coal miners. Simpson's face was tight with disapproval. Over the past three days, Mike and his coal miners had made no effort to drive away the small army of refugees who were beginning to fill the surrounding woods. Once he was satisfied that a new group was unarmed, Mike had tried to coax them out of hiding. With no success, so far, except for one family which had taken shelter in the town's outlying Methodist church.

'I say it again,' Simpson drove on. 'We must seal the border. There's a tremendous danger of disease, if nothing else.' Simpson pointed an accusing finger at the south wall of the gymnasium. The banners hanging there, proudly announcing North Central High School's statewide football championships-1980, 1981, and again in l997-seemed to be surrogates for his damnation. 'Those people-' He paused. The pause, as much as the tone, indicated Simpson's questioning of the term 'people.' 'Those creatures are plague-carriers. They'll strip us of everything we own, like locusts. It will be a toss-up, whether we all die of starvation or disease. So-'

Mike found himself marching toward the podium. He felt a little light-headed, as he always had climbing into the ring. Old habit forced him to ignore the sensation, drive it out, bring his mind into focus.

The light-headed sensation was not nervousness so much as sheer nervous energy. And anger, he realized. That too he drove aside. This was no time to lose his temper. The effort of doing so brought home to him just how deeply furious he was. Simpson's last few sentences had scraped his soul raw.

First thing we do, we put the lawyers and the suits in charge. Then we hang all the poor white trash. As he approached the podium, he caught sight of James Nichols standing next to his daughter. Oh, yeah. String up the niggers too, while we're at it. The image of a beautiful face came to him. And fry the kikes, of course.

He was at the podium. He forced Simpson away from the microphone with his own equivalent of assertive self-confidence. And if Mike's aura carried less of authority, and more of sheer dominance, so much the better.

'I agree with the town council's proposal,' he said forcefully. Then, even more forcefully: 'And I completely disagree with the spirit of the last speaker's remarks.'

Mike gave Simpson a glance, lingering on it long enough to make the gesture public. 'We haven't even got started, and already this guy is talking about downsizing.'

The gymnasium was rocked with a sudden, explosive burst of laughter. Humor at Mike's jest was underlain by anger. The crowd was made up, in its big majority, of working class people who had their own opinion of 'downsizing.' An opinion which, unlike the term itself, was rarely spoken in euphemisms.

Mike seized the moment and drove on. 'The worst thing we could do is try to circle the wagons. It's impossible, anyway. By now, there are probably as many people hiding in the woods around us as there are in the town. Women and children, well over half of them.'

He gritted his teeth, speaking the next words through clenched jaws. 'If you expect mine workers to start massacring unarmed civilians-you'd damn well better think again.'

He heard Darryl's voice, somewhere in the crowd. 'Tell 'em, Mike!' Then, next to him, Harry Lefferts: 'Shoot the CEO!'

Another laugh rippled through the gym. Harsher, less humorous. The title Chief Executive Officer, for most of that blue-collar crowd, vied in popularity and esteem with Prince of Darkness. The Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, rolled into one, wearing a Brooks Brothers suit and holding a pink slip in his hand.

Sorry. No room in the Ark for you. Nothing personal. You're just useless in today's wonderful global economy.

Mike built on that anger and drove on. 'His whole approach is upside down and ass-backwards. 'Seal off the town?' And then what?' He swept his hand in a circle. 'You all heard what Greg said earlier. He estimates the disaster-the Ring of Fire-yanked an area about six, maybe seven miles in diameter with us. You know this countryside, people. We're talking hills, mostly. How much food do you think we can grow here? Enough for three thousand people? '

He let that question settle for a moment. Simpson started to say something, angrily pushing toward the microphone. Mike simply planted a large hand on the man's chest and pushed him back. Simpson stumbled, as much from the shock of being 'manhandled' as the actual shove itself.

'Don't even think about taking this microphone from me, big shot,' growled Mike. He hadn't intended the statement to be public, but the microphone amplified his words through the gymnasium. Another laugh came from the crowd. Almost a cheer, actually-as if they were applauding a dramatic slam dunk by the high school's favorite player.

Mike's next words were spoken softly, but firmly. 'Folks, we've got to face the truth. We're here, and we're here to stay. Forever.' He paused. 'Forever,' he repeated. 'We can't think in terms of tomorrow, or the day after. Or even next year. We've got to think in terms of decades. Centuries.'

Simpson was gobbling something. Mike ignored him. Drive on. Drive it home.

'We can't pretend those people out there don't exist. We can't drive them away-and, even if we could, we can't drive away the ones who'll come next.' He pointed a finger at Melissa Mailey, the high school's history teacher. 'You heard what Ms. Mailey told us earlier. We're smack in the middle of one of the worst wars in history. The Thirty Years War, it's called. Not halfway into it, from what she said. By the time this war is over, Germany will be half-destroyed. A fourth of its population- that includes us, now, 'cause we're here in the middle of it-dead and buried. There are gigantic armies out there, roaming the countryside. Plundering everything, killing everybody. We've seen it with our own eyes. Our police chief's lying in his bed with half his shoulder blown off.' He glanced at Lefferts, up in the stands. The young miner was easy to spot, because of his bandages. 'If Harry had any sense, he'd be lying in bed, too.'

Another laugh rang through the gym. Lefferts was a popular young man, as much for his boundless energy as anything else. Mike turned and pointed to Rebecca. 'She and her father were almost massacred. Robbery, rape and murder-that's standard operating procedure for the armies roaming this countryside.

'You don't believe me?' he demanded. He gestured angrily at the door leading out of the gym. 'Ask the farmer and his wife we barely kept alive. They're not thirty yards from here, in the makeshift hospital we set up in the school. Go ahead, ask them!'

Simpson was still gobbling. Mike turned to him, snarling. 'I guess this clown thinks we can keep those armies off by blowing hot air on them.'

Another roar of laughter. Most of the crowd was with him now, Mike could sense it. Rooting for the home team, if nothing else.

'Sure, we can fight them off for a while. We've got modern weapons, and with all the gun nuts living around here'-another mass laugh-'we've got the equipment and supplies to reload for months. So what? There's still only a few hundred men who can fight. Less than that, once you figure out how much work's got to be done.'

Now he pointed to Bill Porter, the power plant's manager. 'You heard what Bill had to say. We've got enough coal stockpiled to keep the power plant running for six months. Then-' He shrugged. 'Without power, we lose most of our technological edge. That means we've got to get the abandoned coal mine up and running. With damn few men to do it, and half the equipment missing. That means we have to make spare parts and jury-rigged gear.'

He scanned the crowd. When he spotted the figure he was looking for, he pointed to him.

'Hey, Nat! How much of a stockpile do you keep in your shop? Of steel, I mean.'

Hesitantly, the owner of the town's largest machine shop rose to his feet. He was standing about half a dozen tiers up in the crowd.

'Not much, Mike,' he called out. 'We're a job shop, you know. The customer usually supplies the material.' Nat Davis glanced around, looking for the other two machine shop proprietors. 'You could ask Ollie and Dave. Don't see 'em. But I doubt they're in any better position than I am. I've got the machine tools, and the men who can use them, but if we aren't supplied with metal-' He shrugged.

A voice came from across the gym, shouting. That was Ollie Reardon, one of the men Davis had been looking for. 'He's right, Mike! I'm in no better shape than Nat. There's a lot of scrap metal lying around, of course.'

Mike shook his head. 'Not enough.' He chuckled. 'And most of it's in the form of abandoned cars in the junkyard or somebody's back yard. Have to melt them down.' He emphasized his next words by speaking slowly. 'And that means we have to build a smelter. With what? And who's going to do the work?'

He paused, allowing the words to sink in. Simpson threw up his hands and stalked angrily back to his seat. Mike waited until Simpson was seated before he resumed speaking.

He suppressed a grin. Kick 'em when they're down, by God! Mike gestured toward Simpson with his head. 'Like I said, I disagree with everything about his approach. I say we've got to go at this the exact other way around. The hell with downsizing. Let's build up, dammit!'

Again, he swept his hand in a circle. 'We've got to expand outward. The biggest asset we've got, as far as I'm concerned, is all those thousands of starving and frightened people out there. The countryside is flooded with them. Bring them in. Feed them, shelter them-and then give them work. Most of them are farmers. They know how to grow crops, if they don't have armies plundering them.'

His next words came out growling. 'The UMWA will take care of that.' A chorus of cheers came up, mostly-but by no means entirely-from the throats of the several hundred coal miners in the gym.

Drive it through. 'We'll protect them. They can feed us. And those of them with any skills-or the willingness to learn them-can help us with all the other work that needs to be done.'

He leaned back from the microphone, straightening his back. 'That's what I think, in a nutshell. Let's go at this the way we built America in the first place. 'Send me your tired, your poor.' '

Angrily, Simpson shouted at him from the sidelines. 'This isn't America, you stupid idiot!'

Mike felt fury flooding into him. He clamped down on the rage, controlling it. But the effort, perhaps, drove him farther than he'd ever consciously intended. He turned to face Simpson squarely. When he spoke, he did not shout. He simply let the microphone amplify the words into every corner of the gymnasium.

'It will be, you gutless jackass. It will be.' Then, to the crowd: 'According to Melissa Mailey, we now live in a world where kings and noblemen rule the roost. And they've turned all of central Europe-our home, now, ours and our childrens' to come-into a raging inferno. We are surrounded by a Ring of Fire. Well, I've fought forest fires before. So have lots of other men in this room. The best way to fight a fire is to start a counterfire. So my position is simple. I say we start the American Revolution-a hundred and fifty years ahead of schedule!'

Before Mike had taken more than three steps away from the podium, a large part of the crowd-a big majority, in fact-was on its feet applauding. Not just shouting and clapping, but stamping their feet. He almost laughed, seeing the look of consternation on Ed Piazza's face. The principal was clearly worried that the stands might give way-but not so worried that he wasn't clapping and shouting himself all the while.

So much Mike had hoped for. Even expected, down deep. He knew his people-a lot damn better than some arrogant big shot like John Simpson.