Late in the nineteenth century a two-room pine shack had been added to the cabin. In the ‘twenties another room, and a bath, more soundly constructed, had been tacked on. In the ‘for ties, after Two-Tone’s marriage to Missouri, the house had been enlarged by a bedroom and a new kitchen, built with concrete block. It was a comfortable hodgepodge, its ugliness concealed under a patina of flame vine, bougainvillea, and hibiscus. A neat green bib of St. Augustine grass fell from the screened porch to the river bank and dock. In the back yard was a chicken coop and wired runs, a pig pen, and an ancient barn of unpainted cypress leaning wearily against a scabrous chinaberry tree. The barn housed Balaam, the mule, the Model-A, and a hutch of white rabbits.
Fifty yards up the slope Preacher Henry and Balaam solemnly disked the land, moving silently and evenly, as if they perfectly understood each other. Caleb lay flat on his belly on the end of the dock, peering into the shadowed waters behind a piling, jigging a worm for bream. Two-Tone sat on the screened porch, rocking languidly and lifting a can of beer to his lips. From the kitchen came a woman’s deep, rich voice, singing a spiritual. That would be Missouri, washing the dishes. Hot, black smoke from burning pine knots issued from both brick chimneys. It seemed a peacefiil home, in time of peace.
Ben Franklin yelled, “Hey, Caleb!”
Caleb’s face bobbed up. “Hi, Ben,” he called. “Come on out.”
“What’re you catching?” “Ain’t catchin,’ just jiggin’.”
Randy said, “You can go out on the dock if you want, Ben, but I’ll probably need your help in a while.”
Ben looked surprised. “Me? You’ll need my help?”
“Yep,” Randy said. “A man of the house has to do a man’s work.”
Preacher Henry dropped his reins, yelled, “Ho!” and Balaam stopped. Preacher walked across the dusty field, to be planted in corn in February, to meet Randy. Malachai came out of the barn. He had been under the Model-A. Two-Tone stopped rocking, put down his can of beer, and left the porch. Inside, Missouri stopped singing.
Randy walked toward the back door and the Henrys converged on him, their faces apprehensive. Malachai said, “Hello, Mister Randy. Hope everything’s all right.”
“About as right as they could be, considering. Everything okay here?”
“Just like always. How’s the little girl? Missouri told me she was about blinded.”
“Peyton’s better. She can see now and in a few days she’ll be allowed outside again. No permanent injury.”
“The Lord be merciful!” said Preacher Henry. “The Lord has spared us, for the now. I knew it was a-comin’, for it was all set down, Alas, Babylon!” Preacher’s eyes rolled upward. Preacher was big-framed, like Malachai, but now the muscles had shrunk around his bones, and age and troubles deeply wrinkled and darkened his face.
Randy addressed his words to Preacher, because Preacher was the father and head of the household. “We don’t have water in our house. I want to take up some pipe out of the grove and hook it on to the artesian system.”
“Yes, sir, Mister Randy! I’ll drop my diskin’ right now and help.”
“No, you stick with the disking, Preacher. I thought maybe Malachai and Two-Tone could help.”
Two-Tone, who was called Two-Tone because the right side of his face was two shades lighter than the left side, looked stricken. “You mean now?” Two-Tone said.
Malachai grinned. “You heard the man, Two-Tone. He means now.”
The three men, with Ben Franklin and Caleb helping, required two hours to lift the pipes and connect the artesian line with the water system in the pumphouse.
It was the hardest work Randy remembered since climbing and digging in Korea. The palm of his right hand was blistered from the pipe wrench, and a swatch of skin flapped loose. He was exhausted and wet with sweat despite the chill of evening. He was grateful when Malachai offered to carry the tools back to the garage. He said, “Thanks, Malachai. You know that two hundred bucks I loaned you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Just consider the debt canceled.” They both grinned.
Randy and Ben Franklin went back into the house. Randy turned on the tap in the kitchen sink. It gurgled, coughed, sputtered, and then spurted water.
“Isn’t it beautiful!” Helen said.
Randy washed the grime from his hands, the water stinging the broken blisters. He filled a glass. The artesian water still smelled like rotten eggs. He gulped it. It tasted wonderful.
Just after dawn on the third day after The Day a helicopter floated over Fort Repose and then turned toward the upper reaches of the Timucuan. Randy and Helen, hearing it, ran up to the captain’s walk on the roof. It passed close overhead, and they distinguished the Air Force insignia.
This was also the day of disastrous overabundance.
That morning, when Helen apprehensively opened the freezer, she found several hundred pounds of choice and carefully wrapped meat floating in a noxious sea of melted ice cream and liquified butter. As any housewife would do under the circumstances, she wept.
This disaster was perfectly predictable, Randy realized. He had been a fool. Instead of buying fresh meat, he should have bought canned meats by the case. If there was one thing he certainly should have forseen, it was the loss of electricity. Even had Orlando escaped, the electricity would have died within a few weeks or months. Electricity was created by burning fuel oil in the Orlando plants. When the oil ran out, it could not be replenished during the chaos of war. There was no longer a rail system, or rail centers, nor were tankers plying the coasts on missions of civilian supply. It was Sam Hazzard’s guess that few major seaports had escaped. After the first wave of missiles from the submarines, they could still be taken out by atomic torpedoes, atomic mines, or bombs or missiles from aircraft. It was Sam Hazzard’s guess that what had been the great ports were now great, water filled craters. Even those sections of the country which escaped destruction entirely would not long have lights. Their power would last only as long as fuel stocks on hand.
They stared into the freezer, Helen sniffling, Randy numb, Ben Franklin fascinated. Ben dipped his finger into a pool of liquid chocolate and licked it. “Still tastes good but it isn’t even cool,” he said. “All that ice cream! I could’ve been eating ice cream all yesterday; Peyton, too.”
Helen stopped sniffling. “The meat won’t spoil for another twenty-four hours. I’m going to salvage what I can.”
“How?” Randy asked.
“Boil it, salt it, preserve it, pickle it. I’ve got a dozen Mason jars in the closet. There may be more around somewhere. Perhaps you can get some downtown, Randy.”
“Town and back means a half-gallon of gas,” Randy said. “It’s worth it, if you can just find a few. And we’ll need more salt.”
“Okay, I’ll give it a try. Maybe I can find jars at the hardware store, if Beck is still keeping it open.”
Helen reached into the freezer and lifted out two steaks, six pounders two inches thick. She brought out two more steaks, even thicker. “Steaks, steaks, steaks. Everywhere steaks. How many steaks can Graf eat tonight? How does Graf like his steaks, charcoal-broiled?”
Graf, lying in the doorway between kitchen and utility room, ears cocked and alert at sound of his name, sniffed the wonderful odor of ripening meat in quantity.
“He likes ‘em and I like ‘em,” Randy said, “and we’ve got a few sacks of charcoal in the garage. So let’s have a party. A steak party to end all steak parties. Literally, that is. We’ll have the Henrys, and the McGoverns.”
“I’ve always believed in mixing crowds at my parties,” Helen said. “But what about mixing colors?”
“It’ll be all right. I’ll ask Florence Wechek and Alice Cooksey and Sam Hazzard too. And Dan Gunn, if I can find him. And I’ll scrounge around for more charcoal. It’ll be a relief from cooking in the fireplace.”
“Don’t forget the salt,” Helen said. “We’re going to need a lot to save this meat.”
On this, the third day after The Day, the character of Fort Repose had changed. Every building still stood, no brick had been displaced, yet all was altered, especially the people.
Earlier, Randy had noticed that some of the plate-glass store windows had cracked under the shock waves from Tampa and Orlando. Now the windows of a number of stores were shattered entirely, and glass littered the sidewalks. From alleyways came the sour smell of uncollected garbage.
Most of the parking spaces on Yulee and St. Johns incongruously were occupied, but the cars themselves were empty, and several had been stripped of wheels.
There was no commerce. There were few people. Altogether, Randy saw only four or five cars in motion.
