The Stand

Stu pounded his gavel. “Come on, folks. Order.”

“I seen him two days ago,” Teddy said. “He had himself a Land-Rover. Said he was going to Denver for the day. Didn’t say why. We had a joke or two about it. He seemed in real good spirits. That’s all I know.” He sat down, still polishing his spectacles and blushing furiously.

Stu rapped for order again. “I’m sorry the Judge isn’t here. I think he would have been just the man for the job, but since he isn’t, could we have another nomination—?”

“No, let’s not leave it at that!” Lucy protested, getting to her feet. She was wearing a snug denim jumpsuit that brought interested looks to the faces of most of the males in the audience. “Judge Farris is an old man. What if he got sick in Denver and can’t get back?”

“Lucy,” Stu said, “Denver’s a big place.”

An odd silence fell over the meeting hall as people considered this. Lucy sat down, looking pale, and Larry put his arm around her. His eyes met Stu’s, and Stu looked away.

A half-hearted motion was made to table the Law Committee until the Judge got back and was voted down after twenty minutes of discussion. They had another lawyer, a young man of about twenty-six named Al Bundell, who had come in late that afternoon with the Dr. Richardson party, and he accepted the chairmanship when it was offered, saying only that he hoped no one would do anything too terrible in the next month or so, because it would take at least that long to work out some sort of rotating tribunal system. Judge Farris was voted a place on the committee in absentia.

Brad Kitchner, looking pale, fidgety, and a little ridiculous in a suit and tie, approached the podium, dropped his prepared remarks, picked them up in the wrong order, and contented himself by saying they hoped and expected to have the electricity back on by the second or third of September.

This remark was greeted with such a storm of cheering that he gained enough confidence to finish in style and actually strut a little as he left the podium.

Chad Norris was next, and Stu told Frannie later that he had approached the thing in just the right way: They were burying the dead out of common decency, none of them would feel really good until that was done and life could go on, and if it was finished by the fall rainy season they would all feel so much the better. He asked for a couple of volunteers and could have had three dozen if he wanted them. He finished by asking each member of the current Spade Squad (as he called them) to stand and take a bow.

Harold Lauder barely popped up and then sat back down again, and there were those who left the meeting remarking on what a smart but very modest fellow he was. Actually, Nadine had been whispering things in his ear and he was afraid to do much more than bob and nod. A fairly large pup-tent appeared to have been erected in the crotch of his pants.

When Norris left the podium, Ralph Brentner took his place. He told them that they at last had a doctor. George Richardson stood up (to loud applause; Richardson flipped the peace sign with both hands, and the applause turned to cheers), and then told them that, as far as he could tell, they had another sixty people joining them over the next couple of days.

“Well, that’s the agenda,” Stu said. He looked out over the gathered people. “I want Sandy DuChiens to come up here again and tell us how many we are, but before I do that, is there other business we should take up tonight?”

He waited. He could see Glen’s face in the crowd, and Sue Stern’s, Larry’s, Nick’s, and of course, Frannie’s. They all looked a bit strained. If someone was going to bring up Flagg, ask what the committee was doing about him, this would be the time. But there was silence. After fifteen seconds of it, Stu turned the meeting over to Sandy, who ended things in style. As people began to file out, Stu thought: Well, we got by it again.

Several people came up to congratulate him after the meeting, one of them the new doctor. “You handled that very well, Marshal,” Richardson said, and for a moment Stu almost looked over his shoulder to see who Richardson was talking to. Then he remembered, and suddenly felt scared. Lawman? He was an imposter.

A year, he told himself. A year and no more. But he still felt scared.

Stu, Fran, Sue Stern, and Nick walked back toward the center of town together, their feet clicking hollowly on the cement sidewalk as they crossed the C.U. campus toward Broadway. Around them, other people were streaming away, talking quietly, headed home. It was nearly eleven-thirty.

“It’s chilly,” Fran said. “I wish I’d worn my jacket as well as this sweater.”

Nick nodded. He also felt the chill. The Boulder evenings were always cool, but tonight it could be no more than fifty degrees. It served to remind that this strange and terrible summer was nearing its end. Not for the first time he wished that Mother Abagail’s God or Muse or whatever It was had been more in favor of Miami or New Orleans. But that might not have been so great, now that he stopped to think about it. High humidity, lots of rain… and lots of bodies. At least Boulder was dry.

“They jumped the shit out of me, wanting the Judge for the Law Committee,” Stu said. “We should have expected that.”

Frannie nodded, and Nick jotted quickly on his pad: “Sure. People will miss Tom & Dayna, 2. Fax of life.”

“Think people will be suspicious, Nick?” Stu asked.

Nick nodded. “They’ll wonder if they did go west. For real.”

They all considered this as Nick took out his butane match and burned the scrap of paper.

“That’s tough,” Stu said finally. “You really think so?”

“Sure, he’s right,” Sue said glumly. “What else have they got to think? That Judge Farris went to Far Rockaway to ride the Monster Coaster?”

“We were lucky to get away tonight without a big discussion of what’s going on in the West,” Fran said.

Nick wrote: “Sure were. Next time we’ll have to tackle it head on, I think. That’s why I want to postpone another big meeting as long as possible. Three weeks, maybe. September 15?”

Sue said, “We can hold off that long if Brad gets the power on.”

“I think he will,” Stu said.

“I’m going home,” Sue told them. “Big day tomorrow. Dayna’s off. I’m going with her as far as Colorado Springs.”

“Do you think that’s safe, Sue?” Fran asked.

She shrugged. “Safer for her than for me.”

“How did she take it?” Fran asked her.

“Well, she’s a funny sort of girl. She was a jock in college, you know. Tennis and swimming were her biggies, although she played them all. She went to some small community college down in Georgia, but for the first two years she kept on going with her high school boyfriend. He was a big leather jacket type, me Tarzan, you Jane, so get out in the kitchen and rattle those pots and pans. Then she got dragged along to a couple of female consciousness meetings by her roomie, who was this big libber type.”

“And as an upshot, she got to be an even bigger libber than the roomie,” Fran guessed.

“First a libber, then a lesbian,” Sue said.

Stu stopped as if thunderstruck. Frannie looked at him with guarded amusement. “Come on, splendor in the grass,” she said. “See if you can’t fix the hinge on your mouth.”

Stu shut his mouth with a snap.

Sue went on: “She dropped both rocks on the caveman boyfriend at the same time. It blew his wheels, and he came after her with a gun. She disarmed him. She says it was the major turning point of her life. She told me she always knew she was stronger and more agile than he was—she knew it intellectually. But it took doing it to put it in her guts.”

“You sayin she hates men?” Stu asked, looking at Sue closely.

Susan shook her head. “She’s bi now.”

“Bye now?” Stu said doubtfully.

“She’s happy with either sex, Stuart. And I hope you’re not going to start leaning on the committee to institute the blue laws along with ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

“I got enough to worry about without gettin into who sleeps with who,” he mumbled, and they all laughed. “I only asked because I don’t want anyone goin into this thing as a crusade. We need eyes over there, not guerrilla fighters. This is a job for a weasel, not a lion.”