“Why, the school in Fort Repose, of course, until you can go back to Omaha, or wherever your father is stationed.”
Ben stopped. “Just a minute, Randy. I’m not fooling myself. Nobody’s going back to Omaha, maybe ever. And I don’t think I’ll ever see Dad again. The Hole wasn’t safe, you know. Maybe you think so. I know Mother does. But I’m not fooling myself, Randy, and don’t you try to fool me.”
Randy put his hands on the boy’s shoulders and looked into his face, measuring the depth of courage behind the brown eyes, finding it at least as deep as his own. “Okay, son,” he said, “I’ll level with you. I’ll level with you, and don’t you ever do anything less with me. I think Mark has had it. I think you’re the man of the family from now on.”
“That’s what Dad said.”
“Did he? Well, you’re a man who still has to go to school. I don’t know where, or when, or how. But as soon as school reopens in Fort Repose, or anywhere around, you go. You may have to walk.”
“Golly, Randy, walk! It’s three miles to town.”
“Your grandfather used to walk to school in Fort Repose. When he was your age there weren’t any school busses. When he couldn’t hitch a ride in a buggy, or one of the early automobiles, he walked.” Randy put his arm around the boy’s shoulder. “Let’s get going. I guess we’ll both have to learn to walk again.”
They walked down to the dock, and then followed a trail that led through the dense hammock to the Henrys’ cleared land. The Henrys’ house was divided into four sections, representing four distinct periods in their fortunes and history. The oldest section had originally been a one-room log cabin. It was the only surviving structure of what had once been the slave quarters, and Randy recalled that his grandfather had always referred to the Henrys’ place as “the quarters.” In recent years the cabin had been jacked up and a concrete foundation laid under the stout cypress logs. The logs, originally chinked with red clay, were bound together with white-washed mortar. It was now the Henrys’ living room:
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.