“Now, in the streets of many of our cities, we face demonstrations, riots, vandalism, hooliganism. Why? Because of real grievances? Or because certain political zealots are trying to twist national concern to serve their own ends?
“I say the troublemakers are politically inspired, and they must be stopped. It is time for the decent, hardworking, law-abiding Heartlanders to say no to anarchy and opportunism. If the extremists call a strike, then go to work early that day. If they demonstrate, then get your Mends and neighbors to form a bigger and better demonstration. If they start fights or break windows or otherwise break the law, then see that they’re arrested—if you have to do it yourself. Speaking as commander-in-chief of the Heartland Defense Force, I promise you that my full authority will be used to support the law-abiding majority of Heartland.
“But I need your support. I intend to tour all the major cities of Heartland in the days ahead, to meet with local officials and ordinary citizens. Please come meet me; give me your ideas, your support, and your prayers. Thank you and God bless you.”
Marion Andrews and Mike Laird watched the newscast in her library. “Why didn’t we stop him?” she asked, keeping her anger in check.
“As I told you, he had the national guard surrounding the studio. I can’t send my men to fight a war with them.”
“Call all our people—get them into the streets. I want a general strike! We’ve got to topple Bradford before it’s too late.”
“It may already be too late,” Laird said. “He’s going to have bis own people in the streets, the way it looks.”
She looked at him, her eyes burning with a fierce determination. “You can give up,” she said. “But I won’t; the people are counting on me.”
The Milfords listened to the broadcast on the radio, huddled around the fire in the root cellar. “What do you think?” Alethea asked all of them as Peter Bradford finished.
“Just another slick damn politician in a three-hundred-dollar suit, if you ask me,” Will declared.
Dieter Heinlander’s face was sad. “That part about going into the streets, it frightens me. That is the way it all started back in Germany.”
“What do you think, Devin?” Alethea asked.
Devin was wrapped in blankets, eating some potato soup. He considered the question for so long that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Peter’s become quite a politician,” he said finally. “I know he means well, but sometimes meaning well just isn’t good enough.”
Peter’s office called later that afternoon to alert Amanda of the fact that the film of her dramatic visit to the psychiatric unit would be shown that evening, followed by comments from Peter. Amanda took the portable TV upstairs so she and Jackie and Justin could watch the show together. She thought that perhaps seeing that hospital on the TV screen might rouse Justin from his apathy. Ever since they’d been home, Justin would sit up and sip milk or soup, but he did not speak or give any sign that he could recognize anyone.
It wasn’t easy. You talked to him, you fed and bathed him, you read to him, but nothing came back. Amanda knew how tired and discouraged she was, but Jackie’s blind faith filled her with pride and the will to continue. About the only consolation they had was the improvement in his appearance. They had shaved him and trimmed his hair, and he was gaining back some weight and color: his body was improving but apparently not his mind.
So Amanda decided to risk the TV program; perhaps seeing pictures of the unit, indeed of himself there, would shock or frighten him—by now Amanda was ready to settle for any response at all, even fear. But despite the horrific images that appeared on the screen, she didn’t even get that response: Justin might have been staring at the wall.
After Peter’s speech, Jackie switched off the set and said, “I’ll read to him; you get some rest,” and picked up the copy of Lonesome Dove that they’d been reading, at Amanda’s suggestion. Amanda loved the novel, because the story was so exciting, and because its portrait of America in the 1880s meant so much more to her now. Those people in the west had lives filled with incredible danger and, at the same time, lives of almost total freedom. Perhaps danger went hand in hand with freedom, and somehow in modem times their mistake was in thinking there could ever be real freedom without great risk.
Amanda went down to the kitchen to straighten up and have some time to herself. The house seemed awfully big and quiet without Peter and Scott stomping around. She poured a cup of coffee and sat at the kitchen table, looking out at the fields. The sun was out, slowly melting the snow, leaving the yard a muddy quagmire. Soon she’d have to think about planting her garden. Sometimes she thought that human beings were intended to live on farms and raise their own food, and somehow “civilization” had turned them away from that—and brought with it the Nuclear Age. She needed the garden, not for the tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and lettuce, but because she needed to feel some contact with a simpler, better past.
Amanda couldn’t keep the images of the psychiatric unit from her mind. When they had come on the screen, she had turned away: she had lived that nightmare once and had no wish to experience it again, even on film. But she couldn’t force those images of deathly pale men and boys from her mind. They were far more real to her than the speech Peter had made on TV just a few minutes before. In truth, when Peter appeared, she barely paid attention to his words. Her real attention was on Justin. Since she had returned to Milford, Peter’s political battles had become quite unreal to her. They were like a movie, playing in some distant theater, one she chose not to patronize. Peter was trying to save America, or Heartland, and she was only trying to save that pathetic speechless boy upstairs in her guest room.
Amanda put away some dishes and hoped no more of her neighbors would drop by that day. People had been nice, they had brought food and offered to help with Justin, and they tentatively asked questions about Chicago and Omaha or Peter’s job. No one seemed quite sure why Amanda was back in Milford when Peter was still in Omaha. She had to laugh at herself. She knew how people gossiped in small towns. She just hadn’t often been someone who people gossiped about.
My turn at last, she thought.
And the truth was, she welcomed the gossip, in one way. She wanted to hear about Devin. She knew he was back, that they’d rescued him from People’s Acceptance, and she guessed he was in pretty good shape. Ward and Betty had been by that morning, to visit Justin, and they’d spoken of taking him home, but the truth was that they had no home now, and Amanda convinced them it was best to leave their son with her. Ward feared for the safety of the farmland, with Devin there, and Billy still hiding nearby. No one trusted the fact or understood the reason why the SSU had stayed in its barracks, and Ward constantly wondered when its tanks and helicopters might come charging forth.
Amanda promised to speak to Peter about the dangers, but Ward didn’t seem to think Peter mattered anymore. He and his friends were armed, he said, and they were prepared to deal with the SSU on their own terms.
Amanda wanted to see Devin, to talk to him; she thought that he could make sense of what was happening, if anyone could. She knew that Devin and Peter embodied profoundly different philosophies of how Americans should deal with the Russian takeover, and she wanted to hear Devin’s side of it. She’d heard Peter’s side often enough.
He was out at the remains of the Milford house— they were already starting to build a new cabin, Ward said—but she couldn’t go there. She felt an allegiance to Peter, their home and their marriage. She felt too vulnerable to go to Devin.