She suppressed an absurd impulse to slide the weapons around behind her; instead she unbuckled the belt and hung it on the back of a chair.
Sarah Finney didn't say anything; but then, she rarely did. Instead she started loading three plates with leftovers-cold fried chicken, beans, potato salad, string beans, and slices cut from a loaf of fresh bread. Then she put an old-fashioned percolator coffeepot on the gas range.
"Can't do filter," she said apologetically. "Power's out." She made a gesture towards the two big buckets on the counter. "Pump, too."
"Good thing the old hand pump's still working," Luther said. "Knew it would come in useful sometime."
Dennis cut in, as he leaned the handle of the war-ax against the door: "Mr. Finney, you've got a gun around, don't you?"
"'Course," Luther said, puzzled; his chin and nose looked as if they were going to meet when he frowned. "Got a shotgun, and my old deer rifle, too. Why?"
"I'd rather you see for yourself. Get one of 'em and go out back and pop off a couple of rounds into the woodpile. Either will do." He raised a hand. "I can't explain and you won't believe me until you've tried. It'll save time. This is important. Humor me."
The old man glanced at Juniper; she nodded, and he shrugged and went out. The three sat down and obeyed Sarah's smiling wave, pitching into the food. Juniper hid a smile as she bit into a drumstick; Luther affected a hard-headed practicality and a loud contempt for any "hippie nonsense," but he also kept a henhouse full of free-range Rhode Islands because they simply tasted better, and a half-acre vegetable garden for the same reason.
Dennis's eyes met hers, and she knew they shared a thought: I hope to hell that gun works properly…
A click came from the backyard, followed by a muttered curse and the sound of a shotgun's slide being racked, repeated several times along with the futile-sounding metallic sounds. Juniper felt a twinge of disappointment, but not enough to make her stop eating. Luther came back with his lips moving silently. He could swear a blue streak when he wanted to, but had old-fashioned ideas about doing it in front of women or children-he'd been born in 1924, after all.
"You knew about this?" he said in a half-accusing voice, and sat-though not before he'd made sure there were no rounds left in the shotgun's magazine. He was thoroughly careful about firearms, courtesy of his father and a lifetime of hunting, plus World War II and Korea.
"Yeah," Dennis said. He glanced over at Juniper. "You want to tell 'em, Juney?"
No, she thought. But I will.
She was more articulate, anyway, as befitted a musician and storyteller. When she'd finished the old man sat and stared at her for a while.
"Craziest damned thing I ever heard, Juney," he said after a moment. "But my equipment won't start, that's true; not the car or the pickup either. And the scattergun won't shoot worth shhh.shucks."
He shook his head. "There's going to be hell to pay while this lasts, too."
"How do you know it's not going to last forever?" she said grimly.
"Why… it can't," Finney said. "That'd be… why, that would be terrible."
Juniper swallowed. "Luther, it's already terrible. There are hundreds of people dead in Corvallis-maybe thousands. I mean that, Luther: thousands. I was down at the waterfront, helping with the people who got hurt. A 747 out of Portland crashed right there at Fourth and Monroe, and a quarter of the town was up in flames by the time we left. If it's like that in Corvallis, what's it like in Portland or Seattle? Or LA or New York?"
Sarah's face had lost its smiling composure; Luther's hand clenched, and he looked at the silent radio on the countertop by the stove.
"And nothing works, Luther. Nothing. We got into a fight-"
Luther's eyes went wide as they described it; then they went to his own shotgun, leaning against the wall by the back door, and then to Dennis's ax.
"Luther," Sarah said. "Eddie and Susan and the children!"
Juniper and Dennis winced; so did Eilir, who read lips well. Those were the Finneys' son and daughter and grandchildren. there were great-grandchildren too, come to think of it. They all lived in Salem.
Luther made a calming gesture in his wife's direction with one gnarled hand, a gentleness in contrast with a look more grim and intent than the musician had ever seen on his features before. Though others might have recognized it, in the bloody, frozen hills around Chosin Reservoir.
"Later, honey. Let's get things straight first." He looked back at his guests. "You figure this thing has happened all over?"
All three nodded. "I can't be sure," Juniper admitted. "But I climbed the tallest building in town and used my binoculars. It's dark out there, Luther. There isn't a single light, not a moving car, not a plane going overhead that I could see. All there are, are fires. Lots of fires. And you saw what happened with the gun-that's the way it was when we tried, too."
Luther nodded in his turn and sipped at his coffee. "So what do you three plan on doing about it?"
"Run like blazes and hide like hell," Dennis said. "I've got no family in Corvallis."
"We're going up to my great-uncle's old place in the foothills," Juniper said, leaning her head eastward for an instant. "It's nicely out of the way, and I expect some of my friends to head that way."
And Rudy, she thought.
The farmer frowned. "If things are all messed up this way, folks'll need to pull together," he said, a hint of disapproval in his voice.
Juniper felt herself flush-the curse of a redhead's complexion. "Luther, we've had some time to think about this. It's not just something like a barn on fire, or the river flooding."
Dennis nodded. "There's fifty, sixty thousand people in Corvallis alone," he said. "Every one of them gets their food from stores that get theirs from warehouses all over the country twice a week-I run a restaurant, so I should know. Mr. Finney, how many people do you think could live off the farms within a day's walk of Corvallis? Call it twenty miles, say forty on a bicycle."
Luther Finney thought for an instant, and his face went gray under the weathered tan. "Not too many. Most of the land right around Corvallis is in grass for seed, or flowers or nursery stock or specialties like mint. More'n half the farms don't even have livestock. Some orchards and truck, but not much. Take a while to plant… with hand tools, and getting the seed… "
Juniper put her elbows on the table and lowered her face into her hands, the heels over her eyes to block out the visions in her mind.
"And that's just Corvallis," she said. "The rest of the Willamette… there's a million plus in Portland alone, and there's Salem and Eugene and Albany… and no tractors or harvesters or-most farmers these days get their groceries from Albertsons or Smith's, just like everyone else.
No trucks, no trains, no telephones-the government's gone-the cops and National Guard are just guys with sticks. Pretty soon, with no fresh water or working sewage plants there'll be sickness, too, really bad."
"Holy Hannah," Luther breathed. Sarah put a hand over her mouth.
"And that's why we're getting out," Juniper said. "My first responsibility is to Eilir"-though there's Rudy, and by the Cauldron I hope my coveners are all right-"but we'd be glad to have you two along."
Luther blinked at her. "Well, thank you kindly," he said. "But surely we'd just be a burden to you? We're well fixed here if times are hard; there's the preserves, and the chickens, and the garden and the fruit trees. We're better off than we would have been back when I was doing real farming-I've had more time for puttering around putting in truck."