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"That makes three provisional presidents so far," the Leader said. "I wonder how many more there are?" He handed the flimsy sheet back to the runner, who placed it in his mouth and chewed it up like gum.
The third man shrugged. "No telling. What worries me - " A mockingbird interrupted. "Doity, doity, doity," he sang. "Terloo, terloo, terloo, purty - purtypurty - purty."
The clearing was suddenly empty.
"As I was saying," came the voice of the third man in a whisper in the Leader's ear, "it ain't how many worries me, but how you tell a de Gaulle from a Laval. See anything?"
"Convoy. Stopped below us." The Leader peered through bushes and down the side of a bluff. The high ground pushed out toward the river here, squeezing the river road between it and the water. The road stretched away to the left, where the valley widened out into farmland, and ran into the outskirts of Barclay ten miles away.
The convoy was directly below them, eight trucks preceded and followed by halftracks. The following halftrack was backing, vortex gun cast loose and ready for trouble. Its commander apparently wanted elbow room against a possible trap.
At the second truck helmeted figures gathered around its rear end, which was jacked up. As the Leader watched he saw one wheel removed.
"Trouble?"
"I think not. Just a breakdown. They'll be gone soon." He wondered what was in the trucks. Food, probably. His mouth watered. A few weeks ago an opportunity like this would have meant generous rations for all, but the conquerors had smartened up.
He put useless thoughts away. "It's not that that worries me, Dad," he added, returning to the subject. "We'll be able to tell quislings from loyal Americans. But how do you tell men from boys?"
"Thinking of Joe Benz?"
"Maybe. I'd give a lot to know how far we can trust Joe. But I could have been thinking of young Morrie."
"You can trust him."
"Certainly. At thirteen he doesn't drink - and he wouldn't crack if they burned his feet off. Same with Cathleen. It's not age or sex - but how can you tell? And you've got to be able to tell."
There was a flurry below. Guards had slipped down from the trucks and withdrawn from the road when the convoy had stopped, in accordance with an orderly plan for such emergencies. Now two of them returned to the convoy, hustling between them a figure not in uniform.
The mockingbird set up a frenetic whistling.
"It's the messenger," said the Leader. "The dumb fool! Why didn't he lie quiet? Tell Ted we've seen it."
Dad pursed his lips and whistled: "Keewah, keewah, keewah, terloo."
The other "mockingbird" answered, "Terloo," and shut up.
"We'll need a new post office now," said the Leader. "Take care of it, Dad."
"Okay."
"There's no real answer to the problem," the Leader said. "You can limit size of units, so that one person can't give away too many - but take a colony like ours.
It needs to be a dozen or more to work. That means they all have to be dependable, or they all go down together. So each one has a loaded gun at the head of each other one."
Dad grinned, wryly. "Sounds like the United Nations before the Blow Off. Cheer up, Ed. Don't burn your bridges before you cross them."
"I won't. The convoy is ready to roll."
When the convoy had disappeared in the distance, Ed Morgan, the Leader, and his deputy Dad Carter stood up and stretched. The "mockingbird" had announced safety loudly and cheerfully. "Tell Ted to cover us into camp," Morgan ordered.
Dad whelped and chirruped and received acknowledgement. They started back into the hills. Their route was roundabout and included check points from which they could study their back track and receive reports from Ted. Morgan was not worried about Ted being followed - he was confident that Ted could steal baby 'possums from mama's pouch. But the convoy breakdown might have been a trap - there was no way to tell that all of the soldiers had got back into the trucks. The messenger might have been followed; certainly he had been trapped too easily.
Morgan wondered how much the messenger would spill. He could not spill much about Morgan's own people, for the "post office" rendezvous was all that he knew about them.
The base of Morgan's group was neither better nor worse than average of the several thousand other camps of recalcitrant guerrillas throughout the area that once called itself the United States. The Twenty Minute War had not surprised everyone. The mushrooms which had blossomed over Washington, Detroit, and a score of other places had been shocking but expected - by some.
Morgan had made no grand preparations. He had simply conceived it as a good period in which to stay footloose and not too close to a target area. He had taken squatter's rights in an abandoned mine and had stocked it with tools, food, and other useful items. He had had the simple intention to survive; it was during the weeks after Final Sunday that he discovered that there was no way for a man with foresight to avoid becoming a leader.
Morgan and Dad Carter entered the mine by a new shaft and tunnel which appeared on no map, by a dry rock route which was intended to puzzle even a bloodhound. They crawled through the tunnel, were able to raise their heads when they reached the armory, and stepped out into the common room of the colony, the largest chamber, ten by thirty feet and as high as it was wide.
Their advent surprised no one, else they might not have lived to enter. A microphone concealed in the tunnel had conveyed their shibboleths before them. The room was unoccupied save for a young woman stirring something over a tiny, hooded fire and a girl who sat at a typewriter table mounted in front of a radio. She was wearing earphones and shoved one back and turned to face them as they came in.
"Howdy, Boss!"
"Hi, Margie. What's the good word?" Then to the other, "What's for lunch?"
"Bark soup and a notch in your belt."
"Cathleen, you depress me."
"Well ... mushrooms fried in rabbit fat, but darn few of them."
"That's better."
"You better tell your boys to be more careful what they bring in. One more rabbit with tularemia and we won't have to worry about what to eat."
"Hard to avoid, Cathy. You must be sure you handle them the way Doc taught you." He turned to the girl. "Jerry in the upper tunnel?"
"Yes."
"Get him down here, will you?"
"Yes, sir." She pulled a sheet out of her typewriter and handed it to him, along with others, then left the room.
Morgan glanced over them. The enemy had abolished soap opera and singing commercials but he could not say that radio had been improved. There was an unnewsy sameness to the propaganda which now came over the air. He checked through while wishing for just one old - fashioned, uncensored newscast.
"Here's an item!" he said suddenly. "Get this, Dad - "
"Read it to me, Ed." Dad's spectacles had been broken on Final Sunday. He could bring down a deer, or a man, at a thousand yards - but he might never read again.
"New Center, 28 April - It is with deep regret that Continental Coordinating Authority for World Unification, North American District, announces that the former city of St. Joseph, Missouri, has been subjected to sanitary measures. It is ordered that a memorial plaque setting forth the circumstances be erected on the former site of St. Joseph as soon as radioactivity permits. Despite repeated warnings the former inhabitants of this lamented city encouraged and succored marauding bands of outlaws skulking around the outskirts of their community. It is hoped that the sad fate of St. Joseph will encourage the native authorities of all North American communities to take all necessary steps to suppress treasonable intercourse with the few remaining lawless elements in our continental society.”