“Fuck yourself!” Harvey screamed in rage. He fought for self-control. The truck was filled with wounded and with women and children, and all of them looked half dead from exhaustion. Harvey shook his head in pity and resentment, then called to Marie Vance. “Get the TravelAII! We’ll have to use the winch to clear a way for them.”
It took half an hour to saw through two logs and snake them out of the way so the truck could get through. While they worked, Harvey sent Tommy Tallifsen down to try again with the boulder. At the rate they were using the stuff, they’d run out of dynamite right here, with miles of road still to block. This time the boulder rolled. It formed a formidable obstacle, with no easy way around it. Others with chain saws dropped more trees on the road.
“All clear,” one of the boys called. “You can roll.”
Vinge went up to the truck cab. There were four people crammed into it. The driver was a teen-age boy, fourteen or so, barely big enough to reach the controls. “Take care of your mother,” the farmer shouted.
“Yes, sir,” the boy answered.
“Get moving,” the farmer said. “And…” He shook his head. “Get moving.”
“Goodbye, Dad.” The truck crawled away.
The farmer came back to Harvey Randall. “Name’s Jacob Vinge,” he said. “Let’s get to work. There won’t be any more coming out of our area.”
The fighting sounded much closer. Harvey could see across the hills and out to the San Joaquin Sea. There were columns of smoke to mark the burning farmhouses, and a continuous popcorn crackle of small-arms fire. It was strange to know that men and women were fighting and dying not a mile away, and yet see nothing. Then one of the boys called, “There’s somebody running.”
They spilled over the top of the hill half a mile off. They ran haltingly, not in any order, and few carried weapons or anything else. Running in terror, Harvey thought. Not a fighting withdrawal. Run away! They flowed down into the valley, and on toward the hill held by Task Force Randall.
A pickup truck came over the top of the next ridge. It stopped and men jumped out. Harvey was startled to see more men on foot to each side; they’d come over so carefully that he hadn’t noticed them. They gestured to the people in the pickup, and someone in the back of the truck stood up and leaned on the cab. He held binoculars to his eyes. They swept over the men fleeing uphill toward Harvey, paused only a moment there, then swept up along the road, examining each of Harvey’s roadblocks with care. The enemy had a face now; and the enemy knew Harvey Randall’s face. So be it.
In less than five minutes the valley and ridge beyond swarmed with armed men. They walked carefully, they were spread out half a mile to each side. They advanced toward Harvey.
The fugitives staggered uphill, to Harvey’s men and trucks and past them. They breathed like terminal pneumonia cases. They held no weapons, and their eyes were blind with terror.
“Stop!” Harvey shouted. “Stand and fight! Help us!” They staggered on without seeming to hear. One of Harvey’s boys stood up, looked back at the grimly advancing skirmish line below, then ran to join the fugitives. Harvey screamed at him, but the boy kept running.
“Lucky the others stayed,” Jacob Vinge said. “I… hell, I’d like to run, too.”
“So would I.” This wasn’t going according to plan. The New Brotherhood wasn’t coming up the ridge to clear the road. Instead they were fanning out to each side, and Harvey didn’t have nearly enough troops to hold the ridgeline. He’d hoped to delay them longer, but there was no chance. If they didn’t get out fast they’d be cut off. “And we’re going to.” He lifted his whistle and blew loudly. The advance below broke into a run even as he did.
Harvey waved his command into their truck and the TravelAll. Jacob Vinge took Bill’s place. Harvey sent the truck out, then hesitated. “We ought to try. Come on, a few rounds…”
“It won’t do any good,” Marie Vance said. “There’s too much cover and they aren’t showing themselves enough. We’d be trapped and we wouldn’t have hurt any of them.”
“How do you know so much about strategy?” Harvey demanded.
“I watch war movies. Let’s get out of here!”
“All right.” Harvey turned the TravelAII and drove away, down off the ridge and into the next valley. The truck stopped and let the running men get aboard.
“Poor bastards,” Marie said.
“We fought them for a day,” Vinge said, “but we couldn’t hold them. Like the ridge back there. They spread out and get around you, behind you, and then you’re dead. So you have to keep running. After awhile it can get to be a habit.”
“Sure.” Habit or not, Harvey thought, they had run like rabbits, not like men.
The road led down to a stream swollen with the rain of Hammerfall. The low parts of the valley were deep mud. Harvey stopped at the far side of the small bridge, and got out to light dynamite sticks already in place.
“There they are!” one of the boys shouted.
Harvey looked up on the ridge. A hundred and more armed enemies boiled over the top and came down the hill at a dead run. There was a staccato chatter, and a rustle in the grass not far from Harvey.
“Get it done!” Jacob Vinge shouted. “They’re shooting at us!”
It was nearly a mile up to the ridge, but that sound was familiar from Vietnam: a heavy machine gun. It wouldn’t take long to walk its fire over to Harvey and the TravelAII and then they’d be finished. He flicked his Zippo and blessed it when it caught the first time, even though it was filled with gasoline rather than regular lighter fluid. The fuse sputtered, and Harvey ran for the TravelAII. Marie had slid over into the driver’s seat and was already rolling. Harvey caught on and hands grabbed him and pulled him inside. There was more of the chatter, brup-brup-brup, and something roared past his ear.
“Holy shit!” he yelled.
“They shoot pretty good,” Vinge said.
The dynamite went off, and the bridge was in ruins. But not completely, Harvey saw. There was still a full span, wide enough to walk across. It wasn’t going to take long to repair, but he sure wasn’t going back. They drove up to the top of the next ridge, and got out, looking for more trees to drop, boulders to dynamite into the road, anything.
The New Brotherhood troops came on into the valley, some on foot, a dozen on motorcycles. They reached the ruined bridge and stopped, then a few swam and waded across and came on. Others spread along the banks and found new crossings. In five minutes a hundred had crossed and they walked on steadily toward Harvey’s work crews.
“Jesus, it’s like watching the tide come in,” Harvey said.
Jacob Vinge didn’t say anything. He kept on digging under a boulder to make a hole for the dynamite. Just above them a tree crashed across the road, and the boys moved to another.
There were motors in the valley ahead. Two motorcycles gingerly drove across the narrow remains of the bridge. Extra riders got on and the bikes gunned forward toward Harvey’s position.
Marie Vance unslung her rifle and worked the sling around her left arm. “Go on digging,” she called. She took a sitting position and rested the rifle on a large rock, then squinted through the telescopic sights. She waited until the bikes were about a quarter of a mile away before she fired. Nothing happened. She worked the bolt and aimed again, fired. At the third shot the lead motorcycle wobbled and swerved into the ditch at the side of the road. One of the riders got up. Marie aimed again, but the other bike moved off the road and the riders scrambled for cover. They waited for the advancing skirmish line. That came steadily closer, and Marie changed her aim point, firing to slow the advance.
Again the center of the line slowed, while more attackers spread to each side, fanning out well beyond any point Harvey could defend. “Get finished,” Harvey shouted. “We have to get out of here!”