Dawn: a red smear in the Sierra. The winds blew fitfully, light airs. Mist rose from the San Joaquin Sea.
When the sun was high, they saw them: A hundred or more of the New Brotherhood had crossed during the night. They were concentrated near the old Lake Success bed, and they moved back toward the ruined bridge, sweeping aside the screen of Stronghold defenders. The Brotherhood’s mortars began to fire, forcing the defenders back up the valley and onto the ridges.
The withdrawal was orderly, but steady. “By noon they’ll have cleared the valley,” Harvey told Marie. “I thought — I hoped — they’d hold longer. At least they aren’t running like rabbits.”
She nodded, but went on reporting the enemy positions on the CB. There wasn’t anything else to do.
Alice sounded terrified whenever she spoke, but she demanded their reports anyway.
Useless, Harvey thought. It’s no good. He looked at the map, wondering if he could find a way into the Sierra that didn’t go back down and through the enemy — or where the New Brotherhood would be soon.
“They’re repairing the bridge,” Marie reported. “They’ve got big trees, and hundreds to carry them.”
“How long until they can get trucks across?” Alice asked.
“No more than an hour.”
“Stand by, I have to report that to Mr. Hardy,” Alice said. The radio went silent.
“It’s no good,” Harvey said. He tried to smile. “Looks like it’s you and me after all. Maybe we can get up there and find the boys. I don’t suppose I’ll have to fight Gordie for you—”
“Shut up and watch,” Marie said. She sounded scared, and Harvey couldn’t blame her.
The bridge took a little more than an hour; then a stream of trucks, led by the pickups with the machine guns, moved over them. They swept on up the valley roads. Other trucks brought the New Brotherhood mortars forward, while crews dug in emplacements for them. The Brotherhood army swarmed into the valley below, probed toward the ridges, fell back wherever opposed. They had plenty of time — and night would be on their side now. They could infiltrate men through the rocks, over the ridges, into the Stronghold itself.
The day became warmer, but not for Harvey and Marie. The rising air from the San Joaquin Sea drew a cold wind down from the Sierra. The enemy moved on forward in the cloudy bright day. Noon came, and they had reached the far end, were beginning to climb the ridges toward the last defenses.
“Stand by,” Alice said. She sounded excited now. Not afraid.
“Stand by for what?” Harvey demanded.
“To watch, and report,” Alice said. “That’s why you’re there. I can’t see…”
Something was happening on the ridge far below. Men had pushed something big, it looked like a wagon, to the brow of the ridge. They shoved, and it went over, tumbling down the ridge, rolling down until it came to rest a hundred yards from the repaired bridge. It sat, did nothing for thirty seconds… and exploded. A huge cloud burst from it and was carried downwind toward the bridge, across it, through the traffic jam at the bridgehead.
And everywhere along the ridge, objects came lobbing over, falling slowly. Men pushed heavy framework forward, boxes with long arms that spewed tiny black dots in an arcing trajectory.
“Catapults!” Harvey yelled.
They were. He didn’t know what powered them. Nylon cords, probably. Carthaginian women donated their hair; maybe…
The catapults didn’t have much range, but they didn’t need it. They threw jars that burst into yellow fog on impact. The wind carried the fog down through the valley, across the advancing enemy…
The New Brotherhood screamed in panic. They threw away weapons, ran in pain, tearing at their clothes, threw themselves into the river to be carried away by the rushing water. They fought to get across the bridge, and from the ridges rifles fired again and again, cutting the running men down as they fled. The catapults poured a continuous rain of bursting jars, renewing the deadly yellow fog.
Harvey’s voice broke as he screamed into the microphone. “They’re running! They’re dying! Good Lord, there must be five hundred of them down out there.”
“What is happening to those who didn’t cross the river?” The voice was Alice Cox, but the question had to be Al Hardy.
“They’re loading up the trucks.”
“What about their weapons? Are they getting those out?”
Harvey scanned with the binoculars. “Yes. They hadn’t brought all the mortars across… there goes one of their trucks.” Harvey shuddered. The pickup, with a load of men gasping in horror, drove down the road at high speed and didn’t slow when it reached the bridge. It flung a dozen off the bridge into the water and kept going, leaving behind those it had run down in its flight.
“There were two of their machine guns on that truck,” Harvey reported. “Looks like they got away.”
The gas didn’t cover the entire valley, and some of the New Brotherhood were able to escape. Many ran screaming without weapons, but Harvey saw others pause, look for a route, and leave carrying heavy weapons. Two of the mortars were carried away before the catapults closed off that escape route. Harvey grimly reported clear areas, and watched as minutes later the gas canisters dropped into them.
“Something’s happening upstream,” Harvey shouted. “I can’t see—”
“Don’t worry about it. Is the road down from the reservation clear of gas?” Alice demanded.
“Hold on a second… Yes.”
“Stand by.”
Moments later trucks came down that road. They carried Tallman’s Indian troops, and more ranchers. Harvey thought he recognized George Christopher in one of the trucks. They roared on in pursuit of the fleeing enemy, but were stopped at the top of the ridge beyond the road junction. Now it was the Stronghold’s turn to deploy and probe, search for weak spots, clear the roads…
While behind them the valley had become an alien world. Its unusual atmosphere was yellow-tinged, deadly to men without pressure-suits. Its native life was eerie to look upon: slow-moving quadrupeds and belly-crawlers, some armed with metallic stings, growing ever more torpid until most seemed to hibernate and only a few still moved. Like snails they crawled on their bellies, leaving trails of red slime, and they moved at snail’s pace downhill toward the river. River life thrashed about, incredibly active, then suddenly stopped moving, to float motionless with clumsy blunt fins wavering in the current.
When dark came, the silence was that of a dead, deserted world.
Aftermath
From the Far East — send you one single thought, one sole idea — written in red on every beachhead from Australia to Tokyo — “There is no substitute for victory.”
It was too dark to see. A cold wind blew down from the Sierra. Harvey turned to Marie. “Victory.”
“Yes! We did it! My God, Harvey, we’re safe!” It was too dark to see her face, but Harvey knew she must be grinning like an idiot.
He started the TravelAII. Alice had told him to stay out of the valley, away from the main road. They’d have to drive to the Stronghold on the dirt cowpath. He put the car in gear and moved gingerly ahead. The headlamps showed the road ahead, smooth, untraveled, but the drop to the left was steep, and Harvey knew they were sinking deep into the mud surface. It would be easy to go over the edge. That was frightening — that they could be killed after the battle was over — but it was only a bad road, and he’d been on a lot of those; it wasn’t malevolent.
A wave of exhilaration swept over him. He had to fight an urge to gun the car. He had never been so aware of being alive. They rounded the mountain and crossed the ridge leading down to Senator Jellison’s house, and then he did let himself go, gunning the car forward and driving through the mud at high speed, dangerously fast over the ruts and potholes. The TravelAII leaped as if to share their joy.