“But Mister Gavin—”
I eased the door open, slipped into the shadows outside, and rolled into the ditch. Somebody shouted. I pulled myself back to the edge of the road, saw a face in the glow of the flourine torch underneath the truck, and fired at it once. The torch dropped, the jet touched somebody who screamed. I fired twice more at writhing shadows and the screaming stopped. I glimpsed a flicker sliding up the bank toward the bushes. These kids knew how to hunt deer. If I lived, I’d teach them how to hunt men.
Jehu’s shotgun roared through the slit at the rear of the Brinks. Buckshot bounced off the road and the truck. Somebody yelled from behind it. Then the bandits, or whoever they were, recovered from their shock and began shooting at the place where I had been. I fired from farther along the ditch, dropped a silhouette running across the road, and moved again. Fire and movement! Give Sam time to get into position. I faced a dash across ten meters of open ground to reach the truck. You never hear the shot that zaps you! And when I reached the cab there might be a gun to meet me, or no starter key, or the motor wouldn’t fire. I was shivering with fear when I lifted my com to my mouth and said, “Start shooting, Sam!”
He hit his target with his first round. Good hunting, boy! Somebody was writhing on the road. Another shot, and a figure lurched out from behind the truck. An instant later somebody tossed a thermite grenade. These people weren’t as good as they thought they were! Never been under fire before, I’ll bet. The thermite blazed. Eyes covered I raced for the cab. There was a man in it, but he was still blinded by the thermite. I jerked him from the driver’s seat and shot him as he sprawled at the roadside. The motor was running.
I rammed the shift ahead, blew off the face of a man tugging at the far door, felt the cab tilt as one wheel started to slide into the ditch, then leveled as I fought the truck around to head down the road. I switched on the headlights.
More light flooded round me as Barbara switched on hers. There were men in the rear of the truck; illuminated for Sam. He was picking them off, his rounds thudding into the back of the cab but well clear of me. Men were shouting and screaming. In the rear-view mirror I saw others rolling on the road, trying to avoid the pounding wheels of the Brinks. Then we were out of the cutting and among the good clean woods. Pointless bullets whistling past the truck from the goons left behind.
Round the next bend. Fourteenth post. Thirteenth post. I pulled over and waved Barbara past. She didn’t pause. Good girl! I watched her tail-lights disappear as the Brinks went hammering away toward safety. Then I slewed the truck across the road, dropped the nose into the ditch, and faded into the darkness under the trees, waiting for my prey.
An automobile came hurtling round the bend, swerved, and skidded to a halt when its headlights picked up the truck. Men were jumping out of the car. Fools! They hadn’t the sense to know they were in my sights.
A rifle cracked from the far side of the road. Shouts and confusion. The auto reversed madly away. Sam had cheated me of my kill. I lowered my Luger, wiped my forehead, and tried to quench my anger. I waited for him to cross the road.
He was behind me! I swung around. Automatic reaction, Luger coming up. But he had moved already. “It’s only me—Sam!” His hand had touched my arm before I knew he was there. “Follow me, Mister Gavin. I know how we can cut through the woods across this bend.”
I went with him through the darkness among the trees and we nearly got shot by Midge who had thought we were bandits. When she recognized us she dropped her gun and started hugging me. I passed her on to Sam and went to Barbara, sitting silent behind the wheel.
I kissed her, and she let me, but other thoughts were already filling her mind. “All aboard—let’s get the hell out of here! I’m set to shake the shit out of Council.”
Barbara was herself again.
XIV
I had not expected that we would be hailed as heroes, but neither had I thought that we would be criticized as hotheads who had endangered the security of the Settlement. Yackle didn’t put it in so many words, but that was what I sensed in his expression and comments when we reported what had happened to the Council that evening. Several Councillors seemed to feel that it was our fault we had been bushwacked. They disapproved of the fact that we had left several of our attackers dead while none of us had even been wounded. I began to experience the fury of a woman who reports she’s been raped and then finds herself the target of criticism for putting herself into a situation where she could be.
“I told you to offer them the gold, Jehu,” said Yackle fretfully. “You should have thrown it out of the truck. Then they’d have let you proceed without any shooting.”
“Damnation!” I burst out before Jehu could answer. “Those bastards were after the girls too! If you wanted us to toss out Barbara and Midge, why didn’t you say so?”
Yackle opened his mouth, hesitated, then shut it again. Some oldster farther down the table muttered that two young girls should never have been allowed to visit Standish. Not only was that exposing them to temptation, they themselves were a temptation to the outsiders.
“I took Barbara because she handles the Brinks better’n any driver we’ve got,” said Jehu. “And she proved it today!” “And I wanted Midge because she’s our best operator,” said Barbara, who had been listening without expression to the debate. “Anyway, this won’t happen again. Because none of us are going to take a truck up to Standish again!”
Again Yackle started to speak, then he shrugged. “What’s done is done! Now we’re likely to have the State Police coming down here to investigate.”
“They didn’t come when we called on them for help. So what makes you think they’ll come and tell us why they didn’t?” asked Midge. The juniors were starting to speak up.
“It’s my belief that the cops are in cahoots with that gang who jumped us,” remarked Jehu. “Maybe it was the police themselves—”
“None of this talk’s giving us a course to steer.” Enoch puffed on his pipe and studied his fellow Councillors. “Ain’t the time come when we’ll have to start changing our attitudes? Haven’t we got to decide what to do if trouble comes to us?”
There were murmurs of assent and dissent all along the council table. “What do you mean exactly, Enoch?” asked Yackle, putting his elbows on the table and his fingertips together.
“I mean we’ve got to make some plan to defend ourselves If them there townies gets it into their heads to come and bum us out That is, if we want to stay on in the Cove.”
“Of course we want to stay!” snapped Amanda from beside Yackle. “This is our home.”
"Then we’d better get ready to keep them wolves from our doors.”
“You’re suggesting we build defenses?”
“Defenses won’t do us no good. Not unless we plan to shoot from behind ’em!”
From the silence which followed his remark, Enoch might have voiced some obscene suggestion. Yackle pressed his fingertips so tightly together that they went white. Then he said, “Brother Enoch, the Light led us to this remote haven at a time when the world was full of war. We came here to avoid the killings and other horrors that go with war. For over twenty years we have lived righteous and peaceful lives. They never came to take our young men and women away to fight against other young men and women. Are you suggesting that we now arm ourselves to fight against our nearest neighbors?” “That’s about it, Chuck. Unless we want to see ’em come and take those young women of ours off to divide up among themselves. Like the radio tells us they’ve been doin’ to other Settlements. Settlements right here in America!”