“You mean—clear out and let them smash up our homes?” demanded Lucy, twenty-two and pregnant.
“Of course not! All of us with essential tasks must remain in the village. If these outsiders do come as far as the Cove we will treat them with courtesy. Use restraint. Don’t tempt them into violence!”
“And if they don’t need tempting?” asked Jehu.
“Then we must use the least force necessary to protect our property. Now—away to your tasks!” He saw me and called, “Mister Gavin, may I have a word with you?” When I went to join him he said in a low voice, “Will you again help us in our hour of need?”
“Any way I can.”
“I know that a clash is inevitable, sooner or later. I explained to you I have been trying to postpone a confrontation between ourselves and outsiders for as long as possible. But if this mob crosses the creek and starts to break into our houses, if violence follows insults, then those of us still here must resist. Please go and offer your services to Sheriff Zimpfer. Tell him I want you made a deputy. Then you will have a legal right to help maintain law and order.”
There was a hardness in Yackle’s voice and expression. If he was cornered he would fight; most of the Believers would fight if cornered. But the most important aspect of any fight is to avoid being driven into a comer before it starts. I went to find Sheriff Zimpfer.
Zimpfer, a fat pleasant man, had served in the Army—as an office-equipment technician. The Council had made him Sheriff because he was the only Believer with any kind of military experience. His five Deputies were the five largest men in the Settlement and, like most large men, they were five of the most inoffensive. Three of them were out fishing, the two in the Sheriff’s office when I arrived looked as though they wished they were.
Zimpfer had been trying to raise the State Police on the radio. When I came in he gave up, took off his hat, wiped his forehead, and shook my hand. “Glad to have you, Mister Gavin. From what I hear you know more about this policing business than I do!” He pinned a star on my windbreaker and gave me an ancient revolver in an open holster. “I hope you don’t have to use this.”
“So do I!” I glanced at my colleagues and prayed they wouldn’t try to use theirs. My Luger was already strapped on under my windbreaker. “I’ll take my bike up to the bridge, if that’s all right with you?”
He nodded. “Mister Gavin, the kids are watching the bridge and the road. You talk to ’em. They’ll listen to you. Don’t let ’em start shooting. Leastwise, not unless they’re directly attacked.”
“I’ll hold ’em back if I can,” I promised and rode out of the village. I parked my bike round the bend and went scrambling up the hillside to what was, in effect, Barbara’s command post.
She and Sam seemed pleased at my arrival. “Thank the Light that Yackle’s had the sense to make you legal!”
“No shooting, Barbara! Not unless I say.”
“We won’t. And I doubt we’ll be attacked.” She pointed to the woods and undergrowth fringing the bank above the road and on the far side of the creek. “We’re all along that ridge. And on this side too.”
“Glenda’s just called,” said Midge, appearing out of nowhere. “Those goons are at fifth. Almost a hundred cars. Every jerk in Standish must have come hunting. And Kitty says the cops aren’t answering.”
‘They won’t. Not even Sergeant Carver’ll come and face that kind of a mob.”
“The bridge isn’t going to stop ’em!” Only guns or gas would stop the drunken crowd coming toward us. And we hadn’t got any gas. I began to assemble my Luger. If I kept the creek crossing covered, if I could pick off the leaders, if the mob lacked guts—then there was a chance—
Barbara touched my arm. “Put your hardware together if you want to, Mister Gavin. But I don’t think you’ll be needing it. We knew that something like this was going to happen, sooner or later. And we know what to do.”
Alarmed by the cold anticipation in her voice, I asked, “What’s that?”
Before she could answer there was a rumble of motors from farther up the road and the first automobile appeared round the bend. It skidded to a halt when the driver saw there was no roadway on the bridge.
The five occupants, all with rifles, tumbled out, stared at the banks and woods, saw nothing and walked to examine the bridge. Then they walked back to discuss the problem with the second group to arrive. None of them seemed worried about what might be in the woods.
“They can’t have heard about our shoot-out with the Brinks,” whispered Sam. “Which means that that hijack, and the killings, have been kept quiet. Guess who by?”
I was in no mood for guessing games and didn’t care who’d been behind the attempt to jump us. Our present troubles were enough for now. But it was apparent from the behavior of the men and women arriving in the cars that they had no hint of any Believer reacting to violence with violence.
“They’ve come to loot us, and they don’t expect the loot to shoot!” There was an undertone of pleasure in Barbara’s voice. More and more cars were arriving. She spoke on her com. “Let ’em all come. The more the better! Hold it until they’re all here!”
“For Christ’s sake!” I saw her expression and had a sudden vision of the men and women crowding the creekside below us going down under a volley from the kids above them. It would be a massacre! “If you start shooting you’ll kill half that mob and bring the National Guard down on us!”
She glanced at me. “And you don’t want that?”
“God no! The Settlement would be wiped out.”
“Perhaps.” She laughed without humor. “Don’t worry, Mister Gavin. We’re not planning to kill anybody—not yet!” “Then what the hell are you planning to do?”
“Discourage ’em.” She again called on her com. “Is that the lot?”
“Road’s clear back to the fork. Except for five autos in the ditch. Drunks!” came Joe’s voice from the com.
“Any sign of the cops?”
“Not a cruiser or chopper in sight.”
Below us cars and pickups were parking on the shoulders of the road. Men and a few women were getting out, most armed with rifles or shotguns, most of them still drinking. A typical old-fashioned lynch mob. I tried to identify the leaders, but if there were any they were not making themselves conspicuous.
A group detached itself from the crowd and began to ford the creek. “This is it!” hissed Barbara on her com.' “Let go!” “Let go what?” I demanded. Then I saw. Some twenty Molotov cocktails arced from the trees and bushes above the road to smash among the cars below and burst into flames.
“You little idiot!” I turned on her furiously. “You’ll roast some of them with those things!”
“I doubt it.” Barbara was watching the confusion below with relish. “There’s only enough gasoline in each bottle to fire the parapitch. Lots of smoke. Not much flame.” She licked her lips. “But those clods down there don’t realize that yet!”
They obviously didn’t. The sudden arrival of flaming missiles had sent the mob into a turmoil. Some were bolting for cover. Some were running back to their cars. A few were clambering up the bank to where the Molotov throwers were hiding. Acrid smoke swirled around the cars and across the creek.
The lead car tried to turn and crashed into the car behind it, which had been attempting to do the same. There were more crashes and curses from drivers trying to extricate themselves from what they assumed was a general conflagration. Cars and pickups were backing into each other, drivers were shouting at each other, several fist fights had started. Women were screaming. Men were yelling. And some were too busy coughing the smoke from the parapitch out of their lungs to do anything.
The men who had climbed the bank after the Molotov throwers were searching through the underbrush and finding nobody. In their frustration they started to shoot at shadows under the trees. Somebody fired back, and the searchers went tumbling and sliding down the bank, to add to the general confusion.