Gordon R. Dickson (15 page)

As I mentioned earlier, I had been
looking forward to the evening—and Marie. However, it developed that Wendy was
either coming down sick with something, or upset by the travel; Marie gave me
to understand that, as far as that night went, she would be tied up with family
matters. So as not to waste time, I took advantage of the long twilight to go
down on the beach and make a start gathering the logs for the raft, then
chopping them to length with Marie's axe.

Sunday and the girl went down there
with me; and as things turned out, I built a fire and went on working by that,
even after the sunset left us; so that we ended up making a separate camp down
there. Just before I turned in for the night, something occurred to me.

"You know," I said to the
girl, looking across the fire to where she sat with Sunday, "we left that
raft of the lizards in one hell of a hurry, that night. I remember pulling you
through the water; but I don't really remember how well you can swim—or even if
you can really swim. Can you? Do you think you can make it across the
river?"

I expected a nod or a shake of the
head at the most. But to my surprise, she answered in words.

"I'm not going."

I stared at her.

"What do you mean-you're not
going?" I exploded. "Do you think you can stay here on this side of
the river, alone? Get that thought out of your mind. You're going."

She shook her head, looking not at
me, but at the fire.

I sat, staring at her, too angry for
words. Then I took hold of my anger with both hands, figuratively speaking, and
tried to talk calmly.

"Look," I said, as
reasonably as I knew how. "We've been together for some time, you and I
and Sunday. But nothing lasts forever. You must have known that sooner or later
we were going to be meeting other people and joining them, or they'd be joining
us....

I went on talking, calmly and
persuasively, using all the arguments I had used to myself the day before, and
doing, I thought, a good job of it. It was only common sense I was telling her;
and I pointed this out to the girl. Aside from her youth and sex, any single
person stood a much reduced chance of survival. What would she do with herself?
Practical matters aside, Sunday would miss her. For that matter I would miss
her, myself....

I was talking away quite earnestly,
and even beginning to think that I was getting through to her, when she got up
suddenly and walked away 'out of the circle of firelight, leaving me in
mid-sentence.

I stared after her into the
darkness. Something cold came in out of the night and sat down on my chest. For
the first time, it occurred to me that she could actually be meaning to do what
she had just said she would.

11

An hour after sunrise, Marie, Wendy,
our equipment, supplies, dogs and all were down on the beach watching me finish
off the raft. Watching and helping, as much as they could. It was Marie who
brought up the subject of the girl.

"I think," said Marie,
looking over to where the girl sat on a log, stroking Sunday at her feet,
"everybody should do their share."

"She's not going," I said.

Marie stared at me.

"She's not going?" Marie
said. There was an odd note in her voice—a note which could have meant
anything. I could not interpret it at all. "You don't mean that?"

"I don't mean it," I said.
"She does."

"Oh?" said Marie. She
looked over at the girl again. "It's her idea?"

"That's right."

Marie stood for a moment, watching
the girl.

"No," Marie said, finally.
"She'll go."

I did not say anything more, myself.
I concentrated on finishing the raft. When I was done, we launched it and
loaded it with the contents of the two bicycle carts and the carts themselves.
It floated well, a square of good-sized logs almost ten feet by ten feet in
area; and there was plenty of room on it for Wendy—though the little girl was
pale as moonlight and clearly frightened to death of riding across the river on
the rocking log surface.

While Marie coaxed and soothed the
child, I took six of the dog-leash chains I had set aside while I was making
the raft. Three of these I put around Sunday's neck to make a choke-collar for
him. I fastened the second three to the first and looped them around a log too
big for the leopard to drag. Then I went to the raft and picked up the .22
rifle and its box of shells.

"What are you doing?"
Marie interrupted her efforts with Wendy to stare at me. "That's mine. You
gave it to me."

"I'm taking it back," I
said.

I walked away, not listening to what
else she said. The girl had come to stand concernedly over Sunday and examine
his chains-Sunday, himself, had hardly blinked when I had put them on him. He
lay basking in the sun. I walked up to the girl and shoved both rifle and
shells into her hands.

"You can learn to shoot
this," I said. "Keep the shells dry and use them up only when you
really need to. Whatever you do, make sure they're not dirty when you put them
in the rifle. And make sure no dirt gets in the barrel of the rifle. If it
does, take some string from your pack, and tie a clean patch of cloth on the
end of it. Drop the string through the barrel and keep pulling the cloth
through the barrel until it looks shiny from end to end, when you hold it up
and look at the light through it, the way you've seen me do. Have you got
that?"

She took the box and gun from me
without a word.

"I'm leaving Sunday with
you," I said. "Don't unchain him until we've been gone at least a day
and a night. If I'm not around, I think he'll stick with you; and he'll be even
more protection to you than the gun. Remember, winter's coming on in a few
months. Try to find some place where you can settle in and be protected until
it warms up again."

She looked at me.

"Well," I said.
"Goodby."

She did not move or speak. I turned
and went back to Marie.

Marie had Wendy on the raft and was
already stripped down to a yellow one-piece swimsuit. She looked good in it, as
I would have expected since the night before last. I had not stopped to think
about such niceties myself. Now, out of tribute to her own bathing dress, I
left my shorts on—a foolish bit of male modesty which I had not planned on,
earlier. But I had spare underclothing in my backpack, and I could hang the wet
shorts outside the backpack to dry as I travelled, after we reached the other
side.

I looked back once more at the girl
and Sunday, and waved. Neither one responded, of course. I got into the cold
river water, holding on to the raft along with Marie. The dogs took to the
water on their own, after us; and we began the swim across.

As I said, the water was cold, in
spite of it being midsummer. The current swept us farther downriver than even I
had expected by the time we .made the crossing; and by that time, in spite of
considering myself a fairly strong swimmer, I was grateful to have the raft to
cling to, and sympathetic to the dogs who had no such thing. One of them,
indeed, got the idea at one point to try and climb up on the raft; but a sharp
command from Marie made him drop back off it. All in all, though, we must have
been in the water more than half an hour by the time we finally struggled
ashore on a small sandy spot backed up by a space, about two house-lots in
size, of sand and grass reaching back to the edge of a fairly thick woods.

I had gotten out, hauled the raft in
close and lifted Wendy ashore, and was beginning to unload the raft when a
tense word from Marie made me straighten up and turn around.

Five men had come out of the
trees—about half-way out between trees and water. They stood perhaps twenty
yards or so from us in a semi-circle, hemming us in against the river's edge.
They were all well-dressed—dressed for the outdoors, that is. Each of them wore
thick-soled country-style boots, with high tops disappearing up inside heavy
trousers; and above the waist they all wore leather or firm-cloth jackets, with
the collars of winter-weight shirts showing at the neck; and all but one of
them wore some kind of hat. Every one of them had at least one handgun belted
around his waist as well as a rifle in his hands.

The one without a hat stood a little
forward of the rest and seemed to be the leader, though he was younger than any
of the others, and even looked to be a good half-dozen years younger than I
was. But he was as tall as I, and wider of shoulder, in his jacket. His face
was heavy-boned; and like mine, it was cleanshaven—all the rest wore beards of
varying lengths. He grinned at me as I reached for the rifle on the raft.

"Leave it lay," he said. I
stopped reaching.

"Guard!" snapped Marie.
"Point!"

Swiftly, the dogs fanned out around
us, each facing one or more of the men, which in most cases meant that there
were a couple of dogs on each; and each canine form went into its own version
of a tense on-the-mark position, like a trained bird dog pointing quail. The
rifles of the men came up.

"Hold it!" said the young
man. "Keep your dogs there if you don't want them shot!"

Marie said nothing, but the dogs
stood still. The young man dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground and
leaned on the gun in friendly fashion—though I noticed the rest of them kept
their weapons ready to use. He smiled at us again.

"Well," he said.
"What's it like on the other side of the river?"

"There's nothing much
there," I said. I was freezing to death, standing mid-thigh deep in the
water, but I did not want to move out of arm's reach of the rifle on the raft.
"What's it like on this side?"

"Nothing much on this side,
either," the young man said. "Couple of empty towns...."

He was answering me, but he was
watching Marie. They were all watching Marie. It was that yellow swimsuit. I
had not been unaware that she had put it on with at least part of her mind on
what it would do to me. Now, it was doing the same thing to these men; only
with them it was, I thought, turning out to be a bit too much of a good thing.
But yet, instead of doing something sensible, like taking a jacket or blanket
from the raft to cover herself, and in spite of the fact that, like me, she had
to be both wet and cold, she continued to stand where she was, deliberately
inviting their stares. Not only that, but now she had to start talking, to draw
that much more attention on herself.

"What do you think you're
doing?" she cried, pulling Wendy to her. "As if my child wasn't
frightened enough, you have to come charging out of the woods like this with
guns—"

She had begun to rub the little girl
down with the towel Wendy had worn around her neck, as a seal to keep water
spray from getting under the blanket in which she had been wrapped during the
raft voyage. The activity may have been purely motherly, but it was almost as
effective as if Marie had begun to do the dance of the seven veils in front of
our visitors. A couple of them were grinning slightly.

"Well now, I'm sorry,"
said the young leader. "Awfully sorry." His men grinned a little more
widely.

"You ought to be!" said
Marie, towelling away. "Just because something's happened to the world
doesn't mean the people can't be decent! Anybody with any brains would offer to
help, instead of bursting out like that, like thugs—"

"We'll be glad to help,"
said the young man. "You don't understand us, that's why we came over, to
help you—"

"I should think so!"
snapped Marie. "That's more like it. Here, when there's hardly any people
left in the world, those that are left need to stick together. Well, maybe I
shouldn't jump down your throat like that—" She was still continuing to
towel Wendy vigorously in her almost-dance, in spite of the fact that Wendy
now, plainly, wanted only to be released. "But if you'd just had to swim
an icy river like that, you'd be a little upset too, when a bunch of men with
guns—"

"Mommy, I'm dry now!"
Wendy was protesting, squirming in Marie's grasp.

"Hold still, dear!" said
Marie. "As I was saying, a bunch of men with guns—"

I caught it then, out of the corner
of my eye; just a flicker of movement. Suddenly, I saw what was happening, and
why Marie had been standing there, chattering and bouncing about to hold their
attention.

While she had been putting on her
little show, the dogs had been about their own business. Apparently she had
trained them well. As long as the eyes of the man it watched were upon it, the
dog guarding him stood tensely still, at point. But the moment that attention
moved elsewhere for even a fraction of a second, the dog stole forward—one
step, two steps, even half a step, as if it was stalking a rabbit lying still
and hidden in a cornfield. To begin with, the dogs had been almost as far away
from the men as Marie and I were. Now, they had halved the distance between them
and our welcoming committee.

Now, it was no longer a case of the
men being able to kill all the dogs before the dogs could reach them. They
might kill a good half of the dogs, but the other half stood an almost equal
chance of reaching them while they were doing that.