Farnham's Freehold (19 page)

Hugh took a picnic lunch—chunks of corn pone, some strings of jerky, two tomatoes, plus a canteen of water. He fetched a rifle and a blanket. They went up the hill above the grave and picked the shade of a detached tree. Hugh noticed fresh flowers on the grave and wondered if Barbara had been trudging up there. The climb was difficult for her; they had taken it very slowly. Or had Grace been doing it? It seemed still less likely. Then he thought of the obvious: Joe.

Once Barbara had her heavy body comfortable, on her back with knees up, Hugh said, “Well?”

She was silent a long time. “Hugh, I’m dreadfully sorry. It’s my fault. Isn’t it?”

“
Your
fault? Because a woman sick in her mind fixes on you to hate? You told me once not to blame myself for another person’s defect. You should take your own advice.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, Hugh. I mean: losing your son. Grace could not leave if Duke did not. Did he say anything? About me?”

“Nothing but this ridiculous set that Grace has taken. What should he have said?”

“I wonder if I am free to say? In any case I am going to. Hugh, after Karen died, Duke asked me to marry him. I refused. He was hurt. And surprised. You see—You knew about Karen and Joe?”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t know whether Karen had told you. When she decided to marry Joe, I made up my mind that I would have to marry Duke. Karen took it for granted and I admitted that I intended to. She may have told Duke. In any case, he expected me to say Yes. I said No. And he was hurt. I’m sorry, Hugh. If you want me to, I’ll tell him I’ve changed my mind.”

“Hold on! I think you made a mistake. But I won’t have you correcting it to please me. What do you want to do? Do you plan to marry Joe, now?”

“Joe? I never planned to marry Joe. Although I would marry him as readily as Duke. Hugh, I want to do what I always want to do. Whatever you want.” She turned on her side and faced him. “You know that. If you want me to marry Joe, I will. If you want me to marry Duke, I will. You say it, I’ll do it.”

“Barbara, Barbara!”

“I mean it, Hugh. Or anything more, or anything less. You’re my boss. Not just some, but all. Haven’t I done so, all the time we’ve been together? I play by the book.”

“Stop talking nonsense.”

“If it’s nonsense, it’s true nonsense.”

“As may be. I want you to marry whom you want to marry.”

“That’s the one thing I can’t do. You are already married.”

“Oh?”

“Are you surprised? No, I’ve surprised you only by saying it—when we’ve kept silent so long. That’s how it is and that’s how it’s always been. Since I can’t marry you, I’ll marry whom you say. Or never marry.”

“Barbara, will you marry me?”

“
What did you say?
”

“Will you marry me?”

“Yes.”

He leaned over and kissed her. She kissed him back, lips open, full surrender.

Presently he straightened up. “Would you like some corn pone?”

“Not yet.”

“I thought we might have some to celebrate. It calls for champagne. But corn pone is what we have.”

“Oh. Then I’ll have a nibble. And a sip of water. Hugh, Hugh my beloved, what are you going to do about Grace?”

“Nothing. She’s divorcing me. In fact she divorced me more than a month ago, the day—the day we buried Karen. That she is still here is just housing shortage. It doesn’t take a judge to grant a divorce here, any more than it will take a license for me to marry you.”

Barbara spread her hands over her swollen belly. “I have my marriage license, right here!” Her voice was light and happy.

“The child is mine?”

She looked at him. “Look over to the east.”

“At what?”

“Do you see Three Wise Men approaching?”

“Oh. Idiot!”

“It is yours, my beloved. A thing a woman can never prove but can be utterly sure of.”

He kissed her again. When he stopped she caressed his cheek. “I’d like corn pone now, lots of it. I’m hungry. I feel very full of life and anxious to live.”

“Yes! Tomorrow our honeymoon starts.”

“Today. It has started, Hugh. I’m going to enter it in our journal. Darling, may I sleep on the roof tonight? I can manage the ladder.”

“You want to sleep with me? Lecherous little girl!”

“That wasn’t what I meant. I’m not lecherous now, my hormones are all keyed against it. No passion, dear. Just love. I won’t be any good for a honeymoon. Oh, I’ll happily sleep with you; you could have slept with me all these months. No, dear, I meant that I don’t want to sleep in the same room with Grace. I’m afraid of her—afraid for the baby at least. Perhaps that’s silly.”

“No, it’s not. It may not be necessary but it’s a precaution we’ll take. Barbara, what do you think of Grace?”

“Must I say?”

“Tell me.”

“I don’t like her. That’s apart from being afraid of her; I didn’t like her long before I became uneasy about her. I don’t like the way she treats me, I don’t like the way she treats Joseph, I didn’t like the way she treated Karen, I have always resented the way she treats you—and had to pretend not to see it—and I
despise
what she has done to Duke.”

“I don’t like her, either—not for years. I’m glad she’s leaving. Barbara, I would be glad even if you were not here.”

“Hugh, I’m relieved to hear that. You know I’m divorced.”

“Yes.”

“When my marriage broke up I swore a solemn oath that I would never break up anyone else’s marriage. I’ve felt guilty ever since the night of the attack.”

He shook his head. “Forget it. The marriage was already long dead. All that was left were duties and obligations. Mine, for she didn’t feel any. Beloved, had my marriage been a reality, you could have come into my arms that night, and cuddle and comfort would have been all. As it was, we were dying—so we thought—and I was at least as hungry for love as you were. I was parched for love—you gave me yourself.”

“Beloved, I will never let you be parched again.”

About nine the next morning, they all were outside where chattels for the new household were piled.

Hugh looked over his ex-wife’s selections with wry amusement. Grace had taken literally the invitation to “take almost anything”; she had gutted the place—the best blankets, almost all utensils including the teakettle and the one skillet, three of four foam-rubber mattresses, nearly all the remaining canned goods, all the sugar, the lion’s share of other irreplaceables, all the plastic dishes.

Hugh made only one objection: salt. When he noted that Grace had grabbed all the salt he insisted on a division. Duke agreed and asked if there was anything else Hugh objected to?

Hugh shook his head. Barbara would not mind making-do. “
Better is a dinner of herbs where love is—
”

Duke had shown restraint, taking one shovel, one ax, a hammer, less than half the nails, and no tool not stocked in duplicate. Instead, Duke remarked that he might want to borrow tools someday. Hugh agreed and offered his services on any two-man job. Duke thanked him. Both men found the situation embarrassing, both covered it by being unusually polite.

A delay in starting was caused by the steel plate for the cave door. Its weight was not too great for a man as husky as Duke, but it was awkward. A pack had to be devised, rugged enough for the trek, comfortable in padding and straps, and so rigged that Duke could fire a rifle.

This resulted in sacrificing the one intact bear hide, the covering of the bed Karen had died in. Hugh minded only the loss of time. It would take six trips by three men to move the plunder Grace had picked; Duke thought that two trips a day would be maximum. If they did not start soon, only one trip could be made that day.

At last they got it on Duke’s back with a fur pad protecting his spine. “Feels right,” Duke decided. “Let’s get packs on you two and get going.”

“In a jiffy,” Hugh agreed and bent over to pick up his load.

“My God!”

“Trouble, Duke?”

“Look!”

A shape had appeared over the eastern rise. It slanted through the air on a course that would have missed them, but, as it neared the point of closest approach, it stopped dead, turned and headed for them.

It passed majestically overhead. Hugh was unable to guess its size at first; there was nothing to which to relate it—a dark shape proportioned like a domino tile. But as it passed about five hundred feet up, it seemed to him that it was around a hundred feet wide and three times that in length. He could make out no features. It moved swiftly but made no noise.

It swept past, turned, circled—stopped, turned again and came toward them at lower altitude.

Hugh found that he had an arm around Barbara. When the object had appeared, she had been some distance away, putting clothes to soak in the outside tub. Now she was circled by his left arm and he could feel her trembling.

“Hugh, what is it?”

“People.”

The thing hovered above their flag. Now they could see people; heads showed above its sides.

A corner detached itself, splitting off sharply. It dove, stopped by the peak of the flagpole. Hugh saw that it was a car about nine feet long and three wide, with one passenger. No details could he see, no clue to motive power; the car enclosed the man’s lower body; his trunk projected above.

The man removed the flag, rejoined the main craft. His vehicle blended back in.

The rectangle disintegrated.

It broke into units like that which had filched their flag. Most cars remained in the air; some dozen landed, three in a triangle around the colonists. Duke yelled “Watch it!” and dived for his gun.

He never made it. He leaned forward at an extreme angle, pawed the air with a look of amazement, and was slowly pulled back to vertical.

Barbara gasped in Hugh’s ear. “Hugh, what is it?”

“I don’t know.” He did not need to ask what she meant; he had felt, at the instant his son was stopped, that he seemed to be waist deep in quicksand. “Don’t fight it.”

“I wasn’t going to.”

Grace shrilled, “Hubert! Hubert, do some—” Her cries cut off. She seemed to faint but did not fall.

Four cars were about eight feet in the air, lined up abreast, and were cruising over Barbara’s farm. Where they passed, everything underneath, cornstalks, tomato plants, beans, squash, lettuce, potato hills, everything including branching ditches was pressed flat into a macadam.

The raw end of the main ditch spilled water over this pavement. One car whipped around, ran a new ditch around the raped area in a wide sweep which allowed the water to circle the destroyed garden and reach the stream at a lower point.

Barbara buried her face against Hugh. He patted her.

That car then went upstream along the old ditch. Soon water ceased to flow.

As the garden was leveled, other cars landed on it. Hugh was unable to figure out what they did, but a large pavilion, glossy black, and ornate in red and gold, grew up in seconds in the clearing.

Duke called out, “Dad! For God’s sake, can’t you get at your gun?”

Hugh was wearing a forty-five, the weapon he had picked for the hike. His hands were only slightly hampered by whatever held them. But he answered, “I shan’t try.”

“Are you going to just stand there and let—”

“Yes. Duke, use your head. If we hold still, we may live longer.”

Out of the pavilion strode a man. He seemed seven feet tall but some of this was a helmet, plumed and burnished. He wore a flowing skirt of red embroidered in gold and was bare to the waist save that an end of the skirt thrown across one shoulder covered part of his broad chest. He was shod in black boots.

All others were dressed in black coveralls with a red and gold patch at the right shoulder. Hugh felt an impression that this man (there was no slightest doubt that he was master)—that the commander had taken time to change into formal clothes. Hugh felt encouraged. They were prisoners—but if the leader took the trouble to dress up before interviewing them, then they were prisoners of importance and a parley might be fruitful. Or did that follow?

But he was encouraged by the man’s face, too. He had an air of good-natured arrogance and his eyes were bright and merry. His forehead was high, his skull massive; he looked intelligent and alert. Hugh could not place his race. His skin was dark brown and shiny. But his mouth was only slightly Negroid; his nose, though broad, was arched, and his black hair was wavy.

He carried a small crop.

He strode up to them, stopped abruptly when he reached Joseph. He gave a curt order to their nearest captor.

Joe stretched and bent his legs. “Thanks.”

The man spoke to Joe. Joe answered, “Sorry, I don’t understand.”

The man spoke again. Joe shrugged helplessly. The man grinned and patted him on the shoulder, turned away, picked up Duke’s rifle. He handled it clumsily, making Hugh flinch.

Nevertheless, he seemed to understand guns. He worked the bolt, ejecting one cartridge, then put it to his shoulder, aimed upstream and fired.

The blast was deafening, he had fired past Hugh’s ear. He grinned broadly, tossed the rifle to a subordinate, walked up to Hugh and Barbara, reached out to touch Barbara’s child-swollen belly.

Hugh knocked his hand away.

With a gesture almost negligent, certainly without anger, the big man brushed Hugh’s hand aside with the crop he carried. It was not a blow, it would not have swatted a fly.

Hugh gasped in agony. His hand burned like fire and his arm was numb to the armpit. “Oh, God!”

Barbara said urgently, “Don’t, Hugh. He isn’t hurting me.”

Nor was he. With a manner of impersonal interest such as a veterinarian might take in feeling a pregnant mare or bitch, the big man felt out the shape of the child she carried, then lifted one of her breasts—while Hugh writhed in that special humiliation of a man unable to protect his woman.

The man finished his palpation, grinned at Barbara and patted her head. Hugh tried to ignore the pain in his hand and dug into his memory for a language imperfectly learned. “
Vooi govoriti’yeh po-Russki, Gospodin?
”

The man glanced at him, made no answer.

Barbara said, “
Sprechen Sie deutsch, mein Herr?
”