The Stand (Original Edition) (68 page)

It was scary as hell.

Larry got his feet moving and walked over to where Leo and Dayna were sharing out the chewing gum.

That afternoon Stu found Frannie washing clothes in the small yard behind their building. She had filled a low washtub with water, had shaken in nearly half a box of Tide, and had stirred everything with a mop-handle until a sickly suds had resulted. She doubted if she was going about this in the right way, but she was damned if she was going to go to Mother Abagail and expose her ignorance. She dumped their clothes into the water, which was stone cold, then grimly jumped in and began to stomp and slosh around, like a Sicilian mashing grapes.
Your new model Maytag 5000,
she thought.
The Double-Foot Agitation Method, perfect for all your bright colors, fragile underthings, and
—

She turned around and beheld her man, standing just inside the backyard gate and watching with an expression of amusement. Frannie stopped, a little out of breath.

“Ha-ha, very funny. How long have you been there, smartypants?” “Couple of minutes. What do you call that, anyway? The mating dance of the wild wood duck?”

“Again, ha-ha.” She looked coolly at him. “One more crack and you can spend the night on the couch, or up on Flagstaff with your friend Glen Bateman.”

“Say, I didn’t mean—”

“They’re your clothes too, Mr. Stuart Redman. You may be a Founding Father and all that, but you still leave an occasional skidmark in your underdrawers.”

Stu grinned, the grin broadened, and finally he had to laugh. “That’s crude, darlin.”

“Right now I don’t feel particularly delicate.”

“Well, pop out for a minute. I need to talk to you.”

She was glad to, even though she would have to wash her feet before getting back in. Her heart was hurrying along, not happily but rather dolefully, like a faithful piece of machinery being misused by someone with a marked lack of good sense.

“When my wife handwashed,” Stu said, “she used a . . . what do you call it? Scrub board, I think. My mother had about three, 1 remember.”

“I know that,” Frannie said, irritated. “June Brinkmeyer and 1 walked over half of Boulder looking for one. We couldn’t find a single one. Technology strikes again.”

He was smiling again.

Frannie put her hands on her hips. “Are you trying to piss me off, Stuart Redman?”

“No’m. I was just thinking I know where I can get you a scrub board, I think. Juney too, if she wants one.”

“Where?”

“You let me look and see first.” His smile disappeared, and he put his arms around her and his forehead on hers. “You know I appreciate you washing my clothes,” he said, “and I know that a woman who is pregnant knows better than her man what she should and shouldn’t be doing. But Frannie, why bother?”

“Why?”
She looked at him, perplexed. “Well, what are you going to wear? Do you want to go around in dirty clothes?”

“Frannie, the stores are full of clothes. And I’m an easy size.” “What, throw out the old ones just because they’re
dirty?”

He shrugged a little uneasily.

“No way, uh-uh,” she said. “That’s the old way, Stu. Like the boxes they used to put your Big Mac in or the no-deposit-no-return bottles. That’s no way to start over.”

He gave her a little kiss. “All right. Only next washday it’s my turn, you hear?”

“Sure.” She smiled a little slyly. “And how long does that last? Until I deliver?”

“Until we get the power back on,” Stu said. “Then I’m going to bring you the biggest, shiniest washer you ever saw, and hook it up myself.”

“Offer accepted.” She kissed him firmly and he kissed back, his strong hands moving restlessly in her hair. The result was a spreading warmth (hotness, let’s not be coy, I’m hot and he always gets me hot when he does that) that first peaked her nipples, then spread down into her lower belly.

“You better stop,” she said rather breathlessly, “unless you plan to do more than talk.”

“Maybe we’ll talk later.”

“The clothes—”

“Soaking’s good for that grimed-in dirt,” he said seriously. She started to laugh and he stopped her mouth with a kiss. As he lifted her, set her on her feet, and led her inside, she was struck by the warmth of the sun on her shoulders and wondered,
Was it ever so hot before? So strong? It's cleared up every last blemish on my back
. . .
could it be the ultraviolet
,
I wonder, or the altitude? Is it this way every summer? Is it this hot?

And then he was doing things to her, even on the stairs he was doing things to her, making her naked, making her hot, making her love him.

“No, you sit down,” he said.

“But—”

“I mean it, Frannie.”

“Stuart, they’ll
congeal
or something. I put half a box of Tide in there—”

“Don’t worry.”

So she sat down in the lawn chair in the building’s shady overhang. He had set up two of them when they came back down.

Stu took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his pants past the knee. As he stepped into the washtub and began gravely to stomp up and down on the clothes, she began to giggle helplessly.

Stu looked over and said, “You want to spend the night on the couch?”

“No, Stuart,” she said with grave repentance, and then began to giggle again . . . until tears ran down her cheeks and the little muscles in her stomach felt rubbery and weak. When she had some control again she said, “For the third and last time, what did you come back to talk about?”

“Oh yeah.” He marched back and forth, and by now he had worked up quite a bed of lather. A pair of bluejeans floated to the surface and he stomped them back down, sending a creamy squirt of soapsuds onto the lawn. Frannie thought:
It looks a little like
. . .
oh no, away with that, away with that unless you want to laugh your
-
self into a miscarriage
.

“We’ve got that first ad hoc meeting tonight,” Stu said.

“I’ve got two cases of beer, cheese crackers, cheese spread, some pepperoni that should still be—”

“That’s not it, Frannie. Dick Ellis came by today and said he wanted off the committee.”

“He did?” She was surprised.

“He said he’d be glad to serve in any capacity as soon as we get ourselves a real doctor, but just now he can’t. We had another twenty-five come in today, and one of them had a gangrenous leg. Came from a scratch she got crawling under a rusty bobwire fence, apparently.”

“Oh, that’s bad.”

“Dick saved her . . . Dick and that nurse that came in with Underwood. Tall, pretty girl. Laurie Constable, her name is. Dick said he just would have lost the woman without her. Anyway, they took her leg off at the knee, and they’re both exhausted. It took em three hours. Plus they’ve got a little boy with convulsive fits, and Dick’s driving himself crazy trying to figure out if it’s epilepsy or cranial pressure of some kind or maybe diabetes. They’ve had several cases of food poisoning from people eating stuff that’s gone over, and he says some people are going to die of it if we don’t get out a flier real soon telling people how to pick their supplies. Lucky for us, this Laurie Constable seems sort of stuck on him, even though he’s about twice her age. I guess that’s all right.” “How big of you to give them your seal of approval, Stuart.”

He smiled. “Anyhow, Dick’s forty-eight and he’s got a minor heart condition. Right now he feels that he can’t spread himself too thin . . . he’s practically studying to be a doctor, for the Lord’s sake.” He looked soberly at Fran. “I can understand how that Laurie feels. He’s the closest thing to a hero we’ve got around here. He’s just a country vet and he’s scared shitless he’s going to kill someone. And he knows there are more people coming in every day, and some of them have been banged around.”

“So we need one more for the committee.”

“Yeah. Ralph Brentner’s gung-ho for this Larry Underwood guy, and from what you say, he struck you as being pretty handy.”

“Yes. He did. J think he’d be fine. And I met his lady today downtown, Lucy Swann her name is. She’s awfully sweet, and she thinks the world of Larry.”

“I guess every good woman feels that way. But Frannie, I got to be honest with you—I don’t like the way he spilled his life’s story to someone he just met.”

“I think it was just because I was with Harold from the start. I don’t think he understood why I was with you instead of him.”

“I wonder what he made of Harold?”

“Ask him and see.”

“I guess I will.”

“Are you going to invite him onto the committee?”

“More likely than not.” He stood up. “I’d like to have that old fellow they call the Judge. But he’s seventy, and that’s too damn old.”

“Have you talked to him about Larry?”

“No, but Nick did. Nick Andros is one sharp guy, Fran. He changed a few things around on Glen and I. Glen was a little bent out of shape about it, but even he had to admit Nick’s ideas were good ones. Anyway, the Judge told Nick that Larry’s just the kind of person we’re looking for. He said Larry was just getting around to finding out he was good for something, and that he was going to get a lot better.”

“I’d call that a pretty strong recommendation.”

“Yes,” Stu said. “But I’m going to find out what he thought of Harold before I invite him along for the ride.”

“What is it about Harold?” she asked restlessly. “He never says a mean word against you, Stu . . . or anybody.”

“No,” Stu agreed. “He
smiles.
That’s what I don’t like.”

“You don’t think he’s . . . plotting revenge, or anything?”

Stu smiled and stood up. “No, not Harold. Glen thinks the Opposition Party may just end up coming together around Harold. That’s okay. I just hope he doesn’t try to fuck up what we’re doing now.” “He may be feeling rejected. I think he expected to be on the ad hoc committee—”

“That was one of Nick’s unilateral—is that the word?—decisions that we all went along with. What it came down to was that none of us quite trusted him.”

“In Ogunquit,” she said, “he was the most insufferable kid you could imagine. But after the flu, he seemed to change. At least to me, he did. He seemed to be trying to be, well ... a man. Then he changed again. Like all at once. He started to smile all the time. You couldn’t really talk to him anymore. He was ... in himself. The way people get when they convert to religion or read—” She stopped suddenly, and her eyes took on a momentary startled look that seemed very like fear.

“Read what?” Stu asked.

“Something that changes their lives,” she said.
"Das Kapital. Mein Kampf.
Or maybe just intercepted love letters.”

“Fran? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” She smiled, but it looked artificial—like Harold’s smile.

“What did I think of him?” Larry asked. He and Stu were in the living room of a small Table Mesa tract house. Out in the kitchen Lucy was rattling dinner together, heating canned stuff on a brazier grill Larry had rigged for her. It ran off bottled gas. She was singing snatches of “Honky Tonk Women” as she worked, and she sounded very happy.

Stu nodded and lit a cigarette. He was down to no more than five or six a day; he didn’t fancy having Dick Ellis operating on him for lung cancer.

“Well, all the time I was following Harold I kept telling myself he probably wouldn’t be like I pictured him. And he wasn’t, but I’m still trying to figure out what it
is
about him. He was pleasant as hell. A good host. He cracked the bottle of wine I brought him and we toasted each other’s good health. I had a good time. But . . .”

“But?”

“We came up behind him. Leo and me. He was putting up a brick wall around this flower garden and he whirled around . . . didn’t hear us coming until I spoke up, I guess . . . and for a minute there I’m saying to myself, ‘Holy God, this dude is gonna kill me.’ ”

Lucy came into the doorway. “Stu, can you stay for dinner? There’s plenty.”

“Thanks, but Frannie expects me back. I can only stay fifteen minutes or so.”

“Sure?”

“Next time, Lucy, thanks.”

“Okay.” She went back into the kitchen.

“Did you come just to ask about Harold?” Larry asked.

“No,” Stu said, coming to a decision. “I came to ask if you’d serve on our little ad hoc committee. Dick Ellis had to say no.”

“Like that, is it?” Larry went to the window and looked out on the silent street. “I thought I could go back to being a private again.” “Your decision, of course. We need one more. You were recommended.”

“By who, if you don’t mind me—”

“We asked around. Frannie seems to think you’re pretty level. And Nick Andros talked—well, he doesn’t talk, but you know—to one of the men that came in with you. Judge Farris.”

Larry looked pleased. “The Judge gave me a recommendation, huh? That’s great. You know, you ought to have him. He’s smart as the devil.”

“That’s what Nick said. But he’s also seventy, and our medical facilities are pretty primitive.”

Larry turned to look at Stu, half-smiling. “This committee isn’t quite as temporary as it looks on the face of it, is it?”

“We-ell, let’s put it this way. We’d like to see our committee stand for election to a full term.”

“Preferably unopposed,” Larry said. His eyes on Stu were friendly but sharp—very sharp. Stu relaxed a little. Regardless of how he himself felt about Larry Underwood (he still wasn’t sure), he could agree with Fran and the Judge about one thing: The boy hadn’t fallen off a haytruck yesterday. “Can I get you a beer?”

“I better not. Had a few too many with Glen Bateman a couple nights ago. Fran’s a patient girl, but her patience only stretches so far. What do you say, Larry? Want to ride along?”

“I guess ... oh hell, I say yes. I thought nothing in the world would make me happier than to get here and dump my people and let somebody else take over for a change. Instead, pardon my French, I’ve been just about bored out of my tits.”

“We’re having a little meeting tonight at my place to talk over the big meeting on the eighteenth. Think you could come?”

“Sure. Can I bring Lucy?”