Poor, poor Mr. Tree, she thought delightedly. You aren’t going to ruin any more meetings at the Foresters’ Hall because where you’ll be you won’t be able to preach to anybody, except maybe to me and I won’t listen.
Where can I do it? she asked herself. Today; I’ll ask Mama to take us out there after school. And if she won’t do it, I’ll hike out there by myself.
I can hardly wait, Edie said to herself, shivering with anticipation.
The bell for class rang, and, together with the other children, she started into the building. Mr. Barnes was waiting at the ‘door of the single classroom which served all the children from first grade to sixth; as she passed him, deep in thought, he said to her, “Why so absorbed; Edie? What’s on your weighty mind today?”
“Well,” she said, halting, “you were for a while. Now it’s Mr. Tree instead.”
“Oh yes,” Mr. Barnes said, nodding. “So you heard about that.”
The other children had passed on in, leaving them alone. So Edie said, “Mr. Barnes, don’t you think you ought to stop doing what you’re doing with my mama? It’s wrong; Bill says so and he knows.”
The school teacher’s face changed color, but he did not speak. Instead he walked away from her, into the room and up to his desk, still darkly flushed. Did I say it wrong? Edie wondered. Is he mad at me now? Maybe he’ll make me stay after, for punishment, and maybe he’ll tell Mama and she’ll spank me.
Feeling discouraged, she seated herself and opened the precious, ragged, fragile, coverless book to the story of Snow White; it was their reading assignment for the day.
Lying in the damp rotting leaves beneath the old live oak trees, in the shadows, Bonny Keller clasped Mr. Barnes to her and thought to herself that this was probably the last time; she was tired of it and Hal was scared, and that, she had learned from long experience, was a fatal combination.
“All right,” she murmured, “so she knows. But she knows on a small child’s level; she has no real understanding.”
“She knows it’s wrong,” Barnes answered.
Bonny sighed.
“Where is she now?” Barnes asked.
“Behind that by tree over there. Watching.”
Hal Barnes sprang to his feet as if stabbed; he whirled around, wide-eyed, then sagged as he comprehended the truth. “You and your malicious wit,” he muttered. But he did not return to her; he stayed on his feet, a short distance off, looking glum and uneasy. “Where is she really?”
“She hiked out to Jack Tree’s sheep ranch.”
“But—“ He gestured. “The man’s insane! Won’t he be—well, isn’t it dangerous?”
“She just went out to play with Terry, the verbose canine.” Bonny sat up and began picking bits of humus from her hair. “I don’t think he’s even there. The last time anybody saw Bruno, he—“
“’Bruno,’” Barnes echoed. He regarded her queerly.
“I mean Jack.” Her heart labored.
“He said the other night something about having been responsible for the high-altitude devices in 1972.” Barnes continued to scrutinize her; she waited, her pulse throbbing in her throat. Well, it was bound to come out sooner or later.
“He’s insane,” she ‘pointed out. “Right? He believes—“
“He believes,” Hal Barnes said, “that he’s Bruno Bluthgeld, isn’t that right?”
Bonny shrugged. “That, among other things.”
“And he is, isn’t he? And Stockstill knows it, you know it—that Negro knows it.”
“No,” she said, “that Negro doesn’t know it, and stop saying ‘that Negro.” His name is Stuart McConchie; I talked to Andrew about him and he says he’s a very fine, intelligent, enthusiastic and alive person.”
Barnes said, “So Doctor Bluthgeld didn’t die in the Emergency. He came here. He’s been ‘here, living among us. The man most responsible for what happened.”
“Go murder him,” Bonny said.
Barnes grunted.
“I mean it,” Bonny said. “I don’t care any more. Frankly I wish you would.” It would be a good manly act, she said to herself. It would be a distinct change.
“Why have you tried to shield a person like that?”
“I don’t know.” She did not care to discuss it. “Let’s go back to town,” she said. His company wearied her and she had begun to think once again about Stuart McConchie. “I’m out of cigarettes,” she said. “So you can drop me off at the cigarette factory.” She walked toward Barnes’ horse, which, tied to a tree, complacently cropped the long grass.
“A darky,” Barnes said, with bitterness. “Now you’re going to shack up with him. That certainly makes me feel swell.”
“Snob,” she said. “Anyhow, you’re afraid to go on; you want to quit. So the next time you see Edie you can truthfully say, ‘I am not doing anything shameful and evil with your mama, scout’s honor.’ Right?” She mounted the horse, picked up the reins and waited. “Come on, Hal.”
An explosion lit up the sky.
The horse bolted, and Bonny leaped from it, throwing herself from its side to roll, sliding, into the shrubbery of the oak forest. Bruno, she thought; can it be him really? She lay clasping her head, sobbing with pain; a branch had laid her scalp open and blood dripped through her fingers and ran down her wrist. Now Barnes bent over her; he tugged her up, turned her over. “Bruno,” she said. “Goddamn him. Somebody will have to kill him; they should have done it long ago—they should have done it in 1970 because he was insane then.” She got her handkerchief out and mopped at her scalp. “Oh dear,” she said. “I really am hurt. That was a real fall.”
“The horse is gone, too,” Barnes said.
“It’s an evil god,” she said, “who gave him that power, whatever it is. I know it’s him, Hal. We’ve seen a lot of strange things over the years, so why not this? The ability to re-create the war, to bring it back, like he said last night. Maybe he’s got us snared in time. Could that be it? We’re stuck fast; he’s—“ She broke off as a second white flash broke overhead, traveling at enormous speed; the trees around them lashed and bent and she heard, here and there, the old oaks splinter.
“I wonder where the horse went,” Barnes murmured, rising cautiously to his feet and peering around.
“Forget the horse,” she said. “We’ll have to walk back; that’s obvious. Listen, Hal. Maybe Hoppy can do something; he has funny powers, too. I think we ought to go to him and tell him. He doesn’t want to be incinerated by a lunatic. Don’t you agree? I don’t see anything else we can do at this point.”
“That’s a good idea,” Barnes said, but he was still looking for the horse; he did not seem really to be listening.
“Our punishment,” Bonny said.
“What?” he murmured.
“You know. For what Edie calls our ‘shameful, evil doings.’ I thought the other night … maybe we should have been killed with the others; maybe it’s a good thing this is happening.”
“There’s the horse,” Barnes said, walking swiftly from her. The horse was caught; his reins had become tangled in a bay limb.
The sky, now, had become sooty black. She remembered that color; it had never entirely departed anyhow. It had merely lessened.
Our little fragile world, Bonny thought, that we labored to build up, after the Emergency . – . this puny society with out tattered school books, our “deluxe” cigarettes, our wood-burning trucks—it can’t stand much punishment; it can’t stand this that Bruno is doing or appears to be doing. One blow again directed at us and we will be gone; the brilliant animals will perish, all the new, odd species will disappear as suddenly as they arrived. Too bad, she thought with grief. It’s unfair; Terry, the verbose dog—him, too. Maybe we were too ambitious; maybe we shouldn’t have dared to try to rebuild and go on.
“I think we did pretty well, she thought, all in all. We’ve been alive; we’ve made love and drunk Gill’s Five Star, taught our kids in a peculiar-windowed school building, put out News & Views, cranked up a car radio and listened daily to W. Somerset Maugham. What more could be asked of us? Christ, she thought. It isn’t fair, this thing now. It isn’t right at all. We have our horses to protect, our crops, our lives … .
Another explosion occurred, this time further off. To the south, she realized. Near the site of the old ones. San Francisco.
Wearily, she shut her eyes. And just when this McConchie has shown up, too, she thought. What lousy, stinking luck.
The dog, placing himself across the path, barring her way, groaned in his difficult voice, “Treezzz bizzzzeeeeee. Stopppppp.” He woofed in warning. She was not supposed to continue on to the wooden shack.
Yes, Edie thought, I know he’s busy. She had seen the explosions in the sky. “Hey, you know what?” she said to the dog.