Rising to his feet, Andrew Gill cleared his throat and said, “I think it’s appropriate for me to say a few words. First, I want to thank Mr. Stroud and this community for welcoming my new business associate, Mr. McConchie. And then I want to offer one reward that might be appropriate regarding Hoppy’s great service to this community and to the world at large. I’d like to contribute a hundred special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes.” He paused, starting to reseat himself, and then added, “And a case of Gill’s Five Star.”
The audience applauded, whistled, stamped in approval.
“Well,” Stroud said, smiling, “that’s really something I guess Mr. Gill is aware of what Hoppy’s action spared us all. There’s a whole lot of oak trees knocked over along Bear Valley Ranch Road, from the concussion of the blasts Bluthgeld was setting off. Also, as you may know, I understand that he was beginning to turn his attention south toward San Francisco—“
“That’s correct,” Bonny Keller spoke up.
“So,” Stroud said, “Maybe those people down there will want to pitch in and contribute something to Hoppy as a token of appreciation. I guess the best we can do, and it’s good but I wish there was more, is turn over Mr. Gill’s gift of the hundred special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes and the case of brandy … Hoppy will appreciate that, but I was actually thinking of something more in the line of a memorial, like a statue or a park or at least a plaque of some sort. And—I’d be willing to donate the land, and I know Cas Stone would, too.”
“Right,” Gas Stone declared emphatically.
“Anybody else got an idea?” Stroud asked. “You, Mrs. Tallman; I’d like to hear from you.”
Mrs. Tallman said, “It would be fitting to elect Mr. Harrington to an honorary public office, such as President of the West Marin Governing Citizens’ Council for instance, or as clerk of the School Trustees Board, That, of course, in addition to the park or memorial and the brandy and cigarettes.”
“Good idea,” Stroud said. “Well? Anybody else? Because let’s be realistic, folks; Hoppy saved our lives. That Bluthgeld had gone out of his mind, as everybody who was at the reading last night knows … he would have put us right back where we were seven years ago, and all our hard work in rebuilding would have gone for nothing. Nothing at all.”
The audience murmured its agreement.
“When you have magic like he had,” Stroud said, a physicist like Bluthgeld with all that knowledge … the world never was in such danger before; am I right? It’s just lucky Hoppy can move objects at a distance; it’s lucky for us that Hoppy’s been practicing that all these years now because nothing else would have reached out like that, over all that distance, and mashed that Bluthgeld like it did.”
Fred Quinn spoke up, “I talked to Edie Keller who witnessed it and she tells me that Bluthgeld got flung right up into the air before Hoppy mashed him; tossed all around.”
“I know,” Stroud said. “I interviewed Edie about it.” He looked around the room, at all the people. “If anybody wants details, I’m sure Edie would give them. Right, Mrs. Keller?”
Bonny, seated stiffly, her face pale, nodded.
“You still scared, Bonny?” Stroud asked.
“It was terrible,” Bonny said quietly.
“Sure it was,” Stroud said, “but Hoppy got him.” And then he thought to himself, That makes Hoppy pretty formidable, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s what Bonny’s thinking. Maybe that’s why she’s so quiet.
“I think the best thing to do,” Cas Stone said, “is to go right to Hoppy and say, ‘Hoppy, what do you want that sye can do for you in token of our appreciation?’ We’ll put it right to him. Maybe there’s something he wants very badly that we don’t know about.”
Yes, Stroud thought to himself. You have quite a point there, Cas. Maybe he wants many things we don’t know about, and maybe one day—not too far off—he’ll want to get them. Whether we form a delegation and go inquire after that or not.
“Bonny,” he said to Mrs. Keller, “I wish you’d speak up; you’re sitting there so quiet.”
Bonny Keller murmured, “I’m just tired.”
“Did you know Jack Tree was Bluthgeld?”
Silently, she nodded.
“Was it you, then,” Stroud asked, “who told Hoppy?”
“No,” she said. “I intended to; I was on my way. But it had already happened. He knew.”
I wonder how he knew, Stroud asked himself.
“That Hoppy,” Mrs. Lully said in a quavering voice, “he seems to be able to do almost anything … why, he’s even more powerful than that Mr. Bluthgeld, evidently.”
“Right,” Stroud agreed.
The audience murmured nervously.
“But he’s put all his abilities to use for the welfare ot our community,” Andrew Gill said. “Remember that. Remember he’s our handy and he helps bring in Dangerfield when the signal’s weak, and he does tricks for us, and imitations when we can’t get Dangerfield at all—he does a whole lot of things, including saving our lives from another nuclear holocaust. So I say, God bless Hoppy and his abilities. I think we should thank God that we have a funny here like him.”
“Right,” Cas Stone said.
“I agree,” Stroud said, with caution. “But I think we ought to sort of put it to Hoppy that maybe from now on—“ He hesitated. “Our killings should be like with Austurias, done legally, by our Jury. I mean, Hoppy did right and he had to act quickly and all … but the Jury is the legal body that’s supposed to decide. And Earl, here should do the actual act. In the future, I mean. That doesn’t include Bluthgeld because having all That magic he was different.” You can’t kill a man with powers like that through the ordinary methods, he realized. Like Hoppy, for instance … suppose someone tried to kill him; it would be next to impossible.
He shivered.
“What’s the matter, Orion?” Cas Stone asked, acutely.
“Nothing,” Orion Stroud said. “Just thinking what we can do to reward Hoppy to show our appreciation; it’s a weighty problem because we owe him so much.”
The audience murmured, as the individual members discussed with one another how to reward Hoppy.
George Keller, noticing his wife’s pale, drawn features, said, “Are you okay?” He put his hand on her shoulder but she leaned away.
“Just tired,” she said. “I ran for a mile, I think, when those explosions began. Trying to reach Hoppy’s house.”
“How did you know Hoppy could do it?” he asked.
“Oh,” she said, “we all know that; we all surely know he’s the only one of us who has anything remotely resembling that kind of strength. It came into our—“ She corrected herself. “My mind right away, as soon as I saw the explosions.” She glanced at her husband.
“Who were you with?” he said.
“Barnes. We were hunting chanterelle mushrooms under the oaks along Bear Valley Ranch Road.”
George Keller said, “Personally I’m afraid of Hoppy. Look—he isn’t even here. He has a sort of contempt for us all. He’s always late getting to the Hall; do you know what I mean? Do you sense it? And it gets more true all the time, perhaps as he sharpens his abilities.”
“Perhaps,” Bonny murmured.
“What do you think will happen to us now?” George asked her. “Now that we’ve killed Bluthgeld? We’re better off, a lot safer. It’s a load off everybody’s mind. Someone should notify Dangerfield so he can broadcast it from the satellite.”
“Hoppy could do that,” Bonny said in a remote voice. “He can do anything. Almost anything.”
In the speaker’s chair, Orion Stroud rapped for order. “Who wants to be in the delegation that goes down to Hoppy’s house and confers the reward and notification of honor on him?” He looked all around the room. “Somebody start to volunteer.”
“I’ll go,” Andrew Gill spoke up.
“Me, too,” Fred Quinn said.
Bonny said, “I’ll go.”
To her, George said, “Do you feel well enough to?”
“Sure.” She nodded listlessly. “I’m fine, now. Except for the gash on my head.” Automatically she touched the bandage.
“How about you, Mrs. Tallman?” Stroud was saying.
“Yes, I’ll go,” Mrs. Tallman answered, but her voice trembled.
“Afraid?” Stroud asked.
“Yes,” she said.
“Why?”
Mrs. Tallman hesitated. “I—don’t know, Orion.”
“I’ll go, too,” Orion Stroud announced. “That’s five of us, three men and two women; that’s just about right. We’ll take the brandy and the cigaboos along and announce the rest—about the plaque, and him being President of the Council and clerk and all that.”
“Maybe,” Bonny said in a low voice, “we ought to send a delegation there that will stone him to death.”
George Keller sucked in his breath and said, “For God’s sake, Bonny.”
“I mean it,” she said.
“You’re behaving in an incredible way,” he said, furious and surprised; he did not understand her. “What’s the matter?”