“What?”
“Didn’t you know? Oh, surely, you must have known. Ponse and I discussed it in our very last talk. Weren’t you listening?”
“I thought that was just heavy sarcasm, on the part of each of you.”
“Nope, Ponse is a cannibal. Maybe not a cannibal, since he doesn’t consider us human. But he does eat us-they all do. Ponse always ate girls. About one a day for his family table, I gathered. Girls about the age and plumpness of Kitten.”
“But- But- Hugh, I ate the same thing he did, lots of times. I must have- I must have-”
“Sure you did. So did I. But not after I knew. Nor did you.”
“Honey. . . you better stop the car. I’m going to be sick.”
“Throw up on the twins if you must. This car doesn’t stop for anything.”
She managed to get the window open, got it mostly outside. Presently he said gently, “Feeling better?”
“Some.”
“Sweetheart, don’t hold what he ate too much against Ponse. He honestly did not know it was wrong-and no doubt cows would feel the same way about us, if they knew. But these other things he knew were wrong. Because he tried to justify them. He rationalized slavery, he rationalized tyranny, he rationalized cruelty, and always wanted the victim to agree and thank him. The headsman expected to be tipped.”
“I don’t want to talk about him, dear. I feel all mixed up inside.”
“Sorry. I’m half drunk without a drop and babbling. I’ll shut up. Watch the traffic behind, I’m going to make a left turn shortly.”
She did so and after they had turned off on a state road, narrower and not as well graded, he said, “I’ve figured out where we’re going. At first I was just putting distance behind us. Now we’ve got a destination. Maybe a safe one.”
“Where, Hugh?”
“A shutdown mine. I had a piece of it, lost some money in it. Now maybe it pays off. The Havely Lode. Nice big tunnels and we can reach the access road from this road. If I can find it in the dark. If we can get there before the trouble starts.” He concentrated on herding the car, changing down on the grades both climbing and on the occasional downhill
piece, braking hard before going into a curve, then cornering hard with plenty of throttle in the curves.
After a particularly vicious turn with Barbara on the hairraising outside, she said, “Look, dear, I know you’re doing it to save us. But we can be just as dead from a car crash as from an H-bomb.”
He grinned without slowing. “I used to drive jeeps in the dark with no headlights. Barbie, I won’t kill us. Few people realize how much a car will do and I’m delighted that this has a manual gear shift. You need it in the mountains. I would not dare drive this way with an automatic shift.”
She shut up and prayed, silently.
The road dropped into a high alp where it met another road; at the intersection there was a light. When he saw it Hugh said, “Read my watch.”
“Eleven-twenty-five.”
“Good. We are slightly over fifty miles from ground zero. From my house, I mean. And the Havely Lode is only five minutes beyond here, I know how to find it now. I see Schmidt’s Corner is open and we are low on gas. We’ll grab some and groceries, too-yes, I recall you told me you had both in this car; we’ll get more-and still make it before the curtain.”
He braked and scattered gravel, stopped by a pump, jumped out. “Run inside and start grabbing stuff. Put the twins on the floor of the car and close the door. Won’t hurt ‘em.” He stuck the hose into the car’s tank, started cranking the old-fashioned pump.
She was out in a moment. “There’s nobody here.”
“Honk the horn. The Dutchman is probably back at his house.”
Barbara honked and honked and the babies cried. Hugh hung up the hose. “Fourteen gallons we owe him for. Let’s go in. Should roll in just ten minutes, to be safe.”
Schmidt’s Corner was a gasoline station, a small lunch counter, a one-end grocery store, all of the sort that caters to local people, fishermen, hunters, and the tourist who likes to