could study their back track and receive reports from Ted. Morgan was not worried
about Ted being followed-he was confident that Ted could steal baby ‘possums from
mama’s pouch. But the convoy breakdown might have been a trap-there was no way to
tell that all of the soldiers had got back into the trucks. The messenger might have
been followed; certainly he had been trapped too easily.
Morgan wondered how much the messenger would spill. He could not spill much
about Morgan’s own people, for the “post office” rendezvous was all that he knew
about them.
Page 88
The base of Morgan’s group was neither better nor worse than average of the
several thousand other camps of recalcitrant guerrillas throughout the area that
once called itself the United States. The Twenty Minute War had not surprised
everyone. The mushrooms which had blossomed over Washington, Detroit, and a score of
other places had been shocking but expected-by some.
Morgan had made no grand preparations. He had simply conceived it as a good
period in which to stay
footloose and not too close to a talget area. He had taken squatter’s rights in an
abandoned mine and had stocked it with tools, food, and other useful items. He had
had the simple intention to survive; it was during the weeks after Final Sunday that
he discovered that there was no way for a man with foresight to avoid becoming a
leader.
Morgan and Dad Carter entered the mine by a new shaft and tunnel which
appeared on no map, by a dry rock route which was intended to puzzle even a
bloodhound. They crawled through the tunnel, were able to raise their heads when
they reached the armory, and stepped out into the common room of the colony, the
largest chamber, ten by thirty feet and as high as it was wide.
Their advent surprised no one, else they might not have lived to enter. A
microphone concealed in the tunnel had conveyed their shibboleths before them. The
room was unoccupied save for a young woman stirring something over a tiny, hooded
fire and a girl who sat at a typewriter table mounted in front of a radio. She was
wearing earphones and shoved one back and turned to face them as they came in.
“Howdy, Boss!”
“Hi, Margie. What’s the good word?” Then to the other, “What’s for lunch?”
“Bark soup and a notch in your belt.”
“Cathleen, you depress me.”
“Well . . . mushrooms fried in rabbit fat, but darn few of them.”
“That’s better.”
“You better tell your boys to be more careful what they bring in. One more
rabbit with tularemia and we won’t have to worry about what to eat.”
“Hard to avoid, Cathy. You must be sure you handle them the way Doc taught
you.” He turned to the girl. “Jerry in the upper tunnel?”
“Yes.”
“Get him down here, will you?”
“Yes, sir.” She pulled a sheet out of her typewriter and handed it to him,
along with others, then left the room.
Morgan glanced over them. The enemy had abolished soap opera and singing
commercials but he could not say that radio had been improved. There was an unnewsy
sameness to the propaganda which now came over the air. He checked through while
wishing for just one old-fashioned, uncensored newscast.
“Here’s an item!” he said suddenly. “Get this, Dad-”
“Read it to me, Ed.” Dad’s spectacles had been broken on Final Sunday. He
could bring down a deer, or a man, at a thousand yards-but he might never read
again.
“‘New Center, 28 April-It is with deep regret that Continental Coordinating
Authority for World Unification, North American District, announces that the former
city of St. Joseph, Missouri, has been subjected to sanitary measures. It is ordered
that a memorial plaque setting forth the circumstances be erected on the former site
of St. Joseph as soon as radioactivity permits. Despite repeated warnings the former
inhabitants of this lamented city encouraged and succored marauding bands of outlaws
skulking around the outskirts of their community. It is hoped that the sad fate of
St. Joseph will encourage the native authorities of all North American communities
to take all necessary steps to suppress treasonable intercourse with the few