He had their only remaining firearm, a rifle slung over his back and a belt with a few cartridges, but with knife and club, fists and feet and teeth, he was also their hardest battler. That was all which had kept him alive, those unending years of feud and famine and hopeless drifting, for no gangman was ever safe and a boss, with his own jealous underlings to watch as well as outsiders, least of all.

  ‘Okay, okay,’ yielded the other man sullenly. ‘Only I’m tired an’ hungry, we been goin’ so long.’

  ‘Not much further,’ promised Hammer. ‘I recognize this territory. Come on – an’ quiet!’

  They moved ahead, groping, half asleep with weariness, and the gnawing in their bellies was all that kept them going. It had been a long journey, hundreds of miles of devastated southland, and it was bitterly hard to pass these rich northern farms on a night march without lifting more than a few chickens or ears of corn. But Hammer was insistent on secrecy, and he had dominated them long enough for most of them to give in without argument. He had not yet chosen to reveal his full plan, but this far into civilized country it must involve fighting. And looting, the wolf-thought added.

  The moon was low when Hammer called a halt. They had topped a high ridge overlooking a darker mass some two miles off, a town. ‘Y’all can sleep now,’ said the chief. ‘We’ll hit ‘em shortly before sunrise. We’ll take the place – food, houses, women, likker! An’ more’n that, boys.’

  The gang was too tired to care about anything but sleep. They stretched on the ground, lank animal figures in clumsy rags of leather and homespun, carrying knives and clubs, scythes, axes, even spears and bows. Hammer squatted motionless, a great bearded gorilla of a man, his massive face turned toward the sleeping town. A pair of his lieutenants, lean young men with something of ultimate hardness about them, joined him.

  ‘Okay, Dick, what’s the idea?’ muttered one. ‘We don’t just go tearin’ in; if that was all, there’re towns closer to where we come from. What’re you cookin’ now?’

  ‘Plenty,’ said Hammer. ‘Now don’t get noisy, an’ I’ll explain. My notion’ll give us more’n a few days’ food an’ rest an’ celebration. It’ll give us – home.’

  ‘Home!’ whispered the other outlaw. His cold eyes took on an odd remote look. ‘Home! The word tastes queer. I ain’t spoke it so long—’

  ‘I useta live here, before the war,’ said Hammer, softly and tonelessly. ‘When things blew up, though, I was in the army. The plagues hit my unit, an’ them as didn’t die the first week went over the hill. I headed south, figgerin’ the country’d busted up an’ I’d better go where it’d be warm. Only too many other people got the same idea.’

  ‘You’ve tol’ us that much before.’

  ‘I know, I know, but – anybody who lived through it can’t forget it. I still see those men dyin’ – the plague eatin’ ‘em. Well, we fought for food. Sep’rate gangs attacked each other when they met. Until at last there was few enough left an’ things picked up a little. So I j’ined a village an’ started farmin’.’

  The dog howled again, closer. There was an eerie quavering in that cry, something never voiced before the mutations began. ‘That goddam mutt’ll wake the whole muckin’ town,’ grumbled one of the gangmen.

  ‘Nah, this place been peaceful too long,’ said Hammer. ‘You can see that. No guards nowhere. Why, there’re sep’rate farms. We had to fight other men, an’ then when we finally planted, there was the bugs an’ the blights, an’ at last the floods washed our land from under us an’ I had to take to gang life again. Then I remembered my ol’ home town Southvale. Nice farmin’ land, pretty decent climate, an’ judgin’ by reports an’ rumors about this here whole region, settled down an a’mos’ rich. So I thought I’d come back.’ Hammer’s teeth gleamed white under the moon.

  ‘Well, you always did love t’ hear y’rself talk. Now suppose you say what your deal is.’

  ‘Just this. The town’s cut: off from outside by ordinary means o’ travel. Once we hold it, we can easy take care o’ the outlyin’ farms an’ villages. But – you can see the gov’ment’s been here. Few bugs in the crops, so somebody must’a been sprayin’. A jet overhead yestiddy. An’ so on.’

  They stirred uneasily. One muttered: ‘I don’t want nothin’ to do with the gov’ment. They’ll hang us f’r this.’

  ‘If they can! They really ain’t so strong. They ain’t got aroun’ to the South at all, ‘cept f’r one ‘r two visits. Way I figger it, there’s only one gov’ment center to speak of, this town out in Oregon we heard about. We can find out ‘zac’ly from the people we catch. They’ll tell!

  ‘Now look. The gov’ment must deal with Southvale, one way ‘r ‘nother. There ain’t enough cars ‘r roads, so they must use planes. That means one’ll land in Southvale, sooner ‘r later. The pilot steps out – an’ we’ve got us a jet. I ain’t forgot how to fly. Mebbe we can ferry a lot, fly to Oregon an’ land at night near the house o’ some big shot, mebbe even the President. The plane’s pilot’ll tell us what we need to know. Them jets just whisper along, an’ anyway nobody expects air attack any more. We’ll be just another incomin’ plane if they do spot us.

  ‘All right. We capture our big shot, an’ find out from him where the atom bombs’re kept. There must be some stockpiled near the city, an’ our man’ll make a front f’r us to get at ‘em. If he ain’t scared f’r himself, he’s got a fam’ly. We set the bombs an’ clear out. The city blows. No more gov’ment worth mentionin’. With what we’ve taken from the arsenals, we’ll hold Southvale an’ all this territory. We’ll be bosses, owners – kings! Mebbe later we can go on an’ conquer more land. There’ll be no gov’ment to stop us.’

  Hammer stood up. His eyes caught the moonlight in a darkly splendid vision – for he was, in his own estimate, not a robber. Hardened by pain and sorrow and the long bitter fight to live, he was more of a conqueror, an Alexander or Napoleon. He genuinely hoped to improve the lot of his own people, and as for others – well, ‘stranger’ and ‘enemy’ had been synonymous too long for him to give that side of it much thought now.

  ‘No more hunger,’ he breathed. ‘No more cold an’ wet, no more hidin’ an’ runnin’ from a stronger gang, no more walkin’ an’ walkin’ an’ never gettin’ nowheres. Our kids won’t die before they’re weaned, they’ll grow up like God meant they should, free an’ happy an’ safe. We c’n build our own future, boys – I seem t’ see it now, a tall city reachin’ f’r the sun.’

  His lieutenants stirred uneasily. After some ten years of association, they recognized their chief’s strange moods but could not fathom them. His enormous ambitions were beyond the scope of minds focused purely on the day-to-day struggle for life, they were awed and half afraid. But even his enemies acknowledged Richard Hammer’s skill and audacity and luck. This might work.

  Their own ideas of a future went little beyond a house and a harem. But to smash the government was a cause worth giving life for. They associated it with the disaster, and thus with all their woes. And it was their enemy. It would kill them, or at least lock them up, for deeds done to survive when every man’s hand was against them. It would surely never let them hold this green and lovely land.

  Unless – unless!

  The dog had been snuffling around the outlaw camp, a vague misshapen shadow in the fleeting moonlight. Now he howled once more and trotted down the ridge toward the dark silent mass of the town.

  III

  Alaric Wayne woke at the sound of scratching. For a moment he lay in bed, his mind still clouded with sleep. Moonlight streamed through the window to shimmer off the tumbled heaps of books and apparatus littering the room. Outside, the world was a black-and-white fantasy, unreal under the high stars.

  Full wakefulness came. Alaric slid out of bed, went to the window, and leaned against the screen. It was his dog, scratching to get in. And – excited. He raised the screen and the animal jumped clumsily over the sill.

  The dog whined, pulled at Alaric’s leg, sniffed toward the south and shivered. The boy’s great light eyes seemed to deepen and brighten, cold in the pouring moonlight; shadow-masked, his thin face was invisible, but its blankness slid into tight lines.

  He had to – think!

  The dog was warning him of danger from the south. But though the mutation shaping the canine brain had given it abnormal intelligence, he was still only a dog. He was not able to understand or reason above an elementary level. Three years ago, Alaric had noticed certain signs in the pup, and raised and trained it, and there was a curious partial rapport between them. They had cooperated before, to hunt or to avoid the wild dog packs on their long hikes.

  But now there was danger. Men outside town, to the south, with hostile intentions. That was all the dog had been able to gather. It would have been enough for any normal human. But Alaric wasn’t normal.

  He stood trembling a little with effort, clenching his hands to his forehead as if to keep his spinning brain from explosion. What did it mean? What to do?

  Danger was clear enough, and primitive instinct showed what to do. One ran from the bands of human boys, when they intended to beat up a mutant, and hid. One skirted the spoor of wild dogs or of the bears beginning to spread since hunting diminished. Only in this case — slowly, fighting itself, his mind spewed out the conclusion – in this case, one couldn’t run. If the town went, so did all safety.

  Think – think! There was danger, it couldn’t be run from – what to do? His mind groped in a mist. There was nothing to grasp. Disjointed chains of logic clanked insanely in his skull.

  Reason did not supply the answer, but instinct came, the instinct which would have taken over at once in the face of immediate peril and now finally broke through the storm of consciousness.

  Why – it was so simple. Alaric relaxed, eyes widening with the sheer delightful simplicity of it. It was, really, as obvious as – why, it had all the elementariness of the three-body problem. If you couldn’t run from danger you fought it!

  Fighting, destruction … yes, something to destroy, but he would only have the newly reclaimed powerhouse to work with.

  He scrambled frantically into his clothes. A glance at stars and moon told him, without the need for thought, how long till sunrise. Not long – and in his own way, he knew the enemy would attack just before dawn. He had to hurry!

  He vaulted out the window and ran down the street, the dog following. It was a ribbon of moonlight, empty and silent. All the town’s electrical and electronic equipment was stored at the powerhouse. It would be quite a while before the whole community had electricity again, but meanwhile the plant ran several important machines, charged storage batteries, and waited.

  The building stood beside the river, a lighted window glowing in its dark bulk. Behind it, moon-whitened water rushed murmurously over the low dim. After the war there had been no time or parts to spare for the generators, and they had been plundered to repair the vital farm machinery, but recently the government had delivered what was necessary to start the hydroelectric turbines going again. It had occasioned a formal celebration in Southvale – another step up the ladder, after that long fall down.

  Alaric beat on the door, yelling wordlessly. There came the sound of a scraping chair and the maddeningly slow shuffle of feet. Alaric jittered on the steps, gasping. No time, no time!

  The door creaked open, and the night watchman blinked myopically at Alaric. He was an old man, and hadn’t gotten new glasses since the war. ‘Who’re you, boy?’ he asked. ‘And what d’you want at this hour?’

  Alaric brushed impatiently by him and made for the storeroom. He knew what he needed and what he must do with it, but the job was long and time was growing so terribly short.

  ‘Here … hey, you!’ the watchman hobbled after him, indignantly. You crazy mutie, what do you think you’re doing?’

  Alaric shook loose the clutching hand and gestured to his dog. The mongrel snarled and bristled, and the watchman stumbled back. ‘Help!’ It was a high, old man’s yell. ‘Help, burglar.’

  Somehow words came, more instinctive than reasoned. ‘Shut up,’ said Alaric, ‘or dog kill you.’ He meant it.

  The animal added emphasis with a bass growl and a vicious snap of fangs. The watchman sank into a chair, blood draining from his face, and the dog sat down to guard him.

  The storeroom door was locked. Alaric grabbed a heavy wrench and beat down a panel. Tumbling into the room, he grabbed for what he needed. Wires – meters – tubes – batteries – hurry, hurry!

  Dragging it out into the main chamber before the great droning generators, he squatted down, a tatterdemalion gnome, and got to work. The watchman stared through blurred and horrified vision. The dog regarded him steadily, with sullen malevolent hope that he would try something. It was embittering, to hate all the world save one being, because only that being understood.

  False dawn glimmered over the land, touching houses and fields and glittering briefly off the swift-flowing river before deeper darkness returned. Hammer’s gang awoke with the instant animal alertness of their kind, and stirred in the fog-drifting twilight. Their scant clothes were heavy with dew, they were cold and hungry – how hungry! – and they looked down at the moveless mass of their goal with a smoldering savage wish.

  ‘Fair is the land,’ whispered Hammer, ‘more fair ‘n land’s ever been. The fields’re green t’harvest, an’ the fog runs white over a river like a polished knife – an it’s our land.’ His voice rose, hard again: ‘Joe, take twenty men an’ circle north. Come in by the main road, postin’ men at the edge o’ town an’ the bridge over the river, then wait in the main square. Buck, take your fifteen, circle west, an’ come in the same time as Joe, postin’ men outside town an’ in that big buildin’ halfway down Fifth Street – that’s the machine shop, as I recall, an’ I hope you can still read street signs. Then join Joe. The rest follow as straight north. Go as quiet as you can, slug ‘r kill anyone you meet, an’ be ready f’r a fight but don’t start one. Okay!’

  The two other groups filed down the hill and vanished into misty dusk. Hammer waited a while. He had previously divided the gang into bands assigned to his lieutenants, reserving the best men for the group directly under his command. He spoke to them, softly but with metallic speed:

  ‘Accordin’ t’ what I remember o’ Southvale, an’ to what I seen elsewhere, they don’t expect nothin’ like this. There’ve been no bandits here f’r a long time, an’ anyway they’d never think a gang had the skill an’ self-control t’ sneak through the fat lands farther south. So there’ll be no patrol, just a few cops on their beats – an’ too sleepy at this hour t’ give us much trouble. An’ nearly all the weapons’re gonna be in the police station – which is what we’re gonna capture. With guns, we’ll control the town. But f’r Christ’s sake, don’t start shootin’ till I say to. There may be armed citizens, an’ they c’n raise hell with us ‘nless we handle ‘em right.’

  A low mutter of assent ran along the line of haggard, bearded, fierce-eyed men. Knives and axes glittered in the first dim dawn-flush, bows were strung and spears hefted. But there was no restlessness, no uncontrollable lust to be off and into battle. They had learned patience the hard way, the past sixteen years. They waited.

  Timing wasn’t easy to judge, but Hammer had developed a sense for it which had served him before. When he figured the other bands were near the outskirts of town, he raised his hand in signal, slipped the safety catch on his gun, and started down the hill at a rapid trot.

  The white mists rolled over the ground, but they needed nothing to muffle the soft pad of their feet, most bare and all trained in quietness. Grass whispered under their pace, a staked-out cow lowed, and a rooster greeted the first banners of day. Otherwise there was silence, and the town still slept.

  They came onto the cracked pavement of the road, and it was strange to be walking on concrete again. They passed an outer zone of deserted houses. As Hammer had noticed elsewhere, Southvale had withdrawn into a compact defensive mass during the black years and not grown far out of it since. As long as there were no fortified outposts, such an arrangement was easy to overrun. Still, the gang was enormously outnumbered, and had to make up the difference with speed and ruthlessness. Hammer stopped at the edge of habitation, told off half a dozen men to patrol the area, and led the rest on toward the middle of town. They went more slowly now, senses drawn wire-taut, every nerve and muscle strained into readiness.

  Hoofs clattered from a side street. Hammer gestured to a bowman, who grinned and bent his weapon. A mounted policeman came into view a few blocks down. He wasn’t impressive, he had no sign of office except gun and tarnished badge, he was drowsy and eager to report to the station and then get home. His wife would have breakfast ready.

  The bow twanged, a great bass throb in the quiet street. The rider pitched out of his saddle, the arrow through his breast, the astonishment on his face so ridiculous that a couple of gangmen guffawed. Hammer cursed; the horse had reared; neighed in panic, and then galloped down the avenue. The clattering echoes beat at the walls around like alarm-crying sentries.

  A man stuck his head out of a window. He was still half asleep, but he saw the unkempt band outside and yelled – a choked gurgle it was, spitted on an arrow before it was properly born.

  ‘Snagtooth an’ Mex, get in that house an’ silence anyone else!’ rapped Hammer. ‘You five—’ he swept an arm in an unconsciously imperial gesture – ‘take care o’ anybody else hereabouts who spots us. The rest come on!’

  They ran down the street, disregarding noise but not making much anyway. The town had changed a lot, but Hammer remembered the general layout. The police station, he thought briefly and wryly, he knew very well – just about every Saturday night, in the old days.

  They burst onto that block and raced for the station. There it was, the same square and solid structure, dingy now with years, the trimmings gone, but there were horses hitched before it and the door stood ajar.

  Through the door! The desk sergeant and a couple of other men gaped blankly down the muzzle of Hammer’s gun, then slowly their hands rose. Others of the gang poured down the short corridors beyond into every room. There came yells, the clatter of feet, the brief sharp bark of a gun and the racket of combat.

 

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