Lucifer's Hammer

Harvey Randall turned right at Porterville and wound eastward up into the foothills. Once the road turned sharply and for a moment he had a view of the magnificent High Sierra to the east, the mountaintops still covered with snow. Eventually he found the turnoff onto the side road, and further down that was the unmarked gate. A U.S. Mail truck had already gone through, and the driver was coming back to close the gate. He was long-haired and elegantly bearded.

“Lost?” the mailman asked.

“Don’t think so. This Senator Jellison’s ranch?” Harvey asked.

The mailman shrugged. “They say so. I’ve never seen him. You’ll close the gate?”

“Sure.”

“See you.” The mailman went back to his truck. Harvey drove through the gate, got out and closed it, then followed the truck up the dusty path to the top of the hill. There was a white frame house there. The drive forked, the right-hand branch leading down toward a barn and a chain of co

An ample woman came out of the house. She waved to the mailman. “Coffee’s hot, Harry!”

“Thanks. Happy Trash Day.”

“Oh, that again? So soon? All right, you know where to put it.” She advanced on the TravelAII. “Can I help you?”

“I’m looking for Senator Jellison. Harvey Randall, NBS.”

Mrs. Cox nodded. “They’re expecting you, up to the big house.” She pointed down the left-hand branch of the drive. “Mind where you park, and look out for the cats.”

“What’s Trash Day?” Harvey asked.

Mrs. Cox’s face already wore a suspicious look. Now it changed to deadpan. “Nothing important,” she said. She went back onto the porch. The mailman had already vanished inside the house.

Harvey shrugged and started the TravelAII. The drive ran between barbed-wire fences, orange groves to the right, more pasture to the left. He rounded a bend and saw the house. It was large, stone walls and slate roof, a rambling, massive place that didn’t look very appropriate for this remote area It was framed against more cliffs, and had a view through a canyon to the High Sierra miles beyond.

He parked near the back door. As he started around to the big front porch, the kitchen door opened. “Hi,” Maureen Jellison called. “Save some walking and come in this way.”

“Right. Thanks.” She was as lovely as Harvey had remembered her. She wore tan slacks, not very highly tailored, and high-top shoes, not real trail shoes but good for walking. “Waffle-stompers,” Mark Czescu would have called them. Her red hair looked recently brushed. It hung down just to her shoulders, in waves with slight curls at the ends. The sun glinted off in pleasing highlights.

“Did you have an easy drive?” she asked.

“Pleasant enough—”

“I always like the drive up here from L.A.,” Maureen said. “But I expect you can use a drink right about now. What’ll you have?”

“Scotch. And thanks.”

“Sure.” She led him through a service porch into a very modern kitchen. There was a cabinet full of liquor, and she took out a bottle of Old Fedcal scotch, then fought with the ice tray. “It’s always all over frost when we first come up,” she said. “This is a working ranch, and the Coxes don’t have time to come up and fuss with the place much. Here, it will be nicer in the other room.”

Again she led the way, going through a hall to the front room of the house. The wide verandah was just beyond it. A pleasant room, Harvey decided. It was paneled in light-colored wood, with ranch-style furniture, not really very appropriate for such a massive house as this. There were photographs of dogs and horses on most of the walls, and a case of ribbons and trophies. mostly for horses, but some for cattle. “Where is everybody?” Harvey asked.

“I’m the only one here just now,” Maureen said.

Harvey pushed the thought firmly down into his unconscious, and tried to laugh at himself.

“The Senator got caught by a vote,” Maureen was saying. “He’ll catch the red-eye out of Washington tonight and get here in the morning. Dad says I’m to show you around. Want another drink?”

“No, thank you. One’s enough.” He put the glass down, then picked it up again when he realized he’d set it on a highly polished wood lamp-table. He wiped the water ring off with his hand. “Good thing the crew didn’t come up with me. Actually they’ve got some work to finish up, and I’d hoped we could get the footage on Senator Jellison tomorrow morning, but if he couldn’t be available tomorrow I’ve got the gear in the car. I used to be a fair cameraman. They’ll be here in the morning, and I thought I would use the evening to get acquainted with the Senator, find out what he’d like to talk about for the camera…” And I’m chattering, Harvey thought. Which is stupid.

“Care for the grand tour?” Maureen asked. She glanced at Harvey’s Roughrider trousers and walking shoes. “You won’t need to change. If you’re up to a tough walk, I’ll show you the best view in the valley.”

“Sure. Let’s go.”

They went out through the kitchen and cut across the orange groves. A stream bubbled off to their left.

“That’s good swimming down there,” Maureen said. “Maybe we’ll have a dip if we get back early enough.”

They went through a fence. She parted the barbed wire and climbed through effortlessly, then turned to watch Harvey. She gri

The other side of the fence was weeds and shrubs, never plowed or grazed. The way was steep here. There were small trails, made by rabbits or goats. They weren’t really suited for humans at all. They climbed several hundred feet until they got to the base of a great granite cliff. It rose sheer at least two hundred feet above them. “We have to go around to the left here,” Maureen said. “It gets tough from here on.”

Much tougher and I won’t make it, Harvey thought. But I will be damned if I’ll have a Washington socialite show me up. I’m supposed to be an outdoorsman.

He hadn’t been hiking with a girl since Maggie Thompkins blew herself up on a land mine in Vietnam. Maggie had been a go-get-’em reporter, always out looking for a story. She had no interest in sitting around in the Caravelle Bar and getting her material third- or fourth-hand. Harvey had gone with her to the front, and once they’d had to walk out from behind Cong lines together. If she hadn’t been killed… Harvey put that thought away, too. It was a long time ago.

They scrambled up through a cleft in the rocks. “Do you come up here often?” Harvey asked. He tried to keep the strain out of his voice.

“Only once before,” Maureen said. “Dad told me not to do it alone.”

Eventually they reached the top. They were not, Harvey saw, on a peak at all. They were at one end of a ridge that stretched southeastward into the High Sierra. A narrow path led up into the rock cliff itself; they’d come all the way behind it, so that when they got to its top they faced the ranch.

“You’re right,” Harvey said. “The view’s worth it.” He stood on a monolith several stories high, feeling the pleasant breeze blowing across the valley. Everywhere he looked there were more of the huge white rocks. A glacier must have passed through here and scattered the land with these monoliths.

The Senator’s ranch was laid out below. The small valley carved by the stream ran for several miles to the west; then there were more hills, still dotted with bungalow-size white stones. Far beyond the hills, and far below the level of the ranch, was the broad expanse of the San Joaquin. It was hazy out there, but Harvey thought he could make out the dark shape of the Temblor Range on the western edge of California’s central valley.