Lucifer's Hammer

“Who’s the chick?” Robbins demanded. He took a large flashlight from his pocket and shined it toward the Blazer. It didn’t help the visibility much. It showed raindrops falling, and the muddy car, and a glint of Eileen’s hair. “One of your relatives? Rich bitch?”

You little bastard. Tim tried to remember his assistant as he’d known him. They’d quarreled when Marty lived in Bel Air with Tim, but it hadn’t been serious, and Robbins was excellent at the observatory. Not a month ago, three weeks ago, Tim had written a letter recommending Robbins to the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff. I guess I really never knew…

“She can stay,” Robbins was saying. “We’re a woman short. She can stay. Not you. I’ll go tell her—”

“You’ll ask her,” Larry said. “Ask. She can stay if she wants to.”

“And me?”

“We’re going to watch you drive away,” Larry said. “Don’t come back.”

“There are some rangers out there,” Marty Robbins said. “Maybe it’s not such a good idea. Maybe we shouldn’t let him have the car. That’s a good car. Better than anything we have here—”

“Don’t talk like that.” Larry’s voice dropped and he glanced behind at the door into the observatory.

Tim frowned. Something was happening here, and he didn’t understand it.

Eileen got out of the Blazer and came up onto the porch Her voice was wooden, exhausted. “What’s wrong, Tim?”

“They say this isn’t my place anymore. They’re sending us away.”

“You can stay,” Marty said.

“You can’t do this!” Eileen screamed.

“Shut up!” Larry shouted.

An ample woman came out of the observatory. She looked at Larry with a frown. “What is this?”

“Keep out of this,” Larry said.

“Larry Kelly, what are you doing?” the woman demanded. “Who are these people? I know him! He was on the ‘Tonight Show.’ Timothy Hamner. This was your place, wasn’t it?”

“It is my place.”

“No,” Fritz said. “We agreed. No.”

“Thieves. Thieves and murderers,” Eileen said. “Why don’t you just shoot us and be done with it?”

Tim wanted to shout to her, to tell her to shut up. Suppose they did it? Robbins would.

“There’s no call to say things like that,” the woman said. “It’s simple. There’s not enough here for all of us. Not for long. More people there are, the less there is, and we don’t need Mr. Hamner giving orders, and I don’t reckon he’s good for a lot else. Not anymore. You go find another place, Mr. Hamner. There’s other places to go.” She looked to Larry for confirmation. “We’ll have to move on pretty soon ourselves. You’ll just have a head start.”

She sounded thoroughly sane and reasonable. It was a nightmare for Tim: She sounded calm and reasonable, and her tone indicated that she was sure Tim would agree.

“But the girl can stay,” Robbins said again.

“Do you want to?” Tim asked.

Eileen laughed. It was a bitter laugh, full of contempt. She looked at Marty Robbins and laughed again.

“There are children in that car,” the woman said.

“Mary Sue, they’re no business of ours,” Fritz said.

She ignored him. She looked to Larry. “Who are those children?”

“From the camp,” Eileen said. “They lived in Los Angeles. The rangers didn’t have anything to feed them. We brought them. We thought—”

The woman left the porch and went down to the Blazer.

“You tell her no,” Fritz said. “You make her—”

“I haven’t been able to make her do anything for fifteen years,” Larry said. “You know that.”

“Yeah.”

“We don’t need kids here!” Marty Robbins shouted.

“Don’t reckon they’ll eat as much between them as this lady would,” Larry said. He turned to Tim and Eileen. “Look Mr. Hamner, you see how it is? We got nothing against you, but-”

“But you’re leaving,” Marty Robbins said. There was satisfaction in his voice. He let it drop so that the woman couldn’t hear. She had gotten into the car and was sitting in the back seat talking with the children. “I still say there are rangers out there. Hamner might find one. Tell you what, I’ll go along with him when he leaves—”

“No.” Larry was clearly disgusted.

“Maybe he should,” Fritz said. “Way he thinks, I’m not sure we ever want to have him behind us. Maybe he should go and not come back. We could tough it out without him.”

“We made a deal!” Marty cried. “When you came here! I let you in! We made a deal—”

“Sure we did,” Fritz said. “But you better shut up about murder or we may forget that deal. I see Mary Sue’s bringing the kids. You want us to keep ’em, Mr. Hamner?”

So damned calm, Tim thought. Fritz and Larry. Two… two what? Carpenters? Landscape gardeners? Survivors now, convincing themselves they were still civilized people. “Since there’s no gas left in the car, and Eileen and I aren’t likely to get out of the mountains alive, it would be a good idea. Eileen, staying here might be your—”

“Not with that.” She was looking at Robbins.

Fritz looked at Larry. They stared at each other for a moment. “I guess we’ve got a little gas,” Fritz said. “Ten-gallon can, anyway. You can have that. Ten gallons of gas and a couple cans of soup. Now get back in that car before we change our minds about the gas.”

Tim got back in the car, pulling Eileen along before she could make any more suggestions. The children were clustered around Mary Sue, but they were looking toward the car, and that scared look was going to be on their faces a lot from now on. Tim dredged up a reassuring smile and a wave. His fingers twitched with the need to get going, get away from those guns! But he waited.

Larry filled their tank.

Tim backed out of the drive and drove off into the rain.

The Mailman: One

Everything that is called duty, the prerequisite for all genuine law and the substance of every noble custom, can be traced back to honor. If one has to think about it, one is already without honor.

Harry Newcombe saw nothing of Hammerfall, and it was Jason Gillcuddy’s fault. Gillcuddy had imprisoned himself in the wilderness (he said) to diet and to write a novel. He had dropped twelve pounds in six months, but he could afford more. As for his isolation, it was certain that he would rather talk to a passing postman than write.

As the best coffee cup was to be found at the Silver Valley Ranch, so Gillcuddy, on the other side of the valley, made the best coffee. “But,” Harry told him, smiling, “I’d slosh if I let everyone feed me two cups. I’m popular, I am.”

“Kid, you’d better take it. My lease is up come Thursday, and Ballad’s finished. Next Trash Day I’ll be gone.”

“Finished. Hey, beautiful! Am I in it?”

“No, I’m sorry, Harry, but the damn thing was getting too big. You know how it is; what you like best is usually what has to go. But the coffee’s Jamaica Blue Mountain. When I celebrate—”

“Yeah. Pour.”

“Shot of brandy?”

“Have some respect for the uniform, if you… Well, hell, I can’t pour it out, can I.”

“To my publisher.” Gillcuddy raised his cup, carefully. “He said if I didn’t fulfill his contract he’d put out a contract on me.”

“Tough business.”

“Well, but the money’s good.”

A distant thunderclap registered at the back of Harry’s mind. Summer storm coming? He sipped at his coffee. It really was something special.

But there were no thunderclouds when he walked outside. Harry had been up before dawn; the valley farmers kept strange hours, and so did postmen. He had seen the pearly glow of the comet’s tail wrapping the Earth. Some of that glory still clung, softening the direct sunlight and whiting the blue of the sky. Like smog, but clean. There was a strange stillness, as if the day were waiting for something.

So it was back to Chicago for Jason Gillcuddy, until the next time he had to imprison himself to diet and write a novel. Harry would miss him. Jason was the most literate man in the valley, possibly excepting the Senator — who was real. Harry had seen him from a distance yesterday, arriving in a vehicle the size of a bus. Maybe they’d meet today.