Lucifer's Hammer

“And salt rain,” Jellison said. “And the earthquake. The last words I heard out of JPL were ‘The Hammer has fallen.’ I’d like to talk to somebody who was in the hills above L.A. when it happened, but what I’ve got adds up. The Hammer hit us, and bad. We can be sure of it.”

No one said anything. They’d all known it. They’d hoped to find out something different, but they knew better. They were farmers and businessmen, tied closely to the land and the weather, and they lived in the foothills of the High Sierra. They’d known disaster before, and they’d done their crying and cursing at home. Now they were worried about what to do next.

“We got five truckloads of feed and hardware and two of groceries out of Porterville today,” Jellison said. “And there’s the stock in our local stores. And what you have in your barns. I doubt there’ll be much else that we don’t make or grow ourselves.”

There were murmurs. One of the farmers said, “Not ever, Senator?”

“Might as well be never,” Jellison said. “Years, I think. We’re on our own.”

He paused to let that sink in. Most of these people prided themselves on being on their own. Of course that wasn’t true, hadn’t been true for generations, and they were smart enough to know it, but it would take them time to realize just how dependent they’d been on civilization.

Fertilizers. Breeding stock. Vitamins. Gasoline and propane. Electricity. Water — well, that wouldn’t be much of a problem for awhile. Medicines, drugs, razor blades, weather forecasts, seeds, animal feed, clothes, ammunition… the list was endless. Even needles and pins and thread.

“We won’t grow much this year,” Stretch Tallifsen said. “My crops are in bad shape already.”

Jellison nodded. Tallifsen had gone down the road to help his neighbors harvest tomatoes, and his wife was working to can as many as she could. Tallifsen grew barley, and it wouldn’t last the summer.

“Question is, do we pull together?” Jellison said.

“What do you mean, ‘pull together’?” Ray Christopher asked.

“Share. Pool what we’ve got,” Jellison answered.

“You mean communism,” Ray Christopher said. This time the hostility showed through in his voice.

“No, I mean cooperation. Charity, if you like. More than that. Intelligent management of what little we have, so we avoid waste.”

“Sounds like communism—”

“Shut up, Ray.” George Christopher stood. “Senator, I can see how that makes sense. No point in using the last of the gasoline to plant something that won’t grow. Or feeding the last of the soybeans to cattle that won’t last the winter anyway. Question is, who decides? You?”

“Somebody has to,” Tallifsen said.

“Not alone,” Jellison said. “We elect a council. I will point out that I’m probably in better shape than anybody else here, and I’m willing to share—”

“Sure,” Christopher said. “But share with who, Senator? That’s the big question. How far do we go? We try to feed Los Angeles?”

“That’s absurd,” Jack Turner said.

“Why? They’ll all be here, all that can get here,” Christopher shouted. “Los Angeles, and the San Joaquin, and what’s left of San Francisco… not all of ’em, maybe, but plenty. Three hundred last night, and that’s just for starters. How long can we keep it up, lettin’ those people come here?”

“Be niggers too,” someone shouted from the floor. He looked self-consciously at two black faces at the end of the room. “Okay, sorry — no. I’m not sorry. Lucius, you own land. You work it. But city niggers, whining about equality — you don’t want ’em either!”

The black man said nothing. He seemed to shrink away from the group, and he sat very quietly with his son.

“Lucius Carter’s all right,” George Christopher said. “But Frank’s right about the others. City people. Tourists. Hippies. Be here in droves pretty soon. We have to stop them.”

I’m losing it, Jellison thought. Too much fear here, and Christopher’s put his finger on it. He shuddered. A lot of people were going to die in the next months. A lot. How do you select the ones to live, the ones to die? How do you be the Chooser of the Slain? God knows I don’t want the job.

“George, what do you suggest?” Jellison asked.

“Roadblock on the county road. We don’t want to close it, we may need it. So we put up a roadblock and we turn people away.”

“Not everyone,” Mayor Seitz said. “Women and children—”

“Everybody,” Christopher shouted. “Women? We have women. And kids. Plenty of our own to worry about. We start takin’ in other people’s kids and women, where do we stop? When our own are starving come winter?”

“Just who is going to man this roadblock?” Chief Hartman asked. “Who’s tough enough to look at a car full of people and tell a man he can’t even leave his kids with us? You’re not, George. None of us are.”

“The hell I’m not.”

“And there are special skills,” Senator Jellison said. “Engineers. We could use several good engineers. Doctors, veterinarians. Brewers. A good blacksmith, if there is any such thing in this modern world—”

“Used to be a fair hand at that,” Ray Christopher said. “Shod horses for the county fair.”

“All right,” Jellison said. “But there are plenty of skills we don’t have, and don’t think we won’t need them.”

“Okay, okay,” George Christopher said. “But dammit, we can’t take in everybody—”

“And yet we must.” The voice was very low, not really loud enough to carry through the babble and the thunder, but everyone heard it anyway. A professionally trained voice. “I was a stranger, and ye took me not in. I was hungry, and ye fed me not. Is that what you want to hear at Judgment?”

The room was still for a moment. Everyone turned to look at the Reverend Thomas Varley. Most of them attended his community church, had called him to their homes to sit with them when relatives died, sent their children with him on picnics and camping trips. Tom Varley was one of them, bred in the valley and lived there all his life except for the years at college in San Francisco. He stood tall, a bit thi

George Christopher faced him defiantly. “Brother Varley, we just can’t do it! Some of us are likely to starve this winter. There’s just not enough here.”

“Then why don’t you send some away?” Reverend Varley asked.

“It might come to that,” George muttered. His voice rose. “I’ve seen it, I tell you. People with not enough to eat, not even enough strength to come get chow when it’s offered. Brother Varley, you want us to wait until we got no more choices than the Do

“Tell ’em, George,” someone shouted from the far end of the meeting room.

George looked around at the sea of faces. They were not hostile. Most were filled with shame — fear and shame. George thought that would be the way he’d look to them, too. He went on doggedly. “We do something, and we do it right now, or I’ll be damned if I’m going to cooperate! I’ll take everything I have, all the stuff I brought up from Porterville today, too, and go home, and I can damned well shoot anybody who comes onto my place.”

There were more murmurs. Reverend Varley tried to speak, but he was shouted down. “Damned right!” “We’re with you, George.”

Jellison’s voice cut through. “I didn’t say we shouldn’t try to put up a roadblock. We were discussing practical difficulties.” Arthur Jellison couldn’t look the clergyman in the face.

“Good. Then we do it,” George Christopher said. “Ray, you stay here and tell me what happens in this meeting. Carl, Jake, rest of you, come with me. There’ll be another thousand people here by morning if we don’t stop them.”

And besides, Jellison thought, it will be easier at night when you can’t see their faces. Maybe by morning you’ll be used to it.