Alas, Babylon

“Certainly I’m holding gas. Fifteen gallons under the back steps. You can have it, and the truck. Anything you don’t use I expect back.”

He rose. “What’re you going to tell people when they see your truck is gone?”

“I’m going to tell them it was stolen. I’m going to tell them it was loaded with choice trade goods and that while I was in the bedroom, attending to Pete, somebody jimmied the ignition and stole it. And to make it sound good I’m going to let off a blast with this gun when you whip out of the driveway. The news will get around fast, don’t worry. It’ll get to the highwaymen and they’ll be looking for the truck. That should help, shouldn’t it?”

“It should make it perfect.”

“Go out the back way. Load the cans in the back of the truck, quietly. There’s enough gas in the tank to take you out River Road. I’ll salute you when you hit the street.”

He said, “You’re a smart girl, Rita.”

“Am I?” She held out her left hand to show the black circle left by the radioactive diamond ring. “I’ve got a wedding band. I was married to an H-bomb. Will it ever go away, Randy?”

“Sure,” he said, hoping it would. “Dan will look at it again when he’s better.”

He walked through the hallway and kitchen and out into the darkness. He found the three five-gallon cans under the back steps, opened the truck’s rear doors, and silently loaded the gaso line. He got in and stepped on the starter. The engine turned over, protesting. Rita had been careless, he guessed, and had forgotten to fill the battery with distilled water, for it was close to dead. He tried again and the engine caught. He nursed the choke until it ran smoothly, backed out of the Hernandez carport, turned sharply in the yard, shifted gears, and roared out on the street. He glimpsed Rita’s silhouette in the doorway, the gun rising to her shoulder, and for an awful instant thought she was aiming at him. Red flame leaped out of the muzzle. At the first corner he cut away from Augustine Road and followed rutted dirt streets until he was clear of Pistolville. He saw no other cars, in motion, on the way home.

It was past eleven when he drove the truck into the garage and closed the doors so no casual passerby or visitor would see it. The lights were out in Florence’s house and in his own house only a single light burned, in his office window. That would be Lib, waiting up for him. He had urged the women to get to bed at their usual hour or earlier, for they planned to go to the Easter sunrise services in Marines Park.

This was good. It was good that they should all be there, so that no one would guess of unusual activity out on River Road. From a less practical standpoint he felt good about it too. He was, as a matter of fact, surprised at their anticipation and enthusiasm. Many things had happened in the past few days and yet their conversation always come back to the Easter services. People hadn’t been like that before The Day. He could not imagine any of them voluntarily getting up before dawn and then walking three miles on empty stomachs to watch the sun come up, sing hymns, and listen to sermons however short. He wished he could walk with them. He couldn’t. It was necessary that he remain there to complete his plans with Sam Hazzard and also to work on the truck. Walking toward the house, he wondered at this change in people and concluded that man was a naturally gregarious creature and they were all starved for companionship and the sight of new faces. Marines Park would be their church, their theater, their assembly hall. Man absorbed strength from the touch of his neighbor’s elbow. It was these reasons, perhaps, that accounted for the success of the old-time Chautauquas. It could be that and something more-the discovery that faith had not died under the bombs and missiles.

She wasn’t upstairs. She was waiting in the gloom of the porch. She said, “I saw you drive it in. It’s beautiful. Did you get the gas to go with it?”

“Total of seventeen gallons including what’s in the tank. We can cruise for a day or two if we take it easy. Are you tired, darling?”

“Not too.”

“If you’re going to be up at five with the others you really ought to be in bed.”

“I’ve been waiting for you, Randy. I worry. I’m not tired, really.”

They walked through the grove down to the dock.

The river whispered, the quarter-moon showed its profile, the stars moved. She lay on her back, head resting on her locked fingers, looking up at the stars.

His eyes measured her-long, slender, curved as if for flight, skin coppery, hair silvered by the night. “You’re a beautiful possession,” he said. “I wish we had a place of our own so I could keep you. I wish we had just one room to ourselves. I wish we were married.”

Instantly she said, “I accept.”