Alas, Babylon

Malachai choked and groaned and Randy dropped to his knees beside him and straightened him and lifted his head. Malachai choked again and Randy turned Malachai’s head so the blood could run out of his mouth and not down his windpipe. He tore open Malachai’s shirt. There was a hole large as a dime just under the solar plexus. In this round well, dark blood rose and ebbed rhythmically, a small, ominous tide.

The Admiral said, “Shall I get rid of this scum?”

Randy said, “Just a minute.” He picked up the bat and forced himself to think ahead. First, Malachai. Get Malachai home in a hurry so Dan could do something if there was anything to be done. Dan didn’t have his tools, or much eyesight. He might make do with one eye if he had the tools these men had stolen. Randy ran to the Model-A. It was empty. The doctor’s bag wasn’t there.

He walked back to the truck where Sam Hazzard stood over their captive. One side of the man’s face was scraped raw. Malachai’s plunge had carried the long-jawed, twisted-mouth face along the bridge planking. “Where’s the doctor’s bag?”

The man said nothing. Randy saw his right hand moving. He still had a holstered weapon. Randy tapped him on the nose with the bat. “Keep your hand still.” The Admiral leaned over, unbuckled the holster, and took the weapon. A .38 police special. “Talk,” Randy said.

The man said, “I don’t know nuthin’.”

Randy tapped his face with the bat, harder. The man screamed. Randy said, “Where’s the black bag?”

The man said, “She took it. Rumdum took it.” “Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She goofed off with somebody last night maybe it was this morning-I don’t know-goofed off with some bastard with a bottle.”

Randy called, “Bill! Where’s Bill?”

Bill McGovern was on the other side of the truck. He said, “I’m here, Randy.”

“Bill, go look in that car and see if you can find Dan’s bag. And be sure those two back there are good and dead.”

Malachai choked again. Randy tried to ease him over on his side but he began to bleed more from the stomach wound so he had to let him be.

Sam Hazzard said, “I don’t think this one’s doing us any good. He’s just holding us up. I think we should convoke a military tribunal right now and pass sentence. I vote he be executed.”

“So do I,” Randy said, “but I want him to hang. If he makes any trouble let him have it, Sam, but I’d like to have him alive.” Bill came back with a cardboard carton. “Nothing in that car, except this. A little food in here. A few cans of sardines and corned beef hash and a box of matches. A couple of boxes of ammunition. That’s all. Not a sign of Dan’s bag. And the sedan is finished. It was in our line of fire and it looks like a sieve with all that buckshot through it. There’s gasoline all over the road.” Randy started the Model-A and looked at the fuel gauge. It showed almost empty. He backed it away from the bridge entrance, put the key in his pocket, and left it. He said, “We’ll lift Malachai into the truck and get going. First, I’ll collect their weapons and ammo.” He was thinking ahead. There would be other highwaymen and this was armament for his company. “What about these?” Bill asked, pointing his shotgun at the bodies.

“Leave them.” He looked up. The buzzards already attended. “I’ll come back tomorrow or we’ll send somebody. Whatever they leave-” he watched the black birds wheeling and swooping-”we’ll give to the river.”

One of the highwaymen trailing them had been Leroy Settle, the drugstore cowboy. When Randy examined his two guns he was surprised to find that they were only .22 caliber, lightweight replicas, except in bore, of the big frontier .45’s. His companion’s pistol apparently had gone into the river, for it wasn’t on the bridge although he had a pocketful of ammunition.

Then Randy leaned over the leader. He saw that his shots had all been good, the three in the belly making a neat pattern, diagonal ticktacktoe. When he picked up the Thompson the dead man’s arm astonishingly rose with it, clinging as if his fingers were glued to the stock. Randy jerked it free and saw that it was glue, of a sort. The man’s hands were smeared with honey.

It was after dark when Randy wheeled up to the front steps of the house. As he cut the engine he heard Graf barking. All the downstairs windows showed light. Lib burst out of the door and ran down the steps, saw him at the wheel, and was there with her arms and lips when he got out.

Preacher Henry appeared, and Two-Tone, Florence Wechek and Alice Cooksey, Hannah and Missouri, the children. Dan Gunn came out, robe flapping, carrying a lantern. They had all been waiting.

The Admiral and Bill were in back with the prisoner and Malachai. Bill stepped out, holding a pistol, and then the man with the bat, called Casey, prodded by Sam Hazzard’s shotgun. Sam climbed down and that left Malachai. Malachai had been unconscious after the first mile. Until they reached Fort Repose, the road had been very bad.