Edward Llewellyn - Prelude to Chaos

“You little idiot!” I turned on her furiously. “You’ll roast some of them with those things!”

“I doubt it.” Barbara was watching the confusion below with relish. “There’s only enough gasoline in each bottle to fire the parapitch. Lots of smoke. Not much flame.” She licked her lips. “But those clods down there don’t realize that yet!”

They obviously didn’t. The sudden arrival of flaming missiles had sent the mob into a turmoil. Some were bolting for cover. Some were running back to their cars. A few were clambering up the bank to where the Molotov throwers were hiding. Acrid smoke swirled around the cars and across the creek.

The lead car tried to turn and crashed into the car behind it, which had been attempting to do the same. There were more crashes and curses from drivers trying to extricate themselves from what they assumed was a general conflagration. Cars and pickups were backing into each other, drivers were shouting at each other, several fist fights had started. Women were screaming. Men were yelling. And some were too busy coughing the smoke from the parapitch out of their lungs to do anything.

The men who had climbed the bank after the Molotov throwers were searching through the underbrush and finding nobody. In their frustration they started to shoot at shadows under the trees. Somebody fired back, and the searchers went tumbling and sliding down the bank, to add to the general confusion.

The last cars to arrive were the first to leave, backing away or trying to turn. A pickup, reversing too fast, went out of control, dropped a wheel into the ditch, and spun around, blocking the road. The next vehicle rammed it. A gang of cursing drivers from the trapped cars combined to push both vehicles down the bank and into the creek. The group who had reached the far side came splashing back, running to their cars.

“That’s cooled ’em off!” said Barbara. “They won’t try that again!”

“Not that they won’t!” I snarled. “Next time it won’t be a drunken mob looking for a good time. The next gang will come sober, armed, and shooting!”

Sheriff Zimpfer and his Deputies arrived in the Brinks as the road was starting to clear of smoke, mob, and cars. He walked to the edge of the creek with his bullhorn and roared an order to disperse in an orderly fashion. The goons still trying to recover their cars yelled threats and curses back.

Somebody from among the trees fired a burst over their heads. The goons stopped shouting, abandoned their ditched cars, and scrambled aboard those still mobile. Joe called on the com to report that the whole mob were streaming back toward Standish, some still firing wildly into the woods. “Most of their autos look battered!”

Nobody seemed to have been killed or seriously hurt. Barbara and I slid down to join Sheriff Zimpfer just as Judith arrived with Yackle on the pillion of her Yama. Both were armed with revolvers. So the Settlement did have some weapons stashed away, and Yackle was starting to issue them. They joined us to study the six wrecked and two burning automobiles on the road beyond the bridge.

“Reckon you can tell everybody to go home now, Chairman Yackle,” said the Sheriff. “This lot won’t be back!”

“Not today,” said Judith. “But another day perhaps.” She hitched up her gunbelt and stared up the road. Things were changing with Judith. Things were changing in Sutton Cove. I could only hope they were not changing too late to matter.

“A bloodless victory!” Yackle was nodding with satisfaction. “Well done, Barbara!” He gave the girl an approving pat on the shoulder. “Better than I dared hope.”

So Yackle had known about Barbara’s plan all the time. Perhaps it wasn’t her plan at all but Chairman Yackle’s. Barbara, however, seemed quite happy to take the credit for it. And from the way Judith avoided my eye I suspected she had been in on it too! Suddenly and illogically I was angry not to have been included in their planning sessions. I was supposed to be the professional around here. Me—not a bunch of kids, a pacifist Chairman, and a female surgeon!

Yackle moved to stand beside me. “Mister Gavin, you and I will have to discuss how we can best meet future threats.” “You met that one pretty well without my advice!” “Without your advice?” He stared at me in simulated astonishment. “But the strategy was yours! We simply devised the tactics. It was the same strategy you advised Sherando to follow. When you told them to fire the cars of any mob which drove out to attack the Settlement. You said that the outsiders would rush to rescue their vehicles and forget about burning the Settlement.”

“Sherando? You knew that I’d been at Sherando?” “Recently, Mister Gavin. I only learned it recently. When Judith realized an attack upon us was inevitable and came to tell me we had one defense expert among us. Please do not be concerned about having stayed in Sherando. We know you are hot a heretic!” And he walked away to start arranging the return of the women and children to their homes.

Being judged a heretic was the least of my concerns. I rode my bike back to the village, furious with Judith, with Yackle, with the whole damned lot of them.

The first hint of an official threat came from the State Police the next day when two cruisers arrived in Sutton Cove for the first time in a year. It was not a belated answer to our call for help; it was to investigate a report that we had ambushed and set fire to the cars of some harmless citizens who had approached the Settlement. The officers inspected the damaged cars, listened to Sheriff Zempfer’s account of the incident, and threatened to arrest several adults for the unlawful discharge of firearms within a hundred meters of a public highway plus a number of kids as juvenile delinquents. They finally went away without arresting anybody but they left us with the impression that we would be hearing more about our offenses against law and order.

A week later Sergeant Carver arrived, alone and unofficially. The Settlement Council was about to be charged with civil disobedience under the Social Stability Act, a Federal offense which put us in the clutches of the Federal authorities. We could expect a squad of Federal Marshals to arrive and arrest the Council for trial and take off our children for “deprogramming.” We could also expect that others of us, particularly the girls and young women, would be taken into “protective custody” as “material witnesses.”

The Sergeant’s advice was for us to get to hell out of Sutton Cove while the going was good. “Find some place where you can he low until they’ve forgotten about you. It’s my belief that things are going to get so bad in the, next few months that the Feds will have more to do than hound peaceful folks, like yourselves.” He sighed, hitched up his belt, touched his hat, and departed, after saying he’d appreciate our not mentioning his visit.

This kid isn’t going to be taken off and deprogrammed,” remarked Barbara, after the sergeant had gone. But she refused to tell me how she planned to prevent it. When I asked Yackle, he shrugged. “I expect they’ll take to the woods. Or go up the coast in their boats for a while. They’ll come back after the Federal Marshals have left.”

“The Feds may not leave until they’ve grabbed every girl they can get. Every young woman, for that matter. And what about you and the rest of Council?”

He smiled sadly. “I suppose we’ll have to surrender to superior force if they insist on arresting us. But I cannot believe that the Federal Authorities really want to saddle themselves with a group of oldsters. I pray they will let us be when they find the children and young women are no longer here.” “Chuck—for God’s sake, listen to me! You don’t know the present breed of Fed like I do. Like Judith does. Ask her if you don’t believe me. They’re quite capable of forcing you to tell them where the women and children have gone. This is 2030, not 2010!”