Дэймон Найт - Orbit 13

“Ayah?” Wilbur Phipps said.

Jacobs pushed the bowl of viscid chili away, and got up. Restlessly, he wandered over to where Dave Lucas, the game warden, was drinking beer and talking to a circle of men. “. . . dogs will be the end of deer in these pa’ts, I swear to God. And I a’n’t talking about wild dogs neither, I’m talking about your ordinary domestic pets. A’n’t it so, every winter? Half-starved deer a’n’t got a chance in hell ‘gainst somebody’s big pet hound, all fed-up and rested. The deer those dogs don’t kill outright, why they chase ‘em to death, and then they don’t even eat ‘em. Run ‘em out of the forest covah into the open and they get pneumonia. Run ‘em into the river and through thin ice and they get drowned. Remember last yeah, the deer that big hound drove out onto the ice? Broke both its front legs and I had to go out and shoot the poor bastid. Between those goddamn dogs and all the nighthunters we got around here lately, we a’n’t going to have any deer left in this county . . .” Jacobs moved away, past a table where Abner Jackman was pouring ketchup over a plateful of scrambled eggs, and arguing about Communism with Steve Girard, a volunteer fireman and Elk, and Allen Ewing, a postman, who had a son serving with the Marines in Bolivia. “... let ‘em win theah,” Jackman was saying in a nasal voice, “and they’ll be swa’ming all over us eventu’ly, sure as shit. Ain’ no way to stop ‘em then. And you’re better off blowing your brains out than living under the Reds, don’t ever think otherwise.” He screwed the ketchup top back onto the bottle, and glanced up in time to see Jacobs start to go by.

“Ben!” Jackman said, grabbing Jacobs by the elbow. “You can tell ‘em.” He grinned vacuously at Jacobs—a lanky, loose-jointed, slack-faced man. “He can tell you, boys, what it’s like being in a country overrun with Communists, what they do to everybody. You were in ‘Nam when you were a youngster, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

After a pause, Jackman said, “You am’ got no call to take offense, Ben.” His voice became a whine. “I didn’t mean no ha’m. I didn’t mean nothing.”

“Forget it,” Jacobs said, and walked out.

Dave Lucas caught up with Jacobs just outside the door. He was a short, grizzled man with iron-gray hair, about seven years older than Jacobs. “You know, Ben,” Lucas said, “the thing of it is, Abner really doesn’t mean any ha’m.” Lucas smiled bleakly; his grandson had been killed last year, in the Retreat from La Paz. “It’s just that he a’n’t too bright, is all.”

“They don’t want him kicked ev’ry so often,” Jacobs said, “then they shouldn’t let him out of his kennel at all.” He grinned. “Dinner tonight? About eight?”

“Sounds fine,” Lucas said. “We’re going to catch a nighthunter, out near Oaks Pond, so I’ll probably be late.”

“We’ll keep it wa’m for you.”

“Just the comp’ny’ll be enough.”

Jacobs started his truck and pulled out into the afternoon traffic. He kept his hands locked tightly around the steering wheel. He was amazed and dismayed by the surge of murderous anger he had felt toward Jackman; the reaction to it made him queasy, and left the muscles knotted all across his back and shoulders. Dave was right, Abner couldn’t rightly be held responsible for the dumbass things he said— But if Jackman had said one more thing, if he’d done anything than to back down as quickly as he had, then Jacobs would have split his head open. He had been instantly ready to do it, his hands had curled into fists, his legs had bent slightly at the knees. He would have done it. And he would have enjoyed it. That was a frightening realization.

Y’ touchy today , he thought, inanely. His fingers were turning white on the wheel.

He drove home. Jacobs lived in a very old wood frame house above the north bank of the Kennebec, on the outskirts of town, with nothing but a clump of new apartment buildings for senior citizens to remind him of civilization. The house was empty—Carol was teaching fourth grade, and Chris had been farmed out to Mrs. Turner, the baby-sitter. Jacobs spent the next half hour wrestling. a broken washing machine and an television set out of the pickup and into his basement workshop, and another fifteen minutes maneuvering a newly repaired stereo-radio console up out of the basement and into the truck. Jacobs was one of the last of the old-style Yankee tinkerers, although he called himself an appliance repairman, and also did some carpentry and general handywork when things got slow. He had little formal training, but he “kept up.” He wasn’t sure he could fix one of the new hologram sets, but then they wouldn’t be getting out here for another twenty years anyway. There were people within fifty miles who didn’t have indoor plumbing. People within a hundred miles who didn’t have electricity.

On the way to Norridgewock, two open jeeps packed dangerously full of gypsies came roaring up behind him. They started to pass, one on each side of his truck, their horns blaring insanely. The two jeeps ran abreast of Jacobs’ old pickup for a while, making no attempt to go by—the three vehicles together filled the road. The jeeps drifted in until they were almost touching the truck, and the gypsies began pounding the truck roof with their fists, shouting and laughing. Jacobs kept both hands on the wheel and grimly continued to drive at his original speed. Jeeps tipped easily when sideswiped by a heavier vehicle, if it came to that. And he had a tire-iron under the seat. But the gypsies tired of the game—they accelerated and passed Jacobs, most of them giving him the finger as they went by, and one throwing a poorly aimed bottle that bounced onto the shoulder. They were big, tough-looking kids with skin haircuts, dressed—incongrously—in flowered pastel luau shirts and expensive white bellbottoms.

The jeeps roared on up the road, still taking up both lanes. Jacobs watched them unblinkingly until they disappeared from sight. He was awash with rage, the same bitter, vicious hatred he had felt for Jackman. Riddick was right after all— the goddamned kids were a menace to everything that lived, they ought to be locked up. He wished suddenly that he had sideswiped them. He could imagine it all vividly: the sickening crunch of impact, the jeep overturning, bodies cartwheeling through the air, the jeep skidding upside down across the road and crashing into the embankment, maybe the gas tank exploding, a gout of flame, smoke, stink, screams— He ran through it over and over again, relishing it, until he realized abruptly what he was doing, what he was wishing, and he was almost physically ill.

All the excitement and fury drained out of him, leaving him shaken and sick. He’d always been a patient, peaceful man, perhaps too much so. He’d never been afraid to fight, but he’d always said that a man who couldn’t talk his way out of most trouble was a fool. This sudden daydream lust for blood bothered him to the bottom of his soul. He’d seen plenty of death in ‘Nam, and it hadn’t affected him this way. It was the kids, he told himself. They drag everybody down to their own level. He kept seeing them inside his head all the way into Norridgewock—the thick, brutal faces, the hard reptile eyes, the contemptuously grinning mouths that seemed too full of teeth. The gypsy kids had changed over the years. The torrent of hippies and Jesus freaks had gradually run dry, the pluggers and the weeps had been all over the state for a few seasons, and then, slowly, they’d stopped coming too. The new crop of itinerant kids were—hard. Every year they became more brutal and dangerous. They didn’t seem to care if they lived or died, and they hated everything indiscriminately—including themselves.