Gordon Dickson - Time Storm

“I think,” said Marie, looking over to where the girl sat on a log, stroking Sunday at her feet, “everybody should do their share.”

“She’s not going,” I said.

Marie stared at me.

“She’s not going?” Marie said. There was an odd note in her voice—a note which could have meant anything. I could not interpret it at all. “You don’t mean that?”

“I don’t mean it,” I said. “She does.”

“Oh?” said Marie. She looked over at the girl again. “It’s her idea?”

“That’s right.”

Marie stood for a moment, watching the girl.

“No,” Marie said, finally. “She’ll go.”

I did not say anything more, myself. I concentrated on finishing the raft. When I was done, we launched it and loaded it with the contents of the two bicycle carts and the carts themselves. It floated well, a square of good-sized logs almost ten feet by ten feet in area; and there was plenty of room on it for Wendy—though the little girl was pale as moonlight and clearly frightened to death of riding across the river on the rocking log surface.

While Marie coaxed and soothed the child, I took six of the dog-leash chains I had set aside while I was making the raft. Three of these I put around Sunday’s neck to make a choke-collar for him. I fastened the second three to the first and looped them around a log too big for the leopard to drag. Then I went to the raft and picked up the .22 rifle and its box of shells.

“What are you doing?” Marie interrupted her efforts with Wendy to stare at me. “That’s mine. You gave it to me.”

“I’m taking it back,” I said.

I walked away, not listening to what else she said. The girl had come to stand concernedly over Sunday and examine his chains-Sunday, himself, had hardly blinked when I had put them on him. He lay basking in the sun. I walked up to the girl and shoved both rifle and shells into her hands.

“You can learn to shoot this,” I said. “Keep the shells dry and use them up only when you really need to. Whatever you do, make sure they’re not dirty when you put them in the rifle. And make sure no dirt gets in the barrel of the rifle. If it does, take some string from your pack, and tie a clean patch of cloth on the end of it. Drop the string through the barrel and keep pulling the cloth through the barrel until it looks shiny from end to end, when you hold it up and look at the light through it, the way you’ve seen me do. Have you got that?”

She took the box and gun from me without a word.

“I’m leaving Sunday with you,” I said. “Don’t unchain him until we’ve been gone at least a day and a night. If I’m not around, I think he’ll stick with you; and he’ll be even more protection to you than the gun. Remember, winter’s coming on in a few months. Try to find some place where you can settle in and be protected until it warms up again.”

She looked at me.

“Well,” I said. “Goodby.”

She did not move or speak. I turned and went back to Marie.

Marie had Wendy on the raft and was already stripped down to a yellow one-piece swimsuit. She looked good in it, as I would have expected since the night before last. I had not stopped to think about such niceties myself. Now, out of tribute to her own bathing dress, I left my shorts on—a foolish bit of male modesty which I had not planned on, earlier. But I had spare underclothing in my backpack, and I could hang the wet shorts outside the backpack to dry as I travelled, after we reached the other side.

I looked back once more at the girl and Sunday, and waved. Neither one responded, of course. I got into the cold river water, holding on to the raft along with Marie. The dogs took to the water on their own, after us; and we began the swim across.

As I said, the water was cold, in spite of it being midsummer. The current swept us farther downriver than even I had expected by the time we .made the crossing; and by that time, in spite of considering myself a fairly strong swimmer, I was grateful to have the raft to cling to, and sympathetic to the dogs who had no such thing. One of them, indeed, got the idea at one point to try and climb up on the raft; but a sharp command from Marie made him drop back off it. All in all, though, we must have been in the water more than half an hour by the time we finally struggled ashore on a small sandy spot backed up by a space, about two house-lots in size, of sand and grass reaching back to the edge of a fairly thick woods.

I had gotten out, hauled the raft in close and lifted Wendy ashore, and was beginning to unload the raft when a tense word from Marie made me straighten up and turn around.

Five men had come out of the trees—about half-way out between trees and water. They stood perhaps twenty yards or so from us in a semi-circle, hemming us in against the river’s edge. They were all well-dressed—dressed for the outdoors, that is. Each of them wore thick-soled country-style boots, with high tops disappearing up inside heavy trousers; and above the waist they all wore leather or firm-cloth jackets, with the collars of winter-weight shirts showing at the neck; and all but one of them wore some kind of hat. Every one of them had at least one handgun belted around his waist as well as a rifle in his hands.

The one without a hat stood a little forward of the rest and seemed to be the leader, though he was younger than any of the others, and even looked to be a good half-dozen years younger than I was. But he was as tall as I, and wider of shoulder, in his jacket. His face was heavy-boned; and like mine, it was cleanshaven—all the rest wore beards of varying lengths. He grinned at me as I reached for the rifle on the raft.

“Leave it lay,” he said. I stopped reaching.

“Guard!” snapped Marie. “Point!”

Swiftly, the dogs fanned out around us, each facing one or more of the men, which in most cases meant that there were a couple of dogs on each; and each canine form went into its own version of a tense on-the-mark position, like a trained bird dog pointing quail. The rifles of the men came up.

“Hold it!” said the young man. “Keep your dogs there if you don’t want them shot!”

Marie said nothing, but the dogs stood still. The young man dropped the butt of his rifle to the ground and leaned on the gun in friendly fashion—though I noticed the rest of them kept their weapons ready to use. He smiled at us again.

“Well,” he said. “What’s it like on the other side of the river?”

“There’s nothing much there,” I said. I was freezing to death, standing mid-thigh deep in the water, but I did not want to move out of arm’s reach of the rifle on the raft. “What’s it like on this side?”

“Nothing much on this side, either,” the young man said. “Couple of empty towns....”

He was answering me, but he was watching Marie. They were all watching Marie. It was that yellow swimsuit. I had not been unaware that she had put it on with at least part of her mind on what it would do to me. Now, it was doing the same thing to these men; only with them it was, I thought, turning out to be a bit too much of a good thing. But yet, instead of doing something sensible, like taking a jacket or blanket from the raft to cover herself, and in spite of the fact that, like me, she had to be both wet and cold, she continued to stand where she was, deliberately inviting their stares. Not only that, but now she had to start talking, to draw that much more attention on herself.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she cried, pulling Wendy to her. “As if my child wasn’t frightened enough, you have to come charging out of the woods like this with guns—”

She had begun to rub the little girl down with the towel Wendy had worn around her neck, as a seal to keep water spray from getting under the blanket in which she had been wrapped during the raft voyage. The activity may have been purely motherly, but it was almost as effective as if Marie had begun to do the dance of the seven veils in front of our visitors. A couple of them were grinning slightly.