Final Reckonings (45 page)
And he told him how many we were, and about the other lodges we knew or reckoned tell of, and how we made out. And about the game, and how we lived, the hunting and fishing and trapping and trading and all.
Buckton kept asking the questions now, and no matter what Doc told him, he said, "Incredible," which means, near as I can figger from the way he said it, "Well, I'll be goddamned."
Then it was
our
turn to say it, because we come to the rocket ship. Called it a ship, but it was no more a proper boat than it was anything else. Didn't even look like the
pictures
of the ships in Doc's books. More like a big bullet with fins on, stood up on end with a metal door to it that opened up so's you could mosey into a lodge. No sense fixing to tell what was inside — reckon nobody'd believe it anyway. But this child saw it, and he's not making brag.
Anyways, we met up with the other three in the rocket and all of us settled down for a palaver. They didn't squat rightly; had some metal contraptions to ease their rumps into. Didn't talk rightly, either, and as for chawing! They passed out what they called coffee and I couldn't go it. Had the taste of hot painter-water, and even Doc set it aside.
But Doc seemed to know about most of this doing, and so did Iron Head, even if he froze over. I kept waiting for the game to flush, and it did.
Buckton said, "This is wonderful! From what you tell us, we'll have no trouble at all. We've got light cruising gear, and of course we intend to survey as much of the area as we can. But if things are as you say, that's almost unnecessary. We can return, make a report, and implement other ships for a full-scale landing."
"Don't know as I follow you," Doc said.
"Isn't it obvious? We're coming back! Look — according to the latest survey, we number in excess of forty thousand. We've got technicians and can train more. Excellent data on microfilm covering the field. All we need to do is go into the ruins and rebuild. We can set up the factories again, get transportation in order—communications too. We'll use your group, every group we can find. We need plenty of manpower. Of course, we're prepared to set up a fiscal system and restore governmental control. I presume there are other men like yourself scattered around the country, men who have sufficient intelligence and elementary education to assist us. You'll be a great help."
"Will we?" Doc asked.
"Why not? Surely you can see the advantages. It's going to be like pioneering days all over again for a while, but modern technology is on our side. In a generation or so we should be able to restore the world to where it was before the war."
"Suppose our people don't want it that way?" Doc spoke out. "Suppose they like things this fashion?"
"Don't worry, we'll educate them to the advantages," Buckton said. "And there's more than one way of dealing with savages. We've no atomic weapons, of course, but we're well-armed. And the next ships can bring the necessary bacterial cultures—just in case of emergency, you understand."
"I understand," Doc said. And he fetched a sigh.
"Well, don't look so down in the mouth about it," Buckton told him. "This is a great day. It's the beginning of a fresh start for Earth. You should be proud, as I am proud, of an opportunity to participate."
The book talk made my skull bones ache, and Doc wasn't looking sassy either. "Only a generation or so until we're back to where we were before the war," he muttered. "But what assurance have you we can just stop there? This country's rich again — rich in natural resources. Timber, game, minerals. There'll be trouble."
Lieutenant Thorne laughed. "Not under proper control," he said. "We won't repeat our mistakes. We've learned the errors of democracy. Men have become civilized at last."
"Strange." Buckton shook his head. "We've gone so far in three generations on the moon. And you have relapsed into such barbarism. Living like mountain men and Indians." He cocked an eye at Iron Head. "I mean—"
"You mean no races," Iron Head said. "No creeds, No money. No taxes. No war. No economic problems. No greed, no intolerance, no worship of dollars or machines. Just freedom and plenty for all. That's barbarism. Also happiness."
"He talks!" Lieutenant Thorne said.
"Sure, I talk. I talk book English and I talk heap plenty pidgin too. I live in one world, but I've read about the other. Enough to be sure that I prefer the world I live in."
Buckton nodded at me. "And you?" he asked. "What do you think? Remember, you're a white man — not a savage."
I scratched my thatch. "Ain't much difference atween the two, I figger. Anyways, Iron Heads right. We got all we can ever use. No ruckus, nothing this child's agin'."
Buckton shrugged. "I can't understand it," he said. He looked at Doc. "How could you permit such a state to exist? You say there are others like you in settlements scattered all over. Men with books, men with background and comprehension. Surely you could have done something to keep things going. Education, reclamation. What became of the railroads, the telegraph, telephone, radio? Why haven't you gone down into the cities, rebuilt? Why this — this — "
He got so red, looked as if he'd swallowed a hornet. Doc sort of grinned.
"I talk to other men from other settlements," he said. "Iron Head and Jake don't know this, but we get together for meetings regularly, once a season or so. And we've considered a lot of possibilities. The railroad tracks are still here, but they're overgrown. Telegraph and telephone poles went down a generation ago. The cities are ruins. We send in to the arsenals from time to time for ammunition, and that's about all."
"Now I understand," Buckton said. "You lack the equipment, the engineering facilities. Well, we'll provide that. You'll be surprised how quickly we can get things running again."
"But the education," Lieutenant Thorne busted in. "Why didn't you combat this savagery?"
"Because it survived," Doc told him. "When the educated men took the world into war, they died. The strays, the outcasts, the remnants of atavistic social orders proved their fitness then. They lived in harmony with nature. We've encouraged that since then. If a man like Iron Head wants to read, we let him read. If a man like Jake prefers illiteracy, that's his business. The important thing is that Iron Head and Jake and I, and all those like us or unlike us, have managed to exist in peace together. To me that's true progress."
Buckton stood up. "Then I take it you're not in sympathy with our plans? You have no intention of collaborating in reclaiming the world?"
"Nobody reclaims the world," Doc said. "Because nobody had a right to claim it in the first place. Not governments or priests or moneylenders or scientists or engineers. It belongs to everyone. That's the way I think, and Iron Head and Jake and all of us. And so do the others in our settlement and all the settlements. You'll find that out."
"We intend to." Buckton nodded at Lieutenant Thorne and the others. "Tomorrow we'll cross the river and talk to your people. Then we'll head on and visit elsewhere. We'll survey the cities, go east. Maybe we'll find sentiment as you say it is. But it doesn't matter. Because we'll come back. We'll come back with the right men and the right weapons.
"You can't turn back the clock, you know. Once before this was a wild frontier until progress came. You know what happened then."
"Yes." Iron Head stood up too. "Buffler died. My people died. Everything died but white men. So they ended up killing each other. Progress stinks!"
Buckton got riled then. "All right. I guess we know where we stand then. And under the circumstances you'll realize it will be necessary for me to detain you here until we've investigated your settlement. . . ."
Doc shrugged. "I expected as much."
"What does he mean, Doc?" I asked.
"He means we're prisoners," Doc told me.
Then I got the drift of it. Buckton gave a signal and the men eased around behind us, two to each. They all had these pesky little guns out.
Doc looked at me and I looked at Iron Head, and he said, "Let's raise hair."
So I tromped out and caught the nearest tad on the shinbone, and then I twisted the gun up and like to blast his head off. Other one let fire but only singed me, and I took and threw him up agin' Lieutenant Thorne. Doc was clubbing with his rifle when Buckton come nigh, but he didn't have to stop — Iron Head broke him in half over one of them metal rump holders. That left two, and we just took aim and let the rifles chaw guts.
It was powerful smoky in there when we finished, and Iron Head didn't really get riled when Doc stopped him from lifting scalps.
So we left them with hair after all and just hightailed it out of there.
The ship, or rocket, or whatever it was, looked mighty peaceful in the moonlight. I squinted up.
"Reckon they really come from there?" I asked Doc.
"That's right, Jake."
"Allow as they'll ever send another ship down?"
"Doubt it, if this one doesn't come back."
"Wonder what them hosses from across river will say when they set eyes on this contraption. Figger any of them will get ornery on account of thinking we did wrong?"
Iron Head grunted. "Maybe they no see it."
Doc and I looked at each other. That was Injun talk, for fair, and straight talk too.
We knew what to do.
We headed west again and come to the buffalo herd. It was a long hike back, singing all the way. Songs like "When Irish Eyes Are Smiling" and "Alexander's Ragtime Band" and the only one that ever makes sense to me, the one with the words a man can understand — "Home on the Range." I guess we sang that one pretty near all the way.
Then we got through the herd, rumbling and restless-like in the dark, and come out the other side.
We fanned.
Then we let fly. We loaded and reloaded, and we kept it up until they were on the run. All of them, a million of them, heading east away from the guns and the noise.
We run after.
But you couldn't keep up, not with a million buffalo, a million of them roaring and charging and pouring over the ridge and down into the valley. Into the valley where the rocket pointed at the sky.
All we could do was get to the top of the ridge in time to see it happen. They didn't stop for the rocket, of course. They kept on going. The moon was bright now, and this child could see everything plain. This child saw them hit the rocket.
Their hoofs made powerful thunder, and then there was a crash when a thousand hit the side of the rocket and a hundred thousand came on behind, driving them through.
One minute the rocket stood there, like a big bullet — and the next minute the bullet exploded. This child's never seen sight or heard sound to match. It was something to shake the sky.
Doc and Iron Head and me, we dropped in our tracks and closed our eyes agin' the light. It rained buffalo meat and hunks of metal.
"They brought explosives," Doc said.
"Sure," Iron Head grunted. "The white man's burden."
I stood up again, watching the critters wheel and fan out for the river.
"Come on," I hollered. "They'll make for the river from the lodges to get meat now. We better hump along and help."
So we did, and that was the end of it.
Doc and Iron Head and this child let on that it was one of them meteors that fell and exploded, and there weren't a contrariwise notion, ever. Because the rocket was gone. Nothing but a big burned-out hole in the prairie.
Like I say, that was two-three seasons back. I been across just lately, and I see the grass is coming in again. It'll be right pretty in another season or so.
Meantimes the buffalo are grazing over the plain, like they used to in the old days.
It's a mighty peaceful sight.
O
F COURSE
, it's all a matter of taste, nothing more. It's a weakness with me, I suppose. My friends have their own opinions: some are partial to brunettes or redheads, and I suppose that's all right. I certainly don't criticize them in the least.
But blondes are my favorites. Tall ones, short ones, fat ones, thin ones, brilliant ones, dumb ones — all sorts, sizes, shapes, and nationalities. Oh, I've heard all the objections: their skin ages faster, they have peculiar personalities; they're giddy and mercenary and conceited. None of which bothers me a bit, even if it's true. I like blondes for their special qualities and I'm not alone in my weakness. I notice Marilyn Monroe hasn't done too badly in general favor. Nor Kim Novak.
Enough of this; after all, I'm not apologizing. What I do is my own business. And if I wanted to stand on the corner of Reed and Temple at eight o'clock at night and pick up a blonde, I owed no apologies to anyone.
Perhaps I was a bit obvious and overdressed for the occasion. Perhaps I shouldn't have winked, either. But that's a matter of opinion, too, isn't it?
I have mine. Other people have theirs. And if the tall girl with the page-boy cut chose to give me a dirty look and murmur, "Disgusting old man," that was her affair. I'm used to such reactions, and it didn't bother me a bit.
A couple of cute young things in blue jeans came sauntering along. Both of them had hair like Minnesota wheat, and I judged they were sisters. Not for me, though. Too young. You get into trouble that way, and I didn't want trouble.
It was a nice, warm, late-spring evening. Lots of couples out walking. I noticed one blonde in particular—she was with a sailor, I recall — and I remember thinking to myself that she had the most luscious calves I've ever seen. But she was with a sailor. And there was one with a child and one with a party of stenographers out on the town for a night, and one I almost spoke to, until her boyfriend came up suddenly after parking the car.
Oh, it was exasperating, I can tell you! It was beginning to seem as though everybody had his blonde but me. Sometimes it's like that for weeks, but I'm philosophical about such things.
I glanced up at the clock, around nine, and concluded that I'd best be on my way. I might be a "disgusting old man" but I know a trick or two. Blondes are where you find them.