Dr. Bloodmoney, or How We Got Along after the Bomb

VIII

Orion Stroud, Chairman of the West Marin school board, turned up the Coleman gasoline lantern so that the utility school room in the white glare became clearly lit, and all four members of the board could make out the new teacher.

“I’ll put a few questions to him,” Stroud said to the others. “First, this is Mr. Barnes and he comes from Oregon. He tells me he’s a specialist in science and natural edibles. Right, Mr. Barnes?”

The new teacher, a short, young-looking man wearing a khaki shirt and work pants, nervously cleared his throat and said, “Yes, I am familiar with chemicals and plants and animal-life, especially whatever is found out in the woods such as berries and mushrooms.”

“We’ve recently had bad luck with mushrooms,” Mrs. Tallman said, the elderly lady who had been a member of the board even in the old days before the Emergency. “It’s been our tendency to leave them alone; we’ve lost several people either because they were greedy or careless or just plain ignorant.”

Stroud said, “But Mr. Barnes here isn’t ignorant. He went to the University at Davis, and they taught him how to tell a good mushroom from the poisonous ones. He doesn’t guess or pretend; right, Mr. Barnes?” He looked to the new teacher for confirmation.

“There are species which are nutritious and about which you can’t go wrong,” Mr. Barnes said, nodding. “I’ve looked through the pastures and woods in your area, and I’ve seen some fine examples; you can supplement your diet without taking any chances. I even know the Latin names.”

The board stirred and murmured. That had impressed them, Stroud realized, that about the Latin names.

“Why did you leave Oregon?” George Keller, the principal, asked bluntly.

The new teacher faced him and said, “Politics.”

“Yours or theirs?”

“Theirs,” Barnes said. “I have no politics. I teach children how to make ink and soap and how to cut the tails from lambs even if the lambs are almost grown. And I’ve got my own books.” He picked up a book from the small stack beside him, showing the board in what good shape they were. “I’ll tell you something else: you have the means here in this part of California to make paper. Did you know that?”

Mrs. Tallman said, “We knew it, Mr. Barnes, but we don’t know quite how. It has to do with bark of trees, doesn’t it?”

On the new teacher’s face appeared a mysterious expression, one of concealment. Stroud knew that Mrs. Tallman was correct, but the teacher did not want to let her know; he wanted to keep the knowledge to himself because the West Marin trustees had not yet hired him. His knowledge was not yet available—he gave nothing free. And that of course was proper: Stroud recognized that, respected Barnes for it. Only a fool gave something away for nothing.

For the first time the newest member of the board, Miss Costigan, spoke up. “I—know a little about mushrooms myself, Mr. Barnes. What’s the first thing you look for to be sure it isn’t the deadly amanita?” She eyed the new teacher intently, obviously determined to pin the man down to concrete facts.

“The death cup,” Mr. Barnes answered. “At the base of the stipe; the volva. The amanitas have it, most other kinds don’t. And the universal veil. And generally the deadly amanita has white spores… and of course white gills.” He smiled at Miss Costigan, who smiled back.

Mrs. Tallman was scrutinizing the new teacher’s stack of books. “I see you have Carl Jung’s Psychological Types. Is one of your sciences psychology? How nice, to acquire a teacher for our school who can tell edible mushrooms and also is an authority on Freud and Jung.”

“There’s no value in such stuff,” Stroud said, with irritation. “We need useful science, not academic hot air.” He felt personally let down; Mr. Barnes had not told him about that, about his interest in mere theory. “Psychology doesn’t dig any septic tanks.”

“I think we’re ready to vote on Mr. Barnes,” Miss Costigan said. “I for one am in favor of accepting him, at least on a provisional basis. Does anyone feel otherwise?”

Mrs. Taliman said to Mr. Barnes, “We killed our last teacher, you know. That’s why we need another. That’s why we sent Mr. Stroud out looking up and down the Coast until he found you.”

With a wooden expression, Mr. Barnes nodded. “I know. That does not deter me.”

“His name was Mr. Austurias and he was very good with mushrooms, too,” Mrs. Tallman said, “although actually he gathered them for his own use alone. He did not teach us anything about them, and we appreciated his reaSons; it was not for that that we decided to kill him. We killed him because he lied to us. You see, his real reason for coming here had nothing to do with teaching. He was looking for some man named Jack Tree, who it turned out, lived in this area. Our Mrs. Keller, a respected member of this community and the wife of George Keller, here, our principal, is a dean friend of Mr. Tree, and she brought the news of the situation to us and of course we acted legally and officially, through our chief of police, Mr. Earl Colvig.”

“I see,” Mr. Barnes said stonily, listening without interrupting.

Speaking up, Orion Stroud said, “The jury which sentenced and executed him was composed of myself, Gas Stone, who’s the largest land-owner in West Marin, Mrs. Tallman and Mrs. June Raub. I say ‘executed,’ but you understand that the act—when he was shot, the shooting itself– was done by Earl. That’s Earl’s job, after the West Marin Official Jury has made its decision.” He eyed the new teacher.

“It sounds,” Mr. Barnes said, “very formal and law-abiding to me. Just what I’d be interested in. And—” He smiled at them all. “I’ll share my knowledge of mushrooms with you; I won’t keep it to myself, as your late Mr. Austurias did.”

They all nodded; they appreciated that. The tension in the room relaxed, the people murmured. A cigarette—one of Andrew Gill’s special deluxe Gold Labels—was lit up; its good, rich smell wafted to them all, cheering them and making them feel more friendly to the new teacher and to one another.

Seeing the cigarette, Mr. Barnes got a strange expression on his face and he said in a husky voice, “You’ve got tobacco up here? After seven years?” He cleanly could not believe it.

Smiling in amusement, Mrs. Taliman said, “We don’t have any tobacco, Mr. Barnes, because of course no one does. But we do have a tobacco expert. He fashions these special deluxe Cold Labels for us out of choice, aged vegetable and herbal materials the nature of which remain– and justly so—his individual secret.”

“How much do they cost?” Mr. Barnes asked.

“In terms of State of California boodle money,” Orion Stroud said, “about a hundred dollars apiece. In terms of prewar silver, a nickel apiece.

“I have a nickel,” Mr. Barnes said, reaching shakily into his coat pocket; he fished about, brought up a nickel and held it toward the smoker, who was George Keller, leaning back in his chair with his legs crossed to make himself comfortable.

“Sorry,” George said, “I don’t want to sell. You better go directly to Mr. Gill; you can find him during the day at his shop. It’s here in Point Reyes Station but of course he gets all around; he has a horse-drawn VW minibus.”

“I’ll make a note of that,” Mr. Barnes said. He put his nickel away, very carefully.

“Do you intend to board the ferry?” the Oakland official asked. “If not, I wish you’d move your car, because it’s blocking the gate.”

“Sure,” Stuart McConchie said. He got back into his car, flicked the reins that made Edward Prince of Wales, his horse, begin pulling. Edward pulled, and the engineless 1975 Pontiac passed back through the gate and out onto the pier.

The Bay, choppy and blue, lay on both sides, and Stuart watched through the windshield as a gull swopped to seize some edible from the pilings. Fishing lines, too… men catching their evening meals. Several of the men wore the remains of Army uniforms. Veterans who perhaps lived beneath the pier. Stuart drove on.

If only he could afford to telephone San Francisco. But the underwater cable was out again, and the lines had to go all the way down to San Jose and up the other side, along the peninsula, and by the time the call reached San Francisco it would cost him five dollars in silver money. So, except for a rich person, that was out of the question; he had to wait the two hours until the ferry left… but could he stand to wait that long?

He was after something important.

He had heard a rumor that a huge Soviet guided missile had been found, one which had failed to go off; it lay buried in the ground near Belmont, and a farmer had discovered it while plowing. The farmer was selling it off in the form of individual parts, of which there were thousands in the guidance system alone. The farmer wanted a penny a part, your choice. And Stuart, in his line of work, needed many such parts. But so did lots of other people. So it was first come, first serve; unless he got across the Bay to Belmont fairly soon, it would be too late—there would be no electronic parts left for him and his business.

He sold (another man made them) small electronic traps. Vermin had mutated and now could avoid or repel the ordinary passive trap, no matter how complicated. The cats in particular had become different, and Mr. Hardy built a superior cat trap, even better than his rat and dog traps.

It was theorized by some that in the years since the war cats had developed a language. At night people heard them mewing to one another in the dankness, a stilted, brisk series of gruff sounds unlike any of the old noises. And the cats ganged together in little packs and—this much at least was certain—collected food for the times ahead. It was these caches of food, cleverly stored and hidden, which had first alarmed people, much more so than the new noises. But in any case the cats, as well as the rats and dogs, were dangerous. They killed and ate small children almost at will—or at least so one heard. And of course wherever possible, they themselves were caught and eaten in return. Dogs, in particular, if stuffed with rice, were considered delicious; the little local Berkeley newspaper which came out once a week, the Berkeley Tribune, had recipes for dog soup, dog stew, even dog pudding.

Meditating about dog pudding made Stuart realize how hungry he was. It seemed to him that he had not stopped being hungry since the first bomb fell; his last really adequate meal had been the lunch at Fred’s Fine Foods that day he had run into the phoce doing his phony vision-act. And where, he wondered suddenly, was that little phoce now? He hadn’t thought of him in years.

Now, of course, one saw many phoces, and almost all of them on their ‘mobiles, exactly as Hoppy had been, placed dead center each in his own little universe, like an armless, legless god. The sight still repelled Stuart, but there were so many repellent sights these days… it was one of many and certainly not the worst. What he objected to the most, he had decided, was the sight of symbiotics ambling along the street: several people fused together at some pert of their anatomy, sharing common organs. It was a sort of Bluthgeld elaboration of the old Siamese twins… but these were not limited to two. He had seen as many as six joined. And the fusions had occurred—not in the womb—but shortly afterward. It saved the lives of imperfects, those born lacking vital organs, requiring a symbiotic relationship in order to survive. One pancreas now served several people… it was a biological triumph. But in Stuart’s view, the imperfects should simply have been allowed to die.

On the surface of the Bay to his right a legless veteran propelled himself out onto the water aboard a raft, rowing himself toward a pile of debris that was undoubtedly a sunken ship. On the hulk a number of fishing lines could be seen; they belonged to the veteran and he was in the process of checking them. Watching the raft go, Stuart wondered if it could reach the San Francisco side. He could offer the man fifty cents for a one-way trip; why not? Stuart got out of his car and walked to the edge of the water.

“Hey,” he yelled. “Come here.” From his pocket he got a penny; he tossed it down onto the pier and the veteran saw it, heard it. At once he spun the raft about and came paddling rapidly back, straining to make speed, his face streaked with perspiration. He grinned up at Stuart, cupping his ear.

“Fish?” he called. “I don’t have one yet today, but maybe later. Or how about a small shark? Guaranteed safe.” He held up the battered Geiger counter which he had connected to his waist by a length of rope—in case it fell from the raft or someone tried to steal it, Stuart realized.

“No,” Stuart said, squatting down at the edge of the pier. “I want to get over to San Francisco; I’ll pay you a quarter for one way.”

“But I got to leave my lines to do that,” the veteran said, his smile fading. “I got to collect them all or somebody’d steal them while r was gone.”

“Thirty-five cents,” Stuart said.

In the end they agreed, at a price of forty cents. Stuart locked the legs of Edward Prince of Wales together so no one could steal him, and presently he was out on the Bay, bobbing up and down aboard the veteran’s raft, being rowed to San Francisco.

“What field are you in?” the veteran asked him. “You’re not a tax collector, are you?” He eyed him calmly.

“Naw,” Stuart said. “I’m a small trap man.”

“Listen, my friend,” the veteran said, “I got a pet rat lives under the pilings with me? He’s smart; he can play the flute. I’m not putting you under an illusion, it’s true. I made a little wooden flute and he plays it, through his nose… it’s practically an Asiatic nose-flute like they have in India. Well, I did have him, but the other day he got run over. I saw the whole thing happen; I couldn’t go get him or nothing. He ran across the pier to get something, maybe a piece of cloth… he has this bed I made for him but he gets—I mean he got—cold all the time because when they mutated, this particular line, they lost their hair.”

“I’ve seen those,” Stuart said, thinking how well the hairless brown rat evaded even Mr. Handy’s electronic vermin trap. “Actually I believe what you said,” he said. “I know rats pretty well. But they’re nothing compared to those little striped gray-brown tabby cats… I’ll bet you had to make the flute, he couldn’t construct it himself.”

“True,” the veteran said. “But he was an artist. You ought to have heard him play; I used to get a crowd at night, after we were finished with the fishing. I tried to teach him the Bach Chaconne in D.”

“I caught one of those tabby cats once,” Stuart said, “that I kept for a month until it escaped. It could make little sharp-pointed things out of tin can lids. It bent them or something; I never did see., how it did it, but they were wicked.”

The veteran, rowing, said, “What’s it like south of San Francisco these days? I can’t come up on land.” He indicated the lower part of his body. “I stay on the raft. There’s a little trap door, when I have to go to the bathroom. What I need is to find a dead phoce sometime and get his cart. They call them phocomobiles.”

“I knew the first phoce,” Stuart said, “before the war. He was brilliant; he could repair anything.” He lit up an imitation-tobacco cigarette; the veteran gaped at it longingly. “South of San Francisco it’s, as you know, all flat. So it got hit bad and it’s just farmland now. Nobody ever rebuilt there, and it was mostly those little tract houses so they left hardly any decent basements. They grow peas and corn and beans down there. What I’m going to see is a big rocket a farmer just found; I need relays and tubes and other electronic gear for Mr. Hardy’s traps.” He paused. “You ought to have a Handy trap.”

“Why? I live on fish, and why should I hate rats? I like them.”

“I like them, too,” Stuart said, “but you have to be practical; you have to look to the future. Someday America may be taken over by rats if we aren’t vigilant. We owe it to our country to catch and kill rats, especially the wiser ones that would be natural leaders.”

The veteran glared at him. “Sales talk, that’s all.”

“I’m sincere.”

“That’s what I have against salesmen; they believe their own lies. You know that the best rats can ever do, in a million years of evolution, is maybe be useful as servants to us human beings. They could cany messages maybe and do a little manual work. But dangerous—” He shook his head. “How much does one of your traps sell for?”

“Ten dollars silver. No State boodle accepted; Mr. Hardy is an old man and you know how old people are, he doesn’t consider boodle to be real money.” Stuart laughed.

“Let me tell you about a rat I once saw that did a heroic deed,” the veteran began, but Stuart cut him off.

“I have my own opinions,” Stuart said. “There’s no use arguing about it.”

They were both silent, then. Stuart enjoyed the sight of the Bay on all sides; the veteran rowed. It was a nice day, and as they bobbed along toward San Francisco, Stuart thought of the electronic parts he might be bringing back to Mr. Handy and the factory on San Pablo Avenue, near the ruins of what had once been the west end of the University of California.

“What kind of cigarette is that?” the veteran asked presently.

“This?” Stuart examined the butt; he was almost ready to put it out and stick it away in the metal box in his pocket. The box was full of butts, which would be opened and made into new cigarettes by Tom Frandi, the local cigarette man in South Berkeley. “This,” he said, “is imported. From Marin County. It’s a special deluxe Gold Label made by—” He paused for effect. “I guess I don’t have to tell you.”

“By Andrew Gill,” the veteran said. “Say, I’d like to buy a whole one from you; I’ll pay you a dime.”

“They’re worth fifteen cents apiece,” Stuart said. “They have to come all the way around Black Point and Sear’s Point and along the Lucas Valley Road, from beyond Nicasio somewhere.”

“I had one of those Andrew Gill special deluxe Gold Labels one time,” the veteran said. “It fell out of the pocket of some man who was getting on the ferry; I fished it out of the water and dried it.”

All of a sudden Stuart handed him the butt.

“For God’s sake,” the veteran said, not looking directly at him. He rowed more rapidly, his lips moving, his eyelids blinking.

“I got more,” Stuart said.

The veteran said, “I’ll tell you what else you got; you got real humanity, mister, and that’s rare today. Very rare.”

Stuart nodded. He felt the truth of the veteran’s words.

Knocking at the door of the small wooden cabin, Bonny said, “Jack? Are you in there?” She tried the door, found it unlocked. To Mr. Barnes she said, “He’s probably out with his flock somewhere. This is lambing season and he’s been having trouble; there’re so many sports born and a lot of them won’t pass through the birth canal without help.”

“How many sheep does he have?” Barnes asked.

“Three hundred. They’re out in the canyons around here, wild, so an accurate count is impossible. You’re not afraid of rams, are you?”

“No,” Barnes said.

“We’ll walk, then,” Bonny said.

“And he’s the man the former teacher tried to kill,” Barnes murmured, as they crossed a sheep-nibbled field toward a low ridge overgrown with fir and shrubbery. Many of the shrubs, he noticed, had been nibbled; bare branches showed, indicating that a good number of Mr. Tree’s sheep were in the vicinity.

“Yes,” the woman said, striding along, hands in her pockets. She added quickly, “But I have no idea why. Jack is—just a sheep rancher. I know it’s illegal to raise sheep on ground that could be plowed… but as you can see, very little of his land could be plowed; most of it is canyon. Maybe Mr. Austurias was jealous.”

Mr. Barnes thought to himself, I don’t believe her. However, he was not particularly interested. He meant to avoid his predecessor’s mistake, in any case, whoever or whatever Mr. Tree was; he sounded, to Barnes, like something that had become part of the environment, no longer fully peripatetic and human. His notion of Mr. Tree made him uncomfortable; it was not a reassuring image that he held in his mind.

“I’m sorry Mr. Gill couldn’t come with us,” Barnes said. He still had not met the famous tobacco expert, of whom he had heard even before coming to West Marin. “Did you tell me you have a music group? You play some sort of instruments?” It had sounded interesting, because he, at one time, had played the cello.

“We play recorders,” Bonny said. “Andrew Gill and Jack Tree. And I play the piano; we play early composers, such as Henry Purcell and Johann Pachelbel. Doctor Stockstill now and then joins us, but—” She paused, frowning. “He’s so busy; he has so many towns to visit. He’s just too exhausted, in the evenings.”

“Can anyone join your group?” Barnes inquired hopefully.

“What do you play? I warn you: we’re severely classical. It’s not just an amateur get-together; George and Jack and I played in the old days, before the Emergency. We began– nine years ago. Gill joined us after the Emergency.” She smiled, and Barnes saw what lovely teeth she had. So many people, suffering from vitamin deficiencies and radiation sickness in recent times… they had lost teeth, developed soft gums. He hid his own teeth as best he could; they were no longer good.

“I once played the cello,” he said, knowing that it was worthless as a former skill because there were—very simply—no cellos anywhere around now. Had he played a metal instrument…

“What a shame,” Bonny said.

“There are no stringed instruments in this area?” He believed that if necessary he could learn, say, the viola; he would be glad to, he thought, if by doing so he could join their group.

“None,” Bonny said.

Ahead, a sheep appeared, a black-faced Suffolk; it regarded them, then bucked, turned and fled. A ewe, Barnes saw, a big handsome one, with much meat on it and superb wool. He wondered if it had ever been sheared.

His mouth watered. He had not tasted lamb in years.

To Bonny he said, “Does he slaughter, or is it for wool only?”

“For wool,” she answered. “He has a phobia about slaughtering; he won’t do it no matter what he’s offered. People sneak up and steal from his flock, of course… if you want lamb that’s the only way you’ll get it, so I advise you now: his flock is well-protected.” She pointed, and Barnes saw on a hilltop a dog standing watching them. At once he recognized it as an extreme mutation, a useful one; its face was intelligent, in a new way.

“I won’t go near his sheep,” Barnes said. “It won’t bother us now, will it? It recognizes you?”

Bonny said, “That’s why I came with you, because of the dog. Jack has only the one. But it’s sufficient.”

Now the dog trotted toward them.

Once, Barnes conjectured, its folk had been the familiar gray or black German shepherd; he identified the ears, the muzzle. But now—he waited rigidly as it approached. In his pocket he of course carried a knife; it had protected him many times, but surely this—it would not have done the job, here. He stayed close to the woman, who walked on unconcernedly.

“Hi,” she said to the dog.

Halting before them, the dog opened its mouth and groaned. It was a hideous sound, and Barnes shivered; it sounded like a human spastic, a damaged person trying to work a vocal apparatus which had failed. Out of the groaning he detected—or thought he detected—a word or so, but he could not be sure. Bonny, however, seemed to understand.

“Nice Terry,” she said to the dog. “Thank you, nice Terry.” The dog wagged its tail. To Barnes she said, “We’ll find him a quarter mile along the trail.” She strode on.

“What did the dog say?” he asked, when they were out of earshot of the animal.

Bonny laughed. It irritated him, and he scowled. “Oh,” she said, “my God, it evolves a million years up the ladder—one of the greatest miracles in the evolution of life– and you can’t understand what it said.” She wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry, but it’s too damn funny. I’m glad you didn’t ask me where it could hear.”

“I’m not impressed,” he said, defensively. “I’m just not very much impressed. You’ve been stuck here in this small rural area and it seems like a lot to you, but I’ve been up and down the Coast and I’ve seen things that would make you—” He broke off. “That’s nothing, that dog. Nothing by comparison, although intrinsically I suppose it’s a major feat.”

Bonny told hold of his arm, still laughing. “Yes, you’re from the great outside. You’ve seen all there is; you’re right. What have you seen, Barnes? You know, my husband is your boss, and Orion Stroud is his boss. Why did you come here? Is this so remote? So rustic? I think this is a fine place to live; we have a stable community here. But as you say, we have few wonders. We don’t have the miracles and freaks, as you have in the big cities where the radiation was stronger. Of course, we have Hoppy.”

“Hell,” Barnes said, “phoces are a dime a dozen; you see them everywhere, now.”

“But you took a job here,” Bonny said, eying him.

“I told you. I got into political trouble with little two-bit local authorities who considered themselves kings in their own little kingdom.”

Thoughtfully, Bonny said, “Mr. Austurias was interested in political matters. And in psychology, as you are.” She continued to survey him, as they walked along. “He was not good-looking, and you are. He had a little round head like an apple. And his legs wobbled when he ran; he never should have run.” She became sober, now. “He did cook a delightful mushroom stew, shaggy manes and chanterelles– he knew them all. Will you invite me over for a mushroom dinner? It’s been too long… we did try hunting on our own, but as Mrs. Tallman said, it didn’t work out; we got promptly sick.”

“You’re invited,” he said.

“Do you find me attractive?” she asked him.

Startled, he mumbled, “Sure, I certainly do.” He held onto her arm tightly, as if she were leading him. “Why do you ask?” he said, with caution and a growing deeper emotion whose nature he could not fathom; it was new to him. It resembled excitement and yet it had a cold, rational quality to it, so perhaps it was not an emotion at all; perhaps it was an awareness, a form of acute intuition, about himself and the landscape, about all things visible about him—it seemed to take in every aspect of reality, and most especially it had to do with her.

In a split second he grasped the fact—without having any data to go on—that Bonny Keller had been having an affair with someone, possibly Gill the tobacco man or even this Mr. Tree or Orion Stroud; in any case the affair was over or leastwise nearly over and she was searching for another to replace it. She searched in an instinctive, practical way, rather than in some starry-eyed romantic school-girl fashion. So no doubt she had had a good many affairs; she seemed expert in this, in the sounding people out to see how they would fit.

And me, he thought; I wonder if I would fit. Isn’t it dangerous? My God, her husband, as she said, is my boss, the school principal.

But then perhaps he was imagining it, because it really did not appear very likely that this attractive woman who was a leader in the community and who scarcely knew him would select him like this… but she had not selected him; she was merely in the process of exploring. He was being tried, but as yet he had not succeeded. His pride began to swim up as an authentic emotion coloring the cold rational insight of a moment before. Its distorting power made itself felt instantly; all at once he wanted to be successful, to be selected, whatever the risk. And he did not have any love or sexual desire toward her; it was far too early for that. All that was involved was his pride, his desire not to be passed over.

It’s weird, he thought to himself; he was amazed at himself, at how simple he was. His mind worked like some low order of life, something on the order of a starfish; it had one or two responses and that was all.

“Listen,” he said, “where is this man Tree?” He walked on ahead of her, now, peering to see, concentrating on the ridge ahead with its trees and flowers. He saw a mushroom in a dark hollow and at once started toward it. “Look,” he said. “Chicken-of-the-forest, they call it. Very delectable. You don’t see it very often, either.”

Coming over to see, Bonny Keller bent down. He caught a glimpse of her bare, pale knees as she seated herself on the grass by the mushroom. “Are you going to pick it?” she asked. “And cany it off like a trophy?”

“I’ll carry if off,” he said, “but not like a trophy. More like a thing to pop into the frying pan with a bit of beef fat.”

Her dark, attractive eyes fixed .themselves on him somberly; she sat brushing her hair back, looking as if she were going to speak. But she did not. At last be became uncomfortable; apparently she was waiting for him, and it occurred to him—chillingly—that he was not merely supposed to say something; he was supposed to do something.

They stared at each other, and Bonny, too, now looked frightened, as if she felt as he did. Neither of them did anything, however; each sat waiting for the other to make a move. He had the sudden hunch that if he reached toward her she would either slap him or run off… and there would be unsavory consequences. She might—good lord; they had killed their last teacher. The thought came to him now with enormous force: could it have been this? Could she have been having a love affair with him and he started to tell her husband or some danm thing? Is this as dangerous as that? Because if it is, my pride can go to hell; I want to get away.

Bonny said, “Here’s Jack Tree.”

Over the ridge came the dog, the mutation with the allegeci ability to speak, and slightly behind it came a haggard-faced man, bent, with round, stooped shoulders. He wore a seedy coat, a city man’s coat, and dirty blue-gray trousers. In no way did he look like a farmer; he looked, Mr. Barnes thought, like a middle-aged insurance clerk who had been lost in the forest for a month or so. The man had a black-smeared chin which contrasted in an unpleasant manner with his unnaturally white skin. Immediately Mr. Barnes experienced dislike. But, was it because of Mr. Tree’s physical appearance? God knew he had seen maimed, burned, damaged and blighted humans and creatures in profusion, during the last years… no, his reaction to Mr. Tree was based on the man’s peculiar shambling walk. It was the walk—not of a well man—but of a violently sick man. A man sick in a sense that Barnes had never experienced before.

“Hi,” Bonny said, rising to her feet.

The dog frisked up, acting in a most natural manner now.

“I’m Barnes, the new school teacher,” Barnes said, rising, too, and extending his hand.

“I’m Tree,” the sick man said, also extending his hand. When Barnes took it he found it unaccountably moist; it was difficult if not impossible for him to hold onto it—he let it drop at once.

Bonny said, “Jack, Mr. Barnes here is an authority on removing lambs’ tails after they’re grown and the danger of tetanus is so great.”

“I see,” Tree nodding. But he seemed only to be going through the motions; he did not seem really to care or even to understand. Reaching down he thumped the dog. “Barnes,” he said to the dog distinctly, as if he were teaching the dog the name.

The dog groaned. “…brnnnnz…” It barked, eying its master with gleaming hopefulness.

“Right,” Mr. Tree said, smiling. He displayed almost no teeth at all, just empty gums. Worse even than me, Barnes thought. The man must have been down below, near San. Francisco, when the big bomb fell; that’s one possibility, or it could simply be diet, as in my case. Anyhow, he avoided looking; he walked away, hands in his pockets.

“You’ve got a lot of land here,” he said over his shoulder. “Through what legal agency did you acquire title? The County of Marin?”

“There’s no title,” Mr. Tree said. “I just have use. The West Marin Citizens’ Council and the Planning Committee allow me, through Bonny’s good offices.”

“That dog fascinates me,” Barnes said, turning. “It really talks; it said my name clearly.”

“Say ‘good day’ to Mr. Barnes,” Mr. Tree said to the dog.

The dog woofed, then groaned, “Gddday, Mrbarnzzzzz.” It woofed again, this time eying him for his reaction.

To himself, Barnes sighed. “Really terrific.” he said to the dog. It whined and skipped about with joy.

At that, Mr. Barnes felt some sympathy for it. Yes, it was a remarkable feat. Yet—the dog repelled him as did Tree himself; both of them had an isolated, warped quality, as if by being out here in the forest alone thay had been cut off from normal reality. They had not gone wild; they had not reverted to anything resembling barbarism. They were just plain unnatural. He simply did not like them.

But he did like Bonny and he wondered how the hell she had gotten mixed up with a freak like Mr. Tree. Did owning a lot of sheep make the man a great power in this small community; was it that? Or—was there something more, something which might explain the former—dead– teacher’s action in trying to kill Mr. Tree?

His curiosity was aroused; it was the same instinct, perhaps, that came into play when he spotted a new variety of mushroom and felt the intense need to catalogue it, to learn exactly which species it was. Not very flattering to Mr. Tree, he thought caustically, comparing him to a fungus. But it was true; he did feel that way, about both him and his weird dog.

Mr. Tree said to Bonny, “Your little girl isn’t along, today.”

“No,” Bonny said. “Edie isn’t well.”

“Anything serious?” Mr. Tree said in his hoarse voice. He looked concerned.

“A pain in her stomach, that’s all. She gets it every now and then; has as far back as I can remember. It’s swollen and hard. Possibly it’s appendicitis, but surgery is so dangerous, these days—” Bonny broke off, then turned to Barnes. “My little girl, you haven’t met her… she loves this dog, Terry. They’re good friends, they talk back and forth by the hour when we’re out here.”

Mr. Tree said, “She and her brother.”

“Listen,” Bonny said, “I’ve gotten sick and tired of that. I told Edie to quit that. En faot, that’s why I like her to come out here and play with Terry; she should have actual playmates and not become so introverted and delusional. Don’t you agree, Mr. Barnes; you’re a teacher—a child should relate to actuality, not fantasy, isn’t that right?”

“These days,” Barnes said thoughtfully, “I can understand a child withdrawing into fantasy… it’s hard to blame him. Perhaps we all ought to be doing that.” He smiled, but Bonny did not smile back, nor did Mr. Tree.

Not for a moment had Bruno Bluthgeld taken his eyes off the new young teacher—if this actually was the truth; if this short young man dressed in khaki trousers and workshirt really was a teacher, as Bonny had said.

Is he after me, too? Bluthgeld asked himself. Like the last one? I suppose so. And Bonny brought him here… does that mean that even she, after all, is on their side? Against me?

He could not believe that. Not after all these years. And it had been Bonny who had discovered Mr. Austurias’ actual purpose in coming to West Main. Bonny had saved him from Mr. Austurias and he was grateful; he would not now be alive except for her, and he could never forget that, so perhaps this Mr. Barnes was exactly what he claimed to be and there was nothing to worry about. Bluthgeld breathed a little more relaxedly now; he calmed himself and looked forward to showing Barnes his new-born Suffolk lambs.

But sooner or later, he said to himself, someone will track me here and kill me. It’s only a matter of time; they all detest me and they will never give up. The world is still seeking the man responsible for all that happened and I can’t blame them. They are right in doing so. After all, I carry on my shoulders the responsibility for the death of millions, the loss of three-fourths of the world, and neither they nor I can forget that. Only God has the power to forgive and forget such a monstrous crime against humanity.

He thought, I would not have killed Mr. Austurias; I would have let him destroy me. But Bonny and the others—the decision was theirs. It was not mine, because I can no longer make decisions. I am no longer allowed to by God; it would not be proper. My job is to wait here, tending my sheep, wait for him who is to come, the man appointed to deal out final justice. The world’s avenger.

When will he come? Bluthgeld asked himself. Soon? I’ve waited yeas now. I’m tired… I hope it won’t be too much longer.

Mr. Barnes was saying, “What did you do, Mr. Tree, before you became a sheep rancher?”

“I was an atomic scientist,” Bluthgeld said.

Hurriedly, Bonny said, “Jack was a teacher; he taught physics. High school physics. That wasn’t around here, of course.’

“A teacher,” Mr. Barnes said. “Then we have something in common.” He smiled at Doctor Bluthgeld and automatically Bluthgeld smiled back. With nervousness Bonny watched the two of them, her hands clasped together, as if she were afraid that something was going to happen, something dreadful.

“We must see more of each other,” Bluthgeld said, somberly nodding. “We must talk.”