Part 12 (1/2)

”Sir Percy,” Florence interrupted, ”a murderer!”

”Hush, dear,” Alice said. ”The water will be boiling in a moment.” She turned to Randy. ”Florence really shouldn't blame Sir Percy. After all, there's been no milk for him, and very little of anything else. As a matter of fact, we haven't seen Sir Perry in three or four days-I suppose he was out hunting for himself but a few minutes ago when Anthony flew home Sir Percy was on the porch.”

”Ambushed poor Anthony,” Florence said. ”Actually ambushed him. Killed him and ate him right there on the porch. Poor Cleo.”

”Where's Sir Percy now?” Randy asked.

”He's gone again,” Alice said. ”He'd better not come back.” Randy was thoughtful. Hunting cats would be a problem. And what would happen to dogs? He still had a few cans of dog food for Graf, but he could foresee a time when humans might look upon dog food as a delicacy. He said aloud, but speaking to himself rather than the others, ”Survival of the fittest.”

”What do you mean?” Lib said.

”The strong survive. The frail die. The exotic fish die because the aquarium isn't heated. The common guppy lives. So does the tough catfish. The house cat turns hunter and eats the pet bird. If he didn't, he'd starve. That's the way it is and that's the way it's going to be.”

Florence had stopped crying. ”You mean, with humans? You mean, we humans are going to have to turn savage, like Sir Percy? Well, I can't do it. I don't want to live in that kind of a world, Randy.”

”You'll live, Florence,” Randy said.

Walking back to his own house, Randy said, ”Florence is a guppy, a nice, drab little guppy. That's why she'll survive.” ”What about you and me?” Lib said.

”We're going to have to be tough. We're going to have to be catfish.”

Chapter 8.

On a morning in April, four months after The Day, Randy Bragg awoke and watched a shaft of sunlight creep down the wall. At the foot of the couch, Graf squirmed and then wormed his way upward under the blanket. During the January cold spell Randy had discovered a new use for Graf. The dachshund made a most satisfactory foot warmer, mobile, automatic, and operating on a minimum of fuel which he would consume anyway. Randy flung off the blanket and swung his feet to the floor. He was hungry. He was always hungry. No matter how much he ate the night before, he was always starving in the morning. He never had enough fats, or sweets, or starches, and the greater part of each day was usually spent in physical effort of one kind or another. Downstairs, Helen and Lib would be preparing breakfast. Before Randy ate he would shower and shave. These were painful luxuries, almost his only remnant of routine from before The Day.

Randy walked to the bar-counter and began to sharpen his razor. The razor was a six-inch hunting knife. He honed its edges vigorously on a whetstone and then stropped it on a belt nailed to the wall. A clean, smooth, painless shave was one of the things he missed, but not what he missed most.

He missed music. It had been a long time since he had heard music. The record player and his collection of LP's of course were useless without electricity. Music was no longer broadcast, any where. Anyway, his second and last set of batteries for the transistor radio was losing strength. Very soon, they would have neither flashlights nor any means of receiving radio except through the Admiral's short wave. WSMF in San Marco was no longer operating. Something had happened to the diesel supplying the hospital and the radio station and it was impossible to find spare parts. This was the word that had come from San Marco, eighteen miles away. It had required two days for the word to reach Fort Repose.

He missed cigarettes, but not so much. Dan Gunn still had a few pounds of tobacco, and had lent him a pipe. Randy found more pleasure in a pipe after each meal, and one before bedtime, than he had ever found in a whole carton of cigarettes. With tobacco so limited, each pipe was a luxury, relaxing and wonderful.

He missed whiskey not at all. Since The Day, he had drunk hardly anything, nor found need for it. He no longer regarded whiskey as a drink. Whiskey was Dan Gunn's emergency anesthetic. Whiskey, what was left of his supply, was for medical use, and for trading.

He missed his morning coffee most. It had been, he calculated, six or seven weeks since he had tasted coffee. Coffee was more precious than gasoline, or even whiskey. Tobacco could be grown, and doubtless was being grown in a strip all the way from northwest Florida to Kentucky, Maryland and Virginia in the rural areas still habitable. Whiskey you could make, given the proper equipment and ingredients. But coffee came from South America.

Randy tested his knife on a bit of paper. It was as sharp as he could ever make it. He went into the bathroom and showered. The cold water no longer chilled him as it had through January and February. He was inured to it. Soap he used sparingly. The house reserve was down to three cakes.

He dried and stepped on the scales. One fifty-two. This was exactly what he had weighed at eighteen, as a freshman at the University. Even after three months on the line in Korea, he had dropped only to one fifty-six. He had lost an average of a pound a week for the past sixteen weeks, but now, he noted, his weight loss was slower. He had held one fifty-two for the past three days. He was leaner and harder, and, truthfully, felt better than before The Day.

There was a knock on the living-room door. That would be Peyton. He slipped on his shorts and said, ”Come in.”

Peyton came in, carefully balancing the tiny pot of steaming water allotted for his morning shave. She set the pot before him on the counter as if it were a crystal bowl filled with flowers. ”There,” she said. ”Can I watch you shave this morning, Randy?” The sight of Peyton enriched Randy's mornings. She was brash and buoyant, bobbing like a brightly colored cork in the maelstrom, unsinkable and unafraid. ”Why do you like to watch me shave?” he asked.

”Because you make such funny faces in the mirror. You should see yourself.”

”I do.”

”No, you don't really see yourself. All you watch is the knife, as if you're afraid of cutting your throat.”

Dan Gunn came out of the bedroom, dressed in Levi's and a blue checked sports s.h.i.+rt. Until The Day, Dan had used an electric razor. Now, rather than learn to shave with a knife or what ever was available, he did not shave at all. His beard had bloomed thick and flaming red. He looked like a Klondike sourdough or Paul Bunyan transplanted to the semi-tropics. On those rare days when his beard was freshly trimmed and he dressed formally in white s.h.i.+rt and a tie, he looked like a physician, outsized 1890 model.

”You can't watch today,” Randy told the child. ”I want to talk to Doctor Gunn.” He poured his hot water into the basin and returned the pot to Peyton. Peyton smiled at Dan and left.

Randy soaped and soaked his face. ”Did you know that Einstein never used shaving soap?” he said. ”Einstein just used plain soap like this. Einstein was a smart man and what was good enough for Einstein is good enough for me.” He sc.r.a.ped at his beard, winced, and said, ”Einstein must have had an awfully good razor. Einstein must've used a fresh blade every morning. I'll bet Einstein never shaved with a hunting knife.”

Dan said, ”I had an awful dream last night. Dreamed I'd forgotten to pay my income tax and was behind in my alimony and the Treasury agents and a couple of deputy sheriffs were chasing me around the courthouse with shotguns. They finally cornered me. They were arguing about whether to send me to the Federal pen or state prison. I tried to sneak out. I think they shot me. Anyway, I woke up, shaking. All I could think of was that I really hadn't paid my income tax, or alimony either. What day is it, anyway?”

”I don't know what day it is but I know the date. April fourteenth.”

Dan smiled through the red beard. ”My subconscious must be a watchdog. Income tax day tomorrow. And we don't have to file a return, Randy. No tax. No alimony. Let us count our blessings. Never thought I'd see the day.”

”No coffee,” Randy said. ”I would gladly pay my tax tomorrow for a pound of coffee. Dan, if you drive to town today I want to go with you. I want to trade for coffee.”

Dan had evolved a barter system for his services. He charged a gallon of gas, if the patient had it, for house calls. Most families had somehow managed to obtain and conserve a few gallons of gasoline. It was their link with a mobile past, insurance of mobility in some emergency of the future. Sickness and injury were emergencies for which they would gladly dip into their liquid reserve. Dan made little profit. Perhaps half his patients were able and willing to pay with gasoline. Still, he managed to keep the Model-A's tank nearly full, and on his rounds he was continuously charging batteries. Bill McGovern had inst.i.tuted a system of rotating the batteries in the car. In turn, the charged batteries powered Admiral Hazzard's short-wave receiver. Not only was the car transport for Randy's water-linked enclave of families, it was necessary to maintain their ear to the world outside. Not that the world, any longer, said much.

Dan said, ”Sure, Randy, but it's going to take all morning. I've got a bad situation in town.”

”What's the trouble?”

From downstairs they heard Helen's voice, ”Breakfast!” ”Tell you later,” Dan said.

Randy was last to reach the dining room. There was a tall gla.s.s of orange juice at his place, and a big pitcher of juice in the center of the table. Whatever else they might lack, there was always citrus. Yet even orange juice would eventually disappear. In late June or early July they would squeeze the last of the Valencias and use the last grapefruit. From then until the new crop of early oranges ripened in October, citrus would be absent from their diet.

He saw that this morning there was a single boiled egg and small portion of broiled fish left over from the night before. ”Where's my other boiled egg?” he said.

”Malachai only brought over eight eggs this morning,” Helen said. ”The Henrys have been losing chickens.”

”What do you mean, losing them?”

”They're being stolen.”

Randy put down his juice. Citrus, fish, and eggs were their staples. A drop in the egg supply was serious. ”I'll bet it's an inside job,” he said. ”I'll bet that no-good Two-Tone has been swapping hens for liquor.”

Lib spoke. ”Malachai thinks it's wild cats-that is, house cats that have gone wild.”

”That's not the worst of it,” Helen said. ”One of the Henrys' pigs is missing. They heard it squeal, just once. Preacher thinks a wolf took it. Preacher says he found a wolf track.”

”No wolves in Florida,” Randy said. ”No four-legged wolves.” The loss of hens was serious, but the loss of pigs disastrous. The Henry sow had produced a farrow that in a few weeks would add real meat to everybody's diet. Even now they weighed twelve to fifteen pounds. Each evening, all food sc.r.a.ps from the Bragg, Wechek, and Hazzard households were carried to the Henry place to help feed the pigs and chickens. Every day, Randy had to argue with Helen and Lib to save sc.r.a.ps for Graf. Randy was conscious that the Henrys supplied more than their own share of food for the benefit of all. When Preacher's corn crop ripened in June, the disparity would be even greater. And it had been Two-Tone, of all people, who had suggested that they grow sugar cane and then had explored the river banks in the Henrys' leaky, flat bottomed skiff until he had found wild cane. He had sprigged, planted, and cultivated it. Because of the Henrys, they could all look forward, one day, to a breakfast of corn bread, cane syrup, and bacon. He was sure they would find a way to convert the corn to meal, even if they had to grind it between flagstones. ”I don't think we're doing enough for the Henrys,” Randy said. ”We'll have to give them more help.”

”What kind of help?” Bill McGovern asked.

”At the moment, help them guard the food supply. Keep away the prowlers-cats, wolves, humans, or whatever.”

”Can't the Henrys do it themselves?” Helen asked. ”Don't they have a gun?”

”They've got a gun-an old, beat-up single barrel twelve gauge-but they don't have time. You can't expect Preacher and Malachai to work as hard as they do every day and then sit up all night. And I wouldn't trust Two-Tone. He'd just sleep. Do I hear volunteers?”