Part 18 (2/2)

It was past eleven when he drove the truck into the garage and closed the doors so no casual pa.s.serby or visitor would see it. The lights were out in Florence's house and in his own house only a single light burned, in his office window. That would be Lib, waiting up for him. He had urged the women to get to bed at their usual hour or earlier, for they planned to go to the Easter sunrise services in Marines Park.

This was good. It was good that they should all be there, so that no one would guess of unusual activity out on River Road. From a less practical standpoint he felt good about it too. He was, as a matter of fact, surprised at their antic.i.p.ation and enthusiasm. Many things had happened in the past few days and yet their conversation always come back to the Easter services. People hadn't been like that before The Day. He could not imagine any of them voluntarily getting up before dawn and then walking three miles on empty stomachs to watch the sun come up, sing hymns, and listen to sermons however short. He wished he could walk with them. He couldn't. It was necessary that he remain there to complete his plans with Sam Hazzard and also to work on the truck. Walking toward the house, he wondered at this change in people and concluded that man was a naturally gregarious creature and they were all starved for companions.h.i.+p and the sight of new faces. Marines Park would be their church, their theater, their a.s.sembly hall. Man absorbed strength from the touch of his neighbor's elbow. It was these reasons, perhaps, that accounted for the success of the old-time Chautauquas. It could be that and something more-the discovery that faith had not died under the bombs and missiles.

She wasn't upstairs. She was waiting in the gloom of the porch. She said, ”I saw you drive it in. It's beautiful. Did you get the gas to go with it?”

”Total of seventeen gallons including what's in the tank. We can cruise for a day or two if we take it easy. Are you tired, darling?”

”Not too.”

”If you're going to be up at five with the others you really ought to be in bed.”

”I've been waiting for you, Randy. I worry. I'm not tired, really.”

They walked through the grove down to the dock.

The river whispered, the quarter-moon showed its profile, the stars moved. She lay on her back, head resting on her locked fingers, looking up at the stars.

His eyes measured her-long, slender, curved as if for flight, skin coppery, hair silvered by the night. ”You're a beautiful possession,” he said. ”I wish we had a place of our own so I could keep you. I wish we had just one room to ourselves. I wish we were married.”

Instantly she said, ”I accept.”

”I'm not sure how we'd go about it. Last I heard the courthouse in San Marco wasn't operating. For a while it was an emergency shelter like our school. I don't know what they use it for now but certainly not for issuing marriage licenses. And the county clerk has disappeared. I heard in the park that he took his family and started for an uncontaminated zone in Georgia where he used to live.”

Without moving her head she said, ”Randy, under martial law, can't you make your own rules?”

”I hadn't thought about it. I suppose so.” ”Well, make one.”

”You're serious, aren't you?”

”I certainly am. It may be an old-fas.h.i.+oned, Before-The-Day att.i.tude but if I'm going to have children I'd like to be married.” ”Children! Are you going to have a baby?” Thought of the difficulties, dangers, and complexities of having a baby, under their present circ.u.mstances, appalled him.

”I don't know. I can't say that I am, but then again I can't say that I'm not, can I? I would like to marry you tomorrow before you go off chasing highwaymen.” She turned on her side, to face him. ”It isn't really convention. It is only that I love you very much, and that if anything happened-I don't have any bad premonitions, dear, but you and I know that a bad thing could happen-well, if anything happened I would want the child to have your name. You'd want that too, wouldn't you?”

”Yes,” Randy said, ”I would want that very much. I'm not going to put the truck on the road until late in the afternoon that's when the highwaymen took Dan-so there'll be time.”

”That's nice,” she said. ”It'll be nice to marry on Easter Sunday.”

He took her hands and drew her up and held her. Over her shoulder he saw a pair of green eyes and a dark snout sliding downstream past the edge of the dock. It was spring and the gators were out of their holes. He had heard somewhere that the Seminoles ate Bator meat. Cut their tails into steaks. It was a source of meat that should be investigated. He knew he shouldn't be thinking about food at this time but he was hungry again.

Chapter 11.

Elizabeth McGovern and Randolph Bragg were married at noon that Easter Sunday. The bride wore the same white silk dress she had worn to the sunrise service in Marines Park. She was unsteady on high heels, for she had not worn heels since The Day.

The groom wore his Cla.s.s A uniform with the bold patch of the First Cavalry Division on his arm and the ribbons of the Korean War and Bronze Star on his chest, along with the blue badge of the combat infantryman. He wore the uniform not because of the wedding but because it was required in the radioed orders to reservists a.s.suming active duty, such as ambus.h.i.+ng and killing highwaymen, which he presently intended to do.

The bride was given away by her father, W. Foxworth McGovern, the retired Cleveland manufacturer. Bill McGovern, who had been helping Malachai cut gun ports in the thin steel sides and rear doors of the grocery truck, wore greasy dungarees. A chisel had slipped and one of his hands was bleeding.

The best man was Doctor Daniel Gunn. He was clad in a tent sized, striped bathrobe. Grinning through his red beard, his head bandaged, a square gauze patch covering his right eye, he looked like a turbaned Mediterranean pirate.

Among the guests was Rear Admiral Samuel P. Hazzard (USN, retired) who wore khaki shorts, a khaki hunting vest bulging with buckshot sh.e.l.ls, and during the ceremony held his gold braided cap across his stomach.

The matron-of-honor was Mrs. Helen Bragg, the presumed widow of Colonel Mark Bragg. She furnished the wedding ring, stripping it from her own finger.

The ceremony was held in the high-ceilinged parlor of the Bragg house. The marriage was performed by the Reverend Clarence Henry, pastor emeritus of the Afro-Repose Baptist Church.

Randy was certain it was perfectly legal. It was performed under his Order No. 4, written that morning in Sam Hazzard's house.

Malachai and Bill McGovern had been working on the truck, and Randy was breakfasting with Dan Gunn, when the women and children returned from Marines Park. The services had been wonderful, they said, but the news they brought was terrible. During the night highwaymen had raided the isolated home of Jim Hickey, the beekeeper, on the Pasco Creek Road. They had killed Jim and his wife. The two children had walked to Fort Repose and found their aunt's home. Whether it was the same band that had beaten Dan Gunn was uncertain. The Hickey children were inarticulate and hysterical with fear and shock.

Randy, raging for immediate retaliation, had raced to the Admiral's house with the news. The Admiral's experience in meeting the unpredictable and brutish pranks of war had saved them from premature or imprudent action. ”Wasn't this sort of thing exactly what we expected?” Sam Hazzard asked.

”I suppose so, but dammit.”

”I don't think we should change our plans by so much as a minute. If we put out with the truck now we'll just burn fuel for nothing. These people operate like beasts, Randy. Having gorged themselves in the night they sleep through the mornings, perhaps through the whole day.”

Randy, recognizing the sense of this, had calmed himself. They had talked of the wedding, and the legal problems attending martial law, and the Admiral had helped him in framing Order No. 4. It read: Until county offices resume operations and normal communications are reestablished between this town and the Timucuan County seat, the following regulations will govern marriages and births in Fort Repose.

1. Marriages can be performed by any ordained minister. Marriage licenses and health certificates are waived.

2. Marriage certificates will be issued by the presiding minister, and will be valid when signed by the contracting parties, the minister, and two witnesses.

3. So that a permanent record may be preserved, a copy of the certificate will be left at the Fort Repose Library. I designate Librarian Alice Cooksey custodian of these records. I designate Miss Florence Wechek her deputy.

4. Birth records, signed by the attending physician or midwife, or by the mother and any witnesses if medical attention is unavailable, will be deposited in the same manner.

One copy of this order is to be kept with the records in the library. This order is retroactive to The Day, so that any births or marriages that have occurred since The Day may be properly recorded.

Randy signed Order No. 4 and said, ”Well, when the rules are off you make your own.”

”This is a good one,” Sam Hazzard said. ”I wonder what they're doing elsewhere?”

”Elsewhere?”

”There must be hundreds of towns in the same fix we're in local authority collapsed or inoperative, communications out. I fancy that elsewhere they're not doing so good.”

”How could they be worse?” Randy was thinking of what had happened to Dan Gunn and the Hickeys.

”They could be,” the Admiral said, positively.

Randy had gone to see Preacher next. ”Preacher,” he said, ”you're an ordained minister, aren't you?”

”I sure am,” Preacher said. ”I am not only ordained but in my church I can ordain people.”

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