By late November some drifts of snow on the flats were 3 feet deep. The temperature dropped regularly to ten or more below zero at night and seldom went above freezing in the daytime. The level of the log pile in the woodyard dropped steadily in spite of the concentrated efforts of nearly every available able-bodied man in the community to add to it. Crews cut all night long by the light of gasoline lanterns. The fuel ration had to be lowered to meet their rate of cutting.
The deep snow hampered Mayor Hilliard's plan to sled the logs downhill without use of teams. Criticisms and grumblings at his decision to sacrifice the horses grew swiftly.
There had been no more signs of anthrax, and some were saying the whole program of vaccination and slaughter had been a stupid mistake. In spite of the assurance of the veterinarians that it was the only thing that could have been done, the grumbling went on like a rolling wave as the severity of the winter increased.
The Council was finally forced to issue a conservation order requiring families to double up, two to a house, on the theory that it would be more efficient to heat one house than parts of two. Selection of family pairings was optional. Close friends and relatives moved together wherever possible. Where no selection was made the committee assigned families to live together.
As soon as the order was issued, Ken's mother suggested they invite the Larsens to move in with them. The Swedish family was happy to accept.
Thanksgiving, when it came, was observed in spirit, but scarcely in fact. There were some suggestions that Mayor Hilliard should order special rations for that day and for Christmas, at least, but he stuck to his ironhard determination that every speck of food would be stretched to the limit. No special allowance would be made for Thanksgiving or any other occasion until the danger was over.
Ken and his father and their friends had done their share of criticizing the Mayor in the past, but they now had only increasing admiration for his determination to take a stand for the principles he knew to be right, no matter how stern. Previously, most of the townspeople had considered him very good at giving highly patriotic Fourth of July speeches, and not much good at anything else. Now, Ken realized, the bombastic little man seemed to have come alive, fully and miraculously alive.
The day after Thanksgiving Ken and Professor Maddox were greeted by Mrs. Maddox upon coming home. "Maria wants you to come to the radio shack right away," she said. "There's something important coming in from Berkeley."
They hurried to the shack, and Maria looked up in relief as they entered. "I'm so glad you're here!" she cried. "Dr. French is on the radio personally. I've been recording him, but he wants to talk to you. He's breaking in every 10 minutes to give me a chance to let him know if you're here. It's almost time, now."
Ken and his father caught a fragment of a sentence spoken by the Berkeley scientist, and then the operator came on. "Berkeley requesting acknowledgment, Mayfield."
Ken picked up the microphone and answered. "This is Mayfield, Ken Maddox talking. My father is here and will speak with Dr. French."
Professor Maddox sat down at the desk. "This is Professor Maddox," he said. "I came in time to hear your last sentence, Dr. French. They tell me you have something important to discuss. Please go ahead."
Ken switched over to receive, and in a moment the calm, persuasive voice of Dr. French was heard in the speaker. "I'm glad you came in, Dr. Maddox," he said. "On the tape you have my report of some experiments we have run the last few days. They are not finished, and if circumstances were normal I would certainly not report a piece of work in this stage.
"I feel optimistic, however, that we are on the verge of a substantial breakthrough in regard to the precipitant we are looking for. I would like you to repeat the work I have reported and go on from there, using your own ideas. I wanted you to have it, along with the people in Pasadena, in case anything should happen here. In my opinion it could be only a matter of days until we have a solution."
"I certainly hope you are right," said Professor Maddox. "Why do you speak of the possibility of something happening. Is there trouble?"
"Yes. Rioting has broken out repeatedly in the entire Bay Area during the past 3 days. Food supplies are almost non-existent. At the university here, those of us remaining have our families housed in classrooms. We have some small stock of food, but it's not enough for an indefinite stay. The rioting may sweep over us. The lack of food may drive us out before we can finish. You are in a better position there for survival purposes. I hope nothing happens to interrupt your work.
"Our local government is crumbling fast. They have attempted to supply the community with seafood, but there are not enough sailing vessels. Perhaps two-thirds of the population have migrated. Some have returned. Thousands have died. I feel our time is limited. Give my report your careful attention and let me know your opinion tomorrow."
They broke contact, uneasiness filling the hearts of Dr. French's listeners in Mayfield. Up to now, the Berkeley scientist had seemed impassive and utterly objective. Now, to hear him speak of his own personal disaster, induced in them some of his own premonition of collapse.
When Maria had typed the report Professor Maddox stayed up until the early-morning hours, studying it, developing equations, and making calculations of his own. Ken stayed with him, trying to follow the abstruse work, and follow his father's too-brief explanations.
When he finished, Professor Maddox was enthusiastic. "I believe he's on the right track," he said. "Unfortunately, he hasn't told all he knows in this report. He must have been too excited about the work. Ordinarily, he leaves nothing out, but he's omitted three or four important steps near the end. I'll have to ask him to fill them in before we can do very much with his processes."
The report was read and discussed at the college laboratory the next day, and the scientists began preliminary work to duplicate Dr. French's results. Ken and his father hurried home early in order to meet the afternoon schedule with Berkeley and get Dr. French to the microphone to answer the questions he had neglected to consider.
As they arrived at the radio shack and opened the door they found Maria inside, with her head upon the desk. Deep sobs shook her body. The receiver was on, but only the crackle of static came from it. The filaments of the transmitter tubes were lit, but the antenna switch was open. The tape recorder was still running.
Professor Maddox grasped Maria by the shoulders and drew her back in the chair. "What is the matter?" he exclaimed. "Why are you crying, Maria?"
"It's all over," she said. "There's nothing more down there. Just nothing..."
"What do you mean?" Ken cried.
"It's on the tape. You can hear it for yourself."
Ken quickly reversed the tape and turned it to play. In a moment the familiar voice of their Berkeley friend was heard. "I'm glad you're early," it said. "There isn't much time today. The thing Dr. French feared has happened.
"Half the Bay Area is in flames. On the campus here, the administration building is gone. They tried to blow up the science building. It's burning pretty fast in the other wing. I'm on the third floor. Did I ever tell you I moved my stuff over here to be close to the lab?
"There must be a mob of a hundred thousand out there in the streets. Or rather, several hundred mobs that add up to that many. None of them know where they're going. It's like a monster with a thousand separate heads cut loose to thrash about before it dies. I see groups of fifty or a hundred running through the streets burning and smashing things. Sometimes they meet another group coming from the opposite direction. Then they fight until the majority of one group is dead, and the others have run away.
"The scientists were having a meeting here until an hour ago. They gathered what papers and notes they could and agreed that each would try to make his own way, with his family, out of the city. They agreed to try to meet in Salinas 6 weeks from now, if possible. I don't think any of them will ever meet again."
A sudden tenseness surged into the operator's voice. "I can see him down there!" he cried in despair. "Dr. French—he's running across the campus with a load of books and a case of his papers and they're trying to get him. He's on the brow of a little hill and the mob is down below. They're laughing at him and shooting. They almost look like college students. He's down—they got him."
A choking sob caught the operator's voice. "That's all there is," he said. "I hope you can do something with the information Dr. French gave you yesterday. Berkeley is finished. I'm going to try to get out of here myself now. I don't think I stand much of a chance. The mobs are swarming all over the campus. I can hear the fire on the other side of the building. Maybe I won't even make it outside. Tell the Professor and Ken so long. I sure wish I could have made it to Mayfield to see what goes with that Swedish accent. 73 YL."
After dinner, Professor Maddox announced his intention of going back to the laboratory. Mrs. Maddox protested vigorously.
"I couldn't sleep even if I went to bed," he said, "thinking about what's happened today in Berkeley."
"What if a thing like that happened here?" Mrs. Larsen asked with concern. "Couldit?"
"We're in a much better position than the metropolitan areas," said Professor Maddox. "I think we'll manage if we can keep our people from getting panicky. It's easier, too, because there aren't so many of us."
Professor Larsen went back to the laboratory with the Maddoxes. Throughout the night they reviewed the work of Dr. French. To Ken it seemed that they were using material out of the past, since all of those responsible for it were probably dead.
"We'll have to fill in these missing steps," said Professor Maddox. "We know what he started with and we know the end results at which he was aiming. I think we can fill the gaps."
"I agree," said Professor Larsen. "I think we should not neglect to pass this to our people in Stockholm. You will see that is done?" he asked Ken.
"Our next schedule in that area is day after tomorrow. Or I could get it to them on the emergency watch tomorrow afternoon."
"Use emergency measures. I think it is of utmost importance that they have this quickly."
As the days passed, strangers were appearing more and more frequently in Mayfield. Ken saw them on the streets as he went to the warehouse for his family's food ration. He did not know everyone who lived in the valley, of course, but he was sure some of the people he was meeting now were total strangers, and there seemed so many of them.
He had heard stories of how some of them had come, one by one, or in small groups of a family or two. They had made their way from cities to the north or the south, along the highway that passed through the valley. They had come in rags, half-starved, out of the blizzards to the unexpected sanctuary of a town that still retained a vestige of civilization.
Unexpectedly, Ken found this very subject was being discussed in the ration lines when he reached the warehouse. People had in their hands copies of the twice-weekly mimeographed newssheet put out by the Council. Across the top in capital letters was the word: PROCLAMATION.
Ken borrowed a sheet and read, "According to the latest count we've made through the ration roll, there are now present in Mayfield almost three thousand people who are refugees from other areas and have come in since the beginning of the disaster.
"As great as our humanitarian feelings are, and although we should like to be able to relieve the suffering of the whole world, if it were in our power to do so, it is obviously impossible. Our food supplies are at mere subsistence level now. Before next season's crops are in, it may be necessary to reduce them still further.
"In view of this fact, the Mayor and the City Council have determined to issue a proclamation as of this date that every citizen of Mayfield will be registered and numbered and no rations will be issued except by proper identification and number. It is hereby ordered that no one hereafter shall permit the entrance of any stranger who was not a resident of Mayfield prior to this date.
"A barbed-wire inclosure is to be constructed around the entire residential and business district, and armed guards will be posted against all refugees who may attempt to enter. Crews will be assigned to the erection of the fence, and guard duty will be rotated among the male citizens."
Ken passed the sheet back to his neighbor. His mind felt numb as he thought of some of those he had seen shuffling through the deep snow in town. He knew now how he had known they were strangers. Their pinched, haunted faces showed the evidence of more privation and hardship than any in Mayfield had yet known. These were the ones who would be turned away from now on.
Ken heard the angry buzz of comments all around him. "Should have done it long ago," a plump woman somewhere behind him was saying. "What right have they got to come in and eat our food?"
A man at the head of the line was saying, "They ought to round them all up and make them move on. Three thousand—that would keep the people who've got a right here going a long time."
Someone else, not quite so angry, said, "They're people just like us. You know what the Bible says about that. We ought to share as long as we can."
"Yeah, and pretty soon there won't be anything for anybody to share!"
"That may be true, but it's what we're supposed to do. It's what we'vegotto do if we're going to stay human. I'll take anybody into my house who knocks on my door."
"When you see your kids crying for food you can't give them you'll change your tune!"
Just ahead of him in line Ken saw a small, silent woman who looked about with darting glances of fear. She was trembling with fright as much as with the cold that penetrated her thin, ragged, cloth coat.
She was one of them, Ken thought. She was one who had come from the outside. He wondered which of the loud-mouthed ones beside him would be willing to be the first to take her beyond the bounds of Mayfield and force her to move on.
That night, at dinner, he spoke of it to his parents and the Larsens.
"It's a problem that has to be faced," said Professor Maddox, "and Hilliard is choosing the solution he thinks is right. He's no more heartless than Dr. Aylesworth, for example."
"It seems a horrible thing," said Mrs. Larsen. "What will happen to those who are turned away?"
"They will die," said Dr. Larsen. "They will go away and wander in the snow until they die."
"Why should we have any more right to live than they?" asked Mrs. Maddox. "How can we go on eating and being comfortable while they are out there?"
"Theyare out there in the whole world," said Dr. Larsen as if meditating. "There must be thirty million who have died in the United States alone since this began. Another hundred million will die this winter. The proportion will be the same in the rest of the world. Should we be thankful for our preservation so far, or should we voluntarily join them in death?"
"This is different," said Mrs. Maddox. "It's those who come and beg for our help who will be on our consciences if we do this thing."
"The whole world would come if it knew we had stores of food here—if it could come. As brutal as it is, the Mayor has taken the only feasible course open to him."
Ken and Maria remained silent, both feeling the horror of the proposal and its inevitability.
In the following days Ken was especially glad to be able to bury himself in the problems at the laboratory. His father, too, seemed to work with increasing fury as they got further into an investigation of the material originated by Dr. French. As if seized by some fanatic compulsion, unable to stop, Professor Maddox spent from 18 to 20 hours of every day at his desk and laboratory bench.
Ken stayed with him although he could not match his father's great energy. He often caught snatches of sleep while his father worked on. Then, one morning, as an especially long series of complex tests came to an end at 3 a.m., he said to Ken in quiet exultation, "We can decontaminate now, if nothing else. That's the thing that French had found. Whether we can ever put it into the atmosphere is another matter, but at least we can get our metals clean."
Excited, Ken leaned over the notebook while his father described the results of the reaction. He studied the photographs, taken with the electron microscope, of a piece of steel before and after treatment with a compound developed by his father.
Ken said slowly, in a voice full of emotion. "French didn't do this, Dad."
"Most of it. I finished it up from where he left off."
"No. He wasn't even on the same track. You've gone in an entirely different direction from the one his research led to.Youare the one who has developed a means of cleaning the dust out of metals."
Professor Maddox looked away. "You give me too much credit, Son."
Ken continued to look at his father, at the thick notebook whose scrawled symbols told the story. So this is the way it happens, he thought. You don't set out to be a great scientist at all. If you can put all other things out of your mind, if you can be absorbed with your whole mind and soul in a problem that seems important enough, even though the world is collapsing about your head; then, if you are clever enough and persevering enough, you may find yourself a great scientist without ever having tried.
"I don't think I'll ever be what the world calls a great scientist," Professor Maddox had said on that day that seemed so long ago. "I'm not clever enough; I don't think fast enough. I can teach the fundamentals of chemistry, and maybe some of those I teach will be great someday."
So he had gone along, Ken thought, and by applying his own rules he had achieved greatness. "I think you give me far too much credit, Son," he said in a tired voice.
It took a surprisingly short time to ring Mayfield with a barbed-wire barricade. A large stock of steel fence posts was on hand in the local farm supply stores, and these could be driven rapidly even in the frozen ground. There was plenty of wire. What more was needed, both of wire and posts, was taken from adjacent farmland fences, and by the end of the week following the Mayor's pronouncement the task was completed and the guards were at their posts.
In all that time there had been no occasion to turn anyone away, but sentiment both for and against the program was heavy and bitter within the community.
On the Sunday after completion of the fence, Dr. Aylesworth chose to speak of it in his sermon. He had advertised that he would do so. The church was not only packed, but large numbers of people stood outside in the freezing weather listening through the doors. Even greater excitement was stirred by the whispered information that Mayor Hilliard was sitting in the center of the congregation.
The minister had titled his sermon, "My Brother's Keeper." He opened by saying, "Am I my brother's keeper? We know the answer to that question, my friends. For all the thousands of years that man has been struggling upward he has been developing the answer to that question. We know it, even though we may not always abide by it.
"We know who our brothers are—all mankind, whether in Asia or in Europe or next door to our own home. These are our brothers."
As he elaborated on the theme, Ken thought that this was his mother's belief which she had expressed when the fence was first mentioned.
"We cannot help those in distant lands," said Dr. Aylesworth. "As much as our hearts go out to them and are touched with compassion at their plight, we can do nothing for them. For those on our own doorstep, however, it is a different matter.
"We are being told now by our civil authorities in this community that we must drive away at the point of a gun any who come holding out their hands for succor and shelter. We are told we must drive them away to certain death.
"I tell you if we do this thing, no matter what the outcome of our present condition, we shall never be able to look one another in the eye. We shall never be able to look at our own image without remembering those whom we turned away when they came to us for help. I call upon you to petition our civil authorities to remove this brutal and inhumane restriction in order that we may be able to behave as the civilized men and women we think we have become. Although faced with disaster, we are not yet without a voice in our own actions, and those who have made this unholy ruling can be persuaded to relent if the voices of the people are loud enough!"
He sat down amid a buzz of whispered comment. Then all eyes turned suddenly at the sound of a new voice in the hall. Mayor Hilliard was on his feet and striding purposefully toward the pulpit.
"Reverend, you've had your say, and now I think I've got a right to have mine. I know this is your bailiwick and you can ask me to leave if you want to. However, these are my people six days a week to your one. Will you let me say my piece?"
Dr. Aylesworth rose again, a smile of welcome on his face. "I think we share the people, or, rather, they share us on all 7 days of the week," he said. "I will be happy to have you use this pulpit to deliver any message you may care to."
"Thanks," said Mayor Hilliard as he mounted the platform and stood behind the pulpit. "Dr. Aylesworth and I," he began, "have been good friends for a long time. We usually see eye to eye on most things, but in this we are dead opposite.
"What he says is true enough. If enough of you want to protest what I've done you can have a change, but that change will have to include a new mayor and a new set of councilmen. I was elected, and the Council was elected to make rules and regulations for the welfare of this community as long as we were in office.
"We've made this rule about allowing no more refugees in Mayfield and it's going to stand as long as we're in office. By next summer, if the harvest is even a few days late, your children are going to be standing around crying for food you can't give them, and you are going to have to cut your supplies to one-fifth their normal size. That's the way it adds up after we count all the people in the valley, and all the cases and sacks of food in the warehouses.
"It's just plain arithmetic. If we keep adding more people we're all going to get closer and closer to starvation, and finally wake up one morning and find we've gone over the edge of it.
"Now, if that's what you want, just go ahead and get some city officers who will arrange it for you. If anybody in this town, including you, Dr. Aylesworth, can think of a more workable answer or one that makes better sense than the one we've got I'd like to know about it."
It snowed heavily that afternoon out of a bitter, leaden sky. It started in the midst of the morning service, and by the time the congregation dispersed it was difficult to see a block away.
There was little comment about what they had heard, among the people leaving the church. They walked with heads bowed against the snow toward their cold homes and sparsely filled pantries.
The community chapel was near the edge of town. One of the boundary fences lay only two blocks away. From that direction, as the crowd dispersed, there came the sudden sound of a shot. It was muffled under the heavy skies and the dense snow, but there was no mistaking the sound.
Ken jerked his head sharply. "That must have been one of the guards!" he said. His father nodded. Together, they raced in the direction of the sound. Others began running, too, their hearts pounding in anticipation of some crisis that might settle the unanswered questions.
Ken noticed ahead of them, through the veil of snow, the chunky figure of Mayor Hilliard running as rapidly as he could. As they came to the fence they saw the guard standing on one side, his rifle lowered and ready. On the other side of the barbed-wire enclosure was a stout, middle-aged man. He wore an overcoat, but there was no hat on his head. His face was drawn with agony and uncomprehending despair.
He staggered on his feet as he pleaded in a tired voice. "You've got to let me come in. I've walked all the way in this blizzard. I haven't had any food for two days."
A group of churchgoers lined the fence now, additional ones coming up slowly, almost reluctantly, but knowing they had to witness what was about to take place. Ken exclaimed hoarsely to his father, "That's Sam Baker! He runs the drugstore and newsstand in Frederick. Everybody in Mayfield knows Sam Baker!"
Sam Baker turned in bewildered, helpless pleading to the crowd lined on the other side of the fence. Mayor Hilliard stood back a dozen yards from the wire.
"You've got to help me," Sam Baker begged. "You can't make me go back all that way. It's 50 miles. There's nothing there. They're all dead or lost in the snow. Give me something to eat, please..."
"You've got to move on," the guard said mechanically. "Nobody gets in. That's the law here."
Along the fence, people pressed close, and one or two men started hesitantly to climb. Mayor Hilliard's voice rang out, "Anybody who goes on the other side of that fencestayson the other side!"
The men climbed down. No one said anything. Sam Baker scanned them with his helpless glance once more. Then he turned slowly. Fifty feet from the fence he fell in the snow, face down.
Mayor Hilliard spoke slowly and clearly once more. "If anyone so much as throws a crust of bread over that fence the guard has orders to shoot."
As if frozen, the onlookers remained immobile. The guard held his fixed stance. Mayor Hilliard stood, feet apart, his hands in his pockets, staring defiantly. On the other side of the fence, the thick flakes of snow were rapidly covering the inert form of Sam Baker. In only a few moments he would be obliterated from their sight. That would be the signal for them all to turn and go home, Ken thought.
Impulsively, he took a step forward. He looked at his father's face. "Dad..."
Professor Maddox touched Ken's arm with a restraining hand. His face was grim and churned by conflicting desires.
The utter stillness was broken then by the crunching sound of boots in the snow. All eyes turned to the powerful, white-maned figure that approached. Dr. Aylesworth was hatless and the snow was thick in his hair. He paused a moment, comprehending the situation. Then he strode forward to the fence.
He put a foot on the wire, and climbed. His coat caught on the barbs as he jumped to the other side. He ripped it free, ignoring the tear of the fabric.
Mayor Hilliard watched as if hypnotized. He jerked himself, finally, out of his immobility. "Parson!" he cried. "Come back here!"
Dr. Aylesworth ignored the command. He strode forward with unwavering steps.
"It's no different with you than it is with any other man," Hilliard shouted. He took the gun from the guard. "You're breaking the law. If you don't stop I'll shoot!"
The majestic figure of the minister turned. He faced Hilliard without hesitation. "Shoot," he said. He turned back and moved once more to the fallen druggist.
There was sweat on Mayor Hilliard's face now. He brushed it with a gloved hand. His hat fell unnoticed to the ground. He raised the gun no higher. "Aylesworth," he called, and his voice was pleading now, "we've got to do what's right!"
The minister's voice came back to him, hollowly, as if from an immense distance. "Yes, we've got to do what's right." Dr. Aylesworth could be seen faintly through the veil of snow as he bent down, raising the druggist's heavy form to his own back in a fireman's carry, then turning to retrace his steps.
Mayor Hilliard let the gun sag in his hands. At the fence Dr. Aylesworth paused. "Separate those wires," he ordered those standing near.
They hastily obeyed, pressing their feet on the lower wire, raising the center one. "Take him!" the minister commanded. He rolled the figure of Sam Baker gently through the opening and crawled through himself. "Bring him to my house," he said. Without a glance at the Mayor, he strode off through the parted crowd and disappeared.
One by one, the onlookers followed, slowly, never glancing at the immobile figure of the Mayor. Hilliard watched the last of them fade into the snow curtain, and he stood there alone, still holding the gun in his hand.
The guard came up at last. "Do you want me to keep on here, Mr. Hilliard?"
"I still say it was the only thing to do," said Mrs. Maddox at the dinner table. "How could anyone claim to be human and think of leaving poor Mr. Baker lying there in the snow?"
"It was the only thing Dr. Aylesworth could do," said Professor Maddox. "Mayor Hilliard did the only thinghecould do. Which was right, and which was wrong—I don't think any of us are really sure any more."
"What do you suppose may come of this?" asked Professor Larsen.
"I don't know," Ken's father admitted. "There's a lot of excitement in town. A fellow named Meggs is stirring up talk against Hilliard. He's the storekeeper who tried to hold a profiteering sale, you remember."
"I heard there were some fights in town after church," said Maria.
Ken nodded. "Yes, I heard about them, too."
"It mustn't start here!" exclaimed Mrs. Larsen. "That must be the way it began in Chicago and Berkeley. We can't let it happen here!"
During the next few days a kind of unspoken truce seemed to reign over the town. It was rumored that both Mayor Hilliard and Dr. Aylesworth were waiting for the other to come for a talk, but that neither was willing to go first under the circumstances. Orders had been given that Sam Baker was to get no special ration. He would get only what others shared with him out of their own meager allotment.
In the laboratory on College Hill it was confirmed that Professor Maddox had indeed discovered a completely effective means of cleansing metals of the destroying dust. Art Matthews and the science club boys were once again scouring the town for engine parts that could be cleaned and used in assembling new and, this time, workable engines.
On Friday morning Professor Douglas came in late, after all the others had been there for a couple of hours. He was panting from his rapid walk up the hill. "Have you heard the news?" he exclaimed.
The others looked up. "What news?" Professor Maddox asked.
"A couple of farmers and ranchers from the south end of the valley rode in about 3 o'clock this morning. They were half-dead. They said their places and several others had been attacked last night. Everything in the whole southern part of the valley, beyond the point, has been looted and burned. Six families, still living on their own places were wiped out."
"Who did it?" Professor Larsen exclaimed.
"Nomads! The ranchers say there's a band of over three thousand camped down by Turnerville, about 20 miles from here. They've been moving across the country, killing and looting everything that's in their way. Now they're headed for Mayfield. They've heard about us having a big cache of supplies."
All work in the laboratory ceased as the men gathered around Professor Douglas. They stared into the distance, but their thoughts were alike.
"Three thousand," said Professor Maddox slowly. "We could put twice that many good men against them. We ought to be able to stand them off, if they attack. What's Hilliard doing about it?"
"He wants us all down there this morning. There doesn't seem to be much question about him staying on as Mayor since this came up."
In a group the men left the half-completed experiments and made their way down the hill to the City Hall. When they arrived they found the Council chamber already filled. The Mayor and the councilmen were at their conference table on the platform in front of the room.
At one side, facing both the leaders and the audience, were three ragged, unshaven strangers in heavy boots and ill-fitting coats. They had not bothered to remove the fur-lined caps from their heads.
Nomads, Ken thought. It was apparent what was going on.
"We're coming in," the center man was saying. His massive size and strength showed even under the thick covering of clothes. "I say we're coming in, and we either come peaceable and you treat us right or we come in our own way. It doesn't make much difference to us how we do it. You just call the shots, Mister, and we'll play it your way. We've got two thousand armed men who know how to shoot fast and straight because they've done a lot of it the last two months. They're the ones that shot faster and straighter than the guys they were shooting at."
"You want to live here peaceably with us, is that it?" questioned Mayor Hilliard.
The man laughed harshly. "Why sure! We're peaceful people, aren't we, Men?" He took reassurance from his grinning companions. "Just as peaceful as them around us."
"How about those ranch families you murdered last night?"
The speaker laughed again. "They didn't want peace, did they, Men? All we asked for was a little something to eat and they started an argument with us. We just don't like arguments."
Mayor Hilliard glanced beyond the table to the first row of listeners. His glance fell upon Dr. Aylesworth. "Before giving my consent to your coming in," he said slowly, "I'd like to hear from one of our more prominent citizens. This is Dr. Aylesworth, one of our ministers. Would you like to tell these people how we feel about their proposal, Reverend?"
The minister rose slowly, his eyes never leaving the three nomads. "It will be a pleasure to tell them." Then to the three he said, "You can go right back where you came from. That's our answer to your proposal."
The big man snarled. "So that's the way you want it, is it? Well then, we'll be back, and when we come you'll wish you'd sung a different tune!"
Mayor Hilliard smiled a wry smile. "I didn't expect our minister to be quite so unfeeling of your plight. Since I am in agreement with his views, however, I must say that you will not be back, because you are not going anywhere. Sheriff, arrest these men!"
Instantly, the big man dropped his hand to his pocket. Before his gun was halfway out, a shot rang from the rear doorway of the crowded room. The stranger dropped to the platform like a crumpled bull.
"You're covered," said Hilliard to the other two. "You came here with a white flag, but it had our people's blood all over it. We are not violating any truce because this is not an affair of honor among gentlemen. It's going to be only an extermination of wild beasts!"
The two nomads stood glaring and snarling before the drawn revolvers that pointed at them from the doorways of the room. For an instant it looked as if they were going to draw their own weapons and make a pitched battle of it right there in the Council chamber. Then their glances fell on their comrade, writhing in pain on the floor. They raised their hands in slow surrender.
"If we're not back by sundown, you'll be wiped out!"
"When will the attack begin if you do go back?" asked Hilliard bitterly. "Two hours before sundown? We thank you for the information about your timetable, at least. We have 3 hours to prepare a defense of the town." He nodded to the policeman. "Take them away. Put them in cells and tie them up until this is over."
When they had been removed he turned back to the group. "I've had nightmares," he said, "and this has been one of them. I guess if I had been the Mayor some people think I ought to have been, we would have been drilling and rehearsing our defenses for weeks. I had planned to do so soon. I thought we'd have more time; that's my only excuse.
"The Sheriff and I have done a little preliminary planning and thinking. We've made an estimate of weapons available. From what Jack Nelson and Dan Sims report on hunting licenses issued locally a year ago, there must be about two thousand deer rifles in town. They also guess about four or five hundred 22's. We're lucky to live in hunting country.
"Dan and Jack have about two hundred guns of all kinds and sizes in their rental and selling stock, and they've got nearly all the ammunition in the valley. They had stocked up for the hunting season, which we never had this year, so their supply sounds as if it would be pretty good. You've got to remember the difference in requirements for bagging a deer and carrying on a war. We have very little ammunition when you consider it from that angle.
"The police, of course, have a few guns and some rounds. I'm placing Sheriff Johnson in full charge of defense. The police officers will act as his lieutenants." The Mayor stepped to a wall chart that showed the detailed topography of Mayfield and its environs. "This is your battle map right here, Sheriff. Come up and start marking off your sectors of the defense perimeter and name your officers to take charge of each. I hope somebody is going to say it's a good thing we've got the barbed-wire defense line before this meeting is over!
"I want a rider to leave at once to bring back the wood detail. All their horses will be turned over to the police officers for use in their commands. I want fifty runners to go through town and notify one man in each block to mobilize his neighbors, with all weapons available, and lead them to the sectors which the Sheriff will designate. Each man will bring all the ammunition he owns. Additional stores will be distributed by wagon to the sectors. Above everything else, each man must be warned to make each shot count."
The room was silent, and there was no protest or disagreement. Mayor Hilliard, the man who had made fancy speeches, seemed to have vanished. Hilliard, the dynamic, down-to-earth leader had taken his place. For a moment no one in the room was more surprised than Hilliard himself.
"There's one thing I want to make absolutely clear," he said after a pause. "You people who are working at the laboratory on College Hill are to keep away from the front-lines and away from all possible danger. That's an order, you understand?"
"No," said Professor Maddox abruptly. "It's our duty as much as anyone else's to share in the defenses."
"It's your duty to keep your skins whole and get back into the laboratories as quickly as you can and get things running again! We haven't any special desire to save your necks in preference to our own, but in the long run you're the only hope any of us has got. Remember that, and stay out of trouble!"
The Sheriff made his appointments in rapid-fire sequence, naming many who were not present, ordering messengers sent to them. Ken volunteered to ride after the wood detail.
"I guess it's safe enough to let you do that," the Mayor said. "Make it fast, but don't break your neck."
"I'll take it easy," Ken promised.
Outside, he selected the best of the three police horses and headed up out of town, over the brittle snow with its glare ever-reminding of the comet. When he was on higher ground, he glanced back over the length of the valley. The nomads were not in sight. Not in force, anyway. He thought he glimpsed a small movement a mile or two away from the barrier, at the south end of the valley before it turned out of sight at the point, but he wasn't sure. Once he thought he heard a rifle shot, but he wasn't sure of that, either.
As he appeared at the edge of the forest clearing, Mark Wilson, foreman of the detail, frowned irritably and paused in his task of snaking a log out to the road.
"You'll ruin that horse, besides breaking your neck, riding like that in this snow. You're not on detail, anyway."
"Get all your men and horses up here right away," Ken said. "Mayor's orders to get back to town at once." He told briefly the story of what had happened.
Mark Wilson did not hesitate. He raised a whistle to his lips and signaled for the men to cease work and assemble. One by one they began to appear from among the trees. The horses were led along, their dragging harnesses clanking in the frozen air. "We could cut for 2 more hours," they protested. "No use wasting this daylight and having to cut by lantern."
"Never mind," said Wilson. "There's something else to do. Wait for the rest."
When all had assembled he jerked his head toward Ken. "Go ahead," he said. "You tell them."
Ken repeated in detail everything that had happened. He outlined the Mayor's plan of defense and passed on the order for them to take all mounts to City Hall, to go by their own homes on the way and pick up such weapons as they owned. "You'll get your further orders there," he finished.
The group was silent, as if they could not believe it was actually happening. Mark Wilson broke the spell that seemed to be over them. "Come on!" he cried. "Get the lead out of your shoes and let's get down there! Sunset's the deadline!"
There was a rush of motion then. They hitched up the necessary teams and climbed aboard the half-filled sleds. There was no excitement or swearing against fate and their enemies. Rather, a solemn stillness seemed to fill each man as the sleds moved off down the hard, frozen roadway.
Almost, but not quite the same pervading stillness was present in the town when Ken returned. There was a stirring of frantic activity like that of a disturbed anthill, but it was just as silent. The runners moved from block to block. In their wake the alarmed block leaders raced, weapons in hand, from house to house, arousing their neighbors. Many, who had already completed the block mobilization, were moving in ragged formations to the sector ordered by the block runner according to Sheriff Johnson's plan.
Ken did not know what was planned for the many weaponless men who were being assembled. They would be useless at the frontline. There was need for some at the rear. He supposed Johnson would take care of that later when every weapon was manned at the defense barrier.
He stopped at his own house. His mother greeted him anxiously. He could see she had been crying, but she had dried her tears now and was reconciled to the inevitable struggle that was at hand.
"Your father came in a few minutes ago, and left again," she said. "He's been placed in charge of distribution of medical supplies under Dr. Adams. He wants you and the other boys of the club to help in arranging locations for medical care. Meet him at Dr. Adams' office."
"Okay, Mom. How about packing a load of sandwiches? I may not be back for a long time. I don't know what arrangements they are making for feeding the people on duty."
"Of course. I'll make them right away." She hurried to the kitchen.
Maria said, "There must be something I can do. They'll need nurses and aides. I want to go with you."
"I don't know what they've planned in that department, either. They ought to have plenty of room for women in the food and nursing details."
His mother came with the sandwiches and placed them in his hands. "Be careful, Ken." Her voice shook. "Do be careful."
"Sure, Mom."
Maria got her coat. Mrs. Larsen let her go without protest, but the two women watched anxiously as the young people rode toward town on the police horse.
At the doctor's office, Ken found his father surrounded by an orderly whirl of activity. "Ken! I was hoping you'd get back soon. You can help with arrangements for hospital care, in assigned homes. The rest of your friends are out on their streets. Take this set of instructions Dr. Adams has prepared and see that arrangements are made in exact accordance with them at each house on the list."
"I can help, too," said Maria.
"Yes. Dr. Adams has prepared a list of women and girls he wants to assign as nurses and aides. You can help contact them. Get the ones on this list to meet here as quickly as possible and they'll be assigned to the houses which the boys are lining up."
The comet was setting earlier now, so that its unnatural light disappeared almost as soon as the sun set below the horizon. In the short period of twilight, tension grew in the city. Everything possible had been done to mount defenses. An attack had been promised if the nomad emissaries did not return. Now the time had come.
Darkness fell with no sign of activity in any direction. It seemed unreasonable that any kind of night attack would be launched, but Hilliard and Johnson warned their men not to relax their vigilance.
The pace of preparatory activity continued. Blankets, clothing and food were brought to the men who waited along the defense perimeter. Medical arrangements were perfected as much as possible.
Ken and his father made their quarters in another room of the building where Dr. Adams' office was. There was no heat, of course, but they had brought sleeping bags which were unrolled on the floor. After the sandwiches were gone their rations were canned soup, to be eaten directly from the can without being heated.
Maria was quartered elsewhere in the building with some of the women who were directing the nurses' activities.
Through the windows could be seen the campfires which Johnson had permitted to be built at the guard posts. Each had a wall of snow ready to be pushed upon it in case of any sign of attack.
"We'd better get some sleep," Professor Maddox said finally to Ken. "They'll take care of anything that's going to happen out there tonight. We may have a rough day tomorrow."
Ken agreed, although he did not feel like sleeping. After hours, it seemed, of thrashing restlessly he dozed off. He thought it was dawn when he opened his eyes again to the faint, red glow reflected on the walls of the room. He was unaware for a moment of where he was. Then he saw the glow was flickering.
He scrambled to his feet and ran to the window. In the distance the glow of burning houses lit the landscape. The rapid crack of rifle fire came faintly to his ears.
Professor Maddox was beside him. "How could they do it?" Ken exclaimed. "How could they get through our lines and set fire to the houses?"
On the southern sector of the defense line Sheriff Johnson's men crouched behind their improvised defenses. The glow of the fire blinded them as they attempted to pierce the darkness from which the attack was coming.
From a half-dozen different points fireballs were being lobbed out of the darkness. Ineffective on the snow-laden roofs, many others crashed through the windows and rolled on the floors inside. Such targets became flaming infernos within minutes.
They were all unoccupied because the inhabitants had been moved closer to the center of town for protection.
A fusillade of shots poured out of the darkness upon the well-lighted defenders. They answered the fire, shooting at the pinpoints of light that betrayed the enemy's position, and at the spots in the darkness from which the flaming fireballs came. It was obvious that the attackers were continuously moving. It was difficult to know where the launching crews of the fireball catapults were actually located in that overwhelming darkness.
Sheriff Johnson was on the scene almost at once. He had once been an infantry lieutenant with combat experience. His presence boosted the morale of the defenders immediately.
"Hold your fire," he ordered the men. "Keep under cover and wait until you can see something worth shooting at. Try to keep the fire from spreading, and watch for a rush attack. Don't waste ammunition! You'll find yourselves without any if you keep that up."
Reluctantly, they ceased firing and fell back to the protection of their barricades. Patrolman John Sykes, who was lieutenant of the sector, had been in the National Guard, but he had never seen anything like this. "Do you think they'll rush us?" he asked. "Tonight, I mean, in the dark."
"Who knows? They may be crazy enough to try anything. Keep your eyes open."
The flames quickly burned out the interiors of the houses that had been hit. As the roofs crashed in, their burden of snow assisted in putting out the fires, and there was no spreading to nearby houses.
In his room, Ken dressed impatiently. It was useless to try to sleep any more. "I wish they'd let us go out there," he said. "We've got as much right as Johnson or any of the rest."
His father remained a motionless silhouette against the distant firelight. "As much right, perhaps," he said, "but more and different responsibilities. Hilliard is right. If we were knocked down out there who would take over the work in the laboratory? Johnson? Adams?
"In Berkeley there are thousands fighting each other, but with French and his group gone, no one is fighting the comet. I don't think it is selfish to say we are of infinitely more value in the laboratory than we could ever be out there with guns in our hands."
He turned and smiled in the half-darkness. "That's in spite of the fact that you have the merit badge for marksmanship and won the hunting club trophy last year."
After an hour the attack ceased, apparently because the defenders refused to waste their fire on the impossible targets. Sheriff Johnson sent word around for his men to resume rotation of watch and get all the sleep possible before the day that was ahead of them.
The fires burned themselves out shortly before dawn. Their light was followed soon by the glow of the comet rising in the southeast. Ken watched it and thought of Granny Wicks. It wouldn't be hard, he thought, to understand how a belief in omens could arise. It wouldn't be hard at all.
The sky had cleared so that the light of the comet bathed the entire countryside in its full, bitter glory. At sunrise the faint trickles of smoke rose from hundreds of wood fires, started with the difficult green fuel, and stringent breakfasts were prepared. A thought went through Ken's mind and he wondered if anybody was taking note of the supply of matches in town. When they ran low, coals of one fire would have to be kept to light another.
It was 9 o'clock, on a day when ordinarily school bells would have been sounding throughout the valley. The first war shouts of the attacking nomads were heard on the plain to the south. About thirty men on horseback raced single file along the highway that bore the hard, frozen tracks of horses and sleds that had moved to and from the farms down there.
Patrolman Sykes watched them through his glasses. His command rang out to his company. "Hold fire." He knew the nomads would not hope to break through the barbed wire on such a rush. It looked as if they planned an Indian-style attack as the line began breaking in a slow curve something less than 100 yards away.
"Fire!" Sykes commanded. Volleys of shots rang out on both sides almost simultaneously. The lead rider of the nomads went down, his horse galloping in riderless panic at the head of the line. The hard-riding column paralleled the barrier for 200 yards, drawing the fire of adjacent guard posts before they broke and turned south again. It was, evidently, a test of the strength of the defenses.
"Every shot counts!" Sykes cried out to his men. As the attackers rode out of effective range he sighted four riderless horses. Beside him, in the barricade, one of his own men was hit and bleeding badly. A tourniquet was prepared until two men of the medical detail arrived with an improvised stretcher.
Sykes sat down and rested his head on his arms for a moment. The air was well below freezing, but his face was bathed with sweat. How long? he asked himself silently. How long can it go on? First the comet, then this. He roused at a sudden cry beside him.
"They're coming back," a man shouted. Sykes stood up and raised his fieldglasses to his eyes. From around the point a fresh group of riders was pouring toward the town. At least three times as many as before.
In a flash, he understood their intent. "They're going to come through!" he cried. "They're going to come right through the barrier, no matter what it costs them!"
The hard-riding nomad cavalry bore down on the defense line. They did not break into a circling column as before, but began forming an advancing line. When they were 75 yards away, Sykes ordered his men to begin firing.
The nomads were already shooting, and what their emissary had said was true: these men were expert shots, even from horseback. Sykes heard the bullets careening off the sloping face of the barricade. Two of his men were down already.
He leveled his police pistol and fired steadily into the oncoming ranks. He thought they were going to try to jump the fence this time, and he braced for the shock. To his dismay, he now saw that a perfectly clear space for their landing had been left between his own position and the adjacent barricade.
Suddenly the line of attackers swerved to the left just a few feet from the wire. The defending fire was furious, and for a moment Sykes thought they were going to turn the line back. Then several of the nomads raised their arms and hurled dark, small objects toward the barrier. Sykes recognized them even while they were in the air. Grenades.
He shouted to his men and they flattened behind the barricade. Six explosions thundered almost simultaneously. Mud and rocks sprayed into the air and fell back in a furious rain upon the defenders.
Cautiously, Sykes lifted himself from the ground and got a glimpse of the scene once more. A hundred feet of barbed-wire fence had disappeared in a tangle of shattered posts and hanging coils. Through the opening, the nomads poured over the barricades in the midst of Sykes' men. Smashing hoofs landed almost upon him but for his frantic rolling and twisting out of their path. Gunfire was a continuous blasting wave. Sykes thought he heard above it the sound of Johnson's voice roaring commands to the retreating men.
It sounded like he was saying, "Close up! Close up!" but Sykes never knew for sure. An enormous explosion seemed to come from nowhere and thunder directly in front of him. The day darkened suddenly and he felt himself losing all control of his own being. He wondered if a cloud had crossed the sun, but almost at the same time he ceased to be concerned about the question at all.
The first of the wounded came in slowly, borne by stretcher bearers on foot who had literally dragged their charges through the lines of invading horsemen. Ken directed their assignment to the hospital-houses. He had always believed he could take a scene like this in his stride, but now he felt he must keep moving constantly to keep from becoming violently sick.
Overhead, a pall of smoke surged again, blotting out, partly, the comet's light. More houses had been fired by the invaders. The sound of crackling flames mingled with the thunder of hoofs and the roll of rifle fire.
Surely it wouldn't be possible, Ken thought, for such a charge to succeed unless it were backed by strong infantry. He moved into one of the houses and directed the placement of the severely wounded man brought up now by the bearers. As they left, he looked down at the stained and bloody face. A nurse was already at work cutting away the matted clothing from the wound.
Ken exclaimed loudly before he realized what he was saying. "Mr. Harris! Mr. Harris—you shouldn't have been out there!"
The man opened his eyes slowly against the terrible pain. He smiled in recognition. It was Mr. Harris, the principal of Mayfield High School; the one Ken had attended. He was an old man—at least fifty—much too old to have been at the barricade with a rifle.
"You shouldn't have been out there," Ken repeated. Mr. Harris seemed to have difficulty in seeing him.
"Ken," he said slowly. "It's Ken Maddox, isn't it? Everybody has to do something. It seemed like this was the best thing I could do. No school to teach. No school for a long time."
His voice wavered as he began to ramble. "I guess that makes all the students happy. No school all winter long. I always dreamed of Mayfield being a school where they would be glad to come, whose opening in the fall would be welcomed and closing in the spring would be regretted. I never got that far, I guess.
"I didn't do a really bad job, did I, Ken? Mayfield is a pretty good school, isn't it?"
"Mayfield is a swell school, Mr. Harris," said Ken. "It'll be the best day ever when Mayfield opens up again."
"Yes ... when school opens again," Mr. Harris said, and then he was still.
The nurse felt his pulse and regretfully drew the sheet up to cover his face. "I'm sorry," she said to Ken.
Blindly, he turned and went out to the porch. Mr. Harris, he thought, the little bald-headed man they'd laughed at so often with schoolboy cruelty. He had wanted to make Mayfield a good school, so students would be glad to attend.
He'd done that—almost. Mayfieldwasa good school.
Ken looked at the rolling clouds of black smoke in the sky. The gunfire seemed less steady now. Suddenly he was running furiously and with all his strength. He turned down Main Street and headed south. He ran until he caught sight of the first nomad he had seen since the events in the Mayor's Council chamber.
The enemy had stopped his horse, rearing high, while he hurled some kind of incendiary through the window of a house. It exploded inside and billows of flame and smoke poured out. A heart-tight pain gripped Ken. He looked wildly about and saw a fragment of brick lying beside a demolished house nearby.
He snatched up the missile and wound up as if pitching one straight over the corner of the plate. The horseman saw the motion of his arm and tried to whirl, but he was too late. The brickbat caught him at the side of the head and he dropped to the snow without a sound. Ken ran forward and caught up the nomad's rifle and ammunition belt. The horse had fled in panic.
Without a backward glance Ken raced on down the street toward the dwindling sound of battle. The invaders were retreating, streaming from all directions toward the break in the barrier, firing steadily as they came. The defenders were trying to block the escape.
Ken dropped behind a barricade next to an older man he didn't know. He searched for an opening and waited for a rider to cross his sights; then he squeezed the trigger and the man fell. When he looked up again the last of the invaders were gone. Only half of those who had come up to the attack were leaving it.
The men around Ken slowly relaxed their terrible tension. From some lying prone there were cries of pain. Those who could stand did so and revealed their drawn faces to one another.
Teams of the medical group began moving again. A horse-drawn wagon was brought up that had been fitted with boards across the sides so that two layers of wounded men could be carried at once.
Ken heard sudden hoofbeats behind and turned. Sheriff Johnson rode up and surveyed the scene. His eye caught Ken's figure standing in the midst of it, rifle in hand, the captured ammunition belt draped over his shoulder.
"You!" White anger was on Johnson's face. "You were ordered to stay out of the frontline!" he thundered. "Any other man would be court-martialed for such disobedience. Get back where you belong and don't show your face in this area again. I'll jail you for the rest of the fighting if you disobey again!"
Half-ashamed, but half only, for his impulsive action, Ken turned and moved down the street.
"Leave that gun here!" the Sheriff commanded harshly.
Ken gave it to the nearest soldier. He took off the ammunition belt and handed it over too, then resumed his course. He should not have done it, he told himself, but he felt better for it. He felt he had paid a little of his debt to Mr. Harris.
When he reached the hospital center he told his father.
"It wasn't a good thing," said Professor Maddox gently, "but maybe it was something that had to be done."
Throughout the day they continued to bring in the wounded and the dead. There seemed to be an incredible number, but the invaders had suffered heavily, too. Half their force had been lost. A dozen fine horses had been captured, which were a considerable prize.
There was speculation as to why the nomads chose to attack in this manner. They had done great damage, it was true, yet the attack had not had a chance of being decisive in spite of their insane persistence.
Hilliard and Johnson held a staff meeting that afternoon while a sharp watch was kept for further attack. They considered that they had done very well so far. The chief worries were the grenades and incendiaries, which the nomads seemed to have in large quantity.
Toward evening, Johnson asked for two volunteers to go out as scouts to try to reach the top of Lincoln's Peak, west of town, to spot the camp of the nomads and scout their activities. A pair of volunteers was chosen from the many who offered. On two of the best of the nomads' horses, they made their way across the frozen plain and up the small ravine leading to the ridge. Observers watched until they were out of sight in the ravine.
It was agreed the two would return by 6 o'clock. At 5 there was the faint sound of gunfire from somewhere in the hills. The scouts did not return at the appointed time. They did not return at all.
Night came, and word spread among the townspeople of the disappearance of the two scouts. Anxiety increased as it became apparent they were under close surveillance by the enemy. Perhaps it was the intention of the nomads to wear them down with a winter-long siege of attack after attack, until they no longer had the ability or strength to fight.
Hilliard and Johnson doubted this. The nomads were far less equipped for such a siege than Mayfield was.
Maria continued to return to the radio shack in the evening to maintain the schedule with the network. She reported the plight of Mayfield to the other stations. From across the country came the fervent best wishes of those who heard her. Wishes were all they could offer.
The scientists were particularly anguished because they considered the Maddox-Larsen group among the most likely to crack the barrier that kept them from conquest of the comet dust. "Our prayers are with you," the Pasadena group said.
They sent a new report and Maria typed it and showed it to Professor Maddox that evening. He scanned it and put the pages in his coat pocket as he glanced out the window toward College Hill.
"It seems like ages," he said. "I wonder if we'll ever get back up there."
The next attack came well before dawn. Sheriff Johnson was among the first to be aware of it. The thunder of seemingly countless horses' hoofs was heard faintly out of the south and he put his glasses to his eyes. The nomads were a black patch against the snow.
"How many horses have they got?" he exclaimed to the patrolman beside him. This was Ernest Parkin, one of his best officers.
"I'd say there must be at least a hundred of them," said Parkin in awe. "They must have been gathering horses for weeks."
"Feed," said Johnson, "for themselves and the animals—they may be rabble and savages, but they've had genius of leadership."
Behind shelter, they waited for the blow. All orders had already been given. Only the general alarm was sounded now. It had been expected that the previous pattern of attack would be repeated. The defenders had been moved back from the barbed wire. They fired slowly and methodically with a splendidly efficient barrage as the nomads swung out of the night to blast with their grenades at the reconstructed fence.
The way opened and they plunged in, the defenders closing behind and retreating to the other side of their barricades.
Ken paced restlessly as he heard the shooting. "I'm going up on the roof," he told his father. "There can't be any objection to that."
"I guess not. I'll call you when we need you."
Ken climbed the stairs of the 6-story building, which was the highest in Mayfield. He came out on the frozen surface of the roof and looked into the distance. The mounted invaders were circling like Indians about several blocks of houses, firing steadily at the defenders and hurling incendiaries at the houses.
Then, as Ken turned his eyes to the northern end of the valley, he felt as if the whole world had suddenly fallen to pieces in the dim, morning light.
On foot, a vast host of the invaders moved toward the northern defenses of the town. Instantly, he understood their strategy. While their small parties of mounted attackers had pressed the southern defenses, giving the impression they intended to make their major approach there, the bulk of their forces had marched entirely around Lincoln's Peak and come upon the northern boundary at night. That was why the peak had been so heavily guarded against the scouts.
It had been a march of over 40 miles to by-pass the valley. Now, however, the nomads were in a position to achieve their goal. The bulk of the town's defense was concentrated in the south. Little stood in the way of the horde advancing from the north.
His heart sickened as he saw them rip through the barbed-wire enclosure. The poorly manned defense posts seemed almost non-existent. Only a scattering of shots was thrown at the invaders.
From somewhere, a warning siren sounded, the agreed-upon signal to indicate invasion in that sector. It was far too late for that, Ken thought. The horde was already in the streets, fanning out, dispersing in the deserted streets.
Ken started for the doorway leading from the roof. His responsibility to College Hill was gone now. Every man in the valley was fighting for his own life. If that battle were lost, College Hill would be only an empty symbol, where ghosts were housed, as in Berkeley, as in Chicago, as in a thousand centers of learning the world around.
With his hand on the latch of the door he paused at a new sound that broke upon the air. An incredible barrage of firing was occurring along northern Main Street near 12th Avenue. He put the fieldglasses to his eyes again and watched the scattering nomads seeking cover. Dozens of them lay where they fell headlong in the streets.
Ken strained his eyes to see where the defense had come from. It was centered in the houses and buildings that lined the streets, and on their rooftops. He could see the ant-sized outlines of figures on those roofs. For a moment he failed to understand. Then he felt a choking sensation in his throat.
In a desperate gamble, Johnson and Hilliard had anticipated this move and prepared for it as best they could. They had allowed the main body of the attackers to enter the town itself and had deployed the majority of their guns to ring them about, while offering only token defense on the south.
This was it. The battle would be fought here and now, in the streets of Mayfield, and before the day was over it would be known whether the city would continue its struggle to live or whether it would become another Berkeley.