The World Ends In Hickory Hollow (15 page)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Spring came on with fervor. Geese rose off the lake and came over us in honking skeins, heading north; the willows put on their new green; the treetops turned from gray to pink to lime-sherbet in a matter of days. The gardens were providing picked-off turnip green tops, tiny green onions, thumb-sized radishes, and delicately curled lettuce leaves, and we reveled in salads.

The seed potatoes and peanuts came out of storage, and we all sat down and cut seed potatoes and shelled peanuts for days at a time, for we intended to have a crop of spuds that would provide alcohol as well as food. Even the smallest were given a chance to help, though Joseph was limited to casting hailstorms of peanut hulls over all the activities when he tired of roaming about the yard at the end of his tether.

Life was a sleek stream of exhausting days and zonked-out nights while we got our crops into the ground. We even, thanks to Lantana, had sweet potato slips, for she remembered an old friend who always had them, no matter what.

Sure enough, we drove into Penrose, turned off onto a washed-out dirt road, and bounced along for what seemed miles, finally reaching a low brown house with a curl of smoke coming from the chimney. Aunt Sallie Zee had, as always, slips for sale, though she had no idea that she would have a customer this year. She was so glad to see us that she would have loaded us up with free plants and tubers and seeds, but we insisted on paying her in honey. We left her smiling and hugging the honey jar as if it were her only child.

When we got home, we went through the boxes and bags and clumps of living stuff she had thrust upon us. Not only the regular things, but parsnip seed, spaghetti melon seed, early tomato plants, clumps of pansies, iris rhizomes, even a small woodbine curling up from its intricate root system. Wise Sallie Zee–she nourished our spirits, too. We planted and sorted and "toed in" and set out until we were all but permanently stooped.

But most welcome of all, she sent us a pair of puppies. We had been
dogless
for over a year, since our old Roger was killed by a snakebite. Now we were once again owned ... and by the most fetching pair of part-German shepherd, part-husky pups I ever saw. They were just over two months old, sheer mischief covered with three-layered husky coats, and we all loved them instantly. And so did the goats. Punch and Judy, though so much taller, decided that they must be rather odd goats and kept them busy when the children were worn out.

We debated long and hard over names. Then we named them Ted and Ginger, for no good reason except that they were names that would fit grown working dogs as well as they did pups. Their big paws and bright, quick eyes gave promise of future size and intelligence, and we knew that they and their offspring might well be the most valuable of our assets in days to come.

So far, our commune-like group had functioned well, though on an unorganized, catch-as-catch-can basis. The oldsters were too mature to engage in jealousy and squabbles, as younger people might have done–or some other old folks I could have named. Yet each of them had areas of unarguable expertise, which we valued highly and exercised to the greatest possible extent.

Even when Lucas began to come courting Mom Allie there was nothing but good will expressed. Though Zack and I were titular owners of the land we lived on, all of us knew that was past history. We worked with the others to decide on crops, division of labor, policies, and activities affecting all of us. So it was that we had formed, before we knew it, a working democracy on an ideally small scale, and even the children had a vote. Candy and Joseph being entirely too young to understand, we voted them by proxy until they were older; but even
Jashie
and Lillian, when things were explained to them very carefully, were thoughtful and intelligent when the time came to make their wishes known.

Not that we ever held "town meeting" before we acted. The way things came about, usually, there was no time for anything but roaring into action. Then, when there was time, we sat around and batted around our ideas on what might have been better to do. As we seemed to have nobody in the group who was the kind to sit and wring their hands, this worked ideally.

It was a good thing. One April morning we sent Jim and
Sukie
up the ridge to look for Hazel, the Jersey heifer, who had failed to come up to the barn the night before. We felt sure she was off with a new calf, and the children were wild to go.

It was still a strange feeling to check that both had shotguns and shells before sending them off. Still, I felt much more secure about them, knowing that both were well coached and practiced about using their weapons. I felt certain that no Unger, of whatever age, would be able to get within more than shouting range of the two, if that near.

We were now inundated with greens, beans, squash, cucumbers, and scads of other vegetables from the gardens, so I turned to with the pressure canner while Mom Allie and Lantana washed and peeled and shelled and sliced.
Suzi
was busy precooking those things that we preferred to can with their seasonings already cooked into them. So we were all busy as ticks in a tar bucket when there was a shrill whistle from the hill.

I looked up, a
Klickit
lid in my hand, to see Jim pelting down the slope with
Sukie
close behind him. There was no mistaking the urgency in them both, so I set the canner off the
cookstove
, damped the fire, and wiped my hands dry as they drew near. When I turned to look, I found that the other women had done the same and were ready for whatever was to come.

They came panting up. Jim gulped, then said, "There's a big smoke downriver. It looks like it could be one of the houses. And it seemed like we could hear popping, maybe gun?"

I nodded. "Go get the men out of the field, Jim.
Sukie
, you get the little ones together and fort up in the cabin. Load all the guns and get the reloading equipment and check what cartridges need to be reloaded. Mom Allie, you want to stay and oversee them or go with us?"

My mother-in-law, who had always been in the van and forefront of everything going on, looked at me, then at
Sukie
. "I'll stay and help
Sukie
keep track of the
young'uns
," she said.

Meanwhile,
Suzi
had gone to the fence and whistled up the horses. Over the winter we had acquired mounts for all of us, and she saddled six of them (we stole the saddles, too), so that the men, when they came, wouldn't have to waste any time in coming after us. By the time we had rifles, ammunition, blankets, and first-aid gear ready, the horses were at the door.

We set out downriver at a good but not reckless pace. I rode ahead, as Zack had taught me, scouting out the country. My eyes were peeled for movement, for a dash of telltale red, for any sign of the presence of any of the
Ungers
. The woods were alive with woodpeckers and jays, with crows who commented rudely on our intrusion, but no human shape was visible anywhere. Behind me I could hear the reassuring thumps of the mounts that followed, so I upped the gait. It was much faster riding the overgrown track than it had been driving a mule and wagon over it, and sooner than seemed possible we reached the turnoff to the first farm.

I looked into the sky. Even above the trees smoke would have been visible if that had been the house that was burning. We trotted on without pausing. The
Londowns
' tract was next, and no smoke could be seen there, or at the Sweetbriers'. But I turned up the trail to Nellie's house, passed the silent structure, and from there we could see, bold against the spring sky, a boil of black smoke that must came from Bill
Fancher's
place.

We hit the road at a gallop, though I knew the horses were tired. By the road, it wasn't far to Bill's, though, and soon we reached the huge hickory tree that stood by the
Fancher
drive. We could hear gunfire clearly now, and I signaled a halt. We tied the horses in the shelter of the arm of woodland that divided Bill's cleared land from the road. Then we checked out the loads and slipped into the wood, deeper and deeper toward the house.

We spread out, Lantana on the left,
Suzi
in the middle, and I on the right. When I glimpsed a human shape ahead of me, I dropped to the ground and crawled to the big
sweetgun
tree that halved the distance between us. Peering around, I could see an
overalled
figure lying on its belly, looking toward the house. As I watched, it raised a rifle and fired. I shot simultaneously, and the shape hopped once, then relaxed into the too-familiar look of death.

My "troops" were sound people. They didn't come running through the wood, crashing branches and calling out. I didn't hear a word from them, and I knew that they were going their own ways toward the house, and that anybody they met would rue the day.

The house, now that I could see it clearly, was ready to fall in. The heat from the blaze must have been ferocious, but a spatter of fire from the fencerow and the orchard told me that some, at least, of the family still held their ground. From a low shed on my right, I could hear a slow and deliberate marksman doing his best. I hoped it was Bill, and that none of his family had been killed. It seemed too much to hope, though, for I could hear gunshots of all gauges and calibers to right, left, and on the other side of the enclave.

A burst of gunfire sounded to my left. I heard the deep boom of Lantana's big old ten-gauge, from which she had removed the plug. One ... two ... three ... four .... five. That would be her full load. If there were many in front of her, she'd need cover while she reloaded. I ran, crouching, through the trees, calling to
Suzi
so she wouldn't mistake me for the enemy.

Lantana was flat behind a big post oak stump. and slugs were whizzing about her position like angry bees. I circled toward the house until I could see her adversary, who was also dug in behind a sizable bole with a .22. There was so much noise, by now, that she didn't hear me until I was on top of her. When I nudged her with the barrel of my Springfield, she shrieked and dropped her light weapon.

This was one of the young ones. I was on the horns of a dilemma, sure enough, now. I couldn't shoot her in cold blood. I wanted no adult Unger captives. Damn! I conked her with the butt and left her unconscious behind her tree.

Lantana poked her head over the stump. "Got her, Luce?"

"Got her. Come on, Auntie. It's getting too hot in there for the
Fanchers
. We've got to drive these critters off so they can move away from the house."

I turned and tripped over three bodies that had been hidden by a clump of saw vine. The evidence of the ten-gauge was staggering. I gulped down my last meal, which was threatening to rise up into daylight again, and we
Injuned
toward the house. On the way we eliminated one more Unger, a middle-aged harridan with a cast in her eye.

Suzi
followed us from the shelter of the wood. We seemed to have cleaned out that side, so we ducked under the fencerow hedge and called softly, "Bill! Annie! Kids! Are you okay?"

A small voice said, "I am. Don't know about Papa, but Mama is in the shed with her rifle. The others are all over the garden and the orchard. It's hot!"

"Scoot to the shed and tell your mama to call everybody together. We've got '
em
all out of the woods, and you can ease out over here. Then we'll take '
em
from both sides. The men will be here pretty soon. " I waited until I heard the crackle of footsteps through dead stalks.

Then I turned to
Suzi
. "Let me see," I said.

She drew a reddened left hand from behind her and held it nut. "How did you know?" she asked me. and I laughed.

"I've had too many cases when the kids wanted to hide cuts and bruises and burns that they got doing something they shouldn't. I can tell a mile off. " I pulled the bandanna off my hair and made a fair job with it, leaving her thumb free, in case she needed to use the hand.

"You go back to the road.
Zack'll
come that way, through Nellie's. We think the same way, in a pinch, and I know it. Hurry them on. I'm going into the yard and help Annie get the children out .... and find Bill. " She took off as I scrambled through the wire, then picked a prickly way through the japonicas on the other side.

Annie was whistling the children into sight. Each child evidently had his or her own signal whistle, for as Annie trilled different patterns, she was answered from several quarters of the enclosed garden. Tony came first, sliding from the concealment of a grape arbor. He was followed, at intervals by four more of his siblings. Annie whistled again, two different trills. There was no answer.

We looked at one another, and there was dread in her eyes. Then we marshaled the children into a line and sent them into the wood, one by one, as we watched for any activity that might show that the
Ungers
had filled up their depleted line on the road side of the house.

As the children disappeared into the trees, I heard a welcome sound.
Hoofbeats
moved steadily toward us, not down the drive but through the arm of wood. As the last child darted for the cover of the trees, Zack came into sight, followed by Lucas and Josh.

The tight knot of apprehension that had lived under my collarbone dissolved. Now that Zack was here, things would be all right. So it had always been, all my life, and so it must be now.