"Earth Abides" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stewart George Rippey)

Chapter 7

After they had gone, Ish thought of something that he had not done during all those years. In fact, after he had decided to do it, he was not sure whether he still could. Yet, when he went into the kitchen, he found that there was a bolt on the back door. He could remember his mother having had it put there because she never trusted ordinary locks. He shot that bolt. Then he went to the front door, and found that there was still a workable night-latch.

In all these years, there had been no need to secure a door. No one in the community was to be feared; no stranger, if there had been one, would have had a chance of getting through the cordon of dogs. But now there was someone, perhaps not to be trusted, and he had made friends with the dogs. Had that patting of the dogs had calculation behind it?

When Ish had gone to bed and shared his apprehensions with Em, he found her not very responsive. Sometimes, he realized, she was too all-accepting for him.

“What’s so remarkable about him carrying a gun?” she said. “You carry one yourself, lots of the time, don’t you?”

“Not concealed! And I’m not afraid to take my vest off, and be away from my weapon.”

“Yes, but maybe you should give him a break for being nervous and uncomfortable, too. You don’t like his looks; maybe he don’t like yours. He’s among strangers—surrounded!”

Ish felt a surge of resentment, almost anger, against Charlie, the intruder.

“Yes,” he said, “but we are on the ground here; this is our place; he comes breaking in; he must adapt himself to us; not we to him.”

“You’re right, darling, I guess. But anyway, let’s don’t talk about it any more now. I’m going to sleep.”

If there was any one thing that Ish had always envied in Em, it was her capacity to go to sleep merely by saying so. As for him, the harder he thought about going to sleep, the longer he was likely to take, and he could never slow down his mind as he wanted to. Now again he felt it settle to work. For suddenly he had had a new idea, and a disturbing one. The trouble was, he decided, that he had to think of himself as pitted against Charlie in a personal struggle. If The Tribe had been really drawn together already into some firm organization, if there were some symbolic unity by which they presented an unbroken front, then the mere advent of any stranger, strong though he might be as an individual, would be of little moment. Now it might be too late. The stranger had come already, and he must be met as man to man.

And Charlie would be no mean opponent. Already he had won the loyalty and friendship of Dick and Bob, and doubtless of others of the younger ones. George was obviously impressed. Ezra seemed doubtful. What was this strange charm, backed by strength?

Ish could not sense why anyone felt a liking for Charlie, but the fact was that they did. And the fact might be also that he himself was too narrowly prejudiced against the man, out of a spirit of rivalry, to feel Charlie’s real strength. But of one thing he began to feel certain. There would be some contest between the two of them. Just what form this contest would take, he could not yet know. But since they lacked the solidarity of anything that could be called a state, the contest would be an individual one.

Or at worst, it would be a struggle of factions with two opposing leaders. On whom could be, Ish, depend? He was not really a leader. He had been a leader so far, doubtless, by default-because George had been too stupid and Ezra too easygoing to offer any competition. Oh, intellectual leadership, yes! But in any basic struggle for power, the intellectual man went under. He thought of the deceptively pretty eyes of baby-blue; yet they had a coldness such as dark eyes could never show.

“Who will follow my banner?” he questioned dramatically. Even Em seemed to be failing him. She had made light of things, almost defended Charlie. All at once Ish felt himself the scared little boy of the Old Times. Of all these people Joey alone was the one who could thoroughly understand, the only one on whom he could always count. And Joey was a little boy, physically frail even for his years. What help could he be against the rush of Charlie’s power? No, not pig-eyes, he thought again. They are a boar’s eyes!

Finally, however, he said to himself, “This is the mere madness of midnight; these are only the wild fantasies that come to a man in the darkness when he cannot sleep.” And he managed, at last, to dismiss the thoughts from his mind, and to sleep.

In the morning things indeed looked better—not altogether rosy, perhaps, but at least not too dark. He ate breakfast in a good enough mood. He was happy to see Bob at the breakfast table again, and by questioning got from him some more details of the trip.

Then, just as he was beginning to feel comfortable, the whole thing broke loose on him when Bob spoke.

“I guess,” he said, “I’ll go over and see Charlie now.”

Ish felt a sudden desire to snap out a bit of fatherly advice, “I wouldn’t see so much of that fellow, if I were you.” But he saw Em’s eyes saying no, and he himself knew that such advice would only make Charlie seem forbidden and more attractive. He still kept wondering what fascination Charlie exercised upon the two boys.

Bob went, and after the morning chores were finished, the other children drifted off too. “What is the fascination?” said Ish to Em.

“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “It’s just the attraction of a stranger, something new. Isn’t that natural?”

“There is trouble ahead!”

“Perhaps,” said Em, and Ish suddenly realized that that was the first time she had admitted the possibility, and then she changed the direction of his thoughts with a second remark, “But be careful that you’re not the one who starts the trouble.”

“What do you mean?” he snapped, angrily, although he did not often get angry at Em. “You mean that this is just a fight for domination?”

“I think that you’d better go over and see what’s happening now,” she said, disregarding his last question.

The advice seemed good in any case, for perhaps he too was curious. He started to follow it, and just as he was opening the front door, he had a feeling of uncertainty. He closed the door behind him, and stood on the front porch wondering. His hands felt strangely empty; he needed something. He felt defenseless, and he considered going back into the house to strap a pistol on. In the vicinity of the houses they never needed to carry firearms any more, because the dogs gave plentiful warning; but he could make an excuse that he was going somewhere farther off. Still, he hesitated, realizing that to carry a pistol would look like aggression—besides, it would be a confession of his own weakness and insecurity. Yet he could not deny his feeling of uncertainty.

He went back into the house, and immediately saw the hammer on the mantelpiece. “So that’s it!” he thought irritably. “You’re as bad as the children. You’re letting the children’s ideas work into you!” Nevertheless he picked up the hammer and took it along. Its weight and solidity gave him comfort. The handle’s firm hardness filled up the emptiness of his right hand.

Over from where the bonfire had been, he heard a sound of people laughing, and he walked that way. He was alone, and then suddenly he felt again the Great Loneliness.

It came upon him with paralyzing force. Once more he was the ant lost from the hill, the bee from the destroyed hive, the motherless child! He paused and stood still, feeling the cold sweat start. No, the United States of America was only a name far in the past! He must act by himself, or with what support he himself could rally. There was no policeman or sheriff, or district attorney or judge, anywhere, to whom he could look.

He was gripping the hammer-handle so hard that his knuckles hurt. “I can’t go back!” he thought. Then he mustered all his courage, and slid one foot forward in front of the other.

Once he was moving again, once action had succeeded thought, he felt better. He saw them now, ahead, as he had expected, at the ashes of the bonfire. Almost all the younger ones were there, and Ezra with them. They stood and sat and lounged around Charlie, and he was telling them things, laughing and joking as he went along. All this was just about what Ish had expected, and only when he had looked more closely did a sudden feeling of coldness seem to begin at his stomach and then flow out until it came clear to the ends of his fingers and toes. His right hand had gripped harder, vise-like, on the hammer-handle.

Close to the center of the group, right beside Charlie, Evie was sitting, the half-witted one, and there was a look on her face that Ish had never seen there before.

Ish was about ten paces from Charlie when he noticed. He halted. Some of the children had seen him, but they were interested in the story, and no one had paid him any attention. He stood there, as if not yet officially present.

He paused. It seemed a long time. But he could feel his heart throbbing, and it did not pound more than a few times.

He felt the coldness ooze away. Now he was ready for action. He was almost happy. The problem had suddenly taken form, and even the worst problem in definite form was better than a fog lurking in corners. You could not combat a mere suggestion of evil.

Still, through the long period of a few more heart-beats, he stood there. The problem had revealed itself and taken shape suddenly. That too was part of their present way of life. In the Old Days a crisis simmered and stewed, and you read the newspapers for weeks and months before the strike broke or the bombs fell. When you were dealing with only a few people, a crisis came quickly.

He looked. Evie was at the center of the group, and usually you could count upon her being somewhere on the outskirts. Usually she paid only furtive attention to what was happening; now she kept her face directed at Charlie’s, seeming to drink his words in, although she certainly did not understand much of what he was saying. There was something more there than the desire to understand his words. They were sitting close together.

Was it for this, Ish thought with bitterness, that they had cared for Evie? Ezra had found her—dirty, groveling, and unkempt, living in filth with merely enough intelligence to open cans to feed herself on whatever they contained, without cooking or preparation. It would have been better, he had often thought, if they had merely put a can of sweet ant-poison within her reach somewhere. As it was, they had cared for her through so many years, and she had certainly been no pleasure to them and probably no pleasure to herself. Their caring for her had been, he thought sometimes, merely a curious lingering of an old standard of humanitarianism.

Now he looked again at the group before him, and in Evie he noticed something that had never been so apparent to him before. That was the trouble of too long familiarity; just as a picture on the wall became something you did not notice at all, so a person whom you knew for many years tended to lose individual characteristics. Evie, he realized now, was a fully developed woman, startlingly blond, in a special way, beautiful. You had to forget, of course, the strangeness of her eyes, and a vacancy in her face. And that was something which he, Ish, could never really do. But to a man like Charlie, such matters were not important. Yes, as Ezra had said, Charlie knew what he wanted, and what he wanted he wanted quickly. Indeed, was there any reason why he should delay?

Ish gripped hard on the hammer-handle. He took comfort from it, but he had become very conscious that it was not a pistol.

A sudden burst of laughter came at something which Charlie was saying. Looking at Evie again, Ish saw that she too was laughing in a high, uncontrolled giggle; as she laughed, Charlie reached across and pinched her in the ribs. She screamed girlishly, high and shrill. Then as Ish drew near, his presence all at once seemed to become official, and everyone turned to look at him. Instantly, Ish realized that they had been waiting for him, that the new situation had disturbed them all, and that they were looking for some suggestion of what to do. He walked forward steadily toward Charlie, still gripping hard with his right hand, but taking care not to clench his left fist, in spite of his rising anger.

As Ish drew near, Charlie—nonchalantly almost—reached out with his right arm, and put it around Evie and drew her close to him. She seemed surprised, but yielded comfortably. Charlie looked at Ish, and Ish knew that this was the crisis of open defiance.

Ish mutely accepted the challenge; he felt calmer now. This was no time to let anger disturb one’s thoughts. Now that there was action, he could think more clearly.

“All of you go somewhere for a while!” he said loudly. There was no need for finesse or excuses; they all knew something was going to happen.

“I want to talk to Charlie here alone for a few minutes. Ezra, you take

Evie over to Molly’s. She needs her hair combed.”

There was no argument; everybody left so readily that they must really have been a little frightened. By having Ezra go, Ish was losing his best ally, but to have had him stay would have been a confession of weakness before all of the others, including Charlie.

Then the two of them were left there alone—Ish standing, as he had been when he spoke; Charlie, still sitting. Charlie made no gesture of rising; so Ish too sat down. He would not stand when the other sat so lazily. Charlie was still wearing his vest, although he had no coat on and had unbuttoned the vest so that it hung loosely from him. There were six feet between them as they sat on the ground and looked at each other. Ish saw no reason to beat about the bush.

“All I want to say is that you must quit this with Evie.”

Charlie was equally direct.

“Who says so?”

Ish considered for words. He might say “we” but that was vague. If he could have said “We, the people” that would have been better, but he knew that Charlie would think it ridiculous. He did not want to pause longer, and so he spoke. “I say so.”

Charlie said nothing in return; he sat there. He picked up a few little pebbles from the ground and idly twitched them with his left hand, throwing them here and there. He could not have stated, any more clearly, his disrespect.

At last Charlie spoke. “There’s lots of old wise-cracks you can say when any guy says to you ’I say so.’ You know what they are; so let’s skip them. I’m reasonable, though. Why don’t you tell me just why you want me to lay off Evie? She your girl, maybe?”

Ish spoke quickly.

“This is it,” he said. “It’s simple enough. We’re a pretty good bunch of people here, not mental giants, any of us I guess, but still nobody too downright stupid. We don’t want a lot of little half-witted brats running in on us, the sort of children Evie would have.”

Only when he had stopped speaking, did he realize that by speaking at all in reply to Charlie’s question, he had made a mistake. Like any intellectual, he had been happy to stop commanding and begin arguing, and so he had admitted that his command was non-effective. Now, in spite of himself, he felt in second place, with Charlie the leader.

“Hell!” said Charlie. “What makes you think she’s been around here all this time and not had plenty of chances to have kids with all those boys around, if she was going to have any?”

“The boys never touched Evie,” said Ish. “She was something they grew up with; she was taboo. And besides, all the boys were married off as early as they could be.”

He was still arguing, and was perhaps at the bad end of the argument.

“So you say again!” Charlie’s words had the confident ring of the voice of a man feeling himself in control. “What you really ought to be glad for is that I picked on that one around here, the only one old enough who ain’t married already. What if I’d liked one of the others, and she, me? Then you might have a pretty mess on your hands. You better be glad I was so agreeable.”

Ish thought wildly for something to say. What more could be said? You could not threaten with the police or say that the district attorney might be interested. He had flung the challenge and been met head on.

No, there was nothing more to say. Ish got up, turned on his heel, and walked off. He had a sudden quick memory in his mind of once long before, when he had met a man just after the Great Disaster, and had turned, and walked away with the feeling that he might be shot in the back. Yet, after that first memory, he was not afraid, and it was the more humiliating that he was not. He realized that Charlie would think there was no need of shooting. He, Ish, had come off second-best.

He was in the depths of bitterness as he walked back toward his own house, He had forgotten how deep humiliation would be. The hammer was mere weight now, not a symbol of power. For years things had gone easily, and he had been a leader. But after all he was not so different from the strange youth that he now could hardly remember. The youth who had existed in the old days before the Great Disaster; the one who was afraid to go to dances, the one who was never quite at ease with other people, and had never been a leader. He had changed much, he had outgrown much, but he could not outgrow it all.

Then as he came, deep in bitterness, through the door of the old house, Em was there waiting for him. He laid down the hammer. He took her into his arms, or perhaps she took him into hers, he was not sure. But after that he felt suddenly a new confidence. Sometimes she did not agree with him. They had argued just the night before about Charlie, but in the end he knew that he would renew his confidence from her.

They sat on the davenport, and he poured out the story. He did not wait to hear what she thought, but he felt her sympathy flow out and enfold him. He felt the raw edge of his humiliation healing over. She spoke at last:

“You shouldn’t have done it! You should have had the boys to back you. He might have shot you right there. You’re strong at thinking and knowing things, not in meeting a man like that.”

Then it was she was began to take the next action.

“Go get Ezra and George and the boys,” she said. “No, I’ll send one of the children. No one can move in on us like this, and say what he and we are going to do!”

Yes, Ish realized, he had been wrong. There had been no need to feel again the Great Loneliness. Small and weak though it might be, there was still the strength of The Tribe to rally warmly about him.

George was the first to come, and after him, Ezra. Ish caught the movement as Ezra’s quick eyes shifted from George to Em and back again. “He has something,” Ish thought, “he wants to say to me alone.” But Ezra made no attempt to gain the opportunity. Instead he ended by looking at Em in a half-embarrassed manner.

“Molly’s had to lock Evie up in one of the upstairs rooms,” he said. Ish could tell what a hard matter it was for Ezra, a highly polite and civilized person, to have to speak in public thus about the burst of passion that had suddenly come upon a half-witted girl at a man’s caresses.

“What’s to keep her from jumping out the window anyway?” said Ish.

“Nothing, I guess,” said Ezra.

“I could fix up some bars,” said George, eagerly. “We could put something across the window, all right.”

They all laughed a little in spite of the seriousness. George was always so happy to do a little more carpentry somewhere on the houses. But it was obviously impossible to keep Evie locked up for the rest of her life.

Just then Jack and Roger, Ish’s own sons, came in; after them, Ralph, who was the last of that trio.

At the boys’ coming, there was a little relaxing, and people began to sit down and make themselves comfortable. In a moment, Ish knew they would all expect him to begin to say something and he felt again that this was all happening too rapidly. What he was actually facing was almost like the organization of a new state. And yet, they could not sit down quietly and start out by writing a constitution with a good old-fashioned preamble. No, a particular and troublesome situation faced them, and they must act in the face of it.

He put the question sharply: “What are we going to do about Evie and this

Charlie?”

There was a babble of talk, and almost immediately Ish had the chilly feeling that of all the men, only Ezra was solidly with him. The boys, even George, seemed to think that Charlie might bring a new force from the outside to enliven and enrich the life of The Tribe. If he liked Evie, so much the better. They had enough loyalty to Ish to insist that Charlie must apologize for what had happened this morning. But it was evident also, Ish felt, that they all considered him to have acted precipitously—he should have talked with the rest of them before confronting Charlie.

Ish brought up the argument that they could not afford to let Evie start a line of half-witted children. But his words made less impression than he had thought they would. Evie had always been a part of the boys’ life, and the thought that there would be others around of the same kind made little impression upon them. They could not think far enough ahead to conceive that the descendants of Evie would necessarily mingle with the rest of the group and bring the whole level down.

Then curiously enough, George’s slow mind brought forth an even sounder argument. “How do we know,” he said, “that she really is half-witted anyway? Maybe it was just all that trouble she had when she was a little girl when everybody died and left her all alone to take care of herself. That would put anybody crazy. Maybe she’s just as bright as any of us really, and so her children will be all right.”

Though Ish could not imagine Evie’s ever having normal children, still there might be something to the argument, and he saw that it impressed the others, except Ezra. In fact, there was almost a feeling that Charlie was a benefactor to the community, and was going to bring Evie into it again as a normal Part. And just then Ish noticed that Ezra was really wanting to say something.

Ezra stood up. That was unusual of him, too, being so formal. And it was also unusual that he seemed to be embarrassed. His florid face was even redder than usual, and he glanced back and forth, particularly at Em, it seemed, in an uncertain manner.

“I’ve got to say something more,” he said. “I talked with that fellow, Charlie, last night after we went home, quite a while. He’d been drinking a lot, you know—talked pretty freely.” He paused, and Ish noticed again his half-embarrassed glance toward Em. “He boasted, kind of, you know.” And now Ezra glanced toward the boys, as if realizing that they, poor half-savages, would not know really what a civilized man was discussing. “He told me quite a bit about himself, which was what I was after.”

Again he paused, and Ish could not remember Ezra ever having been like this before. “Come on, Ezra,” he said. “Tell us. This is just us.”

Suddenly the bonds of Ezra’s reticence broke. “This guy, Charlie!” he burst out. “He’s rotten inside as a ten-day fish. Diseases, Cupid’s diseases, I mean. Hell, he’s got all of them there are!”

Ish saw the news visibly shake George’s big body as if it had been a jolting blow on the chest. He saw the flush spread over Em’s creamy-colored face. To the boys the news was nothing. They did not know what Ezra was talking about.

Ezra would not even try to explain to the boys until Em had left the room, and then he had difficulties because the whole conception of disease was very hazy to the boys.

As Ezra tried his explanation, Ish sat feeling his thoughts run by him fast. This was something for which neither the old life nor the new life held precedent. He knew vaguely that lepers had been restrained by law, and he remembered stories of leper colonies. A typhoid-fever carrier might, he thought, be legally kept from working in a restaurant. But what use was it to remember such precedents anyway? Now there was no law of the land.

“Let the boys go,” he said suddenly to Ezra. “This is for us to talk over and decide on.” The boys, he realized suddenly, were disqualified in two ways—they did not know the dangers of disease to a community, and they did not know the force which any society was privileged to exert in its own defense.

The boys filed out, in spite of their years and inches and paternity, seeming mere children again. “Keep quiet about this,” Ezra told them.

The three older men turned to each other again after the younger ones had gone.

“Let’s get Em back in,” said Ezra. She joined them, and then there were four.

They stood for a minute in silence as if under the actual threat of danger. There was a feeling of death in the air, not of clean death in the open, but of a mean and defiling death.

“Well, what about it?” said Ish, knowing that he must take the lead again.

Once the silence was broken, they discussed the situation fully. They were agreed, first of all, that The Tribe had the right to protect itself and must do so. They would look for no more law or precedent than the primary one of self-defense, which could be applied to a community, as well as to a person.

Granted the right, however, and the necessity, what could be the means? Mere warning, “Do this or else!” they all agreed, would probably be useless and would certainly offer no sure protection. Once the thing was done, the punishment which they could mete out to Charlie would be mere social vengeance, and no avail against the spread of the diseases. They had no means of actually imprisoning Charlie, and the weight of all that responsibility, if they should improvise a jail of bars and locks, would be too much for a small community to enforce indefinitely. The obvious thing was banishment. They could merely take him away from the community and tell him to go on. He could manage to live well enough. If he returned, the penalty would be death.

Death—they stirred uneasily even at the mention of it! Now it had been a long time since there had been either war or execution. That their society might have to inflict such a final penalty, the very thought was strangely disturbing to all their minds.

“But what about it?” Em seemed to voice all their fears. “What if he sneaks back somewhere? After all, there are only a few of us older people, and he makes friends easily with the younger ones. What if he makes friends with some of the boys and they protect him? And he could make friends with some of the girls, too, not necessarily Evie.”

“We might take him a long way down the road,” said Ezra. “We could take him in the jeep and drop him off fifty miles, maybe a hundred miles, away.” And then after a pause, he corrected his own judgment. “Yes, but still, he could get back easy in a month or so—and then… well, I was just thinking, what would keep him from hanging round with a rifle and bushwhacking one of us. Oh, maybe the boys could run him down with the dogs afterwards, but one of us would be good and dead anyway! I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being afraid to get within rifle-range of every clump of bushes.”

“You can’t punish a man for something he ain’t done yet,” said George stolidly.

“Why not!” said Em sharply. They all turned quickly toward her, but she was silent.

“Why… you can’t… of course, you can’t.” George was laboriously stating the case. “He’s got to do something, and then there’s… a joo-rie. It says so… the law.”

“What law?”

There was a pause, and then the talk shifted away, as if no one quite had the courage to follow Em.

Ish, feeling that he must be fair, brought up another matter.

“Of course we don’t know he really has any diseases at all. We’ve no doctor to find out. Maybe he had something a long time ago. Maybe he’s just boasting. Some men would!”

“That’s just it!” said Ezra. “Not having a doctor, we don’t know. Yes, he might be just boasting. Do we want to take a chance? If this thing ever gets started…. Besides, I think the guy is sick. He moves slow, like something was wearing on him.”

“They say sulfa pills work,” said Ish, trying still to be fair, to suppress that deep feeling of triumph.

Then, as he looked at George, he was almost appalled at the horror and revulsion that he saw—George, the middle-class citizen, full of superstitions against the “social diseases”; George, the deacon, remembering that text about “the sins of the fathers.” But Em was speaking:

“I asked ‘What law’?” she said. “There are the laws in the old law-books still, I guess. They don’t mean much to us, now that things are different. That old law, like George said—it waited till somebody did something, and then it punished. But the thing was done. Can we take that responsibility now? There are all the children.”

Suddenly there seemed nothing more to say. They all sat silent, each considering possibilities.

“No,” Ish found himself thinking, she does not have a philosophy. She mentions the children and makes it a special case, Yet there is perhaps something deeper even than a philosophy in her. She is the mother; she thinks close to all the basic things of life.

Probably it was not so much a long time that passed as what seemed a long time. Then Ezra spoke.

“While we sit here, even—things happen fast these days! We’d better do something.” And then he added, more as if thinking aloud, “I saw, in those days—yes, I saw lots of good ones die. Yes, a lot of good ones have died. I almost got used to death… no, never quite.”

“Should we take a vote?” asked Ish.

“What on?” said George.

Again there was a pause.

“We can run him out,” said Ezra, “or… the other. We can’t imprison him, and what else is there?”

Then Em faced the issue squarely.

“We can vote Banishment, or we can vote Death.”

There was plenty of paper in the living-room desk. The children enjoyed drawing pictures on it. After a little hunting around, Em located four pencils. Ish tore a sheet of paper into four small ballots, kept one himself, and gave one to each of the others. With four people to vote, there might, of course, be a tie.

Ish took his own slip of paper, and wrote a big B on it, and then paused.

This we do, not hastily; this we do, not in passion; this we do, without hatred.

This is not the battle, when a man strikes fiercely and fear drives him on. This is not the hot quarrel when two strive for place or the love of a woman.

Knot the rope; whet the ax; pour the poison; pile the faggots.

This is the one who killed his fellow unprovoked; this is the one who stole the child away; this is the one who spat upon the image of our God; this is the one who leagued himself with the Devil to be a witch; this is the one who corrupted our youth; this is the one who told the enemy of our secret places.

We are afraid, but we do not talk of fear. We have many deep thoughts and doubts, but we do not speak them. We say, “Justice”; we say, “The Law”; we say, “We, the people”; we say, “The State.”

Still Ish sat with his pencil poised above the B on his slip of paper. He knew, far within the deeper reaches of his thought, that Charlie’s banishment would, in all likelihood, not solve the situation. Charlie would be back; he was a strong and dangerous man, and could exert much influence upon the younger people. “What’s the matter?” Ish was thinking. “Am I still just worrying about the leadership? Am I worrying that Charlie will replace me?” He could not be sure. Yet, at the same time, he knew that The Tribe faced here something real and dangerous and even dreadful, in the long run threatening its very existence. In that final realization he knew that he could write only the one word there, out of love and responsibility for his children and grandchildren. He scratched out the B and wrote the other word. Its five letters stared back vacantly at him, and then for a moment he had a sudden revulsion of feeling. Was this ever right? By writing that word, was he not bringing back into the world all the beginnings of war and tyranny, of the oppression of the individual by the mass, in themselves diseases worse than any which Charlie could carry. And why did it all have to move so fast?

He started to scratch the word out, but stopped again. No, he was torn two ways, but he could not quite scratch it. If Charlie should kill someone, that might make it easier to inflict the final penalty, and yet that was only the old conventional way of thinking. The eye for the eye, and the tooth for the tooth! To execute the murderer never brought back the murdered, and was only vengeance. To be effective, punishment should not be retribution so much as a prevention.

How long had he paused? He suddenly came to the realization that he was sitting there silent, staring at the paper, while the other three were waiting for him. After all, his was only one vote; the others could out-vote him, and so he could have his conscience to himself and still Charlie would only be banished. “Give me your slips,” he said.

They passed them in, and he laid them face up before him on the desk. Four times he looked, and he read: “Death… death… death… death.”