The Long Tomorrow

The main square of Refuge was wide and grassy, with trees to make shade there in the summer. The church, austere and gaunt and authoritative, dominated the square from its northern side. On the east and west were lesser buildings, stores, houses, a school, but on the southern side the town hall stood, not as tall as the church but broader, spreading out into wings that housed the courtrooms, the archives, the various offices necessary to the orderly running of a township. The shops and the public buildings were now closed and dark, and Len noticed that some of the shopkeepers had put up their storm shutters.

The square was full. It seemed as though all the men and half the women of Refuge were there, standing around on the wet grass or moving back and forth to talk, and there were others there, farmers in from the country, a handful of New Mennonites. A sort of pulpit stood in the middle of the square. It was a permanent structure, and it was used chiefly by visiting preachers at open-air prayer meetings, but political speakers used it too at the time of a local or national election. Mike Dulinsky was going to use it tonight. Len remembered what Gran had told him about the old days, when a speaker could talk to everybody in the country at once through the teevee boxes, and he wondered with a quivering thrill of excitement if tonight was the start of the long road back to that kind of a world—Mike Dulinsky talking to a handful of people in a village named Refuge on the dark Ohio. He had read enough of Judge Taylor’s history books to know that that was the way things happened sometimes. His heart began to beat faster, and he walked nervously back and forth, vaguely determined that Dulinsky should talk, no matter who tried to stop him.

The preacher, Brother Meyerhoff, came out of the side door of the church. Four of the deacons were with him, and a fifth man Len did not recognize until they came into the light of one of the bonfires that burned there. It was Judge Taylor. They passed on and Len lost them in the crowd, but he was sure they were heading for the speaker’s stand. He followed them, slowly. He was about halfway across the grassy open when Mike Dulinsky came from the other side and there was a general motion toward the center, and the crowd suddenly clotted up so he couldn’t get through it without pushing. There were half a dozen men with Dulinsky, carrying lanterns on long poles. They put these in brackets around the speaker’s pulpit, so that it stood up like a bright column in the darkness. Dulinsky climbed up and began to speak.

Somebody pulled at Len’s sleeve, and he turned around. It was Esau, nodding to him to come away from the crowd.

“There’s boats on the river,” Esau said, when they were out of earshot. “Coming this way. You warn him, Len, I got to get back to the docks.” He looked furtively around. “Is Amity here?”

“I don’t know. The judge is.”

“Oh Lord,” said Esau. “Listen, I got to go. If you see Amity, tell her I won’t be around for a while. She’ll understand.”

“Will she? Anyway, I thought you were bragging how nobody could—”

“Oh, shut up. You tell Dulinsky they’re coming. Watch yourself, Len. Don’t get in any more trouble than you can help.”

“It looks to me,” said Len, “as though you’re the one in trouble. If I don’t see Amity, I’ll give the message to her father.”

Esau swore and disappeared into the dark. Len began to edge his way through the crowd. They were standing quiet, listening, very grave and intent. Dulinsky was talking to them with a passionate sincerity. This was his one time, and he was giving everything he had to it.

“—that was eighty years ago. No danger menaces us now. Why should we continue to live in the shadow of a fear for which there is no longer any cause?”

A ripple of sound, half choked, half eager, ran across the crowd. Dulinsky gave it no time to die.

“I’ll tell you why!” he shouted. “It’s because the New Mennonites climbed into the saddle and have hung onto the government ever since. They don’t like growth, they don’t like change. Their creed rejects them both, and so does their greed. Yes, I said greed! They’re farmers. They don’t want to see the trading centers like Refuge get rich and fat. They don’t want a competitive market, and above all they don’t want people like us pushing them out of their nice seats in Congress where they can make all the laws. So they forbid us to build a new warehouse when we need it. Now do you think that’s fair or right or godly? You there, Brother Meyerhoff, do you say the New Mennonites should tell us all how to live, or should our own Church of Holy Thankfulness have something to say about it too?”

Brother Meyerhoff answered, “It hasn’t to do with them or with us. It has to do with you, Dulinsky, and you’re talking blasphemy!”

A cry of voices, mostly female, seconded him. Len pushed himself to the foot of the stand. Dulinsky was leaning over, looking at Meyerhoff. There were beads of sweat on his forehead.