The Long Tomorrow

The man looked at him and said, “We will have no cities in our midst.”

“Cities,” said Dulinsky. “Cities!” He laughed. “Now look here, sir. You’re Noah Burdette, aren’t you? I know you well by sight and reputation. You have quite a name as a preacher in the section around Twin Lakes.”

He stepped a little closer, speaking in an easier tone, as a man talks when he knows he is going to turn the argument his way.

“You’re a sincere and honest man, Mr. Burdette, and I realize that you’re acting on what you believe to be truthful information. So I know you’re going to be thankful to learn that your information is wrong, and there’s no need for any violence at all. I—”

“Violence,” said Burdette, “I don’t seek. But I don’t run from it, neither, when it’s in a good cause.” He looked Dunlinsky up and down, slowly, deliberately, with a face as hard as flint. “I know you, too, by sight and reputation, and you can save your wind. Are you going to stand aside?”

“Listen,” said Dulinsky, with a note of desperation coming into his voice. “You’ve been told that I’m trying to build a city here, and that’s crazy. I’m only trying to build a warehouse, and I’ve got as good a right to it as you’ve got to a new barn. You can’t come here and order me around any more than I could go to your farm and do it!”

“I’m here,” said Burdette.

Dulinsky glanced back over his shoulder. Len moved toward him, as though to say, I’m with you. And then Judge Taylor came up through the loose ranks of the Refuge men, saying, “Disperse, go to your homes, and stay there. No harm will come to you. Lay down your weapons and go home.”

They hesitated, looking at one another, looking at Dulinsky and the solid mass of the farmers. And Dulinsky said to the judge in weary scorn, “You sheepfaced coward. You were in on this.”

“You’ve done enough harm, Mike,” said the judge, very white and standing very stiff and straight. “No need to make everybody in Refuge suffer for it. Stand aside.”

Dulinsky glared at him and then at Burdette. “What are you going to do?”

“Cleanse the evil,” said Burdette slowly, “as the Book instructs us to, by burning it with fire.”

“In plain English,” said Dulinsky, “you’re going to burn my warehouses, and anything else that happens to take your fancy. The hell you are.” He turned around and shouted to the Refuge men. “Listen, you fools, do you think they’re going to stop at my warehouses? They’ll have the whole town flaming around your ears. Don’t you see this is the time, the act that’s going to decide how you live for decades yet to come? Are you going to be free men or a gang of belly-crawling slaves?”

His voice voice rose up to a howl. “Come on and fight, God damn you, fight!”

He spun around and rushed at Burdette, raising his club high in the air.

Without haste and without pity, Burdette swung the shotgun over and fired.

It made a very loud noise. Dulinsky stopped as though he had struck against a solid wall. He stood for a second or two, and then the club dropped out of his hands and he lowered his arms and folded them over his belly. His knees bent and he sank down onto them in the dust.

Len ran forward.

Dulinsky looked up at him with an expression of stunned surprise. His mouth opened. He seemed to be trying to say something, but only blood came out between his lips. Then suddenly his face became blank and remote, like a window when somebody blows out the candle. He fell forward and was still.

“Mike,” said Judge Taylor. “Mike?” He looked at Burdette, his eyes widening. “What have you done?”

“Murderer,” said Len, and the word encompassed both Burdette and the judge. His voice broke, rising to a harsh scream. “Goddamned yellow-bellied murderer!” He put up his fists and ran toward Burdette, but the line of farmers had begun to move, as though the death of Dulinsky was a signal they had waited for, and Len was caught up in it as in the forefront of a wave. Burdette was gone, and facing him instead was a burly young farmer with a long neck and sloping shoulders and the kind of a mouth that had cried out the accusation against Soames. He carried a length of peeled wood like those used for fence posts, and he brought it down on Len’s head, laughing with a sort of cackling haste, his eyes gleaming with immense excitement. Len fell down. Boots clumped and kicked and stumbled over him and he curled up instinctively with his arms over his head and neck. It had become very dark and the Refuge men were far off behind a wavering veil, but he could see them going, melting away until the road was empty in front of the farmers and there was nothing between them and the town any more. They went on into Refuge in the hot afternoon, raising up the dust again as they moved, and when that settled there was only Len, and Dulinsky’s body lying three or four feet away from him, and Judge Taylor standing still in the middle of the road, just standing and looking at Dulinsky.

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