The Long Tomorrow

“Shut up,” said Sam, bending over the radio. “How do you expect me to—Hey, will you guys give me a clear channel for a minute? This is an emergency.” A jumble of voices coming in tinny confusion from the speaker clarified into a single voice which said, “This is Petto at Indian Ferry. Do you want me to relay?”

“No,” said Sam. “I want Rosen. He’s within range. Lay low, will you? We’ve got bandits on our tail.”

“Oh,” said the voice of Petto. “Sing out if you want help.”

“Thanks.” Sam fiddled with the knobs some more and continued to call for Rosen. Len stood by the ladder and watched and listened, and it seemed in retrospect that he had spent nearly all of his life in Piper’s Run down by the Pymatuning trying to make voices come out of an obstinate little box. Now, in a daze of wonder and weariness, he heard, and saw, and could not realize yet that he was actually a part of it.

“This is so much bigger than the one we had,” said Esau, moving forward. His eyes shone, the way they had before again, and the subtle weakness of the mouth was lost in eagerness. “How does it work? What’s an aerial? How—”

Kovacs began to explain rather vaguely about batteries and transistors. His mind was not on it. Len’s gaze was drawn to Hostetter’s face, half shaded by the brim of his hat—the familiar brown Amish hat, the familiar square cut of the hair and the shape of the beard—and he thought of Pa, and he thought of Brother James and his two boys, and of Gran who would not regret the old world any more, and of Baby Esther who must be grown tall by now, and he turned his head away so that he could not see Hostetter but only the impersonal dark beyond the lantern’s circle, full of dim and meaningless cargo shapes. The engine thumped, slow and steady, with a short sighing like the breathing of someone asleep. He could hear the paddle blades strike the water, and now he could hear other sounds too, the woody creaking of the barge itself and the sloughing and bubbling of the river sliding underneath the hull. One of those moments of disorientation came to him, a wild interval of wondering what he was doing in this place, ending in a realization that a lot had happened in the last twenty-four hours and he was tired out

Sam was talking to Rosen.

“We’re going to crack on some speed now. It should be right after daybreak, if we don’t run onto a sand bar.”

“Well, watch it,” said the scratchy voice of Rosen from the speaker. “The channel’s tricky now.”

“Is anything getting down the rapids?”

“Nothing but driftwood. It’s all locking through, and I’ve got them piled up at both ends of the canal. I don’t want to tamper with the gates unless I’m forced to it. I’ve spent years building myself up here, but the slightest breath of suspicion—”

“Not with my barge,” said Kovacs. “We’ve got a long way to go in her yet, and I like her bottom in one piece. There must be another way.”

“Let me think,” said Rosen.

There was a long pause while he thought. The men waited around the radio, breathing heavily.

Rather timidly, a voice spoke, saying, “This is Petto again, at Indian Ferry.”

“Okay. What?”

“Well, I was just thinking. The river’s low now, and the channel’s narrow. It ought to be easy to block.”

“Do you have anything in mind?” asked Hostetter.

“There’s a dredge working right off the end of the point,” said Petto. “The men come in at night to the village, so we don’t have to worry about anyone drowning. Now, if you could pass here while it’s still dark, and I could be out by the dredge ready to turn her loose, the river makes a bend right here and the current would swing her on broadside, and I’ll bet nothing but a canoe would get by her till she was towed off again.”

“Petto,” said Sam, “I love you. Did you hear that, Rosen?”

“I heard. Sounds like a solution.”

“It does,” said Kovacs, “but when we get there, lock us through fast, just in case.”

“I’ll be watching,” said Rosen. “So long.”

“All right,” said Sam. “Petto?” They began to talk, arranging signals and timing, discussing the condition of the channel between their present position and Indian Ferry. Kovacs turned and looked at Len and Esau.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ve got a job for you. Know anything about steam engines?”

“A little,” said Len.

“Well, all you have to know about this one is to keep the fire up. We’re in a hurry.”