The Long Tomorrow

There was lamplight in the house. They went up the steps onto the porch, and the door opened before Hostetter could knock on it. A tall thin gray-haired woman with a pleasant face stood in the doorway, smiling and holding out her arms to Hostetter. He said, “Hello, Mary,” and she said, “Ed! Welcome home!” and kissed him on the cheek. “Well,” said Hostetter. “It’s been a long time.”

“Eleven, no, twelve years,” said Mary. “It’s good to have you back.”

She looked at Len and Esau.

“This is Mary Sherman,” said Hostetter, as though he felt he had to explain, “an old friend. She used to play with my sister when we were all young—my sister’s dead now. Mary, these are the boys.”

He introduced them. Mary Sherman smiled at them, half sadly, as though she had much she could say. But all she did say was, “Yes, they’re waiting for you. Come inside.”

They stepped into the living room. The floor was bare and clean, the pine boards worn down to the grain. The furniture was old, most of it, and plain, of a kind Len had seen before that was made before the Destruction. There was a big table with a lamp on it, and three men were sitting around it. Two of them were about Hostetter’s age, and one was younger, perhaps forty or so. One of the older ones, a big square blocky man with a clean-shaven chin and light eyes, got up and shook hands with Hostetter. Then Hostetter shook hands with the others, and there was some talk. Len looked around uncomfortably and saw that Mary Sherman was already gone.

“Come here,” said the big blocky man, and Len realized that he was being spoken to. He stepped into the circle of lamplight, close to the table. Esau came with him. The big man studied them. His eyes were the color of a winter sky just before snow, very keen and penetrating. The younger man sat beside him, leaning forward on the table. He had reddish hair and he wore spectacles and his face looked tired, not as though he needed to rest right now but as though it always looked tired. Behind him, in the shadows between the table and the big iron stove, was the third man, small, swarthy and bitter, with a neat pointed beard as white as linen. Len stared back at them, not knowing whether to be angry or awed or what, and beginning to sweat from sheer nervousness.

The big man said abruptly, “I’m Sherman. This is Mr. Erdmann”—the younger man nodded—“and Mr. Gutierrez.” The small bitter man grunted. “I know you’re both Colters. But which is which?”

They named themselves. Hostetter had withdrawn into the shadows, and Len heard him filling his pipe.

Sherman said to Esau, “Then you’re the one with the—ah—expectant mother.”

Esau started to explain, and Sherman stopped him. “I know all about it, and I’ve already given Hostetter his tongue-lashing for exceeding authority, so we can forget it, except for one thing. I want you to bring her here at exactly ten o’clock tomorrow morning. The minister will be here. Nobody needs to know about it. Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” said Esau. Sherman was not threatening or unpleasant. He was just used to giving orders, and the answer was automatic.

He looked from Esau to Len, and asked, “Why did you want to come here?”

Len bent his head and did not say anything.

“Go ahead,” said Hostetter. “Tell him.”

“How can I?” said Len. “All right. We thought it would be a place where people were different, where they could think about things and talk about them without getting into trouble. Where there were machines and—oh, all the things there used to be.”

Sherman smiled. It made him no longer a cold-eyed blocky man used to giving orders, but a human being who had lived a long time and learned not to fight it. Like Hostetter. Like Pa. Len recognized him, and suddenly he felt that he was not entirely among strangers.

“You thought,” said Sherman, “that we’d have a city, just like the old ones, with everything in it.”

“I guess so,” said Len, and he was not angry now, only regretful.

“No,” said Sherman. “All we have is the first part of what you wanted.”

Erdmann said, “And we’re looking for the second.”

“Oh yes,” said Gutierrez. His voice was thin and bitter like the rest of him. “We have a cause. You’ll understand about that—you young men have a cause yourselves. Do you want me to tell them, Harry?”

“Later,” Sherman said. He leaned forward and spoke to Len and Esau, and his eyes were hard again, and cold. “You have Hostetter to thank—”

“Not entirely,” said Hostetter, breaking in. “You had your reason.”

“A man can always find a reason to justify himself,” said Sherman cynically. “But all right, I admit I had one. However, most of it was Hostetter. Otherwise you would both be dead now, at the hands of the mob in that town—what’s the name—?”

“Refuge,” said Len. “Yes, we know that.”