There Won't Be War

“Yeah. He hit my place early, too. Some sort of political meeting in town and he wants to make it. It’s not enough that the striped-pants brigade are practically glaring into each other’s eyebrows this time. A couple of local philosophers are impatient with the slow pace at which their extinction is approaching, and they’re getting to see if they can’t hurry it up some.”

“Don’t be bitter,” Plunkett smiled.

“Here’s praying at you. Regards to Ann, Plunk.”

Plunkett cradled the receiver and ambled downstairs. Outside, he watched Charlie Whiting pull the door of the station wagon open on its one desperate hinge.

“Eggs stowed, Mr. Plunkett,” Charlie said. “Receipt signed. Here. You’ll get a check Wednesday.”

“Thanks, Charlie. Hey, you kids get back to your books. Go on, Herbie. You’re having an English quiz tonight. Eggs still going up, Charlie?”

“Up she goes.” The old man slid onto the cracked leather seat and pulled the door shut deftly. He bent his arm on the open window. “Heh. And every time she does I make a little more off you survivor fellas who are too scairt to carry ’em into town yourself.”

“Well, you’re entitled to it,” Plunkett said, uncomfortably. “What about this meeting in town?”

“Bunch of folks goin’ to discuss the conference. I say we pull out. I say we walk right out of the dern thing. This country never won a conference yet. A million conferences the last few years and everyone knows what’s gonna happen sooner or later. Heh. They’re just wastin’ time. Hit ’em first, I say.”

“Maybe we will. Maybe they will. Or—maybe, Charlie—a couple of diflFerent nations will get what looks like a good idea at the same time.”

Charlie Whiting shoved his foot down and ground the starter. “You don’t make sense. If we hit ’em first how can they do the same to us? Hit ’em first—hard enough—and they’ll never recover in time to hit us back. That’s what I say. But you survivor fellas—” he shook his white head angrily as the car shot away.

“Hey!” he yelled, turning onto the road. “Hey, look!”

Plunkett looked over his shoulder/Charlie Whiting was gesturing at him with his left hand, the forefinger pointing out and the thumb up straight.

“Look, Mr. Plunkett,” the old man called. “Boom! Boom! Boom!” He cackled hysterically and writhed over the steering wheel ..

Rusty scuttled around the side of the house, and after him, yipping frantically in ancient canine tradition.

Plunkett watched the receding car until it swept around the curve two miles away. He stared at the small dog returning proudly.

Poor Whiting. Poor everybody, for that matter, who had a normal distrust of crackpots.

How could you permit a greedy old codger like Whiting to buy your produce, just so you and your family wouldn’t have to risk trips into town?

Well, it was a matter of having decided years ago that the world was too full of people who were convinced that they were faster on the draw than anyone else—and the other fellow was bluffing any way. People who believed that two small boys could pile up snowballs across the street from each other and go home without having used them, people who discussed the merits of concrete fences as opposed to wire guard-rails while their automobiles skidded over the cliff. People who were righteous. People who were apathetic.

It was the last group, Plunkett remembered, who had made him stop buttonholing his fellows, at last. You got tired of standing around in a hair shirt and pointing ominously at the heavens. You got to the point where you wished the human race well, but you wanted to pull you and yours out of the way of its tantrums. Survival for the individual and his family, you thought—

Clang-ng-ng-ng-ng!

Plunkett pressed the stud on his stopwatch. Funny. There was no practice alarm scheduled for today. All the kids were out of the house, except for Saul—and he wouldn’t dare to leave his room, let alone tamper with the alarm. Unless, perhaps, Ann-He walked inside the kitchen. Ann was running toward the door, carrying Dinah. Her face was oddly unfamiliar. “Saulie!” she screamed. “Saulie! Hurry up, Saulie!”

“I’m coming, momma,” the boy yelled as he clattered down the stairs. “I’m coming as fast as I can! I’ll make it!”

Plunkett understood. He put a heavy hand on the wall, under the dinner-plate clock.

He watched his wife struggle down the steps into the cellar. Saul ran past him and out of the door, arms flailing. “I’ll make it, poppa! I’ll make it!”

Plunkett felt his stomach move. He swallowed with great care. “Don’t hurry, son,” he whispered. “It’s only judgment day.”

He straightened out and looked at his watch, noticing that his hand on the wall had left its moist outline behind. One minute, twelve seconds. Not bad. Not bad at all. He’d figured on three.

Clang-ng-ng-ng-ng!

He started to shake himself and began a shudder that he couldn’t control. What was the matter? He knew what he had to do. He had to unpack the portable lathe that was still in the barn ....

“Elliot!” his wife called.