Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [214]
And now there were five women and twenty men. Four men had died fighting over women. Three had been the husbands; one of the widows had killed herself that same day. Alim was grateful. It had cooled things for awhile.
But not for long. Mabe's husband had been knifed in his sleep, and now Mabe was sleeping around, but in a strange fashion. Where she went, there were fights. Maybe she was taking revenge. But what could Alim do about it? If he killed her it would have to look like an accident. You can't kill the only pussy the brothers were getting. Maybe at the right time? If there was another big fight and everybody knew she caused it?
Chick and Cassie were a different problem. They were farmers. Their farm was part of an ocean now, the ocean that had been the San Joaquin Valley. They talked like redneck honkies; they didn't understand the speech of the city blood. Cassie was willowy, dignified, strong and lovely. Chick was a burly giant who could lift the back end of a car, or pick up a brother like Swan by one ankle and throw him pinwheeling a dozen feet through the air, and he'd done that.
They'd lost two kids under the water.
If the kids had been saved … Alim shook his head. Kids were the last thing this gang needed now! But in another sense … If Cassie had come on as a mother with two kids, maybe the brothers would think more about protecting her, less about getting into her.
They looked up as Alim strode into their midst, and Alim saw smiles. Yeah, the fire had been a good idea. Chick and Cassie were sitting with their arms around one another, staring broodingly into the fire. Alim squatted down before them and said, "Do we want to talk about somethin'?"
Chick shook his big head. Cassie didn't move.
"You sure?"
Chick said, "Keep your thieves away from my woman."
"I'm tryin'. It's nobody's fault, it's just the way things are. Anyone special?"
"Jackie. You know that son of a bitch pulled a knife on her?"
"He just showed it to me," Cassie said, "but it scared me."
"You're not scared of guns," Alim said. She had a tremendous revolver, and half a dozen kinds of hand loads, from birdshot to a slug that would stop a bear. Alim had never dreamed a revolver could do so many things at once. "Why knives?"
She just shook her head, and Chick glared.
Alim stood up. "I'll try to fix it. Where is he?"
"Hiding out."
Alim nodded and went.
Now, should he just hang around, or try to track Jackie? Hang around. He moved among the brothers and sisters, making himself visible in the firelight. Tomorrow they'd remember.
But time wore on, and the brothers and sisters spilled into the truck in twos and threes. The drizzle was winning out over the fire, and Jackie still hadn't come in. Alim had already decided where he must be.
To one side was the shoreline they'd been following for a week. Alim had wondered if they ought to strike off into the hills … but for what? The world the honkies built was dead, and somehow they would have to start over. A patch of farm, and a few like Chick and Cassie to show them how to work it, that was what they needed. The farmland was all there, under the water. If the water ever withdrew … But the drizzle went on and on, the fire was almost out, and the freshwater ocean was still there, too dark to see, but still there, with its floating garbage and drowned corpses of cattle and men.
And behind was a single hill, the only place from which Jackie could watch the fire. Alim went up the hill. He moved like a blind man, feeling for branches and pushing them aside, shuffling so as not to break an ankle. Presently he said, "Jackie?"
The voice was close. "Yeah, Alim."
Alim climbed the rest of the way. Jackie