Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven [282]
Down in the valley they could hear the sounds of Brotherhood trucks and men moving heavy objects. There was no way to know what the enemy was doing. Cox had patrols alert for infiltrators, but instead the enemy commander had his men fire weapons at irregular intervals, raise shouts, throw grenades and rocks across the creek, and often the ranchers responded, shooting wildly into the night, wasting ammunition, losing sleep.
Harvey knew that was what the Brotherhood wanted, but the knowledge didn't help. He slept fitfully, awakened too often. Marie stirred in the seat behind him. "You awake?" she whispered.
"Yes."
"Who was it? In the truck, with the binoculars. Do you know?"
"Probably the sergeant. Hooker. Why?"
"Put a name on him and he's less frightening. Do you think we can win? Is Hardy smart enough?"
"Sure," Harvey said.
"They keep coming. Like a machine, a huge grinding machine."
Harvey sat up. Somewhere a grenade went off, and Cox shouted not to waste ammunition.
"That's a frightening image. Fortunately it's not the right one," Harvey said. "It's not a meat grinder. It's one of those kinetic structures where the artist invites a horde of newsmen to stand around and drink and watch while the machine tears itself to pieces."
Her laugh sounded forced. "Nice imagery, Harv."
"Hell, I made a living off imagery, before I took up breaking rocks. And ruining roads. I used to think of battles as a chess game, but they're not. It's like those sculptures. The commander puts together this huge sculpture, knowing that the pieces will grind each other up, and he doesn't control them all. Half of them are controlled by an art critic who hates him. And each one tries to see that he has pieces left when it's over, but there won't be enough, so it has to be done over and over."
"And we're some of the pieces," Marie said. "I hope Hardy knows what he's doing."
In the morning there was new excitement in the Stronghold camp. During the night Stephen Tallman, Vice-President of the Tule Council, had come in to tell how his warriors were dug in to the east, and more were coming. The rumors grew. George Christopher was coming back, and he had a hundred, two hundred, a thousand armed ranchers he'd recruited from the hill country. Anyone who doubted it was shouted down.
But certainly there were fifty Indians to the east, and all the ranchers talked about how tough the Indians were, and what great allies they'd be. There were other stories, of an attempt in the night by the New Brotherhood to force passage of Deer Creek five miles upstream, and how Tallman's Indians had beaten them back and killed dozens; how the New Brotherhood had run away. When Harvey talked to the others, he could find nobody who had seen the battle. He found a few who claimed to have spoken to someone who was in it. Everyone had a friend who'd talked to Tallman himself, or to Stretch Tallifsen, who was with the ranch force sent upstream to hold the western end of the line.
It was always like this. The new guys were demons incarnate; they would go through the enemy like so many mincing machines. The new guys always thought so too. But it could be true … sometimes it was true … maybe they would win this after all. The New Brotherhood could be stopped, and it wouldn't even take the full strength of the Stronghold to do it.
Clouds parted in the east; the sun shone shockingly bright. Full daylight, and still nothing happened. The ranchers and the forward skirmish line of the Brotherhood exchanged sniping shots, with little effect. Then—
Over the opposite ridge trucks appeared. They didn't look like trucks. They looked strange, for they had large wooden structures attached in front of them. They came down the hill, not too fast, because with all that weight in front