Arslan. Part 5

Usually his answer was silence; but once he brought himself to say, "I know her opinions."

"Forget about opinions. And when you do see her, never mind what she says to you. When it comes to family, those things don't really matter-not if you can remember they're just words."

"Sticks and stones," he said.

In a way, Arnold Morgan had been right when he called Hunt mature, but not in a very important way. Compared to most of his cla.s.smates, with their raw country boyishness, he'd always seemed both younger and older. But that had been superficial, just the self-confident sophistication of any well-bred child. Now he was definitely, irreversibly older. It had been close, but Hunt had proved me right. He had had just barely the necessary toughness to get him through. He didn't blush any more.

Hunt would survive, no doubt of that. What I worried about now was what kind of a person he would survive as. He listened when he was talked to-listened seriously but distantly. There was a kind of impediment in his communication. He volunteered practically nothing, and when he answered a question it was most often with a shrug, a sidelong look, or a cool stare.

Toward Arslan, he had the manner of a well-trained servant-sometimes he was disconcertingly like the little orderly. Arslan was the sun around which Hunt had to revolve, and it was only on the side illuminated by Arslan that he showed much sign of life. On that unique subject he was able and willing to talk, or at least answer questions articulately. And then again he would clam up, and I couldn't get any more out of him except a shrug and "He doesn't tell me everything."

Either he told him an almighty lot, or Hunt had a very fertile imagination and didn't mind farming it. "He says he has American troops in Russia and China, and Chinese troops in Europe, and European troops in the Middle East, and Arab and Israeli troops in Africa. All commanded by his officers."

"Hunt, I don't see how he could have that many officers."

"That's what he told me."

"Why does he stay in Kraftsville? Has he told you that?"

One of the things I'd noticed about Hunt lately was that he held his head upright even when he bowed it. His shoulders might hunch and droop, his eyes and chin might sink, but his spine stayed straight and tall. Now he lowered those big eyes and shrugged his little shrug, and his mouth stirred briefly.

"Of course," I said, "we don't have to believe everything he says."

"Free will," he observed constrainedly.

"And common sense. If he'd really conquered the world, would he set up his capital in Kraftsville, Illinois?"

He took on a struggling look-trying to enunciate an answer that would suit me-but after a minute he gave it up and relaxed in silence.

"And what's he doing with those troops, if he commands them all?"

"Dividing the world into small, self-sufficient communities," he parroted patiently.

"How ready does he have to be, General?"

Arslan looked up blankly from his coffee-tableful of papers. He had sent Hunt upstairs a few minutes before, and he had called for a bottle, but it still stood unopened. Lately he had started to break his unstated rule of no hard liquor while there was still work to do. "How ready?"

"How strong. Strength was the idea, wasn't it?"

He fingered the top of his bottle. "He is ready now," he said finally. "Let him go to his people."

I wasted no time setting up a meeting between Hunt and Jean-and when it came right down to it, Hunt raised no objection. They talked in what had been the music room at school and was now an office supply storeroom. (The Turkistanis used a considerable amount of memo paper.) Hunt was back in twenty minutes, and I felt better as soon as I saw his face. There was a freshness and childhood there that had been missing for too long. And a vulnerability. He didn't say anything; he just started to pack a little toilet kit. Hunt didn't have very many belongings. Still, he managed to put off his departure till after supper, dawdling through his preparations and taking individual leave of every animal on the place. Arslan wasn't there.

And when Arslan came in at last, not half an hour after he finally left, he didn't mention Hunt.

A little after dark (it would have been about eight-there was no Daylight Saving Time this year) we heard a single rifle shot, not far away. On the couch Arslan swung himself upright, his face gone hard, and spoke an order. Two soldiers jumped to put out the lights, and another one rushed past me and out of the door. I heard low voices, running feet, one cautious shout; then in scarcely a minute the man was back with a word to Arslan, the door was shut, the lamps being lit again.

"What's the matter?" I demanded. But Arslan was giving more orders, brisk and easy. One man disappeared through the kitchen door, another up the stairs. Luella came in from the kitchen, white-faced. There was a pause. We were all on our feet, except Arslan.

He knew too d.a.m.ned well what was coming, and I knew it, too. Anger was building up in me like compressed air, so tight I could hardly hear the slow steps on the porch. A guard held the door open for Hunt and closed it after him.

He looked straight towards me. "Would you mind if I came back, Mr. Bond?" His voice was clear, level, and bitter.

"As far as I'm concerned you are back, Hunt, and always welcome."

Luella came to him anxiously. "What happened, Hunt?"

"Forget it." He was leaning against the door, his little bag in his hands. His eyes flared at me as he burst out, "He's willing to take me back-on conditions! How about that? If you've got any conditions, I'd appreciate hearing them now."

"No conditions, Hunt," I said. "Never."

Luella gasped wordlessly, and I followed her look. Hunt's left pant leg was streaked with wet from thigh to ankle; the blood dribbled silently off his shoe onto the rug. "Yeah," he said. She was trying to help him away from the door, but he leaned against it stubbornly. "I can walk very well, thanks." His eyes were alight with fury. I touched Luella's arm, and she stepped back.

It was Arslan's turn now. He stood up at last, and Hunt limped across the room and allowed himself to be let down onto the couch. Arslan was on his knees beside him in an instant, ripping open the pant leg with his knife.

Luella surprised me. "You get your hands off him!" she snapped. "You're the one that had him shot!"

"My own fault," Hunt said calmly. "I know the curfew rule. I'm surprised, though," he added to Arslan. "I thought you had better marksmen. Or don't they shoot to kill?"

Arslan glanced up appreciatively. "Not to kill, no. To immobilize. It is often desirable to question those who break rules."

"I wasn't even immobilized," Hunt said tightly.

"Yes. The sentry will be reprimanded." The guards were reappearing with water, bandages, medicines. There was a well-rehea.r.s.ed air about the whole thing. "For your information, Hunt," Arslan was saying, "I have given standing orders not to fire on you unless you should actually attack me. Otherwise you would have been shot as soon as you left your parents' house. But the man who fired was unable to recognize you in the darkness. I consider him justified."

"How about a doctor?" I said.

"Unnecessary. It is a very simple wound."

Maybe it hadn't quite been rehea.r.s.ed. Conceivably-just conceivably-the shot had been accidental. But, to whatever extent he had manipulated for it, I didn't doubt that this was exactly the scene Arslan had planned. But Hunt had come to my house for shelter, and I'd given it, without conditions. That was what mattered.

I went to see Arnold Morgan first thing the next morning. He looked half relieved to see me and half belligerent. "Did Hunt get back to your place all right?" he demanded.

"Well, he got there, and by good luck he's only got a bullet hole in his leg. Didn't you people ever hear of the curfew?"

He went as white as if he'd been bleached. "We tried to keep him, Franklin. I did everything I could. How is he?"

"He's all right. What I'd like to know is, if he started off intending to stay with you, and you did everything you could to keep him, what made him come back?"

He firmed up at that, and flushed angrily. "When Hunt comes home, it's going to be the real thing, Franklin. n.o.body's going to use my house as a ... a..."

"In other words, you sent your son out to be shot at because he couldn't promise he wouldn't be a.s.saulted."

"No, sir-and you ought to know me better than to say that to me. I didn't send him anywhere. The only thing I asked for was that he wouldn't volunteer himself to that greasy devil. For G.o.d's sake, Franklin, what do you expect me to do-encourage him?"

"I did expect a little Christian charity and a little understanding for your own child. But it looks like that was too much to ask for." We weren't quite shouting yet, but we were getting close.

"You're not in a very good position to-"

"-So how about a little common sense instead? The only things you've accomplished are convincing Hunt he can't get back to a normal life-not that anything's normal these days-and pus.h.i.+ng him right into Arslan's corner. His own father drives him out, and who takes him in? Arslan! Arslan! Just putting it bluntly, Arnold, anytime Arslan wants his body he can have it, and neither you nor I nor Hunt can stop him; and it doesn't matter whose house he's living in, either. What you've done is help Arslan get hold of his soul."

"That's a h.e.l.l of a thing to say to me." His voice shook. "That's exactly what I'm trying to stop. He wouldn't even agree-" He broke off, waving his open hand spasmodically, as if he was looking for something to hit with it. "As far as I'm concerned, it's not too late even now. My door's open whenever he's ready to come home."

"On your terms."

"Now, listen, Franklin. If you've got anything practical to tell me, go ahead and say it. But if you're just here to pa.s.s insults, let's call a halt right now. Jean's upstairs trying to get some rest, and I've got better things to do."

"Yes, I've got one thing very practical-"

But he was so worked up now that he couldn't let me go on till he got in his counterattack. "And I'll tell you something, Franklin, there's a lot of people who don't think much of the way you've toadied up to that stinking Turk. Collaborator's a dirty word, but that's exactly-"

"I didn't come to discuss myself."

"No, you came to pull that holier-than-thou act because I've insisted on a little basic morality and loyalty-and coming from you it doesn't look very good. Ever since they came shooting their way in here-"

"n.o.body shot their way in."

"-you've been preaching. 'Cooperate! Cooperate!' Well, I say that's just the coward's way to p.r.o.nounce 'collaborate.'"

If you think so, why haven't you done something about it?"

"If we'd had a chance, we would have! You were so d.a.m.n quick to inform on anybody who had a gun."

"Do you have any idea what this town would look like now if we'd tried to fight?"

"We'd be able to hold our heads up, anyway."

"After you'd sc.r.a.ped them out of the mud, maybe. I'm not hanging mine. Now, just shut up and listen to me for five seconds. For G.o.d's sake-for Jean's sake, Arnold-get word to Hunt that you want him back, no strings attached. Don't do it through me if you don't want to. You're welcome to think whatever you want to about me, but it's more important what you do about your son."

I left that little scene with a feeling of satisfaction, all in all. Collaborator. Well, in a sense I certainly was. I'd gone all out to get people to do what Arslan and his henchmen demanded, and I'd been working hand-in-glove with Nizam on the economic plan. What Arnold Morgan didn't know about-what n.o.body knew much about, I hoped, except a few people like Sam Tuller's family and Leland Kitchener the junk man-was a little nonexistent organization that we called the Kraft County Resistance.

Arslan's pistol and its eight cartridges were hidden in nine separate spots. They might as well be separate, for now. There was no possible way for that gun to do us any good tangibly, except the way I'd failed to use it in the Land Rover; but the fact that it existed was a solid rock to build a faith on. Sam Tuller and two of his boys had crawled in that oat field night after night, till they found every last cartridge. It had to be careful crawling, too. Aside from the matter of getting out of the house and back in again without disturbing their billeted soldier, it was likelier than not that Arslan would have the field watched. But we got them all, and got them safely squirreled away, without rousing the least suspicion. Or so we had to tell ourselves.

I had thought long and hard before I told Sam about the gun in his field. But he was a reliable man, the kind who could shoulder a risk like that, and I felt justified in giving it to him. If there was going to be any real Resistance at all, quite a few people would have to take quite a few risks. And, by G.o.d, there was going to be a Resistance.

That was why I had planted some rumors within a week of Arslan's banquet. People needed something to hang onto, if it was only a name or an idea, and they needed it right from the start. It didn't hurt that there was nothing to back it up at first-you couldn't arrest a name without a body. The real organization developed very slowly. It had to be solid. It had to be built man by man.

Naturally, there was a lot of resistance, with a small "r," to Arslan, and not everybody had the patience to wait for a solid organization. There were other names besides ours going the rumor rounds, names with "Freedom" and "America" in them. It was partly by talking to people who seemed to be getting themselves involved with those things that I had gotten my reputation, in certain circles, as a collaborator. Some of those people were the gun-owners I had informed on, as Arnold chose to call it. But I'd managed to discourage others before it was too late-good people who didn't need to throw away their lives for nothing.

The would-be patriots hadn't found much to do but talk-except, of course, that some of them were responsible for the deaths of Howard and Mattie Benson back at the beginning of spring. There hadn't been any noticeable investigation of that incident. Arslan-or Nizam-apparently felt the deterrent effect of promptly enforcing the billet rule was enough, and apparently he'd been right. But one night at the end of August somebody tried to set fire simultaneously to the stable, Nizam's headquarters, and my house. Nizam's men were not only waiting for them with open arms; before the night was over, they had also arrested not just the entire members.h.i.+p of the particular organization that had undertaken the arsons, but every other resistance movement in the district. Except, of course, the Kraft County Resistance.

Chapter 7.

It was mid-October when I came upstairs one evening to find my door open and Hunt sitting listlessly on the windowsill.

"Take a chair, Hunt." He stood up hastily-remembering his manners-and I closed the door and waved him towards my armchair.

"Thanks." He sat down awkwardly and gave me a smile as an afterthought. One thing Arslan had done for him was destroy his gracefulness. He had been one of those easy-moving boys that take to bikes and horses and skis as if they'd been born in motion. Now he acted like somebody who'd been bedridden and hadn't quite got his muscles under control yet. It made me wonder sometimes how much sheer physical abuse he had to put up with.

I turned my desk chair around to face him, sat down, and stretched out my legs. Hunt had never visited me in my room before, and it obviously meant something to him, but he wasn't going to open up without some priming. So I began to talk, about what I'd done that day, about the weather prospects, about the dogs and the cats and the monkey.

"I hate the d.a.m.ned monkey," he said suddenly. He hated something, all right. His voice shook and his cheeks flamed. I nodded. He dropped his eyes. "I'm going to kill him."

"Well, you know, a monkey can't really help itself."

He sank back in the chair, turning his face half away-wondering, I realized, whether it was worth the trouble to disabuse me. "I didn't mean the monkey," he said. "I meant him."

Well, there it was. I heaved a sigh. No, under the circ.u.mstances, I didn't think he was going to kill anybody. Hunt had been building up steam for nearly a year now, and with a little bit more, maybe he would have killed Arslan, or tried; but now he had let it out in words. And, after all, he was only fourteen. He was breathing deeply now, and his face was exhausted and calm.

"Why tell me about it?" I asked gently.

"I thought you might want to make preparations."

"Thank you." He looked at me at last, rolling his head against the chair back, and smiled wanly. I took a deep breath and leaned forwards. "Hunt. Just what preparations do you think I could make that would save Kraftsville from absolute destruction? I'm not G.o.d."

"Neither is Arslan," he offered mildly.

And on that cue the door opened, quietly but not stealthily, and Arslan stood leaning against the doorframe. He had a bottle under his arm and a roll of papers in one hand. He looked as if he might have been there a while.

We were as still as mice. Gently Arslan lifted his hand and tossed the papers, and they splayed out across the bed and onto the floor at Hunt's feet. He took the bottle by the neck, hefting it thoughtfully for a minute as if he was considering it as a weapon. Then he tossed it after the papers. It bounced softly on the bed. "I am tired, sir," he said matter-of-factly.

I looked hard at his face and the set of his body. Was it possible for Arslan to be tired? His eyes were bloodshot and a little puffy, and there were lines around them, but the rest of his face was smooth and fresh-looking, neither drawn nor drooping, a very youthful face. There wasn't a trace of slump in his leaning. He was relaxed like a coiled copperhead or a dozing cat-comfortable, but ready to kill on a split second's notice. Still, he would probably look like that if he was about to drop from exhaustion. It was no wonder Arslan ate so much; he must have used up a lot of energy just standing around.

He lit a cigarette, took one drag, looked at it, and pinched it out, dropping it back into his s.h.i.+rt pocket. "Africa and South America may be the most difficult problems in the end," he said conversationally, "but Asia is of course the most ma.s.sive problem." He turned his steady, humorous gaze on me. Yes, I thought he looked tired. "It is probable that I shall fail in Asia."

Probable. It would be silly to forget that everything he said had a purpose. But all the same, that one word probable lit a little blaze of hope. If he failed anywhere, he failed everywhere; unless every wall stood, his house of cards would come tumbling down.

He came on into the room, shouldering the door shut behind him, leaned back against it, and surveyed us. "I give myself six years. Six years. Then, if I have not succeeded, I will apply my second plan."

I nodded involuntarily. I'd seen too much of Arslan to be sure his grand scheme would fail, but on the other hand, I couldn't really imagine it succeeding; and when it failed, Arslan wasn't the man to go home to Bukhara and raise sheep.

There figured to be a second plan, and I had a kind of an idea what it would be.

"Plan Two is also difficult," he went on, "but it is more practicable, and also more permanent." He straightened himself, and smiled coolly at me as he crossed over to the bed. "You have refused to drink with me in your kitchen and in your living room, sir. Will you drink with me in your bedroom?"

"I don't drink," I told him for the twentieth time. "Anywhere."

He stepped over my feet, swept the scattered papers to one side, and settled himself on the bed, with my pillow tucked behind his shoulders and his shoes on Luella's clean bedspread. "Strong drink is raging," he said, carefully opening his vodka. "You have promised to explain Christianity to me, sir. I am ready to listen." He tilted the bottle with loving care and took a long, slow swallow.

"I don't think so."