Sam thought about it for a moment. “You’re probably right. There can’t be many of these looting gangs around or we would have heard about it, so we shouldn’t run into any more. You’ll be safe enough here, Dr. Stissing, just keep the windows and doors locked and we’ll get some help to you as soon as we have contacted the local police. Let me get my bag, Sergeant, then we can go.”
“One thing first, Doctor — if you don’t mind. Could you undo my belt and slip my holster around to the left side so I can get at it easier? Be a big help.”
They walked in the center of the road, going back toward the town. The first house they passed had all the shades pulled down and was sealed up: no one came to the door, even when they knocked loudly. At the next farm, a red brick building set back from the road, they had a response even before they knocked — a gun barrel protruded from the partly open window on the porch.
“Just stop there,” the unseen man behind the gun called out.
“I’m a police officer,” the sergeant said with cold anger. “Now put that weapon away before you get into trouble.”
“How do I know what you are? You got a city cop’s uniform on, but I never seen you before. You could of stolen it. Move on — I don’t want trouble.”
“We want to use your phone, that’s all,” Sam said.
“Phone’s out, trouble at the exchange.”
“Do you have a car—”
“I got a car and it’s staying right here in case I need it, now get moving! You may have the plague from space for all that I know and I’m not talking any more — move!” The gun barrel wiggled up and down.
“Strategic retreat,” Sam said, taking the angry sergeant by the arm and pulling him away. “There’s nothing here worth getting shot for.”
“Rubes!” the sergeant grumbled.
The town of Stonebridge was sealed as tight as the farmhouses and there were no cars in sight. They continued through it and toward the highway just a mile down the road. They heard the sound at the same time, coming from somewhere ahead, and they stopped, the sergeant with his hand on his gun.
“I’ve done enough duck hunting to recognize that — it’s a shotgun.”
“Two of them — sounds like a private war.”
“If you don’t mind, Doctor, I’ll walk in front since I’ve got the only weapon.”
They went along the shoulder of the road, close to the trees, as silently as they could. There was another farm ahead, half seen through the trunks of the oak trees, and running figures. A woman screamed and another shot sounded. The sergeant had his gun out and a cold smile on his face as he slipped forward.
“Looks like this time we’re here when the trouble is just starting…” He raised his gun.
There was a truck parked by the side of the road, its outline through the leaves strangely familiar to Sam. He ran forward and deflected the sergeant’s gun arm.
“What are you doing? Those are looters…”
“I don’t think so — isn’t that an Army half-track over there?”
Once around the bend they could see the olive-drab truck clearly, with the leafy branch framed globe insignia of the UN stenciled on its armored side. They passed it and turned into the farmyard where the screams had turned into a gasping sob. A burly corporal was embarrassedly holding a woman by the shoulders while she cried into the apron raised before her face. A lieutenant was supervising two soldiers who were spreading poison grain in the chicken run behind the house. Next to it was another wire enclosure with an open gate and on the ground outside the scattered bodies of a number of turkeys, while another of the birds was perched on the branch of the oak tree to which the ropes of a children’s swing were tied. A soldier below the tree raised and fired a repeating shotgun and the pellets tore the bird from its perch. The shot echoed away into silence among the trees until the woman’s muffled sobbing was the only sound. The officer turned around when they approached: like the other soldiers he had a New Zealand flash on his shoulder. His eyes jumped quickly from the bandaged police sergeant to Sam’s white clothes and black bag.
“If you are a physician I should say your arrival is well timed. The farmwife here—” The lieutenant pointed to the woman who was still sobbing uncontrollably.
“Has she been injured?” Sam asked.
“No, not physically, but she’s been hysterical, bit of a shock or whatever you call it. We’ve been running into this sort of trouble all along the line, these rural people take a very dim view of our killing off their stock. This woman opened the run and released those turkeys, then tried to stop my men. At least the farmer here is being reasonable, some of them have attempted to stop us with guns; he’s in the house with the children.”
Sam looked at the woman and while the soldier was still holding her he swabbed her shoulder and administered an intramuscular injection of Denilin, the quick-acting sedative. By the time he had led her into the house she was staggering and, with her grim-faced husband’s aid, Sam put her to bed.
