There are people who feed upon disaster and grow in their own particular
direction as they would never have grown without it, as does the queen
bee who becomes queen only because of the special food prepared by the
workers for her private use.
Such a man was Henry Maddox. He would not have admitted it, nor was he
ever able to realize it, for it violated the very principles he had laid
down for Ken. But for him, the comet was like a sudden burst of purpose
in his life. He had taught well in his career as professor of chemistry
at the State Agricultural College at Mayfield, but it had become fairly
mechanical. He was vaguely aware of straining at the chains of routine
from time to time, but he had always forced himself through sheer
exercise of will to attend to his duties. There was never time, however,
for any of the research he used to tell himself, in his younger days, he
was going to do.
With the sudden thrusting aside of all customary duties, and with the
impact of catastrophe demanding a solution to a research problem, he
came alive without knowing what was happening. Yet without the imminence
of disaster he would not have found the strength to drive himself so.
This was what he could not admit to himself.
Another who was nourished was Granny Wicks. She should have been dead
years ago. She had admitted this to herself and to anyone else who would
listen, but now she knew why she had been kept alive so long past her
time. She had been waiting for the comet.
Its energy seemed to flow from the sky into her withered, bony frame,
and she drank of its substance until time seemed to reverse itself in
her obsolete body. All her life she had been waiting for this time. She
knew it now. She was spared to tell the people why the comet had come.
Although her purpose was diametrically opposed to that of Henry Maddox,
she also fed and grew to her full stature after almost a century of
existence.
Frank Meggs was surely another. He was born in Mayfield and had lived
there all his life and he hated every minute of time and every person
and every event that told of his wasted life here. He hated College
Hill, for he had never been able to go there. His family had been too
poor, and he had been forced to take over his father's store when his
father died.
He had once dreamed of becoming a great businessman and owning a chain
of stores that would stretch from coast to coast, but circumstances, for
which he blamed the whole of Mayfield, had never permitted him to leave
the town. His panic sale had been his final, explosive hope that he
might be able to make it. Now, he, too, found himself growing in his own
special direction as he fed upon the disaster. He did not know just what
that direction was or to where it led, but he felt the growth. He felt
the secret pleasure of contemplating the discomfort and the privation
that lay ahead for his fellow citizens in the coming months.
While personal fear forced him to the conclusion that the disaster would
be of short duration, the pleasure was nevertheless real. It was
especially intense when he thought of College Hill and its inhabitants
in scenes of dark dismay as they wrestled in vain to understand what had
happened to the world.
There were others who fed upon the disaster. For the most part they
found it an interruption to be met with courage, with faith, with
whatever strength was inherent in them.
It was not a time of growth, however, for Reverend Aylesworth. It was
the kind of thing for which he had been preparing all his life. Now he
would test and verify the stature he had already gained.
* * * * *
On the night they verified the presence of the comet dust in the
disabled engines, Ken was the last to leave the laboratory. It was near
midnight when he got away.
His father had left much earlier, urging him to come along, but Ken had
been unable to pull himself away from the examination and measurement of
the spectrum of lines that bared the comet's secret. He had begun to
understand the pleasure his father had spoken of, the pleasure of being
consumed utterly by a problem important in its own right.
As he left the campus there was no moon in the sky. The comet was gone,
and the stars seemed new in a glory he had not seen for many nights. He
felt that he wouldn't be able to sleep even when he got home, and he
continued walking for several blocks, in the direction of town.
He came abreast, finally, of the former Rainbow Skating Rink, which had
been converted into a food warehouse. In the darkness, he saw a sudden,
swift movement against the wall of the building. His night vision was
sharp after the long walk; he saw what was going on.
The broad doors of the rink had been broken open. There were three or
four men lifting sacks and boxes and barrels stealthily into a wagon.
Even as he started toward them he realized his own foolishness and
pulled back. A horse whinnied softly. He turned to run in the direction
of Sheriff Johnson's house, and behind him came a sudden, hoarse cry of
alarm.
Horses' hoofs rattled frighteningly loud on the cement. Ken realized he
stood no chance of escaping if he were seen. He dodged for an instant
into a narrow space between two buildings with the thought of reaching
an alley at the back. However, it was boarded at the end and he saw that
he would have to scale the fence. A desperate horseman would ride him
down in the narrow space.
He fled on and reached the shadows in front of the drugstore. He pressed
himself as flat as possible in the recess of the doorway, hoping his
pursuer would race by. But his fleeing shadow had been seen.
The rider whirled and reined the horse to a furious stop. The animal's
front legs pawed the air in front of Ken's face. Then Ken saw there was
something familiar about the figure. He peered closer as the horseman
whirled again.
"Jed," he called softly. "Jed Tucker--"
The figure answered harshly, "Yeah. Yeah, that's me, and you're--you're
Ken. I'm sorry it had to be you. Why did you have to come by here at
this time of night?"
Ken heard the sound of running feet in the distance as others came to
join Jed Tucker. Jed had not dismounted, but held Ken prisoner in the
recess with the rearing, impatient horse.
Ken wondered how Jed Tucker could be mixed up in a thing like this. His
father was president of the bank and owned one of the best homes in
Mayfield. Jed and Ken had played football on the first team together
last year.
"Jed," Ken said quickly, "give it up! Don't go through with this!"
"Shut up!" Jed snarled. He reined the horse nearer, threatening Ken with
the thrashing front legs.
When Jed's companions arrived, Jed dismounted from the horse.
"Who is it?" a panting voice asked.
A cold panic shot through Ken. He recognized the voice. It was that of
Mr. Tucker himself. The bank official was taking part in the looting of
the warehouse.
The third man, Ken recognized in rising horror, was Mr. Allen, a
next-door neighbor of the Tuckers. He was the town's foremost attorney,
and one of its most prominent citizens.
"We can't let him go," Allen was saying. "Whoever he is, we've got to
get him out of the way."
Mr. Tucker came closer. He gasped in dismay. "It's young Maddox," he
said. "You! What are you doing out this time of night?"
Under any other conditions, the question would have seemed humorous,
coming from whom it did now. But Ken felt no humor; he sensed the
desperate fury in these men.
"Give it up," he repeated quietly. "The lives of fifteen thousand people
depend on this food supply. You have no right to steal an ounce that
doesn't belong to you. I'll never tell what I've seen."
Tucker shook his head in a dazed, uncomprehending manner, as if the
proposition were too fantastic to be considered. "We can't do that," he
said.
"We can't let him go!" Allen repeated.
"You can't expect us to risk murder!"
"There'll be plenty of that before this winter's over!"
"Our lives depend on this food, you know that," Tucker said desperately
to Ken. "You take your share, and we'll all be in this together. Then we
know we'll be safe."
Ken considered, his panic increasing. To refuse might mean his life. If
he could pretend to fall in with them....
"You can't trust him!" Allen raged. "No one is going to be in on this
except us."
Suddenly the lawyer stepped near, his hand raised high in the air.
Before Ken sensed his intention, a heavy club smashed against his head.
His body fell in a crumpled heap on the sidewalk.
* * * * *
It was after 2 a.m. when Professor Maddox awoke with the sensation that
something was vaguely wrong. He sat up in bed and looked out the window
at the starlit sky. He remembered he had left Ken at the university and
had not yet heard him come in.
Quietly he arose from the bed and tiptoed along the hallway to Ken's
room. He used the beam of a precious flashlight for a moment to scan the
undisturbed bed. Panic started inside him and was fought down.
Probably Ken had found something interesting to keep him from noticing
the alarm clock on a shelf in the laboratory. Perhaps someone had even
forgotten to wind the clock and it had run down.
Perhaps, even, the bearings of its balance wheel had finally become
frozen and had brought it to a stop!
Mrs. Maddox was behind him as he turned from the door. "What's wrong?"
she asked.
He flashed the light on the bed again. "I'd better go up to the
laboratory and have a look," he said.
Ken's mother nodded. She sensed her husband's worry, and wanted not to
add to it. "Take Ken's bicycle," she said. "It will be quicker, even if
you have to walk it uphill. I'll have some hot chocolate for you when
you come back."
Professor Maddox dressed hurriedly and took the bicycle from the garage.
He did have to wheel it most of the way up the hill, but it would be
easier coming down anyway, he thought. He wondered how much longer the
bearings in it would hold up without freezing.
As he came within view of the laboratory building he saw that the
windows were utterly dark. He knew that even with the shades down he
would have been able to see some glow of the oil lamps which they used,
provided Ken were still there.
He waited a full 10 minutes against the chance that Ken had put out the
lamps and was on his way out. Then he knew Ken had gone long ago. He
ought to call the Sheriff and have the police cars search for him, but
there were no phones and no cars.
He mounted the bicycle in fresh panic and rode recklessly down the hill
to town. At Sheriff Johnson's house he pounded frantically on the door
until the Sheriff shouted angrily through an open window, "Who is it?"
"It's Dr. Maddox. You've got to help me, Johnson. Ken's disappeared." He
went into details, and the Sheriff grunted, holding back his irritation
at being disturbed, because of his long friendship with Henry Maddox.
"I guess I should have gone down to the station," said Professor Maddox,
realizing what he had done. "I had forgotten there would be men on
duty."
"It's all right. I'll come with you."
The Sheriff's car had broken down days before. He kept a horse for his
own official use. "You can ride behind me," he said. "Sally's a pretty
decent gal. You get up there on the porch railing and climb on right
behind me."
Professor Maddox maneuvered himself behind the Sheriff on the horse,
balancing unsteadily as Sally shied away. "Where do you think Ken could
have gone?" asked Johnson. "Don't you suppose he's over at one of his
friend's?"
"He wouldn't do a thing like that without letting us know."
"He went up the canyon with the wood detail 2 or 3 weeks ago."
"I know--but that was different. Aren't there any policemen on the
streets now? What happened to the ones who used to patrol in the radio
cars?"
"They're walking their beats, most of them. Two are mounted in each
district. We'll stop by the station, and then try to find the mounted
officers. It's the only thing we can do."
They moved down the dark, empty streets. It seemed as if there never had
been any life flowing along them, and never would be again. They passed
the station, lit by a smoking oil lamp, and left word of Ken's
disappearance, and moved on. They came to the edge of the business
section, where street lamps used to shine. This area was even more
ghostly than the rest, but policemen patrolled it, perhaps out of habit
and a conviction that failure to do so would admit the end of all that
was familiar and right.
As they rode on, the clatter of other hoofbeats on the cement sounded
behind them. Johnson turned and halted. A flashlight shone in their
faces. It was Officer Dan Morris, who identified himself by turning the
light on his own face.
"The warehouse has been broken into," he said. "Over at the skating
rink. Somebody has busted in and made off with a lot of food."
The Sheriff seemed stunned by the news. "What idiots!" he muttered
self-accusingly. "What complete, pinheaded idiots we turned out to be.
We didn't even think to put a special guard around the warehouse! Do any
of the other patrolmen know?"
"Yes. Clark and Dudly are over there now. I was trying to round up
someone else while they look for clues."
"I'll have to get over there," said Johnson.
"But Ken ..." Professor Maddox said. "I've got to keep looking."
"You come with us. I've got to look into the robbery. Ken can't have
come to any harm. I'll pass the word along and we'll all keep watch for
him. I promise you we will."
"I'll keep on," said Professor Maddox. He slid from the horse. "I'll
keep moving along the street here. If you find anything, I'll be
somewhere between here and home."
Unwillingly, Sheriff Johnson turned and left him. The sounds of the two
horses echoed loudly in the deserted street. Professor Maddox felt a
burst of anger at their abandonment of him, but he supposed the Sheriff
was doing what he had to do.
He recognized that it was foolhardy to be afoot in the deserted town
this time of night. Without a single clue to Ken's whereabouts, what
could he hope to accomplish? He strode on along the sidewalk in the
direction the policeman had disappeared. It was as good a direction as
any.
After he had gone a block he stumbled in the darkness. Some soft,
resilient object lay across the sidewalk before Billings Drugstore. In
anger at the obstacle, Professor Maddox caught himself and moved on. A
sound stopped him. A groan of agony came from the object upon which he
had stumbled. He turned and bent down and knew it was a human being.
Faintly, under the starlight, he glimpsed the dark pool of blood on the
sidewalk. He turned the body gently until he could see the face. It was
Ken.
He didn't know how long he knelt there inspecting the motionless
features of his son. He was aware only of running frantically in the
direction of the warehouse. He found Johnson. He clutched the Sheriff's
arm. "They've killed him!" he cried. "I found Ken and they've killed
him!"
Johnson turned to the nearest officer. "Ride for Dr. Adams. Dudly, get
that horse and wagon that's at Whitaker's place. Where did you say you
found Ken, Professor?"
"At Billings. Lying on the sidewalk with his head smashed in."
"You others meet us there," he called.
Clumsily, they mounted the Sheriff's horse together again. It seemed to
take hours to ride the short distance.
They dismounted and Johnson knelt and touched the boy tenderly.
Then Professor Maddox heard, barely audible, the sound he would remember
all his life as the most wonderful sound in the world.
"Dad...." Ken's lips moved with the word. "Dad...." His voice was a plea
for help.