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Title : Day of Truce

Author : Clifford D. Simak
Original copyright year: 1963
Genre : science fiction
Comments : to my  knowledge, this is the only available e-text of this book
Source  :  scanned  and  OCR-read  from  a  paperback  edition  with  Xerox
TextBridge Pro 9.0, proofread in MS Word 2000.
Date of e-text : January 5, 2000
Prepared by : Anada Sucka

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anticopyright 2000. All rights reversed.

  ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day of Truce

Clifford D. Simak

1

THE evening was quiet.  There was no sign of the Punks. Silence lay heavily
across the barren and eroded acres of the subdivision and there was nothing
moving - not even one of the roving and always troublesome dog packs.

It was too quiet, Max Hale decided.

There should  have been some motion  and some noise. It  was as if everyone
had  taken cover  against some  known and  coming violence -  another raid,
perhaps.  Although there  was  only one  place against  which a  raid could
possibly be  aimed. Why should  others care, Max wondered;  why should they
cower indoors, when they had long since surrendered?

Max  stood upon  the flat  lookout-rooftop of  the Crawford  stronghold and
watched the  streets to  north and west.  It was by  one of  these that Mr.
Crawford would be coming  home. No one could guess which one, for he seldom
used the  same road. It was the only way one  could cut down the likelihood
of ambush  or of  barricade. Although ambush  was less frequent  now. There
were fewer fences, fewer  trees and shrubs; there was almost nothing behind
which one  could hide. In this barren area it  called for real ingenuity to
effect an ambuscade. But, Max reminded himself, no one had ever charged the
Punks with lack of ingenuity.

Mr. Crawford had phoned  that he would be late and Max was getting nervous.
In another quarter hour,  darkness would be closing in. It was bad business
to be  abroad in Oak Manor  after dark had fallen.  Or, for that matter, in
any of  the subdivisions. For while  Oak Manor might be  a bit more vicious
than some of the others of them, it still was typical.

He lifted his glasses again and swept the terrain slowly. There was no sign
of patrols  or hidden skulkers. There must  be watchers somewhere, he knew.
There  were  always watchers,  alert  to  the slightest  relaxation of  the
vigilance maintained at Crawford stronghold.

Street  by street  he studied  the sorry  houses, with their  broken window
panes and  their peeling  paint, still marked  by the soap  streaks and the
gouges and  the red-paint  splashes inflicted years before.  Here and there
dead trees stood stark, denuded of their branches. Browned evergreens, long
dead,  stood rooted in  the dusty yards  - yards  long since robbed  of the
grass that once had made them lawns.

And  on  the hilltop,  up  on Circle  Drive,  stood the  ruins of  Thompson
stronghold,  which  had  fallen  almost five  years  before.  There was  no
structure standing. It had  been leveled stone by stone and board by board.
Only the smashed and dying trees, only the twisted steel fence posts marked
where it had been.

Now Crawford stronghold stood  alone in Oak Manor. Max thought of it with a
glow of  pride and a surge  of painful memory. It  stood because of him, he
thought, and he would keep it standing.

In this  desert it was the  last oasis, with its  trees and grass, with its
summer houses  and trellises,  with the massive shrubbery  and the wondrous
sun  dial  beside  the  patio,  with  its goldfish-and-lily  pond  and  the
splashing fountain.

'Max,' said the walkie-talkie strapped across his chest.

'Yes, Mr. Crawford.'

'Where are you located, Max?'

'Up on the lookout, sir.'

'I'll come  in on Seymour Drive,'  said Mr. Crawford's voice.  'I'm about a
mile beyond the hilltop. I'll be coming fast.'

'The coast seems to be quite clear, sir.'

'Good. But take no chances with the gates.'

'I have the control  box with me, sir. I can operate from here. I will keep
a sharp lookout.'

'Be seeing you,' said Crawford.

Max picked up the remote control box and waited for his returning master.

The  car came  over  the hill  and streaked  down  Seymour Drive,  made its
right-hand turn on Dawn, roared toward the gates.

When it  was no  more than a  dozen feet away.  Max pushed  the button that
unlocked  the gates.  The heavy  bumper slammed  into them and  pushed them
open. The  buffers that ran along  each side of the  car held them aside as
the machine  rushed through. When  the car had cleared  them, heavy springs
snapped them shut and they were locked again.

Max  slung the  control-box  strap over  his  shoulder and  went along  the
rooftop catwalk to the ladder leading to the ground.

Mr. Crawford  had put away the  car and was closing  the garage door as Max
came around the corner of the house.

'It does  seem quiet.' said Mr.  Crawford. 'Much quieter, it  would seem to
me, than usual.'

'I don't like it. sir. There is something brewing.'

'Not very likely,' said Mr. Crawford. 'Not on the eve of Truce Day.'

'I wouldn't put nothing  past them dirty Punks,' said Max. 'I quite agree,'
said Mr.  Crawford, 'but they'll be  coming here tomorrow for  their day of
fun. We must treat  them well for, after all, they're neighbors and it is a
custom. I would hate  to have you carried beyond the bounds of propriety by
overzealousness.'

'You know well and  good,' protested Max, 'I would never do a thing. I am a
fighter, sir, but I fight fair and honorable.'

Mr. Crawford  said, 'I was thinking of the little  gambit you had cooked up
last year.'

'It would  not have hurt them, sir.  Leastwise, not permanently. They might
never have suspected.  Just a drop or two of it in  the fruit punch was all
we would have needed.  It wouldn't have taken effect until hours after they
had left. Slow-acting stuff it was.'

'Even so,' said Mr. Crawford sternly, 'I am glad I found out in time. And I
don't want  a repeat  performance, possibly more  subtle, to be  tried this
year. I hope you understand me.'

'Oh, certainly, sir,' said Max. 'You can rely upon it, sir.'

'Well, good night, then. I'll see you in the morning.'

It was all damn foolishness, thought Max - this business of a Day of Truce.
It was an old  holdover from the early days when some do-gooder had figured
maybe there  would be some benefit  if the stronghold people  and the Punks
could meet under happy circumstance and spend a holiday together.

It worked,  of course,  but only for  the day. For  twenty-four hours there
were no  raids, no  flaming arrows, no  bombs across the fence.  But at one
second after midnight, the  feud took up again, as bitter and relentless as
it had ever been.

It had been going on for years. Max had no illusions about how it all would
end. Some day Crawford  stronghold would fall, as had all the others in Oak
Manor. But until that day, he pledged himself to do everything he could. He
would never lower his  guard nor relax his vigilance. Up to the very end he
would make them smart for every move they made.

He watched as Mr. Crawford opened the front door and went across the splash
of light  that flowed out from  the hall. Then the  door shut and the house
stood there,  big and  bleak and black,  without a sliver  of light showing
anywhere. No  light ever  showed from the  Crawford house. Well  before the
fall of  night he always threw  the lever on the  big control board to slam
steel shutters closed against all the windows in the place. Lighted windows
made too good a night-time target.

Now the  raids always  came at night. There  had been a time  when some had
been  made in  daylight, but  that was  too chancy  now. Year by  year, the
defenses had been built up to a point where an attack in daylight was plain
foolhardiness.

Max  turned and  went down  the driveway  to the  gates. He drew  on rubber
gloves and  with a small flashlight examined  the locking mechanism, it was
locked. It had never failed, but there might come a time it would. He never
failed to check it once the gates had closed.

He stood  beside the gates and listened.  Everything was quiet, although he
imagined he  could hear the  faint singing of the  electric current running
through the  fence. But that, he knew, was  impossible, for the current was
silent.

He reached  out with a gloved hand and stroked  the fence. Eight feet high,
he told himself, with  a foot of barbed wire along the top of it, and every
inch of it alive with the surging current.

And inside  of it  a standby, auxiliary  fence into which  current could be
introduced if the forward fence should fail.

A clicking  sound came  padding down the  driveway and Max  turned from the
gate.

'How you, boy,' he said.

It was too dark  for him to see the dog, but he could hear it snuffling and
snorting with pleasure at his recognition.

It  came bumbling  out  of the  darkness and  pushed  against his  legs. He
squatted down and put his arms about it. It kissed him sloppily.

'Where are the others, boy?' he asked, and it wriggled m its pleasure.

Great dogs,  he thought. They loved the people  in the stronghold almost to
adoration, but  had an utter hatred  for every other person.  They had been
trained to have.

The rest  of the pack, he  knew, was aprowl about  the yard, alert to every
sound, keyed  to every  presence. No one  could approach the  fence without
their knowing  it. Any stranger who got across the  fence they would rip to
bits.

He stripped off the rubber gloves and put them in his pocket.

'Come on, boy,' he said.

He turned off the  driveway and proceeded across the yard - cautiously, for
it was uneven footing.  There was no inch of it that lay upon the level. It
was cleverly designed so  that any thrown grenade or Molotov cocktail would
roll into a deep and narrow bomb trap.

There had  been a  time, he recalled,  when there had  been a  lot of these
things coming  over the fence. There were fewer now, for  it was a waste of
effort. There had been a time, as well, when there had been flaming arrows,
but these had tapered off since the house had been fireproofed.

He reached the side  yard and stopped for a moment, listening, with the dog
standing quietly at his  side. A slight wind had come up and the trees were
rustling. He  lifted his head and stared at  the delicate darkness of them,
outlined against the lighter sky.

Beautiful things,  he thought. It was  a pity there were  not more of them.
Once this  area had  been named Oak  Manor for the stately  trees that grew
here.  There, just  ahead  of him,  was the  last  of them  - a  rugged old
patriarch with its massive crown blotting out the early stars.

He looked at it  with awe and appreciation - and with apprehension, too. It
was a  menace. It was old  and brittle and it should  be taken down, for it
leaned toward the fence and some day a windstorm might topple it across the
wire. He should have mentioned it long ago to Mr. Crawford, but he knew the
owner held this tree  in a sentimental regard that matched his own. Perhaps
it could be made  safe by guywires to hold it against the wind, or at least
to  turn its  fall away  from the  fence should  it be broken  or uprooted.
Although it seemed a  sacrilege to anchor it with guywires, an insult to an
ancient monarch.

He moved on slowly, threading through the bomb traps, with the dog close at
his heels,  until he reached the  patio and here he  stopped beside the sun
dial. He  ran his hand across its rough stone  surface and wondered why Mr.
Crawford should  set such a store  by it. Perhaps because  it was a link to
the olden  days before  the Punks and raids.  It was an old  piece that had
been brought  from a monastery garden somewhere  in France. That in itself,
of  course, would  make it  valuable. But  perhaps Mr.  Crawford saw  in it
another value,  far beyond the fact  that it was hundreds  of years old and
had come across the water.

Perhaps it  had grown  to symbolize for him  the day now past  when any man
might have  a sun  dial in his garden,  when he might have  trees and grass
without  fighting for  them,  when he  might  take conscious  pride in  the
unfenced and unmolested land that lay about his house.

Bit by bit, through the running years, those rights had been eroded.

2

First it had been  the little things - the casual, thoughtless trampling of
the shrubbery  by the playing small  fry, the killing of  the evergreens by
the rampaging packs of  happy dogs that ran with the playing small fry. For
each boy, the parents said, must have himself a dog.

The people  in the first place had moved from  the jampacked cities to live
in what  they fondly called the  country, so that they  could keep a dog or
two and where their  children would have fresh air and sunlight and room in
which to run.

But too often this country was, in reality, no more than another city, with
its houses  cheek by jowl -  each set on acre  or half-acre lots, but still
existing cheek by jowl.

Of course,  a place to  run the children had.  But no more than  a place to
run. There was nothing  more to do. Run was all they could do - up and down
the streets,  back and forth across  the lawns, up and  down the driveways,
leaving havoc in their trail. And in time the toddlers grew up and in their
teen-age years  they still could only  run. There was no  place for them to
go, nothing they might do. Their mothers fore-gathered every morning at the
coffee  klatches  and  their  fathers sat  each  evening  in the  backyards
drinking beer. The family car could not be used because gasoline cost money
and the  mortgages were  heavy and the  taxes terrible and  the other costs
were high.

So  to find  an outlet  for their  energies, to  work off  their unrealized
resentments against  having nothing they could  do, these older fry started
out,  for pure  excitement only,  on adventures  in vandalism. There  was a
cutting  of the  backyard clotheslines,  a chopping  into bits  of watering
hoses left out overnight,  a breaking and ripping up of the patios, ringing
of the  doorbells, smashing of the windows, streaking  of the siding with a
cake of soap, splashing with red paint.

Resentments  had been manufactured  to justify  this vandalism and  now the
resentments were  given food to  grow upon. Irate owners  erected fences to
keep out the children and the dogs, and this at once became an insult and a
challenge.

And that  first simple fence. Max told himself,  had been the forerunner of
the  eight-foot  barrier of  electricity  which  formed the  first line  of
defense in  the Crawford  stronghold. Likewise, those  small-time soap-cake
vandals, shrieking their delight at messing up a neighbor's house, had been
the ancestors of the Punks.

He  left  the  Patio  and went  down  the  stretch  of  backyard, past  the
goldfish-and-lily pond and the  tinkling of the fountain, past the clump of
weeping willows, and so out to the fence.

'Psst!' said a voice just across the fence. 'That you, Billy?'

'It's me,' said Billy Warner.

'All right. Tell me what you have.'

'Tomorrow is Truce Day and we'll be visiting...'

'I know all that,' said Max.

'They're bringing in a time bomb.'

'They can't do that,' said Max, disgusted. 'The cops will frisk them at the
gates. They would spot it on them.'

'It'll be all broken down. Each one will have a piece. Stony Stafford hands
out the parts tonight.  He has a crew that has been practising for weeks to
put a bomb together fast - even in the dark, if need be.'

'Yeah,' said Max, 'I  guess they could do it that way. And once they get it
put together?'

'The sun dial,' Billy said. 'Underneath the sun dial.'

'Well,  thanks,' said Max.  'I am glad  to know.  It would break  the boss'
heart should something happen to the sun dial.'

'I figure,' Billy said, 'this might be worth a twenty.'

'Yes,' Max agreed. 'Yes, I guess it would.'

'If they ever knew I told, they'd take me out and kill me.'

'They won't ever know,' said Max. 'I won't ever tell them.'

He pulled his wallet  from his pocket, turned on the flash and found a pair
of tens.

He  folded  the bills  together,  lengthwise,  twice. Then  he shoved  them
through an opening in the fence.

'Careful, there,'  he cautioned. 'Do not touch  the wire.' Beyond the fence
he could  see the faintly white  outline of the other's  face. And a moment
later, the  hand that reached out  carefully and grabbed the  corner of the
folded bills.

Max did  not let loose of the money immediately.  They stood, each of them,
with their grip upon the bills.

'Billy,' said Max, solemnly,  'you would never kid me, would you? You would
never sell me out. You would never feed me erroneous information.'

'You know me, Max,'  said Billy. 'I've played square with you. I'd never do
a thing like that.'

Max let go of the money and let the other have it.

'I am glad to hear you say that, Billy. Keep on playing square. For the day
you don't,  I'll come  out of here  and hunt you  down and  cut your throat
myself.'

But the  informer did not answer.  He was already moving  off, out into the
deeper darkness.

Max stood  quietly, listening.  The wind still  blew in the  leaves and the
fountain kept on splashing, like gladsome silver bells.

'Hi, boy,' Max said  softly, but there was no snuffling answer. The dog had
left him, was prowling with the others up and down the yard.

Max turned  about and went up  the yard toward the  front again, completing
his circuit of the  house. As he rounded the corner of the garage, a police
car was slowing to a halt before the gates.

He started down the drive, moving ponderously and deliberately.

'That you, Charley?' he called softly.

'Yes, Max,' said Charley Pollard. 'Is everything all right?'

'Right as rain,' said Max.

He approached the gates  and saw the bulky loom of the officer on the other
side.

'Just  dropping by,'  said Pollard.  'The area  is quiet tonight.  We'll be
coming by  one of  these days to inspect  the place. It looks  to me you're
loaded.'

'Not a thing illegal,'  Max declared. 'All of it's defensive. That is still
the rule.'

'Yes, that  is the rule,' said Pollard, 'but it seems  to me that there are
times  you become a  mite too enthusiastic.  A full  load in the  fence, no
doubt.'

'Why, certainly,' said Max, 'Would you have it otherwise?'

'A kid grabs hold of it and he could be electrocuted, at full strength.'

'Would you rather I had it set just to tickle them?'

'You're playing too rough. Max.'

'I doubt  it rather much,' said Max. 'I watched  from here, five years ago,
when they stormed Thompson stronghold. Did you happen to see that?'

'I wasn't here five years ago. My beat was Farview Acres.'

'They took it apart,' Max told him. 'Stone by stone, brick by brick, timber
by timber.  They left nothing  standing. They left nothing  whole. They cut
down all the trees  and chopped them up. They uprooted all the shrubs. They
hoed out all the  flower beds. They made a desert of it. They reduced it to
their level. And I'm not about to let it happen here, not if I can help it.
A man has got  the right to grow a tree and a patch of grass. If he wants a
flower bed, he has  a right to have a flower bed. You may not think so, but
he's even got the right to keep other people out.'

'Yes,' said  the officer, 'all you say is true. But  these are kids you are
dealing with.  There must  be allowances. And  this is a  neighborhood. You
folks and the others  like you wouldn't have this trouble if you only tried
to be a little neighborly.'

'We don't dare be  neighborly,' said Max. 'Not in a place like this. In Oak
Manor, and  in all the other  manors and all the  other acres and the other
whatever-you-may-call-thems,  neighborliness  means  that  you  let  people
overrun you. Neighborliness means  you give up your right to live your life
the way you want to live it. This kind of neighborliness is rooted way back
in those days  when the kids made a path across your  lawn as a shortcut to
the school  bus and you couldn't say a thing for  fear that they would sass
you back and so create a scene. It started when your neighbor borrowed your
lawn mower  and forgot  to bring it  back and when  you went to  get it you
found that  he had broken it. But he pretended that  he hadn't and, for the
sake of  neighborliness, you didn't have  the guts to tell  him that he had
and to demand that he pay the bill for the repairing of it.'

'Well, maybe  so,' said Pollard, 'but it's gotten out  of hand. It has been
carried too far. You folks have got too high and mighty.'

'There's a  simple answer  to everything,' Max  told him stoutly.  'Get the
Punks to lay off us and we'll take down the fence and all the other stuff.'

Pollard shook  his head. 'It has gone too far,'  he said. 'There is nothing
anyone can do.'

He started to go back to the car, then turned back.

'I forgot,'  he said. 'Tomorrow is  your Truce Day. Myself  and a couple of
the other men will be here early in the morning.'

Max didn't  answer. He stood in  the driveway and watched  the car pull off
down the  street. Then he went up the driveway and  around the house to the
back door.

Nora had a place laid at the table for him and he sat down heavily, glad to
be off  his feet. By this  time of the evening he  was always tired. Not as
young, he thought, as he once had been.

'You're late tonight,' said the cook, bringing him the food. 'Is everything
all right?'

'I guess so. Everything is quiet. But we may have trouble tomorrow. They're
bringing in a bomb.'

'A  bomb!' cried  Nora. 'What  will you  do about  it? Call in  the police,
perhaps.'

Max shook  his head. 'No, I  can't do that. The  police aren't on our side.
They'd take  the attitude we'd egged on the Punks  until they had no choice
but to  bring in the bomb.  We are on our own.  And besides, I must protect
the  lad  who told  me. If  I  didn't, the  Punks  would know  and he'd  be
worthless to  me then.  He'd never get  to know another  thing. But knowing
they are bringing something in, I can watch for it.'

He still felt uneasy  about it all, he realized. Not about the bomb itself,
perhaps,  but something  else,  something that  was connected  with  it. He
wondered why he had this feeling. Knowing about the bomb, he all but had it
made. All he'd have to do would be to locate it and dig it out from beneath
the sun  dial. He  would have the  time to do it.  The day-long celebration
would end  at six in  the evening and the  Punks could not set  the bomb to
explode  earlier  than  midnight.  Any blast  before  midnight  would be  a
violation of the truce.

He scooped fried potatoes  from the dish onto his plate and speared a piece
of meat. Nora poured his coffee and, puffing out a chair, sat down opposite
him.

'You aren't eating?' he asked.

'I ate early, Max.'

He ate  hungrily and hurriedly, for there still were  things to do. She sat
and watched  him eat.  The clock on  the kitchen wall ticked  loudly in the
silence.

Finally she said: 'It is getting somewhat grim, Max.'

He nodded, his mouth full of food and unable to speak.

'I don't  see,' said the cook, 'why the Crawfords  want to stay here. There
can't be much pleasure in it for them. They could move into the city and it
would be  safer there.  There are the  juvenile gangs, of  course, but they
mostly fight among themselves.  They don't make life unbearable for all the
other people.'

'It's pride,' said Max.  'They won't give up. They won't let Oak Manor beat
them. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford are quality. They have some steel in them.'

'They couldn't  sell the place, of  course,' said Nora. 'There  would be no
one to  buy it.  But they don't need  the money. They could  just walk away
from it.'

'You  misjudge them,  Nora.  The Crawfords  in all  their lives  have never
walked away  from anything. They went  through a lot to  live here. Sending
Johnny off  to boarding  school when he  was a lad, since  it wouldn't have
been safe for him to go to school with the Punks out there. I don't suppose
they like  it. I  don't see how they  could. But they won't  be driven out.
They realize  someone must  stand up to  all that trash out  there, or else
there's no hope.'

Nora sighed. 'I suppose you're right. But it is a shame. They could live so
safe and comfortable and normal if they just moved to the city.'

He finished eating and got up.

'It was a good meal, Nora,' he said. 'But then you always fix good meals.'

'Ah, go on with you.' said Nora.

He  went  into  the  basement  and  sat  down  before  the  shortwave  set.
Systematically, he  started putting in his  calls to the other strongholds.
Wilson stronghold,  over in Fair Hills,  had had a little  trouble early in
the  evening -  a few  stink bombs  heaved across  the fence  - but  it had
quieted down. Jackson stronghold did not answer. While he was trying to get
through  to Smith  stronghold in  Harmony Settlement, Curtis  stronghold in
Lakeside Heights  began calling him. Everything  was quiet, John Hennessey,
the Curtis custodian told him. It had been quiet for several days.

He stayed at the radio for an hour and by that time had talked with all the
nearby strongholds.  There had  been scattered trouble here  and there, but
nothing of any consequence. Generally it was peaceful.

He sat  and thought  about the time  bomb and there was  still that nagging
worry. There was something  wrong, he knew, but he could not put his finger
on it.

Getting  up,  he  prowled  the  cavernous basement,  checking  the  defense
material - extra sections of fencing, piles of posts, pointed stakes, rolls
of barb  wire, heavy flexible wire  mesh and all the  other items for which
some day  there might be a  need. Tucked into one  corner, hidden, he found
the stacked carboys of acid he had secretly cached away. Mr. Crawford would
not approve,  he knew, but if the chips ever should  be down, and there was
need to use those carboys, he might be glad to have them.

He climbed the stairs  and went outside to prowl restlessly about the yard,
still upset  by that nagging something about the bomb  he could not yet pin
down.

The moon  had risen. The yard  was a place of  interlaced light and shadow,
but beyond  the fence the desert acres that held  the other houses lay flat
and  bare and plain,  without a shadow  of them  except the shadows  of the
houses.

Two of the dogs came up and passed the time of night with him and then went
off into the shrubbery.

He moved into the backyard and stood beside the sun dial.

The wrongness still was  there. Something about the sun dial and the bomb -
some piece of thinking that didn't run quite true.

He wondered  how they knew that the destruction of the  sun dial would be a
heavy blow  to the  owner of the  stronghold. How could  they possibly have
known?

The answer  seemed to be that they couldn't. They  didn't. There was no way
for them to know. And even if, in some manner, they had learned, a sun dial
most certainly  would be a piddling thing to blow  up when that single bomb
could be used so much better somewhere else.

Stony Stafford, the leader of the Punks, was nobody's fool. He was a weasel
- full  of cunning,  full of savvy.  He'd not mess  with any  sun dial when
there was so much else that a bomb could do so much more effectively.

And as  he stood there beside the sun dial, Max  knew where that bomb would
go - knew where he would plant it were he in Stafford's place.

At the roots of that ancient oak which leaned toward the fence.

He stood and thought about it and knew that he was right.

Billy Warner, he wondered. Had Billy double-crossed him?

Very possibly  he hadn't. Perhaps Stony  Stafford might have suspected long
ago that his gang  harbored an informer and, for that reason, had given out
the story  of the sun dial  rather than the oak  tree. And that, of course,
only to  a select inner circle which would  be personally involved with the
placing of the bomb.

In such a case, he thought, Billy Warner had not done too badly.

Max turned  around and went back to the  house, walking heavily. He climbed
the stairs to his  attic room and went to bed. It had been, he thought just
before he went to sleep, a fairly decent day.

3

The police  showed up at eight o'clock. The carpenters  came and put up the
dance  platform. The  musicians  appeared and  began their  tuning  up. The
caterers arrived and set up the tables, loading them with food and two huge
punch bowls standing by to serve.

Shortly after nine o'clock  the Punks and their girls began to straggle in.
The  police frisked  them at the  gates and  found no blackjacks,  no brass
knuckles, no bicycle chains on any one of them.

The band struck up. The Punks and their girls began to dance. They strolled
through the yard and admired the flowers, without picking any of them. They
sat on the grass  and talked and laughed among themselves. They gathered at
the overflowing boards and  ate. They laughed and whooped and frolicked and
everything was fine.

'You see?' Pollard said  to Max. 'There ain't nothing wrong with them. Give
them a  decent break  and they're just  a bunch of ordinary  kids. A little
hell in  them, of  course, but nothing  really bad. It's  your flaunting of
this place in their very faces that makes them the way they are.'

'Yeah,' said Max.

He left  Pollard and drifted down the yard,  keeping as inconspicuous as he
could. He wanted  to watch the oak, but he knew he  didn't dare to. He knew
he had to keep away from it, should not even glance toward it. If he should
scare  them off, then  God only knew  where they  would plant the  bomb. He
thought  of being forced  to hunt wildly  for it  after they were  gone and
shuddered at the thought.

There was no one near the bench at the back of the yard, near the flowering
almond  tree,   and  he  stretched  out   on  it.  It  wasn't  particularly
comfortable, but the day was warm and the air was drowsy. He dropped off to
sleep.

When he woke he  saw that a man was standing on the gravel path just beyond
the bench.

He blinked hard and rubbed his eyes.

'Hello, Max,' said Stony Stafford.

'You should be up there dancing. Stony.'

'I was waiting for you to wake up,' said Stony. 'You are a heavy sleeper. I
could of broke your neck.'

Max sat up. He rubbed a hand across his face.

'Not on Truce Day, Stony. We all are friends on Truce Day.'

Stony spat upon the gravel path.

'Some other day,' he said.

'Look,' said  Max, 'why don't you just run off  and forget about it? You'll
break  your back  if you  try to  crack this  place. Pick up  your marbles,
Stony, and go find someone else who's not so rough to play with.'

'Some day we'll make it,' Stony said. 'This place can't stand forever.'

'You haven't got a chance,' said Max.

'Maybe so,'  said Stony. 'But I  think we will. And  before we do, there is
just one  thing I  want you to know.  You think nothing will  happen to you
even if  we do. You think  that all we'll do is just  rip up the place, not
harming anyone.  But you're wrong, Max. We'll do it  the way it is supposed
to be with the  Crawfords and with Nora. We won't hurt them none. But we'll
get you, Max. Just because we can't carry knives or guns doesn't mean there
aren't any other ways. There'll be a stone fall on you or a timber hit you.
Or maybe you'll stumble  and fall into the fire. There are a lot of ways to
do it and we plan to get you plenty.'

'So,' said Max, 'you hate me. It makes me feel real bad.'

'Two of  my boys are dead,' said Stony. 'There  are others who are crippled
pretty bad.'

'There wouldn't  nothing happen to them, Stony, if  you didn't send them up
against the fence.'

He  looked up and  saw the hatred  that lay  in Stony Stafford's  eyes, but
washing across the hatred was a gleam of triumph.

'Good-by, dead man,' said Stony.

He turned and stalked away.

Max sat  quietly on the bench,  remembering that gleam of  triumph in Stony
Stafford's eyes.  And that meant he had been  right. Stony had something up
his sleeve and it could be nothing else but the bomb beneath the oak.

The day  wore on. In the  afternoon, Max went up to  the house and into the
kitchen. Nora fixed him a sandwich, grumbling.

'Why  don't you go  out and eat  off the  tables?' she demanded.  'There is
plenty there.'

'Just as soon  keep out of their way,' said Max. 'I  have to fight them all
the rest of the year. I don't see why I should pal up with them today.'

'What about the bomb?'

'Shhh,' said Max. 'I know where it is.'

Nora stood  looking out  the window. 'They  don't look like  bad kids,' she
said. 'Why can't we make a peace of some sort with them?'

Max grunted. 'It's gone too far,' he said.

Pollard had been right,  he thought. It was out of hand. Neither side could
back down now.

The police  could have put a  stop to it to start  with, many years ago, if
they   had   cracked  down   on   the   vandals  instead   of  adopting   a
kids-will-be-kids attitude  and shrugging it all  off as just an aggravated
case of  quarreling in the neighborhood. The  parents could have stopped it
by paying  some attention to the kids, by  giving them something that would
have stopped their running  wild. The community could have put a stop to it
by providing some sort of recreational facilities.

But no one had put a stop to it. No one had even tried.

And now it had  grown to be a way of life and  it must be fought out to the
bitter end.

Max had no illusions as to who would be the winner.

Six o'clock came and the Punks started drifting off. By six thirty the last
of them  had gone. The musicians packed up  their instruments and left. The
caterers put away their dishes and scooped up the leftovers and the garbage
and drove away. The  carpenters came and got their lumber. Max went down to
the gates and checked to see that they were locked.

'Not a  bad day,'  said Pollard, speaking  through the gates  to Max. 'They
really aren't bad kids, if you'd just get to know them.'

'I know them plenty now,' said Max.

He watched the police car drive off, then turned back up the driveway.

He'd have to wait  for a while, he knew, until the dusk could grow a little
deeper, before  he started  looking for the  bomb. There would  be watchers
outside the fence. It would be just as well if they didn't know that he had
found it.  It might serve a better purpose if they  could be left to wonder
if  it  might  have  been a  dud.  For  one  thing,  it  would shake  their
confidence. For another, it would protect young Billy Warner. And while Max
could feel no admiration for the kid, Billy had been useful in the past and
still might be useful in the future.

He went  down to the patio and crawled  through the masking shrubbery until
he was only a short distance from the oak.

He waited  there, watching the area out beyond the  fence. There was as yet
no sign  of life  out there. But they  would be out there  watching. He was
sure of that.

The  dusk  grew deeper  and  he  knew he  could  wait  no longer.  Creeping
cautiously,  he made  his way to  the oak.  Carefully, he brushed  away the
grass and leaves, face held close above the ground.

Halfway around the tree, he found it - the newly upturned earth, covered by
a sprinkling  of grass and leaves, and  positioned neatly between two heavy
roots.

He thrust his hand against the coolness of the dirt and his fingers touched
the metal. Feeling it,  he froze, then very slowly, very gently, pulled his
hand away.

He sat back on his heels and drew in a measured breath. The bomb was there,
all right, just as he had suspected. But set above it, protecting it, was a
contact bomb.  Try to get the  time bomb out and  the contact bomb would be
triggered off.

He brushed his hands together, wiping off the dirt.

There was, he knew,  no way to get out the bombs. He  had to let them stay.
There was nothing he could do about it.

No wonder  Stony's eyes  had shown a  gleam of triumph. For  there was more
involved than  just a simple time  bomb. This was a  foolproof setup. There
was nothing that could  be done about it. If it had not been for the roots,
Max  thought, he might  have taken a  chance on  working from one  side and
digging  it all  out.  But with  the heavy  roots  protecting it,  that was
impossible.

Stony  might have  known that  he knew  about it  and then had  gone ahead,
working out a bomb set that no one would dare to mess around with.

It was exactly the  sort of thing that would be up Stony's alley. More than
likely, he was setting out there now, chuckling to himself.

Max stayed squatted, thinking.

He could string  a line of mesh a few feet inside  the tree, curving out to
meet the auxiliary fence  on either side. Juice could be fed into it and it
might  serve as  a  secondary defense.  But it  was  not good  insurance. A
determined rush would carry it, for at best it would be flimsy. He'd not be
able to install it as he should, working in the dark.

Or he  could rig the  tree with guywires to  hold it off the  fence when it
came crashing down. And that, he told himself, might be the thing to do.

He got  up and went around  the house, heading for  the basement to look up
some wire that might serve to hold the tree.

He  remembered, as he  walked past the  short wave  set, that he  should be
sitting in  on the regular evening check  among the nearby strongholds. But
it would have to wait tonight.

He walked on and then stopped suddenly as the thought came to him. He stood
for a moment, undecided, then swung around and went back to the set.

He snapped on the power and turned it up.

He'd have to be  careful what he said, he thought, for there was the chance
the Punks might be monitoring the channels.

John Hennessey,  custodian of the Curtis stronghold,  came in a few seconds
after Max had started calling.

'Something wrong, Max?'

'Nothing wrong,  John. I  was just wondering  - do you  remember telling me
about those toys that you have?'

'Toys?'

'Yeah. The rattles.'

He could hear the sound of Hennessey sucking in his breath.

Finally he said: 'Oh, those. Yes, I still have them.'

'How many would you say?'

'A hundred, probably. Maybe more than that.'

'Could I borrow them?'

'Sure,' said Hennessey. 'Would you want them right away?'

'If you could,' said Max.

'Okay. You'll pick them up?'

'I'm a little busy.'

'Watch for me,' said Hennessey. 'I'll box them up and be there in an hour.'

'Thanks, John,' said Max.

Was it wrong? He wondered. Was it too much of a chance?

Perhaps  he didn't  have  the right  to take  any  chance at  all.  But you
couldn't sit forever, simply fending off the Punks. For if that was all you
did, they'd  keep on coming back. But hit back hard  at them and they might
get  a belly  full. You  might end  it once  for all.  The trouble  was, he
thought,  you could  strike  back so  seldom.  You could  never act  except
defensively, for if you took any other kind of action, the police were down
on you like a ton of bricks.

He licked his lips.

It was seldom one  had a chance like this - a chance to strike back lustily
and still be legally defensive.

4

He got  up quickly and walked  to the rear of  the basement, where he found
the heavy  flexible mesh.  He carried out three  rolls of it and  a loop of
heavy wire  to hang it on.  He'd have to use some  trees to stretch out the
wire.  He really  should  use some  padding  to protect  the trees  against
abrasion by the wire, but he didn't have the time.

Working  swiftly, he  strung the wire,  hung the  mesh upon it,  pegged the
bottom of  the mesh tight against the ground, tied the  ends of it with the
auxiliary fence.

He was  waiting at the gates when the truck pulled  up. He used the control
box to open the gates and the truck came through. Hennessey got out.

'Outside is swarming with Punks,' he told Max. 'What is going on?'

'I got troubles,' said Max.

Hennessey went  around to the back of the truck  and lowered the tail gate.
Three large boxes, with mesh insets, rested in the truck bed.

'They're in there?' asked Max.

Hennessey  nodded. 'I'll  give  you a  hand with  them.' Between  them they
lugged the boxes to the mesh curtain, rigged behind the oak.

'I left one place unpegged,' said Max. 'We can push the boxes under.'

'I'll unlock  the lids first,'  said Hennessey. 'We can  reach through with
the pole and lift the lids if they are unlocked. Then use the pole again to
tip the boxes over.'

They slid the boxes underneath the curtain, one by one. Hennessey went back
to the truck to get the pole. Max pegged down the gap.

'Can you  give me a bit  of light?' asked Hennessey.  'I know the Punks are
waiting out there. But probably they'd not notice just a squirt of it. They
might think you were making just a regular inspection of the grounds.'

Max flashed  the light and Hennessey, working  with the pole thrust through
the mesh, flipped back the lids. Carefully, he tipped the boxes over. A dry
slithering and frantic threshing sounds came out of the dark.

'They'll be  nasty customers,'  said Hennessey. 'They'll be  stirred up and
angry. They'll do a lot of circulating, trying to get settled for the night
and that  way, they'll get spread out. Most of them  are big ones. Not many
of the small kinds.'

He put the pole over his shoulder and the two walked back to the truck.

Max put out his hand and the two men shook.

'Thanks a lot, John.'

'Glad to do it. Max. Common cause, you know. Wish I could stay around...'

'You have a place of your own to watch.'

They shook hands once again and Hennessey climbed into the cab.

'You better make it fast the first mile or so,' said Max. 'Our Punks may be
laying for you. They might have recognized you.'

'With the bumpers and the power I have,' said Hennessey, 'I can get through
anything.'

'And watch out for the cops. They'd raise hell if they knew we were helping
back and forth.'

'I'll keep an eye for them.'

Max opened the gates and the truck backed out, straightened in the road and
swiftly shot ahead.

Max  listened until it  was out of  hearing, then  checked to see  that the
gates were locked.

Back  in  the basement  he  threw  the switch  that  fed  current into  the
auxiliary fence - and now into the mesh as well.

He sighed with some contentment and climbed the stairs out to the yard.

A sudden  flash of light lit  up the grounds. He  spun swiftly around, then
cursed softly  at himself. It was only a bird  hitting the fence in flight.
It happened  all the time. He was getting jittery and  there was no need of
it. Everything was under control - reasonably so.

He climbed a piece of sloping ground and stood behind the oak. Staring into
the darkness,  it seemed to him that he could  see shadowy forms out beyond
the fence.

They were  gathering out there and  they would come swarming  in as soon as
the tree  went down, smashing  the fences. Undoubtedly they  planned to use
the tree as a  bridge over the surging current that still would flow in the
smashed-down fence.

Maybe it was taking  too much of a chance, he thought. Maybe he should have
used the guywires on  the tree. That way there would have been no chance at
all. But, likewise, there would have been no opportunity.

They might get through, he thought, but he'd almost bet against it.

He stood there, listening  to the angry rustling of a hundred rattlesnakes,
touchy and confused, in the area beyond the mesh.

The sound was a most satisfying thing.

He moved away,  to be out of the line of blast  when the bomb exploded, and
waited for the day of truce to end.