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"What next?" asked Alex.
"On to Chicago," Bob told him.
Wallace shook his head. "That deputy copied down your
license plate. Just routine, I suppose. But, if I were engaged in
anything a shade less than perfectly normal- not that I am, mind
you, or that I suggest that anyone else is- I might be a touch
wary of driving that vehicle over the roads. Folks don't travel so
much these days, what with fuel so hard to get. So anyone far
enough from home might strike the government as suspicious."
Bob frowned and ran a hand though his beard. "You're right."
He looked at Sherrine, then back at Wallace. "What should we do?"
Wallace smiled. "Why don't you folks follow me over to Hiram's
shop. We'll see if he can tinker something up.
They followed him outside into the brut, frozen sunlight. Alex
found himself walking beside Wallace. Sherri supported him on one
side, but mostly he carried his own mass. He walked like a two-year
old and felt like two hundred; but he was moving under his own
power. "Hiram's shop," he said. "Your friend is not a farmer, then?"
"Heh. No, he's a tinker. He fixes things. It's a knack he has.
Snowblowers, radios, TV's." He gave Alex a sly wink. "Maybe even a
computer or two, if anyone owned such a thing, which I'm not
saying they do."
Alex raised his eyebrows. He exchanged glances with Sherri.
"You don't tally like a technophobe," he ventured.
Wallace laughed without humor. "You ever try farming without
technology? It's a lot more charming in those old woodcuts than it
is in the flesh. In a good year, we get nothing to eat but cheese
and beef. Cook the beef good. No antibiotics. If you could lay your
hands on a supply of good medicine for cows it would be worth its
weight in cheese."
Alex chuckled politely. But why would cheese be valuable in
Wisconsin? He would have felt stupid asking. Instead he asked,
"What do you do in a bad year?"
Wallace grunted and his voice hardened. "In a bad year we
starve."
***
Sherrine found she could not let go of her suspicions. Granted,
Wallace had saved them from the storm, and he had helped them
fool the sheriff's deputies, too; but that might have been from a
sense of duty. After all, their body heat had helped save Wallace
and his wife, as well; and the country folk had no great love for a
government that had effectively abandoned them. Still . . .
They followed Wallace's pickup down the country lanes behind
Millville. Sherrine sat in the back with Alex and the others. The road
undulated through the rumpled hills, whose trees, fooled by the
glaciers, were rusted and yellow. An oddly disorienting layer of fallen
leaves lay atop the snow, as if the seasons had gotten jumbled by
the storm. Some trees stood blizzard-stripped, stark and wintry
against the sky. They came out onto a high bluff from which she
could see the confluence of the Wisconsin and Mississippi. The
rivers sparkled in the sunlight. They flowed sluggishly, with so many
of their sources locked into ice.
It was only when Wallace honked and pointed to the driveway
of the ramshackle building that Sherrine relaxed. There was a hand-
painted sign nailed to a post by the roadside. Bright red letters on
a large plywood panel:
BIG FRONT YARD SALE
HIRAM TAINE, TINKER
Of course, she thought. Of course. They were among friends. She
saw Fang grin and nudge Thor with his elbow. Thor smiled quietly,
as if at a well-orchestrated surprise. Sherrine started to laugh,
earning an odd glance from Alex.
All that time she had been worried about being in Proxmire
country. She had forgotten they were in Clifford Simak country,
too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"The Best of All Physicians. . ."
The van was dark and cold and stank with a stale pungency Alex
MacLeod could never get used to. Worse than a spaceship! He sat
huddled under blankets with the others in the back of the van,
sharing his warmth. The only light was the feeble glow of a
flashlight. Alex took a breath of damp, moldy air. He wished Bob
could start the engine so they could warm up; but, of course, that
was impossible.
Sherrine was a goblin face half-lit by the weary flashlight. "This
is cozy," she said. "I used to read science fiction books like this-
under my blankets with a light. Always with an ear cocked for the
sound of my parents coming."
"Did they ever catch you?" asked Gordon.
"Oh, sure. I got a lecture the first time. The second time, they
spanked me. They never caught me again. Maybe they got tired of
watching. I always looked forward to the summers, though, when
they'd send me to Gram's farm. Pop-pop kept two cartons full of
old paperbacks hidden in a corner of the root cellar. I could read
them in daylight."
Gordon laughed. "It sounds like fun."
"Yeah, lots of fun," said Alex. "How long are we going to be
stuck here?"
Bob shrugged and the blankets shrugged with him. "I don't
know."
"Relax," said Fang. "Here. It's cheddar."
It was a half-found wedge. Alex felt his throat close. "No
thanks," he said. I'm going to be heartily sick of cheese by the time
we get to Chicago."
"Cheese is fermented milk curd," Fang volunteered. "The
Orientals think of it as 'rotten milk.' "
Sherrine turned to him. "Thank you for sharing that thought
with us."
"Well," said Thor. "Where there's a curd, there's a whey."
"Seriously," Alex insisted. "How long will we be stuck inside this
trailer?" Surrounded by cheese. Encastled by cheesy ramparts.
Breathing cheese with every breath. Sure, it saved gas on the van;
sure, it hid them from the sheriffs deputies; but it seemed as if he
had been buried in a tomb of . . . of fermented curds.
Fang nibbled on the wedge, looking for all the world like an
oversized mouse. "How long?" he said. "Hard to say. The trailer
takes the back roads to avoid the monties."
"The Mounties?"
"Monties . . . Montereys. They high jack cheese."
Gordon cocked his head. "High-jack cheese? Poche- Why
would anyone do that?"
Fang held his wedge up and turned it so it caught the pale
light. "Supply and demand," he said. "South and east of Chicago
this stuff is rare. Infrastructure collapsing. Bridges, culverts,
embankments. Roads are near impassible. Can't hardly get gas
anywhere in Wisconsin. So not much cheese ever gets out of the
state. Not until the farmers can hoard enough fuel to make a run
like this one. Naturally, the monties are on the lookout. One cheese
truck taken to . . . oh, Pittsburgh or St. Louis, could set you up for
life."
"I've heard," said Sherrine, "that in some places they stamp
the cheese wheels with official seals and use them for money."
Thor laughed. "I've heard that. What would you do for a
wallet?"
"No, no," said Fang. "You put the cheese in a larder- "
"Fort Cheddar!"
"- and issue certificates "
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