Read Arslan for Free Online Page A

then—”
    It was the first time I'd seen him hesitate over anything. “And then?”
    His grin came back, just for a second. “Kraftsville pleases me.”
    I had the gun as well muffled as I was likely to get it. “You said there's no United States government. What happened to it?”
    “It abdicated to me.”
    “That's unbelievable,” I said. “And I don't believe it. Any of it.”
    No, he wasn't really very much interested in agrarian socialism at the moment. Blood showed rusty at the corner of his mouth. “Believe this, then, that I will not die easily. I have put my death into your hands, sir; but at the end I must fight it. The range is very short, yes, the caliber is large; but I am very quick, and I am strong. And do not hope to disable me and hold me as hostage. This pistol is not a precision instrument. You will not stop me with less than a fatal wound.” He paused, his eyes preoccupied with the gun, and went on again. “If you kill me, sir, I think your best chance will be to fire the town yourself, immediately.” I stared at him. “Do not imagine that you can surprise the school. But with a few good men and a sufficient diversion, you might save very many of the children.” Slowly he fingered another cigarette out of his pocket, but he didn't put it in his mouth. “Your wife,” he said, “sleeps in your own bedroom. The boy Hunt is in the southwest room. There is a guard on the stairs, and one on each side of the house outside.”
    “Where are those two girls?”
    “At the high school.”
    “Where's Betty Hanson?”
    “In the northwest room.”
    “Why are you telling me this?”
    He shrugged. He put the cigarette in his mouth. He looked at me. And I felt an anger that burned and ached to my fingertips. He had started this. He had come here, occupied my town, taken over my school. And now he was passing the buck to me, to decide, on the shabbiest sort of data, which of two intolerable directions the world should take. Well, I didn't want it. I wasn't God. The most I could do was choose for myself, for Luella and the children.
    “All right,” I said finally. “You can light your cigarette.”
    He lit it in a hurry, and dragged deep. Apparently he was part human, at least.
    “What happens,” I asked, “if I just get out of the car and go away?”
    He shook his head. “I will stop you.”
    I shifted the gun to my left hand while I got the coat off of myself and it. I opened the breech and took out the cartridges. I half turned, and flung them broadcast into Sam Tuller's oat field, and the gun after them.
    Arslan didn't seem to have moved an eyelash. He offered his cigarette pack, and I shook my head. I felt sick and cold. His whole face was shiny with triumph.
    “You threatened me with a weapon, sir,” he said quietly. “I threatened you with a more powerful one. I still hold that weapon. I could use it now to make you search this field on hands and knees until you found every cartridge. But I do not.” He straightened in his seat and switched on the ignition, and that little flick of the fingers was a swagger in itself. “I wish to know about the farms we pass: who lives in each house, how much land, what crops, what livestock. You should not lie to me about anything today, sir. It is important for your people.”
    We covered practically the whole of Kraft County, and a little of three neighboring counties. We went down roads I hadn't been on in years, and some I'd never been on. In fact we covered, by actual driving or by sight, every passable backroad in the whole area. He wasn't interested in the main roads; or maybe he thought he knew them already. And all the way he kept me busy with his questions. “Who lives there? How old? How many sheep? Is that wheat? Is that soybeans?” (He was always right.) “What is their water supply? Is there a basement in that church? Does this stream flood?” And every now and then, “What bird was that?”
    I usually hadn't seen the bird. I was