The paper he was writing on came from a ring binder in which he kept all his thoughts—the contents of the binder were half diary, half shopping list. He had discovered a deep fondness in himself for making lists; he thought one of his forebears must have been an accountant. When your mind was troubled, he had discovered that making a list often set it at ease again.

He went back to the fresh page before him, doodling formlessly in the margin.

It seemed to him that all the things they wanted or needed from the old life were stored in the silent East Boulder power plant, like dusty treasure in a dark cupboard. An unpleasant feeling seemed to run through the people who had gathered in Boulder, a feeling just submerged below the surface—they were like a scared bunch of kids knocking around in the local haunted house after dark. In some ways, the place was like a rancid ghost town. There was a sense that being here was a strictly temporary thing. There was one man, a fellow named Impening, who had once lived in Boulder and worked on one of the custodial crews at the IBM plant out on the Boulder-Longmont Diagonal. Impening seemed determined to stir up unrest. He was going around telling people that in 1984 there had been an inch and a half of snow in Boulder by September 14, and that by November it would be cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. That was the kind of talk Nick would like to put a quick stop to. Never mind that if Impening had been in the army he would have been cashiered for such talk; that was an empty logic, if it was logic at all. The important thing was that Impening’s words would have no power if people could move into houses where the lights worked and where the furnaces blew hot air up through grates at the touch of a finger on a button. If that didn’t happen by the time the first coldsnap arrived, Nick was afraid that people would begin simply to slip away, and all the meetings, representatives, and ratifications in the world wouldn’t stop that.

According to Ralph, there wasn’t that much wrong at the power plant, at least not that much visible. The crews who ran it had shut some of the machinery down; other machinery had shut itself down. Two or three of the big turbine engines had blown, perhaps as the result of some final power surge. Ralph said that some of the wiring would have to be replaced, but he thought that he and Brad Kitchner and a crew of a dozen warm bodies could do that. A much bigger work crew was needed to remove fused and blackened copper wire from the blown turbine generators and then install new copper wire by the yard. There was plenty of copper wire in the Denver supply houses for the taking; Ralph and Brad had gone one day last week to check for themselves. With the manpower, they thought they could have the lights on again by Labor Day.

“And then we’ll throw the biggest fucking party this town ever saw,” Brad said.

Law and Order. That was something else that troubled him. Could Stu Redman be handed that particular package? He wouldn’t want the job, but Nick thought he could perhaps persuade Stu to take it… and if push came to shove, he could get Stu’s friend Glen to back him up. What really bothered him was the memory, still too fresh and hurtful to look at more than briefly, of his own brief and terrible tour as Shoyo’s jailkeeper. Vince and Billy dying, Mike Childress jumping up and down on his supper and crying out in wretched defiance: Hunger strike! I’m on a fuckin hunger strike!

It made him ache inside to think they might need courts and jails… maybe even an executioner. Christ, these were Mother Abagail’s people, not the dark man’s! But he supposed the dark man would not bother with such trivialities as courts and jails. His punishment would be swift and sure and heavy. He would not need the threat of jail when the corpses hung on the telephone pole crosses along I-15 for the birds to pick.

Nick hoped most of the infractions would be small ones. There had been several cases of drunk and disorderly already. One kid, really too young to drive, had been rodding a big dragging machine up and down Broadway, scaring people out of the street. He had finally driven into a stalled bread truck and had gashed his forehead—and lucky to get off so cheaply, in Nick’s opinion. The people who had seen him knew he was too young, but no one had felt he or she had the authority to put a stop to it.

Authority. Organization. He wrote the words on his pad and put them inside a double circle. Being Mother Abagail’s people gave them no immunity to weakness, stupidity, or bad companions. Nick didn’t know if they were the children of God or not, but when Moses had come down from the mountain, those not busy worshipping the golden calf had been busy shooting craps, he knew that. And they had to face the possibility that someone might get cut over a card game or decide to shoot someone else over a woman.

Authority. Organization. He circled the words again and now they were like prisoners behind a triple stockade. How well they went together… and what a sorry sound they made.

Not long after, Ralph came in. “We got some more folks coming in tomorrow, Nicky, and a whole parade the day after. Over thirty in that second one.”

“Good,” Nick wrote. “We’ll get a doc before long, I bet. Law of averages says so.”

“Yeah,” Ralph said. “We’re turnip into a regular by-God city.”

Nick nodded.

“I had a talk with the fella leadin the party that came in today. His name’s Larry Underwood. Smart man, Nick. Sharp as a tack.”

Nick raised his eyebrows and drew a ? in the air.

“Well, let’s see,” Ralph said. He knew what the question mark meant: give more information, if you can. “He’s six or seven years older’n you, I think, and maybe eight or nine younger than Redman. But he’s the kind of man you said we ought to be on the lookout for. He asks the right questions.”

?

“Who’s in charge, for one,” Ralph said. “What comes next, for another. Who does it, for a third.”

Nick nodded. Yes—the right questions. But was he the right man? Ralph might be right. He also might not be.

“I’ll try to meet up with him tomorrow & say hello,” he wrote on a fresh sheet of paper.

“Yeah, you oughtta. He’s all right.” Ralph shuffled his feet. “And I talked to Mother a little bit before this Underwood and his folks came up to be innerduced. Talked to her like you wanted me to.”

?

“She says we ought to go ahead. Get moving. She says there’s people lollygaggin, and they need some folks to be in charge and tell em where to squat and lean.”

Nick leaned back in his chair and laughed silently. Then he wrote, “I was pretty sure she’d feel that way. I’ll talk to Stu & Glen tomorrow. Did you print the handbills?”

“Oh! Those! Shit, yeah,” Ralph said. “That’s where I been most of the afternoon, for Christ’s sake.” He showed Nick a sample poster. Still smelling strongly of mimeograph ink, the print was large and eyecatching. Ralph had done the graphics himself:

MASS MEETING!!!

REPRESENTATIVE BOARD

TO BE NOMINATED AND ELECTED!

8:30 P.M., August 18, 1990

Place: Canyon Boulevard Park & Bandshell if FINE

Chautauqua Hall in Chautauqua Park if FOUL

REFRESHMENTS WILL BE SERVED

FOLLOWING THE MEETING

Below this were two rudimentary street maps for newcomers and those who hadn’t spent much time exploring Boulder. Below, in rather fine print, were the names he and Stu and Glen had agreed upon after some discussion earlier in the day:

Ad Hoc Committee

Nick Andros

Glen Bateman

Ralph Brentner

Richard Ellis

Fran Goldsmith

Stuart Redman

Susan Stern

Nick pointed to the line on the flier about refreshments and raised his eyebrows.