It had been long, and to Stu, with his East Texas background, it had seemed fantastically hard. Two days after his return to Boulder, his right leg had been rebroken and reset and this time encased in a heavy plaster cast that had not come off until early April. By then the cast had begun to look like some incredibly complex roadmap; it seemed that everyone in the Zone had autographed it, although that was a patent impossibility. The pilgrims had begun to trickle in again by the first of March, and by the day that had been the cut-off for income tax returns in the old world, the Free Zone was nearly eleven thousand strong, according to Sandy DuChiens, who now headed a Census Bureau of a dozen persons, a bureau that had its own computer terminal at the First Bank of Boulder.
Now he and Fran stood with Lucy Swann in the picnic area halfway up Flagstaff Mountain and watched the Mayday Chase. All the Zone's children appeared to be involved (and not a few of the adults). The original maybasket, bedecked with crepe ribbons and filled with fruit and toys, had been hung on Tom Cullen. It had been Fran's idea.
Tom had caught Bill Gehringer (despite Billy's self-conscious disclaimer that he was too old for such kid games, he had joined with a will), and together they had caught the Upshaw boy - or was it Upson? Stu had trouble keeping them all straight - and the three of them had tracked down Leo Rockway hiding behind Brentner Rock. Tom himself had put the tag on Leo.
The chase ranged back and forth over West Boulder, gangs of kids and adolescents surging up and down the streets that were still mostly empty, Tom bellowing and carrying his basket. And at last it led back up here, where the sun was hot and the wind blew warm. The band of tagged children was some two hundred strong, and they were still in the process of tracking down the last, half dozen or so that were still "out." In the process they were scaring up dozens of deer that wanted no part of the game.
Two miles farther up, at Sunrise Amphitheater, a huge picnic lunch had been spread where Harold Lauder had once waited for just the right moment to speak into his walkie-talkie. At noon, two or three thousand people would sit down together and look east toward Denver and eat venison and deviled eggs and peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, and fresh pie for dessert. It might be the last mass gathering the Zone would ever have, unless they all went down to Denver and got together in the stadium where the Broncos had once played football. Now, on Mayday, the trickle of early spring had swelled to a flood of immigrants. Since April 15 another eight thousand had come in, and they were now nineteen thousand or so - temporarily at least, Sandy's Census Bureau could not keep up. A day when only five hundred came in was a rare day.
In the playpen which Stu had brought up and covered with a blanket, Peter began to cry lustily. Fran moved toward him, but Lucy, mountainous and eight months pregnant, was there first.
"I warn you," Fran said, "it's his diapers. I can tell just by the way he sounds."
"Looking at a little poo isn't going to cross my eyes." Lucy lifted an indignantly crying Peter from the playpen and shook him gently back and forth in the sunlight. "Hi, baby. What you doing? Not too much?"
Peter blatted.
Lucy set him down on another blanket they had brought up for a changing table. Peter began to crawl away, still blatting. Lucy turned him over and began to unsnap his blue corduroy pants. Peter's legs waved in the air.
"Why don't you two go for a walk?" Lucy said. She smiled at Fran, but Stu thought the smile was sad.
"Why don't we do just that?" Fran agreed, and took Stu's arm.
Stu allowed himself to be walked away. They crossed the road and entered a mild green pasture that climbed upward at a steep angle under the moving white clouds and bright blue sky.
"What was that about?" Stu asked.
"Pardon me?" But Fran looked just a trifle too innocent.
"That look."
"What look?"
"I know a look when I see one," Stu said. "I may not know what it means, but I know it when I see it."
"Sit down with me, Stu."
"Like that, is it?"
They sat down and looked east where the land fell away in a series of swoops to flatlands that faded into a blue haze. Nebraska was out there in that haze somewhere.
"It's serious. And I don't know how to talk to you about it, Stuart."
"Well, you just go on the best you can," he said, and took her hand.
Instead of speaking, Fran's face began to work. A tear spilled down her cheek and her mouth drew down, trembling.
"Fran - "
"No, I won't cry!" she said angrily, and then there were more tears, and she cried hard in spite of herself. Bewildered, Stu put an arm around her and waited.
When the worst seemed to be over, he said: "Now tell me. What's this about?"
"I'm homesick, Stu. I want to go back to Maine."
Behind them, the children whooped and yelled. Stu looked at her, utterly flabbergasted. Then he grinned a little uncertainly. "That's it? I thought you must have decided to divorce me, at the very least. Not that we've ever actually had the benefit of the clergy, as they say."
"I won't go anyplace without you," she said. She had taken a Kleenex from her breast pocket and was wiping her eyes with it. "Don't you know that?"
"I guess I do."
"But I want to go back to Maine. I dream about it. Don't you ever dream about East Texas, Stu? Arnette?"