Read Online The Survivors by Tom Godwin - Free Book Online Page B

doing and no one spoke. The silence deepened and Bemmon began to sweat as he tried to avoid their eyes. He looked again at the damning evidence and his defiance broke.
    “It—if I hadn’t take it it would have been wasted on people who were dying,” he said. He wiped at his sweating face. “I won’t ever do it again—I swear I won’t.”
    Lake spoke to Craig. “You and Barber take him to the lookout point.”
    “What—” Bemmon’s protest was cut off as Craig and Barber took him by the arms and walked him swiftly away.
    Lake turned to Anders. “Get a rope,” he ordered.
    Anders paled a little. “A—rope?”
    “What else does he deserve?”
    “Nothing,” Anders said. “Not—not after what he did.”
    On the way out they passed the place where Julia lay. Bemmon had knocked her against the wall with such force that a sharp projection of rock had cut a deep gash in her forehead. A woman was wiping the blood from her face and she lay limply, still unconscious; a frail shadow of the bold girl she had once been with the new life she would try to give them an almost unnoticeable little bulge in her starved thinness.
    *
    *
    *
    The lookout point was an outjutting spur of the ridge, six hundred feet from the caves and in full view of them. A lone tree stood there, its dead limbs thrust like white arms through the brown foliage of the limbs that still lived. Craig and Barber waited under the tree, Bemmon between them. The lowering sun shone hot and bright on Bemmon’s face as he squinted back toward the caves at the approach of Lake and the other two.
    He twisted to look at Barber. “What is it—why did you bring me here?” There was the tremor of fear in his voice. “What are you going to do to me?”
    Barber did not answer and Bemmon turned back toward Lake. He saw the rope in Anders’
    hand and his face went white with comprehension.
    “No!”
    Ht threw himself back with a violence that almost tore him loose. “ No—no !”
    Schroeder stepped forward to help hold him and Lake took the rope from Anders. He fashioned a noose in it while Bemmon struggled and made panting, animal sounds, his eyes fixed in horrified fascination on the rope.
    When the noose was finished he threw the free end of the rope over the white limb above Bemmon. He released the noose and Barber caught it, to draw it snug around Bemmon’s neck. Bemmon stopped struggling then and sagged weakly. For a moment it appeared that he would faint. Then he worked his mouth soundlessly until words came:
    “You won’t—you can’t—really hang me?”
    Lake spoke to him:
    “We’re going to hang you. What you stole would have saved the lives of ten children. You’ve watched the children cry because they were so hungry and you’ve watched them become too weak to cry or care any more. You’ve watched them die each day and each night you’ve secretly eaten the food that was supposed to be theirs.
    “We’re going to hang you, for the murder of children and the betrayal of our trust in you. If you have anything to say, say it now.”
    “You can’t! I had a right to live—to eat what would have been wasted on dying people!”
    Bemmon twisted to appeal to the ones who held him, his words quick and ragged with hysteria. “You can’t hang me—I don’t want to die!”
    Craig answered him, with a smile that was like the thin snarl of a wolf:
    “Neither did two of my children.”
    Lake nodded to Craig and Schroeder, not waiting any longer. They stepped back to seize the free end of the rope and Bemmon screamed at what was coming, tearing loose from the grip of Barber.
    Then his scream was abruptly cut off as he was jerked into the air. There was a cracking sound and he kicked spasmodically, his head setting grotesquely to one side. Craig and Schroeder and Barber watched him with hard, expressionless faces but Anders turned quickly away, to be suddenly and violently sick.
    “He was the first to betray us,” Lake said. “Snub the rope and