The lowing of the two prize Guernseys in the stalls at the right of the door changed to loud, plaintive bawling as the lights came on. Both cows were obviously in pain from their swollen and unmilked udders.
"Seeing is believing. Doc?" Johnny asked, pointing to the cows.
"Seeing what?" Peterson snapped.
"I knew we were going to have some tall explaining to do when you fellows took over here," Johnny said, "and, of course, I don"t blame you one bit. That was some blast Hetty set off out there."
"You don"t know," Dr. Peterson murmured fearfully, "you just don"t know."
"So," Johnny continued, "I deliberately didn"t milk these cows, so that you could see for yourself that we aren"t lying. Now, mind you, I don"t have the foggiest idea WHY this is happening, but I"m going to show you at least, WHAT happened."
He picked up a pair of milk buckets from a rack beside the door and walked towards the cow stalls, Peterson trailing. "This." Johnny said, pointing to the larger of the two animals, "is Queenie. Her milk is just about as fine as you can get from a champion milk producing line.
And this," he reached over and patted the flank of the other cow, "is Sally"s Cloverdale Marathon III. She"s young and up to now has given good but not spectacular quant.i.ties or qualities of milk. She"s from the same blood line as Queenie. Sally had dried up from her first calf and we bred her again and on Wednesday she came fresh. Only it isn"t milk that she"s been giving. Watch!"
Kicking a milking stool into position, he placed a bucket under Queenie"s distended bag and began squirting the rich, foaming milk into the pail with a steady, fast and even rhythm. When he had finished, he set the two full buckets with their thick heads of milk foam, outside the stall and brought two more clean, empty buckets. He moved to the side of the impatient Sally. As Peterson watched, Johnny filled the buckets with the same, flat, oily-looking white fluid that Sally had been producing since Wednesday. The scientist began to show mild interest.
Johnny finished, stripped the cow, and then carried the pails out and set them down beside the first two.
"O.K., now look them over yourself," he told Peterson.
The scientist peered into the buckets. Johnny handed him a ladle.
"Look, Culpepper," Peterson said, "I"m a physicist, not a farmer or an agricultural expert. How do you expect me to know what milk is supposed to do? Until I was fifteen years old, I thought the milk came out of one of those spigots and the cream out of another."
"Stir it," Johnny ordered. The scientist took the ladle angrily and poked at the milk in Queenie"s buckets.
"Taste it," Johnny said. Peterson glared at the younger man and then took a careful sip of the milk. Some of the froth clung to his lips and he licked it off. "Taste like milk to me," he said.
"Smell it," Johnny ordered. Peterson sniffed.
"O.K., now do the same things to the other buckets."
Peterson swished the ladle through the buckets containing Sally"s milk.
The white liquid swirled sluggishly and oillike. He bent over and smelled and made a grimace.
"Go on," Johnny demanded, "taste it."
Peterson took a tiny sip, tasted and then spat.
"All right," he said, "I"m now convinced that there"s something different about this milk. I"m not saying anything is wrong with it because I wouldn"t know. All I"m admitting is that it is different. So what?"
"Come on," Johnny took the ladle from him. He carried the buckets of Queenie"s milk into the cooler room and dumped them in a small pasturizer.
Then carrying the two pails of Sally"s milk, Johnny and the physicist left the barn and went to the shattered remains of the tractor shed.
Fumbling under wrecked and overturned tables and workbenches, Johnny found an old and rusted pie tin.
Placing the tin in the middle of the open s.p.a.ces of the yard, he turned to Peterson. "Now you take that pail of milk and pour a little into the pan. Not much, now, just about enough to cover the bottom or a little more." He again handed the ladle to Peterson.
The scientist dipped out a small quant.i.ty of the white fluid and carefully poured it into the pie plate.
"That"s enough," Johnny cautioned. "Now let"s set these buckets a good long ways from here." He picked up the buckets and carried them to the back porch. He vanished into the kitchen.
By this time, the strange antics of the two men had attracted the attention of the clamoring newsmen outside the fence and they jammed against the wire, shouting pleas for an interview or information. The network television camera crews trained their own high-powered lights into the yard to add to the brilliance of the military lights and began recording the scene. Dr. Peterson glared angrily at the mob and turned as Johnny rejoined him. "Culpepper, are you trying to make a fool of me?" he hissed.
"Got a match?" Johnny queried, ignoring the question. The pipe-smoking scientist pulled out a handful of kitchen matches. Johnny produced a gla.s.s fish casting rod with a small wad of cloth tied to the weighted hook. Leading Peterson back across the yard about fifty feet, Johnny handed the rag to Peterson.
"Smell it," he said. "I put a little kerosene on it so it would burn when it goes through the air." Peterson nodded.
"You much of a fisherman?" Johnny asked.
"I can drop a fly on a floating chip at fifty yards," the physicist said proudly. Johnny handed him the rod and reel. "O.K., Doc, light up your rag and then let"s see you drop it in that pie plate."
While TV cameras hummed and dozens of still photographers pointed telescopic lenses and prayed for enough light, Dr. Peterson ignited the little wad of cloth. He peered behind to check for obstructions and then, with the wrist-flicking motion of the devoted and expert fisherman, made his cast. The tiny torch made a blurred, whipping streak of light and dropped unerringly into the pie plate in the middle of the yard.
The photographers had all the light they needed!
The night turned violet as a violent ball of purple fire reared and boiled into the darkened sky. The flash bathed the entire ranch headquarters and the packed cars and throngs outside the fence in the strange brilliance. The heat struck the dumfounded scientist and young rancher like the suddenly-opened door of a blast furnace.
It was over in a second as the fire surged and then winked out. The sudden darkness blinded them despite the unchanged power of the television and military floodlights still focused on the yard.
Pandemonium erupted from the ranks of newsmen and photographers who had witnessed the dazzling demonstration.
Peterson stared in awe at the slightly smoking and warped pie tin.
"Well, cut out my tongue and call me Oppenheimer," he exclaimed.
"That was just the milk," Johnny said. "You know of a good safe place we could try it out with one of those eggs? I"d be afraid to test "em anywhere around here after what happened to Hetty this morning."
An hour later, a military helicopter chewed its way into the night, carrying three gallons of Sally"s milk from the ranch to Nellis AFB where a jet stood ready to relay the sealed cannister to the AEC laboratories at Albuquerque.
In the ranch house living room Peterson had set up headquarters and an Army field telephone switchboard was in operation across the room.
An AEC security man was running the board. Hetty had decided that one earthquake a day was enough and had gone to bed. Barney bewildered but happily pleased at so much company, sat on the edge of a chair and avidly watched and listened, not understanding a thing he saw or heard.
At the back of the room, Johnny hunched over Big Jim Thompson"s roll-top desk, working up a list of supplies he would need to repair the damages from the week"s growing list of explosions.
Peterson and three of his staff members were in lengthy consultation at a big table in the middle of the room. The Army field phone at Peterson"s elbow jangled.
Across the room, the switchboard operator swung around and called: "It"s the commissioner, Dr. Peterson. I just got through to him."
Peterson picked up the phone.
"John," he shouted into the instrument, "Peterson here. Where have you been?" Tinny, audible squawks came from the phone and Peterson held it away from his ear.
"Yes, I know all about it," he said. "Yes ... yes ... yes. I know you"ve had a time with the papers. Yes, I heard the radio. Yes, John, I know it sounds pretty ridiculous. What? Get up to the ranch and find out. Where do you think I"m calling from?"
The squawking rattled the receiver and Peterson winced.