Those firemen not immediately concerned with spraying the warehouse wall mounted the racks of their truck to watch the duel. BSG-men and -women, huddled close to the warmth of the burning building, watched unhappily as their champion was forced to retreat before MacHenery's technique. "He'll kill him!" Peggy shouted. She was restrained from trying to break up the fight by two burly consumers.
Winfree, trying a gambit he'd seen in one of MacHenery's books but had never before attempted, extended his saber and flew forward toward MacHenery in a flèche. MacHenery caught Winfree's blade on his own and tossed it aside. He brought back his own weapon to sketch a line down the Captain's right cheek. The scratch was pink for a moment, then it started to bleed heavily. The crowd shouted encouragement, the BSG-troops groaned. "Keep cool, Wes," MacHenery whispered to his opponent as they dos-à-doed back into position. "I have to make this look fierce or they'll insist on lynching you."
"Don't make it look too good," Winfree panted. "Cover yourself—I might hurt you out of sheer clumsiness." His chin and throat were covered with blood, now; blood enough to satisfy the most indignant consumer. The moment the measure was set again, Winfree lunged, trying to slip his blade beneath MacHenery's guard to strike his arm. His foible met the flash of the other man's forte, and his blade bounced aside like a sprung bow.
MacHenery slammed his saber into Winfree's, spinning the weapon out of his hand into the crowd. He lunged then, delivering his point against Winfree's chest. Peggy, released from her captors, burst from the crowd to throw herself against her father. "Stop it, Daddy!" she pleaded, "please stop!"
MacHenery raised his saber in salute. "All right, Pocahontas," he said. "Take your John Smith home and patch up that cut. It's no worse than what he gets shaving." He turned to the crowd, his saber still raised in salute. "Potlatch is over forever!" he shouted.
Urged by a delegation of music-loving consumers, the tubist raised his ravaged horn. The other members of the BSG Band-and-Glee-Club gathered round him, all ragged, some with one eye closed by a purple fist-mark; and they began, on the tubist's signal, "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen." The District Headquarters building, gutted, was glowing like an abandoned fireplace. The firemen joined the singing as they coiled their hoses. The Potlatch Riot was over.
Winfree led his wife to their car. The Just Married sign was still in place, but the car's train of shoes and milk-cans had been ripped off to furnish ammunition in the fight. "Let's go home, Peggy," Winfree said. "I yearn for a fireside and some privacy."
Kevin MacHenery spoke from the back seat. "You deserve them, Wes," he said.
"What are you doing here?" Peggy demanded, twisting to face her father. "After you cut up my Wes you should be ashamed to show us your face."