As he drove away the next morning, Ben thought: Now there are the types of people I’d like to have for neighbors, friends. Good people, educated people, knowledgeable people, with dreams and hopes and an eye toward the future.
He waved good-by as he headed for the highway that would take him into Oklahoma. On the second day, he headed for Oklahoma City. He had installed a scanner in the truck, depending on the people to warn him of any upcoming meeting with Logan’s military or other unfriendly types.
He stopped often, talking with people. Yes, they had heard of the new president, and of his orders to relocate the people. But no, they didn’t think they’d go along with that. This was their home, and here was where they intended to stay.
“What if he sends people in here to move you forcibly?” Ben asked.
They didn’t know what they’d do.
At the University of Oklahoma, he met a group of young people and spent two nights there, talking with them.
“Some of us were in the original group from Chapel Hill,” a young woman told him. “I don’t believe there are many of us left.”
“Run into trouble?” Ben asked.
The young woman patted Juno for a moment, rubbing his head for a time before answering. “We weren’t ready for what came at us,” she admitted. “We didn’t—most of us—have guns. All in my group were city-born and -reared. I’d never fired a gun in my life. We thought people would want help in getting organized again. You know, planting gardens ... all that. And we did find a few old people who really appreciated what we did. But all over the country, people are setting up their own little governments....”
So his idea was not novel; he didn’t expect it was.
“... And man, some of those people didn’t want us around—at all! We found religious nuts—and I mean nuts—Jonestown types, survivalists, kooks, crazies, drunks, maniacs. You name it, we found it.
“A lot of our people went into the cities.” She shook her head. “They never came out. Then we started getting smart; rigged up our cars and Jeeps and pickups with CBs—and boy, did we get wary. We finally got it through our heads that if we were going to survive, we’d damned well better get with the program; get ourselves some guns and learn how to use them.” She waved her hand. “You see those two hundred-odd kids here, Mr. Raines? This is it. With the exception of one small group, this is all that’s left out of about thirty-five hundred young people who left Chapel Hill. This is it! I never knew what that expression about it being a jungle out there really meant ... until we ... went out to save the world.” Her laugh was bitter, and not suited to the young woman.
Ben looked around him at the beaten-down, disillusioned young people. He thought: all your fancy cars and pretty clothes and gold throat jewelry and extravagant allowances from overindulgent parents didn’t prepare you for this, did it, kids? All the fancy words from college professors didn’t do a damned thing to help you cope with hard reality. But when he spoke it was, “So now what, kids? All of you just going to give up?”
Two dozen pairs of eyes shifted to him. Hostile, hurt eyes. Ben grinned, knowing he had hit a tender spot.
“What’s it to you, man?” a boy asked.
Ben shrugged. “Maybe nothing. Maybe I should just move on. Losers never appealed to me.”
“Hey!” The spokeswoman almost shouted the word at him. “What do you want from us, mister? Huh? We tried to do what we felt was right. So O.K.... maybe we blew it this time around; that doesn’t mean we’re not going to try again. So why don’t you just get off our case, O.K.?”
“And what are you young people going to do when your favorite liberal hotshot-turned-two-bit-dictator sends his troops in here to move you out to a relocation center? Just be herded like stupid cattle?”
“We talked about him. O.K., so he wasn’t what he appeared to be. But he was a damned sight better than Nixon, wasn’t he?”
“No,” Ben said. “He damned sure wasn’t—isn’t. And what the hell do you people know about President Nixon? You were babies when Watergate went down. All you know is what you’ve read, written by biased newspeople, and what you’ve been force-fed by feather-headed college professors who are so far out of touch with reality they should be forced to wear earphones, plugged into the vibrations of history.” He sighed, grinned, and said, “I didn’t mean to lecture you, kids.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Raines,” a young man said, a grin on his face. “I kinda enjoyed it. Anyway ... we don’t know what we’re going to do. You got a plan of some sort?”
“Yes. You might like it, you might not.” He was thoughtful for a moment. Committing yourself, Ben? he asked himself. Maybe, came the reply. “But first let me ask you this: was there no group that fought back from the outset? Fought against the slime and the scum and the looters and such?” He had mentioned nothing of Jerre.
“There was one person,” the young woman replied, choosing her words carefully. “She came into Chapel Hill with a pistol belted around her. She ignored the laughing from a lot of us—me included. She went around talking to bunches of people, like she was choosing her group very carefully. She picked about twenty-five-thirty people, then they split; didn’t even stay for the speeches. Which were a bunch of shit,” she said with a grimace. “I heard later the girl made all her group get guns and practice with them. She ran it like a military unit. She was the boss—no doubt about it. Blond girl, real pretty.”
Ben smiled.
“Name was ... Sarah ... no! Jerre, that was it.”
“Where did her group go?”
“West, I think. Yeah. Said she was going to Idaho or Montana, maybe Wyoming.” She paused. “Why would anyone want to go there?”
“To be free,” Ben said.
“Would you please explain that?”
He did.
And knew then he was committed.
“When will he be here, Jerre?” a young man asked her.
Jerre turned her eyes eastward. Her face was burned dark from the sun, as were her arms; her hair was sun-streaked and cut short.
She was not the leader of this group, which included Steven Miller, the college professor; Jimmy Deluce and his group from Louisiana, Nora Rodelo and her friends, Anne Flood and her group, James Riverson and Belle, Linda Jennings, Al Holloway, Jane Dolbeau, Ken Amato, and a few of the western-based Rebels. But she knew Ben Raines, and Bull Dean had put Raines in charge, so that made the girl somebody special.
“He’ll be here,” she said. “I don’t know when, so don’t ask me, but he’ll be here.”
“Equipment coming in,” a Rebel called.
They all moved to the line of trucks rolling up the mountain road. The young man who had asked the question put his arm around Jerre’s shoulders.
“Will you still be my girl when he gets here?” he asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“I’ll know when he gets here. Then I’ll tell you.”
Ben left the young people arguing and debating the merits of his plan and quietly slipped away, Juno at his side. Just north of Chickasha, he connected with highway 81 and took that straight to Kansas. He began meeting more and more people, spending a week in Kansas. He did not want to get too close to Nebraska, for that state had taken several hits and was considered “hot.”
Obviously, Logan’s plan to relocate people was not meeting with much success in Kansas. When he asked them about it, they looked at him as if they were conversing with a fool.
“This is the breadbasket, sonny,” a farmer told him. “The government’s gotta have grain, and we produce it. No ... I think they’ll let us alone. Besides, I said Logan was an idiot when he first started runnin’ off his mouth twenty years ago. I still think he’s not pullin’ with both oars.”
At Hays, Ben got on highway 40 and followed that all the way into Colorado. He saw the ruins of Denver and it made him almost sick. It had been one of his favorite cities.
“Damned shame, isn’t it?” The voice
came at him from his left.
Ben spun, the 9-mm in his hand. Juno had been off taking a pee.
“Whoa!” the man said, holding out his empty hands. “Son, you are quick with that thing. I’m friendly.”
The man wore a pistol on his hip; but it was covered with the leather of a military-type holster. USN on the side of the flap.
Ben holstered his 9-mm. “Navy?”
“I was, for twenty-four years. Captain when the war broke out. Chase is my name. Lamar Chase.”
“Ben Raines.” They shook hands. “What happened to Denver?”
“It didn’t take a hit, if that’s what you’re thinking. Enemy saboteurs hit the base, and hit it hard. For some reason, I don’t know why, spite probably, they also placed fire-bombs in the city, in very strategic locations. Gas mains blew. The wind was right. And Denver is no more. I was on leave at the time. Took my wife up into the mountains and sat it out.”
“I have some fond memories of this city. Or what is left of it. I took some training up at Camp Hale.”
The Navy man smiled. “I thought you might be one of those boys. Hell-Hound?”
“That unit never existed, Captain—you know that.”
“Shit!” the Navy man said.
Ben took a closer look at the initials on the leather flap. USNMC. “Doctor?”
“You got it. You look like the survivor type, son. Shoot first and ask questions later.” He motioned to the curb. “Let’s sit and talk. Where are you going?”
Ben sat with the doctor and talked.
“Ambitious project. Luck to you. What do you think about our president?”
“I used to fuck his wife.”
Dr. Chase laughed so hard tears streamed from his eyes and he had to rise from the curb, holding his sides. He wiped his eyes and said, “Beautiful. I needed a good laugh. Come on, Ben—have supper with me and my wife. I’ve got something I’d like to discuss with you—if you’re the Raines I think you are.”
“I thought you might be the one I’ve been hearing about,” the doctor said, patting his wife’s hand. It had been a delicious dinner, the conversation sparkling. “So what do you think of my plan, Ben?”
“I’d say you’ve been sleeping in my mind for the past ten years.”
“Yes,” Chase agreed with a slight nod of his head. “I got part of it from a book of yours. Enjoyed it immensely. Didn’t agree with everything you advocated—you got a bit Orwellian in parts—but I went along with about ninety percent of your thoughts.”
“I don’t know how much time we have.” Ben toyed with his coffee cup.
“Months,” the Navy man assured him. “I believe.”
Ben glanced at him, questions in his eyes.
“You say you’re committed now,” Chase said. “All right, so let’s get the ball rolling. I know, from listening to radio broadcasts, you’ve got about five thousand people working, moving gear, or ready to move gear, into those areas you chose. All right, let’s do it.
“Logan? Well ... he wants to be king,” Chase explained. “He’s lived for so long, hiding his true feelings, I think the man is a bit unbalanced. I really think Logan started out with good ideas; wanting to do good things for the people. He was an idealist, but so are you, to an extent. But yours is a pragmatic idealism, and I don’t mean to sound paradoxical. You are a conservative with a slight liberal twist to the conservatism. Logan grew up hating guns—they frighten him. He hates the military; really hates cops, authority. But he will use them both to gain his own end. With Logan, any good thing he might accomplish will be done in accordance with his interpretation of the law of the land. Whatever it might be at the time. But you, Ben Raines, you’ve held our laws in contempt for years; you don’t give a damn for the prevailing laws of the land. There is a hardness in you that will probably be your downfall—but we don’t have to go into that. I can live with it; you’re not inflexible.
“You and Logan—and this might surprise you—are somewhat alike. But while he advocates a pulling together of the States, you advocate a dozen countries within one mother cocoon, each with their own system of justice; but answering, in part. to the mother. I agree with you. I think that is what would have become of our nation if the war hadn’t struck the world.
“Logan has a hard pull ahead of him; splinters have begun forming. But they are not embedded firmly and Logan’s people will pull them out—in time. That’s why I believe we have time to set up and get ready.” He sighed. “I think, Ben, your concept is a good one—and a fair one—and I’d like to be a part of it. I’ll be here, doing my bit, gathering around me some people that will fit into your—our—type of society. I know more than a few.”
“I wonder how many people would—could—live under the type of government we advocate?”
“More than you might think, Ben. But fear is the foundation of all governments. That’s not an original quote. Adams, I believe made that statement. And your government will be based on the same, but with a type of fear that all involved will have accepted—willingly. It will work.”
For a time, the doctor thought. Until BigBrother gains enough strength to crush it. Or tries to crush it. But how does one kill a dream, an idea, whose time has come?
By now, Ben had grown accustomed to the empty interstates and highways. Always a loner, he enjoyed the solitude of his wanderings. He listened to the winds sing through the open windows, a sighing, melodic accompaniment to his voice as he spoke into the mike, the tape hissing, recording his thoughts, his observations, his plans for the future—a verbal transcription of the worst tragedy to strike the earth since God sent the flood, and of the society that Ben wanted to build out of the ashes of war.
Did God do this?
That question was one that Ben often pondered as he lay in his blankets. But if He did—why? He certainly didn’t spare just the so-called “good people.” At least Ben had not seen any modern-day Noah.
When the weather was good and the skies, alive with sparkling diamonds in the darkness of space velvet were fair, Ben liked to spread his ground sheet in the open and sleep under the canopy of nature. He was not afraid of anything or anyone slipping up on him in the darkness, for Juno had proven, time and again, to be a marvelous watchdog. Ben never used a leash or line on him because although the malamute did roam, he seldom roamed out of earshot.
And Ben dreamed, his dreams a curious fusion of Jerre and Salina. In his dreams, he relived the nights of love-making with the blond Jerre, and fantasized of making love to the dusky Salina. His dreams left him restless upon waking, and sometimes irritable. And he knew he’d damned well better find him a woman pretty quick, or else take matters in hand. And that thought amused him. For while he knew the biggest liar in the world was a person who claimed never to have masturbated, and the second biggest the person who said he was going to quit, self-abuse was not Ben’s forte.
At Craig, Colorado, Ben cut straight north on highway 13/789 and headed into Wyoming, wild and beautiful country. He drove over to Rock Springs, on up to the Grand Teton National Park, then headed into Idaho. He saw very few live people, and spent most of his time prowling through stores and banks, picking up diamonds and gold. When the load got to be too much, he cached it along the way, making very detailed maps as to the spot.
Spending time in the Grand Tetons, it was there Ben realized, with a pang of guilty conscience, that he had not used the radio Ike had given him. So on a cold, clear night, he cranked up the set.
“Son of a bitch!” Ike roared, back in Mississippi, his exasperated voice ringing from the earphones. “Where the goddamned hell have you been? We’ve been worried about you, walking the floor, you no-good prick! You—”
Megan took the mike, her voice calm. “How have you been, Ben?” she asked.
“Fine, Megan. Seeing the country, setting up little groups to go into ... that area we discussed. What’s the situation where you are? Besides Ike losing his temper, that is.”
“Logan’s people have been in
here once, and we have rumors they are coming back. The next time to get a bit rough about us relocating.”
“What’d they have to say about Ike’s guns?”
“Said he’d have to give them up.”
“No son of a bitch is takin’ my guns!” Ike roared in the background.
“Be quiet, Ike,” Megan said. “Ben? Word is Logan is preparing to move against those blacks who have settled in Louisiana and parts of south Mississippi. This fall is the deadline he’s given them. Some mercenary is going to lead the push.”
“Kenny Parr. I know him—he’s no good. But New Africa never had a chance to begin with. I told them that.”
Ike came on the air. “Do we prepare to move, General?”
“Yes,” Ben said, taking the final step toward total commitment. “I’ll see both of you in a week or so.” Ben signed off.
Two days later he was speaking with Dr. Chase and his wife.
“Time to move?” the doctor asked.
Ben nodded his reply.
Chase smiled. “Give up your plans to write the history of the tragedy?”
“For the moment. Doctor, I know you have to be part of the Rebels, so get your people together and start moving toward Idaho.” He unfolded a map. “Right there. Strip everything bare as you go. Take it all. I want everything you people think we can use. It’s going to rust and rot if we—or somebody—doesn’t take it. So let’s us use it to rebuild.”
“The finest medical facilities in the entire world.” Chase smiled. “A dream come true.”
“So let’s do it.”
“That sounds like an order, Mr. Raines.”
“If that’s the way you want to take it, Captain.”
He grinned. “Yes, sir, General.” He saluted.
Ben returned the smile. “That’s the sloppiest salute I believe I’ve ever seen.”
The doctor shrugged. “Hell, I was in the medical corps—not one of you crazy gun soldiers.”
Out of the Ashes Page 24
