Courage In The Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “You loved that old dog?” she asked quietly, noticing that all of Ben’s personnel team had gathered around, listening.

  “Sure, “Ben’s voice was low-pitched. “I’ve loved all my dogs.”

  “Do you think dogs go to heaven, General?” Corrie asked. She held Smoot on a leash.

  “Personally? I think so. In Psalms it says, ‘Man and beast thou savest, O Lord.’ Ecclesiastes reads, ‘For the fate of the sons of men and the fate of beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts; for all is vanity. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down to earth.’ In the New Testament, the Apostle Paul proclaims salvation for all creatures, including dogs. And learned theologians agreed that Paul indicated from that passage of his in Romans that he meant that animals are to be renewed.” Ben looked up at the Methodist chaplain who had just walked up to join them, a cup of coffee in his hand. “Morning, Tom.”

  “General,” the chaplain said. “I didn’t know you were that familiar with the Bible.”

  “I find great comfort in reading the Bible, Tom. Especially the Old Testament. And you have to remember, I used to be a writer, and writers do a lot of research.”

  “Mind if I add something to your statements?”

  “Not at all.”

  “Methodist John Wesley had no doubts about dogs and cats going to heaven. Wesley outlined what dogs and other animals would experience in Heaven. Personally, I believe that only human arrogance and ignorance stands in the way of people accepting that salvation extends to animals. I think a lot of people who are deliberately cruel to animals are going to be weeping and wailing come Judgement Day.”

  “I hope so, Tom,” Ben said. “I certainly hope so. But in the meantime, when I see someone abusing an animal, I’ll see that person gets to a grave much earlier than they anticipated.”

  Smiling and shaking his head, the chaplain walked away.

  The chaplains from all faiths blessed and prayed for those in the column and returned to their vehicles. Ben looked at Corrie. “Give the orders, Corrie. Let’s roll.”

  The column stretched out for miles. Almost ten thousand fighting men and women and hundreds of vehicles. Fighting machines of every description. Tanks from the huge 50-ton Abrams to the almost petite Dusters. APCs and Hummers and Jeeps and tanker trucks. And for the very first time in the history of the Rebel army scores of attack helicopters now drummed the sky overhead. Cobras and Apaches, old Huey gunships that had been found and carefully brought back to combat readiness slapped the sky overhead. Their pilots had just graduated from a long schooling. The Rebel ways of war were changing.

  The Rebels had not previously used choppers because they had no one to fly them and no one to teach others how to fly them in combat. Only during the past two years had people with the right qualifications been found. A program was immediately launched, and now the Rebels had valuable air support as well as the finest ground support on the continent.

  Some of the Hueys were equipped with 7.62 Gatling guns mounted on each side of the ship, as well as seven-shot 2.75 rocket launchers. The AH-64s and AH-1 Cobras were equipped with Cannon, rockets, and machine guns; some of the Apaches carried 30mm chain guns with 1,200 rounds available on demand.

  The Rebels had always been a force to be reckoned with. Now they were awesome.

  They made over a hundred miles the first day. The column was so long that the final vehicle was over two hours behind the point. They were moving at dawn the next day and rolled into southern Oregon by noon, staying on the old Interstate 5. They passed by the towns that lay silent and deserted on either side of the highway and they rolled past the cities they had destroyed during the Rebels’ purge of the nation.

  The Rebels were aware of eyes on them. More often than not the eyes were unfriendly. But those people who had decided to not join with the Rebel movement committed no hostile acts against them. They knew to do so would be suicide. The Rebels would have chopped them into bloody pieces in seconds.

  “I don’t understand them,” Cooper said, as they passed a small group of men and women. The watchers did not wave, did not smile, did nothing except stare in silence. “We’re offering them safety, food, medical care, schools . . . the whole bag. And they won’t take it. Why?”

  “Our way is too complicated for them, Coop,” Ben said.

  “But our laws aren’t complicated! It’s the simplest form of government that I’ve ever studied.

  And you know I’ve been reading history and the study of civilization. It’s fascinating.”

  “It’s so simple it scares them, Coop,” Ben said. “Before the Great War, people were used to government telling them what to do. We had so many laws that contradicted each other no one really knew what they could or couldn’t do. The use of common sense had been removed from our daily lives and from the administration of justice. Now that we virtually have no form of law—‘ outside of the Rebel system—many people just don’t know what to do. Many of those folks we’re seeing aren’t bad people; they’re just scared people. They’ve heard so many things about us they don’t know what to believe. Many of those folks have lost all faith in any form of organized government. And with good reason, when you understand that our system prior to the Great War was terrible.”

  “Scouts report resistance up ahead, General,” Corrie said, receiving the news through her headset. “Large force of heavily armed men have blocked the interstate and are refusing to let us pass.”

  “Get us up there, Coop. Let’s see what we have.”

  Buddy met his father about a half a mile from the blockade. “They say they have formed their own government and claim this area as part of their territory,” Ben’s son told him. “We are not welcome here.”

  “Are you in radio contact with them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Give me the mike.” Ben lifted the mike and said, “This is General Raines. You will kindly remove that blockade from the interstate and stand aside.”

  “You go to hell, Raines!” the reply came back.

  “Are you insane?” Ben asked him. “My God, man, look around you. Look in the sky. Those are attack choppers hovering above you. One word from me and none of you will be alive ten seconds from now.”

  “We do not like your form of justice. We do not approve of your tactics.”

  “I don’t give a damn what you like or dislike. I don’t care if you form your own little society. You can live the way you choose, as long as you don’t break what few laws we have on the books. Just clear the interstate of obstacles and let us pass, then you can go back worshipping a kumquat if that turns you on.”

  “You’re a dictator!” the man’s words screamed out of the speaker.

  “I’m trying to restore this nation, you damn fool,” Ben told him.

  “Do you want me to clear the road?” Buddy asked.

  “Not yet. Let’s use words first. We can always use force.” Ben lifted the mike. “I don’t want to use force against you, mister. I’d like to meet with you. Let’s talk this thing out. How about it?”

  “I don’t trust you, Ben Raines. Your way is godless and evil.”

  “Another one of those,” Jersey said, disgust in her voice.

  “Do we meet, or not?” Ben questioned.

  “I don’t see that I have a choice,” the man replied, bitter resignation in his words.

  “Clear that blockade.”

  The makeshift barricade was pulled back, and the Scouts advanced cautiously. They secured the area and waved Ben forward.

  The man Ben faced was about his own age, but with the hard, bright eyes of the religious zealot. He refused to shake hands with Ben.

  “What’s your problem?” Ben asked, taking an immediate dislike toward the man.

  “You and your godless ways,” the man told him bluntly.

  �
��There are chaplains of all faiths back there in the column,” Ben pointed out. “I don’t see how you can accuse me of being godless.”

  “Have you been washed in the blood?”

  “Do you mean baptized?”

  “Yes.”

  “Of course. Years ago.”

  “You must be born again, Ben Raines. Baptized in the faith of the Holy Church of the Righteous of John Falls.”

  Ben blinked. “Who in the hell is John Falls?”

  The little con artist, Emil Hite, approached, walking beside Thermopolis. “It’s a scam, General,” Emil said. “John Falls used to be a TV preacher back when. He had a hell of a following, too. They’re all a bunch of fanatics. I think he came out of Georgia. Somewhere in the south. Maybe Mississippi.”

  “Ahh,” Ben said. “Now I know who you’re talking about. I remember him. The boycotter and the book burner.” He looked at Corrie. “Get the column moving, Corrie. I’m not going to waste much time with these people.”

  “You are a whoremonger and an infidel, Ben Raines,” the spokesman for the group said. “We have followed your antics for years and find you wanting in the eyes of God.”

  “You speak for God, huh?”

  “That is correct. We are God’s chosen people.”

  “The last time I checked, it was the Jews who were the chosen people,” Emil muttered. “Maybe I missed something.”

  The column began once more rolling north.

  “You people do your thing, pal,” Ben told the man. “Just don’t start breaking the laws we’ve set up or we’ll be back and step on you like a bug.”

  The man wheeled around and walked away, the rest of his group following.

  “Why didn’t you ask why they think you—we—are godless?” Linda asked.

  “Because I don’t care,” Ben told her. “I don’t care what they think of me, personally. As long as they obey the law, they can do and think as they please; But I have a hunch we’ll have to deal with them at some point. At least we got past them without having to kill anybody. Let’s go.”

  Back in the wagon, heading north, Linda said, “I remember that John Falls now. Little perch-mouthed hypocrite who set himself up as the ‘conscience of the nation,’ which is what I think he used to call himself.”

  “That’s him,” Ben said. “Whatever he didn’t like—and he didn’t like very much—he and his followers would boycott. Took me a while to place the name. I thought he was dead. He hates me; he used to boycott stores that carried my books.”

  “Why, for heaven’s sake?” Jersey asked. “You never wrote anything nasty.”

  “I did in John Falls’s opinion. He didn’t like my stand on abortion being a woman’s choice. I wanted to keep church and state separated—, widely separated. John Falls once referred to me as a communist stooge,” Ben laughed out loud. “That’s how misguided the man was. Is. I can’t even begin to imagine the mentality of anyone who would follow him. Narrow-minded assholes. To hell with him and his followers.”

  The countryside rolled by with an hypnotic sameness. The Rebels saw lots of smoke from chimneys off in the distance, but they did not investigate. Oregon was in their rearview mirrors before the advance team radioed back that there might be trouble up ahead.

  “The road has been recently blocked, General,” Corrie said. “Old cars and trucks and boards with spikes in them. We’re going to have to detour.”

  Ben cursed under his breath, picked up a map, and studied it. The column had left the interstate—to avoid the ruins of the cities from Tacoma all the way up to Bellingham—and had angled east, picking up a good two-lane road that would eventually lead them to Highway 97. They had planned to take that all the way into Canada.

  “Let’s see this blockade,” Ben told Cooper. “It had to be put there for some reason. Order the Scouts to stand clear of it in case it’s booby-trapped.”

  It was quite an elaborate blockade. Old junk cars and trucks completely blocked the road, both shoulders, and the ditches for what looked like half a mile.

  Ben studied the area through binoculars then turned to Dan Gray. “But why?”

  Dan shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t think of a single reason. There isn’t an inhabited town within a hundred miles of here. Our nearest outpost is to the east, in Odessa. I just spoke with them and they said the blockade wasn’t there two weeks ago.”

  “Order tanks to start putting some rounds in that mess. Let’s see if it’s wired to blow.”

  A dozen HE 105 rounds were pumped into the tangle of rusted metal and spider-webbed glass slowly enough to give any booby traps time to explode after the initial impact of the rounds. Nothing happened.

  “Push us a way through there,” Ben ordered. “Be sure all the nails are swept up. Dan, as soon as a hole is punched through, send a team ahead to find out what this crap is all about, will you?”

  It didn’t take the Scouts long to find the source of the trouble. “Right up the road about five miles from the blockade,” the team leader radioed back. “About three to four hundred people, mostly men, have set up an outlaw camp in this old town. I don’t know the name of it; no highway signs are left standing.”

  “Hold what you’re got,” Ben told him. “I’m on my way.” He turned to his team. “I guess we’re going to see some action before we reach Canada, boys and girls. Everybody ready to kick some ass?”

  “Beats havin’ to listen to Cooper’s lousy jokes,” Jersey said, and picked up her M-16.

  THREE

  “Holy crap!” the lookout whispered, looking at the seemingly endless line of vehicles coming toward his position. He grabbed up his CB mike. “Junior!” he hollered. “Damn it, Junior, come in!”

  In the town, Junior managed to shove his pus-gut and big butt out of a chair and walk to the CB base, picking up the mike. “What you want, Luddy?” He cocked his head and listened. Was the damn ground moving?

  “They’s about a thousand tanks and other shit movin’ towards us, Junior. Trucks full up with soldier boys . . . and girls. What you want me to do?”

  “Luddy, have you been drinkin’ again, boy?”

  “Hell, no! Junior, them tanks has stopped up on a ridge and it ‘pears to me they’s about to shell the town.”

  “Git outta there, boy. Git your tail back here where it’s safe.”

  “Safe!” Luddy squalled. “Junior, din you hear me? They’s a fuckin’ army lookin’ square at us. If that’s Ben Raines out yonder, we bes’ kiss our asses goodbye!”

  “They’re broadcasting on CB radio,” Ben was told. “Channel nine.”

  Ben clicked on the CB radio in the wagon and keyed the mike. “This is General Ben Raines speaking to the inhabitants of the town. If you’re friendly, we mean you no harm. If you are hostile, we’ll blow you off the face of this earth. Give me a reply, please.”

  In Junior’s home, a woman fell to her knees and began praying. It had been years since she had prayed, but she still remembered how.

  “What the hell are you doin’, woman?” Junior hollered.

  “Prayin’ for the Lord to take me easy,” she told him. “’Cause Ben Raines don’t like trash. And that’s what we is—trash with a capital T.”

  “I ain’t trash!” Junior bellowed. “You watch your mouth around me, woman.”

  “I had an aint in the Delta of Louisiana when Ben Raines set up down yonder. She told me that them that tried to resist him died, Junior. Real quick. I’d bear that in mind, Junior.”

  “I am waiting for a reply,” Ben’s voice came through the CB’s speaker.

  “Aw, uh, why, shore, we friendly.” Junior grabbed the mike. “We jist good old country folk, is all. Y’all jist pass right on through our little town.”

  “The town is filthy and so are the people,” Striganov said, lowering his binoculars. “It’s an abomination. Even from this distance one can tell it is a cesspool.”

  “That wasn’t a true southern accent on that man,” Buddy said.

  “You’re
right,” his father agreed. “That’s an affectation.” He keyed the mike. “Everybody out in the street and no weapons. Do it now, please.”

  Slowly, the streets of the town began filling with people. Mostly men, but about twenty or so women with children. No one was carrying a weapon that could be seen.

  “Let’s go,” Ben said, and got back into the wagon. “Tanks button up and spearhead. Let’s give them a show of force.”

  “Lord God Almighty,” a man in the town said.

  “Pattons, Abrams, Walker Bulldogs and Dusters,” a man said. “I seen ’em in ’Nam. Don’t nobody rile Ben Raines. Don’t nobody get smart-mouthed or out of line. Not if you want to live to see the sun come up tomorrow. Them’s Rebels, people. And they mean as rattlesnakes if you mess with ’em. And for God’s sake you wimmin get them kids cleaned up. If it’s one thing the Rebels don’t like it’s nasty, underfed, and abused kids. If any of them snot-noses kick up a fuss, smack ’em in the mouth and get ’em out of sight.”

  The band of ne’er-do-wells and their women soon found themselves surrounded by about a thousand well-armed and very healthy-looking Rebels. And they all knew who Ben was when he stepped out of the wagon. He wore no insignia, but there was something about the man, an aura that clung to him. Junior sized him up and didn’t like what he saw.

  Raines, he guessed, was about fifty, with a thick head of graying hair, unreadable eyes, and a hard, uncompromising face. He reckoned that some women would find the man handsome. Raines looked to be in top physical condition.

  “Who is in charge here?” Ben asked.

  Everybody looked at Junior and Junior wished the earth would open up and swallow him. “I reckon I is,” he finally said.

  “And your name is?”

  “Junior.”

  “Junior what?”

  “Junior Nelson. Would you be General Raines?”

  “I am. Linda, get a team of medics and start checking out those children we saw the women whisking off as we drove in. If there is any sign of abuse—physical or sexual—I want to know about it immediately. Junior, do you people plan on staying in this town?”