“Mount up,” Emil told his people. “This damn highway has to lead somewhere.”
It did. It led to a small town located in a long and wide valley between two mountain ranges. The decent people of the small town had long departed for safer ground, leaving the town in the hands of one Lukey DeFray and his small army of thugs.
Lukey had long been the Bull of the Woods around those parts. Six feet, six inches tall, two hundred and sixty-five pounds of mean. What Lukey wanted, Lukey got—one way or the other. Lukey was the stereotypical bully; if he had anything even resembling a conscience, no one had ever seen it exhibited. Lukey had gathered together some three hundred of the most worthless men and women to ever walk the face of the earth. They were the absolute bottom of the dregs of humanity
“Army vehicles a-comin’ in from the south, Lukey.” The voice sprang out of the speaker of the CB radio.
“Looks lak Ben Raines and his soldier boys and girls has arrived,” Lukey said, standing up. “I been lookin’ forward to this moment. I’m a-gonna whup that son-of-a-bitch until his toenails curl up. I been hearin’ for years how tough the Rebels is. Now, by God, we’ll just see how tough they is.” Lukey picked up the mic. “Is they any women in that bunch, Ashford?”
“Some.”
“Good. I need me some strange pussy. Maybelle’s ’bout all wallered out. Time to give that some rest.” He picked up his M-16. “Let’s go give Raines’ Rebels a proper greetin,’ boys.”
EIGHT
“Pilots reported what appeared to be a military convoy heading north on this highway,” Corrie told Ben, pointing to the map spread out on the hood of a pickup truck. “Right there.”
“We’re still a good two or three days from there,” Ben said.
Ben’s batt coms had put up quite an argument about his heading off by himself in search of Emil, but the boss was the boss, and Ben prevailed.
“All sorts of gangs operating all over this state,” Cooper reminded Ben.
They had crossed the Ohio River and were just inside what used to known as West Virginia. For a very brief period of time, the capitol of the United States had been located in the state. It had been looted and destroyed by gangs. Most of the good, decent people had either fled the state, bunkered themselves deep in the mountains in heavily armed communities, or turned small towns into forts against the many roaming gangs of human predators.
As Ben had predicted, the sudden and unexpected cold snap had abated and the weather had turned warmer, melting the snow and ice. The air was still crisp, holding the promise of full winter, but for now, it was not uncomfortable.
Jersey looked around her at the unfamiliar country. “Emil is a pain in the ass,” she said.
Ben chuckled. “Yeah, you’re right, Little Bit. But he’s our pain in the ass. Let’s go find the little bastard and his intrepid band of followers.”
“Pain in the ass,” Jersey muttered.
“Just hold it right here,” Emil said, lowering his binoculars. “I don’t like the looks of this.”
“What’s wrong with it? It’s a lovely little town,” a woman said.
“Not really,” Emil contradicted. “The streets are full of trash. Store windows have been smashed out. And there is a body on the sidewalk in front of that old drug store.”
“This is the best highway we’ve been on in two days,” a year-long friend of Emil’s said. “And it goes right through that town. Either that or we backtrack for fifty miles.”
“I have no intention of backtracking through that dismal area,” Emil said, looking back in the direction they’d just come.
Actually it wasn’t dismal at all, but it was almost winter, the trees were stark in the cold sunlight, and the area was all but devoid of human life . . . decent human life, that is.
Emil could be a clown when he wished to be, and that was most of the time. But he was also a pretty savvy soldier, with a nose for smelling out trouble. And his nose was sending him some alarming signals about the peaceful-looking little town.
“APCs button up and edge on down to that town,” Emil ordered. “I want every gun ready to go.”
The APCs that Emil had taken from an unguarded depot down in the SUSA were actually Bradley Fighting Vehicles. They carried a squad of five and a crew of three: driver, gunner, and commander, the driver and commander positioned in the turret. Its weapons were a 25mm chain gun that was awesome when put into action, a coaxial machine gun and an M-60 machine gun. It could also fire TOW missiles with deadly accuracy up to about three thousand yards.
Lukey DeFray was about to come head to head with modern, Rebel re-worked and re-armored machinery of war.
“Let that armored thing come on in,” Lukey ordered. “Everybody stay down and don’t fire at it. We want them folks to think we’re nice and friendly. What do the boys up on the bluffs say?”
The boys on the bluffs were using CB radios to communicate and Emil and his people were listening to every word being said.
“They’s about two hundred or so of them folks. ’Bout half of ’em women. But they don’t think they’s soldiers, they all dressed sort of funny.”
“How funny?” Lukey asked.
“Sorta like hippies. ’Ceptin’ that little bandy rooster that ’pears to be runnin’ the show. He’s all duded up in a suit and tie.”
“Well, he ain’t no hippie then. I never knowed no hippie to wear no Sunday clothes.”
“For a fact.”
“Well, we’ll sucker them in and then kill all the men and fuck all the women.”
“Sounds good to me.”
“Cretins,” Emil muttered. “Worthless trash.” He grabbed up a mic. “They’re unfriendly,” he radioed to the Bradley. “Be ready for anything.”
“That’s a big fat ten-four,” the commander of the Bradley said. The commander had been a Rebel for years, until getting wounded and forced out of the field. Then he went back to being a hippie, enjoying the laid-back life-style. But he definitely was not a member of the peace-and-love bunch. “You hear all that, Cornpone?” he asked his gunner.
Cornpone, another Rebel who’d gotten a bit long in the tooth for the field and went back to a hippie lifestyle, shifted a wad of bubble gum and said, “Shore did. That’s plumb discouragin,’ too.” Cornpone had been born and reared in rural Alabama. “Makes me sad when people ain’t friendly.” He reached over and flipped a switch, activating the all-weather speaker he had installed outside the Bradley. He hit another switch which turned on a tape recorder. The sounds of Bobby Blue Bland singing “Share Your Love With Me” filled the street.
“Gawddamn nigger music,” Lukey bitched. “I hate nigger music.”
Lukey had never served in the military, and did not know a Bradley Fighting Vehicle from a banana. He’d never been more than a hundred miles in any direction from the area in which he had been whelped. Lukey had been twenty years old when the Great War struck the globe a decade back—and he was not going to see another birthday.
The Bradley stopped in the middle of the street, Main Street. The fifty thousand-pound fighting vehicle squatted on the cracked old street like some prehistoric beast. Inside, the six firing-ports were opened.
“Hey, you inside that there machine!” Lukey hollered. “Why don’t y’all get out and show yourselves. If you don’t, we liable to think you don’t like us and have to pull y’all out of there and whup your asses.”
“The man is an idiot,” Cornpone remarked.
“And hush up that gawddamn squallin’ coon music, too,” Lukey added.
“Now he’s beginnin’ to get on the wrong side of me,” Cornpone said. He reached over and turned up the volume. The voice of Ray Charles singing “What’d I Say” blared over the street.
Lukey lifted his M-16 and gave the speaker a full burst of 5.56 rounds, blowing it apart and stilling the music.
“Fire!” Emil shouted into the mic.
The turret swiveled and the 25mm chain gun began yammering. The rounds blew out the fr
ont window of the store, tore the door off its hinges, and demolished the interior of the store, sending dust and wood and plaster flying in all directions, decapitating three of Lukey’s followers and blowing great smoking holes in the chests and belly of several others.
“Gawddamn!” Lukey bellered, from his suddenly attained position on the dirty floor. “Git the fuck outta here, boys!”
Up on the bluffs, Emil jumped into his HumVee and shouted, “Charge! Forward into the fray, Rainbow Warriors!”
The driver floorboarded the pedal, the 8600-pound vehicle, powered by a V-8 6.2-liter engine surged forward, and Emil wound up in the back seat in a sprawl of arms and legs.
“Lukey!” the spotter on the bluffs shouted into his CB mic. “They’s a-comin’,”
There was no reply, for the CB base station had been blown into a thousand parts, and Lukey was in the alley behind the store, pickin’ ’em up and puttin’ ’em down just as hard as he could.
The Bradley leaped forward, made a hard left at the intersection and came to a halt at the mouth of the alley. The turret swiveled and the chain gun began belching out 25mm high explosive rounds. The alley turned into a slaughterhouse.
A dozen more of Lukey’s followers were blown into oblivion. With a squall of pure terror, Lukey leaped through an open door, rolled on the floor of what used to be a dress shop and came to his feet, looking wild-eyed all around him, just as six more Bradleys rolled up outside. Six more chain guns began firing in all directions and thirty M-16’s began firing from the ports of the vehicles.
“Oh, Lordy!” Lukey hollered, curling up in a ball on the littered floor.
That was the last thing he ever said, as the second floor of the old building, built in the early 1920s, collapsed, burying the gang leader under a dozen tons of brick and wood.
Emil Hite and his Rainbow Warriors had taken the town. What was left of it.
“Victory is ours!” The speaker, located about a foot from Ben’s head, screamed out the words. Ben spilled a cup of coffee all over himself and Jersey fell off her camp stool.
“It’s Emil,” Corrie said, struggling to keep a straight face.
“No kidding?” Ben replied.
“We have fought in the hedgerows and in the alleys and the streets,” Emil’s voice rang out. “We shall never surrender!”
“I’ll personally strangle that crazy son-of-a-bitch! “Jersey said, getting to her feet.
“The forces of darkness and evil have been conquered!” Emil continued his harangue. “Good has prevailed. Though outnumbered at least a hundred to one, the Rainbow Warriors were victorious, fighting valiantly. Although wounded—” Emil had a bump on his forehead from impacting against the floorboards of the back seat “—I led my people in battle. West Virginia is ours!” A short pause. “Well, a small part of it, anyway,” he wound down.
“Corrie,” Ben said, mopping himself with a towel given him by Anna. “See if you can find out the location of that little bastard. And tell him to stay put!” Ben went off to change into dry BDUs.
Two days later, Ben and his 1 Batt rolled into Central West Virginia and hooked up with Emil Hite and his Rainbow Warriors.
* * *
Ben just couldn’t stay mad at Emil. Somehow, despite himself, Emil always managed to come out on top. Ben stared at him for a moment, then shook his head. “Emil,” he said, drawing upon all his patience, “do you realize that we are in the middle of a state that is crawling with gangs and malcontents, people who have been feuding with each other for a damn century, and God only knows what else?”
“Never fear, my general,” Emil said, tugging at his hat brim. “The Rainbow Warriors will lead you to safety.”
“Oh, shit!” Jersey muttered.
“I’m sure you will,” Ben said, just as sarcastically as he could, which was considerable.
The sarcasm bounced right off the little con artist. Nothing could hurt Emil’s feelings.
“What do you have in mind, Emil?” Ben asked. “About leading us to safety, that is,” he was quick to add.
“Well . . . to tell you the truth . . .” Emil hedged. “I mean, we’ve been so busy here, I really haven’t had the time to give that much thought.”
“I see. Then I’ll tell you—mount up. We’re getting the hell out of this country before hard winter sets in and we’re trapped in here. And yes, Emil, you’re going with us. I can’t very well send you back.”
Emil snapped to attention. “You will not be sorry, my general.”
Ben just stared at the man for moment before turning away, softly muttering under his breath.
Ben put Emil and his people in the center of the column, thus insuring their safety and more importantly, effectively nullifying any chance of Emil screwing up.
The long column angled and snaked around on worn and cracked old state roads for a day before coming to a major U.S. highway. The column headed north, with what used to be the Monongahela National Forest to their east.
They passed through several small towns that were deserted, after having been looted.
“There is life in Elkins,” Corrie said, after receiving a report from recon. “And they are not hostile.”
“That has a nice sound to it,” Ben said.
A town of nearly ten thousand before the Great War, there were now about seven hundred people living in and around the town. And they welcomed the Rebels.
“We get the news on shortwave out of your Base Camp One, General,” the spokesman said. “Is Paul Altman really the new president?”
“That he is,” Ben assured the man. “And I believe he’s going to be a good one. I personally saw to it that the election was on the up and up.” Ben said it with a straight face; Jersey rolled her dark eyes, Beth almost choked on a fresh-baked muffin, Anna left the room before she could burst out laughing, and Corrie and Cooper exchanged glances and then ducked their heads to hide their grins.
“We’ve got a pretty good communications system here, General,” the appointed leader of the townspeople said. “We monitor a lot of chatter. And I feel I have to warn you that from here on east and north, it’s a damn battleground.”
“We know. We’ll deal with them. For the moment, let’s talk about this state.”
The local’s expression changed. “From what we’ve been able to pick up from your open frequencies, you don’t plan on cleaning out this state any time soon, General.”
“I changed my mind about that, Mr. Thomas. But we’re going to have to have some help in doing so.”
Those locals gathered around applauded and cheered. “That’s the best news we’ve heard in months,” Thomas said. He sighed and shook his head. “There are a lot of good people left in this state, General. West Virginia had some bad press for years before the Great War, and unfortunately, some of it was deserved. Now some of those same factions are shooting at each other. But we don’t know the solution. Do you?”
Ben cut his eyes to Jersey and she smiled. “Oh, yes,” Ben told the man. “We sure do.”
NINE
Ben ordered Buddy and his 8 Batt to come south and cut into West Virginia at the first standing bridge around Huntington. Dan was to come into the state at Parkersburg, and Rebet to enter the state at Wheeling . . . after cleaning out that city.
Ben set up his CP at Elkins.
Ben had learned that West Virginia had an active militia before the Great War, but had been forced hard underground by the government, before and during the gun-grab that disarmed most Americans. The great gun-grab, brought on by hysterical liberals and members of the left-leaning press, didn’t do a thing to curb crime, but it did turn a lot of law-abiding American citizens into criminals, because the citizens, instead of turning in their guns, carefully sealed their weapons and buried them.
Those that survived the Great War promptly dug up their weapons and used them to defend themselves against the hundreds of thousands of thugs and punks that immediately began roaming the land.
Ben started pullin
g the West Virginia militia back together. He sent out political teams to explain the Tri-States philosophy to all who were interested in learning about it—and most were.
“Get me President Altman on the horn, Corrie. And get ready to listen to him squall.”
Ben explained what he was doing to Altman and there was a long moment of silence from the newly elected President of the NUSA, Finally, Altman exclaimed, “You’ve done what?”
“I made the West Virginia militia the new state police,” Ben repeated.
“Jesus Christ!” Altman shouted. “That bunch of wacko gun nuts!”
“Even if that statement were true—which it certainly isn’t, now or in the past, not for the most part—can you think of a better group to enforce the law? That is, considering the time and place?”
Altman was silent for a moment, conscious of Cecil looking at him, a faint smile on his lips. Altman slowly sighed, shook his head (which was graying rapidly since the “election”) and pressed the talk button. “No, I suppose not, Ben. Tell me, which side is West Virginia going to come under?”
“The NUSA, I assume. We’re explaining the Rebel philosophy to the people at town meetings. But that’s just in effect while we are here trying to help. After we leave, the laws they choose to enforce will be up to the people. You do plan to let the people have the final say, don’t you?”
Cecil’s smile widened.
“Of course, I do,” Altman said. “That’s what a democracy is, Ben.”
“Paul, don’t try to disarm the people this go-around,” Ben warned. “That’s a warning offered in a friendly way.”
Chaos in the Ashes Page 22
