His head jerked up as Juno growled softly, rising to his feet, muzzle toward the door.
“We don’t mean you no harm, mister,” a boy’s voice said. “But if that big dog jumps at me, I’m gonna shoot it.”
Ben put a hand on Juno’s head and told him to relax. He clicked on the recorder. “So come on in and sit,” he said.
A boy and a girl, in their mid-teens, appeared in the door. They looked to be brother and sister. Ben pointed to a couple of chairs.
The boy shook his head. “We’ll stand. Thank you, though.”
“What can I do for you?” Ben asked.
“It ain’t whut you can do for us,” the girl said. “It’s whut we can do fer you.”
“All right.”
“Git your kit together and git on outta here,” the boy said. “They’s comin’ to git you tonight.”
“Who is coming to get me—and why?”
“Our people,” the girl said. She was a very pretty girl, but already the signs of ignorance and poverty were taking their toll.
The poverty and ignorance of her parents, Ben thought.
Root cause—in the home, passed from parents to children.
When will we ever learn?
“I’ve done nothing to your… people.”
“You kilt our uncle,” the boy replied. “Ain’t that doing something?”
“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was doing was standing by the side of a stream, trying to fly-fish for my supper.”
“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.
“I see,” Ben said, his words spoken softly. “And you don’t want any outsiders here.”
“That’s it, mister.”
“If you feel that strongly, why are you warning me?”
The question seemed to confuse the boy and girl. The boy shook his head. “’Cause we don’t want no more killin’ ‘round here. And if you’ll leave, there won’t be no more.”
“Do you agree with your people’s way of life?”
“It ain’t up to us to agree er disagree,” the boy said. “The word’s done been passed down from Corning. And if you stay here, mister, you gonna die.”
“Who, or what, is a Corning?”
“The leader.”
“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their way of talking or thinking. “Let me guess; this Corning is the biggest and the strongest among you. He is a religious man—or so he says—and he has a great, powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am I right?”
“Mister,”—the girl’s voice was soft with awe—“how’d you know all that?”
Ben looked at her. She was shapely and ripe for picking. “And I’ll bet this Corning… I’ll bet he likes you a lot, right?”
“He’s taken a shine to me, yeah.”
“No doubt.” Ben’s reply was dry. How quickly some of us revert, he thought. Tribal chieftain. He stood up and the kids quickly backed away, toward the open door. “Take it easy. I won’t hurt you. Are you going to get into trouble for coming here, warning me?”
The girl shook her head. “We come the back trails. We know where the lookouts is.” She met his gaze. “You leavin’?”
“Yes. I’ll be gone in half an hour. And I thank you for warning me.”
She stood gazing up at him. “We’re not bad people, mister. We jist don’t want no more of your world, that’s all. Why cain’t ever’body just live the way they want to live, and then ever’body would git along?”
Why indeed? Ben thought, and once again, the Rebels entered his mind. He felt compelled to say something profound to the girl. Instead, he said simply, “Because, dear, then we wouldn’t have a nation, would we?”
She blinked. “But we ain’t got one now, have we?” Then they were gone.
And fifteen minutes later, so was Ben.
He drove up to Knoxville, where he found a large group of people, perhaps five hundred or more.
“Is this all?” he asked over a cup of coffee at a Red Cross building.
“No,” a man told him. “I would imagine there’s probably… oh… four or five thousand alive in the city… taking in all the suburbs. But the rest of the people are just existing. They seem to be waiting around for the government to move them.”
“For the government to do what? Forgive me; I didn’t know we had a government.”
The man laughed. “Yeah? Well, it’s kind of sketchy, I grant you, but it’s real, and moving, getting bigger every day, so I’m told. You haven’t heard about the government’s plan?”
Ben shook his head.
“They want to pull all the people together in several centralized areas, each area to be three or four states, maybe less than that: agriculture, industry, business. Then, after a time, just like it was two hundred years ago, move people out to homestead. Really!” He laughed, noting the look of incredulity on Ben’s face. “And you know what? People are following orders; they really are, just like cattle. The government’s moving the people in the cities first. Everyone from Atlanta—so I’m told—was shifted to someplace—Columbia, I think—in South Carolina. Just happened a few weeks ago.”
One question that had been in Ben’s mind was now answered.
“They want to settle the East Coast first, the heavy industry areas, then the Midwest—the breadbasket, so to speak; Texas and Louisiana for the gas and oil, and the far West—California, Oregon, Washington.”
“And the people are really allowing themselves to be herded like cattle? Told where to live?”
“Sure. That shouldn’t surprise you. Big Brother’s been doing it to us for years. Most folks don’t even question the orders to move.”
“Do we have a president? Or king, or whatever?”
“Yes.” The man scratched his head. “But durned if I can tell you his name right off. We’re really out of touch here. It’s… like that hotel chain.”
“Hilton Logan.”
“Yeah. That’s it. Strange, though. I seem to recall he never was too thrilled with the military, yet they installed him as president. I can’t figure that one out.”
Ben let that slide. “You don’t seem to be following orders here too well. Don’t feel like moving?”
“Well… to tell you the truth, until things calm down a bit, I think I’ll just keep me and mine right here. I’ve heard it’s going to get tough in the deep South.”
“Let me guess. New Africa.”
“That’s what I hear from people passing through. Some of those people are militant. But I don’t really blame them. We—all of us—have shit on the blacks for years. Hurts my mouth to say that, but it’s true. Then I guess we overcompensated for two or three decades. You heard what happened in Chicago?”
“I heard.”
“Are we ever going to get along, Mr. Raines?”
Ben shrugged. “I hope so. Tell me; since Washington is gone, where is the seat of government?”
“Richmond, Virginia.”
Ben drove nonstop to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But the young people were long gone.
“You don’t know where they went?” Ben asked a scholarly looking gentleman.
“No, sir, I don’t. I’m sorry. They scattered in all directions. Several thousand of them. Going to solve the world’s problems, so I understand.” His smile was sad. Sad and knowing. “I fear they will soon learn the truth about the world. Some of them already have, so I hear.”
“What do you mean?”
“Dead. Quite a number of them. That is what I have heard. No proof. Do you have a daughter or son with the young people?”
“No. Just a young friend.”
“Name?”
“Jerre Hunter.”
The man’s face sobered. “I’m very sorry….”
And the words hit Ben hard, leaving him almost physically ill.
“…but I’m not familiar with that name. As I said, there were several thousand of them.”
Ben headed north. At the Vi
rginia line, he carefully hid his automatic weapons, keeping only a rifle and one pistol visible. If the government was rolling—even in a minuscule fashion—law and order was going to be the first business to be settled. And lawmen might take umbrage at the sight of submachine guns.
Besides, Ben had a hunch Hilton Logan was not just coming out of the closet with his true feelings. Ben thought, and had for some years, that the man was just a little insane.
He was stopped three times before he got thirty miles inside Virginia. The last time he allowed his anger to push past his control.
“What in the hell is going on?” Ben demanded. “Why am I being treated like a criminal?”
The Virginia trooper wore no expression on his face. Neutral. Impassive. A tree. A big fucking oak tree. “Where is the registration for this truck?”
But Ben had him on that. Before leaving the dealership he had carefully filled out a bill of sale and all other necessary papers. He had notarized them himself, signing the notary’s name with his left hand and putting plates on the truck from another truck parked in the shop. It had been a spur-of-the-moment act. Now Ben was glad he’d done it.
“Cute,” the trooper said, not believing a word he had just read. He returned the papers to Ben. “But I won’t argue with you. What’s your business in Richmond?”
“The first lady—and I use that term loosely, assuming Logan has married or is shacked up with Fran Piper—and I are from the same town in Louisiana. I thought I’d just drop in for a little chat.”
“President Logan married a lady named Fran, yeah.” The trooper looked at Ben, then shook his head. “Raines, what do you think this is, some sort of joke?”
“The… ah… first lady is. I wasn’t kidding about that.”
“You really know her?”
“Unfortunately. I fucked her for about a week—last year. Right after the war.”
“No kidding! Hey, she’s a looker. Was it good?”
“You ever had any bad?”
Both men laughed at the old joke. The ice was broken, the tension gone. Big buddies now; talk about pussy. They introduced themselves. Shook hands. Formal ceremony. Ben and Mitch, standing chatting in the middle of silent devastation. Not two hundred yards away, the bones of an entire family lay rotting in a house.
Ben leveled with the trooper, taking it from the beginning. He condensed it considerably, but hit the high points.
Mitch whistled. “You really carrying all that armament?”
Ben showed him.
“Shit!” the trooper said.
“You would suggest I not go to Richmond?”
“Not unless you want to spend the rest of your life in the pokey. That is, providing the soldiers guarding President Logan didn’t shoot you right off.”
“Martial law?”
“Tight as a virgin’s cunt.”
Ben nodded. “Tell me, since it appears unlikely I’ll be heading into Richmond, what, exactly, has Logan done?”
“Well.” The trooper sighed, removing his Smoky-the-Bear hat. “He’s pissed off a bunch of people—of all colors, I might add. Seems Logan wasn’t so much in love with the minorities as people thought.”
“What do you mean?”
“Word is he’s gonna send troops into this New Africa place, down in Mississippi and Louisiana.”
“When?”
“Don’t know that. But I do know the niggers down there are gonna fight the order, so it promises to get bloody. And he’s got his own private little army, down in Georgia, headed up by an ex-mercenary.”
“What’s the merc’s name?”
“Only thing I’ve heard is Parr.”
“Kenny Parr. I know him; soldiered with him in Africa. He’s no good. Fight for any flag.”
“Yeah. That’s what I heard. Logan’s shuffling the remaining citizens around. And he’s collecting all the guns; .22 rifles and 410 shotguns is all he’s letting the people keep.”
“Son of a bitch!” Ben swore.
“Yeah,” Mitch agreed. “I never was in favor of gun control. But I guess I’m lucky to have a job doing what I’ve been doing for ten years. Although I wouldn’t want it to get out that I’ve been talking with the leader of the Rebel army. Logan’s put a bounty on their heads.” He spoke the last softly.
“And mine?”
“No.” The trooper shook his head. “He hasn’t.”
“You knew who I was all along?”
“Yeah.”
“Why didn’t you… arrest me, or whatever?”
“To tell you the truth, Mr. Raines, in my way of thinking, the Rebs haven’t done anything to warrant arrest or killing. There’s been a lot of accusations thrown at them, but no proof to back it up. And… well…” He trailed it off into silence.
“You’re not real sure you approve of all Logan’s doing?” Ben finished it.
“Yeah,” he said heavily. “I guess that’s it. It worries me more than a little. I’m afraid he might—will—go too far with this thing. I… just don’t believe he has the right to tell people where to live, what to do. But… until the people start bristling up and snarling about it, I guess I’ll go along with it.”
“And when they do that?”
The big trooper met Ben’s eyes. “I know where a contingent of Rebs is hiding.”
Ben didn’t press that. “What are we using for currency now?”
“Plain old greenbacks. The storage area where the emergency currency was held took a direct hit—or one of them did, at least. Be a lot of millionaires around for a time, but new emergency currency will be printed as soon as a new mint is established and plates are made.”
An idea, actually several ideas at once, all jumbled, popped into Ben’s head. “Want to do me a favor, Mitch?”
“Probably. Name it.”
“Pass the word down the law-enforcement line that I’m dead.”
A thin smile passed briefly over the trooper’s tanned face. “You got it… General.”
He turned and walked away.
“I’ll get new ID,” Ben called after him.
“Be a good idea. You’re gonna be a wanted man pretty damned quick, I’m thinking.” He paused at his car and stood looking at Ben.
“How do you figure that?”
“I read that book of yours, Mr. Raines—the one that caused all the controversy. I liked it. And I’m thinking you’re gonna pull something pretty quick. I might decide to join you. See ya ‘round.”
Ben drove to the top of a high mountain and turned on his military radio, preset to 39.2. He tried for several minutes to raise someone, but received no reply. He drove into the nearest town and began driving up and down the street to look for a ham operator’s antenna. On his final pass through the town, he found one. He prowled several stores before finding a big enough portable gasoline generator to drive the equipment. It was after ten o’clock before he finally got the equipment hooked up and humming. It was another half-hour before he managed to locate a Rebel unit. During that time he had spoken to people in Nigeria, Burma, Australia, and to some ships at sea.
“I won’t ask you where you are,” Ben said. “Just listen to me. How many people and how much equipment have been moved west?”
“Quite a lot, sir. But we don’t know what the hell we’re doing it for.”
“Just continue with the movement. Now then; I want you and all your people to begin searching the towns and cities. Pick up every ounce of gold and silver you can find. Also all the precious stones. Move it west to the holding areas. Be careful, there are bounties on your heads.”
“Yes, sir, we know. Sir? A new land, sir? That what you’re planning?”
“Maybe. I don’t like what Logan is doing.”
“Neither do we, sir. When will you be in touch again?”
“I… don’t know. I don’t think I will until we can set up a different frequency. Just carry on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Ben holed up for a few days, trying to straighten out his th
oughts, telling himself if he was going to lead the Rebels, then goddamn it, he should do it, and quit assing around about it. But he couldn’t convince himself to stop his journal and do it. There was time, he finally concluded. He had time.
But deep down, he doubted that.
He finally pulled out, angling gently southward, recording all that the Virginia trooper had told him, including the trooper’s own doubts, but leaving out the trooper’s name. He also recorded all he knew about the first lady (which was plenty), but discreetly left out the fact that during their nights together she had licked his pecker like it had been made of peppermint candy.
Some things are personal. Ben grinned.
He turned west, picking up Interstate 40. At Crossville, he began seeing vehicles pass him, on the other side of the median, all heading east. And he picked up some interesting CB chatter.
“Wonder who that ol’ boy is, headin’ west?” The question popped out of the speaker.
“Don’t know. But he better be careful if he’s headin’ into Nashville. Logan’s people will sure turn him around and point him in the right direction.”
“Yeah,” a female voice said. “After they take all his guns and shake him down like he was a criminal. At first those guys came around asking nice-like. Then they started getting hard-nosed about it. Oh well,”—she waxed philosophical—“South Carolina is probably nice. It’s just I don’t like being forced to do something I don’t want to do.”
“How many times have you said—back when the nation was whole—that people out of work should be forced to work?” The voice of the questioner was unmistakably black.
“Maybe I was wrong in saying that,” she admitted. “The shoe sure is on the other foot now, isn’t it?”
“But we’re all in the same boat,” the black man said. “And I don’t like it either.”
Ben pulled off the interstate at the first open exit and headed south. Forcing people out of their homes, he thought. The son of a bitch is really forcing people to relocate and retrain, against their will.
But it always looked good on paper, he reminded himself. Also reminding himself that he had written it… several times.
“Logan,” he said aloud, “I just flat out don’t like you.”
Ben kept to the little-traveled county roads, being very careful as he went under the overpasses of the interstates. He spent the night just inside the Alabama line and was up and moving at first light, heading back to Louisiana, but planning several stops along the way.
Out of the Ashes ta-1 Page 22
