“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. Blonde 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 l
ike 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 Big Brother 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 lovemaking 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.”
Americans will take only so much pushing before they begin shoving back. It takes a lot of shoving, but even mild-mannered people have a point one had best not step past. After three decades of wasteful spending, high taxes, a terrible no-win war, political upheaval, race riots, several near-depressions, and, finally, a world war unequaled in history, many of those Americans left alive… got mad.
Now when Logan’s agents moved into a community to shove the people out, they were met, in many instances, with violence.
Resistance groups were formed, hastily thrown together without much thought given as to the participants’ qualifications as warriors. They were crushed, brutally, by the regular military, government agents, and Logan’s own private army. Many military men quit, deserted, rather than act as Logan’s bully boys.
The newly reorganized Joint Chiefs of Staff met, discussed the matter, and the head of the JCs asked for a meeting with President Logan. Admiral Stevens pointed a finger at his commander in chief, and fired off a salvo.
“Now you listen to me, Mr. President. You are not going to use American military men as our equivalent to the Irish Black-and-Tans of years ago.”
“The what?” Logan asked. He had never been a student of history. The subject bored him.
Admiral Stevens sighed, kept his temper in check, and thought: you dumb son of a bitch. He said, “Bully boys.”
“Oh.”
“I’ll agree, Mr. President, we have to keep this nation whole, but not by Americans knocking other Americans’ heads. We will keep order, as set forth by the Constitution, but as far as I’m concerned, martial law is hereby lifted and the Constitution is restored.”
“I will say when that happens, Admiral. Not you.”
“Mr. President, your plan is a good one—as far as it goes—if, and that is one hell of a big if, the American people want to go along with it. Obviously, a lot of them do not. So let them alone. We’re all Americans; we’ve all shared the same horrible experience and somehow managed to survive. My people—the military—don’t have the men or the time or the inclination to run around this wrecked country forcing people out of their homes. And they won’t be a part of it. I’ve got ships with no one to captain or crew them; electronic equipment with no men to man it; bases that are virtually empty—same with all branches. And there is just a whole hell of a lot of bases that have been blown up, equipment and planes destroyed. And that is since the hostilities ceased.”
“Those damned Rebels!”
The admiral shrugged. “Maybe—maybe not. Maybe they figure if you can form
an army of mercenaries, they can, too.”
“I happen to be the president of these United States, Admiral. I would like to have a group of fighting men who are loyal to me, something I sense you are not.”
The admiral stiffened at the slight toward his allegiance. “Sir, I am loyal to this country—not toward any one man, but this nation as a whole. The military put your ass in that chair, we can damned well take it out.”
Logan smiled. “No… I don’t believe you’ve got the manpower to do that, Stevens.”
“Is that the way the game is played, Logan?”
Logan giggled. “My ball, my bat—my rules.”
The admiral nodded stiffly. “I get your point… sir.”
“Dandy. You may be excused now.”
After the admiral had walked out of the room, his back ramrod stiff, slamming the door on his way out, Logan picked up the phone.
“Yes, sir,” an aide said.
“Get me that mercenary, Parr, down in Georgia.”
Ben pulled into his driveway at five o’clock in the afternoon. Nothing had changed except the lawn had flowers where none had been before. There was a station wagon parked beside the house.
Since the outskirts of Shreveport, Ben had seen hundreds of blacks. No one had bothered him; they had all been friendly, waving to him and chatting with him when he stopped.
But the vague and somewhat amusing—to him—thought was: he knew how Dr. Livingstone must have felt.
Well, Ben thought, getting out of the truck. There is a lot of land to be had. I’m not going to spill any blood for an acre in Louisiana.
He left his M-10 on the seat and walked up the stone walkway to the front door. He felt kind of silly knocking on his own front door. But as he raised his hand to tap on the door, the door swung open.
“Come on in, Ben Raines,” Salina said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Hello, Salina.” Ben returned the smile. He revised his original appraisal of her: she was not just a good-looking woman. She was beautiful.
“I was about to invite you in, Ben, but that would be rather silly of me, wouldn’t it? This is your house.” Her eyes found Juno. “What a beautiful dog! What’s his name?”
Out of the Ashes ta-1 Page 24
