Smoke from the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes, sir. The colonel’s approximate ETA?”

  “Three to four hours.”

  “Ten-four, sir.”

  He turned to find Judy looking at him.

  “My apologies, Buddy,” she said.

  “I don’t understand. Why are you apologizing?”

  “Because I said that no warlord would mess around with us.”

  “I think warlords come and go, Judy. This Neely person was probably pushed out of his last territory and came here; probably killed the outlaw leader who was here at the time. You had no way of knowing. Forget it. Get the people secured tight. We’ve got about a four-hour wait until Colonel Gray arrives.”

  Only an hour had passed before Buddy got the word handed down the line to him.

  “We’re completely surrounded, sir. Both sides of the highway and north and south on the interstate.”

  “Kind of like the old cowboys and Indians, hey?” Buddy said, his smile tight.

  “Yes, sir,” the young Rebel, no more than seventeen or eighteen, said.

  But Buddy knew he was already a combat-hardened vet.

  “Frightened?” Buddy asked.

  The young man grinned. “No, sir. This is a piece of cake. I been doin’ this since I was fourteen years old. I been in so many firefights I can’t remember them all.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Harris, sir.”

  “You’ve been a Rebel since you were fourteen?”

  “Yes, sir. Me and four-five others come up out of East Texas to join the general.”

  “Where are the others who came with you?”

  “All dead, sir. Fightin’ the Russian, Striganov. Another got killed when the revolt went down. Another got his ticket punched out in California.”

  “A hard price to pay, Harris.”

  “Freedom don’t never come easy, captain. I wasn’t but two or three when the Great War came. I don’t remember nothing ’cept hard times and fightin’ to stay alive.” He grinned, and his boyishness showed through. “But with all the fightin’, General Raines made us all go to school for learning.”

  “You think a lot of General Raines, hey?”

  “I think he’s the greatest man that’s walkin’ the face of the earth today.”

  Before Buddy could agree with him, a voice sprang out of the woods on the west side of the interstate. An evil voice, filled with hate and ugliness.

  “Mighty fine-lookin’ bunch of cunts you got wearin’ them fancy uniforms. We gonna do our bes’ to take you gals alive. Then we’ll all have fun.”

  No one from the thin and spread-out ranks of Rebels elected to reply vocally to that. Out of the corner of his eyes, Buddy saw Judy spit on the ground in disgust.

  “Yes, sir,” the voice spoke. “That old boy that come down here from Ohio and took over the area just east of here pays good for women. ’Course, me and other boys here will sample that pussy some ’fore we trade y’all off.”

  “Can you locate him, Harris?” Buddy whispered.

  “I got him spotted close enough, captain.”

  “Judy?”

  “Two more to his right. But I want them.”

  From the east side of the interstate, another voice was added. “How you reckon these fancy soldier boys will stand up to torture, Perry?”

  “I reckon they’ll do some hollerin’. Might be a right good show.”

  Buddy lifted his walkie-talkie. “East side. You have that voice located?”

  “Ten-four.”

  “Ready, here?” he asked.

  “Let’s do it,” Harris said.

  “Now!” Buddy spoke into the cup.

  The mid-morning quiet blew apart with the sounds of gunfire. One man on the west side of the interstate was lifted off his knees and onto his feet as his stomach and chest were stitched with M-14 rounds. He stood up on tiptoes and lifted both arms. Branches caught him under the armpits and stopped him. He hung there as the blood slowed its dripping as his heart stopped pumping.

  Buddy heard the thunk of a rocket being dropped down a mortar tube, the slam and flutter as it took to the air. Screaming followed the explosion; more howling followed that. The mortar crew was dropping white phosphorus in on the enemy.

  Buddy lifted his Thompson as a man darted into view across the median. The Thompson sang its .45 caliber song as the big slow-moving slugs took the man in the legs. Screaming, the outlaw pitched face forward in the weeds and lay howling until the pain dropped him into unconsciousness.

  The chug-a-chug of the big .50 caliber machine guns joined in the smoky noise. The huge slugs knocked down small saplings and destroyed any living thing they came in contact with.

  The returning fire was very light.

  “Fall back! Fall back!” a man shouted. “We’ll wait for Neely to get here. Fall back, goddammit!”

  Then the Rebel snipers went to work. Any flash of color from either side of the interstate meant either pain or death as the outlaws raced to get away from the barrage of gunfire from the outnumbered Rebels. Firing beefed-up .308s and .30-06s, the snipers calmly and coldly did what they were trained to do.

  Kill dispassionately.

  “Cease fire!” Buddy yelled.

  The firing stopped.

  Moaning and yelling and weeping drifted to the Rebels from both sides of the highway.

  Harris looked at Buddy and grinned. “I think those ol’ boys are gonna be a tad more cautious next time around, captain.”

  Buddy returned the smile. “I couldn’t have said it better, Harris.”

  TWO

  There were no more attacks on Buddy’s Rebels that hot afternoon. The day dragged on under the hot stickiness of late summer in Mississippi. There were no more taunting and threatening voices heard from the woods on either side of the interstate.

  Buddy watched as Harris slipped from his position and knelt down on the shoulder, putting his ear on the concrete. He looked up, grinning. “I thought I heard something. Lots of vehicles comin’, captain.”

  The Rebels opened the north side of their perimeter for Colonel Gray.

  Smiling, Dan Gray stepped out of his Jeep and walked to Buddy. “A problem, captain?”

  Briefly, Buddy explained.

  Dan nodded his head. “Secure the area for a mile,” he ordered his troops. “In all directions.” He turned to Buddy. “General Raines can’t take the tune to knock out this warlord, Buddy. We’ll just secure the area until the main columns pass. This Neely Green will just have to keep for a time.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Dan waved to his batman. “Some tea would be nice,” he said. To Buddy: “Your father is a few hours behind us. We’ve experienced some problems with the larger trucks. Let’s go have a chat with the prisoners you took.”

  The three men and one woman looked up at the tall Englishman. “I say,” Dan said to them. “You people are really in a frightful dilemma. And have placed me in quite an awkward position.”

  Buddy stood silent, not knowing what Dan had up his sleeve.

  The men were badly frightened and showed their fear. The woman glared at Dan.

  “What the hell are you?” she snarled at him.

  Dan smiled. “Col. Dan Gray, madam. Formally of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service, now a battalion commander with General Raines’s Rebels.”

  “Well, kiss my ass!” the woman spat. “Ain’t he just too sweet?”

  Dan’s eyes narrowed. Buddy had been told he did not like coarse women. “You are a rather crude person, madam. I might suggest, if you wish to continue breathing, you try to keep a civil tongue in your head.”

  She laughed at him and then proceded to hang together every cuss word she knew — which would have filled a dictionary — all directed at Dan and his ancestry.

  When she paused for breath, Dan said, “Are you quite through, madam?”

  “Yeah, motherfucker!” she hissed at him.

  Dan’s batman handed him a cup of tea and several crackers. He gave Buddy the same.
Dan sipped his tea and munched on a cracker, all the while staring at the female with the foul mouth.

  “They are your prisoners, captain,” Dan said. “What you do with them is your business. Personally, I’d shoot the woman.”

  He turned on his heel and walked away.

  “You’re stupid,” Buddy told the woman. “Dan was probably going to cut you loose. Now I don’t know what to do with you.”

  “Neely’ll kill you, pretty boy,” she said, grinning at him. “I’m one of his women.”

  “There is no accounting for some people’s taste,” Buddy told her, then turned and walked away.

  The woman’s screaming profanity followed him.

  “Awesome,” Joe Williams said to his driver. “Matt, we must be looking at three-four thousand troops down there.”

  “Yes, sir,” the driver said, lowering his own binoculars. “Only good part about this is that we got the high ground.”

  “Yes,” Joe said. “If only we can hold it until General Raines gets here.”

  Joe’s troops were positioned just north of the interstate, running from Augusta west to Cadley.

  A very thin line.

  Cecil’s Rebels were spread from Cadley over to Greensboro. The area between Greensboro and Conyers was patched together by Rebels who normally did not hold combat positions. The Misfits were lined up around Conyers.

  An outnumbered line of Freedom Fighters.

  Colonel West was driving his battalions as hard as he dared. He was now pushing across Central Tennessee, on his way toward Chattanooga; there, he would cut south on Interstate 75, then angle east and south midway between Chattanooga and Atlanta.

  During one of their fuel stops, West called in company commanders and platoon leaders from his First Battalion.

  “Second and Third battalions are up to something,” he said, vocalizing a hunch. “I think Ashley hates General Raines so much he’d do anything to get him. Including sacrificing us to meet that goal.”

  “The commanders of Second and Third are sure buddy-buddy,” a platoon leader said. “I’m with you, colonel. I think we’re up to our ass in shit.”

  “So what do we do, colonel?” a mercenary asked.

  “I’m going to split up Second and Third. Just as soon as we hit Chattanooga, I’m going to send the Third straight east, through the mountains, and order them to deploy north to south from Dillard to Tallulah Falls. I’ll order the Second to stand back in reserve. If they bow up at those orders, we’ll know they’re up to something.”

  “And us?”

  “That’s what I’m going to find out right now.”

  West went to his communications van and told the operator to get General Jefferys on the horn.

  “General Jefferys? Colonel West here. I think I’ve got a problem, sir.” He laid out his suspicions to Cecil.

  “What do you base this on, colonel?” Cecil asked.

  “A soldier’s hunch, sir. Ashley hates Ben Raines so deeply I think he’d do anything to see him dead. And there is this: I think we’re better off without the Second and Third, even if my suspicions are wrong.”

  “They’re that bad in the field?”

  “The Third is the pits, sir. Useless. And the Second is not much better. And they are solidly Ashley’s men. I don’t trust them, general.”

  “If you split them, colonel, and your suspicions prove out, you’ll have them at your back.”

  West’s sigh was audible over the miles. “Yes, sir, I am aware of that.”

  “I trust your hunches, colonel. You know these men in question; I don’t.”

  “Thank you, sir. Where do you want me and my troops?”

  “I’m very weak between Greensboro and Conyers. I need that area beefed up badly.”

  “I’ll push them hard, general. With any kind of luck, I’ll be there and in position by dawn.”

  “Thank you, colonel. It’s good to have you with us.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Emil hiked his robe up around his knees and began chanting, speaking in tongues as he did a combination of the jitterbug and the twist in the dust. Occasionally, he would stop and point in the direction of the camp of Francis Freneau and his Joyful Followers of Life.

  Brother Carl began racing around the village. “Come quickly, come quickly. Brother Emil is in the spirit of Blomm, and the great god is speaking to him. Come quickly, come quickly.”

  Emil’s followers gathered around, staring in awe and wonder as Emil began to get down and boogie right.

  “Ughum, bugum, and doo waa ditty titty!” Emil shouted, working up a sweat under the summer sun.

  He suddenly stopped his gyrations and flung his arms wide, his face to the sky. Fuckin’ sun is tough, he thought.

  “Blomm is angry,” he shouted. “Blomm has told me there is an imposter in our area. A man who speaks with forked tongue.” Come on, Emil, he berated himself. You can do better than that. “This man is subverting our worship of Blomm, and Blomm is raining down curses on this man’s head.”

  Emil flung himself on the ground and began hunching and twisting and screaming.

  Sucker is good when he wants to be, Brother Matthew thought. He just might actually pull this shit off.

  The men and women, more than a hundred strong, oohed and aahed as Emil thrashed about on the ground, the dust flying, his mouth shouting words in a tongue known only to Emil and to Blomm. Suddenly, Emil stopped his frantic movements and stiffened.

  Slowly he rose to his knees and pointed west with a trembling finger. “The great lie is there!” he thundered.

  “Least he got the direction right,” Brother Roger said. “Little sucker can get lost goin’ to the crapper.”

  Emil heard him and shifted his eyes, whispering, “Shut your fuckin’ face, ninny! I could win an academy award for this performance.”

  “Blomm is calling to me!” Emil shouted. “Yes, Great Blomm? Yes, yes, I hear and repeat your words.”

  Emil strung together some words from some 1970 rock songs, which made about as much sense now as they did then. Emil jumped to his feet, mouthed some 1980s rap, and ended with a chorus of Bo Jangles.

  Minus the dog.

  “Oh, Blomm!” Emil said, placing one hand over his heart. “Oh, no, not Francis Freneau!”

  Emil lowered his head and slowly shook it from side to side. “Poor Francis,” he said. “Thinking he could fool the gods.”

  “What about dear Francis?” a woman called shrilly. “What is happening, Brother Emil?”

  “He is being punished for placing himself in a godlike position. His behavior will become most erratic, and his followers will be unhappy.”

  “Oh no!” the ladies all shouted.

  “And the men with him, too,” Emil added.

  “Oh no!”

  “Fuckin’ horny broads,” Emil whispered. “He will be stricken with some terrible physical affliction. From his waist down!” Emil shouted.

  “Oh no!”

  Emil lowered his head. “And there will be nothing that anyone can do to save the poor misguided fool.”

  The ladies all began weeping and wailing.

  “I am exhausted,” Emil said. “I must rest.” He looked at the crowd, a sly glint in his eyes. “It is very wearing on me to speak with the gods. But of course, you’ve never seen Francis Freneau do that, have you?”

  “No,” the crowd whispered.

  “Come.” Emil held out his arms. “Escort me to my quarters and bathe and rub my poor aching feet.”

  Soberly, as if they were handling the Mona Lisa, the crowd gently carried Emil to his quarters.

  Ben stood with Buddy and Dan on the shoulder of the interstate, watching his columns roll past; a seemingly endless parade of the machines and people of war.

  “What do you want to do with the prisoners, son?” Ben asked.

  “Turn them loose. Let them wallow in their ignorance with their ignorant friends.”

  Ben looked toward Denise. “Cut them loose and have them gua
rded until the last vehicle is past.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You did a good job here, Buddy,” Ben told him.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Get your teams together and move out. Catch up and pass the columns. I want you at least fifty miles ahead of us.”

  “Yes, sir.” He grinned. “I’ll see you in Georgia, general.”

  As Buddy was yelling for his teams to gather and move out, Ike walked up.

  “I’ll be going on ahead, Ben. Joe Williams has got the easternmost section; I’ll come up under him and be in position.”

  “All right, Ike. Good luck.” He turned to Dan. “Dan, follow Ike. Spread your people from east to west. I’ll take this section between these national forests here.” He punched the map. “Just south of Greensboro. Tina? Your teams will be the last in position. Stay out of Atlanta. Spread out along this line from Conyers to, say, Covington. Let’s roll!”

  Khamsin’s troops struck just at dusk, using mortars and light artillery. And had they not been so confident of victory, they might have punched through the thin lines in a spot not of Cecil’s choosing. But the troops of the IPA had never full force tasted the fury of Ben Raines’s Rebels. But on this bloody dusk, the last rays of the sun gone, the troops of the IPA were about to find out why Raines’s Rebels had such an awesome reputation.

  Khamsin’s troops came across the interstate charging Joe Williams’s position. The troops of The Hot Wind died in bloody heaps before even reaching the median.

  Joe had armed every fourth Rebel with an M-60 machine gun. Every squad had a .50 caliber machine gun. And the Rebels had mined the median.

  Joe, as had every commander, brought all the firepower his people could possibly use. And it was deadly awesome.

  Then, for no apparent reason, Joe’s troops pulled back and shifted positions, deserting the interstate, moving as silently and swiftly as ghosts.

  “Where in the hell are they going?” Khamsin screamed the question as soon as he got the message.

  “They are retreating, sir! We have broken through their lines.”

  But Khamsin recalled, bitterly, the last time his troops thought they had the Rebels on the run.