“Yes.”
“But still they laid their lives on the line for people they had never met?”
“That is correct.”
There were tears in her eyes as she said, “Then I won’t nag you about it again, about doing anything else.”
“It isn’t over, Gale. We haven’t given up. I have teams moving to the north right this minute, to rescue as many people as possible. But what we have to do is recoup and rest, plan our next move carefully. We’ll eventually beat Striganov-I’m sure of that-but we just can’t do it now.”
“We’ll always be fighting, won’t we, Ben? I mean, fighting somebody or something?”
“It looks that way, Gale.”
She wiped her eyes and kissed him. “Well… least I feel reasonably safe when I’m around you,” she said with a smile, some of her spirit returning.
He put a big hand on her stomach. “How is the kid doing?”
“Kids, Ben,” she corrected.
“Right. Twins.”
“They’re fine.”
He smiled at her. “Ever been to the Great Smoky Mountains?”
“No.”
“It’s lovely. You’ll like it.”
“When do we pull out?”
“In a couple of weeks. We’ll let the more seriously wounded get fit to travel. And we’ll probably be joined by General Tanner’s people and by the kids. Should be interesting.”
“Know what I want to do right now?” she questioned. There was a smile on her lips and her dark eyes sparkled with mischief.
“Play Monopoly?” Ben said with all innocence.
“That’s one way to describe it. How many times do you think you could make me pass Go?”
He thought about that for a moment, then leaned down and whispered in her ear.
“Oh my, Ben! Well… if you can do that, then I’ll just have to think of something nice for you. Have any ideas?”
He again whispered in her ear.
She drew back as if in shock. “Pervert!” she said, but with a smile.
General Tanner’s “grandfathers” pulled into Ben’s base camp. The old warriors were jubilant as they met with Ben and the others and each congratulated the other on their shared victory over the IPF.
The teams began returning from the north, returning with men and women who told horror stories about their treatment at the hands of the IPF. They told of the mutant breeding farms, of being forced to have sex with the monsters, and of those women who were heavy with mutant children having been taken to the west.
“How many did the teams miss?” Ben asked.
“About half of us,” he was told.
It sickened Ben, but he was fully cognizant of the fact there was nothing he could do-not at this moment.
“You did all you could, Ben,” Gale told him, and that made him feel better. “Someday, perhaps. But I’ve come to realize that you can’t shoulder the troubles of the world alone, honey.”
It made him feel better, but still left him with an ugly taste in his mouth.
Standing alone outside his headquarters at dusk, Ben looked toward the setting sun and murmured,
“Someday, Striganov, I promise you. Someday, I’ll find you and kill you.”
Behind him, Gale heard the promise and shuddered as a hard chill of fear shook her. She wondered if she would be permitted to live that long? She hoped so. She knew Ben did not love her, knew that for a fact-her woman’s intuition told her that. But she felt him to be content with her, and she had enough love for the both of them. Of course, she would never let him know that, she thought with a smile, as the chill of sudden fear left her.
She stood in the shadows of the motel and looked at the man, so tall and strong as the rays of the setting sun silhouetted his shape, making his shadow appear fifty feet long, making the man fit the image so many thought him to be.
And did she feel that way as well?
She didn’t know. And she was afraid to question her mind too closely on the subject.
She turned and slipped quietly away.
“Here comes the Orphans” Brigade,” Buck said, sticking his head into Ben’s quarters. “General, you got to see this to believe it.”
“That bad?” Ben questioned, getting up from behind the desk. He put on his beret and headed for the open door.
The columns of young people were still about a mile away from the HQ. They were marching steadily. Ragged and dirty and appearing malnourished, the kids marched with their heads held high.
Ben, with Gale by his side, watched the young
people. One column was marching in from the northwest, the other from the northeast.
“Damnedest thing I believe I’ve ever seen,” Ben said, his voice not much more than a whisper.
“Oh, Ben,” Gale said, taking his hand. “Some of them are just children. Babies.”
“Don’t you believe it, Miss Roth,” Buck said. “Those kids-most of them, so I hear tell-have been on their own for years. They’re tough little guys and gals. And the way it was told to me, most of them would as soon kill you as look at you.”
“Buck, I can’t believe that,” Gale replied, her heart going out to the little ones in the columns.
“Believe it,” Ben told her. “They’ve had no schooling, no parental or adult guidance, no discipline other than what they impose on themselves. A sort of tribal law, I should imagine. They have had but one thought all their waking years, and that is to survive. Yet another sad fact of postwar.”
“They look so helpless,” Gale muttered.
“Bear in mind,” Ben said, “those two columns of kids helped destroy four battalions of trained IPF personnel. And they took no prisoners.”
“Colonel Gray mentioned that they looked helpless,” Mary Macklin said, joining the growing group. “He offered one little girl a candy bar and she bit his hand to the bone.” Mary smiled at the mental picture. “His LETTERRP’S said the colonel then became quite ineloquent.”
Gale looked at Mary. “Poor little girl,” she said.
“Then that poor little girl grabbed his rifle, kicked him in the shins, and took off into the woods with the AK.” She said it all with a straight face. But there was
a definite twinkle in her eyes.
Gale looked shocked at the telling.
“How old was the girl?” Ben asked.
“Eight,” Mary said.
Ike walked up and looked at the approaching young people. The leading edge was only a few yards away. The young people stopped and were looking at the adults looking at them.
“Aw,” Ike said, “look at them poor, little kids. Makes your heart ache, don’t it? Me and Sally got to take in a few of them to raise.”
Ben smiled.
Ike walked into the street and stood smiling down at the first few young people. He felt his heart soften as he looked at the ragged and dirty little kids. The stocky ex-Seal knelt down beside one little, dark-haired girl.
“Howdy, honey,” he drawled in his best Mississippi accent. “My, you sure are pretty. How’d you like to come live with me and my wife?”
The little girl, no more than nine or ten, pulled a pistol from a holster and pointed it at Ike. Ike paled in shock. She said, “How’d you like to eat lead, fatso?”
Ben had to struggle to keep from laughing at the expression on Ike’s face. It was very difficult to get anything over on Ike, and Ben knew this story would fly around the camps of the Rebels. Ike would never live it down.
Gale glanced at Ben. “Ben!” she hissed. “Damn it, it isn’t funny.”
Ben groaned, suppressing a chuckle.
“Now, darlin”,” Ike said, very carefully getting to his feet. “There just ain’t no call for nothin’ like this. I don’t mean you no harm.”
“Yeah?” the cute little girl asked belligerently. “That’s what them guys told me last year, too. I believed “em. You know what they done to me?”
“I’d really rather not hear about it, if you don’t mind,” Ike
said.
“I guess you and your wife is gonna love me and hug me and give me food and pretty clothes and all that shit?” the little girl demanded Ike answer.
“Well, ah, yes,” Ike said, after wincing at her language.
“That’s what them men told me, too,” the girl said. “So I believed ‘em. They took me to a house and raped me-all of them. They hurt me real bad. Then Wade come along and him and his people killed them men. I believe Wade. I don’t know you, so I don’t believe you and I don’t trust you. I got my reasons, mister.”
Ben stepped forward as the HQ appeared to swell with the arrival of more young people. “You can believe him, girl,” he said. “Ike is sincere in wanting you to come live with him and his wife. Ike and Sally are good people.”
The ragged little girl with the pistol in her hand swung oldstwisestyoung eyes to Ben. She holstered the .38. “Maybe,” she said, suspicion in her voice. “I don’t know you neither, but you look familiar. Who you is, mister?”
“Ben Raines.”
The little girl reached into a leather pouch on her belt and removed a plastic-covered picture. She compared the picture to the man then turned to face the large knot of young people, now hundreds strong. “It’s him!” she called.
The little girl fell to her knees and every boy and girl in the column followed suit. Ben stood open-mouthed, astonishment evident on his tanned, rugged features.
“What the hell?” Ben muttered.
Wade crawled toward Ben. Clearly embarrassed, Ben tried to motion the young man to his feet. But the young man would have none of that.
“Get up!” Ben whispered hoarsely. “What are you doing?”
With his eyes downcast, Wade called out, “All praise Ben Raines.”
“What!” Ben whispered, aware that his people were looking strangely at him.
“All praise Ben Raines,” the hundreds of young people echoed.
Ben lost his temper. “Now just a damn minute!” he yelled. “Everybody here-off your knees. Get up and face me.”
Ben handed his Thompson to Ike and the eyes of the young people all followed the shifting of the old SMG. More than a few sighed audibly. They now viewed Ike in a different light.
Ben motioned the young people up from their prostration, feeling a bit foolish as he did so.
Reluctantly, and with fear on their young faces, the kids rose to their feet.
“You young people do not worship me!” Ben said, his voice carrying over the crowd. “Nobody worships me. I won’t have it. It’s silly. Where in the world did you young folks get such an idea?”
“It… it is written,” Wade stammered out the reply. The seemingly fearless young man now seemed genuinely afraid standing facing Ben.
Ben looked hard at the young man. “Written? Where is it written that I am to be worshipped?”
“An old man told us,” Wade said. “I mean … he didn’t exactly say it like that, but he talked real funny-old-time like. And he said that to worship a false god was a sin in the eyes of the Lord. I told him that maybe that was so, but that there wasn’t but one man I would ever bow down to, and that was Mister Ben Raines.”
Ben nodded, and to the young people, the nod appeared sagely. Irritation flashed across Ben’s face. “Was the man’s name the Prophet?”
The crowd of young people drew back, as if much afraid. They knotted together, touching, seeking comfort by physical contact.
“Yes,” Wade said, standing his ground, but looking very much like he would rather cut and run.
Ben looked at the young spokesman. “What did he say or do when you told him that?”
“He… said that perhaps you… Ben Raines … might be the man to do the job at hand. But that on your head would lie the … the con-con-was he struggled with the unfamiliar word-“the consequences should you try but fail.”
“All right. Now tell me this, young man. What do you think the old man meant by that?”
A look of confusion passed over the young man’s face. He finally shrugged his shoulders. “That you are a god-what else?”
“He was wrong,” Ben said. “And you are wrong in thinking you should worship me.”
“No, sir.” Wade’s reply was softly given, just audible
to Ben’s ear. “No, sir, I don’t think so. Arid none of the people who are with me think so, neither. Mister Ben Raines, I have traveled all over this land,” Wade stated. “I have been to both big waters, east to west. I have been from Canada down to Texas, and I have personally seen with my own eyes what some people have built in reverence to you.”
Ben stirred. Those rock and stone monuments he had heard about but never seen. He did not know how to reply to Wade. A strange emotion moved deep within him. Stirred, turned, then became still as Ben took a deep, calming breath.
Wade said, “You have many, many followers, Mister Ben Raines. We are but a few of them. You have people who revere you living in small pockets all over this nation. But for the most part they are afraid to leave the safety of their tunnels and caves.”
Tunnels and caves! Ben thought. We have people in this nation who are living in tunnels and caves? A society of darkness?
Wade said, “Those people would join you, sir. But they are afraid.”
Afraid of whom? Ben thought. Or what? “When did all this start?” Ben asked.
Again, Wade shrugged his shoulders. “I … don’t know, Mister Ben Raines. Right after the war come to us, I reckon. Long time, judging from the age of some of the tributes to you.”
“How did you and your … group avoid President Logan’s relocation efforts and Al Cody’s agents all these years?”
Wade smiled. “We know the ways of the mountains and the deep timber, Mister Ben Raines. We are as
much at home in the wilderness as you are in your house. Have you ever tried to capture sunlight or a moonbeam and hold it in your hand?”
Ben returned the smile. He liked this young but very tough and capable young man. He felt Wade and his people would be good allies. “No, I haven’t attempted to do that, Wade. I should imagine it would be very difficult.”
“Yes, Mister Ben Raines. Very difficult.”
“We are going to the east, Wade. Moving over into Tennessee and Georgia and North Carolina. Would you and your people care to join us?”
“That is why we are here, Mister Ben Raines. And that is why Ro and his people have come.”
“Ro?”
Wade pointed to the second column of boys and girls. And to a tall young man who stood at the forefront. “Ro.”
Ben nodded and stepped toward Ro. He extended his hand, but the young man backed away, refusing to accept the gesture of friendship.
“It is not permitted, Mister Ben Raines,” Ro told him.
“What is not permitted?” Ben asked, an edge to his voice as he became slightly irritated.
Ro looked at him and smiled a secret smile. “It is as the old man said: You do not yet know who you are. But still, it is not permitted.”
He bowed and turned to his people. He said something Ben could not understand. The language sounded very much like pidgin English.
Dear God, Ben thought. Have we reverted to this-already!
Ro turned again to Ben. “We accept your invitation to join your following. We will follow you wherever you lead. For now, where do you want us to camp?”
“Bed them down, Buck,” Ben said. He looked at Wade. “This is Sergeant Osgood. He’ll show you where to bunk and then we get you bathed and fed and clothed and have our medical people look you over.”
“We are at your command, Mister Ben Raines,” Wade said. He turned to his group and spoke to them in the same pidgin English Ro had used. The young people turned, falling into a loose formation. Ben stood and watched them march off, following a clearly embarrassed Buck Osgood.
“I feel like a damned pied piper,” Buck said.
The same strange ritual was conducted by Ro, making Ben feel more set-apart than ever. He knew, felt
a very dangerous precedent being set, or had already been set on this day. But how to combat it? He didn’t know. But he knew he had to come up with something very quickly.
“For a god,” Gale said, walking to Ben’s side, “you have some pretty good moves in the sack, Ben. Did you learn all that on the slopes of Olympus?”
Ben almost choked on his cigarette. “Jesus, Gale! I didn’t find it amusing.”
“I didn’t either, Ben. What are you going to do about it?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Tunnels and caves, Ben?”
“That’s what the young man said.” He looked at Cecil and Ike and Juan and Mark. “Any of you people ever hear about a subterranean culture that worships me?”
“Nothing, Ben,” Cecil said. But Cecil could never lie worth a damn.
“Umm,” Ben said.
Chase had joined the group. Ben looked at him. The doctor, like the others, remained noncommittal.
“It’s a big country, Ben,” Ike said. “It doesn’t surprise me to learn there are groups who hold you in high regard.”
“Being held in high regard is one thing,” Ben replied. “Being looked upon as possessing some supernatural power is quite another. And I don’t like it.” He looked hard at his friends. “None of you gave me an answer to my question, boys-why?”
“I tried to tell you, Ben,” Doctor Chase said. “Tried on several occasions. But you always brushed it off as having little or no importance. I got tired of trying.”
“We have all tried, Ben,” Cecil said. “But you refused to believe it or even discuss it with us. Now it’s coming home, as we all told you-or tried to tell you-it would.”
“You people are behaving as if the problem is all my fault,” Ben said peevishly.
“No.” Doctor Chase picked up the anger in Ben. His words were softly spoken. “I think it is just time for this to occur, Ben. And I warned you about that, too.” The doctor walked away, without going into more detail. He knew he didn’t have to
“It’ll pass,” Ben said firmly. “By God, I’ll see to that personally.”
“Good luck, El Presidente,” Ike said. And he got a hard look from Ben for the words. was ‘Cause you’re sure gonna need it.”
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