Alone in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “I know what you’re thinkin’, Mr. Raines,” the man said. “Are we under one leader, right? The answer is no. There’s about sixty or so of us that would like that, but the rest of the folks are against it.”

  “Then get them together,” Ben said. “I’m not interested in speaking to or meeting any of the other people.”

  The man smiled. “I heard you was a hard, hard man, Mr. Raines.”

  “So I’ve been told, sir. So I’ve been told.”

  9

  Ben liked what he saw when the group of people was assembled in the old gym. There were sixty-eight adults gathered, their ages ranging from early twenties to what used to be called the Golden Age.

  But, Ben thought with a smile, this bunch of elderly folks looked fit and hard.

  Ben had met and shaken hands with them all. He’d met a couple of musicians, several farmers, mechanics, former small business people, accountants, two doctors, several lawyers ... a pretty good cross-section of small town America.

  Briefly, Ben explained his idea of outposts stretching across the land. He explained the advantages to that plan, and then let the people talk about it among themselves for a time.

  “And we can count on help from your Rebels, General Raines?” he was asked.

  “Once you people are committed to the plan, yes,” Ben said. “But I’m not going to send my people in here to waste their time and yours if you’re not ready for organization and law and order. I think you’re all familiar with how the Tri-States operated. That’s the way I’ll expect you to run your community. You people have the beginnings of a good operation here. All you need to do is break away from the dissidents among you and set it up. And you don’t need my help to do that. You’re well armed and you look fit. I’ve given you the frequency of our Base Camp One. If you hit a snag, contact them. The next outpost is just across the river, in Dyersburg. Why don’t you send someone over there to look around, compare ideas. All I can tell you is, ‘good luck.’”

  Ben pulled out, alone, early the next morning. For some reason he could not fathom, Texas was pulling at him, and he wanted to get there and spend the winter there, exploring and writing and being alone. He had been surrounded by people for more than a decade, training and fighting and organizing and being pushed and prodded into something he had never really wanted to be: A leader.

  He just wanted to be alone for a time.

  Ben headed straight west, or as straight as the road would allow after he took a county road down to Highway 142. At Neelyville, Missouri, he filled his gas tanks and prowled the deserted town—and this town was definitely deserted. He sat for a time in an old barber shop and thumbed through what was left of an old Field and Stream magazine he’d found stuck up under some hair tonic behind the closed doors of a cabinet. He leaned back in the old chair and muttered, “A shave and haircut, please.”

  Then the old chair collapsed and dumped him to the floor.

  Laughing at himself—something Ben had always been able to do—he continued westward.

  Just outside of Gatewood, Missouri, he found the highway blocked by a fallen tree. Using his chain saw, Ben cleared the road and drove on for a few more miles before deciding it was time to hunt a place to spend the night.

  He stopped on the west side of the Eleven Point River and caught a mess of fish for his supper, cooking them on his camp stove on the closed porch of a once-fine old home.

  When he awakened the next morning, dawn was breaking and the ground was white with frost.

  He was also looking down the muzzle of a double-barreled shotgun.

  “Well, now, if that ain’t the sorriest lookin’ sight I ever did see,” Jake Campo said. “A one-footed warlord ridin’ a goddamned mule, and a-leadin’ a pack-rat bunch of whupped rednecks.”

  The big outlaw lifted his ugly face to the sky and howled with laughter.

  “Laugh, you lard-assed son of a bitch!” West snarled at the man. “I got more men than you have, and if you want a fight you damn sure got it.”

  “Now, now,” Jake said, wiping tears from his eyes. “Don’t get your bowels in no uproar, West. How in the hell did you lose your foot?”

  “That bastard Ben Raines shot it off!”

  “It appears Raines not only took your foot, but your ear and cars and most of your guns as well,” Jake observed. Campo helped West down from the mule and to a camp chair in front of his tent. He poured the man chicory coffee.

  West slurped his coffee and sighed. “Good,” he said. “Warms my belly but don’t do nothin’ for the hurt in my leg.”

  “That’ll pass, I reckon,” Jake said. “Or else you’ll die. One of the two. Tell me what happened.”

  West tried to ease his aching stump by propping it up. He told Campo what had happened, greatly embellishing the heroism of himself and his men against overwhelming odds.

  “Uh-huh,” Jake said, slurping his coffee. “Now that we got the bullshit outta the way, tell me the truth.”

  “I just tole you!”

  “No, you didn’t. You told me a bunch of lies. Raines probably pulled together a gang of civilians and then proceeded to kick your ass. He’s good at doin’ things like that. Now, West, ain’t that what really happened?”

  West slumped back in his chair. His face still silently expressed the ache in his severed stump. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s just about it. Jake? You reckon they’s any truth in all them stories about Raines?”

  “’Bout him being a god, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know,” Jake admitted, all humor leaving his eyes. “I’ve given that some thought. Hartline is probably the best soldier I ever served with. Hartline couldn’t take Raines. The Russian couldn’t take Raines; Raines whipped him good. The goddamned United States Government couldn’t even whip Raines back in ’97 or so. Man’s been shot a dozen or more times, blown up, stabbed—can’t kill him. But he’s got to have his Achilles heel.”

  “His what?”

  “I always forget what a dumb son of a bitch you are,” Jake said contemptuously. “His weak spot.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so? I’m gonna get him, Jake,” West said. “I swear on my mother’s grave, I’m gonna get Ben Raines.”

  “Well, he’s headin’ west, that’s for sure. You ready to pitch in with me, now?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wish I knew what Raines was up to,” Jake said. “He was travelin’ by himself ’til he hooked with that brother-and-sister team. You ride with me from now on, West. We’ll get him, boy, don’t you worry none.”

  The double-barreled shotgun was just about as big as the boy holding it. Ben cut his eyes upward and could see the shotgun was an old side-hammer type. And the hammers had not been cocked.

  “Oh, my,” Ben said. “I guess you got the drop on me, son.”

  “I sure do, partner,” the boy replied. “So don’t you try nothin’ funny.”

  “Oh, I won’t. Could I ask a favor of you before you shoot me?”

  “What is it?”

  “You mind if I fix some breakfast? I hate to get shot on an empty stomach.”

  “What you got to eat?” the boy asked. “I ain’t et in two, three days.”

  “Oh, I have bacon and beans and crackers. How about it?”

  The boy backed up and lowered the muzzle of the shotgun. “I reckon that’ll be all right, mister. Just be careful.”

  The shotgun, Ben concluded, was at least a hundred years old. An old Damascus steel barrel. If the boy tried to fire any type of modern ammunition in the ancient weapon, he would probably end up killing himself, the twist barrel exploding and folding back.

  Ben smiled as he laced up his boots and pumped up the stove. “You don’t need to hold that shotgun on me, son. By the time you could cock that thing, I would have taken it away from you. And even if it could fire, you’d hurt yourself with it.”

  The boy’s shoulders sagged. He propped the shotgun against a wall of the porch. “You knowed al
l along, didn’t you, mister?”

  “Yes. But I can’t short you on courage, son. You from around here?”

  “I don’t know where I’m from, mister. I’m just ... just here.”

  “You travel a lot, then. Right?”

  “All the time. I been on my own since I was ...” His face screwed up in thought. “Since I was real little. I seen four season goings and comin’s since then.”

  “I’d guess you about ten.”

  The boy shrugged.

  “You have a name, son?”

  “Jordy.”

  Ben stuck out his hand. “I’m Ben Raines.”

  Jordy recoiled backward as if struck by a rattlesnake. “You ain’t, neither!” Jordy hissed.

  “Yes, I am, Jordy.”

  “You kilt a Beast with your bare hands! Cain’t no human do that.”

  “I used a knife, Jordy, after I shot the thing with a. 45. Besides,” he smiled, “Daniel Boone kilt a b’ar, too.”

  “Who?” the boy asked.

  Ben sighed. “Sit down and eat, Jordy. We’ll talk. Looks like I found me a traveling companion.”

  The boy’s pinched face wrinkled in a broad smile. “You mean that? Truly?”

  “I truly do, Jordy.”

  The boy looked at the knife, fork, and spoon in his tin plate. “What’s them things for?”

  “It should be an interesting journey,” Ben said. “Very interesting.”

  Ben had sat, fascinated, listening to the boy talk. While he ate with his fingers, stuffing his mouth with food as if it might be his last for days, Jordy told of people who lived in caves, deep underground, only venturing out during the night to hunt for food. There were others who lived in caves who would only venture out during the day, for they believed the night held evil spirits. He told Ben of a dozen warlords between the big river to the east and the flat ground to the west.

  The Mississippi River and Kansas, Ben assumed.

  Jordy told Ben of the many shrines he had seen, all erected toward the god Ben Raines.

  “I am not a god, Jordy. And it’s wrong for people who believe that I am.”

  The boy fixed young-old eyes on him. “You fell off a mountain and lived, didn’t you?”

  “It was a small mountain.”

  “You been shot a hundred times, ain’t you?”

  “Not quite that many times.”

  “The rats couldn’t kill you. The Beasts couldn’t kill you. Nobody can kill you. You’re a leader of people. People do what you tell them to do. You knew my shotgun wouldn’t fire, didn’t you?”

  “Well, yes, but . . .”

  “You just don’t wanna be a god, that’s all. That’s all right with me, if that’s what you want. I’ll play like you’re like everybody else.”

  Ben sorted out Jordy’s rush of words and said, “Thank you.”

  Jordy had not ridden in many vehicles and he was fascinated by the truck and all its gadgets.

  “What happens if I turn this thing?” the boy asked.

  “The radio comes on,” Ben explained.

  “The what?”

  Ben’s smile was very sad. Jordy would have been about five years old when what was left of the U.S. collapsed. He would have absolutely no memory of television, and would have to have lived near a populated center to have any knowledge of radio.

  “I know what a radio is!” Jordy blurted. “I think.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Voices come outta them things from a long way off, right?”

  “That’s . . . a reasonable assessment, I suppose. Jordy, do you have any memories of your parents?”

  He shook his head. “No. But I had a sister. She was older. I haven’t seen her in a long time. That was four seasons ago.”

  “How did you two separate?”

  “Huh?”

  “What happened to your sister?”

  “Some men grabbed her. She yelled for me to run. I took off. When I went back, she was gone and so was the men.”

  No point in asking where it happened, Ben thought. “Can you read or write, Jordy?”

  “No, sir. I never had no schoolin’.”

  But you can survive, Ben thought. He thought of the young people who had joined his command, some of them as young as six. But already woods-wise, and not hesitant to kill if faced with danger.

  Quite a generation we have upcoming, he thought. Just a step away from being savages.

  “Town called Thayer just up ahead, Jordy. There should be some people in the town.”

  “Yes, sir. A pretty good bunch of them. And they all got guns, too.”

  “Have they tried to hurt you?”

  “Oh, no, sir. But they have tried to catch me a time or two.”

  “Why did they want to catch you?”

  “They said they wanted me to live with them. Go to school and all that shit. But they said I’d have to take a bath. With soap,” he added, disgust in his voice.

  “Well, Jordy, I hate to tell you this, but you’re going to have to take a bath if you want to travel with me. Son,” Ben said, scratching himself, “I think you have fleas.”

  10

  Ben was conscious of eyes on them as he drove through the Missouri town. But no one tried to stop them or harm them in any way.

  Jordy seemed relieved to get through the town and Ben smiled at that. “Were there lots of kids back there, Jordy?”

  “Oh, yes, sir. I used to slip in there and talk to some of them. I never could figure out why they were happy all the time. They had chores to do. They had to take baths. They had to go to school and do lots of figurin’ and such. Don’t sound like much fun to me.”

  Wait, Ben cautioned himself. Don’t tell the boy that is exactly what’s in store for him later on.

  It was rough going for the next thirty miles, with Ben and the boy having to stop a dozen times to clear the road of debris. At the tiny town of Bakersfield, Ben decided to call it a day. He inspected a dozen deserted homes before he found one that was even halfway presentable. The home had a brick barbecue in the back yard, and Ben built a fire and began heating water in all the pots he could find in the house.

  “What you gonna do with all that water?” Jordy asked suspiciously.

  “We are going to take a bath, boy.”

  “Shhittt!” Jordy said.

  While Jordy was bathing, Ben boiled the boy’s clothing and hung it up to dry. “Have to get him some clothes soon,” he muttered.

  “I’m done!” Jordy called from the house.

  “Did you wash your hair?” Ben called.

  “Shhitt!”

  Ben had thought the boy’s hair was brown. As it turned out, it was blond. The boy also had scars on his back and legs. Ben asked him about the marks.

  “Warlord caught me two seasons ago,” Jordy explained. “Wanted me to be his servant-person. He beat me with a whip. I finally got my chance and run off. I’ll kill him if I ever see him again.”

  Ben suspected the boy had also been sexually abused. But if he did not wish to talk about it, Ben would not force him to relive those memories.

  “I ain’t got no last name, you know, Mr. Raines?” Jordy said.

  “Call me Ben. I know, Jordy.”

  “I thought of one.”

  Ben smiled, knowing what was coming. “Oh?”

  “Raines. If you don’t mind.”

  “I don’t mind a bit, Jordy. Jordy Raines. Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir—Ben.”

  Ben cut north on Highway 101 the next morning, connecting with U.S. 160. He turned west. He stopped at every house along the way, searching for clothing for Jordy. He found a winter jacket in a cedar chest at one house, some jeans packed in a trunk at another, underwear and shirts at another home. At the last house, Ben found a .22-caliber pistol and several boxes of long rifle ammunition for the weapon. There was a holster and belt with loops for the weapon. Ben rubbed oil into the old leather and gave the weapon to Jordy.

  “I’ll te
ach you how to use this, Jordy. You’re young, but you need to be armed.”

  Jordy smiled and stepped out onto the porch of the home. He skillfully loaded the weapon and took aim at a box in the yard. He put all six slugs into the small box.

  “Well, now,” Ben said with a smile. “Looks like I found a backup, partner.”

  The next few days passed uneventfully, with Ben and Jordy traveling slowly westward, staying on Highway 160 until reaching the junction of State Highway 76. They took that through the Mark Twain National Forest, and it was slow going, for the road was badly deteriorated, with many downed trees and limbs that had to be removed. Ben began playing a game with Jordy, teaching him his ABC’s by associating each letter with an object. Ben was feeling proud of himself until he pointed out a ’possum.

  “Opossum,” Ben said.

  “Huh?”

  “The letter O. Opossum.”

  Jordy looked at him. “Sir, that there is a plain ol’ ’possum.”

  “Get the dictionary, Jordy.”

  “What for? I can’t read the damn thing.”

  “Perhaps there will be a picture beside the word and I can point it out to you.”

  Jordy reached for the sack on the floorboard.

  “That’s the Bible, Jordy.”

  The boy’s eyes took on a funny glint.

  “Something the matter, Jordy?”

  “The Bible. That sure means something to me. But I can’t quite figure it out.”

  “I’m sure you went to church with your parents, Jordy.”

  “You can say that again. A bunch.”

  “Maybe your father was a minister—a preacher?”

  “I don’t know, Ben. Maybe so. I just can’t remember. Let me think about that for a little bit, huh?”

  “All right.”

  It was almost an hour later when Ben realized with a grin that Jordy had skillfully and smoothly conned him, escaping the task of learning his ABC’s.

  “Pretty smooth, Jordy,” Ben complimented the boy.