Alone in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Find us a way around Birmingham,” Dan told his recon teams. “I don’t want to get in a fire-fight unless it’s absolutely necessary. The KKK has taken over that city, and it would be terribly difficult for me to restrain myself if confronted.” It was a typical understated British remark from Dan. “We’ll hook up with 20/59 and take that into Mississippi. We’ll stay with 20 all the way across Louisiana. Recon teams—go!”

  “Way we’re movin’,” a young Rebel said sadly, “time we get to West Texas, General Raines will have already killed all the outlaws.”

  “Quite,” Dan replied.

  “Sure you won’t stay with us, General?” a cowboy asked Ben. “You’re sure welcome to.”

  “I thank you, but I’m traveling; showing Jordy the country.”

  “And getting away from the reins of leadership while you’re at it, huh, General?” a silver-haired man said with a grin.

  “Sounds like you know about the headaches, too?” Ben said.

  “Very much so,” the man said. “I was elected leader of this hardy little band. I’m stuck with it. Ben, we like your idea of outposts. When you’ve got it all worked out, come back. You can count on us.”

  “I’ll be back,” Ben assured. “Or someone from my command will.”

  “Be careful out there.” The man jerked his thumb. “The outlaws, warlords, and assorted scum have tried to move in on us many times. They finally quit early this year. We were killing too many of them. But they’re still roaming around like packs of scavengers.”

  “How well I know,” Ben said. He shook hands with a few of the people and pulled out onto Interstate 20.

  The people of Pecos had warned him that south of Interstate 10 was no-man’s land. The only holdouts were a few people at Alpine, Fort Davis, and Marfa. South of those towns? ... He had only shaken his head.

  Ben and Jordy drove as far as Van Horn. It was a ghost town, having been looted and ravaged many times, and then burned. The burning of the small town seemed to Ben to be more an act of vandalism; senseless, pointless.

  He turned north on 54, heading for New Mexico. Halfway to the border, Ben found the highway impassable and was forced to backtrack to Van Horn.

  Ben checked his map. He was hesitant about going to El Paso, for he had heard many stories about the destruction there. He looked at Jordy.

  “Where to, little Man?”

  “I’m with you, Ben.” The boy smiled. “But I’ve already seen where we’ve been.”

  Ben laughed. “It’s too dangerous to head south, Jordy. We—”

  A bullet whined off the top of the cab. Another slug slammed into the camper. Ben twisted the steering wheel, pointing the nose of the truck west. A bullet ripped through the windshield, just missing Jordy’s head.

  “Get on the floorboards, Jordy!” Ben yelled, spinning the wheel, heading south. West and east were blocked with unseen snipers; north was impassable.

  “That doesn’t leave us much choice, boy,” Ben muttered.

  Slugs clanged and slammed into the rear of the truck as Ben floorboarded the pickup, the big engine roaring, back tires biting into the road. The pickup fishtailed, then straightened out as Ben found the highway marker for 90 and headed southeast, toward Marfa.

  “Going to get tough, Jordy,” Ben said, as the boy crawled off the floorboards and back into the seat.

  “We’ll make it,” Jordy said. “I been in tougher spots than this.”

  Ben didn’t doubt that at all.

  15

  Rani carefully checked both trucks as best she knew how. She had filled the gas tanks of the vehicles and had ten five-gallon gas cans filled and stored. In Ozona, she had found a small, two-wheeled trailer, and that was now loaded with food, blankets, clothing, and cans and bottles of water. She would pull that behind her truck.

  “Who’s Davy Crockett?” Robert asked, pointing to the monument of the man.

  Rani snapped her fingers. “Books!” she said. “Got to get some books and pencils and paper so you kids can study and do homework.”

  But she had seen scurrying shapes of humans ducking in and out of the ruined stores of the town, and did not wish to linger long in the town proper.

  “Later,” she said. “But I’ve got to do it.”

  She breathed a little easier when she was outside of the town, on the interstate. She had carefully plotted her route, writing the directions down and pinning them to the sun visor.

  Interstate 20 west to Sheffield. Highway 349 south to Dryden. 90 west to Marathon. 385 south, then west to Terlingua.

  She said a silent prayer the roads would all be open and no outlaws would spot them.

  If there was a God, that is, she thought.

  She shook that blasphemy from her mind. Of course there is a God.

  And it wasn’t Ben Raines.

  Was it?

  Twelve miles out of Van Horn, at the tiny deserted town of Lobo, Ben pulled off the highway.

  “Close back there, Jordy.”

  “I must be gettin’ used to it, Ben.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t need to change underwear.”

  Ben laughed and he and Jordy got out of the truck. Ben lit one of the few cigarettes he allowed himself per day. After a few moments of silence, man and boy enjoying their closeness and the silence of nature, Ben stirred.

  “I think I got us in a box, boy. I have a bad feeling about that.”

  Jordy stood and looked at the man.

  “Folks back there where we stopped told me the town of Valentine was deserted; all the people there having moved to Marfa. They’ve formed a sort of a triangle of safety. You know what a triangle is, Jordy?”

  “No, sir.”

  Using his map, Ben showed Jordy the rough triangle, with Fort Davis at the top, Marfa and Alpine at the bottom corners.

  “The folks are shooting first and asking questions later, boy. And I don’t blame them. So we’re not going to risk getting shot. See this county road here, Jordy, just before you get to Marfa?” The boy nodded his head. “We’re going to take that all the way to the Mexican border and link up with 170, gradually work our way out of this mess.” I hope, Ben silently added.

  Ben radioed in to Captain Nolan and informed the captain of his route.

  Ben looked at his map. “I’ll meet you boys at Terlingua,” he said.

  “Ten-four, General.”

  Nolan’s radio operator tried to contact Colonel Gray, but for some reason she could not get through to the column. She really didn’t think too much of the difficulty, for any traffic of late had been scratchy. The belt of radioactivity that had encircled the globe since the wars of ’88 had affected weather and communications. The winters were getting much harsher and longer, and the growing season shorter.

  She reported the difficulty to Captain Nolan.

  “First high range we come to, try again,” he told her. “Right now, we’ve got to move and move fast. The general’s getting in even over his head.”

  He turned to his command, who were gathered around.

  “We roll,” Nolan said flatly. “Day and night, we roll. If you’re not driving, sleep. We’re not going to fuck around with anybody or anything. Move out.”

  “What the hell do you mean, you can’t get in touch with Colonel Gray or Captain Nolan?” Ike asked, an edge to his voice. “Goddamn it, we have the finest communcations equipment in the world!”

  The communications expert backed up a step. The ex-Navy SEAL’s abilities as a cut, slash, and stomp guerrilla fighter were almost as much a legend as General Raines. “I’m sorry, sir. But it’s impossible to reach them. At least for the next couple of days. Maybe longer than that.”

  “Why?” Cecil Jefferys asked, in a much calmer tone of voice. The black man possessed the ability to remain calm under the worst of circumstances.

  “Radioactivity, sir. The only way I can explain it is like this: The belt of radioactivity that has surrounded the earth since the bombings of ’88 appears to hav
e tightened, firmed, become more of a mass.”

  “I understand tightened, son,” Cecil said. The ex-teacher and former Green Beret had been with Ben since the outset. During Ben’s short tenure as President of the United States, Cecil had been sworn in as Vice President. The first black vice-president in the nation’s history.

  And the two of them had almost pulled the nation further still out of the ashes of war. They came very close. But the gods of fate had chosen that time to laugh and howl at the efforts of those who chose democracy over anarchy, freedom over slavery, enlightenment over ignorance.4

  “Keep trying,” Cecil told the communications technician.

  “Yes, sir.” He left the room.

  Cecil and Ike walked to the big window of the commanding general’s office and looked out. People were working dawn to dusk rebuilding and renovating the once-deserted town, building schools and clinics, stores and warehouses.

  “All we can hope is that short-range transmissions are getting through,” Cecil said.

  “Yeah,” Ike said glumly.

  Cecil looked at the man. “Don’t start getting it in your mind that you’re hitting the rescue trail after Ben. I need you here, and you know it.”

  “I know that, buddy,” Ike said. “But that don’t keep me from worryin’.”

  “You’re not alone in that,” Cecil said.

  Ben and Jordy prowled through what was left of Valentine, Texas. Ben knew he was about to take them through an area of the country that was often short of water. Ben told Jordy to start looking for containers.

  Ben found an old two-wheeled open-topped trailer and spent the rest of the day working on it. He found two tires in fairly good shape that would fit and a spare that looked as though it might have a few more miles left on it. Using his siphoning pump, Ben brought up enough gas to top his tanks and refill his cans. In a ransacked store, he found some cans and bottles of food. Most of the cans were swollen with contamination, but he found about two cases that still looked good. He wondered, after all the years, how much nutrition remained in the food?

  Ben used some water to prime a hand pump, and after a few futile tries, out came water, clear and cold and good tasting. They filled up every can and bottle they had with them and those they could find among the ruins, carefully wrapping the bottles with rags to prevent breakage.

  In the entire once-thriving little town, Ben and Jordy could find only six blankets and two big tarps that had escaped the ravages of looters. Ben found a few articles of clothing that would fit Jordy, and a good pair of boy’s lace-up boots.

  Several times during the afternoon, Ben would look up and catch the glint of sunlight from lenses of binoculars from the hills. He knew they were being watched, but the question was: by whom?

  As dusk began spreading purple fingers over the land, creating shadows throughout the town, Ben pulled his truck and trailer behind a store on the west side of the town.

  “I’m hungry, Ben,” Jordy said.

  “No fires, Jordy,” Ben told him, handing him a can of C-rations. “Eat this. We’ll be pulling out as soon as it’s full dark.”

  “You think we got trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  At full dark, Ben cranked his truck. Running without lights, he drove carefully and slowly out of the town. He drove almost ten miles without headlights. He found a dirt road leading off to the southwest and took it, driving almost a mile before pulling over.

  “We’ll camp here, Jordy. No fires. We’ll have our big meal at noon while we’re traveling. That way the fire won’t be so noticeable. We’ll gather dry wood that makes little smoke. You go on to sleep now. I’ll stand guard for a few hours.”

  The boy was asleep a few seconds after he slipped into his blankets and closed his eyes.

  Ben began his lonely vigil.

  Rani heard the men coming, walking as quietly as they could through the night. She reached for the AR-15 she had taken from the survivalist’s basement cache and slipped it off safety. She cut her eyes to Robert, just a few feet away from her. The boy held a shotgun in his hands, ready. To her left, Kathy was alert and waiting, the lever action .30–30 ready.

  The outlaws had tracked her little convoy all day; she had listened to them talk back and forth on the CB. And the things they said had been perverted, ranging far past filthy.

  She had told the kids that when she opened fire, to do the same. She had absolute faith in them to do just that. With the exception of the very youngest, they all knew what lay in store for them should the outlaws take them; all of the older kids were victims of sexual abuse from adults.

  The shapes of the men became more distinct, looming ominously out of the night.

  Rani waited.

  When they were no more than thirty yards away, she raised her weapon and opened fire. The booming of the shotgun and the bark of the .30–30 joined the crack of Rani’s AR-15. Muzzle flashes lashed and leaped into the night.

  “Kill them all!” Rani screamed.

  Each of the three had a spare weapon on the ground beside them. As the weapons they were using ran out of ammo, they dropped their empties and jerked up the spares.

  Rani, Kathy, and Robert gave no mercy to the outlaws. They didn’t delude themselves into believing they killed them all, but they knew they had inflicted heavy losses upon the men.

  The sounds of engines cranking up and the spinning of rear tires in the dirt and sand came to the woman and the kids.

  “Take all the guns and bullets!” Rani shouted. “And be careful. Some of them might still be alive.”

  The weapons and ammo collected from the dead and dying, Rani yelled for the kids to head for the trucks. By the road, they discovered another truck and a Jeep wagon. Both vehicles were filled with gas, with spare gas cans front and back, in frames. The vehicles held food and blankets and other gear she could not identify in the dark.

  “Kathy, Jane! You’re going to have to drive these vehicles. We need these supplies. Can you do it, kids?” Rani asked.

  The girls nodded their heads.

  “Let’s go. I’ll take the lead. Robert, you bring up the rear. Kathy and Jane, you’ll be in the middle. We’ve got to get out of here.”

  The girls—really already young adults, for their lives had been hard, with little time for the joys of youth—got behind the wheels of their respective vehicles, adjusted the seats, and cranked the engines.

  “We’re ready, Miss Rani,” they called.

  The short convoy pulled out into the darkness.

  Rani led them for thirty miles before pulling over behind a farm house. There, she set up guards while the rest slept. At first light she would inspect their newly acquired booty and travel on. According to her old map, they had a hundred and seventy miles to go.

  A hundred and seventy miles.

  She shook her head. God, she was tired.

  16

  Ben and Jordy hit Highway 2810—if it could still be called a highway—an hour after first light. With any kind of luck at all, they would make Ruidosa before dark. Or, correcting that, the outskirts of the town, for Ben wanted to drive through towns during the day. At least during the day he could see what he was shooting at. And who was shooting at him.

  They were traveling through desolate country, and the going had been slowed considerably by the trailer they were pulling. Damn thing wasn’t tracking properly, wobbling and wriggling behind them. But at least it was still with them.

  No sooner had that thought passed through Ben’s mind than a tire blew on the trailer.

  Thinking some extremely vulgar phrases, Ben changed the flat and silently prayed the old spare would hold until he reached a town and could search for another tire.

  They reached Ruidosa with plenty of daylight left them; to his surprise, Ben located a tire in the looted, burned, and deserted little town that would fit the trailer.

  Something about this part of Texas was jogging memories in Ben’s mind, but as yet, he could not bring them to the fore. He
knew it was something he’d found doing research years back, when he had made his living as a writer.

  Then it came to him.

  Near Redford, still many miles away, there was a huge private library. If he could just recall where it was. If he could bring the location to mind, he wanted to visit the place; hopefully, it had escaped looters. He knew that people who looted were not interested in literary flights of fancy; theirs was a much more baser regard.

  Ben and Jordy made camp during the daylight hours just outside Ruidosa, ate dinner, and then moved on to a different location to camp for the night, halfway between Ruidosa and Indio. Ben had spotted no one, but the short hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand up—or so it seemed to Ben—like the hair on a dog’s back upon sensing danger.

  Ben would sleep lightly this night.

  “Got about a platoon of Raines’ Rebels bearing down hard south,” one of Campo’s scouts reported in. “They’re travelin’ in a hell of a hurry.”

  “How you know they’re Rebels?” West asked.

  “Tiger stripe,” the scout replied.

  “Huh?”

  “Raines’ people wear tiger stripe,” Campo told the man. “Black berets.” He looked at his scout. “Leave them be,” he ordered. “Tanglin’ with sixty of those people is like tanglin’ with six hundred other folks. Fuckers are crazy. And they travel with enough mortars and artillery to cause a lot of trouble.”

  Campo was quiet for a few moments, slurping at his coffee. Then he smiled.

  West caught the smile in the light of the camp fire. “What is it?”

  “Even short-range transmissions are gettin’ pretty scratchy, right?”

  “Yeah. So what?”

  “Asshole! Think about it. If we can’t get through on the radios, then neither can Raines or his people. They don’t know where he is neither.”

  West grinned, the light from the fire giving his face an evil cast. “Oh, I got it. Right.” He rose from his chair and hobbled off to his tent.