Alone in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “Not always, Jake.”

  “But you do, Raines. You do.”

  “I do what, Campo?”

  “I read about you, Raines, when you was fronting the Tri-States. You’re a man of honor, and order, and discipline, right?”

  “To a certain degree, Jake.”

  Jake laughed. “Yeah, you are, Ben. That’s why I’m going to win this fight. I just figured it out, boy.”

  But Ben was one step ahead of the outlaw.

  “You see, Raines.” Jake stood up and stepped away from the protection of the tree. He unbuckled his web belt and let it fall to the ground. “I’m unarmed. And you won’t shoot an unarmed man. Not Ben Raines. Ben Raines has too much macho pride in him to do that.”

  Jake stepped closer, into the very small clearing in front of the cabin.

  Ben moved to the door and opened it, stepping out onto the small porch.

  “Oh, you disappoint me, Ben,” Jake said, his eyes on Ben’s Thompson.

  Ben laid the Thompson on the porch and stepped onto the ground.

  Jake laughed. “I’m gonna tear your fuckin’ head off, Raines.” He lifted his big fists. “Just you and me, boy. A stand-up, duke-it-out, fistfight. Just you and me.”

  He moved closer to Ben. A hard glint of victory was shining in his eyes. He spat on the muddy, snowy ground and shuffled his booted feet in some semblance of a prize fighter.

  Ben lifted his fists and stepped closer.

  Jake grunted, then laughed. He stepped in and swung a huge right fist.

  Ben ducked and side-stepped. He kicked out with his boot and caught Campo flush on the knee, knocking the bigger, heavier man to the ground. Campo shook his head and crawled to his knees. Ben kicked the man in the face with the toe of his jump boot. Teeth popped out of the man’s mouth and rolled around on the ground. Blood dripped from a smashed mouth.

  Jake lifted his head, disbelief in his eyes. He tried to rise to his feet. Ben kicked him in the side, hearing ribs break under the heavy toe of the boot. Jake screamed and fell to the ground, white-hot pain lancing through him.

  Ben kicked him twice more in the head, one savage kick tearing an ear from the man. Blood streamed from the man’s head.

  “Fight fair, you son of a bitch!” Jake spoke through his ruined mouth, the words mushy, pushing past torn lips.

  “No such thing, Campo,” Ben told him. “Just a winner and a loser.”

  Jake rushed Ben, scrambling to his feet. Ben stepped aside and the man ran headfirst into a tree, splitting his head wide open. Blood stained the man’s face, pouring from his badly mangled head.

  Ben picked up a wrist-sized stick from the ground and brought it down hard on Campo’s back, the force of the blow driving the man to the ground.

  “Seems like I ain’t been able to do nothing right the past few months,” Jake said. He suddenly rolled and came up with a knife in his hand.

  Ben had never lost his savage, cold grin. He pulled his .45 from leather, cocked it, and began pulling the trigger. One in the chamber, six in the clip. He put all seven rounds in the big man’s chest, each round knocking the huge man backward. Jake Campo, outlaw, self-styled warlord, died with his bloody eyes wide open and staring.

  “That’s three for Jordy,” Ben said.

  38

  The warm spell broke on the third day, with winter locking Ben and Rani in. Before the new snows came, the pair had worked, dragging off the bodies of the dead outlaws and dumping them into a deep ravine, shoveling dirt and gravel over them.

  Now, as the cold winds howled around the snug little cabin in the deep woods, and the snow piled up around them, they sat in front of a fire and played chess.

  With Rani regularly beating Ben.

  “I don’t know how you’re doing it,” Ben grumbled. “But you’re cheating. I just know you are.”

  Rani laughed at him. “Checkmate,” she said.

  “Crap!” Ben said.

  “How did you learn to fight like you did, Ben?” she asked. “The way you fought Jake Campo.”

  “There is no such thing as a fair fight, Rani. Not outside the ring. I’ve never believed in those so-called fair fights.’ One goes in to win. Period. The trick is knowing you’re right and sticking by your convictions.”

  “Did you always fight like that, Ben. I mean, even when things were ... normal?”

  “Yes,” he said, putting away the board and getting a deck of cards. “Strip poker, maybe?” he grinned.

  “You’re going to look awfully funny sitting there on the cold floor, stark naked.”

  “You have a point.” He put away the cards.

  “Were you a loner as a boy, Ben?”

  Ben wore a reflective look for a moment. “Yes. I guess I was. I never followed the usual drummer. I think I marched to my own beat even when it was socially unacceptable. Looking back, I guess I really enjoyed being alone. I know I did. I tried not to bother anyone, and didn’t want anybody bothering me. Didn’t always work that way, though.”

  She was curious about this man, this founder of the Tri-States, the man that so many chose to follow. “You had a normal childhood, though?”

  Ben laughed at her serious expression. “Oh, sure. I played baseball and basketball. But I never took them very seriously. How does one take a game seriously? I spent most of my time working and chasing girls.”

  “Were you successful?” she asked, a twinkle in her green eyes.

  “Well, I spent more time working than catching the girls,” he admitted.

  “But you caught your share of the girls?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly. “Looking back, I’ll have to say I did. I wan’t a jock, so that was a definite minus for me. But I had a happy, very normal childhood, I guess. I’ve never been a person who sought many material things, Rani. I’ve always been content with just enough to get by, and perhaps a tiny bit more. I never cared much for a lot of pomp. I was never a joiner. Never belonged to a country club; never cared much what people thought of me. Like I said, I guess I marched to the beat of another drummer.”

  “Where have I heard that before?”

  “Henry David Thoreau,” Ben said, his memory working hard to recall the line. “I didn’t agree with all that Thoreau said, but I loved much of it.”

  “Say it.”

  “The line?”

  “Yes.”

  “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

  She looked at the man for a long moment. “I guess that fits you rather well, Ben.”

  “I guess it does, Rani.”

  “I think I’m in love with you.”

  “Be sure, Rani.”

  “I’m sure, Ben.”

  “Yes. I guess I am, too.”

  The days spun and drifted and wound into weeks, while the two in the cabin grew closer, mentally, emotionally, and physically. To them, it was as if the world gone mad around them did not exist. They built snowmen, had snowball fights, explored, and fell in love.

  January drifted into February and February became March, but Ben and Rani really didn’t notice the passing months. March whispered into April, then began roaring with the last major winter storm of the season. As the storm abated, howling eastward to blow itself out, Rani lay in Ben’s arms before the fireplace. Both of them were nearly asleep.

  Rani stirred and said, “It’ll be full spring soon, Ben.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Hadn’t we better be thinking about pulling out pretty soon?”

  Ben opened his eyes and looked around. “Did you hear anything?”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know. It was an ... well, it wasn’t a natural sound for the woods.”

  “You’re imagining things, old man.”

  “I guess so. About pulling out. Where do you want to go?”

  “You have to start making plans about setting up those outposts, right
?”

  Ben groaned and stretched. “Don’t remind me of that, please.”

  “And you have to start thinking about your plans for the Russian and Hartline, right?”

  “Yes, dear.”

  There was that noise again. Ben cut his eyes toward the door. He was sure the mutants knew they were in the deep woods, but so far none had shown any willingness to attack.

  Was that a mutant out there? Ben wasn’t sure.

  He listened. The noise—whatever it was—was not repeated.

  Ben looked at his watch. Two o’clock in the afternoon. The winds had ceased, and the temperature was once more on the rise. He looked at Rani. She was looking at the closed cabin door.

  “Something wrong?” Ben asked.

  “Something’s out there, Ben,” she whispered. “And it isn’t an animal.”

  Ben pulled on his boots and picked up his .45, jacking back the hammer. “I’ll go have a look around.”

  The cabin door splintered open. Men filled the room. Ben cleared the room of the invaders, the booming of the .45 almost deafening in the closed space. Ben didn’t know these men; they weren’t outlaws, for they were dressed in military field clothes, and they were disciplined.

  Ben felt the shock as a bullet struck him in the left shoulder, knocking him backward. He fell heavily and grabbed his Thompson. Holding it one-handed, he pulled the trigger.

  The heavy weapon bucked and roared in his hand. The slugs knocked and tore great chunks of wood out of the walls and ceiling. It also cleared the doorway of uniformed men, splattering blood and brains and bits of bone all over the porch and small yard.

  Ben got to his feet just in time to catch a bullet in his leg. The shock and force of the slug knocked him sprawling. He lost his Thompson. He grabbed a shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner, and lifted it just as Sam Hartline stepped into the doorway. The mercenary saw the shotgun and jumped to one side as Ben pulled the trigger. Most of the buckshot missed the man, but enough hit him to knock him off the porch.

  Rani’s screaming had, for some reason, stopped echoing around the cabin. Ben cut his eyes, frantically searching. She was gone.

  “Kill the son of a bitch!” Sam Hartline’s voice yelled the command. “Take the woman and get the hell moving out of here.”

  A bullet struck Ben’s side, once more slamming him to the cabin floor. He hit the floor and rolled, coming up firing the sawed-off shotgun. The full load struck a man dead-center in the head, taking his head off his shoulders. The man flopped on the floor, half in and half out of the cabin.

  Ben saw the grenade come flying through the doorway. It landed on the floor and rolled. Ben dove for the storage area, hit hard and bleeding. The grenade exploded just as Ben reached the cave, the force of it throwing him into the cave, shrapnel peppering his legs and back.

  Something struck Ben on the back of the head, dropping him into darkness just as the front part of the cabin collapsed, sealing him in.

  39

  Cold. Ben was cold. And confused. And hurting. All six feet plus of him was hurting. He opened his eyes and found darkness surrounding him. Slowly, tentatively, he moved the fingers of his right hand. They worked. At least he was alive. He tried moving his left hand. Pain shot white-hot through the arm. He cut his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his wrist watch. One o’clock. He struggled to remember ... remember something very important: But what was it?

  Yeah. It had been two o’clock when the attack came. So Ben had been out for ten or eleven hours.

  But where was Rani?

  Hartline. Sam Hartline had taken her. He remembered the man’s shout about them having the woman.

  Slowly, cautiously, Ben moved all his extremities. His left arm and right leg hurt. But it was the pain in his stomach that worried him. Then he remembered. Not his stomach, but his side. The bullet had hit him just as he was turning. He remembered the bullet entering and exiting. All right, he could deal with that.

  But do it quietly! Survival leaped into his mind. Take one thing at a time, Raines.

  Warmth. Got to get warm to reduce the chances of killing shock.

  He lay very still, mentally reviewing every corner of the cave/storage area. He put out his hand and felt shelves to his right. OK. He knew where he was. He pulled a tarp from the bottom shelf and wrapped it around him. He lay for a time, listening for any alien sounds. Nothing. He felt sure he was alone.

  Painfully extending his arm, he felt on the third shelf for candles and matches, knocking everything on the shelf on top of him. He fumbled around and found the candles and matches. He lit a candle and placed it on the floor. Even that simple action exhausted him. He lay still, gathering more strength.

  Food! As nauseous as it sounded, Ben knew he had to have food—and liquids.

  He felt himself fading. Just before he passed out, he blew out the candle.

  Then he dropped into unconsciousness.

  “You’re a fine-looking cunt, lady,” one of Hartline’s men told Rani. “Ol’ Sam get on his feet, he’s gonna have a fine time with you.”

  Rani spat in the man’s face.

  The man drew back his fist.

  “You hit her and Sam’ll have your ass roasted for breakfast, Denning,” a man warned him.

  The man dropped his fist. “My turn will come, bitch!” he told her.

  Rani looked around her. She had no idea where she was. She had been carried out of the woods and dumped into the back of a truck, bound hands and feet.

  But she knew one thing for certain: she was in trouble.

  Ben opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. Should be daylight out. But where was the light?

  Then he remembered the grenade, the explosion, the walls caving in.

  Was he trapped?

  He didn’t know. First things first. He had to tend to his wounds and get something to eat.

  Summoning all his strength, Ben pushed the tarp from him and sat up, his back to the shelving behind him. The movement hurt him, the wound in his side opening up. Couldn’t be helped.

  He lit a half-dozen candles, placing them in spots where, if he did pass out, they would not trap him in fire. He found a large first-aid kit and took off his shirt. He poured raw alcohol on the wound in his side, front and back, then crudely bandaged it. It wouldn’t win any prizes for neatness, but it was firm. He treated the wound in his arm, bandaged it, then went to work on his leg. That was the wound that worried him the most. The lead was still in his leg. And he knew it had to come out.

  He drank some water from a tin and ate several hard crackers. He poured iodine on the wound and began probing with his fingers, outside the wound, searching for the bullet.

  He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the slug. It was just under the skin, on the outside of his upper thigh.

  He heated the blade of a knife in the flickering flames of a candle. Taking a deep breath, Ben carefully sliced open his flesh and popped the slug out. It bounced on the floor.

  With pain-sweat popping out and dripping from his face, Ben fumbled in the first-aid kit and found a bottle of penicillin. He took a half-dozen of the pills, washing them down with sips of water. He coated the wound with iodine and carefully bandaged it.

  He dozed for a few moments, resting, gathering his strength.

  Opening his eyes, he felt better, a bit refreshed. He began his crawl out of the storage cave. He crawled carefully, for he had no idea how much structural damage the large grenade had done to the cabin. He didn’t want a beam falling on him.

  The shrapnel in his back irritated him, but there was no way he could do anything about that. He had poured raw alcohol down his back, and that would have to do for the moment.

  The going was very slow. He would crawl a few inches, carefully move lumber out of the way, then inch forward. He found his Thompson, checked it, and found it unharmed.

  Then he saw daylight. A thin line of sunlight seeping through the ruined cabin’s front wall.
Or what was left of the wall.

  But before he could reach the light, he passed out.

  It was a few minutes before noon when Ben opened his eyes. He knew then that he was hurt much worse than he had thought at first. Have to take it very easy, he cautioned. Very easy.

  He saw the pot hanging above the cold ashes in the fireplace and inched toward it. Using his fingers, he dug into the cold stew Rani had fixed and ate greedily. He cleared the fallen lumber from around the fireplace and built a fire. The warmth filled him, soothed him, seemed to lessen the pain from his wounds. Pulling a blanket over him, Ben lay on the floor for a few moments, resting. He began drifting in and out of consciousness. His mind was filled with old memories. He tried to fight them away, but they persisted.

  “What are your plans, Ben?” Salina had asked him on that cool, misty morning outside the motel in Indiana.

  He told her all his plans, his dreams, his schedule he had worked out in his mind. He told her of his home in Morrison and how he had literally slept through the horror after being stung by wasps.

  “The stings probably saved your life,” she told him.

  They talked for a few moments more, than she unexpectedly kissed him. She turned and walked away.

  Ben had looked up into the face of Kasim, the face filled with raw hatred.

  “I’ll kill you someday,” Kasim hissed the hate at him.

  “I doubt it,” Ben had replied.

  But Salina was dead, along with their child. Killed by government troops during the assault on Tri-States.

  Later, Ben had seen the first of many billboard signs:

  BEN RAINES—IF YOU’RE ALIVE AND READING THIS, OR IF ANYBODY KNOWS THE WHEREABOUTS OF BEN RAINES, HAVE HIM CONTACT US ON MILITARY 39.2. KEEP TRYING. WE’LL BE LISTENING. WE NEED ORDERS.

  But Ben didn’t want to be anybody’s commanding general. He just wanted to be left alone. To travel the ruined nation, to write his journal.