Death in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “There is nothing I can do about that at the moment. But I tell you this: if those prisoners are harmed anymore than they already are, I’ll lock you all down hard in the prison south of town and you will either starve to death or die of thirst—whichever comes first, it doesn’t make a damn to me. And don’t make the mistake of thinking I’m bluffing.”

  “You ain’t that hard, Raines!”

  “The hell he ain’t,” another outlaw said. “You just don’t know Ben Raines. That’s the hardest-nosed bastard that ever pulled on a pair of boots. I’m givin’ it up. I’m comin’ out, Raines. The side door. I got a half-dozen prisoners with me.”

  “You yeller son of a bitch!” he was taunted and cursed by a few of the others. And Ben noticed it was only a few.

  “Dan,” Ben said. “Get over to the side and see to the prisoners.”

  Dan and a few Rebels slipped into the darkness.

  Beth was looking through night lenses. “I can see the man, General. He’s got a gun to a woman’s head.”

  “Keep his face in your mind, Beth. His, and any with him.”

  A single gunshot cut the night air.

  “He killed the woman, General.” Beth’s words were filled with anger. “Just let her fall and then spat on her.”

  “I told you, Raines!” the outlaw shouted. “Somebody bring me another cunt up here.”

  Ben lifted the bullhorn. “Last chance, people,” he warned them.

  A half-dozen more men, with a dozen or more women and kids, hurriedly left through the side door of the old prison. Dan and his people grabbed them and hustled them to safety.

  Another gunshot split the air.

  “Another piece of filth killed a little boy,” Beth said.

  “Take the prison,” Ben ordered.

  It took less than five minutes to secure the old prison. Ben looked at the seven outlaws who had survived the storming.

  Then his eyes drifted to the dead woman and dead young boy. He again looked at the outlaws.

  “You were warned. Buddy, chain them securely. We’ll take them south of town in the morning.”

  “You ain’t a-gonna do that, Raines. That ain’t nothin’ no law-abidin’ puke like you would do.”

  “If you believe that, then that makes you a fool!”

  “Lock them down and weld the doors shut,” Ben ordered.

  Just past dawn, and one of the outlaws was shaking so badly all present thought his legs might break. He had pissed his filthy jeans as the fright turned him into a glob of jelly.

  One by one, the outlaws were shoved into the narrow cells and the doors welded closed. The outlaws were now beginning to realize that Ben Raines had meant every word he had spoken through the bullhorn.

  They cursed him and spat on him. Then they begged. Two of them even tried prayer.

  The one outlaw who was frightened out of his wits was not locked down.

  “Ride,” Ben told him. “Get on your goddamn motorcycle or in your pickup truck or on your skateboard or whatever and get the hell gone from here. Spread the word to your scummy-assed friends that I’m on the way. Tell your outlaw buddies and bikers and so-called warlords to either straighten up their act or get ready to die. And be sure and tell them about this!” He pointed to the welded-in prisoners. “Move, you sorry son of a bitch!”

  The outlaw didn’t need a second invitation. He was gone.

  Ben waved all the others out except for Dan, Buddy, and Tina.

  “You dirty bastard!” a biker spat the words at Ben. “You know how hard we’ll die in here!” he screamed. “This ain’t right.”

  “How many women and girls and boys have you raped and sodomized and enslaved and tortured and murdered, punk? How much grief have you brought to innocent people?”

  “But that ain’t ’pposed to make no difference!” he shouted. “People like you ’pposed to show mercy to people like me!”

  “No,” Ben corrected him. “Not people like me. That type of justice was tried for two hundred years, and for two hundred years it didn’t work. This works.”

  “How?” he squalled, slobber leaking out of his mouth.

  “Whether or not it proves to be an object lesson to others is debatable. Personally I think it does. Be that as it may, we’re rid of you in such a way that allows you, to one degree or the other, to suffer as you have caused others to suffer.”

  The outlaw sat down on his steel bunk and glared hate at Ben.

  Dan opened the outer door at a knock from the other side.

  “I just cain’t believe this,” the outlaw said, over the crying and cursing of his buddies.

  He was looking at one of his former female prisoners. She began relating a story of degradation and evil, of pain and humiliation, of needless death for pleasure . . . at the hands of the outlaws.

  Then she turned her back to the welded-in outlaws and left the cellblock.

  Ben waved the others out behind her and stepped through the door, closing it behind him.

  Rawlins was secure.

  With the settlers firmly in place in the liberated town, Ben and his Rebels pulled out for Casper, to once more face the hated Night People.

  The news of what he’d done with the outlaws in Rawlins spread quickly throughout the West. For the outlaws and the trash and scum who had terrorized the West, up to this point, Ben and his Rebels were a force to be reckoned with someday.

  Someday was now.

  Ben Raines and his Rebel army had for several years been off fighting foreign forces who had invaded U.S. soil. And the outlaws operating throughout the ravaged land had ballooned in numbers with no organized force to combat them. Now all that was changing. Ben Raines was on the move, determined to rid the land of human vermin.

  The army of the Libyan named Khamsin, the Hot Wind, had been reduced to no more than a demoralized few, at the hands of the Rebels. The Russian, Striganov, and his forces were now on the side of the Rebels, massing along the American-Canadian border. Sam Hartline was dead. And now Ben Raines was coming after the outlaws.

  Many borderline outlaws had a change of heart after the news of what happened in Rawlins spread. They shuddered at just the thought of being welded into cells and left to die.

  This just was not the way it was back before the Great War. Criminal justice, back then, had been on the side of the punks and thugs and scum and to hell with the victim’s rights and the overwhelming vocal cries of the majority of law-abiding citizens.

  Ben Raines had changed all that. It was like a deadly virus: if you had it, you died; if you didn’t catch it, you lived. Very simple.

  Ben Raines’s philosophy was just like that. Obey the laws of the land and everything is smooth. Screw up, and you’re in bad trouble.

  Those outlaws who did not possess the degree of arrogance and the contempt for others that so many of their counterparts had, left whatever gang they were working with and pulled out. They left their outlaw ways behind them and took up homesteading, raising themselves a garden and becoming a part of whatever community they settled in. It wasn’t as much fun as robbing and raping and looting and murdering, but with Ben Raines on the prowl, it was a damn sight healthier.

  When Satan brought the news to Matt Callahan, the outlaw leader took it calmly enough. He knocked back a shotglass of rye whiskey—neat—and carefully rolled himself a smoke.

  “Well, partner,” Snake said, “I reckon there comes a time when everybody throws a saddle on a cayuse he can’t ride.”

  Even Satan sometimes had a hard time deciphering Matt’s cowboy lingo. “You mean, like we can’t win this fight, Snake?”

  “Oh, no, pard. Ol’ Slim has done pushed open the batwings and stepped off the boardwalk to face a gunhand that’s slicker than he is.”

  “Ol’ Slim?”

  “Ben Raines.”

  “Oh.”

  “And since our posse didn’t come back from Shreveport, and nothin’s been heard from Meg, I got to think she’s done took her a runnin’ iron and changed
brands. My own flesh and blood is ridin’ for the homesteaders.”

  Satan understood that. Sort of.

  “Send a rider out a-foggin’ to the other ranches, Satan. Tell them hardcases to strap on their six-shooters, fork them a hoss, and come on a gallop. We got to get ready to drag iron.”

  Satan thought about that for a moment. “Ah ... you want me to get the other bikers in here for a fight with Ben . . . ah, Slim and his boys?”

  Matt tilted back his black hat while the smoke from the hand-rolled cigarette that dangled from one corner of his mouth half closed one eye. “That’s what I said, partner,” Matt drawled.

  “He’s closing in fast, Snake.”

  “He’s got a week’s hard ride ahead of him ’fore he hits our home range. We got time. Tell some of the boys to throw up a line around Buffalo. And to start blowing some bridges on the Interstate all the way over to 59. That’ll slow Slim down even more; make him take the country roads so’s we can harass him.”

  “That’s good thinking, Snake.”

  “Naturally. But I don’t want all the boys in here. We got to keep us some hired guns in reserve. Ol’ Slim is tricky, Satan. Don’t never sell him short. He’s tricky, he’s tough, and he’s as mean as a tweaked-tail cottonmouth. He’ll punch his way through to here, don’t make no bets against that. But what we got to do is keep snipin’ at him, keep knockin’ out Rebels. Make him use up his ammo and keep him on edge. When he gets up here, we’ll have more men than he’s got and we can put Slim and his Rebs down. That’s my plan.”

  “It’s a good one, Snake.”

  “Thanks kindly. Toss you a loop on a good hoss, Satan. You got some hard ridin’ to do.”

  Satan left the ranchhouse and stood on the porch for a moment, scratching his head. “The bastard’s crazy as a road lizard, but still manages to make sense.”

  He stepped off the porch and waved for some men to come to him. “Get on the horn and tell Butch to start blowing the bridges on Interstate 87 all the way over to 59. Rest of you come with me. We got to make some plans. Ben Raines is about to knock on the door. ”

  14

  The first town the Rebels came to on 287, about thirty-five miles north of Rawlins, was a burned-out shell. There were no survivors so they did not linger there. About ten miles up the road, they left 287 for 220, turning northeast toward Casper. And like so many roads they had traveled, this one was in very bad shape, slowing the column down to no more than a crawl.

  They bivouacked along the Sweetwater River and were up and rolling just as dawn split the dark sky with rays of silver and gold.

  And they began finding evidence that the creepies were near.

  The Rebels found where whole families had been slaughtered. In many cases, only the best cuts of human flesh had been taken—best depending upon the taste buds of the individual creepie.

  Thirty miles outside of Casper, Ben made his decision. There was too much evidence that the city was filled to overflowing with creepies to try to save it; it would be too costly in terms of Rebel life.

  “We’ll destroy it,” Ben told his commanders. “Then move on down to Douglas and salvage that to complete the triangle. We want be in position by dawn tomorrow. We want to avoid damaging the air strip. So I want teams to go in and seize that under artillery cover. We’ll hold the freed prisoners from Rawlins there, and any we manage to save from Casper. With three-quarters of the Laramie-Rawlins-Douglas triangle secure, I don’t believe any outlaws or creepies will chance staying along the east boundaries on Interstate 25. Any questions? All right. We pull out at four in the morning.”

  There was no way the tanks and trucks of Ben’s column could make a silent approach to Casper—so he did not even try. They rolled up to the city and got into position.

  Meg, being new with the Rebels, asked the question. “What about survivors that might be in the city?”

  “We hope for the best, Meg. That’s all we can do. We’re facing one hell of a fight just north of us. I can’t afford to lose people.”

  “That’s not all of it, is it, General?” She asked it just as Dan walked up.

  “No,” Ben said softly. “It isn’t. If any have been held any length of time, it’s been discovered that the majority of those . . . unfortunate people never make it back to any useful”—he sighed—“way of life, for want of a better term. We’re being overwhelmed by ex-prisoners of the Night People. We just don’t have the personnel or the know-how to treat them. I’ve got the best shrinks in the world back at Base Camp One. They just can’t break through to them. That’s the main reason Dr. Chase flew up to Leadville. Even the ones we rescued a year ago, two years ago, just don’t respond to any type of treatment we can give.” He lifted his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “So they’re better off dead?” Meg asked.

  Ben nodded his head. “Considering our limited ability to heal the mind, and the state of the world, that seems to be the general consensus.”

  “Or the General’s consensus,” she countered. Then walked away.

  “She doesn’t understand, Ben,” Dan said in a rare use of Ben’s first name, even though Dan had tried for years to have the Englishman stop calling him General. “She just doesn’t understand so very many things. Namely that we are strained to capacity with various types of . . . unfortunates. And that even though our ranks are gaining in numbers each week, with each outpost we set up, it’s much like the child’s game of two steps forward and one step back. But that doesn’t make the final decision any easier. I just wanted you to know that I understand.”

  “Thank you, Dan. Tell the gunners to open fire.”

  Ben ordered the firing to commence at 0430. He kept up the devastating pounding for two hours, then waved his Rebels into the burning city. Strong west winds had begun blowing about an hour earlier, and they fanned the flames, hurrying the scorching of the city.

  The Rebels shot the creepies as they found them, and brought out several dozen men and women the Night People had held hostage . . . for later dining. Several of them were completely mindless, driven mad by a fear that most would never know and few could comprehend.

  “Get on the horn, Corrie. Birds up to Casper with supplies and medical teams. And tell Ike to send another detail of Rebels this time. We’re going to settle Douglas and complete the triangle before we tackle Matt Callahan and his bunch.”

  He looked up at Dan. “Reports on any Rebel dead or wounded?”

  “Two wounded. Not seriously. There would have been a dozen dead if not for the body armor.”

  Ben nodded. “Tina, take a team and check out Douglas. It’s fifty-odd miles over there. Give me a bump when you get close.”

  “Ten-four, Dad.”

  “Let’s ease over to the airport, gang. We’ll bivouac there.”

  Buddy and his people had stacked up the dead creepies in a field away from the airport and were dousing their stinking carcasses with gasoline for burning.

  “What is their fascination with airports?” Dan mused aloud. “That has been gnawing at me for months. I don’t understand it.”

  “Nor do I. But we never fail to find a large number of them located around airports.”

  “Maybe they use the runways for jogging?” Cooper offered with a straight face.

  The groans of Jersey, Beth, and Corrie and the laughter of Ben and Dan filled the air.

  Dan slapped Cooper on the back. “Thanks, Coop. I need a good chuckle.”

  Cooper grinned and stuck his tongue out at the ladies.

  Jersey flipped him the finger.

  The Rebels cleared a runway and then rested and waited for the birds to land while Casper burned itself out. The planes began setting down on the afternoon of the second day.

  Tina had reported that a nest of outlaws were occupying Douglas and looked as though they were preparing for a fight. Then, abruptly, they had begun pulling out, heading straight north up Highway 59.

  “Matt’s got something up his sleeve,” Ben commen
ted. “Corrie, bump the outpost down at Laramie and bring them up to date. Tell them that those families who wanted to resettle can come on up to Douglas.”

  He turned to Dan. “We need some people up here to get the oil industry around Casper producing once again. Give it some thought, Dan. See what you come up with.”

  “That bunch that came in from Texas while we were in New York City. Didn’t Cecil say they had oil field experience?”

  “Yeah, I think so. All right. That’s our crew. Corrie, get them moving up here.”

  “It’s coming together, Father,” Buddy said, a big grin on his face.

  “Slowly but surely, son. We’re getting there.”

  Ben took a platoon of Rebels with him and traveled the miles over to Douglas. He encountered no unfriendlies along the way.

  Douglas was in good shape, considering the type of people that had been inhabitating the place for several years. Settlers from the southern part of the state were beginning to arrive, staking out claims and setting up shops. Ben left the detail of Rebels and their families just arrived from Base Camp One and headed back to the still smoking and destroyed city of Casper.

  He found bad news waiting for him.

  “Scouts report bridges and overpasses blown all the way up to Kaycee,” Dan told him. “And the pilots report that bridges have been blown all along Route 59 north.”

  “That’s why the trash in Douglas pulled out when they did. Damn!”

  “I’ve been consulting a map,” Dan said. “It looks rather dismal.”

  “A lot of the older maps are,” Ben said with a straight face.

  Dan glanced at him and then chuckled. “The choice of routes, General.”

  Ben took the map and studied it for a moment. “Yes, I see what you mean. So straight up on the Interstate through Buffalo is out, as is 59. It doesn’t leave us much choice, Dan. The only way open is 20/26 west, unless we want to chance these county roads, and I don’t.”

  “Nor do I.”

  “We pull out in the morning, then. Buddy, take your Rat Team and head out now. Don’t get yourself in a bind.”