Death in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “They’re out there,” Ben told her. “Some of them probably watching us right now. They know what we are, they just don’t know who we are.”

  “Maybe I ought to get a brush and a can of paint,” Cooper said with a grin. “Start painting your name on all the vehicles. General Ben Raines and the Rebels. Enlistees please fall in at the rear of the column.”

  Tina’s voice coming out of the speaker cut the laughter short. “Far Out Scout to Eagle.”

  “Go ahead, Tina.”

  “Got a few people outside of Harlowton you might like to speak with.”

  “Ten-four. We’re about half an hour away.”

  “We been down around Lake Lebo,” the man told Ben, after shaking his hand. “We had us a pretty good little beginning here in Harlowton until that goddamned Malone and his people showed up. They hit us hard one afternoon. Killed about a hundred. All we could do was grab what we could and run like hell.”

  Ben had studied a map and liked what he saw about this area of Montana. “Is there an airstrip in this town?”

  “If you want to call it that. I reckon we could clean it up. But it can’t handle nothing big.”

  “Twin-engine prop cargo planes?”

  “Oh, yes, sir.”

  The man’s name was Jim Tower and he was the sterotype Western man. Tanned faced, lean-hipped, and looked tough enough to handle double just about anything that came his way.

  “You’ve heard about the outposts I’m setting up, Jim?”

  “We still got pretty good radio equipment, yes, sir.”

  “You game for running an outpost here?”

  Jim smiled. “You just try me, Ben Raines.”

  Ben halted the column at Harlowton and sent word to Cecil to start rounding up more settlers and equipment. On the morning of the second day, he spread a map out on the hood of a Jeep.

  “Here’s what I have in mind, Jim. Down south, Sheridan, Hardin, Miles City. Up here, Roundup, Harlowton, Lewiston. Eventually, if I live long enough, I plan to have anywhere from six to twelve outposts in every state in this battered country. It isn’t going to be like the old days, Jim. It’s going to be run just like the Tri-States. No handouts, no free rides, justice comes down hard and swift and, in many cases, final. It’s going to smack of autocracy, but until we get a grip on this nation, that’s the way—in my opinion—it’s going to have to be.”

  “You don’t hear me complaining, do you, Ben?”

  “What do you know about the present inhabitants of Lewistown—if any?”

  “Trash. Outlaws. Scum. But there used to be a pretty fair little airport there.”

  “All right. Jim, you begin getting your people settled in back here. Lewiston is close enough to the battlelines to serve as our depot and as a jumping-off place for us. We’ll bring the birds in there.” He glanced at Corrie. “Let’s go clean it out.”

  Ben left Jim and his people well armed and well supplied. He also left behind as squad of Rebels, with mortars and heavy machine guns, just in case those outlaws Ben knew were still tagging along somewhere behind him decided to hit the town.

  “We want Lewistown taken intact,” he told his people. “It’s small enough for us to do that. The airport is on the south side of the town; that’s another reason we want to use it for a depot. When things start looking in our favor, we can always shift the operation elsewhere. But not Great Falls. Jim says it’s full of creepies. And Corrie, tell the PUFFs down at Sheridan to stand by. I want Lewistown cleaned out by this time tomorrow. Let’s go!”

  Ben and the Rebels were knocking on the outskirts of Lewistown at dawn the next morning.

  Standing between two rumbling main battle tanks, Ben lifted powerful binoculars and looked over the scene. What he saw was a bunch of unshaven and dirty crud armed mostly with hunting rifles and pistols, staring back at him from behind crude roadblocks.

  “Dan, use loudspeakers and tell those men to lay down their arms and stand aside if they want to live to see tomorrow.”

  Dan relayed the message, the cold, hard words hurled electronically over the short distance.

  The outlaws’ reply was expected. A volley of gunfire erupted from the edge of town, the bullets wanging and howling off the armor of the tanks.

  Ben lifted his walkie-talkie. “Let’s show them that we have just a tad more firepower than they, people. About a minute’s worth should be convincing enough.”

  Ten tanks opened up with .50 caliber and 7.62 machine gun fire. Big Thumpers began roaring. And the Dusters opened up with 40mm cannon fire just as mortar crews began laying down patterns.

  The roadblock had been rusted-out old cars and trucks and concrete blocks and sandbags spread along a five-hundred-foot line.

  When Ben ordered the firing stopped, there were great gaps blown into the blockades. Vehicles and nearby buildings were burning, and bodies lay sprawled in bloody heaps all along the line.

  Ben looked at Dan. “Dan, tell them we are a very understanding group of people . . . but not very patient. So if they want to live, they had best lay down their weapons and stand aside.”

  Bedsheets and pillowcases and handkerchiefs and T-shirts began waving in surrender from that part of the town that was visible to the Rebels.

  “That’s better,” Ben said. “I do so enjoy dealing with reasonable people.”

  Tina and Buddy looked at their father and rolled their eyes.

  “Take your Scouts in, Dan.”

  Lewistown was in Rebel hands.

  They numbered just over two hundred and they were a scabby-looking lot. Ben walked up and down the line, looking at the men and women, disgust evident on his face. He could see fleas jumping about on all of them.

  Chester sat on the front seat in Dan’s Jeep, not wanting to get too close to the prisoners.

  “You ain’t got no right to come a-bustin’ up in here and jist take over!” one mouthy man popped off to Ben.

  Ben surprised the entire group by saying, “You’re quite correct. I have no right to do that. But we did it. Now the immediate problem facing us is this: what are we going to do with you?”

  “I be your woman, General!” a not-unattractive female called from the lines.

  Ben looked at her. “Madam, I wouldn’t touch you with a sterilized crowbar.”

  She glared hate at him.

  “I can do all sorts of happy things for a sweetie like you,” a man simpered, batting his eyes at Ben.

  Ben shuddered and tried to ignore the laughter from Tina and Buddy.

  Not accustomed to taking prisoners, Dan walked up to Ben and whispered, “What in the world are we going to with them?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest notion, Dan. Lock them all down and get Jim Tower up here. We’ll dispose of the murderers and rapists and so forth; try to talk to the others.”

  “Paul Simpson”—Jim Tower pointed him out—“he’s the so-called leader of this pack of filth. He’s a cold-blooded killer.” His eyes turned flint hard. “He killed my mother and father just after the bombs came . . . just for the fun of it.”

  “I shore liked the way they hollered and begged ‘fore I kilt ’em, you pussy!” Simpson shouted at him. He spat at Jim. “You ain’t got the guts to do nothin’ to me, you puke.”

  Jim did not reply. He reached into the back of his pickup and took out a coil of rope and began building a noose.

  Ben backed away. “You’re in charge here, Jim. Salvage the ones you think have any decency left in them . . . do what you want to with the rest of them.”

  Paul Simpson and twenty-one others of Paul’s gang were hanged that morning. No one among Jim’s group could positively state that any of the others had ever killed or raped or terrorized—although all knew they had.

  “What the hell do we do with the rest of them?” Jim asked.

  “That’s a problem we face all over the country,” Ben replied. “But I am certainly glad I have someone else to help make those hard decisions.”

  “Who?”

&nb
sp; “You,” Ben said with a smile.

  In the end, Jim turned the others loose, unarmed, and with a warning that if they ever showed their faces in any area of the country that he and the Rebels controlled, they would be shot on sight.

  “That ain’t fair!” a woman said. “We din’t have no choice in the matter.”

  “That’s crap!” Jim spat the words. “No one forced you to follow Paul Simpson. You could have done what the rest of us did: live as decently as possible, plant gardens, open schools, try to pull this country back together.”

  She sneered and spat at him, verbally hanging several uncomplimentary titles on him.

  “If you’re in my sight one minute from now,” Jim warned, slowly pulling a pistol from leather, “I’ll kill you.”

  The freed outlaws and their followers scattered, most leaving at a run.

  Ben looked at Jim Tower. There was not a doubt in his mind but that Jim would have killed the woman had she pressed her luck. Ben had made another good choice in picking people to help lead the nation out of the ashes of devastation and near hopelessness. It was a hard time—much harder than the opening and winning of the West a century and a half back—for those earlier pioneers, many of them, at least, once the mountain men had blazed the way, had the support of friends and family back East, and in many cases, the Army was there to help out.

  Not so now. Now there was no one to turn to for help. Now the help had to come from within, and it would take hard men and women to reclaim the land and enforce the few laws that Ben would hold over from the old system.

  Yes, Jim Tower and men like him would make it work. Ben had met Jim’s wife, and had been impressed by her. She had worked right by her husband’s side, both of them sharing equally in the seeing to it that the kids in their group had at least some schooling every day, the planting and harvesting of small gardens . . . and in the day-to-day struggle to survive in a land gone hostile.

  The light in that long, long tunnel shone just a bit brighter. The end was still years away, and Ben doubted that he would ever live to see it. But it was comforting to know that now they could at least see the light.

  Ben drove around to the airport. It could handle the Rebels’ twin-engine cargo planes with no problem.

  Ben walked to the communications truck to talk directly with Cecil and Ike.

  “I’m going to make Lewistown my jumping-off pint, Cec. From here, the supplies can be trucked up to Fort Benton. That’s going to be about fifty miles south of the present battle lines. Great Falls is out; it’s full of creepies, or so I’ve been told. I don’t have the time to check it out now.”

  “You want me to get some trucks rolling up there, Ben?”

  “That’s ten-fifty, Cec. Jim Tower, the man who will be in charge of this section once we’re gone, tells me there are plenty of vehicles in this area to more than adequately do the job. If I can pull it off, by that I mean keeping the towns intact, I’d like to have the other triangle of outposts be Fort Benton, Shelby, and Harve.”

  “You going to need some help up there.”

  Ben hesitated. “I . . . don’t know yet, Cec. I just don’t know what I’m up against. If I need help, it’ll be West and his men, I’m thinking. We’re beginning to spread ourselves pretty damned thin leaving troops behind at every outpost.”

  “Ike is not going to like that.”

  “Ike is needed where he is and Ike knows it. He’s got to stay there and see to the training of new personnel. And speaking of that, how’s it look?”

  “Fantastic, Ben. We’ll be able to field another battalion in a few months. Ben, I believe, by God, we’re really going to pull this thing off!”

  Ben paused before keying the mike and replying. So the feeling or sensation of victory was that infectious. “Years of hard fighting ahead of us, Cec.”

  “I’m champing at the bit to get back into the field, Ben.”

  “How’s Patrice, Cec?” Ben brought his friend back down to earth.

  Cec sighed. “Right, Ben. And Ike has a family to look after. So you’re telling me that you’re in the field and we’re back here.”

  “That’s it. I’m doing what I do best, Cec. And I have nothing to bring me back there.”

  “And no one, you think,” Cec added.

  Ben said nothing. Damned if he was going to discuss Jerre. Only he and Jerre knew the cold hopeless depths of their strange relationship.

  “You still there, Eagle?”

  “Right here, Cec.”

  “What do you need, Ben?”

  “Sharpen your pencil, Cec. It’s going to be a long list.”

  4

  The supplies began coming in around the clock. Using portable generators, the Rebels lighted the runway and kept the small airport going twenty-four hours a day.

  Ben had spoken to General Georgi Striganov several times since arriving in Lewistown, and the Russian’s situation was getting grimmer with each radio transmission. Malone seemed to have what appeared to be an inexhaustable supply of men—kill one and two took his place.

  “All right, Georgi,” Ben radioed his onetime enemy and now close friend. “I’ve got my CP set up in Fort Benton and we’re ready to strike. Start shifting your troops. I’ll take everything east of Highway 223 to Harve. You take everything west of 223 to Cut Bank.”

  “That’s ten-four, Ben. And be alert. We captured several who stated a large group of outlaws are moving up Highway 89 to attack you from the rear.”

  “That would be Pete Jones and his bunch.”

  “That is correct. He has perhaps a thousand men with him. The numbers vary with each man we interrogate.”

  “Any intel on Ashley and his bunch?”

  “We’ve lost them. I personally believe they plan to attack from the north and try to box us in.”

  “How are your supplies?”

  “More than adequate. We have factories in Alberta and Saskatchewan working around the clock. It’s the sheer numbers of Malone’s army that are threatening to overwhelm us.”

  “We’re on the way, friend.”

  “Looking forward to seeing you again, Ben.”

  Ben ended the transmission and glanced up at Dan. “Take Tina and her section, and Companies C and D. You’ll head up 87 to Harve. I’ll take Companies A and B and head up 223 to Chester.”

  “Meg Callahan?” he questioned.

  “I’ll take her with me. It will be interesting to see her reaction when we get to the front.”

  “You watch your back, Ben.”

  “Don’t worry,” Ben assured him. “I think Meg began to suspect she was under observation some miles back.”

  Dan stuck out his hand and Ben took it. “Nut cuttin’ time, Dan,” he said with a grin.

  The Englishman faked a grimace. “What marvelous expressions you Americans have.”

  Fort Benton had been turned into a staging area. It was from here that supplies would be trucked to the battlelines. And just moments before Ben and Dan were to jump off, forward recon teams radioed back the grim news.

  Corrie broke it to Ben. “We’re looking at four or five thousand men, General. Well armed and well trained and seeming to be highly dedicated and motivated.”

  Ben took it stoically. “It doesn’t surprise me. These are second-generation race-haters. Their mothers and fathers belonged to every hate group known to mankind back in the seventies and eighties. They’ve had twenty-five years to fine-tune their hate. Motivated? Oh, yes. I can believe that. The sad thing is, the government—back when there was a government—helped them fuel their hate.” Ben was very conscious of Meg’s hot eyes on him. It was not a very comfortable sensation.

  “Whenever the government singles out so-called minority groups and helps them over the majority,” Meg said, “there is certain to be resentment. The government should have stayed out of the private lives of white people.”

  Ben sighed heavily. There it was. “Your first statement has a ring of truth to it, Meg. Your last statement smacks of raci
sm. But we put your personal puzzle together some days ago.”

  “I felt that the game was just about over,” she admitted.

  Beth took the weapons from the daughter of Matt Callahan while the muzzle of Jersey’s M16 was pressed against the woman’s belly.

  “You going to kill me, General Raines?” Meg asked.

  “No. You may be salvageable, Meg. We’ll just have to wait and see about that.”

  “You’re living in a dream world, Ben Raines. Are you even aware of why you and your Rebels can mix the races and get along?”

  “You tell me, Meg.”

  “Because you’ve got the cream of the crop, that’s why. A cottonpatch nigger or welfare-raised slope or greaser wouldn’t last a day in this organization. Hell, they don’t have the mental capabilities to pass your goddamned tests, so consequently they don’t try.”

  “People of any race who do not meet our requirements are not accepted,” Ben admitted. “But that doesn’t mean we wash them out and forget them. You’re only half right in your thinking, Meg.”

  She cocked her head to one side and narrowed her green eyes. “What do you mean, General?”

  “Those who don’t make it on the first try are not tossed to one side and forgotten, Meg. We have the finest schools in all the world. There is no limit to the number of times a person may try to join us. Sometimes a man or women is just sized up by a Rebel and admitted into our ranks and accepted without question. If there are any doubts, they’re sent to school and evaluated. We don’t distrust or dislike people because of race, Meg. It’s concepts and ideas that contradict ours that we’re wary of.”

  She opened her mouth to argue and Ben waved her silent. He turned to several Rebels. “Lock her down in the old jail and keep her under guard.”

  He watched as Meg was led away. She offered no resistance, knowing the Rebels would not hesitate to shoot her. “Corrie, give base a bump. Tell Cecil to get West and his people up here by bird. Land at Lewistown.”