Death in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  Hoss mulled that around for a few seconds. “You want some company, Beer?”

  “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

  “I know a couple of ladies over in Central California. They ain’t the best-lookin’ women in the world, but then, good God, look at us. We sure ain’t win no prizes neither.”

  “Tomorrow, we just sort of lay back and let the others get on around us. Then we cut west. Some miles behind us, we cut off our hair, shave, and find us some duds like normal people wear. We’ll find us a pickup truck somewheres, get it runnin’, and stash the bikes in the back. How’s that sound?”

  “Better and better, Beer.”

  The Rebels resupplied at Great Falls and rested for a day. They pulled out at dawn, heading for Helena on Interstate 15, for the most part, following the Missouri River down south.

  The Rebels spotted no one as they made their way south, but all could feel eyes on them. They were not hostile eyes, just curious and wary. By now, most in the state knew Ben Raines and his Rebels were working the area from top to bottom. But those watching just couldn’t be sure this was Ben Raines and his army, for Malone’s army looked pretty much as this one . . . and Malone was hostile to the core. Plus being a nut. So they would wait and see. Then they would step out and greet Ben Raines.

  Ben pulled his people off the Interstate at a rest area about thirty miles north of Helena and stood them down for the rest of that day. Buddy had made better time than expected and was in position to strike at the airport located on the east side of the city.

  “This won’t be as easy as Great Falls,” Ben admitted, once more studying maps spread over the hood of a vehicle. “We’ll be coming in on the east side of the city; however, that will be a break for Buddy. If he runs into trouble, we’ll be practically sitting in his lap. Ike, the next exit down the road leads to just west of the city. When we shove off in the morning, you take your battalion out about an hour earlier and head down there and get in place. Georgi, you and your bunch take this 453 and work on down south of the city. We’ll start the bombardment at oh-eight-hundred.”

  “Are we heading straight for Butte after Helena?” Dan asked.

  “No. I think we might be expected to do that, and I don’t like to do the expected. We’ll take Highway 12 over the Continental Divide and bring Missoula down. We’ll be moving through some rough country, so make sure the tanks are boomed down tight. On the way back, we’ll check out Anaconda and then strike Butte and Bozeman. We’ll head on over to Matt Callahan’s territory and put an end to him while we’re at it, then head back to Conrad and prepare for the campaign in the wilderness.”

  “This is one state that’s going to be nice and clean when we’re through with it,” Tina observed, then added, “In a manner of speaking, that is.”

  9

  The attack came as no surprise to the Night People. They all knew that Ben Raines was driving hard to rid the earth of them; all knew, through a nationwide communications linkup, where Ben and the Rebels were, most of the time. But owing to the very nature of their miserable existence, the creepies had to band together to survive. They had to have adequate storage facilities for the human beings they feasted on, and had to have airport access, which meant they had to live in the larger towns. Their way of life had predoomed them . . . as long as Ben Raines lived. So the top priority of the Night People was finding out some way to get rid of Ben Raines. They would grab at any straw.

  They accepted the offer of Pete Jones and his outlaws. Just as those trapped in the ravaged city of Helena now prepared to die under the guns of Ben Raines.

  As Pete and his motley gathering—minus Beerbelly and Hoss and several others—were racing toward Butte to link up with the Night People there, to plan some skullduggery, Ben was giving the orders to destroy yet another bastion of the macabre, the hideous, and the Godless.

  “Fire!” he ordered, and the guns thundered, just as Buddy and his Rat Team were striking hard at the defenders at the airport.

  Butte began burning.

  Ben kept up the pounding rain of death for two hours, using the same tactics he and the Rebels had perfected while destroying other cities. The outer limits of the city were set blazing and the artillery began walking in rounds toward the center, from all sides, effectively sealing the city from escape.

  Buddy and his team faced much stiffer resistance this time, for the Night People knew they had but two options: live or die. They knew there was no hope of surrender; Rebels shot them on sight.

  But slowly, with a curse on their lips, the creepies were forced back and out of the airport under the relentless advance of Buddy and his command.

  Then the Rat Team began the dangerous job of clearing each room of each building of the airport complex. It was cautiously walking up and down darkened and stinking hallways, not knowing when or if a black-robed maniac would come hurling out of a room, foul-smelling with human blood still on their lips, screaming and cursing, with an auto-matci weapon in his or her hands, bent on killing a hated Rebel of Ben Raines’s army.

  It was slow and nerveracking and sweaty, deadly work. But Buddy and his team had worked it out to an art, and the airport was cleared and secure in an hour.

  Over the pounding of artillery, Corrie informed Ben of the seizing of the airport and the clearing of it. He nodded his head in acknowledgment and once again lifted the binoculars, studying the rapidly destroying city from a vantage point on an overpass of the Interstate.

  Ben continued the pounding of the city for another hour, until the city itself was obscured by the smoke from hundreds of fires.

  “Cease firing,” he told Corrie. “Sniper teams move closer and knock them down as they try to run.”

  “Dan reports that once again we have rescued Mr. Deason and some of his people,” she said.

  Ben looked at her. “Who?”

  “The man from Billings. That one who headed the group called Peace Without Violence.”

  “Ahh, yes. That one. It didn’t take him long to get his butt back in the stewpot again, did it? Is that loudmouth woman with him?”

  “Yes, sir. Dan is bringing them up here now.”

  Ben sighed heavily. “How wonderful for me. I get another cussing. My day wouldn’t be complete without that.”

  But it was a very different Sybil and Morris who once more stood in front of Ben.

  “They were about to eat us,” Sybil said. “We were scheduled to be devoured tomorrow.”

  “It was quite disheartening,” Morris said. “Not to mention disgusting.”

  “I can imagine,” Ben said, eyeballing the pair. “Were they going to serve you up as hors d’œuvres or as the main course?”

  “How crude!” Morris said.

  “You’re a vile, despicable man,” Sybil told him. “How can you joke at a time like this?”

  “Because I’m looking at a couple of jokes. Where the goddamn hell do you people think you are? At a reception before a recital by a string quartet?”

  Morris and Sybil and what remained of their little group stood in silence and glared at Ben.

  Ben finally sighed and shook his head. “What the hell am I going to do with you people? I turn you loose and you end up right back in the hands of the creepies. Can any of you do anything?”

  “I beg your pardon?” Morris asked.

  “Can you do anything? You say you’re scientists—what field?”

  “We’re from a great many fields.”

  “You want to go to work for me, down at Base Camp One?”

  Striganov had wandered up, an amused look on his face.

  “You!” Sybil shouted, staring bug-eyed at the Russian.

  “In the flesh,” Georgi replied.

  “You know these people?” Ben asked.

  Behind them, the city burned.

  “Oh, yes. We’ve rescued them several times from the hands of outlaws and slave traders.”

  “You’re just as bad as he is!” Sybil yelled, pointing at Ben.

  “
Thank you, madam,” Georgi said. “I take that as quite a compliment.”

  “You would!”

  “What the hell am I going to do with these people?” Ben pleaded.

  “The Great God Blomm,” Dan said with a straight face.

  “What?” Georgi asked.

  Ben smiled. Then the smile faded. “No, I couldn’t do that to Emil. The little con artist fought his heart out in New York City.”

  “Do not feel obligated to do anything for us,” Morris said “We are perfectly capable of taking care of ourselves.”

  That brought a chuckle from all those standing around.

  It’s unfair, Ben thought. These people, naive as they might be, are attempting to live nonviolently in a world filled with violence . . . and we laugh at them. Have we all become so callous, so battle-hardened, that we have lost sight of one of the most important things that we’re fighting for?

  Ben looked at Dan. The Englishman’s eyes were sad. He knew what Ben had been thinking.

  Ben looked back to Morris and then at Sybil. They had lost their hostile expressions as they studied Ben’s face; as if they, too, knew what Ben had been thinking. “You’ll stay here with us until the birds . . . planes start arriving. That will be tomorrow. I’m sending you back to Base Camp One, down in Louisiana. If you want to stay and work for us there, that’s fine.”

  “And live under your rules, General?” one of the women in the group spoke up.

  “Under our rules,” Ben said, waving his hand, indicating all the Rebels. “We live in more of a democratic society than you might think—or have been led to believe. We have only a few laws, but those few are quickly and very harshly enforced. We have a great deal of solar heating and cooling, so as not to pollute the skies any more than we have to. We will never have nuclear energy . . . we will never have nuclear weapons. We have zero crime in our outposts. That is very easy to accomplish, and it always has been: we just don’t tolerate it. We don’t have lawyers—practicing lawyers, that is. We do have courts; they are run by the people, and conducted in language that anyone can understand. So far as I know, we have the finest schools in all the world, and attendance is mandatory until age eighteen. We have adult education classes. We do not have illiteracy; there again, we don’t tolerate it. We would appreciate your joining us as teachers. And yes, we have noncombatives in our ranks. How about it?”

  Morris studied Ben for a moment, then smiled and stuck out his hand. “It would be a pleasure, General Raines. You paint quite a different picture of your way of living than we have been led to believe.”

  Ben took the offered hand with a smile. “Good to have you with us.”

  The Rebel column cut west, leaving the smoke of the ruined city, and the smell of death behind them. They drove over the Continental Divide, with Buddy and his Rat Team spearheading, and hooked up with Interstate 90, taking that northwest to the outskirts of Missoula.

  “It’s deserted,” Buddy reported back to the column. “But only recently. I’d say the creepies bugged out until we leave.”

  “Hold what you have, son. I want to inspect the town.”

  It was disgusting to all of the Rebels. The stench of Night People clung over the small city. What was left of the bodies of human beings was found in several locations around the city. It was obvious to all that had the stomach to look at the human garbage heap that the men and women and kids had been carved on, the choice cuts taken for food.

  “You think they might have bugged out for Kalispell?” Tina asked.

  “I doubt it. That’s right in the middle of Malone’s territory. He hates the creepies nearly as bad as we do. If I had to guess, I’d say they joined others like them over in Spokane. It isn’t that far from here. Destroy the airport and bring the town down with explosives. Georgi, what do you know about this Indian Reservation just north of here?”

  “They’ve gone, Ben. Same with the Blackfeet tribe just to the east of them. And we don’t know where they went. Danjou led an expedition down there a couple of years ago. Nothing. The place was deserted.”

  “They probably spread out in small bands all over the west. I’d like to have them as allies, but I damn sure don’t blame the Indians for not trusting the white man, and I don’t blame them for wanting to return to their own ways and cultures. It worked for them for hundreds of years. All right, let’s take the town down, people.”

  This was something else the Rebels had become experts at: the destroying of buildings by explosives. Stress points were quickly located and the buildings brought down with relatively small amounts of explosives. And with towns recently inhabitated by creepies, the Rebels thoroughly enjoyed their work.

  They worked fast and effectively. When they pulled out, they left behind them only a shell of a town, totally uninhabitable.

  “It’s not just the cities that are going to have to be destroyed, is it, General?” Beth asked on the drive down to Anaconda.

  “I’m afraid not, Beth. But the bringing down of the small towns is something that the residents of the outposts will have to do—for the most part. We’ll do it if we have the time.” He lifted his map and studied it. “There’s a dam just south of our present position. I’m curious as to how it—and all the others—are holding up. They’ve been years without maintenance. Beth—”

  “I know,” she interrupted with a smile. “Make a note. Right, sir.”

  For the next several miles, Ben rode in silence, thinking that there was just too goddamn much to worry about; far too much for one man to handle. No wonder the governing of a nation—any nation—almost invariably turned into a massive, ponderous bureaucracy. As well this one might again, Ben thought. But as long as I live, there won’t be any deadheads in it.

  And, he was forced to smile, no taxpayers’ dollars being spent for foolishness. One advantage of not having any taxpayers.

  And how long could they get away with that?

  Just as long as possible, Ben answered his own question.

  At a rest stop, Corrie said, “Fort Benton has intercepted radio transmissions, General. It was an open frequency. Pete Jones and a large force of outlaws have linked up with the creepies in Butte. They’re going to dig in in the city and try to slug it out with us.”

  Ben thought about that open frequency business for a moment. “No, they’re not,” he finally said. “That’s just a ruse to throw us off. They know they don’t have a chance of winning by fighting us nose to nose.”

  “Anaconda?” Ike asked.

  “I’d bet on it. They knew we seldom shell the smaller towns; especially if they’re deserted. We go in, inspect, and then bring them down with explosives.” He smiled grimly. “My, my. But are we going to have a surprise for Mr. Jones.”

  10

  Ben split the column, sending Ike and his troops down Highway 1, while he continued on south toward Anaconda, using the Interstate. Buddy and his Rat Team, as usual, were ranging far in advance of the main party, sending scrambled messages back to both his father and Ike.

  “If they’re in there,” Buddy reported to Ben, “they’re well hidden.” He was looking at the town, studying it through binoculars. “There is no movement, no smoke, no nothing to indicate any sign of life.”

  Ben had halted the column a few miles north of the town, waiting for Buddy’s report. Now he was wondering if Pete Jones and the creepies were stupid enough to fortress themselves in Butte and actually attempt to hold the city.

  No! He rejected that almost instantly. But if they were not in Anaconda, laying in ambush . . . then where were they? There were literally hundreds of places along the route where explosives could be used to bring down tons of rock on the column. But that was not the creepies’ style and Ben doubted they would change tactics this late in the game.

  Also Ben doubted any citizens trying to live out their lives in some degree of normalcy would attempt to do that so close to a creepie stronghold such as Butte.

  He got his artillery in position and then radioed Ike, w
ho was set up on the west side of the town. “What do you think, Ike?”

  “Let’s bring it down, Ben. I’ve got people in position on both sides of the Interstate about three miles southeast of the town. Any who try to escape that way will run slap into an ambush.”

  Ben turned to Corrie. “Commence firing.”

  When the first rounds began dropping in, shaking the earth and rattling the buildings right down to their foundations, a creepie turned to Pete Jones. “You son of a bitch!”

  Pete had a sick look on his face. “Win some, lose some, my friend,” he managed to be heard over the roaring of incoming.

  The creepie shot Pete in the face just as Bruiser and Satan and several hundred other outlaws, who had managed to place themselves near a road leading to the east, cranked up and got the hell out of the town.

  Pete Jones twitched once on the dirty floor and then died with his eyes open and with a very startled look on his face.

  Injun Sam and Blackie and their outlaw following tore out of town, heading southeast on the Interstate. They rode right into the ambush set up by Dan Gray and Tina Raines and the Scouts.

  It was like riding right through the gates of Hell, one biker who managed to escape the killing fire later told a group of outlaws. The Rebels would look you right in the eyes and then shoot you dead with no more emotion than opening a can of beans. It wasn’t nothin’ like the good ol’ days, back when the cops had to read you rights and tend to your wounds and be careful how they spoke to you and you could stomp the snot out of a citizen and even a sorry lawyer could get you off with a slap on the wrist and a lecture from the judge.

  But these damn Rebels were bad-asses, man!

  While the town was being systematically destroyed, including everyone in it, the outlaws and bikers and other assorted crud who thought they had gotten away stone clear were dying in screaming and moaning and crying and begging piles of lower forms of life on the Interstate.