Fire in the Ashes ta-2
Page 34
Ben heard himself saying, “That’s a little strong, Lamar.” But he knew it wasn’t.
“Ben, I heard some little boys and girls talking the other day. They were talking about you being infallible. ‘You can’t die!’ they said. ‘You fought a monster and killed it.’ They talked about how many times you’ve been shot and hurt and blown up. And they have to get it from the parents.” He pointed to Ben’s old Thompson SMG. “And they constantly refer to you and that weapon as one and the same. Put it up, Ben. Retire that old Chicago Piano. Get yourself an AK or an M-10 or… anything. I mean it, Ben.”
This time around Ben could not believe it about his Thompson. His laugh was genuine. “Lamar, it’s just an object.”
Chase did not share in the humor. “So was, I believe,” he reminded Ben, “Baal.”
* * *
The killing of the mutant became a fading memory in the mind of Ben. It was something that had to be done, it was over, so don’t make a big deal of it.
And to him, it was not.
But to his followers, it remained vivid, much more so with each telling.
As summer drifted on, and much of the hard work was over, Ben became restless. He would find himself looking about, seeing nothing but images in his mind. Remembering his lonely but satisfying traveling and wandering of ‘88 and ‘89. And it filled him with longing.
Those whom he would allow close to him sensed this, but did not know what to do about it. Only the brash little Rosita had the courage to confront Ben.
“You walk around here looking like some stone-faced Mayan god, General. What’s the matter?”
He did his best to glare at her, but all she did was stick out her tongue at him and screw her face up into some awful-looking mask.
“That’s the way you look, Ben. You could make a living frightening little children.” She reached out and tickled him.
Ben laughed and playfully slapped her hands away. He looked around to see if anyone had observed this behavior—definitely out of character for him.
“Let’s take a trip, Rosita. Get the hell out of Dodge for a few days.”
“So where are we going, General?”
“Let’s see what Little Rock looks like.”
* * *
If Ben thought he and Rosita could slip off without company, he should have known better. He was reminding himself of that as the caravan pulled out early the next morning.
A full platoon of the Rebel army accompanied them. Guards to the rear, guards in front.
“No band?” Ben had sarcastically asked Ike.
“I always wanted to see Little Rock,” Ike sidestepped the question.
“Yeah, ol’ buddy,” Ben said. “I just bet.”
* * *
Little Rock was a dead city. Twelve years of neglect and looting had reduced it to blackened girders, stark against the backdrop of blue skies and burned-out buildings. Dead rats lay stinking in heaps on the streets.
Ben drove by a high school that looked somehow familiar to him. Then he remembered why. Troops had been sent to this high school back in the ‘50s, to integrate it.
He told Rosita as much.
She did not seem all that interested.
“Aren’t you interested in history, Rosita?” he asked.
She shrugged. “It don’t put pork chops on the table, Ben.”
“What?”
Her smile was sad. “Ben—I can’t read much.”
“Dear God,” Ben muttered. He glanced at her. “You must have been about eight when the bombs came. Right?”
“Nine.”
“How much schooling since then?”
“Plenty in the school of hard knocks.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass, short-stuff.”
“Not much, Ben. I read very slowly and skip over the big words.”
“You know anything at all about nouns, pronouns, adverbs—sentence construction?”
“No,” her reply was softly given.
“Then I will see that you learn how to read, Rosita,” Ben told her. “It’s imperative that everyone know how to read.”
“I’ve got by without it,” she replied defensively.
“What about your children?” Ben asked. “Damn it, short-stuff, this is what I’ve been trying to hammer into people’s heads. You people are make-or-break for civilization. I don’t know why you can’t see that.”
He stopped the truck in a part of the city that appeared to be relatively free of dead rodents. They got out and walked.
“So I and my niños can learn to make atomic bombs and again blow up the world, Ben? So we can read the formulas for making killing germs? I…”
“Heads up, General!” A Rebel called. “To your left.”
Ben and Rosita turned. Ben heard her sharp intake of breath.
"Dios mio!" she hissed.
The man approaching them, angling across the littered street was the man in her dreams. Bearded and robed and carrying a long staff.
He stopped in the middle of the street, and Ben looked into the wildest eyes he had ever witnessed.
And the thought came to him, the oldest.
“My God,” someone said. “It’s Moses.”
A small patrol started toward the man. He held up a warning hand. “Stay away, ye soldiers of a false god.”
“It is Moses,” a woman muttered.
Ben continued to stare at the man. And be stared at in return.
“I hope not,” Ben said, only half in jest. Something about the man was disturbing. “Are you all right?” he called to the robed man. “We have food we’ll share with you.”
“I want nothing from you.” The man stabbed a long staff against the broken concrete of the street. He swung his dark piercing eyes to the Rebels gathering around Ben. “Your worshipping of a false god is offensive.” He turned and walked away.
Rosita stood in mild shock.
“I tell y’all what,” a Rebel said. “This place is beginning to spook me. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
The sounds of gunfire spun them around. A radio mounted on a Jeep began crackling. “Echo One to Recon.”
“This is recon,” the driver said. “Go ahead.”
Explosions sent clouds of dust in the air, the blasts coming from a building several blocks away.
“…pocket of mutants,” the radio crackled. “We got them. Y’all better get hold of the general; he’ll want to see this.”
* * *
“A family of them?” Ben asked. “A unit?”
“Right in there, sir,” the Rebel pointed to the still-smoking basement area. “We didn’t start it, sir,” the young man said. “We spotted one of ‘em and saw where it ran. Then we pulled our vehicles across the street and called for ‘em to come out.” He held up a crudely made spear with a knife attached to the end of it. He showed Ben an arrow, with a piece of chipped stone as the point. “After we got these, we opened fire.”
Ben nodded. But his mind was racing. Is this what we have come to? he silently questioned. After walking on the moon and all our high-technology and life-saving medical advances… is this it? Are we really going back to the caves or is there still enough fire in the ashes to rekindle the flame of advancement?
He sighed. “All right. Let’s take a look.”
James Riverson stepped in front of Ben. “I’ll go first,” he said.
Ben looked at Rosita. Her face was pale and her hands were shaky.
From what? Ben wondered.
They made their approach cautiously; but their prudence was unnecessary. The gunfire and grenades had killed the basement apartment of mutants. All but one.
“It’s a baby,” a woman said. She looked closer. “At least I think it’s a baby.”
The deformed infant hissed and snapped at the humans.
“Watch those teeth,” Ben warned. “There is enough in that mouth for a piranha.”
When a Rebel reached down to take the infant, he jerked back his hand just a split second before the flashi
ng teeth would have closed on his hand.
“What the hell do we do with it?” someone asked.
No one knew, and no one would suggest what was on everybody’s mind. No one except Ben.
“No,” he said. They all turned, looking at him. “It’s just a baby—I think. Doesn’t make any difference what kind of baby. Unless and until we see it presents some clear danger, it lives.”
The object—no one would venture a guess as to its age—was grotesquely ugly, hideously deformed. A huge head with jutting animal-like lower jaw, fanged teeth, hairy body, human hands and feet. Blond hair, blue eyes.
“It’s kinda cute,” Jane Dolbeau said. Another survivor from the assault against Tri-States, the Canadian had been quietly and passionately in love with Ben for years. Everybody knew it. Everyone except for Ben.
“So is a Tasmanian devil,” Ben said. “But I don’t want one for a pet. Get a medic to knock it out with drugs. We’ll take it back to Chase.”
“Here comes nutsy,” a Rebel said.
“Who?” Ben looked up.
“Moses,” James said. “Some nut with a robe and staff.”
“No jug of wine and loaf of bread?” Ike grinned.
They all groaned at that.
The robed man appeared at the shattered door. He pointed his staff at the mutant. “Look at it,” he spoke quietly. “See what happens when God’s word is abused and scorned.”
“Who the hell are you?” Ben asked. “And what the hell are you?”
“I am what you see before you. I am called The Prophet.”
“And I’m Johnny Carson,” a Rebel muttered.
The robed and bearded man pointed his staff at Ben. “Your life will be long and strife-filled. You will sire many children, and in the end, none of your dreams will become reality. I have spoken with God, and He has sent me to tell you these things. You are as He to your people, and soon—in your measurement of time—many more will come to believe it. But recall His words: No false gods before me.” The old man’s eyes seemed to burn into Ben’s head. “It will not be your fault, but it will lie on your head.”
He turned away, walking out into the street.
The Rebels stood in silence for a full moment; no one knew what to say.
A Rebel stuck his head inside the shattered door. “Sure is quiet in here,” he said.
“What did you make of nutsy?” he was asked.
“Who?”
“The old guy with the robes and staff and beard.”
“I didn’t see anyone like that.”
“Well, where the hell have you been?”
“I been sittin’ outside in that damn Jeep ever since you people came in here. There ain’t been no old man wearing robes come near here. What have you people been doin’, smokin’ some old left-handed cigarettes?”
“Knock it off,” Ben said. “You people call for the medic and sedate that kid. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
Sergeant Buck Osgood and his men finally pulled in, and Ben asked what in the hell had taken them so long?
“I went back to my home in Arizona, General.” He gestured to the other men. “All of us are from the same area. We went back to find our folks.” He shrugged. “We buried them. Some old guy came along and spoke the right words over the grave.”
“Old guy?” Ben felt his guts tie up in knots.
“Yeah,” Buck said, lighting a cigarette. “Weird old guy. I think he must of been about half-cracked. Called himself The Prophet. Wore long robes and carried a big stick; like a shepherd from out of biblical times.”
Ben toyed with a pencil. “When did you see him, Buck?”
“Ah… last week.”
“In Arizona?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What date, Buck?”
“Ah… the ninth, sir.”
“Time, approximately?”
“’Bout noon, I reckon.”
“That’s the same date and time I saw him.”
“You were in Arizona on the ninth, sir?”
Ben looked the man in the eyes. “No, Buck. I was in Little Rock.”
NINE
A NEW BEGINNING…
The news of the man who called himself The Prophet being in two places at the same time was finally disregarded by Ben and a few of the others.
But most believed it, although they did not share that belief with Ben. But soon, as with all phenomena that appear once and never again, it was, for the most part, forgotten as the survivors began the task of forming a new government in the area that was once known as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Ben settled in south Arkansas, not wanting to return to Louisiana; too many memories there, both good and bad. He settled on a small farm about seventy-five miles south of the ruins of Little Rock, on an old farm, and began working the land. He was late doing it, but he read some books on farming and decided it wouldn’t hurt to break the land this year and clear away any trees and brush that had grown up in the twelve-year hiatus.
That late summer, there were marriages among the Rebels: Ike married a lady named Sally; she had one little girl, Brandy. Jerre and Matt were married. Cecil married a lady that had been a State Department employee in Richmond. Margaret. Hector Ramos married. As did Steve Mailer and Judith Sparkman. Rosita announced she was pregnant, and Ben knew without any doubt he was the father.
The robed, bearded man’s words returned to him. He brushed him back into his memory vault and slammed the door.
Every Rebel knew the type of law Ben advocated, and there was no hassle about it. People knew what they had to do, and did it without being ordered to do so.
Ben knew that eventually he would have to deal with Sam Hartline and his army of mercenaries. But as long as Hartline stayed north, Ben would not make the first move.
Emil Hite and his cult stayed in the mountains of west central Arkansas and caused no trouble.
Yet.
The plague seemed to have run its course.
Very few outsiders attempted to enter the new Tri-States.
But they would come; Ben knew it. And knew he would have to fight for what freedoms his Rebels held dear.
But Ben found he loved the land. Loved the smell of new plowed ground, and itched for the planting season to arrive.
But somehow he knew he would never be allowed to live a quiet, uneventful life.
“El Presidente,” Ike said one afternoon when he drove out and met with Ben, “I have it in my mind that you are contemplating being a farmer. You are going to raise your turnips and peas and cabbage and to hell with governing those who followed you here—right?”
“Ike, I’m tired. I’m not a young man. I want out.”
But Ike shook his head. “No way, General. You seem to forget: the people elected you for life. They follow no one but you. So why don’t you just go on into town and find you a nice office; set up shop? All this was your idea, buddy.”
Ben stared at him.
Ike said, “I took the liberty of ordering you a car and driver. Young feller name of Buck Osgood. He’d be right pleased to be your driver and bodyguard. Like most folks, I reckon he kind of idolizes you.”
“I don’t want to be anyone’s idol, Ike.”
“Ben, I reckon it’s past the point of what you want. It’s what is good for the people who follow you that matters. And I think you know that.”
Ben looked around him. He sighed; took a deep breath. The aroma of freshly turned earth came to him. His gaze touched a hawk as it wheeled and soared high above them, its sharp eyes seeking prey.
“I guess somebody has to do it,” Ben said, kicking at a clod of dirt.
“No, Ben,” Ike gripped him by the shoulders. “If a productive society is to be built; if civilization is to endure… you have to do it.”
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