Blood in the Ashes (21 page)

Gale dropped the apple core into a paper bag and glared at Ben. “Oh, hell, Raines. Go on, get it said.”

“You sure?”

She laughed at the dubious expression on his face. “I'm sure, Bem. I told you I'd be the first to let you know if I ever got tired of you and your soapbox.”

“Very well. You're too young to remember much before the bombings. You were just a kid, and since both your parents were liberal, it's doubtful you got the entire picture, free of whitewash.”

“Oh,
way
to go, Raines.” She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “But you're probably right. Just get on with it, huh?”

“It'll take more than a few words, Gale.” He spun the steering wheel to avoid colliding with a downed tree that was blocking half the road. “Because it takes several things to make a crime-free environment. And not necessarily in this order. It takes full employment. Two or three or six percent unemployment won't do it. Full employment is the only way. Why do you want to hear this, Gale?” Ben looked exasperated. “What are you, a masochist?”

“Beats looking at the weather,” she replied. “Just get on with it.”

Her flip reply gave her inner feelings away, at least to Ben. Liberalism had failed miserably. If there was to be, ever again, a workable society built out of the ashes, it had to be something other than the unworkable flights of fancy the liberals had forced upon the taxpayers of America. She wanted to explore all avenues.

“We had full employment in Tri-States, Gale. We had it because healthy, able-bodied people were required to work.” He cut his eyes at her and smiled. “You may interrupt at any time, dear.”

“You
forced
people to work, Ben?”

“I certainly did, darling. But not at a job they were physically unable to handle. I wouldn't put a person with a bad heart out digging ditches or a mental defective working at a computer.”

“Very commendable of you, I'm sure,” she said dryly. “Please, do continue. It's fascinating.” She found another apple and chomped away.

“Back before the bombings, certain organized labor unions advocated a thirty-five hour work week, in order to put more people to work. Very nice of them. But they wanted no cut in pay; they wanted business to absorb the cost. And that leads me right into a restoration of the work ethic. Aday's work for a day's pay. Pride in one's work and a cessation of living solely for the weekend and never mind that the product the assembly-line workers were building was shoddy. And many of them were just that.

“In Tri-States, we took a hard look at the way factories and businesses were run, and we changed the structure of it all. Employee ownership is one way we found that really works. And we did it without the threat of unions hanging over our heads.

“We completely reworked the income tax system. We found that a rigidly enforced graduated scale worked best for us. It was difficult for one to become a millionaire in Tri-States, but certainly not impossible.
Everyone
paid their share of income tax—everyone. There were no exceptions. We closed virtually all loopholes and made the filing form so simple a sixth grader could fill it out. You see, Gale, we were able to do that because we did not allow lawyers to have a goddamn thing to do with it. There weren't many lawyers in Tri-States. There were no fancy lunches or dinners to be written off the income tax as ‘business related.' We stopped virtually all that nonsense, because we all knew it had been so badly abused in the past.

“We started by attacking and challenging many of the so-called ‘little items.' Company cars, for example, incorporating for another. In Tri-States, one could incorporate all day if one wished. But it wouldn't help a bit when it came to taxes. No tax breaks there. One could write off a company car, but only for the time one actually used that in the operation of the business. And God help the person who tried to cheat, for the system came down hard.”

“How in the world did you people make it work, Ben? I . . . it boggles my mind. It just seems so . . . unworkable.”

“Because we did a one hundred and eighty degree turn, honey. We returned to the values this nation was supposedly built upon. Oh, we had people who cheated. Sure we did. But over the years we found them. The system was such that it was almost impossible to get away with crime. I guess it all came back to our type of government. It was a common sense type of government.”

She held up a slim hand. “Whoa, Ben. Kindly explain that, please. Every Rebel I talk with says the same thing. What in the hell is a common sense type of government?”

“Gale, before the bombings, the government of the United States was so top-heavy with bureaucrats it was sinking under its own weight. The government had laws on top of laws, not just the federal government, but local and county and state. The individual citizen had practically no control over his or her life. Day to day living had turned into a stroll through a minefield of legal entanglements. Criminals had more rights than victims. The average citizen really did not know if he could legally protect his life or property or family with deadly force or not. Much of government, while not corrupt—although a lot of that was going on—was confused. Much like the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing. I became very apolitical. That's not a strong enough word. I, along with millions of others, became discouraged with government. Depressed with the entire system. Our national debt was staggeringly high, with no end in sight. Something had to give. And it did. The whole damned world exploded in war. ”

Ben paused, looking around him through the gloom of the raging afternoon's storm. Common sense form of government, he thought. God, how to tell this gentle lady who still could not hit the side of a barn at point-blank range with
any
type of weapon—how to tell her? How does one who wholeheartedly adopts the fact—and Ben knew it was fact, not theory—that society does not reject those who choose a life of crime, the criminal rejects society, how does one explain that to a person who throughout her formative years had been not-so-subtly brainwashed by a liberal doctrine? Ben had tried a few times before . . . failing each time.

He took a deep breath—sighed heavily. “Gale, if a person puts a No Trespassing sign up in the front yard, it does not mean the back yard can be explored at will by anyone who so desires. That sign means, quite literally: Keep your ass off this property. All this property. Anyone who possesses even a modicum of common sense wouldn't set one foot on that posted property. Now I'm not saying the person who put the sign there has the right to kill a trespasser by ambush, without any warning. But I do maintain that if the property owner steps out with a shotgun in his hands and ordered the trespasser off, and the trespasser refuses to leave, what happens after that lies solely on the head of the person who violated the property owner's rights. Do you follow me?”

“Reluctantly, Ben. Of
course
, I follow you. I'm not stupid.”

“Perhaps we're getting somewhere at last,” Ben said with a chuckle. “But, Gale, a liberal doctrine, which is by no means based on any semblance of common sense, theorizes that no one has the right to use deadly force in the protection of property rights or private possessions. And that is precisely why the nation endured a crime wave unparalleled in its history, beginning when the Supreme Court and federal judges began sticking their goddamn noses into the lives of private, law-abiding, American citizens. States' rights became a thing of the past. Not that the states didn't abuse some of those rights, because they did, in many ways. But if a state chooses to put a criminal to death, after going through proper procedures and reviews, then that should be the individual state's prerogative, and the federal government should keep the hell out of it.”

Ben laughed aloud, laughing at himself. “Sorry, Gale. Government interference was always a sore point with me.”

“I never would have guessed, Ben,” she said, smiling. “Was it really that bad, Ben?”

“Yes. And getting worse with each year. Along about . . . oh, the early eighties, I guess it was, we finally put a man in the White House with courage enough to try to get Big Brother off the backs of the citizens. And oh, Lord, did the sobbing sisters and weak-kneed brothers howl. And, to their credit, the Supreme Court, I think, finally woke up and began to see the writing on the wall. The death penalty was restored—over the howlings and moanings and weeping of many liberal groups—and the states began the slow process of barbecuing and gassing and shooting murderers.”

“Ben, that's awful!”

“I don't see it that way and never will. Gale, in Tri-States, our kids were taught from a very early age to respect the rights of others. That it is against the law to kill, to steal, to cheat, to trespass, to practice blind prejudice, and that they could get seriously hurt, or killed, if they violated the law. And, Gale—it worked. We proved all the so-called experts wrong. Flat wrong. We of Tri-States
proved
that crime does not have to be tolerated. We proved it can be eradicated. I really hope I am not the only person planning to chronicle the last days of this nation's—indeed, the
world's
—history, for I want somebody else, with a fair and reasonable nature to point out to the future generations, that Tri-States worked. That crime and greed and laziness and stupidity do
not
have to be accepted. That they can be wiped from the face of any society if that society will work together, be of like mind, but not a nation of clones. That is my wish.”

Gale put a hand on Ben's arm. “You're a hard man, Ben Raines, but you're a pretty good man, too. Would you pull over right there?” She pointed to a cut-off gravel road.

“You have to go to the bathroom in
this
weather?”

“No. I wanna get that sack of canned fruit out of the back. I'm hungry!”

The rain was not confined to the South Carolina area; it was pouring down all over the southeastern United States. A sudden and very violent storm was sweeping the already ravaged land. It was as if the hand of God was punishing the battered earth.

The storm forced Ike and Nina to seek shelter in an old barn. They holed up there for the night, Nina clinging to Ike.

The remaining troops of Silver and the Ninth Order, now a beaten and bedraggled and sodden and sullen bunch, elected to spend the night at McCormick. They made plans to pull out in the morning. Nothing would be moving this night. So they thought. But Hartline and his men would be on the move. Toward McCormick.

But something began gnawing at Tony's guts. He had a bad feeling about McCormick. Some intangible sense of warning tugged at his streetwise hoodlum's brain. He gathered up fifty of his men and pulled out quietly just as darkness wrapped her evening arms around the rain-soaked, lightning-and-thunder-pounded area. Tony and his party headed south on Highway 221, spending the night just outside Augusta.

It was a move that saved his life. For a while longer, that is.

At the Base Camp in northern Georgia, Tina Raines ran through the heavy downpouring to the communications shack. Slipping off her poncho and hanging it on a peg by the door of the old home, she turned to Cecil.

“Any word from Dad?” she asked.

Cecil shook his head. “Nothing, Tina. But that doesn't mean anything has happened to Ben. Your father is the toughest man I've ever seen. Ben is very hard to kill.”

She nodded her head. Most of what was said about Ben was no myth. “How about Ike?”

“Intercepted messages from the Ninth Order tend to substantiate initial reports that Ike played hell with those chasing him. Them, I should say. But nothing from Ike himself. Ike is as tough as an alligator, Tina. And when he gets stirred up, as mean as a cobra. Ike's all right.”

“The base is secure,” Tina reported. “We didn't lose as many people as first thought. Thirty-five percent max. Many of our people headed for the deep timber when the coup attempt went down. They're straggling back in now, in small groups.”

“That is good news,” Cecil said with a smile. “What do Gray's Scouts report about the strength of the Ninth Order?”

“A Mister Waldo—he's some relation to Abe Lancer—who lives up near a town called Tellico Plains says the Ninth Order is still strong. Strong enough to do us some damage. That crazy woman who heads up the Order is said to have really pitched a fit when her people failed to kill Dad. She has—again, this is according to Mister Waldo—some sort of long-standing grudge against Dad. Goes back years and years, so the report went.”

Cecil frowned and shook his head. “It's so odd, Tina. I don't recall Ben ever mentioning anything about her.”

“Neither does anyone else. I've spoken with Jane, Jerre, Rosita, Dawn....” She paused and then began laughing. The laughter proved highly infectious. Within seconds, the room of people were all laughing, the pent-up tension within them all flying out the open window into the stormy night.

After a moment, Cecil wiped his eyes with a large bandana and said, “All of Ben's women, you mean? Those you know about, at least—right?”

Tina nodded, still chuckling. “Yeah. My old man is something of a Romeo, isn't he? Anyway, none of those I spoke with know anything about any woman named Voleta.”

“Probably changed her name,” Mark said. “Lots of people did after the first bombings wiped out so many records. Juan was correct when he pegged this whole thing as a blood debt. God, she must really hate General Raines.”

They all nodded their agreement. Each with their own thoughts as to what they would like to do to the woman called Voleta. None of the individual thoughts contained anything pleasant.

Tina looked at Cecil. “We have volunteers tagging and body-bagging the victims of the coup. This storm is supposed to blow out of here before dawn—that's according to the mountain people. I'm opting for a mass grave, Cecil. How about you?”

“Yes,” Ben's second-in-command and close friend replied. “Easiest and most sensible way. But we'll do it with as much dignity as we can muster. I spoke with a stone mason who lives near here. One of Abe Lancer's men. He said he'd start work as soon as we furnished him with a complete list of the names of those who died.”

“We'll do that first thing in the morning. The volunteers have said they'll be working right through the night.”

“Yes,” Cecil said. “All of us want this hideous chapter of our lives over and done with as quickly as possible.” He met Tina's eyes. “Has your father said anything to you about wanting to leave here—alone, I mean?”

“He's mentioned that he wants to get away for a time, return to his chronicling of the events leading up to and just after the bombings of '88. Yes, I imagine Dad will do just that.”

“And . . . Gale?” Cecil asked softly.

Tina smiled. “She wants him to go—alone. She is fully aware of the fact that no woman holds Ben Raines' attention for very long. Not since Salina. Dad is going to fall really in love one of these days. And when he does, it'll be a sight to see. But for now, he wants us settled in tight, Gale to have a home, and then he'll wander.”

“He's not going to want any bodyguards,” Mark said.

“No,” Tina agreed. “And if anyone tries to burden him with them, he'll find a way to shake them.”

Cecil sighed. “Let's face that when the time comes around, people. Right now, though, let's all get some much-needed rest for a few hours. We've still got a lot to do.”

 

 

Ben halted his convoy at a motel complex just off Interstate 85 and ordered then to eat and rest. Everyone was beat, some near exhaustion. Ben looked as refreshed as if he'd just risen from an uninterrupted eight hours' sleep.

After a cold meal, most of the Rebels unrolled their sleeping bags and bedrolls and crashed on the floor. They were asleep in five minutes, oblivious to the storm that raged outside the motel complex.

Ben and Gale, after tossing everything in the motel room outside, and checking the carpet for fleas and other vermin, inflated the air mattress and laid a double sleeping bag over the gentle firmness. Gale was sleeping in two minutes.

Ben stood just outside the closed motel room door, watching the lightning lick across the night sky, the wicked needles lancing furiously, bouncing and lashing through the low heavens.

Ben looked at the firmament. “Where is it all leading?” he questioned the night. “Are you going to give us one more chance, or is this your way of saying the human race has had it, all because we failed you?”

Thunder crashed and scolded the sodden ground; another burst of lightning flickered acidly, illuminating the lone man standing by the railing of the second floor. More thunder rolled, punishing the air with waves of fury.

“Sorry,” Ben said, “but this display further convinces me that you had a hand in all that happened.” Ben's words were not audible over the howling fury. A line from a long-ago Tennessee Williams play came to him: Hypocrisy and mendacity. “That's the way the world was leaning, right? Sure. Get drunk on Saturday night and dress up in finery on Sunday and go to church and pray for forgiveness at best, go to church for the show of it at worst. Cheat your friend, your neighbor, the customer, and fuck your best buddy's wife. Right? Yeah. Buy expensive grown-up toys while half the world's children starved to death and this nation's elderly had to grub around in garbage cans just to survive. That is, if the summer's heat or the winter's cold or the damned street punks didn't kill them—right?”

The worst and harshest slash of lightning Ben had ever seen lit up the entire sky. The sulfuric display was followed by a deafening crash of thunder. More lightning danced from cloud to cloud and from cloud to earth.

Ben stood undaunted and unafraid and alone on the balcony. “What are You attempting to tell us, or me?” Ben questioned the almost mindless fury of the storm. “Or are You trying to say anything at all? Do You even exist? Or were You just a figment of someone's vivid imagination thousands of years ago?”

The earth trembled under the barrage of God's wrath.

Ben stood with his face to the heavens—and toward Him. “All right, all right,” he said. “What's the matter; can't You take a joke?”

The lightning and thunder ceased abruptly, the rain picking up in volume.

“That won't do it,” Ben said. “I don't believe in miracles, and the rain alone won't wash it clean. Hundreds of years must pass before portions of this earth—Your earth—will once more be inhabitable. I believe You allowed the disaster to happen. Now what are You trying to do, ease your conscience?”

The lightning and thunder began anew.

Ben laughed. “I'm not afraid of You. I respect You. But I'm not afraid of You. I'll tell You what: I think You've given up on this planet. That is my belief. I have always believed this planet earth was only one of many You populated with beings. And now You have turned Your attention to others. Fine. I don't blame You a bit. Now I don't know about this fellow called the Prophet who is wandering about, following me. I don't know what he's trying to tell me. But I do know this: I am not the man to restore Your earth. A little part of it, maybe. But the rest is up to You. So get off my back. I'm tired. I'm going to wander for a year. Maybe longer. Alone. Leave the machinery of government and building nations in someone else's hands. Cecil Jefferys. He's a good man. One of the best I've ever seen.”

The lightning and thunder and driving rain eased off a bit.

“Interesting,” Ben noted aloud. “I've had some strange conversations in my time, but this takes the cake.”

A lone spear of lightning touched down.

“All right,” Ben said. “It's pure survival from this point on, isn't it? Sure. Little pockets of determined people will set up fortresslike villages and try to pull something constructive from the ashes. Maybe they‘ll—
we
'
ll
succeed. I've got something like that in the back of my mind. After I return from my wanderings. I think we've got maybe a seventy/thirty chance of success. With us on the low end of the odds scale.”

The rain had dwindled down to a sprinkle; the lightning had completely stopped.

“All right,” Ben spoke to that which only he could hear at that moment. “Fine.”

He walked back into the motel room, undressed, and lay down beside Gale. She turned to face him in the darkness.

“I thought I heard you talking to someone, Ben.”

“You did. I was carrying on a sort of conversation with God.”

Several moments of silence passed. “Really?” she finally said. “Did He reply to your mutterings?”

“Well, yes. In a manner of speaking.”

“Sometimes I worry about you, Raines. I really, really do.”

She rose from the pallet and wandered around the barren room.

“What in the hell are you looking for?” Ben asked. He was thoughtful for a moment. “Don't tell me; let me guess: You're hungry.”

In reply, she bit deeply into the crisp tartness of an apple.