Out of the Ashes (26 page)

“You said it, babe, not me.”

 

It had been talked about for years: breaking the United States up into several nations. But it had never been taken seriously. Until now.

Survivors were, or so it seemed, fleeing their devastated homelands, from all over the world, all of them heading for the land of opportunity: America. And Logan, with his small military, seemed unable to stem the tide or kill the dream.

And as is probably the case with many high-level decisions from heads of state, it was the wife of the king, the premier, the prime minister, the chief, or the president who made the final decision, or at least outlined the plan.

“People are unemployed, Hilton,” Fran told him. “And just look at all these tacky people coming in from the islands and Europe and Lord only knows where else. Start the draft up. It will give people something to do. And just look at all the ex-soldiers coming in, too. Officers among them. They will be grateful to you for giving them work, and in return, you'll have loyalty from them.”

“Marvelous idea, Hilton,” Dallas Valentine, the secretary of state said. “And we can get rid of those officers who dislike us so.”

Hilton agreed; then said, “But all these people setting up little kingdoms around the country?”

“Oh, big deal,” Fran told him, a pout on her lips. “Let them have their two-bit little kingdoms—for as long as they last. Look what we control: the oil, the gas, all the ports that are usable, all the shipping, the breadbasket areas. We've got a lot more area than we have people to settle it. So let these people try—you know they're going to fail, ninety-nine percent of them. And when they do, they'll look to you for help, and you'll be a big man to them when you bring them back into the fold. Then, as we grow stronger, we can crush those who didn't fail.”

“Marvelous idea, Hilton,” Dallas said.

Logan smiled. He liked to have yes men around him. Made him feel good. He also liked that term: bring them back into the fold. It was kind of religious-sounding. He'd have to ask Rev. Palmer Falcreek over to the White House for lunch with him . . . soon. Tell him about it. Falcreek was such a good man. Already he was setting up a committee to boycott any film that came out of what was called the New Hollywood. Falcreek wanted only good, clean, wholesome entertainment. Dogs and horses and stuff like that. Cowboys with inexhaustible six-shooters. None of that wiggle-jiggle stuff.

“Of course, you're right, dear,” Hilton said. “Why shed blood?”

“Our
blood,” she corrected. “You've got Colonel Parr and his men to do all that physical stuff. And Jeb Fargo and his bunch if you have to use them . . . for tacky little jobs.”

“Jeb Fargo?” the president questioned. “What has he to do with this? His people are farmers, dear.”

Yeah, Fran thought, with submachine guns and blazing crosses. “Oh, Hilton! I declare, sometimes you're so dense. Fargo is a Klucker from Georgia. They ran him out of Mississippi years ago.” She didn't tell him Fargo was also a Nazi. It had not taken her long to learn what many people had learned years before: her husband was not always with it.

“Klucker?”

“KKK, dear.”

“Oh. Well . . . I didn't know that. I know only that he is loyal and a good, decent, churchgoing man. Palmer Falcreek says he has the good of the country at heart.”

Long as he could run around in a bedsheet burning crosses, Fran thought. “Of course, dear.” She smiled at him.

Under the table, Fran slipped off her shoe and ran her little foot up the pants' leg of Dallas Valentine, almost causing him to drop part of a fricasseed chicken into his lap. She liked ol' Dallas—he was hung like that ol' boy used to fuck her in the barn when she was just a teen-ager. Had a cock about a foot and half long, just like Dallas. She felt sorry for Dallas. Had a wife that looked like a cross between a prune and a hockey puck. No angles, no curves, no planes. Just one great big round wrinkle.

“I think Fran has the right idea,” Dallas said.

Bet your ass, I do, Fran thought. Just as soon as we can get alone and I can get my hands on that garden hose you call a pecker.

“I'll give it some thought,” Hilton said.

But all knew the decision had been made.

 

So the president handed down the orders to the mercenaries under Kenny Parr's control: do not interfere with people attempting to set up so-called free states. Move only if people attempt to seize those areas already under U.S. control.

And the president ordered a complete census taken, and a draft order put into law.

Now it became a game of wait-and-see.

 

Spring

 

The harsh winter had passed, and the mountains and the valleys and the plains were blooming with the birth of the cycle. The roar of tractors was evident as the plows cut into the earth, preparing the land for planting. Ben was on a tour of the three-state area now, in a Jeep with Maj. Clint Voltan.

“Home at last.” Voltan smiled, topping a hill and stopping. “Never figured I'd see this land again—not as a free man, anyway. Sure is peaceful and pretty here.”

“Why did you think you'd never see it again?” Ben asked.

“You don't know?” Voltan wore a surprised look. “No, I guess you don't.” He smiled. “I'm a murderer, Mr. Raines. Oh, yeah. This”—he waved his hand at the expanse of land—“belonged—belongs—to me. My ranch. I was doing pretty good, me and my wife, until some modern-day rustlers started runnin' off my beef. My wife, she used to like to ride in the mornings, she come up on them. They raped her, left her after they used her—pretty badly. Well, I went on the prowl for them; thought I recognized the tire tracks. I was right; I did. There were three of them. I found 'em in a bar one night—called their hand. One of them was just drunk enough to admit what they'd done. They said—right out in public—that my wife had offered it to them. All three of them backed each other up. I knew they were lyin' for a number of reasons. Mainly 'cause my wife—and they didn't know this—had lost her mind. The doctors told me that most women can cope with the emotional stress of rape. Alice—that's my wife—couldn't. I gut-shot all three of them, right there in that bar; then stood there and listened to 'em squall and die.” He laughed, but it was a rueful bark of no humor. “Good old straight Voltan, believing in the system. I'd never even had a traffic ticket before then. Sure . . . the law put murder warrants out on me. I ran for about a year, then joined up with the western-based Rebels. After the war, I went to the institution where my wife had been confined. Found her—dead of course. Buried her.”

“Do you ever feel you were wrong?”

Voltan thought about that for a few seconds. “No, sir. I don't. I think rape should carry a stiff sentence. I think that if rape is proven, beyond any doubt—lie detectors, PSE machines, even hypnosis—I think the rapist should not only have to serve a tough sentence, but should be gelded like you would a bad stallion.”

“I agree with you,” Ben said.

“We gonna have soft laws in this area, Mr. Raines?”

“I hope not. Clint? Why is everybody asking me these questions? No one has elected me to anything.”

The rancher-Rebel smiled. “Well, you have been, kind of, in a secret way.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You're it, Mr. Raines.”

And the words of Cecil came to him. “You're going to look up one day, Ben, and the job of leader will be handed to you. Like me, you won't want it, but you'll take it.”

“All right, Clint,” he heard his voice say. “If I'm elected, I'll serve.”

“You'll be elected, Mr. Raines.”

“I'll be a tough law-and-order man.” He looked at the rancher. “Better warn the people of that.”

“ 'Bout time somebody got tough in this country.”

 

“Two thirds of the world's population dead,” Cossman said. “They think that's final. Here at home, over a hundred and fifty million, and still climbing.” He and his crew had been monitoring government bands.

“What's the population of our three-state area?” Ben asked.

“That, I can tell you precisely,” an aide said to Ben.

Ben had been governor of the three-state area for almost six months, and he could not get accustomed to the title or the attention paid him.

“Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-two people,” the aide said. “Our final head count was completed yesterday afternoon.”

“Umm,” Ben said. “I thought the preliminary figures were somewhat higher?”

“They were. We lost twenty-seven thousand people in the first two months of . . . ah—”

“My taking office,” Ben finished it.

“Win some, lose some, el Presidente,” Ike said. Outwardly, the only thing Ike took seriously was Megan and his farm/ranch. But Ike took the new government of the three-state area very seriously. He desperately wanted it to work. And he believed it would—given time. Time.

“They just didn't believe they could conform or adapt to the tough law-and-order system we advocate,” Dr. Chase said. “And they didn't like what we're setting up in our schools, either.”

“But”—the aide spoke—“on the other hand, we've got almost ten thousand people on the outside who want to come in. And the number is growing by a hundred a day. A decision has to be made on that, sir. Quickly.”

“How many can we screen a day?”

“If we really hump it ... maybe fifty. And that is pushing it.”

“I don't want the screening relaxed. Each new person must be given a lie-detector test/PSE test as to background, criminal record, conformity. And the aptitude tests must still be given verbally, by race opposites. We've culled a lot of would-be troublemakers and bigots that way.”

“Those lawyers with what's left of the ACLU are really raising hell about those tests, sir. And our laws.” The aide looked uncomfortable, for he knew only too well how Ben felt about the ACLU.

Ben glared at him. “I thought I told you to get those bastards out of here.”

The aide shuffled his feet. “Sir—they say we'll have to use force to get them out.”

“Then use force. All that is necessary to remove them. They were not invited—are they ever? I don't want them in here.” Ben softened his tone. “Look, boys, I know they mean well, and they have done some good—back when conditions were more or less normal. But we don't have time for hair-splitting legal technicalities. We're not going to have it when our laws and legal system are finally drawn up; and that is being done this very moment.

“You all know where we stand on issues. The people have voted on them, all over this three-state area. We've been holding town meetings since early last winter on the issues we'll live with. Now, ninety-one percent of the people agreed to our laws. The rest left. And that's the way it's going to be or you can take this governorship—that I didn't want in the first place—and I'll go back to writing my journal.”

“Ben—” Dr. Chase said.

“No!” Ben stood firm. “I came into this office this morning and there was a damned paper on my desk asking me to reconsider the death penalty for that goddamned punk over in Missoula.”

“He's sixteen years old, Governor,” an aide said.

“That's his problem. His IQ is one twenty-eight. The shrink says he knows right from wrong and is healthy, mentally and physically. He is perfectly normal. He stole a car, got drunk, and drove a hundred fucking miles an hour down the main street. He ran over and killed two elderly people whose only crime was attempting to cross a street . . . in compliance with the existing traffic lights. He admitted what he did. He is not remorseful. I would reconsider if he was sorry for what he'd done. But he isn't. And tests bear that out. He has admitted his true feelings; said the old people didn't have much time left anyway, so what the hell was everybody getting so upset about? He's a punk. That's all he would ever be—if I let him live—which I have no intention of doing. If he puts so little emphasis on the lives of others, then he shouldn't mind terribly if I snuff out his.

“So, Mr. Garrett,”—he looked at a uniformed man standing quietly across the room—“at six o'clock day after tomorrow, dawn, you will personally escort young Mr. Randolph Green to the designated place of execution and you will see to it that he is hanged by the neck until he is dead. The day of the punk . . . is over.”

“Yes, sir,” Garrett said. “It's about time some backbone was shoved into the law.” He left the room.

Ben looked around him. “Any further questions as to how the law is going to work?”

No one had anything further to say. Ben left the room to have lunch with Salina.

“He's a hard man,” an aide said.

Ike stood up and stretched. “Hard times, brother.”

There were many who left the three-state area, but many more stayed and more wanted in. Some of those who came in also left after seeing what was happening, but most stayed. Life was not easy; rebuilding and conforming never is. Eighteen-hour days were not uncommon; there was a lot to do and everybody able was expected to work without whining about it.

There were those who could not, or would not, as the case may be, accept or adapt to the new laws being written by the people; and many of those laws were not easy to follow, for the people had reverted back to what used to be known as a code of conduct.

Violate that code, and one might find himself or herself in serious trouble. As one old-timer, long a resident of Idaho said, summing up the new system (actually an old system), “Man's got two ways of gettin' rid of leaves in his yard; smart man will rake them up, put them in bags, carry them to the dump where they'll be disposed of in a safe manner. Stupid man will set them on fire in his yard and not give a thought about the smoke blowing in his neighbor's window. Man does the latter now, he's liable to end up with a busted jaw. And there isn't a law on the books against it. Out there in the proper forty-seven, man don't have to think much about what he does. Here, you'd better damned well give it some thought—a lot of thought. I like it here. Peaceful. Once we got rid of the troublemakers. And it didn't take long.”

Many roads leading into the three-state area were destroyed, deliberately, to prevent easy access. There were signs posted all along the borders, warning travelers that the laws in these states were very different from those to which they had grown accustomed, and justice came down very hard and very swiftly.

The world still tumbled about in disorder and confusion and almost total disorganization. There were millions of people out of work and they did not know how to catch a fish or skin a rabbit or plant a garden. Gangs of thugs and punks and hoodlums roamed the country, stealing and raping and killing. All across the nation, from border to border, sea to sea, various groups of different ideological persuasions were breaking away and setting up little communities, sure their way was the right way—the only way. True, caring Christians; semireligious, demented fanatics; cult worshipers; and left- and right-of-center organizations were establishing little governments. All would fail in only a few months as Logan's forces grew stronger; or they rotted from within. Only one would last for any length of time, and its concepts would never die.

 

How hated Ben's system of government was did not come home to the people of the three states until late fall of the first year. Ben had stepped outside of his home for a breath of the cold, clean air of night. Juno went with him, and together they walked from the house around to the front. When Juno growled, Ben went into a crouch, and that saved his life. Automatic-weapon fire spider-webbed the windshield of his truck, the slugs hitting and ricocheting off the metal, sparking the night. Ben jerked open the door of the pickup, punched open the glove compartment, and grabbed a pistol. He fired at a dark shape running across his yard, then at another. Both went down, screaming in pain.

A man stepped from the shadows of the house and opened fire just as Ben hit the ground. Lights were popping on all over the street, men with rifles in their hands appeared on the lawns.

Ben felt a slug slam into his hip, knocking him to one side, spinning him around, the lead traveling down his leg, exiting just above his knee. He pulled himself to one knee and leveled the 9-mm, pumping three shots into the dark form by the side of the house. The man went down, the rifle dropping from his hands.

Ben pulled himself up, his leg and hip throbbing from the shock of the wounds. He leaned against the truck just as help reached him.

“Get the medics!” a man shouted. “Governor's been shot.”

“Help me over to that man,” Ben said. “He looks familiar.”

Standing over the fallen man, Ben could see where his shots had gone: two in the stomach, one in the chest. The man was splattered with blood and dying. He coughed and spat at Ben.

“Goddamned nigger-lovin' scum,” he said. He closed his eyes, shivered in the convulsions of pain; then died.

Badger came panting up, a robe over his pajamas, house slippers flapping. “God, Governor! Who is he?”

Ben stood for a time, leaning against the side of the house. Salina came to him, putting her arms around him as the wailing of ambulances drew louder. “Do you know him, Ben?” she asked.

“I used to,” Ben's reply was sad. “He was my brother.”