Out of the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “And never will again,” April reminded him.

  Ben glanced at her. “I don’t consider his death any great loss to the world.”

  THIRTEEN

  Ben had pulled off the interstate just a few miles south of Fort Valley and headed east. “Just wandering,” he told April. “We’re not on any timetable.”

  At a small town located on a state highway, Ben pulled over when he saw a group of elderly people gathered on and around the porch of a general store. When they saw the truck stop, they ran as if in a panic.

  “Why are they afraid of us?” April asked.

  “There is a certain type of filth in this world that preys on the old. I think these folks have been the victims of those types of slime. Let’s see.”

  But when Ben opened the door to the truck, he found himself looking down the twin barrels of a shotgun. It was, he thought, like looking down a twin culvert. He lifted his eyes to meet those of the man standing on the porch, behind the shotgun.

  “I didn’t stop to harm anyone,” Ben said. “I’m a writer, traveling the nation, attempting to chronicle all that has happened. If you people are in some sort of difficulty, perhaps I can help?”

  “Lower the shotgun, Homer,” a woman’s voice said. “He speaks as though he has some degree of education.”

  The shotgun was lowered to Ben’s legs. “One funny move, sonny,” Homer said, “and I’ll shorten your reach considerable.”

  Ben forced a grin and told Juno to please stop growling. Juno licked him in the ear. “I can see where that 12-gauge would definitely do it, sir.” He cut his eyes to the door of the general store. An elderly woman stood looking at him. Ben nodded. “Ma’am.”

  The woman asked, “Where did you attend school, young man?”

  “The University of Illinois, ma’am. For about twenty minutes. I didn’t like college.”

  She laughed. “What books have you written?”

  Ben began reeling off titles and the various names he wrote under. She waved him silent.

  “That’s enough. Some of those books were pornography, Ben Raines. Filth. The sex acts were too descriptive. We’re all adults; we know how the act is done.”

  Ben laughed. “But I’ll bet you read every word, didn’t you, ma’am?”

  She grinned and moved out onto the porch. “I taught English for fifty-five years, Mr. Raines. You need to learn about the positioning of adverbs and the splitting of compound verbs.”

  “And don’t forget who and whom and me and I.”

  “Yes,” she said, sitting down in a chair. “That, too.” She pointed to April, sitting in the truck. “Are you and that young lady married, Mr. Raines, or are you living in sin?”

  “No, ma’am, we’re not married. As for living in sin, I wouldn’t know about that. She doesn’t believe in God.”

  “I’m Nola Browning, young man. Ms. Nola Browning, thank you. We have all gathered here from several small communities in this area. I’ll introduce you around a bit later. Given a little age, your young lady will come to her senses concerning God and what is His. If not,”—she shrugged—“her loss, not His. As to our troubles ... well... it seems we have a gang of hooligans and roughnecks roaming the countryside, preying on the elderly ... those who survived God’s will, that is.”

  “They have been here?” Ben questioned. “Bothering you folks?”

  Ms. Browning laughed without mirth. “Bothering us, sir? Oh yes, I would say so. They came up on us ... what, Mr. Jacobs? Three months ago? Yes, something like that. They roughed up the men—humiliated them, I won’t go into details—then they left. We hoped they would not return. But of course, they did.

  “The second time they took all the weapons in the town. Mr. Jacobs hid his shotgun in a ditch; they missed that. Then they disabled all our vehicles. Left us stranded here. They’ve been back a number of times since then. The last time just the past week. Mrs. Ida Sikes is the youngest of us all: she’s sixty-two. They took turns raping her. Then they pulled Mrs. Johnson out of her house and raped her the next time. A woman a trip. Mrs. Carson is next. She’s sixty-five, but still a very attractive woman. The things they said they were going to do to her ... well, they were rather perverted, to say the least. So can you help, Mr. Raines? Yes, very probably. But there is only one of you, fifteen of them, at least. What can you do?”

  Ben smiled, and Ms. Browning noted that his smile was that of a man-eating tiger who had just that moment spotted dinner. “Oh, I imagine I can think of something suitable for them, Ms. Browning. I used to write a lot of action books.”

  “Yes,” the schoolteacher replied. “And correct me if I’m wrong, sir, but didn’t I read in some column that you had been a mercenary at one time?”

  “I prefer ‘soldier of fortune,’ ma’am.”

  “Of course you do. As for your books . . . I so enjoyed your action stories, especially when your hero rid the world of thugs.”

  “Well, we’ll see if I can’t make one of my heroes come to life and lend a hand here.”

  “I imagine you can, Mr. Raines. And will. You don’t look at all milksoppish to me.”

  “Ben?” April asked.

  “Umm?”

  They lay in bed, waiting for sleep to take them.

  “What type of ... slime would do something like what’s been happening to these people here. I mean ... I just don’t understand.”

  Ben chuckled quietly. “What’s the matter, little liberal? You finding that the real world is a little tough? I bet when you were in college you supported all the correct causes, liberal, of course, didn’t you?” She stiffened beside him. “I bet you leaped to the defense of every lousy punk and shithead the state brought up for burning in the chair—or whatever they do—did—in Florida.”

  “You going to rub it in?”

  “No, I just wanted to bring it up, that’s all. See if I was right in my assessment. I was. Well, Ms. Browning—and that’s a tough old lady—said she thought they’d be back tomorrow. Then you can see what kind of slime would do such a thing. After I kill them.”

  “Ben Raines, the one-man hand of retribution, huh?”

  “Just doing what the courts should have done a long time ago. We should have never stopped public hangings.”

  She shivered beside him. “You scare me when you talk like this, Ben. You sound as if you’re going to enjoy ... doing it.”

  “I am.”

  Ben put away the light M-10 and carefully loaded his Thompson with a full drum. He hid that, along with a pouchful of clips and several grenades, behind sacks of feed he had stacked in an alley between the general store and a deserted shop. He buckled on both .45s, jacked a round in each chamber, and kept both of them on half-cock. Then, with a grenade in his hand, he sat down on the porch of the store and waited.

  Homer Jacobs was guarding the women in the basement of the local Baptist Church. Ben had given him an automatic shotgun he had picked up at a police station in Florida: a riot gun, sawed-off barrel, eight rounds of three-inch magnums in the slot.

  He heard them long before he saw them. They came in fancy vans, their loud mufflers roaring. Rock and roll music was pushed through straining speakers; it offended the quiet and the beauty of early spring.

  But, Ben reckoned, anything these punks did would probably be offensive.

  Everything fit according to what Homer and Nola and the others had told him, right down the mag wheels on the vans. Ben rose from the porch and stepped out into the street. He wanted them to come to him, even though he knew he was taking one large risk. If it had been only three or four of them he would have taken the 7-mm rifle and picked them off one by one. But with this many he couldn’t take a chance of even one getting away, for that one would probably gather more scum and return, and the revenge on the elderly would be terrible.

  No, he had to kill all the punks.

  The lead van roared to a stop amid squalling tires. Four vans in all.

  Ben did not know that Ms. Browning had slipped awa
y from the church and made her way up the alley and into the general store. She sat behind the front counter, watching Ben. She was a good Christian lady, believing strongly in helping those who could not help themselves. She had never mistreated a human being or an animal in her life, and would rather bite her tongue than be rude to a civilized person.

  When integration had come to her school, back in the sixties, she had not retired, as had so many of her friends. Instead, Nola had gone right on teaching—in the public schools. She had been raised, from a child, to hold “Nigras” just a cut beneath her (or a full one hundred eighty degrees, as the case may be), and while she did find many of their ways alien to her own way of life, she also found many exceptional Negro children with a genuine desire to learn and advance. Ms. Nola Browning concluded (and it was a horrendous decision for a Southern lady and a member of the D.A.R. and the Daughters of the Confederacy to make) that we are all God’s children and to hell with the KKK and George Wallace. She had been booted out of the Daughters of the Confederacy, but that was all right with Nola; they had to live their lives and she hers.

  But on this day, Ms. Nola Browning wished and hoped and prayed with all her might this young man (anyone under sixty was young to her), who had more guts than sense, would kill every one of those trashy bastards who had terrorized her town.

  She hoped God would forgive her dark thoughts and slight profanity.

  She felt He would.

  “What’s on your mind, hotshot?” The punk on the passenger side sneered at Ben.

  Ben knew the only thing a person outnumbered can do is attack. And that’s what he did. At the sound of the roaring mufflers, Ben had pulled the pin of the fragmentation grenade and held the spoon down. He smiled at the punk.

  “You know anything about Constitutional rights?” Ben asked.

  “Yeah, pops—we all got ’em.”

  “Wrong,” Ben said, releasing the spoon. It pinged to the ground. “You just lost yours.”

  He tossed the grenade inside the van.

  He was leaping for the protection of the stacked feed bags before the punks could get the first scream of fright past their lips.

  The grenade mushroomed the van, and Ben knew that was four shitheads out of it permanently. As he leaped for the protection of the feed bags, he rolled another grenade under the front of the third van: a high-explosive grenade. The grenade lifted the van off its front tires, setting the punk-wagon on fire.

  On his belly, looking out the side of the stacks, Ben leveled the Thompson and pulled the trigger, holding it back, fighting the rise of the powerful SMG. He sprayed the remaining two vans.

  If nothing else, Nola thought, he’s stopped that damnable music.

  Ben emptied the sixty-round drum into the vans, then pulled out both .45s, hauling them back to full cock. He waited, crouched on one knee.

  “Oh, Jesus God!” The cry came from the rear van. “There’s blood and shit ever’where. Ever’one’s dead. God, don’t shoot no more—please!”

  Ben waited.

  “We’s a-comin’ out. Don’t shoot no more.”

  “We’s,” Ben muttered. More than one.

  We’s! Nola thought, a grimace on her face. Illiterate redneck trash. Forgive me, Lord, but a rose by any other name is still a rose. Thank you, William and Gertrude.

  “Hands high in the air!” Ben shouted. “If I see anything except skin in your hands, you’re dead, bastards!”

  He could have phrased that a bit more eloquently, Nola thought. But it was firmly spoken with a great deal of conviction.

  Two young men, apparently unhurt, slowly got out of the van. Their faces were pale with shock and disbelief. Only two minutes before they had been riding high—king of the territory. Now their kingdom was in smoking ruins. And worse, they had peed their jeans.

  “You.” Ben spoke to a punk with a pimply face and what Ben assumed was a mustache under his nose. “Face-down in the street and don’t even think about moving.” The punk obeyed instantly. The dark stain on the front of the other’s jeans appeared darker.

  The elderly of the town appeared, walking slowly up the street. Homer with the riot gun in his hands; another man with a rope. He was fashioning a noose.

  The punk on his feet fainted. The would-be tough on his belly started blubbering and hollering.

  “Y’all cain’t do this to me! I got rights, man.”

  Ben smiled, a grim warrior’s baring of the teeth. “So do other people, punk. Violate theirs, and you lose yours.” He turned to face the man with the rope. A noose was made. “Do with them as you see fit.”

  They did. And that problem was solved permanently.

  The people of the town cried when Ben and April pulled out. They were tears not only of sadness, but of relief and gratitude, for Ben had removed a horror from their lives. Before leaving, Ben had driven into a nearby town, prowled the stores and homes, and taken a small arsenal back with him: rifles, pistol, shotguns, and plenty of ammunition.

  “You’re off the beaten path here,” Ben told them. “You shouldn’t be bothered too much. But the next time a gang like that comes through—and there will be a next time, bet on it—don’t let them get the upper hand on you. One or two of you go out into the street. The rest of you get behind cover and poke your weapons out the windows; let the bastards know you’re armed and ready to shoot. And don’t hesitate to fire. Your lives are on the line.

  “I’ve brought you CBs and two base stations; I’ve set them up for you. You’ve got a long-range radio to monitor news. I don’t know of anything else I can do. I’ve gotten you several new cars and a van; all the medicine you asked for. I guess that’s about it.”

  All of the elderly wanted to scream out to him: you could stay with us.

  But none of them would do that. They knew he had done enough—more than most would have done.

  Ben shook the men’s hands and kissed the ladies on the cheeks. Then he drove away. He did not look back.

  When the tiny town was no longer in sight, April asked, “What will happen to them, Ben?”

  “Some of them will die this summer from heart attacks, trying to put in gardens. Some will probably die this winter from the cold, or from fire. Medicines will run out. And if they’re really unlucky, punks and crap-heads and other assorted scum will find them.”

  “You’re such a cheerful bastard, Ben Raines. You could have told me everything would be all right.”

  “I would have been lying.”

  “Nobody ever seems to care about the old people. Not their kids, not the state, especially the federal government—when we had one, that is.”

  “Of course not, little liberal. The kids take off because they don’t want to fool with the old folks. What was good for their daddy isn’t good enough for the modern-day youth. The state can’t provide because they’re too busy spending money keeping up with government rules and dictates—most of which are no business of the federal government. Our central government was far too busy handing out billions of dollars each year protecting the rights of punks, funding programs that never should have been started in the first place. They were too busy seeing to it that rapists, muggers, murderers, child molesters, armed robbers, and others of their dubious ilk were not overcrowded in jails and prisons; that they received free legal assistance—at taxpayers’ expense, I might add. That a committee was always present in Europe to speak out on the standardization of the screwhead—and that is no joke; and all sorts of other worthwhile tasks. Hell, they didn’t have time to worry about a bunch of goddamned old people. What the hell, little liberal ... priorities, you know.”

  Ben felt her hot eyes on him. “You conservatives really piss me off, you know that? It’s so easy for you people to find fault with social programs, isn’t it?”

  “I thought helping the elderly was a social program, April. I’m all in favor of that. Or have you forgotten what we were discussing?”

  She folded her arms across her chest and refused to look at him. �
�I was going to ask what you would have done, Ben—but I think I know. Able-bodied welfare recipients would have been forced to work, wouldn’t they, Ben?”

  He looked straight ahead, up the highway. Let her get it all out of her system, he thought.

  “Women who birthed more than two illegitimate children would have been sterilized, right? The death penalty would be the law of the land. Chain gangs and work farms and convict labor. You people are sick!”

  How to tell her she was right to a degree but way off base in the main? Ben kept his mouth shut.

  “Damn it, Ben, talk to me! It’s all moot now, anyway, isn’t it?”

  He sighed. “No, April, it isn’t moot. Not at all. Someday ... some way, we’ll pull out of this morass and start to rebuild. That’s the way people—especially Americans—are. And we’ll do it. I just don’t want us to make the same mistakes all over again.”

  “But you want tough, hard laws, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Don’t you think criminals have any rights, Ben?”

  “Damned few. They sure as hell don’t show their victims any rights, do they?”

  “I will never, ever, forget the way those boys cried back there, Ben. And you helped hang them!”

  “They were not boys, April. They were men. You think I would have hanged a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old? What kind of monster do you think I am?”

  Miles rolled past before she spoke. “How far is Macon, Ben?”

  ‘“Twenty-five or thirty miles west of us.”

  “There is a college there.”

  “Wesleyan. I would imagine there might be some people there. Would you like me to drop you off, April?”

  “Yes,” she said softly. “I would, Ben.”

  Actually, there was quite a gathering of professors and young people at the school. And actually, Ben was more than a little relieved to be free of April.