Blood in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “All I wanted was a nice man to fall in love with,” Gale said. “I would have liked a nice home, a couple of kids. A new dress every now and then. Jesus Christ! I had to go and pick Ben Raines, of all people. Now I’m wandering all over the country like a damned gypsy, with a man who blows things up for a hobby.” She looked out the window. “Ku Klux Klan is probably waiting for us right around the next bend in the road,” she muttered.

  Ben laughed at her. “What did I do for laughs before I met you, Gale?”

  “Laughs? I suppose you think the Klan is amusing?”

  “Yes,” he replied with a chuckle. “I’ve always thought them funny. Ever since my dad showed me a picture of them all decked out in bed sheets and pillowcases. They tried to organize around Marion when I was just a kid. Tried to get my dad to join. Dad told them to go to hell. Dad wasn’t a liberal, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was no bigot, either. They came back about a week later. Tried to burn a cross on Dad’s south field. Dad was waiting for them with a twelve-gauge shotgun, loaded with rock salt.” Ben laughed at the memory. “Dad shot several of them right in the ass. I never saw so many bed sheets flapping in the breeze in all my life. You talk about steppin’ and fetchin’. Those rednecks had their sheets up around their knees and I mean some kind of gettin’ it across that field. One of them got all tangled up in a barbed wire fence and started bellowing like a calf in a hailstorm. Dad was laughing so hard he couldn’t see to shoot.”

  Gale had to practically stick her fist in her mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. She turned her head away and sat giggling, looking out the window.

  “You see,” Ben said, laughing at her antics. “You think it’s funny the way I described it. Right?”

  “Yeah, but Ben—come on! the KKK preaches hate against minorities. Jews included, I might add. In that respect, it ain’t so damned funny. But you wouldn’t know about that.”

  Ben grinned and put the needle to her. “Oh, come on, Gale. Stop postulating. And knock off wearing your heritage like a thorny crown.”

  She cut her eyes at him. “Very funny, Raines. Ha ha. And what the hell do you mean: postulating?”

  “You want me to explain the word?”

  “You want a fat lip? I know what postulate means.”

  “You are assuming I don’t know where you’re coming from because I haven’t been where you’re going, right?”

  She thought about that for a few seconds. “Weird way of putting it, but yeah, I guess so.”

  “Wrong. That’s like saying I can’t feel for a starving child because I’m not a starving child.”

  “Oh, crap, Ben. Your analogy is all twisted. That’s not—”

  A hard burst of gunfire stopped Gale in mid-sentence.

  Ben twisted the steering wheel hard left and cut into the driveway of an old farmhouse.

  Gale hit the floorboards. “I am getting very tired of this,” she said.

  “We shall continue this scintillating conversation at a later date,” Ben said.

  “I am in the company of a fucking madman,” Gale muttered, as gunfire blasted the quiet afternoon.

  Lead sparkled the windshield, showering both of them with glass.

  “I don’t think those people like us very much,” Ben said. “Did you forget your deodorant this morning, dear?”

  “Will you for Christ’s sake do something!” Gale shouted.

  “Calm yourself,” Ben said. He took his old Thompson SMG from the clips built into the dashboard and the floorboard. “Stay low,” he told her.

  “That just has to be one of the most useless instructions I have ever heard,” Gale said.

  Ben slipped from the truck. “Where away, James?” he called over the rattle of gunfire.

  “That grove of trees to the northeast, General. They won’t be there for very long, though,” he added.

  . 50-caliber machine guns began yammering from the rear of the six-bys in the short column. 40mm grenade launchers began lobbing their payloads into the brush on the slope. Mortars began plopping and popping from the tubes.

  Ben’s Rebels began flanking the hidden assailants, spraying the area with automatic weapon fire. WP grenades blasted the brush, setting it on fire. Men leaped up and tried to run from the burning brush and timber. The Rebels cut them down, offering no quarter or mercy.

  Ben called for a cease fire. It was quiet except for the moaning and crying of the wounded. “Finish them,” Ben ordered.

  In five minutes it was over. No prisoners.

  “Gather their weapons and fan the bodies for anything intelligence might use. Leave the bodies for the animals. We’ll head for the nearest town and see about a new windshield for my truck.”

  The wounded outlaws put out of their misery, James walked to Ben’s side. “Sorry looking bunch, General. Trash and no-counts.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Some of them in pretty good shape. Nothing intelligence could use.”

  “Let’s roll it.”

  The entire ambush, firefight, mop-up and victory, had taken less than fifteen minutes. Raines’ Rebels were known for their fierceness in battle.

  “Just to take off like that,” Sgt. Charles Bennett said. “Leaving all of us behind to worry about him. OK. I know. I’m going to make some of you mad. Can’t be helped. It just isn’t right. Maybe General Raines is . . . Naw. Couldn’t be that.”

  “Couldn’t be what?” a Rebel asked.

  “Skip it,” Bennett said. “It’s just something I heard, and I ain’t gonna repeat none of it. Even if it is true.”

  “At least tell us where it came from.”

  Bennett shook his head and turned to go. He looked back at the group. “You won’t tell anybody where you heard it?”

  “Not a soul, Charles. But if it involves the general, I think we all have a right to know.”

  “Yeah,” Bennett said. “I guess that’s right. OK. I’ll just do this, and if you pick up on it, fine with me.” He tapped the side of his head, temple area, and made a circling gesture. He walked away.

  After several moments of arguing among themselves, the Rebels came to this conclusion: Ben needs a long rest. He deserves it.

  All agreed with that. More Rebels joined the group. They agreed that Ben was probably more tired than anything else, that he was mentally exhausted. But how to get him to take that much-deserved rest?

  “Let’s ask Captain Willette. He’s pretty sharp. He’ll know what to do.”

  Ben stopped the small convoy in Monroe, Georgia. After some searching, a windshield was located, popped out, and the bullet-shattered glass in Ben’s pickup was replaced.

  “No safety inspection,” Ben joked. “I’m likely to get a ticket.”

  “Beg pardon, sir?” a young Rebel looked at him, not understanding what Ben said.

  “Never mind, son,” Ben said. “All that was before your time.”

  A lot of things were before your time, Ben thought. He looked at the young Rebel and shook his head. They will never be the same. From now on, it’s pure survival.

  “Let’s head for Monticello and the Oconee National Forest,” Ben said, after looking at an old map of Georgia. “We’ll hole up there for a few days. Keep our heads down and out of sight. Cec is supposed to contact me tomorrow, at noon.”

  James Riverson, the huge ex-truck driver from Missouri, spoke his mind. “I don’t know about this move, General. Personally, I’d like to go back to the convoy and kick the ass off Willette and his bunch. This move could backfire on us.”

  “He’s right, General,” Buck Osgood expressed his opinion.

  Some Rebels agreed with Buck, others weren’t sure. While Ben demanded rigid discipline from his people, anyone could express an opinion. When Ben was in the active U.S. military, he had detested chickenshit units. In his outfit, officers pulled their weight just like everyone else.

  Surprising James and Buck, Ben agreed with them. “I know that, boys. But I’ve got to know how many of our people are with Wil
lette and his crew. Let’s face it: None of the three, Carter, Bennett or Willette, or anyone aligned with them, has said anything treasonous about me. If I confronted them now, what would I confront them with? This is the best way, I’m thinking. There is an old adage about giving a person enough rope to hang himself. That’s what I’m doing.”

  All the Rebels knew that when Ben made up his mind, that was it. End of discussion.

  They would lay low for a couple of weeks, see what developed.

  Monticello contained a half dozen survivors. They had survived, but though they were survivors—in one sense of the word—they were pitiful in Ben’s eyes. No one appeared to be in charge. No organization. No one had planted a garden or done anything else constructive. The people just seemed to be existing. Their children were dirty and ragged. There was no type of school. The adults had worked out no plan of defense against the many gangs of thugs and outlaws and paramilitary groups that now roamed throughout the land.

  Ben dismissed the families in Monticello from his mind. They might have survived thus far, but not for much longer. They would be easy prey. God alone knew what would happen to the children when that occurred—and Ben knew it would happen. For the scum—who for some reason seem to survive any holocaust—were surfacing, to rape and ravage and kill.

  “Wind it up,” Ben ordered. “We’re moving on. Losers don’t impress me.”

  The convoy moved a few miles down the road, to what was left of a small village. The Rebels had what was left of the hamlet to themselves. Only a few scattered bones lay in white, silent testimony to that which once was.

  The Rebels began setting up camp, first cleaning out a few stores and homes. Ben waited by the communications truck for Cecil’s call.

  When the radio crackled, Ben answered the first signal.

  “How’s it going, Cec?”

  “We’re in place and setting up,” Ben’s second in command replied, his voice popping from the speaker. “Now the rumor is you are suffering from a mental disorder; you need a long rest. Even gods get tired. So on and so forth.”

  “So the power play is firming up?”

  “It’s beginning to have some consistency, yes. But nothing of any real substance. Willette is very smooth and very intelligent, Ben. He’s shifted many of his people around. Has them in every unit except HQ’s Company and Dan’s LRRPs and Scouts. Dan and I have seen to that exclusion. Speaking of Dan, he’s plenty miffed at you. I settled him down by telling him why you did what you did, and that you tried to find him to tell him yourself.”

  “That’s fine, Cec. How are our people being received by the mountain people?”

  “Very well. Captain Rayle says the incidents of terrorism and brutality by the gangs of thugs and slime along the borders—all borders surrounding us—have picked up dramatically during the past month. The country is really going to hell in a bucket, Ben. I don’t have to tell you to be careful out there in the boonies.”

  “I heard that, Cec. When do you want the next voice contact?”

  “Day after tomorrow. Noon. We’ll use the same frequency. Ben? You people keep your heads down out there.”

  “Ten-four and out.”

  Ben turned to Gale. “You heard him. So don’t take it in your head to go out picking wildflowers. It’s dangerous out there.” He looked at the group of men and women gathered around the communications truck. “That goes for all of you. Travel in pairs and go armed at all times.”

  “You trying to give me orders, Raines?” Gale stuck out her chin.

  “Let me put it another way; maybe I can get through to you that way. How would you like to get gang-shagged by a dozen men?”

  “You just have to be the most tactful, literate person I have ever met, Raines.”

  “Thank you. I’m cute, too,” Ben said with a grin.

  Gale choked back a reply.

  THREE

  He had been christened Anthony Silvaro in New York City. That was in 1970. When he was fourteen years old, he left his parents’ very comfortable apartment and became a street punk. Sociologists and psychologists had nothing tangible to blame for Tony’s behavior. In this case they could not fall back on their universal catch-all and blame Tony’s behavior on society. Tony’s parents were both college educated, both professional, successful people who made a good living, loved their kids, and would not dream of anything even remotely close to child abuse. Their combined incomes placed them in the upper, upper middle class. Tony’s two brothers and one sister were nice, normal, well-behaved young people. They made good grades in school, usually obeyed their parents, and all had plans to attend college. Tony—as he had been a good-looking boy—turned into a strikingly handsome man. He had never suffered the “embarrassment” of pimples, had no physical infirmities, had never been “picked on” by his teachers or by anyone else, and was very athletic.

  Any streetwise cop knew Tony’s problem.

  Perhaps there is some chemical imbalance in the brain? the shrinks said, clutching at what few straws remained them.

  The streetwise cop’s reply was predictable. “Horseshit.”

  Dyslexia, then.

  “You have to be joking.”

  The shrinks swelled up like a puff adder. They knew what was coming.

  “He’s a punk. Period. He was born a punk. He will be a punk all his life. He will die a punk. He’s just no good.”

  Tony was eighteen when the balloon went up in ’88. He had been busy running his string of teenage whores and mugging old ladies and terrorizing old men over in Brooklyn when the rumors of war began. Tony didn’t know from jackshit about survival outside the concrete canyons of the Big Apple, but he figured he’d damn well better learn. He also figured he’d better head for the wilderness.

  He went to Paterson, New Jersey. I mean, Christ! How far out in the boonies do you have to go to be safe from The Bomb? Paterson, for Christ’s sake.

  It wasn’t far enough, and Tony got out with only minutes to spare, driving a stolen car. He left the owner of the car dead in a puddle of blood. Just an old fart. Who gives a shit about old people, anyways? He got lost down in southern New Jersey, in the fucking swamps. He managed to cross over into Wilmington, Delaware, just before the bridge became hopelessly jammed up with stalled cars and trucks.

  He got on the JFK Memorial Highway and almost blew it with that move, only at the last possible exit veering off to the north before touching Baltimore. He was in southern Pennsylvania when the lid blew off the pot.

  Tony sought refuge in a barn, coming face to face with a black angus bull. The first bull he’d ever seen up close. Tony had visions of a rib-eye, rare. He shot the bull four times in the head with his .38.

  After making a large mess with a butcher knife, Tony gave up his dreams of a rare steak. He couldn’t figure out how to get the hide off the ugly goddamn stinking brute. He found some chickens, only to have them peck his hands when he tried to grab some eggs.

  “Motherfuckers!” Tony yelled in frustration. He blasted the hens with his .38. Maybe he’d have to settle for fried chicken. But how in the hell do you get the feathers off them?

  Tony pilfered the farmhouse, looking for guns and food. He found both. Plus a very frightened twelve-year-old girl. Tony raped her several times. He’d always preferred young pussy. Liked to hear them squall when he stuck it in. But this one wouldn’t quit hollering. Tony cut her throat. Stupid cunt. If she had cooperated, Tony reasoned and rationalized the issue in his punk mind, she could have made both of them some money. Guys like to make it with young chicks. A hundred bucks is nothing to a guy with a hard-on for young gash. Stupid cunt.

  Tony couldn’t believe the next few months. The whole fucking world went nuts. People running around like scared rabbits. And the broads. Christ! They’d do anything for protection from the gangs that began cropping up all over the place.

  Tony had never had so much pussy in his life. Black pussy, brown pussy, yellow pussy, white pussy. It was all the same when the lights went
out and a guy got it hung in there good.

  Soon Tony had teamed up with a dozen other thugs, all about his age. In six months time, they had more than a hundred women of all ages. And a dozen boys for those who leaned in that direction.

  President Hilton Logan almost screwed all that up for Tony, with Logan’s police state and secret agents snooping around and relocating the citizens all over the goddamn place. But crime will out if it’s worked right, and Tony was far from being stupid. He knew how to keep his head down and to roll with the flow. And who to pay off. And he knew to keep far away from Ben Raines’ Tri-States out west. Ben Raines was fucking nuts on the subject of law and order. Screw up in Ben Raines’ Tri-States and a guy’s chances of getting much older dropped to damn near zero.

  Tony kept his people far, far away from Tri-States. And he hoped Ben Raines’ conception of crime and punishment wouldn’t catch on nationwide. There wasn’t just a little crime in the Tri-States. There wasn’t any crime. Period.

  By the time Tony Silver hit his twenty-fifth birthday, he was on his way to being an empire-builder. An empire built on pain and the suffering of others, to be sure, but still an empire. And Tony had learned his hard lessons about the true wilderness. He wasn’t in Ben Raines’ league yet, but he was learning. His gang was more than five hundred strong. He ran all kinds of scams, from whores to gambling to extortion to dope.

  When Tony was thirty, the bottom dropped out. First came the mutants—ugly bastards—then the bugs and the rats and all that other gross shit. Tony had figured that if he could live through Ben Raines as president, with his high-handed tactics and methods of law and order, Tony could live through anything!

  That bastard Raines was a law and order freak. Hadn’t the dude ever heard of loopholes and technicalities and all that other good liberal shit?