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 away 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. “Facedown 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.
Jerre, he figured, had more sense in her big toe than April had gleaned from her years at college.
Which is very often the case.
Ben headed up the interstate, toward Atlanta. The truck was running rough, black smoke beginning to pour from the tailpipe. But Ben whistled as he drove. Somewhere around Atlanta, he thought, I’ll prowl the dealerships and get me a truck that’s got a tape deck in it, get me a bunch of symphonies, and keep on trucking. Literally.
Juno and me. See the country. His thoughts drifted to Jerre, as they often did since the day he had left her. He wondered how she was faring; had she found herself a nice young man? He hoped he would see her again. And he felt he would. With that thought, his mood lifted and he clicked on the cassette recorder and began taping. Suddenly, with an unexpected and unexplained warmness, he thought of Salina.
He cut off long before he reached Atlanta and using state and county roads, he took a winding route around the city. But he saw no one as he drove. No signs of life for more than sixty miles of traveling through the Georgia countryside. That puzzled him.
South of Atlanta, there had been hundreds of survivors, but the closer he drew to the city, the more it appeared that no one had survived. His curiosity finally got the better of him and at Lawrenceville he cut toward the interstate and headed into the city.
He stopped at two dealerships before, at the third dealership, he found the truck he wanted. This one had been ordered for a local sheriff’s department and had all the equipment Ben felt he would need. He walked through the parts department, found a cassette player, and installed it.
He installed a new battery, changed the oil, and patted the accelerator. The pickup fired at first crank. “American workmanship isn’t dead,” Ben muttered. “Just most Americans.”
He transferred his gear and drove to a bulk plant where he filled up the main and reserve tanks; then he rolled on into the city. A dead city. Ben began to see huge billboards. One read: Repent, the end is near. Prepare to meet your Maker.
There were dozens more like it, and one that read: Ben Raines—contact us.
He knew who had put that one up, and he ignored it.
He checked his map and drove out to Dobbins AFB. He smiled ruefully when he saw that the aircraft had been destroyed. He prowled the base, trying to ignore the skeletons, clad only in rotting rags and bits of stubborn flesh, that dotted the streets.
Depression hit him, the wors
t he had felt since Jerre’s leaving. Why no survivors here? An entire city… wiped out. Why? He was speaking into his mike, recording his depression, his sense of loss and bafflement. Juno whined through the open rear glass, reminding the man he was not entirely alone.
Ben clicked off the recorder, patted Juno’s great head, put the truck in gear, and headed for the front gate. Something nagged at him, some suspicion about this city. He could not pin it down.
As Ben drove out of the base, he passed the headquarters building. A few red, white, and blue rags fluttered in the breeze atop the flag pole.
Ben stopped and with all the dignity he could muster, he brought down the flag.
FOURTEEN
The first of May found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold lunch.
These mountain people, he concluded, were weird! He couldn’t get close enough to any of them to say a word. At a little town just south of Bryson City, one of them had made the mistake of taking a shot at Ben. Ben had reacted instinctively and had spent the next few, long hours watching the man die from a stomach wound.
“Why did you shoot at me?” Ben had asked. “I wasn’t doing a thing.”
“Outsider,” the man had gasped. “Got no business here. We’ll get you.”
“Why do you want to ‘get me’?”
But the man had lost consciousness and Ben had never learned the answer to his question—at least not from the man he had shot.
Sitting in the motel room, Ben was filled with doubts and questions. Where had all the people in this area gone; the people of Atlanta? What was the use of spending years writing something…?
Out of the Ashes ta-1 Page 21