Being a curious sort, Ben had prowled through what remained of the local library, his heart sore at the sight of the books ripped and rotting and torn and gnawed by rats and mice. He had located a World Almanac – circa 1987 – and looked up Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Population 17,139.
Gale had told him that maybe – maybe – there were a 150 people left in the small city. There had been more, but about 50 had died during the winter. Mostly old people, she said.
“The nation’s elderly have been getting crapped on for years, Gale,” he said. “Right up to and including 1988.” He spat on the littered sidewalk. “A goddamned criminal gets better treatment and has more of his rights protected than the nation’s elderly.”
She had looked at him in the fading June sunlight and replied, “Maybe you’re not so tough after all, Ben Raines.”
He had not replied. But his thoughts had been flung back to the spring of ’89, when he had been traveling with a very idealistic young lady by the name of April. He had found her in Florida and gotten rid of her in Macon, Georgia. He had been relieved to see her go. But before they had parted company, never to see each other again – and Ben did wonder, occasionally, what had happened to April – they had happened upon a small gathering of elderly.
“As to our troubles, Mr. Raines,” Ms. Nola Browning, an elderly schoolteacher had told him, “it seems we have a gang of hoodlums and roughnecks roaming the countryside, preying on the elderly – those who survived God’s will, that is.”
“They’ve been here?” Ben questioned. “Bothering you people?”
Ms. Browning, who had been an English teacher for fifty-five years, then told Ben and April that yes, the hoodlums had indeed been bothering the elderly. They had raped and tortured some of the members of the small group. And they were coming back to perform some, well, perverted acts on the person of one Mrs. Carson, a very attractive woman of sixty-five. There were fifteen hoodlums, and only one Ben Raines. So what could he hope to 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.”
Ben had killed all but two of the punks; the elderly had hanged them.
Ben wondered how long the old people had survived after he left them.
Ben pulled his thoughts to the present as he continued to stare into the darkness. The darkness seemed void of any life. He wondered about the people left alive, not just in Poplar Bluff but around the nation. How many had made it? He did some fast math. Was a half million shooting too high? Only a few percentage points of the population. And was it the responsibility of Ben Raines to take every damned one of them under his wing like helpless chicks to raise?
Resolution stiffened within him. No, it was not. Then compassion touched him. If he – or someone like him – did not do it, where was civilization heading?
Back to the caves? Probably. Already, Ben knew, the nation was well into a generation of young men and women whose education was spotty, at best.
Ben Raines could not attempt to educate the entire nation. But he could start with his own people. If time would allow it.
And he had doubts about that.
He sighed, the soft expelling of breath lost in the whispering of the night wind. Again, his thoughts drifted back in time, bringing a smile to his lips.
All he wanted to do was travel the nation after the bombings, as a writer, from coast to coast, border to border, chronicling the events, talking to the people, putting their opinions and his views down on paper, in the hopes that someone, sometime in the future, would take the time to read it.
Instead, he had found himself as the leader of a people. And he had not wanted the responsibility.
But maybe it was his responsibility. Perhaps that was his purpose in life. But as he thought that, the ageless question rose silent in his mind, as it had done so many times: Why me?
As usual, he could find no answer.
Ben hefted the old Thompson, shifting the weapon from right hand to left. The submachine gun, modeled after the old 1921 Thompson with several improvements added over the years had been called the Chicago Piano in its heyday. It was as closely identified with Ben as the FBI had been with J. Edgar Hoover. Ben did not know, could not have known, that the Thompson was held in almost as much awe as the man who carried it, that youngsters believed the weapon held some special power. There was not a child in the entire Rebel-controlled areas who would have touched the weapon.
And quite a few adults felt the same way.
Ben Raines did not look his true age, nor did he feel it – except in memory. Discounting the light touch of gray in his hair, Ben looked years younger than he was. And he was in excellent physical shape, just as randy and horny as any young buck.
He fought back a smile in the gloom of night. Perhaps his true mission in life was to procreate the earth.
He turned at the sound of footsteps behind him. Doctor Carlton.
“I’ve checked out the survivors here as best I could, General,” the young M.D. informed him. “They’re scared and suffer from lack of confidence – life’s beaten them down pretty badly – but surprisingly, their physical condition is good.”
“Do they know how they beat the plague?”
“No. But Ms. Roth took the same type of medicines we took.” He laughed softly. “That, General, is one feisty lady.”
“I’ve noticed. Thank you, Wes. Oh, by the way, do you know if the teams found suitable transportation for the survivors?”
“Yes, sir. And they are eager to join us.” He hesitated for a moment. “General, the people are scared, sir. Even after the bombings of ’88, we still had some form of government, some hope, if you will. Now they have no government, nothing to look forward to, no one to tell them what to do, and they don’t know what to do.”
“The de-balling of America,” Ben muttered under his breath, the words tossed unheard by the breeze.
“Beg pardon, sir?”
“The government got what it wanted,” Ben told him. “The goddamn liberals and the goddamned lawyers and the goddamned courts succeeded in de-balling the American people.”
“That’s a sexist remark if I ever heard one.” The voice came out of the darkness.
Neither man had to turn around; they both knew who it was. Ben said, “You wander around out here in the dark, Ms. Roth, around my people, and you’re very likely to get your butt shot off.”
“The de-balling of the American people, Mr. President?”
“Ms. Roth,” Ben said patiently, “I am not your president.”
“For a fact. I damn sure didn’t vote for you,” she told him.
“I don’t recall anybody voting for me, Ms. Roth.”
“Do you always carry that gangster’s gun around with you, Mr. President?”
Ben kept his patience. He sighed heavily. “I’ve found it to be the wisest thing to do, Ms. Roth.”
Dr. Wes Carlton found his cue. “I think I’ll say goodnight,” he said. He quickly disappeared into the darkness.
“Coward,” Ben muttered to his fast-vanishing back.
“What if I don’t want to accompany you and your Rebels, Mr. President?” Gale asked. She stepped closer to Ben. A very slight figure in the dark.
“Then you may stay here.”
“You’ll leave troops behind to protect me?”
“Hell no!”
She stamped a foot. “Mr. President, I think you are – ”
Ben cut her off. It would turn out to be one of the very few times he would be able to do that. “Goodnight, Ms. Roth. Go to bed, Ms. Roth. We pull out at 0700, Ms. Roth.”
“What the hell is oh-seven hundred, Mr. President?”
“Seven o’clock in the morning, Ms. Roth.”
“Where are we going?”
“Why don’t you just let it be a surprise?”
“I don’t like surprises.”
Ben turned to walk away. “Give the old college try, Ms. Roth. Boola-boola, and all that.”
Ben did not see her tongue sticking out at him or the perfectly horrible-looking face that she made next. Neither did he see her toss the bird at him.
Then she smiled gently.
THREE
The convoy took Highway 60 out of Poplar Bluff, staying with it until they came to state Highway 21 angling off to the west. Ben wanted to stay with the lesser traveled roads, feeling more survivors would be found in the less-traveled areas. He was right.
As they slowly traveled through the small towns of rural Missouri, slowly edging northward, the Rebels found survivors: ten in Ellington, a half dozen in Reynolds, twelve in Bunker, four in Stone Hill.
“Do you know of more who stayed alive around here?” Ben asked a middle-aged man outside Stone Hill. The man had been hoeing in his large garden. He wore a .45-caliber pistol around his waist, and had picked up a bolt action .30-06 upon first sighting the small convoy. He looked as though he was perfectly able and willing to use either weapon.
“A few more,” he replied, relaxing when he learned who he was speaking with. “We’re trying to gather up as many as possible and rebuild. That is, providin’ the IPF leaves us alone.”
“The what?” Ben asked.
“Call themselves the IPF. International Peace Force. They talk funny, with kind of an accent. Can’t rightly place it. You ask me, they’re just too damned nice. Ain’t nobody that nice to a perfect stranger ‘less they want something in return, or they’re tryin’ to hide something.”
Ben kept his smile a secret. He thought: Leave it to a farmer. Rural folks could spot a ringer a mile off.
“They say where they were from?”
“Nope.” The man shook his head. “And I asked them flat out.” He spat on the ground. “Personally, I think they’re communists.”
“Why do you say that?”
“ ’Cause you can ask the same damn question to every damn one of them. The answer don’t never vary. It’s down pat – like they’ve been drilled over and over. A few folks around here have taken a shine to them.” Again he spat on the ground. “Personally, I don’t like them worth a shit!”
“Are they armed?”
“I’ll say they are. Well-armed.” He described the weapons.
“AKs,” Colonel Gray spoke. “Or AKM-74s. Maybe the AKSs. Soviet bloc weapons.”
“Did they give you any names?” Ben asked.
“Yep. But first names only. No last names. And I got the feelin’ they was lyin’ about the first names. I don’t like them people.”
A sergeant standing nearby mused aloud. “How in the hell did they manage to keep it a secret for so many years?”
“By careful planning,” Ben told him.
“Well,” the civilian said, “you probably right about that, Mr. Raines. But I’ll tell you this – all of you. We’re organizing around here. So far, it’s comin’ along slow, but it’s comin’. We’ve got about a hundred people so far, and we’re all reasonably well-armed and know how to use the weapons – and will use them. I’ve defended this place several times since the rats and fleas come last year.” He pointed to a graveyard in back of the house. “Them’s the ones who come to steal and rape and kill. They didn’t make it but just that far. Anyways, it’s them damn young people up to Rolla that’s playin’ footsie with the foreigners.”
“Young people?” Ben quizzed.
“Bunch of them have gathered up there at the old college. My cousin over to Dillard says his boy went to one of the lectures given by the IPF, come back home sayin’ it was communistic. The workers this and the workers that – free this and free that. I’ll be goddamned if I’ll see this nation go back to that kind of crap; fucking unions damn near ruined us back in the sixties and seventies. Quality workmanship was hard to find back then. Time the eighties rolled around, if it was made in Japan, buy it. If it was made in America, odds were good it wasn’t worth a shit.” He looked hard at Ben. “You still the president, Mr. Raines?”
“No,” Ben said. “No, I’m not.”
“Shame. You might have been the one to pull us all back together. I think you might have been the only one able to do it. You’re a hard man, but you’re a fair one. But now . . .” He shook his head.
“But now what, sir?”
“Come on, Mr. Raines – we’ve had it. Oh, I’m not giving up. Don’t you ever think that. But I’ve been doin’ some arithmetic. Say, on the average, and this might be shooting high or low, ten percent of the American people made it out alive from the rats and fleas and plague. What does that leave us, Mr. Raines? A half million folks? A million? Most of them scattered all to hell and gone in little groups of twenty and thirty. No organization, no goals, no plans except survival of the fittest. No nothing. And the young folks!” He laughed bitterly. “Hell, you know how a kid’s mind works: They’re easy prey for anyone with a slick line, holding out a carrot, preaching love and peace and an easy time of it. We’re old enough, Mr. Raines, you and me, to remember the peace and love movement back in the sixties. The hippies and the flippies and the Yippies. No, sir. If the IPF people can reach our young, us older folks can bend down, put our heads between our legs, and kiss our asses goodbye.”
“I’ve got some three thousand fighting men and women who just might have something to say about that, sir,” Ben told the man.
“I don’t care if you’ve got thirty thousand,” the man stated flatly. “If a time has come, it’s come. Mr. Raines, you ever seen a young person – any young person of any generation – who would rather work than play? I haven’t, and neither have you. That’s why they’re young folks; they have yet to learn the work ethic.” He tapped the side of his head. “The IPF people, now, they’re smart – give them credit for that. I think they’re evil, but they’re smart. They’re sending kids into the countryside – nineteen, twenty years old, good-lookin young people. The young people are all blue-eyed and blond, and they’re pulling in our young folks faster than eggs through a hen.”
Something ancient and evil stirred within Ben. That remark about blond and blue-eyed triggered something... a memory recall. But he couldn’t pin it down. It would come to him.
The man was saying, “Now you on the other hand, Mr. Raines, you’re the picture of toughness, discipline, hard work – a fighting man. Many of the young people – not all of them, but many – won’t be able to relate to you, sir. They’ve had enough of war and disaster. And if these IPF people can convince them you stand for war and they represent peace, we’ve had it.
“Now, your people know what you’re doing is right; I know it and most people my age know it. But you’re going to have one hell of a time convincing a lot of the young people.”
Earthy wisdom, Ben thought. Plain, old-fashioned common sense. Why in God’s name did the American people ever turn their backs on this type of thinking?
“Are you suggesting I don’t even try to talk with them?” Ben asked.
“Oh, no. You can try. But I recall tryin’ to talk to my youngest boy back in ’87. Like tryin’ to talk to a fence post. His mind was made up, and there wasn’t nothing I could say or do to change it. He pulled out one morning to see the world. I guess he seen it, ’cause I damn sure never saw him again.”
Caught up in the hell of global warfare, Ben mused. “Anything else you can tell us about these people from the IPF?”
“Not a whole hell of a lot more to tell. I heard one of them talk about Iceland, wonderin’ how things was goin’ back home. But if these folks is originally from Iceland, I’m a Baptist preacher.” He smiled. “And I’ve been a Methodist all my life. Their leader is a man calls himself George. But I heard some of his people call him General Strogonoff. That’s not the right way to pronounce it. Something like that, though.”
“How do they conduct themselves?”
“They’re well-trained and polite. But I get the feeling they’d as soon kill a man as look at him. And
the few black people left around here walk real light around them, as if they can sense something nobody else can.”
The memory recall leaped strong into Ben’s brain: Hitler. The master race. He kept that to himself.
Ben thanked him and the man returned to hoeing in his garden. Ben turned to Colonel Gray. “Dan, get Judy Stratmann and Roy Jaydot. Have them dress in jeans and tennis shoes – like the young people. Get them duffle bags or knapsacks and tell them to look trail-worn. We’ll pull back and bivouac in Greeley, keep our heads down. Tell Judy and Roy to find out what’s going on up at Rolla. We’ll sit back and wait.”
The Englishman saluted and left.
“James,” Ben waved to Riverson. The six-foot-six ex-truckdriver walked over. “When we get to Greeley and settled in, pass the word for a low-alert status. These IPF people are sure to have patrols out – if they’re smart. We don’t want to be spotted.”
James nodded and called the four squad leaders together.
Lieutenant Macklin came to Ben’s side. “The International Peace Force, General? What in the world do they represent?”
“I . . . I’m not sure, Mary. But I think it’s one hell of a threat to whatever future this country has left it.”
Mary shivered, although the day was quite warm.
The young man was fair-skinned, blue-eyed and well-built. The blue in his eyes was of the piercing type, cold. Almost all the young ladies gathered at the long-abandoned branch of the University of Missouri at Rolla thought him handsome.
Judy Stratmann thought his smooth line just a bit too oily and well-rehearsed. He reminded her of an old movie about Southern Californian used car salesmen. Those old, old clips she’d seen of that guy named Johnny Carson.
Roy Jaydot thought that if all the members of the IPF were as smooth-talking and good-looking as this dude, the country was in trouble.
And both Judy and Roy had immediately noticed one thing: There was no blacks, Indians, Orientals, Jews or any other minority on the old campus.
Anarchy in the Ashes Page 4