The room cleared of everyone except Katti, Hank, and Bev. Katti sat on the side of the bed and Hank and Bev took chairs. “I was out for a week?” Cole asked.
“Seven full days,” Katti told him. “At one time, you were near death. Doctor Monroe didn’t think you were going to make it. He said he’d never seen anything like this coming from a spider bite.”
“Well, brace yourselves, gang. I’ve got a little story to tell you.
The three listened intently. When Cole finished, and polished off a glass of cold water Katti had brought him, Hank nodded his head. “It’s very similar to what a lot of people tell who have experienced near death. But the scientific community and the press usually dismiss the stories as nonsense. I never have scoffed at them.”
“But was I being told something?” Cole asked.
Hank shook his head. “I can’t answer that one, Cole. Only you can determine that.”
“I sure get the feeling I was.”
“And it may have been only a dream, brought on by the high fever you suffered,” Bev said.
“No.” Cole shook his head. “And I can prove that.”
“How?” Hank questioned.
Cole lifted one side of the blanket that covered him and exposed a leg. He pointed to a large bruise on his thigh. “That’s where the rock hit me. Any more questions?”
* * *
President Mason, reluctantly following the advice of his aides and the military, decided to let the country pull itself back together, with as little government interference as possible, unless the residents in whatever area asked for it ... and a lot of people did request government help, in the form of federal troops to restore order. A lot more didn’t. Which was just as well, for the troops available were spread very thin and in many areas, meeting with fierce resistance from various gangs and groups. Many times the groups were formerly law-abiding citizens who did not want a return to the type of fouled-up government and judicial systems that were mired in place before the insanity swept the land with an all-encompassing broom.
Cole was back on his feet within twenty-four hours and feeling fine. And bored with the inactivity. He spent a lot of time listening to shortwave radio, trying to get a handle on which direction the nation was going to go—some—thing that was growing increasingly more difficult to ascertain.
The major cities of the nation were a shambles: what wasn’t burned or blown up had been looted by those socially deprived and misunderstood citizens who, according to liberals, had been merely venting their rage against an uncaring society who had kept them under the boot heel of oppression for so long.
Yeah.
Right.
But in many areas of the nation, the various state militias had taken control of the administration of law and order, and in most areas, they were doing a good job. However, they were not overly concerned with the niceties of law enforcement. Looters were shot on sight. The commanders of the various militias informed the citizens that they had the right to protect what was theirs, by any means possible, including deadly force. And the case ended right then and there, with no legal recourse available to the punk or family.
In the minds of most, that was something that should have been done years back.
But that also was when the issue of race finally reared up and turned ugly.
* * *
By January, the nation had settled down enough for what was left of both houses of Congress to reconvene. The emergency session was held in two hastily remodeled hangars on the base at Andrews. But almost half of the fifty states were either not represented in either house, or only a handful of congressmen and women showed up. The rest were dead. It was a very informal session, with President Mason in attendance, and also what was left of the Joint Chiefs.
“The nation has turned back the clock to the days of the Wild West,” a representative from Brooklyn blithered and blathered and whined and waved his hankie.
“All this violence just makes me sick,” a representative from Massachusetts lisped.
General Stovall sat quietly and entertained thoughts of shooting them both.
A senator from West Virginia stood up and started talking about his dog. He rambled on for about ten minutes until a senator from Illinois very rudely told him to shut up and sit down.
“How dare you speak to a senior senator in that tone of voice!” a senator from Arkansas admonished.
“Oh, fuck you!” the senator from Illinois said.
Then everybody started talking at once, shouting and shaking their fists at one another.
“Democracy at work,” Army muttered to Navy.
“No wonder the country went to hell,” Marine Corps said to Air Force. “No discipline.”
“Let’s go get a beer,” Army suggested. “I can’t put up with this nonsense.”
The Joint Chiefs quietly left the huge hangar just as a senator from Wyoming decked the representative from Brooklyn, which was something he’d been wanting to do for years.
Upon hearing all the commotion, a military policeman rushed up to the Joint Chiefs. “Should we go in there and break that up, sir?”
“Hell, no!” General Stovall told him. “Let them get it out of their systems. Maybe then they can settle down and reach some sort of agreement on what to do about this nation.” He paused, then added, “But don’t count on it. The citizens are going to have to have the final say about that.”
* * *
The group that had been together for months began breaking up. The Mercers, the Kings, and the Winfields packed up and made ready to head back to Nashville.
“Nashville has settled down now,” Al told Cole. “It’s our home. The banks are reopening. We’ve got to try to rebuild.”
“I understand,” Cole said, shaking hands with the man. “Good luck to you all.”
When the Little Rock airport reopened, Cindy Callander and Laura Lordan were on the first commercial flight out.
“Ruth wants to go back to Memphis,” Jim told Cole one windy and cold January day. “And I suppose deep down, I do, too. How about you and Katti?”
“We’ve talked about it. We all have.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Hell, why not?”
Jim smiled. “I’ve spoken with everyone else. They’re ready to pull out. So, let’s do it.”
“You have the latest intel on conditions there?”
“Bob Robbins and his militia people run the western half of the state. Ely Worthingham and his Believers and so forth control most of the eastern half of the state. A big fight is shaping up, and we won’t be allowed to stay neutral.”
“I thought Congress was back in operation?” Jack Hawkins asked. “Didn’t they meet at some air base?”
“Briefly,” Hank told the young man. “It quickly turned into a name-calling fracas and then a fist fight. Everybody agreed to disagree and they all went back home.”
“That’s pitiful!” Jack said.
“You just summed up the condition of the United States government for the past forty years,” Ruth told him. “Very aptly put.”
Cole nodded his head in complete agreement. “Let’s go home, folks.”
* * *
There had been no more reported instances of strange music springing out of the air. If space travelers were indeed responsible for the madness that had erupted like a volcano, they had not made any attempt to contact anyone here on earth . . . or at least no contact had been reported.
No matter if the mastermind behind the plan was something from the depths of hell or mischievous space travelers, if their plan had been to create chaos, they had certainly succeeded.
Hate groups had surfaced stronger than ever (and certainly not just in the South), blaming every misfortune they had ever suffered on Blacks, Jews, Indians, and anyone else not of the Aryan persuasion.
Halfway to Memphis, Cole stopped the short convoy and pulled over on the side of the road. He got out and walked back to Hank, in the second vehicle. “Look over there, Hank.” He pointed across
the road, to the front yard of a long-abandoned old home.
“Dear God,” Hank said, getting out.
The body of a black man was hanging from a low limb of a huge old oak tree.
Jim and the others got out, weapons at the ready, while Hank walked with Cole over to the yard. The dead man had a sign on his chest, held in place by a knife that was jammed into his body to the hilt. The message was hand-printed and read: NIGGER.
Hank held the man’s legs while Cole cut the rope and together they lowered the body to the ground.
“I wonder what the man did to deserve this?” Cole asked.
Hank shrugged his shoulders.
Gary had gone on ahead to check things out. Katti called from her truck, “Cole! It’s Gary on the horn.”
Taking the mic, Cole keyed it. “Go, Gary.”
“When you get through there, Cole, you gotta see this. I’m four miles ahead of you.”
“That’s ten-four.”
A grave was quickly dug for the man, Hank spoke a few quiet words, and the convoy rolled on. Cole pulled them over behind Gary’s truck. A huge sign was stretched across the state highway.
NIGGER AND NIGGER LOVERS DON’T STOP HERE
Gary pointed to a tree on the south side of the road. Two black men and one white woman were hanging from it. All were naked and all bore whip marks on their bodies.
“Let’s cut them down and bury them,” Cole said, shaking his head in disgust.
“Not yet,” Gary said. “We’ve got company coming. A lot of it.”
Cole looked up the road. Half a dozen cars and trucks were coming at them from the east, and coming fast. Katti lowered her binoculars.
“The first and second vehicles are full of men,” she said. “I can’t tell about the others.”
“Stand easy but ready,” Cole shouted to the group. “They have no reason to attack us.”
“If they hang people simply because of the color of their skin,” Hank said, “they don’t need a reason to attack us.”
“I guess we’ll know in about half a minute, won’t we?” Cole cut his eyes to Jim, who was standing with the lower half of his body hidden by the front of Gary’s truck. Jim held a Fire-Frag grenade in each hand, the pins pulled, the spoons held down firmly. Cole smiled. “Expecting trouble, ol’ buddy?”
Jim’s smile was thin. “I was a Boy Scout, buddy. Always be prepared.”
Three
There were three men in each pickup truck and five men to each car, and all were armed. None wore a friendly expression.
“What are you people doing here?” a burly man asked, his tone decidedly hostile.
“Passing through,” Cole told him. “If it’s any of your business. Which it isn’t.”
“You another one of them goddamn nigger lovers?” another man asked.
Cole sighed. Shook his head. “If you boys will just get out of our way, we’ll be going.”
“An’ if we don’t?” yet another man asked.
“Oh, we’ll think of something,” Cole told him with a very small smile.
“This part of Arkansas is nigger-free,” the first man said. “Or will be damn soon. And we intend to keep it that way. Also free of Jews, Greasers, Slopes, and A-rabs. So you take that goddamn chink whore yonder,” he cut his eyes to Sue, “and clear the hell out of here. Or we’ll hang that heathen bitch just like we hung them coons over there.”
Gary shot him right between the eyes. The .45 caliber round, a hollow point pushed by a maximum powder load, punched a hole in the front of the man’s head and made a real mess blowing out the back.
Jim popped the spoons on the Fire-Frags and chunked them a few seconds after Cole lifted his 9 mm, Hank his. 45, Bev her Mini-14, and Ruth her shotgun, and let them bang. The others hit the ground.
Three seconds later the twin mini-claymores blew and peppered anyone left standing with hot shrapnel.
Cole and the others stood up cautiously and looked at the scene of carnage that lay before them. About half of the men were dead, most of the others ranging from badly wounded to dying. One of the wounded cursed and pointed a pistol at Katti. She lifted her Mini-14 and pulled the trigger several times. The man died with blood and profanity on his lips.
“Let’s get out of here,” Cole said.
They did not take a second look at the wounded, just got in their vehicles and drove away. Two hours later, they rolled unchallenged across the bridge and into Memphis.
Amazingly, none of the supplies and materials they had stored behind the stone walls of Katti’s house, and been forced to leave behind, had been touched. The two huge tanker trucks filled with gasoline and diesel fuel were still parked in the woods behind the house, undetected. Nothing in the barracks where they had lived had been touched.
“We got lucky again,” Cole remarked.
They had been back less than two hours when Scott Frey and George Steckler showed up, all smiles.
After handshakes and hugs all around, Cole said, “We heard you two had been killed.”
“It was close,” Scott said, leaning up against a fender. “We were overrun out at the airport. But we counterattacked moments later and retook the ground lost. By dawn, additional troops were flown in and we routed the punks. A few weeks later, Bob Robbins and his militia people started their push west. They took Nashville away from the thugs, and by that time, the government could spare a few more troops. Most areas of Tennessee are secure.” He smiled. “But in various hands.”
“So we heard,” Ruth said.
“You haven’t heard it all,” George picked it up. “The government just isn’t strong enough to wrest control from the various militias. It really isn’t that bad here in West Tennessee. Colonel Robbins is strong law and order, but tempered with common sense. Ely Worthingham and that bunch is quite a different story.”
“I was hoping that someone would have shot Ely by now,” Cole said wistfully.
“We wish,” Scott said. “Hell, he’s stronger than ever. Commands an army of about forty thousand. That’s two divisions. Everything east of Highway 231 is under Ely’s control, to one degree or another. He’s put flogging back as punishment—not that I’m terribly opposed to that—but not the way Ely’s doing it. The nation is in a real mess, Cole. And it isn’t going to recover overnight.”
“It might never recover,” George said solemnly.
Inside the barracks, now warmed against the outside cold of late winter, the group sipped coffee, ate sandwiches, and talked.
“The entire world is in a mess,” Scott said. “Whatever or whoever caused the upheaval seems to have moved out of North America and gone global. We’re a paradise compared to the conditions in some nations.”
“I have to ask this,” Cole said. “How much authority is Colonel Robbins allowing you people and other law enforcement agencies?”
Both Bureau men smiled. Scott answered the question. “If it involves kidnapping, bank robbery, etc.—all the things we used to have an investigative interest in—there is little interference. But Bob and his people, indeed, all the militia leaders around the nation, have given us clear warnings that the citizens now control the nation, and they make the laws and punishment. They have, almost unanimously except for the ultra-right wing religious groups, adopted the Tri-States philosophy of government and laws and punishment. The ACLU, a lot of liberals, and nearly all civil rights organizations are screaming to the heavens, but that’s about all they can do.”
“President Mason?” Ruth asked.
“Scott and I hold different views, but I think he’s playing it smart,” George answered. “He’s just sitting back and letting matters work themselves out, without a lot of government interference. He is well aware that before this . . . whatever the hell happened, millions of Americans were so unhappy with government they were ready to start a revolution. What he’s been doing, very quietly, is rebuilding the armed forces. When they’re back up to strength, he has no choice but to use them to restore order.”
“I agree wholeheartedly,” George replied. “But what are his options?”
Damn few, they all silently agreed.
* * *
There had been no more ghostly music from out of the past. No more strange occurrences reported anywhere in the nation. By late spring, many of the smaller groups who had set up local governments (left or right of the constitution, interpreted—more or less—as the signers had intended) had collapsed, the communities coming back, although many of them less than enthusiastically, into the still very shaky Union.
Gene and Tina Rockland, Harry and Cassy Slayden, and Chad and Jackie Prescott had gone on back to what, if anything, was left of their homes, promising to keep in touch. Col. Bob Robbins had been out to see Cole and Jim and the others several times, in an attempt to recruit them into his militia, but Cole and his friends politely refused.
“You’re all going to have to pick a side sooner or later,” the militia leader told them. “This thing is far from over, and you all know it.” He met the eyes of them all. “And there won’t be any safe middle ground.”
“He just might be right about that no safe middle ground,” Jim said, after Bob had left. “At least around here.”
“Can anybody think of a safer place?” Katti asked. “We’re not tied to this piece of land.”
“My place is still standing,” Ruth said. “At least it was yesterday when Jim and I drove up. But I don’t know that it would be any safer.”
All eyes cut to Cole. “What about the bunch that attacked us?”
“Many of them are still around,” Ruth replied. “Those that survived the assault that night.” She looked at Jim. “We saw them. But to a person, they refused to meet our eyes.”
“Ashamed?” Katti asked.
“I wouldn’t use that word,” Jim took it up. “They all wore, ah ... sort of a smirky look on their faces.”
“Who controls that area up there?” Katti asked.
“No one, as far as I can tell,” Jim replied. “It’s an area that I would describe as being in, well, limbo.”
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