“The government meant well,” Ben said, choosing his words carefully, conscious of Gale’s eyes on his face, listening intently. “But in their fervor to correct a centuries-old problem, they went overboard with their efforts. The government and courts meant well, and much of what they did was right and just. I will never be convinced that a racially balanced school system
did one damn thing for or toward quality education. Do not-any of you-misconstrue my statement. I am not now and have never been an advocate of the so-called separate but equal philosophy. If one is equal, that is enough said. I believed very strongly in neighborhood schools. They were built so the children of that neighborhood could stay in that neighborhood and still receive a quality education. The courts changed all that by forced busing, and they created a monster; they created hard feelings and near-riots, undue expense for the taxpayer and unnecessary hardships for the kids who had to-were forced-to endure miles of riding a bus. Yes, they were forced. If the parents did not submit to the whims of the government, they faced jail. So much for personal freedom and freedom of choice.
“The government created a welfare state, up to three and four generations of people on welfare. The government took away the will to work among many people. Certainly not all the recipients, but enough of them to create one massive problem. The solution was simple to men like me: Make the people work if they were able to work. But the courts refused to do that. More hard feelings among many of the taxpayers who were picking up the tab-and the tab got more and more expensive. It got-along with the programs-out of hand.
“The great shame of our social programs was the way the government neglected the elderly and the very young. That was a shame I shall never forget. The government would give a community a half million dollars to build a goddamn swimming pool, yet in that same community, the elderly didn’t have enough to
eat, proper shelter or warm clothing. I don’t know how our politicians could shave in the mornings without feeling the urge to cut their throats.
“It seemed that for a while, almost everything the government did irritated somebody or some group. And sadly, rightly or wrongly, the minorities got the blame for it. Many people’s dislike of Jews turned to hatred because so many of the American Jews supported the social programs, were against the death penalty, headed drives in support of gun control. That did nothing to enhance the position of Jews in rural areas-and not just in the South, for the South had become the whipping boy for the liberal eastern establishment.
“The government-in the form of the courts-moved into the private sector, into the work place. Private industry was ordered to establish hiring practices that would include X number of blacks, X number of Hispanics, X number of this and that and the other thing. I’m not saying it was right or wrong, just that it created as many problems as it did solutions.
“And then we had the traditional haters on both sides of the color line. Whites who hated blacks but couldn’t tell you why-they just did. Blacks that hated whites and couldn’t tell you why-they just did. Both sides taught their kids to hate. We had teachers in private academies who would stand up in front of their all-white classes and proudly announce they would never teach or allow a damn nigger in their classrooms. And that is fact, people, not fiction.
“And in many-if not most-of the public schools in the South, and probably all over the nation, teachers became afraid to discipline blacks, and I mean literally
afraid. Fear of losing jobs, fear of having their tires slashed, fear of a lawsuit. All it produced was a couple of generations of badly disciplined and ill-educated blacks. But whitey wasn’t gonna do no number on me, man. You dig?
“Now … that was not the majority of blacks, but just enough to leave a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths.
“Anybody with any insight at all could have and should have seen what was coming: white flight. That became quite a popular word back in the seventies.
“It may seem to you all that I am being unduly harsh on the black people. But you new people, look around you-you don’t see any of the blacks in this command leaving, do you? None of them are leveling guns at me for what I just said. No, because we worked it all out. We agreed on every major issue. We of Tri-States don’t have bigotry and hatred for someone of another color. We don’t have it because we all realized that education was the key to removing it. Education, understanding, some degree of conformity, and patience. We understood that regardless of color, a child is going to need and get a spanking from time to time. That is up to the teacher and it begins and ends there. That is the agreement made between school and parent.
“We almost made it work in Tri-States. We came so close the taste of victory was on our tongues. But the central government in Richmond just couldn’t stand it. I thought they would applaud the achievements we made: all races and nationalities living and working together without one incident in ten years. I thought the central government might learn something from our experiment. But they didn’t. But we aren’t giving
up, people. We’ll make it work again. On a smaller scale, certainly; but we will make it work once more.”
The Rebels stood in silence for a few moments, then slowly began to disperse. Denise stood with a wistful expression on her face. “I just want to live in peace,” she said. “Yet here I am carrying guns. It’s crazy, General.”
“Crazy world, Denise. But it’s always been my belief that the olive branch of peace only gets partial attention. Especially to people who aren’t really interested in peace. It gets their full attention if the other hand is holding a gun.”
“But isn’t one the contradiction of the other?” she asked.
“So is the term fair fight.”
She laughed and turned to leave. “Wish us luck, General.”
“Break a leg, kids.”
She walked away to join the other young people in one final check of supplies and equipment and weapons.
“When I first heard about Tri-States,” Gale said, moving to Ben’s side, “I thought what you people were doing was monstrous.”
“Little liberal got all outraged, eh?” Ben smiled at her.
“That’s putting it mildly, Ben.”
“Our success stuck in the craws of government, Gale. They just couldn’t stand our proving them wrong on nearly every social issue they had advocated and bled the taxpayer to implement and keep going for years. Government just couldn’t believe we could bring it all back to the basics and make it work. But we
did and it outraged them.”
“And you are going to do it again, Ben.” It was not put as a question.
“If I can.”
The man and woman stood in silence for a few moments. Stood and watched as the young people began leaving. Gale said, “I wonder if they know what they are facing?”
He took her small hand in his. “No. No, they don’t. But those that survive this will grow wise to the ways of this ravaged planet very quickly, I am thinking. Either that or die.”
Gale glanced up at him, horror evident on her face. “Those that survive?”
“We will never see thirty to forty percent of them again,” Ben said flatly.
“Knowing that, you still sent them out?” There was genuine outrage in her voice.
“It had to be, Gale. I tried to tell them what they were going up against, but I’m not sure how much of it registered on them. I really hope my words sank in. We’ll know when we see the number that return.”
“I can’t believe you would do something like that, knowing that many of them faced death, would be sure to die.”
“The survivors will make it. The rest will either get tough or die. That’s the way of the world now. Those that don’t have the right stuff will die along the way. There is no momma to write home to, now, honey. No USO, no Red Cross, no State Department. This nation, the very laws upon which it was founded and which the high courts and our elected leaders chose to spat upon for decades, is standing on the brink, teetering,
first in one direction, then the other. A lot of people will die before any type of democratic process is ever again in force. If, in fact, any type of democratic government is ever again adopted. And I have very grave doubts about that. Right now, Gale, this moment, we are facing the greatest challenge since the bombings of ‘88. And if we don’t win, we can all kiss any hope of freedom and democracy goodbye.”
She looked at him. Blinked, then smiled. “Thank you, Professor Raines,” she said. She rose up on tiptoes and kissed him.
The small column, now minus the young people from the college, backtracked to Ottumwa. There, Ben told the villagers what was soon to go down.
“What do you want us to do, General?” he was asked.
“I’d like for you to come with us, back to Tri-States.”
The people of Ottumwa had already discussed this. The man shook his head. “No, sir, we won’t do that. This is our home, and we have agreed to die defending it. We may be making the wrong decision, but we’re going to stand firm.”
Ben knew there was no point in arguing. He shook hands with the spokesman and pulled out, heading south, leaving them with their shotguns and hunting rifles. Against trained troops and experienced combat officers, with mortars and long-range howitzers. Maybe, Ben figured, just maybe, if they were lucky, and had the time to group before the IPF hit them, they might last six hours. If they were lucky. But Ben
could understand the desire to defend homes and a free way of life.
Ben ordered his column to head west until they intersected with Highway 65, then to cut down into Missouri, staying to the west of Kansas City by about sixty miles, for Kansas City was radioactive and would be for centuries. During the trek, they found survivors in Princeton, and Trenton, and about a hundred in Chillicothe. Thirty families elected to go with the Rebels, the rest stayed, despite Ben’s warnings they didn’t have a prayer of defeating General Striganov’s IPF.
But they would not leave their homes.
The column crossed the Missouri River and found more than a hundred people at Missouri Valley College. It was there Ben made up his mind, there Ben put the smugglings of his brain to rest.
“Get me General Striganov,” he told his radio operator. “You’ll have to search the bands, but I feel sure he’s got people waiting to hear from me.”
“Yes, sir.”
She began searching the bands, carefully lingering over each frequency. She would broadcast for a few moments, then listen, seeking some reply.
Ben looked over the band of people on the campus of the old Presbyterian college. They were a grim-looking lot. Most of them wore a defeated look, and once more, that flaw appeared in Ben. He was not now and had never been the type of man to give up. No one who was ever a part of any hard-line special military unit was a quitter. One could not make it through the training by being a quitter, and very few special troops have anything but contempt for a quitter. Past training had been too brutal, too dehumanizing
for a man to face failure by just rolling over and giving up.
With very rare exceptions, no man who was once a part of any tough military unit, the elite, if you will, will ever beg or quit in a bad situation. And they do not like to be associated with those that do.
Ben shoved his personal feelings back into the dark recesses of his mind and asked, “Where are you people from?”
“South Dakota, mostly,” a woman replied. “Aberdeen-Watertown area. Thought we were making a sort of life for ourselves. Then the IPF came in. They suckered us, General Raines. They were nice, at first. Real nice young people. They helped us. But our minister, Ralph Dowing, he was the first to figure them out, what they were really all about and up to. He called them on it. They didn’t do much about it, at first. No rough stuff, nothing like that. But we noticed that after that, they all started carrying automatic weapons. So my husband-no, he’s not here, he’s dead-he started carrying a pistol wherever he went. He and several other men. They-the IPF’-THEY didn’t like that. They told my husband they would rather he not wear a gun. They would protect us if the need arose. My husband told them he didn’t give a jumping good goddamn what they liked or disliked or wanted.” She wiped a hand across her face and sighed heavily. “Shortly after that, there was an accident-so the IPF called it. My husband was run over by a pickup truck. The IPF said my husband fell in front of the truck.” She shook her head. “It was no accident, General. He was deliberately killed to get him out of the way.”
“Yes,” a young man standing beside her said. “Then
they started rounding up all the privately owned guns. That’s when we started to fight them. But let me tell you, General Raines: They’re tough and mean. And Lord, are they quick. Those of us you see here got out just in time, “bout fifty of us. We picked up the other people outside Watertown. Same thing happened to them. General, what in the hell is going on?”
Briefly, Ben told them what he knew. He could see by the expressions on their faces many did not believe him, but the majority did.
“I’ve got General Striganov’s HQ, sir,” the radio-operator called from the communications van.
Ben keyed the mic. “This is Ben Raines. To whom am I speaking?”
“My dear Mister Raines,” the familiar voice rolled from the speakers in the van. “This is Georgi. I trust you have had a most pleasant trip thus far?”
“Just dandy, General. But I am not contacting you to exchange social amenities. Interstate 70 is your stopping point, General. Starts in what is left of Baltimore and cuts right across the center of the country. That’s your southern boundary, Georgi. You keep your IPF people north of that line.”
“Are you buying time, President-General Raines, or tossing down the gauntlet?”
“Maybe a little of each, General.”
“And if I don’t comply with your demands?”
“Then that little war we talked about just might come to be a whole hell of a lot sooner than you expect,” Ben said bluntly.
“I see,” the Russian said after a short period of silence. His mind was racing as fast as Ben’s. “Then may I have your word you will not interfere with my
personnel north of the line?”
“I most certainly will interfere, General. If you disarm the citizens, I’ll send teams in to rearm them. If you use any type of force or torture, I’ll meet it with force.”
There was an edge to the Russian’s reply. “I don’t like this game, General Raines. You’re not even being slightly fair with your demands.”
“It’s the only game in town, General Striganov. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll think about it,” the Russian said.
“You do that, partner.”
The connection was broken from the Russian’s end. Rather rudely, Ben thought.
A crowd had gathered around the communications van. A man asked, “Is there going to be another war, General?”
“Do you want to live under communist rule?” Ben answered with a question.
“I don’t care,” the man replied. He had the pinched look of a man who had been born into poverty and never escaped it. His expression was sullen. “I ain’t gonna fight them people. I don’t think what they’re doin” is all that wrong, noways. I just want to live and be left alone.”
“Then you’re a damned fool!” a woman cried, her face flushed with anger. Ben noticed she had a pistol belted around her waist. “Man, have you lost your courage or your senses-or both?”
“I won’t fight them people,” the man insisted. “So what if the niggers and the spies and Jews are wiped out? Be a better world without them people.”
About a third of those present agreed with the man.
Gale stirred beside Ben, but kept her mouth shut. But if her eyes could speak, they would be speaking volumes. Her fingers dug into Ben’s arm with a hard fury.
“Then why don’t you take those of like mind and join up with General Striganov’s people?” Ben asked the man.
“By God, maybe
I’ll do that little thing!” the man flared, his eyes furious. “I just cain’t see what is so wrong with what he’s doin’. And a lot of others around here agree with me.”
“Mister.” Another man stepped forward, his hands balled into hard fists. “Why don’t you just take those that agree with you and carry your goddamned ass out of here? My wife is Mexican, and I don’t like what you’re saying or what you’re all about. And if you open your fat mouth one more time, I’m going to knock your goddamn teeth down your throat.”
The man who thought he might like to join Striganov’s IPF opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. He walked out of the small encampment with about two dozen other men and women following him.
“I just can’t believe Americans are really doing this,” Gale said. “This is … unreal.”
“Oh, you can believe it, dear,” Colonel Gray spoke. “There is a lot of hate in this world. Or, rather, what is left of this world.”
“And it will get worse,” Ben cast more gloom. “Count on it.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ben shook hands with Juan Solis and Mark Terry and then offered his hand to Al Maiden. Maiden merely looked at him and folded his arms across his chest.
Ben shrugged it off and gazed out the window. It was late June and the weather had been ideal. If these conditions prevailed, there would be a bumper crop of wheat and corn and thousands of acres of vegetables.
“So from what you have seen, General,” Juan said, “you think that perhaps thirty percent of those approached are buying the garbage the Russian is spewing?”
“At least that many, Juan. There’s a lot of hatred in this country directed toward minorities. Striganov is bringing it to an ugly head.”
“Placing yourself amid the pus of that boil, too, I hope, General,” Al said.
Cecil sighed and looked out the open window. Mark caught Ben’s eye and shook his head in disgust. Ben could but smile.
“Al,” Juan said, “you’re a real asshole, I hope you know that.”
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