Alone in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “It could be the start of a return to civilization,” Mrs. Yee said. “And just in time, too. We’re having a difficult time getting schools started for our children.”

  “It isn’t easy,” Ben said, and for a flashing moment, his thoughts were full of Jordy.

  “To use a cliché, General,” Evan said. “Nothing worthwhile is ever easy, right?”

  “You’re going to take losses,” Ben brought them back to reality. “I’ve lost many good friends along the way.”

  “As we all have, sir,” a woman said. “My husband died fighting the street punks.”

  Ben stood up. “I’ll contact my base camp, get the ball rolling.”

  Ben and Rani once more set out, once more alone in the ashes.

  30

  Ben and Rani headed north out of Flagstaff, on Highway 89. They swung west at Cameron and camped in the Kaibab National Forest. The following morning, Ben gave Rani her first glimpse of the Grand Canyon. As it does with anybody who does not possess the soul of a grubworm and the imagination of a corpse, her first sighting took her breath away.

  “It’s ... it’s ...” she stammered.

  “Magnificent. Awesome. Indescribable,” Ben finished it.

  “Yes,” she said, taking his hand and holding on tightly. “You’ve seen it before?”

  “Probably a dozen times. It evokes something quite new and different within me with each sighting.”

  “I can see why.” She was thoughtful for a moment, gazing down into what had once been described as the greatest example of erosion and the most sublime spectacle in the world. “Wasn’t there a song or something written about this place?”

  Ben got a good laugh out of that, then spent the next few minutes calming Rani, assuring her he wasn’t laughing at her, just at what she said.

  “Ferde Grofe wrote the Grand Canyon Suite; just one of his many works. By golly, I just might have that cassette in my truck. I think I do. You’ll love it.”

  Back at the campsite, which had not been used as such for many years, Ben found the old cassette and played it for her. She sat enthralled as the loveliness rolled and soared from the speakers.

  “It’s so lovely,” she whispered. “I remember it now, from listening to it in high school. I didn’t like it then.”

  Ben elected to keep his mouth shut at that. Beginning about 1970, Ben had refused to listen to commercial radio, except for news and weather when traveling. As far as he was concerned, what passed for music—except for classical—from that period up until the Great War, had gone from bad to worse to the pits.

  Rani looked at him and smiled. As if having the power to read his mind, she said, “I gather you didn’t think much of the music I grew up with, right, Ben?”

  “That is certainly one way of putting it, dear.”

  She laughed. “Looking back, I don’t think much of it, myself.”

  “That’s a relief. There is hope for music lovers yet.”

  A roar came from the deep and tangled forest to the south of the camp site. Rani jumped about half a foot off the ground.

  “A new rock-and-roll singer,” Ben said drily. “Give him a mike and a dress and you’d have a rising new star. For sure.”

  “Ben, Jesus! Don’t joke. What in the name of God was that?”

  “Mutant, probably. That one, and the others like it in the woods around here, have probably never seen a human. We’d best move into one of the Ranger cabins for the night. Unless you’d like to wake up in the middle of the night with one of them looking at you.”

  A minute and a half later, Ben was complimenting Rani on the swiftness with which she could pack.

  No mutants had made an appearance during the night, but they let Ben and Rani know they were around, and not liking the human intrusion into their territory. At first light, Ben and Rani left the park area, connecting once more with Highway 89, following that up to alternate 89, turning west across the Colorado River, traveling through the northern area of the Kaibab National Park, and skirting the now deserted Kaibab Indian Reservation.

  “I wonder what happened to them?” Rani asked over the CB.

  “Slaughtered,” Ben told her. “They were one of the tribes that joined us. In the hopes of achieving a better life standard. And I got them killed.”

  “I wish you would stop blaming yourself, Ben. I doubt that you forced them to join you at gunpoint.”

  Ben was grim as he said, “I’m pulling over and backtracking. We’ll take 389 through the reservation. I want to see if the government troops left anything standing.”

  It was even worse than Ben had imagined. The stories of the Old West he had read as a child came into his mind. Big government’s vindictiveness had been awesome. There was not a building left standing that Ben or Rani could see as they drove slowly through the reservation.

  “It’s terrible,” she said in a whisper.

  “Yes. I think you’ll say the same thing when you see what they did to the Tri-States. And while I’m thinking about it, Rani,” Ben radioed, “when we get to the Tri-States, don’t leave my side. We booby-trapped almost everything we left behind: houses, barns, vehicles, buildings. You name it, and we wired it to explode. So when we get there, stay close to me.”

  “Thank you for remembering,” she replied.

  They made camp that evening in what remained of the small town of Colorado City. The town had been stripped clean, right down to the doors, windows, screens, and anything else that wasn’t nailed down or welded in place.

  But, as in so many other places, using his pump, Ben managed to fill their gas tanks from underground reservoirs.

  “How long will this gas remain good?” Rani asked.

  “Years, if water doesn’t get into it. Even then, we have the capacity to separate water from gas—so my engineers tell me. We’re going to build a small refinery come next spring. We—”

  A bullet smashed into the side of the building, just missing Ben’s head. Bits of broken brick struck Rani in the side of the face, drawing blood. They both hit the ground, weapons at the ready.

  “Take the broad alive!” a hoarse voice shouted. “We can use her and then swap her ass for something.”

  Rani burned half a clip in the direction of the voice. A man yelled, his voice echoing throughout the emptiness. Whether from shock or pain, Ben couldn’t tell.

  “You OK, Elgin?” another voice was added.

  Ben pinpointed the location of that one.

  “Yeah. Circle around. We got ’em in a box.”

  “You think,” Ben muttered. He carefully shifted positions, slipping into the deserted, windowless service station, pulling Rani in behind him.

  “The trucks?” she whispered.

  “They won’t bother them. They want them running. Take the front. I’ll handle that guy slipping up behind us.”

  Slugs began slamming into the building, but Ben sensed they were carefully placed; whoever was firing at them wanted Rani alive and well.

  Ben spotted movement in the alleyway. He lifted his Thompson, exposing as little of himself as possible. He waited.

  He heard the quiet crunch of boots on gravel. Then a man’s leg was exposed, from upper thigh to foot.

  Ben stitched the leg, the big .45-caliber slugs shattering knee, ankle, and foot. The man screamed in pain and fell forward, losing his shotgun, the weapon clattering to the ground.

  “Dave? Dave? Did you get him?”

  “Yeah,” Ben hollered. “Come on.”

  The man named Elgin ran out of a building, zigzagging across the street. He got halfway before Rani cut him down. He flopped in the street, both hands holding his lead-punctured belly.

  He screamed in pain.

  “Shoot him in the head and shut him up,” Ben told Rani.

  Before she could raise her M-16, a woman came running out of the building that faced the old service station.

  “Damn you!” she squalled. “You kilt my old man.” She lifted a rifle.

  Ben leveled h
is Thompson and cut the woman down. She landed only a few feet from the wounded man in the street.

  Ben slipped out the back way and ran to the man he’d shot in the alley. The man’s face was shiny with shock and pain. He had taken at least six .45-caliber slugs in the leg, and in falling he had broken his right arm, the bone sticking out, stark white in the cold light of December.

  “Least tell me your name ’fore you kill me,” the man panted.

  “Ben Raines.”

  The man forced a laugh. “We shore can pick ‘em. All the folks travelin’ ‘bout, and we got to pick on Ben Raines. Shit! I’m bleedin’ to death, General. Finish me.”

  Ben shot him between the eyes.

  Back in the service station, Ben squatted down beside Rani. “Stay put. I think there might be one more.”

  The minutes ticked by. Ben and Rani waited in silence. Finally, impatience drove the last outlaw of the bunch to yell.

  “Lemme go!” he yelled. “You go your way, and I’ll go mine. How ’bout it?”

  “You got him spotted?” Ben asked.

  “Almost directly across the street,” Rani said. “But he’s staying low.”

  “Start putting fire into the building,” Ben told her. “I’m going to circle around and drop a grenade in on him. Start now.”

  With Rani laying down a slow, steady fire, Ben ran down the alleyway and came out on the far end of the street, crossing over until he was by the open windowless storefront. He motioned to Rani, pulled the pin on a grenade, and dropped it in, ducking back.

  The grenade must have landed directly on top of the man, for when the dust had settled, Ben looked in and could see bits and pieces of the man scattered around the store.

  He walked to the center of the street and stood looking down at the man and woman, sprawled near death in the street.

  “What’s your name?” the woman gasped.

  “Ben Raines.”

  She laughed, exposing stubs of broken and rotted teeth. “Know’d our luck would run out some day.”

  “How many travelers have you and your men ambushed and killed?” Ben asked.

  “Fifty. Two hundred. Five hundred. Hell, I don’t know,” she said matter-of-factly. “Had a lot of fun for awhile, though.”

  Ben looked at her wounds. She might live another two hours, at best. He just didn’t feel like wasting a bullet on her. He kicked their weapons away from the man and woman and left them in the street.

  “Hey!” the woman gasped as Ben walked away. “Ain’t you gonna do nothin’ fer us?”

  Ben’s laugh was short and ugly. He did not reply to her question. Just kept walking.

  She began cursing him, her mouth spewing out more filth than a sewer contained.

  Ben motioned Rani into her truck. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Hartline’s gonna get you, Raines!” the woman squalled at them.

  Ben turned slowly and looked at the woman. “What did you say?”

  Her laughter was taunting. “Sam Hartline. He’s who we work for. We take women to him and that uppity Russian.”

  “Where are they?”

  “Northern California. They got some kind of real fancy hospital there. Hartline meets us up in Reno. ’At’s where we deliver the women to him.”

  “What kind of women?” Ben asked, a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew. Oh, God, he knew only too well.

  “Niggers, spics, Jews, all the inferior breeds, you know?”

  “When are you supposed to meet Hartline again?” Ben asked.

  “What’ll you gimmie to tell you that?” the woman asked, a sly look in her beady eyes.

  “A bullet in the head to put you out of your misery.”

  “‘At’s fair, I reckon. Better’n dyin’ slow. Next spring. Don’t know when. We just wait.”

  “You have any women you’re now holding prisoner?”

  The woman coughed up blood. “Naw. We jist got back from deliverin’ a load of greasers.”

  Ben walked over to her, pulled his cocked and locked. 45 from leather, and shot her in the head.

  “You going to tell me about Sam Hartline, Ben?” Rani asked.

  “Later. It’s a long story.”7

  31

  “You mean they’re experimenting on human beings?” Rani asked, horror in her voice.

  “Among other things,” Ben said. He then told her of the Russian general, Striganov, and the battles they had fought, hammering away at each other along a mile-long no-man’s-land.

  “Hideous!” she said, looking at her plate of food and electing not to eat.

  Ben and Rani had traveled a few miles outside of Colorado City and re-pitched their camp, in extreme southern Utah.

  Ben stared moodily into the dancing flames of the small fire.

  “And you and this Hartline have been enemies for a long time?” Rani asked.

  “It seems like forever. But only for a couple of years, actually.” He sighed. “I may as well make up my mind that until Striganov and Hartline are dead, we can’t even begin to think of a return to civilization. I suppose that had best be our first priority of business next spring. I guess we—the Rebels—have been kidding ourselves; putting the horror back in the dark reaches of our brains; trying to delude ourselves that Striganov and Hartline were out of sight, so therefore they didn’t exist.”

  Ben tossed a few more sticks into the circle of rocks containing the campfire.

  “Ben?”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Hadn’t we better rearrange things so we can carry a load of wood with us?”

  He looked at her in the flickering light. “I beg your pardon?”

  “For the campfire and the cooking fires,” she said.

  Confusion swept across Ben’s face. “Have I been asleep? I seem to have missed something terribly important here.”

  “Nevada,” she said.

  “Yes. What about Nevada?”

  “Well, damn it, Ben, it’s all desert, isn’t it?”

  “Oh! I see what you’re getting at. No, Rani, it isn’t all desert. There are a few trees in the state. We don’t have to carry firewood with us.” He opened his map case. “We’ll be heading out on Highway 59, connecting with the interstate here,” he said, pointing, “then south to 18. That will take us over to 56 and 319. We’ll pick up U.S. 93 here, and follow that all the way up into Idaho. After that, we’re home free.”

  “Except for Jake Campo and Texas Red,” she reminded him glumly.

  “Piece of cake,” he said with a grin.

  Both were conscious of eyes on them as they traveled through southern Utah, eyes that followed and tracked their every movement.

  “Don’t make any hostile moves,” Ben cautioned her over the CB. “I think we’ll be met at St. George. The people will be cautious, but not unfriendly. We’ll know in a few minutes.”

  The two-vehicle convoy hit a barricade on the outskirts of St. George, with armed men stationed behind the barricade.

  The men were neatly dressed, and for the most part, clean shaven. They were not ugly or hostile in their movements with their rifles—just cautiously curious.

  Ben got out of his pickup, his hands empty and held away from his body.

  “My name is Ben Raines,” he called. “The lady in the other pickup is Rani Jordan. We mean no harm to any law-abiding people. We are traveling up to the old Tri-States.”

  “Then pass on through, General Raines,” a man said with a smile, motioning for the barricade to be opened. “With all the godless outlaws roaming the land, you understand our caution.”

  “Very well,” Ben said.

  Past the barricade, the spokesman said, “Do you need food or other supplies, Mister Raines?”

  “No. But thank you. We’re well equipped for our travels. There might be a company of my soldiers pass through this way. They’ll be commanded by a Colonel Dan Gray. They mean you no harm.”

  “Then they will not be harmed,” Ben was assured.

  When Ben
and Rani made camp at the Echo Canyon State Recreation Area, just inside Nevada, Rani said, “I feel sorry for anybody who tries to ride roughshod over those people back in Utah.”

  “They won’t try it but once,” Ben said. “Those folks won’t put up with any crap. And I sure want them on our side if and when any shooting starts.”

  “They looked very ... competent.”

  “Believe me, they are.”

  Jake Campo and Texas Red knew to stay out of Utah. Too many stories had drifted back to the warlords about what happened to outlaws who foolishly ventured into that state. They began moving their people out, in small teams of five and six. All the outlaws had cleaned up their vehicles and themselves. They sported fresh haircuts and clean clothes. All carried sidearms, but that would attract no attention; almost everybody with any sense went armed.

  The outlaws moved out slowly, first heading straight north, up through the panhandle of Texas, then crossing the panhandle of Oklahoma into Kansas. Once there, they veered northwest, into Colorado. They took their time, for they were in no hurry. They would travel through Colorado, into Wyoming—giving Utah a wide berth—and then the final leg into Idaho, finally fanning out, encircling what had once been the capital of Tri-States.

  Both Jake and Texas Red had heard about the man called Sam Hartline; heard that he paid well for men and women of the inferior breeds. Hartline paid in gold and guns.

  And they had heard the man Hartline worked for, the Russian General Striganov, was offering sacks of gold for the head of Ben Raines.

  So this time they would not go in with bluff and bluster against Raines. This time they would be much more cautious, with carefully thought-out plans.

  And they would get Ben Raines.

  “We’re not going to Las Vegas and play the slot machines?” Rani asked, her lips curving into a smile.

  “Nothing left,” Ben told her. “Oddly enough, the place was among the first to be looted. Whiskey and money. Even though the people didn’t know whether the money was any good or not, they took it. Wrecked the place in doing so. Lots of infighting among the looters. We’ll avoid that place.”