Alone in the Ashes

by William W. Johnstone

  “All right!” he said. “All right!” he shouted.

  Men began pouring out of lean-tos and shacks and tents, to stand and stare in confusion at the sudden change of weather.

  “OK, boys!” Jake shouted. “Let’s go get Ben Raines and the broad”

  Ben kicked out of his blankets and walked to the window of the shack, throwing open the shutters. The chinooks were blowing. And with the unusually warm winds, would come the outlaws. In full force.

  “My God, Ben,” Rani said. “It’s the middle of winter and it feels like spring.”

  “Chinooks,” Ben said. “They won’t last. But it might last three or four days—maybe longer. But the outlaws are going to be crawling all over the damned place. It’s time for me to get moving. I’ve got to rig more traps around the place. And I’ve got to do it now. While I’m getting dressed, honey, would you get me those bear traps from back in the storage area, please?”

  Making several trips, Rani carried out several dozen of the heavy, cruel-jawed, long-outlawed bear traps. The jaws were capable of crushing a man’s leg if he was unfortunate enough to step into one, and Ben was planning on breaking a lot of legs with the traps.

  Ben was gone within the hour, loaded down with equipment. He was back in two hours, gathering up the last of the traps and packing enough emergency rations to last several days.

  He kissed Rani and said, “They can’t burn you out of this place. And it would take a battering ram to knock down that door. You know how to use that M-60 machine gun. I’ll try to have this thing over and done with in two days. Three max. You be careful and don’t go outside for any reason. OK?”

  “You come back to me, old man, OK?”

  “Yes, Miss Jordan.”

  “Ms.”

  “Right!” Ben grinned. He was gone into the timber.

  Rani locked and barred the heavy door. She sat down to wait.

  Ben lay on a ridge and watched the outlaws approach. The outlaws were in a good mood, the break in the weather having buoyed their spirits, filling them with a false confidence.

  And he noticed their ranks had been thinned considerably. But still they were in a good mood, many of them laughing and speaking very profanely as to what they were going to do to Rani when they caught her.

  Ben put an end to the party spirit by shooting an outlaw in the stomach with his M-16. That seemed to take all the joy from their moment.

  “On the ridge!” an outlaw shouted. “I seen the bastard. Get him, boys!”

  Ben had moved back into the timber before the sound of his shot had died away. He deliberately held his fire, wanted the man to step into the timber. He had some nasty surprises waiting for them.

  The outlaw in the lead lumbered into the timber, not watching for sign. He tripped the first of many swing traps, the eighteen-inch sharpened stake driving into his stomach. He hung suspended on the stake, howling out his agony, screaming for someone to please help him.

  Ben let him howl. It was good for his morale and very demoralizing for the outlaw’s buddies.

  The outlaws continued their headlong rush into the timber, all caution tossed to the wind, with one central thought: Get Ben Raines!

  Ben heard the sickening sounds of the bear trap spring, the man’s leg breaking and crushing under the impact of the heavy jaws. The outlaw fell forward, screamed once, and then passed out from the intense pain.

  Another outlaw failed to see the wire strung ankle-high in the timber. The wire tripped him, throwing him face forward into the snow, the sharpened stake imbedded in the hard ground driving all the way through the man’s chest, the sharpened end tearing out the man’s back.

  Ben raised his M-16 and dropped three more outlaws before the men got it through their heads that the chase was not working out to their advantage.

  “Fall back!” the command was shouted. “Jesus Christ—get out of these fuckin’ woods. The man’s a damned army all by hisself.”

  Ben was moving before the words left the man’s mouth, moving deeper into the woods and circling, angling toward the edge of the clearing to the outlaw’s southern position.

  A burly, unshaven, smelly outlaw was running wildly, his mouth open, gasping for air in the cold thinness. Another thug who had had quite enough of one Ben Raines. Ben decided to give him one final taste of combat, for this man was one Ben recognized as having said some perfectly disgusting things about what he wanted to do to Rani.

  Ben shot him in the knees, pitching the man howling to the snowy, muddy ground.

  Ben pulled back into the timber, leaving the man yowling for help.

  Ben waited for that help to arrive.

  “Garfield!” the shout came drifting to Ben. “Luther Garfield! Where are you, man?”

  “Here!” Luther yelled, his voice pain-filled. “The bastard shot me in the knees. Oh, Jesus, man. It hurts.”

  The outlaw’s buddy came running, staying close to the timber’s edge.

  Ben slipped forward, his big Bowie knife in his hand. “Here, asshole,” Ben called, then moved to one side.

  The man slid to a halt, his shotgun raised, the muzzle pointing toward where Ben had been. “Come out and fight like a man, you sneaky son of a bitch!” the outlaw said, panting and gasping for breath.

  Ben came up behind the man and drove the big blade into the man’s skull, the blade penetrating halfway through the man’s brain.

  Ben see-sawed the blade out and ducked back into the timber. He looked out into the small clearing. Those outlaws remaining had given up the fight and were running across the clearing, heading out.

  The taste for battle had left this bunch. They wanted no more of Ben Raines.

  Ben squatted in the mud and snow. His battle-tested and proven grin was still firmly locked in place.

  36

  “Take your campaign and shove it up your ass, Jake!” the big outlaw’s second-in-command told him bluntly. “I’ve had it!”

  “All right,” Jake said calmly. “Carry your asses on out of here, then.”

  More than half of Jake Campo’s men—those that were left—walked to their vehicles and pulled out.

  “We’re leavin’, Red,” Texas Red’s second-in-command told him. “Right now.”

  The warlord nodded slowly. “OK. Just don’t ever let me see any of you again, though. ’Cause I’ll sure kill you if’n I do.”

  “Screw you, Red!”

  The battered and hobo-looking base camp of the outlaws became quiet as the men began pulling out. Jake Campo and Texas Red looked around them at the men remaining.

  Jake had fifteen men left. Texas Red had ten who had elected to remain with him.

  “There’s a pattern to Raines’ movements,” Jake said. “I been thinkin’ about it. And the circle keeps gettin’ smaller.” He looked at a tattered and greasy map. “They ain’t too far from this river,” he said, poking at the map with a big, dirty finger. The others gathered around. “Our boys was ambushed here, here, here, and here. Then right here.” He jammed a hole in the map in his frustration. “You boys get some food and rest. We’ll take him tomorrow, for sure.”

  Ben knew Jake was not stupid. Texas Red was the next thing to a cretin, but Jake was intelligent. Ben guessed, and guessed accurately, that Jake would have very nearly pinpointed the cabin. Ben began removing and resetting his traps. He spent all the rest of that day relocating the bear traps, tearing down and rebuilding the swing traps, removing and resetting tripwires.

  He spent that night some four miles from the cabin, then used part of the next morning finalizing his trap locations. He guessed, and once more guessed accurately, that most of the outlaws would be hightailing it out of the state by now. At best, Ben felt, Jake and Texas Red would be able to muster no more than thirty-five to forty men.

  By noon, he was finished and standing on the small porch of the cabin.

  “Getting down to the wire now, isn’t it, Ben?” Rani asked, looking at him.

  “They’ll be here in three or four ho
urs, probably. I’m going to clean up and take a nap. By this time tomorrow it’ll be all over.”

  Once again, Rani was astonished at the calmness of the man. There was no more emotion in his voice than a man discussing the price of apples.

  Jake looked at the bootprint in the mud. It had frozen in place during the night, and had thawed under the heat of the winter sun. It was the fifth track the outlaws had found, along with a few broken branches, a carelessly moved small log, and a wrapper from emergency food rations.

  The obvious signs did not fool Jake. He knew Ben had deliberately left them; was deliberately leading them straight to him.

  And Jake knew—knew—Raines was going to win the final battle.

  Well, the man thought with a suppressed sigh, at least it’ll be Ben Raines killing me. Not some goddamned housewife with a shotgun.

  “More sign up here, Jake!” the call echoed through the woods.

  Jake walked up to the man and looked, a small smile creasing his ugly face. But it was not a smile of victory; more a smile of resignation.

  Raines had deliberately stepped into a muddy spot and walked for ten or fifteen yards.

  Jake sat down on a log and took a can of beans out of his jacket pocket. Using a military can opener, he opened the can and began calmly spooning beans into his mouth. His men looked at him, not knowing what to make of this.

  “Better eat while we can,” Jake said. One last meal, he thought bitterly. Should have stayed east of the Mississippi, he thought. Should have never set Cowboy Vic up to kill that punk kid. That’s what all this is all about. All this shit is about that skinny little kid. Raines has destroyed everything I built over that one goddamned little kid. Christ! What kind of man is he, anyway?

  Ben opened his eyes and swung his feet off the bunk, pulling on his boots. “Get some rest,” he told Rani. “I’ll wake you in an hour. Go on. We might not be able to sleep tonight.”

  While Rani slept, Ben munched on biscuits and sat looking out the one window of the cabin. Soon, he thought. They’ll be here soon.

  Ben cut his eyes to look at the sleeping shape of Rani. I feel something for this woman. Something I thought I would never feel again. When this winter is over, and we’ve been alone for several months, I will know if this woman is the one I choose to spend the rest of my life with. I think so. Even now, I believe she is the one. Those eyes can hold me; she has an inner strength that I find appealing. Maybe, just maybe, this is the one.

  He shook those thoughts away and returned his attention to the window.

  The sound of a trap springing shut slammed through the quiet air. The horrible howling of a man with a crushed leg ripped the afternoon.

  Rani came off the bunk, grabbing her rifle, coming to Ben’s side.

  “Goddamn, Jake!” a man yelled. “Lookee there. A damned cabin built into that rise.”

  “They’re here,” Rani said.

  “I believe that would be an accurate statement, dear,” Ben replied.

  37

  “We’re gonna blow you out of there, Raines!” Jake’s voice came through the timber. “This time, we got explosives.”

  “But first you have to get close enough to use them,” Ben said to Rani.

  “You hear me, Raines?”

  “Yeah, I heard you, fat-ass,” Ben shouted. “Don’t stand out there and brag about what you’re going to do—do it!”

  Jake flushed. He turned to his men and said, “Charge the fuckin’ house. Stay in the timber; it leads all the way up there.” He turned to Texas Red’s men. “You boys lay down a covering fire. Now go!”

  Jake and Texas Red had indeed brought several cases of grenades with them. But grenades are useful only if one gets close enough to throw them. And what none of the outlaws knew was that Ike had stashed several crates of deadly Claymore mines in the cave behind the cabin—and Ben had brought enough wire to battery-activate them from the house.

  That smile was on Ben’s lips once more as he sat behind the shuttered window, looking through a peephole, the detonator box in his hand. The shadowy figures of the outlaws flitted from tree to tree, aproaching the cabin.

  Ben pushed the switch activating the THIS SIDE TOWARD ENEMY mines. The TSTE warning had always amused Ben.

  The Claymores were not amusing to the outlaws. Before the reverberating sounds of the explosions had died away, the mangled bodies of half a dozen outlaws lay on the ground. Ben hit the second switch, and Jake was almost out of personnel.

  “Jake!” an outlaw slid to a stop in the snowy, muddy ground. “Them’s Claymores. I remember them from ‘Nam. He’s got ’em all over the damn place. Think about this situation, Jake. We can’t win. You know how Raines plans things out. The guy’s like a screwin’ computer or something. He don’t miss nothing. You know?”

  “Get to the point, Jimmy.” But Jake knew what the point was. He’d already thought about it.

  “We can’t win, Jake. Look at that damn place. No way we could burn them out, even if we could get close enough to do it. It’s built into the hill. Raines has probably got food in there to last for months. The guys is afraid to go on, afraid to do nothing ’cept go back exactly the way we come. Raines has them traps everywhere. I—”

  Texas Red’s insane yelling startled them all. The outlaw jumped to his feet, a grenade in each hand. He had pulled the pins and was holding the spoons down. “Cowards!” Red screamed. “You’re all cowards. Ever damn one of you. I’ll take Raines out. Me! People will talk about me around campfires for centuries to come.”

  “Son of a bitch is crazy,” one of Red’s own men muttered.

  “I heard that,” a buddy said. “I’m gettin’ the hell outta here. You comin’?”

  “Right behind you, partner.”

  And two more were gone, slipping quietly away, unnoticed.

  Texas Red charged the cabin, yelling and cursing as he ducked from tree to tree. He took his last step in this life and stepped into a bear trap, the jaws clamping shut, dropping him to the ground, his left leg crushed.

  He fell hard, his hands under him, and for a moment was stunned. Then the pain hit him, the grenades forgotten. They were under his chest, the spoons gone.

  “I hate your guts, Raines!” Texas Red squalled. “I hate you so bad I—”

  Two grenades exploded within a millisecond of each other, the blasts shredding the outlaw, flinging bits and pieces of him all around the timber. The blast tore his crushed leg free of the jaws, tearing it off at the knee. All that remained of Texas Red was part of a leg and one boot, still trapped in the jaws.

  “Jesus Christ!” an outlaw said. “That’s it for me, boys. I’m gonna go be a farmer or something.”

  Jake sat behind a thick tree and watched and listened to the men leave, running for their lives. After a time, he knew, without looking around him, he was alone.

  Ben looked at what was left of Texas Red, and the remains of him, splattered all over the ground. Parts of him hung from low branches. “That’s two for Jordy,” Ben called.

  “That’s what it’s all about, ain’t it, Raines?” Jake called, still hidden behind the tree. “All these men dead, just for one lousy punk-ass kid. You’re crazy, Raines. You know that? Crazy!”

  “Jordy was worth more than the whole bag of you filth,” Ben called.

  “You’re probably right,” Jake muttered, not loud enough for Ben to hear. He shouted, “Just you and me, now, Raines. How’s it gonna be?”

  “Call it,” Ben said.

  “I’ll think about it some, Raines. You and the broad ain’t going nowhere long as I’m out here.”

  Ben said nothing to that.

  “You was a writer, wasn’t you, Raines?” Jake yelled.

  “That’s right.”

  “Yeah. I read some of them. You wrote pretty good adventure stuff. I used to be a school teacher. Did you know that?”

  “A school teacher?” Rani said to Ben.

  “I didn’t know that, Jake,” Ben said, raising his voice. �
�What’d you teach?”

  “I was a coach.”

  “That figures,” Ben muttered. He didn’t know whether to believe the outlaw or not. He decided Campo was lying. “You’re stalling, Campo!”

  “Sure, I am, Raines,” came the almost-cheerful reply. “Hell, nobody wants to die.”

  “But everybody wants to go to Heaven,” Ben said with his grin still locked in place.

  Jake laughed at that. “You believe in all that shit, Raines?”

  “I believe in a higher power, yes.” Ben looked up at the sky, checking the sun. It would be dark in about an hour. He wanted this over with before dark.

  “I don’t believe in God, Raines. Too many different versions of it around for me to accept. Catholics believe one thing, Jews believe another. Islam, Hindu. Hell, even the Indians believed in a Higher Power. Too much dogma bouncing around for this ol’ boy, Raines.”

  Hell, Ben thought. Maybe the guy had been a school teacher.

  “So what do you believe in, Jake?” Ben reached for his Thompson.

  “Myself, Raines. And maybe you,” he added, almost reluctantly.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah. Maybe there is something to all those stories. I don’t know. I do know this: You don’t behave like a normal man. No normal man would even think of taking on a hundred and fifty men. Much less winning. ”

  “His speech has improved,” Rani observed.

  “Yes,” Ben agreed. “So?” he called.

  “You’re not going to fight me fair, are you, Raines?”

  “Not likely.”

  Jake once more laughed. “Yeah. I damn sure believe that.”

  “Get on with it, Campo,” Ben said, growing tired of the dialogue.

  “OK,” Jake said. “One more thing, Raines. You believe gods are fair?”

  “What do you mean, fair?”

  “Well, not possessing dishonesty or injustice. Behaving in a proper manner.”

  Ben’s eyes grew cold. He knew then what Jake was going to do. And Jake—all three hundred pounds of him—was going to be in for a very ugly surprise.