The convoy was rolling before dawn. Buddy had reported back no sighting of the enemy, but he had seen many signs of survivors, usually smoke from fires, most of whom were living far off any beaten path, back in the hills and mountain ranges.
“They’re out there,” Ben said, rolling along in the Blazer. “By the thousands, living in small groups, trusting very few outside their immediate little gatherings. Not that anyone could blame them for doing so. The trick will be to pull them into the protective circle of the outposts.”
“And how do you propose to do that, General?” Beth asked.
“I don’t know,” Ben admitted. “By word of mouth, I suppose. We sure as hell can’t go into every group in America, take them by the hand, and lead them out.”
They passed through Natrona, a dead town. Then Powder River lay in their rearview mirrors; it had been destroyed by fire. They passed by Hell’s Half Acre, actually about three hundred twenty acres that back in 1833 were named “The Burning Mountain” by Army Captain B. L. E. Bonneville, because they were, at that time, spewing sulfurous flumes from burning bitumonous deposits. It was an area of white clay, soft and crumbling and dangerous for walking.
Buddy was waiting for them in what was left of the tiny town of Waltman.
“Nothing, Father. And I mean absolutely no firm sightings of human life. With the exception of the smoke I told you about.”
“Where’s the rest of your team?”
“Up the road about thirty miles. I’ve laid out a bivouac area just west of Moneta. I don’t know what we’re going to find in Shoshoni. According to the maps, it had a population of about a thousand before the Great War. A few miles further on is the Wind River Indian Reservation.”
“They’ll be damn little there,” Ben said grimly. “They joined us back in the mid-nineties when we were defending the old Tri-States. President Logan wiped them out, for the most part. There are probably still many living there, but they’d be hard to find.”
“Why did Americans hate the Indians so?” the son questioned.
“Complex question, son. Many white Americans hated, or distrusted, or both, anyone who wasn’t exactly like them—or how they perceived themselves to be. The term ‘Ugly American’ fit the majority of us to a T.”
“Even you, Father?”
“To a degree, son. Until I embarked upon a quest to improve my mind and open it up to some light. And that was not an easy thing to do in a time of instant so-called entertainment available to nearly everyone simply by pushing a button on a television set, sitting down in front of the goddamn thing, and letting one’s brain rot.”
Buddy wisely did not pursue that topic any further, knowing all too well his father’s venomous views on the subject.
“Lead the way, Rat,” Ben said with a smile.
The column rolled on through what appeared to be a land totally void of human life. But far in the distance, on both sides of the highway, Ben could see faint fingers of smoke lifting up into the sky.
And as he had done so often, he could not help wondering how they were living. Were they teaching their kids to read and write? Teaching them values? Or were they just existing, living day to day in a world gone mad?
The smoke faded from view and Ben occupied his time studying maps of the state.
At Shoshoni, Highway 26 veered southwest, while 20 cut straight north. The next town north on 20 was Thermopolis, and that brought a smile to Ben’s lips as he remembered the discussions, debates, and sometimes downright arguments he’d had with the hippie, Thermopolis, during the time they’d spent together clearing out New York City of creepies.
The town of Thermopolis had once held a population of almost four thousand, so it was a pretty good bet that some survivors would be found there. Friendly or hostile was up for grabs.
On Highway 20, at the town of Worland, that once held over six thousand souls, Ben planned to cut over on Highway 16 and drive through to Buffalo. It was there that he felt Matt, or Snake, would have his first real line of defense. He also felt that this close to Matt’s home turf, the defenders would be much better fighters than the scum Ben’s Rebels had thus far faced.
So far, the fighting had been a cakewalk. All that, Ben reckoned, was about to come to that well-known screeching halt.
The Rebels spent the night just outside the deserted and ravaged town of Moneta. Ben doubled the guard that night, not knowing what might be coming at them from out of the darkness.
They reached the town of Shoshoni a hour after dawn the following morning. The Rebels could sense death even before the town came into view.
There was nothing left of the small town except for a few skeletons, bones scattered by wild animals. The buildings had been put to the torch, probably after looting.
“This is getting depressing,” Ben muttered, climbing back into the Blazer and ordering the convoy straight north following the Big Horn River through Wind River Canyon and toward the town of Thermopolis.
“Hold the column!” Buddy’s voice came through the speaker.
“What’s up, Rat?” Ben radioed.
“Roadblock, Eagle. And it’s a good one. There are people behind it and they appear to be well armed. I can see heavy machine guns and mortar pits along either side of the road.”
“Tell them who we are.”
A few anxious moments passed for Ben as he waited for his son’s reply.
“Rat to Eagle.”
“Go, boy.”
“I think they’re all right, Eagle. Hear the cheering?”
Ben heard it and he smiled faintly. He lifted his mike. “Column advance. Everybody lock and load. Tanks, button down tight. All troops on full alert. Buddy, do not advance until we are on your tail. Head’s up, boy.”
“What’s the matter, General?” Corrie asked.
“Just being cautious, Corrie. It never hurts.”
They rolled past the now-open roadblocks; very well constructed blockades, Ben noted.
“Get behind the lead tank, Cooper, and stay with him.”
As they rolled past the cheering crowds, Ben’s smile turned grim. Neat, he thought. Now I know what happened to those Rebel patrols who vanished some months back.
“Notice how slick and well fed these people are, gang?” Ben questioned. “You ever seen such a healthy-looking bunch?”
“You’re right,” Beth said, looking out the window. “They sure haven’t missed any meals.”
Corrie spoke up. “I still don’t see what’s wrong. They just look like hundreds of cheering people to me.”
“Oh, they’re cheering, all right,” Ben agreed. “They’re looking at the next six months’ supply of food. We’re smack in the middle of creepies, gang.”
15
Those in the Blazer sat stunned for only a few seconds. Then Cooper slowly turned his head to gaze at Ben. “Are you fucking serious, General?”
With a tight grin, Ben picked up his mike. “Eagle to all Rebels. I think we’re in the middle of creepies, boys and girls. Those of you in the trucks, as soon as the first shot is fired, hit the decking.” He opened the glove box and took out a .45 autoloader and rolled down his window as the crowd pressed closer to the Blazer. “Put it in four-wheel drive, Coop, and get ready.”
Ben studied a man who was staring at him. The man’s eyes were savage-looking. His lips were slick with anticipatory saliva. “Hey, asshole,” Ben said. “You prefer an arm, a leg, or a breast?”
With a savage scream, the man tried to grab Ben’s arm. What he got was a .45 slug in the face.
“Go!” Corrie screamed into her mike.
“Tell the tanks to crush as many as possible on the way out of this snake pit,” Ben said calmly as the lead began to whine and howl off the armor plate.
The fifty-ton battle tanks and the smaller, lighter Dusters began wheeling and turning and squashing the life out of the creepies as the buttoned down .50s and light machine guns turned the area blood-splattered.
Cooper had gunned the Blazer
, driving right through the crowds, knocking screaming and cursing men and women in all directions, including one who crawled up onto the hood of the Blazer. Cooper slammed on the brakes, knocking the creepie off the hood; then he promptly floorboarded the pedal and ran over him.
There were those who tried to climb up into the canvas-covered beds of the deuce and a halves. They were met with a hail of lead pouring through gunslits in the armorplating on the sides.
“Pull over right up here, Coop,” Ben told him, pointing.
“Sir?”
“We’re the last ones out, Coop.” He smiled, adding, “Almost.” He lifted his mike. “This is Eagle. Main battle tank 112, stay with me.”
“Ten-four, Eagle,” the tank commander radioed. “Standing by.”
“And I’m on the other side of the street,” Dan radioed. “I’ve traded my Jeep for a seat in a deuce and a half.”
“Ten-four, Dan. Eagle to Rat.”
“Go, Eagle.”
“What’s your twenty?”
“Clear of town, on the north end. Getting the mortars in place.”
“Ten-four. When everyone is clear, bump me. Shouldn’t be long now.”
“Ten-four, Eagle.”
“Here they come,” the tank commander radioed. “Right on the heels of Tina’s bunch.”
“Lay down covering fire left and right of Tina’s vehicles.”
The old streets began to echo with the sounds of lead whining off bricks. Tina’s Scouts roared past the last remaining Rebels and she told Ben that was it. Everyone was clear.
“Cream them,” Ben ordered.
The tank commander unleashed his 105, his 7.62 and .50 caliber machine guns.
“Let’s go, Coop,” Ben said. “Nice and easy. Dan, you fall in behind me, 112 bring up the rear.”
With his turret swiveled, the tank took the drag and continued to lay down a deadly rain.
“Rat, have the artillery commence firing. Bring the town down.”
His words were no sooner out of his mouth than the 105 rounds began whistling over his head, followed by the slight fluttering sounds of the mortar rounds as they began dropping in.
Safely back with their own kind, Ben and the others who had made up the last ones out of the town dismounted and watched as the town was turned into an inferno by the incendiary rounds.
Whatever else the Night People might be, they did not lack courage. Dozens came pouring out of the flames, screaming and cursing Ben Raines as they charged the Rebels’ position armed only with rifles.
The Rebels cut them down in less than a minute.
“Cease firing,” Ben ordered.
The earth ceased its trembling and the warm early summer air fell silent.
Dan walked over to Ben. “That was a chancy thing back there, General.”
“No other choice, Dan. They had us. If we’d tried to back out of there, it would have been a confusing disaster for us. The only way was forward.”
“That’s as close as we’ve come to being parboiled in some time.” Dan removed his beret and wiped his forehead. He glanced up at the sun. “We have many hours of daylight left, sir.”
Ben smiled. “Are you trying to tell me you’d like for us to get the hell gone from this area, Dan?”
“In a word, sir, yes!”
The column traveled up to Worland, originally hoping to find some survivors. But with the creepies this close, it was not surprising to any of them when they found a deserted town.
“It was just recently deserted, Father,” Buddy said. “I’d guess no more than five or six months ago. I’m just wondering how many of them ended up in the stomachs of creepies.”
“I don’t even want to think about it. Let’s make camp out near the airfield. We’ve got a lot of scouting and planning to do over the next several days.”
The Rebels did not have to be told they were only a few days away from a major confrontation that might last for weeks. But even though they were fully aware of their being vastly outnumbered, the word defeat never entered their minds. Many of the older Rebels had been fighting for more than a decade; this was as natural to them as pulling on their boots.
For two days the Rebels rested, checked equipment, and studied what maps were available of the area they were about to enter.
“Any route we take is going to put us smack in the middle of ambush country,” Ben told his unit commanders. “If we take the southern route, we’ll travel right through Ten Sleep Canyon and then have to go over Powder River Pass to get to Buffalo. If we take the northern route, that’s Highway 14, and that takes us north of Buffalo into Sheridan, we’ll really be in tough country for about the same number of miles as the southern route. Either way we go, the tanks have to be chained down on trailers. And don’t think Matt didn’t deliberately plan it this way. He may have gone around the bend, but he’s still a smart man.
“Now then, as we move through this Cloud Peak Wilderness Area, we’ve got to button everything down tight and be constantly on the lookout for snipers. Transfer as many people as possible into APCs and rig cover over the beds of the deuce and a halves. Due to the country we’ll be in, for at least a day, and maybe longer, the snipers will be able to fire down at us.
“I’m not going to pull out of here until I am one hundred percent certain we are one hundred percent ready to go.” He held up a finger. “Another thing: I’ve got a hunch that many of Matt’s people will be much more mobile than we are. These are outlaw bikers, remember, and they’ve probably got three-wheelers and four-wheelers that will enable them to attack hard and fast out of terrain that would be impossibly slow for us. We won’t follow them when they retreat. That’s what they want us to do. They’ve had time to booby-trap the areas they know well.
“They’ve got us outnumbered—hell, what else is new?”
That drew a hard laugh from everyone in attendance.
“But we’ve got them outgunned. And more importantly, we’re right and they’re wrong. And since Matt, or Snake, wants this played like an Old West gunfight, you just remember the words of that Texas Ranger who said that you just can’t stop a man who knows he’s right and just keeps on comin’.”
“Or woman,” Tina reminded him sweetly.
“What’s that hombre waitin’ on?” Matt questioned, a small bit of impatience in his words.
“I don’t know,” Satan admitted.
“Ol’ Slim just might be sorta cautious about draggin’ iron agin the Rattlesnake Kid,” Matt mused.
Matt was more and more slipping into his fictional character’s manner of speech, forgetting the English usage that he once prided himself on.
“You mind telling me where you come up with this Rattlesnake Kid and Slim business?” Satan asked.
Something clouded Matt’s eyes for a moment. They cleared and he smiled. “The Rattlesnake Kid was someone I dreamed up—character in a series of Westerns. Slim Henry was Ben’s character in another series of Westerns. He beat me out of the Silver Spur Award with his Western. But mine was better.” He said that with just a touch of a pout.
Satan nodded his head. “I see—I think.”
“Oh, I accepted defeat gracefully. I shook his hand and smiled and offered a few congratulatory words after the banquet. After all, I am a gentlemen of the West. It’s the code, you know?”
Satan didn’t know, but he nodded his head as if he did. Codes always confused Satan. A lot of things confused Satan, including Matt Callahan.
Matt slipped back into character. “But that there hombre’s books weren’t no better than mine. Not as good, as a matter of fact. How could they be? I am a man of the West and he isn’t. From some dreary little town in Louisiana.”
Matt rose to walk to the window of his ranchhouse, his spurs jingling as he moved across the floor. “I want to face Slim. I want to meet him in the street eyeball to eyeball and drag iron agin him. I want to put hot lead in his belly.” He slapped the pearl handles of his Colts. “That damned dirty lobo wolf!”
> Ben Raines may be a lobo wolf, Satan thought, but—recalling some of Matt’s Western verbiage—you’re just plumb loco! However, he kept those thoughts to himself. Loco or not, Matt had put together one hell of a fine organization and ran it well—even during those moments when he drifted off into never-never land, mentally loping across the prairies on his pony, or cayuse, whatever.
“... we don’t even know which route Slim is gonna use,” Matt was saying, bringing Satan out of his mental meanderings.
“I got both of them covered, Snake,” Satan assured him. “The only problem is that when Raines pulls out, I ain’t gonna have the time to shift men from one point to the other. Not usin’ the mountain trails.”
Matt shook his head. “That ain’t the way I got it figured nohow. As soon as Slim commits hisself, say on the southern route—that’s the way I’m guessin’ he’ll take—you send those hardcases up along Shell Canyon and Granite Pass a-foggin’ it down to Worland, usin’ the highways, and come in behind Raines and his Rebs. We’ll box him.”
“That’s a good plan, Snake.”
“Sure it is. OK, Satan, you get crackin’, boy. Saddle up and ride!”
“For sure we’re under observation,” Ben said. “As soon as we commit to whatever route—and it’s going to be the southern route—Matt will know and start shifting people around.” He shook his head and frowned.
“What’s the matter, Dad?” Tina asked.
“The area Matt chose to live in. He was always, well, obsessed with Custer and his last stand in the Rosebud Mountains. Matt always said that he’d like to go out in such a manner . . . Matt was a nice guy—back when I knew him—but sometimes a little weird.”
“But that’s not why you looked perplexed a moment ago, is it?” Buddy questioned.
“No, it isn’t. Matt is insane, and you can’t tell what a crazy person might decide to do. I just don’t want us to go riding into our own last stand.” Ben experienced a visionary mental flash that caused him to smile, and then laugh outloud. “No,” he chuckled, as the others gave him strange looks. “No, I can’t imagine even Matt having that in mind.” Still chuckling, he walked away.
Death in the Ashes Page 12