“They’re dug in deep, Dad,” Tina radioed to Ben. “And the little terminal is filled with crud.”
“Lob some tear gas in and shoot them as they try to escape,” Ben ordered.
Rifle grenades were readied and the tear gas cannisters were fired into the terminal. The outlaws came coughing and tear-blinded out. They were coldly and unemotionally shot down in the parking lot.
“Occupy the terminal,” Ben radioed to his daughter. “I’m swinging my people around to clean out the hangers. Snipers, get in place with those fifties.”
Rebel snipers, using the Browning model 5100 sniper rifle, which is capable of extreme accuracy in excess of two thousand yards, bipodded their weapons and dug in for long-range killing. The 50 caliber projectile, even at the full one-mile range, still had over one thousand foot-pounds of punch upon impacting. And the men and women behind the 36-pound weapons possessed all the qualifications of a sniper: sharp-eyed, vulture-patient, and deadly accurate. They began taking a fearful toll on the outlaws.
“Inside the terminal,” Tina radioed. “Stinks like a boar’s nest in here.”
“Considering the caliber of people who recently exited the building,” Ben told her, “that’s being very unkind to a hog. You forward people, give the mortar crews some coordinates to work with, please.”
The range coordinates were quickly calibrated and called in. Mortar rounds began dropping in on the outlaw bunkers and one by one they were taken out. Even with the superior firepower of the Rebels, it took them nearly an hour before the airport was declared secure.
Leaving a small force at the airport, Ben and Tina took their people and moved back to the town.
“Slow going,” Dan told him. “But we’re making some headway. We’ve got a toehold. We’ve taken some prisoners. You want to talk to them?”
“Might as well. For all the good it will do me.”
“I’ve set you up a temporary CP. The prisoners are being held there. They’re a sullen, uncooperative lot.”
“They can be sullen,” Ben said, checking his .45 and returning it to leather, “but they’ll talk to me or get seriously and quickly dead.”
20
The outlaws might have thought Ben was bluffing. But after the second body was dragged from the building, with a .45 caliber slug between the eyes, the remaining thugs and outlaw bikers became very much aware that Ben Raines did not give a tinker’s damn about such amenities as constitutional rights, the Geneva Convention, the right to remain silent, or much of anything else except ridding the land of human crud.
They all became very talkative, all at once, each one trying to outdo the other.
Ben listened to them babble on for a few minutes and then turned them over to interrogation teams.
Picking up his M14, Ben walked outside and rejoined his personal team.
“What’s the word from Buddy, Corrie?”
“Still nothing, General. And he reports absolutely no chatter on the radio.”
“The bastards smelled a rat. They’re probably using low-range CBs to communicate.” He pulled a map from the pocket of his BDUs and studied it for a moment. “They either cut east at Shoshoni and plan to work their way north using county roads,until they get past the blown bridges on the Interstate, or they took 120 out of Thermopolis and plan to come into Sheridan on 14. I doubt they’d try old 30.” He shrugged. “But who knows? Corrie, tell Buddy to come on back. We need him here.”
“What’d you get out of the prisoners?” Tina asked.
“Nothing we didn’t already know.” He looked around for Meg. She was nowhere in sight. “Corrie, tell the PUFFs to get airborne. They have the coordinates. Destroy the ranchhouse of the Snake.”
But Matt Callahan aka the Rattlesnake Kid, had seen the handwriting on the wall. He read it with bitterness on his tongue, but he read it nevertheless.
The Rattlesnake Kid was making ready to rattle his hocks.
He and his personal crew of range-wise and gun-ready hands were heading north. There would be another day to deal with Ben Raines, and he could always put together another army.
Matt swung into the saddle. “Let’s ride, boys.”
At his command post in downtown Sheridan, Satan’s radio operator looked at him and shook his head. “No use, Satan. I can’t get Snake on the horn.”
Satan spent the next few minutes giving the Rattlesnake Kid a cussing.
“What’s all that mean?” he was asked.
“It means that the Snake just wiggled away and left us behind to face Raines alone. That’s what it means.” He turned around as Rowdy busted into the room.
“The guys is fallin’ back, Satan. They just can’t hold the Rebels no more. But we still got the north end of the town open.”
It took the outlaw biker only a few heartbeats to make up his mind. “Let’s ride! Tell the guys to start falling back. We’ll hold the north end open until they all get clear.”
Satan began frantically tossing a few items into a dufflebag. He looked up as his buddy, Bruiser, entered the room.
“I guess you heard the Snake turned yellow and run, huh, Satan?”
“I figured you’d run with him, Bruiser. Seein’ as how you and him is so tight.”
“Naw. We got my buddy, Pete Jones, and his bunch comin’ in, remember.”
“So?”
A frown passed the ape’s face. “You just gonna leave them to be chewed up by the Rebs?”
Satan stood up and faced the man. Satan was bigger then Bruiser, but not by much. Just uglier. “What do you want me to do, Bruiser?”
“I don’t know, man. But it ain’t right to just go off and leave our buddies.”
“Your buddies, Bruiser. Not mine. I don’t like niggers.”
“Well . . . I don’t neither. But I like Pete Jones.”
“That don’t make no sense, Bruiser. But very little you ever say makes much sense to me.”
That bounced off Bruiser like a rubber ball. “You reckon Pete took the northern route over the mountains?”
“He may have, Bruiser. Come to think of it. The way he was movin’, he should have been here by now. All right, Bruiser, we’ll ride up to the junction and wait for an hour or so.”
“Yeah! Awright, man!” They did a little hand-slappin’ and jivin’ and then kissed each other on the mouth.
“What you gonna do with the prisoners, Satan?”
Satan’s eyes turned cruel hard. “Go kill as many as you can, Bruiser. I know how you like that.”
“Awright!”
Just as he said that, the sounds of two prop-driven planes were heard flying high over the town.
Matt Callahan pulled his men into a huge stand of timber only a few miles south of the Montana line and watched as the PUFFs began their slow circle. It took less than a minute for his fine ranchhouse to be reduced to smoking rubble.
“Too bad you kilt them boys and girls ‘fore we left,” a hand said to Snake. “Even though it was fun watchin’ ’em kick and choke. Raines could have done it for us with all that farpower.”
Snake nodded absently. “I overestimated my boys and grossly underestimated Ben Raines. I won’t make that mistake the next time we meet.”
They watched as the PUFFs made their way back south, toward Sheridan.
Snake and his now considerably smaller army turned their horses’ heads toward the north. Toward the Rosebud Mountains and the Little Bighorn River.
“Do we pursue, General?” Dan radioed the question as the outlaws rode and drove frantically out of Sheridan.
“Negative. Let them go. We’ve got to sweep this town and see about any prisoners.”
It did not take the Rebels long to find one home that had been turned into a slaughterhouse by Bruiser and his submachine gun.
Ben viewed the unnecessary carnage through eyes that were flint hard. “People who would do this . . .” He let that statement slide, then said, “More and more I find myself agreeing with George Orwell’s pigs.”
&nbs
p; BOOK TWO
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
George Orwell
1
“That was a good guess on your part, Bruiser,” Satan said, his bulk on the saddle of his Harley. “Yonder they come.”
“Yeah. I know some of them ol’ boys. There’s Pipes—I ain’t seen him in years. And Bass is ridin’ right behind him. Yeah, this is good.”
“How is that?”
“Them boys can fight. Like you, Satan, they’s a bunch of them saw combat in ’Nam.”
“How come you didn’t, Bruiser?”
“I was in reform school. I raped a woman and broke her neck. Didn’t mean to kill her, though. I just wanted some pussy. Since I was a minor I only served three years. War was over when I got out.”
“You didn’t miss nothin’, believe me. We got to have us a sit-down, Bruiser. We’ll ride on up into Montana and then all of us can talk this thing out. We got to get some organization if we’re goin’ to fight Ben Raines and win.”
“You the boss, Satan. Whatever you say is fine with me.”
The long line of bikers and cars and pickup trucks began to stretch out as they moved north. More than a thousand thugs, punks, and trash.
Beerbelly and his bunch had safely jumped the Interstate and had barreled eastward for about an hour, turning north at Gillette. Once they crossed the line into Montana, they would continue north for a few miles, and then cut westward, hoping to link up with Satan and Pete Jones. Then they would decide what to do about Ben Raines.
“The town’s in pretty good shape,” Ben said after an hour-long ride through Sheridan. “Remarkably so.” He turned to Sarah. “You think you could convince some of those hiding out in the hills to come in and resettle this place?”
She grinned. “I’m sure of it, General. It’ll take about ten days for me to touch base with those the others will listen to.”
“Draw what you need and get ready. I’ll get a team together and have them standing by to accompany you. I won’t know how much to request from Base Camp One until I see how many people you bring in.”
“I’ll be on my way in an hour, General. You’ll be surprised how many people are out there.” She waved her hand at the vastness that lay beyond the town. “General, you’re the last hope the people have to put this country back together.”
As he watched her walk away, Ben muttered, “It certainly wasn’t a job I asked for or wanted.”
Ben chose as his CP a building in the downtown part of Sheridan. He and his team cleaned up the place and set up quarters in the rooms above the first floor.
Rebels had scoured the town, searching house to house, locating several more buildings where prisoners were being held. Many of them were in pitiful shape. Those who had been held the longest sat in stunned silence, hollow-eyed and staring vacantly at nothing, unable to comprehend the fact that they were finally free from their captors.
“Will the doctors back at the base be able to bring them out of their . . . I don’t know what to call it,” Meg said to Ben. “Condition?”
“Some of them, yes. Healing the mind is a long, slow process. Many of them will always be as you see them now. After suffering so long their minds simply shut down. The human defense mechanism, I suppose. All the doctors can do is try, Meg.”
“And you believe that the fault of their being captured lies, to some degree on their own heads, don’t you, General?” There was an odd glint to her eyes that Ben didn’t understand.
“Yes, I do, Meg. As you say, to some degree. Lone wolfing it is fine, if one has the mental conditioning to survive. A lot of people don’t. Especially the older ones who grew up in society where they were constantly being bombarded by TV commentators and so-called intellectuals who told them the use of force was wrong in defending home, loved ones, or self.” Ben shut his mouth and smiled. “Don’t get me wound up, Meg. I’ll bore you to tears with a speech about liberals and their ilk.”
“You’re forgetting that I grew up in California, General. We had a neighbor who killed a rattlesnake in his back yard—with one of those so-called terrible handguns. The police arrested him and took him to jail for discharging a weapon within the city limits.”
“Exactly what I’m talking about, Meg.”
“You’re missing the point. It didn’t take me long to learn to shoot first and ask questions later. Why me and not these people?” She pointed to the hospital where the freed prisoners had been taken.
“Probably, Meg, your father—back in his more lucid days—raised you to stand alone. I would imagine that every time one of those anti-gun/anti-use-of-force messages came on the TV, Matt would tell you it was all a bunch of crap. Which it was. That had a lot to do with it.”
She nodded her agreement. “What about that large gathering of men on horseback that the pilots of the PUFFs reported seeing?”
Buddy said the ranchhouse Matt was using as his headquarters was deserted except for those poor unfortunates they found strangled to death in the basement. Matt took his hardcases and headed for the wilderness.”
“You know where he went, don’t you, General.”
Ben sighed. “I have a pretty good idea, Meg. From all indications he was heading for the Rosebud Mountains. Where Custer made his last stand.”
“He wants you to come after him, you realize that, don’t you?”
“Oh, yes. The Rattlesnake Kid wants to face Slim in a stand-up, shoot-’em-out gunfight. I’m going to disappoint him, Meg.”
“You’re going to let him go?” Her eyes narrowed and her lips tightened into a thin line.
“For the time being, yes. His army is scattered and Matt poses no immediate threat to us now. I’ll eventually have to deal with him, but not now. Not unless he forces the issue.”
“He will if he gets a chance.”
Ben shrugged. “That’s his problem, Meg. But if he thinks I’m going to strap on a pair of hoglegs and face him in some sort of a quick-draw affair, he’s not only crazy, he’s stupid.”
Meg studied Ben’s face. “You’d better track him down and kill him now, General. I know the man far better than you. He’ll never give up.”
“I’m aware of that. But I’m not about to commit troops and send them searching all over the Rosebud Mountains. It’d be like looking for that needle in the haystack. Matt will have to wait.”
The Rebels went to work in Sheridan, cleaning up the town and tearing down those buildings they felt could not be used.
Communications reported that Ashley and his group had veered north, apparently heading for Malone and his people, rather than try to launch an offensive against Ben—at this time.
Striganov and his Russian-French Canadian forces were holding their own against Malone, but making no progress in their attempts to move south. Ben knew he was going to have to head north to aid Striganov, but he didn’t want to leave Sheridan until Sarah had rounded up enough people to defend the place. And Cecil had radioed from Base Camp One that Kahmsin had made his way back to South Carolina and regrouped what was left of his shattered army.
Ike was champing at the bit to head for South Carolina and once and for all wipe Khamsin from the face of the earth.
“Negative, Ike,” Ben had told him. “The Hot Wind is nothing more than a slight breeze now. I might need you and your battalion up here with me before this mess is over. Just stay put and be ready to go.”
Sarah and the team of Rebels Ben had sent with her had rounded up more than five hundred people by the end of ten days. And from all indications, they were a tough and resourceful lot, just the types Ben was looking for to resettle the outposts. Among them were a dozen doctors and dentists and nurses.
Ben radioed Cecil and told him to get the requested equipment on the way to Sheridan. The town was once more on the map.
Ben was studying maps when Dan entered his office.
“You wanted to see me, General?”
“Get the people ready to pull out, Dan. We
’ve done what we can here in Sheridan. It’s up to the settlers now. We’ve got to head north and give Georgi and his people a hand.”
“I can have them ready to go in the morning.”
“Then that’s when we’ll pull out.”
Ben walked to a wall map. “The lines have shifted. Last reports state the main concentration of fighting is centered along this line, between Cut Bank and Harve. And that’s a hell of a lot of territory.”
“Malone must have quite an army,” Dan said, studying the more than one-hundred-mile-long battlefront.
“Obviously. And when Ashley and Voleta and the various bikers and outlaws link up with him . . .” Ben let that trail off.
“Yes,” the Englishman picked it up. “And if we get careless and let them put us in a box, we could be in serious trouble.”
Ben nodded. “This time we’re really outgunned. We’re going to have to go into this fight with a root-hog or die mentality. Saving towns and cities for future use as outposts will have to be put on the back burner during this push north. Since we’re going to be so badly outnumbered during this campaign, we’ll have to make up for it by using every ounce of firepower we have. And Striganov says Malone has mortars and heavy machine guns. But no tanks or long-range artillery.”
“I shouldn’t wonder,” Dan said drily. “We’ve spent the past three years scouring the country, hauling in every tank we could find.”
Ben grinned. “And we’ve stripped for parts the ones we didn’t haul in. We’ve got ten tanks for every qualified driver.”
“When will the reinforcements arrive?”
“I started them moving exactly one week ago. They should be arriving any day. With the addition of the vehicle-drawn 105s and the tanks, we’ll give Malone some new headaches. I plan to have the added tanks lay back, protecting our rear. Get the people geared up, Dan. We move out in the morning. We’ll advance to Hardin and secure that town. By the time we’re through there, the new equipment should have reached us and we’ll start our push north to take some pressure off of Georgi and his people.”
Death in the Ashes Page 16