Alone in the Ashes

“Yes.”

At full dark, Ben cranked his truck. Running without lights, he drove carefully and slowly out of the town. He drove almost ten miles without headlights. He found a dirt road leading off to the southwest and took it, driving almost a mile before pulling over.

“We’ll camp here, Jordy. No fires. We’ll have our big meal at noon while we’re traveling. That way the fire won’t be so noticeable. We’ll gather dry wood that makes little smoke. You go on to sleep now. I’ll stand guard for a few hours.”

The boy was asleep a few seconds after he slipped into his blankets and closed his eyes. Ben began his lonely vigil.

Rani heard the men coming, walking as quietly as they could through the night. She reached for the AR-15 she had taken from the survivalist’s basement cache and slipped it off safety. She cut her eyes to Robert, just a few feet away from her. The boy held a shotgun in his hands, ready. To her left, Kathy was alert and waiting, the lever action .30-30 ready.

The outlaws had tracked her little convoy all day; she had listened to them talk back and forth on the CB. And the things they said had been perverted, ranging far past filthy.

She had told the kids that when she opened fire, to do the same. She had absolute faith in them to do just that. With the exception of the very youngest, they all knew what lay in store for them should the outlaws take them; all of the older kids were victims of sexual abuse from adults.

The shapes of the men became more distinct, looming ominously out of the night.

Rani waited.

When they were no more than thirty yards away, she raised her weapon and opened fire. The booming of the shotgun and the bark of the .30-30 joined the crack of Rani’s AR-15. Muzzle flashes lashed and leaped into the night.

“Kill them all!” Rani screamed.

Each of the three had a spare weapon on the ground beside them. As the weapons they were using ran out of ammo, they dropped their empties and jerked up the spares.

Rani, Kathy, and Robert gave no mercy to the outlaws. They didn’t delude themselves into believing they killed them all, but they knew they had inflicted heavy losses upon the men.

The sounds of engines cranking up and the spinning of rear tires in the dirt and sand came to the woman and the kids.

“Take all the guns and bullets!” Rani shouted. “And be careful. Some of them might still be alive.”

The weapons and ammo collected from the dead and dying, Rani yelled for the kids to head for the trucks. By the road, they discovered another truck and a Jeep wagon. Both vehicles were filled with gas, with spare gas cans front and back, in frames. The vehicles held food and blankets and other gear she could not identify in the dark.

“Kathy, Jane! You’re going to have to drive these vehicles. We need these supplies. Can you do it, kids?” Rani asked.

The girls nodded their heads.

“Let’s go. I’ll take the lead. Robert, you bring up the rear. Kathy and Jane, you’ll be in the middle. We’ve got to get out of here.”

The girls-really already young adults, for their lives had been hard, with little time for the joys of youth-got behind the wheels of their respective vehicles, adjusted the seats, and cranked the engines.

“We’re ready, Miss Rani,” they called.

The short convoy pulled out into the darkness.

Rani led them for thirty miles before pulling over behind a farm house. There, she set up guards while the rest slept. At first light she would inspect their newly acquired booty and travel on. According to her old map, they had a hundred and seventy miles to go.

A hundred and seventy miles.

She shook her head. God, she was tired.

Chapter 15

Ben and Jordy hit Highway 2810-96 it could still be called a highway-an hour after first light. With any kind of luck at all, they would make Ruidosa before dark. Or, correcting that, the outskirts of the town, for Ben wanted to drive through towns during the day. At least during the day he could see what he was shooting at. And who was shooting at him.

They were traveling through desolate country, and the going had been slowed considerably by the trailer they were pulling. Damn thing wasn’t tracking properly, wobbling and wriggling behind them. But at least it was still with them.

No sooner had that thought passed through Ben’s mind than a tire blew on the trailer.

Thinking some extremely vulgar phrases, Ben changed the flat and silently prayed the old spare would hold until he reached a town and could search for another tire.

They reached Ruidosa with plenty of daylight left them; to his surprise, Ben located a tire in the looted,

burned, and deserted little town that would fit the trailer.

Something about this part of Texas was jogging memories in Ben’s mind, but as yet, he could not bring them to the fore. He knew it was something he’d found doing research years back, when he had made his living as a writer.

Then it came to him.

Near Redford, still many miles away, there was a huge private library. If he could just recall where it was. If he could bring the location to mind, he wanted to visit the place; hopefully, it had escaped looters. He knew that people who looted were not interested in literary flights of fancy; theirs was a much more baser regard.

Ben and Jordy made camp during the daylight hours just outside Ruidosa, ate dinner, and then moved on to a different location to camp for the night, halfway between Ruidosa and Indio. Ben had spotted no one, but the short hairs on the back of his neck were beginning to stand up-or so it seemed to Ben-like the hair on a dog’s back upon sensing danger.

Ben would sleep lightly this night.

“Got about a platoon of Raines’ Rebels bearing down hard south,” one of Campo’s scouts reported in. “They’re travelin’ in a hell of a hurry.”

“How you know they’re Rebels?” West asked.

“Tiger stripe,” the scout replied.

“Huh?”

“Raines’ people wear tiger stripe,” Campo told the man. “Black berets.” He looked at his scout. “Leave them be,” he ordered. “Tanglin’ with sixty of those people is like tanglin’ with six hundred other folks. Fuckers are crazy. And they travel with enough mortars and artillery to cause a lot of trouble.”

Campo was quiet for a few moments, slurping at his coffee. Then he smiled.

West caught the smile in the light of the camp fire. “What is it?”

“Even short-range transmissions are gettin’ pretty scratchy, right?”’

“Yeah. So what?”

“Asshole! Think about it. If we can’t get through on the radios, then neither can Raines or his people. They don’t know where he is neither.”

West grinned, the light from the fire giving his face an evil cast. “Oh, I got it. Right.” He rose from his chair and hobbled off to his tent.

“He ain’t the sharpest fellow I ever met, Jake,” a man said.

“Yeah. Did you guys round up any women?”

“Found a half a dozen.”

“Bring me the best-lookin” one. Then you pass the others around to the boys.”

And the screaming began in the outlaw camp. It would last all night long.

The night passed quietly and uneventfully for Ben and Jordy. At first light, Ben tried his radio. He could reach no one. The air was filled with static, overpowering all else.

And that left him with an uneasy feeling. Not for himself, but because of Jordy. Ben was not afraid of fighting one, or ten, or a hundred; he had been in so many firefights over the years since the collapse of the government, it was second nature to him. But he didn’t want any harm to come to Jordy.

He pondered his options.

He could hunt a hole and stay down. But smoke from campfires would eventually be spotted by some sharp-eyed outlaw. And he didn’t know how long this radio interference would continue.

He made up his mind.

“We’re pulling out, Jordy. We’ll take our chances on the road.”

Rani had reached the outskirts of Marathon and was desperately searching for a road that would bypass the town. She found an unpaved road leading off to the south and turned on it. After only a short distance, that road connected with the old scenic route. A few miles down that road, and she came to the bodies.

The naked men and women had been staked out on a flat rise. Wild dogs and coyotes were feasting on the cadavers. Using her binoculars, she viewed the ugliness. She could tell the bodies had not been dead for very long.

She reached for her CB mike, then pulled back her hand. Best to warn the kids in person, for even if she could send a clear transmission for no more than five hundred yards, someone else might be listening.

And they were getting too close to their destination to fail now.

She rolled down the window and waved the short convoy on past the hideousness. Leaving the dogs and coyotes to continue their feasting.

Overhead, lazily circling in the sky, ever patient, the carrion birds were waiting their turn at lunch.

Rani and the kids put some distance between the bodies and themselves.

Ben switched over to the scenic route, avoiding the town of Presidio. The going was slower than ever, now. The highway was choppy and littered with the rusting, broken frames of cars and trucks. And there was death in the air. It came to the nostrils of Ben and Jordy clear and pungent.

“Ben? …”

“Death, Jordy,” Ben told the boy. “And that other smell is gunsmoke. Been a battle around here, and damn recently, too.”

“Between who?”

“I don’t know. If I had to guess, it was between the good guys and the bad.”

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we, Ben?”’

“Kind of, Jordy. But we’ll get out of it.”

The boy shook his head. “I don’t know. I dreamed about that old man again last night.”

Ben felt a chill in his guts. He knew, he knew what old man Jordy was speaking of. But he had to ask. “What old man, boy?”’

“I seen this real old guy last year, Ben. God! He looked like he was maybe a hundred years old. Wore a robe and carried a big stick. Had a long beard. He pointed that stick at me and said, “Make good use of the time left you, boy.” Then when I looked up again, he was gone.”

Ben had seen the old man, too. Back in Little Rock.* He hadn’t known what to make of him then, didn’t know what to make of him now.

“What do you think that old fellow was trying to tell you, Jordy?”

The boy looked at Ben. His eyes were somber. “That I ain’t gonna live to be very old.”

“Nothing?” Colonel Gray asked his radio operator.

“Nothing, sir. Nothing but a solid wall of static, and it’s getting worse by the hour.”

Colonel Dan Gray’s eyes were worried as he looked toward the west. “That belt of radioactivity above us is causing it. And it might continue for weeks. It might never clear up.”

The young Rebel looked up. “I hope that shit stays up there.”

Another Rebel said, “I hope it goes away. Will it, Colonel?”’

“Yes,” Dan said. The Rebel’s face brightened. “In about five hundred years.” The young Rebel looked stunned.

The convoy was on the interstate, just outside Meridian, Mississippi, waiting for scouts to report back. Radio contact was impossible.

“You’re sure Nolan’s last broadcast said the general was heading for West Texas?” Dan asked.

“Southwest Texas, sir,” the radio operator corrected. “I’ll bet my life on it.”

“Or General Raines is betting his,” the Englishman said softly. *Fire in the Ashes

Chapter 16

Rani and her kids called it a day about twenty-five miles inside the Big Bend National Park, with Croton Peak to their west, Sue Peaks to their east. The Tornillo lay to the north. If their luck held, they would be in Terlingua the following day.

Ben and Jordy pulled into Redford in the middle of the afternoon. The town was, to Ben’s eyes, amazingly intact. For some reason, it had escaped the greedy, lawless hands of looters, those shiftless, lazy people who would rather steal than work-whether there is a working civilization or not.

Then the elusive memory became fresh in Ben’s mind, and he drove up to the general store, got out, and entered the store. The front door had been broken in, but still swayed on one hinge.

First impressions had been incorrect. The store had been looted. But the hundreds of books in what had probably been the largest private lending library in the state were still on the shelves.

“So much for the mentality of looters,” Ben said.

He selected a dozen or so books. Several classics for him, some works of history and English, and, with a smile, a book on civics.

“Nothing like reviewing the past-that didn’t work,” he said.

“What didn’t work, Ben?” Jordy asked.

“Democracy, socialism, communism-none of it. Those were forms of government, Jordy,” he added, seeing the confusion in the boy’s eyes. “Here in the United States, we practiced a form of democracy. It didn’t work, either.”

“Why, Ben?”’

“That, Jordy, will be argued and debated in homes and caves and what-have-you for years to come.”

Man and boy went back outside into the light, and sat down on the front porch of the old general store.

“We were too …” He started to say “diverse,” then bit the word off. Jordy would not understand and Ben wasn’t sure diverse was the right word. “Jordy, I’m not sure I can even explain why it didn’t work. Too many wanted too much from the central government-and they wanted it for nothing. For free. And there were a few who wanted to run everybody else’s business. Oh, Jordy, it was a complex thing. People kept demanding more money for less work. Our personal way of life and living went up, while our moral values went down.” Ben laughed and looked at the boy, sitting on the steps, looking at him.

“Jordy, do you understand what I’m talking about?”

“No, sir.”

Ben laughed again and stood up. “Come on, Jordy. We’ll put off discussing shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot. And whether pigs have wings.”

The boy laughed and walked along beside the man. “You’re funny, Ben.”

“A regular clown-that’s me.”

“What’s a clown, Ben?”’

At midmorning, Rani and her kids reached the old mining town of Tres Lenguas-translated, it meant three tongues-the name had been shortened to

Terlingua by an unknown party. With the exception of a caretaker, it had been a ghost town since about 1950. Once boasting a population of over two thousand people, the quicksilver mining boomtown had quietly died out.

For a number of years, however, on a Saturday in the fall of the year, as many as five thousand contestants, jokers, hecklers, and spectators had converged on “downtown Terlingua” for what they called the World’s Championship Chili Cook-Off, a mostly unpredictable event. This yearly event had lasted as long as the nation was whole, and was one big party.

But now the silence was all that greeted Rani and the kids.

The hundreds of wooden shacks were long gone, crumbling into and once more joining the earth.

But the imposing mansion on the hill overlooking the once-bustling mining town still stood, as silent as the rusting equipment and memories that drifted through the ruins. There were dozens of open holes dotting the area; an old sign that held the ominous warning of dangerous, open shafts. The holes dropped for hundreds of feet-sure death for its victims.

Ordering the kids to stay in the vehicles, Rani made a walk-around inspection of the mansion and the land immediately around it. It was clear of holes. Then, rifle in hand, she inspected the home for outlaws and rattlesnakes, something she considered to be of the same breed.

There was not a window remaining in the mansion, not even a shard of glass to denote there had once been any windows. But there was a fireplace in the rooms.

And there was enough rotting wood in the old town to insure a comfortable blaze against the chilly nights of winter.

She got the kids out of the vehicles and onto the brick-lined breezeway on the east side of the mansion. She ordered them to stay put, doing so with enough warning in her voice that she knew they would obey. They were good children, and Rani was all they had to cling to.

She dug into her supplies and found a hammer and long nails. With Robert’s and Kathy’s help, she nailed tarps over the windows in one huge room, then another. One room for the boys, one for the girls.

She had no broom, so she and the kids used rags to clean the rooms of dust and dirt. Then they tackled the upstairs. There would have to be a lookout up here at all times. The view was commanding, and she could see for miles.

She off-loaded the supplies from the trucks and hid them, then removed the distributor caps from the trucks, carefully storing them in the mansion. Then she and the kids took handfuls of sand and sprinkled the sand over the tracks left by the tires. Rani and Robert and Kathy spent the rest of the afternoon gathering wood and stacking it in one of the rooms of the mansion. Smoke was going to be a problem, she knew, but they had to have heat and something to cook over. She would have to chance it.

She gathered the kids around her and began setting down the rules.

Ben and Jordy loafed that day, driving awhile, then stopping and getting out, viewing the countryside. The tiny community of Lajitas now existed only on maps. Whatever had been there had been burned.

They drove on, finally deciding to make camp for the night a few miles west of Terlingua. Long after Ben had extinguished their campfire and Jordy had fallen asleep, he walked around their area; something was bothering him. Then he stopped and sniffed the cool night air. There it was.

Smoke.

Campo and West and Texas Red and Crazy Vic had gathered their bands of misfits and crud and assorted assholes and sent-out five man teams to comb the countryside, west, east, and south. Hundreds of outlaws were now on the trail of Ben. Their orders were to take him alive if at all possible. If they had to kill him, bring back the body for public display.

West had tried to wear a peg on his stump, but the leg was still too sore for that. He hobbled around on his crutch, filling the air with curses, all of them directed toward Ben Raines.

Big Jake Campo sat in his camp chair, just moments before dawn broke, and dreamed of being king of America. He would be, too, if he could just get Ben Raines. He laughed in the predawn darkness.

Texas Red squatted by the fire and warmed his hands. Getting colder, he thought. And it was that fact that prompted him to believe it was stupid sending men in any direction other than south. But Big Jake was known throughout the country as a man who had some smarts. Best not cross him. Yet.

Crazy Vic paced the sands in his high-heeled cowboy boots. He was dressed as he believed an old west gunfighter must have dressed: ten-gallon hat, red silk shirt, fringed buckskin jacket, wide belt with an enormous buckle, and dark jeans. He wore two six-guns, Colt .45’s, around his waist, hanging low for a quick draw.

He mumbled to himself as he paced. Slobber leaked from his mouth. He was glad when the country finally went down back in “98 or ‘99. Whenever the hell it was. Got him out of that fuckin’ nuthouse for sure. People didn’t have no right to stick him in there with all them crazies. Vic ain’t crazy. Just different. Now Texas Red, he thought. There is a real crazy. Texas Red, he thought, his musings silently sarcastic. What a stupid name. All that goddamn red hair on his head must have cooked his brains.

“All right!” Campo’s yell cut into his thoughts. “Break camp, boys. We’re moving out.”

Tents were jerked down, blankets and sleeping bags folded and rolled up, and stored. Fires were doused. The sounds of many engines cranking up, roaring into life, filling the air with smoke.

“West,” Campo said. “You and your boys head west to Carlsbad and then cut south to the greaser border at Presido.texas Red, you and your bunch will turn south at Seminole. That’ll take you all the way down to the Big Bend. Vic, you and your boys will work your way over to San Angelo and then cut south down to Del Rio. Me and my boys will head straight south from here. Work fast, but right. Radio contact is shit, so we’ll be on our own for about a week. We’ll all regroup in the Big Bend, on Highway 385, just west of

Marvillas Canyon. If none of us has got Raines by then, we’ll know he’s down there and we’ll have him boxed. Everybody got all that? Good.”

“How “bout when we meet other warlords? his Texas Red asked.

“Ask ‘em to throw in with us,” Campo said. “If they don’t wanna, kill them.”

“How ‘bout women?” Vic asked, pulling at his crotch.

“Gather up all the decent-lookin” broads you find,” Campo said. “Especially young girls. I like young girls. Kill the old cunts. They ain’t good for nothing. Take as many slaves as you possibly can. We’ll need a lot of workers for the farms. Everything from San Angelo west is gonna belong to us, boys. The whole goddamn enchilada. Move out and good huntin’.” Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bander snatch!

Chapter 17

The gunfire jerked Ben out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Bright sunlight flooded his eyes as he opened them, looking around. He motioned Jordy back into his blankets and held a finger to his lips, silently telling the boy to be quiet.

Ben slipped out of his blankets, rubbed his eyes and shook his head to clear away the fog of sleep, slipped his boots on and laced them up. He put on his field jacket and picked up his Thompson, clicking the submachine gun off safety.

They had camped behind an outcropping of rocks, just off the highway, effectively concealing themselves from any passersby on the road side of their camp. Ben slipped up to a natural notch in the rocks and silently cursed at the sight before him.

A young boy, no more than nine or ten years old, lay still in the center of the road. The child was dressed in rags, and was, or had been, painfully thin. From malnutrition, Ben was sure. Four men stood perhaps two hundred yards from the dead child, west and slightly south of Ben’s location. Too far away for Ben’s Thompson. A hundred yards was straining it for the Thompson, even though Ben’s Thompson was a newer, more rapid fire model than the old 1921 Chicago Piano, as the gangsters used to call them. The older model Thompson spat out between 40 and 50 rounds a minute; a person could almost take a breath between rounds. Ben’s newer submachine gun was capable of about 60 to 70 RPM’S.

Ben looked behind him at Jordy, and once more motioned for the boy to lie very still and not make a sound.

Jordy nodded his head.

The men began walking toward the body of the child. They were all armed, and were laughing, as if a dead child was a big joke to them.

“You shot that little shit right square in the back of the head, Also,” a man complimented the rifleman. “Damn good shootin’.”

“Yeah. But I’m gonna miss the little bastard. He sure had some tight asshole.”

“Shore did,” another man said. “But what the hell. We’ll find us some more kids.”

Ben silently cursed the perverted bastards for what they were and slipped from the notch, working his way closer to the boy, keeping the rocks between himself and the road. He closed the distance to about sixty yards and waited until the men reached the boy.

Then he stood up, the rocks partially protecting him from the two-legged filth.

The men spotted him and pulled up short. They wore confused looks on their faces. Then the man who had shot the boy grinned.

“What the fuck do you want, buddy?” he asked. Before Ben could reply, the man added, “And what the fuck are you lookin’ at us so funny for, you skinny bastard?”

Ben’s frame often fooled people. Those so inclined to do so, usually guessed him a full thirty pounds under his actual weight. Ben smiled a grim grimace. “What I’m looking at is a quartet of horseshit, sorry, trashy mother-fuckers,” he replied, his voice low, but carrying to the men.

The men stirred. The bearded rifleman said, “I don’t know who you think you are, mister, to talk to me like that. But you about five seconds away from dyin’.”

Ben met the man look for look. He shifted his eyes for a second to the dead child. “Why did you kill that boy?”

The man laughed and looked at his friends. The four of them stood almost shoulder to shoulder, facing Ben. ““Cause he were my slave and my private fuck mate. He heared about that there Rani havin” lef Oklahoma and maybe comin’ this away. He run off tryin’ to find her. I kilt him. My right to do so. He belonged to me. He were my property to do with as I seen fit.”

“No human being has the right to enslave another human being,” Ben said. “Not even if the person being enslaved is filth like you. I’ve heard the name Rani. What about her?”

“You ask a lot of questions for a man about to die, mister.”

Ben stood quietly, meeting the man’s gaze.

“Rani’s a broad that takes in homeless kids. Used to be up in Oklahoma “til some warlord got to want to fuck her steady-her and the kids.” He grinned. “We think she’s took up livin” over to Terlingua. Now me and my boys are goin’ over there and git her and them sweet young kids of her’n.”

“No,” Ben said softly. “No! Whut the hell you talkin’ “bout now, boy? Huh?”’

“I said no.”

“Well, just how in the hell are you figurin’ on stoppin’ us, mister?”

Ben smiled. “When you human trash meet the devil, tell him Ben Raines sent you.”

“Ben Raines!” one man shouted.

Ben stepped from behind cover and lifted the Thompson, pulling the trigger, working the weapon from left to right, spraying the filth, fighting the natural rise of the powerful submachine gun.

The .45-caliber, hollow-point ACP slugs slammed the men around in the road and sprayed blood into the air and onto the sands. The men fell to the highway, dying in their own blood.

Ben inspected the bodies and took two of their M-16’s and two of their pistols. He removed all their ammo belts and left them where they had fallen, their features twisted in that one last hot moment of dying.

He pulled the boy off the highway and then went to find the men’s vehicles. The trucks were about five hundred yards up the road. Using one of his blankets to wrap the boy (ben could not bear the thought of wrapping the boy in one of the outlaws’ blankets; he could give the boy that much, anyway), Ben dug a shallow grave and covered it with rocks to keep the coyotes and dogs from digging up the remains and eating them.

He and Jordy broke camp and loaded up, driving back up the road to the dead men’s pickups. There, Ben found boxes of ammo and cans of water; several cases of food and five five-gallon cans of gasoline.

Ben looked at Jordy and grinned. “Think you could drive one of these trucks, Jordy?”

“I reckon I could if I set my mind to it, Ben.”

“Well, all right, then. Let’s just spend the morning having you practicing, then. How does that sound?”

“Better than a kick in the ass with a steel-toed boot, Ben,” the boy replied with a grin.

Just after the sun had broken Over the horizon, Rani had thought she heard the faint sounds of gunfire. She thought they came from the west, but she couldn’t be certain of either the shots or the direction.

Rani ran her fingers through her light brown hair, cut short. She was glad there were no mirrors in the old house; she must look like the devil.

She walked outside and stood for a time on the breezeway of the home.

Where have the years gone? she silently questioned. It seemed to her that she had been fighting for survival all her life-even though she knew that wasn’t true. She turned her green eyes toward the west and wondered how many tms she had left?

That’s stupid! she thought. No one has the power to know that.

In her early thirties, Rani was more beautiful now than when she had been a cheerleader in high school. Only now, hers was a mature woman’s beauty. She was, she often thought with a smile, just vaguely remembering the old TV commercial, a full-breasted woman. She leaned her five foot, four inch frame against one of the columns of the old house and once more looked out over the quiet ruins, her arms folded under her breasts.

She thought: I still don’t have enough books or paper and pencils for the kids. Have to make do with what I have. I can’t chance another run outside this area.

She shook her head and walked inside to make a pot of tea. Tea, it seemed, was still relatively easy to come by. People would pass up the little tins of tea in their search for coffee.

The kids were still asleep.

She quietly fixed her tea, andwitha handful of crackers, walked back outside to sit on the porch.

She was certain she had heard gunshots. And that made her very uneasy.

Jordy practiced for several hours behind the wheel of the smaller truck. For a kid who had never driven in his life, the boy caught on very fast. He, of course, was no expert, but he could keep it between the ditches. And the going was very slow, anyway, the highways in such bad shape. Averaging thirty mph was doing very well.

They pulled out at eleven o’clock that morning. Terlingua was only about three miles away.

On the outskirts of the ghost town, Ben pulled over and told Jordy to stay in his truck while he prowled a bit. Smiling, Ben thought the warning a bit unnecessary. It would have taken a team of mules to forcibly remove the boy from behind the wheel.

Ben’s trained eyes soon picked up on someone’s attempts to hide vehicle tracks. It had been a pretty good job, but not done by an expert. And after fifteen minutes of looking, Ben straightened up, a puzzled look on his face. The footprints he’d found were all small.

He searched the ruins, suddenly sensing he was not alone. His eyes kept drifting to the big house overlooking the ruins. He walked toward the house.

Just the faintest finger of smoke came from the chimney.

The small footprints led straight to the house.

Standing beside a crumbling old adobe building, Ben called, “Hello, the house. I’m friendly. Anybody home?”

A bullet whined off the adobe, sending chunks of it flying. The slug missed Ben’s head by only a couple of inches. He ducked back.

“Now, Vic!” a woman’s voice came to him. “Now, I’ve got you. And this time I’m going to kill you.”

Chapter 18

“Madam,” Ben called. “My name is not Vic. If you will put away that cannon you’re firing at me, I’ll sling my weapon and step out with my hands in the air. I’m traveling with a small boy named Jordy. He’s with the trucks about a quarter of mile west of here. My name is Ben Raines.”

“You’re a goddamned liar!” Rani yelled. “General Raines is a thousand miles east of here.”

“Is your name Rani?” Ben called.

“Yes.” This time, the reply was softer.

Briefly, Ben told her, from his hiding place behind the adobe, the events of that morning. He ended with, “… I killed the men who had kept the boy enslaved. They were thoroughly despicable types.”

“Oh, God!” he heard her say. “The whole world’s gone mad.”

“Not all of us, Rani. Believe me, there are pockets of civilized behavior still to be found.”

“Step out, Mr. Raines.”

Taking a deep breath, Ben slung his Thompson and stepped out from behind the old building, his hands in the air.

A very shapely lady stepped out onto the long porch. She held an AR-1S in her hands.

“Ben!” Jordy called. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, Jordy,” Ben called. “Stay where you are until I come for you.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rani lowered the rifle. She walked from the porch to the old stone fence around the mansion and stood looking down at Ben. “I’m Rani Jordan, Mr. Raines. Nice to meet you.”

“You might change your mind, Miss Jordan. I think I’ve got about half the outlaws and warlords in the southwest chasing me.”

“I think I know the feeling,” Rani told him. “I don’t know the other warlords after me, but I do know Crazy Vic. Cowboy Vic. And he is crazy. Dresses like Sunset Carson, or one of those old-time cowboys. But don’t sell him short. He looks stupid with those six-guns hanging left and right; but he’s rattlesnake quick with them, and a dead shot with rifle or pistol. Do you know how many men we have chasing us?”

“I’d say about six hundred,” Ben informed her.

Rani paled under her summer tan. “Six hundred? Are you serious?”

“Oh, yes. So I would suggest we join forces and try to stay alive.”

“But there’s only two of us!” she protested. “We can’t fight six hundred men.”

“Sure, we can,” Ben said brightly. “Unless you want to surrender to them.”

“No way!” she said grimly.

“Then we fight to stay alive and free. There is no other way.”

Colonel Gray and his company of Rebels were literally fighting their way across Mississippi, then into Louisiana. It seemed they were in a firefight every twenty-five miles.

And race had once more reared up.

Everybody, or so it seemed, was fighting everybody else.

“Madness!” Colonel Gray said. “If there was ever a time for everyone to work together, this is it. Why can’t they see that?”

Every thirty or forty miles, the heavily armed convoy of Rebels would enter some new warlord’s territory, and the fighting would begin anew.

So far, the Rebels had suffered no deaths among their ranks; but several had been wounded, one seriously. About thirty-fives miles inside Louisiana, scouts reported a pocket of resistance; a group of people just trying to survive and get on with the business of living. The wounded Rebel was left at the small clinic there and Colonel Gray and his company moved on westward.

Captain Nolan and his platoon were dug in, fighting what appeared to be several hundred outlaws. Nolan was not worried about being overrun by the outlaws, for they appeared to be disorganized and very undisciplined. The Rebels were occupying a half block of brick buildings in a small Central Texas town. They had plenty of food and water and ammo. But they were stuck.

“Nothing?” Cecil asked the radio operator.

“Not a thing except heavy static, sir. Nothing from General Raines, Colonel Gray, or Captain Nolan.”

“Does the wall of static appear to be worsening?” Ike asked.

“Yes, sir. I can’t even reach our guard towers.”

“Shit!” Ike said.

“My sentiments exactly,” Cecil said.

Ben repositioned the trucks Rani had hidden, this time putting all of them into the building to the side of the house.

“We may have to make a break for it,” Ben explained. “We’ll want the vehicles as close as possible.”

Ben studied the town and the surrounding terrain. “We’re in a good defensive position,” he finally said.

All the supplies except for a three-day supply of food, water, and gasoline were removed from the trucks. Ben and Rani, with the bigger kids helping, began stockpiling wood, finally filling up one room of the house with fuel.

Ben left four M-16’s and plenty of ammo for each upstairs, one rifle at each end of the house, another at the front and one at the back.

“I don’t know why,” Ben said to Rani, “but I have yet to see a warlord who had any artillery of any sort.”

“It could be,” Rani said with a wry grin, “that they can’t find any. Probably due to the fact your Rebels took it all.”

Ben returned her grin. “Now you just may have a point there, lady. We have been known to commandeer certain items necessary for survival and self-defense.”

“Uh-huh.”

Both felt that tiny elusive spark begin bouncing around between them. And with personalities as volatile as those of Ben and Rani, that spark was sure to ignite something. Very soon.

While Ben and Rani were cooking supper, Jordy sat with the other young people. Jordy was held in young awe by the others for being the traveling companion of Ben Raines.

Ben and Rani both noticed the kids were conversing in very low tones.

“Talking about you, Ben,” she said.

“Yes. And I can just imagine what they’re saying.”

“They think you’re a god, you know?”

“I know. I have some among my own people-adults-who believe that. I’ve done everything I know to do to dispel that crap.”

“You haven’t seen the shrines that were built in your name?”

“No. And if I ever do, I’ll tear the goddamned things down.”

“The people might shoot you if you try that.”

“Not me,” Ben said with a laugh. “I’m a god, haven’t you heard?”

“Get serious!”

Ben did not tell her about the old man he-and many others-had seen. The man who called himself The Prophet. Rani, Ben felt, had enough to occupy her mind without that added mystery.

Unless she had already encountered the old man. If she had, though, she wasn’t mentioning it.

Ben pitched his tent in a clear spot between the house and the storage shed. He left Jordy to spend the night inside the house, with the other kids.

In his blankets, before sleep touched him with a soft velvet hand, Ben reviewed the situation. There was always a chance they would not be found hiding out in the old ghost town, but those chances were slim. He guessed correctly that Jake Campo and West had teamed up with other smaller bands of outlaws and warlords and had spread out, searching for them. It might take them several weeks, but they would eventually reach the ghost town.

He turned in his blankets, listening to the wind sing around the canvas.

There wasn’t a town within a hundred miles of Terlingua where he could go to find materials to make more bombs. So that was out.

Ben smiled in the darkness. It was a warrior’s grim upturning of the corners of his mouth as a plan came into his mind.

Maybe he could even the odds a bit more. Yes. He’d get on that first thing in the morning.

He closed his eyes and let sleep gently take him into that long dark slide. The face of Rani stayed with him in sleep.

Lovely.

“Both of us will have to stress the importance of staying within the area outlined,” he told Rani.

They sat on the edge of the porch; there were no chairs in the ghost town. They ate cold beans and crackers and sipped hot tea.

“You have a strange mind, Ben,” Rani said. “And I suppose mine is, too. Here we sit, sipping tea and discussing how best to kill-hideously-several dozen men.”

“Get used to it, Rani. Civilization as we both knew it is gone. Probably forever. From now on, for as long as we live, for as long as those kids in the house live, it will be pure survival of the strongest. Those who are best prepared-mentally and physically-will have the better chances for a long life. The others will die. It’s just that simple.”

She shuddered beside him.

“Cold?”’

“No,” she said. She cut her green eyes and stared at Ben. “You enjoy it, don’t you, Ben?”

Ben knew what she meant. He had been asked the question many times before, by many other women he was either involved with, or about to be. “Enjoy what, Rani?”’

Shades of Jerre, Rosita, Gale, Dawn … how many others?

“The fighting,” she said simply.

“When I was a young man, Rani-not even out of my teens-back during the closing days of the Vietnam War, I, along with many other men, discovered there is a high, so to speak, to be found in combat. Yes, I suppose I do enjoy the fighting, in a perverse sort of way. I am a man of order and discipline, Rani. I have no patience with those who steal, loot, rape, molest, kill wantonly. And, to make a contradictory statement,

I will do my best to dispose of those types of people whenever I find them.”

“When this is over, Ben, if we come out of this alive …”

“We will,” Ben assured her.

“… I want to join your people.”

“You’d certainly be welcome, dear. You and the kids.”

She again stared at the man, sitting calmly on the porch, munching on a cracker. “You’re not even worried about our … our problem, are you?”

“Worrying puts gray in the hair, dear. I have enough of that. No, Rani, all we can do is prepare for what’s coming at us, then lay back and stay alert. Chewing our fingernails won’t help a bit.”

“You’re incredible!”

“Thank you,” Ben said with a grin.

Chapter 19

With Rani carefully mapping out each open pit Ben covered, the two of them-with Jordy, Robert, and Kathy helping-began rigging his deadly traps.

First, Ben spent two hours gathering thin poles and strips of wood, just long enough to cover the yawning holes. Then, using bits of canvas, rags, old newspapers-whatever he could find to serve the purpose-Ben covered the support poles. He then sprinkled those with a very thin layer of sand and pebbles. When he was finished with each hole, it looked as natural as the terrain surrounding it.

“Robert, Kathy, Jordy,” Ben said. “This is no-man’s-land out here. It’ll be up to you three to see that the other kids don’t come near here. You all understand that?”’

They did.

The five of them spent the next two days gathering material for Ben to make his booby traps. They worked from dawn to dusk, taking few breaks. When they had finished, they had covered the opening of dozens of deep shafts.

“How far do these things go down into the ground, Ben?” Jordy asked.

“Some of them might drop for as much as a thousand feet, son,” Ben told him. “Now that this is done, I’ve got to find and map out a bunny hole.”

“A what?” Rani asked.

“No animal has just one hole to run into, Rani,” Ben explained. “They’ll have several more holes, escape routes, all camouflaged.”

Leaving Rani to guard the kids, Ben packed a small rucksack with emergency gear and began his exploration of the terrain around the ghost town. He worked in an ever-widening circle until he found a narrow ravine running northeast from the town, toward Highway 118.

Back at the house, Ben packed up several sacks of food, water, blankets, and groundsheets. With Jordy and Robert helping, he cached those supplies and several spare weapons near the ravine, carefully hiding them. He then took the small truck the survivalist had buried and Rani had found, and tucked it into the ravine, with spare cans of gas in the back. The truck was brown, and dirty from road use, and it blended in with the surroundings.

With Rani walking with him, Ben showed her the location of the supplies and the truck. “See that small ridge beginning just behind the house?” he asked, pointing.

“Yes.”

“If I sense the situation is turning bad,” he said, “I want you and the kids to head out. Get the truck and head in the direction it’s pointed. It’ll be rough, but you should make it to Highway 118.”

“Ben?…”

“Listen to me! We have no radio contact at all. None. We’re in a very bad situation. We’re going to be outgunned a hundred to one. At least. I don’t know where Captain Nolan and his platoon might be. But they know I’m here. They’ll fight through hell to reach me; that’s our only hope. But if and when I say Go, you and the kids go. You understand?”

She slowly nodded her head.

“All right. That’s settled. And I don’t expect any argument from you when I give the word.” He faced her, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Now listen very carefully to me, Rani. Forget all vestiges of civilized behavior. They no longer apply. You cannot afford the luxury of mercy or pity for those two-legged filth coming at us. I do not take prisoners, Rani. And neither do any of my personnel.” Her eyes widened at this, but she said nothing. “I have neither the time, facilities, nor inclination for attempted rehabilitation. For the most part, it didn’t work back when we had a civilization, and could spend millions of taxpayer dollars fucking around with criminals, when the biggest part of them should have been put up against a wall and shot to begin with. If you ever fail to shoot, and that action results in our position being overrun, I will find the time, believe me, to put a bullet in your head.”

Her summer tan paled at his words. “You …” she stammered. “You don’t mean that!”

“The hell I don’t, honey.”

“We’re stuck!” a sergeant said to Captain Nolan.

“It appears that way,” Nolan replied. “And it looks like it’s being done deliberately.”

“Our people on the roofs say we’re pretty well evenly matched, person for person. I don’t think they want to meet us nose on.”

“I get the same impression. But we may have to force the issue. But if we do, we’re going to take some losses. Those people are well placed. I think our best bet is to keep our heads down for a couple more days. See what develops. But we’re no going to set around with our thumb up our ass while we wait. We command the high ground. And that’s going to defeat those assholes out there. Have your mortar people start ranging in the key locations. Make goddamn sure our trucks in the alley behind us are protected at all times. When we decide to go, we’re going to do it fast and hard. Take off.”

Jake Campo was traveling fast, only giving the area he assigned himself a perfunctory once over at best. No, Jake was in a hurry, for he wanted Ben Raines all to himself, and he thought he knew where Raines might be holed up.

West was highballing it south, cursing and hollering for his driver to hurry up. Raines had headed south; he just knew it. And he wanted that son of a bitch all to himself.

Texas Red had studied Raines” movements up to when those other assholes had lost him, and had reached the conclusion Ben had headed due south. That would put him right smack in the Big Bend

National Park. And Texas Red was going to get there first.

Cowboy Vic had said, on the second day out, “Fuck Del Rio!” He had ordered his people to head for the Big Bend. He didn’t want Ben Raines nearly as bad as he wanted Rani and them tight little cunts with her. Gettin’ Raines would just be some icin’ on the cake.

Colonel Gray studied the maps and made up his mind. With the roads as bad as they were, those stupid warlords popping up all over the place, like crazed jackrabbits, it was going to be a hard four to five day push to southwest Texas.

“Dallas to Abilene to Pecos, and then we’ll cut south,” he gave the orders. “Two squads out ranging a full twenty miles ahead of the main column. Clear the way for us. No quarter, no prisoners. Move out.”

Ben ordered every available container of water inside the house. He then began boarding up ground-level windows. He cleared the area around the house of any object that might afford the enemy protection from bullets, leaving the scrub bushes as they were, still giving the place a long-deserted look.

“Now comes the hardest part,” he said.

Rani looked at him.

“Waiting.”

Ben looked around him and had to smile. He had commanded some ragtag troops in his lifetime, but this bunch would have to take the cake. Robert and Kathy, twelve years old. Jane, eleven years old. Jordy and

Paul, ten years old. All armed. All grim-faced. All ready for a fight.

Two adults and five kids against five or six hundred outlaws.

On Ben’s sixth day in the old ghost town, the first band of outlaws hit them.

Chapter 20

“We’re breaking out of this box, Sergeant,” Captain Nolan said. He looked at his watch. 0630. It would be full light in twenty to thirty minutes. “Are the troops ready?”’

“Yes, sir. Chompin” at the bit to go.”

Nolan lowered his binoculars. “Very little movement from the other side. Most of them are probably still sleeping. Tell the mortar teams to start laying down fire.”

“Yes, sir!” the sergeant said with a grin.

The mortar barrage caught the outlaws by surprise. For several days the only reply from the trapped Rebels had been some small-arms fire. The HE and WP rounds from the Rebels caught the outlaws with their pants down-in many cases, literally.

The white phosphorus hit just after the high explosive rounds, searing through leather and steel and flesh and bone. The outlaws did not have time to recover from their initial shock before looking up into the hard faces of the Rebels as the tiger-striped men and women charged the outlaws’ positions. In most cases, that one look was their last look at anything pertaining to this life.

Captain Nolan’s people took no prisoners.

The Rebels suffered two dead and five wounded. Of the wounded, only one was serious, but she was on her booted feet, refusing to be left behind.

Raines’ Rebels broke out of the small town, barreling south. They still had several miles to go before reaching the General.

“A lot of dust coming from the west, Ben!” Jordy shouted from his post on the second floor of the old house.

“How many vehicles, Jordy?” Ben called, then realized the boy still could not count past ten.

“Bunches, Ben.” The boy looked through the binoculars Ben had given him. He laboriously counted to ten, made a mark in the dust of the floor, and started again. “Ten and seven, Ben!” he called.

“Good boy!” Ben shouted. “Now stay down.”

“Yes, sir.”

Turning to Rani, Ben said, “Figuring four to a vehicle, we’re up against sixty-five to seventy outlaws.” He grinned. “That’s good.”

“That’s good?” she asked.

“Yeah. We have them outnumbered.”

She looked at him as if he had gone mad.

Ben called his “troops” around him. “Now listen, kids. Don’t fire until I tell you to fire. All the young people into the room we fixed up for you. Stay down and stay quiet. It’s going to be very noisy, kids. But we’re going to make it. OK? Take off.” He looked at the remaining kids and at Rani. “You all know your positions; get to them.”

“How come you so damn sure Raines is hidin’ out down here?” an outlaw asked West.

“I feel it in my guts, that’s why,” the stump-legged West replied. “All them people we talked to said he was headin’ south. All signs point south. That there Rani cunt was headin’ south. Remember that piece of map Texas Red found? It had Terlingua circled in pencil. They here. I know it.”

The outlaw column halted about a half-mile from the ghost town.

“Why we stoppin’?” West was asked by his driver.

“To rec … recon … look the situation over, you idiot. We ain’t gonna make no rash moves this time around.”

““At makes sense.”

“Course it do. Gimme them field glasses.”

While West was viewing the town through binoculars, he was unaware that Ben was looking at him.

“West,” Ben said to Rani. “He’s trash, just like the others. Maybe even worse than some. I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asked.

“I gave my word. And that is something I won’t break.”

“Not even to an outlaw?”

“Not even then.”

“Ben!” Jordy called in a hoarse whisper.

“Right here, son.”

“More cars and trucks comin” at us from the east.”

“OK. Stay alert.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben moved to the other end of the house and lifted his binoculars. That short column, ten cars and trucks, halted their movement about a mile from town. Through the long lenses, Ben caught a flash of bright red hair.

“Has to be Texas Red,” he muttered.

“Let me see,” Rani asked, holding out her hand for the binoculars. She lifted them to her eyes, focused them in, and said, “Yes. That’s him. He’s filth.”

“Then that makes our job easier, doesn’t it?”

“What do you mean, Ben?”

“I don’t take prisoners,” he reminded her.

“Ben, we’re outnumbered, or soon will be, a hundred to one. And you’re talking about taking prisoners!”

Ben grinned. “Always think positive, darling.”

She walked back to her position, shaking her head.

“Texas Red and his boys is on the other side of town, West,” one of the outlaw’s henchmen informed him.

“That was all that dust we seen comin’ down.”

“Yeah.”

“Skirt the town to the south. Make contact with Red. We gotta plan this out. We don’t wanna be shootin’ each other tryin’ to get Raines.”

From the second floor, Ben watched the lone man leave West’s column and begin his skirting of the town. He picked up his .30-06 and adjusted the scope for range. The man was a good thousand yards away. Too far. Ben let him work a little closer. The ammo Ben was using was, of course, hand-loaded, but this was beefed up to the max by his ordinance people. If the situation had been life and death, Ben would have chanced the thousand-yard shot. But he was in no hurry. He let the man get within seven hundred yards. Ben sighted him in, took a breath, released part of it, and gently squeezed the trigger, allowing the rifle to fire itself.

The man stood straight up in his boots, grabbed at his chest, then fell forward on his face.

“Shot high,” Ben muttered. “I was shooting at his stomach.”

“The son of a bitch!” West yelled.

“Bastard can shoot,” Texas Red said. He turned to a man standing by the truck. “Is them boys part of West’s bunch?”

The man lowered his binoculars. “Yeah. I can see that stump-legged bastard sitting in his van.”

Ben grinned. He called, “Everybody pick up your spare weapon. Stick both of them out the window and pull the trigger. Half of you east, the other half west. Do it!”

The old dusty littered streets of the ghost town reverberated to the drum of AR-15’S, M-16’s, 30-cj’s, and AK-47’S.

“Holy shit!” West shouted as the windshield of his van exploded under the impact of a very lucky shot from Ben’s rifle. West stared in horror at his driver. The man was slowly slumping down in the seat, a bloody hole in his forehead. Fluid and gray matter oozed out.

Texas Red did not move from his position by his truck. “Relax,” he called. “Not even Raines is good enough to make a shot at this distance. He’s just showing us he’s got enough firepower behind him to make a stand of it.”

“Red!” a man called. Red turned at the sound of the voice. “I can’t even raise West’s people at this distance. Radio has really gone to shit.”

Red nodded. “Hull? You head out to West’s position. Keep them slag piles in front of you. Or whatever them things are. When you reach the end of that last heap, zigzag into the ruins of them buildings. Stay down and you’ll make it. Take off.”

Hull wasn’t exactly thrilled with his assignment, but he obeyed. He zigzagged and crawled and ran, expecting any moment to feel the hot impact of a slug. When he reached the high-piled waste dumps, he began to breathe a little easier. He stopped to catch his breath and looked around him.

He grinned, his mouth a mass of rotting teeth. He slipped into a littered alleyway, looked around him, and stepped forward.

His screams seemed to linger in the air of the ghost town, adding to the ghosts of miners who had fallen to their deaths in the long, seemingly endless pits.

Hull bounced from side to side in the old shaft, breaking nearly all the bones in his arms, hands, and legs long before he reached the dark bottom of the shaft. Had he been able to see, he would have seen he landed among the bones of others who had taken that one long step into nothingness.

“Shit!” Texas Red said, as Hull’s screams finally faded away. “Raines has got people scattered around in the town, too. This ain’t gonna be as easy as I first thought.” The rattlesnakes that lived deep in the old mine shafts began crawling over Hull’s broken and bleeding body

…

“I think we better wait for more men, Red,” an outlaw suggested.

…

the snakes opened their fanged mouths and struck at the still-warm body, sensing food in their presence. The old mine shafts contained thousands of snakes; they slithered and rattled in the darkness …

“Who the fuck axed you?” Red snarled at the man.

…

Hull’s body was rapidly turning black from the massive amounts of venom being injected into his dead flesh

…

“Jesus!” West whispered. He had banged his still-sore stump getting away from the dead driver. “What was all that hollerin’?”

…

The rattlers, some of them eight and ten feet long, wound and coiled around Hull’s body. One stuck its head into Hull’s open mouth and sank its fangs into the dead man’s tongue …

“Let’s back off “bout another half-mile, West,” a man suggested. “We’ll cut ‘cross country and link up with Texas Red that away.”

“Damn good idea,” West said.

…

Hull’s body was now completely covered by the rattlesnakes. The swelling carcass seemed to expand with new life. And the snakes waited for yet more food to fall their way.

“One group is pullin” back, Ben!” Jordy called.

“Good boy. Keep a sharp lookout, kids,” Ben called. He turned to Rani. “We won the first round.”

“The fight isn’t over yet,” she reminded him.

“Think positive, dear. Think positive.”

Chapter 21

Ben watched the column headed by West pull back. Shortly afterward, he noticed dust from the north, tracking east, heading toward Texas Red’s location.

“That screaming a few moments ago?” Rani asked.

“Someone stepped into one of the old shafts,” Ben told her. “We shortened the odds some the first go-around.”

“We’re going to need more than that,” Rani said glumly.

Ben laughed. “Go tell the kids to stand easy but not to leave their posts. We’re going to have a few hours respite.”

“And then?” she asked.

“Then all hell breaks loose.” He looked toward the east. “Be interesting to know what those crap-heads are talking about,” he muttered.

“Jake’s gonna be plenty pissed about this,” West said.

“Fuck Campo!” Texas Red said. “He don’t spell Jack-shit to me.”

But West thought, and thought correctly, most of that was pure macho bravado. West had yet to meet anyone who wasn’t, at best, leery of Jake Campo-at worst, terrified of the big outlaw.

“We gonna have to approach this usin’ some sense,” Texas Red said. “I guess them Rebs of Raines must have fireballed down here to join him. He’s got them scattered around the ruins of the town. Problem is, I don’t know how many of them they is.”

“I can’t see how that’s possible,” West countered. “Our guys was supposed to find them and box them in, wasn’t they?”

“Findin’ Raines’ Rebs is one thing,” Texas Red said. “Boxin’ them in is something else.”

“So what do we do?”’

“We wait and think this thing out.”

Jake knew what had happened when Red and West were not at the prearranged meeting place. No honor among thieves, he thought.

He looked up at the sound of engines. Cowboy Vic’s column roared into view.

“Where’s the rest of the boys?” Vic asked.

“I would imagine they’ve gone on into that old ghost town just west of the Big Bend,” Campo said. “That’s what you had in mind, too, wasn’t it?”’

“Yep,” Vic said honestly. “I was thinkin’ that whoever got Raines first, could write his own ticket. Wasn’t you thinkin’ the same, Jake?”’

Jake laughed. “Sure was.”

“Thought so. That’s why we all got down here a little early, wasn’t it?”’

“That’s it. Well, maybe this isn’t such a bad thing after all,” Jake mused aloud.

“How you figure that?”

“We’ll just lay back and let West and Texas Red soften up Raines and his bunch. Let them take the heaviest losses. Then we’ll move in and pick up the pieces.”

“And the glory,” Cowboy Vic said, a trickle of slobber leaking out of one corner of his mouth. “Right?”

“You got it.” And then I’ll kill you, Campo thought.

“Good plan,” Cowboy Vic said. And when that’s done, then I’ll kill you, he thought.

The men looked at each other. Vic said, “You got anything to fuck with you? We picked up a few cunts but they give us so much trouble we kilt them.”

“Yeah,” Campo said absently. “We picked up a shit-pot full of women. Help yourself.”

“Here they come, Ben!” Jordy shouted from the second floor. “A whole big bunch of them.”

“Hold your fire!” Ben called. “We have to let them get into town.”

“There ain’t nobody in this damn old place!” Ben heard the voice drift faintly to him. “The goddamned place is deserted.”

“Hull fell in a hole in the ground!” another man shouted. “Hell, there ain’t no Rebs here.”

“Charge the house!” Texas Red’s voice ripped the air. “There ain’t nobody up there “cept Raines and the woman and kids. Go, boys, go!”

A dozen or more outlaws, thinking they had victory in the palm of their hands, came charging from the southeast. Ben waited until the panting, out-of-shape men were just beyond the stone fence before yelling the orders to fire.

The dozen went down under a hail of lead.

“Finish them!” Ben yelled.

The yelling of the wounded was silenced by single shots to the head.

West looked at Texas Red. “Thought you said this was gonna be easy?”

“Shut up, West. If you had any sense, you’d have been counting the rifles that was firing. I did. I figure no more than seven or eight people in there firing. Nine at the most. Shit, man! They’s two hundred and fifty of us.” He waved his hand, signaling the others to gather around him.

“Harrison, you take your bunch to the back of the house. Lee, you and your boys take the near side. Jess, take the far side. Rest of you follow me, we’re takin” the front. We can’t burn them out, so we’re gonna have to shoot them out of there. Just keep up a steady fire. We get enough lead in there bouncin’ around, we’ll drive them out. Move out.”

Ben picked up on their plans before the outlaws had a chance to put it into full operation.

“Don’t let them surround us!” he called. “Stop them now!”

Texas Red’s plan was only half accomplished. Both ends of the house were covered, but the intense fire from the house kept the front and back open, the gunfire driving the outlaws back time after time.

Roaming from top to bottom, one end of the house to the other, Ben counted thirty-five dead lying around the old house on the hill.

He told Rani, “If we can hold on through the night, this bunch will have a lot of quitters in it. These men won’t put up with losses like we’ve given them. They’re not soldiers; they’re trash, undisciplined gutter-slime. We’ve got to hang on.”

Rani stuck out her chin. “My kids will do their best.”

“I’m damn proud of them. Every last one of them,” Ben told her. Then he surprised her by leaning down and kissing her mouth. “And I’m proud of you, Rani. I’ll soldier with you anytime, anyplace.”

She touched her lips with her fingertips. Kneeling there, in the dust of the floor, her face blackened by gunsmoke and dirt, she smiled at him. “We’ll have to continue this later on, Ben.”

“Looking forward to it, Rani.”

“Here they come, Miss Rani!” Robert called.

The lines of men that ran at them were not nearly so full of bravado this time around. Ben could sense that many of the outlaws had already had a gutful of this fighting.

“Adjust your fire!” Ben yelled. “Shoot them in the guts. Aim for the center of the belly!”

The house rocked with gunfire; the air became smoky and hard to breathe; involuntary tears sprang into the eyes of the defenders, young and older alike.

The lines of men wavered, then broke completely and ran back to safety.

“Reload!” Ben called. “Reload all empty clips and stand ready.”

Rani came to him. “Why did you tell us to shoot the men in the stomach, Ben?”

His smile was not pretty. “Listen closely, Rani.”

The soul-wrenching screams of the gut-shot men on the outside were hideous to hear. They lay in pools of their own blood and howled in agony. Some were calling for mother to help them; others called for God to put an end to their suffering; others lay dying and cursed God.

Still others cursed Ben Raines.

“Can you imagine how demoralizing that is to their buddies?” Ben said, grim satisfaction in his voice.

“I never want you for an enemy, Ben,” Rani told him.

“Why, darling,” Ben replied. “I’m just doing what Uncle Sammy taught me to do-years ago.”

Dusk began draping purple curtains over the land. As the first fingers of darkness touched the old ghost town, Ben carefully checked each child’s position. He checked each weapon, making sure every available clip was full. He talked with each young warrior for a few moments, patting them on the shoulder, reassuring them. With several, he stood their post while they went to the bathroom.

He told Rani, “You take the upstairs and I’ll take it down here. The kids have got to get some sleep. Keep changing positions but do so staying low. I think they’ll be sending in commando teams tonight to get inside the house. So if you see anything moving, don’t shout the warning. Come to the stairs and tell me. OK?”

For a reply, she kissed him and then was gone in the gloom of the old house.

Ben laid the M-16 aside and picked up his Thompson. He was almost certain a few of the outlaws would get inside the house this night. While he really had nothing against the M-16, he knew the big, slow .45-caliber slug packed more of a wallop than the smaller, lighter, but faster 5.56 round. He knew that if the .45 slug hit a man, anywhere, that man was going down.

Full dark came suddenly, almost too quickly. One second it was still light enough to see, the next instant darkness had completely enveloped the ghost town.

The outlaws wasted no time in slipping around the house on the hill. Those badly wounded outlaws that lay moaning and crying and dying around the house gave their buddies away.

Rani whistled softly for Ben. He looked up through the gloom of the old stairs.

“They’re slipping in all around us, Ben,” she said softly.

“The kids up?”

“And ready.”

“Pick your targets and open fire.”

It was rock-and-roll time around the house on the hill overlooking the ghost town. The night became pocked with muzzle flashes, punctuated with yelling from the now-discovered outlaws, and filled with the screaming of the wounded as the young defenders of the house found their targets and opened fire.

Over the banging and roaring of gunshots and bolts slamming back and forth, Ben heard the faint sounds of boot heels on the old brick of the front porch. He stepped back into the darkness until his back touched the wall. He lifted the Thompson as his eyes found the shapes of men slipping quietly up to the sightless empty windows that faced the porch.

He cleared one window of three dark shapes, the Thompson jumping and bucking and roaring in his hands. The men were flung backward as the lead struck them in belly and chest.

Ben quickly changed positions, moving from one end of the room to the other. He heard one of the young people yell. He had no way of knowing if the cry was out of fear or if the young person had been hit by gunfire. Ben suspected the latter.

He looked up just in time to hurl himself to the floor. Gunfire ripped the dark room, the slugs striking where Ben had been. On the floor, Ben lifted the Thompson and pulled the trigger, clearing yet another window of outlaws.

Someone was in the room with him. No! More than one person. Two, maybe three men. Ben lay on the floor and listened. A boot scraped the floor. Ben crawled noiselessly away, lifted the submachine gun, and poured the lead toward the sound.

As the muzzle flashes from the Thompson gave sparking light to the room, Ben saw three men jerk and dance grotesquely as the .45-caliber equalizers hit flesh and bone. The odor of piss and shit and vomit and sweat was strong in the room, as dying bladders and bowels emptied.

“Back, back!” someone from the outside called. “Fall back.”

“Fuck this crap!” a man yelled. “I’ve had it. I’m cuttin’ out.”

“Yeah,” another voice said. “Me, too.”

“I’m with you, guys,” yet another voice was added.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” a fourth voice said.

Those voices were joined by others.

“You yellow mother-fuckers!” a man screamed. “You bastards runnin’ away from kids and cunts and one man!”

“You goddamn right!”

“I’ll see you dead first!” the commanding voice shouted.

Then what Ben had hoped would happen began taking place.

Gunfire ripped the night. But the fire was not directed toward the house. The outlaws were fighting among themselves.

The sounds of heavy gunfire coughed out of the night. Trucks and cars and vans cranked up, and headlights cut the dust and gunsmoke that had settled over the ghost town.

The gunfire died away. The sounds of roaring motors faded into the night. Only the moaning and howling and screaming and cursing of the wounded could be heard.

Ben crawled around the room, making certain all of the outlaws were dead. Ben found one still alive. Using his long-bladed knife, Ben cut the man’s throat.

He crawled to a window and looked out. Far in the distance, he could see the light from escaping vehicles.

Against all odds, the small band of defenders, alone in the ashes, had won this fight.

Chapter 22

Robert had been hit in the arm. The wound was painful, but not serious. Miraculously, that was their only casualty.

At first light, with everyone giving him cover if it was needed, Ben slipped outside and began gathering up weapons and ammo.

He counted ninety dead. He smiled amid the gore and dead and shook his head. If ninety had been killed, at least that many more had been wounded.

“Lucky,” Ben muttered. “We were so very, very lucky.”

“Oh, goddamn it, Ben!” Rani said, when Ben told her what he planned to do.

Ben stood firm. “You going to help me, or do I do it myself?”’

Her green eyes touched him. They were emotionless, unreadable. “I’ll help you, Ben. If you think it’s necessary, then let’s do it. But I think it’s the most hideous thing I have ever heard of.”

“When they start soaking up the bullets meant for you and me and the kids,” Ben countered, “you just might change your mind.”

They began stacking the bodies of the dead outlaws around certain parts of the yard, and closing in the porch with them.

It was grisly work, and Ben didn’t like it any more than Rani-although he would never let on to her that he didn’t. But he knew the grisly sight would make a lot of outlaws very uneasy, and would probably cause a few of them to give up the fight altogether. Also, most of the outlaws would be very reluctant to climb over the stinking, stiffening dead to get onto the porch.

He told Rani that.

“I still think it’s barbaric!” she snapped at him.

Ben met her hot eyes. “Would you prefer to see eleven-year-old Jane held down on the ground and butt-fucked?”’

She shut her mouth and continued working.

Colonel Gray’s column got as far as west central Texas before they started hitting any further major trouble. There, more small bands of looters, outlaws, and warlords began popping up, slowing down Gray’s advance. Almost always, when the outlaws saw what they were up against, they pulled back and let the column go through.

But it was slowing their progress considerably.

Captain Nolan’s platoon advanced to midway between Fort Stockton and Marathon. They had all refilled their water containers back at the Imperial Reservoir, but were in such a hurry they did not check the water for impurities. Dysentery laid them all down flat. They carried the proper medication to treat the illness, but that was small comfort to the suffering Rebels, who all knew it would be a full twenty-four to thirty-six hours before any of them would be able to do anything other than moan and squirt.

West and Texas Red had managed to gather some sixty-odd members of their outlaw band together. The rest had split for parts unknown, all vowing they would not be back.

It was a sorry-looking bunch that met Cowboy Vic and Jake Campo on the east side of Study Butte at midmorning.

Jake started laughing when he saw who it was. West and Texas Red flushed with anger, but wisely kept their mouths closed.

Jake waved the leaders to one side and said, “All right, tough-boys. What happened?”

Jake stopped laughing as the story unfolded. He began getting madder by the second. Finally he waved the men silent.

Jake glared at the outlaws. “Do you mean to tell me-honestly-that one man, and one woman, along with a handful of snot-nosed brats, managed to beat back two hundred and fifty grown, fully-armed men?”

“That’s about it, Jake,” West said.

Texas Red said, “All that talk about Ben Raines being some sort of god, Jake. I don’t know. But something is damn sure spooky about him, and those that follow him.”

“I don’t believe that shit!” Jake snapped. But after this? … He shook that thought away. “You boys look like crap. Get some food in you and some sleep. We hit that skinny son of a bitch, that uppity broad, and them kids at first light.”

Ben and Rani sat in the yard of the old mine owner’s home. Rani did her best to keep her eyes from the piled-up bodies in the yard and on the porch.

“And you really think you and your followers can bring a return to civilization?” she asked him.

“The way it was?” Ben looked at her. “Oh, no. Never in our lifetime, Rani. Probably not even the grandchildren of those kids in the house will know civilization the way we knew it. But those of us who believe strongly enough can carve something out of the ashes. We don’t have to be alone in that, either. Sometime within the next few months, we’ll start setting up the outposts I told you about. It’s a start,” he said philosophically.

“Where would the dream have been if you had not come along?”

“Oh, Rani, don’t give me more credit than I’m due. Believe me when I say I didn’t want the damned job to begin with.”

“You mean you tried to get out of it?”

“I sure did.”

She sat by his side on the stone fence and stared out at the emptiness around them. “Where will you go if … when,” she corrected, “we get out of this bind?”

“Wandering, probably.”

She abruptly stood up. “I’ve got to check on the kids.”

And you’d like to go wandering, too, Ben thought.

Like me, you’re tired of the responsibility. But you’re also tired of hunger and danger and of the feeling that you are the only person in the entire country who gives a damn about the kids. “When we get out of this,” Ben muttered. “You were right, Rani. If is the word.”

Ben spent the rest of the day checking weapons. He unpacked his rocket launcher and checked the grenades. Then, with a shovel in his hand, he prowled the area around the house, digging a dozen and a half punji pits, rigging the bottom of the pits with sharpened stakes, then camouflaging the opening the same way he’d done the shaft openings.

Using old wire he found, he rigged another dozen and a half ankle traps.

He emptied out several boxes of shotgun shells and made some crude bombs, filling them with rusty nails and the shot from the shells.

It was nearly dusk when he finished. He could not think of anything he’d missed in his preparation for war.

Other than wishing he knew of some way to keep the piled-up bodies from stinking.

“Nothing?” Ike asked, standing in the door of the communications building.

“Nothing, sir,” the young woman told him. “But for some reason, the static is not as bad as it was yesterday.” She looked at a chart. “It’s down by twenty percent.”

Gale and Tina entered the room.

“What’s the word on Dad?” Tina asked.

Ike shook his head.

“Ike,” Gale said, “you look like an old hound dog. Come on! You’ve known Ben for years. You know he’s an expert at getting out of tight spots.”

Ike grinned. “Gettin’ into them is a speciality of his, too.”

“Why does this Mississippi redneck always have to make something sexual out of everything people say?” Gale asked, winking at Tina.

“What’d I say?” Ike asked, rolling his eyes. “What’d I say?”’

“Uncle Ike,” Ben’s adopted daughter said, “you’re impossible.”

Cecil stepped into the room. “We have a revival in here?” the black man asked.

“Yeah,” Gale said. “With preachin” and singin’ and dinner on the grounds. That’d be a first for me, let me tell you.”

Ike put his arm around Gale’s slender shoulders. “I’ll make a Baptist outta you yet, darlin’.”

Gale looked at him, feigning great horror. “Do I look like a yold to you?” she asked him.

“Say that in American, darlin’,” Ike grinned. “My French never was very good.”

Ben opened his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his watch. Four o’clock. He could not believe the night had passed without an attack from the outlaws.

He rolled from his blankets and pulled on his boots.

He climbed upstairs and relieved Kathy at her lonely lookout, sending her to bed.

Ben checked the dark terrain surrounding the house. He could not see any movement in the inkiness, but his senses were working overtime.

Something, or somebody, was out there. Waiting. Watching.

He didn’t need anyone to step down from the Mount to tell him who it was and what they were about to do. He waited and watched until five thirty.

He shook Rani awake. “We have company,” he told her. “Get up and very quietly wake the kids. Get them to their posts. I think they’re going to hit us-for some reason-at first light.”

The last thing Ben had done before calling it a day the afternoon before was to take the belts from some of the dead men and rig suspended harnesses for the M-16’s. From the ceiling, the harnesses would hold the M-16’s at the right height for the young people manning them; from the floor, the harnesses would prevent the weapons from jumping out of their young hands on full auto, and still keep the weapons aligned-more or less.

The gun slits Ben had built had been constructed with each young person in mind; just to the right height to afford the maximum protection from bullets.

Now, each person, with Ben being the exception, had twin M-16’s suspended and ready to go.

Ben was ready with his homemade bombs, his RPG launcher, and his stack of fully loaded automatic shotguns taken from the dead men; along with several automatic weapons and, of course, his old faithful .45-caliber Thompson.

Rani joined him on the ground floor with a cup of steaming hot tea. Together, they sipped tea and watched the horizon begin to lighten in the east.

Ben was impassive as the sky grew brighter, allowing them to view what lay before them.

Rani sucked in a hard gulp of air and let it out with a hiss. She clutched at his arm.

“I see them,” Ben said.

They were totally surrounded. Cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles lined the area around the ghost town. What seemed to be hundreds of men stood quietly in a circle, facing the house from all conceivable directions.

“I’ve tracked you across five states, Raines,” Jake spoke through a bullhorn, his electronically magnified voice booming out of the dawn.

“Four states,” Ben calmly corrected.

Rani looked up at him. “Please excuse him,” she said sarcastically.

“But I’m open to a deal,” Jake said.

“I can just imagine what it might be,” Ben muttered.

“Yes,” Rani said.

“You hear me, you skinny son of a bitch!” Jake roared.

Rani looked Ben up and down andwitha smile, said, “You could stand to put on a few more pounds.”

“I’m very comfortable the way I am, thank you.”

“You hear me, you asshole!” Jake roared.

“Yes, I hear you, fatso!” Ben yelled. “No deals.”

Some of Campo’s men giggled and Jake frosted them silent with a hard look.

“I’m gonna skin that son of a bitch alive!” Jake growled. “After I make him watch while I fuck his woman and all them kids, right in front of his eyes. Boys and girls.”

“Jesus, Jake!” one of his men yelled. “Them ain’t sandbags he’s got piled around the house. Them’s dead bodies.”

West lifted his binoculars and looked, as did Texas Red and Cowboy Vic. The three of them exchanged uneasy glances.

Even Jake swallowed hard after viewing the scene through field glasses. He shook his head. “Some people just ain’t got no class at all,” he said. “That’s unholy. He’ll go to hell for that.”

Even Crazy Cowboy Vic looked at Jake oddly after that remark.

Many of the outlaws standing in the circle around the house shuffled their feet and exchanged glances of indecision. It would not take much for some of them to split the scene and say to hell with Ben Raines.

“Your life for them kids and the woman!” Jake lied.

Ben looked at Rani. “I wish I had a 81-mm mortar,” he said. “I’d give that lardass an answer he’d never forget.”

“Without taking anything away from your request, Ben,” Rani replied. “I’d like to see that platoon of your Rebels come riding up.”

“Well, yes. I suppose I’d settle for that.”

Those Rebels of Ben’s were on the way, but about half of them were in no condition for a fight.

Using a range-finder, Ben plotted the distance at nine hundred yards. He picked up his bolt-action rifle and thumbed it off safety, adjusting the huge scope. Campo stood with an open van door in front of him. At this range, a head shot would be nearly impossible to make.

But one outlaw, with more guts than sense-or maybe he was just plain stupid, that was probably it-was standing on top of the cab of a pickup truck. Ben sighted him in.

“If you make that shot, Ben,” Rani said, “I’ll give you a present.”

Ben looked at her and waggled his eyebrows. “Oh?”

She grinned and patted him on the arm. “Calm yourself, old man. Heavy breathing will throw off your aim. Besides, are you sure you can handle me?”

Ben gave her his best lewd grin.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

Ben propped the rifle on the sill for support, took aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. The outlaw flew off the top of the cab, a bloody hole in the center of his chest.

“Now come and get us,” Jordy yelled from the top floor. “You fat-ass!”

Chapter 23

The circle of outlaws moved as if controlled by one mind. The outlaws were growling and snarling like the animals they were. They were shouting obscenities at the house and its occupants.

“Hold your fire!” Ben called just loud enough for the kids to hear.

The bolts of the twin M-16’s were pulled. The kids gripped the pistol grips, pressing the stocks against young shoulders, getting ready for the jar and slam of double-16’s on full auto.

The circle drew nearer.

Ben noticed that Campo, West, Texas Red, and Cowboy Vic had stayed back, well out of conventional rifle range.

“True leaders of men,” Ben muttered.

He picked up his .30-06 and clicked it off safety, lifting the stock to his shoulder and sighting in one particularly ugly outlaw.

The part of the circle that had gathered at the rear of the old town had vanished into the ruins of the ghost town.

Ben smiled, thinking: Only a few more seconds before one of them takes that one last long step.

A hideous scream cut the air as an outlaw stepped into a mine shaft and went tumbling into eternity, howling as he fell.

Ben pulled the trigger and blew off a man’s jaw. The man was flung backward, landing on his ass in the sand.

“Fire!” Ben yelled.

Twelve M-16’s, all older models, all fully automatic, began singing their death songs, yammering and spitting out lead.

Ben was firing an AK-47 on full auto, the 7.62 ammo cutting great holes in the now-broken circle of outlaws.

A man stepped into a punji trap, the sharpened stake driven through his foot, trapping him on the sands. He howled and beat his fists on the ground, all the fight gone from him.

Ben let him howl.

Behind Ben, on the other end of the first floor, Rani was manning her twin 16’s, the 16’s jumping in their harness, the floor around her twinkling with brass.

Over the rattling and cracking of gunfire, the pinging of brass bouncing off the floor, Ben heard the faint screams of another man as he stepped onto the thin covering over a deep shaft. The man went howling into his frightened death.

The circle of outlaws broke, splintering like an egg shell, leaving a half-dozen men trapped on the porch, their hands slick with the gore from the bodies they were forced to climb over getting to the porch.

Ben dropped the empty AK and jerked up a sawed-off shotgun, an automatic that held nine three-inch magnums.

Ben cleared the porch of all living things, the shotgun roaring in his hands.

“Cease fire!” Ben yelled.

The house fell silent. Now, only the moaning and crying and cursing and screaming of the wounded outlaws could be heard.

“Sound off!” Ben called.

A couple of the kids had scratches and splinters from the wood barricades in front of them; all had sore shoulders from the pounding of the twin 16’s, but again, against all odds, no one was seriously hurt.

The area surrounding the house was littered with the dead and dying. The screaming from men caught in the punji traps was now hoarse, more animal than human.

“Take the upstairs, Rani,” Ben said. “Tell the kids to go to the bathroom, get some water and food in them, and then you do the same. I’ll look after things down here.”

Ben reloaded clips and checked his AK. He reloaded the sawed-off shotgun and then, with one eye toward the outside, he checked Rani’s twin M-16’s and reloaded some clips for her. When Rani returned from the upstairs, Ben went up and checked out the weapons, patting each young person on the shoulder, speaking calmly to them, complimenting them, and assuring them that it was almost over. Just hang in there, he told them.

“Will we get to go back to your people when this is over, Mr. Raines?” Kathy asked.

“You sure will, kids,” Ben told them. “And when you’re there, you’ll never have to be afraid again. And that’s a promise.”

Jake Campo didn’t want to admit it, but the first tentative fingers of fear were lightly touching him. It was not a feeling he liked. Fear was almost unknown to the man. He had had his way all his life; even back in grade school, he had taken whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted it. The laws of a liberal society being what they were-when there was a government, with laws (as silly as many of them were), many of them catering to the punk, the lawless, the bully-boys like Jake had a field day with other kids less inclined to bully.

Even when Jake had received three to five in prison for rape, he ran the joint (back when joint was jail and not something to smoke). Jake did that time (he was out in eighteen months) with ease. When he was charged with almost killing a man with his fists-he never did go to jail for that crime, the jails, at that time, being too crowded and federal judges not wanting to tax the sensitive criminal psyche-he began to have nothing but contempt for the legal system of America.

Jake wasn’t alone in that contempt. Almost any law-abiding citizen with a modicum of intelligence felt nothing but contempt for America’s legal system.

Jake looked at the house on the hill and knew, he knew, for the first time that he could remember, raw fear.

West sat on a broken down chair and rubbed his aching stump. Would the goddamn thing ever heal?

West hated Ben Raines. Loathed him. But he was afraid of Ben Raines. Scared to death of him. West wished they could just call this thing off and go on back to Tennessee. Jesus Christ! He couldn’t get over the sight of those bodies piled around the house and on the porch. And Raines had booby-trapped the town, too. West shuddered at the thought of falling into one of those mine shafts.

God, what a way to die.

He bet there were snakes down there in them pits, too. Snakes and rats eatin’ on the bodies.

“Shit!” he muttered.

Texas Red ran his fingers through his long red hair. He sat off by himself and engaged in, what was to him, heavy thinking.

This whole operation was screwed up. Everything about it was screwed up. But he wasn’t gonna give up. No way.

If any of them did that, word would get around the whole southwest that they let one man, one woman, and a handful of kids kick the shit out of three or four hundred men. Couldn’t let that happen.

“So,” Red muttered, “that only leaves us one choice. Kill them all.”

Crazy Cowboy Vic wasn’t scared of Ben Raines. Cowboy Vic wasn’t afraid of nothing. Cowboy Vic didn’t have sense enough to be afraid of anybody. He grinned as he pulled at his crotch. Thought about all them young girls in the house. Smooth tight pussies.

Vic liked to hear the girls holler when he hurt them. That’s when he really got his rocks off. And Vic liked to kill. Didn’t make no difference to Vic who or what it was. Human or animal. He liked to kill; liked to torture.

Far back as he could remember, he liked to torture animals. Skin them alive. Cut the paws off dogs and cats.

Of course his parents knew about his aberrations. Of course his parents didn’t report him to the authorities. Victor was their darling little pride and joy.

Not even when Little Victor buried the neighbor’s pet up to its neck and ran over it with a power mower did his parents report it. They concealed the fact. Heaven forbid anyone should learn they had a nut for a kid.

They thought they were doing Victor a favor by keeping quiet about his … strange behavior.

There are a great many stupid parents in the world.

Vic slobbered on himself as he thought about the kids in the house. And Ben Raines. He’d like to torture Ben Raines. Make him holler.

Yeah! Good fun!

“I wonder what they’re thinking?” Rani asked.

“A lot of them are thinking about quitting,” Ben told her. “But the majority of them know they can’t quit. Word would get around that they were whipped by a handful of kids and one man and one woman. They can’t allow that to happen. They have to try to kill us to shut our mouths.”

“We must have killed half of them,” she observed.

“Or a lot of them have run away.”

“We’ve wasted quite a few. But you’re right. A lot of them have hit the air.”

Ben sat eating a can of cold beans, washing it down with water from his canteen.

Rani looked at him, calmly eating amid the gore, and shook her head.

“Hungry?” Ben asked.

“No. How can you just sit there, with dead bodies all around us, and eat?”

“Because I’m hungry,” Ben answered simply.

“You know what I mean.”

Ben jerked his thumb toward the outside. “Because of them, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t view them as human beings, Rani. It’s very doubtful any of those dead men ever, in their entire lives, did one decent thing-even back when we had a civilization. They were thieves, bully boys, thugs, rapists, muggers, street slime, rednecks, white trash, racists-you name it. If they had their choice between stealing and working, they stole. They beat their wives and girlfriends and abused their kids. They cheated on their income tax-if they even bothered to file-and the rest of us paid for it. To a man, they considered themselves smarter than the law and above obeying the laws the rest of us lived by. They filled every cheap honky-tonk in the country whenever they had a few bucks in their pockets and were looking for trouble. Their idea of fun was stomping somebody’s head in; usually somebody who just happened to come in for a quiet drink and hadn’t bothered a soul. They were loud-mouthed, profane, obnoxious, ignorant,

crude, and rude. And when they died, if the undertaker would shove a tube up their rectum and give them an enema, they could have been buried in a matchbox. I don’t give any more thought to killing them than I would stepping on a roach or kicking a dried piece of dog shit off the sidewalk. That answer your question, dear?”

She looked at him for a long moment before speaking. “There is a lot of arrogance in you, Mr. Ben Raines. Are you aware of that?”

“A lot of people confuse a desire for order and discipline with arrogance, Rani. I went for a good many years in the Tri-States without firing a shot at anything other than a paper pop-up target. We who made up the Tri-States proved that a society totally void of crime is not only possible but very easy to attain.”

“By trading one type of fear for another, Ben?”’

Ben smiled at that. “It’s a funny thing, Rani. But in all my years, I’ve never been afraid of the cops. If one obeys the law, there is no need to be fearful of authority.”

She turned around, scanned her perimeter, and looked back at Ben. “And I bet you drove 55, too, didn’t you, Ben?”’

“Yes, I did. I didn’t like it; thought it was a stupid law. But it was the law, so I obeyed it. I never got a ticket, either.”

She once more turned around, looking at the body-littered area around the house on the hill, overlooking the ghost town. With her back to Ben, she said, “You people in the Tri-States got a lot of negative publicity.”

“Yes, we did, Rani. Our system of justice was harsh. It was a one-mistake society. But no one went hungry in the Tri-States. Not one person. No one was denied proper medical care. Everybody had a job. The taxes were fair. We didn’t allow huge corporations to swallow up the small farmer. We had damn few complaints from the people who chose to live in the Tri-States.”

“You people also had quick trials, too, Ben.”

“We sure did,” Ben said, giving his perimeter a once-over. “The legal profession, as you knew it, wasn’t the same in Tri-States. But there again, I don’t recall a single complaint from any legal resident of the Tri-States.”

She shook her head. “What’s the point of arguing, Ben. It will never be again.”

He looked at her, surprise on his face. “Of course, it will be, Rani. Not as big as before. But it will be.”

“You really believe that, don’t you, Ben? God, you’re a dreamer, you know that?”

“If we don’t put it back together, Rani, I firmly believe civilization will die.”

She looked around her and reached for her twin 16’s. “If we don’t start paying attention, Ben, we’re going to die. Here they come again.”

Chapter 24

This time the outlaws were much more cautious in their attack. They did not attempt to overwhelm the house by sheer numbers, electing to reach the crumbling buildings of the town and settle in.

“War of nerves,” Ben said. “They’re going to try to wear us down.”

“Mr. Ben!” Jordy called in a whisper from upstairs. “Your radio is talking!”

On the second floor, Ben listened to his radio. The static was still there, but he was able to understand the transmission.

“This is Eagle One,” Ben said. “Repeat, please.”

“Eagle One, this is Captain Nolan. We’re two hours away from your location. Colonel Gray is less than a day from your position. Our forward scouts have you in visual. Do you copy this, General?”’

“I’m copying five by five, Captain. We can hold until you reach us.”

“Dysentery hit us hard, General. I’m at no more than half strength. How do you want me to launch my attack?”

“Get as close as you can and set up mortar teams. We’re holed up in the big house overlooking the town.”

“Ten-four, General. Hang on.”

Ben winked at Rani. “Didn’t I tell you to think positively?”

“I got a bad feelin” “bout all this, Jake,” Texas Red said. “I think we’re damned if we do, and damned if we don’t. Know what I mean?”

Jake felt the same way. But before he could reply, one of his men raced to his side, sliding behind the old building.

“We’re bein” watched, Jake!” he panted. “I’ve caught sunlight off field glasses to the northeast.” He pointed.

The three leaders (west was behind the lines, sitting it out by his van) looked. Jake grunted as he caught the glint of light off lenses.

“It don’t make no difference,” Cowboy Vic said. “There can’t be no more of them than there is of us. Right, Jake?”

Jake looked at the screwball. It was then he realized just how stupid the man appeared. He looked like a cross between Tom Mix, Gorgeous George, and the Rhinestone Cowboy. Fuckin’ idiot!

“And I suppose you have a plan?” Jake said.

Before Vic could reply, Texas Red said, “I do. Get the hell out of here. We won’t be losin’ no face by doin’ it. Not with Raines’ Rebels breathin’ down our necks.”

Jake nixed that. “Then, go, goddamnit. If you and your boys ain’t got the balls for this, take off. And to hell with you!”

“You can count on me, Big Jake,” Cowboy Vic said.

“Wonderful,” Jake muttered.

“Think about it, Jake,” Texas Red said, not taking umbrage at Jake’s anger. “Ben Raines ain’t gonna stay holed up in there forever. Soon as his Rebs come-and they ain’t far away-he’ll be sprung. He’ll stick around for awhile, then he’ll hit the trail again. All we got to do is set up outposts on the three roads leading out of this place, then ambush the son of a bitch.”

Jake looked at the man. “For a person that’s redheaded and ugly to boot, you got some sense. That there’s a right nice plan. Let’s do “er. Tell the boys to fall back.”

“Damn, Ben!” Jordy called from the upstairs. “They’s pullin” out. Shit!”

Rani laughed. “That’s quite a little tiger you have there, Ben.”

“There’s no back-up in him, that’s for sure.” Ben lifted his binoculars and watched the outlaws begin their bugout.

T. S. Eliot came to Ben’s mind. He muttered, “Not with a bang but with a whimper.”

“Did you say something, Ben?” Rani asked.

“A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year.”

“What?”’

Ben shook his head. “Nothing. Just recalling some verse from a long time ago.”

Ben again lifted his binoculars, watching the outlaws haul their asses. “Tell the kids to stand down, Rani. I think it’s over.”

But it was not over. Not quite. Crouching in one of the old crumbling buildings, Crazy Cowboy Vic waited, slobber dribbling down his chin. He had refused to leave with the others. He was gonna get Ben Raines, and have all of them young cunts for hisself. And when that was done, he’d be king of the west. That’s what Big Jake and Texas Red promised him when he said he was staying behind. He didn’t want them boys; just the girls. He’d kill them boys. He shifted positions carefully and lifted his rifle.

“You know Raines is gonna put it together, don’t you?” Red asked Jake. “I mean, he’s gonna know we set Cowboy Vic up to kill that kid Raines has been traveling with.”

“Yeah,” Jake grinned. “I know it. And that’s gonna make Raines so goddamn mad he’ll come buckin” and a-snortin’ after us, revenge in his eyes. That’s what I want him to do.”

“I gotta hand it to you, Jake. You got some smarts.”

“Thank you,” Jake said modestly.

For the fifteenth time Ben scanned the old town through binoculars. For the fifteenth time he saw nothing out of the ordinary.

Still, he hesitated in letting the kids out of the house.

He had kicked over the pile of bodies around the porch, clearing the way. He could see the dust from the approaching Rebels, but something bothered him.

He lowered his binoculars when Rani came to his side.

“I don’t want to stay here, Ben,” she said. “I want to go with you when you leave. Can we send the kids back to your base camp?”

“Sure. I think that would be best. Colonel Gray and his wild bunch will be here by midnight. I’ll make arrangements with him.”

“That surprised your people when you called in and told them the outlaws had pulled out, didn’t it?”’

“Not really, Rani. My people have a reputation for being rough in any kind of a fight. But this isn’t over. The outlaws might have monitored our radio transmissions; they might have had scouts out who saw the Rebels coming in. Either way, they found themselves in a no-win situation and pulled out. But it isn’t over.”

Captain Nolan and his platoon pulled in. “Jesus, General,” the captain said, eyeballing all the bodies, “you folks did a number on them, didn’t you?”’

Ben gave a sergeant the map of the town, showing where the camouflaged open mine shafts were located, the trip wires, and the punji pits. The sergeant sent a team out to neutralize the traps.

The bodies of the outlaws were dumped down a mine shaft and the opening sealed.

The harnesses and the twin M-16’s were taken down and stored in the back of a truck.

And the kids were finally freed from the old house overlooking the ghost town.

“General!” Captain Nolan’s radio operator called. “Colonel Gray just called in. He’s about two hours away.”

“Thank you,” Ben said. Ben longed for a hot tub of water and a long soak. The smell of gunpowder, sweat, and death clung to them all.

Jordy stood by the stone fence around the old house.

“A damn gutsy bunch of kids, General,” Captain Nolan said.

“They are that,” Ben agreed.

Jordy thought he detected some movement in one of the old broken-down buildings in town. He looked again. Nothing. Must have been mistaken, he thought.

“You kids don’t leave the immediate area,” Ben cautioned them.

There it was again! Jordy thought, looking at the old building. He turned around. “Ben!” he called.

“Yes, son?”’

A rifle cracked. Jordy was flung forward, a hole in his chest.

Roaring with rage, Ben ran to the boy’s side and knelt down in the gathering blood. The bullet had cut the spine, angled off, and exited out through a lung. Pink froth bubbled from the boy’s mouth.

“Take that son of a bitch alive!” Ben growled at Captain Nolan.

“Ben?” Jordy said.

“I’m right here, son.”

“What’s my name, Ben?”

“Jordy Raines.” Ben could not keep the tears from spilling out of his eyes.

“Told you I didn’t have very long to go, didn’t I, Ben?”’

“Yes, you did, boy.”

“But I done good, didn’t I, Ben?”

“You done good, son.”

“It don’t hurt none, Ben. I’m just cold.”

The boy closed his eyes and died.

Chapter 25

Ben covered the boy with his jacket. He stood up, looking down at the boy he had grown to love in just a short time. Waves of emotions splashed over him.

Ben took several deep breaths, calming himself. He turned to Captain Nolan. “Wrap the boy carefully, Captain. Assign a burial detail. There is a Bible in my truck. Have someone get it for me.” His words were tiny bits of chipped ice flying from his inner soul, steaming the air.

“Yes, sir. What name goes on the marker?”

“Jordy Raines. Age ten.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ben looked toward the knot of Rebels gathered around a small crumbling building. They had captured Cowboy Vic.

No one spoke; no one made any attempt to stop Ben as he walked to the house, got his Thompson, and walked down to the building. He stopped in front of Cowboy Vic.

“Got the little son of a bitch, didn’t I?” Cowboy Vic yelled. “Just like Jake and Texas Red tole me to do.” Slobber ran in ropy rivers from both sides of his mouth. “I knowed what they was up to all the time, Raines. Kill the kid, says they. Be shore to kill the kid travelin’ with Raines. Well, I done “er.” He laughed in Ben’s face.

Ben resisted an almost-overpowering urge to smash the butt of the Thompson into the man’s face. He turned his head and looked at the head-frame of the structure that supported the old cable system that operated the cages into the mines.

“Hang him from that!” Ben said, pointing. “Now!”

Ben read a passage from the Bible, and then remembered a passage from Pilgrim’s Way. He thought it appropriate.

“Our roll of honor is long, but it holds no nobler figure. He will stand to those of us who are left as an incarnation of the spirit of the land he loved. He loved his youth, and his youth has become eternal.”

Ben sat alone for a time on the stone fence around the house. He watched as Colonel Gray’s company of Gray’s Scouts pulled in. But he did not leave his place on the fence.

Captain Nolan brought the colonel up to date.

“Filthy swine,” Dan Gray said. “To cold-bloodedly kill a child.” His eyes found the dangling figure of Cowboy Vic. “Is that the bugger?”

“Yes, sir.”

“The general will be wanting revenge,” Dan said.

“And I don’t blame him. I have to find out what’s going on.”

Dan walked to Ben’s side.

“General.”

“Dan. How’s it going?”

“Very well, sir. Do I stand the men down for a rest?”

“Yes. Tell them to pitch their tents and relax. We’ll be here for a couple of days.”

Dan knew what was next, but he had to ask. “And then, sir?”’

“We are going on a search-and-destroy mission, Dan. We are going to deal with the enemy with extreme prejudice.”

“We track down the warlords and outlaws and kill all the fuckers.”

“Precisely.”

Whom unmerciful Disaster Followed fast and followed faster.

Poe

Chapter 26

“Your plan ain’t workin’ for shit!” Jake told Texas Red. He had shaken him out of a deep sleep and jerked him out of the blankets.

“Huh?” Red asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“All them damned Rebels is still in the town. Scouts report they’re eating and sleeping and resting. They’re checking equipment and getting ready to move out.”

“Well, goddamn! That’s what we wanted, wasn’t it?”

“Raines is leading them. Two squads of Rebs pulled out yesterday with the kids. They’re headin’ back east. Boy, we got big troubles.”

“Maybe,” Red said, pulling on his boots. “What about Cowboy Vic?”

Jake snorted derisively. “Raines hung the bastard from a tower. He’s still hangin’ there.”

“Way I see this thing, Jake, we ain’t got but one option left us.”

“Oh? And what’s that?”’

Texas Red met the man’s hard look. “Run!”

Ben lingered for a moment in the cold dawn, his eyes on the cross above Jordy’s grave. “There is nothing left to say, Jordy. Nothing at all.”

He turned away from the grave.

“Colonel Gray?”’

“Sir!”

“Are your forward teams in position?”’

“Yes, sir. Ten miles out and holding.”

“Radio contact with the team holding east with the kids?”’

“Yes, sir. Making good progress and reporting no trouble.”

Ben nodded. He removed his beret and ran his fingers through graying hair. He looked at the beret and smiled. He walked to the grave of Jordy and hung the beret on the cross. “You were a good soldier, son. I never served with any better.”

Rani stood and watched Ben, tears running down her cheeks.

Colonel Dan Gray cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. “Damn dust,” he said.

Ben broke the sad spell.

“Move out!”

“Dan says Ben is calm,” Ike said to Cecil. “To use his words, “Too damn calm.””

“You’ve known Ben as long as I have, Ike. You know that when Ben gets this way he’s killing mad. This campaign will be a scorched-earth policy. He’ll kill anybody who gives any type of aid to those outlaws.”

“Not only that,” Tina said, walking up. “Dad will burn the damned towns down. You remember how he was up in Missouri.”

“Only too well,” Ike said.

Cecil turned to the young woman manning the radio. “And what was Ben’s last transmission, again?”

“He said, when I gave him your message to please return to Base Camp One, quoting George Bernard Shaw, “Not bloody likely!””

Tina summed up the feelings of them all. “Oh, shit! Dad is really pissed!”

“Scouts report a little town just up ahead has given sanctuary to some outlaws, General,” Dan called in on the CB. “It’s some sort of hippie place. To use a very outdated word.”

“You’re certain the … hippies gave them sanctuary voluntarily?”’

“Yes, sir. With open arms.”

“Any kids involved?” Ben asked.

“Therein lies the rub, sir.”

“Shit!” Ben said. “All right, Dan. Surround the town and we’ll play it by ear.”

“It’s not exactly a town, sir,” a scout broke in. “It’s a … a commune.”

“Haven’t heard that word in a good many years,” Ben said.

The column was traveling north on Highway 169. What was left of a tiny village just south of Cienega Mountain had been taken over by a new generation of Love Children. Most of the “Flower Children” were about Ben’s age-at least. It was the most ludicrous sight Ben had witnessed in a long time.

A man who had to be at least sixty years old approached Ben’s truck. He was dressed in a dress.

“Is that man dressed in a dress?” Rani asked.

“Sure looks that way to me,” Ben said.

“Baby killers!” the man yelled, waving a plastic flower at Dan Gray.”

“I beg your pardon!” the Englishman said.

Another group of Love Kids appeared. Average age, mid-fifties. They were chanting as they marched. “Hell, no. We won’t go. Hell, no. We won’t go!”

“I think they have the wrong war,” Ben said.

“Ben, they’re pitiful,” Rani said.

“No,” Ben said. “They’re just middle-aged dropouts, that’s all.”

Ben got out of his truck and walked to the group of men and women. There were a few younger people mixed in, some of them with children by their side. It was the damndest mish-mash Ben had ever seen.

“What the hell is with you people?” Ben asked.

“Impeach Nixon!” a man cried. “Make love, not war.”

“Jane Fonda for President!” a woman yelled.

“You people are hiding some outlaws,” Ben roared, quieting the group of … whatever the hell it was.

“They are under a protective shield of the Children of the Orb,” a man informed Ben. “They have renounced their evil past and wish to partake of nature’s blessings. Now take your baby killers and child rapers and destroyers of the land and leave!” The man stamped his foot on the ground.

“Folks,” Ben said, “I don’t want to hurt any of you … citizens. Just hand over the outlaws and we’ll be on our way.”

“One, two, three, four!” a woman who had to be in her late sixties yelled. “We don’t want your fucking war!”

Dan Gray turned his back so Ben could not see him laughing.

A man wearing pink pedal pushers and a see-through blouse ran up to them. “Stop acid rain!” he screamed. He ran back into the crowd.

“Colonel Gray,” Ben called.

Wiping his eyes, his face red from suppressed laughter, Gray turned around. “Sir!”

“Send a team into the … commune. Find the outlaws and bring them out. Do not-repeat-do not hurt anyone of these … people.”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Morse, front and center.”

The sergeant ran to Gray’s side. “Sir, these people are whacko!”

“Quite right. What puzzles me is why the outlaws have left them alone for so long.”

“Shit, Colonel. They ain’t got nothing for them to steal.”

“That’s probably it. Bring the outlaws out, sergeant.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir!” a voice called. “They’re slipping out the back way.”

“Watergate sucks!” a man yelled.

Even Ben was grinning as he got back into his truck and slipped it into gear. Rani had her face turned so Ben could not see her grin.

Composing herself, she said, “Is there a lunatic asylum close by?”

“Surely there must be. Either that or they all came from California.”

“Oh, Ben!”

It did not take the Rebels long to round up the outlaws. They caught up with them a few miles outside of the commune, heading north.

They were a sorry-looking, shifty-eyed, and scummy bunch.

“You have two choices,” Ben informed them bluntly. “Either way, you die. Tell me where Jake Campo, Texas Red, and West are hiding and what they’re up to, and you get a bullet-fast and quick. If you don’t cooperate, I take you to the next town and hang you. You have one minute to think about it.”

“Fuck you, Raines!” a burly, pus-gutted man said.

“Sergeant!” Ben said. “Take that man,” he pointed. “And tie him securely. Toss him in the back of a truck for hanging.”

“I’ll make a deal with you, Raines,” another outlaw offered.

The toughness that had enabled Ben to build a thriving Tri-States out of the ashes of total world war surfaced. “No deals. You have all heard my only offer.”

“That ain’t much of an offer, Mister Raines,” a third outlaw spoke.

“It’s about the same as you people offered us back in the ghost town,” Ben countered.

“I ain’t no snitch,” the man said.

He was tied up and tossed in the back of a truck with his buddy.

One outlaw broke and ran. Ben lifted his Thompson and stitched him to the ground.

“I’ll tell you all I know,” another outlaw said. “But it ain’t much.”

Fifteen minutes later, the column pulled out. The dead outlaws were left for the coyotes and wild dogs and vultures.

At a long-deserted ranch, Ben hanged the so-called tough boys … and left them dangling at the final end of their rope.

Once more on the road, heading for the first group of outlaws who were bunched up, waiting to ambush Ben and Rani, Rani looked at him.

“You’re a hard man, Mister Raines,” she said.

“Hard times, Miss Jordan.”

“Approximately a hundred outlaws holed up and hiding out in the foothills of the Davis Mountains,” Dan told Ben. “Scouts report they’re dug in for a long fight.” He put a fingertip on the map. “Right here, sir.”

“Any idea what bunch it is?” Ben asked.

“Man with one foot seems to be the leader.”

“West. Tell your mortar teams to go in and begin setting up. We’ll start softening them up at first light.”

“Yes, sir.”

Rani came to Ben’s blankets that night. But as soon as she did, she realized that sex was not on Ben’s mind. She was far too intelligent a person to think it was something she had done, or to believe that sex was the answer to every problem. She was content to lay in Ben’s arms.

“This may sound like a foolish question, Ben. But how long do you think this … this campaign will last?”

“This particular one won’t last long. Funny you should ask that, Rani.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Dan Gray said something very interesting to me just after we bivouacked. I had thought of it several times, but never with much enthusiasm. It appears, Rani, that the Rebels are the only organized force currently operating in North America with anything other than the looting and raping and killing of innocents in mind. It looks like my Rebels have yet another job facing them.”

“Clearing the land of warlords and outlaws and the like,” Rani said, not putting it in question form.

“Yes.”

“Why, Ben?” she asked, raising up on one elbow to look at him in the darkness. “Why does it always have to be Ben Raines and his people?”

Ben was silent for a time. “Rani, after the war of “88, my people were the only ones who had the courage to stand up to the central government and say to them: No! No, you will not take our guns. No, you will not dictate terms to us. No, we will not bow down and kiss your ass. We were the only ones to build something constructive out of the ashes of war. The only ones, Rani. Our kids grew up with a different set of values. We stressed order and discipline and obeying the laws of our Tri-States. We didn’t stifle free speech or forbid a free press-as a lot of people accused us of doing. Instead we simply imposed a new set of guidelines. If a newspaper in the Tri-States printed something about somebody, you can bet they researched their facts very carefully. Sly innuendo and half-truths and “protected sources” were not allowed. Everything was open and aboveboard, clearly visible for all to see. I think you know more about the Tri-States than you let on. You know what we did out there.”

“Yes,” she said softly.

Ben sighed. “Well, Rani, those kids that we took in to raise, hundreds of them, back in ‘88 and ‘89, are now grown men and women. We proved that a body of government can effectively teach young people to obey the law. I don’t know how historians will treat what we did, and to tell the truth, I really don’t care. But thousands of men and women came together, and together, we erased bigotry and prejudice and most other manmade sins, and proved it could be done. I suppose, Rani, that’s why it’s up to us to take on this new job.”

“And you’re going to take it on, aren’t you, Mister Ben Raines?”’

“I don’t think Mister Ben Raines has a choice in the matter, Rani.”

Chapter 27

Ben stood on a rise and viewed the terrain where the outlaws were dug in. Lowering his binoculars, he said, “They know we’re not taking prisoners, Dan. Either way it goes, they know they’re dead men. There won’t be any offer of surrender from either side. And I will not lose good men and women fighting these scum.”

“No, sir.”

Ben reached down and pulled up a handful of grass. Sparse grass, at best. What there was of it was bone dry. “Ring the area with gasoline and kerosene,” Ben said. “As much as you can find. Burn them out and shoot them.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Rebels began lobbing in heavy mortar fire, using HE and WP rounds. The Rebels were as expert with the mortars as any organized fighting force presently operating anywhere in the world. They dropped in the rounds with deadly accuracy, walking them in behind the outlaws, driving them out of their holes, sending them running toward the thinly burning fires.

Then the Rebels opened up with heavy .50-caliber machine guns, continuing the deadly fire until not an outlaw could be seen standing.

“Finish them,” Ben ordered, lowering his binoculars. Turning to Dan Gray, he said, “That’s one for Jordy.”

“West and his people is finished,” Texas Red told Jake.

The men had had scouts watching the action from a distance.

“West was a fool,” Jake said. “We maybe could have whipped them if we’d all stayed together.”

Both outlaws knew that statement was a crock of crap.

“Now what, Jake?” Texas Red asked.

“Straight out?”

“Straight out.”

“We tuck our tails between our legs and carry our asses just as far away from here as we can. That’s what we do.”

“What are we waitin” for?”

“If Jake Campo and Texas Red are in Texas, General,” Dan said, “they’ve found themselves a hell of a hideout.”

Ben shook his head. “They’ve gone. It’s been ten days since we finished West and his bunch. I think the others heard the news-probably had people watching it-and hauled out. No telling where they went.”

“That’s my philosophy, too, General. Well, we’ve found something else, though. There are warlords and outlaws cropping up everywhere we look. A great many people have asked us for help in dealing with them. I told them I would take it up with you.”

“I won’t order you to do it, Dan. Not without taking it up with the folks back at Base Camp One.”

“You know what Cecil and Ike would say, Ben,” the Englishman said, calling Ben by his first name, something he rarely did. He was British born and British military trained. Familiarity with superior officers just wasn’t done.

“It’s up to you, Dan. I’m pulling out in the morning, taking Rani with me.”

That did not come as any surprise to Dan. “May I assign a squad to accompany you, sir?”’

“No, you may not, Dan. But I’ll tell you where I’m going. Back to the old Tri-States. We’ll winter there.” He outlined their route on a map. “I won’t say we won’t deviate from that route, but it’ll be close most of the way. The static has eased considerably, so we’ll be able to keep some sort of communications open between us.”

Dan opened his mouth to protest, and Ben waved him silent.

“If we hit a snag, I give you my word we’ll head for cover and call in for help.” Ben stuck out his hand. “And we’ll shake on it to seal the bargain.”

The men shook hands, and that was that. But Ben knew he wasn’t fooling Dan Gray. He knew that Dan knew Ben was going headhunting-alone. But Dan also knew that if Ben said he’d call in if too much trouble faced him, he would do just that.

“Take care of yourself, General,” Dan said.

“And good hunting to you, Dan.”

You, too, General, Dan thought.

Ben and Rani pulled out the next morning, early. They took two trucks, Ben pulling a small trailer behind his. The pickups were loaded with supplies. And this time Ben was going to be ready for almost anything that might come their way. He carried a mortar and several cases of rounds; an M-60 machine gun; and enough C-4 to blow up anything he might feel like blowing up-with timers and detonators. Between them, they had enough food to last several months. Gray’s communications people had installed a military radio in Rani’s truck and checked out both of their CB’S. They had installed boosters in both of them. The CB’S could be operated at three different levels: extremely low power, with a range of no more than a mile, for use when they felt transmissions might be monitored; normal range; andwitha flick of a toggle switch, jacked up to four hundred watts, giving them an enormous range.

Ben had watched, amused, as Colonel Gray surreptitiously-so he thought-checked out Ben’s and Rani’s trucks.

Ben slipped up behind the Englishman and touched him on the shoulder. “Great God!” Dan roared, almost separating his feet from his boots.

“Do you have a guilty conscience, Dan?” Ben asked.

“Heavens, no, General. You just startled me, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh,” Ben said. “Certainly.”

Ben knew he had been planting fresh bugs in their trucks. He let it ride. Humor the man.

With Ben leading the way, they drove first to Hobbs, New Mexico, then took state roads east to Artesia, spending the night just north of the small city. It was then that Ben made love to her, and she could not help but think how incredibly gentle the man was.

When she awakened the next morning, she awakened to the sounds of pecking. She opened sleepy eyes and saw Ben pecking away at his portable typewriter. He was sitting by a window, the sunlight managing to penetrate the dusty glass.

“Are all writers crazy?” she asked.

“It helps to be,” Ben admitted, not looking up from his labors. “It sure does.”

The two of them puttered around that day, first exploring the few deserted towns they found between Artesia and Roswell, then viewing the looted and ruined remains of the museum and art center in Roswell.

“Why?” Rani asked, looking at the desecration.

“No reason,” Ben told her. “Just like all vandalism-mindless.”

It was afternoon when they began the lonely drive between Roswell and Vaughn, and they found it slow going. The highway was littered with deserted cars and trucks, now no more than rusting hulks blocking the way. They could see the shining bones of skeletons in a few of the cars. Ben got out to inspect some of the vehicles and their gruesome contents.

“Shot through the head,” Ben told Rani. He pointed. “That car is the mausoleum for an entire family. Man,

woman, and two small kids. All shot through the head.”

“I wonder why?” Rani asked.

“We’ll never know.”

They stopped for the night at what remained of the tiny village of Ramon. The place had been picked clean, and done so with deliberate care, Ben noted.

“It’s … eerie,” Rani said.

“No,” Ben answered slowly. “I don’t think so. Most of what we’ve seen so far, since leaving Aftesia, reminds me of what my people did back in “89.1 think there just might be a group of people, probably a large group, doing what we did-setting up a community, somewhere.”

“Mormons?”

“Probably. Most of what we’ve seen I would not call looting. It wasn’t done with damage in mind. But done carefully.”

“I hope you’re right, Ben.”

“So do I. And that might explain why we haven’t seen any thugs or outlaws or bandits since we entered this state.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Mormons are extremely fine people; very self-sufficient. I’m told that during the great depression-and that happened years before you or I made an appearance on this earth-the Mormons really took care of their own, without, for the most part, government assistance. And they also won’t put up with a bunch of crap from people. They are deeply religious, but will defend to the death what is theirs.” He shrugged. “So I’ve been told.”

They pulled out early the next morning and were in

Vaughn an hour later. The town was empty and still, and it had been systematically taken apart. Even down to the last drop of gasoline in the storage tanks.

Ben smiled, looking around him. “I think we shall avoid Utah,” he said. “Unless we just absolutely have to enter the state. I will leave those people alone if they’ll do the same for us.”

Ben stopped on the outskirts of Santa Fe, pulling off the road. He studied maps, trying to determine the best way to avoid the city. There was something disturbing about the quiet of the place, something that set the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck to tingling.

Rani walked up to his truck. “What’s wrong, Ben?”

“Too quiet. I feel eyes on us. Whether they’re friendly or unfriendly, I don’t know. But I don’t feel like taking any chances. Cities have always been a problem since the Great War. They seem to attract the scum of the land.”

“So we do what?”

“Backtrack and take 41 until we reach this county road, which we take over to 14. We head south until we hit this other secondary road that will take us over to Interstate 25. We’ll connect with Highway 44 there and take that northwest to Aztec. It’s going to be slow going, so let’s be careful not to get separated. I don’t like the feel of this country. If we’re stopped, Rani, be ready to shoot first and apologize later.”

“I finally got that message through my head, Ben.”

They backtracked on 285 until coming to their cutoff. Then the going was slowed down to no more than a crawl. The road had deteriorated badly, and was littered with junked vehicles.

Their radios on low power, Ben said to Rani, “If a paved road is this bad, Rani, an unpaved road will probably be impassable. So forget the road over to Interstate 25. We’ll stay on this all the way down to Interstate 40 and then try to plot a new route.”

“One thing about it, baby,” Rani radioed back. “We’re sure going to see some new country.”

“That’s a big ten-four,” Ben said with a grin.

“It worked, Jake,” Texas Red said, smiling. “Our scouts just pulled in. Raines and the cunt left the Rebels, travelin’ in two pickups.”

The one hundred and fifty-odd outlaws were camped along the banks of the Conchas Lake, west-northwest of Tucumcari. Jake and Red had ordered their men to keep their heads down and stay quiet.

“Which way the Rebs heading?” Jake asked.

“Scouts report they’re goin’ to help some folks up around Odessa. Something about settin’ up outposts.”

“Raines and the broad?”’

“They headed west for a time, then cut toward the north.”

Jake’s grin broadened. “OK. I know where he’s heading, now.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Back to his old stompin” grounds. The Tri-States. Him and the cunt is plannin’ on wintering there. Bet on it.”

“So we take them now?”

“No, you dummy! We send out scouts-our best people. Haircuts, shaved, clean clothes-a good appearance in case they accidentally run into Raines. But they don’t have to do that.” He spat on the ground.

“We can track them.” “How?” Texas Red asked, exasperation in his voice.

““Cause, my good man,” Jake said, smiling, patting his fellow outlaw on the back, “that goddamn Englishman didn’t change the frequency on them bugs he put in Raines” pickup. And our radioman just figured it out.”

“Oohhh,” Texas Red said. “That’s slick, Jake. Real slick.”

“So in about a week, we move out in teams, real quiet like. No more than four or five guys at a pop. By then, we’ll have a pretty good idea where Raines and Rani is going. Then we’ll just slow-like gather up there in the old Tri-States, and do it real professional-like.”

“And then we kill Raines,” Texas Red said.

“Yeah,” Jake said dreamily. “I want you to send out some boys. Find two-three cameras and lots of film.”

“What you gonna take pitchers of, Jake?”

“Raines. He thinks he’s a god, so I’m gonna treat him like one.”

“Huh?”

“I’m gonna crucify the bastard.”

Chapter 28

Ben and Rani stayed on Highway 41 all the way south to Highway 60. There they cut west over to Interstate 25. Just before reaching the interstate, they pulled off the highway and made camp.

“Ben?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I thought New Mexico had a lot of Indians in it?”

“Probably still does. But they’re keeping their heads down. Like a lot of other Indians. You see, Rani, back when we were building the Tri-States, we-the Rebels-helped many of the Indian tribes, too. We helped them move out of and off of those goddamned disgraceful reservations and onto better land where they could farm and build and grow. Then when the government decided to move against us, they went against the Indians first. Thousands of Indians were killed-slaughtered. Men, women, kids. It was senseless. Totally senseless. My God, but there was plenty of land for everybody.” Ben sighed. “It was my fault.”

“How in the hell was it your fault!”

“President Logan had a hard-on for me. He hated me. Just about as bad as I hated him. I wouldn’t kowtow to him; him or the Supreme Court or that august body known as the Congress of the United States. If the Indians hadn’t thrown in with us, maybe there wouldn’t have been a slaughter. I don’t know.”

Rani smiled at him. Then she laughed. “I guess all the things I’ve heard about you are true, then.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I heard that when the Supreme Court ruled that everything you and your Rebels were doing out in the Tri-States was unconstitutional, you wrote them a letter and told them all to kiss your ass.”

“That is correct. I did just that. That was after the first threat from the central government. We were not guilty of harming any law-abiding citizen. Not one. What we did was take a mixing bowl full of people of all races, all religions, and make it work. We had some of the toughest laws anywhere in the world and stuck to them. And ninety-nine point nine percent of the people of the Tri-States liked it that way. That one-tenth of one percent who didn’t, left. They went back to a society where, if they stole, they usually got away with it. Hell, if they broke any law, the odds were they would never serve any time for it. We just viewed matters in a different light, that’s all.”

“So the government sent troops in to destroy the Tri-States.”

“Yes. And split the country in half by doing so.” Ben looked far into the distance. “We will rebuild. We will rise out of the ashes and rebuild. We’ve got to.”

She put her hand in his and gently squeezed.

South of Albuquerque, they turned northwest, bypassing the city. An hour later, after twisting and turning and dodging obstacles in the old road, they rolled onto Interstate 40 and continued westward. They made camp for the night halfway between Albuquerque and Gallup.

Ben had been driving the nation’s highways for the past few years; he was accustomed to the strain of backtracking, detouring, and winching fallen trees and junked cars out of the way. Rani was not. She was so tired she was trembling from exhaustion.

Ben pitched camp, made a quick supper over a low fire, and fed Rani. She fell asleep before she was finished eating. Ben led her to the tent and got her into the big, double sleeping bag. They had packed their blankets away, for it was turning colder by the day, and the down-filled sleeping bag was warmer and easier to handle.

Ben sat by the little fire, sipping hot tea and listening to the night animals prowl the land in search of food. Soon the cold drove him into the tent, to crawl in beside Rani. They reached for each other in the darkness.

Now there were two alone in the ashes.

“I would like to take a bath!” Rani said. “I feel grimy.”

“Well,” Ben said with a smile. “I figure it’s about 30dgth morning, and getting colder. There’s a stream back a few miles. Want to bathe there?”

She flipped him the Rigid Digit.

With the silence of the Cibola National Forest their companion to the south, Ben and Rani traveled the interstate, stopping at every small town along the way. At Thoreau, they found an old service station whose tanks had not been drained. Using his pump, Ben filled their tanks and topped off their spare cans.

Both had been monitoring their CB’S, listening to the increasing chatter. Gallup, it appeared, had been taken over by half a dozen gangs of punks, thugs, and various gangs of what appeared to be Hispanics, all fighting each other for control of what was left of the small city. And ambushing and killing anybody else who happened to blunder onto their “turf.”

Rani could see that Ben was getting angry. She questioned him about it.

“I’m getting tired of detouring around street gangs who seem to possess shit for brains.”

She put the needle to Ben. “You don’t like Hispanics, Ben?”

“Don’t be stupid! Colonel Hector Ramos was one of the best friends I ever had. He was killed fighting the IFP. I don’t like street gangs no matter what nationality they might be.”

“I’m only kidding, Ben,” she said softly.

“I know. Sorry I spoke harshly to you. But if I have an overriding hatred of anything in this world, it’s punks. Secondly would be the goddamn liberals who made excuses for the behavior of street gangs-for years.”

She looked confused.

“Liberal is probably not a word you’re familiar with, right, Rani?”

“I’ve heard it. But I’m not sure what it means.”

“It was going out of vogue about the time you got out of high school. I guess the simplest way to say it would be that a liberal made excuses for the criminal while a conservative punished the criminal. While neither one made any great effort to pursue a middle ground. Now it’s too late.”

“You are a confusing man, Ben. I can’t peg you.” Ben smiled. “You are not the first person to say that to me, Rani.”

“So what road do we take to bypass Gallup?”

“We don’t,” Ben said, a hard glint in his eyes. “We go right through.”

“Why am I not in the least surprised to hear you say that?”

“You will pay a toll,” the hard-eyed young man said to Ben. “And we will take what we like from your truck.”

“Oh, my!” Ben said, feigning great shock and fear, keeping his left hand hidden from the young punk. “Do you do this to all visitors to your lovely city?”

““At’s right, pops. And if they’re lucky, we let them live.”

Ben smiled at the street hood. “You know what?”

“I know I don” like you.”

“Oohhh,” Ben said. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

“I don’ care. I think I keel you.”

“I don’t think so.” Ben released the spoon of the grenade he held in his left hand and reached out the window, stuffing the live grenade down the front of the punk’s open shirt. The street-slime recoiled in horror, tearing at his shirt in vain. Ben lifted his right hand and emptied his .45 into the knot of garbage gathered around the truck, all of them grinning and scratching themselves.

They stopped grinning when Ben started shooting.

Grenades being what they are, the punk’s body absorbed most of the impact. It spread him all over the littered street as Ben and Rani raced through the punk blockade.

Ben picked up another fully loaded .45 from the seat beside him and shot at anything resembling a punk as the pickups roared through what remained of Gallup. Ben had a pile of loaded pistols on the seat beside him. Driving one-handed, both windows down, Ben cleared the streets of all living things-if they had two legs, greasy hair, fruit boots, rings full of fingers, tight jeans, and jackets with a club name on the back.

Rani spent most of her time just keeping up with Ben and screaming at him. She called him every uncomplimentary name in her vocabulary. And made up a few new names she felt applied to this particular situation.

Just outside of Gallup, Ben whipped off the interstate and roared up onto an overpass. Jumping out, Ben grabbed his RPG and quickly inserted a rocket into the tube, and locked it in place. He looked around for Rani.

“Stand over there,” he told her. “The back-blast from this thing is dangerous.”

“You’re fucking crazy!” she screamed at him.

“I believe we settled all that the other morning, didn’t we?”

The street punks came roaring up the interstate in their low-rider cars. Ben felt sure the interiors would be of crushed velvet, red or black. And the drivers would have one hand on the wheel, the other holding a comb. They came in a knot of fancy machines, hubcaps gleaming in the sunlight.

The rocket welded the first two macho cars to the concrete, those behind slamming, sliding, crashing, and exploding into the mass of burning fancy metal.

Those who did not become part of the burning interstate did their best imitations of a State Trooper turn-around and carried their asses back to Gallup. Wiser, but not a damn bit smarter.

Picking up his M-16, Ben shot any survivors who staggered from the inferno.

He stood up and looked at Rani. “Now we can continue with our journey, dear.”

“And what the hell do you think you accomplished by doing this?” she demanded.

“Making the world a little bit safer for innocent travelers, darling,” he told her. “And I got rid of a lot of crud.”

“You could have been killed!” she squalled at him. “Now I see why your people think you need a keeper!”

“The world would have been in a hell of a shape if the Rangers on D-Day and the Marines on Wake Island had shared your sentiments.”

“What the hell is Wake Island?” she asked.

Chapter 29

Ben managed to calm Rani down and get them once more pointed west, heading toward Flagstaff. They could see the smoke from the burning pyre in their mirrors for miles.

And Rani didn’t let him forget it, yapping at him over the CB.

Ben took it good-naturedly, with a lot of “Yes, Dear’s,” and “No, Dear’s,” as they drove along. He also agitated a lot.

“I bet you thought Hilton Logan was cute,” Ben needled her.*

“Stop changing the subject! And no, I didn’t think President Logan to be cute. And by the way, what part did you have in the death of that man?”

“I ordered his death by our Zero Squads. A very brave young man gave his own life to kill that bastard.”

The CB was silent for a few miles. When Rani again

*

Out of the Ashes transmitted, she had wisely changed the subject.

“How far is it to the Tri-States, Ben?”

“Well, we’re going to see some country first, Rani. We’ll be there in a week or ten days. I’m going to lead those following us on a goose chase for a time.”

“Those following us?”

“Sure. Campo and Texas Red. I read those two like a good book. They pulled their people out of Texas and let us rush around like crazy, looking for them. All the time they were probably holed up three or four hundred miles away, getting information on us from scouts. All the time waiting for you and I to pull out. They’re behind us.”

“And they would know you were heading for the Tri-States?”

“I’m sure.”

“Ben?”

“Yes, Rani.”

“Is the story true? Did you really kill a mutant with your bare hands?”’

“No,” Ben said flatly. “I shot the damned thing seven times with a .45 and then split its skull with a Bowie knife.”

“I see.”

I wonder.

“Ben?”

“Yes, Rani.”

“You don’t seem the least bit worried about the outlaws following us.”

“I’m not in the least worried. Let me put your mind at ease, dear. I know the old Tri-States like the back of my own hand. We left enough bombs, guns, ammo, and materials cached out there to outfit a small army.

And I know where it all is. Relax, Rani. They’ll probably find us, but they’ll wish they hadn’t.”

“I do wish I could share your confidence, Ben,” she said, the dryness coming through the speaker.

Ben just chuckled and kept on driving.

It took them the rest of the day to travel between Gallup and Flagstaff. Ben had never seen an interstate so cluttered with junked vehicles.

“The first thing we have to do,” he said aloud, “is to clear the highways. That will give the people something to do; take their minds off their troubles. Or are you just kidding yourself, Raines?”

Probably, he concluded.

He knew people only too well. Ten out often would volunteer at first. Two out of ten would end up doing most of the actual work. The others would find some excuse not to work. They would bitch and moan and eventually walk away.

Not even the most destructive war known to humankind had changed that undesirable aspect of human nature.

A few miles outside of Flagstaff, Ben began monitoring his CB closely. There was some air traffic coming out of the city, but unlike Gallup, this chatter wasn’t, or at least did not appear to be, hostile.

Ben slowed and pulled off onto the shoulder, Rani right behind him.

He got out and walked to her truck. “You been listening to the chatter on your CB?”

“Yes. It sounds friendly.”

“Yeah. A Tasmanian Devil is cute, too. But have you ever tried to pet one?”

“I’ve never even seen one, Ben.”

Ben nodded absently and reached across her for the mike. “Hello, Flagstaff. Anybody copying this transmission?”

After a brief quiet pause, a voice replied. “You ‘bout blew my doors off with that transmission, friend. You wanna cut it down some? You’re distorting real bad.”

Ben adjusted his output, flipping the switch, putting his CB on normal power. “That better, Flagstaff?”

“Much better. Which direction you comin” from?”’

“East.”

“How’d you get through Gallup?”’

“Quickly and shooting at anything that looked like a punk,” Ben told the voice.

The voice laughed. “Well, I hope you got a bunch of them, friend. Come on in, we’re friendly. We’ll meet you on the outskirts of town.”

“Ben Raines,” Ben said, holding out his hand to the man. “The Ben Raines?” the man asked, pumping Ben’s hand.

Ben could never get used to that reaction from people. “I guess so.”

“Thank God!” a woman said. “Where is your army?”

“Most of them are back in Georgia,” Ben told her. “I’ve got one company still in Texas, helping the law-abiding folks in that state hunt down outlaws and warlords.”

The woman looked horrified. “You mean you and this lady are out traveling alone?”

Ben smiled at her. “Yes. But doing so carefully.”

“I heard that,” a man said. “You’re lucky you got through, Mr. Raines. Outlaws working all over the damn place. Good folks up in Utah cleaned up that state, but it seems the scum they didn’t get just moved south. They’ve been giving us fits around here.”

“Get organized and hunt them down,” Ben said.

“Easier said than done, Mr. Raines. You ever tried to …?” He grinned sheepishly. “Yeah. I guess you have at that. Good Lord, folks! Where did we misplace our manners? Come on, Mr. Raines, ma’am. Please.” He motioned Ben and Rani toward the town. “Spend some time with us. You’ll find Flagstaff a lot different from Gallup.”

Like between daylight and dark, Ben mentally noted as they followed the local vehicles into the small city. The streets had been cleared and cleaned. Most of the stores had no show windows, but there was no broken glass sparkling on the sidewalks and streets. Ben could not see any rusting, junked cars, which were not only an eyesore, but a hazard.

As the small caravan wound out of the city proper and into the suburbs, Ben could see what remained of many large gardens. The homes they passed had been properly maintained, the lawns kept up and clean.

Ben guessed about five to six hundred people were living in the city. The adults were all armed-and well armed, at that.

At the home of the man and woman who appeared to be the spokespersons for the group, over coffee-real coffee-Ben complimented the gathering.

“It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t pleasant,” Jim Blanning told Ben. “I guess there was probably over a thousand of us starting out. About four hundred left when we really started getting tough with the punks and street gangs and criminal element.”

All those gathered in the large home shook their heads in agreement with that statement.

Carolyn Blanning said, “We did try the old way, Mr. Raines …”

“Ben, please.”

“Ben. Good. You know what I mean by the old way. We began making excuses for the gangs, not coming down hard on them; mouthing all the old B.s. from before the Great War. Well,” she said with a shrug, “it didn’t work back then, and it wasn’t working for us now. Finally, and this only happened about… oh, fifteen months ago, we banded together and formed our own police force.” She smiled. “We put your ideas in play. The ones you used up in the Tri-States. We weren’t going to tolerate lazy, sorry, good-for-nothing people; especially the gangs and the thugs and the punks.” She paused, shook her head, and looked at a tall, rangy man sitting across the huge den from her.

“Evan Reynolds,” the man said. “I guess I’m in charge of the militia here, General Raines. I was the first one to shoot to kill. We had spent months cleaning up the town. Hard, back-breaking work. All the while certain … types, stood around and jeered at us, refusing to work. After we’d cleared and swept one particularly filthy block-where the crud lived, by the way-we came back the next day and they had trashed it. They …” He struggled with his emotions for a few seconds. “They dared us to do something about it. There was this one … person. A big, swaggering,

dirty-looking type. You know the type.”

Ben nodded his head. “Only too well.”

Evan said, “He was called Stud. A gang leader. He told me we couldn’t make him or his people do a goddamn thing. Spat at my feet.” Evan paused and rolled a cigarette. He lit it and smoked in silence for a few seconds. “I looked at him, walked back to my truck, got a shotgun, and blew his goddamn worthless head off.”

Ben and Rani waited, each of them knowing it was a terrible memory for the man to dredge up.

“It turned bloody after that,” Evan continued. He looked at another man.

“What was so ridiculous about it,” the Mexican-American said, “was them accusing us of being bigots and anti this, that, and the other thing.” He laughed bitterly. “As you can see by looking around the room, General Raines, we are a real mixing bowl of people here. Dan,” he said, pointing, “is Apache. Mrs. Yee is Chinese. You have eyes, you can see. We just took all we were going to take of it. Following the initial shooting, it was a bloody week. But we made this community a nice place to live.” He inspected his fingernails for a moment, silently reflecting. “I won’t say that innocents did not die needlessly. That would be a lie. But there comes a time when one must choose a side, a cause, if you will, and stand by it. While it is not safe once one ventures ten miles outside the city, it is quite safe in the city.”

“And if you were stronger, better armed?” Ben asked.

“Let us say,” the man who would be later introduced as Mr. Reyes continued, “we would not be adverse to carrying the message outside the city.”

The group all smiled.

Ben got the message. He returned the smile. “Well, then,” he said. “I believe we can work something out that would be mutually advantageous.” He told the gathering of his idea of an outpost system.

“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 clich`e, 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.

Chapter 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 grub-worm 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-was

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 beblede-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 his 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, spies, Jews, all the inferior breeds, you know?”’

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

“What’ll you gimme 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.”* *Fire in the Ashes

Chapter 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 side-arms, 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.”

“It must have been grand when it was going, though,” Rani said.

Ben said nothing in response. He had never cared much for the place. Not knowing day from night had never appealed to him.

The one-hundred-mile jump up to Ely took all of the next day. The highway was blocked in a dozen places, causing detours and backtracking and delays. Ben had not expected this highway to be so cluttered with junked vehicles. When they finally arrived in Ely, the place was a mess.

“My God!” Rani said, viewing the destruction. “What happened here?”’

The town looked as though a giant child had slapped it in youthful frustration, tumbling the buildings about like huge playing blocks.

“I don’t know,” Ben admitted. “But I’m getting some strange vibes about this place.”

“Shall we leave?” she asked.

“With all deliberate haste.”

A few miles outside of town, Rani radioed, “We’re being followed, Ben.”

Ben glanced in both his mirrors. He could see nothing. “You sure?”

“Positive. I double-checked. Wait until we’re around this next curve. Maybe the road will straighten out for a time. Uh-oh. Here they come, Ben. Four or five cars and trucks.”

Ben chanced a quick glance at his road map. Pulling a trailer, he had no hope of outrunning those following him. He figured another six or seven miles to the town of McGill. Couldn’t make that, either.

“Hang on and follow me, Rani,” he radioed. “We’re cutting off on this road to the left. Watch my brake lights and be ready for a quick stop. Get out ready to shoot.”

Ben and Rani whipped off onto the dirt and gravel road in a cloud of dust. A quarter-mile down the road, Ben braked, motioning Rani t6 come around him. He backed up until his pickup was blocking the road. He got out on the passenger side, choosing an M-16 for this fight, since the weapon had much more range than his Thompson.

The vehicles, three pickup trucks and two cars, stopped some two to three hundred yards away from them.

Ben laid the M-16 on the seat and got his .30-06, checking to see if the weapon was fully loaded. It was.

Ben jacked a round into the chamber and, using the hood for support, sighted in the lead truck. A man’s face leaped into view through his powerful scope.

Dirty, unshaven, mean-looking, and ugly.

“That son of a bitch could sit behind tombstones and raise ha’nts,” Ben muttered.

“Hey, you!” the man shouted, his voice just carrying to Ben and Rani.

Ben did not want to take him out of sight. “Ask him what he wants,” he said to Rani.

She did and the man shouted, “Whatever you got, missy. Give us your due for passin” on this road and you can head on out.”

“You believe him?” Ben asked,

“Hell, no!”

Ben shot the man in the center of the chest, the slug knocking him backward, sprawling on the dirt road.

“Get me my RPG and a rocket,” Ben said. “I’m not going to jack around with these road scum.”

Amid a ragged hail of gunfire from the outlaws’ vehicles, Ben locked a grenade in place, checked to see if Rani was clear of the back-blast, sighted in the trucks, and fired.

The lead truck must have been carrying several hundred pounds of explosives, and the trucks behind it must have also been loaded with dynamite, for when the rocket struck, the force of the explosion knocked Rani to the ground and flung Ben to his knees.

The blast momentarily impaired hearing, and the two of them could only stand and stare in awe and utter silence as bits and pieces of cars and trucks were tossed literally hundreds of feet into the air.

Ben and Rani stared at the destruction that lay in front of them. Burning metal and mangled bodies littered the road in smoking heaps. There were no survivors among the outlaws.

“Can you hear?” Ben asked her, shaking his head.

“In a hollow, echoing sort of way,” she replied. “It’s weird. Ben, what in the world was in those trucks-an atomic bomb?”

“Whatever it was, we sure can’t go back the way we came.” He looked at his maps. “This road makes a half circle and then connects with 93, some miles north of McGill. We’ll take it and chance it. Check your truck; see if any lead hit anything vital.”

Ben’s truck had taken most of the bullets from the outlaws’ rifles, none of them doing any real harm to the truck. They headed out, driving slowly up the bumpy road. It took them almost two hours to make the run on the rutted road. When they once more pulled onto Highway 93, it felt like a superhighway. They made camp and spent the night out in the open, far from dead towns with unblinking empty windows that seemed to remind Ben that life and love and hopes and dreams had once lived behind those silent walls.

Even after all these years, the feeling was disconcerting.

The eastern part of Nevada seemed to be void of human life-at least human fife that longed for a productive, orderly, civilized society.

The empty trend continued as Ben and Rani pulled up to the outskirts of Wells. Silence greeted them. It was also very cold.

“Idaho going to be colder than this?” Rani asked.

“Somewhat,” Ben said, in classic understatement.

“Ben, what happened to all the people?”

“I can’t answer that, Rani. I just don’t know. I’ve never seen it this desolate. Hopefully, the people banded together and moved out, probably to the west, where the climate is more conducive to growing gardens. But that’s just a guess. They might all be dead.”

She shivered in the cold wind. Ben put his arm around her shoulders. “How many people lived in this state before the bombings, Ben?”

“Oh, seven or eight hundred thousand, I would imagine.”

“Where in the hell did they all go?” she once more flung, the question to the winds.

Ben let the winds take it. He sure didn’t know the answer.

Chapter 32

They rolled through Jackpot, Nevada, at midmorning. A short time later, Ben radioed back to Rani.

“The old Tri-States, Rani. Welcome to a bit of history.”

“Jesus, Ben! It’s cold.”

“It’s also something else,” he reminded her.

“What?”

“Christmas.”

She was silent for half a mile, the tires humming on the concrete. “You’re right. My God, I had completely forgotten. Merry Christmas, darling.”

Ben knew they would encounter few, if any, people in the old Tri-States. While many had tried to move into the area, almost all had either left very quickly or been killed, for the Rebels had booby-trapped hundreds, thousands, of cars, trucks, homes. They had mined the timber and placed explosives in empty buildings. They had blown bridges and overpasses, poisoned a lot of the water sources.

The Rebels knew what had been rigged to blow. The Rebels knew what water was safe to drink. The Rebels knew what to touch and what to leave alone. The Rebels knew where guns and ammo and explosives were cached.

No one else did.

Ben led the way north at a fast clip. He was home. He had masterminded the Tri-States, and knew the highway system as well as he knew his right and left hands.

When they crossed Interstate 86, Ben traveled some twenty-odd miles and pulled over at a house he remembered. A close friend of Ben’s had lived in this ranch-style home. He, his wife, and their three kids had been killed by government troops during the assault of the Tri-States.

“Stay in the truck,” Ben told Rani. “And I mean, stay in the truck.”

She did not have to be told again.

Consulting a thick ledger, Ben moved around the home, neutralizing the traps. He cautiously entered the home and cut the trip wires. He lifted the top of the range in the kitchen and removed a half-pound of explosives. Smiling, he walked back outside and waved Rani in.

“It’s safe now,” he assured her. “Everything’s been neutralized.”

She looked at the mass of explosives in his hands. “Are you sure?”

He laughed at her. “Positive. Go on in and start setting up for the night. Firewood is stacked by the fireplace. It’s dry, but it’ll give us a good, quick, hot fire. I’m going to find us something.”

“What?”

Ben grinned. “A Christmas tree, darling.”

The first of Jake Campo’s teams arrived in the old Tri-States.

“Spooky,” one of the men observed. “Where the hell is all the people?”’

“Yeah,” another outlaw said, looking around him. “Man, we ain’t seen nobody since crossing the state line.”

“Weird,” the leader of the team agreed. He spotted a nice home sitting just off the highway. “We’ll bunk over there for tonight. I ain’t never seen so many nice houses.”

“I was told that in the Tri-States you had to keep your place lookin” good. If you didn’t mow the lawn, people would come in and mow it for you—then send you the bill!”

“It don’t make no difference, no more,” the leader said. “There ain’t no more Tri-States and pretty soon there ain’t gonna be no more Ben Raines, neither.”

He opened the front door. It was not locked, since the former residents of Tri-States had never locked their doors or taken the keys out of their cars or trucks (remember, folks, always take the keys out of the ignition. Don’t let a good boy go bad)!

The opening of the door tripped an acid-delay switch, tipping the glass vial to allow the acid to eat through a thin wire.

The entire team of Campo’s outlaws crowded into the den of the home.

“Nice place,” one said. “Lookie there!” He pointed. “Farwood all stacked up and ready for us to burn.”

The wire parted with a soft ping.

“What the hell was that?”

“Your imagination, probably. Come on. Let’s get settled in and fix some grub.”

Fifteen pounds of high explosives blew. One entire wall collapsed on the outlaws; beams fell from the ceiling, crushing the life from two of the outlaws. One man crawled out of the wreckage of the home, pulling himself along with his hands. Both his legs were broken.

He passed out from the pain.

He would be frozen stiff by morning.

Another team rolled into what had been southern Wyoming before Ben Raines and his Rebels renamed the entire area the Tri-States, years back.

The outlaws spotted a lovely rock home sitting on a hill. That would be ideal for a headquarters. Or a grave. They settled in and built a roaring fire in the fireplace. Had they been just a bit more observant, they might have noticed the logs were too heavy for wood that had been allowed to dry, inside, for almost two years.

The logs had been hollowed out and packed full of extremely high explosives. The explosives would detonate after reaching the temperature of ninety degrees.

When the fireplace blew, the impact scattered debris-wood, brick, stone, and various parts of human bodies-all over the small hill.

Another team of outlaws came down from the north,

into Montana. They thought it would be amusing to spend the night in what had once been Ben Raines’ residence.

Their amusement was very short-lived.

Ben had deliberately left sealed tins of what was labeled pure water on the kitchen counter, along with sealed tins of emergency rations. The water was poisoned and so was the food.

Ben and his Rebels, just before the government assault on Tri-States had begun, had warned the government that if they chose to interfere with a peaceful way of life, they would soon discover what Hell must be like.

The outlaws ate and drank their fill, and then died horribly, their bodies and faces and hands swelling and blackening in death.

Another group of Texas Red’s boys found a small, very intimate cocktail lounge where, by golly, the bar was still stocked with sealed bottles of booze. They had a high ol’ time and got rip-roaring drunk. They didn’t notice the slight sweet fragrance coming from the bottles of whiskey.

Poison.

One by one they closed their eyes. One by one they went to sleep. One by one they slumped to the floor. One by one … they died.

“Anything?” Jake asked his radio operator. “Nothin’, Big Jake. Not a peep. And they was callin’ in regular “til yesterday.”

Again, Big Jake Campo felt a shiver of fear touch him. He knew, he knew the boys were dead. But how in the hell had Raines managed to do it? How had he found them out so soon? And how in the hell could one man and one woman kill so many so quickly? Jesus Flipping Christ!

Jake looked into Texas Red’s eyes. He saw open fear there.

“We can’t quit now,” Jake said, after taking the man’s elbow and leading him away from the other men. “We got to go on.”

“I don’t like it,” Texas Red honestly admitted his fear. “I’m scared, man. And I mean, really, fucking scared!”

“Get a grip on yourself. Goddamnit, he’s just one man. One man!”

“Is he?” Red asked.

“Is he what?”’

“Is Ben Raines just a mortal man?”

Jake Campo opened his mouth to cuss the outlaw, then closed it. He walked away. Dammit it to hell-he didn’t know. He just plain didn’t know!

Ben had found some old popcorn and, together, they popped the corn and dyed it all different colors, using food coloring from the kitchen pantry.

Rani found some thread and strung the brightly colored popcorn around the small tree Ben had cut.

But something was missing.

Rani said, “You take that end of the house, Ben. And I’ll take the other. You find something for me, and I’ll find something for you. We have to have some presents under the tree.”

Giggling and laughing like children, they went their ways and each returned with a gift, Rani’s wrapped in a piece of old grocery bag, Ben’s wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

They put them under the tree and began preparing dinner. They ate Crations by candle light and then opened their gifts.

Ben had found a pair of diamond earrings for her, and she had found a pocket watch for him. She fitted the earrings and Ben wound the old watch.

“Perfect Christmas,” Ben said.

Chapter 33

Jake Campo sat straight up in his blankets. He knew what had gotten his boys, and it hadn’t been Ben Raines.

Throwing his blankets aside, he jerked on his boots and ran to the communications truck, startling the sleepy man.

“Get the boys on the horn!” he snapped. “Right now.”

His teams contacted, Jake said, “Stay out of the homes, the bars, the buildings. Don’t touch nothing. Everything is booby-trapped. I “member somebody telling me about it. You guys copy all this?”

“Yeah. When you gonna get here?”

“Soon,” Jake radioed. “Real soon. For now, you guys hunt a hole and stay put.”

He told Texas Red what had gone down. “You see, Red. Raines ain’t no god. But I tell you what he’s gonna be, real soon.”

“What?”

“Goddamn dead!”

The morning after Christmas, Ben and Rani pulled out and headed north. Before leaving, Ben had loaded both trucks with as much emergency gear as possible, including ammunition and explosives from one of many hidden caches.

“Where are we going, Ben?” Rani asked.

“Into the wilderness area. We’ll winter there and set up traps for Campo and his crud.”

“Are you going to call Colonel Gray and ask him to send in help?”

“Nope.”

“We were awfully lucky down in Texas, Ben. But you know luck has a nasty habit of running out. Usually at the worst of times.”

“This is something I have to do by myself, Rani. If you want to help, fine. If not, I can call in and have a team come and get you. It’s all up to you.”

“You know I’m staying with you right to the end, Ben. But why is this so important to you?”

“Call it macho, male pride, stubborn, stupid; it’s probably a mixture of all those things. It’s …”

Ben seemed to be at a loss for words.

“It’s for Jordy, isn’t it, Ben?”

“Yes.”

She took his hand. “Then we’ll do it together.”

They drove until the paved roads ran out. Then Ben off-loaded the supplies from Rani’s truck and carefully hid the vehicle and his small trailer. With Rani by his side, Ben drove deep into what had been known as the Boise National Forest, to the southern branch of the Middle Fork Salmon. It took them three days to get all the supplies to the cabin deep in the timber.

She noticed Ben kept looking up at the sky.

“Ben, I know you’re checking the skies for snow warnings. But even if it snows ten feet, you’re leaving a trail a blind man could follow. Broken limbs and marked trees that the truck has rubbed against. You’ve deliberately tossed crap on the ground. You want them to find us, don’t you?”

“I want them to know I’ve gone into the deep timber, yes. Finding our exact location is something else, though. You’ve seen the placement of that cabin, Rani. You know a person could walk within fifty feet of it and not see it unless they knew exactly where to look. Ike built it, years ago. Well, that’s not entirely true. He found what was left of it and renovated it. I’m going to stash you in the cabin and leave the truck some miles from the cabin. While I’m backtracking to the cabin, I’ll begin setting up traps.”

“Ben,” she said with great patience, “you could call in Colonel Gray and his Scouts and be done with this matter in no time.”

“Of course I could.” He smiled grimly. “But it’s much more personally satisfying this way.”

“And men say women are complicated.”

The snug little cabin was built against a rather large hill, or a small mountain, as Rani called it. Only a small part of the cabin showed; the rest was part of the terrain itself, with the back rooms built into the earth. Ike was convinced that outlaws had built the place, back during the wild west days. Trees hid the cabin, the trees so close to the small porch they could be touched while sitting on the porch.

The cabin had a large combination den and kitchen. One big bedroom with a small fireplace. The smoke from both fireplaces was angled out into the rear, toward the cave at the back of the cabin, finally filtering out only-God-knew-where-probably miles away.

Part of the cave was used as a storage area. Ike had followed the cave for, as he put it, “One hell of an uncomfortable distance.” He had followed it until it branched off in three different directions, becoming so narrow and small a cat would have trouble getting through.

So Ben and Rani were safe from the rear, from both sides, and from above.

Ben and Rani worked three full days cutting and hauling and stacking wood for the fireplaces, most of the wood coming from downed trees. They only cut green wood when absolutely necessary. They filled up the storage area with enough wood to last them the winter, for the cabin was very snug, built as it was into the hill.

Ben killed two deer and dried most of the meat, storing it. For the first time in weeks, he and Rani enjoyed fresh meat, Rani fixing a roast for several meals, and a stew out of the rest.

The first of the new year, the weather turned rough, with cold winds and rain that quickly turned into sleet and then snow.

When they awakened on the second day of January, they were snowed in tight.

Chapter 34

Jake Campo stood in the blowing snow, his big hands balled into fists. He stood looking first to the north, then at the obvious clues standing out like neon signs.

“He’s baiting us,” Texas Red said. “He’s daring us to come after him.”

“That’s the way I read it, too,” Jake agreed. “Throwing down the glove and challenging us to pick it up.”

“Huh?” Red said.