Out of the Ashes (20 page)

But none of them would do that. They knew he had done enough—more than most would have done.

Ben shook the men's hands and kissed the ladies on the cheeks. Then he drove away. He did not look back.

When the tiny town was no longer in sight, April asked, “What will happen to them, Ben?”

“Some of them will die this summer from heart attacks, trying to put in gardens. Some will probably die this winter from the cold, or from fire. Medicines will run out. And if they're really unlucky, punks and crap-heads and other assorted scum will find them.”

“You're such a cheerful bastard, Ben Raines. You could have told me everything would be all right.”

“I would have been lying.”

“Nobody ever seems to care about the old people. Not their kids, not the state, especially the federal government—when we had one, that is.”

“Of course not, little liberal. The kids take off because they don't want to fool with the old folks. What was good for their daddy isn't good enough for the modern-day youth. The state can't provide because they're too busy spending money keeping up with government rules and dictates—most of which are no business of the federal government. Our central government was far too busy handing out billions of dollars each year protecting the rights of punks, funding programs that never should have been started in the first place. They were too busy seeing to it that rapists, muggers, murderers, child molesters, armed robbers, and others of their dubious ilk were not overcrowded in jails and prisons; that they received free legal assistance—at taxpayers' expense, I might add. That a committee was always present in Europe to speak out on the standardization of the screwhead—and that is no joke; and all sorts of other worthwhile tasks. Hell, they didn't have time to worry about a bunch of goddamned old people. What the hell, little liberal ... priorities, you know.”

Ben felt her hot eyes on him. “You conservatives really piss me off, you know that? It's so easy for you people to find fault with social programs, isn't it?”

“I thought helping the elderly was a social program, April. I'm all in favor of that. Or have you forgotten what we were discussing?”

She folded her arms across her chest and refused to look at him. “I was going to ask what you would have done, Ben—but I think I know. Able-bodied welfare recipients would have been forced to work, wouldn't they, Ben?”

He looked straight ahead, up the highway. Let her get it all out of her system, he thought.

“Women who birthed more than two illegitimate children would have been sterilized, right? The death penalty would be the law of the land. Chain gangs and work farms and convict labor. You people are sick!”

How to tell her she was right to a degree but way off base in the main? Ben kept his mouth shut.

“Damn it, Ben, talk to me! It's all moot now, anyway, isn't it?”

He sighed. “No, April, it isn't moot. Not at all. Someday ... some way, we'll pull out of this morass and start to rebuild. That's the way people—especially Americans—are. And we'll do it. I just don't want us to make the same mistakes all over again.”

“But you want tough, hard laws, don't you?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Don't you think criminals have any rights, Ben?”

“Damned few. They sure as hell don't show their victims any rights, do they?”

“I will never, ever, forget the way those boys cried back there, Ben. And you helped
hang them!”

“They were not boys, April. They were men. You think I would have hanged a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old? What kind of monster do you think I am?”

Miles rolled past before she spoke. “How far is Macon, Ben?”

‘“Twenty-five or thirty miles west of us.”

“There is a college there.”

“Wesleyan. I would imagine there might be some people there. Would you like me to drop you off, April?”

“Yes,” she said softly. “I would, Ben.”

 

Actually, there was quite a gathering of professors and young people at the school. And actually, Ben was more than a little relieved to be free of April.

Jerre, he figured, had more sense in her big toe than April had gleaned from her years at college.

Which is very often the case.

Ben headed up the interstate, toward Atlanta. The truck was running rough, black smoke beginning to pour from the tailpipe. But Ben whistled as he drove. Somewhere around Atlanta, he thought, I'll prowl the dealerships and get me a truck that's got a tape deck in it, get me a bunch of symphonies, and keep on trucking. Literally.

Juno and me. See the country. His thoughts drifted to Jerre, as they often did since the day he had left her. He wondered how she was faring; had she found herself a nice young man? He hoped he would see her again. And he felt he would. With that thought, his mood lifted and he clicked on the cassette recorder and began taping. Suddenly, with an unexpected and unexplained warmness, he thought of Salina.

 

He cut off long before he reached Atlanta and using state and county roads, he took a winding route around the city. But he saw no one as he drove. No signs of life for more than sixty miles of traveling through the Georgia countryside. That puzzled him.

South of Atlanta, there had been hundreds of survivors, but the closer he drew to the city, the more it appeared that no one had survived. His curiosity finally got the better of him and at Lawrenceville he cut toward the interstate and headed into the city.

He stopped at two dealerships before, at the third dealership, he found the truck he wanted. This one had been ordered for a local sheriffs department and had all the equipment Ben felt he would need. He walked through the parts department, found a cassette player, and installed it.

He installed a new battery, changed the oil, and patted the accelerator. The pickup fired at first crank. “American workmanship isn't dead,” Ben muttered. “Just most Americans.”

He transferred his gear and drove to a bulk plant where he filled up the main and reserve tanks; then he rolled on into the city. A dead city. Ben began to see huge billboards. One read: R
EPENT
,
THE END IS NEAR
. P
REPARE TO MEET YOUR
M
AKER
.

There were dozens more like it, and one that read: B
EN
R
AINES—CONTACT US
.

He knew who had put that one up, and he ignored it.

He checked his map and drove out to Dobbins AFB. He smiled ruefully when he saw that the aircraft had been destroyed. He prowled the base, trying to ignore the skeletons, clad only in rotting rags and bits of stubborn flesh, that dotted the streets.

Depression hit him, the worst he had felt since Jerre's leaving. Why no survivors here? An entire city ... wiped out. Why? He was speaking into his mike, recording his depression, his sense of loss and bafflement. Juno whined through the open rear glass, reminding the man he was not entirely alone.

Ben clicked off the recorder, patted Juno's great head, put the truck in gear, and headed for the front gate. Something nagged at him, some suspicion about this city. He could not pin it down.

As Ben drove out of the base, he passed the headquarters building. A few red, white, and blue rags fluttered in the breeze atop the flag pole.

Ben stopped and with all the dignity he could muster, he brought down the flag.

The first of May found Ben in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains, sitting in a motel room in a deserted town, eating a cold lunch.

These mountain people, he concluded, were weird! He couldn't get close enough to any of them to say a word. At a little town just south of Bryson City, one of them had made the mistake of taking a shot at Ben. Ben had reacted instinctively and had spent the next few, long hours watching the man die from a stomach wound.

“Why did you shoot at me?” Ben had asked. “I wasn't doing a thing.”

“Outsider,” the man had gasped. “Got no business here. We'll get you.”

“Why do you want to ‘get me'?”

But the man had lost consciousness and Ben had never learned the answer to his question—at least not from the man he had shot.

Sitting in the motel room, Ben was filled with doubts and questions. Where had all the people in this area gone; the people of Atlanta? What was the use of spending years writing something ... ?

His head jerked up as Juno growled softly, rising to his feet, muzzle toward the door.

“We don't mean you no harm, mister,” a boy's voice said. “But if that big dog jumps at me, I'm gonna shoot it. ”

Ben put a hand on Juno's head and told him to relax. He clicked on the recorder. “So come on in and sit,” he said.

A boy and a girl, in their mid-teens, appeared in the door. They looked to be brother and sister. Ben pointed to a couple of chairs.

The boy shook his head. “We'll stand. Thank you, though.”

“What can I do for you?” Ben asked.

“It ain't whut you can do for us,” the girl said. “It's whut we can do fer you.”

“All right.”

“Git your kit together and git on outta here,” the boy said. “They's comin' to git you tonight.”

“Who is coming to get me—and why?”

“Our people,” the girl said. She was a very pretty girl, but already the signs of ignorance and poverty were taking their toll.

The poverty and ignorance of her parents, Ben thought.

Root cause—in the home, passed from parents to children.

When will we ever learn?

“I've done nothing to your ... people.”

“You kilt our uncle,” the boy replied. “Ain't that doing something?”

“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was doing was standing by the side of a stream, trying to fly-fish for my supper.”

“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.

“I see,” Ben said, his words spoken softly. “And you don't want any outsiders here.”

“That's it, mister.”

“If you feel that strongly, why are you warning me?”

The question seemed to confuse the boy and girl. The boy shook his head. “‘Cause we don't want no more killin' 'round here. And if you'll leave, there won't be no more.”

“Do you agree with your people's way of life?”

“It ain't up to us to agree er disagree,” the boy said. “The word's done been passed down from Corning. And if you stay here, mister, you gonna die.”

“Who, or what, is a Corning?”

“The leader.”

“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their way of talking or thinking. “Let me guess; this Corning is the biggest and the strongest among you. He is a religious man—or so he says—and he has a great, powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am I right?”

“Mister,”—the girl's voice was soft with awe—“how'd you know all that?”

Ben looked at her. She was shapely and ripe for picking. “And I'll bet this Corning ... I'll bet he likes you a lot, right?”

“He's taken a shine to me, yeah.”

“No doubt.” Ben's reply was dry. How quickly some of us revert, he thought. Tribal chieftain. He stood up and the kids quickly backed away, toward the open door. “Take it easy. I won't hurt you. Are you going to get into trouble for coming here, warning me?”

The girl shook her head. “We come the back trails. We know where the lookouts is.” She met his gaze. “You leavin'?”

“Yes. I'll be gone in half an hour. And I thank you for warning me.”

She stood gazing up at him. “We're not bad people, mister. We jist don't want no more of your world, that's all. Why cain't ever'body just live the way they want to live, and then ever'body would git along?”

Why indeed? Ben thought, and once again, the Rebels entered his mind. He felt compelled to say something profound to the girl. Instead, he said simply, “Because, dear, then we wouldn't have a nation, would we?”

She blinked. “But we ain't got one now, have we?” Then they were gone.

And fifteen minutes later, so was Ben.

 

He drove up to Knoxville, where he found a large group of people, perhaps five hundred or more.

“Is this all?” he asked over a cup of coffee at a Red Cross building.

“No,” a man told him. “I would imagine there's probably ... oh ... four or five thousand alive in the city . . . taking in all the suburbs. But the rest of the people are just existing. They seem to be waiting around for the government to move them.”

“For the government to do
what?
Forgive me; I didn't know we had a government.”

The man laughed. “Yeah? Well, it's kind of sketchy, I grant you, but it's real, and moving, getting bigger every day, so I'm told. You haven't heard about the government's plan?”

Ben shook his head.

“They want to pull all the people together in several centralized areas, each area to be three or four states, maybe less than that: agriculture, industry, business. Then, after a time, just like it was two hundred years ago, move people out to homestead. Really!” He laughed, noting the look of incredulity on Ben's face. “And you know what? People are following orders; they really are, just like cattle. The government's moving the people in the cities first. Everyone from Atlanta—so I'm told—was shifted to someplace—Columbia, I think—in South Carolina. Just happened a few weeks ago.”

One question that had been in Ben's mind was now answered.

“They want to settle the east coast first, the heavy industry areas, then the midwest—the breadbasket, so to speak; Texas and Louisiana for the gas and oil, and the far West—California, Oregon, Washington.”

“And the people are really allowing themselves to be herded like cattle? Told where to live?”

“Sure. That shouldn't surprise you. Big Brother's been doing it to us for years. Most folks don't even question the orders to move.”

“Do we have a president? Or king, or whatever?”

“Yes.” The man scratched his head. “But durned if I can tell you his name right off. We're really out of touch here. It's ... like that hotel chain.”

“Hilton Logan.”

“Yeah. That's it. Strange, though. I seem to recall he never was too thrilled with the military, yet they installed him as president. I can't figure that one out.”

Ben let that slide. “You don't seem to be following orders here too well. Don't feel like moving?”

“Well . . . to tell you the truth, until things calm down a bit, I think I'll just keep me and mine right here. I've heard it's going to get tough in the deep South.”

“Let me guess. New Africa.”

“That's what I hear from people passing through. Some of those people are militant. But I don't really blame them. We—all of us—have shit on the blacks for years. Hurts my mouth to say that, but it's true. Then I guess we overcompensated for two or three decades. You heard what happened in Chicago?”

“I heard.”

“Are we
ever
going to get along, Mr. Raines?”

Ben shrugged. “I hope so. Tell me; since Washington is gone, where is the seat of government?”

“Richmond, Virginia.”

 

Ben drove nonstop to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But the young people were long gone.

“You don't know where they went?” Ben asked a scholarly looking gentleman.

“No, sir, I don't. I'm sorry. They scattered in all directions. Several thousand of them. Going to solve the world's problems, so I understand.” His smile was sad. Sad and knowing. “I fear they will soon learn the truth about the world. Some of them already have, so I hear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dead. Quite a number of them. That is what I have heard. No proof. Do you have a daughter or son with the young people?”

“No. Just a young friend.”

“Name?”

“Jerre Hunter.”

The man's face sobered. “I'm very sorry....”

And the words hit Ben hard, leaving him almost physically ill.

“... but I'm not familiar with that name. As I said, there were several thousand of them.”

Ben headed north. At the Virginia line, he carefully hid his automatic weapons, keeping only a rifle and one pistol visible. If the government was rolling—even in a minuscule fashion—law and order was going to be the first business to be settled. And lawmen might take umbrage at the sight of submachine guns.

Besides, Ben had a hunch Hilton Logan was not just coming out of the closet with his true feelings. Ben thought, and had for some years, that the man was just a little insane.

He was stopped three times before he got thirty miles inside Virginia. The last time he allowed his anger to push past his control.

“What in the hell is going on?” Ben demanded. “Why am I being treated like a criminal?”

The Virginia trooper wore no expression on his face. Neutral. Impassive. A tree. A big fucking oak tree. “Where is the registration for this truck?”

But Ben had him on that. Before leaving the dealership he had carefully filled out a bill of sale and all other necessary papers. He had notarized them himself, signing the notary's name with his left hand and putting plates on the truck from another truck parked in the shop. It had been a spur-of-the-moment act. Now Ben was glad he'd done it.

“Cute,” the trooper said, not believing a word he had just read. He returned the papers to Ben. “But I won't argue with you. What's your business in Richmond?”

“The first lady—and I use that term loosely, assuming Logan has married or is shacked up with Fran Piper—and I are from the same town in Louisiana. I thought I'd just drop in for a little chat.”

“President Logan married a lady named Fran, yeah.” The trooper looked at Ben, then shook his head. “Raines, what do you think this is, some sort of joke?”

“The ... ah ... first lady is. I wasn't kidding about that.”

“You really know her?”

“Unfortunately. I fucked her for about a week—last year. Right after the war.”

“No kidding! Hey, she's a looker. Was it good?”

“You ever had any bad?”

Both men laughed at the old joke. The ice was broken, the tension gone. Big buddies now; talk about pussy. They introduced themselves. Shook hands. Formal ceremony. Ben and Mitch, standing chatting in the middle of silent devastation. Not two hundred yards away, the bones of an entire family lay rotting in a house.

Ben leveled with the trooper, taking it from the beginning. He condensed it considerably, but hit the high points.

Mitch whistled. “You really carrying all that armament?”

Ben showed him.

“Shit!” the trooper said.

“You would suggest I not go to Richmond?”

“Not unless you want to spend the rest of your life in the pokey. That is, providing the soldiers guarding President Logan didn't shoot you right off.”

“Martial law?”

“Tight as a virgin's cunt.”

Ben nodded. “Tell me, since it appears unlikely I'll be heading into Richmond, what, exactly, has Logan done?”

“Well.” The trooper sighed, removing his Smoky-the-Bear hat. “He's pissed off a bunch of people—of all colors, I might add. Seems Logan wasn't so much in love with the minorities as people thought.”

“What do you mean?”

“Word is he's gonna send troops into this New Africa place, down in Mississippi and Louisiana.”

“When?”

“Don't know that. But I do know the niggers down there are gonna fight the order, so it promises to get bloody. And he's got his own private little army, down in Georgia, headed up by an ex-mercenary.”

“What's the merc's name?”

“Only thing I've heard is Parr.”

“Kenny Parr. I know him; soldiered with him in Africa. He's no good. Fight for any flag.”