Atlanta. Gale didn’t argue with Ben, but she was curious as to what he was doing. She grew even more curious when she noticed a mischievous little smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
It finally reached the point of irritation.
“Ben, what in the hell are you pulling?”
“We’re taking a vacation, Gale. Just the two of us. Along with a platoon of bodyguards, that is.”
She looked at him. “I think you are positively bonkers, Raines. The entire world is crumbling around us; there are gangs of bandits all over the place; nuts and kooks and crazies are worshipping everything from toadstools to titties-and you want to take a vacation. I worry about you, Ben. I really, really worry about you.”
“Thank you for your concern. However, there is
another reason for my devious behavior.”
She waited for an explanation. She looked at him. “Well?”
“You noticed Cecil didn’t object to our taking off?”
“Yeah. So what?”
“There are three people who know why I’m doing this,” Ben explained. “Cecil, Lamar and Ike. We agreed we’ve got a coup building within the ranks, Gale. It’s still small. So I’m going to drop out of sight for a few weeks and see where it goes in my absence. I’m just going to have to play it by ear for a while. I think, Gale, it’s shaping up to be a bad one.”
“That’s why you’ve been so tense the past couple of days.”
“Yes. What I’m doing may not be the best way to go-I don’t know. I do know a few of the people behind the whisper campaign. Willette, Bennett and Carter are the leaders. And there is this Ninth Order business. I got some strange vibes talking with that woman. I want to ramble around some. Test the water, so to speak.”
“All I wanted was a nice man to fall in love with,” Gale said. “I would have liked a nice home, a couple of kids. A new dress every now and then. Jesus Christ! I had to go and pick Ben Raines, of all people. Now I’m wandering all over the country like a damned gypsy, with a man who blows things up for a hobby.” She looked out the window. “Ku Klux Klan is probably waiting for us right around the next bend in the road,” she muttered.
Ben laughed at her. “What did I do for laughs before I met you, Gale?”
“Laughs? I suppose you think the Klan is amusing?”
“Yes,” he replied with a chuckle. “I’ve always thought them funny. Ever since my dad showed me a picture of them all decked out in bed sheets and pillowcases. They tried to organize around Marion when I was just a kid. Tried to get my dad to join. Dad told them to go to hell. Dad wasn’t a liberal, by any stretch of the imagination, but he was no bigot, either. They came back about a week later. Tried to burn a cross on Dad’s south field. Dad was waiting for them with a twelve-gauge shotgun, loaded with rock salt.” Ben laughed at the memory. “Dad shot several of them right in the ass. I never saw so many bed sheets flapping in the breeze in all my life. You talk about steppin’ and fetchin’. Those rednecks had their sheets up around their lines and I mean some kind of gettin’ it across that field. One of them got all tangled up in a barbed wire fence and started bellowing like a calf in a hailstorm. Dad was laughing so hard he couldn’t see to shoot.”
Gale had to practically stick her fist in her mouth to keep from bursting out laughing. She turned her head away and sat giggling, looking out the window.
“You see,” Ben said, laughing at her antics. “You think it’s funny the way I described it. Right?”
“Yeah, but Ben-come on! The KKK preaches hate against minorities. Jews included, I might add. In that respect, it ain’t so damned funny. But you wouldn’t know about that.”
Ben grinned and put the needle to her. “Oh, come on, Gale. Stop postulating. And knock off wearing your heritage like a thorny crown.”
She cut her eyes at him. “Very funny, Raines. Ha ha. And what the hell do you mean: postulating?”
“You want me to explain the word?”
“You want a fat lip? I know what postulate means.”
“You are assuming I don’t know where you’re coming from because I haven’t been where you’re going, right?”
She thought about that for a few seconds. “Weird way of putting it, but yeah, I guess so.”
“Wrong. That’s like saying I can’t feel for a starving child because I’m not a starving child.”
“Oh, crap, Ben. Your analogy is all twisted. That’s not-was
A hard burst of gunfire stopped Gale in mid-sentence.
Ben twisted the steering wheel hard left and cut into the driveway of an old farmhouse.
Gale hit the floorboards. “I am getting very tired of this,” she said.
“We shall continue this scintillating conversation at a later date,” Ben said.
?”’ I am in the company of a fucking madman,”” Gale muttered, as gunfire blasted the quiet afternoon.
Lead sparkled the windshield, showering both of them with glass.
“I don’t think those people like us very much,” Ben said. “Did you forget your deodorant this morning, dear?”
“Will you for Christ’s sake do something!” Gale shouted.
“Calm yourself,” Ben said. He took his old Thompson SMG from the clips built into the dashboard and the floorboard. “Stay low,” he told her.
“That just has to be one of the most useless instructions I have ever heard,” Gale said.
Ben slipped from the truck. “Where away, James?” he called over the rattle of gunfire.
“That grove of trees to the northeast, General. They won’t be there for very long, though,” he added.
.50-caliber machine guns began yammering from the rear of the six-bys in the short column. 40mm grenade launchers began lobbing their payloads into the brush on the slope. Mortars began plopping and popping from the tubes.
Ben’s Rebels began flanking the hidden assailants, spraying the area with automatic weapon fire. WP grenades blasted the brush, setting it on fire. Men leaped up and tried to run from the burning brush and timber. The Rebels cut them down, offering no quarter or mercy.
Ben called for a cease fire. It was quiet except for the moaning and crying of the wounded. “Finish them,” Ben ordered.
In five minutes it was over. No prisoners.
“Gather their weapons and fan the bodies for anything intelligence might use. Leave the bodies for the animals. We’ll head for the nearest town and see about a new windshield for my truck.”
The wounded outlaws put out of their misery, James walked to Ben’s side. “Sorry looking bunch, General. Trash and no-counts.”
“Weapons?”
“Some of them in pretty good shape. Nothing intelligence could use.”
“Let’s roll it.”
The entire ambush, firefight, mop-up and victory, had taken less than fifteen minutes. Raines’ Rebels were known for their fierceness in battle.
“Just to take off like that,” Sgt. Charles Bennett said. “Leaving all of us behind to worry about him. OK. I know. I’m going to make some of you mad. Can’t be helped. It just isn’t right. Maybe General Raines is … Naw. Couldn’t be that.”
“Couldn’t be what?” a Rebel asked.
“Skip it,” Bennett said. “It’s just something I heard, and I ain’t gonna repeat none of it. Even if it is true.”
“At least tell us where it came from.”
Bennett shook his head and turned to go. He looked back at the group. “You won’t tell anybody where you heard it?”
“Not a soul, Charles. But if it involves the general, I think we all have a right to know.”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “I guess that’s right. OK. I’ll just do this, and if you pick up on it, fine with me.” He tapped the side of his head, temple area, and made a circling gesture. He walked away.
After several moments of arguing among themselves, the Rebels came to this conclusion: Ben needs a long rest. He deserves it.
All agreed with that. More Rebels joined the group. They agreed that Ben was probably more tired than anything else, that he was mentally exhausted. But how to get him to take that much-deserved rest?
