tried to do what we felt was right. So O.K…. maybe we blew it this time around; that doesn’t mean we’re not going to try again. So why don’t you just get off our case, O.K.?”
“And what are you young people going to do when your favorite liberal hotshot-turned-two-bit-dictator sends his troops in here to move you out to a relocation center? Just be herded like stupid cattle?”
“We talked about him. O.K., so he wasn’t what he appeared to be. But he was a damned sight better than Nixon, wasn’t he?”
“No,” Ben said. “He damned sure wasn’t—isn’t. And what the hell do you people know about President Nixon? You were babies when Watergate went down. All you know is what you’ve read, written by biased newspeople, and what you’ve been force-fed by feather-headed college professors who are so far out of touch with reality they should be forced to wear earphones, plugged into the vibrations of history.” He sighed, grinned, and said, “I didn’t mean to lecture you, kids.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Raines,” a young man said, a grin on his face. “I kinda enjoyed it. Anyway… we don’t know what we’re going to do. You got a plan of some sort?”
“Yes. You might like it, you might not.” He was thoughtful for a moment. Committing yourself, Ben? he asked himself. Maybe, came the reply. “But first let me ask you this: was there no group that fought back from the outset? Fought against the slime and the scum and the looters and such?” He had mentioned nothing of Jerre.
“There was one person,” the young woman replied, choosing her words carefully. “She came into Chapel Hill with a pistol belted around her. She ignored the laughing from a lot of us—me included. She went around talking to bunches of people, like she was choosing her group very carefully. She picked about twenty-five-thirty people, then they split; didn’t even stay for the speeches. Which were a bunch of shit,” she said with a grimace. “I heard later the girl made all her group get guns and practice with them. She ran it like a military unit. She was the boss—no doubt about it. Blonde girl, real pretty.”
Ben smiled.
“Name was… Sarah… no! Jerre, that was it.”
“Where did her group go?”
“West, I think. Yeah. Said she was going to Idaho or Montana, maybe Wyoming.” She paused. “Why would anyone want to go there?”
“To be free,” Ben said.
“Would you please explain that?”
He did.
And knew then he was committed.
“When will he be here, Jerre?” a young man asked her.
Jerre turned her eyes eastward. Her face was burned dark from the sun, as were her arms; her hair was sun-streaked and cut short.
She was not the leader of this group, which included Steven Miller, the college professor; Jimmy Deluce and his group from Louisiana, Nora Rodelo and her friends, Anne Flood and her group, James Riverson and Belle, Linda Jennings, Al Holloway, Jane Dolbeau, Ken Amato, and a few of the western-based Rebels. But she knew Ben Raines, and Bull Dean had put Raines in charge, so that made the girl somebody special.
“He’ll be here,” she said. “I don’t know when, so don’t ask me, but he’ll be here.”
“Equipment coming in,” a Rebel called.
They all moved to the line of trucks rolling up the mountain road. The young man who had asked the question put his arm around Jerre’s shoulders.
“Will you still be my girl when he gets here?” he asked.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“I’ll know when he gets here. Then I’ll tell you.”
Ben left the young people arguing and debating the merits of his plan and quietly slipped away, Juno at his side. Just north of Chickasha, he connected with highway 81 and took that straight to Kansas. He began meeting more and more people, spending a week in Kansas. He did not want to get too close to Nebraska, for that state had taken several hits and was considered “hot.”
Obviously, Logan’s plan to relocate people was not meeting with much success in Kansas. When he asked them about it, they looked at him as if they were conversing with a fool.
“This is the breadbasket, sonny,” a farmer told him. “The government’s gotta have grain, and we produce it. No… I think they’ll let us alone. Besides, I said Logan was an idiot when he first started runnin’ off his mouth twenty years ago. I still think he’s not pullin’ with both oars.”
At Hays, Ben got on highway 40 and followed that all the way into Colorado. He saw the ruins of Denver and it made him almost sick. It had been one of his favorite cities.
“Damned shame, isn’t it?” The voice came at him from his left.
Ben spun, the 9-mm in his hand. Juno had been off taking a pee.
“Whoa!” the man said, holding out his empty hands. “Son, you are quick with that thing. I’m friendly.”
The man wore a pistol on his hip; but it was covered with the leather of a military-type holster. USN on the side of the flap.
Ben holstered his 9-mm. “Navy?”
“I was, for twenty-four years. Captain when the war broke out. Chase is my name. Lamar Chase.”
“Ben Raines.” They shook hands. “What happened to Denver?”
“It didn’t take a hit, if that’s what you’re thinking. Enemy saboteurs hit the base, and hit it hard. For some reason, I don’t know why, spite probably, they also placed fire-bombs in the city, in very strategic locations. Gas mains blew. The wind was right. And Denver is no more. I was on leave at the time. Took my wife up into the mountains and sat it out.”
“I have some fond memories of this city. Or what is left of it. I took some training up at Camp Hale.”
The Navy man smiled. “I thought you might be one of those boys. Hell-Hound?”
“That unit never existed, Captain—you know that.”
“Shit!” the Navy man said.
Ben took a closer look at the initials on the leather flap. USNMC. “Doctor?”
“You got it. You look like the survivor type, son. Shoot first and ask questions later.” He motioned to the curb. “Let’s sit and talk. Where are you going?”
Ben sat with the doctor and talked.
“Ambitious project. Luck to you. What do you think about our president?”
“I used to fuck his wife.”
Dr. Chase laughed so hard tears streamed from his eyes and he had to rise from the curb, holding his sides. He wiped his eyes and said, “Beautiful. I needed a good laugh. Come on, Ben—have supper with me and my wife. I’ve got something I’d like to discuss with you—if you’re the Raines I think you are.”
“I thought you might be the one I’ve been hearing about,” the doctor said, patting his wife’s hand. It had been a delicious dinner, the conversation sparkling. “So what do you think of my plan, Ben?”
“I’d say you’ve been sleeping in my mind for the past ten years.”
“Yes,” Chase agreed with a slight nod of his head. “I got part of it from a book of yours. Enjoyed it immensely. Didn’t agree with everything you advocated—you got a bit Orwellian in parts—but I went along with about ninety percent of your thoughts.”
“I don’t know how much time we have.” Ben toyed with his coffee cup.
“Months,” the Navy man assured him. “I believe.”
Ben glanced at him, questions in his eyes.
“You say you’re committed now,” Chase said. “All right, so let’s get the ball rolling. I know, from listening to radio broadcasts, you’ve got about five thousand people working, moving gear, or ready to move gear, into those areas you chose. All right, let’s do it.
“Logan? Well… he wants to be king,” Chase explained. “He’s lived for so long, hiding his true feelings, I think the man is a bit unbalanced. I really think Logan started out with good ideas; wanting to do good things for the people. He was an idealist, but so are you, to an extent. But yours is a pragmatic idealism, and I don’t mean to sound paradoxical. You are a conservative with a slight liberal twist to the conservatism. Logan grew up hating guns—they frighten him. He hates the military; really hates cops, authority. But he will use them both to gain his
