“Name it,” Lowry prompted. “We’ll talk about it.”
She could not.
Lowry looked at the others: Senators Stout, Slate, Douglas, Woodland, Carlise, Reggio; Representatives Tyler, Lee, Altamont, Terry, Clifton.
One by one their eyes dropped away from his steady gaze.
Lowry glanced at Cody. “Do it,” he said.
Jerre did not accompany Ben to the Great Smokies National Park. She had stayed behind in their base camp in Wyoming. He did not know she was pregnant, and she had warned Doctor Chase if he opened his mouth about it she would personally tell everybody in camp the old doctor was secretly seeing a woman forty years his junior.
“That’s blackmail!” Chase had responded.
“Actually,” Jerre had smiled, “it’s a compliment. That a man your age can still get it up should be written about in the annals of history.”
“Don’t be crude,” he’d blustered. “Perhaps our relationship is more of the platonic type.”
“Horseshit, Doctor.”
Chase could but grin. “Jerre… I won’t let on to Ben, but I don’t understand your motives in asking me to remain silent.”
“Lamar,” she touched his arm. “I love Ben Raines more than life, and I want to bear his children; but Ben does not now and never has loved me.”
“But…”
“Oh, he likes me,” she smiled. “Perhaps a bit more than like. He loved Salina, but not completely. I don’t believe Ben had ever really, totally, loved a woman.”
“Well, he’d damn well better get hopping, then. He isn’t a spring chicken.”
She shrugged that off. “Ben has a dream, Lamar, and I’m not sure a woman has a place in that dream. So I’m bowing out. But… something else, Doctor; I think maybe you’ve noticed it, too. Some of the men and women… they seem to, well…”
“View Ben as somehow larger than life. Yes. I’ve noticed it. I hate to use the word, but there are a few, so far, at least, that appear to think of Ben as being just under a god.”
“That worries me, Lamar.”
“It should worry us all. Is Ben aware of it?”
“No,” she was quick with her reply. “I think at first he would not believe it; if he did accept it as truth, he would be appalled.”
Doctor Chase put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you going to the eastern base at all, Jerre?”
“No,” the word was quietly spoken. Quietly and quickly. “I think it best that Ben not have me to worry with and about, especially now that I’m pregnant.”
“Plans?”
“Northern California. Our base up near the Oregon line.”
“That’s Doctor Canale’s territory. Good man. I’ll talk with him before you leave. I hate to see you leave, kiddo.”
“Don’t get maudlin,” she grinned at him.
“Heaven forbid!”
She looked around her. “I wonder if Ben’s dream will ever come true?”
FIVE
By August of 1989, everyone who was coming into Ben’s dream society… was in. The three-state area looked like the world’s largest supply dump—and probably was. Ben had ordered his roaming units of Rebels to take everything that wasn’t nailed down—bring it with them to the three-state area. Entire towns had been stripped bare. Every ounce of gold and silver and precious gem had been carefully searched for and taken. Billions of dollars of gold, silver, and precious stones were now under guard in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. These would be used to back the new currency.
The few survivors in the three states were in almost total confusion due to lack of organization; something nearly all governments discourage. For local militia, except those under strict government control, cannot be established in the United States, not for more than a hundred years. Most governments are based on fear: fear of the IRS, fear of the FBI, fear of the Treasury Department, fear of the state police, fear of the tax collector—fear of
And the people (who, so the myth goes, comprise the government and are supposed to
When everyone who was coming in… was in, Ike’s wife, Megan, had asked Ben, “What are you going to call your new state, Ben?”
Ben looked at her, surprised. “Mine? This is not mine. Call it Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. What else?”
“Who is the governor?” Ben was asked. “The leader—the man in charge?”
“There isn’t any,” Ben said.
“Well, then, Ben Raines… I guess we’ll just have to have us an election.”
“Just don’t nominate me,” he said. “I’m a writer, got a lot to do. I’m not a politician.”
And Ben could not understand why everyone had smiled at that.
Ben watched the bodies of the dead government agents and mercenaries being buried in a mass grave. After being stripped of all weapons and clothing, they were dumped into a huge, bulldozed-out pit, covered, and forgotten. No records were kept as to who was buried in the pit.
“I don’t think we’re going to have that year you wanted,” Ike said.
“Maybe not, but we still are not going on the offensive. The new people need more time in training; several more months. Besides, I want to see what the press does with this,” he waved a hand toward the mass grave.
Even in a police state with censorship of the press, hundreds of men and women can’t come together in a shooting war without the press playing it up. When the military failed to follow up on the battle in the Smokies, the press put it all together and the headlines screamed.
CIVIL WAR BETWEEN FEDERAL POLICE
AND RAINES’S REBELS
MILITARY WILL TAKE NO PART
Now it was settled. The breach had widened to the point of open war. Lowry had Congress ask for the help of the National Guard and Reserve troops.
Many commanders refused.
Ben and his Rebels waited and trained.
Ben Raines stood looking at the tired group of new people. All that was left of the bunch from new people
