Ben turned from his work and let a smile play across his lips. He was aware of Salina watching intently. He took Jerre’s outstretched hand, held it for a moment, then released it.
“You’re looking good, Jerre. I was worried about you, wondering if you’d made it.”
She nodded, as emotions filled her. She wondered if those same emotions were flooding Ben. They were, but not to the extent they filled her. “This is Matt.” She introduced the beefy young man beside her.
Ben shook the offered hand. “I’m glad you two could join us up here. There’s a lot of work to do. Going to live in Idaho?”
Jerre shook her head, answering for both of them. “No, Ben. We thought we’d try it over in Wyoming. Maybe go back to school in our spare time.”
“That’s a good idea. We’ll have the colleges open in a few months.”
There seemed to be nothing left for them to say; at least that they could say.
“See you, Ben.” Jerre smiled.
Ben nodded, watching the young couple walk away. Matt hesitated, then put his arm around Jerre’s shoulders in a protective way; a possessive way. Ben had to smile at the gesture.
“That your young friend, Ben?” Salina asked.
“That was her.”
“Just friends, huh?”
“Sure—what else?”
“Uh-huh.” She smiled.
“What the hell are you smiling about, bitch?” Hartline’s voice jarred her back to reality.
“Long ago and far away,” she replied.
“Go wash your cunt,” the mercenary said crudely.
Depression hit Jerre a hammer blow. She turned and walked toward the bathroom. Pausing, she looked around at him.
“I don’t have any clean clothes, Hartline.”
“Get you some in the morning. You won’t need no clothes tonight, baby.”
TWO
Matt had left the twins with a family sympathetic to the Rebels. They worked a small farm just outside Burns, Oregon. The tall, rugged-looking man—who had been in love with Jerre since the first moment he’d seen her, more than ten years back—drove the pickup truck with a determination that belied the murderous thoughts fermenting in his brain. He’d heard Hartline was in Illinois, or maybe Indiana. He touched the M-16 on the seat beside him.
One thing for certain, he was going to kill Sam Hartline.
As he drove, he remembered. He remembered with tears in his eyes.
“When will he be here, Jerre?” the 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. But she knew Ben Raines, and everybody knew Bull Dean, the old Rebel who had killed his best friend to keep the movement alive, had put Ben Raines in charge. So that made Jerre something special.
“He’ll be here, Matt,” 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.”
“I’m going to kill you, Hartline,” Matt muttered, his big hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles were white from the strain. “I’m going to kill you.”
“Have you left that crazy bunch for good, baby?” Ben asked.
Tina laughed at him. “Daddy, you’re an ex-Hell Hound and asking me about a crazy bunch?”
Ben grumbled a bit about that, mostly under his breath. He said, “That was different.”
Dawn laughed and Tina liked her immediately. “You must know, Tina, Ben is a closet chauvinist.”
“I am not!”
“How does it feel to be the next president of the United States?” Doctor Chase asked, first winking at both Dawn and Tina.
“I wouldn’t know,” Ben snapped. “Because I have no intention of becoming the next president.”
“Boy, it sure would be nice living in the new White House,” Tina said.
“Well, you’re not going to live there,” Ben said, “so put it out of your mind.”
The doctor and the two women looked at each other. Suddenly they all started laughing.
Ben sat in the chair by his hospital bed and looked at them. He had a sinking feeling in his guts that within the next week or so, he was about to be sworn in.
And he didn’t want the job.
And just didn’t fucking want the job!
“So help me God,” Ben said.
He removed his hand from the Bible and shook the hand of the Chief Justice. Dawn and Tina kissed him, Cecil and Ike shook his hand.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff grinned at each other.
Senator Carson wiped a tear from one eye. Scenes like this always affected him. Deeply.
“Mr. President,” the Chief Justice said. “I’m wondering if I’m going to have a job this time tomorrow?”
“You will as long as you don’t interfere with me,” Ben told him. They spoke so only they could hear.
“I don’t believe I can work under those conditions, Mr. President.”
“Speaking for all your colleagues?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Perhaps, Justice Morgan, I am not the ogre a lot of liberals have branded me.” It was not a question and the Chief Justice did not take it as such.
“Perhaps not, sir,” the Justice spoke firmly, but with a slight twinkle in his eyes. “I rather doubt any man could be as terrible as the portrait that has been painted of you—by… liberals, if you will.”
“Work with me, Justice Morgan. Work with me and I’ll bring honor and fair play back into this nation.”
“At the point of a gun, sir?”
“If that is what it takes to convince some people, yes, sir.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Mr. President. I wanted very badly to refuse officiating at this swearing in. But I simply could not refuse. But I do not have to be a part of martial law.”
“Who said anything about martial law?”
The men had walked away from the platform, out of earshot of the press, and the press was beginning to grumble about it.
“The press doesn’t like this, Mr. President,” the Chief Justice said.
“Fuck the press.”
Justice Morgan smiled. “You see, sir, that is what I speak of. Your attitude toward the press.”
