He sighed. “All right. Let’s take a look.”
James Riverson stepped in front of Ben. “I’ll go first,” he said.
Ben looked at Rosita. Her face was pale and her hands were shaky.
From what? Ben wondered.
They made their approach cautiously; but their prudence was unnecessary. The gunfire and grenades had killed the basement apartment of mutants. All but one.
“It’s a baby,” a woman said. She looked closer. “At least I think it’s a baby.”
The deformed infant hissed and snapped at the humans.
“Watch those teeth,” Ben warned. “There is enough in that mouth for a piranha.”
When a Rebel reached down to take the infant, he jerked back his hand just a split second before the flashing teeth would have closed on his hand.
“What the hell do we do with it?” someone asked.
No one knew, and no one would suggest what was on everybody’s mind. No one except Ben.
“No,” he said. They all turned, looking at him. “It’s just a baby—I think. Doesn’t make any difference what kind of baby. Unless and until we see it presents some clear danger, it lives.”
The object—no one would venture a guess as to its age—was grotesquely ugly, hideously deformed. A huge head with jutting animal-like lower jaw, fanged teeth, hairy body, human hands and feet. Blond hair, blue eyes.
“It’s kinda cute,” Jane Dolbeau said. Another survivor from the assault against Tri-States, the Canadian had been quietly and passionately in love with Ben for years. Everybody knew it. Everyone except for Ben.
“So is a Tasmanian devil,” Ben said. “But I don’t want one for a pet. Get a medic to knock it out with drugs. We’ll take it back to Chase.”
“Here comes nutsy,” a Rebel said.
“Who?” Ben looked up.
“Moses,” James said. “Some nut with a robe and staff.”
“No jug of wine and loaf of bread?” Ike grinned.
They all groaned at that.
The robed man appeared at the shattered door. He pointed his staff at the mutant. “Look at it,” he spoke quietly. “See what happens when God’s word is abused and scorned.”
“Who the hell are you?” Ben asked. “And what the hell are you?”
“I am what you see before you. I am called The Prophet.”
“And I’m Johnny Carson,” a Rebel muttered.
The robed and bearded man pointed his staff at Ben. “Your life will be long and strife-filled. You will sire many children, and in the end, none of your dreams will become reality. I have spoken with God, and He has sent me to tell you these things. You are as He to your people, and soon—in your measurement of time—many more will come to believe it. But recall His words: No false gods before me.” The old man’s eyes seemed to burn into Ben’s head. “It will not be your fault, but it will lie on your head.”
He turned away, walking out into the street.
The Rebels stood in silence for a full moment; no one knew what to say.
A Rebel stuck his head inside the shattered door. “Sure is quiet in here,” he said.
“What did you make of nutsy?” he was asked.
“Who?”
“The old guy with the robes and staff and beard.”
“I didn’t see anyone like that.”
“Well, where the hell have you been?”
“I been sittin’ outside in that damn Jeep ever since you people came in here. There ain’t been no old man wearing robes come near here. What have you people been doin’, smokin’ some old left-handed cigarettes?”
“Knock it off,” Ben said. “You people call for the medic and sedate that kid. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Sergeant Buck Osgood and his men finally pulled in, and Ben asked what in the hell had taken them so long?
“I went back to my home in Arizona, General.” He gestured to the other men. “All of us are from the same area. We went back to find our folks.” He shrugged. “We buried them. Some old guy came along and spoke the right words over the grave.”
“Old guy?” Ben felt his guts tie up in knots.
“Yeah,” Buck said, lighting a cigarette. “Weird old guy. I think he must of been about half-cracked. Called himself The Prophet. Wore long robes and carried a big stick; like a shepherd from out of biblical times.”
Ben toyed with a pencil. “When did you see him, Buck?”
“Ah… last week.”
“In Arizona?”
“Yes, sir.”
“What date, Buck?”
“Ah… the ninth, sir.”
“Time, approximately?”
“’Bout noon, I reckon.”
“That’s the same date and time I saw him.”
“You were in Arizona on the ninth, sir?”
Ben looked the man in the eyes. “No, Buck. I was in Little Rock.”
NINE
The news of the man who called himself The Prophet being in two places at the same time was finally disregarded by Ben and a few of the others.
But most believed it, although they did not share that belief with Ben. But soon, as with all phenomena that appear once and never again, it was, for the most part, forgotten as the survivors began the task of forming a new government in the area that was once known as Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
Ben settled in south Arkansas, not wanting to return to Louisiana; too many memories there, both good and bad. He settled on a small farm about seventy-five miles south of the ruins of Little Rock, on an old farm, and began working the land. He was late doing it, but he read some books on farming and decided it wouldn’t hurt to break the land this year and clear away any trees and brush that had grown up in the twelve-year hiatus.
That late summer, there were marriages among the Rebels: Ike married a lady named Sally; she had one little girl, Brandy. Jerre and Matt were married. Cecil married a lady that had been a State Department employee in Richmond. Margaret. Hector Ramos married. As did Steve Mailer and Judith Sparkman. Rosita announced she was pregnant, and Ben knew without any doubt he was the father.
The robed, bearded man’s words returned to him. He brushed him back into his memory vault and slammed the door.
Every Rebel knew the type of law Ben advocated, and there was no hassle about it. People knew what they had to do, and did it without being ordered to do so.
Ben knew that eventually he would have to deal with Sam Hartline and his army of mercenaries. But as long as Hartline stayed north, Ben would not make the first move.
Emil Hite and his cult stayed in the mountains of west central Arkansas and caused no trouble.
Yet.
The plague seemed to have run its course.
Very few outsiders attempted to enter the new Tri-States.
But they would come; Ben knew it. And knew he would have to fight for what freedoms his Rebels held
