Then he realized the campfire was not across the lake but, rather, across a narrow inlet of the lake. The cabin he was using was facing the inlet. That knowledge made him even more wary.
He went to bed on the open porch. He was asleep in less than five minutes.
Voices brought him awake, tensing his muscles, bringing his nerves taut.
*
Out of the Ashes.
Slowly, quietly, he unzipped his sleeping bag and slipped from the down-filled warmth. He laced up his boots, slipped into his field jacket, and got to his feet, Thompson in hand. He eased the bolt back, locking a round in place.
“I heard a truck yesterday afternoon,” a man’s voice came to him. “I know I did.”
“That doesn’t mean it stopped around here,” a woman replied.
“We have to check it out. They might be coming back for you.”
“I’ll die first,” the woman said. “I mean it, Wally.”
The man and woman rounded the corner of the cabin and came face to muzzle with Ben’s Thompson. They froze.
“I’m just traveling through,” Ben said softly. “I don’t mean anybody any harm. My name is Ben Raines.”
The man’s eyes widened. “General Ben Raines? President Ben Raines?”’
“Yes.” Ben first looked at the woman. And she was well worth looking at. Probably in her late twenties. Dark brown hair. Tanned, smooth face. Stacked, as used to be said. Ben shifted his eyes to the man. The family resemblance was strong between them. Probably brother and sister.
Both were well-armed. The woman wore a pistol and carried a rifle. The man wore two pistols and carried a pump shotgun.
“I saw your campfire last night,” Ben said. “I wanted to check it out but didn’t know what kind of reception I’d get.”
Ben lowered the muzzle of the submachine gun.
“Where are all your troops, General?” the man asked, suspicion plain in his voice.
“North Georgia. I left General Cecil Jefferys in charge and pulled out. For many reasons; some of them purely personal.”
The man relaxed his grip on his shotgun. “I guess even Ben Raines gets tired.”
“Yes. Come on up and let’s talk. I have a little bit of coffee. Would you like some?”
“This is the best coffee I have ever tasted,” Judy Williams said.
Her brother, Wally, laughed. “Sis, it’s the first cup of coffee I’ve had in months.”
“I get the impression you’re both running from somebody,” Ben said. “Care to talk about it?”
Brother and sister exchanged quick glances. Made up their minds. “Jake Campo,” Wally said. “Ever heard the name?”’
“No. What is a Jake Campo?”’
“He’s a warlord. Controls most of this part of Tennessee and up into Kentucky. Has two, maybe three hundred men in his gang. What he wants, he takes. There was ten of us originally. Me and Judy’s all that’s left. Jake and his men raped and tortured and killed the rest. We’ve been running for the past two weeks. I’m … I’m afraid, General, you’ve stepped right into something that even you can’t handle. You see, Jake and his gang have been closing the circle on me and Judy. We figure they’re maybe three, four miles from here, and closing fast. They’ve got every road and path blocked off. They’ll be here sometime today, we’re figuring. Sorry, General. But you’re stuck.”
“Oh, I’ve been stuck before, Wally. But I seem to have this knack of getting unstuck.”
“Well,” the voice came from behind Ben. “Let’s see you get unstuck from this, mister.”
Chapter 2
Ben took Judy and Wally with him, the woman in his left arm, the man in his right. He jumped and sent all three of them crashing through the rotted railing of the porch. Rolling, he did not look to see who or what the man behind the voice might be. He just came up with his .45 in his right hand and shot the man twice in the chest.
Movement and a slight sound from the far corner of the cabin spun him around, the Colt .45 barking and bucking in his hand. The slugs caught the second man in the throat and face, blowing off part of his jaw, sending bits of jawbone and teeth spinning wetly through the air.
“Jesus God!” Wally said. “You are quick, General.” Ben rose to his booted feet and reached for his Thompson, holstering his Colt. “A person had damn well better be quick, Wally. Or get dead. Check the surroundings and shoot anybody you don’t know that even looks like they might be hostile. Learn that right now, up front-if you want to stay alive.”
Wally looked at the man, a curious glint in his eyes. “I’m a minister, General. I can’t kill wantonly.”
“I’m not asking you to kill wantonly,” Ben said. “I’m telling you that in these times, if you feel any degree of suspicion toward strangers, if they make just one off-the-wall or hostile gesture, if they even say anything that could be construed as hostile, shoot first and worry about it later.”
Wally smiled gently. “I will shoot if fired upon, General. Other than that, I can do no more.”
Ben nodded his head. “Wonderful,” he said. Glancing at Judy, he asked, “You feel the same as your brother.”
“No,” she said quickly.
“We got a chance then,” Ben said.
Ben had stripped the two men of their weapons: two 9mm pistols and two M-16’s. Both men had bandoliers of clips for the M-16’s around their shoulders, bandit style, and clips for the pistols on their belt. He tossed the weapons and ammo in the bed of his truck and motioned for the brother and sister to get in the cab.
“You have some kind of transportation?” Ben asked.
Judy smiled. “Shank’s mare.”
“I heard that,” Ben said, returning the smile. “What kind of vehicles does the Campo gang use?”
“One-ton trucks that they’ve fortified with welded-on sheets of metal,” Wally told him. “They’ve made light tanks out of them.”
“Uh-huh,” Ben said with a smile. He dropped the gear selector into D and pulled out. “But how about underneath the trucks?”
“What do you mean?” Wally asked. “There’s nothing under the trucks except what the trucks came with.”
“That’s their weakness, then,” Ben told them. “Roll a grenade under the trucks and they go sky-high.”
“I like the way your mind works, General Raines,” Judy said, placing a hand on his thigh.
“Call me Ben.”
After consulting his map, Ben took a rutted county road out of Dover, heading south. He connected with Highway 49, then turned east on 147, stopping at a deserted little town called Stewart. The buildings had been looted and all were in bad condition. He pulled in front of an old service station.
“See if the doors of the bays will open, Wally,” Ben said. “You might have to put some oil on those old hinges. If so, use it sparingly; we don’t want to change the appearance of the building.”
“Don’t dribble it all over the place, right, General?”
“You got it.”
While Wally was struggling with the door, Ben walked around the building. At the rear, he smiled. Around front, he told Wally, “Forget it. There’s no back wall to the station. We’ll hide the truck somewhere else and we’ll use the station to wait for Campo’s men to find us. Judy, start rounding up a dozen or so old soft-drink bottles; any long-necked glass container will do.”
While she was doing that, Ben used a small portable pump to bring up any gas that might be left in the tanks of the old station. Ben and his Rebels had learned all the tricks of survival years back. He used the old measuring stick first to check the gas, then to detect water in the tanks. Had there been water in the tanks, the stick would have come out of the tank a pretty pink.
“Water settles to the bottom,” Ben told the brother and sister. “Almost any station that was worth a damn would or will have a detection stick around. Good, you found some wine bottles. Fill them up about three-quarters full with gasoline, then stick a rag down the top and set the cocktails inside the old station. Hurry right back,
