While Ben and Rani were cooking supper, Jordy sat with the other young people. Jordy was held in young awe by the others for being the traveling companion of Ben Raines.
Ben and Rani both noticed the kids were conversing in very low tones.
“Talking about you, Ben,” she said.
“Yes. And I can just imagine what they’re saying.”
“They think you’re a god, you know?”
“I know. I have some among my own people-adults-who believe that. I’ve done everything I know to do to dispel that crap.”
“You haven’t seen the shrines that were built in your name?”
“No. And if I ever do, I’ll tear the goddamned things down.”
“The people might shoot you if you try that.”
“Not me,” Ben said with a laugh. “I’m a god, haven’t you heard?”
“Get serious!”
Ben did not tell her about the old man he-and many others-had seen. The man who called himself The Prophet. Rani, Ben felt, had enough to occupy her mind without that added mystery.
Unless she had already encountered the old man. If she had, though, she wasn’t mentioning it.
Ben pitched his tent in a clear spot between the house and the storage shed. He left Jordy to spend the night inside the house, with the other kids.
In his blankets, before sleep touched him with a soft velvet hand, Ben reviewed the situation. There was always a chance they would not be found hiding out in the old ghost town, but those chances were slim. He guessed correctly that Jake Campo and West had teamed up with other smaller bands of outlaws and warlords and had spread out, searching for them. It might take them several weeks, but they would eventually reach the ghost town.
He turned in his blankets, listening to the wind sing around the canvas.
There wasn’t a town within a hundred miles of Terlingua where he could go to find materials to make more bombs. So that was out.
Ben smiled in the darkness. It was a warrior’s grim upturning of the corners of his mouth as a plan came into his mind.
Maybe he could even the odds a bit more. Yes. He’d get on that first thing in the morning.
He closed his eyes and let sleep gently take him into that long dark slide. The face of Rani stayed with him in sleep.
Lovely.
“Both of us will have to stress the importance of staying within the area outlined,” he told Rani.
They sat on the edge of the porch; there were no chairs in the ghost town. They ate cold beans and crackers and sipped hot tea.
“You have a strange mind, Ben,” Rani said. “And I suppose mine is, too. Here we sit, sipping tea and discussing how best to kill-hideously-several dozen men.”
“Get used to it, Rani. Civilization as we both knew it is gone. Probably forever. From now on, for as long as we live, for as long as those kids in the house live, it will be pure survival of the strongest. Those who are best prepared-mentally and physically-will have the better chances for a long life. The others will die. It’s just that simple.”
She shuddered beside him.
“Cold?”’
“No,” she said. She cut her green eyes and stared at Ben. “You enjoy it, don’t you, Ben?”
Ben knew what she meant. He had been asked the question many times before, by many other women he was either involved with, or about to be. “Enjoy what, Rani?”’
Shades of Jerre, Rosita, Gale, Dawn … how many others?
“The fighting,” she said simply.
“When I was a young man, Rani-not even out of my teens-back during the closing days of the Vietnam War, I, along with many other men, discovered there is a high, so to speak, to be found in combat. Yes, I suppose I do enjoy the fighting, in a perverse sort of way. I am a man of order and discipline, Rani. I have no patience with those who steal, loot, rape, molest, kill wantonly. And, to make a contradictory statement,
I will do my best to dispose of those types of people whenever I find them.”
“When this is over, Ben, if we come out of this alive …”
“We will,” Ben assured her.
“… I want to join your people.”
“You’d certainly be welcome, dear. You and the kids.”
She again stared at the man, sitting calmly on the porch, munching on a cracker. “You’re not even worried about our … our problem, are you?”
“Worrying puts gray in the hair, dear. I have enough of that. No, Rani, all we can do is prepare for what’s coming at us, then lay back and stay alert. Chewing our fingernails won’t help a bit.”
“You’re incredible!”
“Thank you,” Ben said with a grin.
Chapter 19
With Rani carefully mapping out each open pit Ben covered, the two of them-with Jordy, Robert, and Kathy helping-began rigging his deadly traps.
First, Ben spent two hours gathering thin poles and strips of wood, just long enough to cover the yawning holes. Then, using bits of canvas, rags, old newspapers-whatever he could find to serve the purpose-Ben covered the support poles. He then sprinkled those with a very thin layer of sand and pebbles. When he was finished with each hole, it looked as natural as the terrain surrounding it.
“Robert, Kathy, Jordy,” Ben said. “This is no-man’s-land out here. It’ll be up to you three to see that the other kids don’t come near here. You all understand that?”’
They did.
The five of them spent the next two days gathering material for Ben to make his booby traps. They worked from dawn to dusk, taking few breaks. When they had finished, they had covered the opening of dozens of deep shafts.
“How far do these things go down into the ground, Ben?” Jordy asked.
“Some of them might drop for as much as a thousand feet, son,” Ben told him. “Now that this is done, I’ve got to find and map out a bunny hole.”
“A what?” Rani asked.
“No animal has just one hole to run into, Rani,” Ben explained. “They’ll have several more holes, escape routes, all camouflaged.”
Leaving Rani to guard the kids, Ben packed a small rucksack with emergency gear and began his exploration of the terrain around the ghost town. He worked in an ever-widening circle until he found a narrow ravine running northeast from the town, toward Highway 118.
Back at the house, Ben packed up several sacks of food, water, blankets, and groundsheets. With Jordy and Robert helping, he cached those supplies and several spare weapons near the ravine, carefully hiding them. He then took the small truck the survivalist had buried and Rani had found, and tucked it into the ravine, with spare cans of gas in the back. The truck was brown, and dirty from road use, and it blended in with the surroundings.
With Rani walking with him, Ben showed her the location of the supplies and the truck. “See that small ridge beginning just behind the house?” he asked, pointing.
“Yes.”
“If I sense the situation is turning bad,” he said, “I want you and the kids to head out. Get the truck and head in the direction it’s pointed. It’ll be rough, but you should make it to Highway 118.”
“Ben?…”
“Listen to me! We have no radio contact at all. None. We’re in a very bad situation. We’re going to be outgunned a hundred to one. At least. I don’t know where Captain Nolan and his platoon might be. But they know I’m here. They’ll fight through hell to reach me; that’s our only hope. But if and when I say Go, you and the kids go.
