Ben got to his feet just in time to catch a bullet in his leg. The shock and force of the slug knocked him sprawling. He lost his Thompson. He grabbed a shotgun leaning against the wall in a corner, and lifted it just as Sam Hartline stepped into the doorway. The mercenary saw the shotgun and jumped to one side as Ben pulled the trigger. Most of the buckshot missed the man, but enough hit him to knock him off the porch.
Rani’s screaming had, for some reason, stopped echoing around the cabin. Ben cut his eyes, frantically searching. She was gone.
“Kill the son of a bitch!” Sam Hartline’s voice yelled the command. “Take the woman and get the hell moving out of here.”
A bullet struck Ben’s side, once more slamming him to the cabin floor. He hit the floor and rolled, coming up firing the sawed-off shotgun. The full load struck a man dead-center in the head, taking his head off his shoulders. The man flopped on the floor, half in and half out of the cabin.
Ben saw the grenade come flying through the doorway. It landed on the floor and rolled. Ben dove for the storage area, hit hard and bleeding. The grenade exploded just as Ben reached the cave, the force of it throwing him into the cave, shrapnel peppering his legs and back.
Something struck Ben on the back of the head, dropping him into darkness just as the front part of the cabin collapsed, sealing him in.
Chapter 39
Cold. Ben was cold. And confused. And hurting. All six feet plus of him was hurting. He opened his eyes and found darkness surrounding him. Slowly, tentatively, he moved the fingers of his right hand. They worked. At least he was alive. He tried moving his left hand. Pain shot white-hot through the arm. He cut his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his wrist watch. One o’clock. He struggled to remember … remember something very important. But what was it?
Yeah. It had been two o’clock when the attack came. So Ben had been out for ten or eleven hours.
But where was Rani?
Hartline. Sam Hartline had taken her. He remembered the man’s shout about them having the woman.
Slowly, cautiously, Ben moved all his extremities. His left arm and right leg hurt. But it was the pain in his stomach that worried him. Then he remembered. Not his stomach, but his side. The bullet had hit him just as he was turning. He remembered the bullet entering and exiting. All right, he could deal with that.
But do it quietly! Survival leaped into his mind. Take one thing at a time, Raines.
Warmth. Got to get warm to reduce the chances of killing shock.
He lay very still, mentally reviewing every corner of the cave//orage area. He put out his hand and felt shelves to his right. OK. He knew where he was. He pulled a tarp from the bottom shelf and wrapped it around him. He lay for a time, listening for any alien sounds. Nothing. He felt sure he was alone.
Painfully extending his arm, he felt on the third shelf for candles and matches, knocking everything on the shelf on top of him. He fumbled around and found the candles and matches. He lit a candle and placed it on the floor. Even that simple action exhausted him. He lay still, gathering more strength.
Food! As nauseous as it sounded, Ben knew he had to have food-and liquids.
He felt himself fading. Just before he passed out, he blew out the candle.
Then he dropped into unconsciousness.
“You’re a fine-looking cunt, lady,” one of Hartline’s men told Rani. “OP Sam get on his feet, he’s gonna have a fine time with you.”
Rani spat in the man’s face.
The man drew back his fist.
“You hit her and Sam’ll have your ass roasted for breakfast, Denning,” a man warned him.
The man dropped his fist. “My turn will come, bitch!” he told her.
Rani looked around her. She had no idea where she was. She had been carried out of the woods and dumped into the back of a truck, bound hands and feet. But she knew one thing for certain: she was in trouble.
Ben opened his eyes, turned his head, and looked at his watch. Seven o’clock. Should be daylight out. But where was the light?
Then he remembered the grenade, the explosion, the walls caving in.
Was he trapped?
He didn’t know. First things first. He had to tend to his wounds and get something to eat.
Summoning all his strength, Ben pushed the tarp from him and sat up, his back to the shelving behind him. The movement hurt him, the wound in his side opening up. Couldn’t be helped.
He lit a half-dozen candles, placing them in spots where, if he did pass out, they would not trap him in fire. He found a large first-aid kit and took off his shirt. He poured raw alcohol on the wound in his side, front and back, then crudely bandaged it. It wouldn’t win any prizes for neatness, but it was firm. He treated the wound in his arm, bandaged it, then went to work on his leg. That was the wound that worried him the most. The lead was still in his leg. And he knew it had to come out.
He drank some water from a tin and ate several hard crackers. He poured iodine on the wound and began probing with his fingers, outside the wound, searching for the bullet.
He breathed a sigh of relief when he found the slug. It was just under the skin, on the outside of his upper thigh.
He heated the blade of a knife in the flickering flames of a candle. Taking a deep breath, Ben carefully sliced open his flesh and popped the slug out. It bounced on the floor.
With pain-sweat popping out and dripping from his face, Ben fumbled in the first-aid kit and found a bottle of penicillin. He took a half-dozen of the pills, washing them down with sips of water. He coated the wound with iodine and carefully bandaged it.
He dozed for a few moments, resting, gathering his strength.
Opening his eyes, he felt better, a bit refreshed. He began his crawl out of the storage cave. He crawled carefully, for he had no idea how much structural damage the large grenade had done to the cabin. He didn’t want a beam falling on him.
The shrapnel in his back irritated him, but there was no way he could do anything about that. He had poured raw alcohol down his back, and that would have to do for the moment.
The going was very slow. He would crawl a few inches, carefully move lumber out of the way, then inch forward. He found his Thompson, checked it, and found it unharmed.
Then he saw daylight. A thin line of sunlight seeping through the ruined cabin’s front wall. Or what was left of the wall.
But before he could reach the light, he passed out.
It was a few minutes before noon when Ben opened his eyes. He knew then that he was hurt much worse than he had thought at first. Have to take it very easy, he cautioned. Very easy.
He saw the pot hanging above the cold ashes in the fireplace and inched toward it. Using his fingers, he dug into the cold stew Rani had fixed and ate greedily. He cleared the fallen lumber from around the fireplace and built a fire. The warmth filled him, soothed him, seemed to lessen the pain from his wounds. Pulling a blanket over him, Ben lay on the floor for a few moments, resting. He began drifting in and out of consciousness. His mind was filled with old memories. He tried to fight them away, but they persisted.
“What are your plans, Ben?” Salina had asked him on that cool, misty morning outside the motel in Indiana.
He told her all his plans, his dreams, his schedule he had worked out in his mind. He told her of his home in Morrison and how he had literally slept through the horror after being stung by wasps.
“The stings probably saved your life,” she told him.
They talked for a few moments more, than she unexpectedly kissed him. She turned and walked away.
Ben had looked up into the face of Kasim, the face filled with raw hatred.
“I’ll kill you someday,” Kasim hissed the hate at him.
“I doubt it,” Ben had replied.
But Salina was dead, along with their child. Killed by government troops during the assault on Tri- States.
Later, Ben had seen the first of many billboard signs:
