The newly formed Rebels waited. Despite the coolness of the fall morning, many wiped sweaty palms, then regripped their weapons.
The faint sounds of engines sprang out of the morning’s mist. Ben stepped onto the rutted blacktop road. He had slipped another tear-gas grenade into the hip pocket of his old field pants at the last minute. His .45 pistol, a round in the chamber, was tucked in his belt at the small of his back.
He stood alone in the road, waiting.
The vehicles approached slowly, taking their time on the old road. Ben started walking slowly, not wanting to walk past those that lay crouched in the ditches.
The lead truck, a three-quarter ton, stopped, as Ben had hoped it would, only a few yards from him.
“That son of a bitch looks familiar to me,” the man on the passenger side said, his words reaching Ben.
“Raggedy lookin’ thing don’t look like nothing to me,” the driver said. He stuck his head out the window. “Hey, skinny!” he shouted, although the distance between them was short. “Get your funky ass over here, boy.”
“Yes, sir, boss,” Ben said. “I don’t mean no harm to nobody. I was just-was
“Shut your goddamn mouth, boy! And don’t speak until you’re spoken to.”
“Yes, sir, boss.”
Ben stepped closer to the truck. He could smell the rancid odor of unwashed bodies.
“You new around here, ain’t you, boy?” the driver asked.
“Yes, sir, boss.”
“You quick with them bosses, ain’t you, boy? You ever done prison time?”
“Yes, sir, boss. Down in Texas. Huntsville.”
“Well, now,” the driver grinned. Surprisingly, his teeth were in good shape. “The boss might like to talk to you.”
“The hell with that!” his partner yelled. “That’s Ben Raines!”
Ben released the spoon on the tear-gas grenade, dropped his overcoat, and flipped the hissing grenade into the pickup. With his right hand, he jerked out his .45 and shot the driver of the next vehicle in the face, the slug spider-webbing the old, cracked windshield and blowing away part of the man’s jaw.
Ben leaped for the ditch barely in time to avoid being shot by one of the new people. Ben leveled his .45 and shot the man in the stomach, just as Judy shot the traitor in the head with her .30-30 rifle. The slug exited out the right side, blowing out brains and blood and bone and fluid.
Judy tossed Ben his Thompson and he spun to join the fight..
It was over before he could get into action with his submachine gun.
The new Rebels were filled with hate for West’s people, and they gave no quarter to his men. Ben did not try to stop them as they jerked those few left alive out of the vans and trucks and escorted them to the nearest tree for hanging. Ben and Judy stood silently by and watched as the townspeople strung West’s men up with rope and wire and belts and let them swing.
Dot came to face Ben. “That was Ned that tried to shoot you, General. He’s been one of our most faithful people. I never would have suspected him.” She looked at his body. “I wonder why he did it?”
“We’ll probably never know. It doesn’t matter now. Come on, let’s dump the bodies in the ditch and gather up the weapons and ammo. Get these vehicles back to town and look them over. We’ve got to get ready for West’s counterattack.”
Back in town, those who waited were jubilant when their friends drove back into town, cheering and shouting. They now had two dozen more guns and four vehicles.
Ben sat in his pickup truck and watched it all, an amused expression on his face.
“I think it’s sad, and you think it’s funny,” Judy said. “I don’t understand you, Ben.”
“I’m just thinking how my people are going to have to go from coast to coast, border to border, propping up the survivors. It isn’t that I really want to do it, but for our survival, we have to do it.”
“Isn’t that kind of… of… what’s the word I’m looking for?” Judy asked.
“Conceited, smug, arrogant-take your choice. You’re correct to a degree.”
“You make me mad sometimes, Ben Raines.”
“Dogs go mad, dear,” Ben automatically corrected. “People become angry.”
She got out of the truck and slammed the door. She stalked up the street, her back stiff.
Doctor Barnes had been leaning up against a light pole, only a couple of feet from the cab of the truck. He smiled at Ben.
“I wasn’t eavesdropping,” the doctor said. “I was standing here when you drove up.”
“I know,” Ben said. He got out of the truck and walked to the curb, leaning against the fender, looking at the doctor.
“People confound you, don’t they, President-General Raines?”’
“Ben. Just Ben. Yes, they do, Ralph. I would have died fighting before I would have allowed myself to become what West made of you people.”
“I won’t become angry at that, Ben. Some people might, but I won’t. I was quite a fan of yours, Ben. Not during your short tenure as President, mind you; but when you were writing books for a living.”
“I did my best to warn the people what was coming dead at them.”
“Yes, you did. You and a dozen other writers. But we just wouldn’t listen, would we?”
“Sure as hell wouldn’t,” Ben muttered.
“And now the great, indomitable, long-suffering Ben Raines, with a long sigh of resignation, will gather up all his hundreds of survival experts, and travel the battered nation, setting up little outposts of civilization, kicking the civilians in the butt, jerking them out of their doldrums, saving them from themselves. Right?”
“You’re the one talking, Doctor. But you’re in a pretty sorry state for a man who has all the answers.”
“Oh, you’re right. But you enjoy it, General.”
“What?”’
“Stop running from the truth, General. You wouldn’t have conditions any other way. You see, it’s always easy for men like you. I envy you: you and those that follow you.”
“Barnes, I don’t know what in the hell you’re talking about.”
The doctor studied the man for a long moment. “Maybe you really don’t, General. I have all your books, Ben. I really do. St. You could have been a great writer, but you chose to write pulp. Oh, it was good pulp-contradictory statement, yes.”
“Doctor, get to the point of this, will you, please?”
“You’re an idealist, General. You refuse to take into account the many weaknesses of human beings. You took what you considered to be the cream of the crop and built your Tri-States-was
“It worked, Doctor,” Ben cut him off. “You can’t deny that.”
“I won’t try to deny it. Yes, it worked. How could it fail when you gathered the best around you?”
Ben smiled. “Here it comes. After all that’s happened, you’re still a liberal at heart.” .
“To some degree,” Barnes admitted. “There is no middle ground with you, Ben. Everything is either black or white. No gray in-between.”
“Doctor,” Ben said patiently. “One can train a dog to obey basic rules. Now if a dog can be taught the difference between right and wrong, it should be very simple to teach a human being.”
Barnes shook his head. “You’re a hard man, Ben Raines. But,” he sighed, “perhaps it’s time for hard men. One philosophy, right, Ben? No taking into account different cultures, backgrounds, early upbringing-anything like that, right?”
“You stick to healing, Barnes,” Ben told him. “Leave the rest for people who have the stomach for it.”
“General Raines, you want what never was and never will be: a perfect society. But you cannot build a perfect society when the architects are imperfect human beings.”
Ben smiled again. “The man said, quoting Ben Raines.”
The doctor’s smile matched Ben’s. “That’s right, you did write that, didn’t you? I’ll live in your society, General. But I’ll do so because of the safety it affords me, not because I agree with its basic philosophy.”
“Then that makes you a hypocrite, doesn’t it, Mr. Barnes?”
The doctor chose not to reply. He studied Ben for a moment, then walked away.
Ben noticed the seat of the man’s jeans had been crudely patched with a piece of canvas. For all his education and lofty thoughts, the man could just barely keep his ass from showing through.
