“And keep your ethnic cracks to yourself.”
Ben laughed. “I wasn’t going to say a word.”
“Sure. We’re friends, right, General?”
Ben pretended to mull over that for a few seconds, pursing his lips and frowning. “Come on!”
“OK. But only if you call me Ben.”
She pretended to think seriously about that, frowning and pursing her lips.
Ben laughed at her antics.
“All right,” she said. “Tell me more about the monster you killed single-handedly, Ben.”
Ben had hoped that episode was past history. “It was a matter of necessity, Gale. It was there and I was there. Believe me, I would have preferred to have been elsewhere.”
She doubted that. The general, she had concluded, thrived on action. “But you didn’t run?”
“No. But a young girl’s life was at stake. Gale, don’t make any more out of it than it was. Too many people are doing that now, I’m afraid.”
“You’re afraid? I don’t believe you’re afraid of anything, Ben Raines.”
“I meant that as a figure of speech.”
“I know it. I still don’t believe you’re afraid of anything.”
They were again silent for a few miles, and again Ben wondered if his staying with the Rebels was the right thing, both for himself and for the people. He knew Gale had heard the stories and tales and myths and rumors about him. He wondered if she believed any of them. He hoped not.
He glanced at her. She looked so small and vulnerable. But he knew for her to have survived she had a deep well of toughness in her. He suddenly wanted to put his arm around her; but he wanted to avoid having his arm broken even more. He resisted the impulse.
The town of Mexico, Missouri, once a thriving little city of about thirteen thousand, appeared deserted. After pulling into a large motel parking area, Ben sent a team into town to check it out. He had detected that odor in the air and had ordered the rest of his contingent to stay mounted up. He was bracing himself mentally for what he hoped the recon team would not find.
Col. Dan Gray reported back to him. From the look on his face, Ben knew the news was not good.
“It’s rather grim, General,” the Englishman reported. “Looks like the beasties have used this place to winter and to breed. The stench of them is strong.”
“What do you think, Dan?”
“I think it’s very unsafe, General.”
“Very well,” Ben said. He turned to his squad leaders. “We’re pulling out. It’s about sixty miles to Hannibal. Well bivouac there.”
The column rolled and rumbled through the town. Downtown Mexico looked as though a pack of wild kids
had trashed the streets and stores. Not a window remained intact; filth was strewn everywhere. Once, Ben stopped to retrieve part of a heavy metal gas can from the street. The can appeared to have been physically ripped apart, torn open, much like a huge bear would do, with super-animal strength.
Ben silently showed the can to Gale.
For once, she had nothing to say.
Unlike Mexico, Missouri, Hannibal appeared untouched by time or mutants. There were a few rotting skeletons to be seen, but the Rebels had long months back grown accustomed to that sight.
Ben ordered the people to dismount and clean up the Holiday Inn; they would use that for a base while in the area. Ben wanted to spend several days in this part of Missouri. He wanted to search for any original manuscripts of Samuel Clemens and as many of his artifacts as possible. Ben felt that something had to be preserved-some link with the past, when times were better and life was easier. Before the bomb.
Gale mentally prepared herself for the proposition she was sure was forthcoming from Ben Raines, for his sexual antics were almost legend among the Rebels, and she had been subtly warned to prepare herself.
She went to sleep in a chair in her room, still waiting for Ben’s advances. When she awakened at one o’clock in the morning, her back hurting and her neck stiff from sleeping in the chair, she smiled ruefully at the white, almost virginal nightgown she had picked up from a store in Fulton, Missouri. The gown lay across the foot of the bed.
She carefully folded it and replaced it in her duffle. “Another time, another place,” she said, adding, “Shit!”
Doctor Carlton took several Rebels with him right after breakfast. Said he wanted to prowl around a bit, see what he might discover. The others took the two-day lull to wash clothes, lounge about, rest or sightsee. Ben and Gale visited the many landmarks in that part of Missouri: Hannibal’s Cardiff Hill; Lover’s Leap, overlooking the Mississippi River; the old lighthouse, built in 1935 as a monument to Mark Twain.
“I don’t understand,” Gale said, as she and Ben sat eating lunch, “how one town could be virtually destroyed by those… things, mutants, and another town could be almost untouched.” She looked at the can of Cration and grimaced.
“I can’t answer that,” Ben said. “Maybe a scientist could, but I don’t know of any in this area. I don’t know of any scientists-period. So much has been lost, and it doesn’t appear that too many people really care. I can understand it, but I don’t have to like it.”
“Explain then, please. Take my mind off this horrible food.”
Ben laughed at her. “I lived off that stuff for months, Gale.”
“No wonder your disposition is so rotten.”
Chuckling at her, Ben said, “I think many who survived the bombings of “88 somehow found the strength to bounce back. Maybe the world would have survived if the rats had not brought the plague. Just seems like it knocked the props out from under most who made it through that sickness.”
“It didn’t knock the props out from under you,” she observed.
“No, it didn’t. But we’re different, the Rebels and me.”
“I.”
“Are you sure?”
“Damn, Ben-you’re a writer!”
“Me still sounds correct.” “Ben!”
“Whatever. We had a goal, we were organized, we had a dream of a better society. Maybe we were just stronger people. Sometimes I wonder if it’s all worth it.”
“Hitting those new lows you told Mary Macklin about, Ben?”
“No, not really.” Ben shook his head. “The fact the IPF is here shows that we have survivors from around the world, shows that somebody other than myself is going to try to pull this world out of the ashes. Even if it’s just a small part of the world. Walk before you run,” he quoted the old saying.
“If you don’t mind, Ben.” She looked at him, putting her hand on his thigh. “I’d rather it be us than them.”
“So would I, Gale.”
“Then let’s do it, Ben Raines.”
He met her gaze. “All right, Ms. Roth. Let’s do it.”
“It was only a matter of time,” General Striganov spoke to Sam Hartline. “But Ben Raines need not disturb us all that greatly. Neither he nor us is strong enough to mount any type of sustained attack against the other. Perhaps, really, we might never need to fight. If he will keep to the south, and we to the north, perhaps we could work out some kind of peaceful coexistence
plan. I think that would behoove both of us.”
“Don’t count on it,” Hartline said. “Raines is a communist hater out of the old school. And he is one tough bastard.”
“I do not want a fight at this time.” The Russian was adamant. “Let us attempt to converse with President- General Raines. During the meeting-if he agrees to it-we shall attempt to work out some dividing line that would separate his form of government from ours-a physical line.” He turned to an aide. “Have leaflets printed and order a team sent out to find General Raines. No contact at this time. Later we shall have a pilot do a fly-by and drop the leaflets. Raines is slowly progressing northward, taking his time, according to our people just in from Rolla.” A look
