“No, Ben. You didn’t say Voleta. You said something else.”
“Betty Blackman and Sister Voleta are one and the same.”
“You know that fruitcake?”
“I knew her very briefly when she was trying to get started as a country music singer in Nashville, Tennessee. Her name, then, was Betty Blackman. That was about… oh, 1981 or ‘82, I guess. Somewhere around then.”
“I see,” Gale said. “Tell me, how well did you know her, Ben?”
Ben grinned. “Oh, it was a one-night stand, as best as I can recall.”
“Wonderful,” Gale’s reply was dryly given. “By all means, Raines, do tell me more. I’m on pins and needles.”
“There isn’t that much more to tell, really. About a year after that, I got a letter in the mail from her. It had been sent to my publishing company. She claimed she had a child and it was mine. I gave the letter to my attorney and told him to follow it up. I said if the child was mine, then I had a legal and moral obligation to help raise it. I never heard another word from her. Good God, I hadn’t thought of her in years.”
“Marvelous. Raines, just how many damn kids do you have scattered around the world?”
Ben ignored that. “Betty Blackman. She must really hate me.”
“Well, Ben, look at it like this: You did try to do what was right. I mean, you offered to help financially. Obviously, she didn’t know whether the child was yours or not. And it probably wasn’t. Did you receive many of those types of letters as a writer?”
Ben shook his head. “Two or three in a dozen years. I suppose every writer does. Did,” he amended that.
She picked up on his tone of voice. “You miss it, don’t you, Ben?”
“Writing? You bet, I do. But what I miss more is the stabilizing effects of a working-if not totally acceptable to all people-government. But, yeah, I miss the writing game.”
“I want you to go on the road, Ben,” she said. “I want you to take as much time as needed to finish your journal. And don’t argue with me, Ben. You know as well as I you’re never going to be completely satisfied until that work is finished. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Maybe,” Ben admitted. “But you’re forgetting about this little matter presently confronting us, aren’t you, dear? I mean, we are in the middle of a coup attempt back at Base Camp.”
“No, I’m not forgetting anything. But all that will be settled shortly.”
“Are you psychic?” Ben asked, smiling. “Among your many other talents, that is.”
She fixed him with a serious stare. “No, I’m not psychic, Ben. I just happen to be very close to a fellow named Ben Raines, that’s all.”
“And Ben Raines can do anything, right?” he questioned, a sour note to the query. “Is that it, Gale?”
“I guess that’s about the size of it,” she said, rising to her feet. She winked at him and walked away.
“Wonderful,” Ben muttered. “Now even she believes me to be something I am not. Crap!”
He sat alone with his old Thompson SMG and his many thoughts until the scouting parties began drifting back into camp.
“If there are any human beings in the forest, General,” the team leader of the first returning scouting party said, “they’ve become invisible.”
Another team leader reported: “The towns are dead, General. We could find no signs of life. Looks to me like there ain’t been nobody in these towns for years.”
“All right,” Ben said. “At first light, we move out.” He traced the route on an old, worn map. “We’ll cut due east here and head for this point, there are ridges along here. We find the highest one and dig in and sit
still for a time, until that first team I sent out reports back with answers to questions. We’ve got to know where we’re going before we can start.”
“Very profound, Raines,” Gale later told him, a smile on her lips. “Those words will probably go down in the annals of weighty sayings.”
“Kinda like, “The longest journey begins with a single step,” Miss Roth?”
“Oh, at least that.”
“I’m going to miss you, Ms. Roth.”
“For maybe fifteen minutes, Mr. Raines. When the hell do we eat? I’m hungry!”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“Any of you boys believe the crap this Captain Willette fellow is handin’ out?” Abe Lancer asked the gathering of mountain men.
““Bout as much as I believe in kissin” a rattlesnake,” Ranee replied. He punctuated that by spitting a long, brown stream of tobacco juice, hitting a hard shell bug dead center, stopping the beetle in its tracks.
“There are some folk in the mountains take offense to that remark,” Clement reminded the man. He winked at his buddies.
“Them snake-handlers wanna kiss a rattler,” Ranee replied, “that’s they business. Long as they don’t shove that ugly bastard up to me for a smooch. Feel the same way “bout this Willette person. ‘Cept he’s worser than a damn rattler.”
“I believe that,” Willard spoke. “Rattler will give a body some warnin” if he’s got time.”
“We all agree on that,” Abe said, bringing the bantering to a close. “Any of you men, or any of your kin, been approached by Willette or any of his people?”
“Near’bouts all of us,” a long, lean man spoke. “And I think we all told “em the same thing. And that was to get the hell off our property and don’t never come back.”
All the mountain men shook their heads in agreement.
“They know where General Raines is at?”
“They found out where they think he is,” Claude said. “I got that from a Reb. And they’s ‘posed to be an army comin” up from the south part of Georgia to join them troops Willette sent out. They plan is to keep the general away from this area long enough to really convince any holdouts among the Rebs that Willette is really a fine fellow, really doin’ all this in the general’s behalf.” He spat his opinion of that on the ground. “Anybody dumb enough to believe all that bull-dooky would eat shit, run rabbits and howl at the moon.”
All the men laughed politely at the old adage.
“What’s the chances of us gettin’ them held prisoner a-loose?” The question was tossed from the gathering around the porch.
“Slim to none,” Andy spoke for the first time. More than five words in a stretch from Andy was considered to be a lengthy speech. “But I’m of a mind that we all oughta give “er a try. I think, even though ain’t none of us ever seen this here General Raines, he come in here not just to help hisself, but to help us too. I think us folk in the mountains, if we try, we could maybe pull this country back together again-or at least give ‘er one hell of a run for the money. They’s quite a few of us ol” boys left in these parts, and I think we’ve been sittin’ on our backsides long “nough. Time for us to git our guns and lend a hand in this matter. And that, by God, is all I got to say on the subject.”
He stuffed his mouth full of twist chewing tobacco and began chomping.
To a man, the gathering looked in silent shock at Andy. No one among them had ever heard him put so many words together in all their life. Finally Abe spoke.
“Right pretty speech, Andy. You got anything else to add?”
Andy spat. “Nope.”
Abe stood up, signaling the meeting was over. “All right, boys. Let’s get our guns. Looks like we got us some fightin” to do.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dan paced the floor of his cell in the Base Camp jail. He had gone over and rejected a dozen escape plans in an hour. He just couldn’t see any way out of the jail. The leaders of their respective units had been widely separated. Purposely, Dan thought. And the jail was completely ringed by heavy machine gun emplacements.
Dan sat down on the edge of his narrow cot and quietly fumed.
Cecil stood gazing out the window. He looked directly at a .50-caliber machine gun, the muzzle of the weapon
