too. They have no idea where we are. But they did bring dogs, though, and intend to turn them loose with their handlers at first light. Give them two hours, at the most, and they’ll pick up our scent. Their main force will probably mount the first assault against our front position about 1000 hours.” Ben glanced around him. “Captain Rayle?”
“Sir?” The captain stepped forward.
“Now that we know where our adversaries are, Captain, I want some surprises waiting for them. You send out teams to use what mines we have and lay them there.” He pointed out the area. “The terrain all around us is not suitable for vehicular travel, so it will be a foot soldier’s nightmare-for them, not us. Have your people, when they have exhausted our mine supply, start constructing swing traps and punji pits. Stagger your teams so none will be working more than a couple of hours. They’ll all need rest for the battle tomorrow. It’s going to be a bloody one, people. Their blood, not ours.”
“Yes, sir.” The captain saluted and walked away.
Ben continued his circling of the camp, inspecting each sentry post personally, chatting with the Rebel on duty.
“Can you just imagine that?” a Rebel said, after Ben had walked away. “Strapping a walkie-talkie to a pole and then listening to every word that’s said. Now who would have thought of that?”
“Ben Raines,” a woman said gently.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
They set their walkie-talkies on low volume and listened to the speakers whisper the news of what was happening at the Base Camp, far to their south and west. Many of the reports were conflicting in nature. Some were hysterically given. Others were almost incoherent. All were second and third hand given, received and then transmitted from point to point along the network of the Ninth Order outposts, stretching far. One thing was certain: Whatever was happening at the Base Camp … it was not going well for Willette and his people.
“You heard it,” Ike said, taking the walkie-talkie from his ear.
“Yeah, but most of it was so garbled I don’t know what they’re talking about.”
“Big break out,” Ike said. “Some coup members have rolled over and are helping Cec and Dan and the others. That’s good news. Tina Raines a traitor?” He shook his head in the darkness of the copse where he and Nina had made their night camp. “It’s beyond me how anyone could ever convince anybody of that bullshit. For Christ’s sake … Tina is Ben’s adopted daughter. He’s more of a father to her than her real father.”
“They have many ways, Ike,” Nina said. “They can wear a person down with half truths, twisted versions of what is real and what is not, and just plain outright lies. What did it used to be called? Oh, yeah, brainwashing. That’s it. And believe me, Ike, they know all the tricks.”
“It’s bloody and it’s awful,” Ike stated the truth quietly. “Friend against friend. Worse than the damned War between the States, I reckon. Or at the very least, a lot like it.”
“The War between the States? I ain’t never heard of that one, Ike.”
“Civil War?” he prompted.
“That one neither.”
So very young, Ike thought. But the real sadness lies in the loss of history. She knows nothing of history. My God! he mentally raged. It’s truly coming apart, just like Ben predicted. If we can’t begin some sort of turnaround, with permanent settlements, complete with schools and teachers, any semblance of civilization will be gone in another two decades. All gone. Back to the caves.
Jesus!
“Tell me about that war you just named, Ike,” Nina said.
“That was a war that happened a long time ago, Nina. It ended almost one hundred and forty years ago. It was the North against the South. And it was fought for a number of reasons, one of them being slavery.”
“Who won?”
“Nobody,” Ike said. “The nation did not ever heal properly after that. The slaves were freed, but that
would have happened anyway, was happening, all over the south.” He started to tell her the story of President Lincoln meeting the author, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and of the president saying: “Mrs. Stowe. The woman who started the Civil War.” But Nina would never have heard of Lincoln, much less Stowe.
“Somebody had to win, Ike,” Nina prompted him.
“Yeah. The North won.”
“I get the feeling you didn’t like that.”
Ike laughed. “Honey, I’m old, but I’m not that old. I was born in the deep south-Mississippi-but I don’t hate nobody for the color of their skin. My first wife was black, if you wanna call somebody with skin like burnt honey black. It’s just that … that ol’ war was so stupid.”
“All wars is stupid,” she said flatly.
“Yeah,” Ike agreed, then paraphrased a line of George Orwell’s. “But some is more stupid than others.” He laughed at that.
“What’s so funny, Ike?”
“I was thinking of a classic work of literature. A book called Animal Farm. I’ll find a copy for you to read.”
“Will I understand it?”
“I’ll help you with it.”
The young woman nestled closer to the comforting bulk of Ike. He put an arm around her. She said, “I wish I was smart like you, Ike.” Her tone was wistful. “I can read and write pretty good, but I mostly had to teach myself. My formal education ended when I was ten, I think. Maybe eleven. That was …” She frowned in recall. was ‘89, I think. Maybe
‘90.
Maybe I’m a year older than I think. I just don’t know. It’s all so confused in my mind.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
“I never have before. Maybe it’s time.” She stirred in his arms and said, “We didn’t get hit the way a lot of places did back in ‘88. We lived in West Virginia. In the mountains. Little bitty place. Yeah, now I remember. It was in the early part of ‘89.1 remember “cause it was still winter. Mom and Dad went out to look for food. They … well, they just never did come back. I had a brother, too. But he went off one day and never come back neither. Then I went to live with an aunt and uncle, but they had a whole passel of young ‘uns and didn’t really want another mouth to feed. When I was thirteen, my uncle tried to rape me in the woods. I took off and never once looked back. I been livin” hand to mouth ever since. I like to read though. I sometimes prowl the old stores and find books that the rats and mice ain’t chewed up. It’s hard readin’ at times, “cause I ain’t got a whole lot of knowledge of big words. Them that I ain’t real sure of, I skip over. Sometimes I can find a dictionary and look up the meanin”. It helps.”
“Don’t you ever think about a … a permanent place?” Ike asked. “I mean, a home, with a husband and kids and all that?”
“Aw, Ike. In them books I read about them things. Big ships with dancin’ and parties and stuff like that. I read about love and romance and pretty dresses and fine ladies and gentlemen. But that ain’t never gonna be no more. It’s over. I ain’t never gonna see New York City or none of them skyscrapers. They’re all gone, Ike. I went into a department store one time,
I think it was in Kentucky, up north. I found a right pretty dress and high-heeled shoes and all that stuff. Put on some perfume, too. Then I looked in a big long mirror. Good God, Ike! I looked like a plumb idiot. I like to have never got that perfume smell off me.
“No, Ike, them ways is gone forever, and you know it well as me. It ain’t never gonna come no more. The people-them that I choose to talk to-don’t even talk about them times no more. They’re just too busy trying to survive, that’s all. You know, Ike, I feel kind of… cheated, I guess is the right word. I mean, I ain’t bitchin’ none about it. Don’t do no good. It’s … all them good things … it’s just over. You know what I mean?”
“Yes,” Ike replied softly. “Part of what you say is true. But Ben Raines has this dream of putting it all back together. And we did it out in Tri-States.”
“Nobody ever put Humpty Dumpty back together again, Ike,” she said with childlike honesty.
“And Little Bo Beep and her sheep?” Ike kidded her.
