Keep your ass off this property. All this property. Anyone who possesses even a modicum of common sense wouldn’t set one foot on that posted property. Now I’m not saying the person who put the sign there has the right to kill a trespasser by ambush, without any warning. But I do maintain that if the property owner steps out with a shotgun in his hands and ordered the trespasser off, and the trespasser refuses to leave, what happens after that lies solely on the head of the person who violated the property owner’s rights. Do you follow me?”
“Reluctantly, Ben. Of course, I follow you. I’m not stupid.”
“Perhaps we’re getting somewhere at last,” Ben said with a chuckle. “But, Gale, a liberal doctrine, which is by no means based on any semblance of
common sense, theorizes that no one has the right to use deadly force in the protection of property rights or private possessions. And that is precisely why the nation endured a crime wave unparalleled in its history, beginning when the Supreme Court and federal judges began sticking their goddamn noses into the lives of private, law- abiding, American citizens. States’ rights became a thing of the past. Not that the states didn’t abuse some of those rights, because they did, in many ways. But if a state chooses to put a criminal to death, after going through proper procedures and reviews, then that should be the individual state’s prerogative, and the federal government should keep the hell out of it.”
Ben laughed aloud, laughing at himself. “Sorry, Gale. Government interference was always a sore point with me.”
“I never would have guessed, Ben,” she said, smiling. “Was it really that bad, Ben?”
“Yes. And getting worse with each year. Along about… oh, the early eighties, I guess it was, we finally put a man in the White House with courage enough to try to get Big Brother off the backs of the citizens. And oh, Lord, did the sobbing sisters and weak-kneed brothers howl. And, to their credit, the Supreme Court, I think, finally woke up and began to see the writing on the wall. The death penalty was restored-over the howlings and moanings and weeping of many liberal groups-and the states began the slow process of barbecuing and gassing and shooting murderers.”
“Ben, that’s awful!”
“I don’t see it that way and never will. Gale, in Tri-States,
our kids were taught from a very early age to respect the rights of others. That it is against the law to kill, to steal, to cheat, to trespass, to practice blind prejudice, and that they could get seriously hurt, or killed, if they violated the law. And, Gale-it worked. We proved all the so-called experts wrong. Flat wrong. We of Tri-States proved that crime does not have to be tolerated. We proved it can be eradicated. I really hope I am not the only person planning to chronicle the last days of this nation’s-indeed, the world’s comhistory, for I want somebody else, with a fair and reasonable nature to point out to the future generations, that Tri-States worked. That crime and greed and laziness and stupidity do not have to be accepted. That they can be wiped from the face of any society if that society will work together, be of like mind, but not a nation of clones. That is my wish.” Gale put a hand on Ben’s arm. “You’re a hard man, Ben Raines, but you’re a pretty good man, too. Would you pull over right there?” She pointed to a cut-off gravel road.
“You have to go to the bathroom in this weather?”
“No. I wanna get that sack of canned fruit out of the back. I’m hungry!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
The rain was not confined to the South Carolina area; it was pouring down all over the southeastern United States. A sudden and very violent storm was sweeping the already ravaged land. It was as if the hand of God was punishing the battered earth.
The storm forced Ike and Nina to seek shelter in an old barn. They holed up there for the night, Nina clinging to Ike.
The remaining troops of Silver and the Ninth Order, now a beaten and bedraggled and sodden and sullen bunch, elected to spend the night at McCormick. They made plans to pull out in the morning. Nothing would be moving this night. So they thought. But Hartline and his men would be on the move. Toward McCormick.
But something began gnawing at Tony’s guts. He had a bad feeling about McCormick. Some intangible sense of warning tugged at his streetwise hoodlum’s brain. He gathered up fifty of his men and pulled out quietly just as darkness wrapped her evening arms around the rain-soaked, lightning-and-thunder-pounded area. Tony and his party headed south on Highway 221, spending the night just outside Augusta.
It was a move that saved his life. For a while longer, that is.
At the Base Camp in northern Georgia, Tina Raines ran through the heavy down-pouring to the communications shack. Slipping off her poncho and hanging it on a peg by the door of the old home, she turned to Cecil.
“Any word from Dad?” she asked.
Cecil shook his head. “Nothing, Tina. But that doesn’t mean anything has happened to Ben. Your father is the toughest man I’ve ever seen. Ben is very hard to kill.”
She nodded her head. Most of what was said about Ben was no myth. “How about Ike?”
“Intercepted messages from the Ninth Order tend to substantiate initial reports that Ike played hell with those chasing him. Them, I should say. But nothing from Ike himself. Ike is as tough as an alligator, Tina. And when he gets stirred up, as mean as a cobra. Ike’s all right.”
“The base is secure,” Tina reported. “We didn’t lose as many people as first thought. Thirty-five percent max. Many of our people headed for the deep timber when the coup attempt went down. They’re straggling back in now, in small groups.”
“That is good news,” Cecil said with a smile. “What do Gray’s Scouts report about the strength of the Ninth Order?”
“A Mister Waldo-he’s some relation to Abe Lancer-who lives up near a town called Tellico Plains says the Ninth Order is still strong. Strong enough to do us some damage. That crazy woman who heads up the Order is said to have really pitched
a fit when her people failed to kill Dad. She has-again, this is according to Mister Waldo-some sort of long- standing grudge against Dad. Goes back years and years, so the report went.”
Cecil frowned and shook his head. “It’s so odd, Tina. I don’t recall Ben ever mentioning anything about her.”
“Neither does anyone else. I’ve spoken with Jane, Jerre, Rosita, Dawn….” She paused and then began laughing. The laughter proved highly infectious. Within seconds, the room of people were all laughing, the pent-up tension within them all flying out the open window into the stormy night.
After a moment, Cecil wiped his eyes with a large bandana and said, “All of Ben’s women, you mean? Those you know about, at least-right?”
Tina nodded, still chuckling. “Yeah. My old man is something of a Romeo, isn’t he? Anyway, none of those I spoke with know anything about any woman named Voleta.”
“Probably changed her name,” Mark said. “Lots of people did after the first bombings wiped out so many records. Juan was correct when he pegged this whole thing as a blood debt. God, she must really hate General Raines.”
They all nodded their agreement. Each with their own thoughts as to what they would like to do to the woman called Voleta. None of the individual thoughts contained anything pleasant.
Tina looked at Cecil. “We have volunteers tagging and body-bagging the victims of the coup. This storm is supposed to blow out of here before dawn-that’s according to the mountain people. I’m opting
for a mass grave, Cecil. How about you?”
“Yes,” Ben’s second-in-command and close friend replied. “Easiest and most sensible way. But we’ll do it with as much dignity as we can muster. I spoke with a stone mason who lives near here. One of Abe Lancer’s men. He said he’d start work as soon as we furnished him with a complete list of the names of those who died.”
“We’ll do that first thing in the morning. The volunteers have said they’ll be working right through the night.”
“Yes,” Cecil said. “All of us want this hideous chapter of our lives over and done with as quickly as possible.” He met Tina’s eyes. “Has your father said anything to you about wanting to leave here-alone, I mean?”
“He’s mentioned that he wants to get away for a time, return to his chronicling of the events leading up to and just after the bombings of ‘88. Yes, I imagine Dad will do just that.”
