“Ben Raines!” One of Silver’s men lifted his head to look at Hartline through the blood dripping from a massive head wound. “But Ben Raines ain’t-was
He never got to finish his sentence. A .45 slug from one of Hartline’s men put the final period to the man’s life.
The firefight was short and bloody and savage. And totally without mercy. Sam Hartline’s men took no prisoners. They hunted down the wounded and
those few who had escaped the initial carnage and shot them.
Just as dawn was pushing silver gray into the eastern skies, Sam Hartline, cigar clamped between strong, even white teeth, walked the streets, inspecting the bloody havoc he had ordered. Hartline snorted his disgust as he walked up and down each stinking, bloody street that had housed what he had assumed to be Raines’ Rebels.
“I should have known better,” he muttered. “Goddamnit, I should have known better.”
Hartline’s final smile before he reluctantly accepted what had happened was anything but pleasant.
“The lucky son of a bitch did it to me again,” Hartline said.
“What do you mean, Sam?” his second-in-command asked.
“It was too easy. Just too easy. I should have spotted it. But I didn’t. Who in the fuck are these people?” He threw the question at anyone who might know the answer.
His men stood around him, bewildered expressions on their faces.
“Look at the condition of these weapons,” Hartline said, pointing to an M-16. “You think Ben Raines would allow a weapon that filthy? Hell, no, he wouldn’t. Look at the clothing. Raines’ Rebels wear tiger stripe, black, or leaf cammies. These yoyos are dressed in anything they can find. Shit! In short, people, we hit the wrong bunch.”
Captain Jennings, his second-in-command, was incredulous. “Well, who in the hell are these people, then?”
Hartline shrugged. “Damned if I know. I’d guess the bunch Raines was fighting when we intercepted the radio messages. No telling where Raines got off to.”
“Well,” Captain Jennings struggled to find something bright out of the butcher job. “At least this gives us fewer people to have to worry about fighting at some later date. Right, Sam?”
Hartline laughed and punched the man lightly on the upper arm. “Right, Jennings. I knew I could count on you to find something of value out of this mistaken identity.”
“So what now, Sam? Do we chase Raines?”
Hartline thought about that for a few seconds. He shook his head. “No. If I know Ben Raines, and believe me, I do, he won’t be using any long-range radio transmissions. So we’d be chasing the wind just trying to determine where he is or where he’s going. Let’s head south. We’ll break the good news to Mr. Tony Silver about the misfortune that befell his little army. Without his strong-arm boys to back him up, I think Mr. Silver should be quite easily persuaded to join our ranks.”
“I’m told he’s got the market cornered on young chicks,” Jennings said with an ugly, anticipatory smile.
Sam felt a warmth spread throughout his groin. The images of moaning young girls and firm flesh and tight pussies filled his head. Just the thought of inflicting pain excited him. “Yes,” he said, returning the smile. “So I understand.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Ben’s convoy reached Highway 76 and edged west by northwest, traveling slowly, with heavily armed Scouts spearheading the way. They saw a few signs of life passing through Seneca, in western South Carolina, but the smoke from cooking fires coming from chimneys was all they saw. Ben made no attempt to contact any of those inside the closed and shuttered homes.
At Westminster the convoy swung still further north and moved into the mountains, again entering another part of the Sumter National Forest, edging toward the Chattahoochee National Forest, an immense tract of mountainous terrain that stretched for almost a hundred miles across the top of Georgia. The Rebels crossed the Chattoga River and Ben ordered the column halted for the noon meal and some rest at a town called Clayton.
“A hundred and fifteen miles to go, people,” Ben told his contingent. “Approximately. But we’re going to take our time getting there. We’re going to keep our heads up and stay alert. This is Ninth Order territory, so be alert for ambushes. When we get up to Lake Chatuge, up near the North Carolina border, we’ll contact Base Camp. See what’s shaking
down there. If they can tell us we’re close to the headquarters of the Ninth Order, we may just wait there for more troops and just go on and wipe that bunch of nuts from the face of the earth. We’ll just have to wait and see. For now, you people get some food in you and take a rest.”
“Like I said, Raines,” Gale told him. “You get off on combat. When did you get your first gun as a child?”
“When I was about six months old,” Ben said with a straight face.
“Come on, Raines! Will you get serious?”
“I am serious. I literally cut my teeth chewing on the barrel of my great grandfather’s old Civil War .44. It was a Remington, I think.”
“I believe it, Raines. I really believe it.” She walked away, muttering, toward the chow line.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Ike failed to see the huge hole in the old highway and the right front wheel dropped off into the weather- rutted pothole, slamming both him and Nina around in the cab. Both of them heard metal popping and both began cussing.
Then they saw the entire wheel, with tire intact, go rolling down the old highway.
Nina said some very unladylike words, ending with, “Well, Ike, I guess it’s back to walking.”
Ike looked at the right front of the pickup. There was no repairing this damage. Ike said a few choice words and pulled the pickup out of the road, parking it on the shoulder.
Both of them looked at the highway marker on the right side of the road. BLAIRSVILLE. The mileage was unreadable, but it had been a single number.
“At best it’s one mile,” Ike said. “The worst it can be is nine miles.”
Ike was thoughtful for a moment, then checked the old map. “I got a hunch, Nina. Let’s forget about Blairsville and head for this lake up near the North Carolina border.”
“Why there?” she questioned. “Won’t we be going away from Base Camp?”
“Yeah. But like I said: I got a hunch. You game?”
“I’m with you, Ike.”
The pair gathered up what they could carry and began trudging up the center of the road, Ike bitching with each step.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
A huge hole had been scraped out of the damp earth and the bagged bodies of the men, women and children killed in the coup attempt were carefully laid in the excavation. The earth began claiming them as the bulldozers covered the silent shapes of friends, wives and husbands, lovers, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.
Those men and women who had sided with Captain Willette in the coup attempt were placed in another pit far away and covered with earth. Their final resting place would go unnoticed and unmarked.
Cecil read several passages from the Bible as he stood over the raw earth. The names of those killed had been given to the stone mason and he was working at his laborious task. It would be weeks, perhaps months, before all the names were cut into several large stones.
Cecil closed his Bible, shook his head at the tragedy of it all, and walked away from the grave site. A runner from the communications shack found him and handed him a message.
“It’s from that fellow that General Raines told us about,” the runner said. “That Harner fellow down in Macon.”
Cecil looked at the handwritten message. “Have word that a large force of mercenaries destroyed Tony Silver’s army along with most of the troops of the Ninth Order who had been in combat with General Raines’ Rebels in South Carolina. Have word that slave revolts occurring on many of Silver’s work farms in both north Florida and
