Hispanics, no Orientals.
That came as no surprise to Cecil.
“This camp is being divided, Ike,” Cecil told the ex-Seal. “Invisible battle lines are being drawn. And I don’t like it.”
“If we could just get settled in one spot,” Ike said. “If we could just have a couple of years to work it out, set up schools and get people working. I’m gonna tell
you something, friend: Ben isn’t going to put up with much more of this,” Ike prophesied. “And I wouldn’t blame him if he just walked out and said to hell with it all. I’ve been reading the signs, and they’re strong. If Ben can work this out here, I got a feeling he’s gonna split for a year or two. After Gale has the baby.”
“I hope you’re wrong,” Cecil said, a frown on his face. “Ben is the glue that is holding us together.”
“I’m not wrong.” Ike was firm in that. “Like Doc Chase said, Ben’s tired. And if we don’t bring this … present matter to a head pretty damn quick, Ben is gonna walk. Believe it.”
“I know,” the black man said glumly. “I see the signs, too. Ben never wanted the responsibility. We pushed it on him. Goddamn it!”
“That goes twice for me, buddy.”
Ben and his small contingent of Rebels sat it out in the small town. Cecil contacted Ben every other day, but there was really no news to report that would prompt Ben to return, to personally take a hand in stopping the rumor mill. More and more, Ben entertained the notion of just taking off, of gathering up those he knew he could trust and just getting the hell out. He was fed up. Tired of paperwork and being chained to a desk, overseeing the several thousand lives in his command.
Gale picked up on his mood. “You really want to cut out, don’t you, Ben?”
“Yes, I do, Gale. And I can’t say it’s a selfish move on my part. The Rebels have to be made to see they
can survive without me. Will you come with me, Gale?”
She sighed. She loved him, but she was a realist. She had accepted the fact that no woman was going to hold Ben Raines for any length of time. Ben was a gypsy at heart. He was loving and gentle and kind to whatever woman shared his bed; but that woman had best be prepared for Ben’s leaving, for that was inevitable. Take the good times while they were being offered, and accept the fact they would not be permanent.
“I don’t know, Ben,” she said. “I’m not a wanderer like you. We’ll see.”
Ben told her of his original plans, back in ‘88. Of just wanting to travel the country, writing of his experiences along the way, putting down on paper what had happened to the nation. And of how he had gotten sidetracked. He told her of Tri-States, of Salina, Jerre, the other women.
Gale was more amused than jealous, for she understood Ben much more than he realized.
He spoke to her at length, and she detected a longing in his voice. Ben was a master at survival, having recalled all his hard service training and put it to use. But he was still a writer at heart. Ben felt that someone should, for history’s sake, chronicle the events leading up to and after the bombings of 1988.
And he felt he was probably the only one remaining who could do that job.
“I guess that makes me sound very arrogant, doesn’t it, Gale?”
She felt somehow closer to him for his sharing his thoughts. She knew only too well just how private a
man Ben Raines really was. But while she felt closer, she experienced a sense of loss as well. As if Ben, in his own peculiar way, was telling her their time together was getting short. She accepted it. She had anticipated it. “No, Ben, I don’t think it makes you arrogant at all. I think it makes you a man who is determined to chart the events of this nation. I think you owe it to history to do so. And I think I would only be in the way. What do you think about it?”
He brightened, his mood lifting. “I think you’re nuts, Gale. We’ll go together. I’ll put this little coup attempt to bed, and we’ll take off. Just as soon as you have the baby.”
“Babies, Ben, babies. I keep telling you. It’s going to be twins. And I don’t know if I’m going with you, or not.”
“Twins, Gale. Right. Twins. And you’re coming with me.”
“We’ll see, Ben,” she said, patting his arm. She smiled. “How many offspring will this make, Ben?” Ben muttered under his breath and Gale laughed at I him. “I keep telling you, Ben: You keep this up and in a hundred years, half the population in America will be direct descendants of yours.”
He sobered her abruptly by saying, “There is no I America, Gale. And what is left of the nation is falling apart rapidly. And it just dawned on me, Gale. I can’t pull it back together. No matter how much I might want that, I just can’t do it alone. It’s just too large a task for one man.”
She touched his arm as she realized he was right. “Ben …”
James Riverson walked up. “Sorry to bother you,
General. But we got trouble coming at us. Scouts report armed men just rolled past their positions. “Bout a platoon of them. We got maybe ten minutes ‘fore they get here.”
The survivalist in Ben quickly overrode the writer’s side of the man. The warrior in him, never buried too deeply, leaped to the surface. The warrior rudely pushed the philosopher aside. A line from Ecclesiastes came to Gale: A time to kill and a time to heal.
“Stagger positions on both sides of the street,” Ben ordered. “M-60’s on top of that building and over there,” he said, pointing. “50’s set up there and there. Move it!”
Gale watched the man change before her eyes. He never failed to amaze her. He could shift personalities at the blink of an eye. And while she loved him, she was woman enough to let him go.
In thirty seconds the street was-deserted. A slight breeze blew lightly through the old town. Paper swirled through the air, floating and bouncing on invisible wings. The sounds of engines reached the ears of the hidden Rebels. The nose of a deuce and a half edged around the corner. Two men in the cab. Half a dozen in the uncovered rear. The bed of the truck was piled with supplies. The men in the trucks were armed with automatic weapons and dressed in paramilitary fashion.
Ben had no idea who the men were, or what they represented. They might be like himself, people who were trying to put the nation-or what was left of it-back on an even keel. But Ben somehow doubted that. The men were unshaven and dirty. They
looked more like pirates than soldiers. Something about the men nagged at Ben’s mind, pulling at the shadowy reaches of his brain. Then some old bit of intelligence came to him. Colonel Dan Gray had said his LETTERRP’S had reported that a man named Tony Silver was in command of a large group of thugs and goons down in Florida. And at that time-that was several months back-Silver’s men were moving into south Georgia. They were terrorizing the citizens, robbing and raping and killing and turning the civilians into virtual slaves, the women into unwilling whores.
“Do we take them, General?” James” voice whispered out of Ben’s walkie-talkie.
“No,” Ben returned the whisper, his eyes on the passing convoy. “Let them through. I’ve got an idea. No one makes a sound. Hold your fire. James? Have a team maintain a loose contact on the column. Stay back and be careful. Keep in radio contact with me several times a day. I want to see where these men are heading. I’ve got a bad feeling about them.”
The column rolled through the tiny village, the men in the trucks totally unaware of the eyes on them, the guns trained on them. Death could have reached out and touched them at any time.
“That’s all of them, General,” James reported from his vantage spot on top of the building. “Rear scouts report the road is clear.”
“Team out,” Ben ordered. “James? How many did you count?”
“Forty-odd. Supplies for a long time on the road, well armed. General, are you thinking these people have something to do with Captain Willette and his bunch?”
“That was my gut reaction, yes. We’ll wait for the team to report back. I think we’ll find they’re heading for a spot near where we’ve decided to settle. It wouldn’t surprise me to learn this Sister Voleta and her Ninth Order is involved, as well. I got some strange vibes from that woman.”
“That would seem like a strange pairing, Ben,” Gale said. “Silver is a thug and the Ninth Order is supposed to be so religious.”
“I think she’s about as religious as a rattlesnake,” Ben said. “That religious business is a front, I’m thinking.”
“A front for what?”
