Alone in the Ashes (19 page)

“You mean they're
experimenting
on human beings?” Rani asked, horror in her voice.

“Among other things,” Ben said. He then told her of the Russian general, Striganov, and the battles they had fought, hammering away at each other along a mile-long no-man's-land.

“Hideous!” she said, looking at her plate of food and electing not to eat.

Ben and Rani had traveled a few miles outside of Colorado City and re-pitched their camp, in extreme southern Utah.

Ben stared moodily into the dancing flames of the small fire.

“And you and this Hartline have been enemies for a long time?” Rani asked.

“It seems like forever. But only for a couple of years, actually.” He sighed. “I may as well make up my mind that until Striganov and Hartline are dead, we can't even begin to think of a return to civilization. I suppose that had best be our first priority of business next spring. I guess we—the Rebels—have been kidding ourselves; putting the horror back in the dark reaches of our brains; trying to delude ourselves that Striganov and Hartline were out of sight, so therefore they didn't exist.”

Ben tossed a few more sticks into the circle of rocks containing the campfire.

“Ben?”

“Uh-huh?”

“Hadn't we better rearrange things so we can carry a load of wood with us?”

He looked at her in the flickering light. “I beg your pardon?”

“For the campfire and the cooking fires,” she said.

Confusion swept across Ben's face. “Have I been asleep? I seem to have missed something terribly important here.”

“Nevada,” she said.

“Yes. What about Nevada?”

“Well, damn it, Ben, it's all desert, isn't it?”

“Oh! I see what you're getting at. No, Rani, it isn't all desert. There are a few trees in the state. We don't have to carry firewood with us.” He opened his map case. “We'll be heading out on Highway 59, connecting with the interstate here,” he said, pointing, “then south to 18. That will take us over to 56 and 319. We'll pick up U.S. 93 here, and follow that all the way up into Idaho. After that, we're home free.”

“Except for Jake Campo and Texas Red,” she reminded him glumly.

“Piece of cake,” he said with a grin.

Both were conscious of eyes on them as they traveled through southern Utah, eyes that followed and tracked their every movement.

“Don't make any hostile moves,” Ben cautioned her over the CB. “I think we'll be met at St. George. The people will be cautious, but not unfriendly. We'll know in a few minutes.”

The two-vehicle convoy hit a barricade on the outskirts of St. George, with armed men stationed behind the barricade.

The men were neatly dressed, and for the most part, clean shaven. They were not ugly or hostile in their movements with their rifles—just cautiously curious.

Ben got out of his pickup, his hands empty and held away from his body.

“My name is Ben Raines,” he called. “The lady in the other pickup is Rani Jordan. We mean no harm to any law-abiding people. We are traveling up to the old Tri-States.”

“Then pass on through, General Raines,” a man said with a smile, motioning for the barricade to be opened. “With all the godless outlaws roaming the land, you understand our caution.”

“Very well,” Ben said.

Past the barricade, the spokesman said, “Do you need food or other supplies, Mister Raines?”

“No. But thank you. We're well equipped for our travels. There might be a company of my soldiers pass through this way. They'll be commanded by a Colonel Dan Gray. They mean you no harm.”

“Then they will not be harmed,” Ben was assured.

When Ben and Rani made camp at the Echo Canyon State Recreation Area, just inside Nevada, Rani said, “I feel sorry for anybody who tries to ride roughshod over those people back in Utah.”

“They won't try it but once,” Ben said. “Those folks won't put up with
any
crap. And I sure want them on our side if and when any shooting starts.”

“They looked very ... competent.”

“Believe me, they are.”

 

 

Jake Campo and Texas Red knew to stay out of Utah. Too many stories had drifted back to the warlords about what happened to outlaws who foolishly ventured into that state. They began moving their people out, in small teams of five and six. All the outlaws had cleaned up their vehicles and themselves. They sported fresh haircuts and clean clothes. All carried sidearms, but that would attract no attention; almost everybody with any sense went armed.

The outlaws moved out slowly, first heading straight north, up through the panhandle of Texas, then crossing the panhandle of Oklahoma into Kansas. Once there, they veered northwest, into Colorado. They took their time, for they were in no hurry. They would travel through Colorado, into Wyoming—giving Utah a wide berth—and then the final leg into Idaho, finally fanning out, encircling what had once been the capital of Tri-States.

Both Jake and Texas Red had heard about the man called Sam Hartline; heard that he paid well for men and women of the inferior breeds. Hartline paid in gold and guns.

And they had heard the man Hartline worked for, the Russian General Striganov, was offering sacks of gold for the head of Ben Raines.

So this time they would not go in with bluff and bluster against Raines. This time they would be much more cautious, with carefully thought-out plans.

And they would get Ben Raines.

 

 

“We're not going to Las Vegas and play the slot machines?” Rani asked, her lips curving into a smile.

“Nothing left,” Ben told her. “Oddly enough, the place was among the first to be looted. Whiskey and money. Even though the people didn't know whether the money was any good or not, they took it. Wrecked the place in doing so. Lots of infighting among the looters. We'll avoid that place.”

“It must have been grand when it was going, though,” Rani said.

Ben said nothing in response. He had never cared much for the place. Not knowing day from night had never appealed to him.

The one-hundred-mile jump up to Ely took all of the next day. The highway was blocked in a dozen places, causing detours and backtracking and delays. Ben had not expected this highway to be so cluttered with junked vehicles. When they finally arrived in Ely, the place was a mess.

“My God!” Rani said, viewing the destruction. “What happened here?”

The town looked as though a giant child had slapped it in youthful frustration, tumbling the buildings about like huge playing blocks.

“I don't know,” Ben admitted. “But I'm getting some strange vibes about this place.”

“Shall we leave?” she asked.

“With all deliberate haste.”

A few miles outside of town, Rani radioed, “We're being followed, Ben.”

Ben glanced in both his mirrors. He could see nothing. “You sure?”

“Positive. I double-checked. Wait until we're around this next curve. Maybe the road will straighten out for a time. Uh-oh. Here they come, Ben. Four or five cars and trucks.”

Ben chanced a quick glance at his road map. Pulling a trailer, he had no hope of outrunning those following him. He figured another six or seven miles to the town of McGill. Couldn't make that, either.

“Hang on and follow me, Rani,” he radioed. “We're cutting off on this road to the left. Watch my brake lights and be ready for a quick stop. Get out ready to shoot.”

Ben and Rani whipped off onto the dirt and gravel road in a cloud of dust. A quarter-mile down the road, Ben braked, motioning Rani to come around him. He backed up until his pickup was blocking the road. He got out on the passenger side, choosing an M-16 for this fight, since the weapon had much more range than his Thompson.

The vehicles, three pickup trucks and two cars, stopped some two to three hundred yards away from them.

Ben laid the M-16 on the seat and got his .30–06, checking to see if the weapon was fully loaded. It was.

Ben jacked a round into the chamber and, using the hood for support, sighted in the lead truck. A man's face leaped into view through his powerful scope. Dirty, unshaven, mean-looking, and ugly.

“That son of a bitch could sit behind tombstones and raise ha'nts,” Ben muttered.

“Hey, you!” the man shouted, his voice just carrying to Ben and Rani.

Ben did not want to take him out of sight. “Ask him what he wants,” he said to Rani.

She did and the man shouted, “Whatever you got, missy. Give us your due for passin' on this road and you can head on out.”

“You believe him?” Ben asked.

“Hell, no!”

Ben shot the man in the center of the chest, the slug knocking him backward, sprawling on the dirt road.

“Get me my RPG and a rocket,” Ben said. “I'm not going to jack around with these road scum.”

Amid a ragged hail of gunfire from the outlaws' vehicles, Ben locked a grenade in place, checked to see if Rani was clear of the backblast, sighted in the trucks, and fired.

The lead truck must have been carrying several hundred pounds of explosives, and the trucks behind it must have also been loaded with dynamite, for when the rocket struck, the force of the explosion knocked Rani to the ground and flung Ben to his knees.

The blast momentarily impaired hearing, and the two of them could only stand and stare in awe and utter silence as bits and pieces of cars and trucks were tossed literally hundreds of feet into the air.

Ben and Rani stared at the destruction that lay in front of them. Burning metal and mangled bodies littered the road in smoking heaps. There were no survivors among the outlaws.

“Can you hear?” Ben asked her, shaking his head.

“In a hollow, echoing sort of way,” she replied. “It's weird. Ben, what in the world was in those trucks—an atomic bomb?”

“Whatever it was, we sure can't go back the way we came.” He looked at his maps. “This road makes a half circle and then connects with 93, some miles north of McGill. We'll take it and chance it. Check your truck; see if any lead hit anything vital.”

Ben's truck had taken most of the bullets from the outlaws' rifles, none of them doing any real harm to the truck. They headed out, driving slowly up the bumpy road. It took them almost two hours to make the run on the rutted road. When they once more pulled onto Highway 93, it felt like a superhighway. They made camp and spent the night out in the open, far from dead towns with unblinking empty windows that seemed to remind Ben that life and love and hopes and dreams had once lived behind those silent walls.

Even after all these years, the feeling was disconcerting.

 

 

The eastern part of Nevada seemed to be void of human life—at least human life that longed for a productive, orderly, civilized society.

The empty trend continued as Ben and Rani pulled up to the outskirts of Wells. Silence greeted them. It was also very cold.

“Idaho going to be colder than this?” Rani asked.

“Somewhat,” Ben said, in classic understatement.

“Ben, what happened to all the
people?”

“I can't answer that, Rani. I just don't know. I've never seen it this desolate. Hopefully, the people banded together and moved out, probably to the west, where the climate is more conducive to growing gardens. But that's just a guess. They might all be dead.”

She shivered in the cold wind. Ben put his arm around her shoulders. “How many people lived in this state before the bombings, Ben?”

“Oh, seven or eight hundred thousand, I would imagine.”

“Where in the hell did they all go?” she once more flung the question to the winds.

Ben let the winds take it. He sure didn't know the answer.

They rolled through Jackpot, Nevada, at midmorning. A short time later, Ben radioed back to Rani.

“The old Tri-States, Rani. Welcome to a bit of history.”

“Jesus, Ben! It's
cold.”

“It's also something else,” he reminded her.

“What?”

“Christmas.”

She was silent for half a mile, the tires humming on the concrete. “You're right. My God, I had completely forgotten. Merry Christmas, darling.”

Ben knew they would encounter few, if any, people in the old Tri-States. While many had tried to move into the area, almost all had either left very quickly or been killed, for the Rebels had booby-trapped hundreds, thousands, of cars, trucks, homes. They had mined the timber and placed explosives in empty buildings. They had blown bridges and overpasses, poisoned a lot of the water sources.

The
Rebels
knew what had been rigged to blow. The Rebels knew what water was safe to drink. The Rebels knew what to touch and what to leave alone. The Rebels knew where guns and ammo and explosives were cached.

No one else did.

Ben led the way north at a fast clip. He was home. He had masterminded the Tri-States, and knew the highway system as well as he knew his right and left hands.

When they crossed Interstate 86, Ben traveled some twenty-odd miles and pulled over at a house he remembered. A close friend of Ben's had lived in this ranch-style home. He, his wife, and their three kids had been killed by government troops during the assault of the Tri-States.

“Stay in the truck,” Ben told Rani. “And I mean, stay in the truck.”

She did not have to be told again.

Consulting a thick ledger, Ben moved around the home, neutralizing the traps. He cautiously entered the home and cut the trip wires. He lifted the top of the range in the kitchen and removed a half-pound of explosives. Smiling, he walked back outside and waved Rani in.

“It's safe now,” he assured her. “Everything's been neutralized.”

She looked at the mass of explosives in his hands. “Are you sure?”

He laughed at her. “Positive. Go on in and start setting up for the night. Firewood is stacked by the fireplace. It's dry, but it'll give us a good, quick, hot fire. I'm going to find us something.”

“What?”

Ben grinned. “A Christmas tree, darling.”

 

 

The first of Jake Campo's teams arrived in the old Tri-States.

“Spooky,” one of the men observed. “Where the hell is all the people?”

“Yeah,” another outlaw said, looking around him. “Man, we ain't seen
nobody
since crossing the state line.”

“Weird,” the leader of the team agreed. He spotted a nice home sitting just off the highway. “We'll bunk over there for tonight. I ain't never seen so many nice houses.”

“I was told that in the Tri-States you
had
to keep your place lookin' good. If you didn't mow the lawn, people would come in and mow it for you—then send you the bill!”

“It don't make no difference, no more,” the leader said. “There ain't no more Tri-States and pretty soon there ain't gonna be no more Ben Raines, neither.”

He opened the front door. It was not locked, since the former residents of Tri-States had never locked their doors or taken the keys out of their cars or trucks (remember, folks,
always
take the keys out of the ignition. Don't let a good boy go bad)!

The opening of the door tripped an acid-delay switch, tipping the glass vial to allow the acid to eat through a thin wire.

The entire team of Campo's outlaws crowded into the den of the home.

“Nice place,” one said. “Lookie there!” He pointed. “Farwood all stacked up and ready for us to burn.”

The wire parted with a soft ping.

“What the hell was that?”

“Your imagination, probably. Come on. Let's get settled in and fix some grub.”

Fifteen pounds of high explosives blew. One entire wall collapsed on the outlaws; beams fell from the ceiling, crushing the life from two of the outlaws. One man crawled out of the wreckage of the home, pulling himself along with his hands. Both his legs were broken.

He passed out from the pain.

He would be frozen stiff by morning.

 

 

Another team rolled into what had been southern Wyoming before Ben Raines and his Rebels renamed the entire area the Tri-States, years back.

The outlaws spotted a lovely rock home sitting on a hill. That would be ideal for a headquarters. Or a grave. They settled in and built a roaring fire in the fireplace. Had they been just a bit more observant, they might have noticed the logs were too heavy for wood that had been allowed to dry, inside, for almost two years.

The logs had been hollowed out and packed full of extremely high explosives. The explosives would detonate after reaching the temperature of ninety degrees.

When the fireplace blew, the impact scattered debris—wood, brick, stone, and various parts of human bodies—all over the small hill.

 

 

Another team of outlaws came down from the north, into Montana. They thought it would be amusing to spend the night in what had once been Ben Raines' residence.

Their amusement was very short-lived.

Ben had deliberately left sealed tins of what was labeled pure water on the kitchen counter, along with sealed tins of emergency rations. The water was poisoned and so was the food.

Ben and his Rebels, just before the government assault on Tri-States had begun, had warned the government that if they chose to interfere with a peaceful way of life, they would soon discover what Hell must be like.

The outlaws ate and drank their fill, and then died horribly, their bodies and faces and hands swelling and blackening in death.

 

 

Another group of Texas Red's boys found a small, very intimate cocktail lounge where, by golly, the bar was still stocked with sealed bottles of booze. They had a high ol' time and got rip-roaring drunk. They didn't notice the slight sweet fragrance coming from the bottles of whiskey.

Poison.

One by one they closed their eyes. One by one they went to sleep. One by one they slumped to the floor. One by one ... they died.

 

 

“Anything?” Jake asked his radio operator.

“Nothin', Big Jake. Not a peep. And they was callin' in regular 'til yesterday.”

Again, Big Jake Campo felt a shiver of fear touch him. He knew, he
knew
the boys were dead. But how in the hell had Raines managed to do it? How had he found them out so soon? And how in the hell could one man and one woman kill so many so quickly?

Jake looked into Texas Red's eyes. He saw open fear there.

“We can't quit now,” Jake said, after taking the man's elbow and leading him away from the other men. “We got to go on.”

“I don't like it,” Texas Red honestly admitted his fear. “I'm scared, man. And I mean, really, fucking
scared!”

“Get a grip on yourself. Goddamnit, he's just one man.
One man!”

“Is he?” Red asked.

“Is he what?”

“Is Ben Raines just a mortal man?”

Jake Campo opened his mouth to cuss the outlaw, then closed it. He walked away. Dammit it to hell—he didn't know. He just plain didn't
know!

 

 

Ben had found some old popcorn and, together, they popped the corn and dyed it all different colors, using food coloring from the kitchen pantry.

Rani found some thread and strung the brightly colored popcorn around the small tree Ben had cut.

But something was missing.

Rani said, “You take that end of the house, Ben. And I'll take the other. You find something for me, and I'll find something for you. We have to have some presents under the tree.”

Giggling and laughing like children, they went their ways and each returned with a gift, Rani's wrapped in a piece of old grocery bag, Ben's wrapped in a piece of newspaper.

They put them under the tree and began preparing dinner. They ate C-rations by candle light and then opened their gifts.

Ben had found a pair of diamond earrings for her, and she had found a pocket watch for him. She fitted the earrings and Ben wound the old watch.

“Perfect Christmas,” Ben said.