Battle in the Ashes Read online

  “Why thank you. I take that as a compliment.”

  “I din mean it thataways.”

  “I’m sure. What do you men want?”

  “To tell you to git, that’s what. W’un’s run this area around here.”

  “Oh, my!” Ben feigned great consternation. “He’s ordering us to leave. Should we pack up, people?”

  “He’s just scaring me to death, General,” the usually quiet Beth said, but she hated this type of men they were facing. If Beth could have her way, she’d line them all up and shoot them on the spot.

  “Yeah, me, too,” Jersey said, then quite unladylike spat on the broken asphalt. “Just about that much.”

  Corrie was leaning against the fender of a six-by, her CAR-15 pointed straight at the knot of men. There was a strange smile on her lips.

  “You cunts got rale smart mouths, ain’t you?” the spokesman said.

  “If you don’t back off and apologize for that remark,” Ben told the man. “You’re going to be in serious trouble.”

  “Oh, yeah? How’s that?”

  “Because I might be forced to turn these ladies loose. And believe me, boys, you don’t want that.”

  “Shit!” one of the men said.

  A slim but very shapely oriental Rebel stepped forward. Kim filled out her BDU’s very nicely. She was one of the highly motivated and trained-to-the-edge Scouts, and she was lethal. At her side, in a pouch, she carried throwing stars, and was extremely accurate with them. She could also kill with her bare hands, and did, often, working behind enemy lines.

  “What’s that goddamn gook want?” the spokesman asked.

  A whole gaggle of women and malnourished kids had appeared behind the knot of rednecks. The women were not much better to look upon than their men. Ben felt sorry for the kids, for he knew they did not have a chance in life. They would, in all probability, grow up to be just like their parents. Worthless. There would be the exception among them, of course. The occasional kid who would defy their parents’ self-imposed ignorance and cruelty and learn to enjoy reading and expanding his or her mind; who would break away and better themselves. But those break-aways would be rare.

  “Get your kids out of here,” Ben told the group of men. “I don’t want them to see this.”

  “You don’t tell me to do nothin’ wif’ my younguns, Raines,” the man responded.

  “Back off, Kim,” Ben told the young woman, quickly sizing up the situation. “These kids have had a tough enough time of it without seeing more violence.”

  “I knowed all the time that you was yeller, Raines!” the man said with a grin. His teeth were rotted and blackened.

  Ben’s eyes turned cold. “You ignorant son of a bitch!” Ben lashed out at the man. “I see it daily but I still have a hard time believing just how goddamn stupid some people can be. Look at us, you fool. You’re looking at over a thousand troops. The finest weapons known to exist in the world today. One of those main battle tanks parked over there could wipe out your whole little gathering of stupidity. Look at these troops around me. Look at their weapons. In five seconds you could all be lying on the road, dead or dying. And you dare to get all up in my face with threats? Turn around and return to your stinking hovels. Go on, continue your lives of ignorance and bigotry. Raise a new generation of fools. We’ll just come back here at a later date and wipe them out, just like we should do with you, right this minute!” Ben pointed a finger at the man. “Don’t open your mouth again to me. Don’t say another word. Because if you do, I will kill you on the spot!”

  The man raised a hand to his face. The hand trembled slightly.

  “We got a right to live decent lak and you cain’t come in here and tell us what to do,” a woman uttered one of the whining statements that most Rebels had learned to despise over the long warring years.

  “Shut up!” Ben roared at her. “I’ll tell you your rights. You have the right to work and to better yourself. You have the right to respect the land you squat on. You have the right to expect the same treatment you offer others. And under the present conditions, that is just about it. What do you want from us, lady? Tell me. Go on, tell me. Because you are looking at the only government that now exists in this battered nation.”

  The woman said nothing. But her eyes glared hate at Ben and the healthy and well-fed Rebels gathered all around him. Ben knew the look only too well. And the unspoken words that lie behind those eyes: Give me. You owe me. I demand. I got a right. I can fuck whenever I wants to and you gots to feed my bastard children. You gots to give me money for doing nothing. You cain’t make me work ifn I don’t wants to. You gots something and I ain’t got nothin’ so you gots to give me half of what you got. Whenever I wants to.

  Words that helped to bring down what was once the most powerful nation in all the world.

  “Hit’s been a rale hard winter, General,” another woman said. “And we din have no good crop last season.”

  “And that is my fault, I suppose,” Ben said sarcastically. He knew he should just turn around and walk away. Knew he would never get through to these people. No one had been able to get through to them for decades. The government—when there had been a government—had wasted trillions of taxpayer dollars on people such as these. And gained nothing. The Rebels had learned that the only way to combat ignorance and bigotry was to go into the home and catch the young during their formative years, and if necessary, take the young from their parents and put them in caring foster homes. But those homes were now filled to overflowing. The Rebels were now taking few young as they traveled. There simply was no more room.

  “Well,” the woman said, “y’all seem to have a-plenty and we ain’t got nothin’. You could share wif’ us.”

  Ben shook his head in disgust. Same old story. “And when what we give you runs out . . . ?”

  She shrugged, as Ben had expected she would. Nothing ever changes.

  “I bet you share with niggers all the time, don’t you, Raines?” another man said with a sneer.

  This stupid bunch was really beginning to annoy Ben.

  “You damn shore got enough of ’em with you,” the ignoramus added, looking at the growing ranks of Rebels.

  Less than eight percent of his battalion was black.

  “What is your name?” Ben asked.

  “Carl Ray. Folks call me Jigger. Been called that near’bouts all my life.” He narrowed his eyes. “Why for you want to know ’at?”

  “I’m sure I’m not in the least interested in finding out why folks call you that.”

  “Is you gonna hep us, or not?” Jigger asked.

  “We help those whom we know will try to help themselves,” Ben told the man, trying to hold on to his temper. It was beginning to be a losing proposition. “That does not include your group. Now why don’t you just leave us alone and we’ll be more than happy to do the same for your, ah, group.”

  “We ain’t a-gonna beg y’all for hep, Raines,” Jigger said.

  “Good. Now why don’t you go away?”

  “And we ain’t takin’ no orders from you, neither.”

  Ben turned around and looked at his troops. They were sitting on fenders, squatting on the ground, standing around him, all grinning at him, and all thoroughly enjoying this exchange.

  “You think this is funny?” he asked.

  They all nodded their heads.

  “Except for their kids,” Cooper put a damper on it, standing off to one side. “But what can we do?”

  “Nothing,” Beth said. “And it’ll break your heart if you let it. Maybe we could take the very youngest . . . ?” She trailed that off, knowing they could not. The Rebel adoption and foster home placement people were overloaded and terribly overcrowded. They simply could not do any more.

  Cooper snapped his fingers. “Corrie. I got an idea.”

  “Wonderful,” Jersey said. “All this time I thought you were brain-dead.”

  “What is it, Coop?” Ben said, overhearing much of the exchange.
>
  “General Jahn and his people.”

  “What about them? Oh! Hey,” Ben said. “That’s right, Coop. Von Hanstein said that Jahn and his troops were always getting into trouble with the field marshal for taking in kids and being careful not to harm any . . . if at all possible. Corrie, find out where Jahn and company are located and give them a shout. Jahn said many of his men were married and they were going to try to get their wives up here, one way or the other. I . . .”

  “Hey!” Jigger shouted, interrupting Ben. “Whut’s all that damn whisperin’ ’bout over thar?”

  Ben glanced at him. “Shut up, Jugger . . .”

  “Jigger!” Carl Ray hollered.

  “Whatever. Just be quiet. Everytime you exhale you pollute the air.”

  Jigger looked at a friend. “Did that son of a bitch insult me, Flapper?”

  “I do believe he did, Jigger. But I ain’t rat shore, since I can’t catch the jist of all them words he spouts. Whut do you say, Billy Joe?”

  Billy Joe ruminated on the question “Ah personal thank he’s been in-sultin’ us ever’ since we got up here.” Jigger thought about that for a moment. Then he grunted. “Ah thank I’ll just, by gawd, walk up yonder and whup his uppity ass,” Jigger said. He pulled at the waist of his jeans in a futile attempt to get them over his enormous gut.

  “Ah’ll be yore second, Jigger,” Flapper said. “’At’s the way them folks in the olden times done ’er.”

  “My second what?” Jigger asked.

  “Never mind, I know what to do. Come on.”

  The three men walked up to Ben, who had his back to them, talking with his personal team.

  “Three locals coming up,” Cooper said.

  “Ignore them,” Ben replied.

  “Hey, you!” Flapper said to Ben’s back.

  Ben continued talking to Beth while Corrie set up a communications patch to Ike.

  “I’m a-talkin’ to you, boy!” Flapper raised his voice.

  Dozens of Rebels watched the three men carefully as Ben continued to speak to Beth, ignoring the trashy trio.

  That Jersey had taken a few steps away from Ben and had her M-16 leveled at the three men did not escape the notice of Jigger and Billy Joe. Both of them got a little nervous. Jersey’s dark eyes held a menace that they both picked up on. Billy Joe and Jigger looked very carefully all around them. There were something like a hundred guns pointed at them. A little nervous turned into a whole lot nervous.

  “Ah, Flapper?” Jigger said, suddenly breaking out in a very cold sweat.

  “Hush up, boy. I’m a-talkin’ to the general here.”

  “You bes’ look around you, Flapper,” Billy Joe said. “’Fore you git any more hoss-tile.”

  The ignorant lout who had started this conversation, and who had not opened his mouth since being ordered by Ben to close it, suddenly had a nearly overwhelming urge to pee. But he was afraid to move for fear of getting shot.

  The kids had been quickly taken away by their mothers. The women were showing a great deal more sense than the men.

  “Goddamnit, boy!” Flapper hollered. “Is you deef?”

  Then Flapper made a terrible mistake. He shoved Ben. Hard.

  “Oh, shit!” Billy Joe whispered.

  NINE

  Ben recovered his balance and threw a short hard right fist that landed dead center on Flapper’s big red nose. Flapper’s big red nose suddenly got bigger and redder as he stumbled backward and fell hard to the asphalt, landing on his butt.

  Billy Joe and Jigger raised their hands high into the air as a hundred rifles took steady aim at them.

  “We’s out of this!” Jigger squealed. “Lord God, folks. Don’t shoot us!”

  “I’m with him!” Billy Joe hollered. “What he just said, I mean.”

  Flapper crawled to his feet, his nose streaming blood and his eyes killing mean. “You gawddamn uppity son of a bitch!” he said. “I’m a-gonna stomp your guts out.”

  “Come on, then,” Ben told him.

  Flapper rushed Ben, swinging both fists, and Ben tripped him, once more sending the man hollering and flapping his arms for balance, and finally sprawling on the blacktop. This time Flapper landed on his face, skinned it up something fierce, and the man commenced bellowing like a mad bull as he fought to once more climb to his feet.

  “I really wish you’d stop all this nonsense,” Ben told him, pulling on a pair of leather gloves that Cooper tossed him. “Before I lose my temper and hurt you.”

  “Son of a bitch!” Flapper yelled, blood from half a dozen cuts and scrapes running down his face. “Stand still and fight lak a man, damn you!”

  “How is a man supposed to fight?” Ben questioned.

  “Wif’ his fists!” Flapper hollered. He shook his head and the blood flew.

  “Oh!” Ben said, stepping closer. “I guess I can perhaps manage to do that. Do you mean something like this?” He suddenly hit the surprised Flapper with a haymaker right that crossed Flapper’s eyes and buckled his knees. “Or like this?” Ben asked, driving in a left that pulped Flapper’s lips and knocked him up against the front of a truck. “Perhaps this?” Ben questioned, and hit Flapper in the belly so hard his fist was momentarily lost in the flab.

  Flapper’s face turned chalk white and he seemed to sigh as he slowly sank to his knees. He remained that way for a moment, and then toppled over, once more landing on his face in the center of the cracked old highway.

  Ben looked down at the semiconscious Flapper. “Not bad for a middle-aged man,” he muttered. He turned to Billy Joe and Jigger. “Either of you two have anything else you’d care to discuss with me?”

  “No, sir!” they hollered, their hands still in the air.

  “Are you both certain of that?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Will you please carry your friend away from here and leave us alone for the remainder of our stay?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Ike says Jahn’s with him and they’ve started sending planes down to get their wives. General Jahn says to bring the kids on,” Corrie called.

  “Good, Corrie, thank you. I thought that would be Jahn’s reaction. But before we do that, let’s inspect the town and see if there is any hope for these people.”

  “Any hope?” Jigger hollered. “What do that mean? What is y’all gonna do—shoot us?”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Ben told him.

  Jigger peed his pants.

  “Oh, Lard!” Billy Joe yelled.

  Ben sent teams in to inspect the living quarters of the tiny town’s inhabitants. He had seen more than his share over the long years of how trash chose to live. Why they did so was something that had eluded him all his life.

  Ben soaked his right hand in salted water while the teams were in town. He concluded that he was getting just too damned old for fistfighting.

  He had just dried off his slightly swollen hand when the teams reported back in.

  “Report,” Ben told them, already reading the news in their eyes.

  “Kids are filthy, suffering from malnourishment, and of course have never been vaccinated for anything,” a doctor said. “Pisses me off,” he added.

  “Take those young enough to be rehabed,” Ben ordered. “Corrie, have Cecil start sending planes in at noon tomorrow to transport them back. We’ll have that old air strip cleaned up by then.”

  No one had to ask what to do if the parents objected. In truth, damn few of them would object. Most would be happy to get rid of the brats. The Rebels had seen that very thing happen, time and time again, coast to coast, border to border. And it never failed to astonish and disgust them.

  No groups of people came out to the Rebel encampment from the shacks and hovels to protest the taking of their kids, although some did stand well back from the grass landing strip when the planes came in the next morning and watch the kids being loaded into the cargo planes for the flight back to Base Camp One. There, the children would be given medical attention, vaccinat
ions, and first of all, treated for head lice. They would be housed—properly, for the first time in their lives—with Rebel families until Jahn and his people were settled and ready to take them. Ben sat and stared at the rabble, open contempt in his eyes.

  A courier handed Ben a pouch and Ben sat on the ground, beneath the shady branches of a huge old tree, and read the dispatches.

  Intelligence felt that most of what was left of Hoffman’s army—with the exception of the SS troops—was nearing total collapse. Their supply lines severed, they were running out of ammo and food, and those who surrendered told tales of eating rats to survive.

  Hoffman had vanished. Intelligence believed he had slipped through the lines and headed north. They also believed Brodermann was with him, as were many of Hoffman’s staff officers. Their defenders were hard-core SS troops. What was happening in most places west of the Mississippi River now was tedious and dangerous digging out and mopping up.

  Ben and battalion watched the last plane leave and then mounted up and headed out, following I-20 northeast. In their command posts in North Alabama, Moi Sambura and Wink Payne braced for what they knew was going to be the fight of their lives.

  Wink Payne felt Ben Raines to be a nigger-loving, no good son of a bitch. Moi Sambura felt Ben Raines to be a black-hating, racist son of a bitch.

  “But he’s got African Americans in his army,” a few of the more moderate members of Moi’s movement pointed out.

  “Uncle Toms,” Moi would always reply. “Chocolate covered vanilla ice creams. Black on the surface, white in the middle. They’re just as bad, or worse, than Raines.”

  What neither side could see was that all Rebels were, first, last, and always, Americans. People from every state in what used to be called the Union were represented in the Rebel army. Every creed, every color, every nationality and religion.

  “Fight to the death!” Wink told his people.

  “Fight to the death!” Moi told his people.

  “I wish to hell I could figure out some way to get those two to turn on each other,” Ben mused aloud over the evening meal. “That sure would save us a lot of time and bother.”