Chaos in the Ashes Read online

“I will abide by the majority will of the people on that issue, Ben.”

  “Then you’re asking for trouble, Paul. For you know perfectly well the NUSA will be filled with hanky-stomping liberals. Eagle out.”

  Ben looked at the several dozen spokespeople, representing communities from all over the state, gathered around him in the large room. He shook his head. “Paul still clings to the belief that fifty-one percent of the people can rule the remaining forty-nine percent.”

  “He will never disarm us, General,” Thomas said. “That won’t happen, ever again.”

  “It won’t come right away. But it will come eventually.”

  The men and women exchanged glances. “Then we’ll align with the SUSA, General,” Thomas said.

  “Your decision,” Ben said. “Welcome abroad.”

  Paul Altman came into Cecil’s office just before official closing hours and sat down. Cecil fixed them both drinks of bourbon and water and they sipped in silence for a moment.

  “I am quite upset about West Virginia.” Paul broke the silence.

  “The old ways won’t work, Paul. You’ve got to understand that. Maybe fifty years from now, when the nation has healed and the scar tissue is no longer sensitive. Maybe then, after all the roaming gangs of criminals have been dealt with, the factories are once more running full-tilt, the airports are busy, the highways are filled with cars and trucks carrying people and produce and goods, when people are working and able to enjoy the small pleasures of life and home and family and cook-outs—maybe then whomever is in power can question the need of civilians to own M-16’s and Uzi’s and M-60’s and so forth, but not now, Paul. My God, not now! Not when the nation is still reeling and staggering about from a world war followed by a civil war and total collapse. If you can’t see that, then I fear you’re in for a long rough haul over very rocky roads.”

  “I’ve hated guns all my life,” Paul said softly. “I’ve never even fired a gun. There was no draft when I was of draft age, so I didn’t serve in the military. I don’t even like to kill roaches. I want a society that is free of guns, Cecil.”

  “Good luck,” Cecil said, very drily.

  The spokesman from Elkins had been elected governor of the state of West Virginia. It had happened so fast—and just as Paul Altman had thought (and still did)—Thomas wasn’t quite sure it was all legal. But Ben Raines had assured him it was.

  “But I was the only candidate on the ballots you had printed up,” Thomas had protested to Ben.

  Ben smiled. “If you don’t want the job, tell me now.”

  “I didn’t say that. Oh, what the hell! It’s strange times we live in, right?”

  “That’s right, Governor. Now let’s get you settled in. My people have just finished mopping up around Clarksburg. You have any objections to that being the state capital?”

  Governor Thomas smiled, and then laughed. “No, General Raines. No objections at all.”

  “Fine. Now, I have a surprise for you.”

  “Another one?”

  Ben led him outside and they made the relatively short drive to Clarksburg, stopping and getting out at an office building that had been cleaned out and renovated. Governor Thomas hadn’t even been aware it was being done—the Rebels moved so damn fast and got so much done in such a short time! The governor was stunned to see about fifty men, most in their forties, standing in line, at attention, dressed in the uniform of the old West Virginia State Police.

  “I’ve had people scouring the state, and this is all that is left of the state police. Two-thirds of them will go on patrol immediately, the rest will fan out and hand-pick candidates for training. The militia has agreed to work with them and when the ranks are filled, they’ll step down at your orders.”

  “How . . .” Governor Thomas shook his head. “How in the hell do you get things accomplished so quickly, General?”

  “We don’t fuck around, Gov. We don’t have fourteen committees and thirty-nine sub-committees and five hundred-and-fourteen staffers running all over the goddamn place, and all the rest of that bullshit from past governments. And if you want this state to move forward, I suggest you adopt the same tactics.”

  “It is constitutional?”

  “It works,” Ben said. “Even my sworn enemies will agree with that.”

  * * *

  Rebel law was simple; so simple that many people either could not or would not comprehend it.

  Jersey brought it all down to a list that anyone could understand. She sat down behind a typewriter and wrote:

  IF YOU BEAT YOUR WIFE OR GIRLFRIEND OR ABUSE YOUR CHILDREN, YOU WON’T MAKE IT IN ANY STATE THAT SUBSCRIBES TO THE TRI-STATES PHILOSOPHY.

  IF YOU ARE CRUEL TO ANIMALS, STAY THE HELL OUT OF ANY AREA UNDER REBEL CONTROL.

  IF YOU ARE A SMART-ASS, A BULLY, ENJOY INSULTING PEOPLE OR BROWBEATING EMPLOYEES, PRACTICE RACISM, POACH GAME, CHEAT OTHERS IN BUSINESS, SELL DRUGS, RESENT AUTHORITY, DELIBERATELY MISREPRESENT THE TRUTH IN ORDER TO SELL A PRODUCT, DRINK AND DRIVE, FAIL TO RESPECT THE PROPERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS, EXPECT SOMETHING FOR NOTHING, DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CONVERSATION AND MALICIOUS GOSSIP . . . DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT LIVING UNDER THE REBEL PHILOSOPHY.

  Ben looked at the list and nodded his head. “That pretty well sums it all up, Jersey. If we’ve forgotten anything, I think everybody will still get the message.”

  Governor Thomas had slipped away from his office and driven down to Elkins. He tapped the short list of rules. “There are going to be some unhappy people in this state,” he said, sitting in Ben’s CP.

  Ben finished cleaning and reassembling his old Thompson. He snapped in a magazine and smiled at the governor. “They won’t be for long.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Want to take a ride?”

  “Better judgment says no, but curiosity overwhelms it. Sure, why not? I’m caught up on paperwork for a change.”

  “Come on.”

  They drove a few miles out of town and Cooper turned onto a county road. Thomas immediately tensed. “Do you know where you’re going, Ben?”

  “Sure do.”

  “I wonder. This is Wilcott territory.”

  “This is a public road and anybody has the right to drive on it.”

  “The Wilcotts don’t see it that way. They never have.”

  “They will very shortly. Those that are left, that is.”

  “They’re throwbacks, Ben. Back to the bad old days. They’ve been in their glory since the government collapsed. Ben, the Wilcotts are—”

  “I know exactly who they are. My people found where the chief of police and the sheriff hid their records when the country started blowing up around them. That whole family is nothing but trash. And they love what they are. They don’t want to change. They’re bullies, thieves, poachers, murderers, rapists—you name it, they’ve done it, and they’re proud of it. The Wilcotts are exactly what you don’t need in this state.”

  “You can’t just kill them.”

  “You want to bet?” Ben said, and that shocked the governor into silence.

  “Roadblock up ahead,” Cooper pointed out. “Right where the Scouts said it was.”

  Ben lifted his handy-talkie, set to the frequency of the MBT that was traveling right behind them. “Blow it,” he ordered.

  The main battle tank swung around the big wagon and lowered the muzzle of its main gun. Five seconds later, the roadblock was reduced to smoking, burning junk.

  “Push it out of the way,” Ben radioed, and moments later the short convoy rolled on.

  The governor twisted in his seat and looked behind him. “That’s Reverend Neely behind us.”

  “Yeah. I invited him along. There will probably be some need for his services in a very short time.”

  “You’re going to have church services at the Wilcotts?”

  “Sort of.”

  Governor Thomas got it then. “Oh, hell, Ben! You’re talking about a funeral!”

  “Could be. Damn sure will
be if the Wilcott clan doesn’t want to listen to reason. There are two state police cars behind the preacher.”

  “Ben—”

  “It’s got to be this way, Gov. The people have to know that you’re the boss. And they have to understand Rebel law. Most already do. But people like the Wilcotts will never obey any type of law. Believe me when I say we had people like the Wilcotts all over the SUSA. The Wilcott types were even more of a pain in the ass than ultra-liberals.”

  “I have to ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know the answer—what happened to those people?”

  Ben smiled. “Liberals or Wilcott types?”

  The governor sighed patiently.

  “Some of the bully-boys saw the light and turned into good, productive, law-abiding citizens. Others packed up and pulled out. Still others were buried.”

  “And Wilcott and his clan?”

  “I suspect some them will be buried here, Gov. It isn’t that they can’t change to conform with the few laws the Rebels have on the books. The Wilcott types won’t change. We’ll soon see.”

  Cooper turned off the county road onto a gravel road, following the MBT. Patches of snow remained in the shadowy, cool spots on both sides of the road.

  The column stopped in front of a large, two-story house that immediately brought to mind Tobacco Road—for those old enough to remember the motion picture or to have read the book.

  There were smaller houses located on each side of the big house, each of them in just about the same condition as the bigger house, the yards equally filled with all sorts of trash: rusting hulks of cars and trucks, old worn-out tires stacked about, motorcycles in various stages of repair and disrepair, machine parts scattered all over the place.

  A large man stepped out onto the front porch, just as Ben was unassing from the wagon. Ben recognized him as Wade Wilcott, the Big Daddy of the Wilcott clan.

  “That’s Wade Wilcott,” Thomas whispered. “The He-Coon of the family.”

  “Yeah,” Ben replied, raising his voice so all could hear. His voice carried in the cold, late winter air. “Ugly son-of-a-bitch, isn’t he?”

  “Harry Thomas!” Wade yelled to the governor from the porch. “You’ll pay for tearin’ up my roadblock.”

  “You can’t block a public road, Wade,” the governor called.

  “I’ll do anything I damn well choose to do, you little white-collar piss-ant!” Wade shouted. He cut his eyes to Ben. “You’d be the head honcho of the army, right?”

  “That’s right, Wilcott. And I have a few things to say to you. So haul your fat ass off that porch and get over here.”

  Wade Wilcott blinked at that. Been a long, long time since anyone dared to speak to him in such a manner. “You got a lot of brass on your ass, solider boy, to speak to me lak ’at. I run this part of the county. Me and my kin do.”

  “Yeah?” Ben questioned. “Your brother’s name was J.C. Wilcott, right?”

  “Was?” Wade asked, stepping forward to the yard. “Did you say was?”

  “Yeah. He’s dead.”

  “Dead? My brother’s dead? You a damn lie!”

  “Your brother and some of his kin made the mistake of ambushing a Rebel patrol early this morning, over at a place called Cutter’s Ridge.” Governor Thomas cut his eyes at Ben. First he’d heard of that. “When I’m finished here you can claim what’s left of the bodies. If you’re still alive, that is,” Ben added, very matter-of-factly.

  Wade’s eyes bugged out. “Why wouldn’t I be alive?”

  “Oh, well, I suspect I might have to kill you in a minute or two,” Ben told him. “Because you’re not going to like what I have to say.”

  “Kill me? Kill me! Hey, he threatened me!” Wade hollered to the state troopers standing off to one side. “I want that man arrested for threatenin’ my life. Y’all heard him do it. Now, go on and do your duty.”

  The faces of the troopers remained impassive. They did not move.

  “The way I see it, Wilcott,” Ben said, “you have but three choices. You can either change your ways and start obeying the law, you can pack up and move out, or you can die, right here, and right now, your entire miserable, worthless, slovenly, good-for-nothing family with you. Now what’s it going to be, Wilcott?”

  Wade Wilcott let out a roar of rage and charged Ben, big booted feet slapping the muddy ground.

  TEN

  Ben side-stepped at the last possible split-second and slammed the butt of his Thompson into the man’s belly. The air whooshed out of him and he sprawled on the ground, sliding for a few feet in the cold mud.

  One of his sons jerked a rifle to his shoulder and aimed it at Ben. Jersey shot him in the face, the 5.56 round punching a hole in the center of the man’s forehead and knocking him backward. He stopped at the outside wall of the house and slid down, dead with his eyes wide open.

  “I guess you want to do this the hard way, Wilcott,” Ben said. “Suits me.”

  Wilcott slowly rose to his knees, his face a mask of mud. He wiped the mud from his eyes and looked back toward the house. “That there was my youngest boy. He was a good boy, you son-of-a-bitch!”

  “No, he wasn’t,” Ben contradicted. “He was a thief, a bully, an extortionist, a rapist, and a murderer. The state police have warrants for his arrest. I just saved the public the expense of a trial and a hanging.”

  Wade Wilcott, still on his knees, glared up at Ben. He was having trouble catching his breath after being stroked by the butt of the Thompson.

  “They don’t hang folks no more in this state, soldier boy,” he panted.

  “Oh, they do now,” Ben corrected. “This state is now part of the SUSA. We give you a choice. We’ll either shoot you or hang you.”

  Wade cussed Ben, loud and long—but made no attempt to get up off the cold, muddy ground.

  “Get your crap packed up, Wilcott. My people will escort you and your family and what is left of your kin to the border of your choice. Leave and don’t ever come back here.”

  Wade came up off the ground like an enraged bull. But Ben had been expecting that. He hit him in the mouth with the butt of the Thompson and Wade went down like a rock, landing on his stomach, all his front teeth gone and his lips pulped and bleeding. Wade groaned once, managed to turn over, and his eyes rolled back in his head. He was out cold.

  Ben motioned to a group of Rebels. “Throw him in the back of the first pick-up you find that will run.” He turned to the others of the clan, all looking at their unconscious father (or uncle or cousin or whatever), their eyes wide in shock. “Get your shit packed up,” Ben told them, his voice hard. “And do it quickly. In half an hour, these stinking hovels will be reduced to rubble.”

  The Wilcott clan stood and stared at Ben.

  Ben lifted his Thompson and blew half a clip into the late winter air. “Move, goddammit!” he shouted.

  They moved.

  “Shame about the kids,” Governor Thomas muttered, as the hurried packing was getting under way.

  “You want them?” Ben asked.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You want the kids, take them. I’d hate to see another generation of white trash being raised.”

  “You can’t do that!”

  “We’ve been doing it for years, Harry. Under eight years old is best. But I warn you, it doesn’t always work out. And with these kids, I’d be careful. Our scientists in the SUSA—and we have the best in the world—have recently proven that the bad seed theory is no longer a theory. It’s a fact.”

  “I never doubted it, Ben. I’ve believed in that all my adult life.”

  “You goddamn rotten son-of-a-bitch!” Wade yelled at Ben, as he sat up in the bed of the pick-up truck. His mouth was swelling and dripping blood and his words were badly slurred.

  But Ben got the general drift.

  “You have no one to blame but yourself, Wilcott,” Ben told him. “Now just shut up.”

  Two newspapers had reopened since the Rebels came to town: the l
ocal paper in Elkins, and another in the new capitol. The two reporters had been a few minutes late arriving on the scene—they had laid back several miles in following the governor—but they got the general idea of what was going on.

  Ben had met the reporter from the local paper and had found him to be fair in his writing. He did not know the second reporter.

  Governor Thomas caught the direction Ben’s eyes had taken. “He’s all right,” he assured Ben. “He doesn’t agree with everything we’re doing, but he’s fair.”

  “This ain’t constitutional!” Wilcott bellered. “Y’all ain’t got no right to do this!”

  “You and your kin have thumbed your thumbs at the law around here for years,” one of the state troopers surprised Ben by saying. “You’ve terrorized travelers and assaulted people on a whim. You’ve shot at hunters on public lands and shot at cars traveling on highways. You’ve burned down the houses of people who dared to speak out against you and your kin. You’ve assaulted police officers and threatened to kill judges who dared to put your kin in jail. The list of laws you have broken is as long as my arm. It’s over now, Wade. If General Raines had not moved against you and your kind, I was going to kill you myself.”

  Wade Wilcott wiped the blood away from his mouth with his sleeve. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it and remained silent. He sat in the bed of the old pick-up truck and glared hate at the state troopers.

  The family members loaded their suitcases and cardboard boxes and trunks into the beds of trucks and climbed on.

  “I got me kin over in the hills and hollers of Missouri,” Wade shouted at Ben. “I’ll take my people to Missouri and set up there.”

  Ben smiling, thinking of Zandar and Cugumba and Mobutomamba and Issac Africa. “Oh, I think that’s a splendid idea, Wilcott. Yes, indeed. We’ll even give you ample supplies to reach that destination. Have fun in Missouri, Wilcott.”

  “You’re an asshole, Raines!” Wade screamed at Ben. “When I get to Missouri, I’ll gather up my people and we’ll take over that damn state.”

  “Good luck,” Ben called. Then, under his breath, he muttered, “You’re damn sure going to need it. ’Bye, now.” Ben waved as the trucks began rattling out onto the road.