Courage In The Ashes Read online

  “Yes. One has to make the laws simple enough for all to understand and then do what you say you’re going to do . . . with no exceptions.”

  “Yes. But it’s a very difficult thing to do. There can be no deals. No plea bargaining. No exceptions to the rule. Your children have to grow up understanding that breaking the law is wrong and the punishment will be equal for all. They have to be taught that, both in the home and in the schools. And you’re going to meet some stiff resistance to that. Anyone who takes a human life during the commission of a crime is put to death. No exceptions. None. Ever. Get with Voltan and go over Rebel application of law. You’ll lose some followers when you set up your society our way; but the ones who remain will be the strongest, the steadiest, and the most reliable.”

  “And the ones who choose not to live under Rebel rule, General?”

  “They can go to hell, ma’am. We’re trying to rebuild nations, not hold a Sunday school class. And I don’t apologize for our methods. Not at all. I’ve lost too many good, brave men and women to give a shit about the so-called rights of whiners, prima donnas, and lazy, good-for-nothing people who want something without paying the price for it. And sometimes that price is in blood. Good luck to you, ma’am.”

  Ben headed north on Highway 97, toward the town of Mackenzie, while Ike took the other battalions and headed west on Highway 16. Ben encountered no resistance on the push to Mackenzie. There he found a small group of survivors who had been holding out until the Rebels arrived.

  “The outlaws who didn’t head north are waiting for you at Dawson Creek, General,” he was told. “And they’re a mean, scummy bunch.”

  “Women and children with them?”

  “Women. No kids. The women abandon them as soon as they give birth. We’ve got a half a dozen of their babies here. That should tell you what types you’re dealing with.”

  “It does indeed,” Ben said. He turned to Corrie. “Bump the gunships. Tell them to load up full and get up here.” He turned back to the survivor. “Is there anything at Dawson Creek worth saving?”

  “Not anymore. Slaves that have escaped from there say the outlaws have pretty well trashed the town.”

  Ben smiled. “Well, we’ll just trash the outlaws then.”

  Ben looked up from his vantage point outside the small city of Dawson Creek. It was an hour past dawn. The gunships would be coming in from the east in just a few moments, coming in with the sun behind their backs, and they would be spread out in a group attack position.

  The outlaws in the city had been taunting Ben and his people, using CB bands. They cursed Ben and they cursed the Rebels, using the vilest of language.

  “To hell with the gunships!” a young Rebel from Thermopolis’ battalion said. “Let’s go in and kick their asses personal and up close.”

  “Settle down!” Therm shouted. “That’s what they want us to do. That road leading into town is probably mined and the buildings closer to us are wired to go. Just settle down.”

  Ben smiled as Chase said, “Turning into a hell of a good commander, Ben. I never would have believed it.”

  “You just don’t like men with long hair, Lamar.”

  “That is not true, Raines!”

  “Yes, it is. Now hush up, here come the gunships.”

  “Hush up?”

  “Yes. Be quiet.”

  As the sounds of the big blades chopping the air grew louder, the taunting and cursing from the outlaws in the town died into silence.

  Ben picked up his CD mike and said, “This is General Raines. I much prefer rousting you assholes this way. Have fun, punks.”

  The Cobras, Apaches, and Hueys opened up, filling the air with rockets and lead. As soon as the lead choppers finished, the second wave began. When all but four choppers had veered to land beside the long column of Rebel vehicles—the four gunships still airborne were well out of artillery range—Ben gave the orders for tanks to begin shelling.

  Ninety millimeter, 105’s, and 76mm cannon opened up and did not stop for three long, earth-pounding minutes. They fired high explosive, napalm, and willie peter.

  “APCs in,” Ben said.

  The armored personnel carriers were already loaded up, each carrying ten infantry troops, a driver and a Rebel manning the 20mm Vulcan Gatling gun. Before the rear ramps were dropped, the gunners sprayed the area with 20mm fire, then gave the Rebels cover fire as they got into position.

  But the outlaws had lost their zeal for the fight. Two squadrons of gunships and three minutes of intense artillery fire had set the town blazing and the outlaws running for their lives.

  Ben had anticipated that. “Take them out,” he told Corrie.

  Corrie relayed the orders to the pilots, and the gunships swooped low, strafing the running outlaws, making pass after pass, until the field was littered with silent, bloody bodies.

  “Bring them in, Corrie.” Ben turned to Therm. “As soon as the fires die down, we’ll go see what we’ve got, Therm. Salvage teams get ready to go in,” he ordered. The Rebels would take every weapon, every round of ammo, and anything else they might possibly find a use for.

  The Rebels in the town began securing the area. They were Gray’s Scouts and Buddy’s Rat Pack, and they did not take prisoners.

  That was why the Rebels were the most feared Army on the face of the earth, and they were known worldwide. Ben Raines gave you two choices: surrender or die. And he seldom backed down from those options. Occasionally, as in Jerry Harris’ case, he would see something there to salvage, or as in the case of Junior, make a point for others to understand. But those times were rare indeed.

  It did not take the Rebels long to sweep and secure the town.

  “Come on, Therm,” Ben said, climbing into the back of an APC, and his team went with him. “Let’s see what’s left of the place.”

  “Not much,” Therm muttered, after banging his head getting out of the cramped APC. Emil Hite had ridden with them, and the little con artist stubbed his toe and rolled down the ramp of the APC. Luckily for all close to him, his M-16 did not fire.

  “The very essence of grace under pressure,” Thermopolis observed, a smile on his lips, as Emil got to his boots with as much dignity as possible.

  Georgi, Rebet, and West had angled off on Highway 29 to check out the towns of Hudson’s Hope and Fort St. John. Ben and his battalions would link up with them there the next day.

  “Son of a bitch!” a badly wounded outlaw cursed Ben as he lay dying on the littered ground. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties.

  “It was your choice,” Ben told him, his words cold. “You just made the wrong choice.”

  “They’ll kill you in Alaska, hotshot,” the outlaw gasped. “They know you’re comin’ and they’re waitin’ for you. You bastard!”

  “That’s how you want to go out,” a chaplain asked the dying man. “With a curse on your lips?”

  “You go fuck yourself!” the outlaw told the man. He stared hard at the chaplain. “With a nose like you’re wearin’, you gotta be a damn Jew.”

  “That’s right, son,” the man said. “But I’ve ministered to the needs of all faiths over the years. Is there anything you want to tell me? Besides committing an impossible act upon my person, that is.”

  If the outlaw did have anything worth saying, it died on his lips. The Jewish chaplain shook his head. “So much hate in them. Why, General?”

  “It isn’t hate, Nat. It’s ignorance. And it’s nobody’s fault but their own. They have—had—brains. They could have read, studied, learned, but they chose not to. They chose to remain ignorant and bigoted and narrow-minded. It was all up to them. The blame cannot be placed on anything else, or anybody else.”

  “You really believe that, don’t you, General?”

  “I not only believe it, I know it’s true. And I think you do too, or you wouldn’t be here. And don’t give me any garbage about your love for all humanity and about your being a nonviolent type, Nat; I’ve seen you pick up
an M-16 too many times and use it when the going got rough.”

  The chaplain smiled, and then laughed, as he stood in the middle of destruction and death. “No secrets from you, huh, General?”

  “Not many, Nat,” Ben said. “Not many.”

  The Jewish chaplain spotted the Baptist chaplain kneeling beside a dying outlaw and walked over to join him, his motives being, Ben guessed, that between the two of them they might be able to get the outlaw bastard located closer to the fringes of hell, instead of near the hotter and more unpleasant interior.

  “We’ll have it wrapped up here in about an hour, General,” a platoon leader told Ben. “Burn the bodies of the dead?”

  Ben nodded. “Yes. Any prisoners?”

  “There won’t be in about twenty minutes,” the lieutenant said flatly.

  EIGHT

  Ben received word that Ike and his battalions were kicking ass and taking names all the way from New Hazelton to Prince Rupert, There had been a holdout of survivors in Terrace, and Ike had ordered an airlift of badly needed supplies flown into that small city’s airfield. Another Rebel outpost was intact.

  Ben headed north on 97, leaving the smoking ruins of Dawson Creek behind him, and linked up with his other battalions at Fort St. John. It was a seventy-five-mile run, and, since there was a good airfield outside Fort St. John, Ben decided to bivouac there and wait for the planes to resupply them. Before the Great War, Fort St. John had been a thriving city of nearly fifteen thousand. Now there were about four hundred people who straggled in from the brush after the outlaws pulled out for Alaska.

  A tough and hardy bunch, they had not left their homes and businesses out of fear of the outlaws and assorted human scum, but simply because the outlaws were so numerous it would have been foolish to try to stand and fight.

  “You and your people did the right thing,” Ben told the leader of the group. “If you had not taken to the brush, you would have all been long dead.” Ben brought the group’s leaders up to date on what had taken place in the southern part of the province and of the outposts they had established along the way.

  “That’s for us,” the spokesperson for all the survivors told Ben. “I was an advocate of Canada joining the United States long before the Great War fell on us.”

  “We’ll get you set up,” Ben assured the woman. And another bright spot of order and reason was in place amid the darkness of anarchy that surrounded them.

  After dinner, Ben spread maps out on a long table in the meeting room of what had once been a social lodge of some sort and began studying the route that lay ahead of them.

  “It’s right at nine hundred and fifty miles from here to the Yukon border, and only one way to get there.” He thumped the map. “Highway 97. Flybys have reports that many bridges are blown, so that means our engineers will be busy with Bailey bridges and our people will have to be constantly on the alert for ambushes. We’re going to have eyes-in-the-skies ahead of us at all times. But even with all that going for us, we can’t ever afford to let down our guard. Probably ninety percent of our route is paved, so with the exception of having to ford rivers where the bridges have been blown, we’ll make good time. Ike’s route, however, on the Cassiar Highway, has a lot of sections of gravel on it. He’ll be slowed up. His route is about 650 miles to the border, as compared to our 950, so we should arrive there at about the same time.

  “The outlaws will probably hit us on this run, people, and it’s a sure bet they’ll do it more than once, so heads up at all times. There are no major towns of any size on this run. Fort Nelson is the only place that has, according to these old maps, a runway large enough to land our supply planes. We’ll have to be resupplied there. Flybys show the airfield to be intact. So that leads me to think the outlaws also have planes they’re using. Please keep in mind at all times that this bunch of outlaws we’ll be facing is the smartest of the lot. They’re survivors; they’ve stayed alive for years and for sure they have defense lines that we’re going to be hard-pressed to crack. So I don’t want anybody to get arrogant about this campaign just because it’s been relatively easy up to this point.

  “Dan, start your Scouts out in the morning. The main column will be a day behind them. The choppers will go up two hours before we push off. Questions?”

  There were none.

  “Let’s do it,” Ben said.

  The Rebels covered a hundred miles the first day. That was the most they would cover that quickly until reaching the Yukon. The outlaws did not want to cut themselves off from an escape route they might have to use very fast, so most of the blown bridges were between Fort St. John and the Yukon border.

  The Rebels bivouacked near the ruins of what had once been the tiny town of Pink Mountain. A Rebel search party found the bones of what appeared to be several hundred people. They had been shot—according to the doctors—and buried in a mass grave: men, women, children, and tiny infants.

  After the pit had been fully uncovered—or as much as Ben would allow—Chase knelt down and inspected one skeleton. He shook his head and cursed.

  “What’s the matter?” Dan asked. “Other than the obvious, of course.”

  “This woman was pregnant,” the doctor said, standing up. “Baby looks to be—this is just a guess—about seven months old. Sorry, goddamn bastards!”

  “Cover it up,” Ben ordered. “We’ll have a service for these poor people. That’s about the only thing we can do for them.”

  “We can avenge them,” Dr. Chase said hotly.

  “We don’t know who did it,” Ben spoke softly. “Perhaps we’ve already killed those responsible.”

  Striganov stepped out of the pit, a lady’s locket in his hand, the lid open. “No, we haven’t,” he said. He held out a piece of very thin paper, onion skin, Ben guessed.

  Georgi Striganov read: “‘Jack Hayes and Art LeBarre and gangs will kill us in the morning. God have mercy on our souls. Praise General Ben Raines and hasten his arrival.’ It appears to have been nearly the entire town in this pit.”

  “Yes. Looks that way, “Ben said softly. “Cover it back up and get the chaplains.” He walked back to his tent and stepped inside, closing the flap.

  “Perhaps I should not have read the note,” the Russian remarked.

  Emil shook his head. “No, General Striganov. You did exactly the right thing. The reading of that note just may have saved a hundred or more Rebel lives and shortened this campaign by weeks, maybe months.”

  “Sometimes, Emil,” Therm said, looking at the small man, “you make a lot of sense. You’re right. Ben will show no mercy from this point on. He will be relentless in his pursuit and destruction of the outlaw gangs.”

  Dan picked up a shovel. Colonel he was, but he would order no man to do work that he was perfectly capable of doing and near enough to do. “Let’s get to it, lads and lassies,” he said, going to work. “Let’s finish while we have the light.”

  Ben was silent as they pulled out at dawn the next morning, and none of his team, including Linda, offered to break into his thoughts.

  Finally, after about an hour, Ben said, “That was a nice service the chaplains held for the victims of that massacre. I hope it makes them rest easier in that . . . motherfucking pit!”

  Everyone then knew that Ben was not in a real peachy mood.

  “Don’t you wish that?” Ben asked Coop.

  “Yes, sir! I sure do.”

  “Fine.”

  Smoot peeked out from under Jersey’s arm, uncertain whether to hop into the front seat and snuggle next to Ben or stay right where she was.

  She elected to stay right where she was.

  “Smart pup,” Jersey muttered, scratching Smoot behind the ears.

  “Did you say something, Jersey?” Ben asked.

  “Not a thing, General.”

  They rode on in silence for another few miles. Ben said, “Corrie, bump Base Camp One and have them get busy printing surrender leaflets. I want them up here ASAP. The wording will be as follows:
A message from General Ben Raines, commanding officer of the Rebel Army, to all outlaws residing in the state of Alaska. The day of the criminal is over. This will be your only chance to surrender. Once the campaign against you begins, all surrender and amnesty terms will be withdrawn. The Rebel Army will take no prisoners. Anyone who initiates any form of hostile act against a member of the Rebel Army will be shot on sight. Lay down your weapons and surrender peacefully. This will be your only chance to do so. Got all that, Corrie?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bump all commanders and inform them of that decision.”

  “Right, sir.”

  Ben turned his head to gaze out the window. “I hate punks,” he said.

  When the long column reached Fort Nelson, the leaflets were waiting for Ben. Ben read over the leaflets and nodded his head in approval.

  “Beth, make a note that the pilots will start dropping the leaflets three days before we cross over the Alaskan border. I want everyone up there to have the opportunity to read it and decide their fate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Get all battalion commanders, company commanders, and platoon leaders over here.”

  “Right now, sir.”

  “The old man is hot, huh?” a rebel asked Beth as she rounded up all the personnel.

  “Steaming. I’ve been with him for a long time, and I’ve never seen him this angry. His eyes make you want to back up.”

  “This is going to be one hell of a campaign.”

  “Brother, you damn sure got that right,” Beth told him.

  The commanders, from battalion to platoon, gathered in a classroom of an old high school in Fort Nelson. Ben passed around the leaflets for all to read.

  “That’s the way it’s going to be, people. No exceptions except for children. I’m going to give the outlaws seventy-two hours to reach a decision, and then we start burying them. That is a figure of speech only; I have no intention of wasting time burying the bastards. They can rot where they fall until we have time to douse them with gasoline and burn them. I figure three days to Watson Lake; we link up with the other battalions there. We’ll take Highway 1 to Whitehorse, Whitehorse into Alaska. The planes will take off from Whitehorse, dropping the leaflets. Also at Whitehorse our communications people will start bombarding the airwaves with surrender messages. Those will cease the instant we cross into Alaska.