Death in the Ashes Read online

  The ground trembled as the tanks opened fire, the muzzles of the 105s lowered almost to the optimum. They were firing incendiary and Willie Peter, and Bob watched as the flats erupted into a wall of flames and phosphoric arches. The 81mm mortars were lobbing in HE rounds on top of the tank fire, turning the flats into a death trap. Bodies of outlaws were flung into the air, the clothing blazing. Fifty caliber machine guns were yammering, the muzzles spitting out death in two directions. The Dusters and Big Thumpers began singing their war songs. Rebel snipers were having a field day, calmly and coolly picking their targets and dropping them. Bodies were piling up on the Interstate as Dan’s people took their toll.

  “Tanks and mortars cease firing,” Ben ordered.

  The heavy crashing abated and the smoke from the battlefield began to drift away.

  “Jesus Christ!” Bob muttered, looking out over the flats.

  Twisted and mangled bodies littered the smoky battlefield. To the south, bodies were piled on top of bodies on the Interstate and the median and in the overgrown ditches.

  “Cease all firing,” Ben ordered.

  The guns fell silent.

  The faint and fading sounds of trucks and motorcycles reached the ears of the defenders. Those of Barnes’s command who were not cut down by the almost solid wall of lead were retreating in a rout.

  “Corrie, advise Dr. Ling to be ready to receive wounded; Rebel and friendly wounded first. Have interrogation teams ready. Rebels out.” He looked at Lucas. “Let’s go tour the battlefield, Bob.”

  On the flats, Ben knelt down beside a man whose legs had been blown off. He was alive, but just barely. His eyes glared hate at Ben.

  “Got anything to say to me?” Ben asked.

  “Snake’ll git you!” the man gasped. “He’s waitin’ on you, Raines.”

  “I would give you a message to take back, but you just had your ticket punched for a one-way ride to Hell,” Ben told him.

  Standing back, listening to the brutally blunt exchange, Bob Lucas knew then why Ben Raines was slowly but surely winning the battle to reclaim America. Ben Raines was a hard-ass from the word go.

  The dying outlaw cursed Ben.

  “I’ve heard it all before. Please excuse me. Do have a nice day.” Ben stood up and walked to another moaning outlaw. Lucas followed.

  This outlaw was no more than a boy, and his shoulder wound was painful, but did not appear to be serious. Ben waved a medic over. “Patch him up. There may be hope for this one.”

  As the medic went to work, Ben said, “Boy, you want to get straight and try to make something out your life?”

  “What you mean?” the teenager gasped.

  “Stop outlawing.”

  “And do what?” The teenager gritted his teeth as the medic cleaned out the wound.

  “How about work for a change?”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Ben placed the muzzle of his M14 against the boy’s head. “I blow your goddamned brains out—right now!”

  The boy’s eyes widened and his face paled. Bob Lucas did not think it was due to the wound in his shoulder.

  “I reckon I might give that work a try, sir,” the boy finally said.

  “I sort of reckoned you would, son.” Ben lifted the muzzle of the M14 and stood up, walking away. Bob followed.

  “Would you have shot that boy, General?”

  “No. But he didn’t know that. He was born into this mess, Bob; or at best only a baby when the bombs came. Chaos and crime are all he’s ever known. He’s never known discipline or been exposed to law and order and rules and regulation. When anarchy reigns, I can accept that excuse and give a young person a break.”

  “And the older men?”

  “With few exceptions, we don’t take prisoners of the hardcases.”

  “And what happens to the boy?”

  “That’s your problem, now. This is your area of control. I’ll only interfere if and when you ask me to do so.”

  “Thanks a lot.” Bob said it with a smile. “I get the feeling that like de Vaca, I’ve just been appointed something or the other.”

  “Only if you want it.”

  Bob stuck out his hand and Ben took it, standing in the midst of death and pain on the shattered and still-smoking flats.

  “Glad to have you with us, Bob.”

  “Glad to be with you, Ben.”

  The badly wounded who, in Dr. Ling’s opinion, had absolutely no chance of surviving, were eased out of their pain and out of the ranks of the living with lethal injections. The less-severely wounded were patched up and split up for the interrogation teams to work on. And in many cases, that would prove to be rougher than their battle wounds.

  “Sit down!” Ben told one man who looked as if he had just stepped out of central casting for a grade B motorcycle movie.

  His head was shaved clean and he was dressed all in animal skins, except for his massive arms, and they were bare and covered with tattoos. Ben thought he was the ugliest son of a bitch he’d ever seen. And since Ben knew something of outlaw biker jargon and what various tattoos meant, this guy was the epitome of slime.

  This one had most of the wings tattooed on him. Brown wings, a sign that the wearer had performed oral sex with a woman’s anus. Green wings, denoting that he had performed oral sex on a venerally diseased woman. Purple wings, showing proudly that he had performed oral sex with a dead woman.

  P.P.D.S.P.E.M.F.O.B.B.T. Which translated to read: Pill Popping Dope Smoking Pussy Eating Mother Fucken Outlaw Brothers Biken Together.

  F.T.W. Fuck The World.

  The ugly bastard also had two crosses tattooed on his arms. The white cross was earned when a person digs open a grave, removes an article from the deceased with witnesses present, and then wears the article on his clothing. The red cross was earned by committing homosexual fellatio with witnesses present.

  There were other tattoos; but Ben had seen and translated enough to know that he was dealing with pure shit.

  “What’s your name?” Ben asked.

  The biker cursed him.

  “You’re a real tough boy, aren’t you?”

  “Goddamn right!”

  “And nobody is ever going to break you or any of your buddies, right?”

  “Bet your ass on that!”

  Several of his biker brothers sitting across the room laughed in agreement.

  “You ever raped a child?” Ben asked.

  “Bunches of times.”

  “Female or male?”

  “Both.”

  “You proud of that?”

  “Goddamn right!”

  “You’re wearing 666 tattooed on your arm. You worship the devil?”

  “Goddamn right.”

  “You take orders from a biker named Satan?”

  “Goddamn right.”

  “No hope for you at all, is there, tough boy?”

  “Goddamn right.”

  Ben picked up his .45 from the desk top and shot the biker between the eyes. He slammed out of the chair and lay still, his blood leaking out of the back of his head where the hollow-nosed slug had exited.

  “Drag that dead obscenity out of here and sit another tough boy in the chair,” Ben ordered. “I want to see if he’s as tough as his brother on the floor.”

  He wasn’t.

  Bob Lucas was a tough man, and all who knew him would agree, but even he had been startled by Ben’s shooting the biker in the head. He knew they why the old Tri-States that Ben had formed had been 99.99 percent free of crime.

  Ben Raines just wouldn’t tolerate it—then or now.

  “All right,” Ben said. “Here’s what we have. Matt Callahan and this biker called Satan have quite an operation going, controlling, to one extent or the other, most outlaw gangs in a half a dozen or more states. Might as well say the entire northwest, and I’ll include Utah and Colorado and the north half of California in that.

  “Now that doesn’t mean that there aren’t plenty of communities in those states
that are law-abiding and forward-looking. I know there are many of them. We’ve had radio contact with them. But this outlaw biker business is bigger than I first thought, and I intend to crush it.”

  “You want me and my bunch to go with you, Ben?” Lucas asked.

  “No. I want you people to stay right where you are and continue to stabilize this part of Colorado. You’ve done a fine job and I congratulate you.”

  “I have radioed Base Camp One and requested that Dr. Chase have medical teams flown in with plenty of supplies for Mr. Lucas,” Dr. Ling said.

  “Good!” Bob said. “We have doctors in the area, but damn few supplies.”

  “We’ll get you set up, don’t worry about that,” Ben assured him.

  Gunshots split the night air. Dan Gray was overseeing the disposition of many of the older, hardcore outlaws. Rebel justice came down very, very swiftly, and very, very final.

  The warlord, Barnes, had not been among the dead or wounded.

  “I have to tell you this, General,” Bob said. “There is a group of people who settled up in Walsenburg who ride motorcycles when the weather permits.”

  “Just because someone is a biker doesn’t make them bad,” Ben said. “I’ve never been the type of person who thought that.” He smiled. “But I would tell them, if I were you, that this is not a real dandy time to be tooling about on two wheels.”

  Bob laughed. “Yeah, I agree. I’ll give them a bump and so advise.”

  “Anybody got anything else they’d like to say?” Ben asked.

  “Only that when you leave our area of control,” Bob said, “you’re in real bogie country. You’re going to have to fight your way through Colorado. There is not much left of Colorado Springs, and nothing left of Denver. You’re going to have to leave the Interstate and skirt those places, using secondary roads. From Pueblo on, General, you’re in enemy territory.”

  “Believe me when I say, Bob, we’re used to that.”

  9

  “You either got a lot of nerve, or else you’re just plumb crazy, boy!” the guard at the roadblock told Pete Jones.

  “I will admit to possessing more than my share of courage,” Pete told him. “However, there are some who might question my sanity.”

  “Talks funny, too,” another guard said.

  “What’d you want, boy?”

  “To see a person named the Rattlesnake Kid. If not him, then Satan will suffice.”

  A huge biker who looked, if he strained very hard, as if he might be able to count to ten, walked up and looked at Pete. He squinted, then smiled. “Hiya, Pete!”

  “Hello, Bruiser. How have you been?”

  “I been doin’ great, man.”

  “You know this nigger, Bruiser?”

  “Hey!” Bruiser gave the man a sharp look. “Pete ain’t no nigger. He’s ... ah ... just dark, that’s all. He’s all right.”

  “Whatever you say, Bruiser. How do you know this n ... ah, guy?”

  “We was in the slam together down in Texas. Me and Pete busted out together. We was tight in the joint.”

  “He wants to see Snake.”

  Bruiser looked at Pete and shook his head. “That ain’t cool, Pete. Snake don’t like nobody that ain’t white.”

  “He doesn’t have to like me, Bruiser. Just listen to what I have to say. Ben Raines and his army aren’t that many days away. He’s coming up to destroy you.”

  “Snake might like to hear that, awright. OK. You follow me in. Just you.” He jerked a thumb at Sam. “Him and the rest of your people stay back here. Come on.”

  One side of the biker’s face had been torn off in an accident years back, leaving that side horribly scarred. He could not completely close his mouth nor completely open one eye. One ear was missing. He stood six feet, six inches tall—without his boots—and weighed about three hundred pounds, very little of it fat. He stared at Pete for a long time, hoping to intimidate the man. But Pete was not the intimidating type. Satan finally gave up.

  “Snake don’t see no one. You talk to me, then if I decide it’s important, I’ll get word to Snake.”

  “Very well. Here is my news and my plan . . .”

  “You’re passing out of our area of control,” Lucas’s people at Pueblo radioed Ben. “Bear west up ahead, Highway 50. Take that to 285. It’s right at a hundred miles to the junction. Then you’re in the mountains and in bogie country. Good luck, General.”

  At Pueblo, Ben halted the column, off-loaded the bulldozers, and put the tanks on the flatbeds. He had told Lucas they may or may not be back to get the earth-moving equipment. Then he spread a map out on the hood of his Blazer and once more studied it.

  “Right through the heart of the Rockies,” Ben said. “One hell of a pull.”

  “What are our options, Dad?” Tina asked.

  “Go all the way over to Grand Junction and take secondary roads north. And I don’t like that either. Once we leave Grand Junction, we’d have to travel through about two hundred miles of absolutely nothing.”

  “On our way to HALFASS,” Dan said, trying to hide his smile.

  “Yes.” Ben made no attempt to disguise his grin. “I know they’re dangerous and savage, but that name gets to me.”

  “I think we can make the pull through the mountains with no trouble, General,” Ramos said. “All our engines have been recently rebuilt, as have the transmissions.”

  “It’s not mechanical problems that concern me. That’s ambush country. And we’re probably going to have to clear a dozen or more rockslides.” He sighed and folded the map. “Well, let’s head north, gang. The Rockies are a sight to see.”

  They hit their first firefight about twenty-five miles west of Pueblo. But the outlaws quickly realized they were up against a vastly superior force and withdrew after only a few minutes. The Rebels crashed through the roadblocks and continued westward. They used the loop to bypass Canon City. Lucas had told them the town was a haven for thugs and outlaws. Lucas would deal with them later.

  Ben pulled the convoy over early in the afternoon at Salida, a town that had once contained about five thousand souls back before the Great War.

  Now it was a looted, ravaged shell of a town.

  “We’ll set up camp and then inspect the residential area,” Ben said. “But I’ve a hunch any decent citizens were either driven out or killed or captured long ago. It has that feel about it.”

  They found what the various animals and carrion birds had left of what had once been dozens of human beings. Every scrap of flesh had been picked off the bones. Only a few rotting pieces of clothing remained.

  Dr. Ling began his inspection of the bones and it did not take him long. “There is no evidence of any broken bones. Not one sign of bullet-shattered ribs. The skulls are intact. I’d say the Night People stayed here for a while and feasted before moving on. This is not their kind of country.”

  Ben agreed. He hoped he would not have to come face to face with any creepies on this trip. The memories of New York City still haunted him, and he felt sure, most of the other Rebels. The winter spent in the Big Apple had been an exhausting one, both mentally and physically.

  They stood in silence for a few moments, looking at the piles of bones. Finally one Rebel said, “I’ll get some shovels. That’s the very least we can do.”

  No one slept easy that night outside the deserted town. Even though he knew it was an unnecessary move, Ben doubled the guard and shortened the watch hours so no one would get in a mental strain during the seemingly endless hours of the night.

  The Rebels pulled out just after dawn, turning north on 285.

  “Now it gets hairy,” Ben said.

  Cooper smiled lecherously and waggled his eyebrows.

  “Keep your mouth shut, Cooper!” Jersey warned him.

  “I can always dream,” he replied with a smile.

  Ben looked at the dark forests that lay on both sides of the highway. Battalions, divisions of troops could hide in there.

  But Tina and
her Scouts, on forward recon, reported seeing nothing. And Ben could take some consolation in the fact that he was not up against highly disciplined troops; he doubted that very many of the bikers and outlaws were even very good or at home in deep timber.

  “Jesus!” Jersey breathed, gazing out at the outline of Mt. Antero, its summit pushing over fourteen thousand feet into the air.

  “I wonder how the outlaws keep this road open during the winter,” Cooper mused aloud.

  “I’d wager they don’t,” Ben said. “I’d say that in the winter, everything grinds to a halt.”

  “Far-out Scout to Eagle,” Tina’s voice came through the speaker.

  “Go, Scout.”

  “Roadblocks at what used to be a little town called Nathrop.”

  “Hold what you have. We’re on the way. You catch that, Dan?”

  “Ten-four, General. I’m gone.”

  “Get around those trucks, Cooper.”

  The few trucks and Jeeps and Hummers that rolled ahead of Ben got over to let him pass.

  Jersey looked down at the valley below. “Please stay on the road, Cooper.”

  “You ain’t seen nothing yet, Jersey,” Ben told her with a smile. “Believe me when I say the best, or the worst, depending on your point of view, is still ahead of us.”

  “I can hardly wait.”

  The roadblock was a chain of human bodies, roped together and rotting all across the road.

  Ben got out and walked up to the stinking roadblock. The stench was awful. Tina and her bunch were already wearing gasmasks; the filters knocking out much of the stink, but not all.

  Ben slipped his mask on and said, “Any sign of boobytrapping?”

  “Not that I can see,” Dan told him. “The manner of men we face just seems to get worse and worse as time marches on.”

  “Dregs of society, Dan. All right, inspect the bodies carefully for explosives and then cut them down and bury them. Tina, take your team in and look over the little town. Head’s up, now.”

  Ben didn’t like the position they were in and he could tell Dan wasn’t too thrilled about it either. But they had been stopped for several minutes, and if an ambush was coming, it should have already started.