Death in the Ashes Read online

  The line of rotting bodies removed, Ben walked on past, waving for Cooper and the Blazer to come on.

  “Why the roadblock?” Dan questioned. “And why that type of blockade?”

  “I don’t know. A warning, to be sure.”

  “Perhaps to other outlaw gangs?”

  “Could be. If that’s the case, then all the gangs are not uniting under the leadership of Matt Callahan.”

  “And that could be both good and bad. For us, I mean.”

  “Yes.”

  The Blazer pulled up alongside the walking men. Corrie said, “Tina reports the town is deserted. But it’s been recently occupied.”

  “Go on in,” Ben told Cooper. “I’ll ride in with Dan.”

  The Rebels spent only a few minutes in the deserted and ravaged little town. Just enough time to silently tell them that the town was ruined and would probably never again be occupied by humans.

  “They’re waiting for us at Buena Vista,” Buddy called in. “A hundred or so bikers.”

  Buena Vista was only a few miles up the road.

  Ben acknowledged the report and told his son to stay put. “Off-load the Dusters,” he ordered. “They’ll take the point. Bust through, we’ll be right behind you,” he told the tank commanders.

  The Dusters were unchained from the trailers and roared and rumbled into life.

  “Go!” Ben waved them forward, then got into the Blazer, telling Cooper, “Stay with them.”

  Outfitted with twin 40mm cannon and twin-mounted M60 machine guns, the Dusters roared toward the bikers crouched behind a hastily erected roadblock on the edge of the town. The outlaws must have thought the devil had unleashed his fury at them as the five Dusters came barreling up the road, abreast, all guns snarling and spitting.

  The Duster could spit out two hundred forty 40mm rounds per minute with both barrels going. In one minute, twelve hundred 40mm rounds and twice that many 7.62 machine gun rounds tore into the blockade and the immediate area around it.

  They turned the blockade into an inferno, the gas tanks of the vehicles and motorcycles exploding, hurling torn and bloody and blazing bodies in all directions.

  The Dusters rammed through, with APCs right behind them, and raced toward the center of the small town.

  The battle turned into a total rout as the superior troops of Ben Raines locked horns with the bikers. Very little mercy was given to the outlaws. Ben wanted only a few prisoners for interrogation.

  The battle was over in less than fifteen minutes and the town was declared secure.

  Ben walked to where a small group of sullen-looking bikers were being held under guard by Rebels. He pointed to a store. “Is that building secure?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Take these”—Ben looked at the outlaw bikers, disgust evident in his eyes—“people in there and hold them. I’ll question them in a moment.”

  Before the bikers could be taken inside, Buddy and a team of Rebels walked up, escorting a very frightened and apparently badly used group of women and girls.

  “Found them chained in a house, Father. They were taken from a small settlement just east of here.”

  “Just females?”

  “The boys were traded to a group of outlaws whose sexual preferences are a bit twisted.”

  Ben cussed as he turned to the biker prisoners. “Where is this other group of scum?”

  “Fuck you, man!” was the reply.

  Ben hit him with the butt of his M14 and his jaw popped as green and rotten teeth flew from his mouth. The outlaw lay on the littered sidewalk and moaned in pain. Ben shifted his hard eyes to another biker. “I’ll ask you the same question. And if you wise-ass off to me, I’ll shoot you.”

  “You gonna shoot us anyways, so why the hell should I tell you a goddam thing?”

  Ben obliged the biker with one round to the head. The outlaw dropped to the sidewalk.

  “Hey, man!” one of the remaining outlaws yelled. “We got rights, man. You can’t do this. It’s . . . it’s unconstitutional!”

  Ben’s smile was extremely unpleasant as he shifted the still-smoking muzzle of the old Thunder Lizard toward the mouthy biker. He slowly lifted the muzzle and placed it against the man’s jaw. “Where are the young boys being held, scumbag?”

  “Up the road at Leadville!” the biker screamed. “Jesus God, man! Who the hell are you?”

  “Ben Raines.”

  The outlaw fainted.

  Ben did not shoot the remaining outlaws. He hanged them.

  The column rolled out and traveled up to a small town about fifteen miles south of Leadville. The going was very slow through the mountains and Ben wanted some intelligence about Leadville before he struck it. He bivouacked his Rebels in the small town of Granite and sent out recon teams.

  “About the time I think we’re making some progress, we meet scum like those today,” he said to Meg.

  “Satan and my father are just as bad.” She spoke the words with a bitter tinge. “Or worse.”

  “I can’t imagine what pushed Matt over the edge. He always seemed so steady.”

  “He had his dark side, I can tell you that for sure,” Matt’s daughter replied. “Looking back, searching my memory, I can remember some pretty ugly scenes with my father, and some suspicious moments when I’d come home unexpectedly and catch Dad with . . . neighbor boys, or young girls. I guess I just forced them out of my mind.”

  Ben did not press her on the memories. He felt he had a pretty clear idea of what she had seen and probably personally experienced at the hands of her father.

  He watched her walk away, and for the first time in months, enjoyed the view. Jerre would never be totally out of his mind, but he felt he could push her far enough back into the dark reaches where she would not be constantly bugging him.

  He turned as Dan approached.

  “Recon reporting a fairly heavy force of outlaws are occupying Leadville, General. No way of determining whether they are part of Callahan’s bunch or are an independent group.”

  “Weapons?”

  “Nothing to match ours in sight. Handguns and rifles for the most part. No way of knowing where the prisoners are being held. If they’re still alive,” he added.

  “The kids would probably be better off if they were dead,” Ben said, disgust on his face. Aberrent sexual behavior between consenting adults was bad enough, but when children became a part of it . . . no punishment was too great for those adults involved.

  Ben waved Buddy over to him.

  “Yes, Father?”

  “You think you can take a team into Leadville, find those kids, and get them out, all without getting yourself killed or captured?”

  “Certainly!” Buddy acted as though Ben had insulted him by even asking.

  “Well . . . what the hell are you waiting on?” Ben said with a smile.

  10

  Buddy’s team, as Dan was fond of pointing out, was the crème de la crème of his Scouts. They were, to use the words of Jean Larte Guy: young enthusiasts in camouflage uniforms, who would not be put on display, but from whom impossible efforts would be demanded and to whom all sorts of tricks would be taught.

  “Stupid thugs,” Buddy whispered to a team member. They stood over the bodies of two outlaws who had come blundering out of an alley and almost ran into the Scouts. The Scouts had used their knives, starry pinpoints of light reflecting off the long, sharp blades as they cut and slashed.

  Wild drunken laughter came from a building across the street. Buddy and his team darted across the dark street and pressed in close to the side of the building, Buddy peeking inside through a filthy window. No kids were in sight, but the building was filled with outlaws, most of them well on their way to getting drunk on what appeared to be some sort of homebrew. It was an equal mix of bikers and their women, one just as bad as the other.

  “The ones who prefer young boys must be in another part of town,” Buddy said. “Put a charge on this building.”

  Grinni
ng, a young Scout slipped out of a heavy pack and began planting enough C4 to guarantee there would not be enough left of the building or its occupants to worry about. The charge would be detonated by radio signal.

  “Let’s find the kids,” Buddy said.

  They found them, and they were in a pitiful shape. One of them was being used by an outlaw, gags stuffed in the boy’s mouth to stifle his screaming. Buddy lifted a silenced .22 autoloader and shot the biker through the head. The team rushed in, slashed at the ropes binding the children, slung them over their shoulders, and ran from the house of horrors.

  At the edge of town, Buddy halted the team and looked at the young Rebel who had planted the charges. “Do it.”

  Seventy-five pounds of C4 blew, the shock of the explosion rocking the ground for blocks around. The walls of the building collapsed, bringing the roof down on the outlaw bikers and their women. Lanterns and candles caught debris on fire and within minutes the night sky was lit with dancing flames.

  Buddy held one scared, trembling, and hurt young boy, no more than five or six, in his strong arms. “You’re all right now,” he assured the boy. “The horror is over. It will not happen again. Not as long as you stay with the Rebels.”

  “That was one strange dude, Sam,” Pete Jones told his friend, as the Cadillac rolled south toward the preset rendezvous point with Lopez, MacNally, and the others. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like him.”

  “Tell me about him again, Pete,” Sam urged. “I wanna laugh some more.”

  “Dressed all in black, Sam. Cowboy boots shined to where you could see your face in them—had shiny spurs that jingled. Big black hat with a rattlesnake skin for a hatband. Big belt all studded up with silver dollars. Had twin six-shooters, nickel-plated, pearl handles, tied down low. He used all sorts of cowboy terms, like partner, rattle your hocks, belly up to the bar, fork your cayuse . . . stuff like that.”

  “What’s a cayuse, Pete?”

  Pete shook his head. “Damned if I know, Sam. Must be something you eat with a fork, though. Anyway, Snake liked my plan. So we’ll be linking up with Lopez and the others and traveling back north.”

  “Sounds good to me. Pete? I’ve eat lots of hamhocks in my time. But damned if I ever saw one that would rattle!”

  “Take the town,” Ben ordered, just as day was pushing night aside. “No prisoners.”

  He turned to Corrie. “According to this map, there is—or was—some sort of airport in Leadville; or close to it. It’s probably not going to be large enough to handle our bigger birds, so Cecil will have to send some of those smaller commuter planes we have. Tell him to stand by, please, Corrie.”

  Ben had spoken to the kids. They were the only prisoners being held by the outlaws. There had been others, but they had been traded to another gang a few days back.

  The 81mm mortar crews began lobbing HE and incendiary rounds into the town as gunners behind. 50 caliber machine guns raked their fire areas. Several blocks of the town had burned the night before; as the incendiary rounds began slamming in, it was only a matter of minutes before the entire downtown area was blazing.

  “Cease firing,” Ben ordered. “Mop it up.”

  Rebels moved in behind the Dusters, as the 40mm cannon rounds from the Dusters created more flames and confusion and destruction.

  Ben looked down at what had once been a thriving little town nestled in the Rocky Mountains. He had read somewhere—long ago—that it had once snowed in Leadville on the Fourth of July.

  Now there was very little left of Leadville, and as the fires swirled relentlessly on, soon there would be nothing.

  Only sporadic gunshots were coming from the burning town as the Rebels mopped up.

  Cooper said, “I told General Jefferys about the condition of the kids and he’s starting the smaller birds out immediately. He says to tell you that a hostile force was spotted by our patrols in Minnesota. They were pretty sure it was Ashley and his bunch.”

  “I’m beginning to get very weary of Mr. Ashley. That bastard is determined to see me dead.”

  Dan walked up. “Snake and Satan to the north, Ashley and probably Sister Voleta to the east.” He shook his head. “And God only knows what’s being plotted by those south of us.”

  “That same thought just crossed my mind,” Ben admitted. He shrugged his shoulders. “Let’s go see the airport.”

  There wasn’t much left of it. The buildings had all been looted, and the few planes left in the hangers destroyed.

  Dan, who was a pilot himself, viewed the wreckage and cursed. “We’ll be able to salvage parts, but that’s about all.”

  “Why do they do it?” Corrie asked.

  “Because they’re looters,” Ben told her. “And looters are greedy, selfish, stupid people. Whatever they don’t understand, they destroy. Let’s get the runway cleared off. We’ll bivouac out here; let the town burn itself out.”

  “Buddy reporting they have prisoners,” Corrie said, after listening to her earphones.

  Ben gave Dan a quick look. The Englishman nodded his head and walked toward his Jeep. Ben slung his M 14 and began to roll a cigarette as teams of Rebels began the task of clearing the runway. Others began pitching tents and cleaning out a hanger to use as a mess hall.

  “It’s just all in a day’s work, isn’t it, General?” Meg asked. “I mean, nobody has to be told what to do ... it just gets done. It could be said that you have a cult following here.”

  “It has been said, Meg. Many times. And there may be a modicum of truth to it. But a cult has to have something they worship. For a time that ‘thing’ was me. But I put a stop to that. For the most part.”

  “I’ve seen shrines built in your honor, General.”

  “I know. The Woods Children and the Underground People have done that. Used to do that. I hope all that is over and done with. A cult? No, we’re all fighting and working and sweating toward the same goal, Meg. To rebuild this nation.”

  “And you’re determined to get it done.”

  “Not in my lifetime. Buddy and Tina will have to carry on after I’m gone.”

  “Can they do it?”

  “Oh, yes.” He smiled and his eyes twinkled. “But I don’t intend to go for a very long time.”

  The following morning, Ben outlined the route he wanted to take and a team of scouts pulled out. They would go only as far as Interstate 70, about twenty-five miles from Leadville up Highway 91, reporting back any roadblocks or sightings of hostiles. At the Interstate, they would camp and wait until the Rebels jumped off from Leadville. At that time the Scouts would advance up to the junction of Highway 40 north, repeating the process.

  Buddy was leading this team of Scouts.

  Late that afternoon, the light planes from Base Camp One began setting down. Ben was not surprised to see Dr. Lamar Chase step out of the first plane down.

  The men shook hands. “You old goat,” Ben needled his old friend. “Who invited you?”

  “I don’t need a damned invitation!” Chase popped back. “Besides, you’re forgetting this is my country. I used to take leave in this area, hiking and camping. I wanted to see it one more time.”

  “And, of course, you brought along more of that abysmal goop you concocted that is laughably called field rations.”

  “Of course. Knowing how you all love it so much. I couldn’t bear the thought of you running out.”

  “You’re all heart, Lamar.”

  “Don’t I know it. Where are the children?”

  Ben pointed. “Over there. And they’re in rough shape.”

  “The scum who did this to them?”

  “They’re dead. Dan hanged them yesterday afternoon.”

  “Good.” Chase waved at the medical team who had accompanied him from the base camp and walked toward the building where the abused kids were being kept.

  Past seventy, Lamar Chase was still as spry as a man thirty years younger.

  The planes began landing ten minutes apart, off-loading su
pplies to keep Ben and his battalion fully equipped, and gassing up for the return trip the next morning. Ben waved several of the pilots over and outlined the proposed route the Rebels would be taking.

  “Fort Collins will probably be our next resupply point. Of course, all that is subject to change, depending on how much we exhaust between here and there.”

  “Hell, General, we can always come in on some of these little strips all along here,” a pilot said, tracing the route with a finger. “We’ve landed in worse places, believe me. Anytime you want us, just holler. We’ll sit them down anywhere you carve out for us.”

  Ben watched the birds fly out the next morning then mounted up his people and started the pull north to the Interstate. Buddy had reported back that the outlaws in the mountains had pulled out, giving the Rebels a wide berth.

  “I would much prefer they stood and fought it out,” Ben said to those in the Blazer. “We’re just going to have to come back and do it all over again.” Then he laughed.

  “What’s so funny, General?” Beth asked.

  “I was just remembering a line from Brother Dave. He said you can’t ever do anything again. Once it’s done, it’s done. You can only do something similar.”

  And with a smile on his lips, Ben let them all chew on Brother Dave’s words for a time.

  The convoy made the way to Buddy’s location by midmorning. It had been very slow going through the mountains. Highway 91 was deteriorating rapidly, with many washed-out spots, where huge areas of concrete were missing or broken.

  Ben couldn’t imagine anyone in their right mind wanting to ride a motorcycle through this mess.

  They had passed through the small town of Climax, where a few hundred souls had once resided. The town had obviously been used by outlaws—and recently—for the place was a mess. Human feces was evident in every building, usually confined to a corner in one room.

  “Filthy buggers!” Dan said. “How could a human being live like this?”