Alone in the Ashes (14 page)

Ben watched the column headed by West pull back. Shortly afterward, he noticed dust from the north, tracking east, heading toward Texas Red's location.

“That screaming a few moments ago?” Rani asked.

“Someone stepped into one of the old shafts,” Ben told her. “We shortened the odds some the first go-around.”

“We're going to need more than that,” Rani said glumly.

Ben laughed. “Go tell the kids to stand easy but not to leave their posts. We're going to have a few hours respite.”

“And then?” she asked.

“Then all hell breaks loose.” He looked toward the east. “Be interesting to know what those crap-heads are talking about,” he muttered.

 

 

“Jake's gonna be plenty pissed about this,” West said.

“Fuck Campo!” Texas Red said. “He don't spell Jack-shit to me.”

But West thought, and thought correctly, most of that was pure macho bravado. West had yet to meet anyone who wasn't, at best, leery of Jake Campo—at worst, terrified of the big outlaw.

“We gonna have to approach this usin' some sense,” Texas Red said. “I guess them Rebs of Raines must have fireballed down here to join him. He's got them scattered around the ruins of the town. Problem is, I don't know how many of them they is.”

“I can't see how that's possible,” West countered. “Our guys was supposed to find them and box them in, wasn't they?”

“Findin' Raines' Rebs is one thing,” Texas Red said. “Boxin' them in is something else.”

“So what do we do?”

“We wait and think this thing out.”

 

 

Jake knew what had happened when Red and West were not at the prearranged meeting place. No honor among thieves, he thought.

He looked up at the sound of engines. Cowboy Vic's column roared into view.

“Where's the rest of the boys?” Vic asked.

“I would imagine they've gone on into that old ghost town just west of the Big Bend,” Campo said. “That's what you had in mind, too, wasn't it?”

“Yep,” Vic said honestly. “I was thinkin' that whoever got Raines first, could write his own ticket. Wasn't you thinkin' the same, Jake?”

Jake laughed. “Sure was.”

“Thought so. That's why we all got down here a little early, wasn't it?”

“That's it. Well, maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all,” Jake mused aloud.

“How you figure that?”

“We'll just lay back and let West and Texas Red soften up Raines and his bunch. Let them take the heaviest losses. Then we'll move in and pick up the pieces.”

“And the glory,” Cowboy Vic said, a trickle of slobber leaking out of one corner of his mouth. “Right?”

“You got it.” And then I'll kill you, Campo thought.

“Good plan,” Cowboy Vic said. And when that's done, then I'll kill you, he thought.

The men looked at each other. Vic said,“You got anything to fuck with you? We picked up a few cunts but they give us so much trouble we kilt them.”

“Yeah,” Campo said absently. “We picked up a shit-pot full of women. Help yourself.”

 

 

“Here they come, Ben!” Jordy shouted from the second floor. “A whole big bunch of them.”

“Hold your fire!” Ben called. “We have to let them get into town.”

“There ain't nobody in this damn old place!” Ben heard the voice drift faintly to him. “The goddamned place is deserted.”

“Hull fell in a hole in the ground!” another man shouted. “Hell, there ain't no Rebs here.”

“Charge the house!” Texas Red's voice ripped the air. “There ain't nobody up there 'cept Raines and the woman and kids. Go, boys, go!”

A dozen or more outlaws, thinking they had victory in the palm of their hands, came charging from the southeast. Ben waited until the panting, out-of-shape men were just beyond the stone fence before yelling the orders to fire.

The dozen went down under a hail of lead.

“Finish them!” Ben yelled.

The yelling of the wounded was silenced by single shots to the head.

West looked at Texas Red. “Thought you said this was gonna be easy?”

“Shut up, West. If you had any sense, you'd have been counting the rifles that was firing. I did. I figure no more than seven or eight people in there firing. Nine at the most. Shit, man! They's two hundred and fifty of us.” He waved his hand, signaling the others to gather around him.

“Harrison, you take your bunch to the back of the house. Lee, you and your boys take the near side. Jess, take the far side. Rest of you follow me, we're takin' the front. We can't burn them out, so we're gonna have to shoot them out of there. Just keep up a steady fire. We get enough lead in there bouncin' around, we'll drive them out. Move out.”

Ben picked up on their plans before the outlaws had a chance to put it into full operation.

“Don't let them surround us!” he called. “Stop them now!”

Texas Red's plan was only half accomplished. Both ends of the house were covered, but the intense fire from the house kept the front and back open, the gunfire driving the outlaws back time after time.

Roaming from top to bottom, one end of the house to the other, Ben counted thirty-five dead lying around the old house on the hill.

He told Rani, “If we can hold on through the night, this bunch will have a lot of quitters in it. These men won't put up with losses like we've given them. They're not soldiers; they're trash, undisciplined gutter-slime. We've got to hang on.”

Rani stuck out her chin. “My kids will do their best.”

“I'm damn proud of them. Every last one of them,” Ben told her. Then he surprised her by leaning down and kissing her mouth. “And I'm proud of you, Rani. I'll soldier with you anytime, anyplace.”

She touched her lips with her fingertips. Kneeling there, in the dust of the floor, her face blackened by gunsmoke and dirt, she smiled at him. “We'll have to continue this later on, Ben.”

“Looking forward to it, Rani.”

“Here they come, Miss Rani!” Robert called.

The lines of men that ran at them were not nearly so full of bravado this time around. Ben could sense that many of the outlaws had already had a gutful of this fighting.

“Adjust your fire!” Ben yelled. “Shoot them in the guts. Aim for the center of the belly!”

The house rocked with gunfire; the air became smoky and hard to breathe; involuntary tears sprang into the eyes of the defenders, young and older alike.

The lines of men wavered, then broke completely and ran back to safety.

“Reload!” Ben called. “Reload all empty clips and stand ready.”

Rani came to him. “Why did you tell us to shoot the men in the stomach, Ben?”

His smile was not pretty. “Listen closely, Rani.”

The soul-wrenching screams of the gut-shot men on the outside were hideous to hear. They lay in pools of their own blood and howled in agony. Some were calling for mother to help them; others called for God to put an end to their suffering; others lay dying and cursed God.

Still others cursed Ben Raines.

“Can you imagine how demoralizing that is to their buddies?” Ben said, grim satisfaction in his voice.

“I never want you for an enemy, Ben,” Rani told him.

“Why, darling,” Ben replied. “I'm just doing what Uncle Sammy taught me to do—years ago.”

 

 

Dusk began draping purple curtains over the land. As the first fingers of darkness touched the old ghost town, Ben carefully checked each child's position. He checked each weapon, making sure every available clip was full. He talked with each young warrior for a few moments, patting them on the shoulder, reassuring them. With several, he stood their post while they went to the bathroom.

He told Rani, “You take the upstairs and I'll take it down here. The kids have got to get some sleep. Keep changing positions but do so staying low. I think they'll be sending in commando teams tonight to get inside the house. So if you see anything moving, don't shout the warning. Come to the stairs and tell me. OK?”

For a reply, she kissed him and then was gone in the gloom of the old house.

Ben laid the M-16 aside and picked up his Thompson. He was almost certain a few of the outlaws would get inside the house this night. While he really had nothing against the M-16, he knew the big, slow. 45-caliber slug packed more of a wallop than the smaller, lighter, but faster 5.56 round. He knew that if the .45 slug hit a man, anywhere, that man was going down.

Full dark came suddenly, almost too quickly. One second it was still light enough to see, the next instant darkness had completely enveloped the ghost town.

The outlaws wasted no time in slipping around the house on the hill. Those badly wounded outlaws that lay moaning and crying and dying around the house gave their buddies away.

Rani whistled softly for Ben. He looked up through the gloom of the old stairs.

“They're slipping in all around us, Ben,” she said softly.

“The kids up?”

“And ready.”

“Pick your targets and open fire.”

It was rock-and-roll time around the house on the hill overlooking the ghost town. The night became pocked with muzzle flashes, punctuated with yelling from the now-discovered outlaws, and filled with the screaming of the wounded as the young defenders of the house found their targets and opened fire.

Over the banging and roaring of gunshots and bolts slamming back and forth, Ben heard the faint sounds of boot heels on the old brick of the front porch. He stepped back into the darkness until his back touched the wall. He lifted the Thompson as his eyes found the shapes of men slipping quietly up to the sightless empty windows that faced the porch.

He cleared one window of three dark shapes, the Thompson jumping and bucking and roaring in his hands. The men were flung backward as the lead struck them in belly and chest.

Ben quickly changed positions, moving from one end of the room to the other. He heard one of the young people yell. He had no way of knowing if the cry was out of fear or if the young person had been hit by gunfire. Ben suspected the latter.

He looked up just in time to hurl himself to the floor. Gunfire ripped the dark room, the slugs striking where Ben had been. On the floor, Ben lifted the Thompson and pulled the trigger, clearing yet another window of outlaws.

Someone was in the room with him. No! More than one person. Two, maybe three men. Ben lay on the floor and listened. A boot scraped the floor. Ben crawled noiselessly away, lifted the submachine gun, and poured the lead toward the sound.

As the muzzle flashes from the Thompson gave sparking light to the room, Ben saw three men jerk and dance grotesquely as the .45-caliber equalizers hit flesh and bone. The odor of piss and shit and vomit and sweat was strong in the room, as dying bladders and bowels emptied.

“Back, back!” someone from the outside called. “Fall back.”

“Fuck this crap!” a man yelled. “I've had it. I'm cuttin' out.”

“Yeah,” another voice said. “Me, too.”

“I'm with you, guys,” yet another voice was added.

“Let's get the hell out of here,” a fourth voice said.

Those voices were joined by others.

“You yellow motherfuckers!” a man screamed. “You bastards runnin' away from kids and cunts and one man?”

“You goddamn right!”

“I'll see you dead first!” the commanding voice shouted.

Then what Ben had hoped would happen began taking place.

Gunfire ripped the night. But the fire was not directed toward the house. The outlaws were fighting among themselves.

The sounds of heavy gunfire coughed out of the night. Trucks and cars and vans cranked up, and headlights cut the dust and gunsmoke that had settled over the ghost town.

The gunfire died away. The sounds of roaring motors faded into the night. Only the moaning and howling and screaming and cursing of the wounded could be heard.

Ben crawled around the room, making certain all of the outlaws were dead. Ben found one still alive. Using his long-bladed knife, Ben cut the man's throat.

He crawled to a window and looked out. Far in the distance, he could see the light from escaping vehicles.

Against all odds, the small band of defenders, alone in the ashes, had won this fight.

Robert had been hit in the arm. The wound was painful, but not serious. Miraculously, that was their only casualty.

At first light, with everyone giving him cover if it was needed, Ben slipped outside and began gathering up weapons and ammo.

He counted ninety dead. He smiled amid the gore and dead and shook his head. If ninety had been killed, at least that many more had been wounded.

“Lucky,” Ben muttered. “We were so very, very lucky.”

“Oh, goddamn it, Ben!” Rani said, when Ben told her what he planned to do.

Ben stood firm. “You going to help me, or do I do it myself?”

Her green eyes touched him. They were emotionless, unreadable. “I'll help you, Ben. If you think it's necessary, then let's do it. But I think it's the most hideous thing I have ever heard of.”

“When they start soaking up the bullets meant for you and me and the kids,” Ben countered, “you just might change your mind.”

They began stacking the bodies of the dead outlaws around certain parts of the yard, and closing in the porch with them.

It was grisly work, and Ben didn't like it any more than Rani—although he would never let on to her that he didn't. But he knew the grisly sight would make a lot of outlaws very uneasy, and would probably cause a few of them to give up the fight altogther. Also, most of the outlaws would be very reluctant to climb over the stinking, stiffening dead to get onto the porch.

He told Rani that.

“I still think it's barbaric!” she snapped at him.

Ben met her hot eyes. “Would you prefer to see eleven-year-old Jane held down on the ground and butt-fucked?”

She shut her mouth and continued working.

 

 

Colonel Gray's column got as far as west central Texas before they started hitting any further major trouble. There, more small bands of looters, outlaws, and warlords began popping up, slowing down Gray's advance. Almost always, when the outlaws saw what they were up against, they pulled back and let the column go through.

But it was slowing their progress considerably.

Captain Nolan's platoon advanced to midway between Fort Stockton and Marathon. They had all refilled their water containers back at the Imperial Reservoir, but were in such a hurry they did not check the water for impurities. Dysentery laid them all down flat. They carried the proper medication to treat the illness, but that was small comfort to the suffering Rebels, who all knew it would be a full twenty-four to thirty-six hours before any of them would be able to do anything other than moan and squirt.

 

 

West and Texas Red had managed to gather some sixty-odd members of their outlaw band together. The rest had split for parts unknown, all vowing they would not be back.

It was a sorry-looking bunch that met Cowboy Vic and Jake Campo on the east side of Study Butte at midmorning.

Jake started laughing when he saw who it was. West and Texas Red flushed with anger, but wisely kept their mouths closed.

Jake waved the leaders to one side and said, “All right, tough-boys. What happened?”

Jake stopped laughing as the story unfolded. He began getting madder by the second. Finally he waved the men silent.

Jake glared at the outlaws. “Do you mean to tell me—honestly—that one man, and one woman, along with a handful of
snot-nosed brats
, managed to beat back two hundred and fifty grown, fully-armed men?”

“That's about it, Jake,” West said.

Texas Red said, “All that talk about Ben Raines being some sort of god, Jake. I don't know. But something is damn sure spooky about him, and those that follow him.”

“I don't believe that shit!” Jake snapped. But after this? ... He shook that thought away. “You boys look like crap. Get some food in you and some sleep. We hit that skinny son of a bitch, that uppity broad, and them kids at first light.”

 

 

Ben and Rani sat in the yard of the old mine owner's home. Rani did her best to keep her eyes from the piled-up bodies in the yard and on the porch.

“And you really think you and your followers can bring a return to civilization?” she asked him.

“The way it was?” Ben looked at her. “Oh, no. Never in our lifetime, Rani. Probably not even the grandchildren of those kids in the house will know civilization the way we knew it. But those of us who believe strongly enough can carve something out of the ashes. We don't have to be alone in that, either. Sometime within the next few months, we'll start setting up the outposts I told you about. It's a start,” he said philosophically.

“Where would the dream have been if you had not come along?”

“Oh, Rani, don't give me more credit than I'm due. Believe me when I say I didn't want the damned job to begin with.”

“You mean you tried to get out of it?”

“I sure did.”

She sat by his side on the stone fence and stared out at the emptiness around them. “Where will you go if ... when,” she corrected, “we get out of this bind?”

“Wandering, probably.”

She abruptly stood up. “I've got to check on the kids.”

And you'd like to go wandering, too, Ben thought. Like me, you're tired of the responsibility. But you're also tired of hunger and danger and of the feeling that you are the only person in the entire country who gives a damn about the kids.

“When
we get out of this,” Ben muttered. “You were right, Rani.
If
is the word.”

 

 

Ben spent the rest of the day checking weapons. He unpacked his rocket launcher and checked the grenades. Then, with a shovel in his hand, he prowled the area around the house, digging a dozen and a half punji pits, rigging the bottom of the pits with sharpened stakes, then camouflaging the opening the same way he'd done the shaft openings.

Using old wire he found, he rigged another dozen and a half ankle traps.

He emptied out several boxes of shotgun shells and made some crude bombs, filling them with rusty nails and the shot from the shells.

It was nearly dusk when he finished. He could not think of anything he'd missed in his preparation for war.

Other than wishing he knew of some way to keep the piled-up bodies from stinking.

 

 

“Nothing?” Ike asked, standing in the door of the communications building.

“Nothing, sir,” the young woman told him. “But for some reason, the static is not as bad as it was yesterday.” She looked at a chart. “It's down by twenty percent.”

Gale and Tina entered the room.

“What's the word on Dad?” Tina asked.

Ike shook his head.

“Ike,” Gale said, “you look like an old hound dog. Come on! You've known Ben for years. You know he's an expert at getting out of tight spots.”

Ike grinned. “Gettin' in
to
them is a speciality of his, too.”

“Why does this Mississippi redneck always have to make something sexual out of everything people say?” Gale asked, winking at Tina.

“What'd I say?” Ike asked, rolling his eyes. “What'd I say?”

“Uncle Ike,” Ben's adopted daughter said, “you're impossible.”

Cecil stepped into the room. “We have a revival in here?” the black man asked.

“Yeah,” Gale said. “With preachin' and singin' and dinner on the grounds. That'd be a first for me, let me tell you.”

Ike put his arm around Gale's slender shoulders. “I'll make a Baptist outta you yet, darlin'.”

Gale looked at him, feigning great horror. “Do I look like a
yold
to you?” she asked him.

“Say that in American, darlin',” Ike grinned. “My French never was very good.”

 

 

Ben opened his eyes and looked at the luminous hands of his watch. Four o'clock. He could not believe the night had passed without an attack from the outlaws.

He rolled from his blankets and pulled on his boots. He climbed upstairs and relieved Kathy at her lonely lookout, sending her to bed.

Ben checked the dark terrain surrounding the house. He could not see any movement in the inkiness, but his senses were working overtime.

Something, or somebody, was out there. Waiting. Watching.

He didn't need anyone to step down from the Mount to tell him who it was and what they were about to do. He waited and watched until five thirty.

He shook Rani awake. “We have company,” he told her. “Get up and very quietly wake the kids. Get them to their posts. I think they're going to hit us—for some reason—at first light.”

The last thing Ben had done before calling it a day the afternoon before was to take the belts from some of the dead men and rig suspended harnesses for the M-16's. From the ceiling, the harnesses would hold the M-16's at the right height for the young people manning them; from the floor, the harnesses would prevent the weapons from jumping out of their young hands on full auto, and still keep the weapons aligned—more or less.

The gun slits Ben had built had been constructed with each young person in mind; just to the right height to afford the maximum protection from bullets.

Now, each person, with Ben being the exception, had twin M-16's suspended and ready to go.

Ben was ready with his homemade bombs, his RPG launcher, and his stack of fully loaded automatic shotguns taken from the dead men; along with several automatic weapons and, of course, his old faithful .45-caliber Thompson.

Rani joined him on the ground floor with a cup of steaming hot tea. Together, they sipped tea and watched the horizon begin to lighten in the east.

Ben was impassive as the sky grew brighter, allowing them to view what lay before them.

Rani sucked in a hard gulp of air and let it out with a hiss. She clutched at his arm.

“I see them,” Ben said.

They were totally surrounded. Cars, trucks, vans, and motorcycles lined the area around the ghost town. What seemed to be hundreds of men stood quietly in a circle, facing the house from all conceivable directions.

“I've tracked you across five states, Raines,” Jake spoke through a bullhorn, his electronically magnified voice booming out of the dawn.

“Four states,” Ben calmly corrected.

Rani looked up at him. “Please excuse him,” she said sarcastically.

“But I'm open to a deal,” Jake said.

“I can just imagine what it might be,” Ben muttered.

“Yes,” Rani said.

“You hear me, you skinny son of a bitch!” Jake roared.

Rani looked Ben up and down and with a smile, said, “You could stand to put on a few more pounds.”

“I'm very comfortable the way I am, thank you.”

“You hear me, you asshole!” Jake roared.

“Yes, I hear you, fatso!” Ben yelled. “No deals.”

Some of Campo's men giggled and Jake frosted them silent with a hard look.

“I'm gonna skin that son of a bitch alive!” Jake growled. “After I make him watch while I fuck his woman and
all
them kids, right in front of his eyes. Boys
and
girls.”

“Jesus, Jake!” one of his men yelled. “Them ain't sandbags he's got piled around the house. Them's dead
bodies.
”

West lifted his binoculars and looked, as did Texas Red and Cowboy Vic. The three of them exchanged uneasy glances.

Even Jake swallowed hard after viewing the scene through field glasses. He shook his head. “Some people just ain't got no class at all,” he said. “That's unholy. He'll go to hell for that.”

Even Crazy Cowboy Vic looked at Jake oddly after that remark.

Many of the outlaws standing in the circle around the house shuffled their feet and exchanged glances of indecision. It would not take much for some of them to split the scene and say to hell with Ben Raines.

“Your life for them kids and the woman!” Jake lied.

Ben looked at Rani. “I wish I had a 81-mm mortar,” he said. “I'd give that lardass an answer he'd never forget.”

“Without taking anything away from your request, Ben,” Rani replied. “I'd like to see that platoon of your Rebels come riding up.”

“Well, yes. I suppose I'd settle for that.”

Those Rebels of Ben's were on the way, but about half of them were in no condition for a fight.

Using a range-finder, Ben plotted the distance at nine hundred yards. He picked up his bolt-action rifle and thumbed it off safety, adjusting the huge scope. Campo stood with an open van door in front of him. At this range, a head shot would be nearly impossible to make.

But one outlaw, with more guts than sense—or maybe he was just plain stupid, that was probably it—was standing on top of the cab of a pickup truck. Ben sighted him in.

“If you make that shot, Ben,” Rani said, “I'll give you a present.”

Ben looked at her and waggled his eyebrows. “Oh?”

She grinned and patted him on the arm. “Calm yourself, old man. Heavy breathing will throw off your aim. Besides, are you sure you can handle me?”

Ben gave her his best lewd grin.

“Uh-huh,” she said.

Ben propped the rifle on the sill for support, took aim, and gently squeezed the trigger. The outlaw flew off the top of the cab, a bloody hole in the center of his chest.

“Now come and get us,” Jordy yelled from the top floor. “You fat-ass!”