"And then you will? . . ."

"Dispose of the problem."

Leathers stared at him. "Bannon's wife and kids."

"They're on their way to Base Camp One now.

He will not see them again."

"You're a hard man, General Raines."

"Hard times, partner."

Ben and his column pulled out, heading westward, following the river road.

"You think Bannon will change, Ben?"

Jerre asked, as they rolled along through the afternoon.

"Others have. So there is a chance. But my guess would be that he won't. He's lived too many years as a bully and a slob and a petty thief and a thug . . .

and society let him get away with it."

Cooper said, "The people back in the town said there is a town about thirty miles up the road that's filled with a gang of punks and crud, General."

"I know. Leathers informed me. They've been having trouble out of them for months. Shooting trouble. It's a pretty well-organized gang of thugs. Ham should be radioing in any time."

"Wonder why Thermopolis and his bunch decided to break off from the main column and follow us?"

Jersey asked.

Jerre answered that. "He likes to study Ben.

Says the general is a walking contradiction."

"So is he," Beth said.

"That's very true. We're more alike than you think,"

Ben spoke. "Cut off his hair and the only difference would be our tastes in music. Thermopolis claims to hate big government, but he knows that the only way to survive in these times is with a form of centralized government. Cut through all his rhetoric and you'll find that's one of the main reasons he joined us. He and his bunch will always live apart from us, but not too far away. And I can appreciate that." "Ham calling in," Corrie said.

Ben picked up his mic. "Go, Ham."

"Fifty to sixty men in the town. Maybe that many women. They have kids, General."

"How are they armed?"

"Pretty well. Mostly small arms. I haven't seen anything in the way of heavy stuff."

"Stand clear of the town. We'll be there in a few minutes."

As soon as the thugs and outlaws in the town saw it really was Ben Raines coming at them dead on, they left their women and kids and hit the trail in cars, fender-flapping pickup trucks, and smoking motorcycles.

"Nice brave bunch of people," Jersey said.

"Really care a lot for their families, don't they?"

"Most animals will die protecting their offspring," Jerre said. "So much for the theory that humankind is superior to animals in all ways."

Ben didn't argue that. He felt the same way about it. Looking at the thugs and punks in wild retreat, he knew that the battle for America might be very nearly over. Six months back, the outlaws would have stayed and fought the Rebels comnow most of the slimebags they encountered just ran away in fear.

Ben knew there would always be some that would stand up to his people, but those were becoming fewer and fewer, with wider intervals between battles.

"What do we do with the women?" Ham asked, walking up to the wagon.

"Any suggestions, Cooper?" Jersey needled him.

Cooper shook his head. "Don't look at me.

I wouldn't touch one of them with a sterilized poker."

Yes, one very long battle was maybe, just maybe, drawing to a conclusion in the United States. But the Rebels had discovered that a large percentage of outlaws and their women who were taken alive and given medical tests were walking germ factories. s.e.xually transmitted diseases, such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and AIDS were running rampant. Another battle was waiting in the wings.

TB had reared up again. But for some reason cancer, per capita, had taken a dramatic nosedive and the doctors and researchers at Base Camp One could not explain that.

But Doctor Chase had a theory. Chase had a theory about everything. "The factories have stopped belching millions of tons of c.r.a.p into the air each year," he theorized. "Farmers no longer poison the earth and the air with chemicals ... all in the name of progress, of course. And," he would add, eyeballing Ben's cigarette, "those things are harder to come by."

Ben shook his head and said, "Line the women and kids up, Ham. Tell the medics to break out the equipment and let's check them over. Corrie, b.u.mp Jeff City and tell Tina we'll be there when we get there. Tell her what we're doing."

He got out and walked up to the line of women, and a sorry-looking lot they were. He stared at them for a moment. "Good afternoon, ladies. It appears that your menfolk have deserted you. You have any plans for the future?"

They all returned his stare, sullenly and silently.

Ben decided to try another tact. "How long has it been since you and your children have seen a doctor?"

That struck a responsive cord. One woman, holding an infant in her arms, said, "We haven't ever seen a doctor. There's doctors around, a few of them, but they refuse to see us."

"Perhaps they don't like the company you keep," Ben suggested.

She shrugged. "What's that got to do with treating babies?"

"Good point." Ben smiled at her. "The sins of the father are often pa.s.sed onto the child. I'm not saying it's right; but that's the way it is many times."

"My baby's sick," the mother said.

"We have doctors." Ben tossed the decision back to her.

"With strings attached," she countered.

"Not for the first go-around."

"I don't know what that means, but my kid's sick. And it isn't right to let a baby suffer."

"I agree. The medics are setting up in that building right over there." He pointed.

"How are we supposed to pay?" another asked.

"We ain't got nothin' to barter that y'all'd want." Before Ben could tell her there would be no charge, her eyes shifted, to touch Thermopolis.

"You a funny-lookin' soldier, man.

You look like one of them hippies I seen in a book."

"I share the philosophy of the sixties,"

Thermopolis told her. "Even though I was barely walking at the time and hardly able to grasp the social significance of the movement."

She blinked and shrugged. "Whatever that means." Her gaze shifted back to Ben. "How do we pay?"

"It's free," Ben told her.

"There ain't nothin' free, mister whatever-your-name-is. We'll have to pay for it, one way or the other."

"Why don't we just treat your children first. Then we'll talk."

"Are you really Ben Raines?" another asked.

"Yes"

"Them ol' boys we took up with, and who just took off like their a.s.ses was on fire, is scared to death of you, Mister Raines."

"They probably have good reason to be. We've left their kind lying dead all over this nation."

"You gonna kill our men if you catch them?"

"If we decide to go after them and if they choose to fight."

"They ain't much good, for a fact," she admitted. "But when your whole world has been tore down and it don't look like it's ever gonna be put back together again, a body does what you can to survive."

"As long as what you do does not involve killing and stealing from others who are working to rebuild a better society."

She nodded her head. "You ain't givin' people much of a choice, Ben Raines."

"It's all spelled out quite clearly in the Bible, Miss."

"Don't hand me that c.r.a.p! There ain't no G.o.d, Mister Raines. G.o.d wouldn't have allowed the whole d.a.m.n world to be destroyed. Little babies sufferin' and dyin' all over the d.a.m.n place. I can't believe a smart man like you would even think there ever was a G.o.d."

"Oh, there is a G.o.d, Miss. But He is a very vindictive G.o.d. He said he would never again destroy the earth by flood. Maybe the Great War was His way of telling us we'd better shape up."

"So now you're G.o.d's right-hand man, huh?" It was not said sarcastically, but it was spoken with a very slight smile.

Ben laughed. "Oh, no. I'm a mortal being. With all the mortal faults and frailties built in. I'm just a man who is trying to restore the nation to some semblance of what it once was, that's all."

"But on your terms." It was not put as a question.

"That is correct." "You know that there are them who think you are a G.o.d, Ben Raines."

"I know. They are wrong. I am a mortal man, and nothing more."

She shook her head. "No. I don't believe that. I don't think you're a G.o.d. But there's something about you that makes people want to gather around and listen to what you have to say, and then act on it. Follow you.

What am I trying to say?"

"Charisma," Thermopolis said.

"Yeah," the woman replied. "Maybe that's it.

I don't know."

"Your baby looks feverish" Ben said.

"She is. And a lot of the others kids as well.

We run out of medicine a long time ago. Been takin' the babies to see an old woman back in the hills; she's been treatin' them with herbs and plants and the like."

"Does it work?"

"Sometimes."

"We're ready, General," Jerre called from the hastily set up aid station.

"You make my baby well," the woman asked, "you gonna take her away from me?"

"That depends entirely on you."

"Like I said, there ain't nothing free in this world." "That's right," Ben told her. "That was the problem before the Great War. Too G.o.dd.a.m.n many people wanting something for nothing."

He turned and walked away, before he lost his temper.

Villar, Khamsin, and Kenny Parr traveled hard, knowing that Ben Raines would have Rebels hot after them.

"Is there anything left of Chicago?" Kenny asked. "If there is, we could go there. Although food would certainly be a problem."

"Stay out of the cities," Khamsin said. "Ben Raines and his Rebels are experts at combat in the streets. Believe me, I know firsthand."

Even Villar had been awed when Khamsin told them about the Rebels taking on impossible odds in New York City comand winning. Villar was beginning to see why Ben Raines was unstoppable. And he did not like the taste it left on his tongue.

Still, he believed it was better than what he had left behind in Europe and Khamsin had left behind in South America.