"Death, Jordy," Ben told the boy. "And that other smell is gunsmoke. Been a battle aroundhere, and d.a.m.n recently, too."

"Between who?"

"I don't know. If I had to guess, it was between the good guys and the bad."

"We're in trouble, aren't we, Ben?"'

"Kind of, Jordy. But we'll get out of it."

The boy shook his head. "I don't know. I dreamed about that old man again last night."

Ben felt a chill in his guts. He knew, he knew what old man Jordy was speaking of. But he had to ask. "What old man, boy?"'

"I seen this real old guy last year, Ben.

G.o.d! He looked like he was maybe a hundred years old. Wore a robe and carried a big stick. Had a long beard. He pointed that stick at me and said, "Make good use of the time left you, boy." Then when I looked up again, he was gone."

Ben had seen the old man, too. Back in Little Rock.* He hadn't known what to make of him then, didn't know what to make of him now.

"What do you think that old fellow was trying to tell you, Jordy?"

The boy looked at Ben. His eyes were somber.

"That I ain't gonna live to be very old."

"Nothing?" Colonel Gray asked his radio operator.

"Nothing, sir. Nothing but a solid wall of static, and it's getting worse by the hour."

Colonel Dan Gray's eyes were worried as he looked toward the west. "That belt of radioactivity above us is causing it. And it might continue for weeks. It might never clear up."

The young Rebel looked up. "I hope that s.h.i.t stays up there."

Another Rebel said, "I hope it goes away. Will it, Colonel?"'

"Yes," Dan said. The Rebel's face brightened. "In about five hundred years." The young Rebel looked stunned.

The convoy was on the interstate, just outside Meridian, Mississippi, waiting for scouts to report back. Radio contact was impossible.

"You're sure Nolan's last broadcast said the general was heading for West Texas?" Dan asked.

"Southwest Texas, sir," the radio operator corrected. "I'll bet my life on it."

"Or General Raines is betting his," the Englishman said softly.

*Fire in the Ashes

Chapter 16.

Rani and her kids called it a day about twenty-five miles inside the Big Bend National Park, with Croton Peak to their west, Sue Peaks to their east. The Tornillo lay to the north. If their luck held, they would be in Terlingua the following day.

Ben and Jordy pulled into Redford in the middle of the afternoon. The town was, to Ben's eyes, amazinglyintact. For some reason, it had escaped the greedy, lawless hands of looters, those shiftless, lazy people who would rather steal than work-whether there is a working civilization or not.

Then the elusive memory became fresh in Ben's mind, and he drove up to the general store, got out, and entered the store. The front door had been broken in, but still swayed on one hinge.

First impressions had been incorrect. The store had been looted. But the hundreds of books in what had probably been the largest private lending library in the state were still on the shelves.

"So much for the mentality of looters," Ben said.

He selected a dozen or so books. Several cla.s.sics for him, some works of history and English, and, with a smile, a book on civics.

"Nothing like reviewing the past-that didn't work,"

he said.

"What didn't work, Ben?" Jordy asked.

"Democracy, socialism, communism-none of it. Those were forms of government, Jordy," he added, seeing the confusion in the boy's eyes. "Here in the United States, we practiced a form of democracy. It didn't work, either."

"Why, Ben?"'

"That, Jordy, will be argued and debated in homes and caves and what-have-you for years to come."

Man and boy went back outside into the light, and sat down on the front porch of the old general store.

"We were too ..." He started to say "diverse," then bit the word off. Jordy would not understand and Ben wasn't sure diverse was the right word.

"Jordy, I'm not sure I can even explain why it didn't work. Too many wanted too much from the central government-and they wanted it for nothing. For free. And there were a few who wanted to run everybody else's business. Oh, Jordy, it was a complex thing. People kept demanding more money for less work. Our personal way of life and living went up, while our moral values went down." Ben laughed and looked at the boy, sitting on the steps, looking at him.

"Jordy, do you understand what I'm talking about?"

"No, sir."

Ben laughed again and stood up. "Come on, Jordy. We'll put off discussing shoes and ships and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot. And whether pigs have wings."

The boy laughed and walked along beside the man.

"You're funny, Ben."

"A regular clown-that's me."

"What's a clown, Ben?"'

At midmorning, Rani and her kids reached the old mining town of Tres Lenguas-translated, it meant three tongues-the name had been shortened to Terlingua by an unknown party. With the exception of a caretaker, it had been a ghost town since about1950. Once boasting a population of over two thousand people, the quicksilver mining boomtown had quietly died out.

For a number of years, however, on a Sat.u.r.day in the fall of the year, as many as five thousand contestants, jokers, hecklers, and spectators had converged on "downtown Terlingua" for what they called the World's Championship Chili Cook-Off, a mostly unpredictable event. This yearly event had lasted as long as the nation was whole, and was one big party.

But now the silence was all that greeted Rani and the kids.

The hundreds of wooden shacks were long gone, crumbling into and once more joining the earth.

But the imposing mansion on the hill overlooking the once-bustling mining town still stood, as silent as the rusting equipment and memories that drifted through the ruins. There were dozens of open holes dotting the area; an old sign that held the ominous warning of dangerous, open shafts. The holes dropped for hundreds of feet-sure death for its victims.

Ordering the kids to stay in the vehicles, Rani made a walk-around inspection of the mansion and the land immediately around it. It was clear of holes. Then, rifle in hand, she inspected the home for outlaws and rattlesnakes, something she considered to be of the same breed.

There was not a window remaining in the mansion, not even a shard of gla.s.s to denote there had once been any windows. But there was a fireplace in the rooms.

And there was enough rotting wood in the old town to insure a comfortable blaze against the chilly nights of winter.

She got the kids out of the vehicles and onto the brick-lined breezeway on the east side of the mansion. She ordered them to stay put, doing so with enough warning in her voice that she knew they would obey.

They were good children, and Rani was all they had to cling to.

She dug into her supplies and found a hammer and long nails. With Robert's and Kathy's help, she nailed tarps over the windows in one huge room, then another. One room for the boys, one for the girls.

She had no broom, so she and the kids used rags to clean the rooms of dust and dirt. Then they tackled the upstairs. There would have to be a lookout up here at all times. The view was commanding, and she could see for miles.

She off-loaded the supplies from the trucks and hid them, then removed the distributor caps from the trucks, carefully storing them in the mansion. Then she and the kids took handfuls of sand and sprinkled the sand over the tracks left by the tires. Rani and Robert and Kathy spent the rest of the afternoon gathering wood and stacking it in one of the rooms of the mansion.

Smoke was going to be a problem, she knew, but they had to have heat and something to cook over. She would haveto chance it.

She gathered the kids around her and began setting down the rules.

Ben and Jordy loafed that day, driving awhile, then stopping and getting out, viewing the countryside. The tiny community of Lajitas now existed only on maps. Whatever had been there had been burned.

They drove on, finally deciding to make camp for the night a few miles west of Terlingua. Long after Ben had extinguished their campfire and Jordy had fallen asleep, he walked around their area; something was bothering him. Then he stopped and sniffed the cool night air. There it was.

Smoke.

Campo and West and Texas Red and Crazy Vic had gathered their bands of misfits and crud and a.s.sorted a.s.sholes and sent-out five man teams to comb the countryside, west, east, and south.

Hundreds of outlaws were now on the trail of Ben.

Their orders were to take him alive if at all possible. If they had to kill him, bring back the body for public display.

West had tried to wear a peg on his stump, but the leg was still too sore for that. He hobbled around on his crutch, filling the air with curses, all of them directed toward Ben Raines.

Big Jake Campo sat in his camp chair, just moments before dawn broke, and dreamed of being king of America. He would be, too, if he could just get Ben Raines. He laughed in the predawn darkness.

Texas Red squatted by the fire and warmed his hands. Getting colder, he thought. And it was that fact that prompted him to believe it was stupid sending men in any direction other than south. But Big Jake was known throughout the country as a man who had some smarts. Best not cross him. Yet.

Crazy Vic paced the sands in his high-heeled cowboy boots. He was dressed as he believed an old west gunfighter must have dressed: ten-gallon hat, red silk shirt, fringed buckskin jacket, wide belt with an enormous buckle, and dark jeans. He wore two six-guns, Colt .45's, around his waist, hanging low for a quick draw.

He mumbled to himself as he paced. s...o...b..r leaked from his mouth. He was glad when the country finally went down back in "98 or '99. Whenever the h.e.l.l it was. Got him out of that f.u.c.kin' nuthouse for sure. People didn't have no right to stick him in there with all them crazies. Vic ain't crazy. Just different. Now Texas Red, he thought.

There is a real crazy.

Texas Red, he thought, his musings silently sarcastic. What a stupid name. All that G.o.dd.a.m.n red hair on his head must have cooked his brains.

"All right!" Campo's yell cut into his thoughts. "Break camp, boys. We're moving out."

Tents were jerked down, blankets and sleepingbags folded and rolled up, and stored.

Fires were doused. The sounds of many engines cranking up, roaring into life, filling the air with smoke.

"West," Campo said. "You and your boys head west to Carlsbad and then cut south to the greaser border at Presido.texas Red, you and your bunch will turn south at Seminole. That'll take you all the way down to the Big Bend. Vic, you and your boys will work your way over to San Angelo and then cut south down to Del Rio. Me and my boys will head straight south from here. Work fast, but right.

Radio contact is s.h.i.t, so we'll be on our own for about a week. We'll all regroup in the Big Bend, on Highway 385, just west of Marvillas Canyon. If none of us has got Raines by then, we'll know he's down there and we'll have him boxed. Everybody got all that? Good."

"How "bout when we meet other warlords?

his Texas Red asked.

"Ask 'em to throw in with us," Campo said. "If they don't wanna, kill them."

"How 'bout women?" Vic asked, pulling at his crotch.

"Gather up all the decent-lookin" broads you find," Campo said. "Especially young girls. I like young girls. Kill the old c.u.n.ts.

They ain't good for nothing. Take as many slaves as you possibly can. We'll need a lot of workers for the farms. Everything from San Angelo west is gonna belong to us, boys. The whole G.o.dd.a.m.n enchilada.

Move out and good huntin'."

Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bander s.n.a.t.c.h!

Chapter 17.

The gunfire jerked Ben out of a deep, dreamless sleep. Bright sunlight flooded his eyes as he opened them, looking around. He motioned Jordy back into his blankets and held a finger to his lips, silently telling the boy to be quiet.

Ben slipped out of his blankets, rubbed his eyes and shook his head to clear away the fog of sleep, slipped his boots on and laced them up. He put on his field jacket and picked up his Thompson, clicking the submachine gun off safety.

They had camped behind an outcropping of rocks, just off the highway, effectively concealing themselves from any pa.s.sersby on the road side of their camp. Ben slipped up to a natural notch in the rocks and silently cursed at the sight before him.