h.e.l.l, he'd never even heard of the man until that morning, back at the lake. But Jake may have been one of the many thugs and hoodlums and slime Ben had run out of Tri-States, years back, when he and his Rebels were moving in to start their own country within a country.

"Somebody's been in and out of this building!" the shout reached Ben and Judy.

"Here, too!" another man called, the shout coming from across the street.

"Check "em out!" the order came down the line.

Judy looked at Ben. The man was smiling.

Strange man, she thought.

Two tremendous explosions, one coming only a heartbeat after the other, rocked the old deserted town. Ben ran up the steps of the bay, a Firefrag grenade in his hand. He was pulling the pin before he reached the top of the bay, the spoon pinging away. He rolled the grenade across the street, under the lead truck, and jumped back, unseen, into the bay of the service station.

Shouts of confusion and fear filled the dusty air.

Then a huge explosion ripped the air as the Firefrag grenade exploded, the incendiary capabilities of the grenade blowing the gas tank of the truck. The truck was lifted off its tires and tossed to one side, those inside trapped in the raging inferno.

Their screaming echoed up and down the street.

That was Wally's cue. Crouched in a building at the other end of the street, Wally tossed a burning firebomb into the debris piled around the drum of gasoline. He ran to the rear of the store, took aim with his pistol, and fired into the concealed drum. The fumes ignited, turning that end of the street into a firestorm.

Ben tossed a c.o.c.ktail into the debris at his end of the street and leveled his Thompson at the hidden drum, pulling the trigger.

"Out the back and to the ravine!" he called to Judy.

She was running for the ravine as the gas drum exploded.

Ben tossed c.o.c.ktail after c.o.c.ktail into the confusing conflagration. Through the blaze, he could see Wally running for the ravine.

Without a second glance, Ben ran out the back of the station, throwing his last Molotov c.o.c.ktail into thestation, near where he had placed the materials left over from his bomb-making.

The hot blast almost knocked him off his booted feet. Ben stumbled, caught his balance, and continued running for the ravine and the truck.

"Get in front with Wally!" Judy panted, a rifle in her hands. "I'll get in back and lay down cover fire if they follow."

She knows more combat than her brother, Ben thought.

Ben dropped the truck into four-wheel drive, roared out of the ravine, and headed across a field. He found a dirt road that ran some distance from, but parallel to, the blacktop road leading out of the town. He stayed close to the woods and circled the town, coming out on the blacktop that would take them to the town of Tennessee Ridge. On the blacktop, he cut out of four-wheel drive and drove as fast as he could on the littered road, weaving and dodging the fallen limbs, and in some cases, entire trees that had fallen across the road.

He bounced onto Highway 13 and followed that for some twenty-five miles, until connecting with Interstate 40. There, he cut west. He didn't stop until they had crossed the Tennessee River. There he pulled off the interstate and they all took a well-deserved breather.

Ben and Judy stood patiently as Wally bowed his head and spoke a short prayer, thanking G.o.d for His help in delivering them from the hands of savages.

Brother looked at sister. "Time for us to think about heading back home, Judy."

"Wally," she said gently. "We don't have a home."

"Home is wherever G.o.d sends me," he said.

"And I have to go back to spread His word."

Ben stood quietly. He wasn't about to interfere between brother and sister. And he'd seen enough lay preachers-and Judy had told him that's what her brother was-to know that many times they were as stubborn as a mule.

"They'll kill you, Wally," Judy said bluntly.

"Perhaps. But if you go off to live in sin with this man," he looked at Ben, "you'll be worshipping a false G.o.d. You know what we've heard about him for years."

Ben stirred as the old rumor flared up once more.

"I am not a G.o.d," Ben said. "I am flesh and blood and bone like everyone else."

"I shall worship, in my own way, the only true G.o.d, Wally," Judy said. "The G.o.d whose words are contained in the Bible."

Wally looked at Ben. "May I have a small bit of food for my journey, General?"

"Take whatever you need, Wally. But I wish you'd stay with us. At least, for your sister's sake,until we get further away from this part of the state."

"I have to go back, General. I'm called to do so."

Ben nodded his head in agreement. "I wish you luck, Wally."

Wally smiled. "G.o.d is on my side, General."

There was nothing Ben could say to counter that.

Chapter 3.

Ben and Judy stood by the pickup and watched Wally Williams walk slowly up Highway 641. He had told them he was only going a few miles, then would cut northeast, toward Eagle Creek on the Tennessee.

He rounded a curve in the road, and was lost from sight.

"I will never see him again," Judy said.

"You can't know that for sure," Ben said.

"I will not see him again," she repeated. She turned and faced Ben. "Let's go, Ben. I want to leave this part of the country. And I don't care if I ever come back."

Ben opened the door to the truck. "Your chariot awaits you, dear."

They spent their first night together at a tiny town just off the interstate. They never did find out the name of the town, for they could never find any highway markers denoting the name.

"Don't you have a tent, Ben?" she asked.

"A pup tent in all that mess somewhere."

"That won't do."

"Oh?"

"Tomorrow, first town of any size we come to, we start lookin" for one of them big pretty-colored tents like I seen in a catalog one time."

"Those and saw," Ben corrected.

"You ribbin' the way I talk, boy?" she asked.

"No. Not at all. I used to be a writer, that's all. It's habit."

"You wrote books!"

"Yes."

"Big books?"'

"Yes. If by that you mean a hundred-thousand words or more."

"What'd you write about, Ben? Tell me some stories."

Ben fought to keep a straight face at her childish excitement. "I thought you told me you went to school?"'

"Oh, I did. I got to the seventh grade.

I can read. But I'm slow at it "cause I have to skip over the big words."

"All right, then. But first things first. We can't get a bright-colored tent, because the color would stand out and might bring us visitors we don't want.

Understand?"

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"But we will get a tent-somewhere. Next we're going to get you some books. Some English books and adictionary."

"That'd be great."

"Why didn't your brother ever help you with reading?"

"Why ... I don't know. I guess 'cause I never asked him." Good reason, Ben thought.

"Which way did they go, b.i.t.c.h?" the voice rumbled out of the huge chest, exploding in the air.

"I didn't see them, Mister Campo," the woman said. "I swear to G.o.d, I didn't."

"There ain't no G.o.d around here but me, b.i.t.c.h," Jake told her. "And you'd best remember that."

"No, sir," the woman told him.

"Huh?"'

"I will not forsake my G.o.d and He will not forsake me."

Campo laughed. The woman thought him to be the ugliest man she had ever seen. His head was shaved clean and round as a basketball, and just about as large. His eyes were small and piggy. His nose was large; with the nostrils flared, he looked like a pig.

His mouth was wide, the lips thick and constantly wet from saliva. The man seemed to have no neck. Just the head attached to ma.s.sive shoulders. His arms were thickly muscled. A huge chest and big belly.

But the big belly did not quiver and shake like a fat man's. It was solid. His legs were like the trunks of small trees. His feet were curiously small for a man his size.

"No, b.i.t.c.h," Campo said, towering over the frightened woman. "You worship Jake Campo."

She shook her head.

He squatted down beside her with a grunt and squeezed one soft breast. He clamped down hard, bruising the flesh. He laughed as the woman screamed in pain.

Her husband broke free of the hands that held him, and ran to Campo. He hit the man on the bald head with his clenched fist and the sound of the knuckles breaking was loud.

Campo stood up and roared with laughter.

"You do have b.a.l.l.s, mister," Campo said. "But n.o.body hits Jake Campo and gets away with it. Let's see, what shall your punishment be? Should I cut off your b.a.l.l.s? Naw! Rip out your tongue and feed it to the hogs? Naw!" Campo's big face brightened. "I know." He looked to his men. "Strip the broad, boys. And tie her husband to that tree yonder."

The man was forced to watch while Campo's men took turns raping the woman.

Campo pulled out a long-bladed hunting knife. He grinned at the man. "You seen Ben Raines' fancy pickup truck, didn't you, pig farmer?"

"No, sir, Mister Campo."

Campo cut the man's worn belt and let his patched trousers fall around his ankles. He cut the man's long-handled underwear and lay the cold steelof the knife against the man's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es. "You want your b.a.l.l.s cut off and stuck up your wife's a.s.s?"

"No, sir."

"Ben Raines."

"I seen this fancy truck go by just a-sailin'.

Two men in the cab and a woman in the back, under a camper. She had a rifle stuck out the open camper winder."

"You done good, boy," Campo told the man, cutting the ropes that held him. "I'm gonna let you and your big-p.u.s.s.ied woman live. This time around."

He waved for his men to follow him. The hungry- looking truck farmer jerked up his pants and ran to his wife's side.

"Radio headquarters," Campo told a man.

"I want half the men to come with me, the other half stay in this area and collect our booty. Tell the boys to gear up for a long hard run. Lots of food and warm clothing and winter gear. I'm gonna foller Ben Raines until I catch that prissy, law-and-order son of a b.i.t.c.h. And I don't care if I have to foller him, and that snooty c.u.n.t with him, all the way to the Pacific Ocean."

Jake Campo looked to the west. "I'm gonna git you, Raines. And that there's a promise."