She began cursing him, her mouth spewing out more filth than a sewer contained.

Ben motioned Rani into her truck. "Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here."

"Hartline's gonna get you, Raines!" the woman squalled at them.

Ben turned slowly and looked at the woman.

"What did you say?"

Her laughter was taunting. "Sam Hartline.

He's who we work for. We take women to him and that uppity Russian."

"Where are they?"

"Northern California. They got some kind of real fancy hospital there. Hartline meets us up in Reno. 'At's where we deliver the women to him."

"What kind of women?" Ben asked, a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew. Oh, G.o.d, he knew only too well.

"n.i.g.g.e.rs, spies, Jews, all the inferior breeds, you know?"'

"When are you supposed to meet Hartline again?" Ben asked.

"What'll you gimme to tell you that?" the woman asked, a sly look in her beady eyes.

"A bullet in the head to put you out of your misery."

""At's fair, I reckon. Better'n dyin" slow. Next spring. Don't know when. We just wait."

"You have any women you're now holding prisoner?"

The woman coughed up blood. "Naw. We jist got back from deliverin' a load of greasers."

Ben walked over to her, pulled his c.o.c.ked and locked .45 from leather, and shot her in the head.

"You going to tell me about Sam Hartline, Ben?" Rani asked.

"Later. It's a long story."*

*Fire in the Ashes

Chapter 31.

"You mean they'reexperimenting on human beings?" Rani asked, horror in her voice.

"Among other things," Ben said. He then told her of the Russian general, Striganov, and the battles they had fought, hammering away at each other along a mile-long no-man's-land.

"Hideous!" she said, looking at her plate of food and electing not to eat.

Ben and Rani had traveled a few miles outside of Colorado City and re-pitched their camp, in extreme southern Utah.

Ben stared moodily into the dancing flames of the small fire.

"And you and this Hartline have been enemies for a long time?" Rani asked.

"It seems like forever. But only for a couple of years, actually." He sighed. "I may as well make up my mind that until Striganov and Hartline are dead, we can't even begin to think of a return to civilization. I suppose that had best be our first priority of business next spring. I guess we-the Rebels-have been kidding ourselves; putting the horror back in the dark reaches of our brains; trying to delude ourselves that Striganov and Hartline were out of sight, so therefore they didn't exist."

Ben tossed a few more sticks into the circle of rocks containing the campfire.

"Ben?"

"Uh-huh?"

"Hadn't we better rearrange things so we can carry a load of wood with us?"

He looked at her in the flickering light. "I beg your pardon?"

"For the campfire and the cooking fires," she said.

Confusion swept across Ben's face. "Have I been asleep? I seem to have missed something terribly important here."

"Nevada," she said.

"Yes. What about Nevada?"

"Well, d.a.m.n it, Ben, it's all desert, isn't it?"

"Oh! I see what you're getting at. No, Rani, it isn't all desert. There are a few trees in the state. We don't have to carry firewood with us." He opened his map case.

"We'll be heading out on Highway 59, connecting with the interstate here," he said, pointing, "then south to 18. That will take us over to 56 and 319.

We'll pick up U.s. 93 here, and follow that all the way up into Idaho. After that, we're home free."

"Except for Jake Campo and Texas Red,"

she reminded him glumly.

"Piece of cake," he said with a grin.

Both were conscious of eyes on them as they traveled through southern Utah, eyes that followed and tracked their every movement.

"Don't make any hostile moves," Bencautioned her over the CB. "I think we'll be met at St. George. The people will be cautious, but not unfriendly. We'll know in a few minutes."

The two-vehicle convoy hit a barricade on the outskirts of St. George, with armed men stationed behind the barricade.

The men were neatly dressed, and for the most part, clean shaven. They were not ugly or hostile in their movements with their rifles-just cautiously curious.

Ben got out of his pickup, his hands empty and held away from his body.

"My name is Ben Raines," he called. "The lady in the other pickup is Rani Jordan.

We mean no harm to any law-abiding people. We are traveling up to the old Tri-States."

"Then pa.s.s on through, General Raines," a man said with a smile, motioning for the barricade to be opened.

"With all the G.o.dless outlaws roaming the land, you understand our caution."

"Very well," Ben said.

Past the barricade, the spokesman said, "Do you need food or other supplies, Mister Raines?"

"No. But thank you. We're well equipped for our travels. There might be a company of my soldiers pa.s.s through this way. They'll be commanded by a Colonel Dan Gray. They mean you no harm."

"Then they will not be harmed," Ben was a.s.sured.

When Ben and Rani made camp at the Echo Canyon State Recreation Area, just inside Nevada, Rani said, "I feel sorry for anybody who tries to ride roughshod over those people back in Utah."

"They won't try it but once," Ben said. "Those folks won't put up with any c.r.a.p. And I sure want them on our side if and when any shooting starts."

"They looked very ... competent."

"Believe me, they are."

Jake Campo and Texas Red knew to stay out of Utah. Too many stories had drifted back to the warlords about what happened to outlaws who foolishly ventured into that state. They began moving their people out, in small teams of five and six. All the outlaws had cleaned up their vehicles and themselves. They sported fresh haircuts and clean clothes. All carried side-arms, but that would attract no attention; almost everybody with any sense went armed.

The outlaws moved out slowly, first heading straight north, up through the panhandle of Texas, then crossing the panhandle of Oklahoma into Kansas.

Once there, they veered northwest, into Colorado.

They took their time, for they were in no hurry. They would travel through Colorado, into Wyoming-giving Utah a wide berth-and then the final leg into Idaho, finally fanning out, encircling what had once been the capital of Tri-States.

Both Jake and Texas Red had heard about theman called Sam Hartline; heard that he paid well for men and women of the inferior breeds.

Hartline paid in gold and guns.

And they had heard the man Hartline worked for, the Russian General Striganov, was offering sacks of gold for the head of Ben Raines.

So this time they would not go in with bluff and bl.u.s.ter against Raines. This time they would be much more cautious, with carefully thought-out plans.

And they would get Ben Raines.

"We're not going to Las Vegas and play the slot machines?" Rani asked, her lips curving into a smile.

"Nothing left," Ben told her. "Oddly enough, the place was among the first to be looted. Whiskey and money. Even though the people didn't know whether the money was any good or not, they took it. Wrecked the place in doing so. Lots of infighting among the looters. We'll avoid that place."

"It must have been grand when it was going, though,"

Rani said.

Ben said nothing in response. He had never cared much for the place. Not knowing day from night had never appealed to him.

The one-hundred-mile jump up to Ely took all of the next day. The highway was blocked in a dozen places, causing detours and backtracking and delays. Ben had not expected this highway to be so cluttered with junked vehicles. When they finally arrived in Ely, the place was a mess.

"My G.o.d!" Rani said, viewing the destruction. "What happened here?"'

The town looked as though a giant child had slapped it in youthful frustration, tumbling the buildings about like huge playing blocks.

"I don't know," Ben admitted. "But I'm getting some strange vibes about this place."

"Shall we leave?" she asked.

"With all deliberate haste."

A few miles outside of town, Rani radioed, "We're being followed, Ben."

Ben glanced in both his mirrors. He could see nothing. "You sure?"

"Positive. I double-checked. Wait until we're around this next curve. Maybe the road will straighten out for a time. Uh-oh. Here they come, Ben.

Four or five cars and trucks."

Ben chanced a quick glance at his road map.

Pulling a trailer, he had no hope of outrunning those following him. He figured another six or seven miles to the town of McGill. Couldn't make that, either.

"Hang on and follow me, Rani," he radioed. "We're cutting off on this road to the left. Watch my brake lights and be ready for a quick stop. Get out ready to shoot."

Ben and Rani whipped off onto the dirt and gravel road in a cloud of dust. A quarter-mile down the road, Ben braked, motioning Rani t6 come around him. He backed up untilhis pickup was blocking the road. He got out on the pa.s.senger side, choosing an M-16 for this fight, since the weapon had much more range than his Thompson.

The vehicles, three pickup trucks and two cars, stopped some two to three hundred yards away from them.

Ben laid the M-16 on the seat and got his .30-06, checking to see if the weapon was fully loaded. It was.

Ben jacked a round into the chamber and, using the hood for support, sighted in the lead truck. A man's face leaped into view through his powerful scope.

Dirty, unshaven, mean-looking, and ugly.

"That son of a b.i.t.c.h could sit behind tombstones and raise ha'nts," Ben muttered.

"Hey, you!" the man shouted, his voice just carrying to Ben and Rani.

Ben did not want to take him out of sight.