William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“I know. But Ben Raines didn’t do it.”

“He’s still white!”

Ben rose from the table. “I’d better leave, I suppose.”

“Yes.” Cecil surprised him. “I think it would be best. And I’m sorry for having to say that. I was looking forward to some intelligent conversation later on.”

“Perhaps we’ll meet again,” Ben suggested.

“You put your white ass in New Africa, motherfucker,” Kasim said, “and it’ll be buried there.”

“I will make every effort to avoid New Africa,” Ben promised. “Wherever that might be.”

“Mississippi, Alabama, and Louisiana,” Kasim said. “A black nation. All black.”

Ben smiled. “My home’s in Louisiana, Kasim, or whatever your goddamned name is. And I’ll give you a bit of advice. I’m going back to my room and go to sleep. I’ll pull out just after dawn tomorrow. There will be no trouble in this motel—that I start, that is. But if I ever see you again… I’ll kill you!”

“Words.” Kasim sneered at him. “Big words. How about trying it now? Just you and me?”

“Drag your ass out of the chair, hotshot.” Ben smiled.

“Cool it, Kasim,” Cecil warned him. “You’re outclassed with Ben. Let it lie.”

Kasim met Ben’s eyes for a long moment, then dropped his gaze. Ben walked away, toward the door. He paused, turned around. “It was a delicious meal, Mrs. Jeffreys. I thank you.”

She smiled and nodded.

Ben’s eyes touched Salina’s. She smiled at him.

He walked out into the rainy night, leaving, he hoped, the hate behind him.

He was loading his gear into the truck at dawn, tying down the tarp when he heard footsteps. He turned, right hand on the butt of the .45 belted at his waist.

Salina.

“We all feel very badly about last night, Mr. Raines. All except Willie Washington, that is.”

“Who?”

She smiled in the misty dawn. A beautiful woman. “Kasim. We grew up together… same block in Chicago. He’ll always be Willie to me.”

In the dim light he could see her skin was fawn-colored. “Does he really hate whites as much as it seems? All whites?”

“Does the KKK hate blacks?”

“They say they don’t.”

“Right. And pigs fly.” They shared a quiet laugh in the damp dawn. “Kasim’s sister was… used pretty badly, when he was young. Raped, buggered. He was beaten and forced to watch. The men were never caught. You know the story; it happens on both sides of the color line. He’s about half nuts, Ben.”

“I gathered that.”

“There are a lot of differences between the races, Ben. Cultural differences, emotional differences. The bridge is wide.”

“I do not agree with what my brother and his friends are doing, Salina. I want you to know that.”

“I knew that last night, Ben. I think… we need more men like you and Cecil; less of Jeb Fargo and your brother.”

“Who in the hell is Jeb Fargo?”

“His name is really George, but he likes to be called Jeb. He came up to Chicago about five years ago—from Georgia, I think. Head of the Nazi Party.”

“Yeah… I met him. I didn’t like him. I agree with you, Salina. I hope his… mentality doesn’t take root.”

“It will,” she predicted flatly. “What are your plans, Ben?”

He told her, standing in the cool mist of the morning. He told her all his plans, his schedule he had worked out in his mind while waiting for sleep to take him the night before. He told her of his home in Morriston, and how he had literally slept through the horror after being stung.

“That probably saved your life.”

“What are your plans, Salina?”

She lifted her slender shoulders. “I’m with Cecil and Lila. Where they go, I guess I go.”

“Last night, in the dining room, Kasim called you a zebra. What does that mean?”

She laughed, but it was a rueful laugh. “I’m half white, half black. My mother was a light-skinned woman, good-looking. My father was a handsome man. Yes, they were married.”

“I didn’t think you were—”

“Pure coon,” she cut in, but she was smiling.

“That was not my choice of words, Salina.”

She looked up at him, then abruptly put her hands on his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. She turned and walked away.

Ben watched her leave; watched all of her leave, from her ankles up. She was very shapely. He touched his lips with his fingertips, then called after her, “Remember, my home is Morriston.”

Her reply was a wave; then she rounded the corner of the motel. Ben sensed eyes on him. He looked around him, then glanced up. The face of Kasim, pure animal hate in his eyes, was staring at him from the second floor of the motel. His mouth was swollen from Salina’s backhand slap.

“Goddamned, no good, honky motherfucker!” he hissed.

“I thought Muslims weren’t supposed to use bad language,” Ben said.

“I’ll kill you someday,” Kasim promised.

“I doubt it,” Ben said. He got into his truck, cranked it, and drove away.

He could still feel the warmth of Salina’s lips on his and Kasim’s wild hatred.

It was disconcerting.

Ben headed south, driving until he came to highway 14, knowing it would take him through only a few towns, and eventually lead to Fort Wayne. He stopped at each small town, finding two or three alive in each. In almost every case, there was no direction to them, no leader; they were accomplishing nothing: not burying the dead, not cleaning the litter—nothing. Just waiting. For what, Ben didn’t know, so he asked.

“Help,” a man said.

“From whom?” Ben asked.

“The government, who else?”

“Man… there is no government. I doubt there is a stable government anywhere in the world. Don’t you understand what has happened?”

The man looked at him and walked away. He called over his shoulder, “The government’ll help us. You’re wrong, mister. If the government wasn’t gonna help us, they wouldn’t have made ever’body so dependent on them. You’re wrong.”

“And you’re a fool,” Ben muttered. He drove on.

He found a dozen people alive in Rochester, all in their mid-to-late thirties; a few kids. They seemed genuinely excited to see him, asking where he’d been, what he’d seen, what he was doing. And, where was government help? Here, the women outnumbered the men, two to one; one woman made it very plain she would go with Ben; he had only to ask.

He did not ask, although she was a good-looking woman and Ben was beginning to feel sexual urges rise in him. He told them to be careful, told them what was happening in Chicago; then, after asking a few questions as to why they thought they had survived when others hadn’t (none of them had any idea), he pulled out.

In one small town, he found three men alive. They were having a party. A long one. Drunk, and they had been that way for days. No, they weren’t from town; come up from Marion, just wandering. Had Ben seen any broads?

He sent them to Rochester.

Ben cut off 14 for a time, then took a county road east to US 24, approaching Fort Wayne from the southeast. On the edge of that city, a billboard brought him up short, brakes smoking.

Ben raines—If you’re alive and reading this, or if anybody knows the whereabouts of ben raines, have him contact us on military 39.2. Keep trying; we’ll be listening. We need orders.

“Orders?” Ben said. “What fucking orders? From me?” Then it hit him: the Rebels. The colonel hadn’t been kidding; the Bull had really done it.

“Well…” Ben muttered. “I’m not your commanding officer. Good luck, boys.”

On the outskirts of Fort Wayne, he tucked his truck behind a motel and stayed the night, his sleep punctuated by sporadic gunfire.