William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“Yes, I am.”

“But, really, Ben, we did hear you are the commander of that Rebel army. Really!”

“You heard wrong. I am the commander of no army. I’m a writer. That’s it.”

“Ummm,” she said. “Well, how long do you figure this project will take you?”

“Several years, probably.” If I don’t get sidetracked. Damn you, Bull!

She sighed. “That’d be fun, I guess. Kind of adventuresome. Like the pioneers, in a way.” She shook her head. “But I’m not very adventuresome. I’m a chicken.”

“Well, I’m going to winter around here, I think. For a couple of months, anyway. Maybe three. I think I’ll take a run down the coast tomorrow and find a place to stay.”

“Want some company?” she asked softly. Her voice was like an invitation to dine—on her.

“Sure. I think we’re compatible.”

She grinned up at him. “I imagine we are. You like to fuck, don’t you?”

Ben and Honey-Poo were more than compatible; she told him on that first night at Ike’s place that she liked to be around a man, didn’t like to sleep alone, liked to do for a man. But…

“Don’t trust me too much, Ben. I mean, I’ll be true-blue as a puppy for a time, then I’ll get itchy feet and hungry eyes. I won’t mean to hurt you, but I will leave when I feel like it. So don’t fall for me, O.K.?”

“I’ll do my best,” Ben said, running his hand over her belly, then down to the tangle of pubic hair. She moved under his strokings, sighing as his finger found and entered her wetness. “What’s your real name, Honey-Poo?”

She hissed her pleasure and arched her hips upward, meeting his thrusting finger. Her hand found his stiffness and slowly began working him. “Prudence.”

“I’ll stick with Honey-Poo.”

“Stick it in me first, Ben.”

It was raw for this stretch of Florida, the temperature hovering around the forty-degree mark and the winds cool enough to bring out sweaters and jackets and to warrant a big roaring fire in Ike’s den.

It was a wedding day.

Ike sat with Ben in the den; Bell-Ringer was in the bedroom with the girls, getting ready. For once (the only time since Ben had arrived), Ike was in a semiserious mood.

“Go ahead and ask it, Ben,” he prompted. “I know it’s on your mind. So get it over with.”

Ben drained his coffee cup. Since he was to act as the “minister,” he felt it only proper he should be sober. For a fact, no one else was.

“You’re sure about this, Ike? Sure you’re doing the right thing?”

“Flat-out certain.”

“What are the odds of you two making it, Ike?”

“We’ve already made it, Ben. Lots of times.” Ike grinned at him.

“Get serious, Ike!”

“O.K.” He sobered. “I figure we got maybe a ninety to ninety-five percent chance of coming out with the roses. And I think that’s a hell of a lot better odds than most marriages. Even when times were normal, quote/unquote.”

Ben had to agree with that. He glanced at his watch. A half-hour until post time. “Where are you from, Ike?”

Ike flashed that boyish grin. “North Mississippi.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“I’m serious, Ben. So yeah, I kinda think I know what I’m doing.” He popped the tab on another beer. “My daddy was a member of the Klan, so I grew up hatin’ niggers. Well, I still don’t like niggers, Ben Raines, any more than I like white trash, or sorry Mexicans, or bad Norwegians. Come to think of it, Ben, there is, was, just a whole hell of a lot of folks from Texas I never did cotton to, but that don’t mean there wasn’t a whole lot of real good folks in that state. You see what I’m sayin’? I figured you did. Bell-Ringer isn’t a nigger. She’s a real nice person that has a pretty good tan, that’s all.”

“But she’s still a black.”

“Shore. So what?”

“I had to be sure you understood that, Ike. I have to know her real name, Ike.”

“Megan Ann Green. And my name is Ignatius Victor McGowen. And if you call me Ignatius during the ceremony, I’m gonna bust you right in the mouth.”

Ben laughed out loud. “I’ll stay with Ike.”

“My daddy was a banker,” Ike said softly. “Good one, too, I guess. Made a lot of money in his time. But he had dreams of the old South: cotton fields white in the fall, plantations, mint juleps—he wanted to see the day when blacks would once again be slaves. He really did, talked about it. He hated blacks. He tried to teach me to hate them, but it never took—not really. I always felt kind of guilty about it. Well,”—he sighed—“we had a big fight my senior year. That was ‘70.”

Ben gave him a startled look. “You don’t look that old, Ike. That would make you… in your mid-thirties.”

“I owe it all to my clean living.” Ike smiled. “Anyway, I left home the day, or the night, I graduated high school. Joined the Navy, went into UDT, then the SEALs. Been with ’em ever since.”

“You ever been back home?”

“Oh, sure. I went back a bunch of times. Dad and I made up, in our own peculiar way. Dad died in… let’s see… ‘80. Mom joined him in ‘81. Hell, Ben, I’m a rich man; all that property Dad left me. I just didn’t want to leave the Navy.”

A warning bell began dinging in Ben’s brain. “What are you going to do, Ike? After the wedding, I mean.”

Ike smiled. “I’m goin’ on back to north Mississippi, Ben. Farm my land.”

“That’s spite, buddy—and you know it. You’re asking for a lot of trouble, Ike. Not just for you, but a lot of grief for Megan.”

Ike shook his head. “I think, Ben, once the initial wave of hatred subsides—if it does”—he put a disclaimer on it—“you’ll see a lot of changes in the way people think. That was my original thought. But with Logan going in as the next president, and all you’ve told me about him… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, and also one of those books you wrote: that one about a nation within a nation, a government really for the people and by the people. And I’ve been thinkin’ about your Rebels, too.”

“They are not my Rebels, Ike.”

“Yeah, I think they are, Ben.” Once again, that smile. “You see… I’m one of them.”

Ben looked at him, then slowly nodded his head. “O.K., that fits. Conger got in touch with you, didn’t he?”

“Yep.”

“Now what?”

Ike shrugged. “Now… nothing. Hell, General, I’m not going to push you. Go on for a time, see the country, write your journal. Your duty will come to you after a time.”

“My… duty?”

“That’s right, Ben. Duty. The old Bull picked you to lead his children, so to speak. Conger told me about you telling him to destroy all the planes they could, and so forth. Good idea. But what’s that about Idaho and Montana?”

Ben told him of his dreams, of a land with mountains and valleys and cattle and crops and contented people, all living under laws they had all agreed to live under and with.

“Your nation in the book, Ben?” Ike asked softly.

Ben sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know, friend. I guess so. I’ve got to think about it for a while, though.”

“You do that, buddy. We have time. You know, Ben… know what Big Brother’s problem was?”

“No,” Ben said, not understanding where Ike was going.

“Well… Big Brother said—told us—we had to like everybody we met. Right off the bat, that was some kind of stupid. Ever since the beginnings of time, all the way to the caves, Ben, I’ll bet you there has been some kind of caste system and there will always be some sort of caste system. No government can order a person to like another person; hell, the personal chemistry between the two might be all wrong….”