William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

“Klucker?”

“KKK, dear.”

“Oh. Well… I didn’t know that. I know only that he is loyal and a good, decent, churchgoing man. Palmer Falcreek says he has the good of the country at heart.”

Long as he could run around in a bedsheet burning crosses, Fran thought. “Of course, dear.” She smiled at him.

Under the table, Fran slipped off her shoe and ran her little foot up the pants leg of Dallas Valentine, almost causing him to drop part of a fricasseed chicken into his lap. She liked ol’ Dallas—he was hung like that ol’ boy used to fuck her in the barn when she was just a teenager. Had a cock about a foot and half long, just like Dallas. She felt sorry for Dallas. Had a wife that looked like a cross between a prune and a hockey puck. No angles, no curves, no planes. Just one great big round wrinkle.

“I think Fran has the right idea,” Dallas said.

Bet your ass, I do, Fran thought. Just as soon as we can get alone and I can get my hands on that garden hose you call a pecker.

“I’ll give it some thought,” Hilton said.

But all knew the decision had been made.

So the president handed down the orders to the mercenaries under Kenny Parr’s control: do not interfere with people attempting to set up so-called free states. Move only if people attempt to seize those areas already under U.S. control.

And the president ordered a complete census taken, and a draft order put into law.

Now it became a game of wait-and-see.

Spring

The harsh winter had passed, and the mountains and the valleys and the plains were blooming with the birth of the cycle. The roar of tractors was evident as the plows cut into the earth, preparing the land for planting. Ben was on a tour of the three-state area now, in a Jeep with Maj. Clint Voltan.

“Home at last.” Voltan smiled, topping a hill and stopping. “Never figured I’d see this land again—not as a free man, anyway. Sure is peaceful and pretty here.”

“Why did you think you’d never see it again?” Ben asked.

“You don’t know?” Voltan wore a surprised look. “No, I guess you don’t.” He smiled. “I’m a murderer, Mr. Raines. Oh, yeah. This”—he waved his hand at the expanse of land—“belonged—belongs—to me. My ranch. I was doing pretty good, me and my wife, until some modern-day rustlers started runnin’ off my beef. My wife, she used to like to ride in the mornings, she come up on them. They raped her, left her after they used her—pretty badly. Well, I went on the prowl for them; thought I recognized the tire tracks. I was right; I did. There were three of them. I found ’em in a bar one night—called their hand. One of them was just drunk enough to admit what they’d done. They said—right out in public—that my wife had offered it to them. All three of them backed each other up. I knew they were lyin’ for a number of reasons. Mainly ‘cause my wife—and they didn’t know this—had lost her mind. The doctors told me that most women can cope with the emotional stress of rape. Alice—that’s my wife—couldn’t. I gut-shot all three of them, right there in that bar; then stood there and listened to ’em squall and die.” He laughed, but it was a rueful bark of no humor. “Good old straight Voltan, believing in the system. I’d never even had a traffic ticket before then. Sure… the law put murder warrants out on me. I ran for about a year, then joined up with the western-based Rebels. After the war, I went to the institution where my wife had been confined. Found her—dead of course. Buried her.”

“Do you ever feel you were wrong?”

Voltan thought about that for a few seconds. “No, sir. I don’t. I think rape should carry a stiff sentence. I think that if rape is proven, beyond any doubt—lie detectors, PSE machines, even hypnosis—I think the rapist should not only have to serve a tough sentence, but should be gelded like you would a bad stallion.”

“I agree with you,” Ben said.

“We gonna have soft laws in this area, Mr. Raines?”

“I hope not. Clint? Why is everybody asking me these questions? No one has elected me to anything.”

The rancher-Rebel smiled. “Well, you have been, kind of, in a secret way.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You’re it, Mr. Raines.”

And the words of Cecil came to him. “You’re going to look up one day, Ben, and the job of leader will be handed to you. Like me, you won’t want it, but you’ll take it.”

“All right, Clint,” he heard his voice say. “If I’m elected, I’ll serve.”

“You’ll be elected, Mr. Raines.”

“I’ll be a tough law-and-order man.” He looked at the rancher. “Better warn the people of that.”

“’Bout time somebody got tough in this country.”

“Two thirds of the world’s population dead,” Cossman said. “They think that’s final. Here at home, over a hundred and fifty million, and still climbing.” He and his crew had been monitoring government bands.

“What’s the population of our three-state area?” Ben asked.

“That, I can tell you precisely,” an aide said to Ben.

Ben had been governor of the three-state area for almost six months, and he could not get accustomed to the title or the attention paid him.

“Sixty-seven thousand, four hundred and twenty-two people,” the aide said. “Our final head count was completed yesterday afternoon.”

“Umm,” Ben said. “I thought the preliminary figures were somewhat higher?”

“They were. We lost twenty-seven thousand people in the first two months of… ah—”

“My taking office,” Ben finished it.

“Win some, lose some, el Presidente,” Ike said. Outwardly, the only thing Ike took seriously was Megan and his farm/ranch. But Ike took the new government of the three-state area very seriously. He desperately wanted it to work. And he believed it would—given time. Time.

“They just didn’t believe they could conform or adapt to the tough law-and-order system we advocate,” Dr. Chase said. “And they didn’t like what we’re setting up in our schools, either.”

“But”—the aide spoke—“on the other hand, we’ve got almost ten thousand people on the outside who want to come in. And the number is growing by a hundred a day. A decision has to be made on that, sir. Quickly.”

“How many can we screen a day?”

“If we really hump it… maybe fifty. And that is pushing it.”

“I don’t want the screening relaxed. Each new person must be given a lie-detector test/PSE test as to background, criminal record, conformity. And the aptitude tests must still be given verbally, by race opposites. We’ve culled a lot of would-be troublemakers and bigots that way.”

“Those lawyers with what’s left of the ACLU are really raising hell about those tests, sir. And our laws.” The aide looked uncomfortable, for he knew only too well how Ben felt about the ACLU.

Ben glared at him. “I thought I told you to get those bastards out of here.”

The aide shuffled his feet. “Sir—they say we’ll have to use force to get them out.”

“Then use force. All that is necessary to remove them. They were not invited—are they ever? I don’t want them in here.” Ben softened his tone. “Look, boys, I know they mean well, and they have done some good—back when conditions were more or less normal. But we don’t have time for hair-splitting legal technicalities. We’re not going to have it when our laws and legal system are finally drawn up; and that is being done this very moment.

“You all know where we stand on issues. The people have voted on them, all over this three-state area. We’ve been holding town meetings since early last winter on the issues we’ll live with. Now, ninety-one percent of the people agreed to our laws. The rest left. And that’s the way it’s going to be or you can take this governorship—that I didn’t want in the first place—and I’ll go back to writing my journal.”