William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

Megan shook her head and tried not to smile. “Ike—you’re impossible!”

Bridge Oliver married a lady from Texas—Abby. Pal Elliot married Valerie. Sam Pyron married a girl from south Louisiana who kept the West Virginia mountain boy in a flat lope every waking hour.

Nora Rodelo married Maj. Clint Voltan and took in five homeless kids to raise.

Ken Amato became news director for the Tri-states’ broadcast system.

Nora, along with Steven and Linda, took over the task of rebuilding the Tri-states’ school system. At the end of three years, they had perhaps the finest school system operating anywhere in the world.

The school system, free of politics and top-heavy bureaucracy, concentrated on the needs of the children’s minds, stressing hard discipline along with the basic educational needs of the child.

Steven Miller, believing that the child not only needs, but wants fair discipline, and that a child’s mind is chaotic, at best, ran a tough but excellent school system. His teachers taught, or attempted to teach, how to make a living once the young person left school. They taught music (fine music), literature, and the three R’s—beginning at an early age. And they taught courses that could not be offered in any other public school in America: respect and fairness toward one’s fellow man… to a degree. They were taught that to work is the honorable path to take. And they openly discussed bigotry, the kids learning that only people with closed minds practiced it.

In the Tri-states, public schools operated ten months a year. Every student over the age of fifteen was given five hours of weapons training each week, forty weeks a year, and studied the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare. Military service was mandatory.

Physical education was rigid in the schools, from organized sports to PE. Everyone took part, including the teachers still young enough to take rough physical training. But it was done with an equality that is seldom seen in any other public or private schools.

For in sports, Ben stressed that games were just that—games, and no one should take them too seriously. They were not life-or-death matters, and in reality, accomplished very little. And anyone who would fight over the outcome of a game was tantamount to being a fool. He told the young people that games were meant to be fun, win or lose, and when, or if, he sensed games were becoming more important than scholastic efforts, he would put a stop to them, and the schools would have intramural activities only.

Although Ben had been a fine athlete in high school, he despised the jock mentality and would not tolerate it in the Tri-states. Coaches walked a narrow line in Tri-states’ schools.

The young people needed someone to look up to, and they found that person in Ben and his philosophy. After the war, the young were confused as to what was right and wrong—and what had happened to cause such a tragedy.

Ben, sitting on a desk in the classroom where he was conducting an impromptu question-and-answer session, laughed. “That is probably the most difficult question you could ask me, but I’ll try to give you an answer.

“Perspectives got all out of order, not only in America, but around the world. People demand freedom, and if they have to do it, they’ll fight for freedom taken from them—real or imagined.

“Our country, I believe, began to parallel the Roman Empire in many ways. Historians saw it, warned of it, but too few listened—until it was too late.

“The Romans had great, unworkable, and expensive social programs. So did we. The Romans built superhighways. So did we. The Romans began to scoff at great teachers, philosophers. So did we. They had social unrest. So did we. They built great arenas so the citizens could go on weekends and watch sporting events. So did we. The Roman government became top-heavy with bureaucracy. So did ours. The Roman government became corrupt. So did ours. Right on down the line. And as theirs came to an end, so did ours.

“Here in the United States, such things as patriotism, love of God, duty, honor, became the objects of ridicule. A day’s work for a fair day’s pay was replaced by greed; and if the product was faulty, the worker didn’t care. Strikes became the rule instead of the exception. Craftsmen became a thing of the past when the assembly line took over and goods were thrown together with no regard for the consumer. Those responsible forgot that we are all consumers.

“Morals sank to an all-time low. The sixties and seventies were times of great liberalism in America. It got out of hand and we went off the deep end, sinking more and more into debt. We came off the gold standard and began printing more money—without anything to back it. Just paper.

“We had great tax reforms in the Senate and House in the mid-eighties, greatly lessening the burden on the lower and middle classes. But most of them never got out of committee. Money backed many members of Congress, big business. When they spoke, Congress listened. So instead of the wealthy paying the brunt of the taxes, the lower and middle classes paid them. It was wrong, but Congress refused to correct it.

“On the world scene, the unions in Britain must share much of the blame for the country’s downfall. Massive land reforms came much too late in Central and South America. Russia’s economy finally collapsed. Guerrilla warfare spanned the globe.

“Here at home…” Ben sighed and thought for a moment. “The central government became too powerful, moving into every facet of public and private lives. Big Brother came out of fiction to become reality. Our laws became so vague and so left-leaning, the average citizen did not even have the right to protect what was his or hers.

“Anytime a government takes away the basic liberties of its citizens, it will inevitably lead to war. And it did.”

“Will we have to fight for what we have here, Governor?” a teen-age girl asked.

“Yes,” Ben said. “And probably very soon.”

“Why don’t other people just leave us alone?” another asked. “What business is it of theirs, anyway?”

“Dear,”—Ben smiled sadly—“people have been asking that of government since the first government was formed. And government has yet to come up with a satisfactory reply.”

Ben and Salina took two kids into their home, twins, a boy and a girl. They were handsome, well-mannered, and intelligent. Of course, all parents think that of their children.

Tina and Jack originally had come from Arizona. In hiding, they had watched their father shot to death by a gang of thugs and their mother raped repeatedly, then killed as she tried to run away, in the opposite direction from where her kids were hiding. But she bought them enough time to get away. Neither Jack nor Tina had any love or compassion for the lawless.

Their story was similar to that of almost every adopted child in the Tri-states. The young who lived through the holocaust, like their elders, needed very little prompting to demand harsh penalties for criminals. They had seen firsthand what permissiveness in a society can produce, and they wanted no part of it.

Jimmy Deluce, Jane Dolbeau, Jerre Hunter, and Badger Harbin remained single. Jimmy flew for the Tri-states’ small air force; Jane and Jerre worked as nurses at one of the many free clinics in the Tri-states; and Badger became Ben’s bodyguard.

That was not something Ben wanted, or really felt he needed, but after the assassination attempt, Badger announced his new job and moved in. He lived with the Raineses and became a constant shadow wherever Ben went.

Badger idolized the governor, as did most of the Rebels and residents of the Tri-states, and would have jumped through burning hoops had Ben suggested it. He was also devoted to Salina, but not in any overt sexual manner. That thought had occurred to him, but once he had become so preoccupied about it he had walked into a wall and broken his nose.