William Johnstone - Out of the Ashes

Salina noticed his attention, however, was amused by it, and finally mentioned it to Ben one night.

“Yes, honey,” Ben said, laying aside the book he was reading, “I’ve noticed it a couple of times. But I don’t know what to do about it. Has he made any advances?”

“Oh, Ben!” She laughed. “For heaven’s sake—no. I just think he needs a girl, that’s all.”

Ben smiled.

“A wife, Ben.” She returned his smile. “I’m talking about a nice girl for Badger to marry.”

“Badger’s shy, that’s all. I know he… ah… visits a lady—or ladies—at the… ah… house just outside of town.”

“Along with several hundred other men,” Salina remarked dryly.

“But it’s Jerre and Jane I can’t figure out.” Ben carried on as if his wife had said nothing. The communities in the Tri-states were small, deliberately so, and everybody knew everybody else. “Both of them young, good-looking, smart. Yet, they both seem so detached from everybody. Neither of them date. I mentioned both of them to Badger the other day, and he looked at me as if I were an idiot. Is something going on I need to know about?”

Salina smiled at her husband. Years back Ben had told her about Jerre and the relationship they had had for a few weeks. But Ben believed all that was past. Salina knew better. What good would it do to tell him Jerre was hopelessly in love with him? And Jane had also developed an enormous crush on Ben. She wondered if they had discussed their feelings with each other? What good would it do to tell him the entire Tri-states knew about it? That both of them knew Salina knew? She shook her head.

“No, darling—nothing going on that I know of.”

“Ummm.” Ben picked up his book and resumed his reading. The subject was closed.

Salina laughed at the man she loved and rose to check on the twins. Tina had a friend over that night and they were in the bedroom, discussing, of all things, karate. Ben insisted that all Rebels and dependents become at least familiar with some form of self-defense—the killing kind, preferably—and Tina had taken to karate and the other forms of gutter-fighting that were taught to Tri-states’ regular army. She had now advanced to the dangerous state, and the seventeen-year-old was considered by her instructors to be a rather mean and nasty fighter.

Jack, on the other hand, had two left feet when it came to weaponless, hand-to-hand fighting. He just could not master the quickness of unarmed combat. But he loved weapons, spending as much time as possible on the firing ranges. At seventeen, he was an expert with a dozen weapons, and a sniper in his unit of the reserves.

There had been much discussion, some of it heated, between Ben and Steven Miller as to the advisability of teaching war in public schools. In the end, however, the professor had acquiesced to Ben’s demands, agreeing, not too reluctantly, that it was, for the time being, essential in the Tri-states’ schools. The professor conceded that if the Rebel way of life was to flourish, the young had to be taught to defend it.

Jack was cleaning Ben’s old Thompson SMG when Salina entered his room. The young man looked up and smiled. “Hi, Salina.” He held up the Thompson. “Great, huh?”

Salina smiled, nodded at the weapon’s “greatness.”

“Yes, I know, Jack,” she said, her voice soft.

“Yeah. I forget sometimes, Salina. You saw combat, didn’t you?”

Her face changed expression, hardening. All the memories came rushing back to her, filling her brain with remembrances she had tried very hard to suppress: the horror of the killing and raping in Chicago; the running in pure terror for days afterward.

She blocked it out, sealing it away, shutting the memory door.

She looked at the young man she loved as her son. She looked at the gun in his hand. “Yes, Jack. I know what combat is.” She closed the door and walked back into the den to be with her husband.

“Talk to me, Ben! Put down that damned book and talk to me! ”

Her outburst startled him and he choked on the smoke from his pipe. Ben was trying to give up cigarettes—they were very scarce and stale—and had turned to a pipe. That wasn’t much better. He looked at his wife, hands on her hips, glaring at him. “What’s going on, Salina?”

“Ben, is there going to be another war? Is everything we’ve worked so hard to build going to be destroyed?”

“What? Huh?” Ben looked confused, having gone from Tara in Georgia to his wife yelling at him in about one second. Quick trip. “You’ve lost me, honey.”

She sat down on the hassock in front of his chair, taking his hands in hers. “Will there be more war? Are we going to have to defend what we have here? Is Logan going to send troops in here? And is it worth it, Ben?”

He leaned forward, putting his arms around her, loving the feel of her. Not an emotional man, Ben seldom told her he loved her. But he did love her, very much.

“Yes,” he said softly. “Logan hates me—us—and he’ll try to smash us. As for the worth; are you happy here?”

“You know I am,” she murmured, face pressed into his shoulder. “Happier than I’ve ever been. But I do wonder about our life here, if what we’re doing is the right thing for the young people. Tina is an expert in killing with her hands; Jack is playing with your old Thompson. It just upsets me. These kids have seen enough in their young lives. More war for them, Ben?”

“Honey, if it upsets you, I’ll take that old Thompson away from Jack. I’ll—”

She abruptly pushed away from him. “Damn it, Ben! You’re missing the point.” She stood up, pacing the den. “Is there no middle ground for us? Can’t we compromise with Logan?”

“I’ve written to him, offering to meet and discuss a compromise. He didn’t respond. You know that.”

“Then war is inevitable?”

“That’s the way I see it.”

She lost her temper, pacing the den in a rage, pausing to pick up an ashtray to hurl it against a wall. She thought better of it.

“Shit!” she said; then put the ashtray back on the coffee table.

Ben, as millions of husbands before him, did not know what to do, or really, what he had done. “Honey,” he said, preparing to put his foot in his mouth, “let me call the clinic and the doctor will send Jane or Jerre over with a sedative. Or maybe you two can just chat. That ought to—”

Salina suddenly became very calm. Icy. She spoke through clenched teeth. “Oh, my, yes. By all means, call Jane or Jerre. Maybe one of them understands you better than I.” She whirled and marched to their bedroom, her back ramrod straight. She slammed the door so hard the center panel split down the middle.

Juno ran under a coffee table, overturning it, dumping ashtrays and bric-a-brac on the carpet.

The young people, who had gathered in the hall to listen to the adults argue, slipped back to their rooms and shut the doors… quietly and quickly.

Ben looked to his right and saw Badger standing in the foyer; the shouting had brought him out of his small apartment on the side of the house.

“What did I do?” the governor general of Tri-states asked his bodyguard. “What did I do?”

The young bodyguard shook his head. “Governor, with all due respect, sir; somebody ought to tell you the facts of life.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Ben roared. “And who asked you in the first place?”

“Pitiful.” Badger frowned. “Just plain pitiful.” He turned and went back to his apartment.

Juno looked at him, showed Ben his teeth, then padded out of the room.

For several hours that night, Ben slept on the couch in the den. During the early morning hours, Salina slipped into the den to waken him. Together, they got into their own bed, Salina snuggling close to him.