And Ben did not know how to bring an end to the fighting.
It was what Ben had been afraid he’d find.
He spoke with a few of the survivors-those that would let him get close to them-and tried to convince them they had to get off their butts and start working, straightening matters out. And to stop warring between themselves. Many times he would turn and walk away in disgust, leaving before anger got the best of him. Of those he spoke with,
Ben figured he got through to maybe ten percent.
Clearly disgusted, Ben ordered his people mounted up to pull out. He told Dan Gray. “To hell with these people. Let them kill each other off. They’ve lost the will to survive in any type of productive society.”
“I concur,” Colonel Gray said.
It was then Ben noticed that Mary Macklin was reluctant to ride with him. He did not understand it. He thought it might be due to their brief sexual encounter-but he did not really believe that was it. When they reached Fulton, Missouri, just prior to stopping at a small college there, Ben pulled the growing convoy off the road and walked back to where Lieutenant Macklin was sitting in a Jeep alone.
“I say something to offend you?” he asked her.
“No, sir. Not at all.”
“You maybe don’t like my deodorant?”
She laughed. “No, sir. It’s nothing like that. Believe me.”
Ben didn’t believe her. He felt she was holding something back, but he decided not to push. “Finally decide I could take care of myself, eh, Mary?”
“Something like that, sir.” You’d better be able to take care of yourself, General, she thought. Because when you and Gale stop spatting and hissing at each other like a cat and dog, things are sure going to pop.
And Mary really wasn’t all that certain how she felt about that.
Ben nodded, not believing a word he had heard. “All right, Mary. Right now, I want you to take a team over to Westminster College. Check it out for survivors. Shouldn’t take you more than a couple of hours. Well wait for you here.”
She nodded and pulled around the convoy, stopping twice to pick up people. With four in the Jeep, she headed out.
Ben ordered his people to dismount and take a rest.
“I’m surprised you would delegate that much authority to a woman, General Raines,” the voice came from behind Ben.
“Ms. Roth,” Ben said, turning around. “I really don’t-was
He cut off his sentence at the sight of her. He could hardly recognize her. She had done something to her hair, cut it maybe-something was very different. Maybe she had simply combed it, Ben thought. But he decided he’d best keep that a thought and not put it into words. For safety’s sake. His own. She wore jeans that fitted her trim figure snugly, and what looked to be a boy’s Western shirt. However, Gale would never be confused for any boy. Ben stared. She was somewhere in between pretty and beautiful.
“A speechless gentile.” She tossed his words back to him with a smile. “My goodness, I believe I’ve found a first.”
Ben ignored that. “Where’s the kid?”
“With the new people from the college. One of the young women had just lost her baby-a couple of weeks ago. She asked if she could take care of the baby. I told her that was fine with me. Baby’s probably better off with her, anyway.”
“Why would you think that?” Ben looked into her eyes. She really had beautiful eyes.
She returned his open stare. “You really ask a lot of questions, you know that, General?”
“Perhaps. Why would … what is the child’s name, anyway?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. I found him in Flat River when I was traveling south. Believe me, I don’t know from nothing about babies. Well, not all that much, anyway.”
Ben sensed she was putting up a brave front, but had decided the child would be better off with someone else. “The mother who lost her baby-she still in the nursing stage?”
“That’s right.”
“And fresh milk is hard to come by these days.”
“Right.”
“I see.”
“I doubt it. What do you know about nursing babies? Nothing,” she answered her own question.
He stepped closer. She stood her ground. Out came the chin. “Ms. Roth, would you do me the honor of riding with me in this parade?”
She seemed taken aback. For a very brief moment. “Why in the world would I want to ride with you?”
“To harass me, to annoy me, and to be a constant source of irritation to me.”
“You talked me into it.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Westminster College was deserted except for one senile old man and several young ministers and their families who had elected to stay behind and care for the elderly man.
Some young people had been through, Mary was told, but they had not stayed long. Seemed like nice young people, but rather distant, one young minister said. He thought they might have all been related, they looked so much alike. Blond and blue-eyed, mostly. But, he told the small unit of Rebels, something about the young people had frightened them all, and none were sorry to see them leave.
Ben pointed the column toward Columbia. He wanted to check out the University of Missouri.
Columbia was a dead city, seemingly void of human life. But Ben, standing on the outskirts of the city, picked up a slight odor in the air, the breeze blowing from west to east. He knew what that odor was.
He shook his head in disgust. “Mutants,” he told his people. “I know that smell very well.”
A Rebel looked at Ben. “You killed one of them once, didn’t you, General?”
Ben was conscious of Gale’s eyes on him. “Yes, months ago.”
“Close up, General?” one of the new people from the campus at Rolla asked.
Ben smiled. “About as close as you can get without getting intimate with the thing.” He tried to brush off the question as lightly as possible. He knew only too well his battle with the mutant had only served to strengthen the belief among many that he was somehow more than a mere mortal.
When he moved off, walking down the center of Interstate 70, Gale asked, “What happened, Ben? I mean, the mutant.”
Ben had walked out of the communications shack and toward a thick stand of timber. He wanted to think, wanted to be alone for a time. More and more, since leaving Idaho he had sought solitude.
A young woman’s scream jerked his head up. Ben sprinted for the timber, toward the source of the frightened yelling.
Ben reached the edge of the timber and came to a sliding halt, his mouth open in shock.
It was a man, but it was like no man Ben had ever seen. It was huge, with mottled skin and huge, clawed hands. The shoulders and arms appeared to be monstrously powerful. The eyes and nose were human, the jaw was animal. The ears were perfectly formed human. The teeth were fanged, the lips human. The eyes were blue.
Ben was behind the hysterical young woman-about fourteen years old-the child of a Rebel couple. She was between Ben and the … whatever in God’s name the creature was.
The creature towered over the young woman. Ben guessed it was an easy seven feet tall.
Ben clawed his .45 from leather just as the creature lunged for the girl. She was very quick, fear making her strong and agile. Ben got off one shot; the big slug hit the mutant in the shoulder. It screamed in pain and spun around, facing Ben. Ben guessed the thing weighed close to three hundred pounds. And all three hundred pounds of it were mad.
Ben emptied his pistol into the manlike creature, staggering but not downing it. The girl, now frightened mindless, ran into its path. Ben picked up a rock and hurled it, hitting the beast in the head, again making it forget the girl. It turned and screamed at Ben. Its chest and belly were leaking blood, and blood poured from the wound in its shoulder.