Abe rubbed his aching and bruised shoulder and grinned ruefully. “I would have to say, Captain, you folks do know that, all right.”
The crowd of mountain people and flat-landers from down in Georgia had watched in silence and some disbelief-at first-as the smaller, lighter and much less powerful Rebel captain had tossed the big mountain man around like a rag doll, bouncing him off the ground time after time. Abe had been unable to land even one blow.
Captain Rayle and his small contingent of Rebels had been surprised at the number of survivors they had discovered in the area, and delighted at the number who accepted them. Almost a thousand men and women had volunteered to be trained by the small detachment of Rebels.
But the civilians needed no training in marksmanship, however. There was not a man among them who could not punch out the center of a Prince Albert can at three hundred yards with a rifle.
All the Rebels had been touched by the naivet@eof the country people and amused and mildly shocked by the open frankness of the people. And all had been
genuinely welcomed into the homes of the people.
Ben had deliberately mixed the detachment, including blacks and Jews and Hispanics and Orientals; he wanted the people to see exactly what his philosophy was all about.
“We ain’t got nothing agin” black folks-or anybody else, for that matter,” one man had told Captain Rayle. “We live side by side with black folks and work ever’ day with “em. Long as a man pulls his weight and don’t want something for nothing and don’t try to mess over another person, anyone is welcome to come here and live. The one thing we ain’t gonna put up with is no goddamn welfare state. If a man or woman is able to work, by God they gonna work; they ain’t gonna lay up on their backsides and do nothing ‘cept eat and git fat at somebody else’s labor.” That much was the Rebel’s philosophy. “I ‘member how it was-how it got-‘fore the big war of eighty-eight: lazy-assed trashy women of all colors layin” around and fuckin’ and havin’ babies that the taxpayers had to support; goddamned sorry, trashy men too lazy to work, sayin’ a certain kind of job was beneath “em. Piss on those people. We ain’t gonna have none of them in here. No way. Now they ain’t nobody who is sick gonna go hungry or cold in this area; we’ll look after ‘em folk-see to it that nobody lacks for comfort. But them that can work is gonna work.
“It’s a small community as communities go. We all know who is tippy-toein” around, liftin’ what skirt and when. Woman gets in a family way, the man responsible is gonna support the child. And we don’t give a good goddamn how much more work the man’s gotta do. He’s gonna do “er.
“I ain’t sayin” I hold much with mixed marriages, but me and mine kinda figure that really ain’t none of our truck. Man or woman wants to wake up in the morning time and look at ugly-that’s their business.”
“Had many cases arose where a man refused to support a child he fathered?”
“One, to date. Feller admitted he got his jollies with the lady-said she should have tooken some measures to don’t have no kid. Refused to help with the child.”
“What happened to him?”
“He come up shot one night,” the man replied noncommittally. “Dead.”
The Rebel smiled at this very final type of justice. “Klan strong in this area?”
The man fixed him with a baleful look. “I ain’t got no use a-tal for that bunch of white trash. Never did have. Don’t know nobody that do. Wouldn’t have “em around me if I did. Don’t know no one that would. That answer your question?”
The Rebel laughed. “Sure does.”
Captain Rayle radioed back to Ben, requesting that medical supplies and medics be sent into the area. Soon trucks began rolling in, some of them diverted from the battle area. The trucks brought in not only badly needed medicines, but also a few doctors and teams of highly trained medics to beef up the few medical people that had survived the plague of the previous year. They were welcomed.
Ben had given Captain Rayle his orders personally, in a private meeting back in Tri-States. Roger had the mapped-out coordinates for what Ben had called the last chance for his dream, and it was in that area that Captain Rayle and his people were working,
fanning out, attempting to make contact with all those who survived. They began finalizing the boundaries. The Alabama line would be the western boundary, from Burke up in Tennessee down to Bowdon in Georgia, on the Alabama line. The line would run straight east to Orangeburg in South Carolina, then take a ninety-degree turn to Columbia, angling gently northwest, following Interstate 26 as the guiding line up to Ashville. From there, the north boundary would be a line straight east, connecting with Burke to close the area.
“Get your defensive positions quietly laid out,” Ben had instructed. “Study what we did in the old Tri-States back in eighty-nine and ninety. Use that as a guidebook. When we get as many of the people out of the areas controlled by the IPF as possible, we’ll be coming in. To stay,” he added, with more than a touch of grimness to his comment. “I hope.”
There were tears in her eyes, spilling down to roll in silver rivers over her cheeks as she read the message, then reread it. Ben sat quietly and watched her. Gale looked at him through a blurry mist. She wiped her eyes and threw the message in a wad onto his desk.
“That is the most monstrous thing I have ever heard of, Ben,” she said, considerable heat to her comment. Her dark eyes flashed fire through the mist that tinted them multicolored.
She had just read about the IPF’S experimentation programs with minority men and women. The report had been sent to Ben by LETTERRP’S and verified by people who had managed to escape the area controlled by the IPF.
“Yes,” Ben said.
“The man is a reincarnation of Hitler!” she spat out the damning accusation.
“I concur, Gale.”
“And his doctors and IPF people are no better than the fucking Gestapo!” she shouted at him.
“Yes, I agree with that.”
“He has to be stopped, Ben.”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?” Ben knew what was coming at him and he dreaded it. “Stop them, Ben!”
Ben rose from his chair and took her into his arms, holding her, touching her, smoothing her hair. “Gale, I don’t have the manpower to do that.” For once she didn’t attack the statement as being sexist. “Striganov has me outgunned and out-manned, and in many instances, the American people are supporting his actions. I-was
She pulled away from him and glared up at him, about a hundred pounds of mad. “Don’t tell me that, Ben. Just don’t you attempt to hand me that crap! You’re Ben Raines. You pulled-single-handedly-this nation back together in eighty-nine. You formed your own government within a government and made it work. You can do anything, Ben. Everyone who follows you says you can do anything. And I believe it. Yes, now I believe it. You’re forgetting, I spoke with the Prophet, and I’ve talked with people who were in that mutant basement when he singled you out, spoke directly to you. You’ve been chosen, Ben. You-was
Ben looked down at her and laughed, a harsh, sarcastic bark of dark humor. “You, too, Gale? Come on! Of all the people I thought would reject the notion that I am something more than a mortal, I thought you would be that person. Gale, I’m flesh and blood-nothing more than that. I cut myself shaving, I stub my toe sometimes, and cuss when I do. I bang my shin on coffee tables. I don’t sit on the right side of God Almighty; and I don’t receive any special instructions from him. I-was
“I’m pregnant,” she announced.
Ben stood for a moment, looking at her. He blinked a couple of times.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” she asked.
“Well… ah…”