Part 18 (1/2)

”Death, Jordy,” Ben told the boy. ”And that other smell is gunsmoke. Been a battle aroundhere, and d.a.m.n recently, too.”

”Between who?”

”I don't know. If I had to guess, it was between the good guys and the bad.”

”We're in trouble, aren't we, Ben?”'

”Kind of, Jordy. But we'll get out of it.”

The boy shook his head. ”I don't know. I dreamed about that old man again last night.”

Ben felt a chill in his guts. He knew, he knew what old man Jordy was speaking of. But he had to ask. ”What old man, boy?”'

”I seen this real old guy last year, Ben.

G.o.d! He looked like he was maybe a hundred years old. Wore a robe and carried a big stick. Had a long beard. He pointed that stick at me and said, ”Make good use of the time left you, boy.” Then when I looked up again, he was gone.”

Ben had seen the old man, too. Back in Little Rock.* He hadn't known what to make of him then, didn't know what to make of him now.

”What do you think that old fellow was trying to tell you, Jordy?”

The boy looked at Ben. His eyes were somber.

”That I ain't gonna live to be very old.”

”Nothing?” Colonel Gray asked his radio operator.

”Nothing, sir. Nothing but a solid wall of static, and it's getting worse by the hour.”

Colonel Dan Gray's eyes were worried as he looked toward the west. ”That belt of radioactivity above us is causing it. And it might continue for weeks. It might never clear up.”

The young Rebel looked up. ”I hope that s.h.i.+t stays up there.”

Another Rebel said, ”I hope it goes away. Will it, Colonel?”'

”Yes,” Dan said. The Rebel's face brightened. ”In about five hundred years.” The young Rebel looked stunned.

The convoy was on the interstate, just outside Meridian, Mississippi, waiting for scouts to report back. Radio contact was impossible.

”You're sure Nolan's last broadcast said the general was heading for West Texas?” Dan asked.

”Southwest Texas, sir,” the radio operator corrected. ”I'll bet my life on it.”

”Or General Raines is betting his,” the Englishman said softly.

*Fire in the Ashes

Chapter 16.

Rani and her kids called it a day about twenty-five miles inside the Big Bend National Park, with Croton Peak to their west, Sue Peaks to their east. The Tornillo lay to the north. If their luck held, they would be in Terlingua the following day.

Ben and Jordy pulled into Redford in the middle of the afternoon. The town was, to Ben's eyes, amazinglyintact. For some reason, it had escaped the greedy, lawless hands of looters, those s.h.i.+ftless, lazy people who would rather steal than work-whether there is a working civilization or not.

Then the elusive memory became fresh in Ben's mind, and he drove up to the general store, got out, and entered the store. The front door had been broken in, but still swayed on one hinge.

First impressions had been incorrect. The store had been looted. But the hundreds of books in what had probably been the largest private lending library in the state were still on the shelves.

”So much for the mentality of looters,” Ben said.

He selected a dozen or so books. Several cla.s.sics for him, some works of history and English, and, with a smile, a book on civics.

”Nothing like reviewing the past-that didn't work,”

he said.

”What didn't work, Ben?” Jordy asked.

”Democracy, socialism, communism-none of it. Those were forms of government, Jordy,” he added, seeing the confusion in the boy's eyes. ”Here in the United States, we practiced a form of democracy. It didn't work, either.”

”Why, Ben?”'

”That, Jordy, will be argued and debated in homes and caves and what-have-you for years to come.”

Man and boy went back outside into the light, and sat down on the front porch of the old general store.

”We were too ...” He started to say ”diverse,” then bit the word off. Jordy would not understand and Ben wasn't sure diverse was the right word.

”Jordy, I'm not sure I can even explain why it didn't work. Too many wanted too much from the central government-and they wanted it for nothing. For free. And there were a few who wanted to run everybody else's business. Oh, Jordy, it was a complex thing. People kept demanding more money for less work. Our personal way of life and living went up, while our moral values went down.” Ben laughed and looked at the boy, sitting on the steps, looking at him.

”Jordy, do you understand what I'm talking about?”

”No, sir.”

Ben laughed again and stood up. ”Come on, Jordy. We'll put off discussing shoes and s.h.i.+ps and sealing wax. Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot. And whether pigs have wings.”

The boy laughed and walked along beside the man.

”You're funny, Ben.”

”A regular clown-that's me.”

”What's a clown, Ben?”'

At midmorning, Rani and her kids reached the old mining town of Tres Lenguas-translated, it meant three tongues-the name had been shortened to Terlingua by an unknown party. With the exception of a caretaker, it had been a ghost town since about1950. Once boasting a population of over two thousand people, the quicksilver mining boomtown had quietly died out.