Part 32 (1/2)
She began cursing him, her mouth spewing out more filth than a sewer contained.
Ben motioned Rani into her truck. ”Let's get the h.e.l.l out of here.”
”Hartline's gonna get you, Raines!” the woman squalled at them.
Ben turned slowly and looked at the woman.
”What did you say?”
Her laughter was taunting. ”Sam Hartline.
He's who we work for. We take women to him and that uppity Russian.”
”Where are they?”
”Northern California. They got some kind of real fancy hospital there. Hartline meets us up in Reno. 'At's where we deliver the women to him.”
”What kind of women?” Ben asked, a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew. Oh, G.o.d, he knew only too well.
”n.i.g.g.e.rs, spies, Jews, all the inferior breeds, you know?”'
”When are you supposed to meet Hartline again?” Ben asked.
”What'll you gimme to tell you that?” the woman asked, a sly look in her beady eyes.
”A bullet in the head to put you out of your misery.”
””At's fair, I reckon. Better'n dyin” slow. Next spring. Don't know when. We just wait.”
”You have any women you're now holding prisoner?”
The woman coughed up blood. ”Naw. We jist got back from deliverin' a load of greasers.”
Ben walked over to her, pulled his c.o.c.ked and locked .45 from leather, and shot her in the head.
”You going to tell me about Sam Hartline, Ben?” Rani asked.
”Later. It's a long story.”*
*Fire in the Ashes
Chapter 31.
”You mean they'reexperimenting on human beings?” Rani asked, horror in her voice.
”Among other things,” Ben said. He then told her of the Russian general, Striganov, and the battles they had fought, hammering away at each other along a mile-long no-man's-land.
”Hideous!” she said, looking at her plate of food and electing not to eat.
Ben and Rani had traveled a few miles outside of Colorado City and re-pitched their camp, in extreme southern Utah.
Ben stared moodily into the dancing flames of the small fire.
”And you and this Hartline have been enemies for a long time?” Rani asked.
”It seems like forever. But only for a couple of years, actually.” He sighed. ”I may as well make up my mind that until Striganov and Hartline are dead, we can't even begin to think of a return to civilization. I suppose that had best be our first priority of business next spring. I guess we-the Rebels-have been kidding ourselves; putting the horror back in the dark reaches of our brains; trying to delude ourselves that Striganov and Hartline were out of sight, so therefore they didn't exist.”
Ben tossed a few more sticks into the circle of rocks containing the campfire.
”Ben?”
”Uh-huh?”
”Hadn't we better rearrange things so we can carry a load of wood with us?”
He looked at her in the flickering light. ”I beg your pardon?”
”For the campfire and the cooking fires,” she said.
Confusion swept across Ben's face. ”Have I been asleep? I seem to have missed something terribly important here.”
”Nevada,” she said.
”Yes. What about Nevada?”
”Well, d.a.m.n it, Ben, it's all desert, isn't it?”
”Oh! I see what you're getting at. No, Rani, it isn't all desert. There are a few trees in the state. We don't have to carry firewood with us.” He opened his map case.
”We'll be heading out on Highway 59, connecting with the interstate here,” he said, pointing, ”then south to 18. That will take us over to 56 and 319.
We'll pick up U.s. 93 here, and follow that all the way up into Idaho. After that, we're home free.”
”Except for Jake Campo and Texas Red,”
she reminded him glumly.
”Piece of cake,” he said with a grin.
Both were conscious of eyes on them as they traveled through southern Utah, eyes that followed and tracked their every movement.
”Don't make any hostile moves,” Bencautioned her over the CB. ”I think we'll be met at St. George. The people will be cautious, but not unfriendly. We'll know in a few minutes.”
The two-vehicle convoy hit a barricade on the outskirts of St. George, with armed men stationed behind the barricade.
The men were neatly dressed, and for the most part, clean shaven. They were not ugly or hostile in their movements with their rifles-just cautiously curious.