Part 23 (1/2)
”Hey, you!” Flapper said to Ben's back.
Ben continued talking to Beth while Corrie set up a communications patch to Ike.
”I'm a-talkin' to you, boy!” Flapper raised his voice.
Dozens of Rebels watched the three men carefully as Ben continued to speak to Beth, ignoring the trashy trio.
That Jersey had taken a few steps away from Ben and had her M-16 leveled at the three men did not escape the notice of Jigger and Billy Joe. Both of them got a little nervous. Jersey's dark eyes held a menace that they both picked up on. Billy Joe and Jigger looked very carefully all around them. There were something like a hundred guns pointed at them. A little nervous turned into a whole lot nervous.
”Ah, Flapper?” Jigger said, suddenly breaking out in a very cold sweat.
”Hush up, boy. I'm a-talkin' to the general here.”
”You bes' look around you, Flapper,” Billy Joe said. ” 'Fore you git any more hoss-tile.”
The ignorant lout who had started this conversation, and who had not opened his mouth since being ordered by Ben to close it, suddenly had a nearly overwhelming urge to pee. But he was afraid to move for fear of getting shot.The kids had been quickly taken away by their mothers. The women were showing a great deal more sense than the men.
259.
”G.o.dd.a.m.nit, boy!” Flapper hollered. ”Is you deef?” Then Flapper made a terrible mistake. He shoved Ben. Hard.
”Oh, s.h.i.+t!” Billy Joe whispered.
260.
Chapter Nine.Ben recovered his balance and threw a short hard right fist that landed dead center on Flapper's big red nose. Flapper's big red nose suddenly got bigger and redder as he stumbled backward and fell hard to the asphalt, landing on his b.u.t.t.
Billy Joe and Jigger raised their hands high into the air as a hundred rifles took steady aim at them.
”We's out of this!” Jigger squealed. ”Lord G.o.d, folks. Don't shoot us!”
”I'm with him!” Billy Joe hollered. ”What he just said, I mean.”
Flapper crawled to his feet, his nose streaming blood and his eyes killing mean. ”You gawdd.a.m.n uppity son of a b.i.t.c.h!” he said. ”I'm a-gonna stomp your guts out.”
”Come on, then,” Ben told him.
Flapper rushed Ben, swinging both fists, and Ben tripped him, once more sending the man hollering and flapping his arms for balance, and finally sprawling on the blacktop. This time Flapper landed on his face, skinned it up something fierce, and the man 261.
commenced bellowing like a mad bull as he fought to once more climb to his feet.
”I really wish you'd stop all this nonsense,” Ben told him, pulling on a pair of leather gloves that Cooper tossed him. ”Before I lose my temper and hurt you.”
”Son of a b.i.t.c.h!” Flapper yelled, blood from half a dozen cuts and sc.r.a.pes running down his face. ”Stand still and fight lak a man, d.a.m.n you!”
”How is a man supposed to fight?” Ben questioned.
”Wif his fists!” Flapper hollered. He shook his head and the blood flew.
”Oh!” Ben said, stepping closer. ”I guess I can perhaps manage to do that. Do you mean something like this?” He suddenly hit the surprised Flapper with a haymaker right that crossed Flapper's eyes and buckled his knees. ”Or like this?” Ben asked, driving in a left that pulped Flapper's lips and knocked him up against the front of a truck. ”Perhaps this?” Ben questioned, and hit Flapper in the belly so hard his fist was momentarily lost in the flab.Flapper's face turned chalk white and he seemed to sigh as he slowly sank to his knees. He remained that way for a moment, and then toppled over, once more landing on his face in the center of the cracked old highway.
Ben looked down at the semiconscious Flapper. ”Not bad for a middle-aged man,” he muttered. He turned to Billy Joe and Jigger. ”Either of you two have anything else you'd care to discuss with me?”
”No, sir!” they hollered, their hands still in the air.
”Are you both certain of that?”
”Yes, sir!”
262.
”Will you please carry your friend away from here and leave us alone for the remainder of our stay?”
”Yes, sir!”
”Ike says Jahn's with him and they've started sending planes down to get their wives. General Jahn says to bring the-kids on,” Corrie called.
”Good, Corrie, thank you. I thought that would be Jahn's reaction. But before we do that, let's inspect the town and see if there is any hope for these people.”
”Any hope?” Jigger hollered. ”What do that mean? What is y'all gonna do-shoot us?”
”That's not a bad idea,” Ben told him.
Jigger peed his pants.
”Oh, Lard!” Billy Joe yelled.
Ben sent teams in to inspect the living quarters of the tiny town's inhabitants. He had seen more than his share over the long years of how trash chose to live. Why they did so was something that had eluded him all his life.
Ben soaked his right hand in salted water while the teams were in town.
He concluded that he was getting just too d.a.m.ned old for fist-fighting.
He had just dried off his slightly swollen hand when the teams reported back in.
”Report,” Ben told them, already reading the news in their eyes.
”Kids are filthy, suffering from malnourishment, and of course have never been vaccinated for anything,” a doctor said. ”p.i.s.ses me off,” he added.
”Take those young enough to be rehabed,” Ben ordered. ”Corrie, have Cecil start sending planes in at noon tomorrow to transport them back.
We'll have that old air strip cleaned up by then.”263 No one had to ask what to do if the parents objected. In truth, d.a.m.n few of them would object. Most would be happy to get rid of the brats. The Rebels had seen that very thing happen, time and time again, coast to coast, border to border. And it never failed to astonish and disgust them.
No groups of people came out to the Rebel encampment from the shacks and hovels to protest the taking of their kids, although some did stand well back from the gra.s.s landing strip when the planes came in the next morning and watch the kids being loaded into the cargo planes for the flight back to Base Camp One. There, the children would be given medical attention, vaccinations, and first of all, treated for head lice. They would be housed-properly, for the first time in their lives-with Rebel families until Jahn and his people were settled and ready to take them.
Ben sat and stared at the rabble, open contempt in his eyes.
A courier handed Ben a pouch and Ben sat on the ground, beneath the shady branches of a huge old tree, and read the dispatches.
Intelligence felt that most of what was left of Hoffman's army-with the exception of the SS troops-was nearing total collapse. Their supply lines severed, they were running out of ammo and food, and those who surrendered told tales of eating rats to survive.