Out of the Ashes

“I've written to him, offering to meet and discuss a compromise. He didn't respond. You know that.”

“Then war is inevitable?”

“That's the way I see it.”

She lost her temper, pacing the den in a rage, pausing to pick up an ashtray to hurl it against a wall. She thought better of it.

“Shit!” she said; then put the ashtray back on the coffee table.

Ben, as millions of husbands before him, did not know what to do, or really, what he had done. “Honey,” he said, preparing to put his foot in his mouth, “let me call the clinic and the doctor will send Jane or Jerre over with a sedative. Or maybe you two can just chat. That ought to—”

Salina suddenly became very calm. Icy. She spoke through clenched teeth. “Oh, my, yes. By all means, call Jane or Jerre. Maybe one of them understands you better than I.” She whirled and marched to their bedroom, her back ramrod straight. She slammed the door so hard the center panel split down the middle.

Juno ran under a coffee table, overturning it, dumping ashtrays and bric-a-brac on the carpet.

The young people, who had gathered in the hall to listen to the adults argue, slipped back to their rooms and shut the doors ... quietly and quickly.

Ben looked to his right and saw Badger standing in the foyer; the shouting had brought him out of his small apartment on the side of the house.

“What did I do?” the governor general of Tri-states asked his bodyguard. “What did I do?”

The young bodyguard shook his head. “Governor, with all due respect, sir; somebody ought to tell you the facts of life.”

"What the hell does that mean?" Ben roared. “And who asked you in the first place?”

“Pitiful.” Badger frowned. “Just plain pitiful.” He turned and went back to his apartment.

Juno looked at him, showed Ben his teeth, then padded out of the room.

For several hours that night, Ben slept on the couch in the den. During the early morning hours, Salina slipped into the den to waken him. Together, they got into their own bed, Salina snuggling close to him.

“I'm sorry, Ben,” she whispered.

“I would have been the first to apologize,” he said, caressing her. “But I didn't know what I'd done. Still don't.”

“I know, Ben.” She moved under the stroking of his hands.

“I understand,” he said. But of course, he didn't.

She smiled in the darkness as he touched a breast and she moved a slim hand down his belly.

At breakfast, Salina fixed Ben his favorite foods while he went into the yard to cut her a rose from the many flowering plants around the house. She did not mention to him that he whacked off half the bush to get one rose; merely laughed and thanked him, poured him more coffee, and wondered if she could graft the mangled part back on.

Jack, tactful for one so young, made no mention of his plans to visit the shooting range later that day, and Tina stayed home, helping her adopted mother around the house.

Juno viewed it all with an animal's patience.

Life in the Tri-states was really not that much different from that in other states or countries.

THREE

The communications people in the Tri-states had the finest electronic equipment in America—perhaps the world—for they had commandeered only the very best during their searches. From listening posts high in the mountains of the Tri-states, they monitored dozens of broadcasts daily, not only in America, but around the globe. They listened to military chatter, broke the codes, and knew what was going down, when, and where. They knew the government in Richmond was watching and listening to their every move, as they were listening and watching them.

Kenny Parr's mercenaries, fighting alongside the regular military, had swept through Louisiana and Mississippi, crushing Kasim's small army of guerrillas. Kasim was dead, but he had killed the mercenary Parr before he'd died.

The nation was slowly, painfully, being pulled back together. The central government, under the direction of Hilton Logan and, Ben suspected, the military, was taking absolute control ... again.

But they kept out of the Tri-states.

A small town stood almost directly in the center of Tri-states. Its name was changed to Vista, and that became the capital. Their flag was a solid, light blue banner with three stars in a circle. A constitution had been drawn up during the first year, much like the Constitution and Bill of Rights of the United States, but going into detail and spelling out exactly what the citizens of Tri-states could receive and expect if they lived under that document.

Early on, Tri-states was broken up into districts and elections were held to choose spokespersons from each district. At the end of the second year, Ben was elected governor for life, running with no opposition and no campaign. The laws of the Tri-states were set by balloting, and were firm against amending.