Out of the Ashes

The girl shook her head. “We come the back trails. We know where the lookouts is.” She met his gaze. “You leavin'?”

“Yes. I'll be gone in half an hour. And I thank you for warning me.”

She stood gazing up at him. “We're not bad people, mister. We jist don't want no more of your world, that's all. Why cain't ever'body just live the way they want to live, and then ever'body would git along?”

Why indeed? Ben thought, and once again, the Rebels entered his mind. He felt compelled to say something profound to the girl. Instead, he said simply, “Because, dear, then we wouldn't have a nation, would we?”

She blinked. “But we ain't got one now, have we?” Then they were gone.

And fifteen minutes later, so was Ben.

He drove up to Knoxville, where he found a large group of people, perhaps five hundred or more.

“Is this all?” he asked over a cup of coffee at a Red Cross building.

“No,” a man told him. “I would imagine there's probably ... oh ... four or five thousand alive in the city ... taking in all the suburbs. But the rest of the people are just existing. They seem to be waiting around for the government to move them.”

“For the government to do what? Forgive me; I didn't know we had a government.”

The man laughed. “Yeah? Well, it's kind of sketchy, I grant you, but it's real, and moving, getting bigger every day, so I'm told. You haven't heard about the government's plan?”

Ben shook his head.

“They want to pull all the people together in several centralized areas, each area to be three or four states, maybe less than that: agriculture, industry, business. Then, after a time, just like it was two hundred years ago, move people out to homestead. Really!” He laughed, noting the look of incredulity on Ben's face. “And you know what? People are following orders; they really are, just like cattle. The government's moving the people in the cities first. Everyone from Atlanta—so I'm told—was shifted to someplace—Columbia, I think—in South Carolina. Just happened a few weeks ago.”

One question that had been in Ben's mind was now answered.

“They want to settle the East Coast first, the heavy industry areas, then the Midwest—the breadbasket, so to speak; Texas and Louisiana for the gas and oil, and the far West—California, Oregon, Washington.”

“And the people are really allowing themselves to be herded like cattle? Told where to live?”

“Sure. That shouldn't surprise you. Big Brother's been doing it to us for years. Most folks don't even question the orders to move.”

“Do we have a president? Or king, or whatever?”

“Yes.” The man scratched his head. “But durned if I can tell you his name right off. We're really out of touch here. It's ... like that hotel chain.”

“Hilton Logan.”

“Yeah. That's it. Strange, though. I seem to recall he never was too thrilled with the military, yet they installed him as president. I can't figure that one out.”

Ben let that slide. “You don't seem to be following orders here too well. Don't feel like moving?”

“Well ... to tell you the truth, until things calm down a bit, I think I'll just keep me and mine right here. I've heard it's going to get tough in the deep South.”

“Let me guess. New Africa.”

“That's what I hear from people passing through. Some of those people are militant. But I don't really blame them. We—all of us—have shit on the blacks for years. Hurts my mouth to say that, but it's true. Then I guess we overcompensated for two or three decades. You heard what happened in Chicago?”

“I heard.”

“Are we ever going to get along, Mr. Raines?”

Ben shrugged. “I hope so. Tell me; since Washington is gone, where is the seat of government?”

“Richmond, Virginia.”

Ben drove nonstop to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. But the young people were long gone.

“You don't know where they went?” Ben asked a scholarly looking gentleman.

“No, sir, I don't. I'm sorry. They scattered in all directions. Several thousand of them. Going to solve the world's problems, so I understand.” His smile was sad. Sad and knowing. “I fear they will soon learn the truth about the world. Some of them already have, so I hear.”

“What do you mean?”

“Dead. Quite a number of them. That is what I have heard. No proof. Do you have a daughter or son with the young people?”

“No. Just a young friend.”

“Name?”

“Jerre Hunter.”

The man's face sobered. “I'm very sorry....”

And the words hit Ben hard, leaving him almost physically ill.

“...but I'm not familiar with that name. As I said, there were several thousand of them.”

Ben headed north. At the Virginia line, he carefully hid his automatic weapons, keeping only a rifle and one pistol visible. If the government was rolling—even in a minuscule fashion—law and order was going to be the first business to be settled. And lawmen might take umbrage at the sight of submachine guns.

Besides, Ben had a hunch Hilton Logan was not just coming out of the closet with his true feelings. Ben thought, and had for some years, that the man was just a little insane.