Out of the Ashes

A man named Clint Voltan was a major in the Rebel army formed in the West.

And Sam Pyron was about to make his move toward freedom.

Sam, a West Virginia boy, sat by his grandfather's bed. He was watching the old man die.

The grandfather met the young man's eyes. “Git outta here, boy. There ain't nothin’ you can do for me.” He coughed up blood and pus.

“I'll stay with you, Granddad,” Sam said.

“Just like your mother—hard-headed. Boy, listen to me. You gotta run!”

“I'm not leavin’ you.”

“You killed a Fed, Samuel.”

“He started it. Tryin’ to tell me I got to move. To hell with him. That's probably where he went, too.”

“I know, Sam—I know. It ain't right, but big government almost never is. I think you better link up with them survivalists that was livin’ over ‘crost the mountain and get gone from here.”

“The Rebels?”

“Yeah.”

“I thought you didn't agree with what they stood for, Granddad?”

“I don't agree with ever'thing they talked about—them I knowed in the bunch—but I do agree with most of it. ‘Specially them wantin’ to bring the law back to the common folk, back to some common sense.” He coughed for a moment, then caught his breath, pain in his eyes.

“Maybe all this misery was due us, boy—I don't know. I cain't help but think the Lord had something to do with it. I figure He was gettin’ awful tired of what was happenin’ down here. And maybe it's a good thing, too. That Rebel that was by last week when I was so awful sick, he said they's a man settin’ up out West. Said that feller was gonna have a land where a man can live free—all races. It's past time for that, too. Wasn't gonna be no damned lawyers screwin’ up ever'thing with fancy words. That'd be the greatest thing since corn bread, Sam. I hate a damned lawyer. This man out West—accordin’ to the Reb—is gonna make the law so plain, so simple, so easy to follow, that even a child can understand it. That's the way it oughta be. He said that so long as a person can mind his or her own business and follow jist a few simple rules, a man can live the way he sees fit.

“Our laws, Sam—back when we had a country—went from bad to worse to stupid. I seen all the trouble comin’ years ago; ‘fore even your mamma was born. Country went bad; people quit wantin’ to work for a livin', wanted the government to do for them. Damned unions got out of hand; kids got too big for their britches. Too many cops, too many lawyers, too many laws the common man couldn't understand. Judges sittin’ on their brains, turnin’ bad people loose without punishment. No morals nowhere. Government stickin’ its nose in ever'body else's business when they couldn't even keep their own house clean. It had to come to an end.” He coughed up blood and gasped for breath.

“Sam?” The old man's hand groped for his grandson as his eyes filmed over with near-death. He fought back the darkness.

“I'm here, Granddad.” Sam took the old hand.

“I want you to remember what I'm about to say, Sam; carry it with you all your life. What's yours is yours, provided you worked for it, and you paid for it—or is payin’ for it—and don't no man have no right to take it from you by stealin'. You got a right to protect what's yours by any means at hand. And don't never let no smart-mouthed lawyer tell you different.

“There ain't no human-person god, boy. ‘At's something them hoo-hawin’ TV preachers never learned. But they shore thought they was God, all the time a-tellin’ ever'body else how to live, what to read in the books and papers, what to see on the TV and in the motion pitchers. I ain't sayin’ they wasn't good folk in their hearts, just that they di'n’ have no right tellin’ other folk how to live. Them TV preachers had a God complex-thing ‘bout ’em. But they was wrong, Sam.

“If a man is tryin’ to do right by his family, by his job, or them that work for him, and be a good neighbor in time of need, then whatever else he does, Sam ... ain't nobody else's damned truck! Man's got to live by and with his conscience, boy. And if you was taught right in the home, then you'll do right outside it. Some of them fancy-talkin', fancy-dressin', high-up judges might ought to sweep off they own back doorstep ‘fore they start tellin’ others to clean they steps. Same thing with preachers and politicians. And that damned Logan is gonna be the ruination of ever'thing. He's two-faced, boy, and crazy as a road lizard!

“Sam, listen to me. There ain't but one set of rules a man's got to follow, and they come from God—written in stone and handed down. Man's rules come second—always. No badge, no man-made law, no government job or high uppity office ever made no man ... God.”

He was wracked by coughing. He vomited up pus and blood, then closed his eyes. A few hours later, he slipped behind the veil.