Anarchy in the Ashes by Johnstone William

Author:Johnstone, William [Johnstone, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Men's Adventure
ISBN: 9780759211490
Publisher: E-reads/E-rights
Published: 2011-05-14T17:07:33+00:00

“Your uncle shot at me for no reason. All I was trying to do was catch some fish for my supper.”

“Our roads, our mountains, our fish,” the girl said.

“I see,” Ben’s reply was soft. “And you don’t want any outsiders here?”

“That’s it, mister.”

“If you feel that strongly, why are you warning me?”

The question seemed to confuse the pair. The boy shook his head.” ‘Cause we don’t want no more killin” around here. And if you’ll leave, there won’t be no more.”

“Do you agree with your people’s way of life?”

“It ain’t up to us to agree or disagree,” the boy said. “The word’s done been passed down from Corning. And if you stay here, mister, you gonna die.”

“Who or what is a Corning?”

“The leader.”

“Ah, yes.” Ben smiled, but was careful not to offend the young people, or rib their manner of speaking or thinking. “Let me guess: This Corning is the biggest and the strongest among you all. He is a religious man-or so he says-and he has a great, powerful voice and spouts the Bible a lot. Am I right?”

“Mister”-the girl’s voice was soft with awe-“how’d you know all that?”

Ben looked at her. She was pretty and shapely and ripe for picking. “And I’ll bet this Corning-I’ll bet he likes you a lot, right?”

She nodded her head. “He’s taken a shine to me, yeah.”

“No doubt.” Ben’s reply was dry. How quickly some of us revert, he thought. Tribal chieftain. He stood up and the kids quickly backed away, toward the open door. “Take it easy. I won’t hurt you. Are you going to get into trouble for coming here, warning me?”

The girl shook her head. “We come the back trails. We know where the lookouts is. “You leavin’?”

“Yes, I’ll be gone in half an hour.”

She stood gazing 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. Instead he said, “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.

“Wonder what happened to that cult?” Cecil asked.

“Died out, hopefully. Maybe someone bigger and stronger than Corning came along and killed him. That’s the way it usually happens, I guess.” He stood up and stretched. “Any word from Dan?”

Cecil grinned a warrior’ smile of satisfaction over hearing of an enemy’s defeat. “Not since yesterday. That is one randy Englishman. His bunch completely destroyed a full column of IPF troops. Wiped them out to a person.”

“For a fact, Cec, Dan does not like to be bothered with prisoners. Those SAS boys were randy as hell.” Ben grinned. “Besides wiping out an entire column, they demoralized the hell out of a bunch of other IPF troops.” Ben’s grin grew wider. “I can’t help but wonder what happened to that colonel who was commanding the unit.

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