Ashes - Fire In The Ashes Part 35

"Are you planning to stay, Ben?" Cecil asked.

"No. I'm heading over to north Mississippi in the morning, then striking out for the northwest." He told them about President Logan's plans to relocate the people; and that most of them were going along with it. Logan's stripping the citizens of firearms.

It did not surprise Ben to learn they knew more about it than he.

"We won't bother Logan as long as he doesn't bother us," Pal said. "We just want to live and let live."

Ike's words, Ben thought.

"You're welcome to spend the night with us, Ben," Lila said.

"This is my house," Ben said.

Lila looked at Salina. "Then perhaps you'd better come with us, Salina."

"I like it here," Salina said. Ben could feel her eyes on him.

"It will only cause hard feelings, girl," Cecil reminded her of Kasim.

"Kasim is a pig!"

"You're half black, half white," Lila said, a touch of anger in her voice. "Are you making your choice, is that it?"

"You're the only one talking color and choices. If Ben is colorblind, so am I."

Pal and Valerie stayed out of it, as did Ben and Cecil. The two women argued for a few moments until finally, in frustration and anger, Salina jumped to her feet and ran from the room, crying.

After a moment, Juno rose from the floor, stretched, and went into the room after Salina.

Cecil said, "When both man and beast accept a woman, I guess that pretty well settles it." He lit his pipe. "Be careful, Ben, many of the pressures in an interracial relations.h.i.+p come from within rather than from without."

"I'm aware of that."

They spoke for a half hour or more, and Ben found he shared most of Cecil's ideas and dreams, and that Cecil shared his.

"...You know what I'm saying, Ben. I don't have to convince you. We both agreed that education on both sides is the key to wiping out hate and racism and all the deadly sins that rip at any society. And we must have conformity to some degree. I agree with that. And I also agree that educated people must get into the home to see that all we've talked of is accomplished; but how to do that without becoming Orwellian with it?

"Ben? I didn't ask for the job of leader down here. One day I looked up and it was being handed to me.

No one asked if I wanted it. I don't want and don't need any New Africa. I have been accepted in both white and black worlds for years. My father was a psychiatrist and my mother a college professor. I hold a Ph.D.-from a very respectable university. 3.9 average.

"Hilton Logan? He's a n.i.g.g.e.r-hater. Always has been. Those of us with any education saw past his rhetoric.

"Kasim? p.i.s.s on Kasim. His bread isn't baked. He was a street punk and that's all he'll ever be.

"You're going to look up someday, Ben-one day very soon, I believe-and the job of leader will be handed to you. Like me, you won't want it, but you'll take it because you believe in your dreams of a fair world, fair society. I read you, Ben, like a good book. You're heading west to the states Logan is leaving alone for a time. And you're going to form your own little nation. Just like we're attempting to do here.

Good luck to you-you're going to need it. I-we-may join you out there."

"You'd be welcome, Cecil. There are too few like you and Lila and Pal and Valerie."

"And Salina," Lila said with a twinkle in her eyes.

Ben smiled.

"And you're right, Ben," Cecil said. "The root cause is in the home."

Cecil leaned back and reminisced. "One of my earliest recollections is of Mozart and Brahms. But do you think the average southern white would believe that? Not a chance. He'll put down soul music-which I abhor-while slugging the jukebox, punching out the howlings and honkings of country music.

"Ben, my father used to sit in his study, listening to fine music while going over his cases, a brandy at hand. My mother was having a sherry-not Ripple-" he laughed,-"going over her papers from the college. My home life was conducive to a moderate, intelligent way of life. My father told me, if I wanted it, to partic.i.p.ate in sports, but to keep the game in perspective and always remember it was but a game.

Nothing more. No, Ben,I did not grow up as the average black kid. That's why Iknow what you say is true. Home. The root cause.

"I went to the opera, Ben-really! How many violent-minded people attend operas? How many ignorant people attend plays and cla.s.sical concerts? How many bigots-of all races-read Sartre, Shakespeare, Tennyson, Dante?" He shook his head.

"No, you find your bigots and violent-minded ignoramuses seeking other forms of base entertainment.

And not just music.

"Do you know why I joined the Green Berets, Ben?"

Ben shook his head.

"So I could get to know violence firsthand. We didn't have street gangs where I grew up." He laughed and slapped his knee. "Well, I found out about it, all right; I got shot in the b.u.t.t in Laos."

Lila punctured his reminiscences. "Let's not refight the war. I've heard all your stories. Tomorrow is a work day, remember?"

After they all said their good-nights and good-byes, Ben walked into the bedroom. "Are you all right, now?"

"Of course, I am," Salina's voice was small in the darkness. "I always lie about bawling and snuffling."

"You heard everything that was said?"

"Of course, I did. I'm not deaf."

"Well-you want to head out with me in the morning?"

"Maybe I like it here."

"Sure. You could always marry Kasim and live happily ever after. Or get killed by Kenny Parr's mercenaries."

"The latter preferable to the former."

"I repeat: would you like to head out with me in the morning?"

"Why should I?"

"You might see some sights you've never seen before."

"Ben, that is a stupid statement for a writer to make. If I haven't seen the sights before, of course I'd be seeing them for the first time."

"What?"

"That isn't a good enough reason, Ben."

"Well ... G.o.dd.a.m.n it! I like you and you like me."

"That's better. Sure you want to travel with a zebra?"

Ben suddenly thought of Ike's wife, Megan. "I'll tell everyone you've been out in the sun too long. But let's get one thing settled: when I tell you to step-and-fetch-it, you'd better hump it, baby."

She giggled. "Screw you, Ben Raines."

"I also have that in mind."

She threw back the covers and Ben could see she was naked. And beautiful. "So come on. I a.s.sure you, whitey, it doesn't rub off."

Ben shook himself back to the present and all the woes it brought with it.

Threats and atomic bombs; unions screaming at him for putting people back to work (that made absolutely no sense to Ben); Congress fighting him on a national health plan while people died from lack of medical care (that had always infuriated Ben); teachers outraged because Ben wanted to nearly double their salaries and have them teach ethics and morals. It seemed that no matter what was good for the nation as a whole, some group or organization howled about it.

"People don't care, boy," Lamar's words returned to him in a whisper of memory. "They don't care-and never have cared-what is good for the entire population; only for their own little group.

Woman shows her t.i.tty on TV it's a sin-never mind that half the babies in America were breastfed and that is their earliest memory. Make sense, Ben? h.e.l.l, no! Some church groups want to ban and burn any book that says 'f.u.c.k' in it while others want to make it legal to have s.e.x with children.

"It's out of control, Ben; has been since the '60s. You just do the best you can in the time given you ...

then get the h.e.l.l out of that man-lulling office."

Ben rose from his desk, stretched, and walked to his quarters. He ordered dinner sent up to him and flipped on the TV.

News. If one wished to call it that.

Organized labor was meeting in Florida, the leaders calling President Raines a dirty communist for practically forcing members to go to work at substandard wages.

Ben chuckled grimly. Only about five percent of the world's population was working and 3.5 percent of that was in America; he really didn't see what the union members had to b.i.t.c.h about.

Certain religious groups were screaming at him because he believed what a woman did with her body was that woman's business and no one else had a right to tell her she could or couldn't have an abortion.

Civil liberties groups were howling about the death penalty.

The rich were shrieking about Ben's plans to make the tax laws more equitable.

On and on and on.

Ben turned off the set.

Then something hit his consciousness: The press wasn't taking sides. No editorials. No not-so-subtle vocal innuendoes. No facial giveaways as to how the reporters really felt. What the h.e.l.l was going on with the fourth estate?

Did somebody upthere really like him?

Ben decided it had to be a fluke.

He looked at his half-eaten dinner, pushed it from him, and went into his bedroom. He showered, stretched out on the bed with a book, and was asleep in two minutes.

Seven.

"The C-4 is placed, timers set to go in twenty minutes," Ike was told. "We should kill or cripple fifty of Hartline's mercs with that alone."

"Smoke?" Dan Gray asked.

"In place. We stayed in radio contact with Ike's group all the way. The smoke will go same time as the C-4.".

"Okay." Ike looked at Matt. "You and me, boy-we're going heads up and straight in Hartline's house.

I'll take the front, you come in the rear." He glanced at two of Gray's Scouts. "You two grab that Jeep-mounted fifty and get behind that block wall by the side of Hartline's house. North." He looked at two more Rebels. "You two on the south side. Rest of you know your jobs." He looked at his watch.

"Let's do it, boys."

"Don't forget us, you s.e.xist pig!" a woman spoke from the darkness of the home. She chuckled.

"'Scuse me, honey," Ike grinned, glancing at the three women of Gray's team. "I keep forgettin'."

"You didn't forget last night," she fired back, her white teeth flas.h.i.+ng against the deep tan of her face.

"Darlin'," Ike smiled. "That was the most memorable moment of my life."

"Lying Mississippi b.a.s.t.a.r.d," a woman muttered, no malice at all in the statement.

The men and women chuckled, breaking the slight tension.

"Let's do it, lads and la.s.sies," Dan said.

They moved out. It was five o'clock in the morning.

Sam Hartline buckled his web belt around his lean waist and looked at Jerre looking at him from the big bed. The only light was a small nightlight.

"You're a cla.s.s act, Jerre-baby," he said. "And I intend to keep you for my own. You understand that?"