Read Online The Last Rebel: Survivor by William W. Johnstone - Free Book Online Page A

off.
    “Here’s something else I found.”
    Bev glanced at it.
    “I’m familiar with it,” she said.
    “Pretty powerful stuff in it.”
    “General Raines was one of a kind. A warrior and a thinker, a philosopher. My father said that when Raines died people were going to be asking the same thing a character in Shakespeare asked when Caesar died: ‘When comes such another?’”
    “There’ll be others,” Jim said. “That’s the way life is. My grandfather once said that it’s heat and pressure that produce diamonds. That happens to people too.”
    “I hope you’re right,” Bev said.
    Jim nodded.
    “I’m going to shower and shave. Then we’ll have supper.”
    “Anything I can do to help?” Bev said, her face reddening a little when she realized the double entendre. “I mean with supper.”
    Jim did not react to the mistake. But he surely understood it. Bev did too.
    “All we have to do is open some cans and heat them up,” he said.
    She smiled at him. “I was hoping you found some T-bone steaks.”
    “I wish. Be back in a few minutes.”
    Jim was not gamy. He had washed regularly in creeks, lakes, and rivers on the way down. But he figured that hot showers might not be too plentiful in his future and a cold river was not the same thing to bathe in as a tub with a shower.
    He took a couple of the towels that Bev had found and went into the bathroom. He also took the AK-47. He didn’t want to, as it were, be caught with his pants down.
    The hot shower felt good, and after he dried himself thoroughly and donned clean clothes, then he went into the kitchen. He saw that Bev had already heated up their supper and made a pot of coffee. She had also brought Reb in from the HumVee and fed him. He was polishing off the final bit of something in a bowl. Jim rolled a cigarette and smoked slowly. It had been a long time since anyone waited on him, and he liked the feeling.
    They slowly consumed the supper, cleaned up, and then just sat there, relaxing, with Reb lying quietly near the stove, a classic scene of domestic tranquility, ironic given the world outside.
    “We going to check out Jackson?” Bev said, referring to a large town in Wyoming that was directly north.
    “Why not?” Jim said. “It’s directly on our way. I was there when I was a kid. But of course we’ll take back roads to stay out of harm’s way. There’s a limit to how big this Zone can be.”
    Bev looked at Jim. He was growing on her by leaps and bounds.
    “Aren’t you a little afraid to be with me?” she said.
    “Oh no,” he said with a straight face, which she was learning was the way he was when he was being funny. “I’m not that afraid of you.”
    Bev laughed so hard that Reb raised his head from sleep.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “Listen, Bev,” Jim said, “you don’t have to be a psychiatrist to figure these guys out. They’re bad. They want to kill. That’s their religion and like I said before, whether I’m with you or alone doesn’t matter.”
    Bev nodded.
    “What,” she asked, “exactly are you looking for?”
    He smiled at her.
    “I don’t really know, Bev. Just a place where I can live in harmony with nature. Peace. Be happy.”
    “But you may have to fight to get it. That’s what Ben Raines said.”
    “Not me. I’m tired of war—or at least the effects of it. I lost my brother and my father in wars. I’m just turned off by the whole experience.”
    Bev nodded. She knew that Jim was a little shortsighted on this picture. But right now maybe he needed to think that he wouldn’t have to fight for peace. She changed subjects.
    “You married?”
    “No.”
    “Girl?”
    “No. Not much opportunity to meet someone where I’m from.”
    Bev nodded, hiding her feeling, which was that she was very, very happy that Jim was not connected to someone else.
    “How about you?” Jim asked.
    “I had a boyfriend in Japan. But the commute was hellish.”
    They laughed heartily. Then they went into the living