Refuge - 9. Chapter 9: Trip to Refuge

Kevin

I was on guard duty the day the car arrived. Even though the wards were in place, there was always someone on guard—one of the gods and one of the Scions. The Scion, today, went by “Hank.” I don’t think they had real names and if they did, the names were probably something unpronounceable and Greek. Hank looked like he was right out of the old cowboy movies: weathered face, bow-legged from living on a horse, wrinkles around his eyes from squinting into the sun—until you looked closer and saw his green scales and red eyes. The first time I’d seen one of the Scions, I was scared, but Hank and I seemed to get along right well, and we often worked together.

Hank was in the hills watching the road, and told me that a dusty car was coming up the road.

Hank, any car that would come up that road is dusty, I thought to him. If it weren’t dusty, that would be interesting. I giggled.

What’s really interesting, Hank thought, is that it has blue lights hidden behind the front grill, and more in the back window. It’s an unmarked police car.

How many people?

Driver adult male; adult female in the front seat. Two kids in the back seat. They seem scared and hurting but not dangerous.

Refugees, I thought. How’d they find this place? How’d they get past the wards? I could feel Hank’s shrug. He didn’t have an answer.

I needed backup. Thanks to Hank’s warning, I had time to get a couple of more men to meet me in the parking lot.

The car didn’t make it to the parking lot. Hank reported that the engine sputtered and died a mile before it got there.

“Come on! We don’t want them getting loose on the ranch” I called and ran down the road.

“Mister? I’d be obliged if you’d step away from the car and keep your hands in sight.”

“I’m a cop,” he said. “Deputy sheriff. I know the drill. I’ve got a 9-mm in the waist of my pants in back, a .32-caliber on my left ankle. There’s a shotgun racked in the front seat. And more in the trunk.”

“Who are you, how did you get here?” I asked.

“Do you mind? The people in the car, they haven’t eaten in two days. We ran out of water yesterday. Please, they need help. . . .”

Daryn

I had kept my promise—more like a threat—to the woman at Family Services, and checked up on the two boys Nemesis and Benji had rescued from the old school bus. Over the months, they’d been moved twice. I had run across the current foster-mother before, and knew she wouldn’t like me checking up on her, but I hadn’t counted on open hostility from her husband.

“Look-a here,” he said. “You ain’t got no call to come out here. An’ you ain’t got no call to question how we is takin’ care of them boys.” His massive butt almost completely filled the doorway. He held onto the doorframe with both hands.

His hands, I thought. Knuckles scraped. He’s been in a fight, or—

My instincts kicked in. Something was wrong. I grabbed one forearm, stepped back and then to the side. The man’s own weight propelled him down the steps. He fell onto the ground. Before he could recover, I had him cuffed.

“What the f—”

That’s all I heard, I was up the steps and into the house. Where were the boys? Where was the woman?

I found the boys behind the only closed door in the house. Couldn’t call the room a bedroom: no beds, no mattresses, no furniture of any kind. The boys were huddled on a filthy blanket in one corner. The windows had been boarded over; the only light came through the doorway I was standing in. The old school bus they had once lived in was far better than this.

They saw me and cowered. Then, they recognized me, and cowered more.

“Please don’t hurt Spence,” the older said. “I’ll do anything you want, just please don’t hurt Spence.”

He was Tommy. The younger boy was Spencer. “Tommy, I’m not here to hurt you. Spence? Who has been hurting you?”

“The man . . . .” Spencer said. His voice was soft, a whisper.

“Boys, I’m here to help you, not hurt you. Do you remember Benji and Nemesis? They’re my friends, and they’re little boys, just like you.” Well, not exactly. Nemesis is a god, and Benji? If he’s hanging around with Nemesis, he’s probably at least a little more than human.

“Benji and Nemesis wouldn’t like me hurt you. Look, the man who hurt you is lyin’ in the front yard with my handcuffs on him. I’ve got to get you out of here before the woman comes back. Please, please trust me?”

Tommy hugged his little brother, and whispered to him. Then he looked up.

“Mister Sheriff, we’re gonna trust you but I promise, if you hurt Spence I’ll find a way to kill you.”

“Tommy,” I said, “we got a deal.” I tried to talk as seriously as he had. I think he understood. His eyes got wide enough that I could see them even in the dim light. He stood, and pulled the littler boy to his feet.

# # # # #

“Sara Lee? Will you marry me?”

The woman at the ______ County sheriff’s office dispatch desk swiveled her chair toward the counter where I stood. “Daryn Lee, if you ever sneak up on me that way—

“What did you say?”

“Sara Lee, I’m askin’ you to marry me, and to run away with me, and to adopt two boys that were thrown away by their family and their foster parents and go somewhere they and we will be safe,” I managed to say before the police radio interrupted us.

Sara Lee answered the radio, made a couple of phone calls, got back on the radio for a minute, and then looked at me, again.

“I was sort of hoping for you kneeling at my feet, maybe after a dinner in that fine restaurant in Birmingham you took me to, once. And a diamond ring, and a church wedding to make my mama happy.”

“That’s not gonna happen, Sara Lee. It’s just not gonna happen.”

She nodded, not just because her mama was dead, killed by a couple of home invaders last month, and not just because she knew I didn’t have any truck with church. And not just because she knew about the riots over in Birmingham. She worked the county 911 Center radio, and she knew what was going on better than most. No way was anybody going to have a big church wedding, now-a-days.

“Daryn, I’ll marry you. I’ll even adopt your boys, on one condition: that you give me children of my own.

“And where the heck did you get the boys I’m going to adopt?”

It took a whole lot longer for me to explain about Tommy and Spencer than it did for Sara Lee to quit her job as soon as her relief showed up for work. I didn’t tell Sara Lee about Nemesis being a kid or a god. I promised myself I’d tell her that later.

“The best-laid plans often go astray,” wrote Robert Burns except he wrote it in poetry. He was right. My plan had been to call Gary in Chicago and tell him we were coming his way and needed refuge in that orphanage he was running. I figured with two kids I had helped him rescue, and who were at least technically orphans, he probably owed me. It didn’t work out that way.

The cell phone number I had for Gary didn’t connect. I didn’t know if it was because his phone was no longer in the system, or because the system was down so much. I tried land-line to Erewhon, and got an intercept: “The number you have dialed has been disconnected . . . .” The information operator wasn’t any help.

I called in every favor I could think of to find out what was going on, but no one had answers. I looked at my watch: it had been two hours since I had cuffed the fat child-abuser. His wife surely was home by now. We had to move.

“Sara Lee? Would you start packing the car? Food that will keep. Water, juice, whatever you can find. We’re going on a long picnic. Blankets, whatever you think we’ll need.

“Tommy? Spencer? We’re going to find Nemesis and Benji. It’s going to be a tough trip. Can I count on you to help?”

The boys nodded.

“Would you help Sara Lee load the car?”

From my bedroom, I brought two packages: one was a cashbox with bills and, more important, gold coins. The other was a duffle full of weapons and ammunition.

Thirty minutes later, we were heading west. I kept the police radio on the county frequency until we went out of range of the repeater, and then switched to the state police band. I didn’t hear anything about them looking for me. Didn’t mean they weren’t. They’d know I’d be listening.

It was late when we neared Birmingham. I gassed up at a truck stop, picking a pump that was in a shadow. Sara Lee went inside and got some burgers and fries to go. We bypassed Birmingham through Hoover, and then picked up I-20.

I was headed for Chicago, so why was I driving west across the southern USA, especially when I-65 led straight from Birmingham to Chicago? Mostly because of what I was hearing on the satellite radio stations. The governor of Kentucky had declared martial law, and called out the state militia. Someone had blown up a mail distribution center and food stamps hadn’t arrived on time. People were starving, and others were using the situation as an excuse to organize mass raids on grocery stores. Once that started, and people found out the police couldn’t do anything about it, every store and shopping center became fair game.

About 10:00 PM, I turned off the interstate and drove down a two-lane blacktop until I found a place to pull off. The boys were already asleep in the back.

“Sara Lee,” I whispered. “This isn’t much of a wedding night.”

She laughed, softly. “We’re not married, yet, Mr. Lee, so keep your hands to yourself.

“Do you know that I’m going to be Sara Lee Lee after we’re married? Do you suppose I could change my name?”

I laughed back. “Try to get some sleep,” I said. “I’m going to stay up to make sure nobody saw us and tries to sneak up on us. I’ll wake you, later. You’ll drive first thing, tomorrow and I’ll nap, okay?”

I got a kiss for that. It didn’t take Sara more than a minute to fall asleep. Well, she was a cop.

About midnight, I cranked the built-in generator on the emergency radio, plugged in the earphone, and started scanning. I figured some of the clear channel stations would come in right well on a winter evening. I was right.

“This is WBBM, Chicago. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be able to stay on the air. We’re operating from . . . well, I probably shouldn’t say exactly. We have fuel for the generators for another few days, unless we’re discovered by the mobs that have taken over the city.”

That report clinched it. We couldn’t go to Chicago. But where? The answer came after 4:00 AM, after I woke up Sara Lee. I told her to wake me as soon as it was light enough to see to drive, and then fell asleep. And dreamed.

The dream was like a black & white rerun of the old “Hopalong Cassidy” TV shows. Cowboys. The good guys in white hats; the bad guys in black hats. Hopalong losing the fistfight in the first half of the show and then kicking the butts of the bad guys in the second half. It was a dream of the Old West, and it called to me.

We reached Meridian, Mississippi early the next morning. We had stopped at a couple of stations looking to top off the gas tank, but they were either out of gas or didn’t have electricity to pump it. Good thing my patrol car had an auxiliary tank. I pulled off at a shopping mall in Meridian. Things looked normal. There seemed to be a lot of people in uniform. I remembered: there was a Naval Air Station nearby. There were women and kids walking in and out of the shopping center. I figured it was safe.

“Sara Lee? Would you take the boys to get some clothes?” I gave her a handful of bills. “I’m going there.” I pointed to an outdoor store. “Meet back here in two hours?”

The outdoor store, a national chain, had been stripped of guns and ammo. I was able to pick up some camping stuff: a tent, Coleman lantern, sleeping bags, dried food, canteens, and best of all six, five-gallon gas cans that we filled up before leaving town.

I didn’t know if I should stick to the Interstate, or if we’d be safer on back roads. My instinct said back roads, but something—I think it was Tommy whistling along with the theme from “Deliverance” on the satellite radio—that made up my mind. I stuck to the interstate highways: I-20 until we got to Midland, Texas where I-20 became I-10. Since I’m still not sure who will read this, I’m not going to give any directions past that.

I dreamed every night, and the dreams were always about the cowboys.

The road was nearly invisible, like it had been abandoned years ago and was about to disappear under the dust and tumbleweeds that blew constantly. Both gas gauges read empty. The motor had already sputtered once. I turned onto the road.

Sara Lee woke up when the tires rumbled over the old metal cattle guard, but dropped off instantly. I had barely gotten around a bend and out of sight of the two-lane when the engine died.

I slumped over the steering wheel for a minute, and then sat up. Desert survival, solar stills. Got to get a couple made before it gets dark … I opened the door.

“Mister? I’d be obliged if you’d step away from the car and keep your hands in sight.” It was a kid’s voice, but it was a voice filled with the same kind of power I’d once heard in Nemesis’s voice. I knew we were safe.

“I’m a cop,” I said.

# # # # #

I think I passed out before I could tell the kid who we were. Maybe I just took a nap. I woke when someone splashed water on my face. I took the offered canteen, and drank before I realized who was kneeling beside me.

“Nemesis?”

“Deputy Eye-Gor,” he said. And giggled. I was so happy to see him, I almost hugged him.

“Sara Lee? The boys?”

“They’re okay.” It was another voice I recognized. “They’ve been taken by ambulance to the infirmary, but they’re okay. We’ll take you there, now.

“Daryn, we lost touch with you. We looked, but you weren’t there,” Gary said. “We really did look . . . .”

“I’m not sure we were there all the time,” I said.

Gary must have thought I was delirious. Maybe I was. He helped me into a vehicle: HUM-V, military model. The driver was a teenager. He wasn’t in uniform … he looked like a cowboy. Like one of the cowboys in my dreams. In fact, he was one of them. Gary was right. I was delirious.

We spent the first night in the infirmary.

“Not much of a wedding night,” I whispered to Sara Lee. She was in the next bed in a ward. The boys were together in the bed on the other side of me.

“We’re not married, yet, Mr. Lee; you keep your hands to yourself. Oh, and I think I’m going to be Sara Ann Lee.”

Someone had cleaned our clothes while we slept. They were laid out for us after showers the next morning. Gary came in to invite us to breakfast in what he called the main house.

“This house is Calvin and Casey’s home,” he said. He lowered his voice so that only I heard the next part. “They own the ranch and they and their boyfriends still live here.”

His voice got normal when he said, “Nemesis and I live down the way, in a group home with thirty-two boys. Benji’s one of them. Calvin and Casey have invited you and us to breakfast, to welcome you to Refuge.”

“You really call this place, Refuge,” I said. It wasn’t a question, but an acknowledgement of what had been driving me since I saw Tommy and Spencer on that filthy blanket in the corner of a darkened room.

Gary understood. He nodded.

Gary had said Calvin and Casey lived in this house with their boyfriends. We were introduced to three teens: Aiden, Kevin, and Bobby. There was also a mid-twenties man who all of them called “Uncle George.” I wasn’t sure who was who, and I wasn’t sure what Gary was trying to tell me about boyfriends. I figured I’d find out, soon enough.

Gary and Nemesis took over the kitchen and made blueberry pancakes, bacon, and sausage while the rest of us watched, drank coffee and juice, and got to know one another a little better. Calvin explained that Gary had started the blueberry pancake breakfast the morning after Nemesis had rescued Bobby, and Gary promised himself that Bobby would never again have to eat only dry cereal.

“It’s tradition, and tradition means a lot. It’s what holds us together—so many people who are so different.”

After breakfast, Casey and Aiden took charge of Tommy and Spencer, and offered to show them the horses. Spencer didn’t seem interested until Casey said there were new puppies, too. Calvin led Sara Lee, Gary, Nemesis, and me into a den. Somehow, it didn’t seem odd that a teen was in charge. He walked and talked with a confidence that belied his age … he’s another one of them, I thought. Whatever Nemesis is.

Once we’d found seats, Calvin nodded to Gary, who started.

“Miss Lee, Daryn gave me the gift of his trust some time ago. I’ve never thanked him for that, but I want you and him to know that I am grateful, and I consider it the greatest gift one person can give another. I can’t ask you to give me your trust; I can only hope that you can trust Daryn and that by that trust you will listen and try to understand and accept what you’re going to learn here, today.”

“First,” she said, “please call me Sara. Second, Daryn has told me a lot about you, about what you did for him in Afghanistan. He told me that you had something to do with the rescue of Tommy and Spencer, and of the boys in the sheriff’s studio, but he’d never tell me the details. I figured you and he had called in some of your old military contacts. Didn’t matter. It worked and it was the right thing to do.

“Anyway, if Daryn trusts you—as I know he does—then I’ll do as you ask. I’ll listen with an open mind and I will ask any questions I have to ask in order to understand.”

Sara Lee

Gary nodded, and began the strangest story I’d ever heard. Calvin and Casey, and the boys who were at breakfast, and Uncle George, had the powers of ancient Greek gods. According to some folks, they were those gods, although Gary preferred to think of himself and them as avatars: humans who had been given certain powers that he called Attributes and Authorities.

Nemesis chimed in with some details. “Uncle George is the Avatar of Death. He has responsibilities involving unusual or untimely deaths. He’s not the scary guy in the black cowled robe with the great honkin’ scythe, although we kids tease him about that. He’s not the god of muscle cars, although he drives a really hot Mustang. And he’s really just about eighteen years old, although he was born around 1760. What you saw at breakfast was one of his Aspects, the one he wears when he’s being foreman of the ranch, or being Death.

“Gary got his powers through Apollo, who was one of the doctors you saw, yesterday. The other doctor was his son, Richard—Asclepius. Gary’s powers came from Artemis, so he’s the Protector of Children. Calvin is Uncle George’s partner . . . ."

“And Uncle George’s boyfriend,” Calvin said. “They have to know.”

Nemesis nodded. “I have the powers of Retribution. I go by Nemesis because . . . .” His voice softened and quivered.

“Because I was a really bad person and I don’t want anyone to know, not even me.”

Gary grabbed the boy, and hugged him. I didn’t hear what he whispered, but the boy brightened, and the tears that were forming, stopped.

“And Gary’s my boyfriend,” Nemesis added, unnecessarily.

I sat quietly. Nemesis appeared to be about twelve; Gary I knew to be in his twenties. I promised to listen and to try to understand. They weren’t through.

Calvin picked up the story. “Casey is my brother. Aiden is his boyfriend. Kevin and Bobby are my boyfriends. Uncle George is my boyfriend and Kevin’s. Uh, Bobby’s still too little for some of the boyfriend stuff.” He blushed.

“There are others, and you will meet them . . . .” Gary said.

I laughed. Daryn knew my moods, and he knew it was not a mocking laugh. I saw understanding on Gary’s face, and then Calvin’s. Then, Nemesis was laughing, too. He understood; we shared a smile.

“Gentlemen,” I said, “and I believe you to be gentle men and boys. I wanted to be a cop since I was a kid, and I’ve been a deputy sheriff since I was eighteen. The fat bastard who was sheriff before Daryn shot him wouldn’t let me do anything but office work and radio dispatch, even though I had more training in law and law enforcement than he did. Daryn and a couple of the other deputies defied their boss, and took me on ride-alongs—starting when I was fourteen.

“There are two reasons to tell you this. First, it didn’t bother Daryn or the others that I wasn’t of age. They didn’t look at me that way; they saw my desire, the stuff I’d studied on my own, my determination, and my mental maturity. I can, I think, make the same evaluation of you so-called kids. It doesn’t bother me that a kid owns this ranch and sleeps with a guy who looks a lot older than he is. It doesn’t bother me that Gary and Nemesis appear to be a lot different in age.

“Second reason is that on these ride-alongs, and later as an official deputy, I saw depths of depravity that—I was about to say that you couldn’t imagine, but I think you’ve probably seen as bad or worse.”

There were several nods, and some glints in people’s eyes.

“It doesn’t take long before a good cop is able to spot evil. I think I’m a good cop; I think I know evil when I see it. I don’t see it here.

“Gary, I have no questions. I accept in my heart and my mind what you’ve said.”

Daryn hugged me. The kiss that followed was as fine a kiss as he’s ever given me.

“How do we go about getting married around here?” Daryn asked.

Gary looked at Calvin. Calvin shrugged. “Aiden?” he said.

“Aiden has powers as the Patron of Lawyers,” Gary explained. “Oddly enough, we brought very few lawyers to Refuge. Aiden’s pretty much out of a job, now, although he still has powers. I’m sure he could draw up a marriage license, even a pre-nup, if you wanted one . . . .”

“Gary, all we own is the clothes we’re wearing and some rags and camping equipment in the trunk of the car. I don’t think we need a pre-nup,” Daryn said.

“Father Donovan is still legally a priest, even though we heard Rome and the Vatican, are radioactive rubble from an Iranian atomic bomb. If you wanted a priest, that is. Let me work on it,” Calvin said. “I know more about who is here and what their talents are than anyone, even Gary. I’ll get back with you.”

I nodded.

Daryn

“One more thing,” Gary said. “Daryn said that some strange things happened on your trip. I’d like to know more in case they could affect the safety or security of Refuge. You see—well, actually you should not have seen. We’re supposed to be protected by wards and defenses put in place by some powerful gods. You shouldn’t have found us.”

I nodded. “I kind of figured that out. Let’s see.

“First, the satellite radio and the emergency radio always seemed to find a station that warned us not to take certain roads. We heard about riots in Kentucky before we could turn north at Birmingham. Then, when we got to Jackson, Mississippi, and I was about to turn north on I-55, I heard that Chicago was in flames. Just before we got to Tyler, Texas we heard a report that warned us away from the Dallas-Fort Worth megaplex.

“The first night, I dreamed about cowboys and the old west. Didn’t think anything about it, then. But I had the same dream every night. Well, not exactly the same, but it was the same cowboys. And when I got here, I realized I’d seen Kevin, Calvin, Casey, the older guy—Hank I think—and a bunch of others. They were the cowboys in my dream.

“Gasoline was hard to find, but there was this gas station. It had a sign saying it was on Route 66, that’s the old highway between Chicago and Southern California. We weren’t even close to being between Chicago and LA, and I figured the Route 66 was a nostalgia thing, advertising. It was there when we pulled off the interstate. An old couple ran the gas station and a Stuckey’s.

“I hadn’t seen a Stuckey’s in twenty years.

“They had gas, and burgers for our lunch, and pecan candy. But, the gas was twenty-nine cents a gallon, and they didn’t have bottled water. Acted like they didn’t know what I was asking for. But, they did help us fill up our milk cartons with water from the tap.

“Another place, same sort of thing: a Mom and Pop gas station, the kind that doesn’t exist any more, that had been taken over or run out of business by the big chains. They had gas, and electricity to pump it, and were surprised when I wondered about that. I bought a newspaper, there. Here.”

I handed the paper to Gary. He read, and then he looked across the top of the paper at me. “November, 1955,” he said. “That was more than 60 years ago.”

All I could do was nod.

Some of the gods can slip through time. Gary thought. Death and Mars, especially because they have to be in more places than they could, otherwise. I remember Uncle George telling Nemesis that Santa Clause could, too. Nemesis never did get Uncle George to confirm that Santa was an elder god. And I sure wasn’t going to spoil things.

Some of the gods can slip in time, and can take mortals with them. Someone did that for Daryn and his fiancé and the two boys. No one ever took credit, though.