“We won’t hurt you,” Helen said, kneeling down, opening her arms to the kids.
But the young people were hesitant to come forward, distrust evident in their eyes.
“Where are you from?” Jimmy asked.
The oldest boy looked at the adults for a moment, then pointed to the north. “We escaped from IPF country.”
“We found some canned food,” Lisa said. “We’ll share it with you. Are you hungry?”
They all nodded that they were.
And food broke the barrier of fear and distrust.
It was only after dinner that evening, in the lamp and candlelit old farmhouse by the side of the road, that the young people melted enough to talk. The oldest, Leon, told the adults of their ordeal.
“People from the IPF came and got our-was he indicated his younger sister, “parents. Our mother and father. Later on that day, a man slipped through the alley by our house and called out to me to get my sister and get out-run. I grabbed up some clothes and food and got Amy and ran, slipped out the back door just at dark. I later heard that our parents had been killed when they escaped from the IPF and tried to organize a resistance force. The same thing happened to the other kids’ parents. We hid out in old houses and in the woods and stuff like that. We only traveled after dark. One afternoon I fell asleep and Amy went walking, looking at flowers growing wild. Some men grabbed her and raped her. Did other stuff to her. She was bleeding when I found her.”
Helen looked at the small child. She seemed so frail and helpless, clinging to her brother. “How old are you, Amy?”
“Twelve,” the child whispered, keeping her eyes downcast.
“Jesus,” Jimmy said.
“They hurt me,” Amy said simply.
Her brother swung his gaze to his sister, then looked back at the adults. “That’s the first time she’s spoken of it since it happened. The first words she’s said in months.”
Amy crawled over to Lisa and let the woman hold her. There were no tears on the child’s face, no emotion
evident in her eyes. Just a childlike, stoic acceptance that what had happened could not in any way be changed.
“We met a lot of kids on the run,” Leon said. He appeared to be the spokesman for the young group. “They all had pretty much the same story. We’ve been on the run for-was he was thoughtful for a moment-“I think about five months. We have all had things done to us that…” For a moment it looked as though he might weep, then his slender features hardened as he toughened. “Things that we would all rather forget … but I know that none of us ever will. Ever.” He dropped his eyes and was silent.
“Stay with us,” John told them all, going to the young group, putting his arms around a young girl. “We’re going to arm ourselves. We’ll take care of you. We promise.”
Leon looked gravely at the four adults. His sudden and small smile was grim. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out a large revolver. It seemed too big for his small hand, but he looked as though he knew how to use it. “Yesterday,” he said, “a man tried to take one of the girls. He opened his pants and exposed himself to me. Wanted me to suck him. Said he had some buddies just down the road he wanted us all to meet. I knew what kind of men his buddies would be. He put his hand between Amy’s legs and felt her … there. Then he tried to fondle me. I shot him in the face. Right between the eyes. Killed him. So maybe we’ll go with you people-maybe not. It all depends.”
The adults could not understand the reluctance. “Depends on what?” Jimmy asked.
“Which direction you’re going. We’re going over to
Missouri to find Mr. Ben Raines. If that’s the direction you people are heading, OK, we’ll tag along. But you people better find yourselves some guns, because it looks like you’ve all had a bad time of it. And you’d better not be cowards-none of you. Because if you are, you won’t make it. Somebody will rape you all-men and women-and then they’ll kill you, after they use you and torture you. You all better remember that.”
The four adults looked at this frail-appearing but obviously tough young boy, scarcely into his teens and already having killed a grown man in defense of his charges. And ready to kill as many times as need be. The knapsack was open, and all could see the haft of a hunting knife. They had no doubts that Leon would use that knife as well as the pistol.
“You are a very tough and capable young man,” Helen observed. She was just a little bit in awe of the boy.
“I’m a survivor,” Leon cleared it up. “And so is Mr. Ben Raines-among other things, that is.” He did not attempt to explain that last bit. “The IPF or anyone else will never take me or my sister alive-not ever. Some big men grabbed me … about four months ago. I heard them coming and hid Amy. They took me, stripped me, and used me like a girl. I couldn’t walk for three days. No one will ever do that to me again.”
“We’ll start looking for Mr. Ben Raines first thing in the morning,” Jimmy said.
“All right,” Leon said. “We’ll look together. But first we’ll find you all some guns. There’s lots of guns around. You just have to know where to look for them.”
“None of us has ever fired a gun before,” Jimmy said.
Leon leveled oldstyoungstwise eyes on the group of adults. The words that came from his mouth, rolling from his tongue, were harsh, and older than his young years. “Then you’d all damn well better learn how.”
They had gathered in southern South Dakota, some three hundred young people, ranging in age from eight to eighteen. They came from the west side of the Mississippi River. The youngest to be armed was twelve. They had all seen horrors through young eyes; all had experienced some form of sexual abuse from the perverts that now roamed the land with impunity, with only slightly more immunity than when law and order prevailed-or so the myth went before the great war wiped out all forms of social order, liberal and conservative.
All the young people had endured and survived physical abuse. Many had been on their own for years. All had toughened during this period of violent upheaval. All were wise to the ways of survival, these young people, and they had fought off the cruel advance of perverted men and women many times during the years of young youth past. Play was something they knew nothing about. A good time was a full belly and a warm place to sleep. Happy was being safe for a few hours. Most did not know the meaning of love.
On the other side of the river, the east side, in Indiana, yet another group of youths had gathered, almost identical to the grouping on the west side of the Mississippi.
The two groups had maintained radio contact for months now, in preparation for war. Now they waited for word that Ben Raines was moving against the IPF. They would join Ben Raines in that upcoming fight.
Both groups were armed with a mishmash of weapons: from .22-caliber rifles and pistols to AK-47’S and M-16’s and shotguns. Some carried Molotov cocktails: bottles of gas with a rag stuffed down the neck-homemade bombs. Others carried grenades hooked onto web belts. All carried at least one knife, and they had used the sharpened blades more than once.
The thugs and perverts and two-legged slime that are always lurking in the gutters and who seem to survive any tragedy had learned to give these bands of young people a very wide berth. They had learned that very painfully over the years, leaving dead along the way, stiffening reminders of the harsh lessons one must learn in life’s classroom.
The young people were of all races, all creeds. None of them paid any attention to whether the boy or girl next to them was white or black or tan or yellow or purple with antennae for ears. They were of like mind: to fight the IPF to the death, for many had lost brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to the cruelty of the IPF. But first they would wait until Ben Raines started his push north. They all thought he would, for Ben Raines, so the legend went, was a Godlike man-and all the young people felt him more God than man. And they knew Mr. Ben Raines would win this fight, for gods do not know defeat. The young wanted to help Ben Raines, and then join his free society. Wherever Mr. Ben Raines wanted to settle would be just fine with them.