Castroville: Countdown to Armageddon: Book 7 (24 page)

     Then he thought to add, “But we still need to be careful. Horses are a rare sight nowadays, and I don’t want any of them thinking they need our horses more than we do.”

     Sara looked to the north, where she saw a huge rolling expanse of green. It was a large cemetery, once carefully manicured but now grown over with knee-high grass and weeds. But it was still pretty in its own right. It had a peaceful feel about it.

     “Hey, over there. What’s going on? Are they having a funeral?”

     Tom looked to his left and saw a group of people, thirty or forty strong, milling about what appeared to be a line of caskets.

     Tom counted the caskets. There were seven of them, all of them identical, each lined up with military precision.

     Tom whistled.

     “I hope that’s not all from one family.”

     They were. They were from the SAPD family.

     Stacey noted, “I thought they no longer buried the dead. I thought they burned them all now.”

     “I guess it’s probably up to the family. I imagine they just wanted to give their own a proper burial.”

     They rode on past. They were only three miles from the Zavala Center where they planned to pick up a fourth member of their group.

     A quarter mile down the highway, they suddenly heard the sound of seven rifles firing. Once, twice, three times.

     Tom and Stacey knew what the volleys meant. Sara hadn’t a clue.

     “I hope they’re not shooting at us.”

     “No, dear. That means that at least one of those people they’re burying out there today was a military veteran. Or a policeman. The twenty-one gun salute has been around for a very long time as a way of paying respect for our fallen heroes.”

     Tom had only a few words of his own to add.

     “May they all rest in peace.”

-51-

     John Castro led the rifle squad. They weren’t the best, but then nobody expected them to be. Their timing was just a bit off, but they weren’t here to impress anybody.

     They were here to bury their fallen brothers.

     And a cold-blooded killer.

     There was some animosity within the ranks when Chief Dave Parrish announced that Robbie Benton would be buried alongside his victims. Most of the surviving officers would have dragged him into an empty field, spit on him and left him to rot.

     “No,” the newly christened police chief had said. “We’re better than that. He was one of us before he lost his mind. The stress of the job did that to him. It could have done the same thing to any one of us. We don’t punish a man for being sick of the body. We shouldn’t punish a man for being sick of the mind.”

     Not every officer agreed with Parrish’s decision. But they would abide by it. He was their new boss, and a very likeable man. If that’s the way the boss wanted it, his troops would fall in line and comply.

     Even if they didn’t like it.

     The newly minted chief did give the men one small concession. He said he would say a eulogy for each of the fallen officers, and then would say one for Robbie Benton as well.

     “I’ll do Benton last, after everybody else. Those of you who want to leave so you don’t have to honor him are free to do so. I won’t make note of who goes and who stays, and if you leave I give you my word. In no way will your decision to leave ever be used against you.”

     One by one, Parrish walked to the head of a casket and announced who was contained within it.

     One by one, Parrish said a few good things about the departed and a little about their lives. He blessed them and wished them a speedy transition into heaven.  

     One by one, he watched as his makeshift color guard removed the American flag from the casket and folded it. He watched as it was presented to the family, if there was one. The officer’s best friend if it wasn’t.

     When he came to the last casket he paused for a short time. As promised, he would allow his men to leave if they wanted to. And one and two at a time, they trickled out.

     Parrish misjudged the hatred his officers had for Robbie Benton. Parrish might be able to convince himself it wasn’t Robbie’s fault, it was the result of stress on an already damaged mind.

     But most of his officers disagreed with him.

     By the time he spoke again, only John and Hannah Castro stood beside him.

     “Here lies Robert Dwight Benton, thirty seven years of age. I prefer to think of Officer Benton the way he once was, as opposed to what he became. Benton was once a fine officer, before a terrible situation got to him. Robert, I cannot condone what you’ve done. But I know in my heart that your victims have forgiven you.

     “I would like to think they’ll remember you as I do. A good officer and a brother and a forthright keeper of the peace.

     The color guard had departed with the rest of the officers. Parrish thought about asking for John and Hannah’s help in removing the flag and folding it.

     Then he decided against it. There was really no need, since Benton left behind no family, no friends to receive it.

     “The flag will be buried with you,” he told the casket before him.

     “May God have mercy on your soul.”

     Parrish said, “I have something for you two.”

     “Yes, Chief?”

    Parrish pulled a folded piece of paper from his breast pocket and held it out.

     “It was a suicide note, addressed to Hannah. He had it on him when he died.”

     Hannah reached out with a shaky hand and took it.

     “What does it say?”

     “That he was sorry for everything he did. That he loved you and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t stop loving you.”

     “So he went into that gun battle expecting to die?”

     “Yes. I think if we hadn’t gotten him he’d have turned the gun on himself. I think that sometime before the battle he had a moment of clarity and wrote the note so we’d find it.”

     Hannah walked over to Robbie’s grave and dropped the folded note inside it.

     She didn’t want to see the words. Robbie Benton was out of her life forever.

     She had no desire to read his last thoughts.

-52-

     Tom stood outside to guard over the horses while Sara and Stacey disappeared into the bowels of the Zavala Public Library and Reunification Center.

     Horses were one of the most valuable commodities in post-apocalyptic times, and horse thievery was common.

     Old Tom figured it was better to guard their mounts than subject his bad knees to a grueling ninety mile hike to Junction.

     Sara saw a familiar face at the front counter.

     “Hello. Brad, was it? Do you remember me?”

     “I’m sorry. You look familiar, but… well, we see so many people in here and…”

     She interrupted him. Then she held out her hand.

     “I’m Sara. Sara Harter. I came in just a couple of weeks ago, looking for my mother.”

     “Yes. I remember now. How’s your search coming?”

     She turned to Stacey and said, “I don’t know, Mom. What do you think?”

     Brad literally jumped. He said, “Seriously?”

     He came around the counter and did something neither woman expected. He hugged them both.

     Then he called the other workers out of the back.

     “Hey, everybody! We have a reconnection!”

     Several people appeared from nowhere and began shaking the women’s hands and hugging them.

     Brad explained.

     “You see, the vast majority of our cases don’t end up the way yours did. In at least ninety of them the searchers find out their loved ones didn’t survive.

     “Or they never find out what happened to them, and they’re doomed to a lifetime of not knowing.

     “We always celebrate when we have a success story. Where did you reconnect?”

     In a city west of here, called Castroville. A very bad place, run by brutal men. But the Texas Rangers just went in and cleaned it up. I think it’ll be a nice place to live again now.”

     “Thank you so much for coming by and giving us the good news.”

     “You’re welcome. But that’s not really why we came by.”

     “Oh?”

     “We came to inquire about Millicent.”

     “Millicent Riley?”

     “I don’t know her last name. She said she was eleven. Pigtails and freckles. A big smile that showed a missing front tooth.”

     Brad smiled.

     “That’s the best description of Millicent Riley I’ve ever heard.

     “She’s in the courtyard playing with some of the other kids. Want me to send her in so you can visit?”

     Stacey spoke up.

     “Actually, we’d like to inquire about the process for adopting her.”

     Brad’s face brightened.

     “Really? That would be great! I mean… I don’t know.”

     Sara was puzzled.

     “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

     “Well, I mean, there’s no longer a child advocacy group to approve adoption requests. No adoption agency. No legal system to make it official. No formal system of any kind to request, approve or oversee adoptions. We haven’t advanced that far as a city yet. Maybe someday…”

     “Well, how do you match orphaned children with potential families?”

     “We just give them some time to spend together. We give them a suite at an abandoned hotel up the street and let them live together for a few days to see if they’re compatible. One of our volunteers typically stays with them to make it easier for the child. Having a familiar face there helps put them at ease. Then after a few days we meet, first with the child and then with the prospective parents. We ask the child whether they had fun spending time with the prospective parents.

     “We ask them if they feel safe with them.

     “We ask them if they think the prospective parents would make good mommies and daddies for them.

     “And we ask if the prospective parents were mean to them in any way, or made them feel uncomfortable in any way.

     “If we get any hesitation we quash the deal and send the prospective parents on their way. If the child says they were mean or made them feel uncomfortable, same thing.

     “If we get a good report from the child, we go to the next step, which is to talk to the prospective parents without the child in the room. We explain that these type of children always suffer some form of trauma and most of them have issues, sometimes several years after the fact.

     “We explain to them as best we can that after the initial stage is done… what we call the
honeymoon stage
, that it won’t be all sunshine and happiness. The kids will likely act out in some manner in the years ahead. Or they may become withdrawn. They may be hard to deal with.

     “We’ll try to get a commitment from them, saying in effect that they are ready and willing to cope with such problems. And that they are capable of providing for the children and for protecting them.

     “We tell them we reserve the right to visit them in their home for up to a year, without notice. After that year, the child is taken aside and interviewed. If he or she can still answer those same questions about feeling protected and comfortable with the situation, then we step out of the picture.

     “If we get to that point, you’ll have to provide your local address so we can drop in and visit occasionally for that first year. We only have one psychologist who makes the home visits and she is way overloaded. So she can’t do home visits more than once or twice a month. But she never announces when she’s coming so our prospects have to be on their toes.”

     Sara panicked, but just a tiny bit.