With his mouth hanging open, Todd gaped at Arthur. “How much?”
“Two million in stocks, bonds, and cash. Don’t know what they sold the house and land for, or the two thousand acres he had in Southern Illinois. After that day, I never stole from a small store again. I only stole from large chains and broke into federal buildings. I did steal from people, but for some reason, they all worked for the government, state, or federal.”
“That’s fucked up,” Todd mumbled.
“But to answer your question, no. He never taught me to shoot. I broke into a National Guard Armory in Tennessee and stole an M-16 when I was sixteen, and I learned on that.”
Feeling unworthy of the glimpse into Arthur’s past, Todd just scanned around. “Thank you for sharing that,” he finally said. “It lets me know I chose right to trust you with those kids and me.”
Arthur slowed down, approaching a curve, “Roll your window down,” he told Todd, and he picked up the radio Joseph had dropped him. “Dad’s close,” he called out.
“We’ve landed and don’t see anything,” Joseph replied quickly.
Speeding up, the Blazer topped a ridge and below them, a valley opened up and Todd saw the KC-130 on a dirt runway with a red aircraft hangar off to the side. “Your son is good to land on dirt.”
“It’s packed dirt,” Arthur said, seeing a group standing at the back of the plane with the ramp down. “The Dawson’s have steamrollers they drive over it to keep it packed. But when it’s wet, unless you are wearing metal spikes on your shoes, you’ll bust your ass walking on it. It’s slicker than whale shit on an ice flow.”
“And your son knew that?!” Todd cried out, not watching the group at the plane but scanning the valley and house.
“Yeah, this is where Joseph got to go up in an airplane for the first time. Every summer I had to bring him over after that, so he could go fly,” Arthur laughed, and Todd heard the excitement in Arthur’s voice building the closer they got.
When they finally reached the valley floor, Arthur drove off the road and cut across the field, heading straight for the plane. Twenty yards away, Arthur slammed on the brakes when a man took off running in a slow trot from the plane. “Joseph!” Arthur cried out, kicking the door open and taking off.
Todd scooted to his door when Donald and Daisy charged from the backseat and over the center console, jumping out. Turning back, Todd saw Arthur wrap his arms around Joseph, and Joseph wrapped his around Arthur. Father and son froze, holding each other. “I’m finding that old bitch’s grave and knocking her tombstone down,” Todd declared and felt better. Opening the door, he climbed out still cradling his M4 across his chest, turning away from the embrace to keep an eye out. For nearly ten minutes, the two stayed locked.
“Son, I was so worried,” Arthur finally managed to get out. “I was trying to figure out how to drive a boat to Diego Garcia.”
“I left as soon as I could,” Joseph replied in a breaking voice.
Hearing engines Arthur let go of the hug, but kept his right arm around Joseph’s shoulders and he moved to Joseph’s side. An MRAP topped the ridge and sped down the road to the valley floor. It was halfway to the floor when two other MRAPs, two Strykers, and five black Suburbans drove over the ridge. “I told your mother she had to lead them here, not track her dust trail,” Arthur grinned.
Like Arthur, the first MRAP had no intention of following the road along the edge of the valley for two miles to the airstrip, when it was only half a mile away. Unlike Arthur’s Blazer that’d just rolled through the ditch, the MRAP drove off the road and dirt flew up when the front bumper plowed the lip off the ditch. “I hope she has the babies secured,” Arthur mumbled, feeling Joseph squeeze him from the side.
When the MRAP got closer, Arthur breathed a sigh of relief to not see the window unit mounted on the side. “Knew she wouldn’t drive like that with the babies,” he grinned, and the monstrous truck lurched to a stop. The door flew open and Wendy leapt out, and Joseph took off running.
When they wrapped up in a hug, Arthur just smiled at the two and then he noticed something. Joseph was smaller, a lot smaller than he used to be. Walking closer and really looking at Joseph’s face, Arthur could see how thin his face was and his eyes were sunken. Wendy had looked bad when she’d gotten home, but Joseph looked like he needed to still be in the bed.
Then it occurred to Arthur, Joseph had never picked his mom up when he’d hugged her. “He’s home now. We can get him healed up,” Arthur said, walking up to the two and hugging them.
It was some time before they broke apart and Joseph turned around, waving at the plane. A young woman with short brown hair came over carrying a baby. Like Joseph, she was thin with gaunt eyes. “This is Captain Becky Reynolds and she’s holding Drew,” Joseph grinned, and when he put his arm around Becky to hug her gently, Wendy felt her legs get weak. The hug was a friendly gesture, but Wendy held hope it was more.
Joseph turned and waved the others over from the plane and Arthur saw the kids from the plane looking past him, and turned around to see his entire crew behind him. Except for Vicki. She walked over carrying a crying Nicole, “Sorry, but she says it’s her Arthur-time,” Vicki told him.
Taking Nicole, “Hey, I’m here,” Arthur cooed, and Nicole stopped crying as soon as she heard his voice and looked up at his face and smiled. “Your big brother finally got home, so we don’t have to find a boat.”
After the group was introduced, Arthur knew tonight he would be making name tags. “Let’s go home,” he told everyone.
Chapter Eleven
Time for Freak Nasty
Riding with his dad, Joseph’s eyes got wide when they drove over the bridge and turned toward the house. He saw Tammy and Ted’s house and then the two graves in the front yard. He’d known them from school, but they had been freshmen when he’d graduated. On his last leave his mom had brought him down to their house, and Joseph knew his mom was hinting for kids. From Tammy and Ted’s house, down the valley between the road and the stream, heavy equipment was lined up in neat rows. From the road to the stream was over a hundred yards wide and over two miles long; Joseph knew because Jack Wright had cut it for hay every year. Three of the biggest dozers he had ever seen in his life stood side-by-side then next to them were three regular size dozers and all looked brand-new, but the regular dozers still looked tiny next to the monsters.
Noticing there were four in each group, first were semi-sized dump trucks, excavators, front end loaders, road graders, cranes, steam rollers, cement trucks, backhoes, and other equipment he had no idea what it was. Then he spotted two, and only two, gigantic yellow dump trucks parked side-by-side. They seemed more like buildings than vehicles as they towered over the road. After the vehicles came loaded semi-trailers parked in neat rows. In Jack Wright’s front yard were lines of trucks, Suburbans, hummers, semi-trucks, Strykers, and MRAPs. Then next to the Wright house, Joseph saw an Abrams tank parked. Glancing in the side mirror, he saw MRAPs in the convoy behind them. Looking back to the Wright house, he saw a row of metal shipping containers. “How many containers do you have?” Joseph asked in awe.
“Twenty-four there, but I want thirty,” Arthur answered. “Added another ten by the house and six up by the textile barn.”
Looking ahead at the small house that was now his mom’s office, Joseph couldn’t help but smile, remembering his youth running around it and playing while they worked on the new house up the hill. The smile froze when he saw a line of tanker trailers. “Are those full?” he asked.
“The furthest to the right is half full,” Arthur answered. “Seven are holding diesel and the other four hold gas. We have more parked up the valley.”
Behind the tankers, Joseph saw six flatbed semi-trailers. On the other side of the house were dozens of ATVs, small excavators, and track steers parked in neat rows. He could tell all were new. Feeling numb, Joseph didn’t even bother to count as Arthur turned on the drive, taking them up the slope to the house.
“Yeah, if you’re up for it, I’ll show you the changes up here,” Arthur said, patting Nicole in the baby sling on his chest.
Even though Arthur wasn’t looking, Joseph nodded and turned. “You closed in the garage?” Joseph asked, and before Arthur could answer, “How many ATVs, UTVs, and electric buggies do you have?” Joseph gasped at the line parked at the side of the back patio.
Pulling past the patio and turning away from the house, Arthur parked in the new parking area. “To be honest, I would have to check my list but we emptied three ATV stores,” Arthur admitted. “Need those so everyone can move around doing chores and work, so I wanted backups in case some break because I don’t have time to work on them right now.”
Amazed his mom and dad had accomplished so much, Joseph climbed out. When he closed his door he froze, looking on the east side of the house at a massive cinder block building that dwarfed the house. “Dad, you built that too?” He knew the answer, but it just seemed unreal at what his mom and dad had accomplished with as many kids as they had.
“With the kids and Wendy,” Arthur said, walking around as the other vehicles parked in a row beside his Blazer. “Come on,” Arthur said, squeezing Joseph’s shoulder.
Following his dad inside, Joseph looked around at the transformed kitchen. The dining room was gone and the kitchen was bigger. The island was longer and now had a large griddle at one end. In what used to be the dining room, there was another stove, three refrigerators, two freezers, and two dishwashers.
Guiding Joseph to the door that used to lead to the garage, Arthur showed him the new dining room. The room didn’t look anything like the garage Joseph remembered with the exception of the one roll-up door still left. On the back wall he saw the washer and dryer, but saw new connections for three more washers and three more dryers.
Feeling his dad pull him, Joseph just followed and then realized his dad was talking, but he was finding it hard to understand the words. Walking into the living room and around the stairs into his dad’s office, Joseph gave a stutter step to see a doorway leading into a hallway.
Pulling Joseph into the hallway, Arthur continued talking and the words started filtering into Joseph’s overloaded brain. “Only finished with two wings,” he said.
“Wings,” Joseph repeated numbly.
“Yeah,” Arthur nodded and pointed right and left. “To the right, the first half of this section will be a library and the back half we’re making a clinic. On the left at the back, we’ll close it off for school rooms to teach the kids. The front half we’re making into a living area with TVs and such since everyone can’t fit in the one in the house,” Arthur told him.
“Just how long is each wing?” Joseph asked timidly. The wings were empty with building supplies stacked about and bare cinder block walls.
“Hundred and twenty feet long, not including the bathroom at each end, and thirty feet wide,” Arthur shrugged. “I’ll take you upstairs in a second,” Arthur said, passing concrete stairs as they headed into the hallway of the H to the outer wings. Unlike the first wings, these were finished and lined with rooms. The hallway was painted with lights overhead and names on the doors. Five doors on each side with a ten-foot-wide hall down the middle. Pulling Joseph over, Arthur opened the door. “Each room is ten-by-fifteen and we put two in most rooms, but a few have bunk beds and hold four.”
Looking at the spacious room, Joseph thought it was bigger than his room in the house. There was a bunk bed, two dressers, two desks and two closets, one on each side of the door. Even with all that, the room still looked big.
Closing the door, “At the end of each wing are the bathrooms, right side for girls and left side for boys,” Arthur said, pulling Joseph to the end of the hall to the boys’ bathroom. Stepping in, Joseph was reminded of bathrooms in a military barracks. To the right, he saw ten shower heads protruding from the wall. On the left, he saw a line of eight commode stalls. Turning, he saw a long row of ten sinks on the wall the door was on and then noticed three urinals at the back left wall.
Seeing Joseph staring at the urinals, “Yeah, your mom flipped when I put eight commodes in the girls’ bathroom and the boys had three urinals,” Arthur sighed. “So the girls’ bathroom has ten commodes and I proved to your mom that I couldn’t put any more in, but other than that they’re the same.”
Leading Joseph out, they passed some kids heading to their rooms to change. Before they turned to the middle hall to go upstairs, Joseph stopped. “Hold up,” he said. “Each wing has ten rooms that hold twenty people?” Joseph asked and Arthur nodded. “And only the first two wings on the bottom aren’t going to be used for rooms?”
“Yes, the side closest to the house and north or left side is the Alpha wing. The south is Bravo. Going through the connecting hall and looking north in the second set is Charlie wing and then Delta. First floor is One, so One Alpha is the first wing from the house to the left,” Arthur explained. “They’re the same upstairs except it’s Two.”
“Dad, you made room for a hundred and twenty people at least?!” Joseph cried out.
Pointing to two doors that faced the middle hall, “One hundred and twenty four,” Arthur corrected. “Since this is the outer wall with no hall, we put a room here and upstairs. The outer wall has ten rooms along the wall in each wing and this one in the middle,” Arthur explained. “Wendy wants to use it like a study, but I’m fighting her on that. And also remember, some of the rooms are holding four kids, not just two.”
“You have that many here?!”
Shaking his head, “No, with your group we’re at eighty-four,” Arthur told him. “But it seems like every time we go out, I bring home a kid or two. As of right now, only those over eighteen get their own room, but nobody has taken that up yet. For the most part we don’t bring back adults, and only some adults with kids. It’s just hard for me to trust them. Hell, there’s a sixteen-year-old I’m hunting to kill now. He’s an evil little fucker.”
“You really think you’ll fill all these rooms?”
Shrugging, “Don’t know, but I told your mom I was going to build enough to house a hundred because I can’t keep stopping and adding another room on the house,” Arthur answered.
Seeing a door he didn’t notice in the hallway leading to the study in the house, “Where’s that go?” he asked.
“Outside. Your mom wanted a door here to the outside, so the kids didn’t have to go through the house in case of a fire.”
Thinking that was smart, Joseph glanced at the two empty wings before following his dad upstairs. After seeing the completed wings with the rooms, the empty wings looked massive.
Stopping at the top of the stairs, “Nothing has been completed up here, so all four wings are empty,” Arthur explained and again, Joseph thought the wings looked massive without the rooms. Pointing to a door in the middle hallway that joined the wings, “That’s another door to the outside, but since nobody’s up here yet there aren’t any stairs to the ground,” Arthur said.
Looking at the wings, it hit him, “Dad, there aren’t any windows.”
Giving a long sigh, “You sound just like your mom,” Arthur sighed. “It would’ve taken longer and much more work to put a window in each room.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound bad,” Joseph said.
“I wish I could have, but we would still be working because I would’ve had to do each window. With just using walls, all the kids were stacking cinder blocks while I worked on the plumbing and electricity.”
“Any other additions to the house?”
Nodding, “Added a two-thousand-square-foot walk-in freezer in the basement,” Arthur told him.
“Can we see the moat?” Joseph chuckled. Seeing his dad wa
lk past the stairwell to a door into the second floor of the house, Joseph wondered if it led into his room. Then it hit him, “You took out the hallway closet to put the second floor door in, right?”
“Yep, your favorite hiding spot,” Arthur laughed.
Following his dad in the house, “It was a good one,” Joseph laughed.
“Sorry, but we knew where you were because you never hid anywhere else,” Arthur confessed. “And we put a few of the older kids in your room but they didn’t mess with anything, and they were the first to get a room.”
“Wait,” Joseph said. “You made kids pile up their stuff in packed guest rooms until those wings were built?”
Turning to look at Joseph with a thankful smile, “Yes, I didn’t want anyone to change it, just in case… you didn’t…” Arthur just gave up even trying to say it. “One day you’ll understand.”
Giving a nod, “No, I understand,” Joseph said.
Moving downstairs, Joseph waved at many of the people he had flown in with and then followed his dad outside. Passing his dad, Joseph saw the chain-linked fence was nearly fifty yards from the front of the house and the moat was right outside the fence. Seeing a wide gate almost directly in front of the door, that was his target. He started to slow when he saw a large metal partition sticking in the air. “What the hell is that?”
Walking past Joseph, Arthur hit a lever on a metal post beside the gate and Joseph gave a jump hearing a hydraulic whine as the metal sheet laid across the moat. “A drawbridge,” Arthur answered.
Opening the gate, Joseph walked out onto the bridge and noticed it was much narrower and not as heavy-duty than the one they’d driven in on. “Why’s this one different?”
Miracles Page 14