Chapter Fourteen
“We have entered SS country,” Emma called out and pointed at the hand-lettered road sign.
NO TRESPASSING!
You are hereby notified that you are entering sovereign territory established by the rightful owners of this land. Public officials must abide by the law of this land and the Constitution of the United States of America and the Bill of Rights.
If you are interested in becoming citizens of the Sovereign Territory of the American SS, you are hereby advised to apply in person for inspection to be sure you are the right kind of people for our state.
All others may reach us via Post Office Box 1888, in Billings, MT.
“Isn’t that special?” Bronco shook his head. “They requested and got, it would appear, the symbols for Adolf Hitler, Heil Hitler for their mailbox. Nice.”
“Very classy sign, too. The illiterates must have had a dictionary at hand while they did the lettering.” She slowed down to the posted speed limit of fifty miles per hour and jounced over frost heaved concrete and potholes. “Nice roads.”
“No need to repair roads in a ghost town,” Bronco said. “Look at these buildings. It’s just like I saw back in the hotel.”
Like watching a train wreck, Emma didn’t know which way to look first. She had taken notes as Bronco had completed the remote viewing, but nothing could prepare her for this post-apocalyptic town. Ramshackle houses, with paint peeling off the sides exposing wood beneath, and garage doors hanging at crazy angles, competed with tumbleweeds and rusted cars. Trees overran sidewalks, driveways, and lawns, as nature seemed intent on taking back the land. Behind the houses in the distance, a water tower leaned at a forty-five degree angle, as if waiting for a good blizzard to knock it down and put it out of its misery.
“How could the government just abandon all this property?” She slowed the truck down to avoid a missing paver. “There are homeless people, refugees looking for shelter away from war and conflict. They could use these houses, fix them up…”
“And do what?” He shook his head. “Once the base closed, there was no employment for the people living here. Shops closed, people took what they could and left.”
“Internet based businesses don’t require a local employer. Credit card companies have customer service bases in rural areas. Even healthcare can be conducted, in part, through Skype and other virtual applications. This is a total waste of resources.”
“You’re seeing it through your cultural lens of honoring the earth and not wasting anything.”
Shocked, she turned on him. “How do you know about that?”
“I may be a product of bad education, but that doesn’t mean I can’t observe and learn.” He waggled a finger at her. “I was a nerdy computer analyst, remember? Once a nerd, always a nerd.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Tell me what you saw.”
“Your home is an homage to your nation, from the kitchen to the bathroom.” He smiled. “Each photo and decoration is from your tribe. You have herb gardens where you grow your own medicines, thank you very much, and your first aid kit is a composite of your encyclopedic knowledge of healing.”
Face on fire, she could only nod. He was good.
“You don’t just recycle, you re-use everything, including mayonnaise jars for herbal teas. The dogs play with deer antlers. Your freezer is filled with venison, but not overfilled. Your relatives do what you tell them to do, which tells me you are held in high esteem, which only comes when someone cherishes their family and community.”
“You should go on stage, you’re a mentalist.” Truly, the man’s power of observation was astonishing. She wondered what he had left out.
“In the field, my life depended on my being observant. If someone acted wrong, out of character, twitchy, it was time to get out of Dodge.” He touched his nose. “Thanks to Gaucho, my remote viewing, and my ability to sniff out a stinky situation, I’m still standing above the dirt.”
“And, I for one, am especially happy you are. Oh, look at that, we’re at the gates of Hell.” She nosed the car up to the red and white stop line and leaned back in her seat. Shiny new eight-foot tall fencing topped with a one foot of three strand barb wire rose up on either side of a closed four-foot high metal cross-bar entryway. Two men in olive drab camouflage uniforms, bearing large side arms raised their rifles, leaned over the entrance, and pointed the weapons at the truck. “With those ugly clowns, the stop signs posted on the gates are overkill, don’t you think?”
“Heil Hitler,” he whispered. “Time to get in the backpack, Gaucho.”
“Yeah, heil effing Hitler,” she responded and prayed to God they got out alive.
She smiled at him and took a deep breath. “It’s show time, my new husband.”
Bronco rolled his window down and waved a guard over. “Hey man, we’re here to support the cause.” He extended his driver’s license.
The lookouts exchanged glances. “Who sent you?”
“We sent ourselves, man.” He pointed at Emma. “My old lady here is a card-carrying member of the American SS.” He grinned. “Show ’em your card, honey.”
Emma waved her red and black card out the window. The men didn’t budge.
Bronco kept talking enthusiasm spiking each word. “She convinced me to join up. We came straight from Vegas, drove all night to get here at dawn. Symbolic, don’t you think? Our new beginning for an Aryan nation.”
The man in camo on the left said, “What are the fourteen words?”
Bronco shook his head. “Dude. That is a shit password, but here it goes. ‘We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.’”
“She don’t look very white,” remarked the sentry on the right.
“Saw that coming,” she muttered.
“She’s racially more pure than a lot of other folks. One hundred percent Native American.” Then as if an afterthought, he threw in, “The most powerful medicine woman you’ll ever have the honor to meet.”
The sentries looked at each other and had a brief excited exchange too low to make out the words. Then they lowered their weapons, opened the gates, and waved them in.
She breathed, “What the hell?”
At one guard’s upheld hand, Emma stopped the truck mid-way through the gates. The man with the nametag that said Leroy leaned into the open window, brown teeth displaying either poor dental hygiene, a lack of fluoride, or both.
“Thank you for coming, Medicine Woman. The children are sick, we don’t know why.”
“Glad to be of service.” Emma dared not look at Bronco. She was clearly expected. Who told them she was coming? Was it the undercover FBI agent? She thought Bert had kept them out of the loop. “Please show us where to go. I have to unpack my supplies.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Leroy hopped on a three-wheel all-terrain vehicle, an ATV, and led them past a barracks to a smaller wooden outbuilding with a weathered hand-painted sign identifying it as the Clinic hanging over the door. The place looked like something left over from a 1960’s TV Western. He pointed to a parking spot reserved for physicians, and she nosed the truck into the space.
As she climbed out with her bag in hand, an overhead speaker crackled to life. “Attention Aryan women. Bring your sick children to the clinic now.”
Emma turned to Bronco, who had the backpack on his shoulder and said in a low voice, “Let me guess, only Aryan children get treatment.”
He nodded. “Guess so.”
“Leroy,” she said in a louder voice. “Can I get inside, get set up?”
“Yes, it’s open. We don’t lock our doors here. This here is the safest place in the world.”
She doubted that, but chose not to argue the point. “Thank you.” Emma climbed the three steps, her boots clomping loudly on the timber. Bronco followed behind, his boots echoing hers. She opened the door and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dimly lit room.
Leroy said, “Light switch is over here.” The room glowed with bright light revealing a reception desk, waiting room with chairs, and an open door to what turned out to be an exam room. Despite the antique exterior, everything inside was spotless and dust free. The chrome examination table gleamed, and a counter on the side held jars of tongue depressors, alcohol wipes, and adhesive bandages. An otoscope and ophthalmoscope sat in chargers on the wall and a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope, both shiny and new, sat at the side of the counter. She opened drawer after drawer, each of which held organizers and every variety of instrument a physician or nurse practitioner could want. Truth be told, she had no idea what half of these things did.
Leroy stood in the reception room, a worried look on his face. “Is everything to your liking?”
“Yes, it’s beautiful. Where are your camp doctor and nurse? I usually work with Western medicine, not alone.”
“They—um—well, never showed up.” He took his hat off and scratched his head. “We offered a lot of money, too, but nobody would come. That’s why when the Obergruppenführer said he saw you coming in a vision, we were told to make you welcome.”
The Obergruppenführer—Jack—saw her coming? Her heart somersaulted down to her feet and stayed there. They were doomed.
****
Bronco hung back in the waiting room, giving Emma the space and opportunity to establish herself. The woman was a natural, she hadn’t missed a beat. Time to ask a few newbie questions.
“So, tell me Leroy, when do we get to blow things up?”
The multiple gun-toting man favored him with a look reserved for idiots. “You don’t get to do shit until we say so.”
“You sure were happy as hell to see my old lady,” he grumbled putting a hard emphasis on the last two words, as a righteously indignant real man would be.
The man gave him a hard stare. “We need her. Don’t know about you.”
“Man, we just drove all night, all the way from Vegas. We showed you how important this is to us. What else do we need to do?”
The man gave him a rotten toothed grin. “For starters, drop your pants.”
Bronco shrugged. So the jerk wanted to see if he was circumcised. Fine. He did as ordered. “Happy now? Not Jewish.”
Leroy nodded. “Okay. Good start. You can pull ’em up.”
Shaking his head, Bronco wondered what test would be next.
“Open that backpack. I need to see what you’re carrying.”
Oh, this was going to be fun. Not.
“Sure. Just do me a favor and lower your weapon. Don’t want you to shoot my cat by accident.”
The man’s face twisted in derision, and he lowered his weapon with a laugh. “Aww, the big man has a widdle biddy puddy-tat in his bag?”
“Um, sort of.” He unzipped the mesh top. “Come on out, Gaucho.”
In one leap, the bobcat was on Bronco’s shoulder.
Startled, the guard reflexively lifted his rifle.
“Leroy!” Emma’s voice cut through the tension. “That’s my medicine animal. You hurt him and I lose all my power. You sure you want the Obergruppenführer to hear about how you took away my powers?”
The man lowered his rifle. “Sorry, Ma’am, I had no idea—”
“You be sure to tell all your pals if they harm one hair on that cat, they will be hearing from the Obergruppenführer, and not in a good way.” She looked at Bronco. “I need Gaucho with me while I see the children.” She pointed out the door at the front porch.
A line of blonde women in jeans and shearling jackets held pajama-clad children, wrapped in blankets, streamed up the stairs and into the waiting room. At the front of the line stood the woman Bronco had seen during his remote viewing. The twins, so active when he saw them, leaned against her, glassy-eyed, runny-nosed, and lethargic. Behind her children coughed and sneezed, and mothers wiped little noses and stroked small heads.
Bronco handed her the leash, telling the cat to stay at her side. Gaucho chirped, jumped down to the floor, and padded over to Emma.
“What do you want me to do?” Bronco had no idea what was going on, but it didn’t look good.
“Are there any medical records for these children?” Emma asked Leroy.
He shook his head, “It’s the mother’s job to take care of their kids. They’re supposed to keep a diary for each of their kids. Obergruppenführer commands it.”
“Okay, we will need to see each diary so I can get an idea of what to use for treatment.” She lifted her chin at Bronco. “Baby, would you go and collect the diaries please? Start from the back of the line. Leroy, go with him so they know he’s legit.”
Taking his backpack, he went outside, expecting the queue to end at the bottom of the steps. Instead, the line of mothers, toddlers, and infants, streamed down the road in front of the clinic over to the barracks. It had to be a quarter of a mile long. Shaking his head, he walked along the line, murmuring hellos and offering assuring noises to the stricken, weeping mothers. With each step, his heart sank a bit more. Like the twins in the reception room, every child had a runny nose and glassy eyes. Some coughed and sneezed, others were freckled with red spots on their faces and hands. He began to walk faster, practically jogging to the end of the line.
Leroy shouted at the terrified women, “Give this man your diaries. Drop them in his bag. Now. You’ll get them back when you see the doctor.”
Fumbling in pockets, tote bags, and purses, each woman dropped her black composition notebook into his backpack and whispered, “Thank you” as he passed by.
No matter how horrible the belief system of the parents, no child deserved to be without medical care. The sins of the father should not be borne by the children. He knew that first hand. What the hell was going on here? He’d never seen anything like it in his life. Along with many other things, as part of his transition to Homeland Security his training had included identifying the presence of germ warfare. Had his crazy brother been testing biological weapons on his own people? On babies and children? How could he do this to his followers?
Backpack filled to the brim, he raced along the line back up the stairs and into the reception room. Leaning the backpack against a wall, he stacked the last notebooks on top of the teetering pile. Emma motioned to Bronco to come inside the exam room. In a low voice she said, “Are your immunizations up to date?”
“Yes, I’ve got everything for germ warfare, including cholera. You thinking biological warfare, too?”
She shook her head, smiled at the mother with the twins, and said, “I just need to take a look at your diary.” She plucked the top notebook off the pile, began flipping through the pages, set it down and went on to the next one, then the next.
“No,” she said in a low voice. “Not warfare. Bad decisions. It appears these children have never received measles, mumps, or rubella vaccinations—or immunizations of any kind.”
“What—is that even legal?” He struggled to keep his voice down. The idea of not immunizing a child in this era was mind-boggling. “How is that possible?”
“My guess is these women do whatever the Obergruppenführer commands—including not seeing doctors outside the compound.” She turned to the woman with the twins. “Now, I need to start bringing in the children and figuring out what we can do.”
Bronco stepped aside and smiled at the blonde woman who seemed so familiar.
Emma said, “Your name please?”
The blonde threw her shoulders back and said with pride, “Frau Obergruppenführer, the SS leader’s wife.” She stepped into the exam room with the twins, closed the door and gripped Emma’s hand with both of hers. “Tell me now, what do you plan to do about this measles outbreak?”