Santiago was thankful for Camp Galaxy's hospitality and maintained the cheerful demeanor of an esteemed guest, but he was sinking in overwhelming despair.  A man of great erudition and a passionate speaker, he had devoted his life to an avocation of universal education and liberal principles for his country.  He had been much in demand for speaking engagements and debates where his witty, sometime trenchant repartees were crowd favorites, but brought him no favor from opponents.

     Meanwhile the world's nations were evolving from aspiring democracies to corrupt polities where the ideals of liberty and equality were subjugated to the pursuit of happiness for the few in thrall and control of money at the expense of lesser beings whose rewards would have to wait for the ever after, or so promised the regimes' unctuous preachers.  With the advent of the Shaman's cult Santiago had lost that battle, but the futility of this fight was now eclipsed by a growing conviction that he had failed as a father and husband.  Always overworked, often away on meetings or trips, he saw little of his family and he could now understand that the fatal despair of his life's companion had as much to do with the anticipation of their massacre as marked fugitives than it was with the sight of the horrible scatterings of cadavers at their crossing of the border.

     "She saw us there," he told Fixit, "she saw the three of us dismembered by coyotes, she saw the bloody heads of buzzards pulling dribs of flesh from our innards and every night now I see beasts dragging her muddy corpse about.  I must return and give her a better place to rest." Shocked, Fixit tried to reason.

     "You might be killed," he said.  "What do I care," came the answer.  Fixit was at a loss and thought to enlist another point of view in the conversation.

     "You are absolutely right," said Mona, "you have to go back and do the right thing for your spouse."  Then with her usual pragmatism she listed the nitty-gritty of the plan.  Santiago was an older man just out of a job in a white-collar, sedentary occupation.  He would need a poncho and a sleeping bag.  He would have to carry supplies, certainly more than the few crackers he had when he had arrived at Camp Galaxy.  He would need binoculars to survey his path and a shovel to dig a new grave.  A weapon would be desirable.  That could be Fixit's shotgun.

     "Can you fire a gun?" asked Mona.

     "I can," answered Sammy who had just appeared for his daily checkers game with Fixit and had not heard Mona's presentation.  All three looked at Sammy, who was smiling from ear to ear.

     "Now, I'm not sure this is such a good idea," said Santiago, "I can't risk someone else's life over this."

     Again, Mona explained a possible alternative.  Noting that Santiago and the other recent arrivals had found the area deserted, she offered an expansion of the operation.  If Santiago had trusted friends close to the border who could establish contacts with Shaman's opponents, would it be a good idea to offer some sort of asylum to those who were facing death?

     She's good, she's very good, thought Fixit.  The two of them had already discussed that very idea.  Given the obvious disintegration of their country it was only a matter of time until the Shaman's cohorts set their eyes on pillaging what was left.  Within walking distance of the border, Camp Galaxy would be one of the first targets.  Their escape bird sat on flat tires, they were toast.  They needed reinforcements.

     Santiago was nearly ecstatic.  Not only could he do the right thing for his wife, but redemption was at hand.  He had trusted friends, powerful friends who might be endangered.  They could start a secret war, a resistance.  He was ready to walk out the door that very minute.  With or without Sammy whose smile was even broader.  Sammy would miss his talks with Spiranthes, but he had been garrisoned at Area 71 much too long without ever leaving the place.  He was a country boy, the youngest in a large family whose last name was plastered all over the local American Legion Post.  He was a soldier, but he had joined to see the world and, boy, oh boy, hotfooting it across a border without a passport and getting into a country he had wanted to visit for years and that with an old man, an old shotgun and a shovel, boy, oh boy, that would be a story that could rank quite well with the other stories they told at holidays times.

     "I'm going," he said to Santiago, "I am going with you."

     The only one who was not enthused with Mona's coup was Spiranthes who understood the wisdom and the audacity of the scheme but couldn't forgive the sending into danger of her father and her new friend so soon after the death of her mother.  She cried herself to sleep and rose early in the morning for stiff hugs and goodbyes, waving as they walked away on the muddy road she had tread into safety only days before.  Mona was watching her, a young woman now alone, just another could-be, would-be girlfriend, widow, daughter, and Mona's heart was breaking as she felt for the first time in her officer's life what they call the burden of command.

     For Sammy the adventure assumed the true color of reality when they reached the border post where he had spent many days and nights.  The funnel-shape of the fencing at the gate had always been trapping tumbleweeds and it was part of the guards' duty to corral the darn things and send them on their way.  The accumulation was now of epic proportions and he looked at Santiago who shook his head and explained that yes, going through had been a struggle, but it told them there wasn't much traffic.
     This obstacle negotiated they found a roadway where dust had turned to a mud devoid of prints or tracks all the way to the main highway where the story was the same with nothing on the tar but windblown debris over mud, not even a foot print.  The absence of vehicles was understandable given the probable dearth of fuel, but if peoples were about, they were using shortcuts.  Their way was clear and safe with many stops for careful observations of their surroundings.  Before dark they reached the shed where the family had spent their last night together.  Near, they found the makeshift grave intact, under an accumulation of stones that in his sadness Santiago didn't recall gathering.  With scarcely enough dry litter they gathered in the shed they built a tiny fire to warm up, then extinguished it and settled in the two-hour watch routine.

     At first light, they were silently alternating the digging in the rain and by midday they retired to the shed for a rest and a snack.  Sammy was foraging and he found a short, broad plank with one squared end.  He took out his knife and looked at Santiago who simply said "Eva."  Then it was time to disinter the body.  She was in her coat and Santiago had wrapped a scarf over her face.  That's how she went in the tarp they had brought and they laid her down in the hole. Santiago said a few words in Spanish and Sammy thought of a prayer from his youth.  They exchanged the shovel for the first two throws and then, thinking that Santiago was getting tired Sammy finished filling the grave while the older man arranged his stones in a circle around the marker.  Sammy put the shovel in the shed and they went on their way in the routine of the previous day, without much talk..

     "How can you have moments like this and not be friends for life?" thought Santiago.   He stopped, looked at Sammy.  They shared a long hug and a few tears, and walked on to camp overnight off the road in a clump of dripping cottonwoods.

     The corpses at the bridge were rotting to foul messes hung on bones and the living surely spurned the scene.  The Jeep wouldn't start, they continued on foot in an empty countryside where banditry was probably driving peoples to more populated places.  It took them several days to reach Santiago's country retreat, sacked.  At a nearby lake, friends had set up a safe compound.  He was welcomed with his companion and drew a route for others who might want to escape the Shaman's rule.  Then, gifted with a sack of freshly roasted coffee beans and supplies for the road, they returned without incidents to a warm welcome at Camp Galaxy.  A tearful Spiranthes gave Sammy a passionate embrace before he had time to put down his shotgun.  Santiago smiled.

     "Girls will be girls," he said.

     A presumably much relieved Mona recorded that indeed, Spiranthes and Sammy were to become Camp Galaxy's first couple.  Santiago's route gained favor and the place also welcomed more northlanders' walk-ins.  There were women and there were men.  Meetings of minds and of senses occurred and that's how Scientists gained their reputation for miscegenation.

Next, THE COURT OF St. JAMES