Children of the Source Read online

  “About a great teacher. Never saw his face. But he sure turned the world around.”

  “You saw the birthmark on his body,” Bareton said. I started. “Look at Laith. You dreamed accurate. This is he. It was explained to me. Nothing supernatural about it.”

  The dream. The birthmark. They were real. “Why me and Judith?”

  “You’re suited for it,” He said briefly. “No hocus pocus of science or religion. You’re both open and stable people. And you two are free of the tragedy and comedy of roles. Simply put, you both have a great deal to offer.”

  “Laith. Where did he come from? What do you know of him?”

  “I found him in a cabin we came across in southern Utah. Saw two fresh graves. He said his mother and grandmother died of fever. An old man helped bury them and moved on. Laith said he had been waiting for us. I dreamed of what happened three nights before we found him.”

  “Does he know everything?”

  “Who does? I don’t. I’m sure he doesn’t. We all set up challenges, opportunities for ourselves. It wouldn’t be much of a life if we didn’t. You’ll be asked your own questions in the years to come.” He laughed.

  “Any rate, don’t worry about it. He’ll raise normal enough. There’ll be surprises. Maybe more than a few. You’ll have dreams and find more of your inner abilities coming forward.” He ran his tongue on the inside of his lower lip, eyes narrowing, looking at me. “Abilities you’ve never dreamed possible. You won’t be wanting for help and guidance. It will be there.” He waved a leathery hand taking in our whole community. “I’ll tell you something, my friend, you’ve got potential here. You’re building something here with the right people. Helen, the young girl, will develop into a fine trance medium. The old woman, Rosa, also has those abilities.”

  “Rosa Guttierez?”

  “Yes. Everyone thinks she is simple-minded, but you know it’s only a small portion of her whole self. She created the simple minded personality for a reason. Her whole self can speak through her body provided you and others are willing to listen. Let her sit on your councils and watch.”

  He was tired. Pushing himself eighteen to twenty hours a day. But in his wisdom he always managed to find time to dream. The touch-stone of the soul. He said he needed the time to participate in group and mass dreams. To find pathways into the future.

  “Will you stay another day?” I asked.

  He took a great breath and looked up at the night sky, a mass of brilliant shattered diamonds on midnight velvet. No moon. I heard him give a great sigh, long and slow. “I wish,” he started. Silence. Then he said, “There’ ll be a time enough another day. I shall return periodically if I can. Me or Mary. Finally one day, God willing, we’ll be able to come back for good. But for now, we have to take our people and help set up a community where they can live and prosper. Something more than survival. As you’ re doing here. When the people have gotten to the point where they no longer need us, we’ll come home.” He turned slightly so the light from the campfire lit his face, showing the angle differently.

  I drew in a sharp breath. . “You’re the one!” For several years I’d dreamed consistently of an older man, who when I asked, would come to give me counsel in my dreams. It was like a faucet, I’d always get answers. Though sometimes I’d get what seemed like riddles or partial answers which would lead me to ask the right questions. And I would answer myself or the answers would lie in the correct question or a daily experience. But always, in every dream I would see the same cast of his face. I still did it, and indeed, last night I saw him chuckling to himself secretively in my dreams as though at some great joke.

  In the close darkness I heard him chuckle. It was like the dream and the present were uncannily one. I felt off balance, yet strangely pinpointed. “Sit down,” I heard him say. A large hand steadied me, easing me down. Mike Roseman, a friend, saw us, and started over. I waved him away.

  I looked up at Charles He said, “You’ll see that personality differently now in your dreams. I was party to what you saw, but not the personality. It wasn’t really a deception, but to impress upon you the idea that this meeting was no accident. That Laith is no accident. That none of this is an accident. The personality, that acts as a helper and source for you, will now represent himself more closely to what he actually is. You call it The Energy From Within.”

  I nodded slowly. It made sense to me. Things fall into place sometimes. This was one of those times. Validating and giving weight and power to information we’d gotten elsewhere. A lot to take in, but it confirmed what we’d been given by our own sources. “We’d better get back now,” I said. I wanted to meet Mary, Charles’s wife. I hadn’t said three sentences to her since they’d come.

  “Mary will be pleased,” Charles said. “You’ll be her only son-in-law. Should meet your mother-in-law.” He chuckled that chuckle. “Sorry about the telepathy. Disconcerting sometimes. It is just so natural that I have to make an effort to remember most others don’t have the abilities quite as developed as I do.”

  I took in the night scene. Lots of people stood outside, mingling in groups of various sizes. Several large campfires cast dancing shadows among the voices. The night temperatures dipped into the mid twenties. We steered our way slowly through the mixing crowd until we met Judith, Mary, and Laith at the corner of Wilson and N. Roberta talking with a small group from the convict army. Laith had my calico kitten, Talker, cuddled in his arms. True to form she lay in his arms, talking up a storm with her motor going. It was amazing for she was usually terrified of people and hid from anyone new. Groups in my house were an unforgivable sin and I’d hear about it for days afterwards.

  Mary and I got to talking. She knew more about psychic phenomena from a practical use, and gave me many pointers. We talked for a couple of hours. All of us ended up at my house. It was midnight before we slept. That was how it got started. How Judith and I came together. A lot had happened since that time.

  We put our arms around our growing children and went inside for some tea. I mentioned to Laith we’d be going to the fort at eight-thirty and could use his help. Laith nodded in agreement. “That religious fanatic Benson is out for blood. He’s bound and determined to convert us, especially you, Dad.”

  I shivered. “He gives me the willies. God Almighty, the guy scares the hell outta me.”

  Laith laughed. “Doesn’t help when he’s six foot six with a baritone voice and looks like he crawled right out of the Old Testament. Not to mention being fixated on the belief of the End of the World and the Second Coming.”

  “Nope. Sure doesn’t.” I accepted a mug of tea from Judith.

  “Or that he considers you the Devil Incarnate for your abilities to heal, see the future, and other things. Abilities he craves and will never have. You can’t imagine the envy and frustration welling inside the man ... ”

  “I’d rather not,” I said. “What’s going to happen isn’t going to help matters with Mr. Benson. It’s the other things that might set off our religious fanatic.”

  “Maybe,” Judith said, “it is something you should not do.” Her green eyes searched my face.

  “No. It’s been agreed to in the dream state by the parties involved,” I said. The hot catnip tea with honey sure tasted good, and was the brunt of many jokes.

  “Do you need to antagonize General Carson?” Judith always had the questions. Ones I often didn’t think of, which sometimes made me reconsider options. Laith watched me carefully.

  “Not a good thing,” I agreed. “Not a man to cross in any circumstances. But he needs a lesson in the personality’s survival of physical death.”

  “Why?” Laith asked.

  “He’s son has been killed in a fire fight with jay hawkers. He needs to know his son still lives.”

  2

  To travel down Highway 180 into Flagstaff was like traveling back through time. We moved our mules around the potholes and ruts that only a four- wheel drive or a creature with four feet could negotiate
. The road hadn’t been repaired since the local and national governments decided to abandon the towns and evacuate the people in the San Francisco volcanic field. The volcanic eruptions and earthquakes with the forest fires destroyed much of the area. By that time government had broken down so much that many people stayed on without interference.

  Jay hawking started about that time. Within one year what was left of civilian government was suspended, and military regions were set up west of the Rocky Mountains. We fell into the Southern Utah - Northern Arizona Military Region. Colonel William Christopher Carson assumed command six months in and was promoted to Brigadier General. Carson, a hard compact man, looked out at people from a deeply weathered face and unwavering steel grey eyes.

  By law every military governor maintained a sitting tribunal of three officers to hear felony and capital cases. Capital cases included jay hawking, rape, murder, theft of life-giving property, and assault with intent to commit murder. The tribunal could give prison sentences in lieu of execution. Each sentence automatically appealed itself to the military governor. Carson considered death preferable to being sentenced to hard labor in the prison camps. The prison camps killed with brutality and neglect. Carson knew this.

  Just down the road from Cheshire lay the ruined Museum of Northern Arizona. Eighteen months after Carson became Governor his troops cornered a traveling band of jay hawkers in the abandoned structure on the right side of the road. The jay hawkers had left a sick woman with us. The nine men and six women nearly collided with a squad of Carson’s men. The jay hawkers made it to the museum, killing one soldier doing it.

  Carson, called in, used mortars, and blew the place apart. That finished the battle. He ordered the bodies hung on his Long Beam at the fort, then cursing thought better of it, burying them in the rubble. We later learned his nephew had been killed in the initial exchange. He was more like a beloved son to him than anything else.

  Mike Roseman and I got to the Museum that just after the fighting ended. We looked at the empty shells of flesh that once moved and laughed. Now strangely doll like, personalities fled. Where did they go? Extinguished into oblivion? I couldn’t believe that. Several personal experiences had proved to me that the personality survives physical death.

  A number of times I’d talked in dreams with some of our people that had shed their physical bodies. They’d told me things only their relatives knew and events of the future that came true. So I left behind the childish arguments of hallucinations and dying brain chemicals and the banal prattle of pious churchmen, and moved on.

  One night shortly after the Museum incident someone took chicken blood and wrote ‘Bloody Carson’ on the outside wall of the Headquarters. The name stuck. This was a man to fear, respect and always tell the truth to. His one focus was the job, his version of the job, and we’d better fit into it.

  The Peaks, once a high end retirement complex, stood fire gutted on the left. Then we came on the Northland Press. On the right stood a large group of houses called Faculty Flats, for the teachers from Northern Arizona University that used to live there. Squatters lived a makeshift existence among the ruins of these houses. They raised vegetables, grazed their assorted mules, goats, and sheep in the yards. Chickens and ducks wandered freely in the warm July sunshine. Few bothered these people who seemed to prefer the hand-to-mouth existence they’d developed. At times we offered to take them in, but they always refused. Our main contact came when they brought themselves for healing and medical help or we visited briefly on the way to and from town as we were now. Most of their children elected to come to our school Fall through Spring.

  We stopped at West Whipple Drive and some came over to talk. Plainly excited, they pointed to the spacecraft circling lazily over the Peaks. These had moved higher now - to somewhere near fifty thousand feet. The thunderheads which gave us our afternoon showers, were already building.. We called them monsoons. They started around the Fourth of July and ended in September.

  “What’cha know bout this, Jamie?” Amos asked, a short shaggy haired man who looked more like a bear than anything else.

  “They’ve come to help make a better world, if we let them.”

  “How do you know they won’t come with guns?” Amos spit something nasty and black off to one side. He grinned, the black juices showed around yellow teeth, and dribbled down disappearing into his beard. He leaned over and spit again.

  “I do know.” I knew they were to come, and a little of why, but only a little. I look for the whys in every place I can, every symbol, every incident, every experience until I put more of the puzzle together. I’m usually way ahead of most people cause they don’t take the time to look. They need to look. I stopped. He nodded and I saw the black ooze seep out of the corner of his mouth and dribble into his beard.

  He must have seen the look of fascination and incredulity on my face. I can’t hide anything. He reached for his pouch with a twinkle in his eyes, and said in a confidential voice, “Wanna try some?”

  Everyone around us saw the look on my face, and broke out laughing. I held up my hand warding him away.

  “Now that is real terror,” Amos said, almost doubled over with laughter. “Ya sure?” he asked, catching his breath.

  “Yeah, but thank you,” I said. “I’m not at that level of advancement yet.”

  Madge McDonald hurried over, worry on her worn lean face, wiping her hands on her ancient apron. “Phyllis needs you, Jamie. She’s asking for you. Stopped us from sending someone to Cheshire. Said you’d be along shortly.”

  “One of the Glory People,” I said. “I’m coming.” We dismounted. Glory people are individuals who know they are dying and going to the Other side. They aren’t afraid of physical death, and indeed look forward to it. They have a peace and aura about them that generates enormous joyous energy. Nothing can touch them. They’re often ecstatic. Everyone around them can feel the energy. The term for them came to me in a dream. I’ve used it ever since.

  We entered the weather-beaten house. A cool breeze wandered in from a screened window. Madge turned into a bedroom and walked to a bed piled with blankets. An wizened woman peered up at me as I knelt by her. “I knew you’d come, Jamie.”

  “Indeed,” I said and smiled. “Gawd, young lady, you got a party going here. Lots of folk ready to help.” I could see six nonphysical people crowded around the bed. A great joyous energy permeated the room. “You’re one of the Glory People, Phyllis.”

  A smile twisted her ancient creased lips. “I know. Guide me through it to the Other side.”

  “Yes,” I said. Her eyes began to wander. “Look to your left. Up in the corner of the room. You should see Tom there. He’s come to get you.” She swallowed and nodded eyes studying.

  “Yes, yes, I see him. Oh, Tom, I’ve missed you so. He’s smiling.” She breathed, pleased smile lighting her face. I moved her left hand to an energy on the bed next to her.

  “Who do we have here?” I asked.

  “Whiskey. Whiskey. God, you’re alive.” The small dog energy licked her blue veined hand. “You’re so warm and your tongue is wet.” Her eyes shown with joy. “It’s happening isn’t it? I’m separating from my body. Just like you said, Jamie.”

  “The forces of heaven have come to take you home, Phyllis. Tom and Whiskey are here to escort you.” I waved Madge close. “Wish her well. She will visit in dreams. Now is her time to go.”

  Tears scattered on Phyllis’s ancient hand from Madge. “Go, Mama.” Madge struggled with her breathing and said, “I know. I know. Go. Go with Daddy.”

  Phyllis swallowed. “I love you ... .” The death rattle sounded in her throat and she was still. I closed her eyes and kissed her forehead. Blessed be. The vast protective energy slowly ebbed.

  Madge raised her wet eyes to me. “She knew. She did. Insisted we dig a burying hole. Could you come tomorrow morning and say the words over her body? She’d like that.”

  “I’d be honored to,” I said. We went out, mounted our beasts
and continued into town.

  The former Plaza Shopping Center stood gutted on the hill above the junction of Humphrey and Fort Valley Road (U.S. 180), long since looted and burned. Flagstaff High School off to the right, once extensively remodeled, burnt down in the volcanic fires. We turned right onto Humphrey Street, and in four blocks went down the hill to turn left on Cherry Street and headed for the fort. We came on the cathedral-like Church of the Nativity standing largely untouched on the outside. The wood pews and doors had long since heated someone’s house.

  We passed the remains of the county buildings between San Francisco and Verde which Carson blew up after one of his patrols found themselves ambushed by jay hawkers using the buildings for cover.

  Then we sighted the main gate to Snob Hill Fort. A name used by the local people. Cherry Hill - Snob Nob - used to have some of the wealthier families living there. The Main Gate stood guarded by a huge bunker, two stories high sandbagged inside and out. Five men manned it twenty-four hours a day. Two M-60 machine guns pointed at us.

  Our mounts trembled and we glanced at each other. “Earthquake,” Grant said. A mild earth tremor shook the earth. We dismounted and talked easily to our mules. When our mounts reared, we steadied them with gentle hands and voices. Slowly, walking between a corridor of concertina wire flanked by Claymore mines on both sides, we made our way up the two long blocks to the bunker. Master Sergeant Henry Denton greeted us, “Need some supplies, gentlemen?”

  “There’s gonna be a hanging today,” Burt Clark said. A young Staff Sergeant, he was a veteran of seven years of warfare, knowing the ways of ambush, firefight, tracking among other things. A survivor, he came west as a replacement recruit, married a lady from our community, and was due for discharge in a couple of months. They had decided to join us.

  Tradition had it that every time a person hung, the earth would tremble. It seemed to work that way, which had created a superstition over the years. After a bit of exchanging gossip and news we moved on. We took the wounded soldier to the fort hospital and went our various ways.