After about four hours they arrived at what used to be the road that ran over the turnpike. North Ninth that had been on an overpass over the turnpike, now dipped down to cross it and then rose again on the other side. The former fancy circular exchange that looped around and allowed people access to both sides of the turnpike had also disappeared.

Everyone was a native and looked at the difference in shock.

“I guess They didn’t think it was necessary anymore,” one of the new people said.

“I guess not,” said Fern. “We’re almost there,” she said. “According to Hildi, it’s about a kilometer to Maxes. Just up that little hill there,” she said as she pointed toward the north. “Thank you all for bearing up, we’ve only got a little bit further to go.”

Hildi and Will were looking around and both noticed at the same time a man sprinting away toward the south. They could see a white t-shirt flickering between the trees as the man sped away. Going back in the direction where Wade’s group was last seen.

“Hon,” said Will. “We need to get a move on.”

She looked at him and saw the man running away as well because she quit talking and said, “You heard the man, almost there. Let’s get a move on.”

Hildi and Baxter stayed where they were and waited for the last rickshaw to pass and then began to bring up the rear. Hildi was walking beside Billy and his group at the end of the caravan. Billy motioned his group on a little bit so he could speak with his sister alone.

“I saw him,” Billy said.

“Saw who?” asked Hildi.

“The man, the one running away,” he answered. “What are we going to do about them?”

“Who do you mean?” she asked, trying to deflect the conversation.

But Billy wasn’t having it. “Sis!” he said. “It was a lookout from those assholes, wasn’t it?”

“Billy, language,” she said. “You couldn’t say that around Mom, what makes you think it’s alright with me.”

“I’m sorry. But what if they come after us?” he said.

“Well, as I understand it from Fern, we have a powerful lot of mages to take care of us, now don’t we?” she said.

“You heard about us, then?

“I did,” she said. “Fern told me this morning. I didn’t want to leave you and she told me then.”

“Am I in trouble?” he asked. His face was a little red, almost blushing from the implied praise that she'd just given him.

She had to think about that. Her little genius brother might be ten going on thirty, but at the same time, he could revert back to ten suddenly at odd moments. She wasn’t sure how to handle him sometimes. “Absolutely not,” she said finally.

From the look of relief on his face, this was evidently one of those times when he was feeling ten.

“I don’t know what to think about what you did,” she said. “But the days where I can protect you just by being older are done. I am proud of you. You did something good, but something terrible too. I wish that you kids didn’t need to protect yourselves, but you do.” She paused in thought.

Billy waited for a moment and then said, “I know that it may be wrong, but down there in that basement, I saw a bunch of broken kids and I wanted to help. This was the only way I could.”

Just then from behind her and Billy, they heard a bunch of male voices calling, “Hey! Hey! Baby! Wait, wait.”

They weren’t the only ones that heard the voices. The caravan had reached the top of the hill a moment before. Unlike the meadow, the trees had returned and removed a lot of the visibility. But when the people looked back they could see 20 or so scruffy men armed with various homemade weapons as well as about eight who had bows and arrows or crossbows. They were running up 9th to catch up with the caravan. Despite the 21 degree temperature, the men were sweating. Evidently, they had been running from someplace a fair way away to catch up.

“That’s Red,” Hildi heard one of the men say. “That’s the same girl we chased into Max’s. She didn’t die.”

“God,” said another. “That’s a fine-looking ..”

“Shut it!” said a short, bearded man at the front. He was wearing surprisingly clean clothing: blue jeans, a red-checked flannel shirt, and hiking boots. He had a bowler hat on and a pair of aviator sunglasses. He had a machete or a sword in a sheath strapped to his waist on his right side and a big knife on the other. All told the outfit shouldn’t have worked as a unit, but it somehow did. It was probably the only bowler hat in Oklahoma.

The man who had been talking shut up immediately.

Will said, ‘Everybody stop. It seems like we need to talk. Take a rest break.” The caravan came to a juddering halt. The old folks in the rickshaws standing or at least kneeling in their seats to look back towards where the men had approached from. The young kids on the rickshaws picking up on the tension began to cry.

Will continued. “Front mages stay in position. Middle and back mages, I need you to gather at the end of the caravan. Archers, except for Rex to the rear. Rex, you be watching the front.” At his words, Billy and the rest of the kids pulled back to the rear of the caravan and formed a group. The archers came back too and formed another group on the other side of Fern and Will.

The short bearded man said, “Now wait a minute friend. Let’s not be hasty here.” He and his entire crew came to a stop roughly 40 meters away from the tail end of the caravan where Will, the archers and two of Billy’s groups stood.”

“I’m very rarely hasty,” said Will. “And, if your name is Wade, I am not your friend.”

“Well, you hear that fellas. He’s not my friend. That’s a little bit hurtful,” said the man now identified as Wade.

A large black man spoke then, “He’s not very friendly, is he?”

“No, Matchstick,” Wade replied. “He doesn’t seem at all neighborly.”

“What do you want?” said Will.

“Mages, did I hear you say?” asked Wade.

“No, what I asked was what you wanted?”

“See Matchstick,” Wade said. “Did you see what he did there? He just ignored my question.”

“I done saw that,” said the large black man.

The men from the caravan looked nervous, but then again so did the men behind Wade and Matchstick. The archers from the caravan had their bows out with an arrow on the string, not taut, but held loosely, ready. Will, Wade, and Matchstick didn’t look nervous. Curiously neither Brian nor Billy did either.

Will waited along with the other folks in the caravan for Wade to continue.

“Now, we didn’t know you were coming,” said Wade. “If we had we might have prepared a little better,” said Wade. “Maybe thrown together a potluck or something. What I’m ...”

“You like to talk, don’t you?” said Will, interrupting Wade. “I don’t have all day. Get to the point. Ask for whatever it is you’re going to ask for, I’ll say no, and then you can leave us be.”

“Is that truly how you see our interaction here going?” said Wade.

“Yes,” said Will. “I do. Now ask so I can tell you no and then you and the losers behind you can fuck off back to the Kum N Go.”

“Were you by any chance a Democrat?” asked Wade. “I myself was of the Republican persuasion. I seem to feel a certain familiar lack of communication between the two of us. I personally thought Trump was a fine upstanding man, one of our greatest presidents..”

“Do you have a point?” Will interrupted him again. “It’s getting dark and I need to get these children into a safer location.” He’d been speaking loudly to make himself heard to Wade and his group.

Wade, despite his conversational tone, had been speaking loudly too, almost shouting. If he hadn’t been such a piece of crap, Will might have admired his ability to project his voice without apparent strain.

Will spoke in a low voice to Billy as an aside, “Get your kids ready. Aim at the archers in the back. Fern, you, Bernie and I will take the short mouthy one. Joseph, you, Hugh, Sammy, and Dato take the black guy in front. Don’t fire until I say.”

Billy looked at the archers and decided it was better to group up on one than a bunch of injured, but wounded, still-in-the-fight opponents. He'd broken his little group of 11 into three teams. He was in charge of the overall strategy but each team had its own caller.

He quietly told Mary Buttes, the caller of the middle group his plan. "We'll stagger our targets. My group will take odds. You'll take the evens. Hit them once, move on to the next target. When you've hit everybody once, start over. Wait for me to say fire, Ok?"

"Is it Ok?" she asked. There was a whole lot to unpack in that question. She was 10. Billy was 10. They were talking about using their magic on men, grown men, adults, not what they'd planned for. The youngest kid in the group was five. All of them had their hand pointed, index finger extended, pointed toward the men, waiting for Billy's answer.

Billy answered. "Yes."

Wade looked at the gathering forces of the caravan and decided that there were too many unknowns. He didn’t know what the kids were doing, but he didn’t like the way they all had pointed their fingers at his men. He wondered about that word mages he’d overheard. Mages as in World of Warcraft? He needed to think about that some. Plus, the damn leader of the caravan kept interrupting him before his skill could activate. He had over the past two weeks really leveled his Oration skill. Enough that he didn’t want to face a group that hadn’t been affected by it. He decided not to push too hard, at least not yet.

“I believe that we somehow seemed to have gotten off on the wrong foot,” he said. “It is late and you do have quite a few young dependents. I’m sure you may have noticed the certain lack of governmental authority. I believe the notification spoke of 'the loss of mandate'. It seems to have been supplanted by groups such as my own. We are attempting to regain that mandate. You may wish to think about that and how you see our relations going in the future. Comm'n boys let us let these fine folks be on their way.”

And with that, he and the large black man turned and started back in the direction that they came. His men falling in behind him as he left.

Will stood there for a minute, but the men vanished into the trees surrounding the road. It didn't take long before they were no longer visible.

“Honey?” said Fern looking at Will.

“They’re gone, I’m pretty sure. Let’s keep on going. It’s starting to get a little dark and we still have about a kilometer to go.”

“They’re just letting us go? Just like that?” she said. Will looked around and saw that everyone in the caravan was looking at him.

“Yep,” he said. “Look behind us.”

The whole group did and saw what Will had already noticed. The road and roadside were covered in footprints and wheel tracks. If Wade wanted to follow them, to find them, all he had to do was follow the trail that they’d be leaving behind.