Chapter 4

The house was quiet. Everyone was sleeping with the exception of Annette. In order to take the late watch, she had slept through the afternoon and evening. It made sense for her to take that watch as she could give them the most warning that something was about to happen. A very happy Annette swayed through the night watching the approaches to the town. She almost missed the three men on motorcycles, but saw them in time to give a reasonable warning.

Going into the living room, she shouted, “Three motorcyclists are on the way here with automatic weapons.”

Leroy was the first one on his feet. He shouted, “Come on. Get up, guys.”

It didn’t take a minute before everyone was awake. After a very quick update about the evolving situation, everyone huddled together to work out a plan for dealing with the situation. Given the nature of the attack, there was only one response that was appropriate. The men headed out to their individual tasks.

The three motorcycles drove past the stop sign without even slowing down. As they raised their guns to fire at the houses lining the street, a figure dressed in a black robe stepped out of the darkness to face them with his hand out like a traffic cop signaling them to stop. The headlights of a car parked in front of a house had come on to illuminate the man.

The lead motorcyclist swerved to hit him, but was suddenly thrown end over end as the motorcycle was thrown to the street. A rope stretched across the street at an angle and one foot off the ground had sent the bike out of control. The second motorcyclist followed after the first. He found himself flying through the air head over heals. The third, having seen the two in front of him crash, realized that he couldn’t stop in time and laid the motorcycle down on the street.

More men moved out of the dark to surround the fallen motorcyclists. The first was seriously injured. The second, with a broken leg, rolled around on the ground in agony. However, the third was uninjured and came up fighting. When he turned to aim at Henry, Jerry pushed the large black man out of the way while Ted threw himself in front of him. Ed charged at the gunman and tackled him before he was able to do much more than fire several shots in the air.

Henry lay sprawled on the ground with Jerry covering his body and Ted crouched in front of him. Unable to believe what had happened, he stared at the men that were willing to take a bullet for him. These were two white men that put themselves between him and harm. Their actions weren’t afterthoughts, but reflexive actions.

The man with the broken leg finally got his hands on a gun and fired in the direction of Ed. Leroy, seeing the man start to act, dove between the gunman and Ed. The noise alerted Ed to the danger behind him and before the gunman was able to aim, Ed had kicked the broken leg. The gun went off once before the man passed out from the pain.

It was only a couple of minutes from the beginning to the end when two of the three men were in handcuffs while the third was lying on the ground unable to move. It looked as if his back was broken. Ed was over by Leroy putting pressure on a bullet wound in his side. It didn’t look bad, but it was bleeding. His position as he applied pressure was uncomfortable and caused his leg to cramp.

It was ten minutes before the police arrived with an ambulance close behind. Victor had already arrested the men for weapons violations. The police were faced with federal law officers from four different departments. While Victor took charge of getting the prisoners transported, Ed made sure that Leroy was put into the first ambulance.

Sitting in the back of the ambulance with Leroy and the EMS lady, Ed said, “I appreciate what you did for me, but you shouldn’t have thrown yourself in the way. It was a long shot and probably would have missed me.”

With a weak smile, Leroy groaned, “Now you tell me.”

Laughing at the attempted joke, Ed said, “You know that I’m a dead man, now.”

“Why?”

“I have to call home and explain why you are hurt,” answered Ed.

There was a sharp shout from Leroy as the EMS person worked on him. Regaining control over the his pain and flashing a weak smile, Leroy said, “Ling! Oh, Ling! Where are you?”

The thought of Ling showing up here with Little John in tow was enough to cause a shudder up and down Ed’s spine. Making a grimace, he said, “Don’t even say that in jest.”

The rest of the drive was quiet as the EMS woman worked over Leroy and Ed sat out of the way. He watched as Leroy was prepared for his arrival at the hospital. An IV was inserted into the back of his hand and a saline drip started. His shirt was cut away from the wound. Looking over at the wound, Ed could tell that it had hit only muscle and that Leroy would be released sometime in the morning; if he was even kept in the hospital.

At the hospital, Ed waited to learn more about the status of Leroy. He watched as two of the motorcyclists were brought in for treatment. From the nurses he found that the one had a broken back and that the other would be in traction for several months to allow the leg to heal.

In the waiting room, Ed removed his robe and listened to the discussions around the room. A couple of men came in to talk to one of the motorcyclists. They were required to wait until the men came out of surgery. Listening carefully, Ed learned these guys were upset that so many of their members had been injured while trying to scare off the blacks. One of them even commented that it wasn’t worth the money they were getting paid.

His attention was distracted when a kid sitting next to him tugged on his shirtsleeve and asked, “Did you know you’re bleeding?”

Ed looked down at the leg that kept cramping on him and saw the slight trickle of blood from under his pant leg. There were two holes in his pant leg showing where a bullet had entered and exited. He swore and walked over to the nurses’ station. When the duty nurse looked up, he said, “I just discovered I was shot.”

The nurse looked at Ed like a man from the moon and asked, “You just discovered you were shot?”

“Yes, I’m afraid that I was so pumped up by the action that I didn’t realize that I had been shot until a boy over there pointed it out to me.”

“I’m going to have to report this to the police,” replied the nurse.

“No problem,” answered Ed as he showed his IRS ID.

Suddenly, things started happening very quickly as the nurse shouted, “We’ve got a wounded Fed here.”

Within seconds Ed was taken into the emergency room and a doctor cut off his pant leg. Looking at the wound, the doctor said, “Yep, you got shot.”

Ed replied, “Just sew it shut and I’ll go home.”

Seeing an old bullet wound next to the new one, the doctor said, “I see you have a little experience with getting shot.”

“Yes,” replied Ed. Their handling of the events this evening had not gone very well. Two wounded out of seven was not very good.

The doctor proceeded to sew up Ed with minimal conversation. Before the doctor had finished, two ATF agents and an FBI agent had joined them in the small room. When the FBI agent learned that he was in the room with Ed Biggers, attitudes changed very quickly. One of the ATF agents was dispatched to follow the two men in the waiting room. The doctor listened to the conversation as he worked.

When Ed had been sewn up, he went in search of Leroy followed by the ATF and FBI. They found Leroy in the waiting room reading a copy of National Geographic. His wound, like Ed’s, had taken just a couple of stitches. He looked up at Ed and said, “Lots of fuss for nothing.”

“Better a fuss over nothing than nothing over a fuss,” remarked Ed with a smile.

“I was getting worried that you’d left me here until I learned that you had been shot, too,” remarked Leroy looking at the short leg of Ed’s blue jeans. The wound was bandaged and there wasn’t much too see.

“Yeah, must have happened when I kicked that jerk after he shot you.”

Leroy said, “I only have one question. How do we get home?”

Smiling, Ed turned to see the two agents behind him looking at each other as they wondered which one would play taxi. Ed said, “You might want to help your partner follow the bad guys, so that leaves the FBI agent to be chauffeur.”

The agent introduced himself, “I’m Special Agent Hans Standford, Dr. Biggers.”

Ed replied, “Nice to meet you Hans. This is my husband, Leroy. Please call me Ed.”

“I thought you were married to John Carter.”

“We are,” answered Leroy.

The drive back to the house was uneventful. Both Leroy and Ed were lost in their thoughts, each making an occasional comment. Disturbed by the wounds, Ed said, “Two of us were wounded.”

Leroy nodded as he looked out the window. The area had changed so much since he had left that it was difficult to know where he was. Housing developments and shopping malls had replaced open fields. He turned to face Ed and said, “The wounds were minor and won’t stop us.”

As they neared the area where Deacon Jones lived, Ed noticed a number of fields with signs identifying that they were under development by Renzy Development. The signs boasted of homes starting at half a million dollars. Ed asked, “How do you think someone buying a home for half a million dollars will feel about living next to your parents’ community?”

“Are you suggesting this is about property values?”

Nodding, Ed said, “Money is an amazing motive.”

When they arrived at the house, the three men entered to find everyone sitting around the living room waiting for them. Ed said, “Thanks, Annette.”

“My pleasure, Ed,” replied Annette. She added, “When I saw the wound, I knew that you would be back before dawn. I made sure that Deacon Jones and Cleo stayed here.”

Cleo came out of the kitchen and rushed over to Leroy, hugging him. The hug caused a Leroy to grimace in pain. Noticing, she took him to his room saying that he needed to lie down and rest. Ed watched with amusement until she noticed the bandage around his leg. Suddenly she was mothering him as well. He wanted to hit himself for having forgotten to put on his robe before returning to the neighborhood. Too late to hide his wound, he put on his robe anyway, and joined the others in the living room. He invited the FBI agent to join them.

Henry had watched Ed and Leroy return, but remained in his chair lost in thought. The events of this evening had shaken him far more than he would ever admit. He had seen each one of them throw himself into danger to protect others without regard for their own life.

Ed announced, “There is nothing that we can do until morning. I suggest that we all get some sleep. Hans, pull up a section of floor, because tomorrow we are going to be very busy.”

Waking alone on the floor of the living room, Ed discovered that he had slept far later than expected. It was almost noon before he woke, and he was surprised to find that it was without his normal early morning fuzzy headedness. He went into the kitchen and discovered Henry sitting alone at the table. After he poured himself a cup of coffee, he sat down across from Henry and asked, “What’s up?”

Not answering immediately, Henry looked at Ed for a long time. After a while, he said, “I don’t get it.”

“Don’t get what?”

“You guys are risking your lives for a bunch of poor blacks in a rundown neighborhood. Jerry and Ted both threw themselves into harms way to make sure that I didn’t get hurt. Why?”

“You have thrown yourself into harms way. Why?”

“This is my home. Of all the folks around here, I’m the biggest, fastest, and strongest. I’m the best able to protect them from what is going on.”

Smiling at Henry, Ed asked, “So you believe that the strong should protect the weak?”

“I haven’t thought about it in just that way, but sure.”

“I’m a Druid. We follow two rules. If it harm none, then do it. Protect the weak from the strong. The troubles here violate both of those rules, and we aim to protect the weak.”

Henry was quiet for a long time as he thought about what Ed had said. He lived his life according to those rules, at least to the best that he could. As he thought about it, he wondered if he could throw himself in front of a bullet for a total stranger. Finally, he said, “You and your friends are very brave.”

“Not really, we serve the Gods and Goddesses,” answered Ed as though it explained everything.

“Can I become a Druid?”

“If you are called,” replied Ed. Examining Henry very closely, he said, “Touch my medallion.”

Henry reached out and touched the medallion. After a second, he asked, “So?”

Ed shook his head and said, “You have not been called.”

“You can tell that just from me touching your medallion?”

Sighing, Ed answered, “Yes. May I suggest that you touch the cross of Deacon Jones?”

“Okay, do you mind telling me why?” asked Henry with skepticism. He wondered if the reason was that he was not good enough or if it was because he was black.

“Perhaps your calling is from another source,” replied Ed. As his eyes flashed an unnatural light, he said, “Deacon Jones is a holy man, touched by his God. Perhaps your calling is the same as his.”

Shocked by the raw power that emanated from Ed, Henry heard the truth in his words and felt ashamed that he had questioned the motives behind the answer to his question. The reference to Deacon Jones as a holy man surprised him. It was well known in the neighborhood that Deacon Jones had experienced some sort of call from God, but that this white man knew all about it was completely unexpected.

Deacon Jones came into the room and sat down at the table. Looking over at Ed, he said, “Leroy is doing all right. He’s a little sore on his side, but it’s not too bad.”

“I’m sorry that he was injured trying to protect me,” replied Ed.

“Don’t be. I knew that he had a good character and this just proves it. Everyone is talking about you and your Druids.”