From Chapter 2
Rog and George were there and all the farm hands and kids living there showed up when Jessie started ringing the bell. They could hear the bell up at High Meadow and Buddy and Robby debated running home, but the bell didn't continue to ring, so they HOPED everything was being taken care of. Rog and George took charge, they fired up the hot water boiler and ran the boys through the shower, giving them all clean clothes and shoes, if they needed them. They did. They got the first bunch bedded down for nap, praying that would all there were for this first day.
A TRICKLE BECOMES A FLOOD
They spent the night in peace, somewhat, the new boys were restless, with their tummies full of food for the first time in many weeks.
They had barely sat down to breakfast when there came a scratching at the front door. Jessie was busy flipping pancakes, so Robby and Buddy went to answer the door.
They looked out and there was nobody there, but Buddy spotted a tuft of blonde hair sticking out from around the corner of the porch. He walked over, but did not look around the corner as he said, "I thought we heard someone knocking at the door, but I guess we were wrong. Too bad, all those extra pancakes are gonna go to waste."
Robby had a grin on his face as he watched three little boys and an older boy come running around the corner, screaming, "NOoooooooooooooo!"
Robby grabbed up the little boys and Buddy hugged the bigger boy. The older boy was shaking like a leaf as he said, "Don't hurt my brothers, you kin do anything you want to me, just leave them alone."
Buddy knew what the boy was talking about and he struggled to keep an even temper, he asked, "Why would I do anything to you. You haven't hurt me. Besides, we got all those hot pancakes waiting in the kitchen for you to go wash yer hands and eat them up."
The boy looked up to Buddy, hope shining in his eyes, "You means it, fer true?"
Buddy replied, "Yup, but ya' better hurry up or those brothers of yours will eat them all up, and Miss Jessie will have to cook some more."
Buddy led the boy into the wash room and handed him a wash cloth so he could wash his face and hands. He figured they could get the rest taken care of after the bellies got filled.
They learned that the oldest boy, Jimmie, had led his little brothers away from a church camp in southern Utah two weeks ago. They all looked like they had been drug across the open desert for the whole two weeks, their clothes were more hole than cloth, they had been putting leaves in their shoes to cover the holes in the soles and they were all filthy dirty.
As the little boys were led off to the showers, Buddy held Jimmy back and asked, "Why were you sent to the church camp?"
The boy stammered and looked down at his feet before he said, "Err ah, cause I's queer n' they figgered I had infected my brothers."
Buddy knelt down beside the boy and said, "Jimmy, that's bullshit! You can't infect what is not already there. AND, I don't ever want to hear that word, QUEER, again. We may be gay, but we sure as hell ain't queer!"
Jimmie looked up at the tall teen kneeling beside him and asked, "Ya' got a boyfriend?"
Buddy tosseled Jimmie's hair and replied, "Yeah, Robby, and, besides, as cute as you are, you are a little young for me! Now, go get your shower and some clean clothes!"
Jimmie replied. "Mr. Buddy, will you help me find a boyfriend too?"
Buddy smiled and said, "Nope, that's one thing ya gotta do on yer own, but, I don't think ya are gonna have any trouble finding you a mate, just look around and you will suddenly have a boyfriend at yer side. All ya need is a little patience, its kinda like going fishing."
There were no more groups arriving that day and Jimmie and his brothers were soon absorbed by the boys. They all had their chores first thing after breakfast and then Miss Jessie had them for school lessons until lunchtime.
Their afternoons were their own, there were some horses for those boys who already knew how to ride and riding lessons were given by Gus and his cowboys on Saturdays.
There were some limited arts and crafts, at least one ball game was in progress plus they had brought the entire town library down from Greer and installed it in the house. They had even found and old windup Victrola and a supply of records for those who wanted to listen to music.
The carpenters stayed busy, they knew they were only a few days ahead of incoming kids and they had already stripped Greer bare. Now they were working on Eager, about 20 miles away. Anything and everything they could dismantle and haul off, was brought to the ranch. Nobody knew for how long they were going to have to survive and turning away a child just was not an option!
Much of the time, the carpenters collected kids on their way back from Eager, they would ride on the wagon or in front of a cowboy/carpenter in his saddle. Over time, more than one relationship was forged between a man and a child, a relationship that would last both their lifetimes. There weren't any judges to sign the papers, but those boys became sons anyway.
The last trip from Eager, they brought three boys and a girl, they had found them on the road, they said they had escaped from a church camp just over the line from Arizona, over in Utah. That struck a bell with Hector Walking Tree and he tucked the information away for when they got back to the ranch.
The Medicine man made regular trips to check up on "his kids". The old man, known universally as "Doc", was loved by the boys and the few girls living at The Ranch and he loved each and every one of them. How he remembered the name of each child was a mystery, but he would talk to each child as soon as he clambered out of the helicopter. If one was missing, there had best be an explanation first off!
The wagon returned from Eager, piled high with building materials, desks, chairs, tables and a few kitchen sinks. There was a grandfather clock, two hot water boilers and another wood fired room heater. The rescued children were sitting on top of the load as they arrived in the Ranch yard.
As they were all climbing down from the wagon, there was a screech, "LONNIE!" A yellow topped rocket came racing across the yard, hooting and hollering as he latched onto a new boy that was just getting off the wagon!
The child screamed, "JIMMIE!" and two young boys were seen walking across the yard, hanging onto each other.
Buddy smiled and said to Robby, "Well, that is a score one for Doctor Buddy, I told Jimmie just this morning to be patient and a boyfriend would show up just for him!"
He thought for a few moments and then added, "I wonder what th' hell is going on over at Eager that we got boys coming in like a river?"
By midsummer of their second year, there were nearly two hundred children living at the Ranch. Jessie had four fulltime cooks working 8 and 10 hours a day keeping them all fed. It was "touch n' go" having sufficient food and supplies for the influx of needy children, clothing was always in short supply and they now had four school teachers, each teaching two classes a day!
They no longer could feed all the children in the dining room, they had built a dining hall next to the ranch house that had its own kitchen facilities in it. The building was lit with kerosene lanterns and was turned into a school room when meals were not being served.
They had scraped out two more ball fields and, if they could find some basketballs, they already had the baskets and the backstops for them.
There had always been a dam on the creek for swimming, and they had cleaned the area up and made a trail down the canyon so the children could go swimming, as long as there were some adults who would act as lifeguards.
The carpenters had discovered two commercial washing machines at a Laundromat in Eager and they had struggled for a week hauling them to The Ranch. It was fortunate that the farm supply store in Eager had a 50,000 gallon tank nearly full of almost fresh diesel, at the rate they were having to run the generator, their own supply would not have lasted long.
They mounted a five thousand gallon tank on the wagon and began moving the diesel fuel up to The Ranch immediately. It took them three weeks of trips to get that much fuel moved, but they all figured it was labor worth the effort.
Clothing was the most critical need and they began to branch out as far as St. Johns and Joseph City looking for clothing for the kids. There were abandoned farming communities and ranches where it seemed like the inhabitants had just walked off and left everything behind.
They found very few girls' clothing, but the girls didn't mind much, jeans were easier when riding a horse than a frilly dress and those girls who wanted to play baseball with the boys would need jeans anyway!
DARK TIMES
Not all was sweetness and light, they heard stories about raiders who were stealing everything from the outlying farms and were enslaving the people living there. Dan had warned them several times about the raiders and Doc had sent some Indian Warriors over to help stand watch at night. The Warriors came with their families, so they were protecting both. They would stand watch at night, carrying a rifle, with a pistol hanging loose on their belt.
There were always two shotguns, both of them loaded with double ought buckshot on the porch and, frequently some of the older boys would stand guard at night with their Indian friends. There were some friendships that would last well into their old age!
The Ranch had several large dogs that were terrors unto themselves, they were likely part wolf and ran about 150 pounds. Not only were they highly territorial, they were insanely possessive about the kids living at the Ranch. A small child could ride on one of them, laughing gleefully, but let that child call out in fright and the "nice doggie" became a raging beast with sharp teeth and a terrible temper towards whatever had frightened the child!
It was not unusual to see several sets of glowing yellow eyes wandering around the Ranch after dark. During the daytime, those same monstrous canines were playing with the children, allowing almost any indignity meekly as lambs.
The one critter they would not allow anywhere on the ranch was a rattlesnake, if it would not go away, it was dead! No dog was ever killed by a rattlesnake, but plenty of dead snakes were brought to the back door in exchange for a treat, a ham bone or even a chunk of raw beef!
They had just bedded down the children for the night and the adults were getting ready to do the same, when they heard the roar of motorcycles coming up the entrance road. A blast of a quarter stick of dynamite took care of their gate, and the motorcycles roared into the front yard. There was a lot of rough talk about what they were gonna do with the fresh young babies inside.
The adults were passing out the rifles and shotguns as the screams began. One rider screamed, "WOLVES" and then began gurgling as that "Wolf" had him by the throat, ripping it out! When it was all over, they counted twelve motorcycle rider bodies and no wolf bodies!
Robby got on the radio and notified Dan at the White River Highway Patrol Office, Dan asked only one question, "Did any of them get away?"
Robby replied, "Nope!" Dan told them they would send a pickup over the next day for the bodies, if they had time, otherwise it would be at least a day later. They were to stack the bodies in the shade and ignore them.
Dan had seen the dogs at the Ranch and he shuddered at what the bodies were going to look like. He was NOT wrong! When the dogs had finally finished mauling the gangbangers, they calmly lifted their legs and get go a stream of yellow urine, marking just WHO had killed that particular motorcyclist!
When the Highway Patrol Troopers finally got there, they laughed and asked Robby to blade a deep ditch away from the creek and the springs and push the bodies into it before 'dozing the soil back over the hole!
They were not bothered again for several months, then there was a probe by another group of motorcycle riders to see if the dogs had relaxed their vigilance. They had not!
There were no survivors to report back about the success or failure of the second probe. However, there were three more motorcyclists who were dead in various stages of dismemberment, all stacked up under an oak tree!
All the motorcycles were donated to the Highway Patrol, it looked like things were going to be tough for a very long time, and parts for their own motorcycles were already getting hard to obtain.
Meanwhile, the kid population had risen to three hundred children and, again, they were out of room. The Tribal Police helped temporarily by bringing three bivouac tents that held fifty children each. Again, they needed to scrounge through the abandoned towns for supplies to build yet more housing. No child was going to be turned away just because there was insufficient room for them!
They were gaining a reputation and older boys, needing a home, were beginning arrive. It was a good thing, they were milking over a hundred cows and the beef herd was over a thousand head! They were entering their third year since the bombs and the herds were growing. Fortunately, they were growing and keeping pace with the kid herd.
Miss Jenny, an older woman they had found wandering through one of the towns, had worked in a cheese shop for many years and had an idea that she could make cheese for the children. She had given a list to the scroungers for the things she needed to start fermenting cheese.
Piece by piece, she assembled the things she needed and one day, there was a wheel of white farmer's cheese on the table. By the end of the meal, there was only crumbs left and those lasted only a few moments longer! That was her first attempt, she got better as time went by and her popularity grew with every wheel of cheese!
They had been given gifts of swine, poultry and sheep and they all had to be tended. Gifts of seeds came in daily and it was a good thing, with that many children, the ten acres of garden space was none too large. They had collected milking machines from every abandoned farm in a hundred mile radius and they were learning how to make cheese and yogurt. People would come from as far away as Show Low to buy their cheese and yogurts from Miss Betty, every penny of income was needed for clothing and shoes.
Jessie had to give up classroom teaching, she now was head of the housekeeping department. They now were schooling children through the 8th grade and were looking for a way to extend that through high school. They had the rooms for the extra grades, but they needed to find desks and chairs for the students. Pencils and paper were in short supply, but, little by little, the things they needed began to accrue.
The older boys helped work the farm, they had become expert horsemen and a steer gone wild didn't have a chance, before he ever tried to run, there were at least three ropes already over his head!
Older boys ran the tractors, while somewhat younger teens ran the rototillers. What they couldn't eat, the kitchen crew canned for use during the winter. Robinson Ranch was a self-sustaining operation that catered to the needs of homeless children.
Children came from as far away as Salt Lake City and many came over the mountains from the West Coast. As the government got back on its feet, several agencies attempted to take over operation of the Ranch, they were met with shotguns and angry locals, all ready to do battle for "their kids"!
The Robinson Ranch was on deeded land within the Reservation and the Apache Tribe would allow no interference with the children OR their school! Most knew a standoff when they saw one, but one group thought they knew better and decided they would come in at night and take over, by morning, it would be a done deal.
They had no knowledge of the Ranch Dogs and the boys who backed them up. No government agent lost his or her life, but there were more than just a few, who would never sleep easy again, nor would they ever walk down a darkened street! Many would wake up nights, screaming, sure they could feel the hot breath of those wolves on their necks!
Finally, a truce was arranged, the government agreed to leave the Ranch alone and the Ranch agreed to continue taking in homeless children. The "Darktimes" came to an end when Robby and Buddy scrambled together enough funds and materials to build a high school.
They placed it up in the old town of Greer and built dormitories that students could come from other areas to go to school. Right from the beginning, Robinson Ranch High School had a reputation of excellence, students applied from all over the Western United States, Western Canada and Northern Mexico. There were even some students from Hawaii! The paint would hardly be dry when a new dormitory was opened and students took up residence. There were waiting lists of children whose parents had enrolled them at birth in order to get them a place at Ranch High School!
All through this, however, a streak of sadness flowed. Jake Robinson was still missing and his body had never been found. Local Ranger Scouts would, each summer, spend their time searching for some sign of Jake Robinson, but no information was found. Robby, Buddy, George and Rog would read every report the Ranger Scouts turned in, hoping to spot some tidbit of information that would lead them to Jake. They never gave up hope and many summers, they would go along with the Scouts in their search for Jake Robinson.
The Ranger Scouts were patterned after the traditional Indian Tribal Scouts and nearly every boy who had reached the age of twelve years, joined up on his birthday! Those boys who had reached twenty-one years old became Senior Ranger Scouts and advisors to the younger boys.
They were so impressed with the Ranger Scouts, they asked the Tribal Council for a Troop Number and they ended up with a Ranger Scout Troop and a Junior Ranger Scout Troop. Both troops had waiting lists to join.
GOOD TIMES
As the Ranch grew in both size and prestige, the Family, Robby, Buddy, Roger and George became aware they needed the expertise to manage a world class company. Robby and Buddy went first, they began at Northern Arizona University that was located at Flagstaff.
The State University of Arizona in Phoenix and The University of Arizona in Tucson had both been totally destroyed and would never be rebuilt. The land around both sites still glowed blue at night and would do so for generations to come.
At NAU, they excelled and the two graduated number one and number two in their class, despite never having completed High School! Buddy had specialized in Business Management and Robby in Childhood Education and Development.
The two men returned to the Ranch and embarked upon an outreach program that would see satellite facilities established as far away as Saint Louis and an application had been received from a group in Hawaii to begin an affiliated program in Honolulu.
By the time Roger and George had completed their Sophomore Year at NAU, the Robinson Ranch System was caring for 40,000 children in the United States alone and they were beginning to open international affiliates.
Roger and George decided to tour California during the summer between their Junior and Senior year at NAU. They toured Robinson Ranch Affiliated Children's Facilities all over the southern part of California and they happened upon a hospital set in the beautiful Redwoods of the Big Sur, one of the few places in that state that did not glow at night from the bombs.
The hospital cared for children and adults who had suffered debilitating injuries and needed intensive rehabilitation or who would need custodial care for the rest of their lives.
They were having coffee with the Administrator when several patients were wheeled in for their mid-morning snack. The patients were all clean and well cared for. Many of them were laughing and joking with their caregivers. The entire facility was more like a large, extended family than a custodial care facility.
Roger and George were interested in how the facility cared for such patients as they planned on specializing in long term care and rehabilitation. As they watched, the adult patients were gently given their snack and those that could, were given coffee to drink. Each patient had a caregiver who would assist them, whenever needed, while, at the same time, encouraging the patient to do as much as possible for themselves.
They both could not help but stare at one man; suddenly, Roger could not stop himself, he screamed out, "PAPA!"
The man looked up and the light of recognition went off in his face like a bomb, the man replied, "ROGER?"
To say that all Hell broke loose did not even come close. Pure pandemonium reigned! Roger and George dove across the tables to reach the man in the wheelchair, tables, cutlery, water glasses and food went flying as they clawed their way across the tables. The Administrator looked dumbstruck as his guests sat on the floor holding one of his patients and crying.
The man they were holding had not spoken a word since he had been brought to the hospital several years previously and they were not even sure who he was!
Roger looked up through his tears and said, "This man is Jacob Daly Robinson, Founder of Robinson Farms and Schools!" He is MY DADDY! Roger was like his older brother, a large man and hands as big as pie plates. He held Jacob in his arms, rocking him back and forth on his lap.
George was frantically looking for a telephone, he drove a poor secretary from her desk as he wildly dialed the number of the front desk at Robinson Ranch!
TBC
I suspect there are going to be some overheated telephone wires very soon!