And we did.

We howled, we stamped, we raged. Valerie had been raped and she wanted revenge. Three of the other girls were howling for the same revenge as well. It made me embarrassed to be a man. I felt as if I had been raped too. I screamed with them. The children screamed and shrieked. I roared. Falstaff roared. The circle roared. We grabbed hold of all our emotions and shoved them out through our eyes and ears and throats and did it until we had no strength to do anything more-

-and then we held onto each other and we hugged. And we cried. And we kissed each other and laughed and petted each other's hair and reassured each other that it was all over and we were going to be all right again.

And then Valerie stopped us, brought us back down.

"All right; that's a good start. Now, we've got work to do. I know we didn't get all our screaming out yet, but we will when Jason gets back. Let's finish cleaning everything up and let's give ourselves a little dinner as well. All right?"

Valerie started dinner preparations and put everybody to work and we managed to get all the children cleaned and fed, bathed, and tucked into bed by ten.

And still Jason hadn't returned. Valerie and I looked at each other. Could something have happened to him?

No.

That was unthinkable.

Falstaff came back, his stomach rumbling and we let him eat several of the bikers. His farts were probably going to be awesome for the next few days.

Jason and Jessie and all the others, including Orrie and Orson, showed up after midnight. They looked exhausted.

They listened patiently as Valerie and I explained what had happened, and what we had done afterward.

Jason blew up then.

He was furious that we had brought back everybody from the emergency hiding places.

"You stupid, damned fool! I decentralized this camp for a purpose. I didn't want everybody here, exposed like bait! What do you think would have happened if the rest of the biker family had come in?"

"The rest of them-?" Jason nodded.

My stomach clenched. My heart dropped to my feet.

"This gang had over a hundred members. You had thirty of the worst ones here, but the rest of them were based down at Little Creek. They were going to come up here later tonight. They wanted this camp."

"Were? Past tense?"

Jason turned away from me, shaking his head. "It was a nasty, dirty job, Jim. You don't want to know. There were too many of them. We couldn't take any guests."

Jessie added, "There were fifty women and children and twenty warriors. We took them all down. The warriors first. Then the others. They forced us to. They wouldn't surrender."

"If we had failed," Jason said, "you would have had everyone and everything all in one place and totally defenseless." There was real anger in his voice.

I felt just as betrayed. "So, you really didn't trust me. Otherwise, you would have included me in your planning."

"I did include you," Jason said. "I put you in the right place for the right job."

"Yeah, you put me off in the far corner of nowhere, a place where I couldn't get into any trouble." I was fuming. "You should be thanking me, you asshole. I saved lives here. I did good here."

"You didn't follow instructions, Jim. I was depending on you to follow instructions. There was a purpose to my plan."

We were at the center of a circle. I didn't care. I said, "Jason, when I was in the Special Forces Warrant Agency, nobody ever gave me an order that I couldn't ask for the explanation behind it. That was a rule. My job wasn't to follow orders; it was to take responsibility for the result. There's a difference. Now, are you telling me that all you want me to do is follow orders, or do you want me to take responsibility."

"Don't hand me that jargon, Jim! I made it up!" He caught his breath. "Of course, I want you to take responsibility. But you don't realize what you did here, do you? You endangered lives. Do you also take responsibility for that?"

I threw my gun down at his feet and started to walk away. Frankenstein grabbed me by one arm and turned me around to face Jason. "I should have walked away from here when I had my chance," I said. "I thought I was part of this Tribe."

Abruptly, Jason's face changed. "Jim," he said quietly, "you never asked."

"I thought it was obvious."

"But, you have to ask. That's the rule." Jason's eyes were incredibly blue and patient.

I didn't know what to say to that.

"Guests don't get responsibility, Jim. They're guests. Hosts get responsibility. Is that what you want? Is that what you're demanding? To be a host? Because if that's what you want, the answer is yes. We've all been waiting for you to ask for it."

He waited for my reply.

I took a breath, I looked at my feet, I looked at the gun, I shrugged my arms away from Frankenstein's hands. I looked at my anger. I was stupid. Jason was right. I hadn't followed orders. And I did want responsibility. And I did want to be treated with respect and love. Yes, I did want to be an equal partner.

I was just afraid to ask for it.

"Why?" Jason asked. "Why not?"

"Because . . ." I looked up at him again. "I was afraid you'd say no."

"Oh, you poor stupid fool. Who hurt you so badly that you walk around through life believing you're not entitled to be loved?" He stepped over to me and wrapped me up in his big I'riendly arms and held me as hard as he could. Jessie wrapped her arms around us then, and Frankenstein, and everybody else as well.

"Jim," he held my face in his hands. "Around here, the answer is always yes. We never turn anybody away. We love you. We love you for your courage and strength and for everything you did right today. We even love you for what you did wrong, because we know why you did it. You did it because you care. I know you understand what I'm saying, Jim. I can see the tears running down your cheeks."

"Jason." I managed to gulp it out.

"Yes, Jim?"

"May I join the Tribe?"

"Yes, Jim. I'd like that." And he kissed me. They all kissed me.

It was one of the happiest moments of my life.

I lost count of the days.

It didn't matter anymore. I no longer marked time by what day it was, but by how the room was set up.

Every day, the chairs and the dais were arranged in a totally new pattern. We never saw the same arrangement twice.

One day, there might be a wide aisle down the center and the chairs all turned facing each other as if ready for a parade. The next day, all the chairs might be facing the blank wall toward the east. On the following day, there might be no dais at all and the chairs would be laid out in concentric circles around a wide arena. And the next day again, the arrangement would be different again.

At first, it had been confusing. I wasn't sure what the purpose was of rearranging the chairs every day; but after a while I had stopped being startled by the changes and begun being curious to see how many different variations they could run on the theme of chairs and a dais.

Today the room was set up with a high platform where the dais had been. It looked like a runway for a striptease show. The chairs were set up on both sides of the platform; they were divided into three sections on each side.