Born on the 4th of July

tunnels that had become catacombs.
He knew all this; he applauded the silent heroes of the past, and he would have loved to have known the good priest and the Rosser family member who had so secretly brought it all about.
But now . . .
It was creepy.
He wished he knew more about the silence. Some of the bodies were down to their shrouds and their bones. Some had actually been buried in poor coffins, decaying like all else now. Sometimes, the dead had been partially mummified. There were thin shrouds stretched over faces with sightless eyes and macabre, open mouths.
He felt something on his shoulder and nearly jumped a foot in the air.
It was Josh’s soft touch.
“Sorry!” Josh said quickly. “I just . . . well, it doesn’t matter, you know. We aren’t the bodies we have or the skin we wear. What makes us who we are is all that we keep in our hearts and our souls and our minds. I mean—” Josh paused, making a face, “I sure don’t want to know what my body looks like now, and to this day, I don’t know why some of us stay and some just go, but . . . I know this. These souls have gone on. What we see here . . . is only discarded clothing. Don’t let it upset you!”
Corby nodded and smiled. “I know why you’re here,” he told Josh. “Because you’re good and your dad and others needed you and . . . and I need you!”
“Always wanted a little brother,” Josh assured him. “We’ve got to keep moving. Well, cell phones may be worthless down here, but the flashlights in them are pretty darned good!”
They moved on, but as they did so, Corby nearly barged into Jon Dickson.
Dickson knelt, and while the light they had wasn’t much, Corby could see that he was frowning. “Adam?” he said, lifting fragile, stained material. “This isn’t an old corpse.”
“Oh, my God! One of the missing women,” Adam said.
“No,” Jon said, his tone puzzled. “It’s a man. I’m not a medical examiner, but . . . dead several months? Looks like . . .” He hesitated, pulling the shroud away. “Single bullet to the chest; there’s a massive stain in the area. Strange decomp down here. I’d say this man had been in his late thirties or early forties . . . business suit, white shirt, both stained in the chest area.”
“Shot and killed and dragged down here?” Adam asked.
Corby didn’t look; he didn’t want to see the man who hadn’t been down in the tunnels long. It was bad enough to see the remains of those who had been brought down here out of love.
Adam was knelt by Jon, inspecting the dead man. Corby felt Josh’s lighter-than-air touch again.
“I’m all right,” Corby assured Josh. “This is what these guys do. It’s what my mom and dad do—to make things right, they have to see things that are ugly.”
“Right.”
“I’m going to be like them when I grow up; I’m going to do what I can to stop awful people.”
“And you’ll know so much. You’ll be good at it,” Josh assured him.
Both Jon and Adam were standing.
“An accomplice who got in the way?” Jon murmured.
“Or just someone who got in the way,” Adam suggested.
“Well, we need to get going,” Jon murmured.
“They’re not going to kill Angela or Annie Green until they get their babies,” Adam said, and then he winced.  He should not have said that in front of Corby.
Jon looked at the young boy. “Adam is right; they’re not going to kill Angela or Annie until they have the babies.”
“Product!” Corby said, shaking his head with anger.
“We’ll find them!” Jon assured him.
They walked on. Corby began praying his mother knew these people had a gun—or guns. She would know. She would bide her time; she was so smart. And she was capable.
She was . . .
Taken. And she needed help. They had to save her.
They had to.
*
Angela wielded Papa Jim’s femur with determination and purpose. She caught Merissa Hatfield squarely in the stomach, right beneath the ribs. The woman shrieked in shock and pain, doubling over.
Angela took the opportunity to deliver a stunning blow to her head, causing her to fall to the ground, unconscious.
The ghost of Jennie Wilder stared at her.
“You wield a mean . . . bone,” she said. “You can—well, you’re tough. I was tough—honest. I had to be to survive, to make here, and then further north, but . . . you are tough.”
Angela smiled at her.
“And desperate!” she said softly.
She took a moment to look at Jennie, smiled and shook her head. “You were tougher than me! I can’t even imagine what running was like, the way you had to run. I can’t imagine desperately crawling through these tunnels—wait, sorry! I mean, I can’t imagine praying you got where you needed to be lest you be caught. And I can’t begin to imagine what it was like, coming out of the Civil War, forging a brave new world.”
Jennie smiled. “Well, the brave new world is forever being forged, right? But come on, we have to hurry. She’s down. He isn’t.”
Angela paused to hunker down and check on Merissa Hatfield. Her pulse was steady; she was going to be all right.
“You’re checking on the woman who wanted to kill you?” Jennie asked her.
Angela grimaced. “I’m not a judge or jury—and we may need her. Other people must be involved in this. I don’t have any cuffs, but I don’t want her coming to and coming after us.”
“A belt?” Jennie suggested. “The gentleman over there died in 1867. His name was Peter Martin. He was wearing a leather belt.”
“Thank you,” Angela murmured.
Peter Martin was draped in a decaying shroud as well. She winced inwardly as she lifted the shroud. The man had been entombed with a leather belt.
“How did you know?” Angela asked Jennie.
“He was my friend; I was here when we buried him.” She smiled weakly. “I promised him I’d be near him