The Scales

by Paul Sating

  Serenity swallowed, feeling like she was pushing a bulging cotton ball down her throat. “The Screecher can be defeated? How?” She wanted to add, ‘Why didn’t you tell me that the first damned time Patch brought me out here?’ but thought that might be a little too aggressive. The military-grade weapons and armor convinced her she’d been wrong about George’s intentions all along.

  George tipped his head to the side. “In a way of speaking, but, yes, it can be. In fact, now is the time to act, for reasons you’ll come to understand, but it’s going to take great sacrifice on everyone’s part, including my people. Saving your family from the Black Suits is linked with the Screecher. We’ll help, but there are things you need to know.”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.” George limped past, his movement as lethargic as lava flowing laterally. He called to the man who stood guard, “Have the boys finish loading up. Tell them I want them ready by the time I’m done.”

  “Okay, George,” the man said, still watching Serenity.

  “Let’s head to my house,” George said without pausing. “It’s hot and I’m ready for a cup of tea. As you can imagine, we had an early morning, and I’m not as spry as I used to be. All of this has…” He sighed like his heart had just been broken by his first love. “Taken a toll on me.”

  They crossed the open yard to George’s house. The sun continued its journey skyward. The air smelled stale. Sweat trickled down Serenity’s spine, into the elastic rim of her shorts. Whatever plan these two old men were hatching, the day was going to be sticky and miserable. She thought of her family and hoped they were somewhere comfortable. That was the least the Black Suits could do for them. Please tell me they’re not suffering.

  They stepped inside George’s house, and he ordered one of the ever-present young tenders to get tea for everyone. The young man complied while the other remained in the room. “Let’s sit at the table,” George said. “I may need the extra space to explain everything. Nebi, please grab the journal for me.”

  “Are you sure?” the remaining guard asked. It was the first time Serenity had seen anyone in the tribe question George.

  No emotion painted George’s face. His eyes took on a stoicism that communicated a thousand words in an instant. Serenity looked away as Nebi raced off, embarrassed for him. The unnamed guard returned with a tray bearing tall glasses of lightly colored brown tea. Condensation droplets already ran trails toward the tray. The escort handed everyone a drink and stepped back, close enough to respond to anything his leader needed.

  George smacked his lips after taking a long sip, the ice cubes clinked against the glass. “That’s refreshing. Wouldn’t you say? Helps to stay hydrated on days like today. It’s going to be a scorcher, for sure.”

  Serenity waited. George was so frustrating. This had to be a test. This time, though, she was ready. No more reacting like before. Her family depended on her.

  George said, “I imagine you’re worried about your mother and brother? Patch is correct about some things, though. As annoying as that old bastard is, he wouldn’t dare mislead you. The Black Suits won’t kill your family.”

  “How do you know for sure?” she asked.

  “Because, your mother is a pawn to use against you. And your brother has seen the water spirit. They want her alive to tempt you into helping them. Your brother? They’ll try to get as much information out of him as possible. I fear, he’ll be worse off for it, but they will not kill him.” He capped the top of his cane with both hands. When he spoke, there was a solid tenderness to his voice. “Please believe me, Serenity. They’ll be safe and secure. We have time, and we need to use it to draw out a thorough plan. If you want them back, you’ll need to be patient.”

  “Of course, I want them back!”

  “Then…patience.” George reached across the table and patted her hand.

  She clenched her jaw and listened.

  “At your age, diligence isn’t the easiest of attributes to acquire, but I’m going to ask you to try, anyway. We get one chance at this, Serenity. One. If we don’t do this right, if we don’t plan carefully, we put your loved ones in harm’s way. And none of us want that.”

  “Remember what I said,” Patch said. “If’n we take care of the Screecher, we take care of the Black Suits. Not just this batch, but we’d be giving them a reason to never send another crew of ‘em to the Counties ever again.”

  She drew a long, deep breath. “Okay. How do we do that?”

  Nebi walked into the room carrying an immense, thick book covered in battered brown, leather. It had to be at least three feet long and a foot and a half wide. He gingerly set it on the table in front of George and backed away. All eyes turned to the massive centerpiece.

  “This is everything my people know about the water spirit.” George spun it around with half the care Nebi had shown. “A collection of fables, lore, stories; whatever you want to call them. They’re not news reports, not in the sense that people in town would be accustomed, because they’re our stories, our history with the creature you call the Screecher.”

  Serenity laid a reverent hand on the leather cover. It felt dry, rough. “But you’ve already shown me the history. What else is there?"

  George watched her carefully. “Do you know what an origin story is?”

  “It’s how something or someone came about.”

  George pointed a finger at her. “Yes! Everything has an origin story, even gods. Whether they’re Eastern, Western, ours, it doesn’t matter. Everything has a beginning, as surely as the water spirit does. It was here long before our people, so no one can be sure how it came to be, but we can be sure that it is. If it has a beginning, it must also have an end. To stop this creature from doing more harm, you need to understand it. Do you trust me when I say your family is safe? Because, without that, you won’t be able understand what needs to be done. Do you really trust me?”

  Serenity replied, “Yes.”

  27

  They moved to George’s living room. He needed to get comfortable. Blaming his bones and joints, George suggested Serenity enjoy her youthful flexibility while she had it. Tea was set out even before they sat, so he wouldn’t have to call on Nebi or Chetan, not that it mattered. Chetan said less than Nebi. But now knowing his name made her feel like they cared enough to open to her, extending a helping hand with a tiny gesture.

  “Better.” George sighed as he leaned into the chair. In slow motion, his eyes found her. “Once you hear what I must tell you, things will be different. You’ll be free of the Screecher, as you know it, but your life will never be the same. I’m sorry.”

  Serenity never thought to ask what he meant.

  ***

  Nebi and Chetan hovered close to George. The low hum of the air conditioning unit filled the room with its attempt to fight a good fight against the desert heat; one it would never win. A clock Serenity couldn’t see ticked the rhythm. Patch shifted in the chair. The room held a tension that could splinter the walls. She tried to relax enough to pay attention, but that was beyond her current capabilities. The air almost crackled with excitement. Everything tipped on a razor’s edge, and it was a struggle to focus.

  When George spoke, Serenity’s life changed.

  ***

  “Atsidi Hardin was a wonderfully skilled wood-worker in the late 19th century. The tribe was proud of him and his works, of the beauty he brought into the world. Look here.” George pointed at the open page. Frail, grainy pictures of totems, chairs, tables, plaques, art of all sorts, filled the two pages. “That’s Atsidi’s work. He was a proud man. Stubborn, but damn proud. And he had every right to be when it came to his work. Sadly, it was his pride that led to his downfall.” George flipped the page and Serenity winced as paper and plastic laminate cracked. “That’s him.”

  Serenity stared into the eyes of one of the tribe’s ancestors. Atsidi was tall and thin, with long, deep black hair that fell below his elbows. Prominent cheekbones jutted from below a pair of sharp,
inset eyes. His nose was wide as if stretched in a permanent snort, almost as wide as his full lips. Atsidi held a chisel in one hand and a thick log in the other, his forearms rippled with layers of muscle.

  “Forever stubborn and proud, according to our stories. Even as a child,” George continued. “Was supposed to follow in his father’s footsteps and be a blacksmith for our people. But he took a liking to wood early on. His father was only convinced after he saw what Atsidi created. Everyone saw the talent. The reservation was much smaller. Nowadays, everyone in the tribe knows each other well enough, but back then the members must have had intimate knowledge of one another. How could they not? There were barely seventy of us at that time. Can you imagine?

  “Anyway, Atsidi was born into poverty, like all of us. There wasn’t much to look forward to. Nothing much happening besides boozing and brawling. But our ancestors had the advantage of a decent trade route that went through here thanks to folks heading west, toward the ocean. That trading kept Rotisserie alive. Not for everyone though, especially people with brown skin. We’ve always been the mud on the heels of white people. Until the recent past, we weren’t allowed to go into town and take part in the trading. The white man didn’t take to us doing that. We had to be very careful and had to get permission first. Like today, there wasn’t much in the way of farming, so people had to develop creative skills. Unfortunately for him, Atsidi’s father wasn’t the best at his craft. The family struggled, even more than our typical struggles. Supplemented his earnings by becoming a hired hand for the white man in the village. Degrading work, but it allowed him to provide for his family. Atsidi didn’t understand what his father did until he was older. It was a source of shame.”

  The bags under George’s ancient eyes sagged. George sipped his tea and then continued. “Struggling to survive, day in and day out, confined to this fruitless slice of geography by the people who’d taken it from you. Horrible. There are no records of his family’s tribal name, sadly, washed away like too much of our history, but the Hardins were a poor if not hard-working family. The truth of life is that, sometimes, no amount of work overcomes poverty. Sometimes there is no way out, no matter how hard someone tries. Poverty can be like that, a pit, too high to climb out of. Of course, those looking down into the pit don’t see it that way, but they have the luxury of not dirtying their hands trying to climb out. The perspective is a lot different when you’re standing in inches of cool, muddy earth, looking toward the open sky, hoping you can breathe fresh air again.

  “Atsidi’s father died when he was young. Hunting accident, the records say. Accident or not, his father’s death changed Atsidi, as you can imagine it would. He was already a boy on the verge of becoming another early Native American stereotype for modern people to point at as evidence to ridicule before he spiraled. Drinking, smoking, fighting; Atsidi did it all. Then something changed for the worse.”

  “What?” Serenity asked, unsure where this was going but simultaneously fascinated. “What changed and what does this have to do with my family?”

  “You have to understand,” George said, “All of this was always our land.” George’s smile transformed his face into that of a young boy. Serenity returned it. “Once he got older, Atsidi grew even more rebellious. He stopped listening to his mother and the few men he respected. And he even stopped following the orders of those who served as elders. He was very much a wild stallion; the type you could only hope to contain, not control.

  “He must have felt suffocated by living on the reservation, because he started venturing out. Now, remember, Rotisserie didn’t stretch out as far as it does today. Was barely a town. It was much smaller back then, which required us to travel further. Atsidi, it seems, gained quite the reputation for abandoning the reservation to travel into town and get involved in insidious activities.”

  “Like what?” Serenity couldn’t imagine anything insidious happening in Rotisserie, then or today. Black Suits and giant monsters aside.

  George tipped his head to the side with a frown stretching across his face. “He was a stain on the tribe. If he cared about his people, that didn’t stop him from getting in trouble. The tribal leaders were worried, our stories say. By rights too, if you ask me. But Atsidi didn’t care. We have records—” George flipped through a few pages before turning the book around again, “There, see? Records of meetings the tribe’s leaders held to discuss disciplinary actions. They saw his promise, what kind of man he could be. They believed in him. Atsidi came from good blood. His father might not have been the cleverest, or even the most valuable member of the tribe, but he gave more than he took. The same couldn’t be said for his son.” George flipped a few more pages, poking what looked like a scribbled note with his finger, “One day they decided they’d had enough.

  “You see.” George sank into the chair cushion. “The day came, as they do for wayward young men, when Atsidi became a destructive force in perpetual motion. A time when he disobeyed every single authority figure. Rode into town one morning and details are sketchy, but something happened, the kind of something young men filled with alcohol are prone to create. Atsidi was thrown out of a saloon and got into a brawl in the middle of the street. He injured a number of white men, and that was one of the worst things a native could do, especially back then. Even the perception of harming a white man was serious. The fact that Atsidi beat no less than three men did him no favors. They jailed him.”

  Serenity held up a hand. After her recent disrespect toward George, she hoped he didn't perceive the gesture as another slight, but she needed to understand before he filled her head with more of Atsidi’s story. “He was targeted and fought back and then was arrested for protecting himself?”

  George frowned. “Who said life had anything to do with fairness? Life doesn’t care about feelings. And the Tri-Counties have been paying ever since.”

  Serenity leaned closer as if the shorter distance would draw out the reason George was telling her all of this. “I don’t understand.”

  George glanced at Patch. This wasn’t two old friends sending silent signals to each other. She was on the verge of gaining access to something few knew. She’d met unspoken requirements and proven herself ready for the next stage.

  “Atsidi’s story,” George said after a deep sigh, “doesn’t end there. In a way, the story of my people’s legacy begins there.”

  “The story of the Tri-Counties too,” Patch piped.

  “True, my dear, old friend.”

  Serenity rubbed her temple. Her head throbbed from the persistent flow of adrenaline. “I don’t understand. All of this.” She swirled her finger in a downward circular motion. “Has something to do with everything that’s going on, I know that. You wouldn’t be telling me all of this about someone, no disrespect, who lived generations ago if it didn’t matter somehow. Please.” Her cheeks burned. “What am I missing, George…can I call you that?”

  The leader of Rotisserie’s native people laughed. “Everyone on this reservation bows whenever I sneeze; it’s nice to run across someone who treats me like a human being instead of a deity. I can’t even count on Patch for that.”

  The two friends shared a laugh.

  “Then, George, what does this have to do with me and my family? Why is Atsidi so important you need to tell me so much about him?”

  “Because.” George’s smile vanished. “Atsidi is the Screecher.”

  28

  The sounds of the world thickened with slight shuffling of clothes, the incessant whirring of the struggling air conditioning, the subversive ticking of the hidden clock. Even Chetan and Nebi looked uncomfortable, shifting glances exchanged between the pair.

  But all of that disappeared behind the weight of George’s revelation.

  Serenity struggled, and failed, to pick out the right words to say. What could be said when the horror that haunted your dreams was named?

  And its name was human.

  “Wha—what?” Her voice was foreign to her own ears.<
br />
  Patch coughed on his tea. “Look what you’ve gone and done now, George. I told you to stop doing that to people. Ease them into this. Especially us non-natives. You’re old enough to know better than to do that to her.”

  George smirked behind his own tea, finishing it off and requesting a refill. Nebi brought a transparent plastic bucket half-filled with ice, dropped a few cubes in and refreshed the glass. “I fear I’m too old to learn, my friend. Though, I agree. I’m sorry, Serenity. Some dogs are incapable of learning new tricks.”

  None of the connections linked. No matter how much she struggled against them, they resisted making sense of what George had said. “It’s fine. It’s just a lot to take in.”

  Both men agreed, but it was George who spoke up first. “I can only imagine what’s going through your head. I’m sorry for jumping ahead like that”

  The next couple minutes were going to shift everything, the way earthquake-born tsunami’s overwhelmed entire coastlines and tornadoes ripped apart farmland communities. The lucky people who survived those types of life-changing events never saw the world the same again.

  “George, I’m trying to help my family. Please, I'd like to hear whatever you have to tell me.”

  When he didn’t answer, she looked to Patch to spur the conversation.

  Patch’s eyes never left hers. They bore into her, but she didn’t quiver. Instead, she locked gazes with him. He intertwined his fingers. After a pause that lasted an eternity, he looked at George but nodded in Serenity’s direction, “Tell her.”

  George did. “Atsidi got arrested for that street fight. One of the men he beat up died. You don’t go killing a man, even in the ‘wild, wild west,’ and get away with it. Not when there are a hundred witnesses, and none of them are happy that you’re the one who came out on top. An Indian, drunk, killing a white man? No, he was never leaving the town alive.”