The Protectors

by King, Ryan

  "I need your help," I say.

  He takes off his spectacles and lays them carefully on the table. "What is it?"

  I don't answer, instead I go back out the door and then coax a downcast Victor into the workshop. He had to lower his head to get under the doorway.

  "Good God Almighty," says Grandpa slowly his eyes wide.

  "I found him under one of the Dead Houses. He's cold and hungry. I don't really think he's all there in the head."

  Victor had started to moan and rock back and forth avoiding both our intent gazes. Soon he was tilting his long tube up and down.

  "I'll be," says Grandpa, "a rainmaker."

  The big man peers at Grandpa in surprise and nods vigorously. "Rainmaker. Victor's."

  "Your name's Victor? Where did you come from?" asks Grandpa.

  Victor looks away, his head droping down even further like some of the cowed dogs I have seen.

  "It's like he's expecting to get beaten," I say.

  "He probably is," Grandpa answers. "Kindness is not something that's easy to find anymore. I'm guessing he's just wandering around, finding food and shelter where he can. It's a wonder he's even been able to survive."

  I was starting to get an idea. "Can we --"

  Mother walks in and stops. Her eyes flare wide going from Grandpa and me to Victor. She pulls a small slender knife from inside a sleeve. I had no idea she even carried a knife. Another in a long list of things I don't know about my mother I think. She is slowly turning to face the big man.

  I step between them. "Mother, it's okay. This is Victor. I found him. He's just cold and hungry, can we help him?"

  "Where're you from?" she asks Victor suspiciously while edging around me towards Victor.

  "Victor," he says. "Hungry."

  "You'll have bigger things to worry about if the Shriekers find you," she says. "Matter of fact so will we. Better turn him in."

  "No!" I cry. "He's not a danger to them. Could be a help. Look how big and strong he is, he'd be good in the fields."

  "Teal," Mother says slowly. "We can't hide him, we have to tell the Shriekers."

  "But they'll just kill him," I cry.

  "I'll go talk to them," says Grandpa. "I'll speak with Clay. He'll listen to me, I think."

  "Father," pleads mother. "You don't have to do that. We can just give him some food and send him away from the town if we don't want to turn him in.

  "Winter is coming on," I say. "He'll freeze or starve."

  Mother puts her knife away. "Looks like he's managed to survive a few winters. He'll be okay. He's not a lost sheep or stray dog."

  I start to protest, but Grandpa holds up a hand. "Let's not decide this right now. If we sneak him out we'll have to wait for nightfall anyway. Teal, you need to get to Morning Shift or there will definitely be trouble."

  For the first time mother looks afraid. She rushes out of the shed and then returns several minutes later. She pushes a pair of good thick mittens she'd made into my hands. "Give these to Reaper when you show up. Tell him I was feeling poorly and you had to help me. I don't think he'll report you."

  "Especially if he thinks I might Take the Chit from him," I say.

  "Don't do that," says Grandpa sternly. "I know what you're thinking and it's extremely dangerous. Do not give that man any indication you're thinking about going with him. If he feels led on it could be bad for all of us."

  I tuck the gloves into my belt. "You'll feed and hide Victor? Not send him away or turn him in?"

  Mother starts to answer but Grandpa jumps in. "No promises, but we don't have to decide now. You'll get your say in this, now go."

  I hesitate, looking at Victor, but then take off at a run.

  "You coddle her far too much," I hear Mother say as I rush through the gate.

  Mother is wrong about that. Though it turned out she wasn't wrong about Reaper. He took mother's bribe and didn't report me.

  *******

  I feel nervous pushing Grandpa up to the Shrieker House. Mother offered to go instead of me, but Grandpa said I should go since I had found Victor. Mother didn't protest too vigorously and seemed relieved.

  Of course I had seen Clay before, everyone had, but we would be actually meeting with the man. He was the original founder of the Shriekers and had brought them to Newton after the End. He had lived through the Dark Times and beaten down the town in the Rebellion. He had also taken Grandpa's legs.

  "You think Victor will be okay with Mother?"

  "For the hundredth time, yes. It's not like she's going to cook him and eat him, "snaps Grandpa. "Your big new pet will be just fine. Better than us probably."

  Grandpa's irritation frightens me. He is always patient and kind. I realize that he is nervous as well, and for the first time I fear that I might have put my family in grave danger. It is never good to draw attention to yourself.

  I push the wheelchair down the center of the old road. Boarded and burned out storefronts line up on either side. Most people use the sidewalks, but the buckled and wore pavement is far too broken for the wheelchair. The town seems to hold its breath and I fell hundreds of eyes upon us.

  The Shrieker House is to the front just off from the ancient courthouse. The old motorcycle relics rise up out of the dirt and weeds. The Chit Girls daily go out and clean the metal Artifacts and polish the chrome, but even so, they are rusting away.

  Skull is at the front of the Shrieker House and I inwardly groan. He always keeps his face painted in the image of a skull. No one knew where he was able to obtain the paint, but the color didn't seem to matter. Today it was a hot pink.

  "What you want, No Legs?" he asks once we have drawn up close. He flicks the tip of a whip around on the ground before him.

  "I'd like to talk to Clay, please," Grandpa says. "It's a matter of some importance."

  "I'll be the judge of that," says Skull.

  Grandpa shakes his head, "It's really only something I can talk with --"

  His words are cut off by the crack of the whip across the side of Grandpa's head. I felt the wind of the whip breeze by my hand before I even know what has happened. Skull stands there smirking with the whip end dancing at his feet again.

  "You were saying?" Skull asks.

  Slowly Grandpa unwraps his fists from his armrests. Although a light trickled of blood is running down his head, Grandpa doesn't reach up to touch the wound. "This is a matter for the Protector Father. The Treaty clearly says --"

  I can see Skull is tensed up for another strike and I scream out without thinking. "No! Stop it!"

  Skull's focus changes and the whip end flips over Grandpa's head to strike my face, but I see it in time and duck. When I look up Skull is no longer smiling. He is angry.

  "What the hell is all this commotion?" demands a tall lean man with blue eyes and closely cropped blond hair.

  Skull turns in surprise. "Nothing to bother you with, boss. Just a couple of trouble-makers."

  "I need to talk to you," Grandpa says. "In private, please. You know I wouldn't come to you if it wasn't important."

  Clay looks at Grandpa and then pointedly at the man's missing legs. "I suspect you wouldn't. Alright then, come on in." He walks back inside waving us to follow him.

  Grandpa hesitates a few seconds and then lifts himself out of the chair dropping to the ground. "Bring the chair up please, Teal." He uses his powerful arms to lever himself up the front steps of the house past a glowering Skull.

  I follow, dragging the chair to the top and then opening it again so Grandpa can climb back up. Quickly pushing the wheelchair away from Skull's menacing look, I look around. Inside is a large room filled with rotting couches and old rugs. The walls are covered in crude and amateurish graffiti and drawings. Several women wearing chits are cleaning the room and preparing food in an adjacent area.

  "In here," yells Clay from down the hall. "Step into my office."

  I push Grandpa into a wood-paneled room with an imposing dark mahogany desk. The office is a counte
rpoint to the room we just passed through. Light from a large window behind the desk drifts down onto clean and neat surfaces. I notice Grandpa staring at a framed document on the wall with what looks like signatures at the bottom. There is even a tall bookshelf to the right filled with impressive looking volumes. I stare in wonder.

  "They're just paper with words on them," says Clay catching my interest. "Nothing magical about them."

  "Then why do you keep them?" I ask impulsively.

  "Teal," hisses Grandpa warningly.

  Clay grunts and walks around the desk to stand before me. One hand rests on the hilt of the large knife at his belt while the other touches a lock of my dark hair. "Teal," he says. "You must be Margaret's daughter."

  I force myself not to pull away. "Yes, sir."

  "And who is your father supposed to be?" he asks.

  "I don't rightly know," I answer. "Most people think you are."

  Clay shrugs. "Could be. Your age is about right and those were such confusing times."

  "A stranger appeared this morning," Grandpa says.

  Clay's hand drops from my hair and his smile vanishes. He focuses on Grandpa. "What?"

  "A simpleton," Grandpa explains. "Big and dumb and pathetic. Hardly worth fooling with, but he might be a help to everyone in the fields. He looks pretty strong."

  "When did you find him?" Clay leans menacingly over Grandpa.

  "Just today," I say. "We can take him into our family. With the extra work rations from what he can do, we should be okay. It will also help with the winter harvest."

  "I see," Clay says staring out the bay window. "You want to keep him. Do you just feel sorry for him or do you already have some sort of sad crush?"

  Confused, I wasn't sure how to answer. Truthfully, I don't know why it is so important for me to help Victor.

  "He can help," insists Grandpa. "And he's no threat to anyone."

  "Everyone can be a threat to anyone," answers Clay spinning to face them.

  "Not Victor," I insist.

  "Victor?" hisses Clay. "So this stranger has a name. What's his story?"

  "Hard to say," says Grandpa. "He doesn't seem to have the ability to speak coherently and it appears he's been treated badly. Obviously hasn't eaten in awhile."

  "How'd he get through the barriers and booby-traps?" Clay asks.

  "If you're careful you can safely make your way," I defend without thinking. "And many of the booby-traps are malfunctioning or long ago sprung."

  "And how would you possibly know that?" Clay shifts his icy eyes onto me.

  My mind nearly seizes up, but then I latch onto last summer. "One of the goats wandered off and I went into the Borderland to get him." It was at least part of the truth.

  Clay continues to stare at me skeptically.

  "He can stay with us," Grandpa says. "We'll look after him."

  "We don't have the luxury of charity. If he's not worth the effort, he goes. And you," Clay points at Grandpa, "are responsible for everything this Victor does or doesn't do. It's on your head however this works out, do you understand?"

  Grandpa's face hardens. "I do."

  "Okay then," Clay claps his hands together cheerfully. "Have our newest village idiot report to the Block Foreman for the north field tomorrow for Morning Shift. We'll see if he works out."

  "Thank you," I say.

  Clay looks me up and down. "My pleasure. Besides, now you owe me. And I always collect."

  My skin crawls, but I force myself to nod.

  "Now, if that's everything, I suggest you make your way home unless you want to get caught up in our nightly circus. It's always entertaining, but you might find yourself in the center ring."

  I don't know what he was talking about, but I knew I wanted out of Shrieker House. I pull Grandpa back out of the room and we both nod respectfully at the man who had already turned his attention to other work.

  Skull stood at the front door waiting for us. His whip was replaced by a long wooden baton.

  "Skull," hollers Clay from behind us. "Get in here."

  The pink painted man scowls and hits the side of the wheelchair savagely with his baton as he strides past.

  "Keep walking," Grandpa says as he hops out of his seat to make his way down the stairs. I drag the chair down and set it up quickly. Grandpa agilely climbs back in and I push him towards home, the old man's powerful arms helping on the wheels.

  I steal one glance back to see if Skull is watching us.

  Instead, it was Clay standing on the porch staring in our direction.

  *******

  I run into Skull the next week, literally. He strolled around the corner of the Newell's old drug store as I was headed home from milking. The wind had turned cold and my head was tucked down inside the edge of my coat so I ran right into the Protector.

  "Watch where the hell you're going," he grumbles and keeps moving.

  Fear gripped me only after he had moved away. I hadn't had time to be afraid, only gotten a brief glimpse of Skull, but it was enough to see the combination of white and green face paint. Even though the colors were laid on thickly, it couldn't totally hide the purple and yellow bruises on his face. I hurried home with my heart beating fast.

  We settled back into our routine. Mother found Victor some clothes and made him a pair of moccasins from old rabbit skins. I helped her bathe him and cut his hair that first night. The multitude of scars and burns on his body angered me.

  Mother didn't seem surprised. "It's a cruel world. I can't figure out how he's still alive at all."

  "He may not be all there in the head," I say, "but even animals find a way to survive. He's obviously strong and good at hiding."

  She grunts but looks skeptical. It was the same grunt she gave whenever she watched Victor eat. His appetite was in direct proportion to his ponderous size and his consumption of kudzu had already forced us to forage further afield. Normally we fought to keep the vine from overwhelming us, but Victor's eating was reversing the trend. Neighbors who rarely visited made of point of stopping by to see him shovel bowl after bowl of salad into his mouth before smiling and burping loudly.

  Victor turned out to have the strength of a young bull and was happy to work till he nearly dropped from exhaustion. He cheerfully endured the Protectors' ridicule, immune to most of the insults and taunts. The appearance of an adult man under the age of fifty who wasn't a Shrieker caused a great deal of combined apprehension and excitement among the Protected.

  Through it all, Victor was quiet and childlike and quickly assumed the role of pet among the town of Newton. He occupied a strange position slightly above the children, but beneath everyone else.

  Victor's rainmaker also made an impression on the community. Whenever he was scared, confused, or nervous, the big man would tilt the long cylinder first one way and then the other. At the Remembering, Victor entertained the children with the magical sound of falling water.

  Broily wanted to send the giant east with another entreaty for the Knights. The old man had painfully composed another note with his left hand and presented his idea after they had all gathered one night.

  "You better not let the Shriekers know you can still write," says Grandpa. "They'll take your other hand for sure, or your head."

  "And," quips a drunken Reuben, "there are no Knights of the Watch waiting to come help us. Get that into your goddamn head, you stupid fool."

  "You don't know that," says Broily, but he drops his eyes.

  "Besides," ads Grandpa, "Victor wouldn't know east from a frog. He'd as likely use your letter to wipe his butt as deliver it where you want...wherever that is."

  "And he's part of us now," I cry. "We can't just send him away. He's earning his keep."

  There were some murmurs at my entering the conversation of the Old Ones, but most seemed to agree with me. The idea died and everyone eventually adapted to the presence of the big man and incorporated him into the fabric of our lives. Everyone that is except Mother.

  She co
ntinued to watch and even try to question him.

  "Mother, please leave him alone," I plead. "Can't you see you're upsetting him?"

  "Something isn't right," Mother says.

  "What do you mean?" I ask.

  She just shook her head and went back to her knitting. In the days ahead I would catch her watching him distrustfully when she believed no one was looking. Until the day Victor saved me.

  Mother and I were in the garden and our shift was nearly over. Victor had taken to meeting us and accompanying us home for lunch before he would return to the north field. We were filing through the gate one at a time, carefully scrutinized by Reaper. Even before it happened, I sensed something was wrong. He wasn't groping any of the women or looking down their shirts.

  "Not you," he says to me. Mother had just passed through and she pauses to stare at me with fear in her eyes. "Step over there," he says indicating a secluded part of the garden while he continues to funnel the rest of the women and girls out of the garden.

  I look at Mother imploringly but move over to the corner of the garden under a peach tree long since picked clean for the year. I wait nervously as Reaper closes the gate and then walks over to me with a wicked grin.

  "You're quite the topic of conversation among the Shriekers, my little plum," he says. "Bidding is high for you. You should be flattered."

  "I thought a girl could pick who she Took the Chit from," I stammer.

  Reaper chuckles. "That's true, but once they do they can be traded or bought, you know that. Some girls we all get a taste of before they're worn out. You won't hear any complaints from them though. They're taken care of."

  The big man moves uncomfortably close to me.

  "I don't believe I'll Take the Chit," I say with more courage than I feel.

  He frowns. "Think you're too good for us, that it?"

  "No," I stammer backing away from him until my back rests against the wooden fence. "It's just that my family does okay and I don't need to. We manage."

  "What if you didn't manage? Wouldn't take much for your mother to lose her side job and without his mechanical shop your grandfather is just a waste of food. Life could get very hard for you. You need to plan for the future." He slips his hand inside the front of my shirt.