The Protectors (4 page)

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

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

Clay look
s 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 hesitate
s 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 counterpoint 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 suppose
d 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 appe
ared this morning," Grandpa says.

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

"A simpleton," Grandpa explain
s. "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?" hisse
s Clay. "So this stranger has a name. What's his story?"

"Hard to say," sa
ys 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 barri
ers and booby-traps?" Clay asks.

"If you're careful you c
an 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 clap
s 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 d
on'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," holler
s 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 sa
ys 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 s
teal 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 grumble
s 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 sa
y, "but even animals find a way to survive. He's obviously strong and good at hiding."

She grunt
s 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," quip
s 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," sa
ys Broily, but he drops his eyes.

"Besides," ad
s 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 cr
y. "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 e
veryone eventually adapted to the presence of the big man and incorporated him into the fabric of our lives. Everyone that is except Mother.