The Protectors (5 page)

She continued 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 sa
ys 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 chuckle
s. "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 move
s uncomfortably close to me.

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

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

"No," I stammer backing away from him until my back rest
s 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 slip
s his hand inside the front of my shirt.

I tr
y to pull away. "I'm not sixteen yet."

Reaper
licks his lips, foul breath pushing down upon me. "I'm just going to test the wares, that's all. Let the boys know what the merchandize is worth. You wouldn't begrudge anyone that."

Before I c
an say anything, he nearly lifts me off the ground with his hand in my crotch. His big fingers are there probing, thrusting, hurting. "Stop!" I cry out. "You're hurting me."

"Shut up," he sa
ys burying his head in the opening of my shirt licking my neck.

I cr
y out again and struggled, but it's like pushing against a tree.

"Let her go," sa
ys Mother from behind Reaper.

He grunt
s in surprise and releases me. Turning he sees the small woman there with a slender knife in her hand. Fast as a cat, he punches out at her catching her flush in the face. Blood spouts from her nose and mouth as she crumbles to the ground.

Reaper stop
s to spit disdainfully on Mother's writhing form before turning back to me.

"No hurt
, Teal," says a childish voice from inside the garden. "Miss Margaret hurt?"

"Get out of here
, softhead," says Reaper, "or I'll put a beating on you too."

Victor ignore
s the Protector and helps Mother off the ground.

The
Shrieker appears genuinely angry now and he lets go of me. He swings his arm and his fist connects fully with the side of Victor's face. The big man's head rocks back, but he doesn't fall, only looks back at Reaper in slight surprise.

"Leave him alone," I
say.

Reaper backhand
s me absentmindedly and then turns back just in time to see Victor rushing upon him.

The giant wrap
s his arms around Reaper and squeezes him tightly. "Nohurtteal. Nohurtteal. Nohurtteal," he keeps saying over and over as the two men struggle and fall to the ground.

Reaper thrashe
s and bites at Victor until the big man lets him go. The Shrieker climbs to his feet red in the face and gasping. Picking up his whip with trembling fingers, Reaper starts hitting Victor again and again with all his might.

Victor squeal
s and tries to crawl away, but Reaper follows, striking Victor across the back, legs, arms, and head again and again until blood shows through torn clothing.

I rush towards the two, but f
eel Mother's arms around me, holding me back. "No dear, stay out of it, or he'll kill you."

"But he's going to kill Victor!"

At that moment the wooden handle of the whip breaks in half. Reaper stands over Victor's prostrate body heaving great gasps of air. His large head slowly rotates towards us before baring his teeth and screaming savagely. Fists clinched he steps forward straddling the man's body and grips the hair on the back of Victor's head. With one hand he tugs the head back to expose Victor's neck while pulling out the large curved knife at his belt.

"No!" I cr
y struggling in mother's arms. "Don't kill him!"

Reaper ignore
s me, but Victor's meet mine. Incredibly they look calm, even aware. He smiles at me affectionately.

"I
'll Take the Chit from you," I scream.

The Protector fr
eezes and tilts his head in my direction like a dog listening for a particular sound.

"No," hisse
s Mother.

I ignore her.
"If you spare him, I'll Take the Chit from you when I'm Of Age."

He glare
s at me angrily before looking me up and down. I can almost feel him devouring me and my skin crawls. Finally, he puts the knife back in its sheath and steps away from Victor.

"Pick him up an
d get him out of here," he rasps and notices the other women and girls at the entrance. "Not one word of this to anyone or I'll peel the skin off your faces. Now get!"

We fle
e. It is difficult carrying Victor, but he is able to support most of his own weight. I can feel Reaper's eyes upon me until we are down the street and out of sight.

I hear a strange sound from
Mother and turn to see something terrible.

Tears
are running down her face and that frightens me worse than anything that has happened so far.

Victor crie
s all the way back to our house, but once there seems to calm himself. Mother and I strip the bloody rags from his body and clean his wounds, most of which are on his immense back. He stoically endures what is certainly painful, mumbling incoherently to himself.

Once
we had done all we could for him, I try to get the big man to rest. Instead he takes his rainmaker and sits cross-legged in front of the open fireplace. He tilts the cylinder to one side and then the other. The soothing sounds of rain fill the house while Victor stares intently into the flames.

*******

I have never seen Grandpa like this. To call him angry fails to adequately explain his state of mind. His deep fear for Mother and me, mixed with fury over what had happened, all combined to form a strange cocktail of intense brooding that set our home on edge.

Instead of being more afraid,
though, I feel a sense of clarity. I truly realize for the first time that we are not the Protected and the Shriekers are not our Protectors. It is a situation that can't continue, I know. We have to do something.

"The Protected are close to
one hundred fifty, right?" I ask Grandpa the following week in his workshop.

"More
or less," he answers working on a giant stereo speaker. "About twenty-five of what you would call Sad Ones and the rest women or young."

My face turns hot
. I didn't know that Grandpa knew we call them that. "What about the Protectors?"

He stares
at me sternly for almost a minute and I feel certain he can read my thoughts. Seeming to make up his mind he nods. "Thirty-one. But only fifteen are actual Shriekers. The rest are Prospects, boys taken to serve them once they came Of Age. Only two of those have been promoted to Protectors."

"Why so few
Shriekers?"

"There us
ed to be much more," he answers. "Most were killed in the Rebellion along with all our men."

Understanding dawns
. "We almost beat them, didn't we?"

Grandpa glances
around nervously. "That was a long time ago."

I hesitate
before finding my resolve. "We have to do something."

"No we don't," he
picks up a screwdriver and tightens a clamp.

Knowing what I need to do, I still despise
myself for doing it. I sigh and turn to the window knowing I can't say the words while facing him. "In two months I will walk up to the Shrieker House and take Reaper's Chit."

"You don'
t have to do that," Grandpa says behind me, and it sounds as if he has thrown the tool on the table.

"Yes I do,
" I say. "If I don't go, they'll kill you and Mother, but first they'll make an example of us to everyone. Take away what little dignity they've allowed us to have."

"What do you k
now about dignity?" Grandpa's voice has a hint of anger.

I ignore the question. "Once I Take
the Chit, Reaper will use me and degrade me. He'll do it in front of the other Reapers and invite them to use and degrade me themselves. When he's tired of me he'll trade or sell me to another Shrieker like a goat."

"Stop it."

"Somewhere along the line I'll likely get pregnant," I continue. "Who will know or care who the father is? This great grandchild of yours will grow up in squalor and fear and bondage."

"I said stop it
, Teal."

"And not too long after these things have happened
, I will lose hope. I won't be able to live that way. One morning they will find me hanging from a beam or sitting in my own blood after I've cut my wrists."

"Enough!" he crie
s at me.

"This is my future," I
turn to look at him now. "Unless someone does something. Unless
you
do something to stop it."

With one of his powerful arms he sweeps the tools and speaker parts off the work table and onto the floor. His face looks at me with anger and shame. "Get out."

I want to tell him I am sorry. I want to rush into his arms and beg for his forgiveness. Wanted things to be like they were before.

Instead I turn and walk
out the door.

*******

Grandpa doesn't stay angry at me for long, but I can tell things aren't okay with us. A persistent awkwardness hangs over our heads. I still want to apologize for what I said, but something told me that would be wrong. That it would be weak and possibly even doom us all.

As if we are
n't already doomed.

Mother also seems on edge. I suspect
that she and Grandpa talked about what I said, but she never brings it up with me. This isn't surprising given my mother doesn't speak about much of anything unless there is a good reason.

Indomi
table and sweet Victor continues on as if nothing happened. His wounds heal and he never even misses a day in the fields, although I'm sure he must be in terrible pain after the beating he took.

Grandpa is
meeting with the Old Ones in the evening after the Remembering. At first it was just one person at a time, but it soon grows to small groups, and now all the Old Ones. The rest of us are curious, but other than Mother and I, most just chalk it up to more unexplained strangeness of these human Artifacts from another age.

One night the first small flurrie
s of snow fall and everyone who was Of Age was told to return to the Meeting Hall after putting the little ones to bed. I help Mother place Victor on the pallet in front of the fire to sleep and then walk back with her. She seems as if she wants to protest my involvement, but then just shrugs.

"She's not
Of Age," Grandpa says as soon as he sees me enter.

"What does that even mean?" I ask. "It's just something from the Treaty.
Made up."

"Let her stay," says
Mother with a finality that tells me there will be no discussion on this topic.

Grandpa must have know
n it too because he simply grumbles under his breath and turns away.