“I don’t think you can,” she shouts into the bullhorn, “when my ancestors who bled and died find no peace in the very land they sacrificed for because trucks and plows turn over their graves.”
The crowd releases a reply mixed with English and a tongue I don’t understand, but obviously affirms her message, encourages her to go on.
“Four years ago,” she says, “on a day like today, my mother left for a protest in Seattle much like this one. She never came back.”
She lowers the bullhorn and stares at the ground for a moment. Even from here, I see the bullhorn shaking in her hand when she raises it again.
“Our women disappear,” she says, her voice wavering, but fierce, “and no one cares. No one searches. No one says their names, but I say her name. Liana Reynolds. I didn’t have her body, but I had her name, and I came here to sacred ground and whispered it. The wind carried it to my ancestors. I asked them to recover her spirit. To take her home.”
She shakes her head, impervious of the tears streaking her face. “I came here to mourn. When it was time for the rite of passage from girlhood to womanhood, I came here to dance. We worship here; we wed here. The ground where you sit, our pews. The trees around you, our steeples. You are standing in our church.”
Her voice rings out, commanding and broken. A lone tear streaks through the vibrant stripes around her eye. There are no shouts in reply. No raised fists. Only lowered eyes. Shaking heads as her sorrow takes us hostage.
“And the man elected to represent us,” she goes on, her features hardening into an angry mold, “is the one who betrayed us. Senator Middleton, shame on you! You sold our land to Warren Cade. Land we were promised would be protected, you gave away. It wasn’t yours to give!”
The air trembles beneath the weight of her words, and like she summoned it, a desert wind, a sirocco lifts the dark river of hair hanging down her back and tosses it like a mourning wail through the air.
“It wasn’t yours to give,” she repeats, even more fervently. “Liar. Trickster. Thief.”
The crowd echoes back, as if they’ve done it a thousand times.
“Liar! Trickster! Thief!”
“Is it because you never saw us that you don’t care?” she barrels on, and even through the bullhorn, it’s a whisper. A barely there question, as if she doesn’t want to ask because she already knows the answer.
“Well see us now,” she shouts with renewed vigor into the bullhorn. “Ignore us today when we fight for what is ours—for what was promised to us. We will not be moved. You cannot strip us of everything. You cannot steal the prophecies that light our way.”
There are a few shouts in response before she goes on.
“The prophecies foretell a generation rising up to defend, to fight, to recover what was lost,” she says, the tears continuing in a single stream from each eye. “I am that generation.”
Another collective shout swells from the crowd.
“We are that people who say enough!” Her eyes scan the crowd like a general searching for weaknesses to root out, for strengths to employ. “Say it with me. Enough. No more!”
“Enough! No more!” the crowd responds.
“Enough! No more!”
“Enough! No more!”
“Tu be hi’naah!” she yells, fist in the air.
“Water is life!” The crowd echoes back.
“Tu be hi’naah!”
“Water is life!”
Under the cover of applause, she climbs down the hill and slips into the line of bodies linked at the elbows and blocking the trucks.
“Do it,” my father says, his voice hard, angry. “They think they can throw off my schedule? They wanna fuck with me? They don’t even know where to start. Make the call.”
Beaumont nods and punches a few numbers in his phone before raising it to his ear.
“Move in,” he says.
“Dad, what are you doing?” I pin my question to him, but fix my eyes on the scene through the window. He spares me a glance, his mouth a stern, ungiving line.
“Balls of steel, son,” he says, his eyes slits. “Balls of steel.”
The sound of dogs barking jerks my attention from my father’s stony expression. A fleet of Dobermans on leashes bounds from trucks circling the site. Officers wearing padded vests face off with the protestors, their expressions blurred by Plexiglass face shields.
“Dad, no!”
The words have barely left my lips when the first mist of tear gas invades the air.
“No one will get hurt,” Dad says, his eyes trained on the scene playing out. “They have strict instructions to keep order and intimidate if necessary, but no one will get hurt.”
“You can’t be that na?ve. Situations like this escalate in the blink of an eye. One wrong move, and there’s a shot fired and a dog bites, and you’ll have a lawsuit on your hands.”
Not to mention the guilt, but I’m not sure my father is capable of that anymore. I never thought his ruthless streak would run this far—would run roughshod over innocent people.
“Lawsuit?” my father scoffs. “Look out this window. Whose side does it look like the law is on?”
I do look out the window, and I’m assaulted by helplessness, guilt, and shame. Several protestors cover their eyes too late against the sting of gas, and they screech, rubbing furiously at the intrusion. Another group advances, positioning themselves directly in the path of the construction truck, in the path of what appears to be rubber bullets. I grit my teeth when I see the girl from the hill in that line. The Dobermans have turned, jaws pulled back from their teeth, and they advance on the protestors.
Advance on her.
I don’t stop, don’t think about the line I’m crossing, about my father, the architect of this cruel chaos. I don’t consider my own safety, only theirs.
Hers.
Her words throb in my ears and pulse in my veins.
No more. Enough.
Can you hear me? Can you see me?
I can’t unsee the proud line she cut into the horizon on that hill. Can’t unhear the heartbroken history she shouted to the wind.
I see you.
I hear you.
I throw the door open, and before I know it, I launch into a run across the dusty land.
I’m coming.
2
Lennix
A thousand needles pierce my eyes. I knuckle scrub my eyelids, even knowing from our protest training that flushing with water is the only thing that will help. Preparing for tear gas and doing it are two completely different things. Lesson number one in civil disobedience, but I’m not sure any amount of training could prepare me to face a snarling dog, held back by a flimsy leash. I stumble, my eyes clenched tightly against the discomfort, and slam into something hard.
“Sorry,” I gasp, reflexively reaching out to put space between me and whomever I plowed into. I ease my eyes open. Backlit by the sun, a man towers over me. Considering I’m in the middle of a riot, growling Dobermans barely kept at bay, tear gas still hanging in the air, and standing shoulder to shoulder with a line of protesters howling in pain and rubbing their eyes, it’s bad timing to notice this guy is gorgeous. And that he smells really good.
“Uh . . . um, hey,” I stammer. “I mean, hi.”