The Scorpion's Voice
Cyn Bagley (c) 1998
"Kat, it's my turn," Stephie said. She tried to pull the binoculars out of my hands. Clink. They bumped my glasses.
I rolled away from her, pebbles clinging to my stomach.
"Just a minute," I said. I trained the binoculars on the small trailer next to the road.
"But, it's my turn."
I didn't answer her. You see, Stephie was the one who had insisted on this little jaunt. And, Stephie was the one who spent much of her time coming to this spot with Dad's binoculars. No, this time it was my turn.
We were stretched out on the hard ground, elbows supporting bodies in small stones and gravel. The greasewood in front of us provided a screen to protect our spying. The greasewood, a plump oily plant, grew along a small ditch that we called a canal. It supplied water for irrigation and for our stock.
Our neighbor. Physically, he was big enough and strong enough to carry the two of us all day. But, like a beast of burden, he was mentally weak. We were fascinated with this child in a man's body. What did he do? How did he live? Why did he live with his parents?
We lived in a community that didn't recognize weakness. A family that lived five miles away from us hid their mentally challenged child in an attic room until she died. At her funeral, we looked into the coffin, fascinated, trying to understand why a family would lock up a child. She was another child in an adult's body.
Maybe she was soooo ugly, Stephie had said before the music swelled, signaling the start of the funeral. I guessed that she was violent. But, we couldn't tell. We only saw the corpse of a sad old woman.
I watched Troy walk out of the trailer. He raised his hands above his head, stretching his whole body. We could see his stomach peeking from under the bottom of his white T-shirt.
"Let me see. Let me see," chanted Stephie.
"Shush," I said.
He looked toward the east. The morning colors changed from black and white to full color.
I handed Stephie the binoculars.
"He just walked inside," she said. "What did you see?"
"Nothing."
I rolled over until I was on my back. The smell of greasewood, the soft gentle light of dawn and my tiredness put me to sleep. I closed my eyes.
"You only give me the binoculars when nothing's happening," I heard. Stephie was already tired of holding them. They were heavy. I turned to look at her.
"It was your idea," I said. I liked to piss her off. My little sister. More like my bigger younger sister. She was much larger than me. I was slim and she was stocky. I was blonde and she was brown. She didn't burn like I did.
She wiggled into a new position, her elbows scraping against the hard dirt. But as she tried to get comfortable, I opened my eyes and saw something, something white . . .
"Don't move," I said. She froze.
I sat up–my head barely over the greasewood. I looked for the white that had flashed at me. A small scorpion, not quite the size of a little finger, was nestled against her stomach with its tail up.
"Don't move," I warned again. I pulled a small stick from under the bushes. Quickly, I flipped the scorpion away from Stephie. The scorpion scuttled to the bushes we were hiding behind.
"Sit up," I ordered. She obeyed me.
"What happened?"
"A scorpion."
Stephie shivered. We had been warned about the dangers of our new environment. Snakes, coyotes, and scorpions were on Dad's list of dangerous creatures that we might find in our wanderings. I don't want my girls to be stupid he had said as he gave us the lecture. A scorpion sting can kill.
"We're in a bad place," I said. "Let's go."
"But what about . . ."
"We don't know if there are any more of them," I said.
Stephie did not always listen to me, but this time she brushed herself off. We slipped out of the bushes and walked to the road. We watched for snakes and scorpions.
Once safe, Stephie started again.
"I want to see what Troy's up to," she whined.
I had forgotten about our mission. The scorpion had knocked it out of my head. I wondered at her persistence. I wondered what her next argument would be. Why was Troy so important?
"Maybe we can save ourselves," she said. "We don't know how they became that way. Maybe we'll know by watching Troy. Then we won't do it."
"But, Stephie," I said. "They were born that way. They didn't do something stupid."
"Well, I'm watching anyway," she said.
Stephie was mule-headed. I mean when she decided to do something, neither God nor country could dissuade her. And, if something happened to her I would probably get a whipping. If we got found out, I would get a whipping for sure. I followed her. We went back.
We crawled on our stomachs, closer to the trailer than I wanted to be. I chewed my lip. When we stopped just short of the trailer, I pushed my glasses back on my nose. I wondered why I let Stephie talk me into this. I knew that neither one of us were afflicted. I hadn't realized that Stephie worried about such things. Why? She was smart. Not as smart as me, but smart.
I couldn't help but admire her fearlessness. She could jump on a horse and not worry about falling. She could leap from a haystack and laugh as she rolled in the loose hay. I thought nothing could scare her.
Crawling to the trailer, I noticed that Stephie's breath betrayed her anxiety. As we drew closer, her breath changed from the light-hearted, mischievous softness to the rasping of a runner in the last stages of a hard race.
Gradually, I heard the words she was mumbling. "What's in the window? What's in the window? I need to see."
I stopped crawling. She held her body stiff. I could see that she was so spun up that a shriek or yell would send her racing home, screaming.
"Calm down," I said. I grabbed her leg. She jumped.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"Ma said. Ma said I was just like Troy.”
I felt like I had been hit on the head.
"Slow down, slow down."
Why would Ma . . . ?
"I want to see. I want to see if I am like him." Stephie pulled away from me, then stood up. She rushed to the window.
I ran to her and pulled her back to the ground. "When did Ma say this?"
Stephie wouldn't listen to me. She pushed me down and ran back to the window. Her nose pressed against it, she watched Troy watch TV. My glasses had fallen off when Stephie pushed me away, so I didn't see Troy see Stephie. I didn't see Troy walk to the window.
I did hear Stephie scream. She ran. When I looked up, there was Troy, opening the front door.
"Go away, go away," he said in his slightly thickened voice. I brushed myself off, then walked away, hearing his voice recede "Go away, go away, go away . . ."
Stephie was waiting for me at the bend in the road. She trembled like a colt that had run too hard and too fast. Tears rolled down her eyes, "I don't want to be like him." She said.
"Hush, hush." I talked to her like I would a scared horse, who was ready to bolt.
We walked back to the house hand in hand–the binoculars forgotten, resting on Troy's fence.
Sometimes we are not given what we want, I thought. Sometimes guilt wasn't reasonable. Stephie didn't want to be like Troy; I didn't want to be like Ma. But sometimes in the cold night, I could hear her speak . . . in my voice.