By Joshua Vise – April 2, 2025

Published in #Genocidal by CultureCult Press. Lulu: Paperback or EPUB

Though Waterford Street was empty of traffic, Nocona walked along the grass next to the shoulder.  At eighty years of age, he took each step slowly but firmly.

I won’t walk on the street, he thought to himself as he moved.  My feet will only touch the land of my people, my ancestors, not this bastard concrete.

Nocona was of the Peoria tribe, and stayed true to his blood.  He viewed the road as a knife wound snaking across land stolen from the Peoria, and as an abomination, an insult to the spirit god of life, Kitchesmanetoa.  He wore deerskin clothing that he had fashioned himself, the materials generously provided by the younger hunters in his tribal community.  His simple headband, adorned with feathers in the back, was considered modest by traditional Peoria standards.  Even so, it immediately attracted the eye of others, including the youth of his own tribe, and Nocona only wore it during solemn occasions.

Nocona continued forward, his gaze never turning to the ranch-style homes that he passed on either side of the street.  Originally deeded to the Peoria tribe in the 1800s, the hundreds of acres of land immediately south of the city boundaries had been annexed and incorporated when Nocona was just a boy.  In doing so, the city had asserted ‘eminent domain’, and unilaterally overturned the original treaty with their tribe, claiming that this land was too commercially important to lay fallow.  This neighborhood, this blemish on the rolling hillside, had been built after that brazen theft.

Had I been older then, or born a hundred years earlier, perhaps I could have done more, Nocona thought.  Still, he remembered his younger self, when his hatred needed little kindling to blaze.  Though he would have displayed a warrior’s confidence in battle with wasichu, he never would have dishonored his people by appealing to the trespasser’s laws for redress.  They had broken too many treaties already.

The road inclined slightly, and Nocona’s slow steps eventually led him to the top.  Unlike the other homes on the street, which were individually unremarkable to the point of being barely distinguishable from their neighbors, the home at the top of the hill, 4657 Waterford Street, was different.  

The house itself was yet another characterless rectangle wrapped in vinyl siding with brick veneer in the front.  A third of the building was dominated by the garage, the door inexplicably painted a strange beige-grey.  Nocona would have found it exceedingly ugly by itself.  But as he stood in the grass in front of the home, his eyes turned from the building to the large earthen mound upon which it stood.

Now before me is the sacred mound, the eternal home of my great ancestors, existing since sun and thunder gave rise to the earth and placed it on the back of the otter.  I close my eyes and raise my hands, palms up, in acknowledgement of its holiness. 

As he raised his hands, Nocona could feel the tears pooling in the corners of his eyes and sliding slowly down his cheeks.  To him, each teardrop was a manifestation of his own guilt and powerlessness at the hands of those who came and took without thinking, who stole his people’s lands and suppressed his culture, and who built their homes on top of the hallowed resting places of his forefathers.

*****

“Daryl?” called Lara as she peered through her living room window.
“Not now, honey,” came the muffled reply from the kitchen.  Daryl had been trying for the last hour to install their new food waste disposal under their sink.

“He’s back again.”

“What?!” 

Lara could hear the sound of tools being set down forcefully as Daryl scooted out from under the sink.  He was soon by her side, peering out the window for himself.

“Christ, not this guy again.  What is that now, the third time this week?”

Daryl had inherited the home from his mother, who had passed earlier in the year.  Together with his girlfriend, they had spent the past month moving things out and making much needed repairs and upgrades before they could fully move in.

“Did your parents ever say anything about this?” asked Lara, still staring out into the front yard.

“Yeah, they got letters from the Peoria Nation.  Always about the hill the house is on being sacred or something.  Nothing legal though.”

“Really?”

“It’s all just rumors.  Nobody knows anything,” Daryl said as he drew the curtains.  “They just think it’s something, so they are trying to make a stink out of it.”

“But what about the guy, though?” probed Lara as she drew back the curtain again.

“What about the guy?” Daryl responded in irritation.

“They never said anything about the guy?”

“Oh, of course they did,” answered Daryl, his irritation boiling over into sarcasm.  “It was one of the last things mama told me.  ‘Hey, Daryl, some ancient cosplay asshole from a dead race is gonna pray to your lawn, so keep it trimmed.’”

“Don’t be racist,” scolded Lara.

“It’s not racist!” 

“Yes, it is!”

“Oh god, now we gotta get into it about this, too?” Daryl exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.  “It’s just been one thing after another since we moved in.”

Lara stayed quiet while Daryl marched back into the kitchen.  Without opening it again, she looked through the slit between the two curtains as Nocona raised his hands above his head, palms up.

“What if it is, though?”

“What if what?” Daryl’s voice emanated from under the sink.

“You know…what if the hill is, like, sacred or something?”

“Bullshit…ouch!”  Lara heard a heavy clink as Daryl dropped a wrench.  He came back into the living room, holding his thumb.  “Fucker pinched me.”  

“But what if it is?”

“Then he can buy the place from us!”

Daryl turned to the window, gesturing wildly even though the curtains were closed.

“Go ahead, Ten Bears!  Make me an offer!”

“Don’t be an asshole, Daryl,” Lana remarked.  “He’s just doing what he thinks is right, I guess.”

“Yeah,” answered Daryl.  “Well I’m not gonna spend the next twenty years of my life watching some geriatric jackass worship my driveway through the window.  This shit ends now.”

*****

Nocona’s hands were still above his head, the tears still streaming down his cheeks, when Daryl barged his way through the front door, followed closely by Lana.

“Hey asshole!  Beat it!” Daryl shouted roughly as he waved his hand in the air.

“Daryl, don’t be mean,” Lana said.  She tried to put her hand on his shoulder, but he brushed it off dismissively.

“I’m serious, man,” spat Daryl.  “This is harassment!  You come back again, and I’m gonna call the cops.”

Throughout Daryl’s verbal barrage, Nocona neither changed his posture nor acknowledged his presence.  His arms remained raised, and his lips twitched as he whispered an ancient prayer.

“Do you hear me?!” Daryl shouted.  “Get lost!”

His words not provoking any response from the old man, Daryl pushed him roughly.  Nocona staggered back a few steps, lowering his arms for balance and opening his eyes for the first time.  He stared at Daryl, offering no response to his aggression other than to continue murmuring his prayer, his face devoid of expression.

Daryl watched Nocono for a moment, before finally throwing up his hands in disgust.

“This guy’s lost it,” he exclaimed in exasperation.  “He’s a loony.”

“Then let’s just go back inside,” appealed Lana uncomfortably.  “He’ll go away on his own.”

Lana put her hand on his shoulder, and Daryl pointed angrily in Nocono’s direction.

“Stay away from my house!”

Nocono watched as the couple turned and headed back inside, with Daryl slamming the door roughly behind him.  He saw the curtains flutter as Lana pulled them closed.

Kitchesmanetoa’s memory is long, thought Nocona as his face contorted in rage.  And her vengeance shall not be denied!

The wind began to rise, swirling dust and leaves into the air as some invisible power coalesced around Nocona.  His body at first trembled, then shook, though he remained steady on his feet.  With a powerful violence that belied his age, Nocona thrust his hands upwards into the air, palms open.  Slowly, he curled his fingers, seemingly clinging to something that was very real despite its impalpability.  As he did so, the trembling and shaking radiated away from his body and into the ground, into the mound, and into the foundations of the home.

Through scowling eyes, Nocona saw the front door burst open.  Daryl leaned out, his hand still on the knob.

“What the hell is…” Daryl shouted above the noise of the wind, now a powerful, whistling gale.

Before he could finish his sentence, Nocona punched his clenched fists downward, bending under the ferocious intensity of an action that he performed but did not fully control.  Instantly, the mound cavitated, and the house that had stood upon it for more than eighty years crashed into the inky blackness of a seemingly bottomless pit.  The sounds of shattering glass, snapping beams, gnashing brick, and two terrified human screams emanated from the shaft as the home tore itself apart in its descent.  

The upraised sides of the mound rolled in upon themselves, and in seconds, all that remained of 4657 Waterford Street was a cracked driveway leading to a dark brown expanse of recently churned soil.  Nocona approached and, slowly stepping out of his moccasins, gingerly planted his feet into the soft earth, the land of his ancestors.