The Liar of Red Valley

by Walter Goodwater

  “I shouldn’t have to tell you all what happened last night,” he said. “People died. Those things from the other side of the River… well, you saw ’em. You know what they’re capable of. We have no reason to doubt that once the sun goes down, they’ll be out again. We’ve got patrols out on every street and watching the bridge—”

  A big man with a thick gut and thinning hair thrust a finger at the undersheriff. “Your patrols don’t do shit. I saw it. The only thing that kept us all from getting eaten last night were the King’s Men.”

  Hassler’s face darkened. “We’re doing the best—”

  “Well it ain’t good enough!”

  “We appreciate the support the King’s Men have provided,” Hassler said. “But there are only so many of them and we’ve got a lot of ground to cover. That’s why we need everyone to stay inside, where it’s safe.”

  Another man stood up. “Give me a break. We’re not safe. What would happen if just one bear-killer got loose in here? It would be a bloodbath.”

  A few women gasped. A kid started crying.

  “I need everyone to remain calm,” the undersheriff said. He sounded right on the edge of losing his own calm.

  The crowd did not heed his advice.

  “Remain calm? Our houses are burning and monsters are running amok down Main Street!”

  “You’re supposed to protect us!”

  “Just get out of the King’s way. He’ll keep us safe.”

  “The whole town’s going to hell out there. What are you going to do about it?”

  Sadie looked down and discovered she was moving. All around her, the people of Red Valley wallowed in fear and panic. She saw tears. She saw faces hardened by anger or terror or the effort to remain strong for those around them. The shouting voices all merged into one. She heard it, and though no words could really be discerned, she knew what it was saying. What it was asking for:

  Hope.

  She climbed the steps to the stage. A few people started to notice her. They pointed, raised eyebrows, whispered questions she couldn’t hear. Some of the anger died away, replaced with confusion. She was halfway across the stage before Hassler saw her. His brow knitted as she approached. His mustache twitched and he moved away from the microphone to intercept her.

  “What are you doing?” he growled at her in a low voice.

  “You had your chance,” she said. “Now I’m going to talk to them.”

  “This isn’t the time for games.”

  “Good thing I’m not here to play any,” she replied. “Oh, and thanks for the tip, by the way. Didn’t get killed and I got my bag back.”

  He stared at her, but she just walked on by. He could have stopped her, of course; probably should have. But Hassler didn’t know what to say to these people. He’d tried and failed and they’d turned on him, just like the King wanted. He needed his people to rely on him, to wait for him. The King needed them docile, passive, ready for harvest.

  “Hello everyone,” she said into the mic. The room fell instantly silent. Everyone was listening now. She felt the weight of every pair of eyes. “Most of you don’t know me. In fact, I wonder if any of you even know my name. It’s Sadie.” She stared back at them; they said nothing. “But some of you know what I am. What I can do. I haven’t been here long, but I’ve already told Lies for some of you. My mom told Lies for many more. My family has been telling your Lies for as long as there’s been a Red Valley.

  “But I’m not up here today to lie to you. I’m here to tell you the truth, a truth you may not want to hear: the King of Red Valley isn’t going to save you.”

  The evacuees rustled on their canvas cots, but didn’t interrupt.

  How much to tell them? What were they ready to hear? “I’ve been to the King’s home,” she went on. “I’ve seen him, spoken to him. He is dying.”

  One of the men who’d exchanged angry words with the undersheriff piped up then, demanding, “Why should we believe you?”

  “I don’t care if you believe me,” Sadie replied. “But he is dying. That’s why all these things are here now, attacking us. They sense the King is vulnerable, and so they’re going to try to take him down. We’re just collateral damage.”

  Someone else spoke. “Last night, I saw the King’s Men fighting for us.”

  “I’ve seen them too,” Sadie said. “But they’re not fighting for us. They’re fighting for him.” Over the people’s heads, she saw the television, full of more images of smoke and fire consuming the town. “Red Valley is in real danger, but if we want to keep it safe, we’re going to have to do it ourselves.”

  “How are we supposed to stop that fire?”

  “And those monsters? If the King can’t stop them, how can we?”

  The Liar of Red Valley got all the credit, but it was really the King who’d told the best lie in town. By convincing everyone that what little power they possessed had come from him, he’d ensured they’d never doubt him, never challenge him. They were nothing without him, after all. But now Sadie wondered what they all could have been if he’d never come to Red Valley. So much potential wasted keeping an old monster alive.

  “People in this town don’t like to talk about it, but we’re stronger than we look,” Sadie said. “There’s magic in Red Valley, and in the people of Red Valley. We’ve got a house that just disappears, and then poof, comes back. That clock tower on Main Street tells perfect time, with no weight and no spring; it just works, and nobody knows why and nobody questions it. A few days ago, a brujo helped me speak to the very first Liar of Red Valley, dead for over a hundred years. This town is full of it. We just hide it, because your pastors tell you it is ungodly and your leaders tell you it isn’t safe. But I’m up here to tell you that the world isn’t safe, and if you expect the King or the sheriffs or God to save you, you’re going to be disappointed. The only way to protect the ones you love is if you stand up and become your own saviors.”

  She saw some nods in the crowd, but the angry man with the bulbous gut wasn’t convinced. “You want us to go out there and get killed? That’s what’ll happen. I don’t care if someone can shoot lasers out of their eyeballs, if they go fight those things, people are going to die.”

  “Yeah,” Sadie said. The room fell still again. “I know. My mom died a few days ago. I’ve seen more death since. It’s senseless and permanent and horrible. I don’t have any easy answers, trust me. I just know that if we wait for the King to save us from all the hell that he’s brought down on us, we’re all going to die, even if the King wins. There’s only one way out for us, and that’s together.”

  The crowd’s voices started up again. Only now they seemed to ignore Sadie, and instead turned inward. Arguments broke out all across the room: some believed her, some didn’t, some just wanted to be left alone. There was no great surge of support, and she wasn’t carried out of the hall on anyone’s shoulders. But she didn’t care. She couldn’t make them see, even with her ledger. If they wanted to take control of their own destiny for the first time since Red Valley had been founded, that would be up to them, not her.

  She heard footsteps on the stage. She turned, ready to tell Hassler to go to hell, but it wasn’t the undersheriff. It was Beto. He came up to her, limping.

  “Nice speech, gringa,” he said.

  “Beto, I’m so sorry—”

  He held up a hand. “You asked me for help, I gave it.” His eyes slid over to Hassler, who stood nearby with his thumbs hooked in his belt. “I don’t blame you for the sins of that son of a bitch.”

  “I didn’t mean for anyone to get hurt.”

  He shrugged. “Like you said, there ain’t easy answers, not in this life.” He jerked his chin toward the crowd. “Let me give it a shot. White people in this town love being told what to do by a respectable brown-skinned man like myself.”

  Beto tapped the mic until the voices died down. “Hola,” he said. “Some of you know me, some of you don’t, whatever. Some of you have already decided you hate m
e after one look. That’s your choice. I don’t like some of you either.

  “But I like this town.”

  Sadie thought Hassler might make a move, but she caught his eye and he just glared back.

  “Sure, it’s a bit racist,” Beto said. “And poor. These days it’s mostly just a few neighborhoods supporting a Walmart.” That drew a muted laugh. “But I’ve lived here my whole life. Most of you have too. We could go somewhere else, but we don’t. Because there is something special here. There’s a real community. People look out for each other. When my mom got sick a few years back, a whole army of people brought my family casseroles, whatever the fuck a casserole is. You white people really love your casserole.

  “But there’s more than that.”

  He held up his hand. After a moment’s concentration, blue light began to crackle off his fingertips. The crowd gasped. Hassler’s hands went from his belt to his sidearm.

  “I’m a brujo,” Beto said proudly. “I can do some things. This Liar gringa up here can change your past, just by writing in a little book. I know a guy, real nice guy called Twenty-Twenty, lives down by the River. He’s got these tarot cards and shit, can tell the future. Not some cheap trick, like real prophecy.” He dismissed the light with a snap. “Some of you got some magic in you, too. Got it by living here, in this weird little town. We hide it, so the sheriffs don’t get upset, but it’s there.”

  Sadie watched the crowd. Even those who had frowned when Beto took the mic were listening now.

  “I like it here,” Beto said. “It’s the kind of town I want to raise my kids in. And if I’ve got to go out there and do the things I can do to protect it, then maybe that’s a fair trade. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  He went down the stairs to rejoin Teresa and his family. There was nothing left to be said. Either the people would fight or they wouldn’t. Either they’d die or make it through. She’d done what she could. As Sadie started to make her way off the stage, Hassler caught her arm.

  “People are going to get hurt,” he said, so that only she could hear. He was facing toward the crowd so he kept his demeanor pleasant, with a smile turning up the edges of his mustache, but Sadie’s arm twinged in his iron grip.

  “You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

  “So you do remember what happened the last time you defied me,” he said. “Good. Remember also that in the end, I got what I wanted, one way or the other.”

  “And that’s how we got in this mess to begin with.”

  “The King got us into this mess. I’m going to get us out of it.”

  Sadie shook her head. “After everything, you still think you can protect this town? No, of course, it isn’t really about protection. You’ve probably convinced yourself that it is. You’d make a good Liar. No, what you want is control, and you just can’t imagine a world where you are so in over your head.”

  The grip tightened. “You’re a fool,” he growled. “And you’re dangerous.”

  Sadie looked back over her shoulder at the crowd. Most were talking amongst themselves, debating what Sadie and Beto had said. But some were watching the undersheriff closely. “Unless you’re going to arrest me in front of these fine people, let go of my arm, Mr. Hassler.”

  His eyes flicked to the crowd then back to her. After a pause, he released her. “I am going to protect Red Valley. I am going to clean up the King’s mess. If you get in my way, you’ll wish I had arrested you.”

  He stomped down the stairs and into the crowd. As she watched him go, something caught her eye. Someone had just slipped out of the community center. Sadie only got a brief glimpse before the door shut completely, so she couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw the flash of sunlight off mirrored sunglasses.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  They didn’t have long before dark, and there was still way too much to do. Graciela offered to drive. There were two other evacuation centers nearby. They weren’t as full as the community center, but more and more people were arriving all the time; by late afternoon, nearly half of Red Valley had been evacuated as the fire pushed deeper into town.

  Sadie spoke at each center in turn. She said mostly the same things to mostly the same reaction. She didn’t wait around to see how convincing she’d been. Either the people would fight or not.

  Then they drove to the bridge. Already the sheriffs were erecting barricades, but they hadn’t closed the road down yet.

  “Are you sure you want to drive over there?” Graciela asked.

  “I don’t want to do any of this,” Sadie said. “But nobody else is going to.”

  The far side of the River appeared unchanged. No blood in the streets, no fires burning in gutted buildings.

  “I wanted to say I’m sorry,” Sadie said.

  “Shut up,” Graciela said. “I’m sorry. After everything you’ve been through, I drop that bomb on you about moving away. I was such a jerk.”

  “And I’ve been so wrapped up in all this mess, I was only thinking about myself.” She’d been so angry that Graciela was going to have a life without her, but now she knew Graciela had lived her entire life without her, until a few days before, when her mom wrote a Lie in her ledger.

  “Fine, we were both jerks,” Graciela said. “I just don’t want to fight anymore, and I don’t want to lose you, whatever town we’re living in.”

  “I certainly can’t blame you for wanting to leave Red Valley now.”

  “Seriously, chica. This place sucks.”

  “Do you remember the day we met?” Sadie asked. She tried not to picture dark eyes watching them as they drove through town.

  “We were just little babies back then,” Graciela said.

  “So you don’t remember?”

  “Huh,” she said. “I guess not.”

  Sadie didn’t either. She knew Graciela was her friend, just like she knew her favorite drink and least favorite movie. But the rest of the details were hazy, unformed. Her mom hadn’t considered everything when crafting her Lie. The broad strokes were there and that had felt like enough. Before she knew.

  “Why do you think we’re still friends, after all this time?” Sadie asked.

  “You getting all introspective on me? Just because the world is ending?”

  “Just questioning some assumptions, I guess.”

  Graciela thought about that for a while. Sadie didn’t like the silence and she didn’t like being on this side of the River.

  But then Graciela replied, “You know my memory is shit.

  “So you start asking me about when we met, why we’re friends, and I don’t know, but I don’t really need to know. We’ve been through a lot together, but this”—she waved her hand to take in the entirety of their current adventure—“this is why we’re friends. Because we trust each other and do really stupid things together.”

  “And that’s enough?”

  “It is for me.”

  Sadie had no real past, no real memories to share with her only friend. Except for the ones they’d made in the last week: the bar, the diner, the library, even the crossroads. Those were real. Or real enough.

  The parking lot at Tips was fuller than last time. That was either a really good sign, or a really bad one. Graciela unbuckled her seatbelt.

  “You don’t have to go inside,” Sadie said.

  “Like hell I don’t,” was the reply.

  The same bartender stood behind the counter. Many of the same patrons sat across the bar.

  “Don’t think this is a good time to be looking for a drink on the wrong side of the River,” the bartender said when they walked in.

  “Don’t want a drink,” Sadie said. “I want help.”

  She grabbed a heavy mug and pounded it on the bar. Voices stopped. Eyes—feral and predatory—turned her way.

  “I don’t have a lot of time, so I’m going to make this quick,” she said, once she had their attention. “Some of you are here because you hate the King and think you’ve got a shot. Some of you a
re here because there’s something about Red Valley that draws people—and other things, things that look like people but aren’t. But all of you are here in this bar because you like it. The beer is cold, the place don’t stink, and the game is on.” She pointed back toward town. “But there are others who’ve come here to burn it all down, and they aren’t going to stop on that side of the River. If you want this place to be standing come sunrise, then we need your help.”

  A huge shape stood up. Sadie recognized it as the guy who’d cracked a mug over the other guy’s skull the last time she was stupid enough to come here.

  “The hunter in the darkness has come, singing a song of fire and blood,” the big man said. “And the King sends you to beg for our help.”

  “The King didn’t send me,” Sadie said. “The King really is dying, and even if he weren’t, he’s only taking care of himself. I’m not asking anyone to help protect the King. I’m asking for help to protect Red Valley.”

  “The hunter’s call has driven many of them mad. They are going to tear your town apart.”

  “They are going to try,” she said. “I’m hoping some of us will stop them. And it’s your town too.”

  She let them all stare blankly at her as she made her way to the back of the bar, down a dim hallway, to a door that was very out of place. She knocked, then went inside. The room was the same as before: too big, barely lit, oddly cold. The same strange, human-shaped shadows sat at the table on the far side of the room, waiting silently, like they’d been expecting her.

  “You remember me?” she asked.

  “We do,” said the Long Shadows. “Vividly. Tales of your exploits continue to amuse us.”

  “I’m thrilled,” she said. “Now, how would you like the Liar of Red Valley to owe you a debt?”

  There was one last stop they needed to make. Sadie eyed the setting sun outside the car window. They should have just enough time.

  Graciela put the car into park. “Look, chica—Sadie. I know what we just did was crazy, and I know everything you are doing today is crazy, but this… this is…”