“Gravitas” by Weston Ochse
Growing up in the Black Hills of Custer, South Dakota, Dave is all too familiar with the Sioux legends. In fact, when he can no longer take his uncle’s abuse, he knows just who to summon for help. Years later, having returned broken and hopeless, Dave finds his past has caught up with him. Those whom he called forth as a child are lurking still, as it appears their work is far from finished.
About the Author
Weston Ochse is the author of more than twenty five books, most recently the SEAL Team 666 books, which the New York Post called ‘required reading’ and USA Today placed on their ‘New and Notable Lists. Triple 6 has also been optioned to be a movie starring Dwayne Johnson. His military sci fi series, which starts with Grunt Life, has been praised for its PTSD-positive depiction of soldiers at peace and at war. His first novel, Scarecrow Gods, won the Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in First Novel and his short fiction has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in comic books, and magazines such as Cemetery Dance and Soldier of Fortune.
His work has been lauded by Joe R. Lansdale, Peter Straub, Kevin J. Anderson, John Skipp, Brian Keene, Jonathan Maberry, David Gerrold, William C. Dietz, Tim Lebbon, and many more, including the New York Times, Mother Jones, Soldier of Fortune, The New York Post, The Atlantic, Washington Post, Denver Post, The Financial Times of London, and The Examiner (UK).
His last name is pronounced “oaks.” Together with his first name, it sounds like a stately trailer park. He lives in the Arizona desert within rock throwing distance of Mexico. For fun he races tarantula wasps and watches the black helicopters dance along the horizon. He is a military veteran with 30 years of military service and recently returned from a tour in Afghanistan. He’s traveled the world, been more to 50 countries, and blogs at Living Dangerously. You can google him under ‘Literary Stuntman,’ ‘Superhero for Rent,’ or ‘Yakuza of the Written Word.”
Synopsis
Custer, South Dakota: Dave is looking at the crop from his RV. In the wind he hears “Paha Sapa,” meaning Black Hills, a term repeated throughout the story. The scene begins with a beautiful prose regarding the dew shining like mica, but as Dave breaths in “the fresh Black Hills air,” he tastes last night’s wine in his throat and vomits. Dave is an alcoholic and returned to this place — the scene of the crime, where he grew up — two weeks prior. He’s barefoot and can’t step outside due to the abundance of glass from broken wine bottles.
A green SUV pulls up and a lanky state park ranger steps out, Lamont Cranston. Dave hasn’t seen him since prom when Lamont beat him up over the girl who later became Dave’s wife. Dave goes inside the trailer. Lamont follows. There are calendars on the wall turned to the same month, bloody fingerprints marking the same day. Lamont warns him about the Buffalo that pass through his property into the Great Plains and what Dave has done to his land will harm them. “‘You don’t want those deaths on your hands too, do you?’” Lamont asks, referencing Dave’s wife.
We’re given background on the Black Hills, the story of Europeans invading the land and bringing civilization. The Sioux traditions had opened doors to “secret realms” where legends can now pass through. At age 9, he stayed with Hazel and Horace, much older third cousins whom he calls his aunt and uncle. Horace molested Dave and allegedly beat Hazel. Dave speaks to Lakota Sioux legends in search for help. Through a ritual, he lures creatures he calls Mica People because that is what they’re attracted to, a diamond like mineral that’s abundant in Black Hills. He makes himself their king and instructs them to kill his uncle.
The uncle has been gone for 3 weeks, as are the creatures. To get Hazel to stop crying, 9-year-old Dave tells her might come back. But presently, Lamont has taken Dave to a mine where a hole was blasted by the old Russian, Mudo, and inside the cavern they’d found a 78 Impala, his uncle’s body inside.
In a diner, Dave and Lamont talk about Amy, his wife. After the sparks died, she dated a 25-year old Salvadoran who ran his corvette into a semi, decapitating himself and Amy. There were tools in Dave’s trunk that made it seem he’d done something to the car, and he thought about it but never went through with it.
When Dave visits Hazel in the assisted living home, she begs him to bring her alcohol. He was unaware of her alcoholism until he got a little older and saw the signs, falling, bumping into things. He learned then that Horace never beat her. Lamont finds Dave the next morning passed out in the lawn chair and wakes him. Mudo has disappeared. Dave remembers praying in some diatribe that Mudo wouldn’t find out what Dave had done. Lamont is suspicious as people around Dave are disappearing, including 14 kids in their junior high that disappeared in a period of 3 years. Dave’s parents also disappeared after dropping him off at Hazel and Horace’s at age 9.
Dave buys a book on mica. He gets drunk that night and tears the pages out, making a trail through the field to his chair to lure the Mica people like he did when he was a kid. “Green light poured forth and out of it dripped a jumble of Mica People. They laughed as they came, tripping happily along his highway.” Different shapes and sizes, some with many legs, some with none, various assortment of fairytale beings. The Barbie-doll headed toad queen stops in front of him and he’s hit with knowledge that since Horace, they’d been killing anyone in his way, so Dave fears Lamont is next and he swings the wine bottle at the creatures, destroying them one at a time.
He strips naked, pours wine over himself like a baptism, then throws all the bottles out from his RV. He crawls along the glass, reciting the names of the disappeared, until he can go no further. He sees something, no bigger than his thumb with the head of an ass, and Dave says make “me like you.” From the dirt a giant beast arises with a “flash and bang of creation,” a buffalo. He shoots into the center of it, and over time becomes one of the herd, traveling with them, and when the season changes, he returns to the Black Hills and while eating is shot, his soul ripped from the buffalo and into the air, carrying “the guilt of man and the importance of the beast. It is the gravitas of the universe.” Lamont approaches with his rifle and hears a whisper on the edge of the air — “Paha Sapa.” Trying to hear more, he moves in, “slowly ambling toward the universe he just destroyed.”
Download the Great Jones Street mobile app and read “Preludes” for free. Or click to our Medium pub now (membership required).
