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The Death Merchants

  

Category:  Entertainment

Via:  kavika  •  12 years ago  •  40 comments

The Death Merchants

On the mean streets of Duluth, Minnesota a strange and deadly game is taking place. Pimps and traders in the sex business are dying violent deaths. Are turf wars the cause of this? That's what the police seem to think, and no one was worried about their deaths. No outcry by the citizens over these murders, they were back page news with little follow up by the police.

Duluth, located on the shores of Lake Superior is a major seafaring port for the area. It is also home to women being forced into the sex trade in various ways, with many of them being American Indian women. This has been going on for decades, yet little is being done to stop it.

There are various women rights groups fighting it and attempting to bring the subject to light, but in the end it's been a losing battle to the sex traffic group.

They are the ''lost'' people, citizens turn their heads and don't want to be reminded that this is taking place in their city. Drugs and alcohol abuse are there as well. They all seem to fit in the seedy side of Duluth.

At a store front clinic that is trying to help stem the tide of this curse on Duluth a thirty-five year old woman is sitting behind her desk. The surrounding office shabby at best, but with little help, and very little money, it is the best that she can do. Besides it's all about trying to save the women caught up in this savage, underground business, not being a fashionable place of business.

Dee sits beside the table she calls a desk, tired and thinking that things will never change, she has not the money or the help, to make a difference, and the thoughts of just quitting this and getting on with her own life, are becoming more and more prevalent in her mind.

She is the only one in the office and it's late. She should have left hours ago, but the work was never ending and she forgot the hour. The office was located in the ''bad'' part of town, a place where the police seldom showed up and the denizens of the night were free to roam.

Dee looked up from her desk and there was a man standing in front of her desk, she had not heard him enter and didn't know how long that he had been there. She was gripped by fear as she looked into his face. He was tall, over six feet with a lanky body, long black hair hanging loose wearing a beat up levi jacket and worn jeans. He said nothing as she looked at him, his face showed no expression yet he didn't look away, his eyes didn't move from her. Beside him, where two dogs, huge beasts. There presence made the scene macabre.

She was about to panic, as she reached for the phone his hand took her wrist, firmly but without hurting her. She tried to pull away but couldn't. She wanted to scream, but who would hear her.

Softly he said ''do not fear me,soon others will,but not you''. With that Dee stopped struggling. Who was this man and what did he want, those question would not come out of her mouth.

He released her wrist, turned and walked out of the her office. As the door shut behind her she wondered if it was a dream or what just happened. She locked the door behind her and walked across the deserted parking lot, she felt no fear, in fact she felt quite safe and very calm.

As she drove home another drama was taking place a few miles away. A pimp was on the street bullying one of his ''stable''..A young girl of 17 years was cowering as he slapped her. He took a sick pleasure in slapping her around, and if she didn't bring in enough money for him tonight he would really teach her a lesson. Laughing, he let her go and turned to check on another of his stable. Walking down the street, he stopped to light a cigarette. As he brought the lighter up to the cigarette, a hand reached out like a striking cobra, fingers tighten around his throat, an icy cold grip that could not be broken. Just as quickly the hand released his throat. The pimp staggered a couple of steps, spinning around there wasno onebehind him.

What the hell was that he thought to himself, this was his territory and he would protect it. He continued walking down the street when he heard someone call to him. He turned around and looked into the face of death. The pimp reached for his pistol but the hand streaked out and the fingers wrapped themselves around his Adams apple, squeezing, then stapping sideways, ripping his throat apart, the pimp started gagging and fell to the ground, his mind screaming that this could not be happening to him, then a blow to the throat stopped his brain from thinking any longer. The last few breaths came out of him as he died looking into the face of his killer. In the distance a wolfs howl could be heard.

In the suburbs of Duluth, the middle class and upper class neighborhoods are reading about the numerous killings that have been taking place in their city. The victims are the pimps, and drug lords that control the streets of the waterfront.

The men working the ships that come into port aren't leaving their ships for a night of vice anymore. Pimps and drug dealers are worried that their business is being destroyed, or that they are next in the line of death. Thegirls are leaving, and Dee is seeing them come to her in ever increasing numbers, wanting, begging to help them get out of the ''life''.

The police have no leads on the killings, not that they were trying very hard to solve the crimes, but now the pressure from the Mayor and citizens is being felt. The killings are making headlines across the country, and the Mayor doesn't want the reputation of his fine city spoiled. The citizens are worried that the killing may extend to the ''good'' citizens, the same ones that for years knew of the sex trade, the lost children and drugs. But this might intrude into their neighborhoods, so it was time to sound the alarm.

Dee sits in her office. She feels like finally, something is being done to help the girls, she knows that the man that visited her is responsible. Is he responsible for the killings she asks herself. She knows the answer but doesn't want to admit it. After all, the girls are being helped, some of them are actually giving up the life, and to her that is what counts, not the killing of the predator's.

Dee is sitting in her office late one night when a man walks in, an old man with long braided silver hair. He sits in front of Dee saying nothing. Dee looks at him, studies his face, his hands. He must be a hundred years old she thinks to herself, but his eyes are bright, missing nothing and knowing all.

He looks at her for a very long time, Dee says nothing, she doesn't know what to say. Finally the old man speaks to her. My name is Richard Fire, I am an elder of the Ojibwe tribe and I have come to tell you that he has returned...Returned! He! what in the world are you talking about old man. Dee is getting irritated, she is tired, and not in any mood to listen to stories from an old man.

You know what I'm talking about says the old man. He is the one, the one that is killing and he will not stop. That shocked Dee, she was stunned to think that this old man knew that she knew, who the killer might be.

He began to tell her a story, the story of Stone Hand, who for hundreds of years had been the protector of the the Ojibwe people. Dee laughs at the story, how could the killer be hundreds of years old she asked the old man.

He is of the ''Spirit World'' he is not one of us he tells her. He has seen what is happening to the women of the Ojibwe, and to the others that are not of our tribe. The police cannot stop him, no one can stop him. The killing will only stop when he wants it to, and not before.

Shaken, Dee sits there unable to say anything, her thoughts are jumbled, and her mind is telling her this cannot be true. Damn these Indians and their crazy stories. Spirit worlds, protectors, what nonsense.

Blocks away a man stands in the shadow of a doorway watching as a young girl is plying her trade, not a trade that she wants to be in but one that she was forced into. Her pimp sitting in a car watching to be sure that she is making money for him.

A shadow crosses the pimp's line of vision. He turn's just as a War Club crashes through the window of the his car. Screaming and reaching for his weapon, but it's to late, Stone Hand swings the club again, this time crushing the pimps skull.

Stone Hand turns and walks away. He feels no remorse. Again, in the night, the howl of the Wolf.

Dee shakes her head, as if to clear cobwebs from it, the old man is gone. Was he really there at all she thinks, no, it was only a dream. Then she feels a chill run through her body. Another pimp is dead and another ''lost'' girl is free to return home.

A year has passed since the killing stopped. The police had no clues to who the killer was, no prints, nothing for them to go on. The pimpshave leftfor somewhere that they were not the hunted. More help arrived in the form of social services, and programs to help the ''girls'' return to a normal life. The Sex Trade in Duluth was no longer.

Dee sat in her office. She had more help, and money, to help those in need. She felt good, being able to help was good for her and good for thewomenand community.

As she sat there, there were questions in her mind that needed to be answered. Were the killing the only way to clean up the city. Granted they were pimps and drug dealers who made their living off human misery. Forcing women into lives that only had one way out, death. But the killing was a savage way to deal with the problem. Her moral compass was off kilter, she could not condone the killing but could not condemn it either.

She wondered about the strange man with the wolves,that came into her office that night and of the old Indian that told her the story of Stone Hand. Was any of this real, or was it just coincidence. What was the real truth here she thought to herself.

She had never told the police about the old Indian or about Stone Hand. Was that wrong, was she simply protecting herself, or hoping that he would kill all the pimps and drug dealers.

She left for home, that night her sleep was not sound, it was filled with dreams, dreams that didn't make any sense to her.

The next moring she fixed breakfast and drank her coffee musing about the men in her life, one a stranger the other an old Indian. Laughing she thought that her life was really dull. She hadn't been on a date in years, her work with the girlshad taken over her life, but it was all worth it, as she could see the results. Results that were pleasing to her and the working girls.

Driving to work, to her store front clinic, the day was bright, the streets free of the scum that only a year ago were in control. She parked her car in the lot and started walking to the short distance to her office.

Sitting at her desk, which had replaced the old beat up table that she had used before, she was talking to a co-worker when she looked up over the womans shoulder and there standing at the glass door that read ''Women Services'', was the old Indian, looking in and smiling at her. His beat up levi jacket and worn jeans caught her eye, startled at the clothes that he was wearing she rubbed her eyes. Those clothes belonged to Stone Hand not the old Indian. She jumped up from her chair and started towards the door. The old Indian smiled and hung something on the door, turned and walked away.

She swung the door open and called to him, he kept walking, not turning back. He was joined by two huge beasts,they turned at looked back at her, sending a chill though her body.She looked at the door and there hung a ''Dream Catcher''..There would be no more bad dreams for Dee.

wild_wolf_1_1280x720.jpg

Kavika 2013, all right reserved. Do not use without permission.


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Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Was killing the way?

 
 
 
Dowser
Sophomore Quiet
link   Dowser    12 years ago

Wow-- Go and get 'em Stone Hand.

Yes, I think so. Killing is the only language the pimps and drug dealers understand. They value life so little, losing theirs is the only way to understand that they must stop.

I hope that he continues to watch over Dee... She needs his help to be safe.

Great story, Kavika!

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Thanks Dowser. It does present an interesting dilemma though.

 
 
 
Swamijim sez
Freshman Silent
link   Swamijim sez    12 years ago

Damn, K, vigilante-ism is such a slippery slope...

Framed in the context you present, it seems justifiable, probably necessary, maybeeven 'noble'. The catch, of course, is that the scenario invites us to define whois unregenerate, evil and predatory, and therefore whoever fits the definition 'deserves' summary execution. I'm always conflicted about this idea, 'cause it sounds OK until it comes down to which of 'us' get to do the defining & deciding on who needs to be snuffed for the public good. Your story shifts the onus onto a 'divine hand', a spirit protector, presumably above mortal emotionality, impulsiveness or just plain poor judgement. Wonderfully appealing idea, but who fills in for Stone Hand in the real world? If someone is presented as Stone Hand, how can we know this is true? Is the 'proof' that he kills only those 'we' agree deserve death? How many of 'us' need to agree that the cause is righteous? What of those who do not agree-- shall we disregard their voices?

We live in a world where many apparently sincerely believe they have been ordained by 'divine authority' to dispense death to those they perceive to deserve it. Some of those people at least claim that they are acting out of faith in a spiritual power-- and still others are obviously simply listening to the voices inside their own heads. Whether the voice that gives permission to kill comes from a mosque, a ministery or a broken TV set, each of those people feel that they have become Stone Hand.

Does the End justify the Means? A thorny question indeed, my friend-- I find no ready answer. Your story is disturbing precisely because it is appealing... it forces us to think and question ourselves. Would that a Dream Catcher might shield us from the bad dreams that face us in the daytime...

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

''Only predators kill, thus the predators are killed'', moral justification? or vengeance?

An interesting question Gunny.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

''Does the End justify the Means''? Indeed, a very thorny question, anda very slippery slope.

The other side of it, is Stone Hand human, a Manitou (spirit), a shape shifter, or even the wolf. If that were true, than he wouldn't play by our rules, but his own.

Thanks for the great comment Swamijim.

I've posted a few others that are on the, ''Newstalkers Columnist''...The Howling, The Grave, Message in the Moss, Death Comes Calling. Each has a question in it, or moral. A decision on which path to follow.

The Dream Catcher, traps the dreams that come to us at night. I holds the bad dreams in it's webbing and allows the good dreams to slide down the feathers to reach us. When daylight and the sun come up, the bad dreams are destroyed by the sun.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

It's a thorny question RW. But, as you stated he wasn't all evil, since his vengeance was used to free the women from the pimps.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

True RW, to Stone Hand the killing was needed. To Dee, it upset her moral compass, but chose to ignore the killing and accept that it helped her and the abused.

 
 
 
1stwarrior
Professor Participates
link   1stwarrior    12 years ago

How? You do wrong, you pay - no dilemma there.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

The situation is very sad, not only in Thailand, but right here in the U.S. The worldwide sex trade is beyond belief.

Like Stone Hand, I wouldn't think twice about what my reaction would be.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

It's the vigilante justice that is in question 1st. Since Stone Hand isn't of this world, he can apply his justice to it.

 
 
 
Larry Hampton
Professor Quiet
link   Larry Hampton    12 years ago

No problem at all with Stone Hand. Where can I send him a thankyou note and contribution?

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Larry, just send it to me, I'll be sure that he gets it.

 
 
 
Swamijim sez
Freshman Silent
link   Swamijim sez    12 years ago

It's the vigilante justice that is in question...

Thank you for that one, Kavika-- I was beginning to feel that nobody else saw the double-edged sword in your fable.

I would have thought that Native Americans would be much more touchy about the subject of summary execution, considering how often 'the (white)community' defined a "good Indian".

Apparently it's way too easy for lots of folks to pull the trigger when you're sure 'God's on our side"...

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Swamijim, throughout history, the worst punishment thatsome tribes practiced for breaking the rules of the tribe, was banishment. The person was cut off from his friends, family, never to be allowed to return. There was only one crime that was punished by death among the Ojibwe, and that was cannabilism. Thus the story of the Weendigo.

 
 
 
Nigel Dogberry
Freshman Silent
link   Nigel Dogberry    12 years ago

I'm gonna have to get me one of those war clubs. They seem pretty handy.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

I have one of these Grump. Eastern Woodland Ballhead War Club.

ball%20head%20war%20club.jpg

 
 
 
Perrie Halpern R.A.
Professor Expert
link   Perrie Halpern R.A.    12 years ago

Wow Kavika...

Can't say that I cry for a bunch of dead pimps. Man don't piss off this spirit.

Great story telling. I wonder when you are thinking of all of these?

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Thanks BF.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Hi sister,

I think of them in my spare time, which I have a lot of....Grin.gif

 
 
 
Larry Hampton
Professor Quiet
link   Larry Hampton    12 years ago

He, he, will do.

You should really think about trying to publish your work kavika, for money; it's pretty damned good.

:~)

 
 
 
Nigel Dogberry
Freshman Silent
link   Nigel Dogberry    12 years ago

Well, ouch.

There is something very satisfying when you hold something like that in your hands, the heft, the balance is interesting.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Thanks Larry, maybe some day, I'll give it a try.

 
 
 
Nigel Dogberry
Freshman Silent
link   Nigel Dogberry    12 years ago

Both my Corgis have a ghost wolf inside of them. All dogs do. That's what makes them wonderful.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

That is true Grump. All have the wolf in them.

 
 
 
leonahardware
Freshman Silent
link   leonahardware    12 years ago

Wow! What a story, Kavika!!!!

It reminds me a lot of the movie, "Sling Blade," starring Billy Bob Thornton. The main character, Karl, finds himself in a situation where he feels compelled to 'protect' a single mother and her son from her abusive boyfriend who has stated that he will kill if she tries to leave him. Because of his past life, Karl feels prepared to accept the consequences of his actions, even calling the police after he kills the boyfriend.

We all know that there is black and white, and then many shades of gray in between. For most of us, the shades of gray don't affect our daily lives. However, there are moments that have been previously colored to show the gray. We know that if we do one thing, it likely will lead to consequences that we are not prepared to handle. But if we do nothing, the consequences may be even greater.

I've often wondered what I would do if ever I find myself in the situation of seeing my mom's third husband. My thoughts take me to places that are very unpleasant. But then I am reminded of the consequences of those actions should they ever come to light. It can be guaranteed that I will say something to him, but not likely that I will lay a hand on him, even though that is what I would really like to do.

Thank you so much for sharing your wonderful talent with us Grin.gif Grin.gif Grin.gif

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

That's some lap dog RW...LOL,

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

Thank you for reading the story Leona. Happy that you enjoyed it.

I loved ''Sling Blade''.

 
 
 
retired military ex Republican
Freshman Silent
link   retired military ex Republican    12 years ago
 
 
 
retired military ex Republican
Freshman Silent
link   retired military ex Republican    12 years ago

Loved the story it makes an old man smile and feel warm inside.

 
 
 
Kavika
Professor Principal
link   seeder  Kavika     12 years ago

That is true retired.

 
 
 
Krishna
Professor Expert
link   Krishna    12 years ago

I would imagine they are sold into other types of slavery, or maybe just killed off to be rid of them if they can't earn their keep anymore.

As horrendous as sexual slavery is, there are also other types-- usually doing hard manual labour. Every once in a while there's a news item about some couple who managed to actually get away with keeping a slave for many years-- kept inside and doing domestic chores. And there are still illegal sweatshops (factories)...

 
 

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