Heroes of the Water Monster: Chapters 15–20

She was transfixed by Shaded Marsh’s song, which controlled the rainbow path by connecting the clear crystal with a thin water tentacle downward to sustain the colorful path.

But there was just a solid wall of smooth sandstone with striations of white, orange, and purple.

“Sounds like an arthritic flare-up. My dad sometimes works with clients who have arthritis,” Edward said, remembering when he helped his dad study for a corrective exercise specialization. Ted had Edward perform a plethora of arthritis-specific strengthening exercises and stretches.

The rocky wall in front of them jiggled like Jell-O. Edward tapped the bottom of the canyon wall with an apprehensive foot.

He couldn’t sit around and read more articles about the encroaching deadline of climate change.

Down below was an ocean of calm water. Edward expected a fishy odor but was pleased instead to inhale a subtle eucalyptus smell.

Edward wasn’t a fan of her attitude, even if he was to treat her like a grandmother. He wondered if all water monsters except Dew held a grudge against humans.

The five-fingered shape the environment that they are in for comfort, taking no account of other beings who lived there prior, nor the expense their comfort accrues. Generation after generation repeats the same idiotic patterns, thinking themselves blameless. Year after year, era after era, they grow in number, and the little costs their ancestors accumulated multiply.

I’m tired of my children returning here weakened, sick, or deathly ill. My heart never numbs from hearing of their demise, such as Agave Pond.

I’ll overlook your transgression of entering my realm without permission this once.

He was 100 percent certain that that would have worked! He couldn’t think of any other way to be able to listen to water monster songs. If he couldn’t hear the songs, then he was just a helpless hindrance.

Should he even bother trying? He was just going to fail again. He felt so angry with his own ineptitude.

Edward knew of a possible way to help Shaded Marsh, but he felt his efforts would probably backfire, like everything else.

Nathan felt the need to dispel the awkwardness between the two sisters. There had to be a more thoughtful and tactful way to get them to talk to each other.

“I bore witness to their crimes. I saw their murderous inclinations. They claim holiness but commit the evilest acts on others.”

“The most effective strategy for all the desert cities would be with the Maelstrom song,” Canyon Mist said. “That will cause great damage to their structures and means of living.”
Yitoo said, “For that, I will need more water.”

The Jet Stone Twins have mastered this way of travel, using the stars. They can pinpoint exact locations of where they want to travel. We, as water monsters, will never have their finesse.

I agree with some of Yitoo’s sentiments.

That our waters are not to be trifled with. Our waters should be respected. True, our waters that are diverted to the desert cities are sometimes used for frivolity. But that doesn’t mean our waters don’t sustain life there.

Several bolts of lightning ran across the underside of the clouds as well as through their interior, lighting them from the inside like an ominous paper lantern.

When they were a few miles south of Winslow, Arizona, Edward felt his phone vibrate and heard the unrelenting emergency alarm go off.

You know better than I how resilient Phoenix and the other cities of the desert are toward storms.

Yitoo said, “Canyon Mist has revealed to me that the water will only be taken away again. There is a system at play that favors these desert cities, to the detriment of the land. The only way to restore balance to Mother Earth is to rid the earth of them fully and completely.”

“Please,” Yitoo said. “I must implore you all to respect your limits. Just singing this long has completely depleted you. You could die outside of the boundaries of the Four Sacred Mountains! I can’t lose any more of my brothers and sisters.”

West of them, the sun’s rays took on a dark purple hue, and the turbulent clouds resembled lilac silk billowing in the wind.

“I will sing for two days. With the unlimited water and the power of the Maelstrom song, I will bring torrential justice upon the Pale People. They will endure the violence their own ancestors enacted on the Diné! And finally, the ghosts of the past will know peace and happiness. Because Mother Earth will be cleansed of the Pale People.”

Yitoo said, “They have nothing but bloodlust and domination in their hearts. The evil that resides in their souls is unforgiving, heinous, and everlasting.”

Nathan squared off with Yitoo, who looked enraged with boiling resentment.

Not wasting an opportunity, Nathan tried to command the ice limbs to stop again. It took all his concentration to wrestle Yitoo’s control over the appendages.

“But you lack the proper pronunciation. The consequence of assimilation!”

Dew slumped. Her face contorted into an unfamiliar forlorn expression. “I don’t know what we should do.”

We are in a water crisis. Phoenix had contingencies in place. The valley has two primary sources of water. There’s the Salt River Project that gets water from the Salt River dams and the Verde River dams northeast of the valley. And the Central Arizona Project, which diverts water from Lake Powell and connects to the Salt River Project.

Yitoo’s actions have affected that source of water. Phoenix is using water from the SRP as well as artificial groundwaters to mediate the water crisis.

“Outdated state and federal regulations that were made in the first half of the twentieth century are complicating how Arizona, Utah, Nevada, and California can react to the disappearance of Lake Powell. While the government squabbles, communities that got their waters directly from CAP, including the Havasupai Nation, are suffering.”

After he heard the last word of the relocation story, something inside him irrevocably changed. He couldn’t separate himself from all that pain, misery, and injustice.

Mom told me that our ancestor eluded capture by hiding in Canyon de Chelly.

Blood quantum was never how our ancestors decided who was a member of our Nation. We have our own ways to identify members and how to incorporate multiple heritages. With Diné, it’s through the mother and the clan system.

Blood quantum is an outdated product of the US government. It’s how the United States defines us and shouldn’t be how we define ourselves. If we were to solely use blood quantum for identifying ourselves, then yes, the blood will dry out. There will be no more full-blooded Diné people.

Because when we can no longer fulfill the blood quantum requirement, that means we are no longer Diné, and the treaty contracts, like Naaltsoos Sání, that the United States made with our ancestors will be voided. And our resources, like water, like uranium, like coal, become available for extraction.

We as sovereign Nations have the power and ability to identify our own tribal members through means other than blood quantum.