Josey Wales sat with his back to the fire, hat low, eyes like old iron.
Across from him, Grizzly Love fed cedar into the flames, the smoke curling like a prayer that didn’t know where to land.
Josey Wales:
Funny thing about empires. They don’t kill you clean. They take your land, rename your rivers, then tell you it was always theirs. Yugoslavia—carved up by kings with accents and maps. Promises made in London, blood paid for in the Balkans.
Grizzly Love:
Turtle Island knows that story. Different soil, same crown shadow. They came with paper and crosses, said civilization, meant extraction. Our nations weren’t conquered in battle—they were administered to death.
Josey:
Administration’s a tidy word for it. Borders drawn like scars, neighbors turned into enemies. They taught us to hate each other so we’d forget who set the house on fire.
Grizzly Love:
Divide and rule. Oldest spell in the book. On Turtle Island they broke treaties the way a gambler palms cards. One hand shaking yours, the other reaching for the land beneath your feet.
Josey:
In Yugoslavia they played the same tune. Whispered to Croat, Serb, Bosniak—you’re different, you’re threatened. Meanwhile the empire walked away rich, leaving us to bury the dead and argue over the rubble.
Grizzly Love:
And then history books call it “ancient hatreds.”
Like the knife fell from the sky by itself.
Josey (snorts):
Ain’t ancient when the ink’s still wet. They call it order. Call it law. But it’s just theft wearing a uniform.
Grizzly Love:
What hurts most isn’t just what was taken. It’s the way they tried to teach us to forget who we were. Languages outlawed. Ceremonies mocked. Elders turned into ghosts while the flag went up the pole.
Josey:
Same trick everywhere. Kill the memory and the land follows. But memory’s a stubborn thing. It lives in songs, in food, in the way old men look at the ground and remember a country that breathed.
Grizzly Love:
That’s why they fear stories. A story don’t need permission. It crosses borders without a passport.
Josey:
So what do we do with it? All this grief?
Grizzly Love (after a pause):
We tell the truth cleanly. We don’t become what hurt us. Empire wants us bitter and small. Nations survive by remembering—and by refusing to pass the poison on.
Josey:
Yeah. Revenge makes another empire. Justice makes a future.
The fire cracked. Cedar smoke rose straight up, like it had found something worth listening to.