Harpy
Julia assumed reintegrating into Dry Wells would be more difficult. She assumed the Twisted Hairs would relish her absence, and be none to pleased to see her back again. Afraid of their overt dismay, the effect rejection could have on her pride and (possibly) her physical health, she stalled her return and took a slow path back. On the way she distracted herself with small projects she felt befitting a Ranger.
She took a detour back to the fishing cabins, and was surprised to find them untouched since the night she left them. A few migratory animals had passed through and chewed a bit on the corpses of Pitch and his brother, but otherwise nothing was disturbed. She took her time exploring, investigating the cabin she hadn't entered yet. She scavenged a few more supplies, and after spending a few hours among the bodies decided they merited a proper burial. She dug a single shallow grave and dumped all three in it, but took special care with the body of the artist. She marked their grave with his sculptures, then scattered the rest tastefully around the area, arranging them in a way she felt exemplified their simple beauty. It took her an entire day.
In her travels she also encountered a few wasteland nomads tending a herd of bighorners. After assuring them of her peaceful intentions she helped them find a few of their missing animals, and provided medical care to one of their dogs and one of their daughters. They were simple, peaceful people and they made her feel welcome among them. She told them to credit her good deeds to the Desert Rangers and accepted no payment, save the simple meal they shared together. It felt like a good start to a new life.
When she was within a few days walk to Dry Wells, she formulated a plan for her return. The wasteland was in the season when the winds shifted and a clear path to their northernmost Anasazi neighbors opened up. She knew she would soon cross paths with a large Twisted Hair raiding party, and determined she'd receive a warmer reception if they brought her back. On the warpath she superficially injured her leg and forehead and lay down to wait.
Her plan was an unparalleled success. At first the warriors did not recognize her without her dreadlocks, but when she started speaking the Twisted Hair language to them with her Dry Wells accent they knew she was the nameless one, Arama, the daughter of the departed Aram Hurt and granddaughter of elder Aram Harpy. She made up a sob story of her 'dangerous' journey through the wastes. She claimed she was kidnapped away but had killed her kidnappers. She claimed she had not returned immediately because of her ignorance of the area. The warriors fell for all her lies. She knew most of them intimately, and knew how to play them for fools.
She was most concerned about Harpy. In fifteen years she never quite understood her grandfather. He wasn't like the other men of the tribe, who she could bat her eyelashes at and reduce to children. Harpy was made of granite, a man as inscrutable and immutable as stone. His face was unreadable, his actions unpredictable, and his mind unknowable. Usually he saw through her bullshit, no matter how clever she was. Lying to the warriors on patrol was easy, getting Harpy to believe her was the true challenge. She spent the entire way back, ferried on the backs of strong men, preparing for his questions. She fully expected to be interrogated like he'd interrogated her behavior her entire life. She assumed even with her experience among the Rangers and in the wasteland, he'd still be able to see right through her, and expected once again to be lined up against the wall and executed by an older man she couldn't help but respect.
That didn't happen. When she saw Harpy at the door of the home they once shared she steeled herself and prepared mentally for the physical abuse that was sure to precede and proceed his examination. She thought she saw anger contort his face when he saw her. He quickly hobbled over to her, tossing men twice his size out of the way.
"Michoo! Mi bella choo!" he wept and embraced her. Her hand reflexively grasped the grip of her revolver before she realized what was happening. He sobbed, openly sobbed into her shoulder. Here was the man, who for most of her life was a force of nature as terrifying and unstoppable as a tornado, an inscrutable god who controlled and coerced her and stood two-hundred feet tall, broken and weeping. Before she knew what was happening she embraced him as well, and they held each other in their arms, crying. When they parted she caught her breath and wiped her eyes.
"I'm back," she smiled and told him. He made a face she'd never seen him make before, a wide, tight-lipped grin, eyes closed. It was the face of a man who lost much in his life, who was scared he'd finally lost the one last thing important to him, who just discovered he hadn't. She didn't know what to make of it. She guessed it was some weird sort of pride, and she wasn't wrong, but she didn't realize he was proud of her.
He saw she was wounded, and still untreated. He led her away from the crowd and their prying questions. She discovered he kept their home exactly as it was when she left, and felt a pang of nostalgia and regret when she saw her expensive stone table. He took some of her gauze strips from the window and began to delicately wrap her wounds, with a gentle care she'd never seen him use before. He tied off the bandage as she would, and she was surprised to see he'd paid attention to her work as healer. She always assumed he grudgingly accepted her role out of family obligation, and that he secretly disdained her profession like the rest of the tribe. Looking around the room, though, she realized he'd always supported her. Even at great personal cost he'd supported her interest.
"Thank you, grandfather," she said and he bowed his head humbly. She offered to cook them a meal and he gratefully accepted her offer. He was so overjoyed he could barely speak. It made her deeply uncomfortable. Not his silence, which she was well accustomed to, but she was so unfamiliar with her grandfather's happiness it seemed to her that he was an entirely different person.
Fortunately, after they ate the other foot dropped, and he returned to the sour old man she grew up with. Over the years he had come to accept what he considered inappropriate or reckless behavior from his granddaughter, and he explained that he had learned to live with it because she had yet to cause any real harm.
"Now I see I gave you too much opportunity. Too much freedom," he said, "From now on, you will do as I say. You will not leave the house until I give my permission, and you will not speak to others unless I have told you it is alright. I expect you to be by my side at all times, and when you are not with me I expect you to be at home, receiving no visitors."
Julia expected this. Strict punishment made much more sense to her than love and acceptance. She was surprised it took him an entire meal to levy stringent restrictions on her behavior. At any moment she expected him to pull out a slave collar bartered from the Legion and demand she wear it. Or maybe shackles, to shackle her to him. It was more a testament to his softening in his old age that he expected her to follow his orders without them, than any respect he might have for her. She quietly acquiesced to his demands.
"Good. There will be no more running off. I only say these things to protect you, michoo. To keep you safe," he accepted her acquiescence without suspicion, which was all the better for her because she intended to follow absolutely none of his rules. She successfully got Harpy to swallow her first lie. First and second, really, although she didn't have to do a single thing to get him for to fall for the first. He just assumed she was back for good.
For three whole days he made good on his promise to keep her by his side at all times. He even made her sleep in his room. When she complained about sharing a bed with his pointy elbows and knees he dragged her mattress off its frame and drug it to his floor. In the morning he woke her up and made her follow him into the foyer while he brewed coffee. She joked that he couldn't expect her to join him for his old-man shits and he gave her a look that made it perfectly clear that was the expectation. Domineering bastard she thought. He actually ended up ordering her to stay in the house while he did his shits, but he actually made her relieve herself in front of him. When she protested he told he used to watch her all the time as a child, and now was no different. She decided to just be happy to be relieved of his terrible-smelling morning bowel movement.
Most of Harpy's day consisted of bullshitting with other old men, reminiscing about better days, and complaining about the youth. At first, Julia resented them. Harpy wouldn't let her practice any medicine; he turned away at least three people who came to her for aid and told them to consult Dark Mother. She really hated that. To forgo providing help so she could sit around and listen to men she hated talk about things she didn't care about, about people she never knew because they died before she was born. They drank while they talked, and when she refused an offer of their alcohol Harpy told her not to be rude and made her drink a shot. She felt bullied as she lifted the shotglass to her lips and choked back tears when all the men cheered. The brown liquid was harsher than the fine bourbon Thrasher drank, it burned the back of her throat and made her cough. Harpy patted her on the back and smiled. She wanted to bash his face in with a rock. She used to chide the elders for pissing away disinfectant.
She sat in sullen silence while the men laughed and gossiped and complained and drank. She imagined doing horrible things to each man in turn. Elder Hoskie she'd gut like a gecko. Then she'd pull out his intestines and use them to hang Elder Sam. Elder Water Over Stones she'd sneak up behind and bash in the head, catch him unawares and kill him before he knew what was happening. She'd quick and cleanly cut Elder Shash's throat in his sleep, but she'd tie Elder Jasper to a rock and feed him his own feet after starving him a week. As for her grandfather, she wanted to shoot him in the face.
After they shot the shit for half the day, the elders played horseshoes with some of the younger men fresh from hunting. They were all Raven's friends, but she was relieved to discover Raven was not among them. She didn't know he'd joined the Legion shortly after her disappearance, and ever since she returned she'd dreaded seeing him again. The elders shared their liquor with the hunters, who gave their kills to their wives to be dressed and cooked. The young men were uncomfortable with Julia's presence at their games, but no one dared question the will of Harpy. Most just stared at her, at her body, not that she cared. Every once in awhile the Elders forced her to take another drink so that by the time the young hunters joined them for horseshoes she felt drunk. She tried to flirt with a few, but all of them were too scared of her grandfather to reciprocate. At the end of the day Harpy had to carry her home.
The next morning she felt terrible, and when he woke her up she asked if she could just stay in the house all day. She promised to stay inside and talk to no-one, in fact she would be happy to stay inside and talk to no-one.
"No," was all Harpy said, and that was that. They drank coffee in the morning, and he forced her to eat breakfast, then he dragged her to a war meeting with the young warriors of the tribe, who were also uncomfortable at her presence.
Unlike the day before her obsequiousness was not an act, and she followed Harpy's orders to the letter. When she asked for permission to go throw up he handed her a metal bucket and told her to use it, and not to leave his side as she did so. She complied, and he discussed raiding the Manti-La for slaves over the metallic echo of her vomiting. After assault preparations were made he took her to a meeting over provisions, and distributing surplus to tribe members in need. A family was accused of hording food, with some rotten meat as evidence. The elders decreed that the offending family should not have enough food to let any rot, and as punishment they were to hand over all their foodstuffs. Their larder was to be dictated by the elder council henceforth, who parsed out a little less than the whole family needed. When they could be trusted again to share, they would be allowed to manage their own food. Julia couldn't help but be interested in the politics of the tribe, and followed the verdict intently. When it was over and she and her grandfather were alone, she argued on behalf of the accused family, claiming the evidence against them was insufficient, but Harpy shut her down.
"When you know want, you will understand our justice," he patronized her. She tried to launch into an argument for impartiality and avoiding bias based on personal history but he cut her off with a hand gesture before she could make her first point. She went back to sulking for the rest of the day. Fortunately, she wasn't forced to drink anymore. They had a quiet evening at home. Julia cooked dinner, then they played backgammon with bottlecaps. Although her hangover cleared up in the evening, she didn't bother trying to sneak out. She was content to let the day slip away.
The third day was much the same as the first. They boys out raiding the Manti-La wouldn't be back for another couple days, and there wasn't much else for the elders to do, so they sat around or played games. Elder Jasper made a crack about her reluctance to drink, and she almost snapped and attacked him right then and there. What stopped her was Harpy. To her surprise, he defended her, and called Jasper's own drinking habits to question, and also implied with no small derision that his alcoholism cost him a victory in combat as a younger man. To Julia's even greater surprise, Jasper didn't get mad at Harpy's remark, and instead followed it up with an insult directed at Harpy. Without warning, the other elders contributed their own insults directed at her venerable grandfather, a long string of them, some of them so vile even at her angriest she wouldn't dare sling them at him. And he laughed.
"Eh heh heh, not to fond of us trashing your precious grandfather, eh child?" Water Over Stones ribbed her when he noticed her shocked expression.
"Oh, no. Naw, I'll just have to think of something new the next time we're arguing," she quipped. The elders all had a hearty laugh at her disrespect, even her grandfather. After a moment gauging their reaction, she couldn't help but join in herself. It felt good to laugh. She couldn't remember the last time she'd had a good laugh at Dry Wells. Probably before Heart was sent away.
Once she realized she was allowed speak her mind among the elders, she started to feel much better. After jokes and smalltalk she even got to argue for the family they condemned yesterday, and for a more impartial justice system. Some of the elders even seemed intrigued by her ideas. They all drank more, and since she no longer felt coerced into it she drank more freely. Thankfully, she didn't make an ass of herself, and she and her grandfather left in good spirits, although they didn't exchange a single word on the walk home.
"We can move your mattress back into your room," her grandfather offered before he went to sleep. She was already on top of it, having collapsed as soon as she made it in the room.
"N'm okay," she drunkenly mumbled. She belched once and fell into dreamless sleep.
She woke up alone. Her grandfather was already up, made his coffee and left. She assumed he still expected her to follow his restrictions, and not leave or accept visitors. She disguised some cloth to make it look like she was still asleep under her scratchy blanket and slipped out, still drunk.
She knew exactly who she was looking for but she didn't know where to find him. She scoured the outskirts of town, figuring she'd spot him lurking about. He wasn't by the river, he wasn't by the road, and he wasn't by the pre-war industrial building rotting to the south. She cursed her apathy towards the Legion. If she'd only been a bit more interested before she left she might know how to contact them without risking her grandfather's wrath. Instead, she spent the whole day wandering around like a jackass and no closer to enacting her plans.
When Harpy returned home he asked her what she'd done all day, and she told him she'd sat around nursing a hangover (Which wasn't entirely untrue. At about noon the alcohol turned on her and she felt less-than-excellent). He took her at her word. She made him dinner and tried to avoid further questions, but after they ate and she felt better she asked him what he did all day.
"Mostly dealt with the damn Legion," he grumbled. She dropped her head on the stone table in defeat and he jumped and asked, "What? What's wrong?"
"Nothing," she whined into the stone and he didn't press further. He wanted to complain about Caesar's man so he continued as though she wasn't acting strangely.
"Sour bastard," he said, "Wanted a full report on the Manti-La. Told him all our info on that area is a year old, at least. We just sent everyone who knows it best on a raid for slaves, they'll be back in a couple days and we'll have good intel then. Said he wants it now. Told me, 'Caesar doesn't care for disrespect,' he says. 'Caesar's punishments for those who disappoint him are grave indeed,' he says. Fucking soft-hands asshole. Hisses like a diamondback. Slithers like one, too."
Once again Julia was surprised at her grandfather's openness. For fifteen years he'd kept her in the dark about his business, even when she expressed an interest. Admittedly, she hadn't expressed much of interest. She wondered if his secrecy and reserve had more to do with her assumptions than his intent. Had he been willing to reach out to her, if only she'd reached out to him first? It was too late to speculate. She had a mission to perform, her plan to execute.
"Where does the man from the Legion stay? Certainly we keep him at a distance, right?" she pressed.
"Of course we keep that snake at a distance! Don't want him watching our women and children, getting ideas," he contemptuously snarled, before he rebuffed her, "Don't you worry about him. Best leave the Legion to the men." She couldn't ask any further, lest she arouse his suspicions.
Everything fell into place, anyway. In less than a week her grandfather was already complacent enough to let her get away with whatever she wanted, and she was familiar enough with his psyche to know what he considered arm's length. After another day shooting the shit with his friends, she snuck away. In the ancient industrial site south of Dry Wells she found the man from Caesar's Legion. Vulpes Inculta.