Vulpes Inculta

"Well, well, well. From the way the men of your tribe talk, I figured I'd see you sooner," he said with a sneer, "But you can forget it. I don't sully myself with diseased profligates."

"Charming," she recovered quick after a brief panic (that maybe he knew she was ground zero for a clap outbreak a couple years ago), "I can understand why you're so popular among the elders."

He continued to sneer condescendingly at her, but refused to respond. He had thin lips and his face reminded her of a bird. Not because he had a particularly prominent beak, but the way his angular bone structure was both beautiful and menacing at the same time. He radiated cool authority, yet she wanted to punch him more than anything. It was as though his smug pout was a magnet for her fist. The compulsion was rooted deep in the basic forces of nature.

"Then again, with a smile like that you must be popular with everyone," she probed, "That's why you're out here on such a cushy gig, right? Golden son of the Legion gets the best jobs?"

His sneer turned crueler, more teeth and less already-meager lip. It made him look harsher, less bird-like and more coyote-like. Deep in his stillwater eyes she saw a hatred so foul and consuming she knew exactly why he'd been assigned to the Twisted Hairs. There was no diplomacy to the man at all, just pure cold calculation. He wasn't at Dry Wells to talk, he was there to ferret out weakness and exploit it. Exactly the man she wanted to talk to.

"Clearly the pinnacle of Legion excellence, come to convince all us profligates the error of our shameful ways, here to shine the light of Caesar," not without her fun first, though. Although the man's reedy build made him an odd shape for the Legion, it was obvious he was had his own lean strength. Although the way he reacted to her insults made it clear he was insecure about his place among the Legion's brutes, no man among Caesar's soldiers lacked fitness. It was overconfidence that provoked her into goading him further. She did have some protection, since killing her would almost certainly destroy any relationship the Legion had with Dry Wells.

"Then again, maybe our proud warriors have swung you the other way. There must be some reason you enjoy the company of other men so much," was enough to provoke him into attacking her, diplomacy be damned. He easily overpowered her, a small teenage girl, and threw her to the ground. He held his lawnmower-blade machete to her throat, dagger knee pinning her chest, hatred blazing in his eyes.

She laughed.

"What?" she threw him off his guard. The sound of her laughter unsettled him to his very core, and he was so startled he almost jumped off her in shock. Instead he merely loosened his grip and moved his knee off the tiny teenager (he himself was not that much older).

"Yeah, you got all the diplomacy of a soldier," she flashed her impressively-maintained teeth at him. Vulpes frowned again, embarrassed by his behavior. He stood up and let her out of his grasp. She told him, "Relax. I'm a friend."

"You have an... odd way of showing it," he couldn't help but smile. He had a thin, mean smile. Every part of his behavior was off-putting, but he still helped her up.

"Look, this whole treaty thing isn't sitting well with his glorious eminence, right?" she dusted herself off. He cautiously nodded. He glanced around, not yet sure whether he could trust her or not. She made him deeply, deeply uncomfortable. Her behavior was unpredictable and he couldn't figure out her angle. He prided himself on his ability to read people, but she was completely throwing him off. He couldn't tell where she stood, or what she stood to gain. She seemed to know too much, much more than he would ever expect from a young tribal. It made him nervous.

"He sent you because he wants to bring Dry Wells and by extension the Twisted Hairs under his banner. You're here to probe for weakness and everyone can tell," she said.

"... Actually, I'm supposed to be here as cover for another operation nearby," he admitted tentatively, "... But Caesar would be very pleased if I managed to break the Twisted Hairs. You're right, the treaty doesn't make him as happy as capitulation would."

He settled against the exposed steel girder he'd been slouching on when she approached him. He figured the Twisted Hairs were as wary of pissing Caesar off as he was wary of pissing off their elders, and it afforded him some protection. Since he had been conspicuously looking for an advantage, as he always was, her assertion the Twisted Hairs were wise to him rang true, so as long as she was being forthright with him he could be a little forthright with her.

"Well, fuck your other job. From now on you work for me and we're bringing down the Twisted Hairs," she told him on no uncertain terms. He smugly scoffed at her presumptuousness, but she held firm. She was absolutely serious, and she wanted him to know. For her plan to work they needed to trust each other. At least, he needed to trust her.

"And what makes you think I'll follow your orders, just like that," he snapped his fingers mockingly when he realized she was absolutely serious, "Surely you know no Legionary will ever take orders from a woman."

He spit the last word with venom. It was her turn to condescendingly sneer at him. They locked eyes and stared each other down. He stood at least a foot taller than her and she could feel it in his gaze. In her eyes was atomic power, but he was too blinded by his prejudice to see it. She could tell locking horns with him would get her nowhere, so she looked away and directed his attention to Dry Wells, invisible past rocky cliffs.

"I don't know what you're doing in your other operation, but whatever it is won't be as juicy a mutfruit as Dry Wells. Right now you have no fucking chance of breaking the Twisted Hairs, and in fact you're such a piece of shit negotiator you might even fuck up what little Caesar has now," she looked back at him, but he focused on the distance, "But I grew up here, and I know every weakness those bastards try to keep hidden. I have all the inside information you could ever want. You want to bring the Twisted Hairs back to Caesar? You need to work with me, and you need to follow my lead."

"Unless you think some man is gonna come down here and give you the same sweet deal I'm offering," she mocked. Already she could tell she had him convinced, she could see the wheels turn in his chalk-white head. Even though he was Legion she could tell he was more practical and conniving than the average Legion thug, she saw it when she first laid eyes on his lanky frame. All in all, it was to her advantage that the Legion had sent a man with greater than average cunning.

"Alright," he said after a long minute spent chewing her proposition over, "Tell you what. You kill one of your tribesmen for me, and prove to me you did it, you have a deal. Until then, if you bother me again, I'll pop your eyes out of your sockets, cut your tongue out, and sew your lips shut."

His voice was completely level and monotone as he told her the terms of his assistance. No histrionics, no chest thumping show of force, not even a casual calling of attention to the weapon tied to his power-cord belt by a bit of brahmin leather. A prosaic statement of intent, a verbal contract in clear language. He didn't even blink when she immediately agreed to it. In a flash she was gone, racing back to the village before Harpy got home.

That night while they played backgammon on her expensive stone table she asked him how his day was. He grumbled something about cheating at horseshoes and slid a Nuka-Cola bottlecap two spaces further. She asked him a more specific question, if elder Jasper complained about his knee. Harpy was caught off guard by her interest, and admitted that yes, Jasper had complained about his knee, quite a bit. Especially while they played horseshoes.

"How did you guess?" he asked her.

She told him the story of how she used to drain elder Jasper's knee of fluid every couple of weeks. Otherwise it would swell up and put a lot pressure on his joints, to the point where he couldn't bend it if left untreated. He speculated that since Jasper was still mobile even though she hadn't given him treatment in a year he must be draining his own fluid now. She didn't tell her grandfather that while she treated him he would often tell her crude jokes, and referred to her 'sweet ass' frequently. Once he actually groped her thigh, but she slapped him away and told him don't. She assumed that would be enough, and the next time he visited her he didn't say much as she treated the inflammation. When she was finished and he was back on his feet, though, he grabbed her roughly by the waist and pulled her to him. He managed to kiss her on the neck with his chapped lips before she reached under him and gripped his scrotum, applying enough pressure to turn coal into diamond. He immediately let go of her and tried to pry her off, but she whipped out her knife and held it to his throat. She nicked him a little to let him know she was serious.

"Cut your knee and squeeze it out yourself from now on. If you ever try to talk to me again, I'll tell my grandfather you tried to fuck me, and he'll cut them off. If you ever come back here again, I'll cut them off myself. I know where you live, Jasper," she hissed at him and gripped his balls even tighter to punctuate her message. She was thirteen. After that he indeed drained his own fluid.

"The people don't need you anymore," Harpy told her, "They can take care of themselves know."

"We'll see," she told him, and won their game. She was patient, but she didn't have to wait long at all before Harpy was proven wrong.

The raid on the Manti-La was a stirring success, leading to the capture of a great deal of food, some gun parts and ammunition, and three healthy slaves. No Twisted Hairs were seriously injured in the attack, but on the long road back one young man lost his footing and tumbled down a steep incline. The war party made the slaves carry him back on a stretcher rigged up with animal skin and metal poles. He was in bad shape, they didn't do anything to treat his wounds for the entire difficult trip. The whole way back he passed in and out of consciousness and they couldn't tell if he was alive or dead except when he moaned in pain. In defiance of elder Harpy his companions brought him straight to Julia.

She was with her grandfather on the shore of the Colorado, collecting water for their house. He was making her carry both buckets all by herself because carrying water buckets "is women's work," and she needed to learn how to be a woman. When she angrily pointed out that she'd never be a "woman" in the eyes of the tribe, and she had him to thank for it, he told her that was inconsequential. He told her she needed to build character, and they got into a screaming argument by the river. She tried to storm off but he grasped her tightly by the wrist and reminded her that she was beholden to his authority, and she could leave when he let her leave. She took a deep breath and carried two buckets of water back to her grandfather's house. She was about to haul another two buckets out of the river when the war party approached.

All of the boys came to see her. They walked up to the shore and stopped about ten feet away. Harpy greeted them warmly but he didn't understand what was happening. Usually war parties stopped in the center of the village so that their spoils could be distributed evenly. They stood patiently in a tight mass as they carried the wounded warrior over their shoulders and set him down on the sand like an offering. Julia pretended she didn't know what was going on, but as soon as Harpy saw the young man in the stretcher his face bloated in rage.

"Take him to Dark Mother! Do not bother my grandchild with your bullshit!" he screamed and waved them away violently. If he had a weapon she was sure he would have attacked them, despite a decade-and-change wearing his bones thinner than the lot of them. He snarled like a rabid dog, "My granddaughter is no longer tribe prostitute!"

The war party was unfazed. Their brother-in-arms was going to die unless he received Julia's skilled care, and even then his odds of making it to next year were not great. If she wasn't allowed to see him, they might as well bash his brains in right there on the beach. One of them held up a rock for the implicit purpose.

"No! No more! Away! Away with all of you!" Harpy screamed, with each word growing less intimidating and more desperate. She could see tears well up in the corners of his eyes. She stopped pretending to gather water and walked up to him. She put her arm gently on his shoulder.

"Grandfather," she whispered softly. His shoulders slumped, defeated. He stopped trying to chase the warriors away, but stared down at his feet and said nothing at all. His harsh features softened into a sad frown, like erosion on the weather-beaten cliffs surrounding the village. He could bully his granddaughter around all he wanted, but ultimately he was beholden to the will of the tribe .

"Take him to my house. Place him on the stone table. I will be with you shortly," she ordered the war party, and they solemnly complied. She gathered fresh, pure water in both her buckets and began to lug them back to the house. She stopped and turned to face her grandfather, who had not moved since she calmed him. She told him to come along with her, and for the first time ever he followed her orders.

The wounded warrior was in very bad shape. She could tell from only a cursory glance that his legs were broken, and not only that but the muscles of his thighs had burst like a crushed orange, leaving long, sinister gashes that had lain open to the harsh wasteland air for days. The rest of his battered frame looked no better, mostly bruises and cuts and skin stretched at odd angles over splintered bone. She was surprised he was even still alive, which she confirmed by checking his pulse and listening to his shallow breathing. He had lost most of his blood, and he had a fever.

It was too easy. She told his peers and her grandfather to give them space, and her grandfather agreed. He ordered the war party out into the village center to distribute their spoils. Even though they were still close by, the frenzied activity of their triumphant return might as well have been a thousand miles away from Julia and her patient.

"Too easy, too easy," she complained as she mopped his brow with a rag. She clucked her tongue, "You had to make this too easy on me, hmmm?"

She examined him some more, took thorough stock of the damage done. She didn't bother with any painkiller. Although he barely reacted at all she was sure he could feel the cruel way she caressed his broken bones. Delirious, he whimpered, and she gently slapped his cheek a little in a mocking approximation of care.

"It's okay sweetie, you can scream all you want," she whispered in his ear, and by the pained expression on his face felt comfortable he understood. It was cathartic for her, to finally embrace the role of butcher after years spent working desperately to shed the image. There would be no anesthesia this time, there would be no bedside manner, no holding back. Not for this patient, who had the misfortune of hurting himself with the worst possible timing.

First she set the broken bones in his legs. That woke him up. His bones were so mangled from the fall and left to try and knit themselves together at odd angles she had to muscle the pieces around so they'd line up. When she forced his fibula back together he jolted in pain and made a whine like a siren. When she set his tibia back in a line he tried to roll away from the pain but she held his leg tight.

"If you keep moving like that, you're only going to make it harder on yourself," she told him with a huge smile on her face, but her eyes were all menace. She licked her lips as she examined his pained expression, the pure agony as beautiful to her as the setting sun over the river Colorado. When she examined his soft kneecap with her index finger he actually screamed in pain. She playfully told him that real men don't scream like little girls and continued to examine him thoroughly.

The boy was in bad shape, there was no doubt about it. Upon analysis of his infected cuts she realized there was no saving the leg she just set.

"Hmmm, bad news, boy," she told him. She pulled her bonesaw out of storage, tested it's sharpness on her finger. She licked her blood from the small cut it left behind. She admitted to him, "Never used this without anesthesia before. Gonna have to tie you down."

She didn't have anything to tie him to, so she just bound his arms to his sides. He squirmed in agony as she wrapped the scratchy rope around what was almost certainly a whole sternum of broken ribs. She gave him a piece of plastic to bite down on. She didn't know what to do about the leg she wasn't sawing off, so he tried to kick her away as she hacked through his upper thigh. She had to lie down across both his legs as she sawed. When she was finished he spat the plastic out of his mouth and screamed long and horrible. She'd tied a tourniquet around the leg to close off bloodflow, but she needn't have bothered. He had so little blood left only an emaciated trickle burbled out and collected on the stone in a puddle the size of a bottlecap. As she sawed she left a piece of metal to heat up on her grandfather's electric hotplate and when she was finished she gingerly picked it up with a rag and cauterized his wound. The smell of burnt flesh filled the room, and she savored the crackling sound of his leg and the howling sound of his agony. She disinfected the scratches on his remaining leg (he couldn't even feel it, not after the hot metal) and then wrapped it in a splint, carefully unspooling her finest roll of cloth bandage, the one that had never been used before.

Then she disinfected his other abrasions while he writhed in pain. She applied so much alcohol she could her it sizzle and burn in his raw wounds. It was the only way to get him to react. She taunted his suffering again, advising him to quit being such a baby lest she really start treating him roughly. The fact that she couldn't treat the boy any worse made her smile even harder.

He needed blood, and since she didn't want to be bothered with any of the tribesmen whooping it up just outside her door, she worked up a transfusion with herself as the donor. She wrapped up his wounds in her virgin bandages then by means of a plastic tube and two needles began to give him her blood. She didn't know her blood type, and she didn't know his blood type, but she figured it didn't really matter. She worked out an IV drip of saline and stuck it in him, too, since he was so dehydrated.

To her surprise, her efforts bore fruit. In just an hour he already looked much better, although he still had a bad fever. He was wrapped head-to-toe in bandages, and his leg was gone, and she'd given him nearly a full pint of blood she didn't even know would make home in his veins, but he had some color back and his breathing was more regular. He passed out from pain shortly after she wrapped his cuts, but he seemed to be sleeping thereafter and she took that as a good sign. Not that it mattered. She was going to murder him either way, she simply wanted to prove that she could save him. That way when she killed him it was absolutely deliberate. She wanted to secure Vulpes' assistance, but she also needed to prove to herself one final time before she went through with betraying and destroying her people that she could kill any one of them with no hesitation and no regrets.

And she could. She tied his testicles off after she removed the direct line between their hearts. She held the cold steel of her knife to his scrotum and he didn't react. Perhaps he wouldn't have pulled through after all. She cut off his nuts and his body made motion to fight back but had no energy left. She tied his testicles off in a small cloth bag and set it aside, then removed the IV drip from his arm and stuck it straight into his lung. In a matter of minutes he was convulsing on the stone table, flopping around like a fish and drowning in his own lungs. She watched his death throws without blinking, and with a an absolutely terrifying grin.

No one questioned why he was dead. Why would they? He was dead long before she got her hands on him. None of them noticed he was missing his scrotum. They were too distracted by his absence of a leg. She was blamed for his death, of course, but his mother and his wife and everyone else who blamed Julia didn't know they were right, and that was just as good as being wrong. The boy received the last Twisted Hair funeral at Dry Wells.

Since her grandfather was so pissed at his authority being undermined it took her another two days to escape him and meet with Vulpes Inculta, although he already heard about the boy's death when he met with the Manti-La war party for information and to buy the slaves they brought back. Out of respect for elder Harpy the war party left out Julia's involvement. On his way out of the village, though, the boy's mother caught him by the arm. He was stopped from throwing her off him in revulsion by her revelation that the nameless one, the whore of the tribe, was responsible for her son's death, and that the warriors were too scared of the whore's grandfather to tell Vulpes the truth. She begged him to make sure the nameless one was punished by Caesar for her treachery, and he assured her Arama would face her just reward, then cast her off and marched out of town wearing an unpleasant sneer.

She approached him at the site and he couldn't help but smile his mean-lipped smile when he saw her. He told her she better have proof of a murder for him, even though he knew she went through with one. He even drew his machete and fingered the blade. She tossed the cloth bag at him and he caught it and pulled out its contents.

"What is this?" he asked her.

"Proof," she sneered at him, then clarified, "It's my victim's ballsack."

He dropped the severed testes in disgust and shock. He wiped his hand on his armor, and was about to dive it into the cool waters of the Colorado but she grabbed and shook it, "So we have a deal, then."

"I suppose we do," he reluctantly agreed. His dismay at being outmaneuvered by her again was tempered by his already-coalesced plot to betray her as she betrayed her people. He pictured the violations that would be perpetrated on her young, supple body to relax. Despite his earlier assertion that he wouldn't stoop to satisfying himself with her sex, he seriously considered raping her once their plan was completed. Certainly she's quite attractive, he admitted to himself and subconsciously ran his finger up and down his blade while they decided the future of the Twisted Hairs.