As Julia walked from the hill the sun was streaming down through her hair from above, highlighting the black with an otherwise invisible auburn. She smiled at him, shielding her eyes from the hard rays of the sun, and waving her hand over her head in a care free manner. He waved back, the power to crush her simple friendly happiness with a few choice words burning a hole in his stomach. She picked up a heavy bundle she had put down when she saw him, and Julia ran over to Vulpes.
"Going east?" She asked with a sparkle in her dark eyes.
"My body is moving eastward, but for the love of my king I always look westward," He said.
"Me," Julia said with a bragging tone, ignoring the ominous way he spoke, "I have no king or country. I'm a rolling stone and I ain't gonna gather no moss. I heard something like that in a song once. I think that's how the words went, anyways, I'm not gonna stop walking until I have enough money to buy me and mom a nice place to live."
"You love your mother it seems."
"Of course," Julia responded, "Plus I feel like I owe her for being there after our dad died. She's worked very hard."
"She'll earn her eternal reward some day," Vulpes said, unable to hide a slight smirk. "So are you going to follow me where I'm going carrying such a big package?"
"I have to take this to The Divide," Julia responded, "I was hoping if you didn't pick up anything to carry back east you'd follow me. We could probably both get stuff to take to New Vegas in The Divide. They usually need someone to trade with, in the pass. Plus it's a lot faster than going around the mountains."
"The Divide," Vulpes repeated almost too quite to hear. He remembered one of his best men was supposed to be on recon inside, and it had been awhile sense he had heard out of Ulysses. "I suppose I could be persuaded to follow you. I have to drop these papers off at a town a little south of Nipton, but if you could bare my company I'd have yours."
"I'm hoping you'll see I do a good job and introduce me to some of your contracts in Primm," Julia said, still smiling.
"I'll introduce you to things you've never imagined. Sights, sounds, ideas, a world of things you never dreamed of," Vulpes said, his voice conveying a delicate wonder that had an effect on the girl. "Stick with me, and your life will be something you never knew it could be."
Laughing Julia skipped ahead of him a little, her lanky body betraying the visual qualities of unspoiled youth. She had an easy gate missing from most adults, and where the brilliance of a deep melancholy made her mother shimmer with a tragic beauty, Julia was simply a free sunny soul, radiant as it burned with life's pleasures. It wasn't that she was remarkably pretty, but she had come of age in a world more sheltered from brutality than most. Plus she was right about one thing, she was free of God or country. Julia could conquer the world and only answer to herself at the end of the day.