Queens of the Cattle Prod

Hester Farms

Chapter 1

                Welcome to Hester farm. This community was created in the early twenty third century, only three years after the conclusion of WWIV. It is one of the largest and most productive farms of Texas. The land covers a large area encompassing over three thousand acres and lies over what used to be known as the prosperous city of Dallas. It was found that the area, though the climate is somewhat unpredictable, was perfect for the raising of livestock and other farm products. The far south pastures are used to grow a variety of grains like wheat and barley and just a little north of that, cattle corn and red beans. But as all of you know, this lovely farm was not founded on the principle of growing vegetation but on the livestock.  This farm holds two thousand heads of cattle, six thousand heads of sheep and goats, and about one thousand fifty heads of man.

Sentry

                “Sentry! Bring them around. I swear! You have no head today. If you keep jabbing him with that prod, he’ll never be of any use to us.”

                My older sister Nea always yelled at me as if I was a complete idiot. I breathed in the fresh air of the farm, rode the ponies, and hearded the cattle ever since I was born, but since she has been alive for half a year longer, she considers herself the boss. I couldn’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t around the cattle. In some ways I felt a strange connection with them. They were stupid brainless creatures that knew of few things but how to eat and shit. Other than that, they were milked and disposed of. What was it that I found so appealing I never knew. Perhaps it was the strange grunts they produced as they walked among each other or the way they smelled like dry hay and a touch of burnt popcorn. I couldn’t tell and was to busy to think about it heartily at the moment.

                “I’m not hurting them,” I called to her.

                “Speak for yourself!” I couldn’t believe that a cow—a cow!—had spoken back to me. I held my prod near his leg and forced him back with the threat of it.

“Sentry! Chisy! Follow behind. Bring them forward.” My little sister and I raced behind the cattle and pushed them toward the gates where Nea waited. She whooped a call at us and ducked down inside the gate as the first group began to pass under. Chisy and I circled behind them, waving back and forth to avoid any break always.

“Sentry! That’s enough with the prods! I swear, leave them alone or I will use my own on you.” According to everyone who met my sister, she swore too much in the say so and literally. I only grunted and put the prod away. There was no need to start a fight with her so early the in the dawning hours.

It was a small heard, only of about fifty. We had bought the lot of them from an auction at a bankrupt farm just a few miles up the road. Most of them appeared in good condition, but my sister insisted they were all to be sorted by her personally and then given vaccines and antibodies. When they were all clustered together in a small ring, my sister came down amongst the group and stood within the circle. Chisy and I were never allowed inside the “judgment hall”, as we all did like to call it. There wasn’t a girl audacious enough as Nea to take on an entire herd of cows on her own, but she could do it without even breaking a blush. She brought out a short whip, more for show and noise than anything else, and cracked it in the air.

“Listen up you brainless beasts. You will do everything that I tell you to do unless you wish to get tagged.” My sister always called out to them as if they could understand a word she said. It was obvious not a one of them was listening. I’d seen her tag a few of the rougher ones; it didn’t appear a pleasant affair. She would, in a fluid motion, flip them on the ground, then with a knee pinned down on their necks, puncture any available skin, preferably a tender spot, with a red mark. It had a sedative effect and permanently marked them as troublesome.

“Backup!” She cracked the whip in the air. “I’m gonna place you into rows. Stay where I put you. If you take one step out of line.” The whip cracked. She didn’t finish her sentence.

My sister grabbed their necks one by one and pushed them toward another gate. “A, A, D, A, C.” The cows were rarely if ever put into the F gate. Just from a scan over the herd, I knew that none of them would go into it. Since we had purchased them, the bad ones had already been weeded out.  When Nea had finished sorting them, she wiped her brow and directed them through the gate, tapping the lagging brutes on the backside with the whip. She gave orders to the other hands to clean and vaccinate them. More often than not she took up the job so that it could be done “right”, but today she looked worn out.  She turned to Chisy and me with an open smile. “Are you guys hungry?”

I immediately raised my hand.

The farm kitchen was the largest of its kind that I had ever seen. It had to be to feed the fifty ranch hands that lived on the estate.

“Good Morning Flora Darling,” I said as I sat down and removed a dusty hat.

“Why how lovely to see you at the breakfast table. You don’t come by in the mornings that often now, do ya?”

“No Ma’am. My sister loves to keep us busy with something ‘r other.”

Nea leaned back in her seat to stretch. Her cotton shirt tugged away from under her jeans but didn’t come out. “The new heard is placid as chicks. The other hands won’t have a hard time with them. I thought we could use a bit of a break.”

“Its about time! What can I get for you? I’ll make it specially.”

“Black coffee here,” said my sister without looking up. She seemed to be intensely staring at a hang nail but her lips were moving like she were calculating something in her head.

“I’d like some tea, biscuits, a saucer of fruit, maybe a few potatoes with ketchup, and oatmeal.” I was hungry. Flora laughed at my order and brushed a tear from her eye with her apron.

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Grilled cheese,” said Chisy. She was always very quiet in the presence of other people. Thought I loved her with all of my being I could never understand her. She was by far the smallest girl on the ranch but had the cruelest punches. She could knock anyone to their knees but still be shorter. She was a sweet child though and rarely drew to the circumstances of fighting.

Flora laughed again but left to fulfill the order given to her. Nea and I took the opportunity to taunt Chisy. We leaned in toward her and together began to chant, “Cheesy Chisy. Cheesy Chisy.”

“If you’re not careful, It will start pouring from your nose,” I taunted.

Nea was still gazing at a phantom but threw in her insult on cue. “You’re innards’ll turn orange.”

“You’ll start to smell like Limburger!”

“Shut up!” Chisy grunted.

Flora returned with the coffee and my fruit. “I’ll bring out the rest in a bit,” she told me with a smile. Nea took her coffee and took large glups of it at a time. I had tried that once and nearly chocked to death. How she could drink the boiling bitter liquid so fast without a grimace and without burning her tounge was beyond me. Flora stood behind Nea’s chair and tapped the wood contemplatively. “I hate to burst your relaxation bubble, but I’m gonna give ya some more work.”

“No problem,” my sister said in stride. “Working is our lives.”

“We’re getting a new heard in, I think only about twenty or so.”

“Cows?” I asked.

“Yes, of course your cows. You three are the best around. I wouldn’t put ya with anything else.”

“Small herd,” my sister said, drinking down the rest of the coffee. “We are almost to our limit already. What is the use of buying these few more?”

“I didn’t pay a cent for them. They’re wild.”

My sister spat out all the coffee and started to cough and hack like an old cat with a lodged hairball. “Wild?” Her eyes were bulging and red with a few tears squeezed out. She coughed again and smoothed over her face with a green kerchief that she kept in her back pocket. “How in the world could there we any wild herds? They were wiped out of the wild little less than ten years ago. There is no unsupervised breeding.”

Chisy lifted her head. She looked as if she to were about to cry without even having chocked on coffee. “But—”

“There is none! It’s against the law!” Nea composed herself and rubbing her forehead, asked, “When are they coming in?”

“Sometime late this afternoon. Will you be able to take them? I can have another team sort them. There are only a few.”

“Come now Flora.” Nea put her hat back on and grew twice as tall. “You know me better than this. This herd aren’t no fancy pants granny hands that wander aimlessly around the fields all day. These are the wild ones.  I would never trust brats to harness them in.”

I grew in spirit with my sister. “Let’s go get us some cows!”

“I wouldn’t get so excited. They’re still quite a few chores ta get done round here ‘fore they arrive.” Flora winked at me in a mothering way that was only threatening if you understood the implications of it.

Nea tipped her hat to Flora as a country salute and transfer of power over the forces, that is, Chisy and me. “Chisy, when you finish eating, I want you to clean out five stalls. Don’t dawdle about it either.” Chisy stuck out her tongue in the most elegant fashion I’d ever seen for such a gesture. “If you don’t want to loose your tongue I suggest you keep it in your mouth.”

“Sentry, I want you to feed the D and F group. Ms. Walton is coming in today. Pick out a nice one for her from the F group. Nothing to flashy.”

“I’m warning you, Nea Kayle Roberts, if you make me talk to that woman I will scream.” I hated Ms. Walton. She would always hook me into a speech about how working on a farm was far to masculine for a girl of my type. From there she would drone on about the wonders of childhood until I was forced to practically pull my ears out.

“You’re not getting me to talk to her!” Chisy grabbed her sandwich the second it was set down before her and walked briskly in mock enthusiasm to clean the stalls. Talking to Ms. Walton was enough of a threat to make her go about her job with some joy.

“We’ll draw straws then.” Nea reached into her jeans pockets and pulled out two toothpicks and bit off the end of one. “If you pick the longer one, I will talk to Ms. Walton alone but if you pick the short one, you’ll have to come with me and stand in front of me. You can’t hide in the back.”

“That’s not fair! Even if I did stand behind you she would pick me out. She hates you because you spit!”

“If you don’t pick, you go alone.”

“Fine!” I screamed. I hated playing these games. I was the unluckiest person I knew. If someone was to be kicked or punched by a cow, it was I. Not to say that afterwards that cow didn’t get something back worse from Nea. I did suppose, however, that not all of my haplessness was due to fate.

 She held out the toothpicks to me with their ends hidden in her hand. I looked over them, searching for any clue, a bit of wet wood, splinters, distinguishing auspicious marks. Nothing. I sigh and picked the one to the right. Just my luck, it was short.

“Excellent. You are coming with me and afterwards you’ve got to oil up the ponies.” I snapped the toothpick in my hand. I hated oiling up the four wheelers that we used for herding. .  I always got immaculately dirty and the knots that accumulated in my hair would make it stand straight on end.

We called them ponies in a delusion to become the cowgirls out in the “real” west. I’d never ridden a real horse eventhough I thought that it looked like something that would have been fun. It was to bad they had all died out some seventy years back

“Let me give you a bit of advise,” my sister said, putting her arm around my shoulder. “If you want to win once in a while on this game, you have to stop picking the right one all the time.”

I stamped my foot in anger and walked outside behind her, pulling my hat down as far as it would over my eyes.

Chisy

It came to my knowledge that as I was cleaning the stalls, very diligently that is, that my sisters were meeting with Ms. Walton. They had chosen a gelding and were taking him out to her. I knew the routine, because I’d seen it so many times before and Mrs. Walton followed it faultlessly.

First she would balk as Nea showed up leading the cow on line. Nea would most likely spit to the side to further prevent Ms. Walton from speaking with her. Then Ms. Walton would see Sentry and squeal like a preteen with a crush. Then she would continue in the squealing voice for the next fifteen minutes scolding Sentry on dirty nails and a masculine job until her throat died out and she had to continue on in a normal pitch. Nea would spit several times in these minutes and pat the cow as if to comfort it about going to its new hell hole. Ms. Walton would then turn to Nea and scold her on spitting and grunting and snorting. Nea would remain stoical until Ms. Walton made the mistake, which she always did, and mentioned our parents. I could always see her face so clearly as if someone had chiseled it out of some invincible rock. Nea would then explain how her upbringing and demeanor had nothing to do with her parents, which was a lie.  Ms. Walton used several words after this ranging from wild and savage to disgraceful and ungodly. Nea would never strike at another woman but given the chance, she would have made an exception for Ms. Walton.  I hated to watch such displays so took advantage of staying in the barn when that foul woman came by. Nea would be in a bad mood all day because of it.

Nea jogged me from my resting-place; after all, I had been working arduously non-stop up until she came in and saw me just as I was setting down. Her look made me get up again and I clumsily went back to pulling hay around the stall.

“Go oil the bikes. I’ll finish up here.” I ran when she told me this. I wanted to be far away before I heard the sound of her crying; it was too strange to hear, like a chirp from a lion. Besides, I loved getting flithy from the bikes.

I was nearly done with the first when Nea came in and sat down on the other and leaned forward on its steering joint. I looked up from my work with a soiled face and giggled. “You left Sentry with Ms. Walton, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” My sister’s face lightened enough for me to smile at her. “I spat on Ms. Walton’s foot and she called me devil’s spawn. I took that as my cue to leave.”

“If I told Ms. Walton that I was neutered, do you think she would shut up?” Sentry came in and started to scrub her bike around Nea’s legs. My sister stood up and walked to the barn door and opened it just enough so that she could peer out.

“I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t think anyone could talk that incessantly about child birth ither.”

I looked up and knew that was not what Nea had meant, but I was not interested entirely in what she found so amazing. I thought that she would make a comment on how beautiful the day was or on how nice it was so be alive, then I would have to gag myself. But she didn’t.

“They’re here already. Flora said they wouldn’t arrive for hours still.” She cast open the doors and ran out into the painful light. I saw her squint at the cloud of dust that was approaching the farm. “Well, it’s someone. Don’t worry about oiling them. Get out there.”

Nea had a big mouth that she kept open most of the time to yell demands at us. What I would have given to throw dirt in her face but then again, I would be eating it for weeks to come. I knew Sentry felt the same way but it was different for her. Somehow I think she understood more of how Nea saw the world. I straddled my bike for a second and warmed the engine. Sentry took off and I decided to take another moment to adjust the mirrors that I would never use but it annoyed my sister just as badly as though I was poking the same spot repeatedly until it grew numb. Nea knew what I was doing but uncharacteristically smiled.

“It’s you that is missing out on all the fun. These are the herd that you only dream about bringing in. Go get um.”

There was something that should have moved me in her semi-speech but I found only something to laugh at. I took off in my bike to fly after Sentry, who to me was only another cloud of dust. As I drove out farther, I could see what Nea could not have. It was the herd but moving at an alarming pace. From the distance they had come from, there would be no way that the cows could run that far and still retain the stamina to run as fast as they were. And even more astonishing than that, there were seven herders. Ordinarily there would be at the most three for fifty. But seven for twenty? Sentry came next to me to verify if what we saw was real. We gave them plenty of room as they passed by.

“Unbelievable!” I said breathlessly.

“Let’s not just stand here and watch. They’ve done their job. Let’s see how good these cows are.” Sentry and I took off and swung beside the group. “We’ll take them from here,” Sentry called.

“You’ll never be able to do it,” warned the girl next to me. She was sweating at a repulsive level. “Not with only two of you.”

“Watch us,” I challenged.  Sentry and I moved in, cutting off the drivers. There was a cow in the front that noticed the transition of power. He kept on path for a second then in a flash, shot to the left, taking half the cows with him. “Follow about! They’re gonna split. Let’s run um a bit more.”

“Good luck! They could run all day and not catch a sweat.” The seven drivers were heading in. They could smell Flora’s food and it drew them in like a tractor beam.

I took the cows as a test of pride. I would show all of them that we were the best around. Sentry’s heard went much easier. They had lost their leader and so ran without thought. It did not take Sentry long to manipulate them. They were inside the paddock little under five minutes of wrangling. I was left with the smart one. The other cows followed his orders without question. He would do everything in his power not to get inside the paddock.  I’d seen cows panic about the paddock before but they didn’t assess the situation as he did. He froze in spot and I had to swerve to keep from striking them. As I dodged to the side, he shot back from where he had been originally come. If he could pull out little by little, he would eventually be free, that is, if I didn’t learn from my mistakes. I turned them about and followed behind at a father distance to better predict and react to their movements. My eyes were focused on the guide. He swung his head to the side, an unusual motion for a running beast. He was signaling the group to break apart.  I swung to the side. If they would break, I could push them back together.  We were coming in closer to the paddock and I could see the lead begin to panic. His motions became jittery and short. He stopped in the middle of the pack and froze. I knew that if I took him I took the herd. I brought out a lasso and shuffled it in my hands.

“Bitch,” he sneered. Without another word he walked into the paddock with the rest of the cows. I knew the word was archaic in fashion and was unsure of its meaning but I did understand that it was used as an insult. I put my prod near his heel but he did not even make a motion to move away from it.

“You are going to be a pebble in my boot,” I yelled at him.

“As you are a thorn in my side.”

He talked back to me! I struck him across the cheek with the prod and it cut a deep scratch under his eye. “Consider it a blessing that a scratch is all you received.” I was furious. Never in my life had I wrangled a cow that was such a nuisance. I revved my bike forward and I was able to get him to step back.  He knew whom the power belonged to. He had lost.

Nea wasn’t ready for us yet. She was speaking to the head driver who had transported the cows to our farm. Nea’s face shown nothing but disbelief and she often turned to study at the herd in the paddock.  She drew back into her duties, cast off the driver, mounted the scaffolding, and called us to bring them into the second ring.

Had I not seen it, I never would have believed it myself, but that cow, that man, walked right into the ring without even a hoot from Sentry or me. The others followed behind with downcast faces but no resistance. Was he sick? Did he know that it was no use fighting? They all did. What made him different? Nea sat on the scaffolding as they walked beneath her. Sentry shook her prod at them in the sheer joy of doing so but it gave no help or hindrance to what the beasts were doing. I closed the gate and leaned on it to look at our catch. They were all perfect. Each one surpassed all the others contained in the A group that we had sectioned for the most pristine males.

“What’s with the cows?” Sentry asked me. She sat on the gate and pulled a strand of hair from her mouth.

“They’re not cows! They’re men.” Sentry drew back from me with arched eyebrows. Nea laughed at my outburst but jumped down from the scaffold. I tried to hide my explosion by yelling at her. “Nea! Be careful with these, they’re not domesticated yet.”

She snorted at me, spat in the corner, and pulled the whip from her belt.

I felt red all over. What had caused me to yell out as I had before? I looked up to watch my sister work but was met with the eyes of the leader.  If I smiled or not, I do not remember but as soon as he did I slammed my hands against the gate, making a few of the other men jump in surprise.

“Listen up you dumb muscles. You have proven nothing to me by your stamina but that you are even more accepted to the farm. If you listen to everything I say, there will be nothing to complain about. Do we have an understanding?”  Nea had a threatening presents that most men coward at. But this group was not as susceptible to her threats.  After such speeches she ordinarily could make her way around the ring in safety, but this was different.

 I knew that things would go wrong as soon as she turned her back on the leader. My screams of warning came too late. As soon as she turned around to begin her sorting, he bolted and tackled her to the ground. The man had been observing her for the longest time and had planned every move that was performed. He slipped the tagging gun out of her belt and pressed it under her throat. It would not have killed her but it could knock her out. What they might do to her was of greater horror to me then anything else. Even if Sentry and I went inside, there was no way we could overcome twenty men of their stature by ourselves.

“If you scream, I swear she will be branded 5C-8FR.” I closed my mouth. In the past, the thought of beeing submissive to a cow’s threat would have made me either hysterical with laughter or livid. I learned to change my ideas rapidly but I gritted my teeth in anger that he could win this. “Open the gate. Let us out. I will take her with us in case you should foll—” The man was concentrating too much on negotiations and not enough on keeping hold of Nea. She brought her elbow sharply into his gut, knocking out his breath. She grabbed the gun from his arm and tagged his neck.

“F!” she screamed. “You are going into the F group!”

Sentry, though she was concerned with my sisters welfare had to speak up. “You can’t do that! He’s the best out of the group. Please, you can’t castrate him!”

I joined into the pleases with my sister but we were all drowned out by the man’s own cry.

Nea forced the man to his feet by twisting his arm back. “You have no choice over your destiny. You are a dangerous animal and this is better than killing you.”

“Why don’t you ever ask our opinion?”

“Because you are mindless creatures!”

“Exactly like you!”

“What was that?” she asked pulling his arm back farther.

“Stupid girls,” he grunted. Nea let go and he fell into the dirt. “About time you muscle bound lunatic.”

When he glanced up again, she was holding a pistol right at his forehead. “Rule number one:  Never piss off your captor.” She cocked the gun and pressed it against his skull. “And rule number two:  Never piss off those in your favor.” He glanced over in my direction; Sentry had already left. She was pulling her bike back to the barn.

“Oh hell, do whatever you want with him,” I said tossing back my blonde ponytail.

The man gritted his teeth and plowed through Nea, knocking her to the ground. In one mighty jump, he vaulted the fence and went tearing back from where he had been driven. “Chisy!”

“Already on it!” I jumped on the bike and chased after with strong determination. I knew instinctively how to ready a lasso without ever looking down at it. Retribution was sweeter than revenge since in a sense it was justified. He had pinned down my sister and threatened her. That gave me divine right to snare him and drag him back where Nea could judge him.  I held the rope away from my body and tied the loose end to the ring on my belt. I was closing in fast on him and swinging the loop twice over my head let it fly and fall over his torso. His arms were bound to his side but he kept running like a mad man. “What in hell’s name is he doing?” I asked aloud as though the brush would answer. I stopped the bike abruptly so that he would be thrown down when the rope grew taught. It did not go as I had expected. He continued to run but I flew. The rope around my belt yanked me from my seat and I went skidding across the ground like I was body surfing. Nea had taken to running full out after us. She kept good pace and was heightened by her screams of “bloody hell” and “you damn,”—something I should not repeat for it would have caused my mother to raise out of the dirt and scrape my teeth with fermented soap—“,I’m gonna kill you!”

Surprisingly enough, we pulled away from her. Not even Sentry on her bike could catch up with the man. He was tearing through the underbrush with such determination that I doubted her noticed me being dragged raw behind him. The thing that perturbed me the most was that he had been given a sedative and showed no sign of its affect.

I had enough at that point. My elbows were bleeding with scrapes and my new shirt was torn to tatters. I took out a pocketknife that Sentry had given me for a birthday present and snapped the rope from my belt. The man tumbled forward, off-balanced, and lay motionless in the dirt. At first I thought him dead but his snoring advised me otherwise. The sedative had finally hit in, though I had never seen it work so abruptly in a sense. I didn’t care much though. I had him that was what mattered. I took hold of the rope, which still constricted him and tried to drag him back. I moved him three feet before I realized there was no way I could get him back all that distance without help.

A wind stirred up the sand and gravel into my face. I rubbed my eyes feverishly to rid the crud from them but they continued to sting and could not open them wide enough to see properly. Someone was running toward me. “Nea! Nea! I caught him.” She didn’t call back.

I rubbed my eyes a second time and shook my head like I had water locked inside my ears. I looked up again but this time, I was completely surrounded by cows. Men, all of my prisoner’s stature, stood and glared at me with foreboding eyes. After that, everything went dark.  J

 

The city without women

Chapter 2

Nea

I was furious enough at that beast to kill him after he had threatened to brand me but after he ran off with Chisy I was ready to boil him in tar while skinning his right side and laughing as crocodiles devoured the left. All the while I was running after them I was thinking of fantastic torturing plans. Sentry may have been able to catch them when she was on her bike but she wasn’t paying attention. She hit a rock and flipped the bike over. I had to go back and be sure her neck wasn’t broke. Turned out the only damage done was a bent axle on the bike. We couldn’t ride after Chisy so we ran. Sentry had a bit of a limp and I told her to go back to Flora but she outright refused to do what I said and hobbled afterward. I didn’t want to think about internal injuries she might have sustained in the fall. Limping around like she was, I though for sure she had broken something or ripped a tendon or gained a hematoma. I tried not to think about the risk of infection. 

My head was concentrating to intently on other things. I didn’t notice a sturdy bush that lay in my direct path. I stepped on it and was thrown off balance into the dirt. My left hand fell upon a sharp rock and the burning pain that accompanied it assured me that it had punctured through. I lifted my hand tentatively and the rock came with it. Sentry winced as I pulled out the broad point of the stone and revealed a small puncture in my hand.

Sentry thought otherwise. She was faint about the blood even though there was not much. “Nea Kayle Roberts!”

“If you use my full name again, Sentry Teresa Roberts, you won’t have a mouth to speak it.”

“Go back to Flora. That is one of the most repulsive wounds I have ever seen. There’s dirt all in it to. It’ll get infected ‘n all.”

“I’m not going back for a scratch.” I wiped the blood from my hands on the side of my shirt and started to follow the dragged pattern that Chisy had left. “I’m not about to leave you to track down the godless demon of a cow.” Sentry stilled followed and limped though she appeared to be trying to put more weight on her leg. I forgot about my hand. The stinging of it made me run faster.

I stopped when the skid trail stopped. I whirled around in my spot but I couldn’t see a sign of her anywhere. I wasn’t like her to senselessly walk off, especially if she knew we were coming. I clenched my fists until my left was forced open by the pain. “Chisy!” I screamed. If anything happened to her, I would never forgive myself or the person who hurt her. I heard Sentry approach from behind me but strangly she had no sign of her limp. “Do you see her anywhere, Sentry?” I was struck over the back of the head and lost all consciousness.

When I woke, an indefinite time later, a man was craned over men, unclasping the buttons on my shirt. I did the first thing that came to mind and punched him square in the jaw. He faltered back a few steps, groaning and holding onto the side of his face. “What the hell do you think you were doing?” I yelled, sitting up and clasping hold of my shirt.

He chuckled a few times and lightly slapped his jaw. “Serves me right for not binding you beforehand.”

“What! You piece cow! What did you do to my sisters? I will tear off your—”

“Relax. They’re fine. And don’t worry. I wasn’t trying to take advantage of you. I saw the blood on your shirt. I thought that perhaps you had hurt yourself. You already had a nasty wound on your hand.”

I lifted my left and found it bound tight in white gauze. I pulled away the bandages and saw a skin graft over my hand. I started picking at it like a child with a scab.

“Leave it alone.” He took hold of my hand and wrapped it back up in the bandaged. “The skin’s not done stitching it in yet. If you pull at it, you’ll have a worse scar than you’ll already have.”

I looked about the room but there wasn’t anything of intense interest in it. There was only one door, which he stood in front of whether intentionally or unconsciously. The walls were made of a variety of materials: red rock, chrome and other metals, wood similar to the bench I was set upon and something that looked like old newspapers. The room was dim, lit only by a solitary bulb in the corner. I couldn’t even make out the face of my captor. I glared at him through the corner of my eye, never making complete eye contact with him.

“There’s no need to hate me…” He paused waiting for me to give my name. Why would I grant him that respect? I hadn’t the least of a clue where I was and he was striving for the formalities. I wouldn’t play his game. He clicked his tongue and straightened up. “Well, Ma’am, Miss, Lady, whatever you wish to be called, you are indebted in my favor. I saved your life and all you can do is glare at me as if I was death himself. There wasn’t a man in the group who didn’t want to kill all three of you then and there. He walked over near the light to grab a mug from an unsteady table. I could see his face then and the scarlet tag on his neck, 5C-8FR. He was the same cow that had escaped and dragged Chisy out. “No need to fret, my dear. You’re sisters are in the best of hands. No one would dare to touch them with me around.”

“But you’re not around. You’re in here with me.”

“I only mean to say that I lead this fine facility.”

“You must be proud.” I was becoming sick of his arrogant way of talk. He acted like I should have been impressed with the prison of rock and newspapers. “Then you being a leader means that I hold you completely responsible for anything that happens to my sisters.”

“Being leader mean no one disobeys my orders so there will be no problems with your sisters.”

Someone hammered on the door so vehemently that I startled at the noise. A male voice sounded behind it. “Hickory? Telson took The Harlot. He’s goin’ down to the cells where those girls ‘er kept. If you don’t want them divided into sections of sixteen you better get out here!”

“Damn that Telson!” He slammed the mug back down on the table so that some of its sweet smelling liquid sloshed out. I couldn’t think about how thirsty I was, my sisters were of much higher concern. I leapt up to follow the men, if I could get there in time perhaps I could knock them both out with the mug. I was to slow. They slammed the door and I could hear them put a brace behind it.

“Hey! Hey! You cow! Come back here. 5C-8FR. Please. Not my sisters. Anything but them.” I couldn’t stand it. I hated to cry, to be weak. Until then, the only thing that usually made me weep was Ms. Walton. But I was alone in an alien place supposedly run by a cow while my sisters were somewhere else, possibly in danger. Breaking the door was futile, I’d already tried. It seemed my last option was to huddle in the corner away from the door and hid my face in my knees.  

Chisy

I was awake when a man pushed open the door to the chamber. I lay still beside Sentry. I knew that Nea was somewhere inside the keep of the men but had no thought of where exactly. I was threatened enough from simply being confined to the unadorned and less than satisfactory room. Now that a man had intruded upon us, especially assuming we were sleeping, was beyond my limit of toleration.

I bolted to my feet and addressed him forthright. “By perdition’s flame! What are you doing here? Why are we locked up like a bunch of criminals? And most importantly why do you insist on carrying an unsheathed sword around?”

He seemed stunned at first, I knew he was shocked to see that I was truly alive with consciousness. He stood stalwartly before the door, for some reason, it was my notion that he was afraid to enter into our prison. My fists knotted in livid irritation. “I spoke to you, cow. Answer me. What are you doing?”

He raised a fist to his mouth, cleared his throat and took a step toward me. He blocked out the light from the hall with his ponderous shoulders and broad chest. He was staring intently at me like I was some enigmatic puzzle that he could not figure out.

“You keep staring at me like that and I’ll belt you.” I stuck my chin out at him in a jeering goad.

“I’d like to see you try that. To think a small mule like you could even stand against the wind is to be laughed at.” I’d had enough. I punched him in the stomach, pinching him forward. There was a much greater resistance than I had ever experienced in my punch. When he bent down from the blow to his gut, I could more easily see the chiseled shape of his face and the bump on the bridge of his nose, which hinted that it had been broken several times. I most likely would have added another count in its abuse had another man not rushed into the room, strike his elbow on the first intruder’s neck, and crumple him to the ground.

“I should sell you to the farm you stupid whelp.” He bent down and picked up the fallen sword, gripped the man by the shirt, drug him out, and slammed the door shut.   I didn’t understand any of the cows. They seemed pugnacious around even their own number. I sat beside Sentry, refusing to sleep in case another might come in with a pistol or knife to finish what the first had attempted. We were the enemy in some form or another. We had been thrown into the middle of a Lion’s den but for some reason, someone was tying their mouths shut. But why?

Hickory

I dropped Telson off with another guard, giving strict orders to have him locked in a cell until he sobered. I took The Harlot with me back up to the antique room. I found it in devastating disarray. The rocking chair had been upset most likely when he was trying to retrieve the sword. Volumes had been thrown so passionately over the ground that many of the pages were bent or coming loose from their bindings. I found myself cussing again. I always seemed to be upset whenever I was obliged to enter the room. I put the sword back on its stand and left promptly, being sure to lock the door and tuck the key in my front pocket as I left. I was about to go about regular duties but I was reminded that the day was nothing of the norm. I had three prisoners on my hands and one of which was still locked up in a servant quarter. I walked back up the stairs to the bolted door. I paused as I removed the brace. What if she was to charge the door? If she got her weight behind it, there was a chance she could get past me. I needed to speak with her and it wouldn’t help if she got loose. I decided, perhaps rashly, to move swiftly before she had time to react to me. I flung open the door, stepped in, and shut it harshly behind. She startled at my abrupt entrance and rose swiftly to her feet while passing a green rag over her face. I had caught a glimpse of her beforehand. I had made her cry. Now feeling far below the cow label that was tacked upon my breed, I stepped further in and sat upon the wooden bench. When she put the cloth away, her stone face was back in place. Her chest heaved temptingly but with more of a raging breath behind it than a passionate one. She did not seem content to have me admire the more shapely aspects of her figure.  In an amazingly swift movement, she caught me below the throat and forced me against the wall.

“Take me to my sisters or I’ll kill you.” She produced a piece of metal, which appeared to have been worked free from the wall. She had been particular about her choice, its thirsty tip was more deadly than the antique sword. I was, however, not one to run out of ideas when in a tight situation. My hands were left free and though she held me in a compromising position, she was wounded. I snatched hold of her left hand, squeezing the joints together until the blade fell and a new patch of burning red soaked through the bandages. She hissed as she brought in a breath. I took the blade and threw it outside the door. She shuffled her knees toward her chin and set in the corner without any interest in looking at me.

I took to speaking softly. If she wasn’t going to listen I might as well have saved my voice by talking quietly. “Your sisters came to no harm. I should think that even if I had not gone promptly, your sister would have handled it. He was bent over from some blow or other and I do not recall him having so black an eye as after leaving the cell with your sisters.

“I can relate to your concern for them. I have a few brothers of my own. I’m stuck somewhere in the middle, I couldn’t really tell you. So many had been lost or sold or runaway to some better place.” She hadn’t turned her head to me but at least I had the attention of her eyes. “If I was to give a number I would have to say eight. Eight brothers and none of them accounted for.”

“Why are you keeping us here?”

Her question startled me but I didn’t let it show physically. “To put not to simple a point on it, you’re our prisoners. Now that you have stumbled upon us, we can just let you gain free course to all that we have kept hidden for decades.”

“That’s not long.”

“It is if you are a dying race.”

“Why do you keep me locked here, away from my sisters? If you think you can drive me to talk about something you are mistaken. I have nothing of importance to say and if I did it would not be granted to you.”

I had to laugh at her combative rage. I rose to my feet and retrieved the mug from the table. It had been completely full of honey milk wine but most of it had washed out when I had thrown it down. I walked closer to her and squatted nearer than a wise distance away. She turned her whole face to me, causing me to shy away for fear she would spit at me. She didn’t say a thing and rested her head back upon the wall.

“Your cheeks are flushed. You’re dehydrated. Drink this.” She glared at me in a way that only could be described as misanthropic and completely untrustworthy. “There’s nothing wrong with it.” I took a short sip of it to convince her that no foreign chemical had been put in it. The wine was to sweet for my taste but I swallowed with some dignity. I ushered it to her face, apparently in an irritation manner for she took the mug and smashed in against the floor. I bit the end of my lip and stood back from the shards. I would need to move her now with all the sharp splinters. She could put herself or others in danger.

In the most piculiar way, she rose to her feet and sat on the bench where the light was most direct. “Do you have a sterile needle and thread?” she asked of me most nonchalantly.

“I can’t imagine that you should have a sudden urge to embroider.”

“Must I ask you a second time? Do you have them or not?”

I was reluctant to provide her with another pointed object with which she could wreak some sort of havoc. As though she had read my thoughts, she spoke, “If you are fearful of a needle, then you have better assign a different cow to guard the room. A needle is the least of your problems at the moment. You might as well gather the shards while you are at it. I know you think I wish to use them against you. I’ve tried that once already. Its not me to repeat mistakes again.”

I didn’t know if I was to take her statement as apology or threat, so I threw it out completely. She was becoming easier and more placid to handle. I picked up the mug shards and agreed to bring a needle and thread if I could find them.

When I returned with her requests, I saw studying the bloodied bandages from her hand. Another wave of guilt washed over me. I knew that it was out of defense that I had wonded her yet again but I couldn’t help but feel some sort of shame in harming her. She glanced momentarily at me then began to remove the dirtied layers. “Don’t take those off,” I demanded. “You’ll pull off the dried blood and it will start to bleed all over again.” She didn’t pause in her job. When the last bit was pulled from her hand which was, as I had warned, bleeding freshly. She pointed then at something near my belt.

“May I ask what you are planning to do with the needle?”

“Nothing for now. I wish for your flask.”

“This is not honeyed wine,” I denied her. “It would be to bitter for your taste.”

“I can be the judge of what is or is not of my taste.”

She had won me over again and I handed her the leather flask. She pulled out the stopped and took a deeper swig than I would have ever attempted. She coughed a few times but kept it down. She held the flask between her knees, then with her eyes clamped tightly together, she bit down on the skin graft with her teeth and ripped it off. My stomach turned over and I was drawn to take my flask back from her and take a drink from it. When I had finished gagging, she broke a curled smile at me and retrieved the wine. She poured it over the wound and dug the nails of her right hand deeper into the wood. She shifted the sickly skin of her palm into place, threaded the needle miraculously with only her teeth and one good hand, and stuck her palm with the needle. Her body became tremulous and pale. She took a smaller sip of my wine and drew the thread through her hand. She tried to puncture herself again but a tear fell into the abrasion, sharpening the pain. She whipped it through too fast and the thread was wrenched from the skin. She bit down on her lip and cussed several times under her breath. She noticed that I was still watching her and glared again with the same livid disposition.

“Don’t mock me. I am not as weak as I appear.”

“I was thinking nothing of the sort,” I assured her. “I don’t think I would have even been able to pull off the skin graft.” I sat next to her and extended my arm to take her hand. She pulled away from me and hunkered down like a rabid dog ready to bite. “It would have been easier to have kept the graft on.”

She looked down at her hand and snarled. “Had I left it on, my hand would have been stiff the rest of my life. The left would never be able to grip the same way again. This might be a bit more painful but at least it will be good for me when healed.” She uncurled slightly from her defensive pose and let me take her hand with surprising ease.  I was looking at the morbid wound when a threaded needle was presented to my face.

“What-what is this? What are you expecting me to do?”

“I’ve already shown you that I can’t do it to myself. If you are going to help, help.” She took another drink, wiped her mouth, and handed it to me. “Take a drink and stitch.” I did as she said and took another swallow of my wine and tossed it aside. If I didn’t stop, I would end up as drunk as Telson. I unsteadily stuck her with the needle and felt her stiffen as I pulled it through. I made three more cautious stitches before she grunted and struck me in the side of the head.

“I can’t say if you have noticed but I am trying to be of help!” I was close to tromping out of the room, leaving her hand half bound.

“You aren’t sewing your grandmother’s panties! Go a little faster.” She opened her hand to me again and tried to force somewhat of a smile, which turned out somewhere between uncertainty and trust. I couldn’t leave her. She was an uncultured mule by the looks of her and knew little of polite decorum. I stitched the remainder of her hand with more speed but less perfection. She didn’t seem to mind the sloppy stitches. I tied a knot at the end of the thread and bit the end of the thread off. Her hand was pressed against my face and her tentative fingers unintentionally stroked my cheek. I pulled away a bit to hastily, enhancing my guilt. She flexed her hand gently and nodded her head twice.

“This should do.” She pulled back into her sheltered position and to keep her attention, I opened with more formalities.

“My name is Hickory.” She nodded again but pulled her knees in tighter. “Am I not going to get your name?”

“Nea,” she said briefly. She twisted unexpectedly toward me and smiled. Her smile portrayed coy trust that I was not altogether comfortable about. “Tell me, Hickson, was it?”

“Hickory,” I corrected.

“Then, Hickory, what is it that you do here?”

“I…uh…” I was trying to think of a way to explain things without telling her anything of dire importance. I was drawing a serious blank. “I oversee the community here. I make sure that everyone is feed, watered, treated properly. I suppose you could say I am the boss around here. And—” I stopped as I felt her fingers inquisitively touching my arm. It sent a shiver though me that I had never felt before.

“When I was a child on the farm,” she said softly, “I had always been intrigued by being a doctor. Unfortunately, I was stuck within a rock and a hard place. I loved my job at the farm and couldn’t bear to leave my sisters for all those years. I made enough money in farming anyway.” She had worked her hand up behind my neck and though I felt that it should not be wise to let her do that, I was mesmerized by the small massaging action of her hand. “That didn’t keep me from reading, however. Acupuncture was one of my more pleasing interests.”  With a swift tap, I felt the needle breach through my skin. The next moment, I would imagine I was doing none other than snoring again.

Sentry

I don’t remember what I was doing laying on a dust covered floor, my face streaked in the red dirt, but I was roused from my unawares by an intrusive shaking hand. I opened my eyes but all in my sight was the ground and my nose stuffed harshly into it. I sat up, snorted to dislodge the irritating dusts, and rubbed the same out of my eyes.

“Come on! If we don’t hurry those cow’ll catch us.” What was Chisy doing in my room? I was also quite bewildered of how my floor became so dirty. I was hoisted to my feet and with this motion came a pain in the back of my head. I rose a hand to check for blood but all that resided was a tender bump. Chisy stood at a door, holding it open cautiously, her eyes darting over the halls. Nea held me to my feet. It came back to me then, where we were and why we were there. Nea, struck from behind with what I believed was a rock, had fallen only a few feet ahead of me. At first I thought that desperados of some sort had come in to steal whatever possessions we had but it occurred to me that we had nothing so it made no sense. Had I been thinking other than what sort of people would attack others with nothing to gain, I might had had a notion to run the other way or protect my sister but no, I too was struck.

A new realization passed over me as I steadied myself on my feet like a newborn taking its first timid steps, I had not a clue of where I was, only that my sisters were here with me. “What are we doing here?”

I was hushed immediately. Nea had on a dark shirt and cloak and for some reason she pulled the hood far over her eyes giving her the look of an executioner. Chisy signaled to us with her hand and we followed out. Nea had a tight hold of my wrist and though I struggled to free from her clamp, she just held firmer until my head felt deprived of blood. She also had hold of Chisy’s wrist and like me, she did not appear content about it.

Nea paused at a junction in the path. They looked identical, both lit the same amount, both composed of the same red dirt and wood, both curved off into an unknown location. There must have been something to ward her from the right passage since she yanked up to the left and pressed up against the wall in shadow.

I saw two cows pass by from the right corridor. They never even gazed in our direction. Nea let out a breath and commenced in pulling us down the halls. Sparse doors dotted the lanes occasionally but Nea never stopped running to check where they lead. A floresent light above our heads began to buzz and flicker on and as if it had begun a chain reaction, a soft whine sounded from far off. It gradually increased in intensity until the blare became and ear-sore. A red flashed into my eyes and I raised a sleave to cover my face. Nea was cussing like a cow again. I don’t know how I was able to discern the sound of feet from the sirens but there must have been enough to raise the noise to an audible level. Nea yanked us toward the nearest door and huddled Chisy and me in front of her to shield us with her cloak. She tried the door but found it unsuccessfully locked.

“Get close to me,” Nea said softly though she had to yell over the sirens. “Maybe they won’t notice us.” She draped the  cloak around us and stood still, leaning in against the door. Just as the feet were about to parade past the door, it opened and Nea pushed us forward into a body that stood before the room. I sprung up resiliently though my head was still spinning. The door was shut behind us and I whirled around once more and struck into Nea.

“Go into the other room quickly,” ushered an unfamiliar voice. “If they find you here they’ll bring you back to wherever they had you first with a few extra bruises here and there.” I knew Chisy was going to say something but Nea put her hand over her mouth and dragged us into a joining room.

“There’s other women here,” I whispered to Nea. She hushed me abruptly but nodded. There was a knock on the other door and we held our breath knowing that the cattle had a good chance of seeing us.

I still could not get a look at the woman who had assisted us. All that I could see where the tail ends of her skirt and the round flow of her posterior figure. She met the men at the door with believable confusion. “What on earth is all this noise about?”

“Who just came in here?”

“You answer me first, boy.”

“We’ve had a break. Three prisoners escaped and are somewhere in the catacombs. Hickory was found dead asleep in a servant cell. He has his health though. Seems a needle was the only problem. He was stripped from the waist up as well. I haven’t a notion of what he was doing to that mule.”

“Well heck if I’ve seen anything. Hickory never comes down here anymore. Seems like he’s keeping himself busy enough. The only time I see him is at meals and even then I don’t speak to him. Sorry I can’t be of more help. I’ll keep an eye open just see to it that the alarm is turned off. I’m getting such a headache from it.” I saw the man take a step inside the room and close the door softly behind him. The woman took a step back as well. She was a poorly made woman, her waist was to skinny to do any laborious work as well as her wrists and ankles. She would never be much for athletics with so voluptuous a chest as she had.  She had nearly every negative quality I could think of for a woman to posses and felt a deep remorse for her. I had to find something decent about her before I felt completely destitute for her. As I had seen before, she had an ample back, which always came in handy for sitting. I was pleased enough with my observations not to fight back Nea’s arm. She was pressing us deeper into the wall as the man stepped further in.

“I saw someone come in here, Fyst.” He put his arms around her neck. I wasn’t about to let one cow strangle her to death. We could fight back but Nea held me firm. The cow wasn’t hurting the woman but still being in such close proximity to a cow would have made me feel ill.

“If you must know. I do have a visitor so you can’t stay here.”

“Who? Tell me who he is and where he is hiding. I was unaware you had a callers so early.”

“Well, unfortunately, he outranks you so there is little you can do to send him away.”

“Why must he hide then? I can stay until he decides to show himself.”

“But he is not hiding. He left for a moment to return to me. What would he do to find you over me like this? I suggest you leave before he returns.”

The man let her loose from his arms but acted reluctant to leave. “It has been a while since you’ve kissed me, Fyst. Choose me tonight.”

“You are an audacious boy. I do simply choose on a whim. Get out of here before my rightful visitor looses patients.” 

The man left promptly and closed the door fervently in a rage.

Nea let us loose and I scrambled over to the woman who stood at my height.  She glanced at me with an ever-complacent smile and a light sway of her hips. “You kiss cows?” I asked. She laughed at me until I blushed. I saw nothing funny about my question. I was appalled the thought.

“Sentry, don’t be rude. She has just done us a great favor.”

“It was of no harm,” she said shaking her mussed blonde hair.

She didn’t answer my question and it drove me irate. My head was brimming with thoughts and questions but they clamored over themselves so voraciously that I could not pick one to ask. Nea seemed more capable to drawing voice than I.

“I thank you for what you have done for my sisters and me. If there is anything that I may grant you in return please name it. I don’t know if there is much we can do for you though. I am confused of my location and thrown even more into this labyrinth by your presents. Am I wrong in saying that we are in the center of a city filled with,” she paused to let the repugnance in her voice seep in deeper, “men? If so, what are you doing here?”

The woman laughed like a songbird. I could tell her voice had never been used to call at ranch hands while dust and dirt scratched her throat and made the voice coarse as the calluses on my hand.  I would have been shocked to hear she had done one hard day of labor all her life.

“Please, sit down. I can tell there is much that needs to be explained.” She extended her arm out to another room and we filled in. The room was cozy even though the walls were barren and made from red dirt. The floor was tile with ornate rugs covering it and a small fire burned in the far corner. There was a long couch and two lounge chairs, one of which I took for myself. I sunk into it like an embrace. It was in the direct path of the heat from the fire. I hadn’t realized how chilled I was until I felt the soothing warmth of the fabric around me. Chisy and Nea sat on the couch and watched the woman as she poured two glasses of what appeared to be wine. She gave one to Nea and me, Chisy looked to young to receive a glass but Nea gave her a sip since the wine was watered down and soft.

“If you didn’t hear from that rude gentleman that just intruded into my room, my name is Fyst. I’ve lived down here since I can remember so I assume all of my life. I’m sure that I have given you far enough time to jump to conclusions so I will do my best to clarify. You are in the northeast section of Blite. I know you haven’t heard of it because no one ever has. Just before the War of 2075, an exceedingly wealthy man by the name of Frederick Caudal began to excavate a deep channel beneath the ground.  He was a suspicious man, never trusted anything or anyone, so he kept digging and building and moving everything he owned down here. This rug her on the floor,” she said making a nonchalant motion with her head, “was one of his favorite carpets. He just kept hiring men, more men, just men. He refused a woman to even take step on his property. Said they were the serpents of the world.

“You’d figure he’d have to stop recruiting so many men. They just kept going in and never seeming to leave. I’ll tell you what, that man’s paranoia for the world grew until it popped along with his sanity. He wanted to be sure no one ever knew what he was doing. Every single man who ever worked upon his chambers was killed. Still, it wasn’t hard for him to find more innocent workers, he paid enough money to denounce ominous feelings.”

“This city was built on the derangement of a madman? This is just what the world has been attempting to destroy!” Nea was driven to her feet in rage and consternation. “How can you allow yourself to remain here? Do they hold you prisoner?”

“Sit. Let me finish. Caudal didn’t get them all. As luck would have it, a Cicada killed him off when he had gone out to gather supplies. That was just the beginning of a long chain of events. At the point of his death, the city he had sculpted was over ten miles in all directions. Don’t ask me how he had done it so rapidly, but it’s my thought that he would never sleep, just work all day and all night digging and sculpting right alongside his workers. So now all we have is a crew of, say, fifty to a hundred men, leaderless and war breaks loose. It was only a matter of time before Canada would blow the world apart. But Seneca stopped all that. She is just as mad as the man who built this city.”

Nea was still held tightly to her passion and couldn’t control herself in another rage. “You are a traitor for saying such things. Are you not a woman? What should prevent me from taking the law into my hands now and striking you down for saying such disloyalties to Miss President?”

“If you insist to interrupt I can never get my point across. As for the law, it no longer applies down here. If you wish, I can call for a guard to settle any legal qualms you have with what I say.” Nea took in a deep breath like she was going to yell out herself but sat down and hugged Chisy to her side. My gaze went back to the woman who smiled with her mouth superciliously curled to one side.

“You know it from there anyhow. The men were to busy killing one another to notice Seneca move in and with all her cicadas it didn’t take long to keep it that way. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” She took a long drink of wine and straightened her posture and stuck out her bust so that I feared her blouse would tear open from the strain. “You must know about the bomb that hit near here. Completely wiped out Dallas and everything around it. They hit Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington DC, New Orleans, Pittsburgh, New York, Las Vegas,” she counted on her finger then threw up her hands in aspiration, “any city that appeared important or populated. The men that worked down here knew of the dangers of war but never thought it would happen so close. They remained beneath, unsure of the safety to leave. There was plenty of supplies and an enough springs for each man to have one personally to himself.  That was the beginning but it was never meant to continue like that. They wanted to stay under until the radiation wore off, until they could emerge again and start over again.

“It was a problem from the beginning. Each of them was gifted in architecture, building, some sort of manual work, but none were educated in the sciences or knew how to cure food poisoning or fix an enflamed appendix. About half the men that came down here died in the first ten years. The rest had to adapt. They clung to the hope of emerging again. The hope for life. The hope for women. As fate would have it, women became the enemy. Seneca used the men’s weakness, had any man over the age of five slaughtered. The rest sent to camps. Wasn’t long until men were nothing but wandering beasts, pristine for herding like cattle, used for their only useful purpose, and disposed of. None of the men down here wanted to become brainless domiciles so they stayed. From there it’s just life and death. So here we are, wondering if ever there will be a time where these men can do what their fathers always wished. They know no other world but this, its not a pleasant place.”

“I can say I understand death. That makes biological sense but how could there possibly be life. You said the only people brought down here were men. Are there more women down here? How did they get here? How did you?”

“Kiki was responsible for that. Rest her soul. She died two years back.” Fyst put a hand to her face and snorted. “I’ve gotta slow down before I confuse you more than you are. Kiki was one of the workers little girls. Caudal had pity on her father and allowed her to stay with him as long as she never got in the way. After the war and whatnot, she became a necessary commodity. Don’t get into your head about this one little girl and all those men. Her father was one of those fathers that wouldn’t even let another man look at her crookedly. No, she was useful not only because she was able to move around above ground because of her sex but because she was a cunning child. She knew that it was only a matter of time before all those men became extinct, it was only natural. But she figured a way to keep their legacy alive.” Fyst stood up. I watched her pace across the room and stop beside the fire. She was smiling all the while like a grandmother telling a story before bedtime. I had realized how her voice lulled me into complete relaxation until she stopped and I realized that my legs were twice as heavy. “Do you know where babies come from?” I was drawn to laugh but Nea hushed me with a pinch.

“From the labs,” Nea answered. “Did this Kiki steal embryos? But that doesn’t make sense. The labs only produce female fetuses. Is there a female population here?”

Fyst shook her head. “There is but me.” She said it in a despairing tone but her face seemed to pass it as a brag. “It’s the labs job to convince others that all they produce is females, save a few that make perhaps one male in a hundred for commercial reasons. With Seneca’s little ear problem, she is against any tampering with the chromosomes in case mutation results. This includes the Y chromosome. So in the labs, half of the embryos produced are males. Kiki figured this out. The time right after the war was a period of absolute trust. She had them convinced that she needed the male embryos for research purposes. They were to be disposed of anyway so the lab had no restriction from letting her take them.

“They got their hands on an EEPS electro-embryonic placenta system and from there, any imbecile could grow a fetus.”

“That explains the men, but what about you? Do you stay here out of force or desire?”

Fyst smiled and returned to her chair and bottle of wine. “Ah,” she said pertly. “I know what you are hinting at. All these men, right? I must admit that I grant them what there bodies long for yet, they are ignorant about it. They know they want something, they just don’t know how. I just give a few false performances and they are satisfied.”

I hadn’t the slightest clue what the woman was talking about and I saw in Chisy’s face that she didn’t either but Nea seemed ready to become sick.

“That isn’t important though. You asked about my origin.” Her voice lifted in the excitement of talking about herself. “There has always been at least one woman in Bithe. Kiki was the first, and there was another preceding me that overlapped during Kiki’s life but she died very young from a fever. In all the embryos, there are always a few misplaced females. Usually however, they are defective or weak. Most die before they even mature. Not even the EEPS could provide enough nutrients to hold the fetus past the second trimester. But they got lucky. I came along made it past birth, past infancy and adolescence, and now here I am. I serve as a link to the above world. If they need supplies I buy them, that old prune left enough money to buy half the world but were prudent about going above unless in dire emergency.” She folded her hands over her chest and glanced Nea up and down. “We don’t want to spare the chance of discovery.”

I saw the way Nea’s eyes grew darker as they narrowed and the light of the fire no longer illuminated them. “What then do you expect to do with us? You have shown us kindness from hiding us from that man but you are connected in this society. You should be just as concerned with its privacy. ”

“I am not connected as closely as you may think. I love them all as brothers, yes, but they are not a part of me. They are like clothes, warm and comforting but one can live without them.” Fyst stood and walked out of the sitting room, urging us to follow. “So what does that mean for you? It means that you need to be cautious of the guards when you escape out of here. They’ll be looking for you at the point.”

My eyes darted to my sisters. They didn’t move to follow or even give a look of confidence in what Fyst was saying. I took the initiative to draw them into action. Fyst smiled at me in a way that I felt a warm thrill run up my spine. There was a way that she took in the world with such graces that made me trust her intentions. Chisy pushed out of Nea’s hold and came up beside me. Fyst turned rapidly on her heels so that her blonde hair twisted over her face. “Do you not want to leave Miss?” she questioned Nea. “I would be pleased to have another woman around to talk with and I’m sure the men here would not object. You may be a rancher but you are a woman, that’s all they care.”

Nea lurched off the couch in repulsion of the thought. “I mean no disrespect in saying that my hours in this hole have been more torturous than any hell I can imagine.”

I turned to Fyst and walked briskly to the door, cracking it open just enough to see if anyone was in the direct vicinity.  Fyst’s attention was drawn away from Nea and shifted toward me. She lowered her voice a step and crouched near me. “Take the hall all the way down. Go through the door on the left and then take an immediate right. You should feel the ground tilting upwards. There may be a few patches of sunlight. You’ll have to push open a rather ponderous stone door at the end but with all three of you that should not be a problem.” She straightened and put her fists on her hips. “Be careful. I know there is a guard that roams those halls. He is particularly ruthless, having to guard so near to the surface. Once you are out, don’t wait to take in the scene. Leave immediately. There are always a few men about that might have a go at rounding you up again. They wouldn’t think twice about clubbing you again.” I was pushed gently away from the door with her palm. She glanced up the hallways and then opened the door wider. “Good luck.”

I bowed my head in thanks as I ran out. Nea even smiled as she passed through the doorway. Had we stayed longer, we would have indubitably have become close companions. Friendship was not high in my mind for the moment; survival took precedence.

There was a certainty in my head that my sisters and I could escape unnoticed or without to hard of a struggle. One or two cows would have been simple to skirt around. I relied on my confidence to carry me through the fear. After we had passed through the last door at the end of the hall, my eyes began to play with the shadows and flickering lights. I thought the walls were moving in, the stones and timbers pursuing our footsteps. I could almost hear the dry scratch of their shifting behind us. I took the immediate right and strode faster through the dark corridor. It was not as light as Fyst had suggested. She never said how long we had to go to find the stone door.

“How far do we go?” I whispered. “I’m sure this is the way she said to go.” I stopped and listened but no one gave an answer. “Chisy? Nea, how far?” I turned around but there was no one else in the hall with me. I caught my breath and listened tentatively. I thought that perhaps I did take a wrong turn somewhere. I couldn’t remember a time I was more terrified. I started to walk back to where I came from but the dry scratch of feet sounded again. This time it was far closer.

Hickory

“Whelp of a cow!” I screamed so that my voice echoed throughout the room and down the halls where it could ardently grasp the throat of anyone who heard it. Two of my men had found me lying asleep in that woman’s room. Had I not shown her some decency by not throwing them into the vacuity of the cellars or by forbidding any of my men from touching them? Not anymore. She had taken my dignity and the respect of my men. She had stripped me, which made me appear as a cad and not one of high leadership. They saw the blood and jumped to far conclusions that no persuasion would lodge from the back of their minds. There was only one way to reverse the damage she had done to my pride and that was to crush hers.

“Take me down to them!” I had been given notice that two of the women had been caught wandering the halls in search of their third member. Apparently she had become separated in their attempts to escape. I knew, however, the man that protected the halls in the vicinity the others were found. The third would be found shortly.

“They were seperated. I hope that pleases you. We wished to be sure that they could not consort with one another. You know how treacherous the heart of an untamed woman can me.” Dicho, my head servant, waited beside me as he held a change of clothes. I was to bitter of mood to reply in anything aside from grunts. “The eldest was taken to the interrogation room and the other in one of the cells in the White hall. Sometimes younger age gives a more open and candid mouth. I suggest we visit her first.” I nodded, completed donning my boots and followed him down the narrow, unprotected stairway, down into the gut of Blithe. The lowest tunnels were poorly lit and hardly populated except for occasional punishment purposes when some of the men became overly rowdy. Dicho accompanied me to the lowest level, lit only by a single bulb every twenty feet.

“Thank you Dicho. You may go. Be sure that last imp is found. Make sure that the man who finds her is kissed tonight.” Dicho nodded to me and left back up the stairs. I watched as his light faded out and I was alone.

“I know you are there, you revolting filth.” I shuddered at the sound of the child’s voice. It was for such a high almost sweet voice say such slighting remarks.

I walked up to the door and gazed in past the bars. She was hobbled at the legs but other than that unbound. “What makes you think you can speak to me in such a manner, Mule?”

“I can talk to you however I want. You’re nothing but a cow.”

I opened the door and entered into her cell. “That may be so but you have happened to walk into my domain. That means I have control over you and your sisters. I could easily have allowed for your death or torture. You don’t want that, do you?”

All that I got out of her was a laugh. “You are going to be sorry for this.” She braced herself with her hands and pushed up to her tied feet, using the wall as a crutch. “As soon as I get out, I’m going to fill this place so full of cicadas that not one cow in here will remain whole. I will be sure that you are dismembered, loosing your manhood first!”

I should have been furious with her. I should have pinned her against the wall by her neck for disrespecting me in such a way. I just sneered at her and sat down on the cot, which made her unexpectedly blush. “Children need to hold their tongues around those of higher status. Even uneducated mules should know that.”

“I am not a mule, you fat cow! And I’m not a child. I’m fifteen!”

“So you are older than I guessed. You see. Cooperating isn’t so hard.”

“Is this what you call cooperating? I want out of here! Untie me and release me!”

“Fine,” I said with a bow. She looked at me with a confused glazed look, which further remained me of a half donkey, but her awestruck look turned into a scowl and her eyes froze over in a cold stare. I bent down to her feet and unlocked the chains around her feet. “You’re free to leave…if you can get past me.” I stood in her path. She was a girl, a mule, what could she do? She could kick. I stumbled out of the door before she could get through and slammed the lock shut. I gasped for breath and cussed out any air that I caught.

I left without saying another word. I hoped for more success in the one named Nea. The interrogation room was one that I never had to visit before. I knew where it was because it needed to be passed to reach the vaults but I hadn’t ever had the curiosity to enter.

I approached the steal door with a determination and intrepidity, until the light bulb at my side popped and died. As the dark set in, an unusual fear settled over my body and came out as pricks on my arms. I fumbled through my pockets and found a pack of matches. Striking one, I held it out to see if there was a lamp near by. It worked about as well as a birthday candle. The flame burned down to my fingers and I was forced to put it out. I struck another and came with the same outcome. I was about to retreat back to find a more efficient light source but a weak voice penetrated through me from the cell.

“Sentry? Is that you?”

I caught my breath and racked my brain for an answer. I could pretend to be her sister. If I did that she might tell me what they were planning to do. The youngest had already shown an interest in destroying us, how was I to think the others would be any different? I struck myself over the head. Pretend to be a woman? The ordeals of the day had made me loose my logic. I could, however, work her confusion of her sister’s location to my advantage.

“No, you’re sister was caught before she was able to open the stone gate.” I was still outside and I struck another match to try and locate the lock.

“The door is open,” she said mildly. “There isn’t much way for me to get out of here so I suppose the guards saw no need in locking afterward. There is a lamp on the table in here.” Her voice sounded amused at her condition. I pushed open the door and felt along with my hand until I bumped into the table. My hands scoured the table and gradually my eyes became better adjusted. My hands found the lamp and I flicked it on. It sputtered on an old battery, buzzed, and flashed on. The sudden brilliance of it made me shy away from the light, but it did well to light the room.

When I saw Nea, I knew she could not have been amused at all. Her voice was one of chagrin not mirth. I set the lamp back upon the table and took a few more steps back toward the door.

“Don’t look at me like I were a dead rat. Until I start to fester I won’t allow myself to be looked down upon like that.” She let out a sigh, moaned from her sore lungs, and dropped her head as low as the chains allowed. Dried blood covered her body so ubiquitously that I could not tell where a wound was or was not.

I clenched my fists against my side and jumped to pick up the lamp again. “Who did this?”

She shied away from me, her fearlessness cowering but still alive in the light of her eyes. “Who else? You did.”

I felt like yanking my hair out by the root. “Do you want to stay down here? Don’t act so much like a woman. Who did this directly?”

“How am I to know. Every cow looks alike.”

“How then do you know me?”

“Your stench is an ample hint.”

My patience for her insolence was hitting its limits. She didn’t seem to grasp the fact that she was my hostage and for that reason, she drove me mad. From the time I had been old enough to hold a gun, I had been obeyed. I wasn’t about to loose that respect because of one woman.

“This contraption,” I said approaching closer, close enough to smell her sweet breath, “it doesn’t look too comfortable.” Her hands were conveniently bound over her head. The bonds around her wrists ran up to an anchor on the wall and then continued down to connect to the chain on her neck. She could not lower her hands without strangling herself. At the closer venue I could also see the small conic spikes that stuck inside the cuffs and pressed into her neck if she attempted to lower her hands even slightly.

“Its pain does not compare to the nausea that you give me.”

“Then maybe you would enjoy your sisters strapped into them. Your rebellious spirit seems to mirror in the others. It would be better for Blithe if we crack all three of you instead of kill you.” She surged forward against her chains and caused me to step back. Her bonds held but they did not temper the hatred which she shot at me.

“What do you want from us? There is nothing we can do. We are not of high rank or standing. It would be more useful to steal three goats for food.” She barred her teeth at me but I mistook it as rage instead of pain.

“I want to leave this hole in the ground.” I step toward her once again, realizing that there was nothing she could do to me. Like her hands, her feet were bound with chains but instead connected to her waist. “I want to take my position in the world and not beneath it and you will help me.” Her extreme hatred did not completely manifest until she tried, with all her complications, to kick me. Her stomach was jerked back, and her ankle was abruptly restrained before striking me.

“I want to leave just as much as you do. If you think I’m gonna run chores for you and gather supplies and cook your food and—” her glance became more venomous, “fulfill your hungers.”

“You are in no position to say what you will or will not do.” Everything about her made me loose my senses and restraint. Slowly, so not to scare the flighty pigeon, I raised my hand to her hip. Her body shied away from my touch but her face jutted toward me.

“Touch me again and loose you’re hand.”

I flashed a confident grin at her. I found her malice strangely attractive. I stepped closer and found her body with my hand again. She gnashed her teeth and her nostrils flared in irritation but I did not concentrate on the rage in her face but the soft image of her figure. She stopped fighting physically against me but I knew that her mind never ceased its protest. I don’t know what made me drunkenly deaf to her loathing but I had never been so close to a woman like her before. There was always Fyst but her form no longer held a will. Fyst was what I had expected from a woman but Nea, she was something different, and like an alien article, I needed to explore it until I understood it.

I gently tugged her shirt free from her jeans. She didn’t say a word. I slid my hand under her shirt and touched the skin of her stomach. She flinched at the shock of my cold fingers. I glanced up at her eyes. I had caught her unaware and for a moment she appeared near a weep. Her solemn face returned. She straightened up, shifted her shoulders, and turned her head to the wall. I pulled my hand away and gazed over the side of her face, which was revealed to me. Her hair was short, only about shoulder length but a beautiful copper color. I barely grazed it with my fingertips, in the same way that the water surface is disturbed when an insect glides across it. A strand of hair crossed over her face and stuck into the edge of her mouth like a plucky vine squeezing into every crevasse that it could. I manipulated it free and in turn she moved her head to face me. My hand remained in contact with her. My fingers twitched like excited rabbits and they shifted slowly to touch the crimson velvet of her lips. I palpated her mouth, reveling in the cool slick moisture of her lips.

I had touched a face like hers before. She comforted me in a way that I only vaguely could recall. Being embraced with soft arms, kissed with lips like hers, loved.

Nea’s lips parted slightly. For a moment, I could see her perfect rosy tongue behind her teeth. It was a very short moment. The real sight was when her teeth bore like nails into my fingers.

I recoiled sharply and cussed profusely till my head felt purple.

“You broke the skin!”

“I gave you fair warning, you revolting swine.”

I flew back into domination. It was only right for me to have the upper hand. She was a woman and in chains. “I should muzzle you,” I yelled shaking a finger at her. She snarled in a threatening mock. I didn’t know how to resound to her. I was furious and bewildered and enthralled all at the same time. “Let’s see if a few days without anything to eat rests your violent soul.”

She spat at my feet with alarming accuracy. I left the cell, taking the light of the lamp with me, and slammed the door closed again.

Dicho was waiting at the front of the hall. “Have a guard posted at that woman’s door. I don’t want to take any chances of escape.” My voice held no wavering in which he might place in a questionable remark. He bowed, acknowledging the command. “Has the last brat been found?” I asked nonchalantly as if it did not hold great importance.

As if on cue, a blonde woman ran straight into me, nearly knocking the feet out from under me. She tried to get up and run the other direction but Dicho caught her shoulder. “I believe she had been found, Sir.”

“As I see.” She was breathing hard from running. I caught her chin in my hands. “Did you get lost?” I tried to sound haughty but in my thoughts it came out wishy-washy concerned. I rubbed over my face with a hand. I could feel the scratch of a beard forming.

I was trying to think of to many things at once. In a motion of exasperation, I threw up my hands. “Put her with her younger sister.”

I continued upstairs toward my chamber. I would need a long nap after all that had happened. I wasn’t left, however, without a warm farewell from the new captive. “Stupid cow!”

I slept for several hours until I was woken by a knock at the door. “Supper’s ready, Sir.” I pushed out of the blankets and scowled. My head ached from the inside so that my skull felt like it would burst.

“Insolent dog! You woke me so that I would be punctual for meals. Have it brought to me. I do not wish to eat with those maggots.”

“Do you not think it necessary to tell at least the court about our captives.” I rasped out a sigh, approached the door, and ushered him inside where it was warmer.

“What have you heard of it by rumor?”

The guard stroked his short beard in contemplation and grinned at me. “Heard ‘bout three women down in the lowest level. Several men’ve gone down there to see ‘um but Dicho stands like a scarecrow at the stairs. Say they’re just as pretty as Fyst. Then again, anything is pretty if you don’t have ‘um.”

I waved my hand in the air to stop him from continuing. “I am expected to explain this to everyone?”

“Sir.”

I took my decanter and drew a long sip. “Is this all you have come to tell me?”

“Sir.” He bowed and turned back but paused at the door. “There was something Dicho told me.” I waited to hear what he had to say but he just stared back at me.

“Yes?”

“Oh, I didn’t find it of much surprise but one of them women fainted. Dicho didn’t know what to do about it.”

“Nothing. If she’s passed out, she’ll be easier to control, won’t she?”

“Sir. Only thing is, you have the key to release her bonds.”

“That one fainted?” I shrugged. “Why would you want to release her?”

“Her legs aren’t working under her. She’s being held up by the neck.”

“You dull brained wretch. Why did you not tell me this before hand?” I don’t know what pushed me to act so avidly but I snatched the keys from the stand beside my bed and sprinted from my room in nothing by a thin pair of sleeping shorts.