Chapter 20: Lessons Bought and Paid for by Loocus and Ubo and Their Friends

Ubo was standing there thinking about what his Daddy had said to him. So, when Ubo up and decided in his mind that he wanted to be the next leader of this camp, to his way of thinking his parents would just move over, quietly, and just let him takeover, and run the show. With all the other men that were in leadership positions would just take orders from him, even though most of them had known him every day of his life and had obviously watched him grow up. Palto knew that Ubo didn’t have the leadership skills to run this camp. That is why Palto told his crew that they should leave when he did as there was likely going to be some trouble as Ubo really didn’t know what it took to run this camp. It’s fun to give orders and all that. But being responsible for making sure that there was plenty meat to feed the camp, as well as keeping both petty, or more serious squabbles under control, was very important. Since many of the camp’s more experienced better hunters wanted to leave Ubo would be rebuilding this camp while taking it over. Ubo was beginning to see now that there was more to being in charge than sleeping in the biggest, and best lodge.

By the time, my second fight got underway I saw that the biggest thing going on fighting wise around here was the bum rush and hit any part of your opponent that you could, to get him to submit to you. So, this 21st century fighting that I arrived with was beyond strange, even though everyone, had all just seen me fighting in action, just a few hours ago. I also knew there was no need to fix a wheel that wasn’t broken. So, I started off circling off to my right and punching my opponents left side and kicking parts of his left upper and lower leg at will. When I added in a simple stomp to my opponents left foot, that particular blow caused all of his mobility to come to a sudden stop. A left looping hook to the right-side of his jaw closed the show. “Why do you run like a scared little child?” Ubo asked me, loudly. “You said to win, but not kill anybody, I did as you asked, I defeated the man in front of me, without killing him. Whatever I am doing when I fight I am following your rules. I don’t see why you are so upset. Do you want to try and stop me, by fighting me? I came here to win. So far I have won every match that I have been in. I have not asked anything about my opponents including their names. I only have to fight three more times before I will be able to win the girl. So, everyone that is leaving with me can go home to my camp and leave you to rebuild yours,” I said. Ubo looked madder when I stopped talking than he did when he started yelling at me, this time.

“Alex you sure do like to piss folks off, as usual. Ubo and that group of his friends are not happy that you are not face down and hurt, or dead. I think that there will be some trouble from that group at some point before we can go home. Did you notice that Loocus may be among that group of friends?” Bollo asked, while others from our group were nodding their heads to show me that they agreed with what Bollo was saying. I knew that they were not wrong.

Palto came over as we were talking. “Palto we believe that there is going to be some trouble either before, or after this fighting contest is over. I am not a person to go looking for trouble, but I won’t back down after it arrives, either though. Ubo is acting like he is already running things, even though you are still the camp leader. I understand that you want him to be respected as the new camp leader, but I will not possibly be hurt, or let any of my people by hurt because of your son. I believe in the best interest of this camp you had best remind everybody here, me included that you are still the man who is in control of things around here. You have said that Bollo is your friend you might want to ask him just how quickly I can begin killing folks, all by myself. Bollo can also tell you that I have no problems killing anything or anybody that I even think is trying to hurt me. Whether they are a man, woman, or child,” I said.

“Where I come from, men have used children many times to hurt their enemies. I am saying this so you understand that I can and will kill a child as fast as I would kill any man. Even Bollo would be shocked if I did this as he has never heard of this type of thing happening, either here or where I come from. As you see from the way that I am dressed I am not from anywhere around here. In fact, I will tell you that where I come is so far away from here I don’t know far exactly we are from where I came from. But I will tell you what I told my growing camp, We are so far away from where I come from, that you children’s, children’s, children’s mates have yet to be born. In fact, I could assure you if we knew where to go, everyone here including any babies born here in this camp today, would be dead long before we arrived there. My home is just that far away from here.

Before you ask my friend, a friend dropped me and a few possessions here for reasons that I will never know about. Yes I knew that I was coming here. Though I knew nothing about this place, for the most part. I simply went to sleep one night and when I woke up the next time I was here already, in my camp all by myself. You remember how shocked you were when I drove my truck into this camp that first time with all of those Aurochs? Well, where I come from trucks like that one, are as common as the spears, that all of you carry. Trucks come in different sizes and shapes, too. As far as meat is concerned, there are men and women that raise Aurochs and Bison like you raise children that they take to somebody like say Bollo. These animals are either alive, or already dead be to cut up. Then Bollo will make a trade for something from Musa that he wants or needs. Musa in turn, will trade her meat that she has now smoked or dried with anybody she wants to, or can make a trade with. Musa wouldn’t be the only person making these kind of trades with Bollo, as he would or Musa would be trading with other camps, also. Some of the men or women that Musa will deal with are just trying to feed their families, or their job is to possibly to fix meals that people will trade things, for these cooked meals. Those people would be what we called customers, where they would come into a special large hut, to get the meal and leave. Or go inside the lodge to eat the meal, and then go on back home happy and, well fed. I said.”

To say anybody listening to what I said was indeed very shocked. Musa had looked hard at me when I mention her name. I left them talking about everything that I had said to them. “Alex would you really kill a child, like you would a man?” Bollo asked as our group reformed around my truck tailgate. “I wouldn’t want to Bollo. But where I come from some of the camps that my camp went to war with didn’t have the weapons we had, or the special skills that our camp had. Bollo we have ways to kill and destroy things that you can’t even dream of. So, the enemies would load up a child with a way to hurt us, the child would walk into a group of us and while we were asking what the child wanted, his weapon would killed both him and us. That happened a few times before we got wise to that trick. So, they used men, women, and trucks, or even places on the trails that they knew that we used to kill us. That is why I don’t mess around with folks when they say they want to hurt or kill me,” I said.

We were still cooking meat when the women from who knows how many camps that had been watching closely how we were cooking on my grill eased up on us led by Musa and took over my grill using their flint knives, to encourage us to go someplace else. Everyone but me was paralyzed with fear but me. I had my Glock at the ready until I saw that this was men just can’t be trusted around food, that needed to be cooked properly, type of thing again. Now Bollo, imagine that those women really and truly wanted us all dead. Now imagine they were children instead of women. How many times would that have to happen to your camp before you would kill any stranger that came near your group, and ask questions later? Just so you know I was prepared to kill all of those women had they really harmed any of us. They were all shocked again as I put my Glock away. “I guess you were really prepared to do those women harm, just then?” Grutus asked me. “I keep telling you that it is better to be judged by twelve than carried by six. I bet you can understand that saying much better now, than when you heard me say it before?” I asked my group. Every one of them nodded their heads to the new understanding, that they now had.

When I walked into the ring of men this time my opponent was a Neanderthal man a little bit shorter than me, but the man carried much bigger muscles, than my fairly large muscles. I didn’t toy around with this guy, at all. I started that right circle dance, only to stop suddenly and spin to my left putting the heel of my boot to the left side of the man’s head. He didn’t go down to his credit, but I staggered him, badly. Seeing that he didn’t go down, I spun quickly to my right putting my right boot heel to the right side of his head to put the man both down and to sleep, immediately. I quickly went and turned him over to make sure that he was breathing ok, than I walked away to sit on my tailgate and start playing with the cave lion cubs. The cubs were each cleaning a new bone that had been dropped off for them. Somebody wanted those cubs to stay really happy. The bones from yesterday were now as smooth as glass, with no meat left on those bones anywhere.

Nassa, Tia, Kasta came to me and said that I was impressive in winning that fight as it was over so quick, and none of the womenfolk can believe that we had actually fought, until they all saw poor Silag laying on his back where I had left him, on the ground. “Kasta where is your sister? I have yet to see the Lady that I am fighting to win. Hell, I don’t even know her name.” I asked Kasta. “The sister that you are fighting to win is named Kootra, and she looks a lot like Tia and me, but she is shorter than us. She is bigger than me up top, and her backside is very large as well. She basically looks like a full-grown woman that didn’t quite finish growing up, all the way.” Based on her simple description I expected to meet a Dwarf, or better known as a little person. I had nothing against Little People, though I had never dated, or slept with a person of that size before. But then I had also never dated a Big Beautiful Woman either. I had seen some plus women that I would have loved to take to love land, though.

Loocus has had to work much harder to win all of his matches, than I had to. But then Loocus and Ubo were working together and hand picking Loocus’s opponents. The problem in their choices is that they always seemed to pick the smallest person in the challenge. Neither man had even heard about the size of the fight in the man theory. So, while I had the bigger and stronger men to fight. They were also all much slower than me. Then there is the fact my advanced 21st century fighting skills, and the physical upgrades that I received before I got here. I was both much faster than any human my size had ever been, before, I was much stronger than I looked.

Simply put I asked for and received the chance to be the Six Million Dollar Man without having any bionic parts. My limbs were natural and mine from birth. I just had some several new strains of DNA of animals, or beings that I knew nothing about, that were added to my body. Though I was not the size of either Lee Haney, or Lou Ferrigno, I was still larger than your average I go to the gym 3 or 4 times a week kinda guy. Nobody, not even me knew just exactly how strong I really am. I do know that if choose to look, or listen I can both see, and hear much better than normal humans can. I can see in darkness like predators that depend on their sight in the dark to capture prey. Or like scared prey trying to get away from those type of predators. I wear sunglasses often to hide my eyes while looking at stuff to far away to be seen normally by humans. In other words, I am similar to the dog Max from the 1993 movie ‘Man’s Best Friend.’ No, I don’t morph, into other animals. Though my strength, sight and hearing, and my abilities of my muscles to recover in just a few hours most of the time after extremely hard use is truly unbelievable. That is also how I can please the women in my cave all night, in our furs. My body is denser than any other human, a side effect of my DNA treatments. I will age slower than even the Asorian women that also have unnaturally have extremely long-life spans.

So, I am hard to kill, and will look young for a very long time. Then we have to take a look at my mind that also had to be improved to accept large blocks of information, and for that information to be retained as long as I am alive. I was trained while I slept to get here in every known style of unarmed combat on earth. To also be as good as any top-rated sniper, marksmen, and gunsmith in the world on earth. And learned many other skills as well. I possess the ability to read, learn, and practice, to become proficient in any skill that I don’t already know just by reading and studying, and practicing that skill for a few weeks. I am driven to be good at any skill I learn. I am far from being just a normal human. My offspring will gain to a lesser degree some of these traits. I am afraid of what these children of mine may become. Both with the Asorian women, as well as the other women that I am mating with. I have not shared any of these facts with anyone here on this planet. I learned a long time ago some things need to be kept a secret. We know as soon as you tell one person your secret is no longer a secret sooner or later.

My different hidden abilities were the main reasons that I really didn’t want to come here to the Gathering. Losing was not really possible, as I would have to knowingly attempt to lose on purpose. If I am hit too many times people may begin wondering things about me, as a man could break his hand, and well as his wrist or arm punching me, depending on how power he was able to generate, as he was delivering his blows, anybody hitting me more than once with punches was like to damage an opponent’s hands, not to mention the chainmail that I always wear.

Anyway, back to Loocus and his troubles. First of all, like most bullies Loocus has some fighting skills, but as with most bullies he seems fight better with friends helping him get the job done if someone won’t backdown when Loocus tells them what he them to do. Ubo doesn’t know it yet, but Loocus intends to be the new leader of what is at this moment Palto’s camp. If Ubo does what he is told to do, then he will just end up in a lesser position than he has had with Palto being the leader. Lucky for this camp Ubo has two younger brothers that have noticed how Ubo is being seduced into being under the control of Loocus’s circle of influence. They don’t see anything about Loocus that will be good for this camp.

Loocus is not used to doing all of his own fighting anymore. Listen up Loocus said to Ubo and a few others. “We have got to get rid of this Alex person. Men that I know would have given me trouble in a fight have lost badly to this man. I had intended to get your sister Kasta to become my mate after the Gathering was over with. But we see how that worked out as this Alex brought in the bride price that nobody could meet before he met it. I think we should just ambush him when he is not looking and kill him. As I also want this truck think that he used to bring back all of the meat, that he brought to this camp. That truck has got to be how Alex somehow killed all of those animals. I wish we could get him to show us how the truck killed the animals before we kill him.”

“I can’t be seen near you when you try and kill him. I have appear not to have known that you had planned to kill him.” Ubo said.

Loocus sent two of his best men that could move silently to kill Alex when he went to water a bush or leave the unwanted parts of his dinner behind. They followed Alex into the woods. By the time they found him in the darkness he had already watered the bush. As he was purposefully far enough from the camp to do what he had to do. Neither man heard the silent killer that was better at moving silently, and killing, than they were. The first man didn’t hear the snap of his friend’s neck. Sadly, he would have thought the sound was a twig snapping if he had heard it anyway. He barely had time to feel the hands that were suddenly touching him when his life came to a sudden and violet end. Stopping only long enough to pose each man as though they were sleeping. I made my way back to my tent and slept with a Glock at the ready to do harm to any other unwanted visitors. I had already sent all my womenfolk to stay with my other camp members earlier, so they would not be in my way, should any would-be-fools, try anything else tonight. Though I doubted that Loocus would miss either of his men until sometime tomorrow morning. I was just glad my hearing was so good, as that is how I knew about the plot to kill me.

Loocus was indeed, very confident, that the mission was a complete success as he had yet to see Alex all of this morning. Finally, he as began to wonder about his overdue friends, the screams of women that had been out foraging, brought news of men that were found not too far from camp. Animals had already begun to feed on them, as they were laying down, and they were obviously already dead. By the time Loocus got there the vultures were on the ground already waiting for the several groups of scavengers nearby either waiting, or already working on the two carcasses. He recognized them as his two overdue friends, mostly by the pieces of cloth still attached to their bodies as their faces had been badly damaged at this point. Meaning that they had been dead most of the night. Loocus was very upset about what happened to his men, when he walked back to camp to tell any of his people that didn’t already know about their friends.

Loocus did not even know that he had a very real reason to hate Alex. Loocus had an older brother Locos. Loocus had no reason to look for his brother’s camp as they didn’t want to run into each other, often, as they each had a strong dislike for each other. They were raised by the father who pitted them against one another, every chance that he could. It was called character building as that was a family tradition. Locos, and Loocus were the fourth generation of men to be raised this way. The results were all the same. They joined new camps away from their family members. So Loocus had no idea that his hated brother had already met Alex and didn’t live through the experience in the end. Now Loocus is heading in the very same direction as his brother. Alex keeps thinking that he had seen Loocus somewhere before. This is just one of those mysteries that will never come to light that two different men that were brothers had both tried to kill Alex and both will end up dead in the end. If Loocus knew what happened to Locos it just would have added to his wanting to kill Alex. Alex would have just wondered if they had any other brothers, or kinfolks, that might have been of the same mind. Steal anything, and everything you can. No matter how high the price was to the camp that they were in, or leading.

Upon getting back to Palto’s camp, wouldn’t you just know it, one of the first people that Loocus just happen to notice, was Alex was sitting on his tailgate eating some food, and talking to his camp members. Alex also appears to be completely unharmed!

Loocus, was truly well beyond pissed off about losing his two of his best men during a mission that somehow failed to do any visible harm to Alex. When he said loudly so anyone near this side of the camp heard him say. “I am going to kill you, Alex!” My people moved to quickly cover their ears after Loocus said what he said, as they knew what was about to happen to Loocus. Nassa, Tia, Kasta, and Musa were looking at them strangely, as they had no clue of what I was about to do as I quickly jumped off my tailgate. Loocus had begun moving quickly in my direction, by now. I calmly pulled out, my small Glock out of front my left pants pocket, and gave Loocus two doses of hot lead either directly into his heart, or very close to his heart. Before he ever got enough close to me, to do me any harm. Both shots had been targeted to hit Loocus center mass. Nassa, Tia, Kasta, and Musa, were all in a mild form of shock from the loud sound that the small Glock had made.

“Alex how did you make that loud thunder? And did that thunder do something to Loocus? As he has fallen down and is no longer moving this way.” Musa asked me quietly. “Musa when a man says that he wants to kill Alex, Alex shows him quickly that he doesn’t want to talk about it, at all. I have seen more than one man say what Loocus said to Alex. Every one of those men have ended up just like Loocus. Loocus can no longer talk to anyone about anything, now. I told you before that Alex would rather be tried by twelve, than be carried by six. Well, Loocus needs to be carried by six now. He meant to do serious harm to Alex. Or one of us that just happened to be standing nearby, when he got near Alex, as any one of us could have been hurt in some way. Alex is both alive, and unharmed as well. But Alex will continue to help anyone trying do harm to him join Loocus in death. Those folks can go wherever it is that Loocus has now gone, just now, this morning. We may never know just what made him so mad, as we know that we surely can’t ask him anything about anything, now.” Bollo said.

Palto had walked up as Bollo was finishing talking. “Do any of you know anything about what happened to the two men found in the woods this morning?” Palto asked everyone standing nearby. Nobody acknowledged knowing anything about what may have happened to both of those two very unfortunate men. Those men seemed to be very unfortunate to be in those woods, alone, last night. None of the few people, that were still alive, were willing to say anything they knew about why those men were in the woods, last night. After then hearing about them being found dead, and becoming a buffet meal, for multiple scavengers, was more than a little unsettling to Loocus’s allies. This situation was also very unsettling to most of the people standing around in this entire camp. While Bollo and most of the people from Alex’s camp were not nearly as worried about this morning’s goings on. Everyone else’s camps were all worried that they were no longer as safe today, as they were yesterday. Then there was the talk that was going around, about what had just happened to Loocus. Ubo was truly the most worried person standing around, as he knew all about Locus’s desire to kill Alex, last night. Now today Loocus is dead, as well as the two men that were found dead in the woods, and they appeared to have been dead long before they were found this morning.

Palto knew that he had to get this mess, under so kind of control, and right quick, too. “Ubo I can and have to be involved in how we handle all of this mess. But as you intend to be the new leader in a matter of days, your input should be involved, also.” Palto said. Kantro, and Kusto Palto’s two younger sons had listened to what Palto said, as Kusto spoke up. “Ubo has been plotting with Loocus and we don’t think that he is leadership material for this camp, or any other camp, for that matter, any longer. What you may not know is Ubo has spent most of his nights in Loocus’s lodge since the Gathering started. After both hearing as well as seeing Ubo being treated like a woman mating with her man. Loocus and several of his friends had indeed mated with Ubo using him like a woman. Kantro and I want to lead this camp together,”

Both Palto and Ubo were both very shocked to hear what Kusto just said, for obviously different reasons. Palto was shocked at Ubo’s actions if he was really plotting with Loocus for some reason. That he was mating with Loocus was also unsettling, because Ubo didn’t have a known mate. His actions may now be telling the reasons why he had no known mate. Before the Gathering Ubo was always seen sniffing around the unmated women of the camp. Ubo had been seduced by Loocus by force the first night, and Ubo had to be threatened before he would willingly submit the next night. After that night he just became the lodge plaything, servicing one, or sometimes two men at the same time. Ubo had begun to sadly see that he would never truly ever lead this camp as Loocus made it clear to him that his role in the camp leadership was to turn this camp over to man capable of being the new leader. Loocus had so dominated Ubo, who was thought to be a very strong man, but after Loocus told Ubo these fucked up details, Ubo’s younger brothers were beyond shocked. Both of Ubo’s younger brothers had already seen Ubo acting like Loocus had wanted Ubo to act, behind the lodge flap. Ubo at that moment had to admitted to himself that he liked what he had been doing in Loocus’ lodge every night.

“Ubo are the things that your brother’s have been saying true?” Yes Sir, Ubo said... “You know I can’t turn this camp over in good conscience with you showing such a strong weakness like this.” Palto said to Ubo. “Kusto, can you and Kantro truly lead this camp without becoming enemies?” Palto asked both of his two younger sons. “Yes father we can, as with the exception of our mates we do most everything else together. And no, we don’t share our women with each other. We have been best friends our whole lives. We had no interest in leading this camp until we saw how Loocus was encouraging Ubo to act. Then we were both together we when kinda accidently stumbled onto what type of things Ubo was doing at night, in Locus’s lodge. We came to the same conclusion, without too many words passing between us. We knew that Loocus would have to die as soon as you left to move to Alex’s camp. If Ubo got in the way he would have also been put to death, also. We felt that we owed it to the innocent men, women, and children of this camp. We both knew that we needed to keep that evil from taking over this well-run camp.” Kantro said, with Kusto nodding his head.

Ubo looked so lost as he had now lost his last possible chance at being the leader of this camp, permanently. His losses now included the position that he had been in, for years, his new lovers, as well as the respect of all of the men in his own family. Ubo suddenly wished that he had also been with the two men last night when they died in the woods last night. The shame that he was suddenly feeling was almost too painful to comfortably endure.

Palto walked off to be alone, as his whole world was kinda trying to blow up in his face. As he had most of the people that had been the backbone of this camp packing up their personal things to leave. They were leaving to go to a new camp that promised to be like no camp that he had ever heard of. Palto had both been to, and been visited by many camps at his Gatherings, and groups just passing through. So, he knew that while every camp is slightly different in the layout, and how it was run. Very few camps had multiple leaders. Though the leaders mate actually had more power and responsibility then the actual leader as she would make decisions the leader would actually follow, plus she ran herd over all of the women in the camp. And the women ran the camp in every camp that he had ever seen, whether camp was ran well, or bad. This observation included the few Neanderthal camp that he had visited or had been to his Gatherings.

Bollo and Musa, had so stirred up his people he couldn’t stop this move if he really wanted too. The truth was Palto was just as excited about the move, too. Even though he had no idea what he would end up doing after they arrived, other than he was responsible for all of his that were coming with him. Be they man, woman, or a child. After the issue concerning the child now known as FREE, Palto was making sure everyone going with them understood that Bollo’s people tolerated no foolish behavior, whatsoever. That is why only his key people were going with him. The thought of the people his was personally asked to bring namely widows and orphans were a different matter altogether though.

Palto took Musa into their lodge to tell her about Ubo. “Musa it seems as though Ubo will not become the leader when we leave after all as he was working with the now dead Loocus. Ubo has been used by Loocus and his main men like he was a woman. He became their lodge plaything! Kusto and Kantro seen what our son had become, and what he had been up to. So, the two of them want to lead this camp together. Ubo admitted that what his brothers told me was all true.” Palto said. “I am not surprised Palto we women know that Ubo would rather be with a man than a woman. He wasn’t trying to mate with any of the unmated women, or any of the widows. It was the widows that figured out that Ubo liked men.” Musa said. Palto was shocked yet again. “Was it really that obvious Musa? I don’t think any of us men knew that Ubo is like that. What did I do to make him like that?” Palto asked. “Nothing Palto. That is just the way Ubo was all along. Just accept him as he is, as he can’t change the type of people that he likes.” Musa said. Palto was even more determined to move to leave this camp and Ubo behind.

Musa knew that Palto would never look at Ubo the same way again. She would go to her son sometime today to let him know that she knew about his choices and make sure he is aware that her feelings as well as Palto’s feeling were unchanged. But she would also let him know that Palto had to get used to the news of what Ubo had been doing with Loocus since the Gathering started. Kootra was also not shocked hearing about Ubo. She just listened to her parents talking, but never said a word one way or another. Palto was so stunned about Ubo he never even noticed his youngest child while he was talking to Musa. Musa looked at Kootra to see if she was ok with what she was hearing about her brother. Musa could see this news about Ubo was not new news to Kootra at all.