Chapter 15: Cleanliness

After the movie that night, Anderson stood up with his bullhorn.

“Ladies, while the actual incident depicted you just watched is fictional, what was shown to you as far as actual combat in World War One was not. You’re going to see a variety of different portrayals of what happens to men and women in combat situations in the movies. Most of that has to do with what was allowed to be shown to the public, as well as advances that have been made in special effects over the years. The vast majority of you witnessed exactly what happens to a human head when it gets shot. There’s not a nice, polite little hole and the person falls over, with no blood. That doesn’t mean the movie didn’t show reality. It meant the filmmakers were trying to keep some of the horrors that we witnessed every day from your view. Oh, and one other detail. Thank whatever God you worship that you don’t have to smell combat, or what happens afterwards. Speaking from personal experience, it’s something you never forget – and you’ll instantly recognize it if you ever smell it again.”

With that, he headed for his quarters, el-Azizi following him.

Once he was stripped for his shower, he said, “If you don’t want to join me tonight, that’s fine. I spoke harshly to you, and I cannot apologize for it.”

She looked at him, then sadly shook her head. “I wouldn’t accept it even if you did. You are quite possibly the most duty driven man I have ever met in my life. It’s almost like you have two personalities. I don’t understand that.”

“Welcome to the joys and sorrows of being an officer. It’s something they tell you about in training, but never something you fully grasp until it hits you in the face. Do you know why at various times I call the men by their rank and other times by their name, while they only say ‘Sir’ when they address me?”

A puzzled look on her face, she replied, “I thought it due to your rank difference, but as far as why, no, I never thought about that before.”

“I’m their commanding officer here. That makes me the ‘old man,’ even if I was ten years younger than any of them, instead of ten years older. I can be friendly with them, but I can never be their friend. You don’t want to be their friend when you’re their officer, because giving your friend an order that you know is going to get him killed will eat your soul. That’s something that should never get easier, the further up in rank you get, but becomes much, much more common, where you have to issue orders that will get your own men killed.”

He snorted, then got up from the side of the bed. “There’s all sorts of training classes they have about falling in love with or dating someone that’s under your command. Primarily that consists of, thou shalt not, because it’s a violation of all sorts of sexual harassment stuff, in addition to be prejudicial to military conduct. Of course, they don’t exactly have officer training classes where they tell you what happens when you love someone that’s not under your command, but is under your authority. There’s all sorts of sexual harassment stuff you have to go through, but nothing where you’re truly in love with someone like I am with you.”

Without turning his head, he walked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. She stood still in the bedroom for nearly a minute, her face contorting into different expressions as different emotions passed through her. She finally pulled her bottoms off and walked in. His back was turned to the entrance, so her arms encircling his waist in a hug as her breasts and skin pressed against him were the first sign he’d had of her response. She simply laid her head against his back for the longest time before releasing her grip, so he could turn, bend his head, and kiss her.

The next morning at breakfast, Anderson simply asked Hawk how things went with the supply run as they were late returning.

“All good, Sir. All accounted for.”

“Stepped on?”

“Um, you know this is Cheyenne-Arapaho territory.”

“Of course I do.”

“Well, they’ve been watching us, since not only do we buy from them, we were respectful of them and the land when we built this place. So...” he paused, looking around to make sure none of the regular women were near, only el-Azizi. “When they saw us kick the women out yesterday, once they were out of sight, the Indians, um, rounded them up. Captured them as enemies of the tribe, unwelcome trespassers on their land.”

Anderson rubbed his face, sighing. “The Supreme Court ruling from 2020, right?”

“Yes, Sir. Tribal sovereignty on their land, equal to federal law, and overruling state law. With there being no federal law in this state due to the war, it’s up to the tribe to decide what to do. And since they don’t have to pay attention to federal law, they’re not doing so. That happens to also include the US Constitution.”

Looking puzzled, el-Azizi asked, “Pardon me for interrupting, but since I actually am a lawyer, albeit one that is ashamed of what I did when practicing as a prosecutor, what are you saying?”

“The tribe decided that, since we’d kicked them out, and this is their land anyway, the Bill of Rights and the Thirteenth Amendment don’t apply. They’ve already branded them as communal tribal property, for whatever purposes the tribe needs or wants,” Hawk explained.

“They’re slaves?” el-Azizi asked, horrified.

Anderson shook his head. “Well, that’s not what I’d intended when I kicked them out. But it’s an elegant solution and almost certainly during this time period, legally correct, even if it’s potentially morally and ethically repugnant.”

“Keeping someone as a slave is repugnant, while killing them is not?” she asked.

“No, not when they’re considered enemies. However, there’s probably nothing anyone can actually do from a legal perspective. I’m sure as hell not going to send troops in to ‘rescue’ them. They already made it clear they want nothing to do with us.” He shook his head. “Welcome to unintended consequences of a Supreme Court ruling ... like that’s never happened before,” his voice caustic with sarcasm.

Frowning, she said, “I still don’t understand.”

Hawk nodded. “As you said, Sir, it is an elegant solution. Ma’am, I’m Choctaw, so I’m from a different tribe, but the ruling affected us as well. What happened is the Supreme Court ruled that if something criminal happened on a tribal reservation – even if it’s not land the tribe directly owns, but is still considered within their nation – then the State of Oklahoma doesn’t have jurisdiction. The Federal Government or the tribal government does, depending upon the severity. But when twenty states refused to certify the results, he declared everyone in those states in rebellion. He didn’t say, ‘everyone but Indians.’ Well, that also means Federal law doesn’t apply here, which is how we’re able to hold all of you, right?”

She nodded in agreement.

“If Federal Law doesn’t apply, then it’s up to tribal law to rule on what is reservation land, since the State can’t. You may or may not know, but just because the First Civil War ended slavery in the United States, it didn’t end it here in Oklahoma until a couple of years afterwards, because the Chickasaw and Choctaw kept their slaves anyway. We didn’t have to give them up, it was negotiated, and even then, it took longer than the morons who created ‘Juneteenth’ realize, not ending in 1865, but continuing on until 1868. Anyway, net result for those eight women is the tribal government decided they’re now slaves of the Cheyenne-Arapaho tribe. When I said branded them, I mean that literally, with old-fashioned branding irons and hot fires.”

Anderson simply pinched the bridge of his nose for a while with his eyes shut. After a couple minutes, he looked up. “Okay, is the shipment on schedule for today?”

“Yes, Sir. I’m still planning on setting it up on the far side of your quarters, unless you want it somewhere else.”

“No, that’s where we decided to put it. It’s still a month early. Are we going to have a problem with heat?” Anderson asked.

“No, Sir. We’ve got a pump and heater, and two actual insulated tanks instead of portable bladders that they’ll drop off. Nice thing about being in a state with all sorts of oil field equipment just sitting around, it was easy to find those since we’re ahead of things. It’ll take the crew all day to set up, and maybe until tomorrow to warm things up.”

“That’s fine, Hawk. Thank you.”

Once in his office, Anderson composed an email to the State Guard headquarters, then encrypted things before sending it out, while el-Azizi got as comfortable as she could. She’d started her period that morning while they were in the shower.

She heard a noise she hadn’t heard in quite a while, that of a phone ringing. Anderson unlocked a drawer on his desk and took out a cell phone.

“I wondered how long it’d take you to call me,” she heard him say. “Yeah, slaves. It’s unfortunate that they’re all black. If I’d known that’s what’d happen, I would’ve just taken care of things here. No, it’s legal. Hell if I know, first we have to actually win the damned war. I don’t know for sure, maybe three weeks? Not before then. Yes, but that doesn’t mean we can push things that way. I’m sorry, I’m not going to be the victim of my own success and ruin what we’ve accomplished so far. We all volunteered, we can fucking undo that! Oh, I figured it was fatso that was pushing it. Tell him just because he outranks me doesn’t mean I still won’t come kick his ass, and you know I’ll do it. Yeah, I will. Okay, that’s better. Tell Sarah and the kids I said, ‘hi.’ I will.”

Putting the phone away, Anderson simply shook his head. “I don’t know if you could hear any of the other side, but I know you’ve seen the barracks, and how they’re large enough for twice the number of residents. It’s part of our plan to double the initial population here after an appropriate amount of time. One of my erstwhile senior officers wants us to do it now, since we’ve had such good luck with all of you.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Killing three women and having eight others enslaved is good luck?”

He shrugged. “We originally anticipated up to forty percent losses, so forty dead. I didn’t plan on the Indians making them slaves. You’re the lawyer. If the Constitution of the United States doesn’t apply, and the State Constitution has been put into abeyance, the only thing left is military law and tribal law. When I kicked them out, I planned on Sergeant Hawk killing them. I didn’t ask, but I suspect the locals are going to show them the pig farm.”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“Oh, we’re ecologically conservative, big into recycling. Pigs don’t have a problem eating dead bodies, bones and all. The only thing they can’t digest is teeth.”

He jumped up from his chair with his wastebasket, getting it there before she lost her breakfast. While she was continuing to vomit, he got a couple of paper towels and some water. Once she was done, he wiped her face and gave her water to rinse her mouth with.

“Zuhra, when I mentioned smells after the movie last night, I wasn’t kidding. Human muscle when it’s burning smells a bit like ground beef, while our fat pretty much smells like roast pork. You can also tell how long someone has been dead by how putrid the smell, too. What’s bad is when you get all three smells coming from a burnt out vehicle, but the guy laying half out the hatch is still alive. Giving him a mercy bullet in the head is the only thing you can do at that point. I’d really like to say I’ve never had to do that. I can’t, but I’d like to say that. I apologize for my rather poor attempt at humor a moment ago, but it’s the truth. We don’t have funeral or crematory facilities, we can’t box them up and ship them home, and we can’t bury them because the damn wild animals would dig them up and eat them, anyway. We’re in the middle of a goddamned nature preserve, full of coyotes, bobcats, cougars, mountain lions, bears, and feral hogs, not to mention three different varieties of rattlesnake.”