Joe had been placed in an empty cell on the outer edge of the prison, one that had previously been used for storage. The accommodations weren't exactly comfortable, but they were better than sleeping out in the wilderness. Joe had endured far worse for a long time, so he had no complaints.
Rick went to bring him a change of clothes and an extra meal as a gesture of thanks for identifying Greg.
When he arrived, Joe was sitting against the corner of the cell, carefully sharpening his signature red-handled machete with a whetstone he'd found somewhere.
Hearing footsteps, he looked up. His eyes swept over Rick before he relaxed slightly and acknowledged him.
"Thanks."
Joe took the things and set them aside without stopping his sharpening.
"How's the wound?" Rick asked from outside the cell, maintaining a safe distance.
"I'll live. That butcher wasn't strong enough."
Joe raised the blade toward the light coming through the window, examined the edge, then blew the stone dust from it with satisfaction.
"You've got a decent setup here."
It sounded like praise, but his tone was so flat that Rick couldn't quite read him.
"We do what we can."
Joe stopped sharpening the machete. His fingers slowly traced the dense collection of shallow and deep notches carved into its wooden handle.
"I used to have a crew too. Rules were simple. If you could fight and didn't choke when it mattered, you earned your place and your share.
"If you wanted something, you had to say, 'I want it.' Kept people from fighting over things. If you became dead weight, got hurt badly enough to slow everyone down, or were so scared you put the rest of us in danger..."
He paused, rubbing his thumb over one particularly deep notch.
"Then you figured something out yourself. Or someone figured it out for you."
Rick's expression didn't change.
On some level, he could understand how people reached that point. But he would never accept it as the right way to live.
"Sounds effective," Rick said calmly. "Until you ran into Terminus."
A muscle twitched in Joe's face.
Instead of getting angry, he pulled his mouth into a slightly vicious grin.
"Yeah. Effective, but not smart enough.
"We were strong. We could handle walkers and ordinary little groups of raiders. What we didn't expect was someone using a trick like that."
He looked at Rick more closely.
"You people are different. You wiped them out. That Zhou guy and the men with him, they're hard cases. And that commander of yours..."
Joe narrowed his eyes.
"I've heard people talking. She's the one who ordered that bastard Greg dealt with on the road, right?"
Rick didn't answer directly.
"You're pretty interested in the commander of Rock Fortress."
Joe licked his dry lips. A trace of genuine admiration appeared in his eyes.
"A woman running something this big, with people like that working under her?
"She's either a cold-blooded lunatic, or she sees things more clearly than everyone else and has the guts to make hard decisions. In this world, it's the second kind who lives longest. And keeps everyone following them alive."
Joe's judgment of Calista came entirely from his own brutal philosophy of survival, but by coincidence, part of it came remarkably close to the truth.
"She's not heartless," Rick said with a frown. "She made the right call."
"The right call," Joe repeated, nodding.
"So this is a place for strong people too? The ones I see walking around with guns aren't bad. But those people over there..."
He set his machete down and jerked his chin toward the recreation area in the distance, where several obviously ordinary survivors were doing handicrafts or sitting in the sun.
"What keeps them here? Your kindness?"
The question was clearly meant to provoke and test him.
Rick couldn't help answering.
"We're not your hunting crew. Here, if you're willing to work and follow the rules, you have a place."
Joe looked at Rick, not as if he were looking at an enemy, but more like he was looking at a young man who didn't quite understand how the world worked.
"Work? Rules?"
He smiled.
"Looks to me like this place survives because your commander is strong enough. You're too soft."
Rick was silent for a moment.
"We have our own way of doing things. Strength isn't just about whether someone can use a gun."
Joe shrugged and didn't argue further.
But his expression made it obvious that Rick hadn't convinced him.
That afternoon, one of the men cutting grass beside the wall to feed the pigs accidentally sliced open his arm.
Even though he treated the wound quickly, the smell of blood immediately attracted the walkers around the perimeter.
Small groups began converging on that section of the wall. The people assigned to stab walkers through the barriers couldn't keep up, and when Joe saw what was happening, he volunteered to go outside and deal with them.
He didn't ask for a gun.
He only took his red-handled machete.
Every swing was simple and lethal. His movements were broad and forceful, but controlled, revealing enough experience to make people take notice.
The fight ended quickly.
They killed more than thirty walkers in total, and Joe accounted for nearly half of them by himself.
Black blood covered his clothes, but his eyes were unusually bright.
There was even something close to exhilaration in them.
Afterward, Rick gave him some extra tobacco as a reward.
Joe accepted it, sniffed it, and looked satisfied.
"You're good," Rick said.
"Just something you learn if you want to stay alive."
Joe lit the tobacco and took a deep drag. His eyes became hazy behind the smoke.
"Most of the people here... standing behind walls, farming, doing a few drills. It's not enough."
Rick nodded.
"It's not. We don't have enough people either. And a few of ours are heading to Virginia soon, so we'll be even more stretched."
"You're going to Virginia?"
Joe looked genuinely surprised.
Then his expression changed.
"Things aren't exactly peaceful over there."
Rick immediately focused on him.
"What do you know?"
Joe blew out a ring of smoke and glanced at Rick.
"I want to speak directly to your commander."
...
In the prison communications room, Rick stood with his arms crossed, irritation obvious on his face.
"You really won't tell me?" he asked, anger restrained in his voice. "I'm in charge here, Joe. If there's a threat out there, I need to know about it."
Joe turned his head and shrugged.
"This isn't just information. It's intelligence. I only give that to the person who actually makes the decisions."
"I make decisions," Rick snapped, raising his voice. "I've been making them all this time to keep these people alive!"
"Keep them alive?"
Joe gave a dismissive laugh.
"I've been watching you for a few days, Rick. You're a good man. Soft-hearted. But you and I aren't the same kind of people."
He remained firm.
"I'm talking to your commander."
Rick drew in a long breath and opened his mouth to argue.
Then he remembered that Tyreese and the others would soon be escorting Noah to Virginia. If Joe knew something about the dangers there, they needed that information.
Gritting his teeth, Rick pressed the button for the dedicated Rock Fortress frequency.
A few minutes later, Calista's voice came through.
"This is Rock Fortress. Calista speaking. What's wrong, Rick?"
"Calista, it's not me this time. Joe has some intelligence about Virginia. He insists on talking to you."
Rick shot Joe an irritated look, then stepped aside and gave him access to the radio.
Joe visibly paused when he heard Calista's voice.
He hadn't expected the woman commanding such a large base to sound so... young.
But he quickly recovered and cleared his throat.
"Commander, this is Joe. I'm currently at the prison outpost. I heard you're preparing to send a team into Virginia. I've got important intelligence about raiders in that area."
On the other end, Calista was briefly surprised.
This Joe was interesting.
He had actually bypassed Rick and insisted on speaking directly to her.
He had some nerve.
"Go ahead."
"Cancel it. Don't send your people there to die."
Joe didn't bother easing into it. Even now, there was lingering fear in his voice.
"There's a group of lunatics in Virginia you definitely don't want to run into. They're nothing like ordinary raiders.
"They kill people for fun."
...
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