4
The next morning arrived all too fast as Terry began to wake up feeling a pressure on top of him. Squinting his eyes only to see bright red hair blocking his vision using his hand he moved it away. His breath caught Sunny was asleep on top of him. She must have been so tired last night she fell asleep in my bed. Moving slowly he is able to move her to the side and get out of bed. Going over to hers he pulled her blanket since his was pinned under her and covered her up.
Stepping outside he was greeted by victor leaving his shack and moving toward the edge of town that's different…Terry thought usually he just goes up and down Main Street. Running after the robot he called out "hey Victor where you going?" the robot stopped and turned on his single wheel. "howdy Terry, mighty fine day." Terry came to a stop beside the towering bot "And a good day to you Victor whats got you moving off this way your heading to the edge of town." Victor's body turned left and right "why yes it is. I don't know why but im feeling a sudden urge to mosey on I've been sitting still a might too long now" Terry is shocked for the last eight years he has been in Goodsprings.
Victor has been there helping defend the town and her people he had been there for dozens of giant rat, coyote attacks he even killed the terror of the waste a cazador that came over the mountain by the cemetery. The powder gangers attack to think of him leaving.. was almost unthin…."Terry!" he turned to see Sunny running up to him looking back and Victor was gone. Looking back at Sunny "whats going on?" she waited to reply until they met on the way back "umm I woke up in your bed and…" speaking quickly "Yeah I guess we were so tired last night we just passed out. I woke up and was able to worm my way out from under you. After covering you up I came out here." Nodding she thankfully decided to drop it "I was….just going to say what's on the agenda today?" good question.
Thinking a few minutes as they reentered town coming up on the saloon "Today we make the town a sandbag of caps." As the town gathered for breakfast Terry waited for David Brown the young big horner rancher and mechanic. "Hey David you got a minute?" David turned and nodded "Sure Captain whats up?" after laying out the basics of using one of his big horner's to carry a pair of crates filled with water filled whisky bottles to sell. he agreed on the condition that we take the other one with a pair of cages he had built if we could find and stun any Geckos he would be grateful in fact any livestock we could find would be great to multiply the towns stock would be helpful. Terry reassured him it would be no problem they would grab what they could.
Terry gathered a few of the militia Bobby, Beagle and Carter all gathered looking quite official in their heavy lather armor with bullet proof vest deciding to leave Sunny behind this time. They gathered in front of the animal pin with David just finishing attaching the cages. "Alright boys listen up this will be your first mission we have over two hundred whisky and wine bottles filled with water, we will be taking this bighorner and we will be heading north to Sloan. We have heard rumors that they are running low on water another goal is to find livestock or animals that can prove useful. If there's no question's we leave in a hour." With no one saying a word they all departed to gather their weapons and gear.
Terry bringing the bighorner saw the others waiting at the roadside bunkers. Beagle seemed to be flirting with one of the militia. Terry vaguely remembers her name as Alice something while Bobby and Carter were sitting at the bed of one of the trucks of the barricade cleaning their lever action rifles. As they saw or rather heard terry and the bighorner approach Beagle said good bye and the others quickly reassembled their rifles and put away the cleaning supplies and lined up ready to go.
As they walked down the hill Terry leading the way it was a boring trip as every annoying scorpion, coyote and gecko in the area had been killed or else learned to stay away. They passed the skydiving school turning north with no problem until they came up on a rusted hulk of a camper a pair of powder gangers were using to watch the road. Terry caught sight of them at the same time as they saw them. The idiots must have been feeling brave as they opened fire with a pair of pistols. They were horrible shots where Carter and Bobby weren't a pair of harsh flat cracks and the cons went down hard. They weren't alone however as two more ran up the hill from the other side of the tracks both with pistols again they didn't even get a shot off as Terry and Carters rifles cracked this time killing one with a chest shot and hitting the other in the stomach that one went down his scream getting cut off as Bobby finished him off.
As they approached the body's surrounding the camper they found a body of a merchant on the hill where the second pair came the man's dead pack Brahmin laying in the road a short distance ahead its pack ripped open and bits and pices of worthless loot thrown carelessly around. The valuable goods the convicts had stolen however were inside the camper. Inside a couple of metal boxes they found food and water, a small stack of NCR bills maybe three hundred dollars' worth a small coyote skin pouch full of caps and a wide variety of loot. In the prewar ammunition tin however was a dozen or so preloaded pistol magazines a cluster of a dozen sticks of dynamite with a pair of fragmentation grenades sitting on top of it all. After stripping the dead of their pistols and ammunition as well as any valuables they had on them witch wasn't much they moved on.
As they approached a trailer that was turned on its side they heard growling from inside. Approaching carefully they stopped as a large coyote came running out to be cut down as all four men fired the coyote dropped as the bullets slammed home. As the echo of the shots died down they heard a series of smaller growls and whines coming from inside the trailer. Moving closer to take a look they saw four small pups no more than a month or two old. Seeing this as a great opportunity Bobby motions them to wait as he pulls out some gecko jerky and makes a small trail out of the trailer. "this might take a few minutes."
They had been sitting around going over the recently acquired loot and cleaning their weapons for about thirty minutes when the pups finally came out and started eating the jerky before we knew it the four pups were eating jerky out of his hand picking them up he put them in the cage on the side of the bighorner with a bowl of water and more jerky. Smiling Bobby turned "well four coyote pups it's a start." Everybody agreed. As they moved on he switched sides to keep an eye on the pups.
As they walked along the road nothing else of importance was found the one weird thing was the ghoul under the bridge missing its arm below the elbow in nothing but a bloody Tee shirt and rotten underwear. They were greeted just inside the mining outpost by a big man with a sledgehammer leading a column of a dozen men in from the quarry road past a sign warning of death claws.
Terry pointed to the sign and asked the man in the yellow hard hat who seemed to be in charge "excuse me sir what's up with all the deathclaw warnings?" the man looks at the sign and laughs "Howdy im Chomps im the foreman of the NCRs quarry. As to the warnings they are a warning to beware of any of the remaining deathclaws the Courier might of left we have only seen one or two but that's terrifying enough they seem to keep their distance thanks to the mining though."
Terry was amazed the courier had taken out a pack of deathclaws. I guess their still out there kicking ass on their path to revenge "well I guess it's a good thing this is as far as we are going" Terry started "we heard you boys were running low on water so we have some for sell and cheap too." At the mention of water the dozen miners came running. "Yeah we are low on water. Doing this kind of work you can never have too much water." Chomps said looking around Terry held his arms up and called out "well you boys are in luck whisky bottles are five NCR dollars or ten caps wine bottles are ten and twenty we are also interested in buying or trading for any intact bottles you have. Say four bottles for one whiskey of water" a dozen guys ran back to the cluster of buildings returning a few minutes later with a wheel barrel filled with both kinds of bottles.
They sold out in fifteen minutes making almost two hundred NCR dollars and a hundred and sixty caps as well as filling the chest with twenty wine bottles and seventy whiskey bottles. The water sold Terry walked around as the payment and new bottles were stored seeing nothing else of real value. He did manage to buy a couple of intact and readable books from Jas Wilkins the outpost barkeeper he found out the courier sold to her. Their business done they bid farewell calling out over his shoulder Terry yelled "Remember to save those bottles we will be back in two days.