"Arefu, huh?"
West nodded, tucking a loose strand of blond hair behind her ear. "That's right. Built on what used to be an overpass, hangs right over a river. You'll know it when you see it; they've got a pretty big pasture for their Brahmin."
I ran a finger around the rim of my empty glass, trying to ignore the stink of stale cigarette smoke. "And there aren't any caravans that take that path?"
"They do, now and then." West reached over and played her finger over my glass, and a high whine began to skewer my ears.
"Ouch."
"Sorry." She leaned back into her rickety chair, crossing her arms over her chest and staring into the blanket of gray that hid the cieling. "And trust me, I've tried to find others to roll with- Wolfgang, Crow, Hoff- but they've all said the same. No market there. I guess different traders run through Arefu."
I didn't doubt that. From where she pointed out the little settlement- more like outpost- on my Pipboy's map (her eyes wide with wonder all the while), the place was apparently caught flak from raiders and slavers and scavs alike, giving the place a low standing amongst most settlers. I mean, shit, in all likelihood these Arefu guys traded with raiders in exchange for being left in one piece.
"I'll see what I can do," I promised, rising from the table. She smiled and shot me a quick "thanks" as I made my way out the door of Moriarty's saloon, relishing the sweet smell of (relatively) clean air. Christ, I don't know how she stood it. That bar was like Lucy's home away from home.
Then again, I wasn't much different.
"Fuck no."
"What? Why?"
"That shithole is in crossfire 24/7. We ain't going near there."
"I told Lucy West-"
"Too fuckin' bad. That place could have the freshest whores in the wasteland, and I wouldn't touch it with a ten-mile cock. Y'know what they do up there? Y'know why those raiders put up with 'em?"
"Bridges are hard to-"
"Wrong. They're fuckin' cannibals. A step away from being full-blown voodoo shits. I don't care if West promisied to suck you off, we are not going there."
And that was that.
More walking. Fuck, you have to learn to love walking more than life itself if you want to live out here. And running, too, if you want to live longer than half a day.
My shoulders were getting a bit sore from the pack and gear, but I ignored it, instead filling my time with swatting away carrion flies (innocently named, though they could pull your fingernail off with just a bit of team effort), avoiding sandtraps that might lead to some less-than-hospitable creatures, and scanning the rocky, rolling hills for any signs of life. But aside from the occasional pair of mating bloatflies-one of the most fucking disgusting things I've ever seen, good God- the wastes were devoid of life.
Ashecroft spoke little to me as we trekked. The crags and ravines had given way to misshapen hills and hillocks, like tumors rising from beneath the earth- a nice change and easier on the body, but didn't provide much cover aside from a huge misplaced boulder here and there. Now and then we'd take shelter under one of those alien-looking outcroppings, savoring the shade.
She took off her hat, shaking the sand out of her short hair. "Y'holdin' up?" she asked, clapping me on the shoulder. I grunted a "yeah, I'm fine"- those long weeks spent in that slaver camp had left my legs shot to shit, and I had spent a good bit of time back at Ashecroft's cabin doing sprints and squats to get Jericho's training muscle back. Even so, my legs felt a little numb and shaky; having those ghasts follow us for a damn mile probably didn't help, either.
I sat down heavily against the rock, shrugging my gear off into the sand. It was dusk, at least. The usual unbearably hot over-a-hundred-degrees in the shade weather had dipped into a muggy, sweat-sticky haze, a clipped breeze here and there letting you know the night would be cold and merciless. Like it always was.
Ashecroft shook my shoulder with a bit more earnest. "Talk t'me, Gravesend. Y'sure y'can take this?" She stepped around me, crouching to meet me eye-to-eye. "This s'whatcha wanna do?"
She had asked me that fourteen times back at the cabin. No exaggeration: I fuckin' counted. But I knew this time was different. It may have been her personal vendetta, but... it was so much more, now that I was with her. "Positive," I muttered with a slight cough. She offered me the canteen, but I waved it away. "Not that weak. Not yet." I pushed myself to my feet and took to scooping up as many stones as I could find, outlining our campsite in a semicircle of stacked rocks. Wake-up rocks, Jericho called them. Most mutants didn't have the brainpower to avoid them, so if you ever started to pass out from morphine or exhaustion (or most commonly, both), you'd get an extra five seconds added to your life. Good deal, if you ask me. Useless against humans, of course, but...
Ashecroft glanced at my work, checking and re-checking the cylinder of her Colt Walker. Her eyes watched the darkening sky intently.
"'Bout that time, Gravesend," she called. I haphazardly dropped the rest of reddish, jagged stones and hurried back.
Sitting back to back, her facing east, me west, we waited, sheets of the bedroll wrapped around us for meager warmth. An hour passed, a little more, and then the sun's dying light disappeared beneath the western cliffs and a halved moon rose to its place, the temperature plummeting and our breath misting like woodsmoke. And as soon as those two switched places, the laughing began.
Not a normal, knee-slapping belly laugh. The kind of barking, hacking yelp that comes with pain, with being slapped in the face with reality a few times too many. The rose from the east, then the north- and bounced back and forth through the deepening darkness.
I clutched my M21 close. "They sound almost... human," I whispered.
"That's how they getcha," Ashecroft said pointedly, .56 magnum revolving rifle shouldered like an extension of herself.
Yeah, that's... reassuring.
The jackal-hyena-wolves of the wasteland aren't just dogs. Worse; they're stalkers, killers, graverobbers, hairless machines of throbbing muscle and tendon and bone. They can find a trail four days cold. Unless you bury your dead under a foot of rock, they'll dig them up. And their call- a deranged, lilting laugh that rolls across the wasteland like maddening wind. Jericho always knew how to juke them- always had a knack for stepping in their shit, for one. But Ashecroft...
"I'll take first watch," I said quietly as I squinted to scan the dunes and ridges, blinking the cold sweat out of my eyes. Funny how at night, all the moonshadows started to look kind of dog-shaped...
"Yer spent," she shot back, prodded me gently in the ribs with her elbow. "I got this. Git some shuteye."
Because, you know, counting rabid hounds is a great way to doze off. I shifted my weight slightly, letting Ashecroft rest against me a little more. It was going to be another long night.
Another boring, filler bit. Just wanted to get it out of the way for some psycho violence next chapter.