Chapter 2: The rifleman.
He was sitting down in front of the radio again at the time, fighting the desire to get drunk out of his mind so that the rest of the day would flash by. Ugh, how long had it been now? The question made him sneer angrily as he stood up from the chair. But really now, how long had it been? Two years now, maybe, he figured, as he stood in front of one of the windows and peered out into the surrounding wasteland. Two years now, without any direction. Two years without a goal besides staying alive. He slapped his palm against the window sill out of frustration. Then again, regardless of whether or not he had all the will to go out and do something, anything, what? What was he going to do? Hired gun? Could he go out and be someone's bodyguard? No, it wasn't good enough.
Stepping away from the window, he leaned up against the wall beside it, thoughts still firing. Jobs like those were way too . . . normal. They fed into the post war world all the same, caused everything to simply go round and round and in the end, humanity was standing in the same spot as before. Yeah, he needed something more momentous. He wanted to spend his life, his body, and his mind on something revolutionary. Something that would shine a golden, piercing light through time and manifest in the future when nuclear bombs were ready to be used to destroy the world again . . . and stop it from happening. He knew it was a naive idea, but the way he saw it, humanity was on its knees, existing a pitiful existence, and what the hell was there to shoot for? A cushy job on the New Vegas strip? That wasn't his Wastelandic dream. No, his Wastelandic dream was more magnificent.
"Somethin's gotta give somethin's gotta give," bang bang bang.
He turned his head outward and then lowered it, eyes moving from one side to the other as he tried to pinpoint the direction of where the shots were fired. He couldn't really get it, so he quickly moved towards the door, pushed the door open, and stood outside to improve his odds of deciphering the distance and direction. For a long couple of seconds he stared down at the ground, listening closely and hoping it would happen again. Bang, one more shot occured just when he thought it might be over, and it was close by. Two hundred and fifty yards southwest at most. Now, he had to weigh his options. Was he going to go see what it was or not? Was he going to sit by and simply wait and see if whatever it was wouldn't come his way? Wait a minute, southwest. Oh okay, it made sense now.
Rem stepped inside and emerged from his home moments later clad in his brown trench coat, his cowboy hat, and armed with the trail carbine. The radio was left on and when he closed the door, he used the flap of his trench coat to wipe the door knob, and he began heading southwest with a brisk pace. Each time he approached a piece of land that was higher than most, instead of climbing over it, he jogged around it. Made for a trek that felt longer, but it made it a lot easier to keep his head from sticking out. He had spent enough years out on the wasteland to know that some folks out there were simply more perceptive than others, and those were the kind of people he was making sure wouldn't see him. Besides, when you're alone, the element of surprise absolutely has to be on your side.
It actually didn't take as long as he thought, and the hardest part of finding a target before it finds you took care of itself. Once he was within one hundred and fifty feet of his destination, he heard another gunshot. There they are, finally, he let himself pace up to the tip of one of the higher plateaus nearby and lowered onto his knees. Before doing anything else, he looked around, made sure that there were no creatures nearby to worry about, and then let himself rest on his stomach. He looked ahead finally, and there he saw it, the first indication that he had been correct in his assumption earlier. There was a pack brahmin tied up to an iron post and nearby, its former owner shared the same fate, except that he had been brutally beaten.
The camp had been inhabited only recently, no doubt, because this was the first time he had caught wind of it. It was composed of a cement establishment that had crumbled after either the explosions or after father time had had his way with it. At first glance, it was open in many places, and for a guy whose shot was normally longer than most, it was ideal. However, not everyone in there was in plain view, and if he was good enough to get two accurate shots off before they realized they were being picked off from a distance, they had a lot of places to take cover. Was it worth the danger? Yeah, it was. If he managed to save the merchant, he could likely bargain for a discount on future purchases. On top of that, he should also be looking at a resupply the equivalent of whatever he'd end up using to save the guy.
Once he was done deciding that it was worth it, he began coming up with a plan. Who did he want to shoot first? Looking at the establishment, most of them were huddled up together and if he shot one of them, everyone would know immediately. So it was possible that he was going to have to be patient about this. He might have to wait an hour, two hours, or even three, until they put more distance between them and gave him an ideal situation to begin a surprise assault, and he didn't have a problem with that at all. In the past, he had paid the price for taking a shot early too many times, and he was too old now to keep making the same mistake. So, was he going to wait? His eyes traveled towards the merchant, and then, yeah, he waited. As the time passed, he also strafed the encampment and got closer, eventually picking his spot on his stomach on a large mound of sand that gave him a good vantage point.
One hour went by, but he kept looking around to make sure nothing was sneaking up on him. Another hour later, the day was running out. The sun had cast a reddish glow across the sky, so there was still a good amount of light for him. When I attack, I wonder if they'll know I'm here for the merchant, he wondered. If they do happen to realize that, they'll want him as a hostage, and so, the idea birthed a plan, and when he surveyed towards the merchant, his chance finally came. One of them branched off towards the merchant, and another branched off towards the western side of the location into plain view. Perfect.
He lowered his eyes and aligned his gaze with the iron sight of the trail carbine. His lips pressed together, he exhaled, and tightened his grip so it stopped moving. This was it, he was starting the attack. He looked back on the trail carbine's last test run near his home when he was shooting some sarsaparilla bottles and took the spread into account, and eventually, the raiders heard the gunshot. By the time the ones around the campfire had stood up on their feet, the raider on the west end of the establishment was on the floor unmoving with a bullet resting peacefully within his gray matter. On top of that, the trail carbine's iron sight had been aligned with his other target, the one closest to the merchant, maybe only a second after performing the weapon's lever action to load another bullet into the chamber. While the Raider was busy pissing on the merchant, Rem only saw the trajectory. Bang, another sound resonated throughout the distance, and another raider went down. He hit the floor with a hole in his chest, because a body shot would be the easiest.
Then, the establishment went into a flutter. The raiders were already on their feet, the four that were left, at least, and were moving behind cover. One of them looked towards the merchant and saw that one of his friends was on the floor. "The fucker's here for the merchant!" One of the others yelled subsequently, "Grab him!" The one closest made a bee line for the merchant, and when he did, Rem already had his iron sight aligned with the space between them and the merchant. Bang, another shot, another body shot, and the raider hit the floor unable to breathe. His lung had been pierced. He was right, and because he had foreseen what they would do, he only had three more scum bags to go, and furthermore, he didn't have to worry about any of them going for the merchant anymore.
"Oh shit! They're using him as a lure!"
Rem stood up and began strafing around the establishment. He popped up around a predetermined corner, lowered on one knee, pointed the trail carbine, and pulled the trigger once his new angle had been established. A female hit the floor this time, screaming in pain while Rem pushed the lever out towards the tip of the barrel and pulled it back, pushing the next bullet into the chamber. He had only used four shots, so he had four more for two targets, which he figured was more than enough. With that, he began strafing towards the eastern side of the establishment, right behind the merchant, and he waited. "Hey, we give up man! Just let us leave!"
"Fine!" responded Rem, "Go!" There was a pause, "Are you sure! You better not shoot at us!" Rem aligned the trail carbine, "Get the fuck out of here!" One of them ran out, ran for a couple of seconds while Rem spotted him, and fired. The guy was shot in the back and he fell to the floor. The other, who was just running out of the establishment, ran back in and took cover, "Hey what the fuck! You said you wouldn't shoot!" Rem yelled back, "Get the fuck out of here or I'll kill you!" The raider almost ran again but stopped himself, "Fuck you!" He fired out in random directions with his 10mm submachine gun, but when he didn't get a response, he didn't fire anymore. Another stalemate ensued for about a minute, during which there was nothing but silence. The raider eventually started whimpering, "Please man . . . let me go . . . " he hugged his knees close as he looked at the lifeless gazes of his dead friends. "I don't want to die." A second later, the wall behind his head was stained red, and the bullethole in his head let blood flow through. It was over.
The merchant had been barely conscious when all of the noise occured. All he remembered was a warm, trickling feeling running down his chest and his face before it all happened. He heard people screaming, in pain and then at one another, and then everything went silent again. One last shot reverberated in the surroundings and moments later, he heard the sound of gravel crunching beneath a lax seriatim of steps that grew louder and louder as the steps got closer, until they stopped right in front of him. It was time to wake up, and he did. He slowly came to life, turning a pair of squinted eyes skyward to see his savior, the fellow who he had sold the trail carbine parts to hours earlier. "You . . . "
While Rem strapped the rifle to his back with a special noose, he examined the merchant without putting a hand on him for obvious reasons, "You need a mercenary to travel around with you. Anything broken?" Rem knelt down in front of him and the merchant simply stared at him, breathing heavily for a while before he tried to move. When he didn't feel any sharp pains, he shook his head, "No, the bastards just roughed me up, but . . ." Rem stood up and moved around until he was behind him, and subsequently untied him. The merchant pulled on the ropes and began feeling out his chest, where he had been shot. When he pulled his shirt aside to see the aftermath, he saw that there was a hole, but the pain was odd. The bullet hadn't pierced the chest cavity entirely, likely because of the armor he had been wearing when it happened. "I'm hit." Rem circled around him and took a look, "The bullet is embedded in the chest cavity. If you have some med-x and some whiskey, we can get you fixed up." The merchant nodded, "On the brahmin."
Rem brought the brahmin closer to its owner and after wrapping a piece of cloth around his hand, he took the guy's arm and helped him up. Afterwards, he helped him onto the brahmin itself, "Sit tight." Rem went off to pillage after that, looking from one raider to the next to see what he would find. Three varmint rifles, which he left behind, a 10mm submachine gun, a cowboy repeater, and a laser RCW. The latter three were picked up and brought along with him, but not because he intended to use them, but because if they were made to be in full condition later on, they could fetch a hefty amount of caps. Aside from that, he found the regular stuff. A dose of psycho and some jet, which he left behind. Once he returned to the merchant, he was leaning forward, almost lying down on the brahmin, and Rem took the reins. Thereafter, he began leading the brahmin in the direction of his home.
It took less than an hour to get there and when they did, he moved to the doorknob and got a real close look at it. It was still wiped down, and the radio inside was still on the same station he left it. So, with that, he unlocked the door and moved inside with the rifle aimed. When nothing came out to shoot, he turned around, unpacked a bed roll, laid it on the floor, and helped the merchant onto it. Rem placed his rifle on a table and when he came back, he was holding two bottles of water. "Here," he set it down beside the merchant, "Clean up your chest and I'll be back in a moment."
When Rem returned, he had the dose of med-x, the whiskey, the tweezers, the needle and the thread. The merchant had cleaned up his chest as best he could but when he saw what Rem was carrying, he groaned, "Shiiiit." Rem removed his trench coat and hung it on the rack along with his hat, and then he got to work. "Sit back. The med-x will help," he reached out and cleaned a portion of skin with the whiskey. After that, he stuck the syringe inside after sterlizing that, too. "That's that. I'll be back in about ten minutes," he headed outside again with his trail carbine. There was an irradiated river about forty yards from his home that was occasionally infested with mirelurks or lakelurks, and he needed the water.
When he returned ten minutes later, he was carrying two buckets of water, which he drained into the tub in the bathroom. It was enough to fill it up about half way, and after that, he used a bag of radaway and two doses of rad-x to lower the radiation in the water. A bath, which the merchant would sorely need once all this was over with. When he emerged in the living room, the merchant was lying there in his bed roll, breathing calmly. "Feeling drowsy?" asked Rem, and the merchant nodded in response, "By the way, what's your name?" The merchant answered, "Casey." Rem knelt down, "Alright Casey, here we go." He dipped the tweezers in alcohol, poured some of it into the wound, and began digging for the bullet. In response to the intrusion, Casey gritted his teeth, "Ahhhgh . . . shit." The next thing he heard was a thud, something landed on the wooden floor, and Rem poured whiskey on the wound.
"It's out, now here comes the needle," he began stitching the wound closed, and Casey squeezed his jaw closed until it was over. "Ffffff . . . fuck. That hurt," Rem submerged the tweezers in some whiskey and began cleaning up, "All done. There's a bath ready in the bathroom, just don't try to get much of anything on your chest. Use a towel for your chest." Casey sat up, and he realized that with more time that went by, the less it hurt. "So, what do I owe ya?" Rem threw away the med-x syringe and responded promptly, "We can start with a resupply for what I used to save you, which is six rounds for the carbine. And a discount on future purchases." Casey's lips dipped at the corners but he shrugged, concluding that it was a small price to pay to still have his life. "Done deal."
It was going to take a few days for Casey to heal up and be ready to travel again, so Rem decided that there wouldn't be any harm in letting him stay until then. As it turned out, they each had a rather easy time striking up conversations with one another. They could exchange perspectives for hours, disagree and agree on things on a mellow basis, and warn each other when it sounded like something might be headed their way. "You've got yourself a laid back lifestyle," said Casey, leaning back against the wall under one of the windows. "Yeah, but it gets old after a while," Rem responded, pouring himself a drink. Casey tugged aside the curtain and looked up to the sky, noting the reddish sheen across its expanse. The twilight hours were upon them, "Maybe for you. I could live like this forever. I'd have to get a girl though."
Rem threw his head back as a shot of whiskey trailed down his tongue and into the depths of his chest. Casey continued while Rem had his eyes closed, savoring the feeling the alcohol left him with, "I'm leaving, by the way. Tonight." Rem placed the shot glass on the table and nodded, "Night person, huh?" Casey breathed in and out, pressed his lips together, and nodded, "Feel safer that way." Rem glanced in his direction as he turned the radio on. Ella Fitzgerald came on, with her heart grabbing voice, and Rem responded, "Cazadores come out at night, and so do night stalkers." Casey shrugged, "I get along better with animals than I do with raiders, to be honest with you. Couple of times I've saved my skin by tossing food at them. Got away while they chewed on the scraps I had with me."
"Hah, not bad. I suppose you can't do that with raiders." Casey shook his head, smiling, before Rem added more, "Dose of psycho, maybe." Casey started laughing heartily, "Yeah, maybe. I'll remember to give that a shot next time." Rem smiled, amused clearly, which didn't happen too often when he was by himself. There was a pause for a couple of long moments, and just when the sound Rem made when he was screwing the cap back on the bottle of whiskey broke the silence behind the music, Casey spoke, "So, how'd you get so good with a rifle? There were six of those dickheads and you spent one bullet on each of them." When Rem heard the question, it damn near convinced him to open up the whiskey and take another swig. Any more, however, and he'd be in danger of turning this mellow buzz into something more hazardous. So, he didn't let himself.
He didn't answer, however, for a while. He fiddled with the bottle of whiskey, raising it and lowering on the surface of the table beside him, creating consistent taps until he tapped it against the surface one last time, louder than any time before. Didn't look like it was an easy question to answer. "NCR training," he said, slowly and with a bit of disdain. Casey's eyebrows rose, "Oh, shit. Couldn't tell, honestly." Staring at Rem, he took the time to consider what he had just heard. Clearly, Rem wasn't in the NCR anymore. Why? "Got laid off for a lack of work?" Rem smiled again, because of the sarcasm, and shook his head, "Didn't reenlist." Casey wasn't satisfied with the simple response, but he was starting to feel uncomfortable asking questions. He had come pretty far though, so why not? "Why?"
Rem shook his head, "It was all I wanted at first, I guess. Democracy, helping and protecting people, but then they started putting themselves before the people they were protecting. HELIOS one, the Hoover Dam, all of those places, it was the NCR's intention to route the power they got from them to the strip and Camp McCarran instead of the whole regional area. At some point in time, I was stationed near a town that was being terrorized by raiders and instead of getting the green light to help the townies out, we were told not to interfere because the town wasn't under our jurisdiction, and some other bull about it not being worth the resources." He opened the bottle of whiskey subconsciously but quickly closed it again, "The larger the NCR got, the less it represented the foundation on which it was formed. And when I noticed all the little things like that, I didn't reenlist because I decided there had to be something better out there."
Casey nodded, opened up a bottle of purified water, and drank. When he was done, he made a suggestion, "Followers of the Apocalypse?" Rem shrugged slowly, "Thought about it for a while, but they're not the kind of proactive I'm looking for. They're never really willing to get into a fight. Besides, a group like the Followers is better off not making the kinds of enemies that'll shoot at them. They're not treated so badly to start off because all they ever do is help people, and they'd be smart to keep it that way." Casey nodded slowly, "Makes sense." Rem looked like he was in a bad way when he thought about it. All that strength with which to change the wasteland but no venue. Sad, really, but it wasn't his fault, "Just so you know, you did some good saving me. From now on, if it's in my power to save someone decent in the wasteland, I wont hesitate to do it." Rem nodded slowly, staring blankly at the floor, "Good." When he snapped out of it, he leaned back into his chair and exhaled. It was actually a pretty good thing to hear.