49. Well, Have A Cow
MacCready POV
We Own The Sky by M83
Beth told me a few weeks ago that when she was in Diamond City, she saw a piece of paper with an ad on it. It read that a brahmin was for sale someplace up north—a tarberry farm I'd never heard of called the Slog. What a name, I'd thought. She convinced me it'd be a good idea to invest in a brahmin—maybe for the meat, or just for milking purposes. I'm not going to lactate into my eighties—sorry, she had chuckled.
So, with this idea in mind, we loaded up the boat at the butt crack of dawn with our travel supplies, grabbed the kids, and are now on our way to buy this mutated cow she speaks of. And, as we're nearing Nahant, Beth steps up behind me with Victoria as I steer our metal water-bound steed.
"Hold your arms out," she tells me. With no other instruction, I do as I'm told.
She then starts this intricate process, confusing the heck outta me. In no longer than two minutes, I have our daughter strapped to my back. "What on earth?"
"It's a baby wrap," she explains. "It'll keep our hands free. And now that she's old enough, she doesn't need to be carried in our arms—this'll do just fine. I found this long piece of material a while back—and since large portions of fabric are kinda rare nowadays—I snagged it. Figured it'd come in handy one day. Ta da—Vitya backpack," she motions to my back as she quickly walks out of the cabin of the boat—probably to escape my reaction. I can't believe she's been calling her "Vitya." Almost more than "Victoria" or "Tori." It's weird. Grinning, I like it.
Speaking of which, as I think this, Vitya reaches her hand over my shoulder, wanting some form of contact with me. "Hey," I say to her as I reach my own hand back, grabbing hers. "How's Daddy's Victoria Abigail today?" She coos in response, wrapping her hand around my finger, making me smile. "Oh, c'mon. You're not gonna say anything back? I know you can." I continue to feel the weight of her stare on the side of my face—but no response. I sigh, "Gonna make me wait some more, huh? You take after your mom. You might have been born sooner, but she made me wait, too."
"Who made you wait for what?" I hear Beth ask as she walks back in, she having heard only the last half of that sentence.
"Nothing," I chuckle. Distracting her, I say, "Well, here we are. Kingsport Lighthouse." I make sure Vitya is secure on my back—or at least feels secure—before shutting off the boat and picking up my rifle. The boys brandish their own guns as Beth wields hers. And off we go.
I lead the way westward—as to provide Victoria better cover and shelter—with Duncan and Shaun between Beth and I. But as we're coming closer to the outskirts of Salem, we start noticing trails of blood along the road. I alone spot a camo bandana—a tell-tale way of assuring Gunners were nearby at some point. I really don't want to run into anybody from my Gunner days… I connect the dots and presume the blood we've been seeing belongs to some Gunners. At least one of them—although the amount of blood would suggest more, as a single man or woman cannot live with that much blood loss.
"Dad? Whatever caused that has to be dead by now, right?" I look back to Shaun, who looks a little afraid.
"Maybe," I say. "It could be dead. But, keep your eyes peeled, just in case. You, too, Duncan." He nods, holding his pistol up higher.
I'm not sure why we started to follow the road north, instead of continuing west. But as we keep moving toward Salem, Beth sees a building ahead. "Let's look in there."
"You think that's a good idea?" I ask. "You see a trail of blood and immediately want to get closer? I worry about you sometimes."
"I worry about me all the time," she retorts. "But, I still want to know what's in there. I haven't been to Salem."
"Ever?" Duncan asks.
"Ever," she replies. "I know I lived somewhat nearby, but I never got to make the trip." She shrugs. "If I've heard right, I think this is a museum of some sort."
We're now naught but a few yards from the front door. The sign above it had seen better days, the words on it worn off completely—yet our attention is drawn to the side of the building. "Help…" I hear a woman call quietly.
Coming around the side of the place, I see said woman of about thirty years lying on her stomach on the ground. And she's not down there for fun—she's stuck on the ground due to one of her legs missing. It looks as if it'd been ripped off viciously by something big and mean.
"There's—there's a few of my men in there," she struggles to say. "I barely had the strength the climb out of the cellar. Please. Save them for me. They don't deserve to go like this…" I look behind her, to the cellar she speaks of. I can see the hatches open, and a trail of blood coming from it, leading to where she is now. "I haven't heard anything in a while," she quietly continues, "but they may still be okay… Please…" She closes her eyes, and due to lack of blood, gives up the ghost.
"Robert?" Beth calls to me. "Should we?"
"Whatever caused that," I point to the deceased woman's missing leg, "might still be in there. So, 'should we,' as in risk our lives to go check on strangers? Or 'should we,' as in keep going to buy a brahmin as planned?"
She looks at me in an empathetic kind of way. "What if that were us? We'd want someone to help us, right?" She starts to head toward the cellar doors. "You guys can stay here if you want, but I'm going." She descends into the basement of the odd building. Both boys shrug then follow their mother.
I can either stay out here and wait, or go with them. I think for a moment before sighing and following her myself. Aloud, "I'm getting bad vibes from this place. We shouldn't be here."
Keeping up with Beth was a little difficult at first. She moved quickly through the basement—until she saw a body a few rooms from the cellar doors. It appeared to have fallen through a hole in the floor—and was completely ripped to shreds. This slowed her gait, yet she insisted on continuing.
When we reached the top floor, she realized this must have been the Museum of Witchcraft that Salem was famous for. There were mannequins spread throughout the rooms, situated in positions suggesting they were witches and warlocks—tied to a stake with kindling and logs at the feet, hanging from a tree branch sticking out from the wall. However, neither of these things had our attention for long. "Look," Duncan pointed toward an area we hadn't been yet.
Lying in the corner, near some bathrooms, was a deathclaw. It seemed to have taken quite the beating before it died—and according to a Gunner's holotape—rightfully so.
"The poor thing was just trying to protect her babies," Beth said, making me question her sanity in calling it a poor thing. "We can't leave without doing something about it." She had looked at me with a pouty face.
"No way," I told her. "I'm not doing anything about it." I was hoping my tone was enough to show my seriousness. And what did my seriousness accomplish? Nothing.
"Did you really have to? We could have just kept it there. It's not on us to take care of everything," I say to Beth as we finally continue along our original Slog route.
"Yes, I really had to. There was no way this baby was staying there." Beth pats her bag, which is now weighed down by the single pristine deathclaw egg she'd snatched from the Museum of Witchcraft. "If it doesn't hatch, I imagine this would make quite the omelet for our breakfast some morning."
"And if it does hatch?" I ask her.
"Then we get to have another pet." She smiles like that's what she wishes would happen.
I suddenly recall her lying fully clothed in a bathtub full of water. You know, I've been thinking… We should get a pet deathclaw. That'd be awesome, she'd said. I laugh, earning a semi-confused look. "Nothing," I say, chuckling again.
If we hadn't of just stumbled across the situation, I would have thought she'd done it on purpose—just to get her pet deathclaw she was wanting.
The rest of the trip is made with idle chat between the four of us—Shaun mentions how he'd like to have Curie's microscope since she'd left it behind, Duncan talks a little bit about the book he's been reading the past few nights, Beth and I discuss a few random topics ourselves. All the while, Vitya is more than comfortable strapped to me, as if she's my own personal rucksack. According to Beth—who is half behind me, half beside me—she's just looking around, drinking in the unfamiliar sights.
Once we're near the tarberry farm, the sky starts to darken—and turns a sickly yellowish-green colour—although Beth's Pip-Boy says it's only around noon. "Looks like a radstorm," I tell her. "Haven't seen one of these in a long time." She nods, agreeing.
"Good thing I brought a pack of RadAway," she says. "I wonder if Shaun will be affected. What about Duncan—does he get sick from them?" Her tone suddenly sounds fearful as she asks, "What about Tori? She's never been in one, and with her baby immune system—"
I stop her. "We'll find some shelter. This Slog place should have at least one building. We'll be fine—she'll be fine."
We make it to the farm before the first crack of radioactive thunder. However, we're disappointed to see the single building in the whole settlement has two enormous open doorways, and nothing but windows on the walls that do stand as shelter. Quickly, we introduce ourselves to the leader of the settlement, and state our intention of buying their brahmin that's for sale after hunkering down for the following storm.
After asking if we can use their poolside building to stay in during the storm, Wiseman, the leader, says "Sure. Look, I'm sorry, folks. Rads don't affect us ghouls, as you know." He indicates the entirety of the farm's population—every one of them being a ghoul. "You're welcome to stay anyway. I suppose a roof is better than nothing for you humans. It's been a while since I've been like you." He walks off with a few of the tarberry farmers, leaving us in the building alone.
The first crash of thunder sounds off—casting a strike of mean-looking lightning with it, and making Beth's Pip-Boy start clicking.
I suppose since Shaun has spent all his life underground, he's not seen a radstorm yet. As another crack of thunder splits the sky, he cowers into the mattress he and Duncan are sitting on. Duncan wraps his arm around him. "It's okay," he comforts his brother. "It's just a little radstorm. It'll be over before you know it."
But it doesn't end quickly. The wind starts howling, blowing in debris and fallout from the Glowing Sea. It starts raining harder than it has in a good while—some of it even blowing in through the windows that line the wall above us.
As the storm rages outside—continuing to blow in from time to time—Beth scoots closer to me on the mattress we share as a seat. She begins to unwind the material that clings Vitya to me. Throwing it to the boys, she instructs them to cover their faces and hands with it, then tucks Victoria into her shirt, covering her skin with it.
"Gonna be a long day," she says to me.
After a couple hours of the storm, it finally calms down. Both Duncan and Shaun had gone to sleep under the wrap their mom gave them. But as they wake, Shaun complains, "I don't feel good." Duncan nods along, an expression of illness on his own face, saying he doesn't feel well, either.
Beth takes Vitya out from under her shirt, handing her to me as she digs out the single package of RadAway she had brought. "I only brought one IV for it," she announces. "It'll take longer to work, but we'll have to drink it with some water."
I know I don't feel too good myself, and from Beth's face, I'd say she's a little under the weather, too.
She gets out a bottle of water for each of us, puts some RadAway into it, and hands them out. Then she looks to Tori. "What about her?" she asks, looking from the pack of the radiation meds to a bottle of water. "How do I give her some?"
I look down to her face for the first time since I'd taken her from Beth. She looks fine.
"Is she even sick?" I ask after I take a drink of the elixir Beth had concocted. "She looks alright to me."
Beth looks to her Pip-Boy—probably checking her own amount of rads—before she unhinges and slips it off. "Maybe there's a sensor in here or something. I never thought about it before, but it has some way of detecting me." As she says this, she turns it around in her hands, looking at the inside that touches her forearm. "Ah, here we go. Found it." She takes Vitya's hand and presses her arm to a small patch within the lining. "It's recalibrating," she tells me. "There she is. …Um." She looks up at me, looking quite confused.
"What is it?" I ask, craning my neck to see the rad display on her Pip-Boy.
"She doesn't have any rads," Beth says.
"None?" She shakes her head. I look to Vitya, who is just sitting here on my lap, letting her mom do whatever she pleases with her arm. She looks around the room at first before settling her eyes on her brothers, smiling and cooing at them when they look back at her.
"Maybe she takes after me?" Beth draws my attention back to her as she slips Victoria's arm out from the device. "I didn't get very many from the storm, either. You three," she indicates Shaun, Duncan, and myself, "didn't look too good when it passed through."
I have to agree with her. "I guess she does take after you. I'm glad—cause I was worried how she'd fare." I look to my bottle of water infused with RadAway. "Maybe she should take a few drinks anyway? Just to be sure?"
"I don't think it'd hurt."
I turn Vitya in my lap so she can see me a bit more. Taking a drink of the meds—it tasting less than satisfactory—I make a pleased noise, pretending it's good. Putting the bottle up to her lips, she looks at it with her mouth open. She takes a single sip, then backs up, making a face as if to say it's the worst thing she's ever tried.
Beth laughs, "It looks like she licked a lemon!" Vitya looks at her laughing mother with her face still scrunched up.
Just to see what she'd do, I hold the bottle back up to the girl in my lap. "No!" she says, cutting Beth's laugh short, and making all four of us look at her. Victoria turns her head away from the nasty medicine, unaware of our shock from hearing her speak again.
"I don't think she needs to babble anymore," Beth says, still staring at her. "Sounds like she's got this in the bag."
"How'd the storm go for you guys?" Wiseman asks once we leave the building.
"Not too bad," I respond. "My wife had a bag of RadAway, so we managed."
"That's good." He walks us over to a pin. "Well, this is our brahmin," he tells us. "Still want her?"
Beth replies. "Absolutely. It'd be a wise investment."
"She is," the leader concedes. "We just can't keep the poor heifer anymore. Not enough sales or crops to feed us and her, too."
"I understand. Well, I can spread word of your farm, if you want me to. We go to Diamond City and Goodneighbor ever so often—I'm sure some of the venders would be interested in buying some tarberries from you."
"You're kind," he smiles. "We'd greatly appreciate that."
Beth digs out a bag from her traveling satchel. "Here's your caps—500, as you were asking for."
Wiseman takes the bag, opens it, and starts counting out some. When he reaches one hundred, he places them back into Beth's hand. "400 is fine with us. You and your family endured a lot—came a long way—just to buy Beatrice. Consider your spreading word about us as the rest of the payment, alright?"
"You sure?" I ask.
"Positive. You're good people—I like you. Hopefully, we can do business in the future. Next time you're in the neighbourhood, stop by. There's always a spot for you here at the Slog." He turns to the cow, both of its heads looking at him. "You're theirs now. You have a good home waiting, Beatrice." Looking back to us, "Take care of her."
"We will." Beth smiles, takes the rope around the cow's neck, and leads us eastward.
As we arrive home sometime around eight-thirty in the evening, Shaun and Duncan help me herd our new animal off the boat and toward the northeast portion of the island as Beth and Vitya go to the house. Danse and I—for the better part of two weeks—had been building a small barn for our new addition. And as we step closer to it—Beatrice right with us—I'm happy to see he'd completed it while we were gone.
Putting the cow into the pin within the barn, I take a look around as the boys head back home. "He did a good job," I muse as I look inside the storage shed, walk up the stairs to the loft—serving Beth and I as our own sort of treehouse.
"Thought I heard you come back," Danse says as he walks in. "See the transaction went well." He nods his head toward the two-headed creature.
"Hey. Yeah, it went well." I walk down the stairs from the loft as I continue, "The ghoul selling it actually gave us a hundred of our caps back—so that was cool. He said since we're gonna be spreading word to increase sales, that'd be the rest of the money. And I think he kinda felt bad about not having adequate shelter during that radstorm."
"Yeah, about that. How'd you guys do? You said they didn't have shelter?"
"Well… Kind of. But the structure had a ton of windows, so a good amount of the storm blew in. The boys got pretty sick, and Beth and I had mild symptoms ourselves. She had RadAway at least."
"What about Vitya?"
I laugh. "Get this: she accumulated none. No rads."
"None?" I realize he sounds like I did when Beth told me this.
"None. She's immune apparently. May be some kind of genetic mutation she got from Beth. We all know Beth isn't normal when it comes to Post-War stuff." We both chuckle as he nods.
"Wow," he comments about Vitya. "I'm glad. The wind blew a lot of fallout in from the Sea this time. I was worried about her, with it being her first radstorm and all."
"Us, too. Hope it holds up for the rest of her life. Must be nice—not having to deal with radiation."
When I reach home—a good hour of talking had gone by after Danse had come into the barn—I hear nothing. The boys must be asleep. Wouldn't be this quiet if they weren't.
I pass the living room—see the deathclaw egg sitting in one of the armchairs—and shake my head, going into the kitchen to grab a pack of gumdrops, and head up the stairs. Walking into the bedroom, I see Beth changing Victoria's nappy on the bed.
"Thank God for cloth diapers. Clean disposable ones would be really hard to come by these days," she says.
She secures the new diaper on as she takes the old one into the bathroom, leaving me with my baby girl. Seeing me, she starts wiggling—flailing her arms and legs as if she's working out or something. I walk up to her—goofily, as to make her giggle—and before I put her clothes back on, I bend down and blow raspberries on her stomach, making her laugh all the more. Beth walks in, asking, "What are you two doing?"
"Playing." I blow on her stomach again, Vitya's giggles starting back up.
"Children," Beth says, trying to hold back a chuckle. "It's time for bed. You're getting her all worked up—she won't sleep for hours now. Hopefully you hadn't woken up Duncan or Shaun yet."
"Oh, don't get your panties in a wad," I joke, earning an eye roll. "Watch this—I bet you a cap that she'll fall asleep within a couple minutes."
I slip Victoria's clothing back on, pick her up, and lay on the bed with her on my chest.
"A cap, huh?" Beth asks, grinning at us.
"Yes—a single cap. I'm not a rich man, babe." She chuckles. And not a minute later, Victoria is asleep. "Well? Where's my money?" I ask Beth.
"I'll get it to you in the morning after I cash a check." With her having put on her pajamas while Vitya nodded off, Beth climbs into bed, setting her glasses on the nightstand.
I stand, carefully putting Vitya in her crib, and change myself into a pair of shorts—no shirt, as it's too hot tonight. Snatching up my pack of gumdrops I'd laid to the side, I slip into bed, and offer the box to Beth. "Want one?"
"Nah. Thanks, though." Shrugging, I open the box further and pour somewhere around half of them into my mouth. Laughing, she says, "Now you're not going to be able to sleep—you'll be too energetic on your sugar high." I shake my head, my mouth too full to speak.
I set the box down on my side table for tomorrow night or whenever. Sliding down under the duvet more, I turn toward Beth. After swallowing the remains of my sweet tooth, I say, "So, we have a brahmin now."
"Yeah. That's cool. It's so different from Pre-War cows' milk, but hey—better than nothing."
"Mhmm." I wiggle to her, laying my head on her shoulder. She frees her arm, wrapping it around my back. I hear her say something, but it doesn't register—I've already started to lose my consciousness.
But I swear I do hear her chuckle.
A/N: Maybe she found it ironic how he'd fallen asleep as easily as Victoria had—despite her doubts due to the sugar. But, then again, maybe not.