AN: Here we are, another chapter here.

I hope you enjoy! Please don't forget to let me know what you think.

111

In town, Daryl traded the pelts that Carol had scraped clean for more than he usually got in trade. There was a passing man in town with one of the wagons that always looked like it was too loaded to ever make it any great distance. Those men tended to go to the east with what some of them called their "novelties," and this one was interested in the beaver pelts because they sold well to people in the east. He'd given Daryl almost twice what they were really worth, but Daryl hadn't argued or corrected him. He took the money and bought more tobacco and things for his smoking kit than were necessary. Then, he also bought some flour, a little sugar, and a little more coffee. He placed all his purchases in the satchel he'd brought with him, and then he cut across town to the saloon and bar.

Daryl rarely entered these types of establishments. They were usually loud, crowded, dirty, and full of people who had no sense of space or self-preservation. They tended to get too close, talk too loud, and talk too personally. Fights had a tendency to break out in these places, and Daryl preferred to avoid senseless fights any time he could. In addition to the men that were off-putting, the painted women were here and they normally got too friendly for Daryl's tastes.

He would, on occasion, step into one of these establishments for a few things, though. He liked to keep a bottle or two of whiskey in his things. The whiskey was good for washing things that needed cleaning—like cuts—and it was good for sipping to relax every now and again around the fire. The other reason that Daryl had ever come into these establishments was when there was something stirring up in town that he had wanted to know about. These kinds of establishments were always the best places to go if someone wanted to get a feel for the nature of a town or what might be happening there.

Daryl made his way directly to the bar. The place was crowded. It was loud and smoky. Still, because it was the middle of the day, most of the people there were only somewhat drunk. That was good for Daryl, because most people tended to keep their distance from him until they were way on drunker than was normal for the current hour.

At several tables, people played games of chance where they wagered money. Jim had always warned Daryl off of those tables. He told Daryl that people got a sickness in the brain when it came to those games, and they would spend all their money at the tables trying to win something that they couldn't. It was better, Jim said, to just be satisfied with what you had.

Daryl had no interest in the games. He had less interest in the games, really, than he had in the painted ladies.

At other tables, men sat with painted ladies on their knees. The women, he knew, would accept money or the yellow in exchange for temporary mating. There was, as Daryl understood it, no shame in such mating if a man had the need and wasn't too good at denying himself. In the absence of a suitable mate, these mates were always available and, being so, were always willing to tend to a man's needs. If a man was needing a mate, and he didn't have any other, a painted lady would suffice.

Daryl wasn't fond of the idea of the painted ladies in general, though, and they weren't what he wanted if he were ever going to take a mate.

To keep them from coming after him, Daryl immediately put himself in a position to look busy. Waving down the keeper of the place, he asked for two bottles of whiskey for his bag, and one whiskey and water for drinking there. He asked, also, if there was a paper he could read. Usually, he knew, any town that had a paper for reading would keep one in the bar for passing around. In the absence of a paper for the town, they sometimes kept papers that passing wagons brought, even though they told stories of faraway places, sometimes, and things that weren't concerning at the moment. The man didn't disappoint Daryl, especially when Daryl quickly made it clear that he had money for the drinks and a little change for the man to keep, himself, in exchange for his help.

Daryl tucked the bottles into his satchel. He took up the whiskey and water, and the paper, and he moved to seat at the far end of the bar where he was, hopefully, pretty well invisible to most of the people gathered there.

Daryl had no sincere interest in the paper that he put before him, but the looking at it made it easier to seem like he was busy. He rolled and lit a cigarette, and he listened to the happenings around him. He took in voices, focused on words he heard rather than those in front of his eyes, and it didn't take too long to find exactly what he was searching for.

The man wasn't discreet in any way. He was loud. He was, also, obviously drunk. He came into the bar not long after Daryl, and his introduction to the place was a loud demand for whiskey—no water, like Daryl had asked for, to keep his wits about him—and a declaration that he was looking for a woman that had up and run from his home and he might be offering a reward for her return or any news of where she might be found.

He called her a whore. He said she'd damn near took everything he had and run off. He said she wasn't worth her salt. She was a wretched excuse for a wife and a woman. But he wanted to know if anyone had seen her. He wanted to know if she was turning tricks at any place in town that anyone knew of, and he wanted to know if they knew of any sorry man who had taken up with her. He said he'd already searched every establishment in town once, but he intended to do it again, if he had to. He aimed to have her back, and when one of the men asked him the burning question about why he would want such a woman back, he told them all he aimed to have out of her what she owed him, if nothing more. The woman, herself, wasn't worth much—especially not now, after all the whoring around he was certain she was doing.

It took the man some time, really, to get through everything he had to say. He was drunk. He was sloppy drunk—the kind that fell into the streets, sometimes, and cursed and swung at everyone around as though they'd done something to personally offend him—and he was slurring his words. Daryl pretended to slowly read the paper and to slowly drink his drink. He smoked two cigarettes during the time that it took the man to get through his plans for the whore he was chasing. Daryl was confident the description of the whore matched the description of the woman that, right now, was back at his own little camp.

When he'd heard enough, Daryl casually finished his drink and returned the glass and the paper to the man at the bar.

He focused on being as invisible as he possible could be, and he made a wide loop around the loud man—Ed, as he knew him to be—and made his way out the door. He didn't want to draw any more attention to himself than any mountain man wearing buckskins in town would normally draw.

Outside, on the sidewalk, Daryl stopped to roll and light another cigarette for himself. He was certain, when he heard Ed loudly continue yelling about the whore that had taken damn near everything he had and left him to go whoring around with every man in town, that Ed hadn't suspected him of a thing. He stepped off the sidewalk and slowly started across town, taking the long way back to camp—just in case.

111

Carol hadn't asked questions until she'd started packing up her things, just as Daryl told her to do. He appreciated that, without any need for explanation, she'd simply been ready to move. It made something inside of him feel settled and comfortable that she would simply do what he asked without question or comment.

It was only once she was doing what he asked that she ventured a question and, really, he thought it was a reasonable question for anyone to ask.

"Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet," Daryl said. "Not exactly. There's yellow in this water and in the rocks. These ain't the only rocks that's got it. You can be sure of that. And if it's comin' down the water, that means it's further up, too. Beaver, too, so we ain't likely to see no lack of trappin' for a while."

"We just—follow the water?" Carol asked.

"'Til you don't wanna follow it no more," Daryl said. "I guess. Truth is, I never much thought about it. I just move when the town gets too big. The people start movin' out. Place gets crowded. It's hard to breathe and the open don't feel so open no more."

"Is the town growing too fast?" Carol asked. "Getting too big?"

That was when Daryl stopped what he was doing for a moment. Carol was neatly rolling the blankets into rolls, just like he'd asked her to do, and she was tying the rolls with the thongs he'd given her for tying them up.

He could practically smell her fear, but she was doing her best to hide it while she busied herself with the tasks necessary to pack the camp and to get them ready to move. She didn't believe, not for a moment, that they were moving because the town had suddenly outgrown itself, and Daryl couldn't bring himself to lie to her.

"He was in town today," Daryl said.

"Ed?" Carol asked. Daryl nodded. She nodded in response. She'd suspected as much, though she didn't have to say it. "He said he would kill me, didn't he?" Carol asked after a moment.

"Not in them words," Daryl said. "But—he told 'em you left him. Said you robbed him. Went off whorin'. Told 'em what you looked like an' that he might pay for your return outta what the hell he had left—it was worth it to him to get you to pay for what you done to him."

Carol's chin quivered slightly.

"I never did anything to him," she said.

"And he ain't gonna do no more to you," Daryl said, his stomach aching. Her expression was one of fear and sadness—but also acceptance of her fate. Daryl shook his head. "He ain't."

"We'll just—go?" Carol asked.

"The men in this town ain't no good for you," Daryl said. "Any of 'em that ain't heard his lies'll hear 'em 'fore the sun sets with as drunk an' loud as he was bein'. It won't do no good for you to go lookin' for no mate among 'em. Won't be possible to tell which of 'em is out to get whatever they think he's offerin' for you."

"He doesn't have any money," Carol said. "We hardly never had money. He drank it away. Gambled, too. He was bad at cards, but he played them too much. It's why we came here. The last place we lived, he got in a bad way with somebody he owed money. The man was good with a gun, they said, but Ed wasn't. We left like this. Sudden. Came here to start again."

"We can go now, or you can go back," Daryl said. "But—if you don't got a mind to go back to him, then I suggest we get to movin' now to make a decent distance before dark."

"I'm going with you," Carol said definitively.

Daryl nodded.

"Help me get the rest of this ready to go," he said.

"Where will we sleep tonight?" Carol asked.

"Caves all up around this area," Daryl said. "Prob'ly we'll just find a decent camp for the night. Keep on in the morning. There's bound to be more towns startin' up around here. Just like that one, they grow up outta the dirt faster'n just about anything you ever seen. One day there ain't nothin' there but a stick somebody stuck in the ground claimin' their intent to build somethin', and the next day there's a saloon, a mercantile, and at least a half a dozen other businesses sprung up outta the mud."

"We'll camp somewhere close to one?" Carol asked.

"About like this," Daryl said. "It don't sit right with me gettin' too close. People's the worst kinda animals you ever come across. Here—lemme help you with that." He helped her get the pack up that she'd packed with her things. Once it was settled on her body, she looked sturdy enough, though Daryl feared it was too much for her. "You can handle that, or you need me to take it?"

Carol gave him a warm smile.

"I'm fine," she assured him. "Do you need help with yours?"

Daryl heaved his own pack up. It was heavier than hers. He carried, strapped to it, the tools that he'd acquired. They would move slowly. He never got too much in a rush. Still, there was no need to run. The man that was hunting her wouldn't ever have any thought that she might be here—or that she might be moving away, through the woods, along the water.

"I got it," Daryl said. "I'm used to it."

"Are we ready to go?" Carol asked.

"You sure you ain't gonna change your mind?" Daryl asked.

"My mind's made up," Carol said. "He'll kill me if he ever sees me again. I'm sure of that. I'm going with you."

"Fine," Daryl said. "We ain't gotta rush. Where we're goin' won't get away 'fore we catch up to it."

Carol laughed quietly, following just behind Daryl, and he smiled to himself. He was surprisingly pleased with himself that he could make her laugh.

"How will we know when we've found our camp?" Carol asked.

"We'll just know," Daryl said. "Put a couple days of campin' an' movin' between us and where we're goin', and then I'll start lookin' for us a town."

"For trading?" Carol asked.

Daryl hummed.

"Best to have one for what I got a taste to acquire," he said. "Besides—a town'll always have people comin' to settle. Good men. They always lookin' to stake a claim or…or settle somehow. We find a decent town, and we'll find you a good mate. You don't gotta worry about that."

Carol was quiet behind him for a few moments as they walked.

"No matter," Carol said, after a short while, "I wasn't worried."