As the three hurried through the woods, Lana Hunter said, "My greatest concern is that someone in the Legion will put two and two together, come up with the correct answer and put together an organized pursuit too quickly. Their captain, Marcus Decimus, is not a complete fool and he barely eats anything. If he—."

The Ghoul cut her words off. "Not a problem. Took care of him already."

"Oh," she said, sounding surprised and a little pleased.

"Do you mean that he's dead?" Janey asked.

"I—uh."

"Because he was a very bad person," Janey continued as they went. She had taken his hand and was holding on to it as though she never meant to let go. That was fine with him.

She looked up at her father and said, "He was mean to the girls in their tents and he encouraged his men to be mean to them, too. We could hear the men laughing and the girls crying. That's why we had to disguise ourselves. That's also why we had to leave New Vegas so quickly. The Legion men came to the caravan camp where we were staying and took all the girls and women to this other place, like a lodge or somewhere. Including us."

"It all turned out all right," Lana interjected. "We all got away alive."

"I was scared, though. When they came to get you, I hid, but then after a little while the men started screaming and I knew it would be alright. And it was."

Cooper Howard winced. That was more detail than he had heard about before. "I'm very sorry that happened to you, Punkin."

More than that, the expression in his daughter's eyes, which was a mix of the innocence of childhood and the awareness that came with understanding—he wished she didn't have those memories. He wished that she could stay innocent forever, but he of all people, knew she could not.

"It's okay, Daddy. I've been more scared of worse things. Like radscorpions! They burst out of the sand and they have these huge pinchers and that stabby thing on their tails! Darn them all to heck!"

"Darn them all to heck?" he asked. "What kind of language is that for a young lady?"

"I've been pretending to be a boy!" she protested. "Everything about being a boy is doing everything Mommy said wasn't ladylike. Like scratching yourself in public and picking your boogers."

That made him laugh.

"You know," Janey said, sounding like a little adult again, "we've been traveling with the caravans for years, so I think I've heard all of the bad words there are…although I'm not sure what they all mean.

"Anyway, Lana explained the rules about bad language. Now that I'm twelve, I can use words like 'Heck' and 'Darn' and 'Shoot', but I can't use the real ones until I'm sixteen. I have to wait for the F-word and the C-words until I turn twenty-one, or people will think I've been badly brought up. I just wanted you to know that I've grown up a lot."

"Oh, really?" Cooper Howard cast a Look at Miz Hunter which said, 'Is that the kind of thing you've been teaching her?' She returned a Look that said, 'If you don't like the job I've been doing, you should have been here doing it.'

He went on. "That may be so, but in the Howard household, the legal minimum is twenty-four—no, thirty! Or until you're married."

"Aww, that's not fair." Janey pouted. "Besides, I—," she paused. "Are you going to take me away from Lana?" Her voice was suddenly small and stricken.

"Oh, lord." he said. "Look, this isn't—No. Not if she has been truly good to you. This is something to talk about later, okay?"

Miz Hunter still had on the ghoul mask, so he couldn't judge her expression, but he could feel her eyes on him.

A dog barked. "Oh—that doesn't sound like Kirby." Janey said. Then the hellhound chorus started up. "That's Kirby! Kirby's our dog, Daddy. Wait till you meet him!"

"Already did, sweetie." They reached the clearing, where Lucy was glaring at Kirby.

"Thought I said you should get their stuff ready so we could grab it and go," he said to the girl.

"I've been trying!" Lucy fumed. "He won't let me anywhere near that tree!" She turned to see them. "Oh…Um, hello. I didn't realize—wait, is that Miss Hunter?"

"Janey, Miz Hunter, this is Lucy. Lucy, my daughter Janey and Miz Lana Hunter."

Lana Turner was already at the tree, hauling out the tarp-wrapped bundle. "Hi there. Sorry, gotta keep moving. Who's a good boy? Kirby is, keeping our stuff safe!"

Janey was extremely direct. "Hello. You're pretty. Are you my daddy's girlfriend?"

"What? No!" Lucy protested.

"No, she isn't. She is a friend, though." He told Janey.

"That's okay, then," Janey said, chirpily. "Oh—is that your dog? She's beautiful!"

"Sort of. That's Dogmeat." He made the introduction, while keeping an eye on Miz Hunter, who was taking off the mask.

"Ugh!" Lucy said, watching the mask come off. "You didn't—was that someone's face?"

"No, for more reasons that I can get into right now," Lana Hunter said briskly. "It's made of pigskin leather and rubber. It took me twenty hours to make it. I've been wearing it day and night for over two weeks and I've been having nightmares that it shrank and strangled me. Gah. It's good to get it off. When I get home I am going to shower for an entire week."

Without the mask, Lana Hunter looked like a fairly ordinary, not-that-young woman with reddened creases and folds all over her face from the mask, and traces of some kind of adhesive. The scar was there, though thanks to the marks from the mask, it hardly showed.

But then there were her eyes. She had taken out whatever contacts had made them look filmy white. They were very blue, the color of an October sky, and slightly blood-shot. Her dark hair was pulled back under a hair wrap, which was the next thing to go.

"All right," Miz Hunter said, pulling off the faded green workshirt she was wearing and putting on an old denim duster. She tossed some things to Janey, pulled a leather hood over her own head, and fastened a mask over the lower half of her face. "We have to move. Talking happens later."

"Agreed."

The walking was uphill for another mile or so. Janey had put on a top under the overalls, and a hat with a little purple unicorn horn on the front and a braided pastel mane. She was too cute for words.

"Here is where we have to make a decision," Lana Hunter came to a halt at a fork in the forest. "If we take this trail, we get to where we live in two days. It is not an easy trail, and somebody will probably sprain their ankle. Somebody always does. Or, we can take this trail, which gets us there in half a day. It's much easier, at least until the end, but there's a rope to help. Only thing is…"

"What?" Lucy asked.

"It is right through Radhog Hollow. If we go that way, you have to follow not just the path, but the rules, and we have to make that decision fast, and keep it moving. Hogs are nocturnal, and we have to be at the end before they're fully awake."

Janey nodded. "Radhogs are huge." She stretched her arms out. "They're as big as a bus—okay, a small bus, and they smell terrible. They have tusks almost like elephants, they're so long and big. Plus, they're real ornery and hungry and eat stuff up, bones and all."

"She is not exaggerating. They weigh a ton each. Nothing else in the Hollow is dangerous— they've either driven it away or eaten it." Lana added.

"They're smart, too. Smarter than supermutants. About as smart as Kirby." Janey took over again. "He knows to be quiet around them."

"Which brings us to your dog. Can she be quiet? I have a muzzle if she can't." Lana dug into her pack.

"So you're saying it's either go around, or go through," Cooper said. "What would you recommend?"

"Through," Lana shrugged. "But we've done this before."

"Then I say we go through, unless you have a strong enough objection, Lucy." He looked to the Vault dweller.

She said, "I am all for getting where we're going as quick as we can."

"First rule is, follow the path," Lana explained as they took the path to Radhog Hollow. "Don't leave it for anything. No going off to collect stuff, even if it's rare or delicious."

"Second rule," Janey said, "is be quiet. You don't have to be silent, but no barking, no howling, no singing loud songs. No playing the harmonica. No shooting at stuff just because you're bored. No skipping or hopping or dancing for fun."

Cooper smiled fondly at her very serious expression.

"Third rule, if we start running, so do you, in the same direction. Keep up." Lana said. "Want to tell them the next one?" she asked Janey.

"Uh-huh. It's still to be quiet. No shouting or screaming, even if you hurt yourself. Even if you stub your toe or fall and skin your knee or step in pig poop. Make sure your water and your snacks are where you can reach them easily. Also, find a tree and go to the bathroom first."

"All of these rules exist for a good reason," Lana finished. "There are fewer people in this world because they didn't listen."

"And use hog deterrent if you need to! You didn't tell them about that." Janey added hastily.

"You're right, I didn't tell them about that yet." Lana passed each of them a glass bottle which stank.

"What is this?" Lucy asked. "It's not even open and it's burning my sinuses."

"Mentholated turpentine," the older woman explained. "Uncork it and throw it down. They hate the smell. It will deter a hungry pig. It won't deter an angry pig. For that you need grenades. Or a rocket launcher and a lot of missiles. Unless you have a Fat Man and Mini-Nukes, that is…"