Editing Campaign:End-World/Log (section)

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Warm summer wind blows through the trees, drying the last of the dew that clings to Raymond's black-and-white striped pants, now muddied and torn above the clanking irons binding his feet. He doesn't know exactly how he lost track of the time, though he suspects last night's ride may have had something to do with the jarring sensation of being a man out of place. 

  He escaped the bulls as the sun died, found the car and its hideous inhuman inhabitants somewhere around midnight, but less than an hour after they finally released him back into the world the sun had risen, and even without a watch there's no way he was in there for five hours.

  The sound of a train whistle blowing carries through the air along with whisps of cotton fluff as he emerges from the trees. Spread out before him, across a weedy field, is a train-track, and beyond it a town. High, billowy clouds float by overhead. A picturesque scene, if he weren't wearing stripes and irons.

  Raymond heads into the weedy field and towards the train tracks, waiting for the train to come before crossing.

  The whistle blows again, a high, shrill cry, and Raymond sees the smoke pouring from its stack as it rounds the edge of the treeline and comes into view. His vision bobs as he hurries across the field, a church spire looms back beyond the outlying houses, as he hurries, stark naked now without the cover of shade for anyone who might spot a man in prison stripes. Luck (or fate, or ka, do ya ken) is with him, at least for now, and he reaches the tracks just after the engine passes, dragging its open-faced boxcars behind.

  Raymond keeps low in the field, among the weeds and waits for the train to pass. Boxcar after boxcar. Briefly, he entertains the idea of trying to hop a ride, but where would he go? There's no Big Rock Candy Mountain at the end of the line for him. Besides, he needs out of the chain and out of the stripes. Surely a small town like this there would be some laundry he could pilfer and some tools he could use.

  When the caboose passes, he catches sight of the man in it - the rider, however, is facing away from him. As it slides into his peripheral view a wooden sign looms above him: 

HAVEN  

  Raymond takes that as a good sign, Haven. Never you mind that he's not the sort of man to believe in signs and portents, no matter how much Gaunt's dire prophecy fills him with icy dread. He makes his way towards the first house, keeping to the sides, and looks out for a full clothesline.

  Lady Luck, callow bitch that she is, departs just as he steps around the corner of the house toward the clothes flapping in the warm wind, where he catches sight of a middle-aged woman. She catches sight of him as well, and lets out a surprised "AWK!" that sounds more like a bird than a person, just as he ducks back behind the wall. "Who's there?" she shouts. "Turney, if that's you I'm getting Martin's shotgun! He told you never come back here-"

  "Ain't no need to get any sort of gun, ma'am. I'm not Turney, just passing through." Raymond calls out, without coming out from the side of the house.

  "Not Turney?" she asks, confusion in her voice. "Then- well, no matter who y'are, git! Got no rooms for tramps here!" the woman's voice says, and Raymond hears the creak of metal on wood from out of view.

  Raymond knows he's not going to get anything from this lady. Not a lick of help and not a scrap of kindness. But he's got to get out of the prison clothes and the chains; the sooner, the better. "Of course not, ma'am, fine place like this wouldn't put up tramps. Do you know anywhere in town where a passing man might be able to stay and work for a few days?"

  "'Passing man', he says! Hmph! Like I don't know what that means!" Raymond strains to hear anything else, but a barking dog several blocks away seems determined to keep him from gauging whether or not said shotgun is in anyone's hands at the moment.

  Raymond doesn't respond. No since in antagonizing the old biddy further. Even if she doesn't have a gun, she could probably bring the whole town down on him. He makes the decision to slink off the way he came.

  Meanwhile, several hours later but not too far away (for don't they say time's funny nowadays?) a young woman limps around the outskirts of the town she's been holed up in, muddy, sweaty, covered in a cloud of midges.

  Uta hobbles along in an attempt to find her way back to the underground cavern that seemed to be a safe spot. Ever since she was running, her leg hasn't worked well. Tired, exhausted, hungry, and sore, she continues her march.

  The ground around her feet squishes, pulling at her shoes like hungry zombis desperate for their pound of flesh, and her mind takes a darker turn. Thoughts of children, an endless procession of them, shoeless and trodding upon a great belt where the sky never lightens. The skin between worlds peels back, and for a brief second she sees the Great Furnace of End-World, and one of the lost little souls looks back at her with the face of Mark.

  When she regains her vision she finds herself standing in front of the great cement cave, and from somewhere deep into the black interior the sound of skittering trails out.

  Uta tries to push the image of Mark out of her mind. Too many have been lost for her to expend her energy on reliving their memories now. She drags herself into the cave, crossing the stream of brown water to the flatest area in the entrance. Pushing her back against the curve of the cave, she slides down to the ground, finally feeling safe enough to take a look at her legs.

  In the wan early-evening light she gently tugs one pant-leg up and examines the ankle underneath. It doesn't look broken, but aside from a few unpleasant visits from Dr. Gangli in the Devar-Toi she knows very little of medicine and the healing arts. Still... the stinging pain that she felt a half-hour ago has subsided to a dull throbbing.

  Wincing a little, she pulls the pant leg back down over her leg. She decides that more than anything, she needs to rest. A dull headache still drilling into her skull. She curls up, hoping to get a bit of rest before going and solving other problems, such as a meal.

  Sleep overtakes her, and if we could sit a spell next to the weary young traveler, we could see the curl of a frown mar her face a moment after her eyes close... Visions of bumblers, and snakes, and exploding things worse than cherry bombs dance across her brow.

  And as she crosses through a stream, ankle aflame, dragging thick iron chains behind her, a wolf howls.
  "Uuuuuuuta," it calls.

  "Little lost lamb, come back to me," a voice whispers just beyond her ear. As she whips her head around, pushing it through the molassas the air has become, the shape ducks just out of sight.
  Uta looks all around her, trying to spot the elusive shadow of the wolf. Her hair stands on end as she feels her back brush up against a corner. Panic rises into her throat. Trapped. Nowhere to run.

  "And, frankly, I'd rather crawl into the wastes than be in the clutches of the Good Man when he's angry, do ya ken." The words echo out from the sky, a black haze streaked with lightning.

  "Uta, where are yooouuuuuuuuuuu..." the Wolf howls again. "Your friends are dead and gone, girl! Gone to Gan, say true. Come out, come out, wherever you are. Come out and cry pardon for the trouble you've made."

  Uta rises against the corner of the wall. When there is no other place to run, you have to rise up and push. She swallows, it having little effect on the large apple that has lodged itself in her chest, and yells. "I'll never say sorry to you, Wolf!" Her voice strikes a clean, high note, dispite her fear.

  Something swells inside of her, pushing itself out and lifting her sneakers (sneakers, then, here in this place, not the hard-soled shoes her sleeping form wears) off the ground an inch. The White fills her, explodes out like a gunshot, and the Wolf howls in rebuffed rage.

  Uta takes the unbridled power of the white, feeling it moving along the lines of power drawn into her flesh and binds it into her and releases the energy. She strikes out with her own energy, the fear unclenching inside of her, "My friends still live in my memory, all of them! Rhodes, Mark, Cutter. They aren't dead as long as I remember them!" Feeling a previous fissure in her head come together, a connection is complete. Steadfasting her resolve, she yells, "You won't ever get me either, Wolf! I'm too smart for you!"

  The Wolf howls again, in pain this time, as the White stabs at him. "You bitch! Stinking cur! I'll see you driven before the Furnace, Uta! Mark my words, girl!" the voice says as it fades. "You will bow low once more, 'fore the King, you will..."

  Her eyes snap open and she sees the silhouette standing at the entrance of the cavern, wreathed in the dim blue light of early dark.

  "Uta?" Mark asks her.

  Uta groans, unable to get comfortable... as the voice of Mark from outside the dream world calls at her. Her eyes open to the sight of the concerned boy from Americaland. "mmmm. Mark?"

  "You... you were floating."

  "How did you do that?"

  Uta finally pushes the last of the sleep from her head, "Floating? I guess I did it by being Uta."

  The boy looks at her, and Uta can just make out the look of confusion playing across his face. 

  Outside the cavern, in the cover of the brushes, unseen eyes watch the two.

  Ka turns, the Beams groan. Somewhere else...

  LaRoux lay face up, iron in her hand, her wounded arm clutched to her chest.

  Alan comes to a stop over the downed pistolero, wincing as his knees pop with his stoop. A quick glance tells Alan she's conscious and not in imminent danger of death - there's a certain look to the eyes of someone about to move on - but that doesn't make this any child's scratch.

  "You're alive," he states matter-of-factly, "Now move your hand and let me see what you've got there," he says, referring to LaRoux's injury.

  LaRoux uncocks the pistol and drops it. She rolls over and whimpers in pain, displaying the wound.
  Alan takes his hat off, sighing as he sees the wound - nasty and bloody, with the hint of a piece of shrapnel sticking out. No knick on the knee.

  Smoke stings their eyes as the hot breeze picks up, carrying the odorous fumes from the Old People's deadly weapons as an unexploded grenado finally gives up the ghost and explodes with a dull muffled THUMP, sending fragments of metal into the air to rain down onto the pile.

  Alan reaches for his travel sack - amazingly, it's mostly intact - and retrieves a bottle of whiskey.
  "I-...is it bad?"

  Alan pulls the cork out with his teeth, spits it, then responds. "Well, you won't bleed out.  S'long as we leave that bit of metal in. Y'see, with bits and bobs like this, if I take yon metal out, you're liable to bleed to death. S'why I hold no truck with the weapons of the old folk."

  Alan pauses for a second, then continues. "Now, what I'm about to do's gonna hurt, do ya ken?  Prob'ly worse than that bit going in.  Need to do it, though.  I'm going to pin you, and I want you to try not to squirm.  Okay?"

  LaRoux nods slightly. "Just get it out."

  "Hold your horses, girl, we've got a ways to go before that," his piece said, Alan pins the younger pistolero with one leg, not gently - he's personal experience with what he's about to do.  Tipping the whiskey bottle up, he pours it directly in the wound, trying to flush dirt and debris as he does so.

  LaRoux shrieks and squirms at this, sliding about in the dust beneath him. "Fuck!"

  "Hold still, girl, bottle's not half gone yet," Alan grouses sympathetically, trying to keep her from slipping away or embedding the deadly bit of metal further with her reactions. When the bottle's gone, Alan slowly lets up pressure on his companion.  Tossing it back into his bag - a sad, empty clink rings out - he tears off a reasonably clean piece of shirt and presses it over the wound, "Sit up," he says, "and if you can, try to hold this on for a minute."

  LaRoux sits up, holding it on silently, only panting in pain while she sits there.

  As Alan stands and hears his knees pop, he sees they have company. A bumbler sits on a fallen log, watching the two of them with bright, keen eyes.

  Alan inclines his head to the bumbler.

  LaRoux looks aside to see the bumbler, still sitting in pain. "That's... good luck... right?"

  "Yon bumbler seems to be luckier than us, anyway.  Avoided that snake and the grenados. T'say nothing of those low men."

  "Luckier!" the bumbler agrees.

  LaRoux can't help but smile, despite the pain.

  "Agreeable, isn't he," Alan remarks dryly, removing his poncho and beginning to cut it into a ragged, long strip. "Lift your arms for a second, I'm going to tie this on to keep the bandage on," Alan works as LaRoux complies, soon concluding the makeshift bandage.  He offers a hand to the pistolero, "Any other bad ones?"

  "Other bad ones," comes a voice from the log, but when they look the billy-bumbler is gone.

  LaRoux lifts her arms with a groan of pain. "No. And if there are this one hurts too much to care about'em."

  "That'll do, then.  For now.  We're going to need to make for Squire's Leap at good pace.  That bandage'll hold you - but not for long.  That piece of metal needs to come out, and the wound needs to be closed.  Hopefully, yon town has a horse-doctor, or, failing that, a midwife. I'll boost you onto your horse so you don't tear it further."

  LaRoux gets to her feet shakily, holstering her left iron.

  "Thankee." She says before looking for her horse. Josef pauses for a moment beside the cart, inspecting it and then looking back at where the bumbler had watched them before moving on.

  "Keep me appraised of your state, LaRoux," he adds, "Once fever sets in, we won't have long.  We may have to try and make do with what I know and what we've got."

  LaRoux nods.

  The two of them ride out, leaving the waggons and the smoking pile of metal to rest in the quiet of the afternoon forest.

  The wheel turns, ka spins its web.

  "And Williams gets the pitch, it's a deep one to left center... Dodgers fill the base," the radio announcer's voice lulls soothingly, as Raymond ducks down behind a barrel in the alley just as a car rolls past. The radio in the open window above his head calls out the next play, and he hears a young man's voice inside yell "I'm going out!" just before the door slams, leaving him with the Dodgers game and that incessantly barking dog (the mutt has yet to show its muzzle, though he's been hearing it for an hour or more).

  Raymond rises up slowly and carefully behind the barrel, and peers in the open window. Just a peek, mind you. Inside he sees a stairway, the front door, and a bookcase through the doorway from the kitchen where the radio sits. As far as he can tell the house is empty.

  Raymond quickly...at least, as quickly as he can for a man his size...clambers into the open window.
  As he eases his bulk over the windowsill he rests one hand on the ledge... and the nail gives way, sending the radio slipping off the edge.

  Raymond reaches out and catches the radio at the last moment, grabbing by the cord near the base of the heavy thing. Thank God it doesn't give way. He lowers the whole thing slowly to the floor and climbs completely in.

  Both feet on the floor, nothing else threatens to collapse, at least for the moment. Inside the kitchen he sees a stove, a pantry, the doorway out to the rest of the house... and a wainscotting door set into the far wall.

  Raymond peers from door to door, frozen like an animal in the house. There's nothing he needs more than to get out of the chains and stripes, but he remembers what his "neighbor" in the next cell over had said. 'Sonny, you don't look like a hardened criminal.' Suppose not. He can't even muster up the courage to continue further into the house and instead backs out the window, the way he came. Raymond is starting to feel that Haven is no such place for him. Perhaps the next town. But somehow he feels he's just no criminal. Or perhaps he's simply fate's fool.

  His sour luck turns even more bitter a moment later, as he manages to get out of the window just as a police car pulls to a stop at the head of the alley. The bull inside shuts off the engine and lights a cigarette before shaking a newspaper open, and for the next two hours Raymond squats on aching calves behind the barrel, wishing the back of the alley wasn't boarded up with a twelve-foot fence.

  It's nearly dusk by the time the bull's radio goes off and he pulls away, leaving a pile of cigarette butts next to the car as it rolls off. As the fugitive slinks out of the alley and hurries around the building in plain view, he realizes that he hasn't heard that dog in a while. Thank heavens for small favors.

  In his search for a suitable change of clothes (or at least a pair of boltcutters) he's found himself on the far side of town from the railroad tracks, and while this area is deserted, he narrowly manages to avoid being seen by a young boy crossing the distance between him and the side of a tall hill. "Uta?" the boy calls, and for a moment Raymond thinks he's been spotted behind the tree, but the boy moves on, coming up to a drainage tunnel set into the side of the hill. "Uta, are you there?" he calls again, and Raymond's eyes can just make out the form of a woman rising on stiff limbs.

  The girl from the photograph.

  Raymond watches the boy and the girl from the photograph from his spot behin the tree. No, this was no good. He's in no shape to taking along anyone with him. He's already too conspicuous, as it is, and with aching legs to boot. How could he subdue the girl...not to mention the boy...and somehow drag her back to men whose location he doesn't even know? Raymond could continue to dog them and hope for a better moment. Or...perhaps...

  Raymond comes out from behind the tree in full view of both the girl and the young boy. He holds his hands up, making sure they can see how he's hobbled by chains, how he's no threat at all. "Pardon...pardon for interrupting, but d'you think a man could get some help, here?"

  The boy turns around at the sound of Raymond's voice but says nothing.

  Uta looks behind Mark, spotting the stranger who approaches with his hands out. She tenses, expecting a conflict with the chained man. She stands up, facing the stranger.... A strange chain tugs at her khef, "You. Chained one. Are you one of the Wolf or rat men?"

  "Do I look like a wolf or a rat?" he asks. A stupid question, but then...doesn't he know a few wolf and rat men himself? In a gaudy auto in garish clothing...

  Uta tries to stand up to face the chained man, "They never look like wolves, or rats. Unless you see their true eyes. You don't have the eyes of them." Uta stares at the man, sniffing the air around him as she tries to determine if he is friend or foe.

  The boy looks at Uta like she's gone mad, and a low moan travels out from his throat.

  Raymond takes a step closer, keeping those chains up. "I'm just a...a wronged man, trying to set things right," he says, glancing from the girl to the boy. "An innocent man."

  Uta snaps out an order, "Stay back!" She ponders for a moment, "I have seen you before. And your clothes.... Mark, do you know this man?"

  "Nuhhhh-" he cries, taking two halting steps away from both Uta and the man in the striped clothing.

  "Don't go nowhere, boy. I'm not goin' to hurt you. I know what it looks like, but I'm not a bad man."

  Uta looks resolved, "Do you have any food?" She is unsure of why Mark seems to react so badly to this man. He doesn't seem to be like the guards at all.

  "Why aren't you in jail?" Mark whispers breathlessly, and though several paces lie between them Raymond hears it clearly.

  "No, I ain't had a bite to eat since..." It's been more than a day since he's had any real food, or more than a quick sneak of water from the pond. Last time he ate was just before the transfer. "But I could get food, if you could help me out of these chains and get me some clothes." Once more, he turns to the boy, Mark. "Because I wasn't supposed to be there and I aim to prove it."

  Uta looks at the man as he tries to appear defenceless. He reminds her of Rhodes a bit. "You want help from me for food?"

  "My grandpa used to say that the only people who get caught are the ones that don't deserve it."

  "Hell, I wouldn't mind some food myself," he says, and puts on a big smile, before he nods to Mark. "That's right. And the real bad men go free. I'm sure you've seen bad men out before that should be in jail. I wanna put the worst one there is away."
  "My dad says Grandpa lied like a fox," Mark says, sending an icy glare up at Raymond.

  "Jail... Jail." She says the word a few times, as if trying to comprehend the word. "Did you run away on the tracks from this.. jail?"

  Raymond crouches down, bringing his immense height closer to Mark's level. "Don't want to ever hear you disrespectin' your grandfather, boy, and if your father does...well, then he's forgotten what he was taught." He nods at Uta. "Yeah. They tried to keep me pinned up, but I ran away. There's someone out there that has to pay for what he done. An evil...man." He glances to Mark again. "And you can help, if y'can get me some bolt cutters, and a change of clothes."

  Mark nods dully, suddenly unsure of himself in the presence of the bigger man and his uncharacteristically (at least from the boy's perspective) words.

  "Mark hasn't forgotten the face of his Father. His father shoots wolves! The evil man, is he a wolf?"

  "My dad keeps some in his work truck, I think," Mark says off-handedly. "For cutting fencelines."

  Uta looks at the prisoner, feeling a few bonds between the two of them, they are faint, but present. "So we help you, and you will get food?"

  Raymond remembers his good old friend Hiram, that master of breaking and entering, and nods to Mark. "Fence cutters should work fine. And clothes too." Then to Uta. "A wolf? No...the evil man. I think he might be demon," he says, quietly. "But if you help me, yes. I'll help you."

  Demon is a word Uta knows well.

  -------------------

  Josef's horse winnies and shakes her head, and the jarring motion travels up her saddle and reverberates around the wound in her back. Another ten strides puts them out of the last scrim of mutie trees and into a depressed country full of pits and strange stunted bushes, frond-like branches waving in the light breeze. 

  From her hard ride that morning, she can put the distance to Squire's Leap at twenty miles from this point.

  Alan drums his fingers against the well-worn butt of his pistol, scanning the blighted lands for trouble. Not that he intends to fight if he can avoid it, but it provides some measure of comfort and clarity.

  LaRoux grips the edge of her saddle in pain, gritting her teeth as they ride in. "S-shit."

  Directly ahead of them down the trail a hundred feet or so stands a young woman, only a few years older than herself, by the look of it, dressed in a billowing white gown and habit that streams out beside her.

  LaRoux puts a hand up at the woman, trying to see if she'll come help.

  "Careful, girl," Alan cautions, "This is bad country.  Strange to see someone like that out here." Despite his caution, Alan sees no use in avoiding or ignoring the woman - not after so obviously being spotted - and so calls out to her.

  The woman in white takes a hesitant step forward, then another, and hurries her pace to a quick jog, stopping once to unhook her gown from one of the thorn-bushes that dot the edge of the trail. A brief moment later she draws up close to the two, and Alan can see that she is as beauteous from five paces as fifty.

  "You are travelers?" she asks, looking up at them. "Are you bound for Squire's Leap?"

  Alan shifts uncomfortably in his saddle for more reasons than one, eyes flicking across the woman's form, looking for danger signs - mutie-marks, weapons, an odd look in her eyes; her appearance is strange enough as it is. "Indeed, we two were told that it wasn't far from here.  Do ye know of it?"

  "Keep some modesty, sai," she says, drawing her gown around her as Alan casts his gaze over her. "I'll not be looked at so."

  "I know of it," she says then, and nods down the trail behind her. "I travel there myself, but the path is rough and I have no horse."

  Alan gives a thin smile, "Begging your pardon," he says, "I've simply come to ill-trust strangers in strange lands."

  LaRoux cuts her eyes a bit at Alan and whimpers in pain. "M'am would you have somethin' to keep this from hurtin' so much..."
 
 Alan gestures to LaRoux, "Yon girl is my master on this journey, I'm her man-for-hire. We were ambushed by harriers." It's not too far from the truth, and Alan tells the lie with the practice of years of spouting half-truths.

  "You are hurt?" she asks, concern in her voice as Josef's voice catches her attention. "Can you dismount?"

  "Alan, help me down. Yes, I'm hurt bad."

  Alan gets down from his own horse, helping LaRoux as he does.

  LaRoux dismounts with his assistance and lets out a little yelp of pain.

  "Careful," the woman in white says as LaRoux's boots touch the ground.

  "I cleaned and dressed the wound, but there's a fragment in it that I don't dare remove afield," Alan says, neglecting to explain what the fragment is, "I haven't the expertise nor the tools."

  LaRoux stands up straight as she can, but is clearly in pain.

  "Let me see it, please," the woman asks. "I may yet help."

  Alan cocks his head, looking warily at the woman with his one good eye, "What know ye of medicine, fellow-traveller?"

  "I have a poultice that may ease her suffering a trifle," she says to Alan. "'Tis not much, I'm afraid." The woman unfurls her gown from around her hips, and under a worn leather traveling-belt she draws forth a folded cloth.

  Alan puts little truck in potions and pastes, but it's not his wound to decide - he looks to LaRoux silently.

  LaRoux looks at Alan. "Take it off then, I'll take what I can get..."

  Alan complies, inexpertly unwinding the bandage and removing the compress to reveal the wound.

  "Not gun-shot, then," the woman remarks as she sees the wound. "Inflammed, though. Here, dear, this may help," she says, unfolding the cloth and revealing a shiny substance inside. "It may sting for a moment." She spreads the cloth across LaRoux's back gently, wiping the cloth around the edge of the wound, leaving a sticky-looking trail behind it.

  "Here, let me," she asks Alan, holding out a hand for the wrapping bandage. True to her word, Josef feels a shade of the mortar-shell's initial puncture that thankfully fades to a dull ache, duller than it's felt the entire ride.

  Alan hands over the bandage and compress readily enough, somewhat less guarded now.

  The woman's cloth disappears back under her gown, and she takes the wrap, tying it tightly around in a way that Alan can't help notice is somewhat better than his own job. "There. How do you feel, dear?" she asks, looking Josef in the eye.

  LaRoux makes a little hiss when it's dragged across but she relaxes as the dullness sets in. "Thankee, thankee, I feel wonders better."

  "The least I can do, dear heart," she says. "Will ye press on then?" the woman asks, looking to Alan. "Yon horses looks winded and trail-worn, sai," she notes. "There is a creek near here. Will you stay and rest a moment?"

  LaRoux looks to Alan and then to the woman. "Do you think it would be fine? With my shoulder in this way?"

  Alan weighs his options, looking to the horses; they do indeed look worn and he does not know this one he's taken. Briefly, he considers the nightmare of walking through this blasted landscape to Squire's Leap, horseless, if they should perish.

  "A brief rest may save us our horses," he says, addressing LaRoux, "She speaks true."

  "There's no flesh-rot, if that's what worries you," the woman responds.

  "There will be," Alan says dryly. "All the same, a brief rest may be the smarter way in terrain like this."

  LaRoux nods in agreement.

  Even as he says this, he weighs the situation - aid is not freely given in this world, least of all in the west.  Still, this woman does not seem particularly threatening, and the terrain ill-affords a baited harrier ambush.

  "Wonderful! I will show you to the creek," she says, holding out a slim hand for Alan. "You must rest, dear. Riding is hard on a body, harder still in your shape."

  Alan regards the woman's hand, then takes it. For now, he will go along. And watch. "I'm more concerned for the horses, say true," he replies. "I know my limits."

  The woman leads him down a rocky scree, picking her way down carefully, and Alan's ears pick up the babbling of water below the ledge. Sure enough, the dazzling glare of a clean-running stream shines in his eyes a moment later, blotting out the world outside his good eye until he tilts his head. "There it is. Do you have a bucket or bottle, sai?" she asks.

  "I have a canteen," he says, somewhat guardedly - such veins of seeming health in blighted lands were rare.  It put him ill at ease to see that their fellow-traveller hadn't been exaggerating. Retrieving it, Alan speaks up, "Tell me, what brings one such as you in lands such as these alone? These were dangerous lands in safer times.  Now..."

  "Your woman would welcome it, I think," she says, kneeling carefully at the bank of the stream. "I am traveling, as I said, sai. To Squire's Leap, to join with the rest of my order."

  LaRoux sits down and takes her pipe out, loads it and has a smoke while she waits for Alan.

  As she cups her hands and draws up water, Alan can see her profile in the bright afternoon light. Though Josef is comely, even a one-eyed man can see that this woman is beautiful, moreso than even his fellow rider.

  "She's not my woman," Alan replies, looking at the woman surreptitiously, "That sort of thing is...ah, bad for business as a man-for-hire," that, at least, Alan knew from personal experience was no exaggeration.  Stooping to fill the canteen, he sniffs the water cautiously before taking a test-sip; he's not about to give strange water blindly to an injured companion. "I know you're a traveller, but to travel lands like these alone invites death," Alan says.  It rings somewhat hollow in the health of this small oasis.

  The water runs into his mouth sweet as a wellspring of Gilead, expanding the cracked interior of his parched mouth.

  "It is a penance, sai," she says, drawing another cupped handful of water to her lips.

  "Are you a woman of the Man-Jesus?" Alan asks.  There isn't much faith in the west, not these days.  

  "I serve the White, sai. Do ye kennit?" she asks, rising to her feet again, gown trailing out over the stream in the afternoon's soft breeze.

  "I do," he says, though he rarely heard the term outside of Gilead. "The White has precious few friends in these lands," he opines.

  "Say true," she agrees. "We should get back. Your employer might be cross if we dally."

  "Indeed," Alan stands with a grunt and caps his canteen, "And this water does at least seem clean."

  Suddenly, LaRoux hears a cry from the slope they went down.

  LaRoux looks up suddenly and struggles to her feet. "Alan!?"

  The woman in white stands motionless as a snake slides out of the rock and curls itself in a meandering arc around the rocks near her.

  LaRoux draws her left iron and moves quickly as she can towards the sound.

  Alan puts an arm in front of the woman, holding her back. "It's just a waste-snake," he says calmly, "Keep away and don't provoke it and prob'ly it'll leave us be." Even so, Alan has drawn steel on the thing; his nerves are shot to shit just seeing the snake after that horrific mutie from before. He at least sounds reasonably calm to himself, but he rather expects that won't last.
  
LaRoux exhales as she comes over the ridge. "Alan, is the snake all?!"

  "If that be, why are ye trembling," the woman asks softly as LaRoux peers over the ledge.

  "I don't like snakes," Alan replies laconically, briefly turning his head to reply to LaRoux, "Aye, just surprised our friend and I here, that's all. Perhaps looking to sun itself." Alan finds himself imagining a much larger snake sunning itself with a human-shaped bulge somewhere in its body and represses a shudder.

  The snake flicks its tongue out, as if to rebuff Alan's proclamation, and glides back into the shadows beneath the tumble of rocks that make up the ledge.

  "Help me up, would ye, sai?" the woman asks Alan, stepping up onto the first stone.

  Alan obliges grudgingly, unwilling to get too close to the now-sinister crevices in the stone.

  LaRoux nods a bit and holsters her pistol.

  "Watch ye don't startle if more be about," he says, as much to himself as her.

  The woman watches the shadows beneath the rocks as well, gently picking her way back up with Alan's grip on her hand. "Will ye go on now, then?" she asks, once they're back atop the ridge and Josef's had her fill of the clear sweet water.

  Alan looks askance to LaRoux to get an idea of her disposition; himself, he's willing to go. Hadn't been too comfortable to stop to begin with.

  LaRoux wipes her chin with her sleeve and nods at Alan.

  "Best we do.  That bit has to come out.  Soon," me pauses for a beat, "You're welcome to ride with us, if it suits you.  To leave someone out in badlands like these without a defense, well...it may as well be that I shot you myself."

  The woman waves her hand over Alan's appropriated horse, shooing a cloud of gnats that swarm around his head. "It would be a kindness, sai," she tells him. "I was not to carry anything with me, but my superior said nothing of taking aid."

  LaRoux grins slightly but hides it. She turns to her horse. "Then it's settled..."

  After helping LaRoux onto her horse, Alan climbs in his own saddle and holds out a hand to the woman, "Let's exploit that loophole, then. And beg pardon, but I don't believe you've given us a name?"

  "Thankee sai," she says, hoisting herself up. "I am Sister Althea, sai. Your name is Alan, but I have not heard your name," she says, turning in the saddle to look back at LaRoux.

  "Uh... La Roux will do." She says, not wanting to use her first name.

  "We are well-met then, La Roux and Alan, Beam or no Beam," Sister Althea replies.

  Alan inclines his head in agreement, "Indeed.  And let's press on - there's distance to cover yet."  Alan inclines his head in agreement, "Indeed.  And let's press on - there's distance to cover yet."