Tanya’s Steppe Saga 07

Of course I wanted the New Cannan gecko eggs to get started on my plan straight away, but I didn’t have the caps to buy any from Happy Trails, even if they had them. Taking a trip alone across the desert to Utah also seemed like an obviously bad idea. I didn’t have a map, didn’t know where I was going, and I doubted a single 9mm pistol would be enough to defend from the gangs of raiders I’d heard operated throughout the Mojave. Before I went to Utah, or before I paid Happy Trails to take a trip in that direction, I needed caps of my own, weapons, and the sort of security that only my tribe had been willing to provide me so far.

Resolved to go to Red Rock, I radioed ahead, asking for the other Khans to wait for me, so no one was surprised to see me when I arrived at the Followers Clinic just as the sun was rising. The morning air was cold enough that my breath came out frosted, and the handful of Khans there were trying to rebuild their barrel fire from the embers of the previous night.

“Hey, Maggie!” One of the men greeted me with a laugh.  He’d known Maggie for years, but I met him for the first time a few days ago. He had brown hair and a red beard, with huge hands and hairy forearms. Everyone called him Tan. “You got us freezing our asses off waiting for you here.” 

He hugged me without hesitation, and so following his social cue I hugged him back, along with all the other Khans who were relieved to see me, except for one who stood awkwardly at a distance. I guess they were all worried about Maggie. Ezekiel was also there to greet me and I hugged him as well, not wanting him to feel excluded. The man was just a fount of interesting and useful information, and if I could convince him to somehow accompany us to Red Rock then I definitely would.

“Here.” I offered Melbourne back her pistol, and she accepted it, checking the barrel and giving it a sniff. 

“You had to use it.” She stated, glancing up at me. Good nose on that one. My sense of smell had yet to recover from my time in Freeside.

Behind her, Ezekiel looked shocked.

I shrugged. “You were right. Leaving the Khans wasn’t anything like I thought it would be.”

Melbourne nodded. “We’ll have to get you one of your own when you get back.” Something must have shown in my expression, because she suddenly looked concerned. “What’s wrong? Afraid to face Papa after you ran away?”

“No, Papa told me I was free to go.” Still, it was a lot of miserable struggle that I went through with nothing to show for it. I think she wasn’t likely to drop it so in the end I simply said, “I just hate to go back empty handed.”

“Empty handed, empty stomachs.” Tan grunted, kicking at the sand. “S’going to be a hungry year or two without our herds. Fuckin’ NCR.”

That didn’t sound good. “What happened to our herds?”

“Scattered.” Tan spat. “All our slippies and bighorners, bolted. Now they’re probably getting picked off by cazadores.”

I blinked, recognising none of those nouns. I turned to Ezekiel, who saw my unspoken question.

“Uh, slippie is short for a sleipnir, a kind of mutated horse, big-horners are a mutated sheep-”

“And cazadores are fuckin’ demons.” Tan growled.

All around, the others nodded in agreement, looking upset at the idea. I suppose like many nomadic tribes, they were herdsmen by trade and culture, with drugs and raiding serving as a secondary source of income. No doubt many of them were feeling quite sour about losing their favourite pets. 

Maybe I didn’t have to return to the tribe empty handed? It could only help my standing within the group if I was able to help them recover some of their lost animals. If the Khans liked and trusted me, it would be that much easier to convince some of them to accompany me to Zion, or lend me the caps needed to get my gecko venture running.

I frowned, doing a quick head count. There were seven of us here, including Ezekiel. I’d never herded horses or goats before, but I think that should be enough for a small herd. “Could we gather our animals back up, and take them with us to Red Rock?”

“Can’t.” Melbourne answered. “Bitter Springs is NCR territory, now. And all we’ve got are some shitty hand guns. One patrol corners us, and we’re never seeing Red Rock.”

I shrugged. “Can’t we just get permission, then?”

They all looked at me, blinking. “Permission?” One of them muttered the word, like he never once used it before.

“We signed a treaty with the NCR.” I explained. “As long as we get our passports stamped, we can safely enter NCR territory to do legitimate work, which this definitely is.” 

“Passport?” Tan asked, then glanced over at Ezekiel. It took the Follower a moment to explain the concept, but when he was done Tan looked back to me. “Well I ain’t got a fuckin’ passport.”

“Yeah, but we can just make our own.” I shrugged. “All we need is some paper and some staples, and a bit of leather for the cover. Bam, official Khan passports.”

“Will that work?” Ezekiel asked, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t see why not.” I shrugged. “All we need is an NCR citizen to hire us to gather up the herds, and we’ll be meeting all the terms of the treaty. We can leave our guns here.”

All the other Khans suddenly looked uncomfortable.

“What?” I asked. “As long as we follow the terms of the treaty, we shouldn’t need to worry about getting attacked by the NCR.”

“Ain’t the NCR that’s the problem.” Tan answered, and there were a bunch of nods of agreement. “Cazadores!”

Right. Okay. Some kind of dangerous animal, then.

Suddenly the expression on Melbourne’s face brightened up. “The stash! How could I forget the stash?” She quickly explained. “We’ve got caps, guns, rations, meds, and chems stored in a bunch of caves above Bitter Springs.”

“Didn’t Papa Khan clear those out when we moved?” Tan asked her.

“Yeah, most of them. But the NCR didn’t give us time to get all of them, and I know which ones we had to abandon.”

“So we can enter NCR territory with a Follower’s work order, leaving our guns here with the clinic, get new guns from the stash, and gather up at least some of our herd before hauling it all to Red Rock.” I looked around at the gathered Khans. “Sounds like a plan?”

“Hell yeah, let’s do it.” Melbourne answered. The other Tan and the other Khans all nodded, looking interested, except for one.

“Do what you want, I’m staying here.” Standing at the back of the group was a dark skinned, scrawny and sullen looking teenager. He hadn’t said a word the entire time, keeping his lips in a sour little scowl. 

“What’s the problem?” I asked him.

“Fuck you, that’s the problem.” He snapped. “Your dumbasses got the fucking NCR riled up, shooting caravaners and raping and stealing, then they come down on us at Bitter Springs, and now you’re like, ‘Better poke that bear again.’ Man, fuck all of ya’ll.”

“We can’t stay here forever.” Melbourne replied. “So we either do this, or go back to Red Rock empty handed.”

“Nah.” He spat. “How about instead, I join the winning team? Why do I gotta stay with this tribe of morons whose breath all smells like Brahmin shit from all the bad jet they suck down? I say fuck this, and I say fuck you.” He sneered at me in particular for some reason. “I quit. I’m going to join the NCR.”

He looked around, challenging us.

“Good fucking riddance, then.” Tan spat, the wad landing at the kid’s feet. “You were always a little fucking bitch.”

With a snarl the kid lunged forward, throwing a punch at Tan, but the older, larger Khan easily blocked the strike and countered with an upper cut that took the teen clean off his feet. The boy crashed into the pitted old asphalt that ran past the front of the clinic, blood pouring from a pressure cut on his lip. Tan stepped forward, raising his boot to stomp on the boy’s face, but surprisingly Ezekiel stepped forward and pulled him back. 

Tan stumbled a step, before pulling himself free of Ezekiel’s grip. “Get off of me.” He snarled, straightening his jacket.

“You can’t just kill him!” Ezekiel said, looking between the boy on the ground and Tan, then to me like he wanted me to back him up.

To be completely honest, I thought the young man was being incredibly unwise, and had rather earned his beating by insulting the group and attacking Tan. Still, I always preferred to end a working relationship on amicable terms.

“Melbourne, the gun?” I held out my hand to my friend, who glanced between me and the boy, before shrugging and handing me the 9mm.

I walked over to the boy, crouching down in front of him, he shied away, trying to scoot back but stopped when I offered him the gun. He didn’t take it immediately, hesitantly, glancing between me and Tan, as though expecting some kind of trick.

“What the hell?!” Tan spat, furious. “Don’t waste anything on this little punkass bitch!”

“You said some things because you were angry.” I calmly explained to the boy. “And you’re right. The Khans have made some pretty big mistakes to get to this point, but I’m telling you it’s not easy out there. So take this,” I wiggled the gun, “as your final pay cheque, and I wish you the best of luck in your next endeavor. If things don’t go well for you, you can reapply for your position with the Khans at a later date.”

He swallowed once, before accepting the gun. I watched him carefully, ready to lash out if he looked like he was about to do something with it, but instead he stuffed the gun into his jacket pocket, standing up as he did. 

“It’s our fault they’re dead!” He grunted. With teary eyes, he shot a glare at all of us. “The women and the children, and everyone innocent died that night, and it’s our fault.” He took a few steps forward, and shed his Khan jacket into the dust in front of me. “Thanks, but I ain’t coming back to this grave.”

I watched him walk away until he was out of ear shot, ignoring the annoyed look on Tan’s face that he sent my way.

“Who was that kid anyway?” I asked Melbourne, in a low voice.

She shrugged. “It’s just Shaun.”

“Stupid little shit said he wasn’t Shaun, anymore.” Tan interrupted. “Said he was Bitter Root, now. Pretentious little shit thought he’d been through his beatdown. He doesn’t decide that, the tribe does.” 

The other Khans all nodded in agreement with him.

“Anyway, enough of that.” Tan waved his hand dismissively. “I’m sick of waiting around already, can we just get this shit done?”

——-

Making the passports didn’t turn out to be very difficult at all. The young punk had left his leather jacked behind, which made it easy to source leather covers for our little books. Melbourne turned out to be quite skilled with her hands, quickly using her knife to whittle a khan logo into the bottom of a stump. After hammering its shape into a piece of tin, we had a rudimentary brand, which we then warmed up over the fire and burned into squares of leather to make into our gang logo. Once we stapled in the blank paper we got from the Followers, we had a handful of passports, the first ever issued by the Khans presumably.

Unfortunately, Ezekiel wasn’t an NCR citizen, but another follower named Emily Ortal was. When I explained to her that the Khans might starve without our herds, she was reluctantly willing to sign the employment contract I wrote up for her to pose as our employer.

We sold the few guns we had to the Followers, then set out for Boulder City, following the shadow of Route 147 on a straight line East out of the city towards Bitter Springs. We were all freshly recovered from our injuries, and so we set a good pace. The Khans in general were used to long walks over harsh terrain, and the NCR had recently cleared the road, so we made it to Bitter Springs about an hour or so after the sun had set.

“What the hell are you doing back here?” Lieutenant Dhatri demanded, once he saw us.

“We’re here to present our passports before entering NCR territory.” I explained. “Specifically, we’ve been contracted by an NCR citizen named Emily Ortal to gather up the scattered Khan Big Horner and Slippie herds, which means we have the right to apply for a visa as per the terms of the Treaty of Bitter Springs.”

“‘Treaty’?” Dhatri stared at me, disbelieving. “You mean when you surrendered?”

“That was part of the treaty’s terms, yes.” I replied. “Now are you going to issue us our Visa’s?”

“Oh, come on.” He scoffed. “You can’t be serious with this?”

“Sir, are you proposing to violate the terms of the Treaty, and return the Khans and the NCR to a state of war?”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He groaned. I opened my mouth to continue, but he snapped at me. “Shut up! This is officially above my goddamn paygrade.”

“I’m sure Major Bullah can make the decision.”

“Major Bullah has been reassigned, and I’m in charge here until relieved.” He looked about at the NCR soldiers who were watching our little argument with obvious distrust. “You! Sergeant, come here.” A soldier with sergeant rank pips came over. “Wait here. Watch them. I need to use the radio.

He stalked away, muttering angrily to himself.

——-

Colonel James Hsu

The hours passed slowly for James Hsu, they always did. His world was his office, and the collection of reports sitting on his desk. Food shortages here, low morale there, raider gangs picking off caravans, locals in Freeside beating up off duty soldiers who strayed past the gates, and the inescapable conclusion that half of what he was reading was brahmin shit from men covering their own asses. Time passed at a crawl, each second sluggishly sliding into the next, leaving nothing to show for itself but the gradual increase in Hsu’s headache. Being a Colonel used to mean something to him, now it just meant he was a whipping boy for a narcissistic gloryhound with the brains of a stump, and the self-awareness to match.

After the better part of a decade the Mojave occupation was still rolling on like a slowly unfolding disaster. A series of bad decisions made by people who had no idea what the situation was really like on the ground.

For example, word had made its way back west and onto the streets of Shady Sands that too many caravans were getting raided on their way to Vegas. There were bandits hiding out in countless old mineshafts and tunnels, ruins and hill camps, watching the roads and waiting for plodding, slow, well laden carts and to come by. Sending out a column of NCR Troopers to march through the area would do nothing because the bandits just waited and watched until a softer target came. It was definitely a problem, one that would take rangers to solve. They could just track each little band to their hidey hole and destroy them. It would take a number of independently operating units, peeling each gang up one by one, freeing up the clogged supply arteries little by little. It would take time, but it would work.

That wasn’t what they did, though. 

General Oliver didn’t like the Rangers, no sir, and General Oliver also definitely did not like protracted operations. If a problem couldn’t be blown up, he didn’t want to hear about it. Well, eventually the grumblings back West got to the point where General Oliver finally had to do something, and his solution? March right into the biggest raider camp in the Mojave, and destroy it. 

There were only a few problems with that brilliant scheme. The first was that the Khans weren’t anywhere near Vegas, and well north of the Dam, so they hadn’t been doing most of the raids that were causing so much damage, so clearing them away from Bitter Springs was going to achieve damn near nothing. The second problem was that it turned out the Khans had a bunch of fortified caves in the hills north of their camp, which Oliver might have known about in advance if he bothered scouting out more than the absolute basics, so casualties were going to be massive. The third problem was that the Khans weren’t just raiders, but herdsmen, with women and children too. The cost of the operation wasn’t just in soldiers and caps, but in rumors and word of mouth. Whether President Kimball wanted to admit it or not, the opinion of the Mojave mattered when it came to deciding who would rule New Vegas. 

Now Colonel Hsu was reading the reports for Operation Grassfire, and he almost couldn’t imagine how it could have gone worse. Expensive in blood and caps? Check. Plenty of soldiers' lives were lost and lots of ammunition was expended. Did non-combatants get caught up in the fighting? Of course. Women and children were mistaken for combatants in the dark and slaughtered almost completely. Would the Khans still be around to trouble them later? Oh yeah, they would just move to another hill to nurse their grudge. Horrible damage to the NCRs reputation as a whole? Oh, absolutely. Just about the only good thing that could be said for the bloody mess was that they had at least removed the Khans from Bitter Springs, so technically the operation was a success. If they were lucky, they might even see a one percent reduction in caravan raids, annually. A textbook Pyrrhic victory. 

Colonel Hsu shook his head, putting the report down. From his desk he took out some aspirin, and poured himself a glass of purified water, before slugging it back and wishing it was a shot of whiskey.

He folded the report back up, and moved it to his pile of completed paperwork, before picking up another sheet from his uncompleted stack. He had dozens more reports to read and he was going to be up late again tonight if he didn’t get through it all while the sun was up.

Just then there was a knock at his door. A private in an illfitting uniform saluted him. “Sir, radio request for you, from Lieutenant Dhatri. Channel 101.9. He says he needs to confirm his orders, sir.”

Dhatri? Wasn’t he assigned to Major Bullah?

Colonel Hsu sighed, and turned around to switch on his own radio. He turned the dial to the right channel and held down the button to broadcast.

“This is Colonel Hsu, for Lieutenant Dhatri. Over.”

“This is Lieutenant Dhatri. Need to confirm orders with you before I proceed, over.”

“Lieutenant, I’m not your commanding officer, over.”

“Sir, Major Bullah has been recalled by General Oliver sir, and I’m the ranking officer here. The situation here is a bit too big for me to make a decision on, over.”

Hsu pinched his brow, fighting back a groan. He knew that Major Bullah had been recalled to Hoover Dam, and was probably getting reamed out by General Oliver right now, but to leave the ranking officer at the scene as a Lieutenant was a serious mistake, especially if his orders were unclear.

After steadying himself, Hsu asked, “Major, what is the situation?”

“I’ve got a handful of the Khans that were vacated from Bitter Springs, saying they need to go back there to gather up their bighorner herds. Bitter Springs is supposed to remain a secure area, but they claim that for us to keep them out would violate our peace treaty.”

With a sigh, Hsu went through his pile of reports, before taking out his copy of the Treaty of Bitter Springs. He quickly scanned through its terms, before finding the relevant clause.

“Liuetenant, I need you to answer some questions for me, over.”

“Understood, Colonel. Go ahead.”

“Do they have passports?”

“...Yes sir.”

“Do they have a work order from an NCR citizen?”

“...Yes sir.”

“Are they armed?”

“No sir.”

“Are they at present a threat to any NCR personnel or citizens at Bitter Springs, or likely to inhibit the completion of your orders?”

“No sir.”

Colonel Hsu sighed, wishing that the Khans had broken some part of the treaty, but no, they’d stuck to it on their end. It would be much better to keep them out of Bitter Springs and away from NCR operations, but violating the treaty less than a week after it had been signed wasn’t a good look. No one would ever trust any agreement made by the NCR.

“Lieutenant, go to your tent and get your stamp. Stamp and date those passports. Record their names, appearances, and birth dates in your log book. Make a full report of their activities when they leave the area, but give them forty eight hours to gather their herds. Do not let them out of your sight, Lieutenant. Copy that?”

“Yes sir. Understood. Lieutenant Dhatri out.”

Hsu put the radio down and went back to his reports, briefly worrying that General Oliver would be angered by his decision, but quickly dismissed the concern. What was done was done, and he doubted Oliver gave a damn about some mutant sheep anyway. Honestly, Hsu barely gave a damn himself. How important could a pack of bighorners even be?

——-

So far, the plan to recover the herds was going swimmingly. I didn’t know the exact monetary value of the beasts, and I wasn’t at all familiar with their handling, but feeling their soft fur lining the collars of my Khan jacket, and breathing in the brisk air of a desert’s winter morning, I was already benefiting from their uses. Wool for clothing, milk for cheese and yogurt, and meat every spring with lambing season. The giant ugly brutes had a remarkably gentle disposition, despite their gross appearance. Each one was easily taller than me at the shoulder, with lumpy skin covering their burnt looking, hairless faces. They snuffled about, happily eating the banana yucca fruits that we offered them, along with grasses and a few other select herbs.

“See? They really like you.” Melbourne smirked at me.

“That’s just because I’m feeding them.” I’d shifted attention from the young bighorner in front of me, and he headbutted my leg to remind me to keep feeding him. I quickly obliged, offering him more yucca that I’d plucked earlier. I whispered to him in my most saccharine voice, “That’s right. Eat up and get nice and fat. Grow big, strong, and extra tasty, please!”  

Already I could see these creatures would make great employees. 

The NCR had been keeping a stern eye on us. It was a bit strange, having a dozen soldiers follow around five Khans as we gathered up mutant sheep, but they hardly interfered with us. The bighorners didn’t like them, apparently they found strangers frightening, but were well used to us Khans.

“How big was our herd originally?” I asked.

“We had thousands of them.”

I looked over the ones we’d managed to find, and couldn’t help but wince. There weren't even a hundred of them here. The rest had either been picked off by predators, or ran too far away for us to feasibly find them in the forty eight hours we were given. 

“They only stick together when there’s enough food to go around. Once the green starts getting scarce, they all run off to do their own thing.” Melbourne shrugged. “It’s unlucky, but it’s how it is.”

There were only around six hundred Khans left, and the bighorners grew large enough that one of them could feed dozens of men for a week when it was slaughtered and processed properly into dried meat and broth. Fifty adult big horners could feed the tribe for a week. If we were to slaughter this entire flock it would be able to feed all the remaining Khans for about two weeks. Of course, there was also the milk they produced, which would go a long way towards filling pots and stomachs each morning over the coming months.

“And the slippies?”

Melbourne just shook her head, looking despondent.

I couldn’t blame her. I was hardly an expert on nomadic warfare, but from what I recall a nomadic tribe would usually want around five horses for each mounted warrior. Horses would quickly become exhausted during the rigor of battle, and would need to be swapped out fairly often if they were expected to be ridden with any speed over the course of a hard fought day. Even if you only planned to use the horses for a single charge, you would need at least two horses. One to carry you and your equipment to the battle, and another that would be fresh for the battle when needed. Cavalry was an expensive investment.

Well, that cavalry which the Khans had invested so much time, love, and money into was almost entirely gone. Forget having five horses to each warrior, or even two! We hadn’t even found enough slippies for one for each man. I only counted sixty four of them.

They were quite ugly as well, with longer bodies compared to a normal horse, and an extra set of legs sprouting out of their shoulders for six legs total. Each slippie was of a darker colour, usually black and brown, though there were a few that were grey. They walked with a strange grace. It almost didn’t seem to matter what terrain they passed over, their heads and shoulders would remain at the same level. The movement almost made me think of a cat on the prowl, very slow and considerate until it wasn’t. Each slippie could move with a sudden burst of speed that caught me off guard the first time I saw it. I’d been offering one of the ugly things a prickly pear pad, when almost as fast as I could blink, the cactus was gone from my hand and the slippie was chewing happily.

Unnerving creatures.

Still, I could see the value in them. Certainly, charging them against a force like the NCR with its ranked infantry, armed with automatic and semi-automatic rifles would be a disaster, but the slippies would allow a small group of elite warriors to redeploy quickly across rough terrain. Even back in the 21st century, horses were sometimes used by American Special Forces in the remote corners of Afghanistan. I imagined they would be most useful in the hands of a group of snipers, or soldiers operating a long distance from reliable supply lines. 

I would definitely prefer a good car, but for now this was the best my tribe could do. Just going to have to make it work, and jump on better opportunities as they appear.

I glanced over at Melbourne, who had stopped what she was doing to glare at our NCR watchers. They were armed with bolt action rifles, mostly chambered in 308 rounds, and keeping an eye on us from a distance. They were First Recon Battalion, a specialised sniper force. Apparently, these were the gentlemen who had fired on our women and children in the dark, and destroyed my previous eye for good measure. They were garrisoned at Bitter Springs for now, awaiting redeployment.

They were just soldiers following orders, so I didn’t hold a grudge, but the other Khans absolutely did. The looks of pure hatred Tan in particular kept sending their way made me fear he might be about to try something stupid. Even if he didn’t, Melbourne might.

“Hey, Tan!” I called out as I walked over to him. He didn’t look at me, too focussed on one of the NCR Sniper’s in particular. “I was thinking you and Melbourne and I could head off to try and find that stash now. We can leave the animals here with the others.”

Tan didn’t reply, just spitting out a wad of coyote tobacco he’d been chewing on so it plopped on the ground.

There was one particular NCR sniper he was glaring at that looked vaguely familiar to me. It took me a moment, but I was able to remember where I’d seen him before. On the night of Bitter Springs he was the one who went off to get the stimpack which saved my life. Vargas, I think his name was. 

“You know him?” I asked Tan.

“That fucking traitor used to be a Khan.” He grit out through clenched teeth. “That fucker was with them! Shooting at our children that night!”

Well, it seemed like I needed to get Tan away from our watchers sooner rather than later, or he would definitely cause an incident.

“Come on.” I steered him away, leading him back over towards Melbourne. With clear reluctance, Tan let me drag him over to Melbourne. Once we were together in a little huddle, I said, “You two, go get the stash. I’ll distract the guards so you can slip away.”

They looked at each other. “Why us?”

“Melbourne, you know where the Stash is. Plus it’s dangerous to go alone, you said there would be cazadores around.”

“I bet there’s a lot of them, too. Feasting on our lost herd.” Tan muttered bitterly.

“So, go together, take some of the slippies to help carry everything, get the stash and come back.”

The two of them glanced at each other one final time, before agreeing with a shrug.

“You’re a lot bossier than you used to be.” Melbourne grumbled.

I didn’t bother to reply to that, turning away and making my way over to where Vargas was watching me. He blinked in surprise when I smiled at him, shifting on the rock he was sitting on. 

Seated next to him was a blonde fellow with a thousand yard stare, who didn’t even seem to notice me approaching. The cigarette in his hand was burning away, and for a moment I thought he was asleep until my shadow fell over him and he finally glanced at me.

“Got a light?” I asked him, and took out one of my last cigarettes. I only had two left from the box I’d brought with me to Vegas. Restricting myself to one a day had kept the cravings away, but the temptation to smoke was there almost constantly.

Vargas and his friend glanced at each other, before the blonde man finally tossed me his lighter.

“I remember you from that night.” I said. “You saved my life. Vargas, right?”

“Manny Vargas.” He corrected, and shifted uncomfortably. “Hardly saved your life when it could have been one of us who shot you. The new eye looks good, by the way.”

“Thanks.” I shrugged. “I’m Maggie.”

“Yeah, I know.” He shrugged. “You were, what? Fourteen, or fifteen when I left?”

Perfect. “Did we know each other?”

“Not really. You were one of Papa’s grandkids, and he kept all of you close.” Manny smiled, reminiscing, then stopped, getting a sad look on his face. He shook his head, waving a hand as if to dispel the memory. “Anyway. Uh, this is my friend, Craig Boone.”

“Nice to meet you.” I smiled at Boone.

He didn’t answer at first, just taking a long drag on his cigarette and keeping an eye on something in the distance. When he finally did speak, it was in a low, rough voice. “What are your friends sneaking off for?”

Fuck.

“Just looking for more bighorners and slippies.”

“Sure buddy.” Manny smirked. “They’re going to get one of your stashes, right?”

Of course a former Khan would figure us out in an instant. “Please don’t report this. We’re going to need those caps in the coming months. You can turn a blind eye for your old tribe, right?”

The two of them looked at each other. 

Boone took a long slow drag on his own cigarette, burning it down to the butt, before dropping it and crushing it with his heel. He turned away, walking down the hill away from us.

“He’s not going to report this is he?” I asked Manny.

“No, I don’t think so.” Manny said with a sigh, watching him go. “Tell you what, I’m worried about him so I'll keep an eye on him. If you guys can get your stash back here, and hidden away before we come back, I won’t say anything.”

He picked up his rifle from his lap, and hopped to his feet before turning to chase his friend down hill.

That just left me and two other Khans to keep an eye on the animals. They were Holler and Briggs, two men who’d been injured in the fighting. So far I hadn’t spoken with them much, but they seemed to respect Tan and follow his lead on most things. Holler was a ways away from me, riding one of the slippies in my direction with a pleased look on his face. Apparently, one of the horses we recovered was one he’d been riding since he was young. Recovering the beast had him smiling like a little boy on Christmas. Holler looked quite content to take his horse in gentle circles around our herds, keeping any of the animals from wandering away.

Briggs was nowhere to be seen, though. One of the larger Khans, Briggs was a genuine bull of a man with huge hands covered in scars. For some reason he wasn’t anywhere I could spot him.

“Holler, where’s Briggs?” 

The man blinked, spinning about in his saddle, searching. “Isn’t he back yet? He said he saw some hoof prints heading left, downhill from that trail heading towards the river. I think he wanted to see if he could find some more slippies down by the bay.”

I glanced around a bit, before shrugging. “You stay here then. I’ll go see what’s taking him so long.”

I hurried down the trail, the clear blue waters of the Colorado River getting closer and closer. The trail was an old one from before the war, made of compressed gravel and the occasional remnants of a two hundred year old wooden stair that had rotted away. Without the stairs to follow, I kept having to scramble down steep slopes, which slowed my progress. Finally, I found the hoof prints that Holler had described to me, heading away towards a small set of buildings in the distance. 

As I came closer, a sound carried over the wind.

“Heeeelp! For the love of god, heeeelp!” A man screamed.

Rather than rush over, I fell into a crouch, looking around to see if anyone else was nearby. I couldn’t see any sign of someone watching, waiting to ambush. No glint of a sniper scope in the bushes, or indication that anyone else was present.

“God, please! Someone! Someone help!”

Probably, Briggs had tripped over and broken his leg on one of those steep declines. Still, I didn’t want to risk rushing in blindly.

Carefully, placing my feet flat with each step and moving slowly so as not to crunch any gravel, I made my way over towards the building where Briggs was crying out from. It looked like it was some kind of pre-war boat shed, and I stuck to the outside as I crept around its exterior. Eventually I found a window and stood up on my toes to peer through. Inside I saw Briggs, blood pouring out of a puncture wound in his backside. His face was filthy, like he’d been dragged some distance, covered in a gravel rash as tears poured from his eyes. Terrified, he searched about, until his eyes met mine and lit up.

“I got stung! Fucking Cazadore got me- Watch out!” He barked.

I spun around just in time to see a black silhouette with orange wings swooping towards me.