Lucas was hooking up the chains and straps for the tow.
"I got blankets in the 3rd toolbox on the right side... Yollie-girl can you get that out? ...heres da key!"
He fishes a key out of his shirt pocket and tosses it to her.

Lucas shouted up at his gunner in the sleeper keeping watch. "SCAFF-BOY! Make a spot for da woman ta lay down on in dere!"

He looked down at Christmas as his stained hands worked automatically buckling the straps.
"Christmas girl? ..you find anything good on da loonie?
No big thing if you miss somethin' ..
...i'm takin' his damn body back fer dogfood!"

The grit-crusted old man chuckled. "Leave nothin' go ta waste I always say!"

"Could be lots of things. If turnover here's like other places..." Christmas took a microsip from the dead man's canteen and set the rest down by Donnie. She got back to staring and considered the hills.

"Sounds like you can do pretty well out here."




"Nossir, just shit," Christmas replied, mimicking Alpha Crew. She tossed a metal-cased shotgun shell over to the tow, unceremonious. It'd been poorly handloaded and sealed with paper. Thoughts of posting up at the six and getting lit gave way to offputting scenes of dogs being gross. She wrinkled her nose, yawning as she held thin air hostage.

"What's the worst thing you ever ate?" she asked, smirking out into the Northern distance.

Yollie caught the keys with a nod and ran over to the toolbox, pulling out some blankets with which to move Beth before shutting the locker and locking it again.

"Lizard brains in cow stomach bile soup," she says off-handedly as she runs past Christmas to deliver the blankets to the Crow.

In reply to Yollie Guevara (msg # 39):

Lucas squinted one eye, pursed and wrinkled up his lips in that vaguely obscene way of his.

"One time .. I had me a good old can o CLAM chowder..
I thought it was good? .. Smelled good.. Tasted good..

Few hours later ..the damn stuff had me throwin' up my back pockets!
Whew ..ain't never felt dat bad... Was worse den getting kicked in da PEAS!
I passed out fer hours, belly swelled up with gas...
.. an' den dry-heaved all night!"

Lucas tightened up the tow straps and then hooked the chains snug.
"Dat oughtta hold!"

..when da woman can be moved? .. holler!
I gotta put da wagon in neutral and lift up da front.
Den we's can move on out."

When he was satisfied with the station wagon hookup,
Lucas walked over to study the dead loony, trying to decide where he may have come from.

Christmas whistled her astonishment--getting kicked in the peas was supposed to hurt. She swept her brow and listened to her canteen slosh as her weight shifted.

"The stuff I thought'd really suck always turned out to be ok, mostly..." Her eyes and her gun combed the quiet horizon as she swung her legs along the scrub.

"The worst thing was probably because of this shitty trick. When I was a kid, some boy gives me something dried out and tomatoey and it turns out it's the kind that just burns you for like an hour,"  Christmas reflected. "I think I still want to beat his ass."

Beth inhaled sharply at Crow's incision and shuddered when he slipped the tube into the cut.  She barely bled.  Her eyelids fluttered and she squeezed Donnie's hand.

Scaff called out from his post at the machinegun that he had cleared a space for the woman in the sleeper compartment.

Donnie looked at Crow.

"Let's get her into that truck and get the hell outta here."

Yollie was already moving with the woman as the stronger people on the crew helped lift her.

"It's going to be OK. You are going to be OK."

She smiled as she spoke, genuinely believing that being as comforting as possible was as good of medicine as the balm she had applied.

When Beth was safe and inside the truck, she ran back to the bed and hopped in, keeping her eyes out for the ever-looming threat of "trouble" that everyone seemed to speak of.

Erwin watched as the wrecker came back past him, then swung round to follow it back to town.

As the others were moving the woman on the blanket...

Lucas got inside the wagon to put it into neutral gear,
he got back out and shut the doors, then checked that his straps and chains
were tight before getting back to the Wrecker to lift the wagon.
When he had it far enough up off the ground, he pulled a big screwdriver
out of his tool belt to check his straps one more time.

Glancing at the dead nomad nearby, he then took out some other light chains he had handy for fastening things to the back of the truck. He used them to cinch up the stiffening body onto the wide step area over the Wrecker's massive back bumper.
Lucas took the nomads nylon sack and other loose items that might blow away and shoved them into one of the many tool boxes on the truck.

Lucas looked back and winked at Yollie as he got back into the Wrecker cab.
When the Crow, Christmas, and the others were back in their places he said:
"We's on da road again!... How's da wife doin' back dere?" this as he put the wrecker into gear and got moving out again.

Christmas strode from her post and helped heft Beth into the sleeper with a wiry strength that made her effort breathless. She clambered into the cab, grateful for the way the shutters carved up the sun's onslaught. She checked reflections and then her gun, turning to Lucas when everything seemed accounted for.

"How long you in Highland?" she asked, absently.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:34, Thu 09 July 2015.

After doing what he could to equalize the pressure, Crow assisted the others in getting the patient into the blankets and then moving her to the vehicle so they could get her back to town.

When Yollie started telling her she would be okay, Crow was certainly less certain of the outcome.


"We're ready let's go."

The mighty rig shuddered to life, and its powerful engine pulled the battered old station wagon back onto the road without noticeable effort.  Only Lucas saw the RPMs rise on the dashboard indicator before settling back down as they headed back toward East Highland.

The landscape stayed unchanged, an eternal wasteland of sun, dust and scrub.  Lucas glimpsed some disappointed buzzards in his rear view mirror, but they were the only living things to show an interest the rig and its passengers.

"C'mon Baby, we're almost there now.  Just stay with me," Donnie muttered, as much to himself as to Beth.

Soon the rig and its passengers were among the oilfields, and the shining towers of Fractionation Station #4 came into view off to the south.

Erwin gave a casual wave to the guard at the gate as their little convoy trunded past on theroad, the man was probably wondering why he was driving back and forth here.

Crow continued to work on wounded woman. She was in bad shape, it was not clear if she would pull through.

Glancing up the sky, he hoped to cheat the vultures out of another meal.

Lucas spoke up.  "It occurs ta me dat we come by da Fractionation Station #4 first, an dere is an Alpha Company garrison dere... An dey might have a medic?
Does anybody know?"
Lucas glanced at Christmas and Donnie.

After a moment Scaff called out through one of his firing ports to ask Crow and Yollie also.
This message was last edited by the player at 12:12, Wed 15 July 2015.

Christmas was interrupted mid-shrug by Erwin's crackling voice. She inclined a hand towards the speaker as he cleared everything up. She watched the oil station's outline swell along the horizon. She flipped the dreadful shell she'd picked from the dead man in her hand, disgusted with its construction. She was thinking about the Alpha Crew tourist lead Brattie had given her.

"We're getting rounds outta this, right?"

In reply to Christmas (msg # 53):

"My garage ain't a good place for no hospital room... Too damn many dogs barkin'."
Lucas looked at the others.  "Ask Yollie if shes got a place for da woman?
That Crow guy is new in town I believe, so he aint got a place..."

Christmas watched Donny as she answered Lucas. "I dunno, man. Alpha Crew likes to have medics around, maybe try them? And there's that hock doc who works the Six -- Greg -- but if this guy can't pay up front -- and y'know, I don't see how he could, since we haven't been paid -- then forget it; he won't give a fuck. There's Bakesfield hospital if you want an ok price, I guess. Whatever you're doing, I get off at Travel Stop. I need to be with my rig, getting stuff lined up for my crew. I'll take a dog while I'm there, I guess."

After a moment Lucas told Scaff to yell out of a gunport to the folks in back.

They can see just the upper part of Scaff's blue-eyed freckled face as he peeks out, then the lower part as he yells out:
"HEY? ...LUCAS SEZ DO YOU KNOW A GOOD PLACE TO TAKE THE WOMAN? ..THE GARAGE IS NO GOOD FOR WOUNDED!"

Lucas nodded and winked to Christmas: "You get yer pick of da pups den. ...for comin out here an backin me up. ...jus remember ta let me know if youse hear about some payin work for me?"

"I got that old VW van I crash in set up for a surgery. It will work."  Crow said simply.

While Crow kept to himself unless he was doctoring folks, he did keep an old VW bug among the wrecks in town for sleeping and treating folks.

"I'll let you know," Christmas agreed, smiling as she shielded her eyes from the sun. If the Alpha thing was workable, she'd ask him along.
This message was last edited by the player at 16:12, Sat 18 July 2015.

In reply to Crow (msg # 57):

Lucas glanced back at Crow.  "Oh youse da guy dat da VW van belongs to? ..good ta know."
Then he announced to all:
"Okay dats where we take her den. ...Christmas-girl you get off at da Travel Stop? ...anybody else need ta get off before?"

The truck rumbled past Fractionation Station #4 and through East Highland proper, and then the west gate of the Travel Stop came into view.

To East Highland Hills Travel Stop - Motel 6 Parking Lot

moved.
This message was last edited by the player at 05:43, Tue 21 July 2015.

This message was deleted by the player at 23:43, Mon 20 July 2015.