Christmas soon lost the words being exchanged between Rattler’s crew and the Alpha Company soldiers in the roar of the vehicles coming from the transient camp.   She didn’t hear any shots, so the vagabonds and wasteland trash weren’t putting up a fight.

The Motel Six was as Christmas remembered.  Faded doors scavenged from dozens of ruins punctuated walls of bullet-pocked cinderblock, while plywood and corrugated steel blocked the glassless windows.  Despite its dilapidated exterior, the motel was well-fortified.  Bricks and chunks of concrete stacked behind the second story railings formed effective fighting positions covering every direction.  A similar barrier enclosed the pool area and the entrance to the office.  The pool area was the social center of the Six, where road warriors and hard-bitten scavengers haggled over loot by day and caroused by night.  The pool itself had long been covered over with steel beams and concrete slabs; it served now as cramped storeroom for much of the motel’s trade goods.   It was doubtless that hard eyes already watched her as she made her way from the street to the motel’s parking lot.

Most doors were open to some degree while others were tightly closed, and this told Christmas much about what was happening at the Six.  Business was good, that was for sure.  Two doors gaped open on the west side of the makeshift courtyard next to the pool area, where there were usually one or none.   Christmas wasn’t welcome near those rooms.  They were where the guy who ran the Six let desperate women ply their trade.  A few of them were fairly permanent, but there were a few new faces whenever Christmas visited the Six.  Sometimes the new women were young, sometimes less so, but they all had the look of desperation, fear, or both.  The faces of the regulars could hold hardened resignation or a tired welcome, but for Christmas there was only cold malice behind carefully neutral expressions.     Christmas was a road warrior, the cock of the walk just like the men.  She was also competition and they hated her for it.

While two open doors on the west side told her business was good, the closed door at the inside corner told her that Greg the Butcher Medic wasn’t plying his grisly trade.
The parking lot in front of the courtyard was more crowded than Christmas had seen it in quite a few summers.

Christmas strode easily through the Six parking lot towards the pool area, shedding her leather and leaning against the barrier upon striking shade. Most of her tattoos were crude little things from childhood that now decorated longer, sinewy limbs. Things like the boys' names she'd commissioned, either to punish Christmas the Elder or distract her from a guy; but there was also the one on her shoulder, which said 'Hola!' under a smiley face, just like Christmas the Elder had. She peered at the lot's vehicles through her shades, and then into the pool area looking for anybody Brattie had mentioned, avoiding the western doors. Christmas wanted no trouble with the tradeswoman, but had no time for their understandable resentment, nor confidence that she could warn them off before adding a cracked jaw to their misery.
This message was last edited by the player at 10:54, Tue 01 Mar 2016.

The heat of the day made the road warriors rigs shimmer on the dust covered asphalt.  The Six’s parking lot had more parked on its cracked tarmac than usual, but not more than Christmas had seen before.  Most times there were one or two, sometimes even three when a couple of crews worked together to pull of a big job.  Now there were eight, not including Rattler’s rig, which was still stuck in the traffic jam with Alpha Company’s Headhunters.
There was Hog’s big towing rig, like Brattie said.  Its flaking paint was a mixture of mottled browns and tans, except for its towing cable, which Hog kept clean and shining.  Tarp-covered bundles and nets filled with camping gear lay in the cargo bed next to the crane, and the dual rear tires still had chains on them; he’d been in the dirt, that was certain, but doing what it was impossible to tell.  Sunlight glinted off the thick steel towing hook where the rust had been chipped away.  Whatever the Hog had been doing, he’d found something in the wasteland.  A red and white checkered cloth hung limply in the cab, protecting the interior from the dust and sun.  Whatever the Hog had been doing, he hadn’t lost Reyna.

Hog's hook stalled Christmas' approach as the glint hit her eye. She shifted out of the shade and squeezed the bullet-sack on her hip like a stress bag, restless with envy. She assumed Hog and Reyna had found payday out in the dust, where Team Christmas had found only battle. The Alpha Crew gig seemed more and more like a lifeline as her gaze swept the rigs of the competition. Her own crew hadn't taken casualties along the last circuit, but it'd been a wash in each other regard. She'd blow off steam - perhaps even find somebody to replace Crem - then reassess the Alpha Company lead.

Christmas pushed out a sigh and the faint scowl she'd worn since surviving the firefight became feline nonchalance. The tarmac began to burn her feet and Road Warrioress strode briskly towards the pool, peeping over its ramshackle barrier. She cast a sour glance towards the tradeswomen's doors, all out of sympathy. She ran a hand through almost-dry hair and entered the court without announcement; only a pulse of a smile ready for the best looking guy present. She would orbit Wrecking Crew if they were around, keeping an eye out for Hog and Reyna.

A long-bodied battle-scarred muscle car rested next to Hog’s rig.  Welded pipes formed makeshift armor girdling the rusted steel body.  It belonged to the Brothers, Christmas knew, and rumor had it that this veteran war rig was theirs from before the war.  Painted in glaring white on the ersatz armor plating was their slogan, and probably the only words they knew how to write:

“Mess With The Best
 Die Like The Rest”

Elias was the eldest of the Brothers, and he was the substitute father who had kept his siblings alive through the time of gangs and famine.  Stan was the second-oldest, and he was the calm right hand  that Elias needed constantly during those terrible years.  Stan was a cold man who said little and heard everything.  He kept a leather-handled prewar military knife close at hand, and the times Christmas met the Brothers he never looked at her the way the others did.  The two youngest were Colt and Eddie, and they didn’t care who was the older of them.  Colt had a temper and Eddie was quick with his chain-wrapped fist; together they had started and ended more brawls than they had a right to survive.  The Brothers lived  almost as one man.  The disputes which arose between them quickly died away in the instinctive manner of a pack of wolves, and they fought with the same uncanny coordination.  Now and then a woman rode with them into the wasteland; Christmas knew of one who founded a homestead outside Bakersfield with the loot the Brothers gave her.  A mountain girl with tawny hair and a sharp tongue wasn’t so fortunate; Christmas had heard she had to hitchhike back to the Travel Stop after the Brothers threw her off the rig in Buttonwillow.

Bulletholes and impact smears peppered the armored girdle and the old prewar body, but the dirt on the rig prevented Christmas from seeing if there were any blood to go with them.   Faded field baggage hung in tatters from the roll cage.  Whoever the Brothers tangled with in the sunscorched outlands had almost torn their precious rig to pieces.  Notably absent was their other rig, a cargo-hauling heavy pickup with a good dependable winch on the bull bars.  The two rigs had worked in tandem, one protecting the other.  Now that pickup and its winch were most likely a picked over wreck somewhere Out There.
This message was last edited by the GM at 05:55, Mon 01 Aug 2016.

No one challenged Christmas as she approached the poolside gate.  She was doubtlessly watched since she turned into the parking lot, and like the other road warriors she was known to the Six.  Loco Tony ran the Six.  He was the son of a big wheel in East Highland Hills, and any creature of the wheel who made an enemy of Tony would find himself overcharged at the Travel Stop’s merchants and tagged as a troublemaker in the eyes of Alpha Company.  The steel gate to the poolside lounge swung open without a sound as Christmas approached.  That gate was possibly the best oiled thing in the Six, outside of the guns and the working girls.  Squeaky doors and careless slamming had provoked gunfights in the past, and Loco Tony, who ran the Six, preferred to keep all the doors oiled so his customers get some decent sleep.  Road warriors were quick to anger even at the best of times, and Loco Tony had an interest in keeping his customers in as good a humor as could be expected.

The man opening the gate for Christmas was always a curious sight.  His name was Romero.  His wrinkled skin was leathery from countless years in the sun, but his hair was shockingly white.  He wore a handlebar moustache above a full goatee, and his arms were sleeved in long-faded tattoos.  Romero wore his usual dungarees held up by suspenders of braided twine.  He held the gate open for Christmas with his left hand, while his right rested on the butt of a sawed-off 12 gauge shoved in a buckskin holster.  The old man rarely ever spoke, but this time he did.  He gave Christmas a knowing nod and jerked his chin at the darkened doorway which led to the motel’s lobby.

“Chri-ma.  Vamos.  They  wait for you.”

Christmas sauntered over the threshold, shading her eyes with a wry little smile as she spoke half of the brothers' slogan under her breath. Was the road getting rougher? The last run and the brothers' missing rig said maybe, but the bigger concern was the mood here and now, of four brothers (was it still four?) at the Six. Surprised to hear Romero's voice, she fixed her attention upon the dimmed doorway and nodded. Sometimes she wondered how the olds like Romero ranked her against her mother, though she never brought up things like that. "Gracias, Rome." Christmas toyed with the twist of wire fastening her bulletsack and headed on into the lobby, humming a tune from mom's CD.

"Bull-Shit!"

The semi-articulate battlecry greeted Christmas as she stepped into the gloom of the Six's lobby.  Her boots tapped on the smooth tile floor instead of crunching the way they did in the dirt and the dust.  It was a uncanny reminder of a vanished world that the walls of the Six remembered better than the human beings who lived and died within them.

The shouted exclamation came from Chet the Dog.  Chet loved dogs, because they were loyal and obedient companions just like him, except for the loyal and obedient part.  Chet also loved dogs because they grilled well and their skins made a supple leather.  Chet was arguably the Wrecking Crew's best wheelman.  He always bragged that he drove through all the terrain the wasteland had to offer and never got a vehicle stuck.  That's what he said anyway, and the rest of the Crew backed him up on it.  He was a good knifeman too, but the scars on his arms and torso proved that it took him longer to learn that skill than his driving prowess.

While he had never gotten a rig stuck, he was now stuck in a staredown with Hog.  The two men faced each other at arm's length.  Chet's hand clenched and relaxed, eager for the hilt of his knife.  Hog stood stock still looking down at Chet, his knobby callused hands hanging at his sides.  His expression was inscrutable behind his long tangled beard.

"Why don't you just simmer down there, Chet." His voice was smooth and calm.  "You and your boys left that rig for dead, and you know it's finders-keepers out on the Road.  I don't see why you're so barkin' mad."

The small lobby was crowded with road warriors, their eyes fixed on the confrontation between Chet and Hog.  The rest of the Wrecking Crew were there, crowding the former breakfast area.  Most of them were still lounging on the old chairs or leaning against what empty wall space they could find.  Jackdaw still ran the Wrecking Crew.  He sat on an old plastic bench in his usual stiff-backed way, sipping from a plastic bottle and watching his man intently. Reyna looked from Hog to Chet, her lips set in a grim line.  She would draw and fire in an instant if Chet threatened her man.  The Brothers leaned quietly against the old front desk, their hands resting casually by their pistols.  Colt fidgeted, glancing at Elias every few moments.  Elias motioned him to silence, then shrugged away from the topless girl massaging the knots out of his shoulders.  The room stank of charcoal and the cloying scent of local homegrown, with the stink of rank perspiration beneath it all. A grill made from a 55-gallon drum cut lengthwise added the rich smell of cooking meat to the air. The grill was piled with shishkebabs, and behind the grill, leaning against the wall with his cowboy hat cocked back on his head, was Ten-Gun Brad.  He took a long drag on a thick blunt and exhaled a long plume of smoke.

"You snooze you lose, asshole," he began.  "Why don't you just shut the fuck up, Chet."

Chet's mouth worked furiously, but anything he was about to say was interrupted by the soft gurgling of a bong.  A pale scrawny woman in road leathers sprawled on a battered couch, sucking down a hit of homegrown.  She held the bong out to Ten-Gun, but he had a blunt in one hand and the butt of his pistol in the other, so she set the bong on the cushions and brushed her lank black hair from her face.  She leaned forward to put the burning stick back in the grill, and caught sight of Christmas.  She smirked and picked up a shishkebab and held it out to Christmas.

"Hey Christmas.  Want some meat?"

It was Sick Peejay, Finder of Lost Holes as she called herself, back from wherever she went to do whatever she did.  She grinned with her too-prominent lips, somehow unsettling on her emaciated face.  Her nose was prominent too, and she would occasionally murmur about men hiding in their dens in the rocks and all she needed to do to find them was follow her nose.  She also claimed she could do something she called dowsing, but no one knew what that was so no one cared to challenge her on it.  Truth be told, no one cared about anything Peejay said.  They just cared about the salvage she brought in, and they asked precious few questions about how she acquired it.
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:51, Mon 10 Oct 2016.

Trust road-people to make anyplace smell like the end of a long ride, Christmas thought, dabbing her damp hair as she recalled husk hanging from Hog's rig. Lazy, lidded eyes went from Chet to Hog to Reyna to the cluster of Wreck Crew by the tables. The tension slowed her step, but what was mostly on Christmas' mind was the question of how she'd handle herself in Hog's place. It seemed like leaders should be able to talk trouble down. She found her mind wandering back to the last gun battle as Brad called out Chet. Christmas drifted near to him, ready to draw but not really expecting it to come to that.

She looked down at Peejay, accepting the stick without hesitation; she'd grown up on rat, after all. "Thanks, Peej." Christmas sat next to the thinner woman and plucked off a chunk with her teeth, eating with quiet efficiency. Christmas watched the Brothers, offering them an absent wave as she settled next to Peejay. They'd been missing a rig - perhaps there was opportunity. She rested her boots next to Brad, stretched and dangled her unusual shades before Peejay. "You hear about our little battle?"
This message was last edited by the player at 23:39, Mon 09 Jan 2017.

Peejay's smirk crept into a grin when Christmas took the offered shishkebab.  She picked another skewer of roasted meat from grill and grimaced at the heat coming through her worn leather driving glove.  Peejay settled back into the old threadbare couch and her leather-booted foot rested on Christmas' own with a pressure that couldn't have been accidental.  She leaned over on the couch until her shoulder rested against Christmas'.

Peejay held up her shishkebab in a languid half-salute and pulled a chunk of meat off the end.  She chewed and smiled, savoring the taste, but when she swallowed her smile disappeared and her eyes flicked toward the confrontation between Hog and Chet. She tapped the tip of her shishkebab skewer.  The skewer was sharp pre-war steel, like the one she had just handed Christmas.

"Chet's dumber than the last time I saw him," she murmured.  "There's eight of his bunch in here and another five in the travelers' lot, watching the cars and playing with some homesteader girl-trash they picked up somewhere.  Jackdaw needs to put a stop to this shit, because this grill won't stop a damn BB pellet if this mob cuts loose."

Peejay made a visible effort to relax then let herself notice the shades Christmas was dangling.  She raised an eyebrow.

"You been in a dust-up?  Is that were you got those?  You know nobody ever talks to me unless they want something."

Ten Gun snorted and flicked the ashes of his blunt at Peejay.  Of all Peejay's questionable assertions, her implication of ignorance was among the most laughable.  She was known to lurk silently with a blunt and a bottle on the fringes of any gathering she happened to be a part of, hearing everything and saying nothing.

Christmas angled the shades until she saw a little glimpse of Jackdaw, sighing the Spanish prayer she'd blurted out right before she'd stained the stems with their owner's brains. She felt Peejay's bones against hers, reluctantly accepting them as the price of the shish kebab she devoured. Christmas glanced Ten-gun's way, brows quirking. It wasn't like she couldn't tell Peejay to fuck off, but Christmas was having a soft day between Bratty and Donny and this. She swallowed another chunk of kebab, peering again at Chet before turning back to Peejay and Ten-Gun.

"...reeeal long one. Some dumbfuck Norths tailed us down half the 5 in this - I donno - husk truck, bones n' engine? But it was torched when we'd settled it - long and bodycounty. All of us live, but only these are our spoils."  She huffed for effect and looked to Ten-Gun to check if he was listening. "Then I took us here two days with just these." Christmas opened her hand, revealing the three nine millimetre bullets left over from the firefight, looked to Ten-Gun in case he'd paid any attention. She knew she wasn't a captivating storyteler, but she'd survived something improbable and wanted  to make some of her name her own - even if what had happened wasn't the most exemplary road warring. "I donno why they thought we were worth it." She dumped the rounds into the sack with the others and searched for Chet's reflection again.

A shudder ran through Peejay.  She jerked herself upright then glanced back at Christmas.

"Don't say that!" she hissed.  She looked back at the confrontation between Chet and Hog, her jaw clenched.

"Never say that."

In the brief moments Christmas and Peejay had their murmured conversation, Chet had taken red-faced exception to Ten-Gun's terse assessment of his claim to the wreck.

"Stay the fuck out of this, asshole!" Chet yelled back at Ten-Gun.  A trace of froth bubbled on his lips.  "I'll chase you down in that shit rig of yours, rip you up and stake you out!"

Chet glared at Ten-Gun with a rage in his eye crazy enough to send a diamondback rattler down a hole.  Ten-Gun's face settled into a grim mask, cold as broken concrete in the dark of a desert night.  The blunt dropped from his fingers.

"You done fucked up, Chet."

A rustle of subtle movement passed through the old lobby like an invisible wave as hands gripped weapons and bodies shifted.  The topless girl who had been massaging Elias' shoulders silently disappeared into the darkened office behind the counter.

Hog's mouth twisted into a smile.


Jackdaw planted a clawlike hand on the brawny shoulder of Coyote, his right hand man.  He heaved himself to his feet.

"Chet!"

Chet shot a glance at his leader, the rage still in eyes.

At that moment the door to the lobby swung open and six men pushed their way into the crowded room.  Leading them was a broad-shouldered figure silhouetted against the sunlight pouring in through the doorframe.

It was Rattler.
This message was last edited by the GM at 20:00, Fri 27 Jan 2017.

Christmas rolled her eyes at Peejay's hissing, only to twist when Ten-Gun's blunt dropped. Her tarnished 9mm was out of the rig on the back of her hip, trained on Chet. She lounged low against Peejay, yanking her admirer down where the potential deluge of lead might not shred them.

When Jackdaw asserted his authority, Christmas reached for the dropped blunt with her free hand. She wondered if she'd ever have a big crew. Somehow she couldn't picture herself keeping such a mob in line. It wasn't as though the road was entirely post-gender; for every Christmas, Lena and Peejay there was a Six full of topless masseuse puta. Christmas the Elder had sometimes ranted about her place on the road and the measures taken to be her own woman. Christmas the Younger wondered how much she was spared by mom's name and the sudden violence it promised - then how much of her own violence it would be attached to.

The focus in her eyes gave way to puzzlement as new boots filled the doorway. She relaxed her gun arm and glanced at Peejay before training her gaze back on Rattler and his crew.
This message was last edited by the player at 11:52, Fri 27 Jan 2017.