Christmas glowered behind her shades and pulled a butchered gown from her belt. She wrapped it around her head like a scarf, becoming a cargo cult Audrey Hepburn. The prospect of defending Brattie's character wasn't helping her mood. She shifted her weight and tried to sound calm.

"Everybody's heard it, Carl. Step off."

Lost Hills General Store

23:44, Today: Crow rolled 5 using 1d100. luck.

Crow flipped through the books. Nothing really caught his eye until ...

Yollie looks the man up and down, like an animal measuring up its prey. While she had the smallest modicum of trust for Lucas - in the sense that she was fairly confident he would not try to harm her - she did not know this new man from a hole in the wall.

Might not even be a wife... She thought sardonically.

"I dunno," She said still taking in the man's persona and demeanor. "Suppose I could give it a shot. I have never been fond of letting someone die for no reason." She thought about adding something cynical she had heard the Alpha Company troops say often enough: Ain't nothing in the world is free. But that wasn't her style. Truth be told, if she could help someone in pain, she would.

The small, lithe little hunter stayed put, her legs bent slightly like a snake should she need to move quickly.

"Four questions. Answer them true and answer them quick: Is there a wife? What's her name? How long you been married? How many people you killed before today?"

When she wanted to, Yollie could project her personality to get answers from people. She had to make sure she wasn't walking into a trap and most people were caught off guard by the confidence she could exude.

<60 Charisma, rolled 97; <60 Luck, rolled 25. Thinking one of those could help me get straight answers from him

In reply to Yollie Guevara (msg # 32):

Lucas watches carefully how the guy reacts to and answers Yollies questions.  (Insight: 40)

The man looked from Lucas to Yollie and back to Lucas, his mouth agape.

"Of course there's a wife!  I'm not standing here begging from a stranger because I've been in the sun too long!  Her name's Beth and we've been married for years, and she's dying in my damn car!"

He shook his head and looked at Yollie.  "I don't know how many men I've killed.  I've done my damnedest to kill every man that has come at me.  Some of them died and maybe some of them didn't, but my wife is going to die out there if I can't get her in here!"

He turned to Lucas.

"If she just wants to riddle that's no business of mine, but I'm begging you Mister, if you willing to go, let's go."
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:18, Sun 31 May 2015.

Yollie eyeballed the man, then she looked at Lucas.

She couldn't know if he had been this erratic and passionate upon first meeting Lucas and had to wonder whether this was a genuine response or a reaction to her getting under his skin with questions he didn't want to answer.

Eventually she turns to Lucas and says, "I'll go if you or Dog comes with me."

She turns back to the man needing help. "How far away is Beth and how badly is she hurt?" She hoped using the wife's name would spark an automatic response, hopefully having a calming effect.

The parking lot behind Taco Bell

Lucas almost managed a half smile
"Yollie girl? If youse want to come along i'd be pleased. Might do his woman some good? ..you ride behind with Scaff and keep somethin' sharp pointed at this guy."

"Ain't room for the Dog inside, girl, unless he's learned howta work the guns!"

"I gotta unhitch da trailer an' find somebody ta watch my merch... Dammit...
That boy Scaff better have a damn good burrito for me when he gets out here..."
Lucas kept grumbling as he slung his shotgun over his shoulder, removed the chains and pulled the pins holding the trailer, then added a length of chain to Dog so he could patrol the trailer area.

Yollie nodded, keeping her eyes narrowed on the man with the tale of the wounded wife. She hated being on her guard like this to a stranger who could have a very good need of her, but the stories of her mother and father came back to her.

Gotta be someone out here worth trustin'...

"I can do what I can. Clean and stitch wounds. Have some balms to stop infection. But if she's hurt too bad we are going to need to take her to the Crow."

Yollie walked over to dog and pet his big blocky head. She kneeled down on her haunches, her comfortable cargo pants stretching around an attractive petite frame. Pushing her lower lip out, she blew some hair away that had fallen from the back of her head across her mouth as she dug in her messenger bag.

She pulled out a small tin filled with a whiteish colored cream that had the texture of vaseline. Taking a few of the herbs she gathered earlier, she ripped off the leaves, tearing them into small pieces before dropping them inside. Finding a small rock on the ground she began to grind it up into the balm. Confident she had gotten the "plant-blood" thoroughly worked out, she scraped the rock on the side of the tin, not willing or wanting to be wasteful in any way.


Then she stood and rearranged her bag, sealing it with two leather straps and pulling her bow off her back and notching an arrow.

[OOC: what type of truck does Lucas have again? A tow truck, right?]

Carl looked at Christmas with half-lidded eyes.  He slowly wrapped the chain around his fist, loop after loop.  When the chain no longer dangled, he jerked his chin at Brattie, who slunk down further under his gaze.

"Have it your way, Christmas.  If you want to stick up for her you go right ahead, but she ain't nothing but a coyote on two legs and she'll bring you just as much trouble."

With that he turned to head back to his stand.

Christmas looked down at Brattie and tried to imagine a version of her which made her as angry and evangelically anti-Brattie as Carl was right now. Maybe she'd turned him down, after all.

"Uh huh. Thanks for looking out for me, Carl."

Christmas admired her own rig and waited for the leftover aggression to evaporate before disappearing into the noise of the market. She trudged past tanks of gas and piles of junk, depleted and impervious to the furnace of commerce. The smell of cooking began taunting her. Perhaps it'd be best to approach Alpha Company after eating and unwinding. The sound of dogs led her eyes to a familiar truck. Christmas approached Lucas' rig to find the old man working the trailer's joints and Yollie handling an arrow.

"Hola."

Christmas rolled 54 using 1d100. Insight. (That's what I do, right? In case I pick up on anything between Carl and Brattie)

"Thank you, Mister, thank you," the man said.  He glanced at Yollie.  "With a truck like this, it won't take long at all to get out there.  It's a straight shot, just out West."

He turned and looked in the direction of the oilfields.  "It's past all the pumps, but still in the flatlands.  There's some old fields and wrecked houses by the place where I pulled off the road."

His expression hardened.  "We were coming out from the mountains after doing some trading and we got jumped by some bandits.  They got some dead cow somewhere and put it in the road, then when I went around they came up out of the ground.  They must've had pits dug or something because they just came right up.  They all started shooting with a bunch of crossbows.  They scored me across the back, but they got Beth."

The man fell silent, then turned back to Lucas.  "I didn't know it until I got out of there.  She's always been tough.  I drove out of there until the damn hose blew.  I limped it along until I couldn't go any farther, then pushed it off the road.  I don't know how long she can last."

Yollie walked to Christmas and quickly filled her in on what was happening.

 Christmas was one of the usuals at the Travel Stop and Yollie normally bombarded her with questions from the Road, from Bakersfield, from anywhere outside of East Highland Hills and the Travel Stop.

Now, she was just happy to see a familiar, tough face. Christmas had always treated her well, more like an older sister than a typical adult.

When she was out of ear shot she threw a glance over at the man. "I want to believe he has a wife out there that needs us, someone that we can save, but what if its a trap, Chris? What would you do?"

The man fell silent, then turned back to Lucas.  "I didn't know it until I got out of there.  She's always been tough.  I drove out of there until the damn hose blew.  I limped it along until I couldn't go any farther, then pushed it off the road.  I don't know how long she can last."

Lucas nodded at the man while looking toward the Taco Bell, from which his man Scaff was finally returning...

Then he looked over at Yollie talking to Christmas and came over with a cagy smile showing his brown stained teeth.

"If youse bored... sittin' aroun' here Christmas girl?
Come on along! Another gun is always a good thing.
Won't take much fuel... Just an hour maybe?"

Christmas tuned out the pup yips and listened with growing interest, sucking her teeth. She looked the man over, shedding her glasses to meet Yollie's eyes, uncertainty on her face.

"Ugh. Most places? Tell him sorry, probably. It's cold, but out there... yeah. Here..." The shades went up and her expression became stoney again.

She picked grit from her tanktop as Lucas asked her along. She felt as though she should be helping her crew instead of some stranger's wife, but something about the situation made walking away feel too heartless. She sighed and turned to Lucas.

"You think the bullets are real?"
This message was last edited by the player at 04:04, Mon 01 June 2015.

In reply to Crow (msg # 31):



The crates of books contained mostly convenience store paperbacks, magazines, some hardbound fiction, and a few orphaned encyclopedia volumes.  One magazine was thicker than the others.  It was the 2008 omnibus edition of High Times.  In the center was a thick special feature about the legalization of marijuana in California.  It featured a glossy photoshoot of a growing facility in Ventura, California.

"Our farm is totally indoors, totally organic and of course non-GMO.  We source locally, and we completely avoid artificial fertilizers since our grow-barns are completely aeroponic.  Now with the state legislature finally getting on board, we can supply the pharmaceutical-grade hemp that so many people need.  It's really about the spirit of California.  We're a West Coast business helping people; we grow hemp and have lunch on the beach every day.  You don't have that on the East Coast."

General Store

Crow looked over the magazines, perhaps there might still be some tech there to assist with growing hemp, or even other plants.

Only one the one magazine seemed interesting, but that was never a wide way to bargain. So he picked two others and asked the shopkeeper "What do you want for these?"

00:24, Today: Crow rolled 79 using 1d100. bargain 40.
This message was last edited by the player at 07:39, Mon 01 June 2015.

Behind the Taco Bell Parking Lot

Yollie looked at Christmas, notcing how tired the Road-Woman looked since the last time she had seen her. Something must have gone down out on the Road and Yollie was practically chomping at the bit to ask about it, using every bit of her self-control to resist knowing that the current situation was much more dire.

Either they were about to be led into a trap in which things would be bad, or they were about to tend to a hurt and potentially dying woman in which things would be bad. A small part of her wished the Crow was around, but another part of her wished he wouldn't come along. She knew she was no healer. She knew what healers would call "tricks of the wild" to survive and stay healthy, but she was smart and learning came very naturally to her. It was a battle between the need to prove her worth and the want to learn more by watching the Crow.

"You don't have any bullets?" She whispered softly to Christmas.

Yollie was no slouch when it came to firearms. No one could really afford to be being raised where she had. She just happened to prefer the silence, skill and sustainability of Kindness, her longbow.

"If we are moving out through E.H.H. we could stop by my place and I can grab my dad's shotgun for you, just for this thing we gotta do." Truth be told, she had no idea if her family would go for it and she would probably have to lie that she needed it for this or that. Also, she did have to drop that rabbit off anyway...

Uncaring, I started the game with pretty good firearms skills with a shottie, but we never bolted down whether or not Yollie had one. I figured it wouldn't be out of the realm of possibility that its actually her family's or the town's weapons she's practiced with.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:52, Mon 01 June 2015.

Christmas eyed the surrounding lot and gave a curt headshake when asked about ammo. Her brow arched with worry as soon as Yollie mentioned her father's gun. She nodded gratitude, but hunched to whisper back, sounding as though her eyes were wider.

"Yollie... when things like this happen, the best that's gonna come out of it for you is this guy thanking you with maybe some of whatever they promised up front. Maybe some crumbs or whatever. Lupe says her mom met her dad that way, but I don't think that's in play today..." Christmas glanced over at the man whose wife needed help. She saw no need to speak on the other outcomes and deliberated over what she really wanted to say.

"And the worst? I'm not an idiot, Chris. I know how bad things can be."

While it was true that Yollie was not an idiot in any sense of the word, she did not have a clue the realities of how bad it could and was outside of her relatively safe home.

Christmas raised plaintive hands before loosening her stance. She tried to sound less condescending.

"It doesn't matter if you know the worst. I just have to know why you have enough faith in this man's sad story to risk your folks burying you, all 'that's why you don't leave our lame ass town' to their other kids."

Yollie considered the experienced woman's words. Thinking for a few seconds before actually responding.

"Same reason I wouldn't leave you out dyin' I suppose. Someone needs help, we help them round here."

It seemed like the most obvious, simple answer in the entire world.

"I never had nobody I loved, you know, like loved-loved. I love my mom and dad, sure. But I never had anybody I was in-love with. I suppose if I did, I would risk life and limb for them. No matter what."

Yollie risked a furtive smile, thinking about the possibilities of falling in love - something she had only read about in the various books she was able to get her hands on. It all sounded so wonderful, so it behooved her to feel some empathy for the man's plight.

The man who had brought down the crates for him came over to Crow.  He shrugged.

"What do you got?  Are you a hunter?  I'll give it to you for a couple of fresh-killed rabbits."

General Store

"My name's Crow .. I'm a Doc. But I can get you some rabbits if you don't have a need for my other skills." Crow replied. Heck he could always snare for rabbits.

In reply to Crow (msg # 52):

General Store

"A doc, huh?" the man replied. "There isn't anybody sick right now, but I can put that magazine down in the bottom of the crate until you get some goods."

General Store

"World is a hard place. Everyone will need a Doc some day. How bout you put 'em in the back for a few days."

"I'll be back." Crow said already thinking of the nearest place he could snare some rabbits.

Picking up his rifle, Crow headed out with the plan to go lay some snares. Figuring the closets spot was to the north, Johnny prepared for a long walk unless he could fins someone heading that way and catch a ride.

19:10, Today: Crow rolled 65 using 1d100. find some bunnies 62.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:47, Tue 02 June 2015.