<<UserID:Webb>> Huh. Looks like the recorder switched itself on again during the fight. Maybe I should download a copy for the locals to play for their grandkids.
*Chuckles.*
Anyhow, with the town as prepped as it was going to get, I went to let Ringo know. Just then, Sunny showed up to let us know the gangers had been spotted heading towards Goodsprings. Trudy and the militia were already in position behind wagon barricades by Route 15. The Powder Gangers were approaching from the southwest, driving some bighorners before them as a distraction, but Easy Pete set off some dynamite which turned the stampede right around and back into the gangers.
We charged into the mill of the bighorners and opened fire, cutting down the ‘gangers as they tried to regroup. Cobb was the last to fall. He turned and ran amid the chaos, and Ringo gunned him down just beneath the town’s windmill.
Mitchell and I saw to the wounded -- not too bad, all things considered. Trudy had taken a grazing across the forehead, more burn than wound, and one of the townsfolk had been shot in the thigh, but the round had passed cleanly through. The worst wounded, sadly, was Sunny’s faithful dog Cheyenne. She had charged right into the ‘Gangers and leapt at the first one she could reach, tearing into his arm, but the man had a cleaver and brought it down hard into Cheyenne’s shoulder before Sunny could shoot the scum through the neck.
I’m no veterinarian, but I did the best I could: shaved the area, cleaned up the cut -- which went all the way to the bone -- then put in as much antibacterial salve as we could spare, placed a makeshift drain made from some tubing we scored from Chet, and stitched it up. Sunny promised she’d keep the old girl resting and stop her from scratching or chewing at the drain. Brave little thing. I’ll be sure to bring her a treat the next time I’m in town.
After the doctoring was done, we stripped the bodies for anything useful -- may as well get something productive out of this mess -- then dragged them up to the graveyard for a quick burial.
Victor, curiously enough, had been a no-show at the fight, despite his enthusiasm when I had first asked him. When I went down to his shack to see what happened, he claimed he had no idea that the skirmish had already happened and said he must have “dozed off”. Sounded to me like his memory modules might be getting corrupted, so I offered to take a rummage in his innards. To my surprise, he consented. Everything looked fine, so I ran a diagnostic on his terminal logs and found that the last entry was some sort of remote over-ride. Victor hemmed and hawed that this was impossible, but I think he seemed worried... at least, as much as a TV on wheels can be worried.
Ringo, when all was said and done, gave me some caps in gratitude -- guess I didn’t win every last one off him in Caravan after all -- and told me to drop in on him at the Crimson Caravan station up in New Vegas when I made it there so he could thank me properly.
For now, I’d better be moving on. Seems like I’ve squared up any debts, and Checkers and his cronies aren’t likely to be sitting around waiting for me to catch them. Maybe I’ll just head straight north to New Vegas -- try to cut them off at the pass, so to speak.
I’ll spend one last night in Goodsprings, though. Trudy says bottles of the local brew are on the house for milita members tonight, and that’s the sort of deal I’m not going to turn down.
//Recording Ends//
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