Dolly, Estelle, Chalk, and....Silus?

Dolly was in and out during the long journey to Utah.  She was dehydrated most of the time; the desert was particularly unforgiving in the valleys of eastern Nevada, and water was limited.  Still, they pressed on, and she responded with stubborn silence to the man's amiable talk.  He wouldn't answer any serious questions, so she had nothing to say to him, no matter how friendly he seemed.  Dolly was not about to be diplomatic when she was tied like a piece of meat.  Thanks to the hot summer sun and lack of water, she slept most of the day, waking up several times at night to the sounds of the desert and a scratchy blanket around her as she lay on the ground beside the dozing bighorner.  Sometimes her dreams were punctuated with the high-pitched laugh of Vulpes from so long ago.  Sometimes they were echoed with the deeper, meaner laugh of Silus, who she'd met years after leaving Vegas.  And sometimes Josiah joined in with his deep and growling chuckle.  

But no matter whose cruel laugh jolted Dolly from her delerious sleep, the face that stared at her was the same.  The Salt Witch.  An iconic figure to some of the tribals of Utah, as notorious for her powerful nature as Joshua Graham had been to the Legion and their adopted tribals.  The rumors were deep; she was part of an old pre-War religion that involved bathing in blood and eating raw flesh.  Even the 80's, the dangerous territorial tribals who ravaged the Wasatch mountains near Old Salt Lake City, didn't dare venture west out to the Salt Flats where the hag took up residence.  Dolly didn't even know what the woman looked like, though she'd heard rumors.  A big swooping crow or some other war-torn bird, with a cackling laugh and razor sharp fingernails.  Her skin was supposedly stained black from living in the burned ruins of the Salt Palace, making her impossible to spot in the shadows.  Silus had despised the woman, had affirmed all of Dolly's questions about her terrible nature when the younger woman had inquired.  Silus was one of very few ex-Legionaries who had survived the woman's presence, and though he was unpleasant about most things in general, he was particularly unpleasant when speaking of the woman who owned the city.

So, needless to say, Dolly was planning her own eulogy when at last the tall, weathered man with the feathered hat crossed the western rim of Salt Lake City's outskirts and led the Bighorner across the Salt Flats.  From her seat on the animal, Dolly blinked and strained her desert-blinded eyes at the too-white ground, salt mixed with sand, and the brightly reflected Salt Lake beyond it.  She could see the infamous Salt Palace, but there was no sign of the Witch.

"Oh!" Exclaimed her captor, as the Bighorner snorted, his hooves sinking into the wet sand.  "Too damp here, you go on back to the herd now," and he very nonchalantly plucked up Dolly and pulled her to her feet, then shrugged on the heavy pack that the animal had carried.  The furry creature shook, seeming relieved now that its weight had relieved, and it very slowly walked back toward the highway, presumably where more of the grazing animals awaited.  Now the man withdrew a large knife from the inside of his high boot, and cut Dolly's wrists.  She sighed with relief, rubbing the chafed marks on her skin, as he knelt.  

"I wouldn't advise running, but you're too tired anyway, huh."  He smiled, flashing his teeth and taking years off his age.  Dolly found herself blushing behind all the grime despite herself, and then she got enraged that she was blushing at the man who had dragged her away from Boone when Boone needed her the most.  She set her jaw and crossed her arms, narrowing her eyes when the man tossed the leather strips aside and straightened.  "Don't you worry, this is a good thing."

"Kidnapping are usually classified as bad things," Dolly hissed, her eyes narrowing impossibly farther, and a very singsong voice spoke up behind her.

"Wake up child, you're in the Wasteland."

Dolly, stoic Dolly, actually jumped and almost fell into the man, scrambling backward away from what was actually, in reality, there-now-and-not-there-a-moment-ago, THE SALT WITCH.  The man caught Dolly, held her firmly by the shoulders, and said in a light and amused voice, "Easy, I told you."

"What do you want from me?"

"My goodness, you're even more skittish than Joshua's daughter before Benny rearranged her brain."  The woman was not a hag.  She was older, but had aged gracefully and beautifully, and was in fact not covered in soot.  She did wear black robes that billowed out around her, and the comparison to a crow was at least half legitimate--her hair was dark, save for white streaks that ran the length, down her back and around her thighs.  When she held up a hand dismissively, there were no claws, she had dainty, womanly hands.  Now she jingled as she straightened her shoulders.  

"What you've heard about me, I need you to forget, or at least ignore."  She batted her thick dark eyelashes, staring at some western point over the horizon.  "There are more important things at stake."

"Like what?"  Now Dolly was struggling; whether to get away or assault the pair, the man behind her wasn't sure, but he restrained her anyway, curling one of his well-formed biceps around her elbows, pulling her wrists together with one crushingly strong hand.  

"Like, this."  The blackbird of a woman stepped aside and waved, and Dolly followed her gaze and stared across the waste of the city.  In front of the broken buildings and mountainous skyline, the Salt Flats spread for miles.  And camped out directly in the midst of them was a huge blotch of red.  A Legion camp.  A large one.  Drums beat, and the protective ranshackle fence around the area betrayed nothing within except tendrils of smoke.  

"They grow daily," the Salt Witch said.  "They stay in the open to ensure no one can sneak up on them.  Josiah is a good war chief.  They have been sending scouts into the city, kidnapping New Canaanites to use and slaves and warriors alike.  The 80's, the White Legs, have tried to stop them, but like any true war monster, Josiah and his men simply swallow them up and get larger from ingesting them."

Dolly had stopped fighting, but the man still held her tightly.  Licking her dry and bloody cracked lips, she said in a subdued voice, "What do you want me to do about it?"

"Nothing," said a much nastier voice than that of the Salt Witch, and Dolly turned, surprised to see someone she hadn't noticed before while eyeing the Legion camp.  This was a person she actually recognized.  Tall, broad, with a limp and a stoop and a worn out trench coat.  His black hair remained black and long despite years of turmoil and travel.  Had it not been for his nasty snarl and look of discontent with the world, he might have even still been handsome after all these years.  

"Silus!"

"No shit," he answered.  The girl had the misfortune of running into the ex-Centurion on her travels to California, where Silus apparently signed some top-secret treaty with the NCR.  He was very unpleasant to Dolly upon finding out that she was Boone's daughter, but Silus was known to give everyone grief, so she hadn't minded.  At least he didn't try to kill her.  Then he departed California one day, and no one had seen him since.  It was thought that Josiah had the older man killed.  But here he stood, weathered and angry and...Silus.  

"What are you doing here?"

He nodded at the red to the east, tossing a shotgun across one shoulder.  "Trying to get rid of your stupid ass family, the usual."

"I thought you hated the Salt Witch?"

"I'm standing right here, you know."

"I do hate the Salt Bitch," Silus snarled, "But I hate the Legion more."

"I guess that makes sense...." she said reluctantly.  "But I still don't see why you got me...My Dad is the ambassador of the NCR.  He would be way more helpful..."

"My name is Estelle, by the way," the Salt Witch said suddenly.  "You can let her go, Chalk."

The man released his grip, and Dolly turned to stare at him.

"Your name is Chalk?"

He shrugged.  "Would you prefer my New Canaanite name? I changed it when I left my tribe."

Dolly frowned, but before she replied, Silus lamely interrupted, "Am I going to train these assholes or what?"

"Let us go, I will show you the way to our camp."  Chalk, as he was apparently called by Estelle, nodded respectfully to the Salt Witch and Dolly before walking away, toward the low hills to the west. As Dolly moved to follow him, Estelle put a hand on her shoulder.  

"You stay here with me....we need to talk."

Silus curled his lip one last time before following the other man away from the women.  He spat on the salty sand, and Dolly muttered when he was out of earshot, "He's so positively horrible."

"That was pretty tame, for Silus," Estelle noted.  "He didn't even call you a degenerate."