Dots in a Line
[Time Skip: Year 2]
Dust rises into the air as I throw my gear onto the back of the next caravan. It’s been 2 years since I left Falkenstein Castle and Ramguard, ventured to Crystal Creek, then came back to ride the Black Diamond Trading Company caravan routes and map them all out. You wouldn’t think it would take that long to draw some stupid dots on a map, but people keep moving, places keep changing, especially due to the destruction of our biggest trade center, waves of radiation, increased raider activity, and the ever ubiquitous zed. Especially at first. They seem to be settling down a bit more, now, and the dots are more frequently staying put than not.
I’m starting to get tired of the travel. Sometimes the miles yawn on before me in a desolate landscape of nothing much and it’s hard to keep my eyes on the road. Sometimes, too, we travel at night, and I have to go back over the same stretch of road more than once to make sure I got the entire trip marked out properly, because I’m shit at reading most of the stars so far, and sometimes radiation clouds block them from view anyhow. I do most of my measuring by how far a tank of fuel will get us and there’s always a bit of adjustment on a new caravan, a new ride. If I’m lucky, there’s a handy DJ driving to help me understand the quirks and personality of the vehicle, if I’m not, then I’m stuck taking a couple trips to get myself calibrated.
Most of the caravans go over the same smaller leg of the route, back and forth, because it’s safer that way. Smaller trips mean the road is more familiar and more frequently traveled. Easier to tell when something is wrong, when things ain’t as they should be. But Ezra and I wanted to see what the bigger picture looked like, with all the little pieces put together. So here I am 2 years later, printer turned cartographer, trying to determine if that next lump of dirt is big enough to be a hill, or if it’s a dune, or hell sometimes even just a damned mirage. Regardless of how I know it sounds, I don’t regret the time spent. I’ve gotten to see a bunch of places, watch as settlements appear and begin to flourish, and met a hell of a lot of people along the way. There’s some interesting folks out there. I sure do miss having a newspaper and a solid place to rest my hat, though. Maybe sometime soon. Next stop is Bravado and maybe some time off the road.
