I needed a small break from the other stories, so I started back up on this one. Those who are subscribe to my Patreon will possibly have an idea what this one is going to be about. Although the rest of you have probably already figured it out, too.
Western Wastes
Former Deseret, 2463 ADTabetha Frei stumbled in the coffle, despite the hats that had been given to her and the other captives. That and the regular drinks of water weren’t offered as kindnesses; they were a grudging admission that you can’t sell dead slaves for anybody except the traders even the new bandit gangs found a bit too foul. Well. Most of the bandit gangs. In what used to be the north of Deseret, you could always find somebody who wasn’t too finicky to make a sale.
The captive just behind Tabetha managed to keep her upright long enough for nobody else to fall down, but even that half-fall was enough to get that poor bastard Dallin Hatch running over. “You gotta keep up!” he hissed, trying for vicious and sounding worried. “We’re almost at the stopping place. Just, just do it, alright?”
“There a problem, Dally?” came a lazy-cruel voice from the front of the slave caravan. Rude Jimmy didn’t sound real pissed, just amused. Tabetha hadn’t been captured long (it was for damned sure that she wasn’t going to agree with them that she was a “slave”), but she’d already seen that “amused” wasn’t any less dangerous.
Dallin flushed, his own fading marks from the collar and chains briefly visible on his skin. Tabetha guessed that the boy hadn’t been “promoted” to bandit long. For one thing, he was still a “poor bastard” in Tabetha’s reckoning, and not just a “bastard.” For another: his hands didn’t wander.
“No, sir!” yelled Dallin. “Just making sure they all keep walking! We’ll make ‘em get there on time, sir!” As he turned back, Dallin pulled out his canteen and gave Tabetha a quick drink from it. “You just gotta get through this,” he said. “We all do.”
Right, thought Tabetha. Because this is as bad as it’s going to get.