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[OOM: In which Butch Cassidy and not!Sundance Johnny Hooker have a nice, quiet evening together. Millitimed to whenever it was that Johnny had the flu.]

Back in the present, one scuffed and bruised but amiable cowboy having a drink with a good book over by the fire. It seems to be quieter and safer over there, less chance of a fight breaking out. He's a quick learner, is Butch.

And botherable.

[open until it scrolls]

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And familiar-looking, too. Ellen's spoken with him before, even if only once. After last night's shenanigans all she really wants is to sit down by the fire and not have to think too much about the stables.

Manners are manners, of course, so she waves in his direction. "Evening," she says as she sits down and her dog curls himself up next to the chair. "Hope I'm not intruding on anything."

"Evening," he says with a polite nod, looking up from his book. "I hope you are well? You're not intruding at all; I think I must've read this a dozen times."

There's something to be said for taking refuge and comfort in familiar things, which is what he's doing with his drink and his book.

"Oh, I'm doing all right," Ellen says. "A little sore in places, but doing all right. One of my cattle calved last night, and she needed some help."

She's not entirely sure her right arm's going to forgive her any time soon, but what can you do.

"Ooh." He gives a sympathetic wince.

"I don't really miss having to do that. I mean, you take care of the animals you've got, it's the smart and humane thing to do, but given a choice between that and most other chores, I'd take the other chores. Try some whiskey and a hot bath?"

"Definitely not something I want to repeat, if I can find someone else better skilled back home," Ellen agrees. "At least there were two other people here who were better at helping than me, but... well, I just don't want to repeat it if I don't have to."

She smiles wryly. "That sounds like a good idea, actually. I was too tired afterward to get a drink- all I did was wash off and head to bed."

"Do you have any veterinarians back home?" he asks. "Some things it's better to learn how to do for yourself, but if it's a really touchy situation, I'd rather pay for someone to do it who really knows what they're doing. Otherwise you could lose both the cow and the calf, and while maybe some folks with big herds wouldn't pay no notice to the loss of one cow, if you've only got a few cattle it can take you a long time to make up the loss."

He thinks back with something less than fondness to his days as a ranch hand, staying up all night helping care for sick animals and then being expected to do all his normal chores the next day.

"I keep a few bottles of bourbon up in my room, just in case something like that happens. When you get too tired to deal with anybody else down here, but could use a little nightcap to send you off."

"I think the same doctors usually look after the people and the animals," Ellen says after some thought. "I should probably ask around town when I get back to Megaton. There's bound to be somebody there who knows better. They've had cattle way longer than I have."

She nods. "It makes sense. I tend to forget that kind of thing around here. Back home I usually have a bottle of something in my pack when I'm traveling, although usually that's there in case I have to clean up a wound or something more than for drinking. It helps at night sometimes, though."

"We always looked after our own, since we were so far away from anybody else. Never lost a cow, but we did lose a calf once. But I worked on some big ranches, and they had folks who were trained for it. We just had to help."

It's also messy work.

"We tend to drink instead of take medicine. It burns like medicine, so it's got to be helping, you know? I don't trust all those things they put in those patent medicines. If it's all just alcohol anyway, I'd rather drink it straight."

Yes. She found that out the hard way yesterday. Good Lord is it ever messy.

"There's a lot of chems out there that do more harm than good," Ellen says. "back home, I mean. They'll have effects on you, all right, but they'll burn right through you faster than they'll do anything actually helpful. At least you know where you stand with something like a bottle of Scotch."

It's one thing to use a stimpak to close up a wound or a dose of Rad-Away to clear your system. If you come down with an infectious disease in the Wasteland, you have a much bigger problem.

Butch is from the days of giving opium to babies and cocaine to just about everybody else, all in the name of 'medicine.' Self-medicating with a bottle of Old Taylor is actually one of the healthier things he could do.

"It's easier to get, too. Any town you go to, you'll be able to find some kind of drink, unless it's temperance country or something. Speaking of, want me to buy you a drink? I could use another one, and it sounds like you could use a quiet night."

"Sure, that would be nice," Ellen says. "Thank you. Um. Temperance country? I don't think I recognize the name."

"There's people who don't like alcohol," he says, as he tries to get a waitrat's attention, "and don't seem to think that anybody else should be allowed to like it either. So they form temperance leagues, and in some places they've made it a lot harder, or even illegal, to buy any. Not places I spend much time in."

When the waitrat arrives, he orders another glass of bourbon.

"Huh. And here I thought that places where you had to be a certain age to buy alcohol were strange," Ellen says. "Back home, half the places you go, the alcohol is safer than the water."

That doesn't mean she drinks a lot of it- it's just what she's used to.

"Plain old whiskey like what we get at home is fine, thanks."

[OOC: I'm sorry that took so long, I lost track of my threads tonight. My bad.]

The waitrat scurries off to fetch the drinks.

"They don't care so much about age, back home," he says. "I mean, if a little kid goes into a saloon or something and tries to order hard liquor I doubt they'd be served, but if a guy's old enough to work and he wants beer or cider, nobody pays it much attention."

[ooc: not a problem!]

Ellen nods. "I don't know what would happen if one of the kids in Megaton or Rivet City tried to order anything," she says. "Probably Gob would send them away, but I don't think the woman who runs the Muddy Rudder would care much. It's just a thing to her." She shrugs. "It doesn't really matter, I guess. It just all seems very strange, for people to fuss over that kind of thing."

"There's so many bigger things to fuss over. You make sure a kid's got a decent foundation, a good moral upbringing, and you don't need to worry about them having some cider at a county fair or something. But I feel that way about the temperance people in general; just because they don't trust themselves with a good strong drink doesn't mean nobody else can be trusted with any."

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