//------------------------------// // Journal 4 // Story: The Courier's Journal // by RF and AG //------------------------------// Leaving the Canyon Looking back on my previous entry, I’m amazed I only had a vague idea as to what was going to happen. It actually should have been extremely clear to me, what with all the fetch this and fetch that jobs. They were preparing for something, exodus or war; spilling some blood, or spilling lots of blood. I’ve given into the fact that I’m almost always thrown into situations that call for me to make the final decision. Honestly, I had no idea I would wield such influence or that I would always be asked to make the difficult decisions. Would they haunt me in the end? Maybe, if I let my consciousness get the better of me and given the time to dwell on possible mistakes. Maybe on my slow hike back I would succumb to such guilt, but I doubt it. I made the right choice. Flee the canyon, or finally claim it as part of a united force? The answer should have been clear to Joshua and Daniel a long time ago. To flee would show weakness and allow the White Legs to grow, expand, and threaten. Crush them here, destroy them and make an example that they own the valleys. It sounds cruel, but that is the way of the wasteland. It was … surprisingly less bloody than I thought it would be. A fair amount of White Legs died, while minimal casualties were taken by the Dead Horse and Sorrows tribes. A quick decisive battle, just as I liked it. Joshua and I led the charge mainly, spearheading the group through the Canyon and towards the White Legs camp. A tribe of warriors … nothing compared to what Joshua and I have been through. Swift work was made of any resistance, and only through blocking our initial path, did they stall their inevitable end. We tracked down the leader of the White Legs, a man whose name I didn’t give a rats ass about. Sure it was said many times over, but to me, he didn’t deserve a name. No, he deserved much less than that. You know, it was something to see, a man on his knees and begging for us to let him live. I’ve seen it before, and no doubt Joshua had, but it was another thing to see the hatred that burned in Joshua’s eyes. To see him nearly forgo his beliefs in order to exact revenge, it left a bad feeling in my gut. Bad enough for me to forcibly lower his gun. Why had I lowered his gun and denied his revenge? I can’t even explain what came through me when I did that, it just felt … wrong. When Joshua asked me then and there to explain why I did it, I just bullshitted my way through it. Told him that such a tribe probably held their fighting skills and combat above everything. To deny their leader a death in combat would be just as crippling as killing him. As I said, complete bullshit. We walked away, spared the tribe with only the punishment of exile, and thus bringing peace to the Canyon at last. Finally, in such a beautiful place, one could actually take in the scenery of the area and not be frightened of being killed in the middle of a war. I made sure to leave immediately. No goodbyes or anything before I made my way back to the route I came to Zion from. I don’t need to be tied to another place of death and sorrow. Whatever happens to the natives of Zion is out of my control and past my point of caring. Joshua and Daniel can handle it from there, I would just muddy the water. The trek back to the Mojave is infinitely tougher than the one going to Zion. The lack of others and an actual supply caravan make it tough to go too long without finding a place to stock up along the way. It makes me miss Rex more than a little; that dog’s nose was a godsend. I’m not worried though, I’ve been through worse, and I still have hell to walk through before I can finally rest. I refuse to let the mundane kill me.