scurlock | oom: amarillo, tx

"I can curl up in there," he smirks. "I'll promise not to shed, even."

"All right," he says. He climbs up off the stool and holds the bag open to that Yrael can hop in and get settled.

(Ooh, wool socks.)

Ooooh, indeed.

"It's not exactly dignified, but I doubt I know anyone in," he checks the map again, "Amarillo, so I don't mind."

He settles in among the laundry, turning about once before curling up. Oooh, warm.

"I won't go mentionin' the how we got you out there to just anyone," he promises, before he picks up the bag and slips the strap over his shoulder.

He barely notices the extra weight from the cat.

True to his word, the door opens up into a cafe, and as soon as he steps outside the cafe it's obvious that there is a temperature change.

Mmm, Texas in late July. Nothing quite like the midwest.

He makes brief conversation with the man running the stables, and they have to wait a moment for someone to saddle his horse. But soon enough he's set, with reins in hand and bag on his lap, moving out onto the dusty street.

He flips the bag open so Yrael can poke his head out and see.

The material of the bag is tough enough that Yrael can dig his claws in to keep his balance and not be moved about too much. Once the bag is open, the white not'cat pokes his head out quite as though he's done this sort of thing before, quickly shaking his head once, before looking around. The sun and blazing heat and new place are lovely in combination, he feels. Green eyes peer this way and that, taking in buildings and people and horses with equal interest.

As well as having ridden in bags before, he's certainly had to hide what he is before, and knows how to talk while keeping his mouth movements to a minimum. "It seems all very new," he murmurs, watching a couple of children play in the shade of one of the buildings.

"Towns are springing up all over," he agrees. "And bigger towns like this, they keep the paint fresh and the hammers swingin', always bringing folk in."

It's a fairly busy day, today, in Amarillo. Women in bustling skirts moving down the boardwalk, men standing outside saloons and eating houses smoking cigarettes and talking, horses tied to rails up and down the street.

Doc tips his hat at people as they pass, smirking at the occasional raised eyebrow he gets at having a white cat's head peeking out of his bag, alert green eyes taking in the scene.

(He could really care less. He's leaving in a few days anyway.)

"This is the main drag," he adds, keeping the horse to a steady walking pace. There's an occasional wagon to sidestep or horse to navigate around, and he's in no rush.

Yrael's gaze is momentarily caught by a dog.

The dog is the first to break eye-contact.

Yrael sniffs at the air, taking in the scents of wood and sweat, horses and tobacco, dust and leather, cattle and cooking food. "It looks to be booming, indeed. People are moving in? Many of them smell of cattle."

And other things, but the smell of cattle is... pretty prevalent.

"They're bringing the cattle into town," he agrees. "Moving them along to the railroads to ship them back east. The ranches are huge, outside of town. Goodnight owns the biggest one, if I'm not mistaken."

Once they make their way out of the shops and offices, and towards the stockyards, the smell of cattle will become even more prevalent.

Doc's used to it, though he doesn't have a cat's scenting abilities.

Oh, he notices it, definitely. But he will not mention it.

"I do not think I have ever seen land so very flat, ever. So very little to cast shadow, beyond the buildings themselves." He bets that those sun-warmed rocks get very sun-warmed over the course of a day.

He points off to the south-east.

"New Orleans is that way. Next state over."

He leads them on down the road, and eventually they get clear of the buildings and to the outskirts of down. There's a beaten dirt track leading west, earth pounded solid by hooves and wagon wheels, and another leading north, desert scrub as far as the eye can see.

There is a slight breeze, that is now blowing the ever-prevalent scent of cattle away from them.

Charter bless slight breezes from non-cattle-oriented directions. Yrael sniffs the wilder scent of the breeze. "Mmmm." There is very little human in it, at least in that which comes from out in the desert, past the last lingering buildings of the human settlement.

"What way do you go, today?"

"Well, eventually, I'm probably going to head west to Vegas," he says. "In New Mexico. Then track north from there, up on to Denver."

A smile.

"But today, I know that if we want to find us some rocks, we're gonna have to find us some place where there are rocks," he says. "There should be a dry riverbed off that way," he points between the two roads, horse at a stop. "You want to stay in the bag or haul up and hang onto my shoulder?"

Shoulder = more sun exposure, after all.

"I feel that I would be able to see more from your shoulder than from here," he says, slipping easily out of the bag to balance upon the saddle.

The cat, being out of the bag, has no trouble getting himself up onto Doc's shoulders. He lies with claws hooked lightly into the fabric of Doc's vest for balance, looking this way and that as he sniffs the hot desert air. His tail may brush against Doc's arm, occasionally, as it twitches.

"The air here smells so different. Everything is different. Oh, there are similarities to things I have seen before, but this is still completely new to me. I may get down and walk, eventually."

"How far is it to Denver, the way you are going?"

"About a week and a half to two weeks on horseback," he says. "Going to Vegas will add a few days, and I intend to spend a few extra days in the area, so hopefully I'll be in Denver by the end of August."

Doc glances up at the cat, now that he's out of the bag.

"Y'just let me know if you want to get down and walk," he says. "Won't be a problem at all."

Hell, Yrael could probably leap down just fine, even if it is a bit of a drop to the sand below. Doc adjusts the bag so that the pouch is at his side, rather than at his lap, now that he doesn't need to keep the cat balanced on the center of the horse.

"Just gonna pick us up into a bit of a canter," he explains. "Y'may want to hang on."

It's not a gallop, but it's an easy lope that the cat should be able to adjust to.

"Oh, I'm hanging on fine," Yrael smirks, though he does move into a crouch rather than lie across Doc's shoulders, as they pick up speed. It lowers his center of gravity and stabilizes his claws' grip on the vest, and is far from uncomfortable. The breeze has become more like a proper wind at this speed, and Yrael keeps his head raised to scent the air around them.

"What sorts of animals does one hunt, in this part of the world?"

"Anything ranging from deer and antelope, to larger things like buffalo, you can also get jackrabbits and coyotes as well," he says. "Wild boar in some parts of the country, though they tend to stick to more forested areas...javelinas out here, they're a type of wild pig."

As they travel on through the desert, they might come across a lizard or a quail scurrying through the scrub brush in an effort to escape the hooves of the horse.

"I do not know antelope, or buffalo, though there are wild boars in the forests of the Old Kingdom," says the cat, eyes fixed on a scurrying bird that smells quite good.

"Would you mind a little hunting, today? It is rare that I find such wide open spaces." It makes him want to run.

"Not at all. It's your mini-vacation, after all," he says. "You want me to stop so you can get down and run a bit?"

They're coming up on some thicker brush, but there are animal tracks between the plants, and the plants themselves are spread out, since there is only so much water available and that means it's sparse even when 'thick'.

"Buffalo are big," he says. "And there aren't any here. We'd be able to see them."

"No need to stop, as long as me leaping down wouldn't scare the horse," he says, eyeing the tracts and taking in the scents as they pass.

"Nah, just don't jump in front of him, I don't want him to run you down," he says.

Cortez is the jumpier of the two horses he rides most often, and he did fall off when the horse came across some birds in the grass on the Barlow ranch, but that was because he hadn't expected him to rear. If the paint chooses to spook, he'll be ready this time.

"That would be more likely to hurt the horse than me. He might trip," grins the not'cat, comfortably.

Doc laughs at that. "Don't want to trip him, if he breaks a leg out here, we'd be screwed unless you got healin' powers."

"I could try," Yrael shrugs. "What I would be able to do to help actually depends on how far I am from the door to the bar. Which reminds me. I shouldn't go more than sixty miles or so from the door, or I will quite literally be dead weight."

"It would take me over a day to go sixty miles," he says. "So we won't have a problem with that."

Horses are not cars, after all.

"I didn't expect us to be going that far. But, it is worth mentioning. It reminds me, too. I tend to get caught up in what is going on, if I am in a new place, and have forgotten, before."

It wasn't good.

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