Arkansas

Background

The history of Arkansas is the history of Minefield; Minefield, which was called Ridgefield back then, was originally founded by the descendants of military survivors roughly 100 years after the bombs fell and ruined the world. When Arkansas was a young boy slavers from Paradise Falls attacked Minefield, killing anyone who resisted and enslaving the others. Arkansas managed to hide from the slavers while they rounded everyone up. Arkansas was the only person to evade capture in Ridgefield. Arkansas lived in the ghost town for years preparing for when he was old enough to get revenge against the slavers. When he was old enough he started rumors that a new group of people had reinhabited the town. When the slavers came this time they were decimated by the mines Arkansas had set up while he picked them off with his sniper rifle. After the heavy losses suffered the slavers never returned to Minefield and Arkansas has been the sole guardian of the town ever since. Eventually Arkansas went mad after living by himself in the town so long so he will fire his sniper rifle at anyone he sees, thinking that they could be slavers. This has given Minefield the reputation of being haunted because people do not see Arkansas as he stealthily kills people with his sniper rifle. 

Traversing Minefield

The primary danger in Minefield are the mines scattered all over the ground. Arkansas placed over 67 Frag Mines in Minefield.They activate if the player gets too close and can be hard to disarm.

They can deal a decent amount of damage, especially to lightly armed and low-leveled players, and they also do a large amount of damage to limbs, possibly crippling them. Arkansas will definitely snipe at the player but he will remain unhostile and if the player crouches it will display as hidden. Arkansas isn't actually aiming for the player, he's aiming for the cars around the player. This causes the cars to explode in 1-3 shots. The explosions from the cars are very large as well as highly damaging and radioactive. The reason that Arkansas will snipe at the player without fail but is still possible to sneak up on is because he is scripted to fire at the cars whenever the player gets close to one. Arkansas hasn't really registered the player as seen yet so the player will remain hidden. There are a few corpses in Minefield like the corpse of a Raider and a Talon Company Merc that seem to have been mortally wounded by Arkansas and managed to crawl into one of the close-by houses to die. 

In The Wasteland Survival Guide

The player doesn't actually have to interact with Arkansas for this quest but the cars around the player will be shot at in a scripted encounter. The goal of the Minefield section of this quest is to make it to the playground at the center of Minefield and report back to Moira Brown. There is an optional objective of bringing back one of Arkansas's mines for Moira to study. The bonus objective will give the player more caps, the Bottlecap Mine schematic, and help the player get a better Wasteland Survival Expert Perk.

In Strictly Business

Arkansas is one of the 4 people the Lone Wanderer needs to enslave for the Strictly Business quest. The reason the slavers want him sent back to Paradise Falls is so that they can take their revenge for massacring the slavers that arrived at Minefield. To enslave Arkansas shoot him with the Mesmetron then get him to put an explosive slave collar on him. When he comes back to his senses send him back to Paradise Falls so Grouse can give you your  caps. If the Lone Wanderer decides to save the people from the Strictly Business quest and liberates the slaves in the Slave Pens then Arkansas will return to Minefield. He will be non-hostile to the player and when the Lone Wanderer talks to him he will say "You saved me from those bastards. I won't forget it."

Miscellaneous

Arkansas is somewhere in his 70's to 80's.
Arkansas is a Neutral Karma character.  
He carries the Ridgefield Gate Key, which opens every house in Minefield.
His SPECIAL stats are: Strength-4, Perception-9, Endurance-5, Charisma-1, Intelligence-3, Agility-6, Luck-6.
His Base ID is: 0002bd23
His Reference ID is: 0002bd14 
Arkansas is voiced by  Paul Eiding.