I found Aradesh and talked to him and offered to help with radscorpion problem. After killing radscorpions I tried to talk to him again, but now the ingrate is furious and kills me. I have no weapon equipped, and to my knowledge have done nothing against any of the village. I restored to before I killed the radscorpions, but it made no difference. Whatever is wrong can now apparently only be addressed by restoring to prior to entering Shady Sands.

As this is the beginning of the game, it's a bad omen. I basically have to start over because I only saved upon completing the tunnels by 13. I guess a lesson here is to save upon entry to any new place.

Does anyone know how to avoid making Aradesh furious so it is possible to avoid getting into this situation again?

My guess is that you did something to make him or someone else in the town mad and didn't realize it at the time. You're still way early in the game and so you shouldn't lose that much time by loading an earlier save. But yes, save often. Especially before you travel, you could easily run into a bunch of baddies that wipe you out in the desert before making it to where you're going.

If you walk too far into town with a weapon in your hand, you'll be attacked immediately. I can imagine you've come back from killing radscorpions and forgotten to unequip your gun. Does that help?

Indeed. Seems much like common sense to me--

--so why would anyone make use of that? /jk

Aradesh is extremely sensitive. If you say anything that is offensive to him, he will want your head on a spear. Personally, I hate him and everyone in Shady Sands so in almost all my Fallout games, I paint the town...red.

Have you ever seen High Plains Drifter?

Yes. It's one of Clint Eastwood's best movies.