She stilled immediately.
Even though we were in the shade of the hoodoo, the light flooded my eyes. The whole landscape became a circle of fire. It felt like God had opened His eye to gaze down on us.
I stopped breathing. I held Sharlotte tighter. Closing my eyes, I was beyond prayer. The hoodoo had to hide us. Had to.
The searchlight that had been sweeping the landscape now stopped where the truck and trailer had been. It focused there. Had they seen the two bicycles lying on the highway? Was that why they had stopped?
Seconds turned into lifetimes. If they found us, our little escape would be over. You can fight a roomful of Regios, but battalions? Not hardly.
(ii)
I expected to hear the zip of soldiers rappelling down from the Johnny Boy on ropes, but instead, in absolute silence, the airship continued down the highway. The brightness of the light had blasted my irises, and I had to blink away the artifacts.
All the fight had gone out of Sharlotte. She wept in my arms.
“It’s going to be all right, Shar. You’re going to be okay.” I pushed my cheek next to her head. “We have medicine, pain pills, and antibiotics. They’re old, but they’ll still work ’cause of the Doc Slocum’s.”
Sharlotte barked out a laugh. It shocked me. Then again, Sharlotte wasn’t in her right mind. “Old. Everything we ever owned has been old and useless. But then again, one woman’s junk is another lady’s treasure!” Mama had hung that needlepoint next to the Waste Not, Want Not placard.
I could feel Sharlotte’s frustration. In Fish Springs, we hadn’t found treasure, only junk. A water jug that leaked and a lemon of a truck. And the bikes we’d brought just might be smashed to pieces. We hadn’t wasted, and yet we still knew want.
Sharlotte jerked herself away from me and spun around. Spit dribbled down her lips. “You know, Cavvy, you know I did what you’d do. In Wendover, I used all them cattle as a weapon. I freed you, ha, for what it’s worth. But Crete ...”
Her voice faded like daylight dying.
The memory of the girl, pale with death, eyes wide and staring, made my jaws clench. Poor Crete. I should’ve been nicer to her.
“Crete’s dead.” Sharlotte’s mouth struggled to say the words. Once those eked out, more poured forth. “And we’re going to all die. The ARK won’t stop, and the police want us, and that zeppelin, that zeppelin searching, that light. And there’s the other Johnny. You forget about that? We can’t win, and we’re fools to think we should even try.”
“You’re right, Shar. It’s a bad deal all around, but we’ll make it. We’ve faced bad odds before.” I couldn’t talk about Crete. Not yet.
She latched onto my hand and squeezed it almost off. “You have to leave me. Promise me, you’ll go. If you try and take me, I’ll slow you down.”
“No one gets left behind. Ever.” I said evenly. “And if I have to elbow you in the face again, I will.”
Sharlotte’s smile slowly stretched across her lips until tears came, and her face folded like a flower at night until she was weeping again. The fever and the despair crushed the smile into nothing.
I cried with her, and I had to struggle to speak. “Inside us, Sharlotte, inside us is iron, and though we’re seeds blowing on the wind, we’ll find soil and be stronger for the journey.” Dang, didn’t know I had those words in me. But really, they were Sharlotte’s, not mine. On our cattle drive, Sharlotte had talked about Juniper women being like dandelions, pretty and strong, able to grow most anywhere. Weeds, yes, but weeds that were alive and strong. I echoed her own words back to her.
It worked. A moon, still on the full side, rose over the edge of the horizon. My big sister closed her eyes, relaxing. Letting go of the pain, she slowly slid back into sleep.
I remembered how she’d grabbed my knife to hurt herself, and I knew we had a long way to go before she’d be okay. But I’d witnessed other people traveling to get to the other side of their pain, and they’d made it. Sharlotte would, too. If the fever would ever break and if we could find a safe place.
Wren laughed and called from the highway, “You girls are always crying. I think it’s embarrassing, and it’s a waste of water. We have a big ol’ desert to cross, so save your tears. We just might have to drink them.”
(iii)
I wiped the blood from my face with a rag and then took care of Sharlotte. I settled her into a soft pocket of sand next to the rock and placed her head on the coat I’d salvaged from Fish Springs. She’d have to rest there until we could figure out our next steps. Coatless, I wrapped my arms around my chest, cold, so cold, now that the excitement was over. The zeppelin still searched the highway, heading east. It would be a long time before she disappeared over the horizon.
Nice thing about the desert, all you have to do is wait and the temperature will change thirty degrees in either direction. Too hot, and then it’s suddenly just above freezing. Too cold, and next thing you know, you can fry an egg on a rock. I tried to enjoy the cold while I dealt with Wren.
Pilate, Rachel, and Micaiah walked up behind her.
“What do we do now, Princess?” Wren asked. “You prolly didn’t figure on the ARK’s zeppelins having searchlights and finding us so fast.”
“Or us losing the truck and the bikes,” Pilate added, though I could hear the smile in his voice. “We still have our can-do attitude, so that’s something.”
Rachel kept her eyes glued to both of them. From the way she cocked her head, I knew something was going on in there.
Instead of getting upset, I walked calmly to where I’d dropped the bike. Most likely, the ARK soldiers had seen it or the dust in the air and had paused to give it all a long look. Lucky for us, we’d been fast enough to get out of sight.
“We’ll have to salvage what bikes we can,” I said. “And pray we have enough water.”
“What about the goddamn zeppelins looking for us?” Wren asked. “And the moon might be waning, but it ain’t gonna go away any time soon. So even at night, we’ll be visible.”
“We’ll travel when we can.” My jaws tightened, but I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of knowing she was upsetting me.
Wren got even more nasty. “What about Sharlotte? You gonna carry her piggyback? And even if the bikes aren’t all ruined, I’ll die before riding one. Then again, losing all the water prolly killed us anyway. Great plan you have, Cavvy. You sure you ain’t working for the ARK?”
Rachel awkwardly came to my defense. “She is not affiliated with the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative in any way. However, Wren is right. The ARK will continue to sweep the major roadways, day and night. The townspeople who saw us will both reveal and confirm our position.”
Wren laughed and laughed.
I wanted to explain we had a bike trailer for Sharlotte, if it wasn’t destroyed in the fall, but Rachel stepped between us.
“Why are you laughing?” she asked Wren. “Why do you want your sister’s plan to fail?”
Wren didn’t answer. Instead she yelled at me. “Cavvy, you tell your goddamn robot to leave me alone.”
“That is anger,” Rachel whispered. “Wren, why are you angry? What is the purpose of your anger?”
Wren, hands in fists and fury in her face, stormed up to Rachel. “I don’t have to explain nothin’ to you. You’ve been human, what, for a couple of days? Talk to me when you’ve lived twenty goddamn years in this jacked-up family. Then you might understand.”
Rachel didn’t move to protect herself. Her eyes were wide, and her breath came out in gasps. Then she stated the God’s honest truth: “You’re afraid. You use your anger to cover your fear. The way you act, you must be afraid all the time.”
Wren threw the first punch. I would’ve sworn she’d tear Rachel’s head off with it.
Instead, Rachel snatched my sister’s fist and threw her on the ground. But she didn’t stop there. She dropped a knee into my sister’s gut, grabbed Wren by her hair, and started smashing Wren’s skull
into the asphalt.
I went to stop her, but my ankle gave way. I hit the ground. Thank God Rachel had snapped with the ARK’s zeppelins off in the distance.
Pilate tore her away from Wren, but Rachel threw him aside. She snarled before her voice broke out in a furious bark. “You people, you turned me into a scaredy-cat. But now I know how to handle it. I can fight, like Wren. I can be angry all the time because I’m afraid all the time.”
Me, Wren, and Pilate were down—only Micaiah stood, and he didn’t look too sure of himself.
“Stay away, Micah Hoyt. Stay down, Cavatica,” Rachel warned. “I understand Wren now. Let her come at me again, and the priest as well. Let’s fight more. I was so afraid before, hiding from the zeppelin and their searchlight. Now, fighting, I feel powerful and the fear is forgotten. That’s why Wren is the way she is, and it makes perfect sense.”
Great, she was learning how to be human by following Wren’s example.
Pilate was checking on my sister. Rachel had smashed her head but good.
“I get afraid, Rachel,” I said, “but I’m not mean or violent.”
“You should be!” Rachel shouted. “Or are you an idiot?”
“Stop!” I shouted back. “What are your imperatives, soldier?”
I expected her to snap to attention, but she didn’t. Her eyes seemed to glaze over, and for a minute I thought she might be returning to her old ways. Then her mouth trembled, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “Learn to be kind. Become a part of the Weller family. Protect the family if it comes to that. But I can extrapolate further our real objective ... to deliver Micah Hoyt and the chalkdrive to safety so we can collect the reward money and save the ranch in Burlington.”
“That’s right. And hurting the family is not protecting the family,” I said, though Sharlotte had just punched me in the face after I elbowed her.
Rachel threw back her head and screamed. She spun, grabbed the bike I’d thrown down, and raced off the highway toward the ink-smear of the mountains to the west.
Pilate snatched up Tina Machinegun. He knelt and aimed.
“You really gonna shoot her in the back, Pilate?” I asked. “Is that how you counsel the sinful?
Pilate watched her bike away into the darkness. “Vaya con Dios, Rachel,” he whispered.
(iv)
Pilate might’ve been able to let her go, but not me.
I snatched up the bike that had tumbled off the trailer and sped off. Voices called out behind me, but I pedaled faster, racing across the pavement silvered by the moon rising in the sky behind me. Took her long enough to give us the light we so desperately needed.
The fire of my effort filled my lungs. Then, of course, my ankle and shoulder started hurting, and I began to wonder what my chances were of catching up to a genetically-enhanced super soldier.
It became clear that what I was doing was unwise, and I stopped. She was out of sight, so I turned the bike around and started back for our people.
A figure ran toward me, and I recognized the form. It was Micaiah.
We met up on the highway. He stooped over, trying to catch his breath.
I rolled to a stop in front of him. “What are you doing?”
He straightened. “I was not going to let you go off alone. I wanted to keep you safe.”
“Ain’t no such thing as safe in this world,” I said. “And I can take care of myself.”
“I know,” he said. “But I also wanted to let you know your chances of catching Rachel were poor.”
I laughed. Unfortunately, he didn’t. And prolly couldn’t.
“Let’s get back,” I said. “Not sure what Rachel is doing, but like Pilate said, may she go with God.”
I biked, he jogged, down the strip of silver back to the others. Even with his emotions fading away, Micaiah still cared about me. It was sweet, but troubling.
To what lengths would he go to keep me safe?
We returned to our people, and Pilate stood, arms crossed. “What in the hell were you thinking, Cavatica?”
Wren sat on I-70, hands cradling her head. I had the idea my sister was smarting more from what Rachel had said than the physical pounding she’d given her.
I was worried about her and annoyed at Pilate’s fatherly disapproval. “What was I thinking?” I asked. “Rachel only just became human. I wanted to watch out for her.”
Pilate stormed up to me. He went to grab my arm but stopped himself. I’d never seen him so mad. “She is not worth five minutes of our time. She is an assload of trouble.”
“And you promised to counsel her,” I said.
That shut him up for a minute. Then he sighed. “I did. But Cavatica, you aren’t going to be able to save everyone. At some point, you’re going to have to learn that.”
“It’s a lesson I don’t want to learn,” I shot back.
“No one ever does,” Pilate said in a voice soft enough to make me shiver.
Chapter Nine
I come from a desert city
Where the dust is all that’s real
She fell in love with the rain
And ran off for a better deal
The river is still running green
It doesn’t mean a thing
But old man river runs green
— Cal Bellows
(i)
IN THE BOTTOM OF THE ravine, Micaiah and I picked through the wreckage. The clouds had moved east, following the ARK zeppelin, and moonlight cast a pale, ghostly light across the carcasses of the truck and trailer. Twisted metal gleamed over dark pools of spilled water that looked like holes in the world.
Pilate had stayed up by the highway to watch over Sharlotte and to see if Wren could get her bell unrung. Head and spinal cord trauma could kill her. Wren hadn’t recovered as quickly from the attack as I would’ve expected, and she’d not spouted off anything sarcastic about Rachel.
Rachel. The thought of her stuck like devil’s thorn in my heart.
Micaiah worked without speaking. He gently set the bike trailer on the ground. Two of the bikes had survived with only minor scratches. The other three had issues, from broken spokes, to bent wheels, to snapped chains. We had our work cut out for us. At least we had the moonlight.
Ten water bottles, each about a liter, had survived the carnage. The average person needs three liters of water a day in the best of times. In the desert, they need a lot more.
My mind crunched through the various scenarios until I finally had to unleash the chatter in my head. “Is Rachel going to follow her new imperatives? That’s the question. I would guess she is. If she went back to her old orders, she’d have started taking us out to get to you. Then again, if she really was going to be a part of our family, she wouldn’t just ride away. I don’t get it.”
Micaiah didn’t say anything. I didn’t really expect him to, not with the current state of our relationship and him behind on his meds.
“I guess with Rachel gone, you can dose yourself,” I said.
“Not yet,” he said.
“Why’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t want to feel.”
Sad, but I could understand why.
He went on. “And we do not have enough information to know Rachel’s intentions. However, once we can affirm we are relatively safe, I will consider adjusting my neurochemicals, so that we can discuss our relationship.”
“Well, isn’t that just the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to anybody.” Didn’t mean to, but laughter bubbled out of me.
Most of the food was ruined, but I found a few cans intact. I snapped open some peaches and drank the juice. Tasted like syrupy motor-oil and the peaches slid down my throat like slugs.
They made me think of when Micaiah and I were hiding out in a hoarder’s house back in the Colorado territory, north of Denver. He’d gotten emotional from eating peaches. Those days seemed gone for good.
“Sorry for the joke,” I said.
“And I apologize for being afraid to tell you the tru
th. You deserve it.” He gathered up hex wrenches and other tools and banged them back into a toolbox. “I miss you, Cavatica. Though I can feel myself losing that feeling, of missing you. It’s awful ... and comforting ... and blank. A part of me is so blank.”
For an instant, I was jealous. I wanted to be free of the terror and confusion. I wanted to be blank. Then I really thought about what that would mean. I wouldn’t be me. And if I could feel myself slipping away into that numbness?
Like he’d said—comforting but awful.
(ii)
Pilate joined us, and we lugged the bikes, water, food, tools, and the bike trailer up to the highway. Pilate kept looking off to the west, to where Rachel had ridden off. I caught him at it.
He grinned at me. “She might be an assload of trouble, but I miss her. Watching her grow and change gave me some hope. Leave it to God’s left hand to carefully excise my little tumor of optimism.”
“Her serotonin levels will not have reverted back,” Micaiah said. “She is feeling right now. We do not know what she is feeling, but she is feeling, and I would imagine she is missing us as well.”
“We should go after her,” I said.
“No, we shouldn’t,” Pilate said forcefully.
I hated him a little for the awful lesson he was trying to teach me.
It wasn’t the first time we’d had to leave someone behind—we’d left Sharlotte back during the cattle drive—and it wouldn’t be the last. But each time we pressed forward without our full family, it killed me.
Next to Sharlotte, Wren sat facing east, watching for the zeppelin. The spotlight had gone out. But it would come back. In such wild country, waterless and rough, the roads were few and critical. Rachel had made it clear they’d continue their search up and down the interstates until they found us.
If we’d had more water, we might have set out away from the highway and tried to pick our way through the infinity of canyons. But if we got lost without supplies, we’d end up skeletons in the dust. So we had to stay on I-70 and hurry, hurry as fast as we could to find a water source and then re-evaluate. And risk the ARK zeppelin spotting us.
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