Lucky for us, people in Colorado and Utah had been bike crazy before the Yellowstone Knockout. The collection of bikes we’d salvaged still cost thousands of dollars—carbon fiber frames, disc brakes, high-end shifters. We had a chain tool, so I removed some damaged links and repaired the chains. Micaiah used a rubber mallet to hammer wheels back into a rideable shape. We fixed the bikes, then julie-rigged the bike trailer to carry Sharlotte. We used duct tape and old tent poles to create a contraption that might hold her. We even worked up an umbrella for shade.
Once we finished the bike trailer for Sharlotte, we created panniers on the sides of the bicycles to carry the bits of food and little water that had survived the crash.
I took breaks to check on Sharlotte, who was in and out of consciousness, sometimes raving, sometimes silent. She asked again about her leg. I told her I’d rather have her alive with three limbs than dead with four.
Her skin was as hot as ever. Micaiah and Pilate stayed to medicate her while I made the final adjustments to the bikes in the light of a bright moon.
Wren wandered over to me. “’Well, Princess, we about ready?”
“Yeah, skank, we are.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Don’t call me Princess.” I had to feel for the back wheel’s skewer so I could attach the bike trailer.
Wren chuckled. “Okay, but it’s such a good way to get your goat. You know I like to tease you.”
“Yeah, well, you could try being nicer sometimes.”
Instead of wandering away, Wren hovered around me, making me nervous.
I stopped my work and sighed. Fatigue murked up my thoughts and we didn’t have much time for anything except for escaping on the bikes. “Okay, Wren, I know you want to say something, so say it. You’re getting in my way.”
The night hid her face, but I could hear her shy smile. “It’s just that, well, that Vixx said I wanted you to fail. I don’t. I love you, Cavvy.” A long pause. “Dang. I feel dumb sayin’ it out loud like that. What you did for Sharlotte, though, I don’t think I could’ve. You’re tough. You’re smart. And I think your plan is good even though Rachel snapped and ARK zeppelins are breathing down our necks. We’ll go east, go slow, and hide in the Juniper. We’ll make a run for the Kansas border in the fall. It’s a good plan, and I don’t want it to fail.”
I knew talking like that was hard for my sister, so I needed to encourage her. But I didn’t have it in me just then. “Okay, Wren, but how come you kept laughing and being difficult last night?”
“It’s easier to laugh at how bad things are than get scared. And I get scared, Cavvy. When I fight, I ain’t scared, like what the Vixx said, but other times, thinking about it all ...” Her voice faded. It was quite a confession, but bad timing.
“Her name is Rachel,” I said nastily. “And we’re all scared, but that don’t mean we should laugh at each other.”
“Try and stop me from laughing,” Wren shot back. “And I ain’t callin’ that thing ‘Rachel.’ If it comes back, I’m putting a bullet in its head. And I ain’t ridin’ no bike.” She punctuated her words by pushing over one of the mountain bikes.
Instead of calmly explaining to her she had no choice, I ended up snarling at her like a mad dog. “Oh yes, you are.”
So much for sisterly compassion.
(iii)
Pilate was wise enough not get between us.
Bathed in starlight, he threw a leg over a mountain bike—a nice full-suspension Yeti with front and rear shocks I’d pumped into perfection. I’d attached the bike trailer to his bike, and when he took off, I prayed it wouldn’t come loose. It didn’t.
Pilate whooped happily around in a tight circle on the freeway. “I haven’t been on a bike in thirty years. Yes, you never do forget. Come on, Wren, it’s good to learn new things. It creates new neural pathways. It’ll keep you young and not the bitter old vet you’re bound to be.”
He launched into some silly classic rock song about bicycles. He stopped and helped Micaiah settle Sharlotte into the bike trailer. Some of the rotten canvas tore away, but the duct tape held, thank God.
My gratitude was short lived as I pulled back into the fight with Wren. “I’m not leaving you behind. You’re going to get on that bike, and you’re going to ride with us. Can’t you play nice for once in your life?”
I winced. Shouldn’t have said that last part.
“Nice is for you guys. I do what I want, when I want, and I ain’t learnin’ to ride no bike.” She crossed her arms across her chest like a moody three-year-old. “Y’all go on. I’ll catch up.”
It was like she wanted me to scream and cuss at her. Emotions spun my insides into a tangle.
I thought of Micaiah and the blank spot inside him. I calmed myself and told her how I really felt. “We lost Rachel. I can’t lose you too, Wren. Please. Come with us.”
The night seemed to darken, the silence deepening, as we all waited for her to say something.
The old Wren would’ve cursed us, stomped off, and left us guessing about her as much as we were guessing about Rachel.
This new Wren? She blew out a breath and said, “Not sure I can do it, little sister. I’ve never liked bikes. You know that.”
Took me a minute to understand what she was saying. Then I remembered, Mama had ordered Sharlotte to teach Wren how to ride a bike. For whatever reason, Sharlotte pretty much raised Wren. By the time I came around, we had a whole ranch of women to mother me. Wren fought Sharlotte on everything, and bike riding wasn’t any different. Wren adored horses, and she figured if she started riding bikes, she’d spend less time in the saddle. I have to say, there’s nothing like galloping across the open plain with a sweating, powerful animal under you, breath and stink and storm.
Instead of learning to ride a bike, Wren and Sharlotte ended up bloodying each other until Mama told Sharlotte to give up. That Wren wasn’t worth it.
Mama said that a lot. “Just let Irene be. She ain’t worth it.”
On that highway, those sharp words and rusty memories cut into my sister.
“I bet you could ride a bike easily,” I said to Wren. “You’re circus-trained. There’s nothing you can’t do. I’ve watched you do amazing things, and I know this won’t be any different.”
Wren sighed. “You’re blowing smoke up my butt.”
“Not true,” I said. “You went down the swinging Jacob’s ladder of a zeppelin into gunfire trying to save Micaiah. Come on, Wren, if you can do that, why can’t you ride a bike?”
I walked a Santa Cruz bicycle up to my sister. “Yellow is your favorite color, right?” I asked. “I remember the dress you wore when you picked me up at the Academy. Before the shooting.”
Wren nodded. “Yeah, the shootout at that fancy school of yours ... that was fun.”
Not the word I would’ve chosen, but I didn’t say a word, just stood next to her and held the seat.
Wren was confident in her physical abilities, but I knew the idea of riding a bike shook her. Some memories don’t just have teeth but full-on fangs.
She touched the seat then laughed a little. “You know, Cavvy, I like being a pain in the ass, I really do.” She was laughing at herself. Maybe for the first time ever.
What could I say? She’d excelled at causing trouble all her life. I waited for her to say something else.
She raised her head, and the moon allowed us to look into each other’s eyes.
“I’m gonna change, Cavvy. Y’all don’t think I can, but I’m gonna,” she said. “Might as well start with a bike.”
She threw a leg over the seat.
I didn’t have to help her much. My sister was a natural athlete, and it wasn’t long before she got tired of the pavement and headed off the road and onto the rocks. Five minutes on a bike, and already she was looking for trouble. That was Wren.
She caught me watching her. “This is kind of fun,” she murmured.
My heart felt full as she pedaled—I’d never been prouder of
her. Running headlong into a battle outgunned didn’t take courage for Wren. But learning how to ride a bike? It took not just bravery, but valor as well.
I got on my own Gary Fisher bicycle, V-brakes, but good enough. I rode up to Sharlotte in the trailer. She was awake, her eyes a glimmer.
“Are you comfortable?” I asked.
Sharlotte smiled at me, dazed. “It’s like a little buggy, and Pilate’ll be the horsey.” Good, the reactivated painkillers were working. She was high as clouds. Or was it the fever cooking her brain?
“That’s right,” I said. “You already think Pilate is a horse’s butt most of the time anyway.”
Pilate neighed like Bob D used to. My poor, dead Bob.
Loaded up, looking like bicycle hillbillies, we rode east down I-70, four of us on bikes and Sharlotte in the trailer. But Rachel was gone.
My bad ankle pinched me while I pedaled, but it was a whole lot better than walking on it. After a while, the pain faded. My legs were strong, and the wheels turning under me did make me feel like a kid again. We zoomed down a hill and then on up the other side.
We kept our eyes peeled for zeppelins as our tires tore up the kilometers. We were making good time until Pilate stopped, coughing and choking. He let his bike fall, and soon followed it. On his hands and knees, he hacked and hacked.
We circled, waiting for him to get his breath back.
“You gonna make it?” Wren asked, worried.
“I can’t do the trailer.” Pilate wheezed.
“I can, Pilate,” Wren said. Her voice wavered with concern. This was Pilate. He and I might be blood, but he and Wren had something as deep or deeper. He’d kept her alive when nothing else would’ve.
Wasn’t long before we were back at it again. This time with Wren pulling Sharlotte in the julie-rigged contraption. I wouldn’t have thought Wren had the leg-strength, but then again, she’d been dosed with the Gulo Delta.
Pilate continued to cough. He trailed us, but we all kept an eye on him. That dang man had been born to worry women.
Micaiah rode up next to me. “I think the trailer is going to hold. Nice work.”
“So did your dad teach you to ride a bike?” I asked without thinking. I cursed to myself; the last thing he would want to talk about was his past.
Micaiah took it in stride. “No, he was way too busy. There was a man at the ARK research facility where I grew up who was a bicycle enthusiast. During his off hours he built a single-track trail across the plains. It went through gullies and ditches, even across a lava field. It was pretty difficult. I crashed multiple times. I did not have the skill Wren has.”
I was going to ask about a lava field, but Wren didn’t give me a chance.
“I heard that,” she called over her shoulder. “No makin’ fun of me. We’re all gonna be nice. A direct order from Queen Cavvy, Baroness of Bicycles.”
We stopped for a break as dawn blued the horizon. The smell of smoke swept into my nose, and I turned. In the far distance, graying away the stars, a cloud rose from the orange of a forest fire burning in the mountains we’d left behind.
“Rachel,” Wren said.
“Rachel,” Micaiah agreed, “following her imperatives.”
To get us to safety, even though it meant riding off alone to start a fire which might distract the search parties combing the countryside for us. Made me proud. Made me sad. Made me scared for her.
“I shouldn’t have left her alone,” I said.
“Yes, you should have.” Pilate and his stupid lessons on the callousness of survival. At least he wasn’t coughing for a minute.
(iv)
We stopped again at a sign which announced we were in the middle of the San Rafael Swell. Might as well have called it the San Rafael Nightmare—rough-rocked country, canyons, huge ridges, and not a drop of water by the looks of it. The colors in the rocks spiraled across the landscape, a sea of reds, yellows, blacks, grays, and whites.
Beautiful country, but deadly. A bad land, a wasteland, for us to cross, but not in the daylight.
We rolled our bikes down into a canyon and set up a quick camp beneath an overhang a hundred meters off the highway. We were in our hideout when the zeppelin crossed again, hurrying toward the fire Rachel started. We watched it pass in silence.
I took the first watch at the top of a ridge, finding cover under a dwarf pine, which seemed to gasp in the heat. Poor thing, she’d picked the wrong place to put down roots.
A couple hours later Micaiah relieved me, and I went back to camp. Pilate snored up thunder when he wasn’t coughing.
Sharlotte lay awake. Sweat trickled down her forehead.
I went to her and gave her my water bottle. “You have to keep drinking, Shar. You have to keep hydrated or ...”
But the “or” was what she wanted. To die. She’d grabbed the knife out of my belt to end her own life.
Sharlotte’s eyes showed the bruises of her fever even as they filled with tears. “I’m useless to you, Cavvy. I’m a burden. And I’m ugly. Before, I thought maybe I had nice eyes, and sometimes I’d smile in the mirror at myself, and think, maybe, not definitely, but maybe, someone might look at me. And maybe I’d get lucky and fall in love. Now my maybes are all gone.”
The way she said it broke my heart. I took her hands. “Oh, Shar, you ain’t ugly. Who cares about a leg anyway? Feet are smelly, and us Weller girls have stupid-looking toes. Like Mama had.”
She laughed a little, but she was almost out of shakti. She drew her hands away from me and held herself. “How can you hope to get away with me like this, Cavvy? Ugly and useless.”
I knew there was nothing I could say to her, not really, but I had to try. “Sharlotte Jeanne Weller,” I said quietly and gently, “let’s not throw you a pity party, ’cause we’re alive and we’ll get away. Once we do, out in the World, they have amazing prosthetics. We’ll get reward money from Micaiah, and we’ll be able to afford even the most expensive models. Besides, the best part of you is who you are, not how many legs you have.” I touched her face. Hot from the desert day and hot from the fever.
“God’s punishing me,” Sharlotte whispered. “Took my leg ’cause I got Crete killed.”
“You want to talk about that now?” I asked. I didn’t. Poor Crete. I’d hated her in life, and now that she was dead, a girl my own age, I felt the guilt keenly.
Sharlotte closed her eyes, and I waited for her breathing to become regular. It seemed she wasn’t ready to talk about Crete either. The relief made my guilt worse.
Once my sister was asleep, I sank into my bedroll and was gone from the world.
I woke, stifled in the heat, despite the shadows we slept in.
The ARK zeppelin filled all the sky I could see.
(v)
The airship hung over us for so long I could see the name, The Crunge. This one wasn’t a Johnny-class, but a Jimmy, the fastest of the blimps Boeing made for use in the Juniper. Just when I thought she was looking for a spot to land, she flew off, eastbound. It seemed they didn’t just have the two Johnnies looking for us, but a whole fleet. Made me sick when I realized they had a sky full of eyes, spying on us.
Worse yet, it struck me that satellites could help the zeppelins in the search. Electricity didn’t work in the Juniper, but a telescopic camera in the atmosphere could pick us up. Yet, how could they communicate our coordinates to their ground forces? I didn’t know, but all of it put a tremor in my belly. We’d ridden through the night in moonlight, something we couldn’t do again.
Turning, I noticed Micaiah on a sleeping bag next to me. Not close, not like we were in love, but near enough. Looking into his face, doubt rocked me. Most likely, he was my only chance at romantic love. Was I being too stubborn and uncaring, breaking up with him ’cause he couldn’t tell me about his past? No, I had to stay true to myself—however hard that might be.
That night we took off at sunset, which was a little after eight o’clock. We’d bike until the moon rose later that night.
We sipped our water carefully, only teasing the thirst in us, but not dealing with it directly. Rationing water like that was almost as bad as not drinking at all.
It was too dark to really appreciate the beauty of the stone around us, but I thought about the history of the place. Thirty years before, people from all over the world would’ve traveled to see these canyons, to ride bikes across the desert, but that had been a different time. Hard to imagine that the strip of asphalt would’ve been full of cars and semi-trucks and tourists. Now, it was just us. Pedaling. Grimly. Wondering how far we’d get before our water ran out.
At one in the morning, the shrinking moon spilled light over the eastern horizon. We stopped again, slept through the day, and left in the dark, grinding away at the kilometers. Sharlotte stopped talking, but she took her medicine, and she drank water until all our water was gone.
That third night, we were ready when we saw the sparks sizzle above and a searchlight rove down the highway. We took cover immediately, Micaiah and me on one side of the freeway, and Pilate, Wren, and Sharlotte on the other. The rocky wasteland didn’t have water, but it had plenty of places to hide.
I watched the light dance. Again, a different zeppelin, this one a Bobby. “They’re not going to give up, are they?” I asked.
“No, they will not,” Micaiah whispered. “And I do not believe my father’s reasons are financial. He wants to change the world. I am not certain how he thinks he can do it, but I do know that is his intention.”
“His intentions don’t matter,” I whispered. “If he kills us, dead is dead.”
“But maybe they do,” Micaiah said. “Cavatica, once we find safety, I will take my medication, and then I will tell you everything about me. It might help you to understand the situation fully, and you might have insights I do not. I feel ready.”
I wasn’t sure if I felt relief or fear at the idea of knowing his story after wanting it for so long.
“But you’re not feeling much now, are you?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Then maybe that’s why you want to tell me. You’re not afraid, and the doubts are all gone.”
Inferno Girls Page 12