I expected a quip or for Pilate to smirk and say, Well, that only took two thousand years. But he didn’t. Instead, he dropped his head on Wren and pushed his face into her hair. And Pilate wept.
Once again, he’d lived, and the woman he loved had died. Not in his arms, but in mine. The results were the same, though. He was alone again.
Sharlotte touched his shoulder and rubbed his back, like she was holding Wren, and all of them, huddled in their pain, made me feel like a stranger.
I stood up.
“We should go.” Micaiah and I said the same words at the same time. Maybe we’d become too much alike.
He looked east. “If we make it across the border, we might find a good place to stay the night. We must avoid the other ARK soldiers. Reinforcements will be coming.”
“He’s right,” I said. I walked over to Marilyn, opened her trunk, and started feeding the firebox.
Pilate, tears on his face, walked over to me and asked, “What are you doing?”
“Getting the Marilyn ready,” I said. “Gotta get the chalkdrive into the World. We have a sacred duty, right? Everyone dying and killing each other ... it’s all ’cause of our goddamn sacred duty. Well, let’s get on with it.”
“We have to bury our dead,” Pilate said quietly. “Should we dig a grave for you as well? Did this finally kill you, Cavvy?”
I knew what he was asking. I knew he was asking it as a metaphor, but still I scoffed, “I ain’t dead. I’m standing here. I’m listening to your stupid silence, which isn’t God, it’s just nothing.”
“I think you’re dead. I wonder if you’ll pull a Lazarus and surprise me.” He didn’t ask it in a loud voice. He said all of it so quietly, so gently.
Didn’t help.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Don’t start your goddamn preaching at me. You can go jacker yourself. And this world can go jacker itself. It don’t deserve us saving it.” My voice broke. “It didn’t deserve Rachel. It deserves a bullet.”
Right between the eyes. Like what my sister had done to the man she loved.
Pilate didn’t press me. He turned and let me do my work while the rest did theirs.
They found enough chunks of concrete to build a cairn for Rachel. We’d come back for her, bury her next to Mama and Daddy. That might be a while, so they wrapped her body in a sheet of dusty plastic we found blown next to a wall. Then they piled the cement on her.
As for Dutch, they pulled him off the street and threw him into a basement. The dog didn’t deserve a grave.
I heard them talk in murmurs while I got the Marilyn running. Nikola had repaired the Stanley’s arm and replaced the Marilyn’s windshield. The old girl had seen a battle and the holes and scars remained, but she was fully functional. If only I could replace my insides as easily.
My sisters kept murmuring behind me.
Sharlotte asked Wren if she wanted a burial for Dutch. I didn’t hear Wren’s response. But I turned and watched her go to where they had thrown the body. With one foot on the foundation wall, she unbuckled her belt and held her holsters up. The custom Colt Terminators, with their long barrels and cherrywood grips, dangled there for a moment, metal and wood, buckles and leather.
She tossed them into the basement next to Dutch. She turned. And walked away.
Who could blame her?
I checked the Marilyn’s pressure, and it looked good. Then I glanced over, and saw Pilate was alone, standing over Rachel’s grave.
I knew what he was thinking. He was alive, horribly alive, and always so horribly lucky. And like when Petal had died, I could guess his final homily over Rachel, a woman he’d counseled away from being a killer.
Heaven isn’t for the good. Heaven is for the broken.
A silly heaven for the damaged souls God mangled when He used this world like a butcher uses a cleaver.
Finally, we marched away from Plainville in the Marilyn. There was no light left in the world, but we had a road running east; a gravel road to freedom. We didn’t really need light, we simply had to aim for the gray between the glow of the yellow grass on each side.
Pilate held Wren in the gunner’s roost; Micaiah, Sharlotte, and I crammed ourselves into the driver’s seat.
I shushed Sharlotte when she wanted to talk about Nikola, the battle, how they had all come together. I wanted quiet. I needed quiet.
I drove our Stanley toward the eastern sky, black with night and clouds.
Pilate’s voice came down through the communication tube. “Cavvy, a Cargador is coming up. Her sapropel lanterns are lit. We should stop and see who they are and take them head on if we have to.”
I stopped, turned. “You know how to use the guns up there?” I asked.
“Uh, not really, but I could probably figure it out.”
“Wren?” I asked.
“Yeah, Cavvy, I can,” she said in a murmur. She sounded how I felt, tired and wanting out of the whole deal but stuck there.
We turned around.
Wren swiveled the Marilyn’s arm guns in a whir of pistons and gears. The few rounds we had left were ready to do their damage.
In the end, we never did use those bullets.
June Mai Angel drove up in the Cargador, and Alice was in the back. She leapt out, pressed a big, slobbery face up against the glass and then let out a howl.
“’Teeca!”
I didn’t want her to pull the doors off, so I opened it, and she plucked me out and held me to her cheek. I petted her matted hair.
And I smiled.
Like usual, Pilate had been right. I had been in my funeral shroud, I had been laid in my tomb, alone, and there was the weeping and gnashing of the teeth.
My savior wasn’t Pilate, and it wasn’t Jesus, but it was a messiah.
She was nearly three meters tall, she smelled like hell, and despite our sins, hers and mine, she loved me as much as I loved her.
Her holding me woke me up from my grave. It surprised me, but I found Cavatica Weller inside me, under the numb rage and cold sorrow. I’d been hurt, traumatized, watched horrible, terrible, miserable things happen, but I was still me. I was still there. My heart might be a stick, but the ice was melting and watering me a little greener.
This bad world is full of surprises and smelly, crazy love.
Chapter Twenty
I’m just a poor wayfaring stranger,
Traveling through this world of thorns
Ain’t no sickness, work, or crazy
In that far land to which I go
I’m going there, to see my sister
She said she’d meet me when I come
I’m only going there to see her
’Cause I love her, love her so.
—Renee Crowell
(i)
ALICE STARTED KISSING and hugging everyone, and June Mai stood back and watched, bemused.
“Alice!” I finally had to yell to get her attention. “Alice, didn’t you go coco?”
Alice nodded. “Yeah, I went all coco, but I think of you, ’Teeca. And I slept and ate, and that helped me okay. I talked with friends, and that helped me okay. And I okay for now. And my friends and me came to help. And we met the robots. And we saved you. Beat those other soldier girls back. Lot of Gammas died, but we don’t live long no-how. I miss my friends, but I got my ’Teeca!” Then there was more yelling and more happy.
Like a friendly Labrador retriever, Alice couldn’t help herself. She was happy, howling at the moon, which appeared from out of the clouds diced up by the wind, and swept away to give us a sky, moon, and stars.
Pilate held Wren again, and I was glad for it. If anyone could help Wren, it was Pilate. They spoke some kind of strange broken-souled language, which I was learning. God help me, but I was learning it.
June Mai finally stepped around Alice’s antics and walked up to Sharlotte, who was quiet and wise and kind now.
“Hello, Sharlotte, I’m June Mai Angel. I’m sorry about your mother and your ranch.”
Sharlo
tte took her hand, gently, and shook it. “And my town,” Shar said. “You should prolly apologize for that.”
June Mai nodded. “And I’m sorry about your town. It’s been taken. One of my lieutenants told me the United States military now occupies Burlington. It is under martial law, and my forces have fallen back to Denver to re-group. Hopefully, once we get the cure to the Sterility Epidemic to the media, I’ll get my time to speak, and we can end this war quickly.”
By Christmas, I thought. That’s what all soldiers think. The war will end, and I’ll be home in time for Christmas.
Sharlotte didn’t know what to say to all that. No one did for a minute.
Then Micaiah spoke softly. “What of the Gammas in Denver? They will not let your army bivouac there unmolested.”
June Mai frowned. “Denver is a big place. And the enemy of our enemy is our friend. The U.S. forces will have ARK backing, and neither side want the Gammas exposed. It would raise far too many questions.”
“But once we get the chalkdrive out of the Juniper, we can go home,” Sharlotte said, quietly. “What’s left of it.”
“Doubtful,” June Mai said. “I’ve been told that the U.S. is forcibly evacuating civilians from the Colorado territory. Others are fleeing of their own accord. Regardless, there will be refugee camps on the borders. And I doubt Hays, Kansas is ready to double in population.”
My mind couldn’t quite grasp it. The U.S. government was forcing people out of the Juniper? That was quite a policy change. But then, the ARK was calling the shots, and I’d seen they were willing to do anything to keep their secrets safe.
Wren walked over, wearing her serape with a wool blanket over it as well. “So, I guess we have more war ahead of us. I’ll be goddamned if I’m giving up on our ranch. That land is all we have left.”
We. Wren had used the word we. And she talked about saving our ranch. It was a change, but then Wren would change even more in the coming days.
My sister nodded as if talking to herself. “But before that, we still have to get the chalkdrive out of the Juniper.”
Wren approached June Mai. June Mai took a step back.
This was Wren Weller. June Mai was smart to be cautious.
My sister looked into her face. “I heard Cavvy socked you. Don’t see the bruises.”
“She did hit me.” June Mai said.
“Did it hurt?” Wren asked.
June Mai nodded.
“Good. Then that’ll be from all of us, I guess. Never liked that house anyway. When we re-build it, we’ll make it better.” Wren retreated back to Pilate’s arms.
Her cussing and being contrary felt good, felt nice, felt like things might go back to normal. Maybe. Prolly not. Wren was as big as Pilate now.
We all returned to our vehicles and started down the road. June Mai drove ahead, lighting the way with the sapropel lanterns on the Cargador. An hour later, the high-pressure sodium lamps along the border blinked like low-hanging stars on the horizon. We’d all been ready to run, to fight, if we saw Kestrel gunships or another armed convoy ready to come after us.
But we didn’t. It was just dark.
We rolled up to the guard tower, a single soldier girl on duty, overweight, eating a powdered-sugar Donette and watching video on her slate.
Electricity. They had electricity. I’d come back to the World.
Micaiah got out and approached the guard tower. Electric lights clicked on, blinding us all for a minute. I’d forgotten how bright they could be, how staggering, how powerful.
The guard regarded him for a minute, looked up at our Stanley and then at Alice in the back of the Cargador.
The guard blinked.
“I’m Micah Hoyt,” Micaiah said. “I would like to make a phone call.”
Her mouth dropped open as wide as wide as her eyes.
(ii)
The rules had changed. We were on American soil, back in the World, where there were gun laws, due-process of law, and media coverage, 24/7.
We’d beaten the ARK out into the World. Now they’d have to play a different kind of game, one that didn’t involve their mercenaries, guns, and violence. One that Micaiah would be able to play well, with how quick and clever he was. That boy could spin things like a top between his fingers. And he could stop that spinning top with a single word ... right when he wanted it to.
No wonder Marie Atlas had tricked June Mai. Hoyt brewed up his creations real clever.
Now we had time, time while whoever Micaiah called came to collect us.
I was snoozing in the Marilyn’s driver seat when Wren knocked on the door. “Hey Cavvy, we have a fire, and June Mai has a fiddle. Come out and be with us.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m good in here, but thanks.”
Wren opened the door and took my hand. She had to fight back tears; my gunslinger sister, struggling not to cry, I never thought I’d see the day. “It was my fight, Cavvy. I killed Dutch. You didn’t.”
I noticed how big her hand had become. “Wren, are you afraid of turning into a hog?”
My sister shrugged, smiled, even with tears in her eyes. “If there’s one thing I learned from Pilate and his AA, it’s to live one day at a time. I don’t know what I’ll become. But I know that no matter how bad I get, you and Sharlotte won’t give up on me. Let’s face it, I’ve been a monster all my life.”
“No, you haven’t,” I said, but it was just something to say ’cause she’d told the truth. Wren had always been more devil than angel.
“Bullcrap, Cavvy,” Wren said harshly. “How I was, how Mama was, it broke me early.”
“What happened between you and Mama?”
Wren growled at me, “I’ll never talk about it. Never. Don’t ever ask again.”
I let it go. I shouldn’t have.
She calmed herself. “Anyway, tonight, this night, I need you with us, with our family. I need you now more than ever. Please.”
I thought of her back in Green River, needing us all to go to church together, and I remembered how she’d wanted to change, and all the fighting she had done for us, for our sacred duty.
All sacred and full of bullcrap.
“Okay,” I whispered. “But I hurt inside, Wren. It’s gonna make me crazy. I understand it now. I understand you. You were born feeling like this, weren’t you?”
Wren smiled a beautiful smile through her tears. “Yeah, I was born with the Devil’s hand on me. I was marked by pain early on, and maybe that’s what turned me into a monster on the inside. But the Devil and that pain get boring after a while. You are the best of us, Cavvy, the very best of us. I can’t have you be breaking down on me. Please, come and be with me.”
I wanted to fight with her, I wanted to be contrary, I wanted to warn her that most likely once she mutated into a hog, she’d go coco, and we’d have to put her down. I didn’t. Right then, she didn’t need any contrariness nor my fears and worries. She needed a little sister, her baby Cavvy, whom she petted when I was only a little peanut.
I let her lead me to the fire. It was like our last night in Wendover, another celebration fire ’cause we’d made it through.
Pilate smoked cigars and drank the coffee he’d bummed from the American soldier who’d drawn the short straw guarding the Plainville border crossing. Her name was Private Marci McDonald, and she kept making calls and sending emails. It was going to be a busy night for her, filling out reports, recounting the strangest border crossing in the history of that little guard tower in the middle of nowhere.
Micaiah moved next to me, took my hand, and I let him. I felt cold about him and about us, but when Wren saw us together, she smiled and raised her coffee cup to me.
I knew what she was thinking. She was thinking that if she lost her love, it didn’t mean I had to lose mine as well.
I glanced over to see June Mai sitting close to Sharlotte, and Sharlotte kept looking at June Mai out of the corner of her eye. June Mai was throwing her own glances, but then she’d pretend to watch the lit
tle fire as it popped and danced and sent sparks flying up into the cold air. It felt like the end of November all right—maybe Thanksgiving, maybe not.
For Alice, it was a holiday. She couldn’t sit still. She circled us, hugged us, and laughed and laughed.
Micaiah bent close and whispered into my ear. “The people I called, they are going to bring my serum so I can feel again. I know we will have to start over, but I want to. Do you?”
I looked him square in the eye, and I didn’t look away. I didn’t answer. I stared into his eyes, and I showed him my hurt, my sorrow, my worn-out self.
He didn’t beg for an answer, he couldn’t, but I knew he needed one. Like Wren needed me to be a certain way, well, so did he. “I do,” I lied. It was an echo of what Rachel said, of her love for Pilate. Hers was true. Mine wasn’t.
“Can I have the chalkdrive now?” he whispered. “I brought it into the Juniper, and I would like to be the one to take it out. Would that be okay?”
I didn’t argue. I didn’t fight. To tell you the truth, I was glad to be rid of it, and for the rest of my life, I’ve avoided any kind of necklace. Even the slightest chain of gold link feels like a noose around my neck.
Wren walked up to the fire, turned, and faced us. “Hey guys,” she said shyly.
“Are you going to do the speech this time?” Pilate asked.
Wren nodded. “Yeah.” She took in a deep breath, opened her mouth, but her voice left her. She looked over at me, then Sharlotte, with begging eyes.
“Don’t know what to say,” Wren said.
“A moment of silence for all of our fallen friends and family,” Sharlotte said.
Wren nodded. Her face grew long. “Yeah, silence. Let’s listen to it for a minute.”
And we all fell quiet, looking at the fire. I felt all the death keenly. Rachel, parts of me, my love for Micaiah, my house, heck, even back to Mama and when I’d first come to the Juniper. I couldn’t exactly pray, but I wished Windshadow well out on the open plain. And that Miley might find him. Their colts would be lightning, oiled up and greased fast. And I prayed for all the other ponies caught up in the battle. And of course, Lucretia Macaby, Tenisha Keys, Rosie Petal, Jenny Bell Scheutz, Annabeth Burton, and all our dead.
Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) Page 25