Dissolution: The Wyoming Chronicles: Book One

by W. Michael Gear

  Naw. Couldn’t be.

  The fine features on Shyla’s face pinched. “If you were China, Russia, and Iran, could you have imagined a better way to take us down? Not a shot fired? I mean, they learned a lot about us from COVID. This was genius. Just push a button and crash your adversary’s entire economy. Then sit back and watch the country tear itself apart.”

  “Hey, lighten up. We’re out here on the edge of everything. We don’t have any way of knowing how serious this really is.”

  “I saw those jets fly over today. I may be from Vermont, but that’s waaaay out of the ordinary. And big fires burning all across the west? Think of the financial system just gone. In the blink of an eye. Tell me that everything didn’t grind to a halt. Sure, most people would have waited patiently—right up until it became apparent that it wasn’t going to be fixed. And when the government shut down communications? That would have been the final straw. Bet the internet’s gone, too.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You ever taken Dr. Hamrah’s Anthro 330 class on culture and resource utilization?”

  “Yep.” He glanced sidelong at her. “You’re talking about his model that uses resource flow through a society? The one that gives points and different valuations to production, distribution, and consumption? I applied it to the Norse in the eight hundreds and used it to explain Viking expansion across Europe.”

  “I plugged the data into the modern American economy.” She paused. “Granted, it was a pretty rough fit. I mean, you can only collapse so many categories of data to get an incredibly complex system to fit such a crude model, but, to put it in Dr. Holly’s terms, what it suggested was pretty ugly.”

  “What did you get?”

  “Collapse.” She paused. “A really precipitous collapse. Especially if the resource was money. We’ve been inflating the currency ever since 9/11 without the concomitant generation of wealth. I mean, if I can read the data for a simple statistical model, why couldn’t Chinese economists with a lot more sophisticated instruments, computational power, and statistical programs?”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “Why?” Then she paused. “Oh, I see. Because I’m Shyla Adams?”

  “No. Wait. It’s just that...”

  “Yes?” Her tone was turning hostile.

  “Okay, then tell me: You’re a really smart woman. Why the act?”

  She studied him thoughtfully, as if deciding what to say. “Here’s the thing: I know how my looks affect men. I’m the stunningly gorgeous Shyla Adams, every man’s heartthrob and fantasy. More to the point, I know how I affect women. They’re just plain vicious and vindictive if they perceive you as a threat. As long as I’m vivacious, half-wild Shyla, the blonde bimbo isn’t threatening. But if I came off as a hard-nosed intellectual, they’d do anything in their power to cut my throat. Used to make my life a whole lot easier.”

  “Used to?”

  “That world’s dead.”

  “Amber’d like you.”

  “Watch out for her. She’s brittle. If the stories are true…”

  “About that year she was an ISIS hostage?”

  “Nice word for the way they treated her, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, well, the miracle is that she’s not in an institution.”

  “Just be careful around her. With all the shit coming down, she could really lose it. We’re talking shattered and psychotic.”

  “Believe me, I hear you.”

  After a long pause, she asked, “Do you think you could ever kill someone?”

  That hit him like a blind-side punch.

  “Hey, I’m supposed to say, no way. Sane, sensitive people say that, right?” He paused. “But after the last couple of days? I’ve had to ask myself some really hard questions. If it came down to my life...or those I loved and cared for...?”

  After he let it hang, she asked, “What if a guy came in out of the dark and put a gun to Kirstin’s head?”

  “If he shoots her, do I get her BMW?”

  “Don’t joke. I’m serious. He’s got a gun to Kirstin’s head, demanding that we all turn over our personal property and money? You can reach Pam’s pistol in the cook tent. What do you do? Your call, Sam.”

  He bit his lip, paused, trying to put it into words. “If we’re right. If our world’s dead. The old rules are gone. I once heard someone say that nations didn’t live by moralities, but by laws. If we’re in collapse, the laws are gone. Dr. Holly said it all when he said that ultimately it’s a matter of survival.”

  He squeezed his eyes shut, shook his head. “God damn, did I really just say that?”

  “For years we’ve had models for the collapse of the modern state operating right in front of us: Libya, Syria, Venezuela. That’s coming here. It’s already started. Amber’s right, we’ll be no different.”

  Sam gestured to the camp below. “Hard to believe, but this is my world now. Our world. It may be all that we’ve got left.” He paused. “Dr. Holly’s right. There are worse places to wait out the apocalypse. And meanwhile, maybe the president can pull some sort of a rabbit out of the hat.”

  “It’ll mean a dictatorship.” Her soft laugh was bitter. “So much for social justice.” A pause. “Tomorrow, I’m going to ask Pam to teach me how to shoot.” She was as serious as a heart attack when she asked, “Want to learn with me?”

  If it had been anyone but Shyla... “Sure.”

  What the hell? These were guns they were talking about. To cover his disquiet he added, “Boy, is Jim ever going to be surprised when he sees you next.”

  “Jim won’t make it to the end of the month. If he isn’t dead already.”

  “That’s pretty harsh.”

  “Jim is nothing without a football and his trust fund. Wouldn’t surprise me to learn he ate every pill in the medicine cabinet. That, or jumped headlong out of Daddy’s fifty-seventh story window in Manhattan.”

  Sam sat silently, thankful for the first time for the endless struggle he had had just to get out of The Yucateca’s kitchen, let alone to college.

  After a couple of seconds, she glanced at him. “What about you? Got anything to confess?”

  “I meant it when I said I was scared shitless. I mean, damn, Shyla, how do you deal with the end of the world? You can fit your head around it academically: All states eventually fail. But to know that we’re going to be seeing it, living it? How do you cope?”

  “Yeah, why’d it have to happen to us, huh?”

  They stared out at the night. The coyotes were yipping in a chorus somewhere, and the occasion calls of the nighthawks added to the empty feeling.

  “Shyla, you wanted my take on whether to try and travel back East? Every fiber of my being wants to go. To get back to Mom and Dad and that crummy little restaurant. My brain, however, tells me it’s a recipe for disaster.”

  Shyla took a deep breath, exhaling her tension. “Yeah. I’m with you. But Sam, bad times are coming, and even if I have to kill someone, I will not be a helpless victim.”

  The Enemy Is Us

  Prior to the collapse, a media personality for the Religious Right in the abortion war, stated: “We shouldn’t be obsessing over if we’re going to have a Civil War over abortion. Our efforts should be on how to win it.” A spokesperson for Pro Choice blithely proclaimed, “They will not win this war on women, not even if it means blood in the streets!”

  Fools! Fucking imbecilic fools! I saw blood in the streets. The burning buildings. Watched looters smashing store windows. Saw them destroy everything in their moment of wrath. And when they were done, all they had to look forward to was wreckage, filth, starvation, and darkness.

  — Excerpt from Breeze Tappan’s Journal.

  Chapter Eighteen

  On the verge of shivering, Sam awakened the next morning. Breathing the heavy and damp air stung his nose where it poked out of the safe warmth of his sleeping bag. Shuffling over to the door, he unzipped it and stared out into a gloomy darkness. He could barely make out Court’s tent next
to his.

  Dressing quickly in the chill, he pulled on his boots and stepped out into an opaque world. He had seen thick fog before, but nothing like this. A person couldn’t see more than twenty feet.

  Sound carried though; he could hear Pam Tappan in the cook tent where pans collided, and utensils clinked metallically.

  He almost got lost when he ambled down into the trees to relieve himself. Talk about disorienting. For a moment Sam just stood, a sensation of panic growing as he stared around at the few dark tree trunks visible in the thick haze. But which way had he come to reach this spot?

  He tipped his head back, not even seeing a lighter gloom among the shadowy branches that disappeared on their way up...

  Up. Camp was up. That was the way back.

  He encountered civilization when he found the back of Dylan’s tent and barely avoided tripping over the tent strings. He could hear whispering inside, followed by a soft female sigh and the rustling of a sleeping bag.

  Okay, so Dylan and Kirstin had hooked up. Bless them.

  He tiptoed around the tent’s strings and headed to the cook tent. Heard more voices. He stepped inside the door flap. A Coleman lantern cast its glaring white light across the portable spice cabinet, Coleman stoves, stacked plates, silverware, and water jugs. The big, enameled coffee pot was steaming and sending out a wondrous aroma where it sat on the flat-topped heat stove near the door. He could hear the crackle as a fire burned inside.

  In the back of the tent, Pam stood pressed against Shyla, her body conforming to Shyla’s back, arms wrapped around her. What Sam’s confused glance first took as intimacy vanished as he recognized the deadly piece of metal held in Shyla’s hands.

  “That’s right,” Pam was saying as she pressed Shyla’s elbow up slightly. “See how the sight picture stabilizes? How you don’t wobble as much?”

  Pam backed away a step, head cocked as she inspected Shyla’s stance and the position of her head and arms.

  “Now, breathe. Big breath in, half breath out. Good. Caress the trigger like you would a lover, increasing the pressure carefully.”

  Click!

  Sam jumped.

  Pam asked, “Did you see the sights wobble?”

  “A little,” Shyla told her.

  “Try it again.”

  Sam swallowed hard as Shyla cocked the big gun, the hammer clicks loud over the hiss of the Coleman lantern. Shyla then carefully positioned her hands on the gun and extended it.

  “Breathe like I told you,” Pam said. “Sight picture. Now the trigger.”

  Shyla’s finger slipped down from the frame to the trigger.

  “Good. Now, caress.”

  Click!

  “How was that?” Pam asked.

  “Better. I didn’t know it was going off.”

  “Perfect. We’ll practice some more before...” Pam turned, stopping short as she discovered Sam in the doorway. “Oh, Sam. You ready for coffee? Breakfast is a half-an-hour out yet. Frank should have the fire stoked.”

  “Uh...yeah.” He hoped his voice didn’t squeak.

  Shyla turned, smile radiant, a gleam behind her excited eyes. “It’s easier than I thought, Sam. Just hold still and caress the trigger.”

  Pam laughed as she bustled over, grabbed a hot pad, and picked up the coffee pot from the stove. As she poured, she said, “Oh, sure. Easy when you’re dry firing. Everything changes when the gun goes off for real. Not only is the bang deafening, but the recoil jerks the barrel up and back. And you don’t always have time to get in position and think it through before you shoot.”

  “When can I shoot for real?” Shyla was thoughtfully examining the big revolver.

  “Back at the ranch. And not with that pistol. That’s a Freedom Arms .454 Casull. That’s my bear gun. You’re going to start with a .22.”

  “Sam? You want to try?” Shyla asked, turquoise eyes dancing.

  Pam shot him an evaluative look. “You part of this, too?”

  “We decided last night,” Shyla told her before Sam could find the words to back out gracefully. “Sam and I, well, we think it might be something to know given what’s been happening.”

  Sam nodded in dumb acceptance. It had been one thing to agree up on the hill last night when it was all so academic. Another when the big silver handgun was right there, looking so lethal.

  So, Sam, old pal, Shyla’s looking you right in the eye.

  Say no, and he’d lose her.

  He stepped over, teeth gritted, and told himself: It’s not loaded. No bullets.

  Pam gave him that suspicious look, as if she could see right through to the part of him that was suddenly scared stiff.

  “What do I do?”

  Pam glanced at her watch. “This will have to be real quick. Shyla, show him.”

  “Here, step over here. We’re going to point the gun up toward the tent corner, which is a safe direction. We never point the gun at anything we don’t want to shoot. Now, here’s how you hold it.”

  Maybe it was the fact that Shyla put it in his hands. He expected his skin to crawl at the touch, or that it would be icy cold and oily. The grip was warm as it slipped into his palm. Shyla molded the web of his right hand around the back, her fingers dancing on his skin. He let her shape him to the weapon as if he were a piece of clay and she the sculptor of his future.

  “Feet apart a little wider,” Pam coached as Shyla positioned Sam.

  He wasn’t ready for how heavy the gun was when she finally let loose of it. Then Shyla stepped close behind him. He caught her scent and filled his nostrils. This was pure woman after days in field camp. Not the scent of shampoo or perfume, but her, and it almost made him shiver.

  She pressed close as she maneuvered his arms. His heart began to beat with an increased tension. A jet of excitement burst through him each time she touched him.

  “Now, look down the barrel,” Shyla said, her lips inches from his ear, her breath warm. “See the blade in the notch?”

  Sam did. That was the sight picture, and it was jumping with each shuddering beat of his heart.

  “Hold that sight picture. Steady,” she whispered, voice almost sultry. “Deep breath. Good. Now let it half out so that your lungs are in balance. That’s it. Lower your finger to the trigger. Easy. And caress it the way you would a lover.”

  He imagined not the hard curve of trigger, but her soft skin slipping beneath...

  Click!

  Sam jerked as if bitten, the image vanishing.

  “I did the same thing,” Shyla said happily. “Let’s try again. Cock it like I showed you.”

  Okay, he could do this. Hell, he could do this all day. Anything to keep her so close.

  Time went away, and he lost track of how many times he clicked that big heavy revolver. Somewhere in the process, he lost his old self. He wanted Shyla’s approval. Wanted her to be proud of him.

  And then they switched, and he got to coach her, all under Pam’s watchful eyes when she could spare them a glance as she hustled about getting breakfast ready.

  He might have been in dream-lust with Shyla Adams before, but that morning he fell in love with the woman. Had anyone told him “You’ll find your happiness in a cook tent in Wyoming, fake-shooting a large handgun with a beautiful woman in the light of a Coleman lantern”, he’d have suggested they see a psychiatrist about a prescription for Zyprexa.

  Yet, there he was, cocking, breathing, finger on trigger, click. Sharing the growing excitement with Shyla, bonding over this crazy, taboo, instrument of death.

  With it came the realization that whatever it took to keep her trust, faith, and respect, he would do.

  In a complete reshuffling of his life and priorities, he had to be worthy of this woman. To share her company, shoulder her burdens, protect her, and keep her close.

  If, by God, it took mastering a gun to do it, well, shit, Sam Delgado guessed he’d already sold his soul.

  “Enough for now, you two,” Pam told them with a smile. “Breakfast is ready.
But first, load it up, Shyla, just like I showed you. Then stick it back in the holster so it’s ready.”

  Sam watched in fascination as Shyla walked over to the cooler, pulled the hammer back to half-cock, and opened the loading gate. The gun clicked softly—just like in the movies—as she turned the cylinder. Her slim fingers inserted the blunt-nosed bullets one by one. Grace and elegance mastering the beast.

  “Point it at the ground,” Pam ordered as Shyla carefully lowered the hammer from half-cock.

  “Let me see.” Pam stepped over, took the gun, and turned the cylinder as she inspected the loads. She shoved it back in its holster, and added, “Always check your load yourself. Never depend on anyone else to do it. Your life might depend on it.”

  Then she gave them a conspiratorial wink.

  In a trance-like state Sam followed Shyla out with a plate heaped with eggs, potatoes, and sausage. The sum of the events: Wyoming; the crisis; the cave; Shyla; and this morning with the gun; even then he knew it for what it was—a watershed.

  The man he had been had slipped off into the past to become a shadow figure.

  As he seated himself next to Shyla, he took a moment to stare into her eyes, memorizing how the blue surrounding the pupils shaded into green. “We’re going to make it,” he told her. “I’m going to see to that.”

  She gave him a special smile, reached out, laid a hand on his shoulder. “Not the sort of thing you want to face alone, is it?”

  He caught himself an instant before he gushed something trite and stupid. He’d meant the overall situation; she’d taken it to a more intimate level.

  Amber appeared out of the mist, got breakfast, and walked over to the fire. Taking a seat beside them, she squinted around at the dull fog, and said, “Don’t think we’re heading down the hill today. Not until this clears.”

  Sam considered the thick mist. “Can you imagine crossing slickside?”

  “Might be easier,” Shyla said over a mouthful of steaming eggs. “You could ride across that section like a happy idiot without seeing how far you could fall.”