Mountains of Dreams

by Bevill, C. L.

  Landers kept silent for a while. “Not for sure, but you wouldn’t have done what you did if you hadn’t had a pretty damn good idea.”

  “Are you asking me to confess, Landers?” I asked.

  He snorted. “What difference does it make? We have no courts here. The only justice is the rough sort. I have no way of gaining retribution for being locked up for a month in a lion’s cage.”

  “Learn how to accept what happened to you,” I suggested. “That’s what I try to do. It doesn’t work very well, but I do try.”

  “McCurdy is the type of man who believes in the country we had before the change,” Landers said abruptly.

  “He certainly has an affinity for history,” I said as I rubbed my nose and heard one of the firefly pixies sing, “Does Man-Who-Talks-In-Others’-Heads think Soophee is stupid?”

  Maybe. Maybe Landers didn’t really care.

  “I think he has every intention of coming after you,” Landers warned. It sounded like a warning. I didn’t really have to think about it.

  “To kill me,” I said.

  “No. I think he intends to have you stand trial for murder,” Landers said. “I can’t get everything out of someone’s mind, but once they’ve opened up to me, there’s a certain amount of slippage.”

  There was a mental reminder not to open up to Landers. Ick on all kinds of levels. “Stand trial for murder. It wasn’t like I picked on someone lesser well-known.”

  “One measly representative left, and he became the President,” Landers said. “And then he lost his mind. Consequently, you dealt with him. Very effectively. There wasn’t any wasted time on the impeachment process.”

  “He was about to aim that weapon into a crowd of people,” I said. “Innocent people.”

  “You don’t have to defend yourself to me,” Landers said mildly.

  “I’m the only one who has to live with those consequences.” I finally opened my eyes and saw that Horse was standing on the far side of the deck looking nervously at the water.

  Meka said, “It’s only a little while longer.”

  “I don’t like water,” Horse said. “I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.”

  I glanced at Landers. He was gazing at me with open curiosity.

  “You don’t look so hot,” he said.

  What was this anyway? Why was everyone looking at me like I was their– ? Oh no, they didn’t.

  “What are you worried about, Landers?” I asked. “If McCurdy wants to try me for Maston’s death, then I’m the only one who could possibly be responsible. I was the only one with my hands on him. Pretty much everyone saw it. Except you because you were already locked up. Why did they lock you up anyway?”

  “If McCurdy comes after you,” Landers said patiently, “then he comes after all of us. It’s likely we’ll get ‘arrested’ for complicity.”

  “You have an alibi,” I said wryly. “The lion will tell them where you were.”

  “I wouldn’t talk to the others around the states ‘for’ the President anymore,” Landers answered the other question.

  “Because…”

  “Maston wanted them to look for weapons that could be used without electricity.”

  “A trebuchet,” I suggested. “Can’t you wind that one up with a big rubber band? I seem to remember that from Punkin Chunkin.”

  “Haha.”

  “There are always going to be bad people in the world,” I said. I looked over the waters and could see islands in the distance. Big black birdlike things circled them. We weren’t close enough to see what they were, and they didn’t look like giant pigeons. “And bad things. The hydra we encountered in Virginia didn’t think there was anything wrong with eating humans until I told it that humans weren’t food.”

  “You do understand that McCurdy will find you, capture you, put you on trial with people he’s picked out, find you guilty, and then execute you,” Landers said.

  “McCurdy’s a persistent little boogerhead.”

  “Maston had him looking for other weapons and non-electrical weapons,” Landers said.

  “He had the steam cars and some steam-powered motorcycles,” I said. “I don’t think he has a steam-powered jet.”

  “Not a jet, no,” Landers said.

  “Hot air balloon?”

  “I’m not sure. He was thinking about it.” Landers crossed his arms over his chest. “I didn’t happen to mention how much information he ‘shared’ with me, but I think he got it anyway.”

  “McCurdy locked you up and not the President?”

  “I refused to talk to the others once they started in talking about locating weapons powered with alternative sources. McCurdy isn’t stupid, and he thought about what he had and hadn’t actually said to me. He was considering killing me to keep me from talking to anyone else, but he couldn’t bring himself to execute me without a fair trial. Hah.”

  “When you say McCurdy is going to come for me, what you mean is that you think he’s already coming?” I asked with a sigh. I looked at Clora. She was standing at the rail, enjoying the spring day, rubbing her belly. Spring and the other firefly pixies were circling her head and singing a song about fledglings swimming to the surface of a cool spring-fed creek.

  Landers nodded. “Faster than I would have expected.”

  “Naturally.”

  Chapter 25

  Time Flies When You’re Having Fun…

  Zach was there again when I dozed off. Because of the fever and infection associated with the bullet wound, I was dog-tired, and as soon as Landers stopped talking, I fell asleep without even lying down. I’m not even sure if my head hit the cabin wall before I tipped over the edge into Snoozeville.

  It seemed like the next instant I was looking at Zach’s beloved face in my dream and wondering if he had to be asleep in order to connect with me. Perhaps it was just that I had to be asleep and could reach out to him. That had worked before, although the firefly pixies had been helping.

  The firefly pixies were helping. Oh, Sophie, how could you be so stupid?

  How could I be so dense? I should have just asked them. Once I had made it a certain distance away from Zach, it had been difficult to reach him. The pixies had distance limitations. How much easier it would be if Spring would cease with the oblique references and just tell me what I need to know. That would make life a lot less mysterious. Well, mostly it would.

  “Sophie,” Zach said. His voice was urgent and dark. “I’ve been worried about you.”

  We were sitting on the bench again, looking over the Pacific Ocean and listening to the slow-moving thumps of the Big Mamas’ feet. One of them trumpeted into the evening, and the others answered, as if they were talking about how much further it was to the beach. I did understand their language, but I didn’t understand it at the moment.

  His hands roamed over my face and my shoulders. One stopped at the spot near my clavicle where the bullet had struck. “It’s gone now,” he said.

  “Not in real life,” I said. I looked down and saw I was back in the black Goth dress. The fishnet stockings were back, but I wasn’t wearing shoes. I would have groaned with embarrassment, but Zach didn’t look like he wanted to tease me. Instead, he pulled me into his arms and made sure I knew exactly what he wanted from me. I didn’t know where I ended and where he began. For a second it reminded me of all that was right in the world.

  After a while, he pulled back and looked intently into my face. “Gideon said to remind you to hurry.”

  “I may be asleep, but I’m not an imbecile.” I smiled to take the sting out of my words. “We’re hurrying. I think we have about a day’s grace. It all depends on whether we can make the trains do what we want. Did he say why we needed to hurry, or do I have to intuit that for myself?”

  “Gideon keeps a lot to himself.” His hands framed my face. “Once I see you again, I’m never letting you go.”

  “I think I have some say in that,” I muttered, but it wasn’t really resentful.

  Za
ch laughed.

  “I should have asked before, how everyone is there,” I said, desperate to change the subject. “Kara? Calida? Elan?”

  “These…dreams…don’t always have a convenient schedule,” he said. “They know you think about them. Everyone’s fine. Kara’s fine. Complaining about her knee yesterday. She doesn’t like being on a bicycle again. Of course, a bicycle is better than riding on the Phoe—”

  “Again?” I interrupted before he could finish.

  “She said she’d like to ride the train like you,” Zach went on. “Sinclair and I have been talking about doing surgery on her knee.”

  I was confused. “Then she shouldn’t be riding a bicycle, right?”

  “Kara’s just as stubborn as you are,” Zach muttered. “She could be riding something else all the time, but it scares her because they’re so fast.” The words were deliberately enigmatic, and he kissed me again before I could ask what he meant. I immediately forgot any questions in my head. I would have reminded myself to write a list but where was I going to stick that in my dream. It wasn’t like I was going to carry a Post-it into my head when I fell asleep.

  “I miss you,” I murmured into his lips, “more than you can know.”

  “Are you ready this time?” he asked, just drawing back no more than it took to separate our lips.

  “I love you,” I said, looking into those chocolate eyes.

  “And I love you, too,” he said immediately.

  Then he violently shook my shoulder. “WAKE UP!”

  * * *

  I opened my eyes and looked into Lulu’s face. I frowned. “Five more minutes, Ma?”

  “We’re coming to the dock, Sophie,” Lulu said. “I got the impression you didn’t want to linger.”

  I looked around and several people were getting their bags together and loading packs onto their backs. Horse was dancing in place. “Land, land, land,” he said gleefully.

  Trying to concentrate, I thought about it. “I need to talk to Stephen and Craig.”

  Both men popped out of the lower deck as soon as Lulu yelled their names.

  The firefly pixies launched themselves into the air and shot off toward terra firma. Guess the girls were tired of water, too.

  “How long will it take the train to get ready?”

  “Stoke the engines,” Craig said immediately. “We left it with enough coal on board and water until we can get about a hundred miles down the track. It’s just a matter of warming it up and—”

  “It’s getting a head of steam now,” Landers said.

  Craig rolled his eyes. “Sorry about that. I forgot we have an iLanders around. I’m not sure about the roaming plan, but he’s cheaper than most carriers.”

  “They left two men at the station at the southern side of Chicago,” Landers said. “The one I talked to is Tyree. He’s very happy that we’ll be back. They’ve been sitting on their asses for the last three weeks. Except for gathering coal, and I think they’ve been playing a little hooky on that. I didn’t tell them about Maston. I didn’t know if I should.”

  “I need to check the engines, top the oil, make sure everything looks spic and span,” Craig said. “There’s a list, but it won’t take more than an hour.”

  “You go now,” I said. “Take Stephen and Landers. Get it ready so that when we show up, we leave. I don’t know what side Tyree and the others left here will be on, so I wouldn’t get friendly with them.”

  “They were already getting…disillusioned with Maston and McCurdy,” Stephen said. “So far, the worst thing we’ve faced is humans with itchy trigger fingers, and Maston thought we needed to gather an army to show everyone the United States of America was still the king of the mountain.”

  “Great, ours by omission. That’s always the best way to roll.” I was getting a niggling thought in my head. Gideon wanted me to hurry. Zizi saw that Clora vanished once she had the baby. Landers warned me that McCurdy was coming for me.

  If I could get Clora to Sunshine, Colorado, then I could give myself to McCurdy. He didn’t have a reason to punish the rest. He’d been a douchebag to be certain, but he wasn’t Maston. Perhaps, the others could work out some kind of plan for Sunshine and McCurdy. Perhaps, they could come to an agreement.

  And me? Well, I was already guilty. McCurdy had seen it for himself. It didn’t matter that Maston was guiltier than I, because McCurdy wasn’t going to try the President of the USA. No, just me. The one who hadn’t vanished.

  However, first things first. Saving Clora was first things.

  Zach’s image floated through my mind. We’d had a brief conversation when I had left Eureka. A bleak smile had curved his lips. “Promise me you won’t get yourself killed.” But I hadn’t exactly promised. I had done my best. Maybe he would appreciate that. Nevertheless, I had said, “I’ll come back if I have to crawl.”

  I said I would come back, but I guess that wasn’t going to happen. I hated not following through.

  The Lackamoolah’s engine cut out a minute before it bumped against the dock. Two men secured the boat, and Horse couldn’t wait any longer. Bracing his powerful rear legs, he simply leaped over the side and onto the dock. His hind legs slipped as he skidded across the slick wood planks, but he recovered in a graceful way before galloping toward land.

  “Ignatius,” I said to the doctor as I stood up. He appeared from my left and held my arm, careful not to jostle my shoulder. “Will it hurt Clora to ride a horse, or maybe I should say, the Horse?”

  Ignatius turned to stare at Clora. “I don’t know. Do we have a choice?”

  “It’s a few hours to the train station, and I don’t think she should walk,” I said.

  “We’ll keep an eye on her,” he said with a grimace.

  “Landers,” I said.

  Landers turned from the rail and looked at me.

  “Where’s Noelle?”

  “She went with the bigger group,” he said.

  I wanted to say a pithy swear word. I could take Noelle’s decision on several levels. It was possible I was reading into it too much. Noelle didn’t just see one outcome. She saw several. I wanted to grill on her on what she was seeing, so I could make a better decision. But hey, that would have made things easy, wouldn’t it?

  And who ever said life was going to be easy?

  Landers was still looking at me. I was getting tired of people looking at me.

  “What?”

  “Noelle didn’t want me to come with you,” he said. I could chat with Noelle via Landers, but if she hadn’t wanted to come with us, then there was little reason to believe she would provide the information I needed over the telepathic com. Furthermore, and more importantly, I needed to think about what I was doing and how it would impact the others. If I was clever about it, I would make the right decisions.

  Craptaculous. There. I was taking a page out of Lulu’s book by using made-up words. At least I hadn’t said it out loud. I wanted to, though.

  And Lulu had to jump in. “Why not?” she demanded.

  “Noelle sees things, several things,” I answered instead of letting Landers. “What she saw wasn’t good.” I wasn’t seeing anything. I had saved Lulu and made things go sideways, but I wasn’t seeing anything now. I didn’t know what that meant. I generally saw things about people I cared about. Zach. Elan. Tomas. Lulu. But I hadn’t seen anything about Flowers. The fact that I hadn’t seen anything about Flowers was a lump that stuck in my throat.

  “Noelle wouldn’t tell me,” Landers said.

  I tried to remember the legend about the prophet who saw everyone’s future. The truth was often not the one people wanted to hear about, and bad things usually happened to the prophet. I hoped Noelle wouldn’t end up with bad things happening to her.

  Ranjan lowered the walkway, and Meka immediately ran after Horse. Horse was dancing in circles in the parking lot. The others started filing off.

  Lulu handed me my broadsword and my pack. “Let’s go,” she said.

  I sl
ipped everything into place and thanked God for the brief surge of energy that compelled me. Urgency and hope could do things to a person that I didn’t always appreciate.

  Craig, Stephen, and Landers set off at a brisk pace. We were going to follow as fast as we could without causing harm to Clora or the baby.

  Clora protested as she was lifted onto Horse by Meka.

  I talked to Horse as the pregnant woman objected. “Thank you, Horse. You’ve been a great help. I don’t know what we would have done without you.”

  “No more boats,” Horse said pleadingly.

  “No, it’s trains all the way to where we need to go. After we settle there and Clora gives birth, we’ll have to decide what’s next.”

  “I hate water,” Horse said. “Trains aren’t so bad.”

  The trek from the dock to the train station was longer than I remembered, or maybe it was because I wasn’t feeling so great. I kept looking at Clora and Ignatius, until Clora said, “For God’s sake, stop that. The kid isn’t going to shoot out of my womb like a bullet.”

  “It might,” Lulu said and chuckled. Clora chuckled after a few seconds.

  After a while, Meka got tired of me stumbling and hoisted me up behind Clora. “You’re going to fall down and not get up, if you don’t,” he warned.

  Horse said, “It’s okay. They’re not as heavy as you.”

  “Hey,” Meka said.

  Tyree, the man Landers mentioned, met us with a wagon and a matched set of horses. Horse looked interestedly at the horses and then dismissed them. Tyree loaded up everyone else who was tired, and we made it the rest of the way to where the steam train waited. Craig had already been working his way through his list. I slid off Horse and walked to the engine. Craig leaned out to listen to me. It was a little hard to hear above the noise of the engine, but it had to be said.

  “I know you’re tired,” I said to Craig, “but we’ve got to get to Colorado as soon as possible, so figure out a way to stay awake through the trip. Take turns with whomever will give you a break.” I looked over my shoulder at Tyree. “Those men? Will they come with us?”