Mountains of Dreams

by Bevill, C. L.

  McCurdy had a mutiny. And he deserved it.

  I registered that the golden-birdlike creature had made its way back to us, delicately stepping around the dirigible. Both beast and rider watched McCurdy, ready to step in.

  Finally, I saw when McCurdy folded. His face crumpled, and you could tell his mighty military heart had just broken. Deep within him, he had known it wasn’t right, although I didn’t think he would have pulled back if something hadn’t happened to interrupt him. Maybe it would mean that he would think harder about his moral compass the next time something happened where he needed to make a judgment. Maybe.

  McCurdy dropped his sword to the ground and put his hands in the air. He said, “I’m the one responsible. There’s no need to hurt any of these people.”

  Relief was like a wellspring flowing into my soul.

  At last I turned to the gold creature. And…

  “Zach,” I breathed.

  Zach slid off the animal’s back and ran to me. The relief on his face was equal to mine. His arms grasped me around the waist, and he lifted me in the air, right off the table, and buried his face in my stomach, disregarding the handcuffs and everything else. I put my arms over his head and bent my head over his. He wouldn’t let my waist go, and he turned me away from the table so that he was my only support. “Thank God, Sophie,” he muttered, “Gideon said we’d be in time, but there’s only so much clairvoyance I can take.”

  Everyone was silent for a long time while Zach got his fill of me and while I got my fill of him. When he finally lifted his head I saw the gold mark on his cheek, and he smiled as I saw it. It was shaped like the great flying creature. He saw my reaction and said, “What? You think you’re the only special one?”

  The firefly pixies snorted at that and took off. I saw them zipping to the golden beast, giddy with triumph. “What is it?” I asked, unable to take in the sheer level of emotion burning in Zach’s eyes.

  “A phoenix,” Zach whispered as he let me slide down his body. “They like mountains. Sinclair wasn’t happy about losing his interns but—”

  I ran my fingers through his thick hair. I wanted to pull back and caress his face, but I was trapped by the cuffs.

  The breath in Zach’s chest hitched once. “Once Gideon saw what happened, we left. The Big Mamas caught up to us later.” He glanced over his shoulder and jerked his head slightly so that I could see. Elan, the little boy who liked the firefly pixies so much, was lowered by the trunk of one of the Big Mamas. He’d grown so much since I’d seen him last. “Elan talked to the Big Mamas. Turns out they live near all the mountain chains. They have a hive mind. The other group was waiting for us as soon as we hit the Rockies. Good friends to have, and the Phoenixes can fly very, very quickly.”

  “Elan talked to the Mamas?” I repeated stupidly.

  Elan charged up to us and wrapped his skinny arms around both Zach and me. I caught a glimpse of a firefly pixie shape on his bicep. Wow. I wasn’t the only one who had gone all deep-six Doctor Doolittle.

  Zach abruptly realized there was a noose around my neck, as if he hadn’t seen it before and let go to pry at it. He cursed under his breath and worked around my handcuffed wrists and Elan’s octopus grip. I patted Elan’s back, and the little boy muttered, “We thought we’d never see you again and Gideon had nightmares about you and something he called a hydra and Lulu was so kew-el that she made up for all that other stuff. Then there was that other guy who wants people to work in the places where the tech still works and oh gosh, I’m so glad to see you, Sophie.”

  The knot pulled loose, and Zach yanked it off my head with a short apology for hurting me. The firefly pixies suddenly launched into the air with stinging curses at his hastiness. He threw the noose away, and then pulled my arms over his head so he could see the cuffs.

  After a moment, Zach turned to face McCurdy. McCurdy stood there with his hands still half raised. His people weren’t exactly sure how to react. They were effectively surrounded by Big Mamas, a phoenix, and other new animals plus a bunch of humans, none of whom (except me and Elan) looked happy. Horse and Meka trotted up while Zach was sizing up McCurdy.

  “Did we miss anything?” Horse called.

  Kara limped up and embraced me as well as Elan and Zach. Any more participants, and we were going to have a scrum. All we needed was a soccer ball.

  A great nose gently pried us apart, and I looked up into curious, flame-colored eyes. The phoenix was next to us, and the firefly pixies circled its head.

  The others parted and backed away while Zach said, “This is Nea. I guess you know what he is to me.”

  “Hello, Nea,” I said. I reached up, and the animal allowed me to stroke his nose. It was curiously soft for all the gold scales. I smiled into the burning eyes and added, “Thank you.”

  The creature made a series of clicking noises that sounded like tubular bells. I understood after a moment. I couldn’t quite make the same noises, but I was close enough to make Nea happy. Then Elan and Kara began to rub the sides of his elongated face and he was even happier.

  “What are we doing?” Stephen asked. He stepped up and looked McCurdy and his people over. “I’ve got Craig bringing up the rear with the train. We left people with Clora and the doctor at the other place.” I understood he was reluctant to give the location to McCurdy.

  I remembered the dream, and I gave the phoenix’s soft snout another long stroke. “Clora’s all right, she’s really all right?”

  No one said anything for a moment. The moment was so long that I knew everything wasn’t all right.

  Zach wrapped an arm around my shoulders. “They got her into the bubble just in time,” he said softly. “The baby was born just inside the zone. Once the umbilical cord was cut, they realized one of Clora’s hands wasn’t inside.” I remembered the bones. The sliced bones.

  “Oh God no.”

  “The doctor, Ignatius isn’t it? He put a tourniquet on her forearm. I helped him do a little surgery. We found a doctor’s office not far away inside the bubble. We also got a generator to work in there. They’re okay. The baby’s healthy and screaming bloody murder. Clora will be okay, too. She’ll need antibiotics and a lot of time to heal, but there’ll be lots of people there.” Zach told me the information matter-of-factly. “That’s the reason we were almost late.” He thumbed the cuffs with a scowl. “Who’s got the keys for these?”

  McCurdy held them up. “You found another tech bubble? That’s where the bone came from?”

  “Actually I found that one first,” I said as Zach unlocked the cuffs. He tossed the keys and the cuffs away and glared at McCurdy.

  I looked around. Everyone waited.

  “Back to Sunshine to regroup?” I said. I had to do some organizing. I talked with the Big Mamas who decided to try out the plains grassy areas before heading back to the mountains. The moths were happy that we planted more flowers. The phoenix started to nibble on the dirigible. Apparently he liked eating metal. There was a lot of junk metal around for him to nosh on.

  I could see in the distance that the train was coming from the southwest. Craig and some others had caught up. We had to wait for them to turn around and put more water into the boilers.

  By the time everyone was on board who was going on board, McCurdy called, “What about us?”

  I looked back at his group. Everyone seemed equally unhappy. “You can start your own government, McCurdy. I suggest you lose Mario. He’s not a team player, and I don’t think you can keep an eye on him 24/7.” Mario was sitting on the ground with his head in his hands. “People are welcome in the West but only if they want to live by the golden rule.”

  “Which rule is that?”

  “You already know it. We’ve got history to make, McCurdy. You can repeat the mistakes, or you can forge a new path.” That was the best advice I could give to someone who had been half-a-tick away from hanging me. It was the only advice I wanted to give to him. But I made a very specific gesture with two fingers pointing at
my eyes and then at him. I’ll be watching you.

  McCurdy rotated away and started unifying his people. They weren’t going to be able to use the dirigible. Nea had seen to that, but they still had the other train. A few of his people obviously didn’t care to return and came to our train. I nodded at Craig while they climbed aboard. Henry and Ela were two of them.

  Lulu winked at me while Zach tugged me toward the phoenix. Spring zipped past me and sang, “We’ll go with Happy-Go-Lucky-Blonde-Girl, Soophee! The sisters like the bugs in their teeth but not that much!” I looked a little mystified until Zach whispered, “Why go by rail when you can fly?”

  Everyone stared when I giggled.

  Epilogue

  Insert Pithy Saying Here…

  I’d like to say that everyone lived happily ever after, but life wasn’t really like a fairy tale. Lulu stayed with the tech bubble. There was a way of using it to make things again. Sure, we weren’t getting Twinkies anytime soon, but manufacturing could be accomplished there, and they had to figure out a way of gauging the edges of the bubble. It wasn’t as open and shut as the round circle of the Naval Observatory.

  Can you believe I figured it out? I was enjoying the use of an iPod for the first time in what, months and months, listening to Green Day and Nine Inch Nails, when I inadvertently walked up to the border, and the iPod stopped working. I didn’t even have to cross the barrier. So I got some marker flags from the nearest hardware store and placed a flag every four or five feet all the way around.

  In the process of doing the boundaries, I found a historical marker. You see them every once in a while. A brass plaque on a pole or on a wall or something denoting an event or place of significance. This one said, “Sunshine, Colorado, home of Willard Newbold, inventor of the first electrical city system. Sunshine was the first town ever to be completely electrified in the early 20th century.” The entire town. Every last bit of it. Imagine that. That explained why it was a bubble. Bansi explained it, as much as he wanted to explain it. Technology was its own magic, and that magic had persisted.

  At the end of summer some of us were returning to the California coast. The phoenix wasn’t displeased. He liked the idea of meeting the phoenixes in the Cascade Mountains. And Zach wanted to finish with Sinclair.

  Ignatius was staying with Clora and the baby. There were others there, too, including Craig, who didn’t care if Clora was missing a hand or not. They wanted the oldness and security of the tech they could use there. Me, not so much. I loved that iPod, but I had learned there were other more important things.

  Zach kept hinting about a box with a ring in it and how he wanted to give it to me on that bench seat where the Big Mamas’ trail could be seen. I could see if the bench seat was still there and decide whether I would say yes.

  Like there was any doubt of that.

  – THE END –

  About the Author

  C.L. Bevill has lived in Virginia, Texas, Arizona, and Oregon. She once was in the U.S. Army and a graphic illustrator. She holds degrees in social psychology and counseling. She is the author of Bubba and the Dead Woman, Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas, Bubba and the Missing Woman, Veiled Eyes, Disembodied Bones, and Shadow People, among others. Presently she lives with her husband and her daughter in Alabama and continues to constantly write. She can be reached at www.clbevill.com or read her blog at www.carwoo.blogspot.com

  Other Novels by C.L. Bevill

  ~

  Mysteries:

  Bubba and the Dead Woman

  Bubba and the 12 Deadly Days of Christmas

  Bubba and the Missing Woman

  Brownie and the Dame

  Bubba and the Mysterious Murder Note

  The Ransom of Brownie (Coming soon)

  Bayou Moon

  Crimson Bayou

  Paranormal Suspense/Romance:

  Veiled Eyes (Lake People 1)

  Disembodied Bones (Lake People 2)

  Arcanorum: A Lake People Novel (Lake People 3)

  The Moon Trilogy:

  Black Moon (The Moon Trilogy 1)

  Amber Moon (The Moon Trilogy 2)

  Silver Moon (The Moon Trilogy 3)

  Cat Clan Novellas:

  Harvest Moon

  Blood Moon

  Crescent Moon

  Shadow People

  Sea of Dreams

  Mountains of Dreams (Dreams #2)

  Suspense:

  The Flight of the Scarlet Tanager

  Black Comedy:

  The Life and Death of Bayou Billy

  Missile Rats

  Chicklet:

  Dial ‘M’ For Mascara