Machine-Gun Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  My heart trembled ’cause I could guess where Jenny Bell was headed.

  “June Mai herself told us all about it. The rest of the U.S. either doesn’t know or doesn’t care.” Jenny Bell set her shot glass on the table. “Once the SISBI laws were in place, President Swain made a big show of bringing our troops home, and when they started causing trouble, she sent the Ladies in Waiting out here. That way, the U.S. government wouldn’t have to pay for their PTSD therapy, and the good Christian women of the New Morality wouldn’t have to worry about homeless vets filling the streets because of their mental illness, drug addiction, and alcoholism. Just send them all to the Juniper along with the worst of the criminals. That’s why the U.S. has been closing so many prisons. They’ve found the perfect place to send all their problems. Here. With us. Cheap and convenient. And they’ve been doing it for years.”

  I felt my throat close up. I remembered the fence I’d seen outside of the Buzzkill. Wren said the U.S. border guards didn’t care about people going into the Juniper, only about people leaving.

  My home was a 1.5 million square kilometer prison, a penal colony. Feeling choked, I pulled at the collar of my shirt and wished everyone would stop talking for a minute so I could digest what Jenny Bell had said. But that wasn’t going to happen.

  Pilate shook his head. “June Mai Angel rounded the veterans up, gave them a purpose, gave them an illegal economy, and now probably wants to set herself up as the Juniper’s queen.”

  “Something like that,” Jenny Bell said. “We trade with June Mai, beef for various supplies. And if she had been around when that Edger woman showed up, well, things would’ve played out far differently.”

  Ironic that one of our enemies might have saved us from another. I knew June Mai also dealt in illegal contraband, so I asked, “What about Skye6? Do you have any?” It would help to have a surplus, if Petal needed more time to get clean. Or if we got shot up again.

  “Some,” Jenny Bell said. “But mostly we use pain pills or spools of EMAT for broken bones and such. Most of the time, we trade for luxury goods like sugar, soap, shampoo, new clothes from the World. Yankee stuff.”

  Now I knew where my new outfit had come from. And Jenny Bell’s deodorant.

  She continued. “June Mai doesn’t take just anyone, though. You have to be well trained, and you have to be stable. The sicker girls go north, to join up with the Psycho Princess. We can’t trade with her or her people because they’re too crazy. I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about her killing boys and nailing them to trees. All true. The Psycho Princess knows if she got out of line with us, June Mai would come calling. And the Psycho Princess keeps the Wind River folk from crossing the Wyoming border, so it all balances out. We have a good life here. Most people wouldn’t understand. I figure you may or may not.”

  The Wind River people were what we called the Native Americans who’d reclaimed the Montana and Wyoming territories. God help whoever tried to trespass on their land.

  I lost it before I could rein myself in. “June Mai took her armies and marched them into Burlington. She’s laying siege to our hometown.”

  Jenny Bell frowned. “I knew something was up, though I thought she’d go after Lamar first. She wants the world to know what Swain did with the veterans. She wants justice or money, or maybe even, like Pilate said, to be governor of the territory. The only way she thinks to do it is by the gun, but way out here, we can’t get involved in politics. I’m just glad Edger and those women are gone.”

  Wren wobbled up. She talked with her bottle in front of her mouth to hide her missing teeth. “Aw, no more of this boring talk. I say we have our Irish girl sing. Let’s make this a party. Come on, Red, sing one pretty.”

  Others asked as well, so Allie finally stood. “All the talk of the Sino, I know a war song. It’s not a jolly song, but I know it through.”

  “Sing anything!” Wren yelled.

  Allie opened her mouth, and her voice came out strong and heartbreaking. She hadn’t sung a dozen words before most of us were in tears. It was called Another Waltz for Matilda, based on an Australian song about Gallipoli and the horrors of World War I. Like the Sino, that war had also left a generation crushed and disillusioned.

  Another waltz for Matilda

  Another song for the dead

  We prayed for a blue sky, got a black one instead

  And a little girl weeps

  For her sister Matilda gone.

  The song is stuck on repeat again

  The storms sicken the ground with rain

  In darkness we cling to hope, slipping into pain

  The parades for our daughters have all been in vain

  Another waltz for Matilda

  Another war to end wars

  Until it happens again on some distant shore

  And another mother weeps

  For another Matilda gone.

  As I listened, I felt pity for June Mai Angel. Yes, she’d tried to kill us, but that tragic song made me pity her and Petal and all the broken-souled veterans who had been tortured by war so we could be free. I even felt sorry for Pilate.

  He sat in his chair motionless. Not sipping his coffee. Not chewing on his cigar. Just sat there until he choked out the words. “If you sing any more, Allie Chambers, I do believe it will kill me.”

  “Good!” Sharlotte shrieked. She jumped up. Her face flushed a fiery red, her pretty eyes slitted. From her pocket, she took the piece of paper she’d worried near to pieces. “Good. I wish you dead, you miserable jackerdan. I wish you worse than dead. I wish you hell bound for what you’ve done to me and my family.”

  (ii)

  Sharlotte swayed on her feet. Zenobia, Jenny Bell’s oldest daughter, tried to help her from falling, but Sharlotte shoved her away. “Get off me. You’re his seed.” Sharlotte shot a finger at Pilate. “I prayed you’d die. When I saw you lying there, I prayed you’d die, and I would burn this paper and never say a word. Mama didn’t. And I’m as good as she was.”

  Wren’s smile was so sharp I thought she’d decapitate herself with it. Sharlotte was finally taking her turn as the troubled Weller girl, making a cow-patty-wet mess of things.

  “Sharlotte, sit down,” Pilate whispered.

  I wanted to say something, do something, but I was paralyzed. Pilate and Sharlotte seemed like forces of nature right then, and getting between them would’ve been like running out into a street with a hurricane on one side and a tornado on the other.

  “You know what this paper says?” Sharlotte asked. Foamy spit wet her lips. Her eyes spun crazily.

  “I have an idea,” Pilate said.

  “It’s a medical report I found going through Mama’s papers after she died. Says Daddy wasn’t viable.”

  I felt all the blood drain out of my face. The world tilted, and I knew the tilt would never go away. I’d have to walk leaning for the rest of my life. My daddy wasn’t my daddy anymore. Charles Weller had been a thin, laughing kind of man, Colorado born and bred, who never left, not even after the Yellowstone Knockout. All the memories stormed through my head—us together, him holding me, and wrestling me, and sips from his beer, and then what he became, in the bed. Sick getting sicker. Dying and getting deader. Mama crying like it would break her.

  So who was my father? I could guess, but I needed it said aloud.

  Pilate sighed. “I figured this would happen. I prayed it wouldn’t, but I’m coming to understand the Lord resents every one of my prayers. And yet I beseech Him so ardently.”

  Sharlotte took a swaying step toward him. I hoped she’d fall down, pass out, and we could burn the paper and forget all about it. Nope. She launched into a speech full of acid and agony. “And if Daddy was sterile, only one other man in Mama’s life, and that was you, famous Father Pilate, wearing a collar and a gun, and hopping from one bed to another and laughing at his vows like they don’t mean nothin’. Laughing at the church and God like they don’t mean nothin’. If you weren’t so good at killing people, I nev
er would’ve allowed you to come with us on this goddamn cattle drive. You bastard. You miserable, jackering bastard. I got your blood in me, and it makes me want to cut my own throat.”

  Pilate? My father? I gripped the arms of my chair, praying to get off the wild ride we were on—a rollercoaster plunging down into an abyss.

  “Sharlotte, please—” Pilate tried.

  Sharlotte, vicious, cut him off. “I’ve seen you and Wren together. She’d come into camp, thinking no one could see. But I saw. Your own daughter. You’re going to hell, Pilate, and I’d gladly shun heaven to spend all of eternity watching you burn.”

  Wren burst out with a raw, jagged laugh. Not quite a scream, but close enough. She stood to join in the fight. Here we go, Wren and Sharlotte, the next battle in a never-ending war.

  Jenny Bell stood as well. “We should clear the dishes. It’s pretty clear the party is over.”

  Sharlotte turned her finger on Jenny Bell. “And you. Pilate fathered at least Zenobia. How could you let him touch you when we all know what kind of filth he is? He pretends to be a priest, just so he can go sniffing around, like a dog lookin’ for a kutia in heat.”

  “That’s enough, Sharlotte!” I shouted. Whatever we thought about Jenny Bell’s ethics, it wasn’t right to attack her in front of her daughters. And I heard myself in Sharlotte’s snarling. I’d spent a lot of time judging Pilate and the women he’d given children to. I shouldn’t have. Like Pilate had said, the world wasn’t a paint-by-numbers picture of rainbows and unicorns. Life was messy.

  I left my chair to stop the madness, and it was a tableau of the Weller sisters, like an outtake from an all-female version of the Lord of the Flies.

  “That’s enough,” I said. “We’re embarrassing ourselves. We can talk about all this later.” No way were we going to stop, though. Might as well try stopping a bad storm from hailing.

  Jenny Bell and her family shuffled away even as our employees and hires ducked out the door. Even Aunt Bea. She was right to run. With the Regios gone, our people could sleep in their tents again.

  Pilate, of course, stayed.

  Jenny Bell was headed for the kitchen when Sharlotte called to her. “You didn’t answer my question, Jenny Bell. You like getting all sweaty with Pilate?”

  That lean, hard Juniper cowgirl turned. In a low voice, strong and sure, she said, “I wanted a big family, and I needed hands for the ranch. If you weren’t drunk, you’d know that. But you are drunk. And it’s a shame. I want you off my property in the morning. Out of respect for your mama, I’ll let you stay the night.” It was what our own mother would’ve done with a guest who turned nasty.

  Jenny Bell and her daughters cleared out.

  Wren grabbed someone’s half-finished drink. Drained it in a second. “I tried to kiss Pilate when I turned eighteen. Did kiss him.” She downed another glass. Had plenty to choose from—the Scheutzes sure weren’t going to come back to clean up. “It wasn’t Pilate’s fault. It was back in his drinking days, and I went for him. ’Cause I’m wrong in places that’ll never be right. Like you are, Sharlotte. Only Cavvy is good and clean. Only my baby, Cavvy.”

  Pilate lowered his face. Couldn’t tell what he was feeling, but then it dawned on me. Pilate got sober right around the time Wren turned eighteen three years ago. Call it intuition, but I knew why he’d quit drinking. Wren’s kiss bottomed him out.

  I thought he might be crying, but then he laughed, and the sound of it made us all jump. It was manly, deep, very Pilate. It surprised us so much that Sharlotte fell back into a chair. Wren tripped and suddenly we were all sitting down.

  Pilate stood—laundered shirt, priest’s collar, scratchy beard, and long hair, more rock star than priest. “Are you sure you want the truth, Sharlotte? Because the truth just might get in the way of you hating me. And we wouldn’t want that, would we? I think with Abigail gone your hate for me is all you’re sure of.”

  “You can’t tell the truth,” Sharlotte grumbled. “You’re the father of lies.”

  “Tell me, what’s the date on the report?”

  Sharlotte snapped the paper in front of her face. “Why does that matter? Most likely Daddy went sterile before he even met Mama. First cases of the Sterility Epidemic were found in the early 2030s.”

  “The date, please,” Pilate said patiently.

  “February 2, 2039. But that don’t mean nothin’.”

  “It means everything,” Pilate said. “The report is dated after Wren was born. Charles Weller was her father. He was your father, too, Sharlotte. After Wren, when your Mama couldn’t get pregnant, that’s when they had him tested. The results were hard on them both, but we all know how tough Abigail was. Not just tough, focused. She was growing her cattle business, and she needed hands. Family works for free ... that’s what she said to me when she and I talked. We made the same deal I’ve made with a whole passel of women all over the Juniper. I do the bed part, someone else does the fathering part because that’s the important work. What I do means nothing. Less than nothing. I’m only a body. A real father is heart, mind, and spirit. Your dad loved all three of you like he loved nothing else on this planet. He fought his cancer for years because he couldn’t let go of you.”

  “Pilate,” I whispered, “are you my daddy?”

  He smiled at me. “Biologically, yes, and you’re my little brown spider. Araneus Cavaticus. Named after literature’s most famous arachnid and your mother’s favorite book, Charlotte’s Web. We were so happy when your mama carried you to term, after all your other sisters died.” His voice failed him, and he had to close his eyes. “You were destined to live, Cavvy. You’re one of the best things God ever gave to the Juniper. Someday, everyone will know your name.”

  My life kept on tilting, throwing me around some more. Pilate was my father. I felt that when he held me after Mama’s funeral. Him looking at me when he thought I didn’t notice, his eyes so full of love. Like Sharlotte, I wanted to hate Pilate ’cause of his sins, but my hate always faded, and I ended up loving him again. Sure, Pilate wasn’t a saint, but deep down, he was kind, caring, and sad underneath the laughing and violence. Why else would he have taken Petal under his wing? Or agree to run security for us? Or try to rescue Micaiah when he knew it was suicide?

  Wren spoke next in a slur. “You wanna know what Pilate and I did in the tent all those nights, Sharlotte?” The alcohol half-shut her eyes. “He held me and petted my hair and said people loved me in the world. Mama did, though she had trouble with me. And that you loved me, Shar. And Cavvy loved me. And he loved me and forgave me all my sins. He’d hold me and say I didn’t have to kill myself ’cause someday, someday I’d have a family.”

  Sharlotte sat crumpled in her chair, leaning heavily on her arm. We all waited for her to talk now that the truth was out.

  She started slow. “I guess I should feel relieved that Pilate isn’t my daddy, but it was wrong for Mama to keep the truth from us. And I love Cavvy, always will. However, let me make one thing perfectly clear.” Sharlotte sat up real straight in her chair to look Wren in the eye. “You think I’m going to get all weepy ’cause you feel bad about yourself, Irene? You think you can ever change what you did to me, to Mama, to our family? You can’t. You are a selfish child of chaos, evil to the core. You made our lives hell, and then left us and never came back. I hate you, Irene. I hate you, and I curse you.” She staggered up. “I’m done with this goddamn cattle drive. Howerter can go jack himself. I’m gonna sell the headcount to Jenny Bell just enough to make payroll, and then I’m going to go live in the World. It’s over.”

  She tottered out the door. Watching her go crushed my heart. Flattened it like a tin can. Sharlotte was through. Now what would happen? How could we save the ranch if we didn’t pay Howerter back? Micaiah’s promised reward money would do it, but then what?

  Wren had to squint to pry open an eye. Sharlotte’s words must’ve bounced right off her drunkenness. “Hell, Pilate, with how I am, I figured you were my daddy all along.
I reckoned I was damned for certain on account of that kiss.”

  Pilate smiled and shook his head. “Wren Weller, you think hell would have you? Satan would spit you right back out like a rotten sunflower seed. Nope. Only Jesus has the patience to love you like you need.”

  “You gonna cheat Him with me once we’re dead? Cheat that Jesus at poker with me, Pilate?”

  Pilate nodded. “Yeah, Wren. You, me, and Petal.”

  “And me?” I asked, feeling left out.

  Pilate got up and knelt down at my feet. “You won’t have to cheat Jesus. He’ll take you right to your mansion of glory, and you’ll be safe and secure and loved forever. You’re good, Cavvy. You’re my little brown spider.”

  Tears shimmered in his eyes, and I had the idea that out of all the many kids he had fathered, I was the only one he’d ever held like his own. The only one he ever let himself get close to.

  I cried as he hugged me. My hate was all gone, and it was blood on blood. I saw him now, for who he was and for what he did for women who needed children, for what he did for Wren. And I knew, if I asked, Pilate would help me get Micaiah to Nevada.

  But maybe Sharlotte would change her mind when she sobered up. But what if she didn’t?

  While we hugged, Wren collapsed onto the floor. Out cold.

  We both had us a little chuckle.

  Then I said, “Pilate, alcohol sure makes a mess of things. I can see why you don’t drink.”

  “Amen, to that. Amen to the third power.”

  “Pilate?”

  “Yeah, Cavvy?”

  “I just want to keep calling you Pilate. You’re my daddy and all, but like you said, my real daddy died. You’re more of my Pilate. Is that okay?”