Despite the Ravens’ strict rules about drug use, Fiona had used what they grew to control the populace as recreational fun or self-medication depending on the day or her mood, leaving her with, at best, a patchy memory of her time in Vegas. Despite the fanciful concoction of revised history Fiona had created over the years, she couldn’t change what had actually transpired. Her often drug-addled, arrogant, younger self hadn’t seduced Veronica until after she’d heard those words from Carolyn. And, as far as Fiona knew, Veronica still didn’t know that Carolyn was cheating with Fiona long before the ultimatum Fiona gave Veronica that nearly split the Ravens. Somehow, Fiona had forgotten entirely her brief, intense relationship with Carolyn. A combination of shame, drug use, and time had buried the indiscretion until seeing Carolyn again brought it back to the surface.
Carolyn had every reason to hate her. Fiona was a betrayer, a cheater, a liar, a jilter of honest proclamations of love, and a cruel, unthinking thief. She hadn’t loved Carolyn, certainly not in the deep, abiding sort of way Carolyn loved her, and so she’d stolen Veronica, whom she did love, and expected the world to accept her wisdom as its own. In retrospect, Fiona knew the only thing that kept Carolyn from killing them both, was a trueness of love and spirit that neither Fiona nor Veronica possessed. Veronica was the only other to see in Carolyn what Fiona had; she doubted Carolyn could have trusted the affections of anyone else after being betrayed so thoroughly by both Fiona and Veronica.
Worse than the guilt Fiona felt over what she’d done to Carolyn was the terrible fear that Gieo might learn of what Fiona really was and not want her anymore. She came to the grim reality that there were still too many people alive who knew of what she’d done for Gieo to never find out. Fiona would have to tell her and hope.
Gieo was beginning to wonder if maybe Tombstone and her own workshop were the only places left on the planet without comfortable beds and running water. She awoke to a chill in her room in the main hunting lodge. The evening before had been productive, after a fashion, although the woman she had hoped would be her biggest support turned out to be the biggest obstacle to getting the pilots to return to Tombstone with her. McAdams’ wife Charlotte, a stern woman with tightly pursed lips and premature gray in her chestnut hair, hadn’t wanted Gieo to stay any longer than was necessary and certainly hadn’t wanted her to take the military men back to war.
The night before, they drank pre-war beer, exchanged flight stories, and ate dishes derived from every creature the Rocky Mountains could provide long into the night without much headway ever being made toward the Air Force pilots joining her cause. Much of what transpired was more than fuzzy in the cold light of dawn as Gieo’s Asian lineage gave her nothing in the way of alcohol tolerance and her petite size left little territory to spread so much beer over. She’d tried her best to keep up, to show herself an equal to the true pilots, but ultimately only succeeded in getting unintelligibly drunk with a splitting headache and mouthful of cotton the following morning as her reward.
Gieo wrapped herself in the quilt from the bed and made her way over to the sliding glass door that led to the second-story balcony. She parted the curtains and eased open the door. Out on the balcony her bare feet crunched over a fresh powdering of snow frozen by an early frost. True to her hopes, the cool, mountain air did have a reinvigorating effect on her hung over mind.
She slid the door closed behind her and made her way out into the rarified mountain air. She’d forgotten autumn was coming to everywhere but the desert and the high Colorado elevations had sped the cold in even faster. She heard another door slide open and a similarly quilt-wrapped woman stepped out onto the balcony a few rooms down. Gieo glanced over to find it was Charlotte. Clutched in the hand not holding together her quilt robe, she carried a mug of what smelled like tea from the steam wafting across the space between them.
Gieo offered Charlotte a wan smile, which wasn’t returned.
“Why do you insist on carrying my husband back to war?” Charlotte asked without as much as a good morning.
“We never stopped being at war,” Gieo replied.
“He’ll go no matter what I say,” Charlotte said with a quiver in her voice that nearly cracked Gieo’s heart. “I think it’s what he went looking for when he took the hunting party on a tour through the free cities.”
“I don’t want to cause any rifts.” Gieo turned and stepped over to the edge of the side railing to come as close to Charlotte as the separate balconies would allow. “I won’t use your kids to try to change your mind, but don’t you want to live in a world free of the Slark? Don’t you want a chance to rebuild without wondering if those giant crawlers are going to come rolling down those mountains to wipe out everything you’ve built here? Your husband and his friends are special men, brave and talented in ways that could make a difference.” Gieo’s feet began to burn numb from the cold and she shifted to just one to give the other a rest. “Look, this is all stuff I brought up last night, and stuff you probably already knew. If he’s going to leave anyway, wouldn’t you rather he left with your support? Parting on bad terms when one person might not be coming back isn’t good for anyone.” Gieo’s voice wavered at the end, though not intentionally, but she saw that the verbal shake had accomplished far more than her words in persuading Charlotte.
“Fine, then promise me they’ll come back,” Charlotte said, her voice and demeanor noticeably softer.
“I always do, and I’ve never had this much support or experience on my side,” Gieo said.
“It’ll take them awhile to set things right to leave again, and a few days to get there,” Charlotte said. “He’s a good man in a world with precious few left. Bring him home to me when this is over.”
“I will, Charlotte, I promise,” Gieo said. She didn’t want to make the promise she couldn’t possibly assure, but simply saying the words strengthened her own resolve to make them true and had a profound effect on Charlotte who finally smiled to her.
“Of all the people to come looking for my husband, I’m glad it was you,” Charlotte said. “Come inside and I’ll feed you before you head back.”
Gieo stepped back into the room with her feet freezing and her hands shaking. She had her pilots, had the blessing of the matron of their little society, and could return to Tombstone with her promises fulfilled. Still, all she could think of, all she could want, was to return to Fiona and be forgiven and loved again.
Chapter 23: Homecomings are a mixed bag.
For a brief, hopeful moment Claudia’s frantic knocking on Fiona’s door made her think Gieo had returned home. The second straight day of sleeping in probably didn’t help her muddled state. She pulled herself from the relatively comfortable embrace of the bed and stumbled to the door. Halfway across the room slumber fell away enough for her to realize she would have heard Gieo’s motorcycle if it was really her even though the energetic knocking was at the right height and with the right vigor to be Gieo. Claudia stood on the saloon’s upper landing flushed with excitement when Fiona threw open the door.
“I have found him for you, Captain-my-Captain,” she said. “The cultists were located by my morning patrol.”
It took Fiona a moment to remember why Claudia should be so excited about the find. The little sniper had promised to be the one to kill Hawkins for her. Fiona couldn’t bring herself to disappoint the girl by letting her know she didn’t care one way or the other if Hawkins died. It was a Raven objective though and one worth pursuing.
“Does Carolyn know?” Fiona asked, rubbing the sleep from her right eye with the heel of her palm.
“I brought it straight to you,” Claudia said. “Should you want to handle this without her knowing this is a triumph she can learn of after the fact, no?”
“Yes, we’ll go on our own for now,” Fiona said. “Pull Cork and his boys off the afternoon ride. The five of us can take care of things just fine.”
Claudia might have been concerned by the peculiar request if she was more of a company w
oman, but Fiona knew a kindred spirit when she saw one; the French-Canadian sniper and singer was one distasteful event from jumping the Raven ship entirely, just as Fiona had been. The small number of riders must have spoken to Claudia’s ego as well, indicating an assassination job and not one of wholesale slaughter. Watching Claudia jog away after a crisp salute, Fiona wondered if maybe it wouldn’t be easier to let her take the shot and cleave the cult’s head. Some questions still remained in Fiona’s mind and Hawkins was one of two living people who might have the answers.
Fiona dressed quickly to find Claudia, Cork, and two former Texas Rangers waiting on horseback outside the saloon. Claudia handed her Tyra’s reins and Fiona mounted. The five rode south, guided by Claudia along a winding trail cut by twenty or so riders earlier that morning. They spoke little. Cork didn’t need to be told where they were going and the two men who had once formed a Slark hunting trio with him knew to follow his lead with the dogged loyalty of the best Labrador. They broke away from the well-patrolled areas around Bisbee and Lowell heading southwest into the open desert. The midday sun beat down on them with brutal strength and resolve. The creak of leather, clank of tack, and clomping of horse hooves beat out the music of the hunt as the riders strung out to a staggered line. They crested a rocky rise with Claudia and her ebony pony leading the charge.
Across a shale flat, likely on the side of the border that once was old Mexico, one of the Slark’s giant walkers had gone down, likely broken from the cascade wave that destroyed the vast majority of technology on the planet. The six-legged walking weapon platform had tilted face-first into the desert near a small, natural spring lake creating an enormous expanse of shade beneath the tail end jutting at a near 45 degree angle. Living in the shade and likely inside the ruins of the old Slark monstrosity were the remaining cultists. It looked as though the handful of families who had fled on the wagon, only to be saved by Fiona’s riders, weren’t the last to abandon the cause. Their numbers appeared to be cut again in half by desertion.
Fiona drew up alongside Claudia with Cork flanking her on the other side. The afternoon sun struck at their backs, likely making them difficult to discern amid the rocky bluff they’d approached from.
“From here, I can get off a shot worth writing home about,” Claudia said. “Should they give chase, we can keep out of their visible range and make short work of them.”
Fiona considered the reasonably domestic scene below. At the great distance, it was impossible to tell whether the Slark vehicle was convenient shade or served some other purpose. Fiona took binoculars when Cork offered them and scanned the target area. Few families remained and the staggering men of the cult were doing far more than simply existing beneath the shade. Slark weapons, fuel, and technology were already pulled from the wreckage, organized across the open desert floor. Regardless of what Fiona might have liked to do, the find was too good to leave in the hands of the cult, with or without Hawkins.
“Spread out around the ridge,” Fiona said. “Keep the sun at your back and wait for my signal.” Fiona dismounted her horse, handing off the reins to Claudia.
“What is the signal?” Claudia asked. “Better still, what is the plan?”
Fiona cryptically patted the Colt Anaconda on her hip and began her walk down the craggy slope to the shale flats below. Her heart was thundering in her ears and the heat off the bleached desert floor threatened to boil up through the soles of her boots with every step. She held her hands up in the universal sign of surrender when she thought she was close enough for one of the cultists to divine who she was. Her estimation of their vision was off by a few dozen yards as they didn’t really seem to spot her until she was almost completely upon them. Passing within the halo of scavenged parts, Fiona began cataloguing their salvage. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a blast shield used by a gunner port on the Slark vehicle, likely removed for its possible use later as firing position cover. She stopped close enough to the blast shield for comfort and waited for the cultists to come out the rest of the way, which they did in short order, armed to the teeth and rightfully antsy about her sudden appearance.
Hawkins could have ordered her shot on sight, could have made things an easy choice for all involved, but to Fiona’s relief, he held back the firing line of the forty or so remaining cultists to parlay with the seemingly vulnerable gunfighter.
“The lord works in mysterious ways, and so it would seem does the devil,” Hawkins said, emerging from the center of his milky-eyed defenders. “Yet again, you have found me, and yet again, you do not finish what you started.” His Texas twang fit oddly well with his bombastic way of speaking.
“You can skip the proselytizing, Bill,” Fiona said. “I know who you really are and know your brother.”
“Half-brother,” Hawkins corrected her. “This is about Zeke then?”
Fiona shrugged and offered a little grin. “Isn’t everything?”
This actually brought an equal smile to Hawkins’ weather-beaten face. “You, more than anyone else, understand the conundrum that has been my life since the end of days. Very well, gunfighter, tell me what you would know of our mutual friend and enemy?”
“He shielded me, likely shielded us both when we arrived in Tombstone,” Fiona said. “Being family, I can understand why he protected you, but I can’t piece together why he would help me.”
“You give blood too much weight with my brother, but you are not far off. The reasons are one in the same,” Hawkins said. “I was of use to him, a foil to play off of, and a private source of power to draw from when the time was right. So too were you. We were both hammers to use against the people Zeke feared.”
It sounded reasonable, precisely like something Zeke would do, but it didn’t make any sense when held up to the facts. Hawkins and his cultists were an excellent implement against the people of Tombstone to keep them unified and under Zeke’s control, but it didn’t follow who Fiona would be a weapon against.
“Who would I be a hammer…?” Fiona knew the answer as she was speaking the words. Veronica would have come down on Tombstone with the wrath of a thousand Arizona suns if anything had befallen Fiona in exile. She was leverage with the Ravens to keep Tombstone a free city. If the Slark fuel supplies hadn’t begun to dwindle, their arrangement might never have altered.
“I see from your face that you have pieced it together,” Hawkins said. “You were the cherished gem of the Ravens’ most feared queen and Zeke convinced the city only he could keep them at bay by keeping you alive. But he did not count on the treachery of women.”
Her question more or less satisfied, Fiona felt the conversation had gone on too long for her peculiar mental affliction. “You’re more like your brother than you know,” Fiona said coolly. She jerked her Colt, thumbing back the hammer as she brought the enormous gun to bear on the surprised crowd. She’d blasted the two men flanking Hawkins before they could even raise the AK-47s in their dusty hands. With a short half-spin step to the right, she knelt in behind the shield, glancing over her shoulder in the process just in time to see Hawkins’ head explode from a well-place sniper shot.
The remaining entourage of cultists opened fire. Their bullets ricocheted off the shield like hail off a stone. More rifle-fire poured down from the ridge, collapsing the line of cultists as they tried to flee. Fiona looked to the left of the shield, and then to the right. One cultist made to flank her on the right, but caught two slugs from her revolver the moment he came into view. Another rushed the left side of the shield, hoping to catch her off-guard. She swatted aside the muzzle of his rifle, stepping inside the weapon’s unwieldy reach, and buried the enormous barrel of her pistol in his chest. She fired, setting his shirt ablaze, and hurling him backward onto the desert floor.
With the retreating of footsteps fleeing her, Fiona took that moment to slide back down the shield’s scalding face to reload. Careful, deft fingers removed the casings of the five shots she’d used. She tucked the spent brass in her side satchel before
reloading from her bandolier. By the time she’d finished the chore of reloading, the rifle fire from the ridge had tapered off to lone shots, picking at the now fortified cultists. Fiona pulled herself away from the edge of the shield directly back and waxed her vision around the outside to the right to see where the defensive line began and ended. As she’d suspected, they rushed to the right, leaving her left entirely free.
The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head Page 27