The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head

by Cassandra Duffy

  The flight back started out as uneventful as the flight out. Gieo couldn’t decide whether it was luck, divine providence, or a matter of her not actively looking to get shot down that made the difference. Regardless of the source of her good fortune, she was excessively thankful. Claudia kept Fiona company while Gieo tried desperately to keep her eyes to the desert floor and her focus on the controls when everything in her body screamed to check on Fiona. Things became slightly more interesting beyond the halfway point when the low-fuel indicator light came on.

  Gieo had fueled up with a rate of consumption in mind that probably wasn’t realistic and hadn’t even thought to try fueling up at the Slark crawler. Their excessive speed to that point, along with having no idea how much fuel could be consumed in a single landing, had really depleted what little she’d put in the tanks. One thing was certain: continuing on at the current pace wouldn’t get them to Tombstone.

  “Are we slowing down?” Claudia shouted through the puffing and rattling noises of the dirigible.

  “We’re running low on fuel,” Gieo shouted back over her shoulder. “We have to slow down to conserve.”

  “Do we have enough to make it?”

  Gieo didn’t really have an answer for that. The dirigible likely wouldn’t crash when the boiler finally ran dry. She could always jettison the engine, lock off the gas valves, and gently float down to wherever, but they’d be completely at the whim of the wind and Fiona would almost certainly die as they might end up in Texas before they touched down in what would probably be a fairly violent landing.

  “We have to,” Gieo finally shouted back. She dropped altitude and speed to find the optimal efficiency, recalculated their arrival time, and cursed herself for every added minute that might mean Fiona’s death.

  By the time the lights of Tombstone came into view, the Little Monster was struggling. Every agonizingly slow breath from the bellows seemed like it would be the last as the refractory period lengthened each time. Gieo turned off all but manual control to the wings which required her to hand-crank the metal flaps to make them move. The gears and gyroscopes aided some in the work, but she was sweating, tired, and exhausted with limited control. Slowed airspeed was a problem on her approach. The dirigible was aching to be on the ground and was about to drop from the sky to prove it. Her arms were so tired that she had to use both hands to adjust one wing and then the other into the proper landing position. The blimp listed and she nearly lost control in the process. She’d heard takeoffs and landings were the most dangerous times during air travel. Considering her airship was struggling to either drop nose-down on her or capsize entirely as she was adjusting the wings, she had to modify her former disagreement with that position. Under Gieo’s instruction, Claudia operated the manual levers to lower the landing struts. She got the last one down an instant before the Little Monster hit ground, scraping a little across the asphalt before coming to a complete stop.

  She touched down in Tombstone to excitement. She wondered how much more fevered the pitch would be if the Ravens knew how close it was to a crash. Medics came and took Fiona the second she opened the doors.

  “It might be hard to see with her life still dangling the way it is, but this was a win,” Veronica said to Gieo as they walked briskly to keep up with the medics. “The cult needed to go away and this giant crawler find might fuel us for awhile.”

  “That’ll mean less than nothing to me if she dies,” Gieo snapped.

  “This isn’t the first time she’s been shot up and it likely won’t be the last.” Veronica grasped Gieo’s arm and spun her back around. “Call it temporary insanity on my part, but that might be the last time you’re going to fly and certainly the last time you will without armor or crash safety measures. I’d sacrifice an army of Fionas to keep you alive; you’re that important to our chances.”

  Gieo’s anger burst through her like a firestorm. She launched her arms out and gave Veronica a hard shove to the chest. “I would die a thousand times for her,” Gieo said, knowing it was a crazy statement, but not caring in the slightest. “I got your fucking pilots. In a few weeks, you’ll have everything you need, and you can stop pestering the both of us.” She didn’t know why Veronica let her go after the obvious breach of protocol and decorum.

  She wouldn’t find out until days later what overtones the conversation really held.

  It was a couple days before Fiona fully exited the morphine haze following the surgeries and blood transfusions required to remove all the birdshot and two 9 mm slugs from her body. Once the control of her medication was left to her, she immediately quit the opium haze in favor of the roaring pain left over from her wounds. She wouldn’t tell Gieo why, but the pilot had her suspicions about Fiona’s former life including a pretty stout drug habit. Staying in the clinic wasn’t a matter of choice as she was restricted to bed rest by order of Carolyn.

  As tearful and awkward as she’d expected her reunion with Gieo to go, it actually held a far steamier side. By the time her faculties had fully returned, it was early morning and the hospital’s hallways and rooms were silent. She waited for a few hours until the sun came up and with it came Gieo. The pilot seemed anxious about Fiona’s return to lucidity. She came when Fiona beckoned her over though, and didn’t resist in the slightest when Fiona pulled her down with her good arm and kissed her passionately as though it were all the kissing she would ever get.

  Gieo had tried to apologize again but Fiona had taken all the blame that was hers. It all seemed so trivial in hindsight and petty to hold onto the tepid grudge over an arguably gray area betrayal after Gieo had so bravely flown to save her. Fiona said they were more than equal when everything was weighed and measured.

  After a few more days of chatting, reading, and playing chess to pass the time, Fiona was sick of books, sick of the hospital, and knew Gieo had all but given in to playing with her eyes closed to keep the chess matches interesting; she needed to get out, wear real clothes, and feel the desert sun on her. More than that, she had an impossible ache for Gieo that couldn’t be effectively satisfied while bedridden in a hospital.

  Perhaps Gieo sensed her needs or perhaps Gieo’s own needs ruled her actions in a similar fashion, but no sooner had Fiona thought about fleeing the hospital to find sexual release than Gieo showed up with the implements formerly carried by a nurse to give Fiona a sponge bath. The basin of water, sponge, soap, and now a razor, which the nurse hadn’t bothered to offer, took on entirely different connotations when Gieo walked them into the curtained-off area of Fiona’s hospital bed.

  The act of receiving a sponge bath carried a shockingly helpless sensation; receiving one from Gieo made Fiona’s urge to be in control screech to be heard. The pilot made a good faith effort to be professional in her ministrations—at first. She undressed Fiona from her hospital gown, took special care to bathe and shave smooth the exposed areas of her very long legs, minding the bandaged portion of her right upper thigh. When she stopped at the top of Fiona’s now glistening, smooth legs, she held the razor thoughtfully and offered Fiona a mischievous smirk.

  “Do whatever you like with that,” Fiona heard herself say, although she barely recognized her own voice through the lusty, flinty quality it had taken on.

  Gieo deftly slid the razor around the softest areas between Fiona’s legs, leaving only a bright red landing strip along her mound with an arrow at the end pointing directly down. A pilot needs guidance sometimes for landings, Gieo had informed her. Fiona wholeheartedly agreed, especially when Gieo’s lips made their way down the freshly shaven mound, along the arrow’s route, to plant vigorous kisses across the top of Fiona’s smooth, aching lips. Fiona’s fingers found their way into Gieo’s purple hair, grasping at the four thick braids with no particular goal in mind other than to translate her desire through touch as Gieo’s tongue flicked at her sensitive folds.

  Quiet and stoic in the face of passion were two things Fiona had once prided herself on. Of course, the nurse who came storming in
on the scene said Fiona was disturbing everyone within earshot, which called into question the silent quality Fiona once prized. Gieo tried to apologize, but it was all for not after she asked for a little privacy to finish things up; the nurse clearly couldn’t tell whether she meant the sponge bath or the tongue bath, and decided neither would be appropriate. Gieo informed the nurse, in no uncertain terms, that the request had been a pleasantry, and unless she wanted to watch or offer tips, she should probably leave. The nurse stormed off, and Gieo immediately lowered her head back between Fiona’s legs.

  The gunfighter’s shock was short lived, and any sense of decorum went directly out the hospital’s dusty windows when Gieo’s lips and tongue found their way back to their work. They’d already been found out, and Fiona couldn’t be bothered to try to keep quiet any longer, not that she’d done a very good job of it in the first place. Fiona was desperate in her need; Gieo’s mouth found its way to the ecstasy button, and that was all it took to momentarily drown out the residual pain from her gunshot wounds. Fiona’s climax brought the nurse back, this time with reinforcements. She tugged at Gieo’s braids to get her to stop.

  The pilot popped her head up with a satisfied smile, licked her lips, and informed the nurses that their patient appeared to be feeling much better.

  Fiona was unceremoniously discharged from the hospital shortly after.

  Gieo, who was rather sick of the saloon, sick of the rooftop, and spoiled by Albuquerque’s opulence, had asked for and was given a house of her own on Safford Street. The little white house had a blue picket fence, a willow tree in the yard, and a hitching post for horses outside the fence.

  The side of the house, formerly a yard long since gone to dirt, held space enough for the borrowed buckboard wagon Gieo used to transport the still gimpy Fiona. Inside, the work Gieo had put into restoring the place was evident, but so much was still left to do. Fiona found a seat in one of the living room chairs and waited while Gieo flitted about trying to find implements of comfort to settle in the gunfighter.

  “You don’t have to fuss over me,” Fiona said. “I’m just glad to be out of the hospital.”

  “I found a cane while I was cleaning and…”

  “I doubt I could be persuaded to use it.”

  They sat in silence for a moment, Fiona awkwardly positioned in the chair to provide the least amount of stress on her still-healing limbs and Gieo leaned back against the great wood-encased television, likely a holdover from the 70s, with her arms folded over her chest. A few birds chirped in the willow tree outside and insects buzzed under the dusty boards of the porch and clumps of dried grass clinging around the house’s foundation.

  “You’re the reason I started shaving my legs again, you know?” Fiona said.

  “Ditto.” Gieo smiled.

  “Cork came by the other day,” Fiona said. “He mentioned you had my gun.”

  “It’s in your gun belt, upstairs, sitting on the chest at the foot of my bed.” Gieo pulled herself from the edge of the TV and knelt beside Fiona. The gunfighter was wearing a linen skirt, her cowboy boots, and a tank top. She looked far more feminine and vulnerable than Gieo could remember seeing her, at least, in person. Gieo rested her hands on Fiona’s smooth knees and gave them a reassuring squeeze. “I’d like you to stay with me, at least while you heal. The kitchen here is amazing, the bed is soft, and I can take care of you.”

  “What happens when I’m done healing?”

  “Whatever you like,” Gieo said quickly, having anticipated that very question with every rehearsal of the conversation she tried in her head.

  “You’re a good deal quieter than before you left for Colorado.”

  Gieo narrowed her eyes as though studying the faded floral pattern on the arm of the living room chair. She pursed her lips and let a low whistle escape between them. “I killed my first man,” Gieo said, startled that she’d modified the statement with the word first. “Outside of Truth or Consequences, he came at me, he had a gun, I thought it was real, and I shot him.” Gieo looked down, giving the chipped and worn hardwood floors equal scrutiny, hiding the embarrassed tears welling at the corners of her eyes. “The gun wasn’t real,” she said, chaotically rubbing at her eyebrow with two curled fingers as though it itched something fierce, more of a nervous tick than dealing with any real discomfort. “He was just some crazy, probably harmless drifter, and I shot him for being too close to my bike.”

  “Of all the things in this world, this is what I wish I could have protected you from,” Fiona said, resting a reassuring hand on Gieo’s shoulder. “It’d be trite for me to say it gets easier when I hope you won’t have to ever again, and it’d be disingenuous for me to tell you the man was dangerous when I don’t really know if he was and you wouldn’t believe me anyway. But I can tell you that you’ll survive this.”

  “It just doesn’t match the person I thought I was,” Gieo said, finally turning her attention back to Fiona.

  “The things we dread don’t have to change us for the worse,” Fiona said.

  Gieo rested her head on Fiona’s leg, feeling the hand on her shoulder shift to caress the back of her neck. “I love you,” Gieo whispered into the clean, soapy scent of Fiona’s skin.

  “I love you too, Stacy.” Fiona spoke the words with an emotional crack at the end.

  Gieo felt an overwhelming surge of indescribably good emotions combining the best parts of relief, acceptance, and of course love all in one wave. She was in the middle of working up the nerve to start pushing up Fiona’s skirt to resume what she’d started earlier and pour some of her flourishing emotions into the gift of physical pleasure when a frantic knock came at the door. The knock and exuberance were so like Gieo that she almost mistook herself for being on the porch for a moment.

  “Come in, Claudia,” Fiona shouted.

  The door flew open and Claudia burst in with a wildfire set behind her ice blue eyes. “The pilots are here,” she said breathlessly. “This is going to happen; we’re going to break the Slark line!”

  Chapter 25: Learned domesticity and advanced military tactics.

  Over the next month, leading into the cooler days of autumn, Gieo and Fiona lived in relative domestic bliss. The promise Gieo made to take care of Fiona, to nurse her back to health, reversed on her as Fiona became the domestic goddess, sending Gieo off to work at the makeshift aeronautical training grounds with a packaged lunch and a hot breakfast. This was hardly the role either had expected for Fiona, but the simple happiness she found in keeping the house, cooking food, and relaxing, actually relaxing and not just what she’d called relaxing in the past, had a remarkable livening effect on her. Slowly, through good food, ample sleep, and reduced stress, the shine to Fiona’s diamond returned and she began to resemble the global beauty she’d once been. Her gunshot wounds healed remarkably well leaving only a slight limp in her right leg that she was confident would fade completely with time.

  To keep herself busy, Fiona took up loading brass, first her own, and then others when she’d filled every .44 magnum casing she had. The delicate, repetitive nature of the work was soothing for her, sitting at her worktable in the spare room, looking out the window from time to time at the willow tree’s dangling limbs blowing gently in the breeze. Part of her began to forget what the town outside of their shared house was really like. Claudia, Stephanie, Cork, Mitch, Bond-O, and Veronica all made occasional visits, but they seldom spoke with Fiona about anything other than the chores that had been occupying her mind anyway. Cork had been the first to mention Fiona’s roles within the Ravens having been usurped by Stephanie, and Claudia confirmed that Fiona was no longer to be a part of the battle plan. Fiona didn’t care. She’d waged her war against the Hawkins House in the name of the Ravens and felt she’d earned the break.

  Lying in bed with the midmorning light pushing its way through the thin, faded drapes of their bedroom, Fiona casually inspected the scars on her shoulder from the birdshot. The fairly clumsy removal process had left her
with scars that looked vaguely like white leopard print on her tan skin. She rather liked the design.

  Gieo was still asleep in the huge bed next to her. She’d tangled herself in the bedding until her left leg was free, as she always did. Fiona admired the exposed leg for a time.