Dandelion Iron Book One (22 page)

Sharlotte, of course, was there to put me down. “Dang it, Cavvy, quit joking around. I’ve heard what you’ve all had to say, and now I’m going to tell you what we’re going to do.”

Sharlotte stood like she always did, arms across her chest, back straight, legs shoulder-width apart, hat low to cover her eyes. Her duster covered everything else. When she stood like that, she looked unmovable, like God Himself would have to walk around her. Even though she was only twenty-four years old, she talked like she was fifty and governor. “We are going to rest up for a couple hours, then go north on 470 past the airport. Head toward Wyoming as fast as we can. The plains are wide. We’ll be fine. As for the boy, it seems he can come with us. For now. If we did kill all of June Mai’s girls, then no one knows he’s with us. Let’s keep it that way. That’s the plan.”

Pilate’s eyes narrowed. “I was kidding before, about putting the cows under our coats, right? We can’t sneak by anyone with all these Herefords, especially not outlaws in the sky riding around in stolen zeppelins. But this isn’t about logic or strategy or our collective safety. Your mother is dead, and you think you need to call all the shots, so we don’t see how hurt you are. Or how scared.”

Wren smirked. “Yeah, Sharlotte, you have what they call control issues.”

“You think I chose to be in charge?” Sharlotte growled. “You think I chose to do any of this?”

We were back to fighting. Well, that wasn’t going to do anyone any good.

“Stop,” I said. This time when I spoke, my voice came out stronger. “We’re already in June Mai Angel’s house, standing right here on her front porch. Might as well go lickety-split into her living room, up the steps, and crawl into her bed. Hopefully it’ll be empty. My only fear is that Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz might not find us again. They’ll be looking north, and we’ll be going west.” I didn’t mention that air pirates might have already captured the
Moby Dick
.

“Sketchy will find us,” Pilate said. “She’s loyal to a fault, that woman, and three thousand cattle would be kind of hard to miss. I’m with Cavatica on this. What about you, Wren?”

“Hell, yeah,” Wren said. “I love a plan that’s crazy. Best kind and they always work.”

Petal was asleep on her horse. She didn’t vote.

Micaiah lifted a tentative hand and spoke. “I know I don’t get a say, but I don’t think June Mai Angel cares about you or your cattle drive. If she’s going for Burlington, she’ll have all the beef she wants. And if she comes for me, she won’t attack you directly, not after what Petal, Pilate, and Wren did to her forces back at the gas station. No, she’ll wait until I’m alone and snatch me away.”

Every word he said made sense. Like Petal when she was shooting, a rhyme came into my head.
So smart, so fine, I wanna make him mine.

“Okay, so I’m outvoted. Good!” Sharlotte snapped. “I got two things to say. First, if we all die, Cavvy, it’s on your head. Can you live with that?”

The idea snatched my breath away.

“How very dramatic.” Pilate shook his head and smirked.

“Sharlotte just hates any idea that’s not hers,” Wren taunted.

My big sister fixed her glare on Pilate and didn’t let it waver. “Second, if we’re killed, Pilate, I’ll ride on the backs of angels down into hell to shoot you again and again for all eternity.”

Pilate laughed at that. “Aw, Sharlotte, you and I will be playing poker with Jesus in heaven, all of us will be. But I gotta warn you, I’ll still cheat that jackerdan for every goddamn penny he’s got.”

“Pilate, you can’t cuss like that,” I said. Last thing in the world we needed was any part of the Holy Trinity mad at us for blasphemy. Especially not on Easter.

(ii)

It was only a couple of hours until dawn and we needed to rest. Cows and horses ain’t machines but living animals, and we’d pushed them far and hard. Like I figured, we’d lost at least a dozen beefsteaks already. We’d heard a cougar scream, and that explained at least one. Not sure about the others, but every cow we lost cut into our profits.

Though I was skeptical about Micaiah’s story, I still felt responsible for him. I made sure he had a sleeping bag and a good spot on the Chevy’s bed next to the steam engine. He needed the heat after our cold night of riding.

The tough cattle hands, like Breeze and Keys, would sleep in the saddle, surrounded by the cows. Sharlotte told me I had to get some rest, since I was only sixteen and still growing. I hated it when she mothered me—she’d been doing it all my life.

I put my bedroll against a long, broken concrete wall off the freeway to block the wind. Ten meters away, my ponies were tied off to rebar sticking out of the cement, so I could cut ’em free quick if we got attacked.

I used my saddle for a pillow and wormed my way down into the sleeping bag. Finally warm, I still couldn’t sleep. What if an outlaw came up and slit my throat while I slept?

My horses would scream me awake. They loved me. Yet the “what if” wouldn’t go away. The dogs, Bella, Edward, and Jacob, came over and slumped down in a pile around me, which made me feel a whole lot better—their warmth and their company.

The puppies were only the first of my visitors. Guess who wandered up and put his stuff next to me? The cute, viable boy creature we’d picked up.

“Do you mind, Cavatica?” he asked.

I could smell him, his scent, mixed with the smoke from the crash. My heart quickened. Of course I minded. Sally Browne Burke would mind. Sharlotte would mind. If Mama were alive, she’d take a switch to him, getting so close to one of her daughters.

“I guess it’s okay, though you’d be safer on the chuck wagon,” I said. “Just don’t talk. We gotta sleep some. Tomorrow we’ll prolly die, but I don’t wanna die tired.”

Who was I kidding? My eyes were owl-wide open. I lay with my back to him so he couldn’t see.

“Good night, Cavatica,” he said. God, I wished he wouldn’t say my name. My hand went over my heart, and I felt it beat there, thudding hard.

I listened as he shuffled down into his own sleeping bag. I could picture us together in a tent, a fire going in the stove, and maybe I would get on a cot with him, and in that warm tent, we’d kiss.

Every millimeter of my body tingled. Guess there was some electricity in the Juniper after all. I used a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers to stop the lust.

“I can’t stay with you,” he said. “What if June Mai Angel does know I’m with you? What if my aunts send people into the Juniper looking for me? They’re worse than any Outlaw Warlord, believe me.” He paused. The only sound was the wind tousling the sagebrush, the horses shifting their feet, weary cows lowing themselves to sleep. Way out in the distance, coyotes chattered like insane idiots. We’d lose more headcount to them.

Micaiah sighed. “It’s too dangerous for all of you. Tomorrow, I’ll leave.”

Fear shocked me. Fear that someone worse than June Mai Angel would attack us. Fear that he’d leave and I’d never see him again. Fear that my first kiss would be my last.

Right then, I knew he was telling us the truth. Not about everything, some of his story, like his name, was a lie, but the rest of it, like being hunted by his aunts, was real. And I swore to myself I’d protect him.

“No, Micaiah, you’re with us ’til the end,” I said. “Pilate and Petal are Sino veterans and Wren is bloodthirsty. They’ll keep us safe.”

“Are you serious?” he asked. “If I have your blessing to stay, well, then I’ll stay.”

“You have it,” I said.

“And if they try and give me away to an Outlaw Warlord?”

“It’ll never happen,” I said. “Not as long as I’m around. And I’ll pray to St. Jude, ’cause if there was ever an impossible cause, it’s this cattle drive.”

“Catholic,” he said, kind of laughy. “Surprising. I thought the Catholics didn’t really believe in the New Morality.”

Those were fighting words.

I swung around to see him with his head pillowed on his hands, gazing at the stars. Bella looked at me with bright eyes, wondering why I was upset. Edward and Jacob were snoring away oblivious. Such boys.

I kept my response brief, though I had a whole diatribe on the subject. “There was an ecumenical council in Baltimore where the American Catholic archbishops met with Sally Browne Burke and Reverend Kip Parson. There is common ground.”

“Tell that to the people vandalizing Catholic churches.”

He was right. While the New Morality accepted the work the ARK did, the Catholics came down hard against Tibbs Hoyt and any sort of fertilization outside of the marriage bed, which in our day and age, well, was real controversial. Still, I was Catholic, and Catholics didn’t believe in artificial insemination if the man wasn’t married to the woman.

Okay, fine, but what if a woman couldn’t find a husband? It was either the ARK or men like Pilate.

Before I could say anything, Micaiah spoke. “I know, I know, good night a third time. Thanks again, Cavatica. You saved me again and again.”

My top half froze, being out of my bag, but I didn’t care. He had me all riled up. I couldn’t get Pilate and Betsy out of mind—a priest forced to break his vows to help a woman who needed children to work her ranch.

“It’s wrong, Micaiah.”

“What’s wrong?”

“All of it.” I winced. I couldn’t get my words clear. Every time I was with him, I got all jumbled up.

He chuckled. “Well, I’m glad we cleared that up. Once again I am in awe of your keen debating skills.”

More teasing. Well, the anger made me talk fast. “It’s wrong for people to be defacing Catholic churches, and it’s wrong that we don’t have enough boys and that we need the ARK, but it’s really a crime that Tibbs Hoyt is making a fortune off of women’s misery.”

No smart-aleck response. Bella woofed, but I shushed her.

“Tibbs Hoyt is a villain, Cavatica, and what he is doing is the very worst of crimes.” Micaiah’s voice came out soft, hurt somehow. It was clear that Hoyt and his ARK had wounded Micaiah in some way.

“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning it.

“Don’t apologize for sins that aren’t yours.” He chuckled. “That’s something Pilate might’ve said. I can’t believe I met him.”

“You know about Pilate?” I asked, surprised.

“I was in Chicago, and I heard an ARK district manager make a joke—if you can’t afford the ARK, there’s always Father Pilate in the Juniper. Good night, Cavatica.”

But good night was a long time away and almost over anyway. People knew about Pilate in the World? What else did they know about him? And how could Micaiah have overheard an ARK district manager making the joke?

“Who are you really?” I asked. “You said before that your aunts were looking for you ’cause you had something. Like what? Couldn’t be those boots, so what else do you have on you?”

He didn’t reply. Kept his head on his hands. Kept his eyes on the stars.

“It’s ’cause you’re viable, ain’t it?” I asked.

“That’s it.” He let out a long breath. “And I don’t like to talk about it. Good night, Cavvy. That’s your cue to go to sleep—the good night part.”

I frowned and curled up against Bella and her boys. Thinking about our conversation, I realized I’d answered the question before he could. Most boys were uncomfortable talking about their viability, but it seemed to me he seemed relieved to have escaped without having to say more.

Great. Now he had me lying for him.

However, if he was being hunted for being viable, it would make sense for him to hate Tibbs Hoyt. If the ARK gave Male Product away, well, his life might be very different.

I didn’t know what to believe. Like with Pilate, I wanted to push Micaiah away, but I just couldn’t find it in me. He was so beautiful, so smart, so kind—even when he teased me, which I didn’t like, but somehow wanted.

I was falling in love with him.

Which made the next day’s hurt all the more hard to bear.

Chapter Fourteen

I’m pretty sure it was Crush Jones who started the nickname. We both had watched those old
Bonanza
videos online growing up. We couldn’t call it the Ponderosa—not a lot of big trees on the Great Plains, but we have Juniper. Grows like a weed. Smells like money.

—Dob Howerter
Colorado Courier
Interview
August 4, 2034

(i)

Only a couple of hours of sleep and we were back moving the cattle down I-70 at first light on Easter Sunday morning. The highway widened to six lanes running through clusters of buildings, siding peeling off like sunburned skin. The skeletons of old hotels slumped like dinosaurs, all their flesh rotted away.

At least the sky was blue and the wind was warm. Might’ve been a nice spring morning if not for the fact we were heading straight into June Mai Angel’s capital city.

My ponies tripped along, exhausted. Felt bad, but I had to keep them going. I encouraged, prodded, and sometimes got real stern. Despite being busy, I noticed right away when Micaiah rode over to Sharlotte. On her horse, she rose above a sea of white-faced Herefords. Their red hides glistened in the sunlight.

My sister and my boy looked like they were deep in conversation. What could they be talking about so intensely? Jealousy rose up inside of me. Sharlotte knew he was mine, didn’t she?

I watched them close after that, and they never left each other’s side.

Wren rode tail, making sure our flank was covered. Petal and Pilate scouted ahead.

Aunt Bea drove the chuck wagon way out front, guiding Charles Goodnight, who in turn led our whole drive. I was a little nervous about the
chugga-chugga
of the truck drawing attention. The smoke rising up from the steam engine worried me less. Thank God for Colorado wind.

Bella, Jacob, and Edward lounged in the cab next to Bea. They were good cattle dogs, but we worried that a cranky beefsteak might kick them if they got too close.

Tenisha Keys drifted next to me. “Hi, Cavvy.” In her saddle, she kept one eye on the cattle, the other focused on weaving long pieces of plastic and several strands of colored wire together.

“Hi, Miss Keys,” I said. “Did you and Nikki get any sleep last night?”

“Nope,” she said. “Spent all night gathering strays.”