Dandelion Iron Book One (20 page)

“I’m Micaiah Carlson. From St. Louis. My mom works in biomedical technologies. She’s in Vegas, and she can—”

“Who cares, Johnson. You’re just money to me.” Wren cut him off, then winked at me, proving she had caught us sweaty and kissing. The teasing was going to be brutal.

Ashamed and angry, I still weighed in. “He’s a human being, Wren. We need to take care of him. If we send him alone to walk back to the World, he won’t make it a day. And we can’t sell him. That’s just plain evil. And we all know Mama wouldn’t turn around at the first sign of trouble. So, it’s settled. He comes with us.”

Both of my sisters finally proved they were sisters and said the same thing, at the same time, in the same way. “Ain’t no way that’s gonna happen.”

Dang me, but if Wren didn’t smile. “Jinx. You owe me a Coke, Shar.”

Sharlotte didn’t crack a grin. “We’re going west, and he’s going east. Period.”

“But he said he can’t go back that way,” I said.

All our eyes fell on the boy. He nodded. “Yeah, I’m going west, to Las Vegas, to see my mom.”

Those words didn’t make a lick a sense. There were a million better ways to get to Vegas than crossing the Juniper.

Wren also had trouble with his story. “Come again?”

“I need to get across the Juniper,” he said, “to get to my mom. People are looking for me. My aunts … they’re …” He dropped his head.

We waited for him to finish. My heart hurt for him, the way he held himself, so dejected. He never mentioned his father, but then again, most likely his daddy had come out of a vial from some ARK clinic.

“My aunts are rich,” he said slowly, “they’re powerful, and they’re looking for me.”

Wren’s eyes blazed with greed. “Why’s that?”

“That’s my business,” Micaiah whispered. He turned to Sharlotte. “Please. Help me. I just want to see my mom again. One more time before they find me.”

The way he talked, it sounded like his aunts were bent on killing him. It seemed we held his life in our hands.

Sharlotte lifted her head so the light gleamed on her face. Her dark-lashed eyes rested softly on the boy for a moment—maybe something about the way he talked about his mother touched her. But the emotions were eclipsed by Sharlotte’s business sense. “You can walk with us tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll give you some supplies, maybe one of the horses we took from June Mai Angel, but then you’re on your own. I’m sorry. Traveling with a boy in tow is just too dangerous out here.”

“Okay,” he murmured. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me for sending you off to die,” Sharlotte said. She stared Wren and me down, making sure we understood her decision was final. Then she strutted off, not sexy like Wren, but queenly, like Mama used to walk.

Wren picked up her lantern, stepped in the stirrup and hoisted herself onto the saddle. “Well, Johnson,” she said with a mean laugh. “How’s it feel to be unlucky for once, you lucky bastard?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, but took off trotting on Mick with the MG21 across her shoulder. Looking for a fight.

“I’m pretty much jacked,” Micaiah muttered.

Once again, he and I were alone in the dark.

He had cursed, said the word “jacked” right in front of me, which wasn’t very gentlemanly. I tried to ignore the fact by trying to piece together his story. “If you really need to get across the Juniper, then you prolly should come with us. But why didn’t you just fly to Vegas? Not over the Juniper, but around it, or suborbital?”

“My aunts have spies everywhere outside of the Juniper,” he said. “With the identity laws, people are easy to find.”

I remembered the eye-scanners back at the Cleveland bus station.

Micaiah took a step closer. “Thank you for trying to save me a third time.” His voice came out so warm and smiley, I forgot about my questions.

“Yeah, well,” I said, getting uncomfortable. He was near enough I could feel his heat. Then I realized what he was trying to do. He was trying to seduce me.

Well, I’d show him. “Okay, Micaiah, let’s get one thing straight. I want you to know, right now, what kind of girl I am.”

“You want to talk about the kiss?”

“Yeah, that’s right.” I scowled. How had he known what I was thinking?

“Okay, what about the kiss?” he asked.

Suddenly I didn’t have a single word in my head that made any sense.

(ii)

Standing there in the dark, I couldn’t forget the cute blue of his clever eyes, or how he tasted on my lips. Help me, Lord.

Okay, I’d start with the Lord. “Listen up. I was raised with good Christian ethics, and I am a firm supporter of Sally Browne Burke and the New Morality. I truly believe that the future of all humanity rests on the virtue and intelligence of women everywhere, starting with me.”

Once I got going, it felt like I was preaching from a pulpit, not standing among sagebrush under a cold, starry sky, so I really poured on the rhetoric. “As a guardian of our species, my conduct must be beyond reproach. What happened in the minivan was a mistake brought on by fear and extreme circumstances. I am now in firm control of my passions, and there won’t be a repeat of the said incident.” I had to inhale real deep after my speech.

I couldn’t see his face. Dang Juniper and no light. But I could see him nod. “So, you’re a firm member of the New Morality movement?

“Very firm.”

“Very firm,” he echoed.

“We’ve established that.” I said. I wasn’t sure if he was making fun of me, and I was in too deep to retreat. “I’m sure you noticed my dress.”

“Yes, very gray, very New Morality. However, Miss Burke does say that when two people have a deep attraction for each other, that such a union is blessed by God, and that love, in the end, will give us the next generation just like it has done for millennia.” Now that he was making a speech of his own, his voice was Yankee crisp, accent neutral, as bright and shiny as a new silver dollar.

But I could tell he was trying to argue me into a corner. “Yeah, she did say all those things. And normally, well, I guess, you and me …” My words failed me. Every syllable died right there.

That boy took up where I left off, not joking any more. “Cavatica, I’m in trouble. Real trouble. If your sisters get their way, I’ll either be dead in a week or sold into slavery. I need your help. What we had, well, it was powerful, unexpected, incredible, but I understand what you’re getting at. However good it was, we can’t be together under these circumstances.”

Now I wanted to protest, ’cause, dang it, I wanted to kiss him again. “I’ll convince my sisters. You’re with us ’til the end. In Wendover, you’ll be able to catch a bus easy to Vegas, or a plane. And maybe you and I …”

More dead syllables, scattered all around.

Maybe you and I could go to Vegas together.
Didn’t say it, only thought it—fell into a little fantasy, right there. He and I in a hotel suite, him respecting my decision to be chaste, and me wanting him more than I should. Sparkling cider in crystal glasses and a big tub full of bubble bath. No, had to stop myself.

“I understand.” He put out a hand.

I shook it, still Yankee soft. Which gave me an idea. “You know, if they see you can do stuff, it’ll go a long ways in convincing them to let you stay. Sharlotte loves free labor. You know anything about cows?”

“Nothing. I’m actually a raw food vegan.”

I sighed. “Don’t tell anyone that. Just follow me and act like you know more than you do.”

“I’ll try,” he said.

Walking next to him felt like floating. Maybe he was telling the truth about his vicious aunts and a mama in Vegas. I prayed to God he was.

(iii)

First thing we did was take my temporary corral and head over to the steam truck and our supply trailer. We had an old Chevy Workhorse II, fitted with an ASI attachment in the bed. With all the vehicles left behind in the Juniper, American Steam Ingenuity, or ASI came up with attachments you could link into the drive train of large rigs, like trucks and vans.

Mama had found the Chevy abandoned in a ditch west of our ranch and used horses to tow it back to our barn. We cut a hole in the bed and hooked up the ASI attachment. Ran piping for the pressure gauges under the body and up through the floor of the cab. Modified the brakes. Modified the pedals.

Mama and I worked on it together, well, with a lot of help from Paula Borland, a mechanic in town. I can still remember how I loved to read the ASI 5.3 Ultra install manual like some people remember their first Harry Potter book.

Over the last two weeks, every time I fiddled with the ASI on the Chevy, I’d get choked up, thinking about Mama and me, working long days together to figure everything out.

The ASI’s steam engine ran on what had fueled fires for millennia on the Great Plains—poop. In our case, cow patties, but we’d add wood when we found it, and we had a small supply of Old Growth coal. We could make asphalt coal if we found any left.

Mama and I had removed the engine block, sold it for scrap, and then used the space to carry fuel. We also welded a big rack on top of the rig to use as storage and to dry manure. Lots of room in, on, and around that rig. The Chevy Workhorse II was the largest non-commercial truck any American company had ever built.

Micaiah and I dropped my temporary corral parts into the supply trailer. Aunt Bea had paused from working to lay her hand on Annabeth’s body, wrapped in an old horse blanket.

She glanced up, then hugged me. “We’ll get through this,
mija
. We will.”

I swallowed my tears. “Yeah, we will.”

Aunt Bea pulled away, then seemed to notice Micaiah for the first time. “Pleased to meet you, Micaiah. I hear you’re going to be with us tonight.”

The boy dropped his head. “Looks like it.”

“Well, we’ll see if we survive it,” Aunt Bea said. “Cavvy, can you check and make sure the Chevy’s engine is ready?”

“On my way, Bea.” I walked over and stepped up onto the bed of the Chevy.

Again, Micaiah was full of surprises. He climbed up next to me. “That’s an ASI 5.3. Ancient. It still works?”

“How did you know it was a five?”

He gestured at the piping. “The angle. The 7.1s are so much more efficient. The fives were so buggy.”

“Not as awful as the three series,” I said. “How come you know so much about ASI engines? I mean, you’re a Yankee boy, and I’d figured you’d have pictures of frictionless cars on the walls of your bedroom.”

“The ASI technology is fascinating. You have engines from the very start of the industrial revolution, re-vamped, re-engineered to be as efficient as possible. That they can run on cattle dung is amazing. I’m surprised you have such a crappyjack version.”

“Watch your language,” I said, feeling defensive. “We had to make do with what we had. And this old truck has taken us back and forth to Hays for years and years. Some of us ain’t rich.”

“You’re not just a little family ranch,” he replied. “Maybe you’re not rich, but I would imagine you’re doing okay.”

“You don’t know a thing, Mr. Fancy Pants.” He had some gall, assuming we were wealthy when we were suffering from such money problems. For a minute, I was too mad to talk, so I focused on work. I filled the water tubes from a twenty-liter bucket and added some kindling to the firebox, still warm from burning all day. Micaiah crept in closer and put out his hands, to thaw them out. One thing about steam engines, they kept you warm.

I slid off the bed of the truck just as Crete came over. “Hey, Cavvy, we found some ponies looking for you.” She had Puff Daddy, Katy, Taylor Quick, Delia, and some others. Crete’s eyes had found Micaiah, and even in the moonlight she appreciated his handsome. “Why, Cavvy, introduce me to our guest.” She didn’t wait, though. She got down off her horse and curtsied. “I’m Lucretia Macaby, but my friends call me Crete. You can call me Crete.”

He bounced off the truck and bowed. “I’m Micaiah Carlsbad.”

I didn’t like how quick he had moved, or how he smiled at Crete. Something bothered me more though. He got his name wrong. Micaiah Carlson, that was what he had said before. Then I remembered how he had stuttered in the minivan. After his iffy story about wicked aunts, the name mix-up deepened my doubts. Who was he really? Why were his aunts chasing him? He didn’t have anything other than the clothes on his back.

While I sifted through my doubts, Crete continued to flirt. “Why, Micaiah, it’s awful that your zeppelin got shot down. I can’t believe you could survive something like that. How did you—”

“Yeah, Crete, awful,” I said to stop her pathetic flirting. “But I’m sure you have things to do.”

She frowned at me. Let her.

I was mad at the boy, suspicious as well, so I gave him the reins to Puff Daddy while I took the rest of the horses. Puff Daddy was a chestnut stallion with more attitude than wit, though he had plenty of that as well.

“Okay, Mr. Carlsbad,” I said, “let’s get to work.”

“Nice meeting you, Crete,” Micaiah said over his shoulder.

Puff Daddy knew he was dealing with a Yankee and wasn’t acting very polite. It was fun watching the rich boy struggle for a moment, until I stepped in to give Micaiah a little ranching advice. “You might know about steam engines, but you have a lot to learn about horses. You gotta be firm, gentle, but firm, like you’re so in charge of ’em you can be nice. Got it?”

“Yes, firm. Very firm,” he said. “Like your firm convictions.”

Now I knew he was making fun of me, and I swore I’d never say the word “firm” around him again. “Come on, Johnson.”

We guided the horses over to a copse of cottonwoods. I loved the winter smell of their bark and the gentle sway of their limbs, heavy with buds. I tied the horses to the trees while we assembled the rest of the horses of my remuda.

Our people would come by to drop off horses and say how heartsick they were over Annabeth. No one batted an eye at him. It seemed only Crete and I were affected.

Our hires came in, one after another, chatty with nervousness. First came Kasey Romero, leading Elvis, a paint who was mostly white, but with a brown face. Kasey shook her head. “Folks say those June Mai outlaws are mutants from the Knockout. That they ain’t human. I don’t know about all that, but I sure don’t wanna run into a whole army of ’em.”