Dandelion Iron Book One (26 page)

Mama, though, Mama knew.

We shoved our way through the front door and crawled over stacks of old newspapers and magazines. Plastic crap covered the floor where the paper grew thin. Several old sleds, a rack of bins full of junk-drawer leavings, and stacks of old CDs, DVDs, Blu-Rays, and some old-school VHS tapes.

Digging through the mess, the hoarder’s nest revealed its treasures. Candles. A tray of canned peaches and several can openers to open them. Spam, which was awful, but it was protein, sealed tight in tin.

I didn’t want the candles to give us away, so we made a little space in the basement amid all the trash, and found sleeping bags that weren’t too gross. They’d keep us warm at any rate.

I found myself all chatty with him, nervous. Me. Him. Alone.

“We can’t go looking for them,” I blabbered, “’cause if we go looking for them, June Mai’s soldiers are already looking for us, or our people, or our cows, and I guess we knew we’d run into outlaws, but then we thought they’d all be in Burlington, attacking my home. Dang, but won’t Howerter be upset if he comes to collect on his loan and all that’s left is a smoking hole in the earth. Not that I want my home destroyed, no, and I wouldn’t think it would come to that. But I don’t know. I keep praying for my family and our team and I just hope we’re all going to be okay.”

I went on and on while I opened cans of peaches and spam and got our dinner ready. I had iodine tablets in my emergency wallet, and I used them to clean brackish water I found in a ditch behind the house. The candles flickered in our little nest, making it more romantic than I had really wanted, making me even more nervous.

I finally stopped talking and sighed. “I’m sorry. I sound like Sketchy. I’m just afraid of losing my family.”

“I understand,” he said quietly. “Not that I’ve ever had a family. Not really.”

I leapt on this little bit of information. “You have your Mom and your aunts, right?”

“They grew up fighting,” he said. “And my father …” He shook his head. “He’s a real jackerdan. I never, ever, ever, want to see him again.”

“I’m sorry about that,” I said. “Having a daddy in this world nowadays is rare, and to hate him so much, it’s kind of ironic. Kind of sad. But let me tell you, sometimes family doesn’t seem like it’s worth the trouble. It’s like—”

He watched me closely. His intense stare stopped me in my tracks.

“It’s like what?” he asked eagerly.

“You know …” I said, trying to get him to stop staring at me like I had the answers to the universe. I set peaches in front of him and a slice of Spam on a sheet of paper with grids and graphs on it. Some kind of financial report from before the Yellowstone Knockout.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What’s a family like?”

“Well, you have people who’ve seen you at your worst, and they can tease you forever about it. Like what Wren does. And then you have people who’ve seen you at your youngest, and they’ll never let you forget they changed your diapers. Like Sharlotte. So in all that history, there is so much ammunition, that if you wanted to, you could blast the people you’re supposed to love all to pieces.”

I flashed back to the bombs I’d dropped on Wren after she told me our Mama was dead in Ms. Justice’s office.

“So the history makes it hard to love them?” Micaiah asked, leaving his food untouched.

“And it makes them easier to love. Like one Christmas, Wren got this really fancy saddle, and she never hugged anyone, but she hugged Mama. Mama’s face nearly cracked from her smile. Wren was impossible to please, but Mama knew Wren enough to know she loved horses and riding fast and nice things, and that saddle was nice, new in fact. A new saddle, not salvaged, it was quite a present.”

Soon after, Wren got in trouble for not cleaning her room. Sharlotte beat her, and Christmas turned into another fight. Love and hate, hate and love, that was at the heart of a family. Sharlotte had prolly been jealous of Wren’s new saddle, and took it out on her while trying to mother her. Which is why sisters raising sisters isn’t such a good idea.

Sharlotte kept a tally on Mama’s love all right, who got what, and how much. What kind of damage had my school tuition caused Sharlotte?

I grinned at Micaiah. He was Sharlotte’s present. I’d only used him a little, so he was in fact a hand-me-down, but us Weller girls were used to salvage. Made me grin more.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “What?”

I shrugged and ate a peach. It was sweet and good and a little cold. Just right. “You gonna eat?”

“Yes, but I can’t believe you found canned peaches.” He picked one up. “Peaches. Such a treat.”

“I was vegan for a while in Cleveland,” I said. “You get used to the phytonutrients.”

“Nice word.”

I felt comfortable enough to joke. “For white trash. I know, I know. I don’t talk like it, but I’m pretty educated, and I know about the benefits of proper nutrition.”

“Yeah, but food is more than that,” he said quietly. He stared at the peach in his hand before slowly placing it in his mouth, like it was communion. Eyes closed, he chewed it carefully. When he opened his eyes, they were puddled with tears. “Growing up, they would give me peaches out of a can. Like these. It was better than the other food, much better, so sweet, so sweet. I was always so little, always growing so fast, and always so hungry.” His voice went away. The tears trickled down his cheeks, catching the candlelight. He dropped his head.

I ain’t never seen a boy my age cry. Heck, I’d rarely seen boys at all. I didn’t know how to react.

I needed to comfort him, but any kind of touch seemed to be tempting fate. I wasn’t sure what might happen if I felt his skin again.

Risking it, I leaned forward and put my hand on his bare arm. “It’s okay to cry in front of me. I don’t think it’s girly ’strogen.”

He laughed at that. “No, I’m certainly a boy. Viable. How could I ever forget it? And I want to feel my feelings. You have no idea how important my feelings are to me.”

“And I won’t have an idea for a long time, huh?” I asked. “The apple.”

“From the Tree of Knowledge,” he said, a smile on his lips, a tender expression in his eyes, and tears on his cheeks. He covered my hand with his own.

The electricity of his touch zinged through every part of me. I wanted more. I needed more. The shock of the desire sent me to my feet. I fought to clear my throat. “I’m going to go out and scout around for a minute. I want to see if I can see anything, you know, from the roof. I have to go.”

Before he could stop me, I escaped up the steps. I left my coat and gear below and went out in my dress and boots. The night, thank goodness, wasn’t frigid, but it was far from warm. I was sweating so much, so churned up inside, I was grateful for the chill.

Okay, it was clear—I couldn’t touch him or let him touch me. No way. However, I’d kept my chastity. I hadn’t gone for him. But he was putting out signals, and I know for a rich, viable boy, dating sisters or a whole gaggle of girls at the same time might be fine with him, but not for me, not for Sharlotte, not for any good Catholic girl.

I climbed a fence and boosted myself onto the roof, which still had most of its shingles, but not all of them.

Clouds filled up the sky and I smelled the wet smell again. Snow was on its way. Once again, I went through worrying over the cattle drive, my family, our crew.

But Micaiah’s Tree of Knowledge mystery joined in. And how he had talked about the peaches, and the pronouns he used—“they” gave them to him. They. It sounded like he hadn’t grown up in a family, but more like in some kind of institution setting. He hated his dad, but what about his aunts and his mom?

Secrets. The apple kept safely on the tree lest it poison me, or so he said.

I took in deep breaths, the touch of him, the smell of him, his eyes on me, his hand covering mine.

I couldn’t fight my heart anymore, so I let my fantasies have free reign. I pictured us traveling the world on his money—London, Paris, Rome, India, Thailand, Australia. We’d get separate rooms in the hotels ’cause of my high moral standards, and he could afford it. Once we were married, we’d come back to Burlington, to live in the ranch house, ’cause he’d paid Howerter back in full.

Sharlotte was conveniently left out. It was wrong of me, but the thought of Micaiah and me together felt so good that it was easy to forget about reality.

I was so lost in my own little world I jumped when he called up to me in a quiet voice. “Cavatica, are you there?”

“Yeah.”

“We should get some sleep. I don’t think you need to keep watch.”

I went back inside with him and didn’t sleep a wink all night.

I listened to Micaiah’s breathing and the shuffle of his movements. He was a noisy sleeper, but he never said a word.

His dreams, like his secrets, he kept to himself.

(v)

I woke up to light filtering down through the window wells of the basement. Took me only a second to see Micaiah was gone.

I leaned back into the mound of
Rocky Mountain News
bundles, figuring he’d gone out to relieve himself, and that he would be back.

Hooves clopped above on the back patio’s concrete, a horse whinnied loudly, and wild shapes threw shadows across the basement windows.

Something wasn’t right. I could feel it.

In a flash, I climbed up stacks of papers and boxes until I could heave myself up to the window. Spider webs clung to my fingers. Spiders scattered.

I ignored them. My eyes were fixed on Micaiah’s familiar boots, his jeans. In less than a second, he was scooped up by figures on horseback. All I could see was the gray-colored camouflage pants they wore and the black combat boots on their feet, stuck in stirrups.

Before I could do a thing, the riders stormed away.

Taking Micaiah with them.

Chapter Seventeen

During the salvaging days, there were men bandits, but they weren’t organized. Queenie was organized. Women know how to come together. I just wish it was for a better purpose than to steal. As for June Mai Angel, I’m not sure she exists. The stories I’ve heard, well, no Outlaw Warlord could have that many followers and be that organized. June Mai Angel is just Juniper gossip gone bad.

—Abigail Weller
Colorado Courier
Interview
June 6, 2057

(i)

I bent and touched the tracks in the dirt of the road. Clouds swirled cold in the early morning sky. The ruins of the suburbs spread out to infinity, and I was a lone girl, standing there with a choice to make. Go north and follow the riders. Or go west to try and find my people in Golden.

I wondered at how capricious the Juniper could be. One minute the boy and I were eating peaches and he’s crying, and the next, he’s stolen away.

The scales inside of me tipped into balance—the weight of my love for him, Sharlotte’s love, and his promise of six million dollars versus my family, my cattle, and the drive.

But how many beefsteaks had survived the stampede? Would there be any left to sell? Or would we lose the ranch to Howerter?

Back and forth, back and forth—my head couldn’t make a decision. My boots finally made the decision, my boots connected to my heart by invisible strings of desire and destiny.

Full of
shakti
, I ran north. I still left the AW mark, but I did it hastily, not wanting to lose the spoor of the riders who’d taken the boy.

I hadn’t gone a kilometer when Pilate, Petal, and Wren found me.

(ii)

I recognized the ponies first, then the riders. Windshadow came galloping up ridden by Pilate, Lampchop carrying Petal, and Wren fighting to keep control of Christina Pink. The horse’s muscles flexed tensely, her eyes slits—that fiery mare wanted to run the Devil down.

Mary B trailed them on long reins. Tina Machinegun was sheathed next to the saddlebags.

“Is Sharlotte okay?” I asked. “Did Mick and Puff Daddy make it?”

“Glad you asked about a human first, then horses,” Wren said. “Everyone made it. We dealt with June Mai’s girls. Not sure what all them scary stories are about. Got through ’em easy.” My sister smiled, showing her perfect teeth, bright and recently flossed, knowing her. In the chill, she wore both her Mortex parka and the wool poncho—both a dark green, I wouldn’t have thought the colors would match, but on Wren they did.

Pilate dismounted and threw his arms around me. “Thank God you left a trail for us to follow.”

I bristled at his touch and stepped away. The dog. “Yeah, I’m brilliant. But what happened?”

They told me how June Mai’s girls had hit our crew, but they had missed Wren, who had been riding separate from the herd, which had been her plan all along. It explained why she drifted around alone, only coming in at night to visit Pilate.

Once the shooting started, Wren gunned down the outlaws from the back while Pilate and Petal hit them from the front.

The outlaws soon gave up on the attack and dragged the fallen beef off the freeway.

Wren smirked. “Yeah, we let those skanks have our roadkill.”

Petal, who seemed half asleep on Lambchop, leaned close to Pilate. “We killed all the Jacquelines and Jills, but we’re done shooting for a little while, aren’t we? I don’t want to shoot anyone for a while. And can I have more medicine?”

“Soon, Petal,” Pilate said. “And I agree. I think we should avoid any shooting we can.”

“How many of the headcount did we lose?” I asked.

“We think about two hundred, but they were still counting them when we took off to find you,” Pilate said. He seemed to care, but not Wren nor Petal.

My sister whirled Christina Pink around and around, going forward, looking at the tracks, frowning in concentration, letting the hoof prints in the dirt tell their story. “Did you see who took your boy?” she asked.

I hadn’t, not really, but now that I had a posse, I was keen to get him back. I told them everything I knew and finished up by saying, “We’re going after him.”

Pilate shook his head slowly and firmly. “No, we’re not. Micaiah broke off from the herd, and June Mai’s bandits leapt on him like coyotes on a calf. Yes, Wren has bested June Mai’s soldiers three times now, but if I were throwing dice in Vegas, I would gratefully take my money off the table and get some pie. I love pie.”