Dandelion Iron Book One (33 page)

I relaxed into his arms, my back feeling the hard muscles of his chest. I’d said I couldn’t be with him romantically, not with how things were, but I couldn’t help but let him hold me and comfort me. However wrong, it felt really good. I needed the comforting.

We hadn’t heard Wren ride away on Christina Pink. I figured she’d hide out in another house, get her own fire burning, and bring Christina Pink into the living room to keep her warm. She’d take care of my pony, but I didn’t imagine I’d see her or the horse again.

“She’ll be back,” Micaiah said as if reading my worried mind. “She won’t just abandon you all.”

“You have a lot to learn about family,” I said. “Wren’s always been a stranger in our home. From the very beginning.”

“I’m sorry I got between you. Can you forgive me?”

I nodded. Didn’t want to talk. The way I was feeling, if I talked, I might cry, and I was tired of crying in front of him. Tired of crying. Period.

He seemed to understand. He kept his hand in mine and spoke over my shoulder, his breath warm and soft on my cheek. “Tomorrow, everything will be better. Pilate will wake up. Wren’ll come back, and we’ll find Sharlotte and the cattle. Headcount, that’s what you call all your cattle, isn’t that right?”

Another nod from me.

“With the storm, the Vixx sisters and their Regios won’t be able to really search for us, not like they could in nice weather. But I want you to know, I’m going to leave. I can’t keep risking you or your family.”

“No,” I choked out the word. “If Wren is really gone, we’ll need you.”

“You don’t know how powerful they are,” he said softly. “Or what they’ll do to get me.”

“I won’t let them hurt you. I’ll fight them. Whatever they are.”

He fell silent. He wasn’t going to reveal anything else.

I shivered, then felt a pinch in my arm and I realized a goathead thorn was stuck there in the folds of my dress. We also called those burrs devil’s thorn, from some weed brought over by Europeans. Not sure where it had come from, but I pinched it off my skin and held it there.

“What’s that?” Micaiah asked.

“A thorn. They come from the flowers of weeds.”

We didn’t say anything for a long time. I’d been such a flower in Cleveland, a weed maybe, according to Becca Olson. But now? That flower was gone. Was I destined to become a thorn like Wren? Or just tough like Sharlotte?

I threw the devil’s thorn away and relaxed into Micaiah’s arms.

“Are we halfway?” Micaiah asked.

Even if we were in Boulder, heck, even if we were in Fort Collins, we were still hundreds of kilometers short.

“No,” I murmured. Pilate shot, Petal uncertain, Wren prolly gone forever, and Sharlotte and our headcount lost, it felt like certain failure.

We hadn’t made it halfway. And I felt the defeat keenly.

“You can’t leave.” I yawned, getting sleepy. “I fought Wren so you could keep your secrets and stay with us. You’ll stay, right?”

Again, he got quiet, but at the same time, he held me tighter.

Being human is hard. Our hearts hold a million desires, each fighting the others and all complaining. Micaiah wanted to stay. He wanted to tell me the truth, but at the same time, he wanted to keep me safe.

Problem was, safety never stayed around long in the Juniper.

(ii)

In the early morning hours, I woke to the sound of internal combustion engines roaring down the street outside. The window was a sheet of ice from the condensation of our breathing and the cold. The fire was long dead, so they wouldn’t see or smell the smoke. Micaiah kept my body warm, but my heart froze in my chest at the sound of the ATVs.

We didn’t say a word—just listened as the sound of the engines faded away to the north. The blizzard had covered our tracks. My plan had worked, and I felt proud for a minute. I’d gotten us out of trouble and no one had been killed in the process. The bad guys had missed us.

I hoped they also missed Wren, wherever she was.

(iii)

Later that morning, Micaiah ran recon and confirmed the ATVs hadn’t stopped anywhere near us. We were safe.

The storm still raged, giving us cover to find Sharlotte, our people, our cattle.

Before I knew it, I was back in the Ford Excelsior, riding shotgun. Micaiah drove ’cause I was in too much pain to do anything but keep my eyes squeezed shut, trying not to hate Petal. She gave herself full doses while I had to settle for half, half-alive and half-dead.

Even full doses weren’t enough for Petal. She was chewing on her thumbnail like it was a dog’s squeaky toy. The black pits of her eyes ate up her pale face—it seemed she was about five seconds from losing it and murdering us all.

She caught me gazing at her. “I know what my medicine is now. I know it’s just Skye6. You think I’m some addict, but I’m not. I’m going to quit once this cattle drive is over.”

“Why wait?” I murmured.

Her voice broke out nasty. “If you want me to keep killing for you, Cavvy, I need to be high to do it.”

Ouch.

I turned away to watch the wind blasting around the snowflakes while I worried. If she got clean, she couldn’t shoot, and if Wren was gone, we were left with only one gunslinger, Pilate, who was currently unconscious.

Without security, we’d have to turn east. We’d have to go to Mavis, sell all of our beef for pennies, and hope she took pity on us enough to help us pay back Howerter.

No. I grit my teeth. We’d find Sharlotte and our cows, and we’d go on, even if I had to shoot every outlaw skank in the Juniper myself. Which was a joke ’cause I was terrible under fire.

That thought killed my hope and determination—both were already under attack from the general agony of my gunshot wounds. Every pitch and bump of the Ford in the snow made my teeth clench and my heart shrivel. I longed to be unconscious.

I was about to beg someone to hit me over the head when the wind had one last tear about the sky and dropped to nothing. The snow ceased like someone had unplugged it. We came up onto a ridge and Micaiah stopped the truck.

“What is it?” I asked miserably.

“Down there. I think I saw something.” Micaiah threw open the door, threw more scrap wood into the firebox, then banged back into the truck.

We chugged down an incline toward a huge building, standing above ruins like a castle. I figured it had been an old government building, but it was hard to tell ’cause only concrete and a little roofing remained.

Then I knew. From her years of salvage, Mama taught us how to figure out the purpose of a building just by looking at the leftovers. Kind of like figuring out how some old lady might have looked at her junior prom.

The building had been a shopping mall, now scrapped out and demolished, rooftops sunk under snow.

Micaiah turned off the engine. Petal was zombified, chewing on her fingernails. Pilate was comatosing.

When Micaiah got out, I followed him, though moving sent icy needles of pain through my arm and shoulder. My head joined in the fun by aching something awful, and I thought I might be running a fever.

Then I heard the lowing of cattle, inside the shopping mall. Relief flooded through me. We’d found our cattle, and I just knew, our people were close by.

Micaiah helped me push through the snow, waist deep in some places, and we stepped through the outlines of shattered glass doors and into the mall’s wide corridor. Everything had been stripped and carted off, no merchandise, no gates—nothing but cracked tiles, concrete and cinderblocks remained.

The smell of beefsteak hit us strong, and I knew instantly what Sharlotte had done. That girl, real clever. She’d found shelter from the storm. A sanctuary.

A pretty cow came nosing out of a shop like she was looking for a Cinnabon. I chuckled. Micaiah joined me.

We edged past the cow and what might have been a Macy’s or a Nordstrom’s. The glass counters, the display racks, even the guts of the escalators were gone. Instead, our headcount packed the open space. Some of the beefsteaks bawled, some wrestled around ornery, some stood content. All they needed was something to eat and a few free samples from the perfume counter.

Micaiah and I were gazing at the cows when I heard a familiar voice. “The food court’s gone, but Aunt Bea is preparing us an early dinner. Ten bucks a plate. We’ll charge you the family rate. Eleven dollars and fifty cents.”

It was Sharlotte, making the rare joke. She and Dolly Day Cornpone stood in the main corridor, MG21 rifles over their shoulders. Dolly Day let out a triumphant yell, and soon everyone had gathered around us.

I was hugged over and over by our hires and hands. I watched Sharlotte forget herself and throw her arms around Micaiah, nearly in tears, she was so happy to see him.

The acid of my guilt burned my belly.

When Sharlotte approached me, I shifted my feet uncomfortably. She didn’t hug me, only put out a hand. I took it, but I couldn’t look her in the eyes, so I glanced around, forcing a grin. “Dang, Sharlotte, what an idea, bringing the cows in here.”

She shrugged. “It was the only thing that made sense. You okay? You look pale.”

“I’m okay,” I whispered.

“Where’s everyone else?” Sharlotte asked. “What happened?”

I didn’t say a thing. I couldn’t tell the full story in front of our employees. If they found out I’d driven Wren away, or that we’d been chased by soldiers, nearly impossible to kill, riding through Juniper on diesel-powered engines, all to get Micaiah, well, morale would be a problem. Right then, it was best they thought it was more June Mai Angel evilness.

Micaiah took over. He spoke with joy and relief in his voice, once again showing how easily he could spin things in a way that encouraged people to believe exactly what he wanted them to. Who was he? And how could he lie so easily?

Micaiah didn’t mention his aunts, nor did he talk about how close we’d come to dying. He simply said we’d rescued him, Pilate and Petal were in the truck, and Wren was out scouting. In the end, that boy made it sound more like a church picnic than a vicious gunfight.

I’d chosen to trust Micaiah, had even pointed a gun at my sister, but now doubt crept into me. If he could lie so easily about our adventures since the stampede, could he also be lying to me about his quest? He said he hated keeping secrets from me, but of course he would say that if he was a manipulative snake.

Folks were sent out to bring Pilate and Petal into the shopping mall. Aunt Bea served up
tacos al carbón
and
horchata
, and it was a party. Even though Pilate was wounded, he was still alive, and we were safe for the moment. Everyone laughed and hugged, so glad we were all back together. The dogs curled around our legs, barking, tails wagging, as happy as everyone else.

I sipped a little of the sweet milk, nibbled a taco, but I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. Or maybe I was, but too troubled to know it. I felt stifled.

I went outside for some fresh air, but there was no place to sit, so I went to sit on the bed of the Excelsior. I was done in, exhausted, guilt-ridden.

Sharlotte came up and sat beside me.

“You’re hurt bad,” Sharlotte said. “And something else is going on. Tell me.”

I found some words to say, none of them good. “Wasn’t June Mai Angel. It was other soldiers, well-armed, well-trained, and we were lucky to get away. They’re bad, Shar, worst we ever fought. And they want Micaiah. They’ll do anything to get him, and we don’t have a clue who he really is.”

“Micaiah is good. We can trust him.”

“I want to. I think I do. But you saw his performance back there. He’s a really good liar.”

And so was I. Sharlotte didn’t seem a bit suspicious. Of course she’d trust him. She was in love with him.

The sun broke through the clouds, throwing down light and heat. The world seemed to sigh.

A
V
of Canadian geese drifted overhead. I recalled my time at Sally Browne Burke Academy for the Moral and Literate and my own migration.

I missed the wood of the classrooms, the video screens on the walls, even the simple drama of Becca Olson, fighting with my best friend Anju over Billy Finn. Cleveland and the World never felt farther.

“We aren’t even halfway,” I murmured.

“Yes, we are,” Sharlotte said evenly. “Not in kilometers, but in effort. We got out of Burlington. We made it through Denver and only lost three hundred head doing it. Your plan was good. You have a good head on your shoulders, and I don’t appreciate you enough. Who knows? Maybe if you and I work together, we might make it to Nevada.”

We stared at each other for a long time. She’d said nice things about me, talked about us working together, and somehow she seemed different, more human. Was she still under the influence of Micaiah’s spell, or was something else going on?

“You think we can make it?” I asked.

“Maybe. Yes. No. I don’t know.” Sharlotte let a grin creep across her lips. “We have those dry Wyoming deserts ahead of us. The Rocky Mountains. The Great Salt Flats. We made it through June Mai Angel’s territory, but we still have to make it through the Psycho Princess. And now we have new enemies gunning for us. This cattle drive was doomed to fail from the start, but I would imagine when you risk everything on a long shot, it always feels like that.”

“Like Mama playing poker,” I said.

Sharlotte turned sour. “Like Mama.”

“Mama was only thinking outside the box,” I said gently. “Howerter’s greed and revenge forced us into this. We didn’t have a choice.”

“We always have a choice,” Sharlotte said. “I’m seeing that more and more.” Her hand was in her pocket, worrying over what was inside.

I didn’t have the strength to ask about it. Instead, I let myself be young. I inched over and leaned against her. Instead of getting up and going back to work, Sharlotte held me as we watched the sun sparkling on the snow. The noise of the geese disappeared and only silence remained.

I pushed a hand into the pocket of my dress and felt the bullet I’d picked up off the floor. “Wren’s gone. I chased her off.”

“She’ll come back,” Sharlotte said. “Irene likes to make a big show of things, but in the end, she can’t stay away ’cause we’re connected, a cluster of thorns stuck in God’s heel, forever vexing Him, forever reminding Him about us and all our troubles.”