Dandelion Iron Book One

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Wren crouched on the ground, messing with her sapropel lamp so we wouldn’t have to talk in the dark.

  “Come on. Out with it,” Sharlotte prompted.

  Wren stood. “We got bad news.”

  “Not a surprise.” Sharlotte sighed. “How bad?”

  Pilate took a deep breath before he spoke. “Actually, we have all sorts of news. We have bad news, good news, better news, and evil news. Which flavor do you want first?”

  “No games, Pilate. Just tell us.” I wasn’t in the mood for Pilate’s wit. My brain was rusted from no sleep and charred from fear.

  He took the cigar out of his mouth to spit tobacco bits. “June Mai Angel has an army. It’s bivouacked about five klicks east. We got there just as the zeppelins showed up, which thank God, hadn’t been there before or they’d have seen all the explosions. Long story short, I think she’s going to take Burlington.”

  “What do you mean, take?” Sharlotte asked.

  “Take, as in conquer, as in eighth grade social studies. Genghis Khan took Peking. The Visigoths took Rome. The kind of army she has, well, it’s beyond anything I’ve ever seen in the Juniper. Explains the IDs. Really, it’s like something straight out of the Sino.” His voice got stuck, and he had to clear his throat.

  My head seemed to float off my shoulders as I thought about my bedroom back in Burlington. I could imagine ninja outlaw girls fingering through my blue ribbons and stealing my candles.

  “Is that the evil news?” Sharlotte asked.

  “Well.” Pilate smiled. “That’s actually the good news.”

  Wren weighed in. “And the better news is that we think we killed every outlaw they sent to get Micaiah’s zeppelin. So at this stage, June Mai Angel might not know we’re out here.”

  Pilate took over. “But we have to keep moving. Come morning, June Mai’ll send a unit to look for their Cargador and horses. If we’re lucky, they’ll follow the false path we made for them. If we’re not, they’ll see the mess your headcount made of the ground, figure out someone else is out here, and follow the cattle tracks right to us. Wren would just love to fight the whole army, but I’m not going to unleash her on them like that. I have some ethics left.”

  Wren grunted. “Still say we should sell the boy.” She gave Micaiah a toothy grin so malicious I had to step in front of it.

  “Okay, so what about Micaiah?” I asked. “What does this mean for him? We’re not going to sell him.”

  “Ah, the evil news,” Pilate said wearily. “The boy from the sky comes with us.”

  “How is that the evil news?” I asked.

  Micaiah answered. “They can use me as a bargaining chip with June Mai Angel or any other Outlaw Warlord. Don’t take our cattle because here’s a viable boy. A rich, viable boy.”

  “Damn, Johnson, you’re pretty smart,” Wren laughed. “I think I might love him as much as Cavvy does.”

  “Shut up, Wren!” I said in a huff.

  Pilate took out his torch lighter, clicked it on, and held it to his cigar. “I heard your story, Micaiah. I was never much for Vegas. All that sin in one place. Sin should be spread around. What’s your last name?”

  “Carlsbad.”

  At least he got his fake name correct twice in a row.

  Pilate got biblical. “Micaiah, son of Imlah, and I quote, ‘As the Lord liveth, what the Lord saith unto me, that will I speak.’ Book of Kings. Four-hundred false prophets and only Micaiah spoke the truth. What truth do you have for us?”

  “If you can get me to Nevada, I can make it worth your while. My mom can offer a substantial reward, more than you’d get for selling me.” The boy shivered under the blanket draped across his shoulders, eyes bright on Pilate.

  “How much?” Wren asked.

  Micaiah let all our attention fix on him before he answered. It was like he was used to the stage. Was he an actor?

  Finally, he spoke. “So on a good day in Hays, you’d get about two thousand dollars for one of your Herefords. An average cow weighs about six hundred kilograms. CRTA qualified beef is going for a dollar and sixty-six cents per half-kilo, that about right?”

  No, he wasn’t any kind of actor I’d ever heard of ’cause no actor would know about Hays cattle prices.

  “How many head of cattle do you have?” he asked no one in particular.

  Wren answered. “Well, before we got shot up, we had three thousand. Of various shapes and sizes.”

  “For a total of six million dollars. My mom could cover that,” Micaiah said.

  “Talk about a false prophet.” Wren rolled her eyes. “This kid is telling us stories, none of them very true. Well, maybe June Mai’ll listen.”

  Sharlotte stood motionless, silent, face hidden like always by her hat.

  Was Micaiah telling us lies about such money? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t believe any boy was worth that much money.

  I breathed in—the smell of the Pilate’s cheap cherry-flavored cigar mixed with the cold wind on the sagebrush. I wanted to either rush home to stop June Mai Angel or run away to Nevada with Micaiah. He wasn’t being completely honest with us, but my soul knew it was God’s will for us to help him. Maybe we’d be rewarded in the process.

  “Money or not, we won’t give him to Outlaw Warlords,” I said. “I won’t allow it.”

  I was ignored.

  “Tell us the rest if there’s more to tell,” Sharlotte demanded.

  They all went on like I hadn’t said a word. Made me madder.

  Pilate exhaled smoke, then bent and drew a square in the ground with a stick. Etched a star right in the middle. “That’s Denver, corporate headquarters of June Mai Angel and her conquering army. We simply can’t go through her capital city.” Next he drew a bad outline of an airplane north of the star. “That’s DIA, the old airport.” Then a bad stick-figure cow to the east of the star. He tapped the cow. “That’s us. Our original plan was to avoid Denver and cut up past the airport and head north. Well, June Mai Angel has units camped around DIA. And she has units camped behind us, to the east. That’s where the zeppelins are. Can’t go west. Can’t go east. So we either go south and skirt the Denver suburbs, which would add a week or more to our itinerary, or we turn north and try and sneak past her. Should be easy. We’ll just put a couple hundred cattle under each of our coats and pretend we gained weight over the holidays.”

  Sharlotte exploded. “Can’t you be serious for five seconds, Pilate?”

  “How come no one wants to sell the boy?” Wren asked in a huff. “Y’all don’t get it. Let June Mai have the ranch! I wouldn’t bet on any rich mama in Vegas, but hell, we could live like queens if we sold him to some people I know in Amarillo.”

  The bickering and fighting started, but I knew what we needed to do.

  “We should continue on west,” I murmured, studying Pilate’s drawings. “Go right down I-70 all the way to the mountains.”

  I figured I’d be ignored again, but Pilate shushed the others. “Wait, Cavatica said something. You want us to go through Denver? Really? It’s been years since anyone has walked down Colfax and made it out alive. A few people tried a Denver colony after Pretty Myra disappeared, but then June Mai showed up on the scene.”

  All eyes fell on me. My words came out shaky. “Well, I reckon our only hope is to do what June Mai Angel won’t never expect. No way would anyone walk their headcount down I-70 through her capital city in broad daylight. You’d have to be suicidal. Or so she’d think.”

  A wide smile spread across Pilate’s face. “Cavvy has a point. June Mai is busy now with Burlington. Maybe Denver is empty. Even if it’s not, I bet she wouldn’t want to fight her war on two fronts. And there will be a war. Burlington’s militia doesn’t stand a chance, but when Howerter hears that his ranches are in trouble, he’ll hire every gun in the territories and send them in as reinforcements.”

  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.”