Machine-Gun Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  “Sure, Cavvy. I’d like it better that way anyway.”

  “Pilate?”

  “Yeah, Cavvy.”

  “You really think there isn’t another side for people like us? For my sisters? Or for Petal? Do you really think we can’t get to the other side of our pain?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know.” Pilate’s weak lungs caught up with him, and he lapsed into a coughing spell.

  We moved Wren to a sofa and covered her with a blanket. Then Pilate and I returned to our rooms upstairs.

  I went to my window and looked out at the glowing tents in the dark yard. Most likely, all our hands were gossiping about how messed up the Weller girls were. Well, it wasn’t gossip. It was the truth.

  The cattle drive might be over. Pilate was my daddy. Sharlotte really did hate Wren. And Mama, well, Mama was still dead.

  As for the boy? Yeah, my liar boy. Right then, I didn’t care about his secrets. And to tell you the truth, I didn’t care about the reward either.

  It seemed like the end of the world, and I could do whatever I wanted.

  Right then, I wanted to do it all.

  (iii)

  I waited until the house settled, then I crept back up into the attic. I moved the hutch aside and unfolded the ladder.

  My heart swelled like it was about to pop a valve. Every centimeter of my skin buzzed, like I’d been plugged into an Eterna battery. All my promises to stay true to myself had burned to coals, to ash, then blown away.

  I climbed the ladder and crawled across the wood to where Micaiah was sleeping in his nest of blankets by the screen.

  What was I doing? Who was I right then? I didn’t know.

  I was Cavatica, but I wasn’t. She’d died the minute Pilate said he was my daddy. Now I was just a little brown spider, nameless, as I scuttled over to Micaiah, finding his mouth in the glow of the night, grabbing him between his legs.

  He gasped and kissed me back, and I put his hand on my chest. This was what I wanted, wasn’t it? Hard question to ask when you don’t know who you are. He pulled back. “Cavvy, what the hell? What are you doing?”

  Took me a bit, but I finally got enough breath to speak. “Back at the deserted house, you asked why I couldn’t just enjoy myself with you. Well, I can now. It’s the end of the world. Sharlotte cancelled the cattle drive, which means we’ll just have to get you to Nevada so you can help us pay back Howerter. Oh, and Pilate is my daddy. And Jenny Bell is dealing with June Mai Angel, and she has Skye6 for Petal, if we need it. Not sure how much Jenny Bell has. You know, we could try using pain pills or maybe a strip of EMAT. Not sure if that would work on account of the differences in the chemical make-up. We don’t know how she would react on a microcellular level.”

  Muted light from the screen shown on his face. His mouth gaped. His eyes widened.

  “Cavvy, um, I need for you to tell me what happened slowly. Go slow. I was sound asleep when you, uh, attacked me.”

  That seemed reasonable to me. I would tell him a bunch of stuff, and then we could have the sex. However, talking slowly, the words etched themselves into my mind, like a river carving out a valley, and when I was done, I didn’t feel sexy anymore.

  I felt weepy. I felt lost. I felt alone. And it wasn’t ’cause Pilate was my father, or that Mama had kept the truth from me, or that we failed to get the cattle to Nevada, or that we would lose the ranch, our sacred ground, where my parents and baby sisters were buried.

  No. It was the way Sharlotte had acted. I needed her to be my rock. I needed her to be in control. Without Sharlotte, the world couldn’t take care of itself. I couldn’t take care of myself. God needed Sharlotte to run the universe ’cause He couldn’t do it alone.

  When Mama died, Sharlotte had taken over as the one person I felt I could depend on. When she got drunk and nasty, well, it was like losing another mother. Once again, I felt like an orphan.

  So, like any confused girl who had her life unzipped and turned inside out, I cried. And Micaiah held me. He didn’t kiss me or touch me inappropriately, he simply held me and promised me everything would be okay. In his arms, I didn’t just feel comforted, I felt complete. Somehow, with his touches and his whispers, he glued the cracks inside me together.

  Once my tears were dry and my sobs subsided, he slipped something around my wrist, on my right arm ’cause my wind-up Moto Moto watch was on my left. In the firelight, I saw the twisted wires and grasses of a homemade bracelet. I could just make out the colors, red and white and the dusty brown of dry winter grass.

  “Keys taught me how to weave it,” Micaiah whispered. “I saw her making one for Breeze, and I wanted you to have something.”

  I turned to him. Then kissed him. “I love it.”

  “I’m glad.” He returned my kiss, but he felt distant, almost as if he wasn’t all there. I’d been so wrapped up in my own drama that I hadn’t noticed, but yes, something was different about him.

  “You can’t run off,” I said. “I need you. We’ll sneak you out of here tonight. I figure we’ll take off in the morning. We can hide you.”

  He didn’t say a word, but leaned in close and kissed me, softly, gently, and I knew it meant he didn’t want to argue.

  I couldn’t let it go. “You’ll stay, right? Promise me.”

  Staring into my eyes, not blinking, he didn’t lie. He didn’t respond, but he didn’t lie. He went back to holding me, and he felt so good next to me, I couldn’t help but fall asleep in his arms.

  I woke up in the attic alone. Morning light swirled the dust. Micaiah was gone.

  It took me a minute to realize what woke me—the chugga, chugga, chugga of an airship’s steam engine hovering over us. Someone was yelling, I think it was Kasey Romero, one of our hired hands, who’d taken the morning watch.

  Why was she yelling? I was pretty sure it was only Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz in the Moby Dick, flying in to check on us.

  I had to find Micaiah. He couldn’t just leave. If Sharlotte was giving up on the cattle drive, I needed him to help us with our debts.

  Fear of losing Micaiah and a desire to save the ranch took me back across the attic and down the ladder, though I did take a minute to move the hutch under the trapdoor. Micaiah might be gone, but our guns in the attic could still give us away. Might as well keep them hidden. I hurried down the steps, but I noticed the house seemed empty. But why? What was going on?

  I came out of the house and all the Scheutzes, all of my people, were in the yard, looking up with mouths agape.

  Four Johnny zeppelins filled the sky—the biggest blimps I’d ever seen. Battalions of uniformed Regios repelled down ropes dangling from the zeppelin like tentacles from an octopus.

  I ran for my ponies, to grab Bob D, and make a run for it.

  Not even a second later, my face struck the dirt. Someone had taken me down too fast for me to react. Strong hands wrenched my shoulders and zip tied my wrists together. I cried out.

  Edger drove her knee into my back and hissed into my ear. “Remember this pain, Cavatica Weller. Reb and Ronnie Vixx will do far worse unless you tell them the truth.”

  Chapter Six

  The pioneers who ventured into the Juniper after the Yellowstone Knockout were artists. On this blank canvas of plain, they painted new lives for themselves.

  —Mavis Meetchum

  Colorado Courier Interview

  September 7, 2046

  (i)

  WHEN WE LEFT BURLINGTON, we’d been afraid of the wrong things—weather, deserts, June Mai Angel, the Psycho Princess, and the Wind River people. Never even heard of the Vixx sisters, but they had shot us up worse than anyone. And they would do anything to get to Micaiah.

  I lay on the ground, hogtied. My bullet wounds yowled while my shoulders strained.

  The adrenaline and agony made every detail stand out crisp. Pebbles lay on top of the hardscrabble. A few weeds, a few thin blades of grass, and a dandelion grew out of cracks in the ground. For some reason, that dandelion was
the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

  Sunlight warmed the air, melting away the shadow of cold from the night before. Morning dew dampened the sagebrush, and spring grasses made the Great Plains smell green. For one brief moment, my senses gave me a little peace, but it was quickly taken from me.

  Edger yanked me to my feet. I was determined not let out another cry and ground my teeth to keep quiet. She marched me into the Scheutz’s corral. Sharlotte’s dark eyes peered from a face as white as a toad’s underbelly. All our people stood with their arms zip tied behind their backs, Pilate and Petal included. The Schuetzes, too.

  We were surrounded by Regios in sagebrush camouflage. Grenades, knives, pistols, and little cylinders of pepper spray hung from their harnesses.

  Knew it was pepper spray ’cause of the sharp, spicy odor mingling with the smell of wet dirt and old animal crap. They’d hit Wren with the spray, and she knelt in the filth. Tears and snot streamed down her red face.

  I gazed at all the soldiers, more soldiers than even she could fight.

  Two women came forward. Both had angled Scandinavian faces under hair buzzed down to the scalp. Sunglasses hid their eyes. They looked exactly the same as Renee Vixx.

  “How can we help you?” Jenny Bell asked, still polite despite the terror trembling her voice.

  “As you know, we’re looking for a boy.” Not quite sure which of the Vixx sisters said it. The voice was cold and mechanical, like a killer robot. Well, couldn’t be a robot, no electricity in the Juniper.

  “We haven’t seen a boy in a long time,” Jenny Bell said. “I’m sorry we can’t help you.”

  Troops came out of the house. “All clear, ma’am,” one said. Not sure when Micaiah had snuck away, but he was gone all right.

  Edger held aloft the same picture she’d shown us before. The Vixxes shouted, “You have been asked this question already, but we will ask it once again. Have you seen the boy in this picture, seventeen, well-dressed, blond?”

  Every eye went to Sharlotte. She was still in charge.

  “We all told Edger the same thing. We ain’t seen any boys out here.” Sharlotte said. “Either the Psycho Princess kills them or June Mai Angel sells them.”

  “Reb.” One of the Vixxes said.

  “Yes, Ronnie.” Then the one, Reb, drew her big Desert Messiah pistol and shot Jenny Bell in the chest.

  I felt a howl rise in me. My soul cat-scratched.

  All of Jenny Bell’s daughters sucked in a breath, all at once, you could hear it. And then sobbing, shrieks, screams, and crying.

  “Jenny Bell!” Sharlotte yelled it heartbroken, tried to pull herself out of the soldier girls’ grip, but they held her tight. “I’m sorry!”

  Jenny Bell staggered, holding her chest even as blood oozed between her fingers. “I know you are, Shar. I know. Being Abigail’s daughter couldn’t have been easy. Don’t worry about me. Dying is easy. It’s the living that’s ...”

  Jenny Bell pitched forward and died right there.

  I wrestled away from the Regio holding me and went for Reb Vixx.

  She shoved the Desert Messiah’s barrel into my face, pointing it right between my eyes. I fell to my knees, cross-eyed, staring death down.

  “We’re looking for this boy. I’ve proven my willingness to kill you all to get to him. It will make no difference to me. Talk now. Or die. You are nothing but dust.”

  She wasn’t bluffing—dead eyes, dead voice, nothing human in it. Prolly had the human all trained out of her.

  “No!” Both Wren and Sharlotte shouted. Both struggled against the Regios restraining them. Pilate took off for Reb, but he was tripped. On the ground, in the dirt, soldiers kicked him until he lay still. Petal let out a pathetic cry, powerless to stop them.

  Wren lost it all to screaming. “Don’t you touch her, skank. Kill me, if you got the balls to kill again. Kill me!” She stomped on the foot of one of the women holding her and head-bashed another one. Wren didn’t take two steps before she was pepper sprayed again. She went down, puking into the dirt.

  One of the girls drew her pistol and aimed it at Wren’s head, standing well away from her. Smart. The Regio waited to get permission to shoot. Both Vixx sisters shook their heads.

  Sharlotte disagreed with the decision. “Kill her. Kill me. Kill us all. We don’t know nothing about a boy. We’re just moving our headcount west.”

  Reb put her pistol to my forehead. Eyes on me, she talked to my sister. “You don’t remember me, Sharlotte, but we remember you. Before your mother’s funeral, you conversed with Robert Howerter in Burlington to ask for lenience. We were there at the zeppelin port. We watched you climb the ladder on the Celebration Day.”

  On our travels, Micaiah had mentioned the Celebration Day. That was the name of his zeppelin that had been shot down by June Mai Angel.

  “Please,” Sharlotte begged. “We’re only ranchers on a cattle drive. We don’t know nothin’.”

  All our people took Sharlotte’s lead. She was in charge. It was her gamble, with my life on the table, and we were going to play it out. For some reason, it felt like the right thing to do.

  Micaiah must’ve snuck away in the night. He hadn’t promised to stay, and he’d left us. He did it ’cause he thought we would be safer. He did it out of love. What could he have done if he stayed? What could anyone do against the firepower and troops surrounding us?

  Reb Vixx pulled the hammer back. Didn’t need to. That hand-cannon was a double action revolver. If it didn’t blow my head off, it would empty my brains out through the back of my skull. Knock my eyes out of their sockets in the process.

  But cocking that hammer back was so very dramatic.

  The sound triggered something in me. Might’ve been the pain in my arm and shoulder, might’ve been Wren’s spirit filling me, but in a strong, growly voice I told her, “Go jack yourself, skank. We don’t know crapjack about any boy.”

  Us Wellers are contrary, contrary to the very end.

  I locked eyes with Reb Vixx and didn’t glance away. I might die kneeling, but I was determined to die unbroken.

  (ii)

  “Jesus,” Pilate hissed the word. He was spitting blood, coughing, gagging. It wasn’t a prayer. It was disbelief in what we were doing.

  I didn’t break eye contact with Reb Vixx. Not even when she eased down the hammer on her revolver.

  In the end, I won. I beat her. I tricked her.

  “We will be watching you,” Reb Vixx said. “If you find the boy, keep him with you, and you will be paid handsomely. If you are lying to us, we will return and kill you all, like we killed Jennifer Scheutz.”

  The cold nothingness in her voice sent chilly fingers down my spine.

  We watched as the Regios, Edger included, took hold of ropes and, hand over hand, climbed back up into the Johnnies. Tough enough to lift your own body weight, but when you added the gear and guns, it made what they did even more impressive. And terrifying.

  The Johnnies chugged off, morning sunlight glinting off the buzzing titanium propellers. Black smoke trailed from the steam engine’s exhaust. A fortune in manpower and equipment looking for Micah Hoyt.

  Wren managed to get her Betty knife out, and she used it to cut the plastic ties off Pilate’s wrist. They didn’t stop until we were all freed.

  Pilate held me tight. “Thank God, Cavvy, thank God you’re alive.” His lip was fat, his eye black, and his nose bleeding.

  “I’m sorry, Pilate,” I said. “I’m sorry they beat you.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, those girls tried to beat the hell out of me, but they couldn’t.” He touched his chest. “I can still feel some hell right here.”

  The sound of weeping pulled me away from Pilate.

  Sharlotte was bent over Jenny Bell, along with her daughters.

  “Y’all best be leaving,” Zenobia said. “You’ve caused us enough trouble.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sharlotte said again. “We never meant—”

  “Just go. N
o bad blood. But you best be leaving now, or there will be.”

  Sharlotte stood, her jaw set. “Okay, let’s pack ’em up. Can’t wait to see what the Psycho Princess is going to do to us. We’ve pissed off everyone else in the Juniper.”

  We packed. Fast.

  I went inside, and I put the attic back the way we’d found it. Stuffed the blankets up at the very top of the house back into their plastic, discarded the mason jars and Micaiah’s leftover water and food, then grabbed Pilate’s and Petal’s guns and ammo.

  I moved the hutch back into place. Maybe they wouldn’t notice the scratches. Maybe they’d never guess the boy had been in their attic all along.

  Jenny Bell had died ’cause of Micaiah’s secrets. The guilt blackened my heart, and I prayed with all my might that her sacrifice hadn’t been in vain. That Micaiah’s quest would make her death noble.

  In the end, I’d like to think Jenny Bell watched us from heaven for the rest of our journey, and in God’s perfect wisdom, forgave us.

  Forgave me.

  With the Scheutzes watching, heartbroke, we took off in record time. Zenobia was Christian enough to give me a bottle of pills for my pain. Ibuprofen mixed with Percocet. They tore up my stomach but kept the pain away.

  Aunt Bea drove off in the Chevy Workhorse II, our chuck wagon. Wren was behind the wheel of the Ford Excelsior, puffing smoke.

  The rest of us took to horses, pushing our cattle toward the Wyoming territory. No one said a word about Micaiah. We left the Scheutz’s ranch behind like it was a graveyard now. They’d bury Jenny Bell, and forever more she’d sleep soundly in the dirt of the Juniper.

  Petal left with a determination to kick the Skye6. Pilate left wanting to help her. I left behind my hatred for Pilate, and Sharlotte left any illusion of love she had for Wren.

  No, Sharlotte left behind more than that. She left herself behind on the Scheutz ranch.

  (iii)

  That afternoon, I rode through the herd, trying to find Sharlotte. I wanted to talk about her plans and why we were moving north. Not that I wasn’t glad. I’d die before I lost the ranch, our sacred ground. We couldn’t sell our beef in Buzzkill or to Mavis Meetchum, since she was being pressured by Howerter as well. Micaiah had disappeared and his reward money along with him. Our only hope lay in Nevada, on the deal Mama had made with Sysco.