Machine-Gun Girls

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Crete kept glaring at me ’cause I was huddled up against Micaiah, who held me close.

  Aunt Bea cursed, and Sharlotte shushed her good-naturedly, and it was like old times. We ate protein bars from the Moby, drank bottled water, but guess who had some coffee in his pocket? Father Pilate, who would soon be celibate again ’cause me and Micaiah were gonna go back to the World and cure the Sterility Epidemic.

  Pilate shared his coffee. We wouldn’t be sleeping anyway. We’d push on for Wendover, sell our headcount, and then sleep in hotels with access to the Eternity video library on the Internet, where you could watch Bonanza, Lonesome Dove, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, or the Preacher movies.

  They’d also have vintage Firefly ’cause you can’t stop the signal. Not ever.

  Of course, Lonely Moon would be on, but we didn’t have to watch it. We’d lived it. Thinking of the Juniper drama, I missed my best friend, Anju Rawat, and said a prayer for her and Billy Finn. What a full life I’d been given, and I was grateful for it—for my time in Cleveland and for the Juniper, my homeland.

  We talked about the comforts of the World we loved, and Sketchy bragged about her Kung Pao battery finally working, which made the Moby the fastest Jonesy-class zeppelin on the planet.

  Civilization called, but that morning, it was the Juniper for us, even though technically we had power. We didn’t have electronics anyway. We had something better. The fire sparked, and we laughed and talked.

  Dolly Day even passed around her flask, refilled from somewhere.

  When the flask went by Wren, she passed it on. “It’s the first drink that gets you drunk,” she said, quoting Pilate’s AA.

  Pilate saluted her with his coffee mug. His left hand was still bandaged. We lost everything, but Pilate still had his stainless-steel Starbuck’s mug. And a cigar on his lips. His last good one. He was smoking it, even though it made him cough like his lungs were full of mud.

  Sketchy took Dolly Day’s flask and tipped it back.

  Wren grinned good-naturedly. “Hey, Sketch, I heard you wanted to join our family. Well, to be a true Weller, you have to get drunk and make an ass out of yourself. You reckon you can do that?”

  Sketchy hopped up, pulled up her skirts, and mooned us. We all howled. Seeing that big white butt prolly gave me a good dose of PTSD if nothing else had.

  “How’s that for an ass?” Sketchy brayed. “And I’d love to be a Weller. You did it! You brought your headcount west, and you did it.” Sketchy looked up at the star-spilled sky, and bawled out, “Abigail Weller! Your daughters did it! Your blood runs true in their veins.”

  Tech shook her head at her friend and business partner. Then she caught my eye and smiled, then glanced away.

  It hit me all at once. Tech was gillian and liked me. Well, that was okay. Nothing wrong with being gillian. Sally Browne Burke was only human, and the New Morality only knew so much, which was a lot but not everything. You could say the same thing about Archbishop Corfu, or even the Pope in Rome.

  Peeperz sat next to Tech, smiling, but not laughing. He reached down to pet Edward, Jacob, and Bella. Those dogs adored him.

  Wren raised a cup of coffee. “To my sister, Sharlotte Weller, who led us, even when she wasn’t around!”

  We hip-hip-hurrayed. Wren then smiled at me. “And to my little sister, Cavatica Weller, who dared to take over and steal that train. To my sisters!”

  More whooping and hollering.

  “Yes,” Pilate said, “to my little brown spider. I love you.”

  He and I shared a secret moment with a connection that went down to our DNA.

  Pilate turned, “And to you, Wren. For your shooting and your wild ways. I love you. And to you, Sharlotte. I love you enough that you can hate me all you want.”

  Sharlotte frowned. “Aw, Pilate, I’m tired of hating you. It’s a full-time job. You go and be you all you want. I’ll ignore what I don’t like. Which is most of it.”

  Pilate stood. “Okay, I’ll be me for a minute.” He cleared his throat, and said, “We are alive. We are alive, but let us remember the fallen.” His voice broke. “May they find their other side. Both our friends and our enemies. May we all find the other side of our pain.”

  He started the Our Father, and we all said it together. Even Wren.

  Even Micaiah, holding me, who seemed to have learned it overnight. Eerie smart and, I knew, not quite human. Getting the truth out of him would be a hard fight, but I wouldn’t let it cool my spirits. I wanted to be happy, though my mind kept going back to the chalkdrive and the slate, both shielded against the effects of the Juniper’s EM field. What did that mean?

  Allie Chambers stood. “I’d like to sing. For Annabeth. For Jenny Bell. For Tenisha. For Petal. Most of all, I’d like to sing for Abigail.”

  Pilate grumbled and smirked at the same time. “Dammit, Allie, we survived June Mai Angel, a blizzard, the Psycho Princesses, and cloned super soldiers, but I don’t think we can survive another one of your songs. I swear, on our next impossible cattle drive, I’m bringing earplugs.”

  “No,” Allie said, “this song is different. I’ll start, but you all know it. Of course you do.”

  She started singing. Her voice, pretty and haunting, floated over that early morning cold desert landscape. Our fire reached for the sky with fingers of sparks. Our cows lowed around us. Our horses neighed.

  The song she sang, well, Mama would sing it to us. It was a song about family. About connections. About ties that transcend our hates and our sorrows.

  Allie sang it sweet.

  I was weeping by my window

  On a cold and windy day

  Were those angels coming toward me?

  Would they carry my mama away?

  That was for Sharlotte, left alone in the house, going through Mama’s papers and finding the medical report about our daddy being sterile after Wren was born. And it was for Pilate at Mama’s funeral, questioning the love of God, making us all question our faith.

  Allie sang the chorus, and we all joined in. Micaiah didn’t know it, so he stayed quiet. I loved him a little for not knowing. Not sure why.

  Will the circle be unbroken,

  By and by, Lord, by and by?

  Is a better home awaiting

  In the sky, Lord, in the sky?

  Allie sang the next part.

  Well I tried to stop my crying,

  Tried to harden and be brave.

  But I could not stop the weeping.

  Was my mama still in her grave?

  That was me, crying over Mama’s body and trying to be like Wren, a tough gunslinger, when I was a girly ’strogen computer tech girl. However, when it came down to it, I’d take my mind over a gun any time.

  Again, the chorus. We all sang it with all of our strength. We kept our tears back to keep our voices strong.

  Allie sang another verse.

  Oh, my ranch house, it was lonesome

  Missed my mama, but was she gone?

  Could we ever stop a-mourning

  On a farm so sad, so alone?

  That was us, fighting and bickering among ourselves ‘cause we were so sad and scared and we felt so alone. Me getting drunk in Burlington and throwing up after Sharlotte told everyone Mama’s crazy plan to save our ranch. And Sharlotte at Jenny Bell’s. And Wren, always so sad and alone.

  We’d taken our headcount through to Wendover, but our home was occupied now. June Mai Angel had it, and she’d prolly stationed troops there. An outlaw was prolly sleeping in my own bed. Didn’t that just beat all?

  As for the future, our hires would live off their paycheck until they found other work. Getting a job would be easy for them, ’cause they’d soon have a reputation for doing the impossible. Aunt Bea, Nikki Breeze, Crete, they had so much experience, anyone would be happy to have them working for them. But we’d miss them, miss them painfully. Well, maybe not Crete, but Aunt Bea and Nikki for sure.

  Wren could go back to Amarillo, though we all knew if she did tha
t, she’d relapse. Maybe she and Sharlotte could find work with Mavis Meetchum, but a Weller working for a Meetchum would be hard to stomach. Knowing my sisters, they’d grab Pilate and prolly team up with Howerter and go after June Mai Angel. Try to get our ranch back, since we’d crossed hell to save it.

  Micaiah and I would go off and change the world and love each other until the end of time. Sure we would.

  We were all alive. We’d have money soon. And we had hope. If you gave a Weller girl hope and a few dollars, she’d find either work or trouble. Prolly both.

  We’d be okay. Our lives would play out as directed by unseen hands. Sometimes pinched by God’s evil left hand, but most of the time, He’d carry us in His ever-loving, ever-present right.

  Another chorus. And we sang out our hope. That our circle would stay unbroken. That we would be together, if not in this world, then the next.

  The last verse Allie changed ’cause she was Irish and smart and good.

  Do you remember the hymns of childhood

  Songs of faith that spoke of love?

  Can you hear the angels singing

  With Mother Weller in heaven above?

  Though Abigail Weller taught us the hymns, each of her daughters sang them in her own unique way.

  Micaiah held me, Wren and Sharlotte sat close to one another, Pilate, armed with coffee and a cigar, sighed, still sorrowful over Petal, but still breathing in life.

  We sang the chorus one last time, my favorite part, ’cause it answered all of the song’s questions.

  Will the circle be unbroken,

  By and by, Lord, by and by?

  Yes! A better home awaits us

  In the sky, Lord, in the sky!

  Memorare

  I drove to Reno, but she found me

  I was hiding in smiles, but she found me

  Trouble came in with three beers warming

  And that was family, always family

  Give me casinos over churches

  Give me bibles over guns

  Throw down an ace of hearts,

  Then run, Mary, run

  —LeAnna Wright

  Singer and Songwriter, from Cash and Jacks

  released by Glitterhouse Records on May 1, 2058

  (i)

  REMEMBER ME, O MOST gracious Virgin Mary, remember me.

  I wish my story ended around the campfire, or with Micaiah and me, starting our happily-ever-after the next morning. I wish my adventures stopped there and life allowed me to grow unimpeded into a strong, upright Christian woman, but that didn’t happen.

  They say God uses our failures and weaknesses to bring us closer to Him, but along the way, we suffer, Lord, how we suffer from our sins.

  Dawn threw a crimson light on us and our headcount, stretching out into the horizon, a sea of white-faced, red-coated Herefords, pooling like a bloodstain on the white salt.

  Sharlotte, Wren, and I sat on our ponies in front of the ocean of cattle, waiting for Pilate to return. Since he had an American passport, he’d gone into Nevada to run recon.

  A fence, like the one I saw in Buzzkill, separated Yankee soil from Juniper dirt. We’d not seen any sign of the Johnnies that had pursued the Moby Dick, but that didn’t mean we were safe. Sketchy thought the big ARK zeppelins had prolly been blown back to the SLC, but we didn’t know for sure.

  “You think soldiers will be in Wendover waiting on us?” Sharlotte asked.

  Wren slept in the saddle. She didn’t answer. She should’ve been lying flat to heal up from dying, but Wren had insisted she was fine. Of course. Us Wellers were always fine. Chop off one of our legs and we’d shrug and ask for a Band-Aid.

  “I hope not,” I whispered. “But they can’t just grab us now. There are laws in America. There’s a whole constitution protecting the rights of her citizens.”

  “But we aren’t her citizens,” Sharlotte said.

  I tried to swallow the fear creeping up my throat, but it stayed stuck. She was right.

  Wren spoke, so unexpected, it made me jump. “I’m hoping Rachel Vixx is there. I hate days when I can’t kill skanks.”

  “That’s our Irene,” Sharlotte said in an easy voice. “If she don’t get her morning coffee, she gets grumpy.”

  Instead of bristling and demanding Sharlotte call her Wren, my sister grinned. “Y’all would be grumpy too if you’d died last night. And I don’t recommend getting gut-shot. It hurts like a jacknasty.” Wren winked at me. “I know, I know, gotta watch my language. And yet, sometimes only cussing will do. You still have that lucky bullet I threw at Micaiah?”

  I tapped the lump in my pocket. “You want it back? Not sure if it’s lucky or not. Almost got us killed. Remember Edger?”

  “She was a silly skank,” Wren said. “You keep it, Cavvy. And I say it’s lucky ‘cause we aren’t dead, are we?”

  “Far from it.” Sharlotte raised her head and smiled.

  We waited.

  Our cattle mooed up a fuss behind us while our people, including Micaiah, kept the perimeters closed as best they could to avoid losing strays. The Moby floated in the still air of the morning, hovering over the backs of the cows. The storm of the previous day had blown itself on east.

  Pilate galloped back to us on the new Clydesdale we’d taken from the Psycho Madelines. Pilate called him Rocinante, which was quite a name for the big horse. Pilate then started singing some old rock song about a spaceship named the Rocinante. Another reference I was too young to get.

  Pilate and the pony drew close, and Rocinante sneezed, flinging snot and water. At least he’d gotten a good drink in town.

  “Any sign of the ARK?” Sharlotte asked.

  Pilate smiled so broadly his teeth showed and his eyes crinkled. “Not a single sign. I talked with the woman running the stockyards. She literally dropped her slate when I told her that the Wellers were coming in with three thousand cows for her to process.”

  Sharlotte corrected him. “We lost about five hundred since we started, so it’s more like twenty-five hundred.”

  I was speechless. The mere mention of electronics had me pining for the Hayao slate I’d sold back in Chicago. Well, soon, I’d buy another one. Even though we’d lost a fair portion of our herd, we’d still get around 8.3 million dollars at $5.56 per kilo, enough to pay off Howerter and save the ranch.

  Sharlotte stood up in her stirrups and whistled loud enough to ring my ears. She reined Maddy around. “I’ll be right back. I have to go check with Aunt Bea on something.”

  Lucky she did. Or, with what happened later, we might’ve all been killed. Or, at the very least, I’d have been blinded.

  Sharlotte moved back through the cows as Pilate, Wren, and I rode forward.

  The sun’s fire rose higher into the sky as we trotted triumphantly through the razor wire topped chain-link of the border, opened to allow us and our cows through.

  I didn’t see American guards, and a little seed of anxiety grew roots in my belly. Something wasn’t right.

  I turned to Pilate, looked at Wren, but I didn’t say anything.

  I should’ve. I should’ve warned them.

  ’Cause the ARK was in Wendover. We just didn’t know it then.

  Dang, but I wish my story had ended happily around the fire, singing old school songs with Micaiah’s arm around me, but it didn’t.

  Rachel Vixx had beat us to Nevada, and there she waited like death on a pale horse.

  And hell followed with her.

  To be continued ...

  Cavatica Weller will return in Inferno Girls, Book Three of the Juniper Wars series.

  Glossary of Historical Figures, Slang, and Technology

  Angel, June Mai—The most powerful of the outlaw warlords and the most organized. Her past is a mystery, but her soldiers are fierce. She controls the Denver area, from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins.

  ASI Attachment—A steam engine that can interface with the drive trains of larger vehicles, such as trucks or minivans. Manufactured by the American S
team Ingenuity Company.

  ARK—The American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative; A publicly funded corporation researching the Sterility Epidemic and running insemination clinics across the world.

  AZ3—The next generation of assault rifle manufactured by Armalite Industries. Includes self-correcting laser targeting, tactical readout/ammunition count, and water-cooled barrels.

  Beefsteaks—Cattle

  Besharam—Shameless (from the Hindi word)

  Besiya—Prostitute (from the Hindi word)

  Burke, Sally Browne—Co-founder of the New Morality movement

  Chalkdrive—Removable computer storage device

  Cargador—A large steam-powered vehicle used in the Juniper for salvaging operations and later as military vehicles.

  Colton, Anna—Professor of Sociology, Princeton University, and a firm supporter of women’s rights outside of religious or domestic roles.

  Corfu, Archbishop Jeremy—An archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. and highly critical of the ARK and any artificial insemination outside of marriage.

  CTRA—The Colorado Territory Ranching Association—An organization created by Robert “Dob” Howerter, presumably to ensure high quality beef and ethical ranching practices, but in reality was used to fix prices and drive other ranchers out of business.

  EMAT—Emergency Medication Absorption Tape; A delivery system for medication during combat situations.

  Eterna Batteries—A perfectly clean power source created by General Electric. Named after Chinese food, the most powerful and efficient is the Kung Pao. A weaker version is the Egg Drop.

  Frictionless Automobiles—The next generation in automotive engineering, frictionless cars float thirty centimeters off the ground.

  Gillian—Lesbian (from the Mandarin phrase tong xing lian)

  Girly ’strogen—Excessively feminine (’strogen is short for estrogen)

  Headcount—The number of cattle owned by a ranch.