The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head

by Cassandra Duffy

  “Fine, okay, something easy…” Gieo thought for a moment. “I’m hungry. We can fix that.”

  “Sure we can, boss!” Ramen hopped over to the crate Gieo was sorting earlier and fished through to the bottom, coming up with a brown, plastic packet easily identifiable by anyone in the post-apocalyptic world as a meal-ready-to-eat, or MRE in military acronym-speak. The surplus, dehydrated, vacuum-sealed meals were designed to survive ages and possibly even nuclear explosions. They tasted horrible, made promises on the labels that the withered remains of food inside could never hope to keep, and required boiling water to make edible, but they were plentiful, almost completely immune to spoilage, and theoretically they were scientifically designed for maximum nutrition.

  Gieo took the offered MRE and stopped short of tearing it open. On the packet, near the bottom where a blank line usually indicated the MRE was surplus that was never delivered to the military, there was a designation number. Whoever had traded the MRE to her had taken it from an actual military unit. The insignia was rare on its own, but the actual designation of the unit was downright baffling—the 76th Space Control Squadron of the Space Wing at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado. The MRE had belonged to a missile command soldier, and quite possibly an astronaut.

  “Where did we get this?” Gieo asked in a hushed whisper.

  “From the Colorado hunting party staying here when we first arrived in town,” Ramen explained. “They traded us a bunch of those for an old winch we got from installing a tape deck in Jackson’s Wagoneer, which we then got a partial spool of chain for when we parted out the…”

  “The men in the hunting party,” Gieo interrupted, “were any of them wearing any old military clothing? Search back through your visual databases.”

  “Almost all of them at one point or another,” Ramen said. “I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

  Gieo tried hard to remember what the burly mountain men looked like. If she mentally gave them a shave, cut their long manes of hair, and put them in flight suits rather than the heavy coats of trappers, she could almost picture them as the soldiers they once were.

  “We had a whole hunting party of pilots and astronauts in town a few months ago and we didn’t even notice,” Gieo muttered. “I guess we can wait and see if they come back.”

  “Or you could just go see them, boss. They left the coordinates to their hunting lodge with me in case you ever wanted a change of scenery—it’s outside Fort Carson. You were too busy making eyes at Fiona to notice, but they seemed really interested in having you work for them.”

  “That’s something like 800 miles away,” Gieo said, “across a bunch of free city state territory. It’d take weeks to get there on horseback if I got there at all.”

  “You could take your motorcycle and fuel up in Albuquerque. Word around the Ravens’ camp is they’ve already tamed that city state.”

  “If I found already-trained pilots, there wouldn’t be any reason to press Juarez…”

  Cowboy boots thumping up to the roof snapped Gieo’s head around. Fiona emerged from the roof access door looking dusty and a little bashful.

  “If you don’t need me anymore, I’m going to power down now, boss,” Ramen said, powering down immediately after without waiting to see if Gieo did in fact need something else from him.

  “I’m really sorry about being so distant earlier,” Fiona said. “You’ve kept your personal stuff and work stuff separate so well and I should try to follow your example.”

  “Really, that’s not…”

  “No, let me finish,” Fiona said. “You were right. I do need to treat you better and I’m planning on starting right now. Let’s head downstairs and I promise my whole world will be about you until sunrise.”

  A wickedly barbed sea-serpent wound its way through Gieo’s intestines and stomach threatening to turn her inside-out with anxiety. If she were a slightly more terrible person, she thought she might have taken the offer and then hopped on her bike the next day to drive to Colorado with or without telling Fiona before she left. Of course, if she were that kind of person, she assumed she might just be able to go her whole life without ever telling Fiona the truth. Veronica was right about her though; she was too nice.

  “I did, or, rather, had done to me, what I’m fairly certain will be considered cheating in your eyes,” Gieo blurted out.

  Fiona’s face went from blushingly excited to stricken. The transition sent a hot poker right through the center of Gieo’s chest.

  “Explain,” Fiona croaked.

  “Veronica came up here being weird and insulting, I kissed her, but in a really gross way to make her leave me alone, and then she flipped the switch to flattering,” Gieo rattled off quickly in a single breath, hoping to get the entire explanation out before Fiona could respond. “She kind of spun me into a really vulnerable position and started rubbing me, but only through my clothes, and I kind of came.”

  “She asked you to ask her to keep going…” Fiona said. It should have sounded like a question, but nothing about the way she’d said it could make it anything other than a statement of unadulterated fact.

  “Yes.”

  “And you did.”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “Because that’s what she does.” Fiona didn’t sound angry or look like she had any intention of shooting anyone or anything. Gieo desperately wished she would yell, threaten Veronica, or pistol whip the both of them while calling them every name in the book. But she didn’t. She simply stood there with that stricken look on her face, twisting the fireplace poker rammed through the center of Gieo’s heart. “The only question was going to be how you were going to respond.”

  “I think I know why I did it if you’ll just let me explain…” Gieo took several steps toward Fiona, tears welling up at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision.

  “I don’t suppose that matters now.” Fiona held out her hand, keeping Gieo at arm’s length. “You should probably go ahead and sleep up here; I see you’ve still got your tent set up.”

  “I might have to go to Colorado tomorrow,” Gieo said, trying to throw everything she could at Fiona to keep her from going downstairs without her. “I’ll have to leave really early, so we should talk about this now, before I have to go, since I might not come back.”

  “I suspect you’ll make it there and back just fine if that’s what you want,” Fiona said. “If I don’t see you before you leave tomorrow, have a safe journey.”

  Tears rolled down Gieo’s cheeks. The cold, hollow way Fiona was speaking cut her more deeply than any explosive, violent reaction could have. There was a weary-resignation hanging off Fiona like a wet blanket and it made Gieo ache to her very core to know she was the one who put it there.

  “I love you so much,” Gieo said between sobs.

  “I know you do,” Fiona said. “It was never a question of that.” She turned and walked back downstairs, closing the door behind her with a soft click that made Gieo flinch.

  Chapter 19: Uncomfortable memories and departures.

  Fiona spent much of the night failing at sleeping. As the sky began to gray, she abandoned the project of rest, and dressed for the day. In the wee-predawn hours, Tombstone was as quiet and empty as a church. The sun would bring birds, buzzing insects, and the clamor of preparation for war, but in those small hours when the sky was only gray, not yet bringing the golden light of early morning, Fiona found a moment of peace. The livery, a new instillation within the city appropriately housed in the fabled O.K. corral as was its original intended purpose, was a short walk from the saloon. She picked up Tyra, brushed her, saddled her, and rode out for the stables.

  The warmth and light of dawn hadn’t fully settled over the desert by the time she trotted up to the old high school, but activity was brewing nevertheless. Cork and his riders were already saddled for their patrol. Fiona tipped her hat to the four hunters turned horsemen, who saluted her military style in return on their way out toward the rising sun.r />
  Fiona veered her mare away from the main stables to where her car still sat, a month after its fateful drive across the open desert to lure the Slark away from the city. A thick layer of dust clung to it, leaving her to wonder if it would ever drive again. Nobody had even bothered pulling the tumbleweeds or brambles from the intakes. With a single finger, someone had drawn a heart on the driver side door in the dust. The heart’s lines weren’t completely clean, indicating it had probably been a week or more since its etching, but Fiona suspected she knew who had drawn it. It was the sort of thing Gieo would do.

  Fiona dismounted, tied Tyra off on the spoiler at the rear of the car, and took a slow walk around her former vehicle, inspecting the sorry state it had come to. Though her original intent had been to survey damage, she continually returned to the heart to question its existence as though somehow she would be able to tell for sure if Gieo had drawn it or what it might have meant if someone else was the heart artist. She heard Veronica ride up long before her thoroughbred bay came into view. Peppermint, Veronica’s horse, was a colossal gray stallion of racing stock with an antsy stance and form-perfect gallop. The horse had a havoc personality and Veronica only encouraged her mount’s aggressive proclivities. Tyra, who was not in season but recognized Peppermint’s virility, strained against her tie-off when Veronica trotted up to where Fiona was standing.

  “You’re antagonizing my horse,” Fiona muttered.

  “There’s a lot of sexual tension going around these days,” Veronica said brazenly.

  “Gieo told me what you did.”

  “I assumed she would,” Veronica said, “but that’s not why I’m here.”

  “I don’t care why you’re here,” Fiona growled. “That’s what we’re talking about.”

  “Fine, what do you want to say?” Veronica turned Peppermint in a few slow pirouettes to take down some of his energy. She snapped her head around with each slow rotation to keep her eyes on Fiona. “Because I’ve got nothing to say on that topic.”

  “You couldn’t leave it alone?”

  Veronica shrugged.

  Fiona saw red. “Do you even want her or are you just trying to spoil her for me?”

  “What was good enough for you isn’t good enough for her?” Veronica snarled. “Maybe you’re forgetting what made me drop Carolyn in a hot minute to sew myself to your side? Are you mad at her because she’s following in my footsteps or are you mad at me because you wish you hadn’t blazed the trail in the first place?”

  The anger drained out of Fiona like a rain barrel punctured at the base. She’d forgotten, somehow she’d forgotten. The trick she’d always blamed on Veronica was the one she’d invented. Before Veronica had done it with Gieo, before she’d done it with Beth, before she’d done it with Suzy, Jessica, Dylan, and half a dozen other girls, Fiona had done it to her. The collars, the dominance, the asking to be asked, it was all Fiona’s creation. Veronica had used it to make certain points both to Fiona and Carolyn, but it originated with Veronica over Fiona’s knee, betraying Carolyn and setting their whirlwind romance in motion with cheating as the norm.

  “Both,” Fiona whispered, “but mostly the latter.”

  “You’re a racehorse with blinders on,” Veronica said, her demeanor visibly softening. “You’re going too fast to see and unable to look back at the chaos you’re leaving in your wake. I won’t deny the damage I’ve done or my part in the betrayal, but this little trick of seduction was yours.”

  “I know, I know. Let’s say I owe you this chance, let’s say I owe her the chance to choose, what are we supposed to do now?”

  “We give her time to think,” Veronica said. “If she was to do it on a knee-jerk, no pun intended, she’d pick you without hesitation, but that’s not what you want, is it?”

  Fiona shook her head. She’d laid the choice out for Veronica all those years ago, made it a hard choice to refuse, and put a short fuse on the powder-keg of a situation, but she’d still respected the choosing process. Ultimately, Veronica had picked her, had thrown Carolyn away without a second thought, and Fiona always had a doubt about Veronica’s loyalty because of it. She didn’t want the same specter haunting her relationship with Gieo, but at the same time she desperately wanted to have a relationship with the pilot and letting her choose might mean giving that up.

  “She’ll be gone for almost a week,” Veronica said. “Give her that time and we’ll ask her when she comes back.”

  Fiona nodded her agreement, but couldn’t hold her tongue. “What do you really want from this? I don’t believe you’re after Gieo to have her for your own and I don’t believe you’re doing this just to fuck me over.”

  Veronica gave a tug on her reins bringing Peppermint into a stock-still stance that Fiona hadn’t thought possible for the tightly-wound stallion. “I want everything,” Veronica said in such an even and earnest tone that Fiona didn’t doubt it for a moment. “I want her, I want you, part of me even still wants Carolyn. Even now, even when I’m reshaping the world as I want it, I know I can’t have everything. Still, I want you to know, my preference would be to have both of you. She’s not that kind of girl and you’re not one to share either of us, so I guess we’ll just have to let it sort itself out.”

  From everything Fiona knew about Veronica, and she knew her very well, it was the truest thing she’d ever admitted. It was an impossible dream, but Fiona knew it was an honest one the moment she heard Veronica say the words. “What did you come out here to talk about?” Fiona asked, wanting to put conversational distance between herself and the hard truths brought down on her by their exchange thus far.

  “Carolyn is coming in on the train today with two thousand infantry,” Veronica said. “You need to find her a hard target within a day’s march. We’re resuming open hostilities with the Slark.”

  “With Los Angeles as the ultimate goal?” Fiona asked, knowing full well what the answer would be.

  “With eradication of the invaders as the ultimate goal.”

  “I’ve been thinking about something Gieo told me and studying the maps she pieced together during her years of attempted flights,” Fiona said, “and I think I have a target bigger than anything taken down since the cataclysm.”

  Veronica’s eyes lit up like the desert sun. “Show me.”

  Gieo had spare Slark fuel, plenty of water both for drinking and steam powering her motorcycle, MREs, and Danny’s old Winchester. She was as ready as she could make herself for the 800 mile trek to find pilots. Sitting on her bike behind the saloon, scarf pulled up over her nose and mouth, goggles fitted over her eyes, and helmet strapped securely over her braids, she couldn’t bring herself to kick the engine over and take off for the mountains.

  She wanted Fiona to come say goodbye.

  Before the sun could even rise high enough for Gieo to consider it a late start, she spotted Fiona on her roan mare, riding out with her patrol of twenty-five, heading northwest toward the ruins of Tucson. Gieo silently wished Fiona good luck and cranked over her bike’s engine. The heavily modified Indian motorcycle whirred to life like an alien abomination that combined a steam locomotive and a fighter jet, making Gieo exceptionally happy she’d decided to wear ear plugs.

  Getting used to the bike’s speed was a risky proposition. She wanted to take it slow, get a feel for the experimental technology, but the bike wanted to find its upper limits and then possibly push right through them. As Gieo shot out of Tombstone, she realized the bike was going to win that argument and possibly many others. The oversized, solid-form rubber ties, which each weighed nearly as much as she did, created weight enough to hold the bike to the ground, crushing rocks and debris without the slightest hesitation, but in no way strained the engine’s remarkable power output. The bike’s gyroscopes with counterbalances made controlling the motorcycle almost effortless, which was a feat in itself as the bike probably had a curb weight of nearly a ton. Gieo dipped and leaned into the corners, and the bike responded like a receptive lover.


  She blew through the rubble that was once St. David and clipped the edge of Benson on her way to the remains of Interstate 10. Benson, which had been reclaimed by a handful of Cochise Indians, required a sharp turn through drastically decayed streets. Gieo pulled off the maneuver with grace and ease, much to the surprise of the collection of women on the side of the road, pressing corn tortillas beneath the shade of an old gas station awning. She waved briefly to them and gunned the motorcycle, flying up the ramp onto Interstate 10.