Unfettered II: New Tales By Masters of Fantasy

by Shawn Speakman

The opportunity offered by an unthemed anthology short story—a chance to write a story that’s different from anything else I’ve written—is both scary and exciting. This was my experience with “The Gunnie.” From the different version of America to the hard-boiled title character, working on this story gave me a chance to stretch and use my vision. I enjoyed every minute of work I put in on it, and I hope you do too.

  Charlaine Harris

  The Gunnie

  Charlaine Harris

  An hour before dark, I left my shack, boots on, gun slung on my back. I was on my way to work. The other people who lived on the steep sides of the gulch were still out in their yards, enjoying the evening; they were cooking, or visiting, or drinking. They all spoke to me as I passed. “Lizbeth, go strong.” “Hope your gun stays in the holster.” “Get ’em there safe.” I nodded back, but I didn’t smile. It was not a smiling night.

  I stopped by my mother’s, since it was on the way. She and her man, Jackson, had a three-room place, since Jackson is a hard worker and a hard man. Lots of people are scared of him, but not me, and not Mom, who’d become his woman after I’d turned ten. My mother, Candle, worked hard too. She is a teacher.

  I knocked at the wooden door, and my mother’s voice called for me to come in. The kitchen/living area is really large, plenty of room for them both to bang around in without getting on each other’s nerves. My mother, as I would expect at this hour, was cooking. Jackson was sitting in an easy chair, reading the Central Texoma News, which came out every two weeks.

  Jackson gave me a casual hello and went back to reading. While Mom was breading the beef to fry, I went over to my favorite decoration.

  My mom had an antique map from 1925. It shows the United States of America, which began to crumble ten years after that. Without touching the glass of the frame around the map, I traced the shape of what was once Texas with my finger. We live in the northern part. And farther north of us are the fertile grasslands.

  According to my mother, this huge country was led by elected officials. The chief one, the president named Franklin Roosevelt, got shot. Then there was an economic collapse. The United States fell apart like an overdone roast. It was encroached on by Mexico to the south and Canada to the north. Russia grabbed a lot of the west coast.

  In the past five years, a lot of the farmers who went south to Mexico for the long growing season had begun trying to go north. Trouble’s brewing in Mexico in a big way. That’s where I come in.

  “You about to leave?” my mom said. She wiped off her floury hands and came over to me. She patted my shoulder. We don’t look alike; she’s got a sharp nose and a narrow face and light hair. I’m all blunt features and width, and I didn’t have hair anymore. “What the hell did you do to your head?” She ran her hand over my scalp.

  “Got rid of it. Yeah, we got a run to the grasslands,” I told her.

  “People, then,” my mother said. She turned to put the meat in the skillet, trying not to look worried.

  “Yeah.” People were the most valuable cargo, and the most vulnerable.

  “Shoot first,” Jackson said, which is the standard farewell to a gunnie like me. He nearly smiled. “By the way, I like the haircut.”

  I nodded. I hugged my mother for a second, breathing in her scent of school and woman. She was only in her thirties, taller and prettier than I’ll ever be.

  “Come back,” she whispered in my ear just before I let her go. I knew she didn’t mean right this minute. She meant, “Don’t get killed.” I’ve lasted five years, since I left school. A good long while for a gunnie.

  Then I was out the door and in the dusty street, walking the few blocks to Martin’s house. He lived on the outskirts of town. The town of Mexias isn’t much—dirt streets for the most part, wooden houses, tin roofs, chickens, carefully tended gardens.

  I passed the hotel that Jackson owned, and then his hardware store. People asked me all the time why I didn’t work in one of his businesses. It had to be safer.

  But this was the way I looked at it. Jackson had taken to my mom, and he’d been good to me. Fair. No cause for him to love me, but he’d stood by me and made sure I got through school and had clothes and food and some fun, which was more than most stepdads would’ve done. When school was over, it was time for me earn my way, and the thing I was best at was shooting. Took me a while, but I was able to make a living at it. Let Mom and Jackson have their privacy. She’d had a crappy experience with my dad; she deserved happiness.

  I got to Martin’s house in plenty of time, meeting Galilee along the way. We grinned at each other. We walked into the yard of the bare small lot—all pounded dirt and machine parts—to see Martin and Tarken were checking out the truck, obsessively. We knew better than to interrupt them.

  Our payload for the night was huddled on the porch, waiting for the signal to load up. There were eleven of them, and they were our responsibility. We were being paid to protect them while we ran the gauntlet of bandits up to the grasslands. I didn’t speak to them. It was best not to get to know them. I could feel their scared eyes watching as Galilee and I checked out our weapons. Galilee had a hunting rifle, old but beautiful and working like a charm. She and I had been gunnies for Tarken for three years now. Both taller and older than I, Galilee was a dark woman with a huge blossom of black hair. She was such a good shot she was almost a legend in our town.

  I have what’s called a jackhammer, which is like a shotgun. It puts men down, but you need to be a little closer than with the rifle. To the huddled group on the porch, the jackhammer was a grim reminder we weren’t going hunting or target shooting.

  I felt them flinch. Good. They’d mind me better.

  When Galilee and I were ready, we still had to wait on the men. Martin was the mechanic and the driver, and he’d nursed that old truck for years. Vehicles were hard to come by. If you wanted to have a car or truck, you had to learn to be a mechanic and a scavenger. Martin was good at both.

  Tarken was the boss. He’d taught me everything I knew about the protection business, and plenty else besides. Tarken was tall and dark and tough, and a good twenty years older than me. He’d taken a chance on me, and I wanted to make sure he never regretted it.

  Martin and Tarken were finally satisfied with the truck, and they signaled the two farm families to load up. The group stood. Galilee nodded at me. It was time for the speech.

  “Listen up,” I said, and they froze in place. You could tell they didn’t know what to make of me, a small woman with a big gun and no hair. “When we start moving, you start looking. You crouch down low and look between the slats. You see movement, you tell us, and tell us what direction, or it’s no good knowing, get it? Say left or right, so we’ll know what to shoot at.” I looked from one scared face to another. They all nodded, even the children.

  “Up you go,” Galilee said to them, and they moved toward the truck. We stood on either side to help them get in. They scrambled into the flatbed with their bundles and baskets and babies, and then Galilee and I climbed on. We would stand for the whole journey, ready to shoot, leaning on the high sides of the truck bed. The back of the truck was open. We needed it that way.

  “Like the haircut, girl,” Galilee said as we took our places, she on the right and me on the left. I ran my hand over the smooth surface of my skull. My head felt clean and cool as the air whooshed over it, and I was pleased—though Tarken had sworn something fierce after I’d gotten it done the day before. I told Galilee this; her teeth flashed white when she laughed.

  Then the engine rumbled, and the laughing time was over. The two families—two dads, two moms, seven kids—crouched down, looking out between the slats that formed the sides, just like I’d told ’em to. Helping us keep a look out. Giving them something to do besides be afraid.

  The road north to the grasslands of New America was pretty rough—they all are—but that’s not the biggest problem. Texoma is a poor country. We got bandits and thieves and little law to catch ’em. All the b
andits want to catch a group like ours. They can rape the women or the men or the children, then sell the survivors as slaves or whores, they can sell the group’s goods, and they can take our own weapons and our vehicles. That’s a rich haul.

  It was dark when we set out, as always. New America runs patrols designed to prevent immigrants like our cargo—they claim they like their country just the way it is. In actuality, most of the population has relatives down in Mexico, and they want to be reunited. But we have to avoid the NA militia.

  Often we can leave on a full moon night so we won’t need the lights, which pinpoint our location. But tonight the clouds came, and after a few miles, Martin switched the lights on. Galilee and I would have a much harder time spotting movement. No help for it. After two hours, Mexias was not even a glow in the south. There was only the rutted road and scrubby vegetation and rocks. Occasionally, the clouds would part and we would see the landscape. It was April, so the temperature was moderate, which was a blessing.

  About half the time, we saw no one on our trips. Sometimes, the cargo would even ask for part of its money back, claiming that there’d been no danger to protect it from. Sometimes, the bandits were drunk and incompetent, and they’d start yelling to scare us, or they’d blockade the road, presenting a good silhouette to shoot at. Usually, we’d see movement or catch a glimpse of the moon or our headlights reflecting off metal. Something.

  Not tonight.

  The firing came out of nowhere. I saw a blossom of light out of the corner of my eye and swung to face it. As the noise came, I yelled “Down!” as if the civvies needed to be told, and then I fired back. I’d marked the flash pretty accurately. A scream told me I’d got the shooter, and I heard Galilee fire twice to the right.

  “Left!” yelled one of the farmers, just as I saw a shadow on the road. Though I swung and fired and hit the shadow, he didn’t die fast enough to prevent him from putting a bullet through the cab.

  That shot killed Martin instantly, I figure. The truck started veering all over, and it was all I could do to keep standing, much less return fire. Galilee, closer to the rear of the truck than I was, was thrown out directly. She just vanished.

  Tarken must have reached over to grab the wheel to try to keep us going, because we straightened out for a few seconds. That was long enough for me to get my balance and fire a shot to let the bandits know we were still fighting. I saw Martin’s body hit the remnants of pavement, and I knew Tarken had shoved him out of the cab to take his place at the wheel.

  I glanced back, saw no sign of Galilee. Shit. Looked forward again, saw movement, a figure scrambling through the scrubby trees to keep up with the careening truck, and as I fired again I saw that figure stop and aim, and the world came to an end.

  Temporarily.

  When I came to, it was on the verge of dawn but pretty dark. I was between two large rocks screened a bit by bushes. I had a bitch of a headache; someone was playing drums and bugles in my head. I wanted to groan, but I knew I had to make not a scritch or a screech until I got the lay of the land. So I didn’t move, kept my eyes shut, listening as best I could. At first I heard nothing but the wind. Then it seemed to me I heard a sigh, a human sigh. Repeated. Repeated.

  When I heard nothing else, and I felt able to defend myself with the knife still in my belt, I crawled out of my little hiding place. Being slow, being cautious. I’d been in the dark long enough to develop my night sight, and there was the faint glow of dawn to help. First body was only a few feet away.

  It was one of the farm girls. She’d been in her teens. There must have been more gunfire after I’d gone unconscious, or maybe she’d tried to run. Lots of families had taught their girls to run, figuring that a bullet in the back was quicker than what waited for them. They were probably right.

  Be that as it may, she was dead; yes, from a wound in her back. She’d bled out by the side of the road. Maybe twenty feet away, jammed up against some trees, lay the wreckage of the truck, tires blown out and all smashed up. Far back, I could see a dark line by the road. That would be Galilee, most likely. Finally, I made out Martin’s body lying in a sprawl, where Tarken had shoved him out. From the way the two lay, it was clear they were dead. When I could walk, I would go to them. Now I was crawling toward the truck, trying to find the source of the sighing.

  After a minute or two I found Tarken; it was him making the noise. He’d taken a bullet high in the leg and one in the shoulder, smaller caliber, that’s why he was still alive. I got to him on my hands and knees.

  “Tarken,” I said, just to let him know I was there.

  “Lizbeth,” he said. “You alive.” He sounded pleased, but he sounded like he was dying. The wreck seemed to have broken something in him. He clearly couldn’t move.

  “Yeah,” I said, my voice hoarse.

  “They took the cargo.”

  “One girl, she’s dead.” I turned my head just a bit to see the body.

  “Her mom told her to run,” Tarken said. He took a deep breath, let it out. The sighing.

  “Her mom was smart.”

  “She screamed a bit though, when the girl died.” Tarken’s mouth turned up a little, almost smiling at the silliness of human nature. I knew him well.

  “Yeah. Can’t help it, sometimes.” I had to put my head down then and wait for the nausea to subside.

  “Galilee and Martin gone?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “Glad you made it,” Tarken said, in a fainter voice. “You know what you got to do.” And then he gasped and died.

  Tarken’s water bottle was still in his bag, and his bag was still partially under his shoulder. I was grateful for that, and prayed to the goddess of water when I drank it. I felt better after I’d had something to drink. But it was still some hours, all told, before I was able to be on my way. I’d searched around a little bit, but I hadn’t found my weapon, which had flown out of my hand when we hit the trees. The bandits had found it and taken it, of course. Jackhammers, those are good things to have. I did find Martin’s gun, which was a big wonderful present. In the dark they’d missed it, thrown clear of the truck and landing under some bushes. It had seven bullets in it. I couldn’t find any more ammo.

  The truck wouldn’t move, or they wouldn’t have left it. So I set out on foot. They’d been on foot too. I’d found their footprints, easy, in the dust on the side of the road. They must not have counted the people who should have been in the truck crew, which was stupid. They should have found me and shot me. I’d been conscious enough, I guess, to crawl between the rocks, and in the darkness they’d missed me.

  As Tarken had said, I knew what to do as the surviving member of the crew. I began tracking. I had the water, and I had some packages of dried meat and dried fruit in Tarken’s bag; that would have to do.

  Dammit, we’d been bested by a scraggly ass gang, not even a group of real pirates. They were probably moving as fast as they could to get out of Texoma, heading toward Dixie to get rid of the cargo. Good shot, though, one of them. He needed killing mighty bad.

  I was damn slow. My head ached fiercely, and my whole body was sore from the impact of the wreck. But I’d operated under worse conditions.

  Lucky for me that the kids slowed the bandits’ progress, too. At the first campfire, there was a pitiful wrapped bundle. It was the baby; it was dead. I checked. I don’t know why it died. I didn’t unwrap it or nothing, because why made no difference. I put the little body in a dip in the earth and covered it with rocks as best I could. I’d had to leave my whole crew lying out in the road, but the baby I could cover.

  The ashes were still faintly warm at the center. I told myself I was going to catch them in good time and trudged on, trying not to think about my head, which hurt as much as two. They were on foot; I was on foot. It was even, if only I could keep going. If only they weren’t disciplined enough to keep their captives hustling along in the direction of Dixie.

  They weren’t.

  After a day and a half of
travelling roughly east, I caught up with them. The assholes had decided to rape the women and couldn’t wait.

  Even through the pounding in my head, I could hear them from far away because the women were screaming and so were the children. I was able to stop before I blundered into the middle of them. I crouched down in some bushes that fringed a small clearing, which had been used before as a camp; there was a rudimentary shelter and the area had been cleared of rocks.

  I counted from my hidden place. The odds were about what I’d thought. There were four of the attackers left out of the original six. I’d killed two of them at the ambush. One of the survivors had his arm in a sling; that would be Galilee’s doing.

  The burliest man was intent on his pleasure, and he had no weapon. So I’d kill him last. They’d left a man on guard, but he was focused on watching the husbands, who were cutting up a ruckus. One of them was shrieking and trying to lunge at the man fucking, and the other one was holding him back. The guard was the man I shot first.

  Then I took down a bearded bandit watching the rape who’d swung around to aim at me with my own jackhammer; I had to put him down quick. By that time the one in the saddle had pulled out and was getting to his feet, so I shot him. It wasn’t a killing wound, but he was hurt enough. And the fourth man, the one with his arm in a sling, had had his dick in his other hand, so I got him easily and he was on the ground. All down in seconds.

  Not bad, I thought, just before the first guard got up on one elbow to get off a shot in my direction, which came pretty damn close. I fired again, and he was out of the picture.

  All dead but the rapist, who was stirring a bit, trying to crawl.

  The cargo was screaming and crying and carrying on. I wished they would just shut up and sit down because my head was hurting like crazy. I had to finish off the rapist, which would only leave me one bullet. So I started toward him.

  But the husband, the one whose wife was on the ground, took care of the rapist with his boots and a rock. Then he knelt by the woman and held her. The other man went over to the children and gathered them up. They were all crying and goggle-eyed to see me.