Dandelion Iron Book One (12 page)

The damage the
Moby Dick
had taken was as easy to see. Shredded Kevlar flapped over the cracked Neofiber underneath where the grappling hooks had caught hold. Boarding cables still dangled from her. Along the sides, pinpricks of light winked at me from the bullet holes. Nice thing about Neofiber, Tech could melt patches into the plastic. Before long, the
Moby Dick
would be better than ever.

The wind gusted sharp and cold, making the two mooring cables creak. Wren stood next to Darla’s shack. I walked across the wood planks to get to my sister. It was the first time I’d ever been there, but I was familiar with Darla. Small town. She was on her way to secure the
Moby Dick’s
two front mooring cables, but she stopped to welcome us. The light from her lantern flashed off her nose ring and bindi. “Why, bless me, Shiva, but if it ain’t the Weller sisters, Wren and Cavatica. You both have growed up so much!”

She hugged us. Her sari was soft and silky, and she smelled like incense. “Ah, Cavvy, you’re so big and pretty now. Like a Juniper Parvati.”

I smiled politely. Yeah, I was big in all the wrong places, pretty in none of the right.

Darla frowned at Wren. “A Weller girl wearing jeans, it ain’t proper.”

“Well, my mama ain’t around no more to see if I dress right.” Without another word, Wren disappeared down the ladder on the side of the grain elevator.

“Sorry about my sister,” I said.

Darla kept on frowning, though I was sure she wasn’t surprised. Everyone in town knew Wren and her contrary nature. “Wait here just a minute,” Darla said. She hurried into the shack.

In the meantime, I got my gloves, scarf, and hat out of my backpack.

Darla emerged and handed me an umbrella. “Sharlotte was here the other day and she left this. She was in a real hurry.”

“Sharlotte was here? Why?” I couldn’t imagine Sharlotte climbing up the ladder of the grain elevator. And besides, she had too much to do on the ranch to be making social calls.

Darla shook her head. “Your big sister had a real bad meeting with Dob Howerter. And guess who else was here? I know, you’ll think I’m plumb loco, but I swear on Nandi’s broad back, it was Tibbs Hoyt. They were flying north to Sterling in the fanciest, fastest Jimmy you ever saw. The Celebration Day.”

I had to clap my surprised mouth closed. Tibbs Hoyt and Dob Howerter. Richest man in the world followed by the richest man in the Juniper. And Sharlotte, right there with them. Most likely, they’d talked about Sharlotte’s mysterious plan.

Darla laughed at me. “That’s right. I swear to you, it’s the truth.”

Still I couldn’t speak.

She laughed some more. “We’ll see you tomorrow at the funeral, and welcome home!”

Tomorrow … the funeral … for my mama. Didn’t feel real and that was okay. Like I said, sometimes reality is overrated.

“Thanks, Miss Patil,” I said. “Thanks for greetin’ us so friendly. I’ll give Sharlotte back her umbrella.” My fancy new backpack had a slot that fit the umbrella perfectly.

“Hey Darla!” Sketchy’s voice called down from above us. “You gonna secure our front end or we gonna have to do it ourselves?”

“I’m comin’, Sketch. Don’t get your skirts in a bunch!”

I left Darla to her work and climbed down the ladder. I got a little shaky ’cause of the heights, but then at least it was solid metal, not the like the rope ladder I’d had to scale to get into the
Moby Dick
. And I’d been hanging off the zeppelin in a battle, so climbing down was no big deal. I was getting braver. My Secondskin gloves were real thin, yet real warm. How I loved modern technology.

At the bottom, Wren was waiting for me. I was a little surprised, a little wary.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, Wren, are you?”

Wren shrugged, no smile, just slitted eyes, cool and tough. “Yeah, right as rain. But they were bad, Cavvy. Those outlaw skanks were tough. We were damn lucky we got away.”

“But we beat them,” I said. I couldn’t quite believe it, but we did.

“Only ’cause you made that shot with the Torrent 6. If you had missed, they’d have killed us all. Then ate us, I guess. That’s what they’d said they’d do. Sure were a lot of them.”

And that was the only confession of fear I would get. But come to find out, that wasn’t what was scaring my troubled sister.

Wren fell silent as she pulled on her own parka, then her fur-lined leather work gloves. Adjusting her cowgirl hat, she strutted off toward Main Street.

I followed until I realized she was going into the Chhaang House Hotel and Tavern. I had to stop. A girl my age couldn’t go in there. But I couldn’t stay out in the cold, and nothing else was open. Not Antonia’s General Store and Feed Shop, not the
Colorado Courier
, which was the local newspaper. Sheriff Lily’s office was also closed, but I figured if Wren went into the Chhaang House for a whiskey, the sheriff’s office wouldn’t be closed for long.

Main Street used to be nice, like an old town from the Old West. But after the Yellowstone Knockout, the nice had been stripped down, leaving only cinderblock structures. The town women had tried to pretty up the place, with flowerbeds and window boxes, but the buildings on Main Street still looked like a collection of two-story bomb shelters patched up with leftover siding, drywall, and plywood. The street begged for pavement, but instead it got a muddy collection of gravel and bits of ground-up plastic carted out of Denver stores.

I paced around on the sidewalk, then I laughed at myself. I’d stunned Wren to trick the police, and I’d used a bazooka to free our airship during a fight with pirates. I had enough
shakti
to go into a bar. Maybe I could be a shining example of sobriety to the women drinking inside.

Or I could walk home. The chill breeze and darkness didn’t make that idea very appealing though. Besides, what was waiting for me at home? A dead mother and a scowling older sister and mountains of chores.

All my fretting suddenly didn’t mean a thing, ’cause when I heard Wren yell, “Pilate!” I ran through the doors. Pilate was a carnival of a man, a close family friend, and a Catholic priest. Kind of. He’d been a chaplain in the Sino, but he said the war shot most of the holy out of him.

Folks either loved him like biscuits or hated him like flour weevils.

Including me. Love and hate—that was Pilate.

(iii)

The Chhaang House Hotel and Tavern was packed to the doors with cattle hands, travelers, and town women. The place was jumping, fireplace blazing, booze at the bar, johnnycakes and sausages on the burner, and even a three-piece band—an upright bass, violin, and guitar. Only two men were there, Old Man Singh, owner, operator, and fry cook as well as Pilate, who was hugging Wren and grinning.

When Pilate saw me, his hazel eyes took on a twinkle and his grin widened. Though he was older into middle age, his boyish face and long, dark hair made him handsome, but then he was a Roman Catholic priest, so that didn’t matter. Or it shouldn’t have.

He gave Wren a last squeeze and then let her go. In the flickering light of the tallow candles, I noticed something that filled me with wonder. There were tears on Wren’s face. Real big tears. She caught me looking and wiped them away, quick. Why would Wren cry hugging Pilate? I’d have thought Wren’s tear ducts were drier than a Wyoming oil well.

Pilate wrapped his big, strong arms around me. The way he smelled—cigars, coffee, and man—brought back memories of him coming to visit our ranch. Pilate would never stay for long. He’d pop in, wow us, and pop out, always on the move. Always a real mystery. He was part traveling priest, part soldier, part sheriff. He’d served three extended tours in the Sino as a chaplain, though he’d fought more than he’d prayed. He was born a New Yorker, yet had found a home in the Juniper.

I stepped back and took him in—cowboy tall and lean, all in black, from his polished black boots to his black suit coat. His hair was black as mountain soil, and long, more rock star than priest. A white plastic priest’s collar winked from his throat. The collar was the only color on him. In a holster at his side hung a sawed-off Mossberg & Sons G203 quad cannon, otherwise known as a Beijing Homewrecker. Four barrels loaded with 20mm grenades can do all sorts of things, none of them very nice. Pilate said his Homewrecker was one confused weapon. It didn’t know if it was a shotgun that wanted to be a grenade launcher, or a grenade launcher that wanted to be a shotgun. A bandolier of ammunition dangled from the back of his chair.

Pilate grinned. “Cavatica Weller, not only do you look good, but I bet you’re a genius engineer by now. So sorry about your mom.”

I glanced back at Wren’s tear-streaked face. A flash of her eyes told me I’d better look at something else before I got smacked.

“Hey everybody,” someone yelled. “Cavatica and Wren are back for their mother’s funeral. Now it’s a party!”

Women I’d barely met and hardly remembered rushed over to shake my hand or hug me. Some cried. Some laughed. They all said they were sorry about my mama and what a wonderful woman she’d been.

“This one’s for Abigail Weller!” the bassist of the band yelled out, and they started up a completely redneck rendition of
Proud Mary
. Everyone knew Mama loved Tina Turner and that old-timey rhythm and blues music. The bassist tried to sing, but we couldn’t really hear her.

Once the hubbub died down, Pilate pulled us over to a table and sat me down across from a woman in a bruised-blue dress. It was hard to tell her age. She had gray in her hair and some crow’s feet around her eyes. Her skin was too gray to be called pale, and her lips too red. Despite her sallow complexion, she was pretty, but looking into her eyes was like peering into a cracked mirror.

The woman was obviously with Pilate, but I didn’t know how that could be, since he was a priest. My head was spinning so much I wanted to take a step outside to catch my breath.

Pilate introduced us. “Cavatica, I’d like for you to meet Rosie Petal. Petal, this is Cavatica.”

Petal’s cracked-mirror eyes fell on me, and she was smiling, but no one was home. For a minute, I forgot all my manners. What was she doing with Pilate?

Pilate cleared his throat, and I shook her hand. Like shaking hands with slender strips of beef jerky.

Pilate picked up his cigar and coffee as a silence fell over us all. I hadn’t seen Pilate in a couple of years, not since the Christmas two years prior. I wasn’t sure when Wren saw him last, but Petal knew Wren.

She frowned at my sister like she was raw sewage. “Hello, Wren, you jackering
besharam besiya
.”

My mouth dropped open. For one, the language. For two, Wren was certain to carve up that weak-looking woman with her Betty knife.

Instead, Wren said gently, “Hi, Rosie. How have you been feelin’?”

Petal didn’t answer the question. “Who are you trying to impress, Wren? You wear your tight jeans and cake make-up on your face, but why? There’s no one here to date, is there? No, but you just love to have people look at you. You are the poison that poisons everyone around you.”

Pilate stepped in. “Hush, Petal, mind your manners.”

Petal closed her eyes. “Looking at her makes me want to vomit. Will you give me my medicine and put me to bed, Pilate?” The woman stood up, and Pilate got up with her. They both disappeared up the stairs.

My guts felt twisted from seeing Pilate with that broken woman, and then what she had said to Wren. I just had to ask, “Who is she, Wren? And what’s her medicine?”

My sister shrugged, hid her face as she got up, and went to the bar. She came back with two foamy-headed beers and a whiskey. She carried all three like she knew a thing or two about waitressing. She slid a beer in front of me.

I pushed it away. “No. I don’t believe liquor is appropriate for ladies. And I am underage. Just ’cause we live in the Juniper doesn’t mean we can flaunt the laws of the country we hope to rejoin.”

“Don’t you sound all cultured,” Wren sneered. “Yankee laws don’t apply in the Juniper. Lucky for us, and more for me.” She knocked that beer back in one long gulp.

A few cowgirls elbowed each other and pointed. One woman whispered, “Yeah, that’s Wren Weller all right.”

“Where did you get the money to buy that?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m sure someone will step up to pay. Maybe Pilate. Maybe I’ll have to do some dancin’ to pay for it ’cause I’m such the party girl sinner.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, so I went to the bar and ordered a curried sausage from Old Man Singh.

“On the house, Cavatica,” he said. “On account of your mother passin’. You have my condolences.”

Well, one mystery solved. Why hadn’t Wren just told me Old Man Singh gave her free drinks?

I’d chomped through the sausage by the time Pilate came down the steps. Then I noticed Betsy McNamara watching him cross the room. In her bonnet and New Morality dress, Betsy looked uncomfortable and out of place in the saloon. She was a young widow who ranched a little spread north of town. She had a few daughters, but only just recently a son. I found it odd she was in the saloon. She should’ve been home with her children and her headcount.

Pilate sat down and re-lit his cigar with a silver torch lighter. “Well, ladies,” he started. His eyes turned hard when he saw Wren drinking. “I thought you were going to quit.”

Wren threw back her shot of whiskey. “Are you gonna AA me, Pilate? Is that how you wanna spend your night?”

Pilate’s smile turned smirky. “Good point.” He directed his attention to me. “So, tell me about yourself, Cavatica Weller. Last time I saw you, you were fourteen and sullen. I hope you’ve grown out of that sullen. Both of your sisters seem to have found a home there.”

My eyes kept going back and forth between Wren and Pilate, and then yeah, Betsy who continued to stare at Pilate. Part of me wished I had walked home. My heart felt too weary to try and figure it all out.

Well, I just had to start with Petal. “Who is that woman you’re with, Pilate? And what is her medicine?”

Pilate tapped his cigar ashes on the floor. “Petal’s an old war buddy,” he said. “She came home with the Ladies in Waiting. During the Sino, she got really sick, but she got worse once we got her home. Her medicine is the only thing that keeps her upright.”