The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head (22 page)

“I think we know why Zeke was so angry,”
Fiona said. “The Ravens just broke his monopoly on
transportation.”

Following the horses turned out to be
superficially a simple task. This completely shattered when they
were strung together, mounted, and the whole lot rode off with a
couple of wagons hauling the tack and hay behind. Keeping up on
foot would be a difficult prospect and driving would be over
obvious as Fiona was fairly certain the trail her car left could be
seen from space. The horses would have to be tracked after dark
with the help of Ramen.

Back in the saloon, they found two dozen
agitated hunters with Danny as their spokesman. If there were a
good half of the cantankerous lot, they were the ones. Something
felt off to Fiona, but not in the terms of a lynch mob. Danny came
away from the group with twenty-five sets of eyes following
him.

“We’ve got a problem,” Danny said.

“More than a few if you’ve been paying
attention,” Fiona replied. “What do you have to add to the
pot?”

“Zeke came out of the Raven Nest beat to
shit,” Danny said. “I don’t know why he went in there and I don’t
know why things turned south, but they took their time teaching him
a lesson he wasn’t eager to learn.”

“Shit,” Fiona muttered.

“Normally, he’d have the hunters over there
to take care of business, but he doesn’t have the clout he once
did, and getting jack-rolled by a bunch of prostitutes doesn’t help
his case much,” Danny said. One of the other men, Fiona couldn’t
remember his name, but she assumed Gieo knew it, came over and
nudged Danny in the arm. “Me and the boys, we’ve been talking.
We’re thinking this new progress is getting hobbled by Zeke’s
greed. We’re thinking maybe you ought to take over as mayor.”

“Zeke is a dangerous, wounded animal right
now,” Fiona said. “He’s not going to be predictable or rational
again anytime soon, especially not if Rawlins saw you all come in
here, and there’s no doubt he did.”

“There’s another problem,” Gieo said.

“The cultists…” Fiona began.

“No, not that, well, yes, that, but also fuel
prices,” Gieo said. “Zeke’s fucking you all over with the new
system. It takes a little fractional math to figure it out, he
picked difficult numbers to cross multiply without a calculator on
purpose, but it works out to a pretty big hike—I don’t think he
counted on anyone figuring out until it was too late.”

This news, more than anything else Gieo could
have said, set a fire under the gathered men; if they weren’t
Fiona’s men before, they certainly were then. There were a few
comments about Zeke’s reign needing to end, that he’d held the keys
to the pumps for too long, and a few less constructive comments
about Zeke’s personal habits and appearance.

“There’s also a problem brewing with the
Hawkins House,” Fiona said to quiet the men. “They’re arming for
something big. I don’t know where they got the guns and bombs, but
they’re better armed than us and have a ten to one numbers
advantage.”

“The trump card Zeke mentioned,” Danny said.
“Yahweh must have found the old counterinsurgency supply
cache.”

“Aside from being mostly blind, the man’s
from Texas; how would he know enough about Tombstone to figure that
out?” Fiona asked.

“I believe I can answer that for you.”
Veronica strolled through the door with a file folder held above
her head. “I was digging through some old records in the courthouse
and found out something interesting about our good friend Zeke. It
would seem he was born a bastard with a father only added to the
records a week later.”

“He and Hawkins had the same father,” Gieo
said, slapping her forehead at the realization. “They’ve been
working together this whole time.”

“Yes, that is where I was going with that,”
Veronica said, not hardly perturbed by her big reveal being
spoiled.

“That explains the cache and a lot of the
shit he’s been putting me through lately, but that doesn’t explain
the horses or why Zeke just stumbled out of your place after being
worked over,” Fiona said.

“The Slark fuel is almost gone,” Veronica
said. “I told Zeke I knew of a way to stretch the remainder and
make him wealthy in the process; he was so panicked about the
prospect of being left with nothing that he jumped at the chance. I
failed to tell him I had every intention of reintroducing the horse
to Tombstone long before the fuel was gone. We’ve been doing it all
over the west and it has worked fantastically. He saw the livery
train, put the pieces together, and came over claiming I skunked
him on our deal. He was lucky we let him walk out after some of the
things he said.”

“We’re with you, Red,” Danny said. “Just let
us know what you need done.”

“He’ll go after the horses,” Gieo said, “and
he’ll use the cultists to do it.”

“The horses are on their way to the old high
school on Gun Club Road,” Veronica said. “They’re probably already
there under as heavy of a guard as we can manage right now.”

“Add Mitch’s truck with the gun platform from
your airship to the defenses,” Fiona told Gieo. She turned to Danny
and the rest of the hunters. “Go with Veronica and help however you
can.”

Gieo fell in behind the departing hunters as
if to follow them outside to carry out Fiona’s orders. When the
crowd was sufficiently clogging the door with Veronica on the other
side, she grabbed Danny by the back of the jacket and pulled him
back inside. Fiona and Danny both gave Gieo a perplexed look.

“The horses aren’t the only target,” Gieo
said. “You don’t need Molotov cocktails to kill horses.”

“So what else is he hitting?” Danny
asked.

“The Slark fuel depot,” Gieo said. “He’ll
likely send a group there to take out the fuel if they can’t get to
the horses—if he can’t have the fuel, he definitely won’t want us
to. I’m sure Veronica has figured this out too, but isn’t saying.
If Zeke destroys the depot, she’ll have the monopoly.”

“Danny and I can handle that,” Fiona said.
“Go with Veronica and get that gun platform to the high
school.”

Gieo looked hurt, but walked away to carry
out the order. Fiona followed her out the back of the saloon,
around the side street to the old convenience store with the mortar
shell hole in the side. Mitch’s truck was squirreled away in what
was left of the building. He had reinforced the walls so they only
looked like they would fall in if sneezed on; it was a lovely
hiding spot as nobody wanted anything to do with the seeming death
trap. It would be a slow crawl, even if Mitch and Bond-O could be
found to help in the driving and stoking, but they were likely
ahead of the curve on Zeke’s plan and thus had the necessary hours
to spare.

Fiona’s heart was thundering in her ears with
every step. She’d been steadily walking away from what she knew
ever since she’d met Gieo and now she found herself on the edge of
a cliff, miles from the beaten path, with nothing else to do but
jump. Fiona caught up to Gieo before she could disappear into
Mitch’s hiding spot for his truck. She spun the pilot around and
pressed her against the cinder brick wall of the crumbling
convenience store. She kissed her hard, one arm wrapped around her
waist and the other holding her chin to keep her head still through
the violent kiss. Gieo moaned into Fiona’s mouth, clawing at the
gunfighter’s clothing with clumsy aggression. Fiona broke the kiss;
they stood mere inches apart, breathless and wanting.

“Tell Mitch and the kitchen boy to get the
truck out to the high school,” Fiona said, her voice flinty with
desire, “then come up to my room. I have something to show you.”
There was no turning back on any of it anymore; she’d jumped in
more ways than one, and now she had to find out if she had
wings.

Fiona walked away, leaving Gieo gasping
against the wall, butterflies of anticipation fluttering through
her stomach. The pilot watched Fiona’s slender ass and long legs in
the brown, leather pants as she walked away. Gieo came to the
conclusion that the view of Fiona walking away was more attractive
than Veronica’s cleavage-flirtation-posture, especially since
Fiona’s was a passive beauty while Veronica’s only worked while
focused.

Gieo ran off to find Mitch with a pronounced
spring in her step.

Mitch and Bond-O were steaming their way
toward the high school with a couple hunters as escort. It would
take close to an hour to get the truck out there, which Mitch was
none too happy about as the truck used to have a double digit top
speed that it just didn’t have with Gieo’s new engine plan. It
would be nearly unstoppable and wouldn’t run out of fuel anytime
soon though, which may or may not make up for the 8 MPH cruising
speed.

Gieo slipped through the dark, silent saloon,
knocking on Fiona’s door with a few tentative taps. A sliver of
soft, candlelight crept out from beneath the crack under the door.
She heard Fiona invite her in. Gieo opened the door to find a dozen
or so candles giving the room a rosy glow. Fiona stood near the
bed, lighting a handful of candles on the night stand. She was
wearing a black, lace-panel bustier with matching lace boy-cut
panties and the largest, reddest strap-on Gieo had ever seen. When
she was done lighting the candles, she straightened up to her full
height, her bronzed body and lovely lingerie glimmering in the
candlelight. For an instant, beneath everything Fiona had become,
Gieo could see the vulnerable woman she had been before the
Slark—the same beautifully exposed quality that had made her fall
in love with Fiona before they’d ever met.

“You are so beautiful right now, I could
cry,” Gieo said. “I thought you didn’t like underwear though…”

“For you, I’ll make an exception,” Fiona
said.

“As sweet as this is,” Gieo said with a
mischievous smile, “I hope you’re not planning on taking it easy on
me.”

“That was never the plan.”

Gieo crossed the room to her. Fiona met her
halfway. Their lips practically collided; their hands exchanged
awkward gropes through clothing. Within minutes, they were both
panting, eager, and flushed with excitement. Fiona turned Gieo
around until her chest was against the pilot’s back, pulled up the
front of her skirt, and plunged her hand down the front of Gieo’s
black cotton panties. Her long, powerful fingers pressed down
between Gieo’s lips, finding their way inside her, discovering her
already warm and wet.

Gieo practically fell limp in Fiona’s arms.
She rested her head back against the gunfighter’s shoulder, rolling
her hips against the fingers slipping in and out of her, thrilling
at the sensation of the huge strap-on rubbing lewdly against her
ass with every motion they made together. Fiona’s free hand came up
to her breast, massaging it through the tight material of the top
of her dress, teasing her nipple until it strained to poke through
the fabric. Gieo reached up and pulled the front of her dress down,
freeing her breasts to sit atop the folded material, giving Fiona
full access to her hard, little nipples.

“Are you ready?” Fiona whispered hotly in her
ear.

“Don’t ask,” Gieo moaned, “just take.”

Fiona pressed her hand against the center of
Gieo’s back and bent her over the edge of the bed. Gieo managed to
get her hands out in front of her to prevent bouncing awkwardly.
With her feet still planted on the floor, legs straight, and ass in
the air, she thrilled at the sudden shift to being entirely
vulnerable. Fiona flipped up the back of Gieo’s skirt, grasped her
underwear by the waistband, and pulled them down to knee level,
preventing Gieo’s legs from parting entirely. Surprisingly, she
knelt first behind the pilot, her hands making their way up the
backs of Gieo’s legs, puzzling until Gieo felt Fiona’s tongue
plunge into her from behind. Fiona’s darting lapping and occasional
full plunges sent warm shivers across Gieo’s skin, adding to an
arousal already on the cusp of overwhelming. At the edge of
begging, Gieo finally felt the enormous, bulbous head of the
strap-on press against her lips and then it was inside her,
slipping easily into her, filling her up in a way she had
positively ached for. She practically screamed in joy at feeling
Fiona’s hands on her hips, not realizing until that moment, how
much she’d wanted to feel Fiona from this exact position; it wasn’t
her first time for this type of treatment, but the only other time
was far too short and too long ago to remember as anything but
fantasy. Gieo gripped at the sheets, buried her face in the bed,
stifling her passionate moans as the strap-on slid in and out of
her in long, beautiful strokes, big on the edge of too big.