The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head (38 page)

The ship banked into a half-orbit over the
downed Slark crawler to let Gieo pick the landing zone she liked
best. The shale flat offered plenty of flat and smooth to set down
the dirigible. She pulled back hard on the two main levers guiding
the wings, bringing the airship to a jerking stop above the landing
zone she’d selected. Spinning two wheels on either side of her feet
with the peddle handles on the valves, she lowered the landing
struts. Steam hissed from the release valves along the sides of the
cockpit as the blimp lowered slowly to the ground in a remarkably
smooth landing. As soon as the
Little Monster
had settled
onto its six extended legs, the Ravens threw open the two doors on
the sides and poured out.

It took Gieo a few moments to lock down the
blimp in its landed position and more than a few moments to unhook
from the various straps, clips, and gadgets required of the pilot.
She slipped out of the hatch on the bottom of the pilot’s bubble,
landing on shaky legs. She hadn’t realized exactly how
adrenaline-inducing a landing was; getting that jolt of excited
energy made sense during a crash, but seemed out of place for a
textbook perfect settling of the blimp.

She raced to catch up with Claudia. Three men
were already carrying a makeshift stretcher toward the airship. The
urgency in their steps spoke of time not having run out. Gieo met
them halfway. Fiona was battered, her face was pale, but she was
awake and alive. Gieo ran to her side and took her outstretched
hand.

“You came for me,” Fiona said.

“I figured this would be the only way you’d
be glad to see me again,” Gieo said, struggling to hold back the
joyful tears of stress and relief.

“I was being stupid,” Fiona said
cryptically.

Cork held Gieo back as the other two men
loaded Fiona into the belly of the dirigible. “She’s lost a lot of
blood,” he said. “If she goes into shock now it’ll be the end of
her.”

“Got it, don’t scare her,” Gieo said. She
took another step to leave, but Cork pulled her back again.

“Give her this back.” He held out Fiona’s
Colt to Gieo, handle first.

Gieo took the gun and slipped into her own
belt. Something about the way the old ranger said the words and
offered the pistol told Gieo it was an important gesture for her to
even be given the gun. She threw an arm around his narrow shoulder
and hugged him close.

“This is all going to be okay,” Gieo said.
She didn’t know why she said it. The words didn’t offer her any
cold comfort, and she doubted the old lawman needed her
reassurance. Still, she needed to hear her own voice, devoid of
confidence as it was, saying the important words as a matter of
superstition.

The flight back started out as uneventful as
the flight out. Gieo couldn’t decide whether it was luck, divine
providence, or a matter of her not actively looking to get shot
down that made the difference. Regardless of the source of her good
fortune, she was excessively thankful. Claudia kept Fiona company
while Gieo tried desperately to keep her eyes to the desert floor
and her focus on the controls when everything in her body screamed
to check on Fiona. Things became slightly more interesting beyond
the halfway point when the low-fuel indicator light came on.

Gieo had fueled up with a rate of consumption
in mind that probably wasn’t realistic and hadn’t even thought to
try fueling up at the Slark crawler. Their excessive speed to that
point, along with having no idea how much fuel could be consumed in
a single landing, had really depleted what little she’d put in the
tanks. One thing was certain: continuing on at the current pace
wouldn’t get them to Tombstone.

“Are we slowing down?” Claudia shouted
through the puffing and rattling noises of the dirigible.

“We’re running low on fuel,” Gieo shouted
back over her shoulder. “We have to slow down to conserve.”

“Do we have enough to make it?”

Gieo didn’t really have an answer for that.
The dirigible likely wouldn’t crash when the boiler finally ran
dry. She could always jettison the engine, lock off the gas valves,
and gently float down to wherever, but they’d be completely at the
whim of the wind and Fiona would almost certainly die as they might
end up in Texas before they touched down in what would probably be
a fairly violent landing.

“We have to,” Gieo finally shouted back. She
dropped altitude and speed to find the optimal efficiency,
recalculated their arrival time, and cursed herself for every added
minute that might mean Fiona’s death.

By the time the lights of Tombstone came into
view, the
Little Monster
was struggling. Every agonizingly
slow breath from the bellows seemed like it would be the last as
the refractory period lengthened each time. Gieo turned off all but
manual control to the wings which required her to hand-crank the
metal flaps to make them move. The gears and gyroscopes aided some
in the work, but she was sweating, tired, and exhausted with
limited control. Slowed airspeed was a problem on her approach. The
dirigible was aching to be on the ground and was about to drop from
the sky to prove it. Her arms were so tired that she had to use
both hands to adjust one wing and then the other into the proper
landing position. The blimp listed and she nearly lost control in
the process. She’d heard takeoffs and landings were the most
dangerous times during air travel. Considering her airship was
struggling to either drop nose-down on her or capsize entirely as
she was adjusting the wings, she had to modify her former
disagreement with that position. Under Gieo’s instruction, Claudia
operated the manual levers to lower the landing struts. She got the
last one down an instant before the
Little Monster
hit
ground, scraping a little across the asphalt before coming to a
complete stop.

She touched down in Tombstone to excitement.
She wondered how much more fevered the pitch would be if the Ravens
knew how close it was to a crash. Medics came and took Fiona the
second she opened the doors.

“It might be hard to see with her life still
dangling the way it is, but this was a win,” Veronica said to Gieo
as they walked briskly to keep up with the medics. “The cult needed
to go away and this giant crawler find might fuel us for
awhile.”

“That’ll mean less than nothing to me if she
dies,” Gieo snapped.

“This isn’t the first time she’s been shot up
and it likely won’t be the last.” Veronica grasped Gieo’s arm and
spun her back around. “Call it temporary insanity on my part, but
that might be the last time you’re going to fly and certainly the
last time you will without armor or crash safety measures. I’d
sacrifice an army of Fionas to keep you alive; you’re that
important to our chances.”

Gieo’s anger burst through her like a
firestorm. She launched her arms out and gave Veronica a hard shove
to the chest. “I would die a thousand times for her,” Gieo said,
knowing it was a crazy statement, but not caring in the slightest.
“I got your fucking pilots. In a few weeks, you’ll have everything
you need, and you can stop pestering the both of us.” She didn’t
know why Veronica let her go after the obvious breach of protocol
and decorum.

She wouldn’t find out until days later what
overtones the conversation really held.

It was a couple days before Fiona fully
exited the morphine haze following the surgeries and blood
transfusions required to remove all the birdshot and two 9 mm slugs
from her body. Once the control of her medication was left to her,
she immediately quit the opium haze in favor of the roaring pain
left over from her wounds. She wouldn’t tell Gieo why, but the
pilot had her suspicions about Fiona’s former life including a
pretty stout drug habit. Staying in the clinic wasn’t a matter of
choice as she was restricted to bed rest by order of Carolyn.

As tearful and awkward as she’d expected her
reunion with Gieo to go, it actually held a far steamier side. By
the time her faculties had fully returned, it was early morning and
the hospital’s hallways and rooms were silent. She waited for a few
hours until the sun came up and with it came Gieo. The pilot seemed
anxious about Fiona’s return to lucidity. She came when Fiona
beckoned her over though, and didn’t resist in the slightest when
Fiona pulled her down with her good arm and kissed her passionately
as though it were all the kissing she would ever get.

Gieo had tried to apologize again but Fiona
had taken all the blame that was hers. It all seemed so trivial in
hindsight and petty to hold onto the tepid grudge over an arguably
gray area betrayal after Gieo had so bravely flown to save her.
Fiona said they were more than equal when everything was weighed
and measured.

After a few more days of chatting, reading,
and playing chess to pass the time, Fiona was sick of books, sick
of the hospital, and knew Gieo had all but given in to playing with
her eyes closed to keep the chess matches interesting; she needed
to get out, wear real clothes, and feel the desert sun on her. More
than that, she had an impossible ache for Gieo that couldn’t be
effectively satisfied while bedridden in a hospital.

Perhaps Gieo sensed her needs or perhaps
Gieo’s own needs ruled her actions in a similar fashion, but no
sooner had Fiona thought about fleeing the hospital to find sexual
release than Gieo showed up with the implements formerly carried by
a nurse to give Fiona a sponge bath. The basin of water, sponge,
soap, and now a razor, which the nurse hadn’t bothered to offer,
took on entirely different connotations when Gieo walked them into
the curtained-off area of Fiona’s hospital bed.

The act of receiving a sponge bath carried a
shockingly helpless sensation; receiving one from Gieo made Fiona’s
urge to be in control screech to be heard. The pilot made a good
faith effort to be professional in her ministrations—at first. She
undressed Fiona from her hospital gown, took special care to bathe
and shave smooth the exposed areas of her very long legs, minding
the bandaged portion of her right upper thigh. When she stopped at
the top of Fiona’s now glistening, smooth legs, she held the razor
thoughtfully and offered Fiona a mischievous smirk.

“Do whatever you like with that,” Fiona heard
herself say, although she barely recognized her own voice through
the lusty, flinty quality it had taken on.

Gieo deftly slid the razor around the softest
areas between Fiona’s legs, leaving only a bright red landing strip
along her mound with an arrow at the end pointing directly down. A
pilot needs guidance sometimes for landings, Gieo had informed her.
Fiona wholeheartedly agreed, especially when Gieo’s lips made their
way down the freshly shaven mound, along the arrow’s route, to
plant vigorous kisses across the top of Fiona’s smooth, aching
lips. Fiona’s fingers found their way into Gieo’s purple hair,
grasping at the four thick braids with no particular goal in mind
other than to translate her desire through touch as Gieo’s tongue
flicked at her sensitive folds.

Quiet and stoic in the face of passion were
two things Fiona had once prided herself on. Of course, the nurse
who came storming in on the scene said Fiona was disturbing
everyone within earshot, which called into question the silent
quality Fiona once prized. Gieo tried to apologize, but it was all
for not after she asked for a little privacy to finish things up;
the nurse clearly couldn’t tell whether she meant the sponge bath
or the tongue bath, and decided neither would be appropriate. Gieo
informed the nurse, in no uncertain terms, that the request had
been a pleasantry, and unless she wanted to watch or offer tips,
she should probably leave. The nurse stormed off, and Gieo
immediately lowered her head back between Fiona’s legs.

The gunfighter’s shock was short lived, and
any sense of decorum went directly out the hospital’s dusty windows
when Gieo’s lips and tongue found their way back to their work.
They’d already been found out, and Fiona couldn’t be bothered to
try to keep quiet any longer, not that she’d done a very good job
of it in the first place. Fiona was desperate in her need; Gieo’s
mouth found its way to the ecstasy button, and that was all it took
to momentarily drown out the residual pain from her gunshot wounds.
Fiona’s climax brought the nurse back, this time with
reinforcements. She tugged at Gieo’s braids to get her to stop.