The Gunfighter and The Gear-Head Read Free Page A

flippant, sarcastic, arrogant,
unflappable, and most likely full of shit, but it had been so long
since Fiona had let anyone even come within arms length of her, let
alone touch her, that she thought she might go with it to pass the
three hour drive back to Tombstone. Gieo’s fingers froze before
touching anything of much interest. Fiona turned to find the pilot
frowning.
     
    “What?”
     
    “You’re not wearing underwear.”
     
    “I never really liked underwear.”
     
    “But you were an underwear model.”
     
    “Is any of this a problem?”
     
    “No, I can pretend, I guess.”
     
    “Fuck off.” Fiona grabbed Gieo’s hand by the
wrist, pulled it from her pants, and tossed it back to the pilot.
“My reality doesn’t have to match up with your fantasy. The person
you thought I was died years ago if she ever really existed at
all.”
     
    Gieo laughed and bit her thumbnail around a
coquettish grin. “Oh, I like you,” she said. “You’re prickly in
some delightful ways.”
     
    “Whatever.” Fiona stomped the accelerator to
the floor, rocketing the car up over 200 mph. The desert flew by in
a blur. The thunder of the engine and the enormous, solid-form
rubber tires roaring along the worn asphalt prevented any further
conversation for the rest of the ride. Fiona backed off the
throttle as they roared into the outer limits of Tombstone. A
faded, wooden sign on the outskirts informed them they were
entering the town “too tough to die” with a population of 1,500
badasses. The population and motto were original to the sign, but
the “badasses” part had been added with a can of orange
spray-paint. On the main thoroughfare, Fiona brought her muscle car
to a dusty stop in front of the Slarkhead Saloon. She buckled her
belts and zipped her pants, remaining in the car for an awkward
moment after.
     
    “I should find a way to thank you for the
ride,” Gieo said.
     
    Fiona rolled her eyes and stepped from the
car. She’d barely closed the door when she heard a slow, sarcastic,
clichéd clapping from across the street on the balcony of the town
hall.
     
    “Only four heads,” the one man audience said
through a chuckle. “Did you at least get a balloon ride, Red?” The
man wore authority with a distinctive largeness. He wasn’t
specifically muscular or particularly fat, but a mix of both that
gave a brawny, powerful quality to him. He wore Slark-skin overalls
without a shirt underneath. The gray, scales of Slark pelts were
hardly the toughest looking leather on him as his weathered skin
had long since turned into elephant hide from a lifetime in the
desert. With a gray, handlebar moustache and eyes narrowed to slits
from squinting into the Arizona sun his entire life, he had the
look of a cunning land walrus, which was precisely how Fiona always
pictured him, although she would never dare say so.
     
    “Zeke, I can’t help but notice your bumper is
empty, clean even.” Fiona nodded in the direction of the modified
El Camino parked across the street and the empty spikes on the
front.
     
    “Mathematically speaking, four is infinity
percent larger than zero,” Gieo said.
     
    “Technically, so is one,” Zeke said, the
smile never leaving his face, “but fact remains, the quota to get
fuel is six.”
     
    “Then I guess you better get hunting.” Fiona
passed around the back of the car, taking Gieo by the arm to lead
her into the saloon.
     
    “I’m surprised he knew enough math to
understand that,” Gieo whispered.
     
    “He only looks dumb,” Fiona replied.
     
    The interior of the saloon reeked of unwashed
human flesh, tobacco spit, cheap tequila, and burned food. A haze
of dust and cigar smoke hung in the air of the vaulted ceilings,
almost obscuring the walkway around the second floor in the dimly
lit bar. Fiona’s boots thumped across the wooden floor, casting
silence in their wake through the dozen or so dirty denizens
occupying the handful of gaming tables turned into a