It took two more trips for Dobson to ferry the remaining supplies from the saloon to the loader. The liquid energy trickling through her veins waned with every step. Her back ached and her leaden legs felt as if they weighed twice what they should have, but she persisted. Only the stubborn survived, and Dobson had committed her entire life to being as stubborn as they came. Jaw gritted, she pressed forward, setting one protesting foot in front of the other, over and over again, until her slogging footsteps carried her across the undulating hills of dull red sand and to her destination.

  Dobson sorely wanted to dump her supplies where she stood and be done with it. Considering the unstable nature of her cargo, however, and the fact that Misty would give her an earful for doing so, Dobson thought better of it and arranged the last of the supplies into neat piles at the back of the loader. She managed three steps more before her legs threw in the proverbial towel. Exhausted, she sank down and slumped against the rear tire.

  “Good news.” Misty’s cheerful whisper echoed deep within the dark cab. “I got around the security system.”

  Snatching the hat from her head, Dobson fanned the sweltering heat from her face. “And?”

  Surely Misty had accomplished more than a simple override during Dobson’s time away. She was going to question the equal division of labor, otherwise.

  Misty’s boots swung down into view. The rest of her followed shortly after. Her shadowed form dropped from the cab and landed in the red dirt below. Straightening her legs, Misty dusted the dirt from her clothes while she delivered the rest of her report. “The old girl’s got enough juice to power her for ten, maybe fifteen minutes.”

  Dobson’s broad shoulders sank miserably. “That’s it?”

  “Don’t look so glum, Dobsy. That’s all the time we’ll need.”

  Dobson wasn’t so sure. She leaned against the tire, groaning, “Have I told you how much I despise this plan?”

  “Consistently and without fail,” Misty assured her. While she didn’t outright skip, there was an undeniable bounce to her step as Misty disappeared around the back of the loader.

  A rusted squeal rang out, signaling the opening of the rear cargo hatch door.

  Dobson sat more bristled than a pissed off porcupine, angrily awaiting Misty’s incoming demand for help. But the order never came. Dobson stayed put a few moments longer, forcefully drawing gulps of warm air deep into her battered lungs, all while wondering if it was due to a misplaced sense of pity. Maybe, after having learned the severity of Dobson’s deteriorating condition, Misty felt sorry for her. Perhaps she didn’t want to quicken the rate at which Dobson’s organs were already failing.

  Somehow, that felt even more wrong than being ordered to get up and help.

  Mopping the sweat from her brow, Dobson tugged the hat back over her blood-matted hair and staggered to her feet. She got the wary side eye from Misty the moment she gathered an armload of supplies and shoved it into the open cargo area. Thankfully, her partner kept her concerns to herself. Not that it mattered. It wasn’t long before Dobson was rendered useless, anyway. Other than helping lift the equipment for Misty, there wasn’t much else she could do.

  Misty took the unlit lantern and clambered up inside, drawing the cargo hatch shut behind her. “Best leave me to my work.” Her voice escaped through the crack under the heavy steel door. “You go keep watch. Make sure we’re not disturbed, yeah?”

  Dobson hesitated to ask. “Should I be concerned about your handiwork detonating early?”

  “Pumpkin, please. There’s nothing to worry your pretty head about.” Misty’s laugh filled the cavernous space within, bouncing off one iron wall to the next until it sounded as if there were several of her inside, all huddled together, snickering at Dobson’s ignorance. “We’d both die instantly if that were to happen.”

  “The fact that that doesn’t worry you worries me more,” Dobson replied.

  All Dobson got in response was another harsh cackle.

  Sighing, she collected her rifle from where it leaned against the back of the loader and dragged her feet around to the front. Dobson swung up inside the cab and settled in behind the dark dashboard. She drew the pen and book of crossword puzzles from her front pocket and flipped to a familiar page. Rows of blank black and white boxes stared brazenly back at her, still silently taunting her.

  To think, she’d survived a derailed prison train, a shootout, and a tavern brawl, and was still nowhere closer to discovering what in blazes rhymed with orange!

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Dobson snapped the book shut and returned it to her breast pocket with an irritated grunt. She glared out of the dusty window screen at the open expanse of dark nothingness that stretched all around her. The desert remained still. Calm. Quiet. Eventually, the nothingness got to her, and without realizing it, Dobson nodded off, unable to fight the pull of exhaustion any longer.

  She came to an hour or so later, awoken by a wave of blistering pain that erupted across her chest.

  Dobson snatched the rifle from her lap and sat upright. Heart pounding against her chest, her eyes scoured the darkness before settling on the culprit. She flopped back against the cushioned backrest once realizing it was only her partner. Misty stood awkwardly wedged within the cab’s open doorway, scowling at her.

  “Did you just seriously just punch me in the tit?” Dobson demanded, rubbing the sting from the area.

  “You’re scaring me, Dobsy.”

  “I should scare you.”

  “You’re all out of sorts.”

  Dobson sorely wished to talk about something else. She was so desperate, in fact, she was even willing to pretend that Misty’s plan had a chance of successfully moving forward. “How’d it go? Are we ready?”

  Misty wasn’t so easily fooled. Her sour expression made it perfectly clear that she knew what Dobson was up to. She held her tongue for several seconds before choosing the path of least resistance. She sighed. “I got it wired up the best I could.”

  “How reassuring.”

  “Oh, shut up. You don’t get to tell me off, not with you having fallen asleep at the wheel.” Misty gestured for Dobson to slide further down the padded bench with an impatient wave of her hand. “Now scoot. Make room, will ya?”

  Dobson slid further down the patched leather seat, fearful of receiving another thump if she didn’t comply quickly enough. Misty slipped in behind the control panel next to her. The display was dark and coated in a fine layer of red dust. Scowling, Misty gathered the edge of her sleeve in her hand and drew it across the screen, attempting to wipe the display clean. It worked. Sort of. Thanks to Misty’s efforts, patches of the blank screen were now marginally more visible.

  “Don’t say anything,” she said.

  “I didn’t.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re about to,” Misty grumbled. And then, without further explanation, she shoved her fingers into her mouth and rooted around her back molars, searching for something. With a muffled ‘ah-ha’, she proudly withdrew what appeared to be a tooth and held it up for display.

  A false tooth, Dobson realized moments later, when Misty flicked the protective cap away, revealing a connector. Still didn’t make it any less sanitary. Dobson squirmed in her seat, fighting the sudden urge to gag.

  “Dogasted, how is it even when you’re silent, I can still feel you judging me?”

  Dobson lifted her palms into the air, as if to say ‘I said nuthin’.

  “You got a better place to stash your secret transceivers? If so, I’m all ears.” Misty fed the device into the auxiliary port on the dashboard. The control panel sprang to life. Its screens powered up one by one as the low hum of electricity steadily filled the cab. Interconnected, Misty’s eyes reflected the same ghostly green glow of the dashboard. Her pupils disappeared, swallowed by the hazy light as her mind connected to the machine.

  Her fingers were a blur of activity, swiping from screen to screen as she keyed in her commands. “I’m setting the coordinates now,” Misty explained. “As soon as I power the old girl on, the autopilot will take her the rest of the way.”

  Dobson nodded, pretending this was new information. Misty was nervous. Even if she refused to admit it. The fact that she was rehashing the plan of her own volition was all the proof Dobson needed. She kept her smart mouth shut, though. If going over the details one last time meant keeping Misty’s mounting nerves at bay, then so be it. Dobson could nod her head and play along.

  “It’s going to make one hell of a noise once I fire up the engine. Meaning we’ve got to be in and out as quickly as possible. You go first.” Misty’s fingers continued to swipe from screen to screen, as if her body and mind were split, each carrying out its own task independent of the other. “Leave me a pistol, would ya? Something I can fire with one hand?”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Good,” Misty said. Her voice rang hollow, sapped of its former confidence. “You best mosey on over to our meetup spot, Dobsy. I’ll catch up as soon as I’m finished here. Got it?”

  “Got it.” Dobson swung open the passenger side door and dropped to the ground below. A collection of supplies awaited her outside. Dobson distributed the weight equally across her body, ensuring she had unobstructed access to the rifle slung over her shoulder, before she started off. She only made it a few steps before her conscience got the better of her.

  Reluctantly, she turned back around to face Misty and asked, “Have you got this?”

  Misty sat alone in the cab, bathed in the ghoulish green glow of the dashboard. She stopped flipping through screens long enough to offer a nervous thumbs-up. The accompanying smile looked like it wanted to slide off her face in defeat. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Dobson could think of several possibilities. Engine failure. Misty getting jumped by the remaining Company Men before she got free of the cab. The loader’s unstable cargo exploding before it reached its destination. And that was just to name a few. Dobson was certain she could have come up with many, many more had there been time to stop to think about it.

  There was no point in doing so, of course. All of those same possibilities were already racing through Misty’s mind as well. Unable to find the right words, Dobson offered a reassuring smile instead. It felt more like a pained grimace.

  Misty took immediate offense to it. “Go on,” she hissed, shooing Dobson away with an impatient flip of her hand. “Git.”

  Tipping her hat goodbye, Dobson shouldered her load and set off across the dark sand. The company train sat idle on the far side of town. Dobson took the long way around. She cut out across the desert, sticking close to the shadows, well beyond the reach of the old light tower. She’d nearly reached the designated meeting spot when the guttural rumble of the loader roared to life behind her. The engine purred, dispelling the eerie quiet, sending ripples of vibrations through the sand, before it sputtered out.

  Dobson glanced worriedly over her shoulder. In the distance, the pale green light of the control panel went dark.