Transgender Smokey And The Bandit, Part VIII (Patreon)

Hello! Finally had a chance to write some for myself this weekend, and I decided this was a good story to get back into the groove of it. I hope you enjoy this chapter of Clara's story! I write this a bit ahead of the segments I post so I can tweak previous chapters as I think of fresh ideas, and I'm actually approaching a point where the end is on the horizon. (I have finally gotten to the Pontiac, for one.)

The plan is to finish it, post it as a serial here, and then turn it into an epub novella, hopefully. I'll give it to everyone who's a subscriber for free! In the meantime, here's a few more thousand words!

If you missed the previous installments and would like to catch up on Clara's story, find them here:
Part VII
Part VI
Part V
Part IV
Part III
Part II
Part I

01.19.37 1251

When Clara and Mia finally slunk out of the box truck, they kept their heads low and made for the drainage ditch at the side of the road for cover. Fascists were always arguing with each other, so the spontaneous gunfight that had erupted as they plotted an escape wasn’t shocking, but it sure was convenient. 

Clara beckoned to Mia and pointed to the Celica, and the two of them sprinted across the open pavement, crouching to stay out of sight. Clara hopped in the driver’s seat, fired it up, and dumped the clutch, slamming the door shut as the car left rubber down the center of US-12. The box truck that earlier had blocked the road entirely was now smashed up, spun around to take up just a single lane. The sole blockade Clara had to contend with was a lone woman standing in the oncoming lane. 

Clara swerved at the last second to dodge the woman—a local cop, from the looks of her plate carrier. Then she swerved a second time to avoid a beat-up white Chevy Tahoe parked twenty feet past the smashed-up box truck. She shifted to second gear, and after a moment of concentration and frenzied glances back to her rearview mirror, a wave of recognition washed over her. “Oh my fucking God,” she exclaimed, and Mia turned and gasped “What?!”

“That pig standing in the road has been chasing me since fucking Plummer,” said Clara, slamming the shifter to third gear as if for emphasis. “I gotta get some distance on her, and fast.” 

Mia swung her body around, craning her neck to look back at the cop as they flew down US-12. “She seems to be taking her time, we’re good I think?” She turned back around and looked Clara up and down. “Wait, you’ve been running from the cops since Plummer?” Mia asked incredulously. “Isn’t that like two hundred miles away?”

“Yeah, so, we gotta discuss some things real quick,” said Clara, relaxing into her seat after checking her mirror to make sure the cop was truly out of sight. “The cops don’t like me, the feds don’t like me, the Nazis definitely hate me, there isn’t anyone in this state that’s a fan of mine. I just couldn’t leave you there with those guys. I’ll drop you off at the next town, and you can tell the cops I kidnapped you or something, that’s fine with me.” 

Mia shook her head violently to the sides. “No, no, no, please just keep going. I am in so much trouble this can’t be worse. Let me ride with you for a while, please, I’m begging.” 

Clara glanced over at the woman as she rounded a long, sweeping bend at 95 miles an hour. As she worked the wheel through the corner, the changing angle of the sun glinted off the cracks in the windshield and smeared a kaleidoscope of shifting rainbows across Mia’s face. She was young—mid-twenties, guessed Clara—although stress had clearly kept her from sleeping well recently. 

Clara took a longer look and realized that she found her passenger very pretty. Under the recent bruises, she had freckles all across her face, and wore short-cropped brown hair that barely covered her ears. Her eyes were a deep, rich green, complemented with almost unnaturally long lashes. Clara looked back to the road and sighed. “Alright, but you gotta at least tell me what you’re doing here in the middle of nowhere tied up in the back of a truck.” 

Mia looked at her driver with a hint of desperation. “You won’t take me to the police, right? Please?”

Clara laughed. “Does it look like I would? I don’t want to see a cop from now until I… until I’m home. Mia, right? Mia, look at me.” Mia turned from the undulating view of the river and the mountains and stared at Clara’s eyes. Clara shot her a knowing glance. “I will not leave you with the cops, Mia.”

01.19.37 1315

Leigha sliced the airbag out of the popped-open steering wheel with her utility knife. She said a little prayer, then turned the key. The Tahoe’s starter coughed to life uncertainly, and then the engine fired up and idled smoothly. “I’d like to see one of those EVs do that”, she smirked to herself, and then shifted to drive and took off. The steering wheel didn’t point straight at all, and there was an unsettlingly intense vibration all through the SUV at around 50 miles an hour, but it disappeared above 60, so she just ignored it and decided she’d keep it above 60.  

She glanced at her laptop screen to check the map. The only real junction that laid ahead was in Lolo, MT, where a backstop of mountain ranges forced US-12 into a T junction at US-93. From there, her prey could head North on 93 to Missoula, or South, to the Montana border and once more into Idaho. Lolo was in Montana, so she couldn’t use ALPRnet as an informant; she didn’t have those permissions. Instead, she’d need to use her intuition. Leigha considered which way she’d head, if she were a traitor on the run.

Missoula had suffered substantial uprisings in the early 2030s, and was still reeling from the force required to put down the insurrections. Tanks were still a common sight on street corners, and the city’s perimeter was fairly airtight. It would be suicidal to try to breach it, especially if Leigha actually called in the new plates on the Celica.

On the other hand, heading South on US-93 didn’t offer much in the way of destinations. It was a string of small settlements until the Idaho border, mostly impoverished farming villages interspersed with the sprawling, monied ranching family compounds they labored to support. The pass over the Bitterroot range, from Montana back into Idaho, was incredibly treacherous at this time of year, and the next major town—Salmon—was hours away. 

Leigha supposed she would make a terrible traitor, because neither direction made sense to her. But then again, neither did betraying her country, and yet half the United States—and her prey—apparently found it appealing. She hovered a finger over her police-issued radio as the Tahoe began to climb the long ascent into Montana. She could answer all of her questions—well, at least the ones about the fugitive—if she called ahead for help. US-12 terminated close enough to Missoula that a roadblock could easily be set. She hesitated for a beat, then withdrew her hand. She reached for the other radio sitting on her passenger seat, the one she’d pulled off the dead militiaman’s body. 

“This is Officer Orman again—I need eyes ahead at the Lolo intersection of US-12 and 93. The suspect is heading that direction, and to remain in pursuit, I have to know which way she’s going, over.” 

“Kkkhhh, copy that—we have a guy or two in the sheriffs’ office; we will get eyes on intersection cameras.”

“I am currently undercover and I believe my communications are tapped. I need you to call in the incident on US-12, as well, over.” 

“Kkkhhh, copy that. We are contacting the federal line.” 

01.19.37 1320

After watching Clara work the wheel with awe for what seemed like an eternity, she at last broke the silence. “Alright, fine,” said Mia, as she shifted her attention to the blurred landscape outside. “I guess I trust you. Not like I have a lot of choice way out here in the middle of the mountains.”

Clara chuckled. “I wouldn’t leave you out here no matter what you tell me, Mia.” 

Mia continued. “That old Honda, the one with the four flat tires, that was mine. Well, it was my ex-husband’s. He and I live… used to live in a little place out in Grangeville. Anyway… a couple of months ago, I realized I was pregnant. And, look, I was used to dealing with my husband and he mostly paid the rent, so I put up with him, but I knew I could not raise a child with that bastard. I knew that. It was a mistake.” 

Clara nodded. “Yeah, I get it.”

Mia stared at the dashboard. “And I was kinda stuck. Divorces are basically impossible to get nowadays… And even if I somehow could get one, why would I want to bring a kid into this?” she said, gesticulating to the fire-scorched trees lining the hills around her.

Nothing but the sound of the engine’s rising and falling revs, and the roar of the tires on pavement, punctuated the cabin for a few moments. Clara, without looking, took one hand off the wheel and put it on her passenger’s shoulder. “I am so sorry, Mia,” voice full of sympathy, just forceful enough to cut through the din of the cabin. 

“Thank you. It’s just not a good time lately... Anyway, I was incredibly smart about it and used proxies to find the drugs, and I painstakingly hid all of the symptoms of the pregnancy and the abortion. And it was fine, for months and months, and I didn’t think about it anymore. Then last week, that bastard found the packaging for the mifepristone stashed in the bottom of my sock drawer, and he blew up. He told me how he wanted a son, and how could I take this from him, and how I was a murderer. And we fought, worse than we ever have. And he got mad enough he called the police on me.”

“Oh Mia. Isn’t… isn’t that a serious crime out here?” asked Clara with concern in her voice. 

“Out here? It’s like, bare minimum a decade in prison anywhere in the States to possess mifepristone,” said Mia with her voice steady but her eyes full of fear. “So I ran. I took his car, and I was trying to get to Missoula to lay low with my grandmother until I could figure out what the hell to do. Anyway, then I hit the roadblock. Those men took my papers, and realized I was on the run from the cops. They slashed my tires, said they were going to turn me in to the cops for a bounty—after they’d taught me to obey my husband,” she added, her expression darkening a little. 

“They threw me in the back of the truck with that guy I shot. I kept calling him names and shit,” she smirked, “so he taped my mouth shut and roughed me up a little, and then they threw you in not long after.”

“Okay, well, at least you weren’t in there long, I guess…” said Clara.

“It was really no worse than my marriage, and it sure was a lot shorter,” replied Mia. 

Clara burst into laughter despite everything. “Alright, fair enough. Anyway, well, I’m heading down to Salmon, and then I gotta… go home. I’m uh, running an errand for some friends.” 

Mia looked at Clara inquisitively, uncertain how far she should press her newfound friend. “I mean I saw the gun in the backseat, so I won’t ask what the errand is. Can I at least know where home is? I might want the ride,” she smiled. 

Clara looked as sheepish as a girl could while driving nearly 100 miles an hour. “Uh, it’s Seattle.” 

Mia looked at Clara with eyes of scorn. “Washington. Cascadia. Over the border. You could just say you don’t wanna tell me,” she pouted, as she fidgeted with her wedding ring. For a moment, Clara worked the wheel in silence, eyes fixed on the road ahead. Then Mia’s eyes widened. “Oh shit. For real. Oh my God you’re not kidding, are you. That’s why the cop was chasing you for 200 miles,” Mia said breathlessly. “Take me with you.”

“You… want me to smuggle you into Cascadia,” Clara monotoned.

“If I stay here, I’ll go to prison for a decade,” she said, dropping her wedding ring in the Celica’s ashtray as if for effect, while Clara pretended to focus on the road. “You could have left me in the back of the box truck, and you didn’t, so you must feel some desire to help.” 

Clara eased off the throttle and downshifted as she witnessed the first flakes of the drive pancaking against the windshield, as thin white dust manifested on roadside bushes. “Look, I’ll think about it, but I have to concentrate now. If we’re high enough for snow, we’re almost to Montana, at least.”