Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  “Will Wren forgive me for almost killing her?” Marisol asked.

  I shrugged. “Prolly. You won’t be the first, and you won’t be the last to take a shot at my sister.”

  That didn’t help anything, Marisol continued to weep.

  “Really, it’s okay, Marisol,” I said. “You weren’t trained in combat. We can’t expect you to be perfect.”

  “Were you trained?” she asked in a sobby little voice.

  I recalled what Pilate had said to me, how I’d been born battle-weary, loading Mama’s clips during the firefight with Queenie when I was far younger than Marisol. Then after months of warfare, yeah, I’d been trained. On-the-job training.

  “Yes, I was,” I said. And left it at that.

  Sharlotte crawled into the gunner’s seat above me, while Wren slammed the passenger seat door. She and Dutch had collected extra ammo, some rifles, and a few backpacks to carry it all in. She’d stowed some of the weaponry in the trunk and kept some up front in the driver’s seat with me.

  “Let’s get on after ’em,” Wren said.

  Dutch took his seat in the Audrey, and we were off, running down the flat patch of highway that once would’ve been asphalt, but which salvage monkeys had long ago cooked into road coal and only mud was left.

  Again, we chased after Edger and the remnants of her unit. Once again, we were on a dead run toward Independence Pass.

  (ii)

  From my uncertain memories of geography class, I thought Highway 82 would curve around and head east to Aspen and then up and over Independence Pass, which in the old days they used to close in the wintertime ’cause they couldn’t keep the roads cleared.

  I figured it to be mid-October. It meant we should be safe, but if the storm continued and our luck ran out, we might find ourselves walking into our graves on Independence Pass.

  We had a long night ahead of us and all I could think was that we needed Edger in her Humvee and APC to run out of fuel. All of those engines, drinking in diesel, liter after liter after liter.

  I remembered the snowmobiles that had chased us after we’d freed Micaiah from the office complex out of Golden. If they were normal gas, it meant they had shielding for the spark plugs ’cause a gasoline engine needs constant electricity to run. Diesel engines worked differently. More and more I was thinking they were simple gas engines and the ARK had shielded the electricity. But why keep such technology a secret? I didn’t know. Micaiah said he didn’t know either, but that boy could lie.

  I took over driving again while Wren sat in the cockpit next to me. Every once in a while, she’d swing out to clear the windshield of snow, but I still couldn’t see much. Just night and swirling snow and the ghostly outlines of the highway in front of me.

  Wren used the auxiliary feeds to keep our steam engine fed with coal and water, but we’d soon run out. However, the engine grew hotter as things went, and it kept us all warm. Thank God. Eventually we’d have to find dry wood to burn, and feeding the hungry engine would become a fulltime job without coal. And we needed clothes and food. I didn’t know how picked-over civilization would be way out west here. Or how we’d find Marisol’s people. And how could we stop without first rescuing our boys?

  I took a moment to doctor my feet. Nikola Nichols had supplied each Stanley with a first aid kit including antibiotic cream, gauze, tape, and bandages. I’d been cut badly from stomping down on the yoke—my right heel had a U-shaped cut, and the pads of my left had three shallower gashes in a line—but the bleeding had stopped. I cleaned the wounds and then let them air out and resumed worrying.

  Wren and I took turns driving Marilyn, allowing each of us to sleep, but the Stanleys jarred us as they walked; sleeping on horses seemed easier. I wasn’t sure, but with our gait, I figured we were tromping along at about fifteen kilometers per hour. A pretty good clip, considering, but not fast enough to catch up with Edger.

  The snow, though, was piling up, more and more centimeters. Lucky for us, the Stanleys were heavy enough that they wouldn’t have a problem unless accumulation was measured in meters.

  We didn’t have access to any kind of weather report that would tell us if we were in trouble. While the rest of the world might be living in the information age, we were lost in the darkness of our ignorance.

  Edger’s Humvee would handle well in the snow, but I wasn’t so sure about the Athapasca.

  And the snow continued to fall.

  (iii)

  The night passed. The snow stopped, finally, though the storm clouds still closed the sky. In the early morning, we stopped; about twenty-five centimeters of snow covered the old highway. Wren, Sharlotte above us, me, we all sat in silence. It felt nice not to be moving.

  The firebox was glowing red hot, which worried me. It had been burning all night long, and I wasn’t sure if Nikola Nichols had really anticipated her war machines would run so hot for so long. They’d been built for battle, not long-distance walking.

  Thinking about Nikola made me smile. I still couldn’t believe I’d met her, since I had so much hero worship for her co-worker, Maggie Jankowski, the woman who invented the Eterna battery, the power source that changed the world outside of the Juniper. Nikola had been with Maggie at GE, but then left to study the Juniper problem, to see if she could come up with shielding. In Utah, Aces and his men had grabbed her and made her think for them in Glenwood Springs since they had the brain capacity of Rhesus monkeys. No, that was being unfair to the monkeys.

  Still, the tech of the Stanleys bothered me, and I wished for Micaiah, so I could consult with him. He had such a good mind, and when he was on his meds, such a wonderful personality; he was fun to kiss, and his laughter was music to me. He could laugh as long and as hard as Pilate, who loved a good joke as much as a cigar and coffee.

  We had to get them back.

  At this point, Edger might be beyond our reach. Unless she turned herself around and came at us. The valley was narrow enough that we’d see them unless Edger was trying for Independence Pass.

  We just didn’t know.

  Finally, I sighed to break the quiet. “Dang, Wren, I’d rather be chased than do the chasing.”

  My sister rolled her eyes at me. “You’d rather be the rabbit than the hunter? Jacker that, Cavvy. We’ll find Edger.”

  “What if she gets over Independence Pass before we do? What if she finds a way out of this valley or gets around back to Glenwood?” I asked. “Micaiah will be all right, but they’ll kill Pilate.”

  Wren’s face hardened into stone. “Then I will murder everyone in the ARK. I will skin Tibbs Hoyt and wear him like a jacket. I swear to God, Cavvy. I swear to God.”

  “Don’t say that,” I whispered. “God don’t like it.”

  “God don’t care.”

  “I do.” Out the driver’s door I went. I fled her rage and hurt ’cause it was getting to me.

  Cold, so cold, even with the itchy wool blanket around my shoulders. I’d given up on the slippers and went barefoot across the snow. I climbed up the ladder on Marilyn’s side and stuck my feet near the boiler. My toes found relief in the heat.

  Marisol and the others were out, wrapped in blankets, all weary and mealy-eyed from travel sleep, which didn’t feel like sleep at all. We had some cans of pears and peaches, which Wren opened with her Betty knife.

  We each got a can. I ate the fruit and slurped up the sugar juice. It had that metallic taste, but I’d grown up eating Juniper canned food, so it made me a little homesick for the ranch.

  It took me a minute to remember that peaches had been important to Micaiah. Us eating them together had been a turning point in our relationship. It made me sad that he’d not been my first thought.

  After eating, I took a pair of pants Wren had grabbed from one of the Regios we’d killed, and I cut the fabric to wrap my feet. Wasn’t ideal, but it was better than nothing.

  In my pant-shoes, I walked over with a can of fruit to give to Rachel in Audrey Hepburn’s cockpit. Rachel refused to ea
t. She sat there, gray-faced, eyes like flint from her heartbreak. She had so wanted to find Pilate. Not finding them with the ARK convoy was like losing them all over again.

  I kissed Rachel’s cheek and left the can next to her, hoping she’d find the strength to eat.

  “Hope is our weapon, Rachel,” I said to her. “But if you don’t eat, you won’t have the strength to use it.”

  She finally gave in and picked up the can of peaches but didn’t join us outside.

  I returned to my perch above the boiler. The firebox still glowed red, and I’d wait until the metal returned to a normal color before we continued our chase.

  Sharlotte sat next to me. Those with better shoes stood around in the snow. Marisol, Dutch, and Wren—who was tucked under one of Dutch’s arms, which I didn’t like. Not at all. Leave it to Wren to fall in love with a rattlesnake.

  I just had to ask him, “Hey, Dutch, how come you decided to join us? And what business did you have in the Rockies?”

  Dutch grinned at me like I was just such a clever thing daring to ask him questions.

  Wren answered in a chuckle. “Dutch travels is all. He was all over the place with the circus. That’s where I met him. And it was Dutch who taught me how to shoot. We were quite a pair, best shots in the Juniper. The tricks we did made ladies faint. But the circus gets old quick. So good ol’ Dutch decided he could do like Pilate did, went around preaching, running security, and of course, helping women to have babies. Like a walking ARK clinic.”

  The way she said it, laughing, like it was no big deal her boyfriend was an itinerant dirt bag sleeping his way across the Juniper.

  It did answer my question but made me hate him even more. I glanced over at Sharlotte, who ate and pretended not to hear any of it.

  Dutch laughed. That son of a skank, always laughing, smirking, and smiling. “Wren, that doesn’t portray me in a very good light. As a viable man, I have an important duty to perform for the good women of the Juniper.”

  Made me want to punch him in the mouth for saying that.

  “Actually,” Dutch said, “I was heading for Grand Junction ’cause I’d heard they were looking for guns. With Aces on the warpath, the pay would be good. I’d gone through Glenwood before, but I couldn’t stomach his brand of insane. Well, my own crazy baby Wren Weller put an end to him and his evil. May he rot in hell for all eternity. Or put another way, ‘The Lord’s winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’”

  “Ain’t you Hindu?” I asked him blankly. “Shouldn’t you be quoting from the Vedas or whatnot?”

  “Grew up Southern Baptist right here in the Juniper, Colorado territory, in Lamar before Dob Howerter made it his own personal palace. I’m African-American on my mother’s side. My father was full-on Indian, as in India ... not red-skinned injuns in feathers.”

  “That’s racist,” I fired back. “They’re Native Americans, or First Nations people, or in the Juniper, the Wind River People, not injuns or whatever you said.”

  Sharlotte chuckled next to me. “Cavvy, you do know who Dutch is like? Who he’s like exactly?”

  I had no idea. I shook my head.

  Sharlotte laughed again. “He’s Pilate with darker skin. Think about it, who else goes around preaching the gospel, getting in gunfights, and acting foolish?”

  Everyone was looking at me. I knew Dutch and Pilate weren’t alike, not at all. Pilate did the right thing, always, well, maybe not always, but I could trust him. I’d grown up with him. Dutch was a stranger, who was holding onto my sister Wren like he owned her: heart, skin, and blood.

  “Me being compared to Pilate?” Dutch grinned. “I am honored. But I’ll fall short. Pilate is a legend. I’m just a rambler, that’s all. No legendary status for me.”

  “But you are a better shot,” Wren said.

  Dutch asked her, “Hey baby, what are the two rules of life?”

  Wren giggled like a ditzy schoolgirl. “Never let your heart get in the way of a paycheck, and always, always, always, hit ’em right between the eyes.”

  “An A-plus answer, baby.” Then they French kissed like they were alone.

  It nauseated me. And made me miss Micaiah, though we had never been so public with our affections.

  Micaiah, Pilate. Captured. Had to get them back. Had to put Edger down for good.

  Sharlotte sighed and got off Marilyn to limp away.

  Marisol turned away. She was a quiet one, barely spoke. She had an old blue down coat on, which kept her warm, thank God. She looked up at me with gentle, brown eyes.

  “Marisol,” I started, “I know you’re from around here, but I don’t see how we can get you home. We have to chase after the ARK and rescue our boys. You understand, don’t you?”

  She nodded, but tears threatened to come spilling out of Marisol’s eyes. “But I can walk. Just get me close. I want to see my mom and dad again. Please.”

  “We’ll see,” I said. In English, those words put together in a certain way mean “Hell no.”

  I looked down at my feet. The firebox had finally cooled to the silver color of treated titanium. We could leave and get back to our hunt.

  The snow had covered the tracks of the ARK vehicles, but visibility had cleared enough that we should be able to see them if they tried to sneak by us.

  “Tell me about Aspen,” I said to Marisol.

  “I don’t know anything about Aspen. We never went there,” Marisol said. She took in a deep breath. “I was out alone in the fields when the Glenwood raiders found me. I don’t know what happened to my parents, my brothers, or my sisters. I was too young for Aces’s men to fight for me. I was there six weeks when you came.”

  It was an echo of what she had told me in the hot springs the first night we met. She talked in a small, tearful voice that broke my heart.

  “You had brothers?” I asked.

  She nodded. “Though I wasn’t supposed to talk about them. Please, Cavvy, we’re so close. Please, take me home.”

  I sighed. She had no intel on Aspen for us, and I’d heard her story before. Brothers ... I couldn’t imagine having even one brother, and she had multiple. I thought about asking more, but I felt Pilate and Micaiah getting farther away from us. There was only one thing to do. “We’d better go. Sorry, Marisol. Sorry for everything.”

  I stoked up the boiler with the last of the coal, added several gallons of water to each of the Stanleys, and then climbed into the Marilyn’s driver’s seat. I followed the Audrey Hepburn down the road.

  Two hours later, the Audrey stopped in the middle of the road.

  “Marisol wants us to take her home,” I said.

  Wren said exactly what I was thinking. “Poor girl. We can’t. No time.”

  But she hadn’t seen Marisol’s tears. I tried to engineer a solution. “What if we put up a guard, maybe Rachel. We can set up a signaling system. If Rachel sees Edger’s convoy coming, she fires three shots, and we come back quick.”

  Sharlotte had heard us through the communication tube. “That sounds reasonable. Come on, Wren, she’s still so little.”

  “Twelve isn’t little,” Wren grumbled. “But I won’t be the bad guy in this. Just ’cause I didn’t really have a mother don’t mean we should take Marisol’s away from her.”

  We both heard Sharlotte sigh, long and hard. She hated talking about Mama, even still.

  “Okay,” I said, “we do this quick. Maybe we can get Marisol’s people to give us some supplies. Or maybe they saw Edger come past. And we can ask about Aspen.”

  Finally, both Wren and Sharlotte agreed.

  (iv)

  I walked Rachel to the line of trees about two hundred meters from the road. My pants-shoes worked fairly well, but my feet hurt a little from my wounds.

  Ha. I didn’t know then just how much of a problem my feet would become.

  Under the canopy of pines, I stopped. “Okay, Rachel. If you s
ee anything, fire three times, and we’ll come storming back in. Don’t engage them, not without our full force.”

  Rachel nodded. Pain showed on her face.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “What if I never see Pilate again?” she asked. “What if I can’t get more of my medication? What if we can’t complete our imperatives?”

  “We just can’t let ourselves lose hope is all,” I answered. “We have to use hope as a weapon.”

  “Before I had emotions, I had no concept of hope or doubt. I lived in a certainty that my logic could solve any problem I faced. You would call it faith, perhaps, faith in my own abilities and the superiority of the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative.”

  “Sounds like you drank the ARK’s purple Kool-Aid. Propaganda and unquestioning faith are amazing things, aren’t they?”

  “Yes,” Rachel answered quickly. “It’s better than this self-doubt and terror. Why did evolution give you humans emotions?”

  “So, you don’t think you’re human?” I asked.

  “I’m not.” She looked me full in the face. “I have a human shape, but I’m different. Everything about me is different.”

  “Me, too,” I said. “Maybe I’m not human either.”

  She touched my arm. “Don’t tease. You had a mother, a father, sisters. You grew up. I was engineered. Even my DNA isn’t fully human.”

  Her words made me shiver. “But you must have human chromosomes, Rachel. How else would you have your shape, your speech, your emotions? No, you’re human.”

  “I’m not.” She paused. “It’s critical you understand what the ARK is creating. Part of their research and development into organic weaponry is to transcend the bipedal model to look for the perfect soldier. Other animals might be more efficient soldiers.”

  What could I say to that? What kind of monsters was the ARK creating?

  I thought of the hogs. On our travels, we’d heard scary stories about huge creatures in the Colorado territory. People called them hogs, and they weren’t like any kind of Outlaw Warlord the Juniper had ever seen. No, these things, if they existed, were psychotic killing machines, beyond all reason. Part of me believed it was only Juniper gossip; part of me was terrified we’d meet them face to face.