Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  We drove down I-70 to Burlington, but it wasn’t a town anymore, it was an encampment. Troops, guns, war equipment were everywhere. In the fields, in the meadows, on every empty bit of land, soldiers were bivouacked in every size and shape of tent.

  Signs of the siege were everywhere. Sheriff Lily’s office was nothing but rubble. Antonia’s General Store and Feed Shop had been emptied out completely. The office of the Colorado Courier was packed with weary-eyed soldiers, as was the Whole Donut, a pastry shop next door. The Chhaang House Bar and Grill still stood, but it was shot up and scorched. A few of the big trees in the central park had been blown apart and then sawed up for fuel; sawdust covered the ground.

  Every house in town had been marked by the combat or wiped clean off the face of the earth, like some Japanese kaiju monster had ambled through Burlington, leaving behind tire tracks, craters, pock marks.

  “Is the carousel okay, June?” I asked. “Or did you destroy that, too?”

  “No, the Kit Carson Carousel was spared. We made sure. It’s an historic landmark, as you well know. We tried to save as much of the town as possible. The last of the resistance retreated to your ranch, which had the best defenses ... a testament to your mother’s planning. I never met Abigail Weller, but I’ve heard the stories. She was quite a woman.”

  “She killed Queenie. Shot her right between the eyes.” Saying that made me think of Dutch and Wren. Then I felt the need to add, “Queenie was an Outlaw Warlord like you.”

  “Not like me,” June Mai said. “She was a bandit. I am far more warlord than outlaw.”

  I shot back, “You’re outlaw enough to try and pull down the Moby Dick. Outlaw enough to try and kill us over and over. Was that a part of your righteous cause, stealing from innocent people and then murdering them?”

  Pilate hugged me tighter. “There you go, Cavvy, I knew there was some Wren in you. Are you going to call her a skank next?”

  “Already told her she was an evil skank,” I muttered.

  June Mai waited for us to finish and then spoke, “No. She’s right. There is no moral justification for what I did to gather my arms and my soldiers. It was wrong, and yet what I have built, this army, you want to use it to bring the cure of the Sterility Epidemic to the world. What have you done for your own righteous cause, Cavatica? Can you justify all your actions?”

  She had me. I’d killed. I’d denied my own people three times. And I’d come to her to benefit from the poisoned fruits of her evil labors.

  “Thanks for not blowing up the carousel,” I said in a thick voice.

  “You should also thank Dob Howerter. He came through here to try and get a foothold in the Juniper. He could’ve sent his troops in from the north but didn’t. We think it was to save the carousel.” She went on to say that Howerter was still mad she had ousted him out of Lamar and taken over as the territorial governor. The territory officials had joined Howerter in Hays.

  “So you’re a dictator,” I said, “and the Colorado territory is under martial law.”

  June Mai nodded, “And still, the U.S. government has taken their sweet time to respond, months and months. If a coup had taken over Puerto Rico, ground troops would’ve been dispatched immediately. But then Puerto Rico isn’t a penal colony.”

  Getting caught up on current events didn’t much help me feel better. It only made me feel tired.

  I realized I had a canteen on my lap; Pilate kept forcing me to drink from it. I hadn’t noticed until right then, but I didn’t want water. Only I did. Maybe food, but only if Aunt Bea cooked it. Or a Gamma sausage, only half of it, ’cause Alice would generally steal the other half.

  We pulled up next to the Chhaang House, and I tried to get out but found I couldn’t. My legs had left me. Pilate helped me out, and I had to lean on him.

  June and Marie Atlas went into the Chhaang House, which had become their headquarters. I tried to get there, but my legs weren’t working, and I was feeling floaty.

  “Look up, Cavvy,” Pilate whispered. “I have a birthday present for you.”

  “You missed my birthday,” I said sleepily, but I looked up anyway.

  And there, on top of the old grain elevators, was the best zeppelin to plow through the clouds; floating above the cylinders was the Moby Dick, patched up in swaths of brand new Kevlar. The last of the light bathed her in red and winked off her gun turrets and windshields.

  All at once, tears filled my eyes.

  And before I knew it, I was crying ’cause even in my hopeless, hateful state, seeing Sketchy’s beloved airship floating above my embattled town filled me with love. Still, I knew it was going to be a long walk to the other side of my pain, my trauma, my PTSD.

  But I’d seen others walk it. Petal had walked it and got clean. Rachel had walked it, Wren had walked it. And I would, too.

  I couldn’t move, so Pilate picked me up and set me down on a seat outside of the Chhaang House.

  “Are Sketchy, Tech, Peeperz, in town? Are they okay?”

  Pilate nodded.

  I fell apart into sobs. “Oh, Pilate, don’t make me do any more of this alone. I was alone for days and days, walking, and I can’t do no more of this quest stuff alone. Please, don’t make me.”

  Pilate pulled me close. His own voice got clogged with emotion. “You won’t, Cavatica. If I have anything to say about it, you’ll never have to walk alone again.”

  He went on to tell me that Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz found him and Micaiah walking across the plains up north, near the Scheutz ranch, on their way to Sterling. Peeperz saw them, two men walking alone on the plain, and Sketchy buzzed down and picked them up. They flew them to Sterling, and then on to Burlington, to wait for me and my sisters.

  “How did you know we were going to come here?” I asked.

  “Come home? Where else would you go?” Pilate asked. “And Micaiah knew you’d deliver the chalkdrive to June Mai Angel. I said he was crazy, but he knows you, Cavatica. He knows how you think.”

  “He doesn’t have feelings any more, does he?”

  Pilate shook his head. “No. He pretends to laugh at my jokes, which is tragic for us both.”

  I couldn’t stop looking at the Moby, up there, in the sky. She’d lived.

  “What about Aunt Bea, Nikki Breeze, the others?”

  “Working for Mavis. All of them. And you should see Dolly Day brag about getting the cattle to Wendover. It’s hubris at its worst. I keep expecting Zeus to strike her dead. However, when someone asks what happened to the money from the drive Dolly gets real quiet.”

  “Allie Chambers still singing?”

  “Yes. But I’ve learned to walk away.”

  I chuckled a bit. Being with Pilate, chatting, was healing me. I wondered how that could be? How could simple talk and listening do anything? I didn’t know, but every second I sat next to him, I started to feel less like Wren and more like Cavatica.

  “Pilate,” I asked, “how did you get out of Glenwood Springs with all those ARK soldiers there?”

  Pilate patted my leg. “No long stories. Not tonight. You need to eat and go to bed.”

  “I’m not hungry.” The idea of food made me nauseated. “Okay, tell me more about Sketchy and the Moby.”

  And he did. Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz started working for Mavis Meetchum, who had become the biggest cattle operator in the Colorado territory once Lamar had fallen to June Mai. Dob Howerter, the evil cattle baron who had tried to drive my family out of business, was sent fleeing to Kansas. Mavis made a deal with June Mai, and so the Moby Dick also found herself working for the Outlaw Warlord. Tech talked with June Mai ’cause Sketchy couldn’t forgive the worst Outlaw Warlord ever for trying to murder her and steal her beloved zeppelin.

  Pilate did a too-good impersonation of Sketchy, which got me laughing. Even so hurt, so broken, I couldn’t help but laugh at Pilate, who loved to entertain.

  June Mai came out and handed Pilate a bowl of something and some corn tortillas, scorched and flaky.


  Pilate thanked her. I couldn’t. Every time I looked at that Vietnamese woman, I saw her soldiers, aiming to shoot us and kill us dead. I knew the old Juniper saying, “The Juniper can create friendships out of rainstorms,” but I couldn’t find it in me to forgive her.

  How often should we forgive people who wrong us? Jesus said to forgive your enemies seventy times seven, which is four hundred and ninety times. I was planning on never.

  I sighed and did my best. “Thanks, June. But I’m not hungry.”

  Pilate took the bowl anyway and dug into it. “Hmm, it’s green chili. Really good, too. The pork is pulled, a little chewy, and so spicy. Not canned chilis, no, they got fresh green chilis and roasted them like the Devil cooks sinners.” He crunched into one of the corn tortillas and then returned to spooning the chili into his mouth. “This is probably the best green chili I’ve ever had. Far better than Aunt Bea’s, sorry to say.”

  I watched him eat. Then got upset. “How can you eat that in front of me? It was for me.” And before I knew it, I grabbed the spoon out of his hand and scooped up a big spoonful dripping with chilis, tomatoes, and strings of pork. I stuffed it all into my mouth. In seconds, I’d eaten the bowl empty, the corn tortillas, and drank up the canteen and was about to lick the bowl clean when Pilate stopped me, went inside, and brought out another bowl. Which I ate.

  He even had a cold Coke in a glass bottle, which I grabbed from him and drank up in throat-shredding gulps.

  “Green chili was pretty good,” I said, “but not as good as Aunt Bea’s. But this Coke, dang, it’s like county-fair-good. I don’t suppose there’s pie. Or sopapillas.”

  Pilate grinned. “You Wellers, you are so easy. So contrary and easy.”

  “What?” I asked, then yawned. Dessert would have to wait; I needed a bed. In filthy clothes or not, I needed to sleep.

  Pilate helped me get into the bar, only it wasn’t a bar anymore. It was a command center, with maps, troop counts, women hurrying with reports, back and forth. June Mai was in the middle, her powerful eyes intent, and I caught them for a second. She gave me a head tilt. I didn’t give her one back.

  Then Marie Atlas pulled the warlord aside, and they whispered back and forth. Atlas even waved my way and motioned to Pilate.

  Pilate stared at them for a minute, and then escorted me up the stairs of the inn. Cheap wood paneling threatened to pull away from exposed two-by-fours. The carpet was flecked with debris. The Chhaang House had never looked worse.

  When we were out of earshot, I asked, “What do you suppose June and Marie Atlas were talking about?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Look, things are okay between us and June, and we need to keep it that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Another shrug. “Never mind. I shouldn’t have said anything.” Pilate wouldn’t look me in the eye; he was keeping something from me.

  Come to find out, everyone had a secret in June Mai’s camp.

  Some were deadlier than others.

  Chapter Sixteen

  He drove into Arlington in 1993

  A Texas-born cowboy blown in on the breeze

  He hit that bar at midnight with nothing left to lose

  He saw an angel clearing tables

  And then he knew ...

  Fifty years ain’t long enough

  To be married to a woman like that

  Fifty years is a raindrop

  Compared to the ocean of a woman like that

  —Country Mac Sterling

  (i)

  “WHERE’S MICAIAH?” I asked as Pilate showed me my own private room at the top of the Chhaang House.

  Pilate shushed me. “You’ll see tomorrow. But first, I have more birthday presents for you. Quite a few.”

  He showed me them all and then left me alone to enjoy them.

  One was a shower, hot water pumped from tanks above into a shower room. It was for the barracks of women, but I could use it by myself. Even had shampoos and conditioners from the World: Paul Mitchell and Herbal Essences and Givenchy body soap.

  I stood under the shower and felt heaven kiss me. It was a long time before I got to the washing part. But then I soaped up my shrunken body and hard muscles and bruises and cuts and scrapes. I looked for a long time at my hand, where I’d cut myself on Edith the Razorback’s spikes. It hadn’t healed. But with food, with soap and water, with rest, I knew it would. So would my blistered feet. So would my heart, talking to Pilate.

  After toweling off, I found pajamas made of a soft fleece—not a nightgown, but jammies, like I was five years old again, at home. Except Mama wasn’t going to show up to kiss me goodnight. And home was gone—my blue room with lacy curtains had been destroyed along with my ribbons I’d won from the county fair for having the best science experiment.

  I wanted to cry again, but I was too tired.

  Then I found the soft bed, and sleeping was like falling away into a soft oblivion. I spent a dreamless night, resting under blankets, on a mattress—on a real mattress—and a pillow, all smelling clean from Kansas laundry soap and Colorado sunshine and wind.

  Then I was awake, looking up at the cracks in the ceiling when I heard a knock on the door. “Come in,” I said.

  The door opened. Micaiah stood there, silhouetted from the light in the hallway, so I couldn’t see his expressionless face. I knew, if he wanted, he could pretend to be human, come up to me and fake emotions and make me fall in love with him again. He was a master manipulator, but I also knew he couldn’t pretend to be human with me ’cause I knew the truth about him.

  Since his face was hidden, I could imagine he had tears in his eyes, ’cause the Micaiah I fell in love with cried easily and without shame. Not this Micaiah who wasn’t Micaiah at all. I was looking at Micah Hoyt, a genetic clone of Tiberius “Tibbs” Hoyt, a man who made June Mai Angel look like the patron saint of puppies.

  “Hello, Cavatica,” Micaiah said from the doorway.

  I left the bed to see how much of Jesus I had left in my heart.

  Turns out, I had more than I thought.

  (ii)

  As I moved up to Micaiah, the light from the daylight in the hallway lit up his face, and like I thought, he looked at me with clear eyes in a full face, healthy, plump even, not like me and Pilate, sucked to our bones from our hellish pilgrimage, sacredly suffering as we did our duty to a higher cause.

  No, Micaiah looked like he’d just got back from a holiday on a cruise ship, like the ones Becca Olson used to go on, back at my academy. Rich priss. She couldn’t make fun of my weight now, but the irony was, I’d gotten too thin. Welcome to being a girl ... either too fat or too thin and never perfect. None of it mattered now that the boy I loved was incapable of loving me back. Such is the foolishness of vanity.

  Micaiah and I stared at each other.

  Then he asked about the only thing that we had in common: “Do you have the chalkdrive?”

  “No,” I said. Then had to change what I said; I could feel it on my chest. “Yeah, I guess I do. Pilate must’ve hung it around my neck while I was sleeping. Not sure why.”

  Neither one of us spoke for a long time. He didn’t know what to say ’cause after confirming I still had the chalkdrive, there was no other business between us.

  I could see him struggling, and you know what made it worse on him? The fact I knew the truth about him. I knew what he was, how slippery and soulless he could be.

  He stood there, conflicted. He couldn’t just leave the room, but he couldn’t stay there with me. And then, I found the last bit of mercy I had in my heart, the only bit that hadn’t been froze, burned, starved, or thirsted out of me.

  I went up to him, slowly, and took my hand in his, and entwined our fingers. I whispered, “I know how it feels to be like you. I’ve been numb like you are now, and it’s horrible. It’s like not having any money and going into a store. There’s all these wonderful things around you to buy, but you can’t afford a single one.”

  He nodded. If he’d
had emotions, he’d have been crying; he wanted to feel but couldn’t. It tortured him.

  I pulled him to the bed and sat him down. Then I went and opened the shades and let the sun splash inside, bright, Colorado sunshine. Even in November we had sunny days ’cause the Juniper was a place of light, no matter what dark things people did there.

  Sitting on the bed next to him, I again took his hand in mine. I wasn’t going to kiss the thing he’d become, but I could hold his hand, touch his arm, and listen as he told me the story of how he and Pilate had escaped Glenwood Springs.

  (iii)

  The plan had been for all of us—Dutch, Micaiah, Sharlotte, me—to get into the Marilyn Monroe. Together, we’d all meet up with Rachel, Nikola Nichols, and Marisol in the Audrey Hepburn at the eastern wall of Glenwood Springs. We’d all escape together to rendezvous with Pilate on I-70.

  But like they say in the military: plans change once boots hit the ground. Sharlotte and I managed to get into the Stanley, but Micaiah and Dutch both got pinned down by Aces’s men in a firefight. Micaiah knew he could take a storm of bullets, so that’s what he did, to give Dutch time to escape and trigger the explosives in the wall.

  Dutch got to us, but Micaiah couldn’t; the ARK soldiers stormed into the spa south of the pool after they blew the wall. Micaiah had been wounded terribly. His spine, his skull, his brain all worked, so he wasn’t paralyzed or dead, but he was hurt. He crawled into a closet to escape the ARK soldiers. There he waited, in agony, healing until he saw a chance to run.

  Finally he fled and met Pilate on the bridge above the Colorado River, where Highway 82 started. They couldn’t get to the rendezvous point ’cause the ARK troops were coming. They crossed the bridge, but stumbled in the darkness; they slid down the slope on the western side. That’s when Micaiah lost the bracelet and Pilate had lost his pack, including his stainless-steel mug. He’d managed to retrieve the pack, but not the mug.

  Then Praetor Gianna Edger had come rolling in with her convoy. Micaiah and Pilate had no choice but to flee into the night, away from the rendezvous point.