Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  And what would Micaiah say?

  He’d say Nikola’s tech was sound. He’d say we had two problems, the depth of the snow and poor visibility. Both kept us going too slow. Both would kill us. Either we’d run out of wood to burn or we’d topple off the road and fall to our deaths. If an avalanche didn’t take us out first. We had to get over the pass and quick before that happened.

  Answers came to me for both problems. I’d implement one first, then the other later on. I opened my eyes. “I’ll go out. I’ll scout on the skis. Wren, you’ll drive the Marilyn. I’ll wear your dumb hat so you’ll be able to see me.”

  Wren scowled. “It’s not a dumb hat. I like it.”

  Which made me roll my eyes. “And I thought you had fashion sense.”

  Of course, Wren fired back. I figured she wasn’t so much afraid of dying as she was of having her vanity called into question. “I have more fashion sense than you, Ms. New Morality, and I think it’s kind of silly and cute. That damn pink coat is going to help me see you, not my hat.”

  “Girls!” Sharlotte shouted down. “Now is not the time. Cavvy, get out on the skis. Wren, go slow and keep us on the road. The worst might be behind us. Let’s keep on keeping on.”

  I got out and figured out the binding on the skis. Very simple mechanisms, and I’d skied before. Thank you, Anju!

  I had gloves, I had a scarf, the dumb orange hat, and even ski goggles. One lens was kind of melted, but I could still see. And I had the pink down coat. Like I’d thought, my left wrist grew chilly where the cuff had melted. I’d take care of that with a sock we’d squirreled away in the storage.

  The Audrey moved up next to the Marilyn. Marisol rolled down the window and asked, “Cavvy, are you okay?”

  “Yeah, thanks to your friend Eryn Lopez. Her gear really saved us.”

  I expected Marisol to tear up. Instead, I saw confusion on her on face. Maybe the trauma had jumbled up her memory.

  “You know, Eryn Lopez,” I said. “She was your neighbor I’m guessing.”

  “Oh yes, yes, Eryn,” Marisol said, and she rolled up the window and leaned against Dutch.

  Poor thing.

  Still, that look of confusion on her face, like it was a brand-new name to her. That blank look. It chewed on me a little ’cause it seemed familiar.

  Now was not the time to ruminate on whether or not Marisol had known Eryn Lopez, who was now surely dead. I had to get us going. And while, yes, I’d been on skis before, it had been a bit ago, and I hadn’t done it all that much.

  I poled off and slid across the snow and fell but managed to lever myself up thanks to the poles. I fell a few more times, but it wasn’t long before I found myself in a rhythm. Pole, left heel up, right foot down, pole, then switch. Slowly, I moved across the snow.

  My feet were doing better, or so I tried to convince myself.

  Up drifts, down into shallower snow keeping tight to the mountain, following the road. Having a background in engineering helped ’cause I would anticipate the slopes based on the contours of the mountain range.

  Wren followed me in the Marilyn. We progressed much faster with me scouting out the quickest path out front. Nearer to the ground, I could maneuver us around the larger drifts, which really helped.

  A couple of hours later, I was wrung-out exhausted, thirsty, and hungrier than I had ever been in my life.

  I started up a slope of snow, steep and deep, and I collapsed over my poles. It would take the Marilyn forty-five minutes to pound through the snow, easy. We were losing the day, creeping along.

  It was time to implement the other part of our plan. I skied back as Wren put the Marilyn’s big foot right into the snow. The Marilyn’s mesh feet weren’t keeping her from sinking. She needed snowshoes.

  I waved my poles, signaling Wren. She eased the Marilyn back.

  “Hold on a minute!” I yelled over the wind. “I’m going to make snowshoes for the Stanleys.”

  Stopping even for a minute, the icy breeze shivered me to my bones even with the tights, skirt, and wool sweater. Oh, how I missed my high-tech clothing I’d had on the cattle drive to Wendover.

  Wren opened the driver’s side door and swung out. “Snowshoes? Really?”

  I unclipped out of my skis and walked around to the Marilyn’s backside. I undid the packing straps and let all the shovels, picks, and iron digging bars drop, clattering down into the snow. From out of the supply cabinet, I got out an extra wool sock. Cutting off the toes, I forced it around my chilly wrist where the coat’s sleeve had burned off. Then I retrieved the all-weather duct tape and commenced to do more Juniper engineering.

  Wren and Rachel helped me as the snow continued to blow. Using a lattice work of long-handled implements, duct tape, and the packing straps, I rigged up snowshoes for Marilyn. I’d test the shoes on her first, then I’d do the Audrey if it worked.

  I was cold, I ached, I was on the other side of tired, but working on engineering I forgot about my pains, even my throbbing feet. I remembered stories of Maggie Jankowski working day and night, ordering breakfasts in the morning and eating them as leftovers for lunch, dinner, and breakfast the next morning after having worked all night.

  If she could do it to save the world with the Eterna batteries, well, I could do it to get us over Independence Pass—aptly named for us. If we could get over the ice and snow, we could free ourselves from Tibbs Hoyt and the ARK. Free the world. A true Independence Day for everyone.

  Still, my mind niggled at me. How come Marisol hadn’t known Eryn Lopez?

  And were the hogs up here, camped out in the snow, waiting on us like trolls waiting on billy goats?

  (ii)

  I stood by as Wren raised the Marilyn’s right foot and the latticework of handles and bars all spiderwebbed together with silver duct tape. The foot came down in the snow and I winced at the cracking and splintering. The left foot came forward with more complaining from the tools taped to the foot. But right foot, left foot, each foot held. The various tools were so sticky and tangled, a little breakage didn’t matter.

  And lickety-split, the Marilyn stomped up and over the snowdrift. My snowshoes worked great.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Audrey was equipped with a similar construction, but better ’cause I’d already done it once. I got it working and watched as Marisol drove her Stanley over the snowbank.

  I then dropped my head into my wet gloves. My eyes ached. My fingers and toes were numb. But I had to keep going.

  Before, as I skied ahead, I’d gotten breaks. I’d had to wait on the Stanleys to bust through the snowbanks. Now, they’d be on my heels, driving me forward.

  Had to keep going. Our wood was half gone. Rachel and Sharlotte filled our water jugs with snow, but even packing them full only gave us a little water. Not a lot of moisture in Colorado snow.

  If we ran out of water or wood, we’d be stopped. I could get through the snow on the skis, but the others would be stranded. Snow was too deep. Which was why the old state government had closed Independence Pass during the winter months, back when there was a state government.

  By the time twilight fell, I’d stopped being a mind and only my weary body remained. If I stopped even for a minute, I’d freeze, so I kept going, keeping my blood pumping, though I was pushed beyond my endurance. Should’ve studied harder in gym class. However, running for your life and chasing after super soldiers did give a girl a good workout.

  Darkness wrestled with snow, both trying to conquer the sky.

  The Marilyn and the Audrey stopped. I turned.

  Wren popped out of the door. “Can’t hardly see you, Cavvy, even with your pink coat and my gorgeous orange hat. Figure we’ll bed down for the night.”

  I let out a sigh of relief.

  Our dinner was meager; cans of green beans and stale saltine crackers. But resting, eating, drinking water, would be a welcome change for my exhausted muscles. I could rest my feet and touch up my bandages in the arms of the Marilyn.

  I collaps
ed into her driver seat. Didn’t know I was asleep until Rachel woke me. She said Wren and Dutch wanted to sleep in the Audrey’s gunner seat alone.

  I frowned at that. I knew they wouldn’t sleep, not how they hung on each other every chance they got.

  Wasn’t long before Marisol joined us in the Marilyn to sleep next to Sharlotte above me and Rachel. Before sleep claimed me again, I thought maybe Marisol was still so traumatized about losing her family, she’d forgotten all about Eryn Lopez. Most likely, that was exactly what was going on.

  Night passed. I woke up alone, hungry, thirsty, aching. Rachel was already up, feeding the fires with scraps of wood, melting water, and watching the storm.

  It wasn’t going away. Another half-meter of snow lay on us. We had to scrape both sides of the windshields. The condensation from our breathing had frozen the inside of the glass, and the storm had iced up the outside.

  We were out of food and had only about a third of our wood left. We’d be tromping down to the tree line on vapors. I knew we’d wind up burning the snowshoes at the end. We might end up burning everything else, too.

  What would we eat?

  My head ached. I hadn’t slept as well as I had thought, not with the altitude. We were well above three thousand meters, which made sleep hard no matter how tired the body. And I needed to drink more. I needed to eat. I needed ibuprofen for my head. I needed Pilate’s laughter and the smell of his cigar, and I needed Micaiah’s arms and his kisses, kisses on my neck, under my ear, ticklish but sublime.

  I got none of it.

  And the memories of our boys thickened in my mind. Micaiah’s bracelet was still around my wrist. The chalkdrive he’d carried was around my neck. Both were pure Juniper jewelry: made from scrap and bloodied from battle.

  Like Wren’s bullet in my pocket, the bullet she’d thrown at Micaiah a million years ago when she threatened to beat the truth out of him. The same bullet Gianna Edger had found when she was sniffing around us back on the Scheutzes’ ranch.

  Edger was dead and gone.

  Hopefully, we wouldn’t join her.

  At least my winter gear had dried overnight. I’d put it close to the firebox, and the heat had done the work.

  Sharlotte stood with me in the snow before we started. She put her arms around me. Didn’t say a word, just hugged me. We stood there like that, her holding me, me embracing her arms.

  On the cattle drive, my sister had transformed herself from a tyrant into a friend, and on our journey back across the Juniper, she had resurrected herself out of the death of her sorrow and pain.

  The world had taken a lot from her: our father, our mother, her hopes for romance, and even her leg. But the cruelty had also somehow managed to bring us closer together than ever.

  I let Sharlotte hold me. Then she turned me around. “I’ve been reading Eryn Lopez’s diary. Wren gave up on it pretty quick.”

  “She never was much of a reader,” I said.

  Sharlotte grinned. “No, not our Irene.” Then her face changed, and she grew serious. “Cavvy, Eryn never mentions Marisol. From what I can tell, Eryn would’ve been about three or four years older. Marisol is twelve, and so they would’ve hung out, played together, something. But there’s no mention of her.”

  I waved away her doubts. “It ain’t nothing, Sharlotte. You know how it goes. We never hung out with the Phipps kids, and they were our closest neighbors. Sometimes there’s no chemistry. I bet that’s what it was with Marisol and Eryn. Heck, I mentioned Eryn to Marisol and she had no clue who I was talking about.”

  Sharlotte breathed in deep. “You’re prolly right.” She glanced away.

  “Shar, is there something else?” I asked.

  My sister shrugged and kind of chuckled, like she was laughing at herself. “I got jealous of her, of Eryn Lopez, I mean. Don’t get me wrong, she was a Juniper girl, but she had it so easy out here. Aspen took care of her people, even those living on the outskirts. They had a militia, they kept the outlaws at bay, and Aces had trouble breaking their defenses so he was forced to collect women from Grand Junction. But it wasn’t just security. The women—the Aspen Council, they called themselves—they made sure everyone had enough to eat, that people were taken care of. The Lopez family wasn’t alone. Not once. And while Eryn had her chores, it wasn’t like she was responsible for three thousand head of cattle.”

  “And we were,” I said in a murmur. For as long as I could remember, Mama made it clear that we were alone, we were under siege, not only from Outlaw Warlords, but also from Dob Howerter. I’d grown up as a cattle baron from the age of five.

  “Eryn had a good life for as long as she had it,” Sharlotte said. A cold wind blasted snow down our collars. Shar winced. “But the fact is Eryn didn’t get to grow up at all. She’s dead, we ain’t, and while our work still sucks jack, it’s still our work.”

  “Saving the world,” I said, smiling wearily.

  Sharlotte nodded. “Saving the world. It’s what we Wellers do.”

  I hugged her again.

  “Ain’t you gonna comment on my cursing?” Sharlotte asked. “Mama would’ve smacked me.”

  “Just words,” I said. “Even our curses are voices in the silence.”

  Then Wren walked up with hickies on her neck. Stay classy, Burlington.

  But I wasn’t going to tease her any. It was, quite possibly, the last minutes we’d spend together on earth.

  Wren didn’t join us in a group hug. Nope. But she did put a hand on our shoulders and smiled. “You girls have done good. Dutch has been complaining. He’s all worried, but I said he couldn’t be in better hands.”

  “Is Marisol ready to drive?” I asked. “How is she this morning?”

  Wren made a face. “I don’t know. She seems fine. Why are you asking?”

  “No reason,” I lied.

  Marisol, so quiet, so shy. If she really wasn’t Eryn Lopez’s neighbor, who was she then? If she was lying about knowing Eryn Lopez, what else could she be lying about?

  Prolly nothing. I could easily chalk it up to my imagination, and I chided myself.

  If I was tired of worrying about the snow or Marisol, I could always switch to fretting over the hogs.

  Nice thing about the Juniper, you could always find something to fear.

  (iii)

  By noon, I was actually feeling pretty good, and the snow had let up some. My feet had numbed up; I hadn’t checked my wounds. I could do that once we were safe.

  I still skied, since visibility was hard, but we were off the summit, going down the other side. The wind would blow the snow away, and I’d get a glimpse of the peaks above us and the glacial valleys below. Downhill would be easier on me. Far easier, though I’d have to practice stopping with the wedge I made, which in better times they called a snowplow or a pizza slice, depending on your age. Anju had taught me during our ski trip to Wisconsin. Of course, Becca Olson, that rich priss, bragged about her trips to Lake Tahoe in California.

  My friends and enemies from the Sally Browne Burke Academy for the Moral and Literate seemed a billion kilometers away and a million years behind me.

  Skiing down, I realized Sally Browne Burke really had no place in the Juniper. Living was hard, living right was, at times, impossible, and her high ideals had to be tempered with reality. Well, that’s where God lived anyway, in the gray realities of the real world. Shame someone hadn’t told her that.

  We didn’t stop for lunch since we had no lunch to eat. I figured we had about another thirty kilometers left, about four more hours. My brilliant idea to put snowshoes on the Stanley had increased our pace sevenfold.

  I skied down and swooshed to a stop. I was getting pretty good. Too bad my migraine was trying to kill me, or I might’ve enjoyed myself. Dang altitude sickness.

  I turned and watched the Stanleys march forward, otherworldly machines belching smoke and moving like robots welded out of cars plucked out of a junkyard.

  The Marilyn took a huge step, and then the pipes of
her right arm busted open in a cloud of white steam; all the pressure was lost in seconds. All my hopes went up in that steam.

  Both Aces and Gianna Edger were getting back at us from beyond the grave. His grenade had weakened the pipes. Falling into the pit had hurt the Marilyn further. The hours of hard work had finally made it snap.

  Without a closed system, the whole pressure system ceased to work. Could I fix her?

  Nikola’s design was complex. And she was one of the best engineers in the world. What was I? Some desperate, wrung-out Juniper girl, on top of a mountain pass in a blizzard, with six people’s lives depending on how well I could think.

  It was too far to go back.

  Going forward was our only option.

  Chapter Eight

  I couldn’t have you less

  But I couldn’t want you more

  You only let me love you

  When you’re halfway out the door

  —Iris Heller

  (i)

  I WAS ON THE Marilyn’s arm with my tools, unratcheting, unscrewing, working even as hunger nipped at my belly. My migraine had worsened, making it hard to see, even harder to think.

  Sharlotte sat next to me, making sure I drank water. We were boiling down snow as fast as we could. It tasted like cold ash in my mouth.

  The rest of our people were milling about. A break in the blizzard allowed them a chance to get out and stretch their legs. The sun struggled to come out, but Mama would’ve called the little bit of blue above us a sucker hole; the sky was trying to sucker us into believing the storm was blowing on. It wasn’t. I knew it.

  I couldn’t get to the busted pipe, so I wasn’t going to try to patch the hole. My best bet to get her running again was to dismantle that section of the steam system, turn off the arm for good and create a seal. Duct tape was all I had to work with, but the Sino-American War had given us about a million stories of how duct tape had saved the day. Had been a whole series about it you could find on the Eternity video library.

  Sharlotte finally sighed. “Cavvy, what about transferring all of our gear to the Audrey Hepburn and just taking the one Stanley? It would be packed in tight, but some of us could take turns riding on the outside. Or maybe we can convert one of the trunks to allow someone to ride in there.”