Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Pilate nodded. “Like Frodo and Sam into Mordor.”

  I knocked him with my elbow. “Can we talk about real things, Pilate?”

  June Mai Angel didn’t smile, but I could see she was thinking hard. I could almost hear her head going. I could definitely feel the vibe of her excitement. She knew about impossible missions and violence and desperation. She was a decorated Sino veteran and the most powerful Outlaw Warlord the Juniper had ever seen.

  She also knew a good plan when she heard it. Even if it came from some country girl, just barely seventeen.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  She nodded, and that was that.

  Marie Atlas stood. “I will begin the preparations. We have intel the United States is coming. If they should engage us before our plans are set?”

  “I will talk with the lieutenants,” June Mai said quietly. “I have thought about several contingency plans.”

  It was all settled, and I felt good, until the Outlaw Warlord stared me down. “I will agree to your plan. However, I want to carry the chalkdrive.”

  Everyone on my side of the table froze. I didn’t know how to tell her no, though I had to say something, and quick. The day before, I’d gladly given up the chalkdrive. But after food, water, and rest, I had my shakti going to finish this thing we had started. I once more felt the weight of our sacred duty, and I found myself committed to a new imperative: help get the chalkdrive out of the Juniper and deliver it safely to someone who could tell the world.

  Before I could say a word, Pilate spoke. He talked around the cigar in his mouth, unlit, thank goodness. “Oh, June, that’s not going to happen. First of all, our trust only goes so deep. You, yourself, could be a Severin. But more than that, if it comes down to it, we need you to be more badger than mule. You fight. Cavatica mules. End of story.”

  “Why?” June Mai asked.

  Marie Atlas still stood, but now she squared her shoulders to us. Her hand strayed to the pistol at her side. We all saw it.

  “Simple,” Micaiah said. “Pilate wants to protect Cavatica, as do I. She becomes precious if she has the chalkdrive.”

  “Precious!” Pilate erupted. “My precious!”

  I shot him a mean look.

  Micaiah didn’t get the joke; he kept on going: “I should not carry the chalkdrive as I am the other part of the equation. Even without the stolen data, I could use my presence as proof of my father’s duplicity.”

  “And if I tried to take the chalkdrive away from you?” June Mai asked in a quiet voice.

  Sketchy grumbled, but Tech shushed her.

  Pilate leaned forward. “One of us would walk out of here leaving bloody footprints behind. I’d bet on my people. We are cursed to live, despised by death, and blessed by the Lord Jesus Christ.” Pilate smirked at those last words ’cause he didn’t believe them at all. Sounded good though.

  June Mai smiled. Finally. Took a minute. “Very well. Cavatica will continue to carry the cure.”

  Pilate scratched a wooden match across the tabletop and lit his cigar. “Glad to hear it.” Then to me, he said, “Well, Cavvy, once again we’re in bed with the enemy.” To the Outlaw Warlord, he threw a wink. “What about you and me in an actual bed, June Mai? Any chance that’s going to happen?”

  I shook my head. “Really, Pilate? You’re gonna flirt right in front of me?”

  “Don’t look,” Pilate said, without a lick of shame. Then to June Mai, “So how about it?”

  June Mai wasn’t answering. Only the barest of grins touched her lips. She glanced at Marie Atlas for a second, then said, “No.” Yet those eyes, they spoke volumes.

  They said she was a definite maybe.

  Which made me sigh, “You’re such a dog, Pilate.”

  Pilate breathed out smoke. “Make love, not war.”

  “Make both,” June Mai said.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Gonna be a war tonight

  Gonna be blood on the streets

  He’s looking so cute

  She’s strapping on her boots

  Tonight let all the soldier girls sing

  Gonna be a war tonight

  Take off that wedding ring

  —LeAnna Wright

  (i)

  A WEEK LATER, MY FEET were healed, and I was saddle sore and exhausted. I forgot how much work it was, taking care of a remuda of sixteen ponies.

  I knew some of the horses, since June Mai had confiscated them from local ranchers, after the families left either for the World or for Sterling and Mavis’s operations there. Some of the Burlington folks stayed on, though, joined up with June Mai to feed her soldier girls and tolerate her taxes.

  Riding the horses of my former neighbors made me sad and made me wonder if I’d made the right decision in coming to June Mai for help. Especially when she had all but demanded I give her the chalkdrive.

  There were eleven of us on the ground and three in the sky. On horseback with June Mai were six of her best soldiers and Captain Marie Atlas. She’d just been promoted and was proud of it. June Mai’s other generals were in Lamar, consolidating her forces there, or had remained in Burlington with the decoy battalions.

  So, June Mai’s eight, including herself, three on the Moby—Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz—and the remnants of my family—Pilate, Micaiah, and me—totaling fourteen.

  Pilate smoked cigar after cigar, dropping them on the plain, but then he had a ton of them. June Mai had lots of contraband which she sold to finance her operation: booze, Skye6, boys, tobacco products, things like that.

  I worried over Pilate getting cancer, either in his lungs or his mouth, though in the World, the Mayo Clinic had figured out a cure for most cancers. Still, him smoking was bad business. I spent that week on him about it, right up to that very last night.

  The next day we would reach Plainville, and we’d try to cross over into Kansas. The night was cold, but the air was still enough to stake down the Moby near our camp. The zeppelin disappeared in the dusk as the light faded into an early evening. November marched toward December. I felt myself filled with the same hope that every soldier has had since the beginning of time: that the war would be over by Christmas.

  Living in hope and loving my ponies, I picked hooves, combed coats, and checked eyes, forelocks, noses, and teeth. I had a few sick horses, but I took care of them as best I could. Problem was I didn’t have much medicine. A worse problem, I was reticent to get too close to them, knowing, most likely, these horses would die violently. One minute I’d be combing a coat on a warm body, enjoying the smell and the nicker of the animal, and the next I’d remember in my fingertips how it felt when the horses near Broomfield had been shot down right in front of me, saving me from the bullets of the first of the Vixxes we’d encountered.

  Or I’d remember the squeals of other horses shot and dying. Would these horses meet a similar fate? Not sure. Then before I knew it, I’d press my face against the stubble of the flanks of a horse like Miley, an appaloosa mare who loved to run.

  Physically, I was doing much better. Rest, food, and water can do wonders. But emotionally I felt damaged, fragile, and, though it shames me to say, I missed the Skye6.

  I was feeling hateful when June Mai rode up. I’d been waiting on her to bring me Corwin, a palomino stallion who was so blond, he seemed to glow in the dimming light. She stepped out of the stirrups and gave me the reins in a quick motion. I was immediately reminded of Wren, the natural athleticism she had, how she moved like water flowing.

  I sighed. Missed Wren. Missed the Skye6. But I got to work. June Mai didn’t charge off right away, and I felt her staring.

  She stood there long enough to goad me into talking. “You picked a good horse to ride, Ms. Angel. Corwin is a fine horse, and I remember when he was a colt, running around on the McNamara ranch. Did you steal him away? I would imagine Betsy and her children headed off to Hays to escape the war. If they can get across the border, they’ll prolly be homeless. If they can’t, they’ll starv
e. You did that. You feel guilty?” Oh, I was burning with self-righteous indignation, and hateful, so hateful, and cold.

  June Mai paused to consider me.

  “How old are you, Cavatica?”

  Wrong question. I hit her with my fire. “Old enough to know right from wrong. Old enough to have seen this pony born and grow into a horse you stole.”

  “Do you believe in free will?” she asked in an even voice.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not so sure I do,” she said. “We’ve had this conversation before, and I said that I can’t justify the things I’ve had to do, but that’s not exactly right. I can. Would you like to hear my reasons, or would you like to continue to hate me?”

  Now I had to pause. Stop and pause and think ’cause I remembered Pilate saying something similar to Sharlotte when we first started the cattle drive. Sharlotte had been so devastated by Mama dying but was trying to pretend she wasn’t.

  I wanted to show June Mai I didn’t care what she said, so I murmured, “Okay, yeah. How can you justify it?”

  June Mai took off a glove—a nice Nferno glove, but ragged from use. Her hand was white, almost like Corwin’s coat. She raised it above her head. “I set my goal. I set it here, and I swore I would get my voice heard by the powers that be in Washington, DC. I would make them hear me. I tried the normal routes. I left the Juniper. I went to the media, and nothing happened. I tried to be civil. The powers didn’t care about civility. They threatened the reporters. They muted me at every turn. In the end, the few interviews I did fell on deaf ears ’cause the American people were not interested in veterans, the past, their horrific war. They had power, prosperity, and the brightest of futures. They wanted only good news, and I was there, bringing bad. I might as well have been whispering.

  “So, I returned to the Juniper with my goal ever in my mind. And I did unspeakable things in honor of that goal. Not for me, but for my soldiers. I sacrificed my free will for a higher purpose. What have you done in your quest to deliver the chalkdrive to me?”

  Brushing down Corwin, I went over my list of sins. I’d killed. I’d chosen the chalkdrive over getting medical care for Sharlotte, and then I cut her leg off. I’d abandoned Pilate and Micaiah in Glenwood Springs. I’d walked away from the avalanche with my sisters buried beneath it. I’d lied to Alice.

  Did I get to choose all of that? Or had every decision been thrust upon me? I glowered and said nothing.

  ’Cause I too had sacrificed my free will for a higher purpose.

  June Mai went on. “You, like me, did what you had to do. In the past, Washington, DC was able to censor me. They won’t be able to squelch the news that the Sterility Epidemic has a cure and the infamous Outlaw Warlord, June Mai Angel, brought it out of the Juniper. Again, I ask, please, give me the chalkdrive. Pilate and the rest don’t need to know, and this bit of subterfuge might just be the secret that saves the day.”

  Slipping the horse brush into one of the cargo pockets on my pants, I brought the chalkdrive out of my shirt. Such a simple thing. Just a little bit of metal and circuitry.

  I saw her eyes fix on it.

  Then, contrary as a hungover Wren, I put it away. “You want it, you can take it off my cold, dead body. After all the people you’ve killed, killing me would prolly be real easy for you.”

  Wordless, she turned away, and I figure she’d go, but she didn’t. She stopped, then turned slowly around. “I haven’t slept, really slept, in years. If I’ve learned one thing, I’ve learned this ... every time I kill someone, either directly or indirectly, it weighs on me. We were not meant to butcher one another. Keep the chalkdrive. I will get you and your boy over the border. But promise me I will be standing at your side when you deliver the news to the World.”

  “I promise.”

  She put out a hand, and we shook on the deal.

  She held my eyes by her force of will. “I’m sorry for all that I have done to you, your family, and your town. I truly am.”

  Inside, something clicked. I felt what I had felt for June Mai back on the Scheutzes’ ranch, when I first heard Jenny Bell tell us about her. I felt pity, mercy, and a sad understanding that the world can be a hard place to live in. June Mai was right, free will is a nice idea, but is it a reality all the time? Not if we dedicate ourselves to a higher ideal.

  “I forgive you,” I whispered.

  She nodded at me, and I nodded back.

  “What will happen to you once you get America’s attention?” I asked.

  June Mai smiled wistfully. “I will have achieved my goal. What happens to me won’t matter after that. All I want is for America to honor her veterans and for them to receive the compensation they deserve.”

  In the end, that’s the trick. Make sure what you want is the higher ideal.

  “I’m sorry I was mean to you,” I said. Instead of that icy numb feeling inside, I felt compassion. She had humbled me.

  “I accept your apology, but really, what you are sorry for is nothing compared to what I am sorry for.” She touched my arm and then walked away.

  Corwin didn’t want to be ignored anymore, and he nosed me to pay attention to him. I drew his face to mine and rested my cheek against his. Tired ... I was so tired. And I swore that after all this was done, I’d rest on a ranch somewhere, and all I would do is take care of horses and ride them in sunshine and retreat from a world where haggard tyrants of all types felt the sharp scratch of their own thistle thrones.

  I picked Corwin’s hooves, all the while wondering why people out in the World could ignore June Mai.

  The answer was simple: Lonely Moon.

  It was a popular action show about several families trying to make it in the Juniper. One family were farmers fighting the weather, another were ranchers battling rustlers, and still another were a gang of outlaws. The good people won out, the bad guys got it in the end, and that was what people wanted. Americans like their fiction simple, their little stereotypes uncomplicated by reality.

  Lonely Moon had twisted the Juniper so Americans didn’t have to care about it in any real way.

  Why didn’t the World really know about June Mai Angel?

  Like on TV, people thought Outlaw Warlords should be bloodthirsty, crazy, and horrible. They wanted them safely behind SISBI fences. And they didn’t want them human or decorated U.S. veterans.

  June Mai was both. And with a righteous cause. Poor woman. I knew the costs of having a sacred duty.

  That last night, after cold rations of jerky, hardtack, and dried fruit, we sat around the fire, all fifteen of us, the air heavy, our moods subdued. We were all thinking the same thing. Tomorrow we’d either get lucky, sneak across the border, or we wouldn’t, and there would be war.

  Finally, the quiet became so deep and hard to bear, Marie Atlas asked June Mai to play us a song. They were always so close to one another. June got out her violin and played long, sad songs that drifted over the grasslands, full of her melancholy.

  And I saw it. She did feel guilt over the things she had done. And so did I.

  She played old Johnny Cash songs, like “Bury Me Not” and “Folsom Prison Blues” and new stuff, like “Cash and Jacks” from LeAnna Wright and “Traffic Stop” by Country Mac Sterling, and a ton of Pearl Cornell and Debra Alan Walker, who were popular at the time.

  Then she played classical music, deftly, and you could tell she’d been playing the violin her entire life.

  Her music brought all of my guilt, sorrow, and fear up into me, and I ended up closing my eyes and letting Pilate hold me, and I couldn’t find it in me to pray to Jesus, ’cause He and I weren’t on speaking terms. But I did listen to the music, then the quiet, and then Pilate’s heart and his breath, and the smell of his cigar burning in the darkness. It was God enough for me: Pilate and the quiet and the night.

  Micaiah sat by himself, listening, watching the fire. I knew he wasn’t feeling, but what was he thinking? What do you think about if you can’t feel?

  I couldn’t
even begin to answer that. He’d catch my eye, and I’d glance away. Too many memories of us in his eyes.

  We all listened in our remorse until it was time to go sleep.

  Cold and lonely is the night before war.

  (ii)

  In the distance, the Plainville Salvage Yards were visible, squat buildings and round hangers surrounded by trash of every description. It was hard to tell what was trash and what was building.

  It marked the edge of the Juniper, and I knew the power would be spotty. Here, the effects of the flood basalt flow’s EM field would fluctuate, turning on and off the electrical current in random intervals. On the other side of the Salvage Yards was the border fence, high and topped with razor wire. I’d talked to people who said the Plainville Salvage Yard was where a lot of illegals crossed, swimming through junk.

  That section of Kansas had little hillocks, which made recon hard, but we had the Moby overhead, and we had a signaling system. If Sketchy, Tech, or Peeperz saw something, they’d shoot flares into the sky as a warning.

  The prairie appeared deserted. Each step seemed to promise victory, until we came down the last of the hills, about a kilometer away from the buildings of the salvage yards and the border.

  A lone figure stood on the grasslands, and we all stopped when we saw her. Sitting on my horse Miley, I shivered. Whoever the lone figure was, she seemed so out of place, almost surreal. She leaned on a cane, or maybe a rifle, I couldn’t tell. But she was alone, nothing but grass and prairie dog holes around her.

  Pilate, June Mai, and me, we all exchanged glances. June Mai’s girls got their guns ready, but Marie Atlas reminded them to only shoot if ordered.

  Micaiah didn’t react at all. Big jackerin’ surprise there.

  A cold northern wind prodded dark clouds until half the sky was stygian with a storm.

  “Well, hell’s bells.” Pilate smiled. “Looks like someone sold us out after all. Let’s go say howdy anyway, shall we?” Pilate didn’t have his original Beijing homewrecker, but he had found another one, same model—a Mossberg & Sons G203 quad cannon with four barrels for shells, grenades, or mortars. It was an evil weapon in the hands of a priest who kept track of his ammunition by using the names of the gospel writers.