Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4)

by Aaron Michael Ritchey

  Tibbs Hoyt answered all the questions the media threw at him without looking at me once.

  Easy questions.

  Easier answers.

  All charges dropped. The misunderstanding in Wendover was just that, a misunderstanding.

  As ever, the ARK had America and the world’s best interest at heart.

  And that was the deal.

  Micaiah had bought our freedom. We were being forced to take a payoff and shut the hell up. But what would happen to Micaiah?

  If I knew Tibbs Hoyt, Micaiah would be decommissioned. And then a tragic accident would be announced, that Hoyt had found his son only to lose him so soon afterwards. Micaiah really was giving up his life for us.

  Like Rachel. What could be more human? What could be more Christian?

  One of the reporters, an Indian woman in a gorgeous green sari was chosen to ask a question, “So from the kiss, Micah, are you and Cavatica an item?”

  Micaiah played it demurely. “I’m not one to kiss and tell. But she is an amazing person. Smart, brave, funny, beautiful, everything.”

  “Cavatica, would you like to comment?”

  The whole world waited on me to say something, and I was damn sure not going to talk about my love life. No, I had a ton of things to say, but again, I knew one word of the truth and my family would die.

  I leaned forward. The room leaned forward to listen to me. It was my chance. I had the world’s attention.

  Both Tibbs Hoyt and Micaiah waited on me, both staring at me. Micaiah’s eyes were wrong, not there, blank. The kiss, his tears, had been a ruse. He couldn’t feel a thing, and that was how he could be lying to the World and walking away from me.

  I looked back at the cameras, and I forced myself not to feel even as I smiled. “He said I was smart. But when it comes to Micah Hoyt, I’m as dumb as a bag of hammers.”

  The room erupted in laughter, and Hoyt took over. “I’m afraid that is all the time we have. Thank you so much for coming out. And thank you again, Cavatica, for saving my son.”

  Hoyt stepped back and put his arms around Marie Atlas and Marisol, like a husband, a father, and there were pictures, waving, and I stood up with Micaiah, and we held hands.

  Marie Atlas leaned over to Tibbs Hoyt, and I heard her whisper, “The middle sister. We are having trouble with her.”

  That made me smile. I’d grown up with Wren. I knew. These jokers had no idea how much trouble she was going to give them.

  Micaiah drew me into a hug, a stiff lie of an embrace. He whispered in my ear, “Again, I apologize. But if you stay quiet, you will be taken care of financially for the rest of your lives. You will be safe. ‘Take this all of you and eat of it. This is my body, which has been given up for you.’”

  I drew back. “Jesus didn’t die to save his own people. He died to save everyone.”

  “I’m not Jesus,” Micaiah whispered. Then he moved away, joined his fake family, while I watched them walk off the stage.

  I was left alone.

  I turned, bathed in the light, blinded, while reporters hammered me with questions I couldn’t answer, not honestly, not if I wanted to walk out of there with my family still alive.

  I closed my eyes ...

  And listened for the silence between the shouted questions, camera clicks, the murderous pounding of my betrayed heart.

  I listened for the silence deep inside me.

  But nothing was there. Not silence. Certainly not God.

  I opened my eyes and looked out at the chaos of the world with the eyes of a dead woman.

  Memorare

  A candle in the window

  A star there in the dark

  Her smile wasn’t just a fire

  Her smile was the spark

  —Kris McCoy

  (i)

  REMEMBER ME, O MOST gracious Virgin Mary, remember me.

  Don’t forget me, Holy Mary, Mother of God, even if you are just a story mamas tell their babies on cold December nights when the light seems gone and the cold is here to stay. Help me, ’cause even now I can feel that sharp bite of pain in me when I sit on my own thistle throne.

  Forty years after that fateful day in the Marriott Conference Center’s Grand Ballroom, I have my own queendom in Colorado, a territory no more.

  It’s December in Burlington, and I’m in the ranch house I rebuilt myself, without Hoyt’s money; the promised money never came.

  We finished the house way before I started writing down my stories.

  Forty years later, in the year 2098 if you can believe it, that’s when I first put pen to paper. Time is a snake without a tail, and on most days, I can’t hardly comprehend how long it’s been and how far I’ve come since that bad day in Kansas.

  I can’t even begin to understand how I got to become older than my mama when she died. But I am. This past October I turned fifty-seven, and Mama died when she was fifty-three. Life is a funny thing, and aging is a dirty joke with a punch line that makes everyone feel awkward.

  Family and friends told me I needed to write my story down. Before then, I had a ton of people wanting my story: historians, biographers, Hollywood directors, and talent agents so slimy they couldn’t hold a spoon to stir their coffee. Everyone wanted to know all there was to know ’cause I’d somehow become a celebrity.

  It wasn’t ’cause of that moment in Hays, Kansas, when Micah Hoyt sucker punched me a second time on live video so the world could see.

  And I didn’t get famous for the near-impossible cattle drive, or the dead run back across the Juniper, crawling down that long, lonesome highway.

  No, fame hit me after. For what I did after Micah dropped me, took the chalkdrive and gave it to his daddy. Tibbs Hoyt prolly thought he’d surely never have to deal with me again, since I was only a Juniper girl, a piece of nothing that he didn’t have to look at twice and never in the eye ...

  I became famous after all that.

  When I threw down my Bible and strapped on my guns.

  The fame served me, but then I had help using it. I got rich, but that isn’t so hard after you’ve died and walked across shards of broken glass to get back alive.

  Funny, but we started out on our adventures to save the ranch and failed. But I eventually did rebuild our blue house on the yellow plains.

  But I added a little office Mama would’ve been jealous of, right off the main living room, with books, a broad desk, and my paper and pens, ’cause I got in the habit of writing that way.

  I’m looking out the window now, at the dark that comes so early in the day, and the shadows that have grown long. I can see Mama’s and Daddy’s grave markers, now granite and fancy ’cause now everything I have is new; nothing I own is salvaged, which isn’t as grand as I thought it would be.

  Newness ain’t got a soul, but the old? The old stuff is richness itself, rich with memories and wanting and lost joys and remembered sorrows; the fortune is all in the smell, in the cracks, in the creases, in the use and in the upkeep. The richness comes with the maintenance. A lot of folks see that as a dirty word, but the world needs to be maintained.

  Don’t know if God created the world, but I do believe She, and I might as well call it a She as not, well, Her job is to take care of us, to shine down when it’s darkest, and to guide us with the intuitive thought, the creative spark, the lone voice in the silence of our doubt and despair.

  God won’t stop a bullet. No, I’d prayed for Her to spare people, and they’d been killed ’cause God’s job isn’t to save us when things get wicked.

  No, God’s job is to maintain us as the world wears on us and cracks us apart. And She don’t do it with magic spells or fancy prayers or incense or Jesus cookies or nothing like that. She does it with other people.

  We’re all God, and we’re only little pieces of God, and it’s our job to be the light we see in the darkness, even if we’re the only ones looking.

  Some days that kind of God is enough. Other days? She’s just bad fiction. She’s a story that Rac
hel might understand, but I don’t.

  My office is dark now, so dark I can hardly see to write on the page in front of me.

  The light from the window is all but gone, and from my desk I can see the stars coming out in the sky.

  I think about lighting a sapropel lantern for old time’s sake ’cause for months now, I’ve been living in the past, recounting my many adventures with my sisters, Pilate, Micaiah, all the rest of my friends, family, enemies, and supporting players.

  I don’t light the lantern. Instead, I lean over and turn on a light, powered by the Eterna battery in the utility closet, and just like that, the gloom in the room is gone.

  Quick as a snap and there’s light.

  Snap quicker and there’s hope.

  Light and hope returned to the Juniper, though now the Juniper is no more. America has fifty states once again, and I played a hand in doing that, but I couldn’t have done it alone.

  No, I needed every single soul I could collect on my way to Armageddon and the final battles in what people started calling the Juniper Wars.

  It wasn’t a war to me, though. It was just life and living, and the real battles I won didn’t involve guns, bombs, or blimps.

  The real war I fought was within, and I was the villain ... and I was the hero ... and some days I know exactly who won and who lost.

  Other days? I don’t know.

  I glance at the Pains whiskey bottle on my desk.

  Some days, I just don’t know.

  To be continued ...

  Cavatica Weller will return in War Girls (Book Five of the Juniper Wars series)

  Glossary of Historical Figures, Slang, and Technology

  Angel, June Mai—The most powerful of the Outlaw Warlords and the most organized. Her past is a mystery, but her soldiers are fierce. She controls the Denver area, from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins.

  ASI Attachment—A steam engine that can interface with the drivetrains of larger vehicles such as trucks or minivans. Manufactured by the American Steam Ingenuity Company.

  ARK—The American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative—A publicly funded corporation researching the Sterility Epidemic and running insemination clinics across the world.

  AZ3—The next generation of assault rifle manufactured by Armalite Industries. Includes self-correcting laser targeting, tactical readout/ammunition count, and water-cooled barrels.

  Beefsteaks—Cattle.

  Besharam—Shameless (from the Hindi word).

  Besiya—Prostitute (from the Hindi word).

  Burke, Sally Browne—Co-founder of the New Morality movement.

  Chalkdrive—Removable computer storage devices.

  Cargador—A large steam-powered vehicle used in the Juniper for salvaging operations and later as military vehicles.

  Colton, Anna—Professor of Sociology, Princeton University, and a firm supporter of women’s rights outside of religious or domestic roles.

  Corfu, Archbishop Jeremy—An archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. and highly critical of the ARK and any artificial insemination outside of marriage.

  CTRA—The Colorado Territory Ranching Association—An organization created by Robert “Dob” Howerter, presumably to ensure high quality beef and ethical ranching practices, but in reality was used to fix prices and drive other ranchers out of business.

  EMAT—Emergency Medication Absorption Tape—A delivery system for medication during combat situations.

  Eterna Batteries—A perfectly clean power source created by General Electric. Named after Chinese food, the most powerful and efficient is the Kung Pao. A weaker version is the Egg Drop.

  Frictionless Automobiles—The next generation in automotive engineering, frictionless cars float thirty centimeters off the ground.

  Gillian—Lesbian (from the Mandarin phrase tong xing lian).

  Girly ’strogen—Excessively feminine (’strogen is short for estrogen).

  Headcount—The number of cattle owned by a ranch.

  Howerter, Robert “Dob”—Founder of the Colorado Territory Ranching Association and the largest cattle baron in the Juniper.

  Hoyt, Tiberius “Tibbs”—President and CEO of the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative.

  Jankowski, Maggie—Lead engineer on the Eterna battery project funded by General Electric.

  Johnson—A derogatory term for a male.

  Jones, Calvin “Crush”—Founder of the Old Glory Salvage and Renewal Company and the first to become what was later known as the Juniper Millionaires.

  Juniper—1,438,577 square kilometers in the middle of the United States of America comprising what once was Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Montana, and sections of surrounding states. Due to the Yellowstone Knockout and the subsequent flood basalt, electrical current does not function in this area.

  Kanton, Jack Anthony—48th President of the United States of America and the second president to hold four terms in office.

  Kutia—Female dog (from the Hindi word).

  MG21—Standard issue assault rifle in the Sino-American War.

  Male Product—The male reproductive cell.

  Masterson-Wayne Act—Signed into law by President Jack Kanton in 2033, this act of Congress relegated the five states affected by the Yellowstone Knockout back to being territories.

  Meetchum, Mavis—Second largest cattle operator in the Colorado territory. Located in Sterling, she has established treaties with the Wind River People and is a strong advocate for Native American rights. She introduced buffalo back into Wyoming in the mid-2030s during a critical time for the Wind River People.

  MRE—Meal, Ready-to-Eat.

  Neofiber—A variant of carbon fiber but stronger and lighter.

  New Morality—A religious movement with socio-political connections that encouraged women to remain chaste, dress appropriately, and behave in a conservative manner.

  New Morality Dress—A dress of a neutral color (usually gray, brown, or cream-colored) that covers as much of a woman’s body as possible to comply with New Morality etiquette.

  Old Growth—A synthetic coal created from wood taken from old-growth forests.

  Parson, Reverend Kip—Co-founder of the New Morality movement.

  RSD—Reality Simulator Displays—Video screens with near-perfect resolution.

  Sapropel—A weak fuel used for heating and lighting in the Juniper. Chemically manufactured by using remnants of oil shale.

  Shakti—Raw female power (from the Hindi word).

  SISBI—The Security, Identity, and Special Borders Injunction (SISBI) is a set of laws enacted by a special executive order that requires all U.S. citizens to register eye scans with the government. It also allows for border fences around the Juniper and military units to secure the perimeter of the territories.

  Skye6—Diacetylmorphinesextus (a synthetic morphine).

  Slate—Tablet computer.

  Sterility Epidemic—First cases discovered in January of 2030. One in ten births are male. Of males born, 90 percent are sterile.

  Thelium—Theta-helium—Synthetic helium manufactured to give zeppelins greater lift.

  Thor Stunner—Eterna-powered electrical non-lethal weapon.

  Viable—Non-sterile (refers to males).

  Weller, Abigail—Growing up in the family business (The Buckeye Urban Recycling and Reclamation Company), Abigail Weller chose to enter the Juniper to run salvage for Crush Jones. After the Salvage Era, she operated the third largest ranch in the Colorado territory until her death in the winter of 2058. She had three daughters: Sharlotte, Wren, and Cavatica.

  Wind River People—The general term for all Native American tribes living in the Wyoming and Montana territories.

  Yellowstone Knockout—A term used to describe China’s missile attack on the Yellowstone caldera and the subsequent flood basalt.

  Zeppelins—Four classes of airships: Jonesies, Jimmies, Johnnies, and Bobbies. All manufactured by Boeing for use in the Juniper. Jimmies are engineered for
maximum speed and Johnnies for maximum cargo hold. Bobbies are a mid-size zeppelin. Lastly, Jonesies are the most customizable. Also known as dirigibles or blimps, the airships have rigid skeletons of Neofiber covered with next-generation lightweight Kevlar. The superstructure contains air-cells filled with thelium.

  Zeus 2 Charge Gun—Eterna-powered electric rifle for short-range lethal combat and area-of-attack demolition.

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