Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) Aaron Ritchey (read a book .txt) 📖

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 starve. 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