Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4) by Aaron Ritchey (best books to read for teens .txt) 📗

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