Storm Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 4), Aaron Ritchey [best beach reads txt] 📗

Sharlotte sat next to me. Those with better shoes stood around in the snow. Marisol, Dutch, and Wren—who was tucked under one of Dutch’s arms, which I didn’t like. Not at all. Leave it to Wren to fall in love with a rattlesnake.

I just had to ask him, “Hey, Dutch, how come you decided to join us? And what business did you have in the Rockies?”

Dutch grinned at me like I was just such a clever thing daring to ask him questions.

Wren answered in a chuckle. “Dutch travels is all. He was all over the place with the circus. That’s where I met him. And it was Dutch who taught me how to shoot. We were quite a pair, best shots in the Juniper. The tricks we did made ladies faint. But the circus gets old quick. So good ol’ Dutch decided he could do like Pilate did, went around preaching, running security, and of course, helping women to have babies. Like a walking ARK clinic.”

The way she said it, laughing, like it was no big deal her boyfriend was an itinerant dirt bag sleeping his way across the Juniper.

It did answer my question but made me hate him even more. I glanced over at Sharlotte, who ate and pretended not to hear any of it.

Dutch laughed. That son of a skank, always laughing, smirking, and smiling. “Wren, that doesn’t portray me in a very good light. As a viable man, I have an important duty to perform for the good women of the Juniper.”

Made me want to punch him in the mouth for saying that.

“Actually,” Dutch said, “I was heading for Grand Junction ’cause I’d heard they were looking for guns. With Aces on the warpath, the pay would be good. I’d gone through Glenwood before, but I couldn’t stomach his brand of insane. Well, my own crazy baby Wren Weller put an end to him and his evil. May he rot in hell for all eternity. Or put another way, ‘The Lord’s winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.’”

“Ain’t you Hindu?” I asked him blankly. “Shouldn’t you be quoting from the Vedas or whatnot?”

“Grew up Southern Baptist right here in the Juniper, Colorado territory, in Lamar before Dob Howerter made it his own personal palace. I’m African-American on my mother’s side. My father was full-on Indian, as in India ... not red-skinned injuns in feathers.”

“That’s racist,” I fired back. “They’re Native Americans, or First Nations people, or in the Juniper, the Wind River People, not injuns or whatever you said.”

Sharlotte chuckled next to me. “Cavvy, you do know who Dutch is like? Who he’s like exactly?”

I had no idea. I shook my head.

Sharlotte laughed again. “He’s Pilate with darker skin. Think about it, who else goes around preaching the gospel, getting in gunfights, and acting foolish?”

Everyone was looking at me. I knew Dutch and Pilate weren’t alike, not at all. Pilate did the right thing, always, well, maybe not always, but I could trust him. I’d grown up with him. Dutch was a stranger, who was holding onto my sister Wren like he owned her: heart, skin, and blood.

“Me being compared to Pilate?” Dutch grinned. “I am honored. But I’ll fall short. Pilate is a legend. I’m just a rambler, that’s all. No legendary status for me.”

“But you are a better shot,” Wren said.

Dutch asked her, “Hey baby, what are the two rules of life?”

Wren giggled like a ditzy schoolgirl. “Never let your heart get in the way of a paycheck, and always, always, always, hit ’em right between the eyes.”

“An A-plus answer, baby.” Then they French kissed like they were alone.

It nauseated me. And made me miss Micaiah, though we had never been so public with our affections.

Micaiah, Pilate. Captured. Had to get them back. Had to put Edger down for good.

Sharlotte sighed and got off Marilyn to limp away.

Marisol turned away. She was a quiet one, barely spoke. She had an old blue down coat on, which kept her warm, thank God. She looked up at me with gentle, brown eyes.

“Marisol,” I started, “I know you’re from around here, but I don’t see how we can get you home. We have to chase after the ARK and rescue our boys. You understand, don’t you?”

She nodded, but tears threatened to come spilling out of Marisol’s eyes. “But I can walk. Just get me close. I want to see my mom and dad again. Please.”

“We’ll see,” I said. In English, those words put together in a certain way mean “Hell no.”

I looked down at my feet. The firebox had finally cooled to the silver color of treated titanium. We could leave and get back to our hunt.

The snow had covered the tracks of the ARK vehicles, but visibility had cleared enough that we should be able to see them if they tried to sneak by us.

“Tell me about Aspen,” I said to Marisol.

“I don’t know anything about Aspen. We never went there,” Marisol said. She took in a deep breath. “I was out alone in the fields when the Glenwood raiders found me. I don’t know what happened to my parents, my brothers, or my sisters. I was too young for Aces’s men to fight for me. I was there six weeks when you came.”

It was an echo of what she had told me in the hot springs the first night we met. She talked in a small, tearful voice that broke my heart.

“You had brothers?” I asked.

She nodded. “Though I wasn’t supposed to talk about them. Please, Cavvy, we’re so close. Please, take me home.”

I sighed. She had no intel on Aspen for us, and I’d heard her story before. Brothers ... I couldn’t imagine having even one brother, and she had multiple. I thought about asking more, but I felt Pilate and Micaiah getting farther away from us. There was only one thing to