War Girls (The Juniper Wars Book 5) by Aaron Ritchey (best short novels .TXT) 📕

cleaning crew—Dallas Pat, Starla Dawa, Maria Valencia, and some guy named Floyd—drove out to the Juniper border in Dallas Pat’s Ford Explorer with an Eggdrop battery that wouldn’t hold a full charge. So far, the old SUV hadn’t left us stranded there, but it was only a matter of time.

Floyd wasn’t viable and he wasn’t all that cute either. Funny that a vanilla boy like that would take my official virginity, but Pains whiskey was good at removing inhibitions. The Rebel Leaf e-juice disabled any sort of picker that picked anything good.

I thought about Micaiah the whole time I was with Floyd that first time. That night had been part lust, part hate, and part self-destruction. It was a potent combination for poor Floyd when it had nothing to do with him. He wasn’t much of a conversationalist, so I went on to Starla, whose real name was Sudri, but she’d nicknamed herself Starla for some reason. She was Hindu and from a family who didn’t have much use for her since she was gillian and proud of it. And she was an atheist. Being Catholic and an atheist wasn’t no big deal. You only didn’t believe in one god. For a Hindu? She had to work at not believing in millions of gods. Starla, though, was up to the task.

Dallas Pat pulled up to the living room, a strange sight, sitting in the middle of the prairie. A sofa sat in front of a coffee table. Two easy chairs bookended the couch, one leather and cracked, duct-taped together, the other a purple plush going colorless from the elements. End tables squatted next to lamps that would never give us any light in the winter gloom. Dry grasses wavered in a winter wind, cold, but the sun did her best to give us warmth though her best wasn’t much.

“Pull up to the west, DP,” I said.

“Don’t call me that,” Pat said in a huff. She was a big girl from Dallas, but she didn’t have much Texas in her. Shame... that. “Why should I park to the west, Cavatica?”

“The truck will act as a wind break.”

“Cavatica knows about the wind. She’s a sweet little Juniper girl.” Starla smiled at me. She had black make-up on her face, mascara, lipstick, eye shadow, all dark. Maybe thirty years prior she’d have had a piercing—I’d seen pictures across the Juniper of those old-timey goth girls. Now, Starla’s inked-up skin was rebellious enough. That and she had shaved off a patch of her scalp above her left ear.

I thought of doing something similar. Didn’t have the courage. And my hair was already so straw-like and thin that I didn’t want to take any chances with it.

“Go jack yourself, Starla.” I slammed out of the truck.

“Why? That’s why I have you,” she said.

Floyd sighed. What a girly ’strogen sissy boy. Starla was twice the badass he’d ever be.

“That’s right, Floyd,” I said. “Me and Starla forever and ever. You gotta let it go. It was only one night.”

“It was three,” he whispered.

“But not all in a row, so it doesn’t count.”

Maria rattled off a bunch of Spanish. I caught a bit of it, and it wasn’t very nice.

“And you, Maria,” I said going around to the back to swing open the hatch. “Don’t get me started on you. You and Starla were going nowhere fast.” I hefted the cooler out and walked it over to the sofa. Some critter had scratched out the stuffing in one of the cushions. Rodent poop littered the corner section. The whole thing was stained and nasty. We sat on it still and didn’t care a lick.

I grabbed my vape pen from the back pocket of my tight jeans and stuck it in my mouth. I’d loaded it up with the Rebel Leaf e-juice ’cause if I got stoned before I drank, I’d be less likely to throw punches.

In the cooler were my pistols, a bottle of Pains whiskey, a twelve-pack of Coke, a bag of ice, and some old plastic cups from the Lonely Moon movie.

The movie had come out right around the time Alice and the other Gammas escorted me out of the Rockies.

Everyone loved it so very much. Timed for the release of the movie, Hereford Gold beef hit the high-end markets and organic grocery stories. I’d memorized the advertising junket.

Juniper beef is like no other beef on Earth. Hereford Gold is the best of the best, as lean as the land where it came from. Hereford Gold—Taste the Adventure.

I shouldn’t quote it ’cause it’s trademarked still. Jackerdans.

Every bit of marketing was about a cattle drive across the Juniper, from Burlington to Wendover, but the Weller family was never named. Nope. To add insult to injury, it was Dob Howerter who took the credit, and him and his Rough Riders who, according to the commercial, were hard-caliber cowgirls and desperate women living on the edge. Howerter and his Rough Riders! Yeah, you can taste the adventure by kissing my ass.

The money that changed hands over the deal between Sysco and Howerter must’ve been huge, way above whatever Mama had owed Dob. He might think we were even now, but no, never. He owed us. And I wanted to collect it in blood. And I had the idea that Tibbs Hoyt had been in on the negotiations. Hoyt and Howerter had been travelling together when Sharlotte went to beg Dob for mercy. She never got it. From either of them.

I wanted to forget about all those Hereford Gold beef commercials, so I dug .45s out of the cooler and strapped the smokewagons on my hips, gripping my vape pen in my teeth. They weren’t the bad-girl guns Wren had. They were just nickel-plated 1911 knockoffs. I got them cheap from some thin-lipped girl off an underground Second Amendment website—the Craigslist for the damned. She’d advertised them as classic beauties. Wrong on both counts.

“I love it when she shoots,” Starla said all breathy. She ran to set up my