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Chapter One

Certainly the Juniper is a dangerous place, but not because of outlaws, rustlers or stray bullets. No, the real dangers are the wind, solitude, and a drifting mind. When in doubt, I stay in my house and count my money. I never get lonely that way.

—Robert “Dob” Howerter
Colorado Courier Interview
August 3, 2057

(i)

The Cuius Regios were coming. I didn’t know it then, but the Regios were on their way and we didn’t have the guns to stop them.

The pain from my gunshot wounds barked like a dog on a distant neighbor’s porch. I sat on the floor of the strange room, my back against the bed. I couldn’t move. The Christmas issue of Modern Society magazine lay on my lap. The perfume of a cologne sample wafted from the glossy pages. Micaiah, cleaned and groomed, smiled at me on the cover.

But his real name wasn’t Micaiah. It was Micah Hoyt, son of the richest man on Earth. His father, Tiberius “Tibbs” Hoyt, was CEO and general jackerdan-in-charge of the American Reproduction Knowledge Initiative, otherwise known as the ARK. Tibbs Hoyt had hired an army to find his son, and we had the bullet wounds to prove it.

The foot soldiers were known as the Cuius Regios, and their commanders were the Vixx sisters, who could heal almost any wound, which sounded suspiciously like genetic engineering, however unlikely. I’d kept an eye on the popular science websites and hadn’t seen anything close to creating actual people with enhanced biology.

The idea scared me, scared me deep. How could we fight such a soulless army?

But why would Daddy Hoyt send in troops to retrieve a son who didn’t want to be found? Then again, if you give a rich man a cause, he can turn a family feud into a world war.

Before I’d gone unconscious, Micaiah had wanted to run away to protect us. Was he gone? That opened a floodgate of questions. Was Pilate still alive? Had Wren run away for good ’cause of what I’d done to her? And did my oldest sister Sharlotte still have us bound for Wendover, Nevada with our herd of nearly three thousand cattle?

First things first, I slid the magazine underneath the mattress, not sure what I would do with the information, but it felt dangerous in me.

I stood, moved to the window, and used my right arm to pull open the yellow curtains. My left arm throbbed as I held it to my belly. From the second story of the house, I saw our tents below—our chuckwagon dominated the front yard. Mama and I had fixed up the Chevy Workhouse II with an attachable ASI steam engine, and then found a long trailer for it to pull. We called the whole thing our chuckwagon. Next to it sat the old Ford Excelsior that had saved our lives. Cattle and horses meandered around outbuildings, barns, and hay sheds. I recognized a few of our horses—Elvis, Taylor Quick, and Bob D. Two of our best cows, Charles Goodnight and Betty Butter, stood in the strange yard, chewing cud. To my right rose a ridge of pine trees and craggy rock.

I searched the skies for the Moby Dick, the zeppelin that we’d hired to re-supply us and scout. There was no sign of it, but then Sketchy, Tech, and Peeperz might still be trying to find us after the blizzard.

Green grass pushed up from wet soil, which meant I’d been unconscious long enough for the snow to melt. Might’ve been a day. Might’ve been a week. Someone must’ve dribbled water into my mouth and then cleaned me up afterwards. Dang, but I hoped it was family that had done the work to keep me alive.

Out of the corner of my eye, something flashed in the distance—sunlight off a cast-off hunk of metal, or some bit of chrome, or a mirror, something, southeast of the house. The blinking stopped. Something didn’t feel right about it, but I had other things to worry about.

Like where I was and who owned the house.

(ii)

Getting to the door took most of the energy out of me. My legs were weak, like frayed rubber bands. My head filled with woozy.

I creaked the door open. Light from my yellow room splashed onto the floor. Shadows clung to the corners of the hallway while the floors gleamed, swept, and polished. The wallpaper also didn’t have the dust I’d have expected. It had been washed recently, and I could smell the disinfectant. A set of stairs led down. Another set led up. Doors lined both sides of the hall.

“Hello?” I asked.

The door across from me opened.

Backlit, the outline of a tall woman in pants stood in the doorway. For a moment, my eyes played tricks on me. I could’ve sworn it was my own mother. Could Mama have somehow tricked everyone by faking her own death? If anyone could, it would’ve been her.

“Mama?” I whispered the question to keep alive my impossible hope.

“Good morning, Cavatica,” the woman said. Wasn’t Mama. She didn’t have Mama’s voice nor her walk. When the woman drew nearer, the sunlight showed me both their similarities and their differences. This woman was the same age, same shape, and she had Mama’s brown hair going grey. Crow’s feet clustered around her eyes like Mama. But instead of the gray shapelessness of a New Morality dress, this woman wore a maroon cowgirl shirt tucked into jeans. A smile brightened her face. She had a musical way of walking, light and joyful. Mama had stomped around, always busy.

“Cavatica, what are you doing up? You need to rest.” The woman took me by the arm and helped me back into the bed orbited by medical supplies: pill bottles, bandages, tape, antibiotic cream, and a pair of scissors.

The woman seemed familiar, but how could I know her? How could I know anyone so far west? Unless we’d turned east.

She shined a grin on me. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t remember a thing.” My voice croaked. I swallowed to get it working.

The woman’s smile deepened her wrinkles. “No, I don’t mean from just now, I mean from a long time ago. I was friends with your mom. I’m Jenny Bell Scheutz.”

My mouth dropped open. Dim, toddler memories filled my head, memories of a tall woman, hard and lean on the outside, but soft in spirit. Jenny Bell. Her and Mama laughing and talking about the old times. Jenny Bell had run cattle with Mama in the early days, and then took off into the wilds. We figured she’d been killed.

“Are we in Sterling?” I asked. Sharlotte had threatened to sell our headcount to Mavis Meetchum. That would’ve been foolish, though, since Mavis couldn’t give us a fair market price, not with Dob Howerter breathing down her neck. Even if Mavis could pay us reasonable prices, the three-million-dollar loan to Howerter would still put us in the poor house, and we’d lose the ranch.

And I couldn’t allow that. Never. Our ranch was hallowed ground.

Before Ms. Scheutz could respond, I answered my own question. “No, couldn’t be. We’re too close to the Rocky Mountains. Where am I, Ms. Scheutz?”

“Call me Jenny Bell,” she said. “Ms. Scheutz was my mother, only everyone called her Mrs., back in the day.” Jenny Bell sat on the bed. “You’re in my house—on my ranch—just north of Fort Collins. Officially, we are in June Mai Angel’s back yard, but there’s not like a state line or anything.”

I leaned over and picked up a glass of water, drained half in a blink. The water cooled my throat and got better with every swallow.

Jenny Bell eased the glass out of my hands. She smelled clean and nice, like American deodorant, but how could that be?

“Easy, Cavatica. You were hurt bad. We heard about the stampede and the attack, and how you saved the day with the old Ford out front. It’s all a shame, but I guess June Mai was bound to give you some trouble.”

Jenny Bell hadn’t mentioned the Vixxes nor the Regios. Sharlotte prolly blamed my gunshots on June Mai Angel, and I wondered what my sister had told our people—most likely the same story, or else it might’ve caused morale problems.

Jenny Bell also hadn’t talked about Micaiah, so I’d keep him a secret. I wasn’t sure yet if knowing about him would keep her safe or put her in more danger. All along, Micaiah said his true identity was like the apple in the Garden of Eden—one bite would damn us all forever. And I’d eaten the whole thing. Yeah, it did upset my stomach.

“How did I get to be here, Jenny Bell?” I asked, though I couldn’t help but feel funny calling her by her first name. Such informality wasn’t New Morality, but then her jeans proved neither was she.

“Sharlotte and your people stumbled upon our ranch, and she remembered me, but then she’s what, ten years older than you?”

“Eight.” I said. Then asked, “What day is it?”

“April 24.”

Dang. I’d been unconscious for four days.

“Is Pilate here? Is he dead?” I wanted him to still be alive, so I could yell at him. Yeah, he wore a priest’s collar, but he wasn’t a priest. He and Petal had come to run security for the cattle drive. But Petal turned out not only to be a sniper, but a doctor, and a drug addict as well. And it was Pilate who had been giving her the Skye6.

“He’s here and alive,” Jenny Bell said. “He’s still unconscious, in the room next to yours. Bullets aren’t going to stop Pilate. Mark my words, he’ll die of old age in a bed surrounded by women weeping over him.”

“So you know him?”

“Oh, yeah. Who doesn’t know Pilate?”

I felt relieved. Still no mention of Micaiah or Wren, but then Wren was probably gone for good after what I’d done.

“Cavatica, you need to rest.” She uncapped a medicine bottle and shook a pill out into my hand. “Let me give you a Vicodin. We have new meds, so don’t worry.”

I did feel terrible, but I didn’t want to break the spell of the moment. Here was a woman who had known my mother, and being so near to her felt like I was connected to the past.

I held the pill, but didn’t take it.

Jenny Bell put a soothing hand on my arm. “I’m sorry to hear about your mama, Cavatica. She was the best of women, but stubborn. I tried to get her to come out here with me, but she wanted to stay in Burlington. She thought once the electricity came back on, it would be the gateway to the new Juniper. She could be a hard woman. I never once saw her cry.”

I had, but only once. When Daddy died, Mama cried like rainclouds stormed inside her, the agony like lightning, her despair the worst of thunder.

I thought about where Jenny Bell lived. If we were north of Fort Collins, the Wyoming border was only about eighty kilometers away. We’d come a long way, but true halfway remained out of reach.

“Why did you move all the way out here?” I asked.

“No competition, Cavatica. Profits don’t go up for small operations, only down. Sooner or later, Howerter or Mavis or even your mother was going to monopolize the whole cattle industry. And to be honest, I wanted to be as far from the World as I could get. The Juniper is special. I saw the opportunity to travel back in time, and I took it. Why not? Probably the last time anyone will ever get to live like it’s the nineteenth century. Yeah, life out here isn’t easy, but there’s a joy in the work and survival.”

She didn’t try and stuff the words into my ears, but spoke in a comforting, even voice, inviting me into her life.

Suddenly, I loved Jenny Bell Scheutz. “What about June Mai Angel?” I asked.

Her grin turned mischievous. “Well, the Juniper can create friendships out of rainstorms. Or so the saying goes. We can talk more about that later. First, we have to go tell everyone you’re awake. Sharlotte will be relieved.”

She held out a glass of water, a prompt for me to take the pain pill. I did. My mouth soured at the chalky coating.

“Your mother was funny. She was so sure the electricity would start up again in the Juniper,” Jenny Bell said. “From what I understand, that’s not going to happen any time soon.”

“Prolly not,” I said.

Near the start of the Sino-American War, the Chinese nuked Yellowstone. We didn’t need to worry much about radiation since the Chinese used a hydrogen bomb and most of the particles were consumed in the blast. The attack, however, caused a flood basalt and an electro-magnetic field. Ionized molten iron coming out of the Yellowstone throat disrupted all electrical current and wiped clean hard drives. No one knew how long it would last, only that the Deccan Traps in India, another example of a flood basalt, had erupted for a million years.

We sat quietly, and I spoke to fill the silence. “You know, GE even looked into the problem, and they thought they could create suitable shielding, but they haven’t yet. Maggie Jankowksi even looked at it.”

Ms. Jankowksi had invented the Eterna battery, and I had a little of the hero worship for her.

“Well, like I said, it’s like living in the nineteenth century out here.” Jenny Bell stood, stopped, and cocked her head to listen.

At first I didn’t hear anything, and then, internal combustion engines, a lot of them, and something bigger, roaring closer.

“Do you hear that?” she asked, wonder in her voice.

I nodded even as my throat went dry as dust.

“Those are engines.” Her eyes went wide. “Like old-school engines, diesel, not gas, but who on earth has that kind of money?”

I knew, but didn’t say.

“Stay here,” Jenny Bell said sharply. Her simple, easy style was gone, and what was left was hard. Had to be hard as stone to live way out here.

“Yes, ma’am.” I wheezed, trying to suck in breath through my fear.

She left without another word.

The Regios had found us. No Wren. No Pilate. And who knew if Petal was in any shape to shoot?

And where was Micaiah? They were coming for him.

(iii)

I got out of bed, too full of adrenaline and Vicodin to feel my gunshot wounds. At the window, I watched as dozens of black ATVs rolled into the front yard of Scheutz ranch. Four black Humvees followed, and dozens of troops piled out. All the women carried AZ3 rifles. All wore sagebrush camouflage uniforms. All looked furious and focused.

At least fifty soldiers closed ranks in the yard. Jenny Bell and Sharlotte rushed over to talk to them, but those soldiers weren’t there to chat. A blink later, my sister and our host had their hands zip-tied behind their backs.

Floorboards creaked outside the door, which sent my heart rate spiking and stole the air from my lungs.

I expected one of the three remaining Vixx sisters to come barreling in, but no, Micaiah, pale and sweaty, stepped into the room. I covered my chest, feeling naked, and with how thin the nightgown was, well, that wasn’t much of a stretch.

He rushed over. “The guns. The ammunition. You have to help me hide Pilate’s quad cannon and Petal’s Mauser. They are going to search the place, and those weapons might implicate us in the battle that destroyed those other units. Sharlotte is going to hide the AZ3s, or at least try.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“And yeah, I have to hide, too. I can’t run, not yet. They’d find me, and I can’t … can’t …” he blinked sweat out of his eyes. His boy smell, fueled by fear and running, came off him strong.

The truth was easy to see. If he gave himself up, they’d leave us alone. But he couldn’t. Why, I didn’t know. But I’d chosen to believe him. He was on some kind of quest, and I was going to help him, though a stupidly rich boy like that shouldn’t need anyone’s help.

No time for me to tell him I knew he was Tibbs Hoyt’s son.

“Follow me,” I said. We hurried out of my yellow room and into the gloomy room next door. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust. A shape lay in the bed, tall and lean. Pilate. Next to the bed, Petal slept in an overstuffed lazy boy filling the corner. She was a wispy, ghostly woman, pale, with frizzy, mousy-brown hair and a face like a teenage girl, though the years and the Sino had cut wrinkles across her skin.

She didn’t wake up, even though Micaiah and I weren’t being quiet. We knew why. Her drug, Skye6, kept her under.

Micaiah opened the closet and grabbed Petal’s sniper rifle and a Mossberg & Sons G203 quad cannon, otherwise known as a Beijing Homewrecker. Pilate’s gun—part shotgun and part grenade launcher.

I took the sniper rifle from him, while he shouldered on Pilate’s bandolier of ammunition. We sped out into the hallway.

I was back in the thick of it, fighting, running, trying to breathe. My heartbeat thudded in my ears. The Vicodin dizzied my head a little, but mostly the pill squelched the pain.

“Basement or attic,” Micaiah whispered.

“Attic,” I said. Going down the steps seemed like tempting fate.

We climbed the stairs to the very top of the house, into the attic, which overflowed with furniture, boxes, antique this and that. A hutch and mirror set towered over the very back of the room. A mothball stench fogged up the dusty air that tickled my nose. There seemed to be a hundred places to hide and none at all. Once the Regios busted into the house, they’d search and search well for their quarry.

Then I saw it. A string dangled down from a trapdoor in the ceiling. It would be cramped up in the crawlspace, but better than nothing. And if we could move the hutch under the trapdoor, they might not notice.

He watched where my eyes went. He ran for the string, pulled it down, and a ladder unfolded itself down to the floor. He clambered up and I handed him up the rifle, the Beijing Homewrecker, and the bandolier. I folded the ladder halfway and let it ease up a little. Micaiah kept it open to watch me.

I took hold of the hutch—it was big, and I was hurt, but I had to move it.

I threw my weight against it. Nothing happened.

“Hurry, Cavvy.”

I tried again, and the huge piece of furniture scratched across the floor, but came to a halt. The thing teetered.

If it crashed, the whole house would hear it. I struggled to keep it upright.

“Careful,” Micaiah hissed from the attic.

Panic fueled me. I mustered every bit of shakti I had and shoved it again. Screeching, scratching, the hutch moved under the ladder. It would have to be good enough.

But what if someone saw the ripped up floor? I stacked boxes to cover the scratches, and said a prayer.

“Go, Cavvy. Get back to your room.”

The spring-loaded ladder folded the rest of the way into the ceiling.

I was out of time, but Micaiah’s hiding place didn’t seem secure. If they found him, what would happen to him? To us?

Please, God, please help us.

I tiptoed down the steps and back into the yellow room.

Nausea struck me all at once. I seriously came close to barfing up my guts on the floor.

Back in bed, I wanted to check my wounds, to see if I was bleeding again, but I didn’t have the chance.

Three Regios threw open the door and stormed into my room, AZ3s lowered.

“Anyone else in the house?” one roared the question.

“Next door,” I squeaked. Sweat dripped down my face. I knew I looked flushed, but I hoped they’d blame it on a fever.

Another Regio spun. “Stay here.”

I wasn’t sure if she was talking to me or the other two, but all three of us stayed, while she bashed into the room next door.

The house shook from tromping boots and slamming doors. Heavy footfalls sounded in the room above me in the attic. Furniture or boxes scraped across the floor. I prayed with all my might, that they didn’t see the scratches in the floor, or the trapdoor above the hutch.

“What do y’all want?” I asked the two soldiers. Shaved heads, dead eyes, they held rifles across their chests and stood stiffly by the door. They stared straight ahead. Might as well have been statues.

Time ticked by. I couldn’t stop sweating. The house shook from yells and stomping, but so far, there hadn’t been any gunfire.

A Regio stuck her head in the room. “Two suspects in the room next door. We couldn’t wake the man. We have the woman. The Praetor wants you to bring this girl downstairs.” She motioned at me.

The two guards took me, none too gently, out of the room. My nightgown ripped treacherously. I was driven down the steps and into the parlor with my sister, the rest of our team, Jenny Bell, and her many daughters.

Jenny Bell’s ranch house had become a prison, complete with armed guards and a warden, a Praetor, whatever that was.



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