Winter Duty (29 page)

She read Patel’s scowl. “If you think I trade cattle on both sides of Nomansland out of greed, you’re wrong, sir. I sometimes find it useful to bribe for or buy what I cannot obtain in the Free Republics.”

If she was in a giving vein, Valentine did not want to spoil her mood with accusations. He tapped Patel in the ankle. “Of course we’d be grateful for your assistance. What can you spare?”

“I can give you six thousand C-coin in gold and six Kurian five-year bills. You will, of course, sign a promissory note that I may redeem back at Fort Smith for their cash value, assessed per Logistic Commando fair market pricing of whichever month is current when I turn them in.”

Southern Command, perpetually starved for precious metals, would be thrilled to have Mrs. O’Coombe show up demanding hundred-dollar gold coins by the roll. Frontier posts kept gold on hand for smugglers coming out of the Kurian Zone with antibiotics or computer chips or hard intelligence, and they’d be loath to part with it for nothing but a promissory note from a written-off outpost.

How would the loan change the status of Mrs. O’Coombe on the post? The men would learn she was buying their corn-meal and chickens and bacon, one way or another. Suppose she started issuing them orders, as though they were her bunkhouse cowpunchers?

“Dangerous to be traveling with that much gold, ma’am,” Patel said, breaking in on Valentine’s thoughts. Obvious thing to say. Perhaps Patel was buying him time to think it over.

She smiled, dazzling white teeth against those pink lips. “More dangerous than Reapers, Mister Patel?”

The men had to be fed, one way or another. The only other option would be to go in and take it at gunpoint, and they weren’t pirates. At least not yet.

Valentine weighed his options. Once Kentucky got itself organized, Fort Seng would petition for support from the Assembly. Though Valentine wondered if his forces, being neither fish nor fowl, so to speak, would find themselves divested of support from both the rebels in Kentucky and his own Southern Command, especially once General Martinez took over and instituted his new “defensive” policies.

Mrs. O’Coombe waited, her hands clasped decorously in her lap. She’d only nibbled politely at the meager fare.

“Madam, I accept your very generous offer on behalf of my men,” Lambert said, her train of thought arriving at the decision platform.

“Always willing to help the Cause, Colonel,” Mrs. O’Coombe said. “Now, Mister Valentine, perhaps you will attend to the matter of facilitating me in the effort of finding my son. I would like your advice on routes and what sort of personnel we should bring.”

“A complicated question, madam,” Valentine said. “It depends on supply capacity in your vehicles, what sort of fuel they need . . .”

Duvalier hummed quietly:

It was a pop tune from just before the cataclysm in 2022 and had been prominently listed on most barroom virtual disc-jockey machines.

Patel let off an explosive fart and excused himself, but it stopped Duvalier’s quiet amusement.

Well, if Valentine was going to take her gold, he’d get more for it than butter and eggs. Valentine hemmed and hawed his way through the conversation about the trip to recover her son—and others, of course—and as usual struck upon an idea while his brain was busy fencing with Mrs. O’Coombe.

Valentine escaped Mrs. O’Coombe the next day, pleading that he had to go into Evansville to see about purchasing supplies.

Evansville had an impressive city hall thanks to the region’s ample limestone, but it reminded Valentine of a church with long-dead parishioners. Most of the offices were empty.

They should have used the empty rooms for the overflowing waiting room. Luckily, his uniform brought him right to the attention of the city’s governor.

How they arrived at that title Valentine didn’t know then, but he later learned that since Evansville considered itself a different state than Kentucky even though it was now part of the Kentucky Freehold, by definition it should have a governor as chief executive.

In this case the governor was a former member of the underground named Durand. Professor Durand, actually; he ran a secret college devoted to preserving classical Western education from the tailoring, trimming, and alteration of the Kurian Order.

He reminded Valentine a bit of Trotsky in his dress and glasses, minus the brains and the talent and the vigor.

“Can I help you, Major Valentine?” Durand asked. He was sorting papers into four piles on his desk, and he glanced up at Valentine as he stood before his desk.

Valentine would have sworn in court that he recognized some of the documents from his last visit three weeks ago, before the action at the power station, when he unsuccessfully pleaded for the Evansville provisional government to purchase supplies for Fort Seng.

“You’ve done so much already, Governor,” Valentine said. “I’m simply here to pay my respects before we depart. A last duty call before I plunge into getting the camp relocated.”

“Depart?” Durand asked, looking vaguely alarmed and suddenly less interested in the paperwork on his desk.

Valentine examined the walls of the office. A few corners of torn-off Kurian NUC enthusiasm posters remained between the windows. “Yes, the fort will be relocated. For security reasons I can’t disclose our destination, but the town’s leadership has made a most generous offer, and strategically it makes sense—we’ll be closer to the center mass of Kentucky, able to operate on interior lines. . . . You know the military advantages.”

“But . . . the underground has word of an armored column north of here. Cannon, armored cars, riot buses, gunabagoes . . .”

“Yes, how is the city militia progressing in its training? The key is to brush back the infantry support. Then it’s much easier to take out the armor.”

“You’ve made so many improvements to your camp, I understand. Hot water, electricity . . .”

“Perhaps your militia can relocate and take advantage of all our hard work. True, that would mean a longer response time if you needed them to deal with, say, some airdropped Reapers.”

“What is this other town offering you?”

“Offering? I’m doing my duty, Professor, not engaging in bid taking.”

“Surely Evansville has its advantages. The textile plant, the appliances, our phone system . . .”

“All are superior to central Kentucky, I grant you,” Valentine said. “But my men are running short on eggs and dairy and fresh meat and vegetables. The new town has offered to supply us amply. I have to consider the health and fitness of my men.”

Valentine took out some of the gold coins Mrs. O’Coombe had so generously offered. “Of course, we’ll have more difficulty purchasing building materials, tenting, plumbing supplies, munitions, uniforms, and such in Kentucky. After I’ve finished here, I will visit the marketplace and see if I can’t have a selection packed and ready for transport.”

Durand’s eyes watched the jingling coins. “We’ve had something of a food crisis here, as well,” Durand said. “It appears to be easing since the vote to declare openly against the Kurian Order. We’ve been neglectful of our protectors across the river. Now we could easily restart the flow of foodstuffs. I expect a boat full of chickens and eggs could be put across in no time.”

Valentine took out a piece of paper. “We’ll need this every week.” He passed the grocery list to Durand.

“Basic staples shouldn’t be difficult. But chocolate?”

“Some of my soldiers have a sweet tooth, but I imagine most of it will end up in the stomachs of Evansville’s beautiful young women.”

“You drive a hard bargain, Major. Is this quite ethical? Extorting the people you promised to protect?”

“Evansville’s delegates voted to support the armed resistance to the Kurian Order in men and matériel. I’ve most of the men I need. My material needs are small compared to the army they’re trying to build outside the Kurian Triangle. You might consider yourself lucky.”

“It appears we are bound to be symbionts, Major. I’ll see to the deliveries of your foodstuffs.”

“Then we shall be happy to remain in our comfortable and beautiful surroundings, with the congenial company of Evansville and Owensboro,” Valentine said.

“I’m sure,” Durand said. “I feel as though I’ve been played like a harp.”

“If that column comes roaring south out of Bloomington, you’ll be glad we stayed, or you might end up playing your own harp, sir.”

He didn’t want to go on Mrs. O’Coombe’s expedition. He wished Moytana were still present; it would have been a much better assignment for a group of experienced Wolves.

It took a direct order from Lambert to get him to agree to do it.

They talked it over across her desk. Lambert had a policy that in private, when seated, you could talk to her without military formalities and treat her as a sounding board rather than a commander. It was a tradition Valentine had always followed with his own subordinates. Valentine remembered picking it up from Captain LeHavre. He wondered if Lambert had acquired it from Moira Styachowski.

Or did it come to Lambert from Valentine, in a roundabout way?

“Take whoever you like, just none of my captains,” Lambert said, signing a blank ad hoc special duty personnel sheet and passing it to him.

“I was thinking two Bears. Ali.” As a Cat, Duvalier was considered a captain in rank, but Valentine suspected Lambert didn’t need to hold on to her. “A Wolf scouting team.”

“Medical staff?”

“They have enough to do here. Our patroness said she has her own medical team.”

“Why don’t you take Boelnitz too,” Lambert said. “He’s been making himself a nuisance here. I don’t know if he’s filed a story yet.”

“Maybe he’s working on a novel,” Valentine said. He observed that Lambert’s desk was as clean as an Archon’s shaving mirror. Lambert managed to do a tremendous amount of work—she was in the process of reorganizing Fort Seng from the top down—but there was no evidence of it except for a three-drawer file cabinet and a brace of three-ring binders. Her clerk was always buzzing in and out like a pollen-laden honeybee, keeping the binders updated.

“I’d hate to be away if that column moves south,” Valentine said.

“We’ll just call you back,” Lambert said. “Mrs. O’Coombe can delay them with a pillar of fire, and then spread her arms and part the Tennessee for us to get away.”

Valentine couldn’t say why he didn’t like the idea of leaving Fort Seng. How do you put disquiet and restlessness into words? Normally he’d look forward to picking up his men and getting them on the road home—that sort of thing left a better aftertaste than surviving a battle.

One more thing bothered him. Red Dog had appeared a little nervous of late, always looking around with the whites of his eyes showing and hiding under tables and stonework. He’d even been dragged out from under the defunct hot tub in the estate house’s garden gazebo.

Red Dog had been a tool of the Kurians in the retreat across Kentucky, when one Kurian had somehow linked through the dog’s mind to Javelin’s commanders at headquarters. If Red Dog was nervous, Valentine was nervous.

“Nice work at the dinner,” Valentine said. “I think when Mrs. O’Coombe had to eat what we’ve been living on, it encouraged her to part with her gold.”

“I just think she’s a deeply decent person,” Lambert said. “You don’t often meet one of those.”

“I met one back at the war college in Pine Bluff,” Valentine said. “A little stick of a thing, always dotting
i
’s and crossing
t
’s.”

“And I remember a shy young lieutenant who was always looking at his shoes and talking about the weather when he should have been asking me to a dance,” Lambert said.

“We were both too busy, I think,” Valentine said.