Winter Duty (33 page)

Of course he couldn’t overlook the advantages an engine and wheels gave when you had two hundred miles to cover in search of your scattered wounded. The pleasant, ten-minute walk to the gate took but a moment in Rover.

“Slow here,” Valentine said as they approached the gate and the doughnut-selling missionary.

“You need to install a drive-up window,” Valentine yelled from his rolled-down window. He’d been saving up the jibe all morning.

“Wise of you,” the missionary said. “Oh, it’s you, my brother and friend. I’m glad you’ve decided to bow to the inevitable. But time runs short! Hurry! Go like Lot and his wife and do not look back.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Valentine said, getting out to claim a final doughnut for the road. “We’re not leaving. We’re just off to do a little touring. Would you recommend the Corvette museum in Bowling Green or the Lincoln birthplace?” Behind, he heard Duvalier get out, yawning.

“I weep for you,” the missionary said. “You’re all dead, you know. A reckoning is coming. Weeds have sprouted in Kentucky’s green gardens, and it is time for the gardeners to replant. But first, the scythes and the cutters. Scythes and cutters, I say.”

“They better be sharper than you,” Duvalier said. “It’s a sad—”

“Wait a moment,” Valentine said. “What’s this about, you? What scythes, what cutters? I don’t believe in visions unless they’re specific.”

“Oh, it’s coming, sir. Sooner than anyone expects.” He looked up and down the column. “You have one final chance to repent. Turn west and follow the sun. If you turn east, by your actions is Kentucky doomed. You sow the seeds of your own destruction.”

“Shut up, you,” one of the Wolves yelled from the Chuckwagon.

“Want us to gag him with his own pastries?” Frat called to Valentine.

Valentine held up his hand, halting the Wolves in their tracks. “How does a man like you come by such intelligence?”

The doughnut missionary grinned. He passed a finger down his nose. “I prayed and I learned over many long years. But I too had faults: pride and greed and lust. I was cast out to make my way among the heathen. But they did not take all my gifts. I still have my vision.”

“False prophecy. I’ve seen no portents. Red sunsets before the Kurians ever move, my mother always told me. Long red sunsets and dawns, with blood on the clouds.”

“Whispers on the wind, you poor soul. That’s how I know. Whispers on the wind.”

“Would that the wind were a little clearer.”

“I hear voices, you poor lost soul. See visions. Visions! Oh, they break the heart.”

“I’m sorry you’re so burdened. How long have you carried that cross?”

“Had them since I was little. Born in a Church hall, the New England Archon’s own retreat it was, but a grim place and nothing but lessons from the time I took my first step. That’s no way to serve the gods, no sir, not for me. I ran away as soon as I could climb over the wall and never looked back. Took up with some relief and reassurance workers and then signed up for the missions, first in group and then alone and with only faith and my poor wit. Been warning souls away from folly and death ever since.”

Valentine took out his pocket notebook. “How long before our day of judgment? I’d like to make some preparations. Will, disposition of assets, and so forth.”

“That I can’t tell you. Soon, though, sir. Soon. This will be a cruel winter, and many won’t live to see the spring. I say again: Repent now and leave Kentucky!”

Valentine decided he’d heard all the detail he’d ever hear from the doughnut missionary, and he climbed back into Rover.

“Why do you let that thing carry on so, Mister Valentine?” Mrs. O’Coombe said. “It insults every faculty of taste and reason.”

“The men like his doughnuts,” Valentine said. A few had hopped out of the column to claim theirs. Valentine saw Frat hurl his into the man’s face as they pulled away.

Mrs. O’Coombe snorted. “I heard a little of him on the way in. I wouldn’t give one of his clots of dough to one of my dogs. Sugar and lard. Mark my words, Mister Valentine, he’s trying to clog their arteries or give your men diabetes. Now, tell me, should we turn east immediately, or should we go south and pick up the old parkway?”

CHAPTER TEN

Lambert had sent word to the clans through Brother Mark of the proposed route tracing the retreat of Javelin, with instructions that any of Southern Command’s surviving wounded be made ready for travel and certain frequencies be scanned for radio contact.

They hadn’t left many behind, at least many who were expected to live more than a day or two. Valentine doubted they’d need half the bed space that had been allocated in the Bushmaster. Either the soldiers would be recovered enough now to sit, or they’d be beyond medical attention.

Once in the Nolin and Green River Valleys, in this manner they picked up three of their wounded who’d escaped death by their wounds, secondary diseases, or the vengeful Moondaggers who’d followed in Javelin’s wake.

The soldiers they picked up, eager to thank Valentine for their collection, were introduced to Mrs. O’Coombe, the true sponsor of their deliverance.

Valentine decided he liked her a little better when he saw her attend to the soldiers they were accumulating. It wasn’t an act for the benefit of anyone, especially Valentine, who seemed to have as natural a knack for aggravating her as a piece of steel has for striking sparks when struck by a sharp piece of flint or quartz. She tended to them in a mix of Christian compassion and patriotic fervor. Nothing was too good for those who’d lost so much in the pursuit of the Cause.

He began to enjoy the trip. The cold weather invigorated him, if anything, and apart from delivering anecdotes about the retreat or advice on routes, he had little to do. Mrs. O’Coombe made all the strategic decisions for the column, and the mile-by-mile operations were handled by wagon master Habanero.

Frat was a superb scout, though Valentine was beginning to see why he was still a lieutenant. He wanted to do everything on his own. Run every risk, shoulder every burden, scout every town, be the first through every door. Valentine was impressed with his courage.

Had LeHavre ever said anything like that about his own eager young lieutenant out of the wilds of northern Minnesota? Of course, LeHavre had brought Valentine along differently, keeping him back rather than sending him forward until he found his feet among the men and in the responsibilities of his platoon.

Bee slept outside, snoring softly, her head pillowed on her shotgun. She’d arranged her mane—Valentine could never decide whether Grog hair should be called “mane” or “fur”—into a star to show off the wound she’d received when the Coonskins turned on the Kentucky Alliance.

She was proud of her wound, issued at his side like a stamp of bravery. Valentine wondered just when whatever debt Bee decided she owed him for freeing her would be paid off. She was mysterious about her loyalty, and Valentine’s rough-and-ready Grog gutturals weren’t up to discussions of intangibles.

But Frat could hold up his end of any conversation. The boy, who’d once possessed a wary, quiet intelligence, had turned into a well-spoken man.

Valentine waved Frat in, heard his report, and then had him sit on one of the tiny camp stools. His long legs made him look a little like a frog ready to give a good loud croak.

“What’s with the big bag, son?”

“Saw yours and sort of admired it, sir. All these maps are a hassle.”

“I used to carry them rolled up in a tube.”

They chatted for a while. Valentine asked about his officers’ training, and they shared memories of Pine Bluff. Frat accidentally mentioned a brothel that was either new or had escaped Valentine’s notice in his days as a shy, studious lieutenant.

They laughed at their mutual awkwardness. Frat, for admitting that he took a trip upstairs as a rite of passage (always on the house for a Hunter on his first visit, it seemed), and Valentine for living so sheltered a student life that he was unaware of its existence.

Sometimes, their conversations turned serious.

“You ever heard the theory that the Kurians keep the Freeholds in business? That they have allies at the top of our military and government?” Valentine said.

“Well, sir,” Frat said. “I think this might be a conversation that wouldn’t stand an Honor Code examination.”

“The ‘sir’ stuff only counts when we’re standing up. I want your opinion. Disparaging and doubting our superiors is a fine old American tradition.”

Frat thought for a moment. “It’s something men like to shout after a defeat. They cry, ‘Betrayed,’ and run. Makes them feel better about running way, or keeping out of it to begin with. If the game’s fixed, there’s no sense putting any skin into it.”

“You’ve put some thought into this already,” Valentine said.

“There was the exact same argument when we got back from Kansas all bloodied, kind of. What’s that saying?
Never attribute to malevolence what can be explained by stupidity
. Something like that.”

“I heard it as
malice
. Interesting that we agree on that. Of course Kur has a few agents in the Free Republics; they’d be fools not to, and we’re not fighting fools. Where’d you get that cry, ‘Betrayed!’?”

“Those Shelby Foote books you gave me about the Civil War when I signed up.”

“Ah, I’d forgotten about that.” Valentine had thought the volumes would teach Frat some useful lessons about leadership in adversity.

“If you ask me, Kansas wasn’t malice or stupidity. They just got lucky. The whole Moondagger army was training for a run at those Grogs in Omaha. But you know that.”

Valentine had a lot of former friends there. Last he heard, after a big battle the Grogs had retreated up the Missouri River Valley and were now finding friends among the Nebraska ranchers he’d met when looking for the Twisted Cross with Duvalier.

“Actually I don’t. I was out of the country at the time.”

“Kansas was bad. One of the places I was reported killed, as I recall. My platoon was ambushed and I made it away with only two men. I think the others were captured. We tried to follow and see if we could help them escape, but—they were the Moondaggers, you see. Someone told me that Moondagger priests can channel aura to a Kurian just like a Reaper, and in return they get special powers, just like Wolves do, kind of. That’s one of the reasons I volunteered to come out here, to get another crack at them.”

“What’s left of the ones that operated in eastern Kentucky are back in the Bluegrass region, licking their wounds, last I heard, under the protection of a clan called the Coonskins, who betrayed the Kentucky Alliance. The ones who chased us across western Kentucky have been scattered. Not many survived the massacre on the road to Bowling Green. I would have liked a few officers as prisoners, personally, but the legworm clans had women and children to avenge.”

“We’re heading near there, right?”

“Yes. Corporal O’Coombe was dropped off in the Rolling Fork Valley southwest of Louisville. But we don’t want to tangle with them or the Coonskins. Not with two motorcycles and four transport vehicles.”

“Isn’t the size of the dog in the fight—,” Frat began.

“Why aren’t you a captain, Frat?” Valentine asked.

“Most of the fights I’ve been in since Archangel have been losing ones. In Kansas I lost a platoon. Rio Grande was a disaster, or turned into one a long time after I left. Maybe third time’s the charm. Seems to me if I’m in charge of a permanent group of Wolves operating in Kentucky, I oughta be a captain at that.”