Winter Duty (36 page)

Valentine’s luck was in. As it happened, Brother Mark was also in the Karas’ Kentucky Alliance heartland. They managed to get a fix on each other over the radio and agreed to meet on Gunslinger clan ground.

What was left of the old alliance welcomed them into the Gunslinger camp squatting for the winter in the ruins of a megachurch near a group of their worm piles outside of Danville. If not cheering, exactly, there were shouted halloos and greetings and excited children rolling around and bumping like marbles.

The camp was unsettling in one manner, though. It seemed to be devoid of men between fourteen and forty. All Valentine saw were boys and old men. He knew the Gunslingers had suffered losses during the summer’s fighting, but he had no idea they were this grievous.

There were plenty of horsemen and vehicles and guns in camp, however. Tikka was there with a column of her all-Kentucky army, and Brother Mark had arrived with a few members of the Assembly and their staff.

“Lots of mouths to feed, mouths that didn’t do any planting or weeding or varmint shooting this summer,” one of the cooks grumbled as he spooned soup into variegated plastic containers.

Valentine presented Mrs. O’Coombe to the temporary leader of the Gunslingers, an old woman who’d long served as an advisor to their clan’s leader. Mrs. O’Coombe quivered like an excited horse as she asked about her son.

The Gunslinger leader asked the camp doctor, who stepped up and cleared his throat. “I have good news for you, madam,” he said. “Your son is alive and well. I saw him not four days ago.”

“May I see him, please?”

The temporary clan chief shook her head. “He is with our muster. They left to meet the Coonskins on the Kentucky river some ways north of here. Corporal Rockaway is serving with the new army’s artillery.”

“But—he is a soldier of Southern Command,” Mrs. O’Coombe said. “He has four years left. . . .”

“An informal arrangement,” the Gunslinger said. “He’s still in what’s left of the Southern Command Guard uniform. Settle, ma’am; settle. He’s just along so we can show strength if they try another decapitation attack. Fine boy you raised.”

“It’s that Last Chance,” Brother Mark said. “Raving about some kind of apocalypse that’s going to hit Kentucky. Sad thing is, he’s getting a few converts.”

Valentine fought his body. It wanted to be up and in action, chopping wood or clearing brush for kindling if nothing else.

“We’ve had a lot of townies flee to Coonskin territory,” the clan leader said. “Mostly people who drew breath thanks to the Kurian Order anyway, so good riddance to them.”

“If you would provide me with a guide—,” Mrs. O’Coombe said.

“Sorry, ma’am. I hate to say no to a worried mother—I have four myself and one grandchild—but it’s a clan rule. When a fighting man is away, no parents, no children, no spouses until the fighting’s over.”

“But there is to be no fighting,” Mrs. O’Coombe said.

“We hope not. As I was saying, our people end up worrying more about their families than the enemy, and they get themselves in trouble that way. But it looks like you brought a few gunmen of your own. If you want to send them up with a message to your boy, they’re welcome to join young Tikka upcountry. Until then, I’d like to offer you our hospitality.”

Gunslinger hospitality was meager with all the visitors in camp and the holidays emptying larders.

Everyone was talking about the peace conference between the Gunslingers and the Coonskin-Moondaggers northeast of them in the Bluegrass proper. The idea that Kentucky might be allowed to just let the bodies lie and stop the raids and counterraids that had been going on ever since the Moondaggers marched across Kentucky, burning and kidnapping, gave everyone hope for an early spring without gunfire exchanged in Kentucky’s tangled dells.

Valentine had the disquieting feeling that their hopes would be in vain. This cease-fire might be the final calm before the storm.

The reinforcements were already pulling out of the Gunslinger winter camp to join the others to the north. Tikka’s Army of Kentucky were dressed like scarecrows in everything from denim to black-dyed sports uniforms, but most sported new winter hacking coats in a uniform deerskin brown,
A-o-K
stenciled on the shoulder. Behind them were guns and commissary wagons. Valentine hadn’t seen such a mule train since the campaign in Dallas. The animals looked fresher than the men.

Tikka greeted Mrs. O’Coombe’s lined-up staff and Valentine’s Southern Command additions. She and a few members of her staff took a quick appreciative look at their bikes and vehicles.

“How are you keeping these beasts fed in the backwoods?” one of the men in a new-looking uniform with a coonskin on the outside of his muffler-style field-jacket collar said.

“We burn organic,” Stuck said.

Someone on the staff muttered to a friend about outsiders buying corn oil when there were hungry mouths this lean winter. The comment wasn’t meant for him, so Valentine didn’t react.

“I don’t suppose we can count on that APC up at the peace conference,” Tikka said to Stuck.

“We’ve got a few of our own wounded to take care of. It’s mostly a hospital truck.”

“Then how about lending your doc and that medical wagon, in case there’s a fight.”

“I’ll ask Mrs. O’Coombe,” Stuck said, and walked off.

Habanero was pointing out modifications to the suspension as Tikka walked Valentine back toward the road north.

“You want to join us and see the fun?” Tikka asked.

“The man I’m looking for is up there already. Yes, I’m glad to accept your invitation.”

Tikka faked a stumble and knocked into Valentine with her shoulder. “On duty again, I’ll bet.”

“I’m not sure how to categorize what we’re doing at the moment,” Valentine said. “Civilian liaison, I suppose.”

“Figures. I wouldn’t object to a quick liaison under a blanket, but this time I’m the one with a bunch of men expecting me to have my pants on at all hours. Besides, your redhead’s looking at me like I’m selling New Universal Church Bibles door-to-door.”

Valentine turned around and saw Duvalier sitting cross-legged on the hood of the Chuckwagon, warming herself on the engine. She threw her leg over her sword stick and rubbed the handle in an obscene manner.

“Thin little thing,” Tikka said. “I remember her now; she’s the one who comes and goes. You should buy her a good Kentucky ham.”

“She’s always looked like that, but she still puts in thirty miles a day of walking when she has to.” Valentine wanted to change the subject. “You know, I don’t think I’ve congratulated you on your new post.”

“I delivered one big victory, and now I get cheered everywhere I go. They keep saying they’re going to appoint a general-in-chief for the A-o-K, and I wish they’d get on with it. I’m shooting from the hip from the time I get up until the moment I pull off my boots—when I get a chance to sleep, that is. I was brought up to keep the Bulletproof ’s worms from getting rustled and our stills from getting stolen, not to do this commanding general stuff. Speaking of which, if the men don’t see me in my command truck, they won’t keep closed up properly. I’ll see you on the banks of the Kentucky, David.”

Stuck remained at the Gunslinger winter camp. Where Mrs. O’Coombe went, so did he, a hulking shadow. At the moment he sat pillowed between Longshot’s thighs as she rubbed oil into his scalp and massaged his temples, looking like a monkey grooming her mate.

“What’s that all about?” Duvalier asked Valentine.

“Bears get twitchy if they don’t let off steam somehow. That’s how brawls start: Bears with nothing to use as a way to vent.”

“Like chopping wood?” Duvalier asked.

Valentine stared at her. He’d never thought of it beyond satisfying exercise.

“You sure you don’t want to come up to the peace conference?” he asked.

Duvalier poked him with her elbow. “Snore. There’s an interesting craft market in Danville, they say. Maybe I’ll visit that. I picked up some real gold braid in Indiana. I’ll skip a few days of you making goggle eyes at your bowlegged worm rider.”

Valentine decided not to ask how she’d acquired the braid. “I’m not sure how to make ‘goggle eyes,’ ” Valentine said, and then regretted it instantly. A lot of times Duvalier said nonsensical stuff just to provoke him.

“You know, Val, you’re just a big plaything to her. A doll with really nice hair and a dick.”

“What a shame I missed Christmas morning.”

“That’s it. I am coming along, if only to keep you from embarrassing us.”

The banks of the Kentucky were thickly wooded at the slight bulge that passed for a lake designated as the border between Gunslinger and Coonskin territory. Behind the banks were the river-cut hills, scarred with limestone cuts and patched with tufts of wood like an old man’s hairline.

They could see on the other side of the river the observation positions of what was presumably the Coonskin force, no doubt here to safeguard their own negotiators.