Highbeam Assembly Area, Arkansas, November: Just outside the city Jonesboro, now notable only for its hospital, which is the only one in the northeastern corner of the state, a new camp is going up.
Southern Command believes that the best people to build a camp are the soldiers who have to eat, sleep, and train in it. Cartload after cartload of lumber, tenting, plumbing, and wiring arrives as the assembly area swells, hauled from the rail terminus to the camp by ox wagons and mule teams.
A tricky autumn dumped rain and a freak snowstorm on the soldiers as they hammered and tacked and strung. Now, with canvas roofing above their heads at last and corduroy roads made of scrub timber and wood chips, the rain blows out northeast and a cool, dry fall sets in, though the chill in the midnight-to-dawn air hints at worse to come.
Valentines company arrived after the Wolf contingent and Bear teams but before most of the Guard forces of the expeditionary brigade. They got their own corner of the assembly area, a little blister near the camp's drainage.
As far as the men were concerned, they were preparing for a "long out." Lambert had planted rumors that their destination was New Orleans or a big raid on the river patrol base at Vicksburg. Consequently the men assumed that they'd be going in the opposite direction, perhaps to Omaha or another try at western Kansas. One Wolf swore that it would certainly be Omaha, as he knew for a fact that Major Valentine was familiar with the city, as his sister had served under him on Big Rock Hill and afterward on the drive into Texas. She knew all about him. Others bet him that it was Kansas, as Colonel Seng had buried a lot of soldiers there and was going back to reclaim old ground.
Each man both hopes for and fears the coming "long out." On the return from such a campaign, promotions and awards are handed out like Archangel Day candy. Quieter, dirtier stories of the women looking for an easy out of the Kurian Zone appeal to some; others talk of strange liquors and dishes. The best of them, writing letters home or making out the public paragraphs of their wills, refer to the gratification of liberating a town or county, the fear of the residents that slowly transforms to hope, and the hard work of making individuals out of cattle.
David Valentine, looking at his motley assortment of Camp Liberty volunteers (ninety-two former Quislings and twelve refugees, of which nine are women) drawn up on a freshly cleared field within their winter encampment for their first mornings exercises, readies himself for the strain of once again being responsible for men's lives-including, in the words of his old Wolf captain LeHavre, "burying your mistakes."
* * * *
Patel was still the only NCO. Valentine's requests had disappeared into the maw of Southern Command's digestive process. What would emerge from the other end remained to be seen.
He was lined up with the other men, ahead of the massed ranks. Valentine wore his oldest militia fatigues and the men were still in their Liberty handouts. They'd divide the men into platoons later. For now they'd eat, sleep, and exercise in a big mass.
Even in the early days of their acquaintance he was already conditioning himself to the idea that some of them, even all of them, might die in the coming operation.
Valentine had made peace with his own death. He'd seen Kurian rule in all its fear and splatter. Faced with his experiences and the mixture of revulsion and hatred they inspired, he had only one option, the only option a man who wanted to call himself a man had: risking all in a fight that would end only with his death or the Kurian Order's destruction.
Why the men under him signed up wasn't strictly his concern. Whether they fought so they could look other soldiers in the eye, to take the place of a lost relative, to get an allotment, or because they thought of battle as the ultimate blood sport made no difference regarding the orders he would give: He'd do his duty the same whether a man signed for faith or money.
Speaking of duty, his first was creating a healthy environment for his men while they trained themselves into a fighting company.
The only improvement to their ground was a length of three-inch piping and some conduit extending out of the main camp. The rest of their materials were in the supply yard.
Patel stepped out of the little "command shack," the only structure standing in their blister at the end of the camp. His cane had disappeared and he looked as spry as ever.
He walked back and forth in front of the men once. He'd inked in a star on his old stripes and done a good job of it. Valentine could hardly tell the difference.
"My name is Sergeant Major Patel. You came here as a hundred and five individuals.
Southern Command's going to make an army of one out of you. One well-trained, sharp brain that's always alert. One tough Reaper-eating body. One heart that fears only God and Sergeant Major Patel. You read me, slackers?"
"Sir yes sir!" Valentine shouted. A few voices behind joined in.
Patel put his hands on his hips and faced them. "Rest of you haven't finished evolving?
Communication occurs when the transmitter broadcasts and the transmittee acknowledges.
Try again!"
"Sir yes sir!" they shouted.
"I don't want to hear harmony-you're not a fuckin' chorus. All at once, and louder."
"Sir yes sir!" they shouted loud enough to be heard in Jonesboro. Georgia, not Arkansas.
"After morning exercise, we're going to build you all shelters. Ladies get theirs first, because we're in Southern Command. We're blessed with natural gallantry."
Morning exercises lasted until lunch. Patel took them through his "twelve labors." Again and again, he managed to find fault with the rhythm of their jumping jacks or the height of someone's buttocks during a push-up. He sent Valentine and four exhausted "slackers" off to get the meal while he finished with the rest.
There wasn't a chuck wagon available so they piled bread and beans and trays into a wheelbarrow and ate with spoons. Dessert was flaky pastry smeared with "Grog guck."
Valentine got tap detail. He turned on the spigot and filled cups and a couple of beat-up old canteens and bladders from the flow of water so the recruits had something to drink with their food.
With everyone sprawled on the cold, damp ground eating and drinking, Valentine finally got his pan full of beans. The beans tasted as though they'd once shared a tin with some ham but divorced some time back, though the molasses in the sauce was sweet and welcome.
Patel gave them thirty minutes and then roused them to get to work on the frames for the tents. Valentine was the only one to notice that Patel's breath smelled like aspirin as he bellowed. But they did manage to finish the women's tent and get a start on the showers.
That night they slept around fifty-five-gallon drum stoves burning scrap from the lumber they'd measured and cut.
The first day was nothing to the second. Everyone ached and groaned as they did the twelve labors. Some fool asked when they were going to get their uniforms and Patel showed them why they weren't yet fit to wear Southern Command issue by running across, covering in, and crawling through the noisome field where the camp's sanitary waters drained off.
"Too slow," Patel said each and every time they fell into the mud. Or crawled. Or got up.
Or crossed the field. Or turned around to cross the field again.
They slept in a formidable stench that second night, thanks to the field and two (or more-the men had had a long trip on buses) days' worth of hard-sweat body odor. The next day, eating a breakfast of biscuits and greasy gravy out of wheelbarrows again, they learned all about democracy as they voted to finish the showers before the men's shelter.
Valentine liked the decision that they'd rather sleep rough and cold than dirty. Men who wanted to get clean had pride in themselves. He also liked being under Patel's orders. It got him out of Camp Highbeam meetings and working dinners that were more social than productive.
They had the floorboards laid, the sinks running, and the shower headings up when Patel stopped them and had them line up on the camp's main road to welcome three new companies of the Guards into camp.
They must have made a strange impression, hair spiky with mud, the odd multicolor dungarees of Camp Liberty filthy with a mixture of muck and sawdust.
"Better get back to wrangling them pigs, boys," one called.
"Whew! Someone's been on shit detail," another Guard soldier called as they walked in.
Catcalls and jibes were part of the Command's proud tradition. The men stared off blankly into space or looked down. They didn't have the spirit to answer back.
Yet.
That was his job. And Patel's. And the rest of his NCOs, if he ever got any. To make up for the jokes, after dinner that night he told them a little more about what they would be doing in the Kurian Zone- scouting and trading for food, scrounging up replacement gear, and interacting with the local resistance.
Unfortunately for his company, he learned the next day that the second name stuck. Maybe it was their odd bubo placement in the camp's layout, but Valentine's company became known as the "shit detail" in everything but formal correspondence.
He discussed the problem the next morning with Patel in the little command shack as the men slept-clean now, thanks to the functioning showers but still in tiny field tents or bags in the cold clew-as they planned the day's training.
"What do you think of promoting from within?" Patel asked. "There are several ex-sergeants. You've even got a busted-down captain in your ranks."
"I'd like to see talent rewarded," Valentine said. "It's more of a mind-set than technical and leadership skills that I'm worried about. In the Kurian Zone, it's enough to just issue an order.
Here the men like to know the whys and hows so they feel a part of something larger. I'd like to see initiative-intelligent initiative-from privates on up."
"I don't think that's possible in a few months. If you want some sergeants taught to be Southern Command sergeants, I may be able to help. Can you get me any money?"
"I can try. What are you talking about?"
"About thirty thousand dollars."
"I don't have a pension to borrow against anymore, Patel. I'll try Lambert. She might have access to a slush fund. Tell me what you have in mind."
They worked out the deal with Lambert, the general, and Southern Command in three days.
When Valentine pointed out that in the long run it would be cheaper than adding more men to the "long out" with bonuses and land grants and so forth, they agreed.
Plus it would be good for the "shit detail's" morale to be led by their own.
Naturally, there were staffing orders to cancel. As luck would have it, one position filled as the order was transmitted: a heavy weapons expert named Glass, rank of corporal and with a spotty record of wanting to do things his own way, showed up at camp and reported to the command shack as everyone was eating their lunches out of wheelbarrows again.
A small man with a big pack, he looked like some kind of beetle with an oversized carapace of pack and camp gear. He also sported the world's scraggliest beard. It looked like Spanish moss Valentine had seen in Louisiana.
Valentine stood up to welcome him and Patel trailed behind.
"Very glad to see you," Valentine said, shaking Glass' hand.
"Thank you, sir," he said rather sullenly.
"Don't want this assignment, Glass? You didn't get someone twisting your arm to volunteer, I hope."
"No. Nothing like that, Major. Tell the truth, I'm glad to be back under General Lehman.
Just tired from the trip."
Glass was one of those compact, wiry men in what looked to be his late twenties. Judging from his qualifications list on his Q-file, he didn't look to be the type to wear down. Valentine let it rest.
"You're early, so you get to pick the most comfortable corner in the NCO tent. It's just you and Sergeant Major Patel for now."
They sized each other up, Patel in his Wolf leathers, hand sewn and patched, Glass in his ordinary Guard cammies. Glass stared vacantly at Patel, not so much challenging his superior as transmitting indifference.
"What's the company's support weaponry?" he asked.
"It's not here yet," Valentine said. "As you can see, everything's late to arrive, even uniforms. You might as well learn early, we're the shit detail of this outfit. Eat up."
"Will that be all, sir?"
"For the moment," Valentine replied.
"I'll get myself squared away, then," Glass said. He turned for the tent with Patel's name painted on the old bit of traffic sign next to the door.
"Brittle," Patel commented. "Just hope he's not about to break."
"He's got outstanding references for his competency. Leadership's lacking. His last CO
called him 'prickly.' "
"Wonder how the guys who had to share a tent with him would have put it," Patel said.
"We're not going across the river to have a harvest bonfire and sing-along," Valentine replied. "I'm willing to wait and see."
* * * *
Valentine's company first lieutenant finally arrived late at night as Valentine caught up on paperwork in the one-bulb shack. He tripped on the doorstep coming in, straightened, saluted, and handed Valentine his orders.
They told a curious tale in the dates and checkboxes and comments. Valentine spent sixty seconds reading through.
Lieutenant (militia) Rowan Rand was Kentucky-bred; his parents made the run for Free Territory when he was fifteen. His father disappeared one night while scouting what looked like a vacant farmhouse and he'd helped his mother and sisters the rest of the way to the Ozarks, crossing the Mississippi on barrels a la Bilbo Baggins.
"Stint in the militia, and then right into Logistics Commandos?" Valentine asked, looking up from the file.
Rand blinked back at him through glasses that the ungenerous might call Coke bottle. "Bad eyesight. Astigmatism. I'm bat-blind without my eyewear plus I don't see so well in the dark.
They never put it down on my record beyond 'needs glasses.' "
Southern Command's recruiters had the sense to weigh shortcomings against strengths, almost always in favor of giving a candidate a chance to prove their mettle. "You tore through the SC Intelligence and Aptitude tests. Your test scores make mine look like an illiterate's."
"Six years in a Church academy in Columbia District," Rand said.
"Church background? I'll introduce you to Brother Mark. How'd you like it?"
"The schoolwork was fun. And there were all the outings and marches and drives, singing the happy tunes as we worked. I'm embarrassed to think about it now."
"You were eleven. How could you know?" Valentine said.
"Same for you? You kind of choked up there, sir."
"I grew up in a different church, luckily."
"I would have run on my own during summer leave if my parents hadn't decided to try."
Valentine read over the file again. "Platoon leader and then a lieutenant in the militia. Five trips into Kentucky, three into Tennessee with the LCs. No combat?"
Rand shrugged. "Logistics Commandos think that if you get into a fight, you're a screwup."
The Logistics Commandos were odd units. They went into Kurian Zones to beg, borrow, or steal items Southern Command had difficulty manufacturing or maintaining. Mostly they were made up of veteran Hunter members, Wolves and Cats primarily, but Valentine had heard that with Hunter training slowed to a trickle, more and more regulars had been doing the hazardous duty.
Valentine read to the bottom of his assignment orders. Lambert herself had placed Rand with his company. If she believed in the man, there was no need to probe further.
"Welcome to Delta Company," Valentine said. "At the moment Sergeant Major Patel is running the show, turning the men into a team. When we're on the parade ground, he's in charge."
"Yes, sir," Rand said.
"I'll introduce you to the company. You'll stick close to me for a week or so until you find your feet, then you'll take over. I'm going north into Grog country. I'll be back in a few weeks, barring catastrophe."
* * * *
Rand sank into his duties easily enough. To Valentine's delight, he soon swam lustily. He was all knees and elbows in the field and had a tendency to trip. After a sprawl he had a way of pushing his thick glasses back up his nose that disarmed the laughers and charmed the more sympathetic.
He accepted formal command of the company from Valentine with a nod and a yessir, then took off his glasses and cleaned them with his shirttail.
Valentine had a final word with Patel as the groom from the brigade stables held his horse, a sturdy Morgan named Raccoon. A packhorse stood just behind. Valentine hung his baggage and the odds and ends he'd been collecting on the packhorse.
"Keep up the good work, Sergeant Major," he said as Patel helped fix a clip.
"Enjoy your leave, sir."
"It won't all be fun. I'm going to see if I can do a little more recruiting in Missouri."
"You don't mean . . ."
"Yes. Grogs."
The horse holder snorted. Valentine took the reins and Patel shot the groom a look and growled: "Thank you, Private."
Valentine and Patel walked toward the gate. Well, not so much a gate as a big chain with a Southern Command postal number hanging from it and blocking the camp's entrance.
"Since you got out of the Wolves, sir . . . any head injuries?"
"The Cowardly Lion says it wasn't so much a head injury as Bud ringing my wake-up bell."
"Bud? Ah, yes, my old friend who tried to climb up a tree to God. Your memory's still on target. I was going to ask who was the first governor of the Ozark Free Territory."
"Kird Q. Pelgram," Valentine said. "I think you'll have to do better."
"If a Quisling troop train pulls out of New Orleans at twelve thirty, going twenty miles an hour toward Baton Rouge, and eight hours later their support train pulls out, going forty miles an hour, when will-"
"It won't. We'll blow up the bridge at Red River so the Quislings have to fight without artillery."
"When are you going to change out of that milita rag?"
"Near the border, at one of those shifty inns that does business with the Grogs out of a basement armory."
"Speaking of uniforms," Patel said. "There's a Kentucky gal in second platoon who used to be on some big bug's staff Ediyak-Private Ediyak now. She knows Kurian auxiliary forces from the Gulf Coast to the Lakes. She's got a design for a uniform based on their priority labor.
Moleskin, they call it, almost as tough as leather, with denim shirts, both dyed down to a foggy gray."
"I've seen something like that in the KZ. Those the guys who run phone lines?"
"Yes. Flying specialists that work their communications and electrical. Always moving from place to place, so strange faces won't raise eyebrows."
"Denim's easy to get. Labor troops. I dunno about the moleskin."
"Popular with ranchers. Rand says he can find some with his old LC connections."
"If she can modify them so they're Southern Command but still look KZ, that would be ideal."
"I'll speak to her about it."
Valentine decided to jump in with both feet. "Put Rand to work getting denim and dye and sewing supplies. He might as well get his baptism of fire with Supply or put his LC
background to work in the UFR. Worst-case scenario is they'll be a fresh set of civvies for our guys."
"These leathers are getting a little gamey anyway."
"How are the knees holding up?"
"I'm now a confirmed aspirin addict, sir."
Valentine extended his hand and they shook. "Give yourself a break, Patel. Let Glass take them through the twelve labors. No one's going to think worse of you if you pick the cane back up after these last weeks."
With that he rode out of camp, turning north into a November wind.
* * * *
For six gallons of root-beer syrup he got a Whitefang guide to take him up to St. Louis, the Grog clearing a path through the brush with a year-old legworm. His guide frequently stopped his mount to scout on foot, and at these rests Valentine would feed the horses and check their trail. The only thing that picked them up was a slight cold on their ride north. Both he and his guide took turns sneezing and blowing their noses, but it was better when they came into St.
Louis three days later.
He traded a captured revolver-he'd tinkered with it on the journey and modified the grip and trigger guard for Grog-sized fingers- for a foot pass and toted his bag full of toys to Blake's home.
Not that Blake lacked toys. The old Jesuit researcher, Cutcher, had been observing him constantly as he played with various puzzles, games, and toys, gauging the young Reaper's mental development.
They'd built another coop and chicken run in the side yard of the prairie-style house located high on the bluffs above the Missouri. The Owl-Eye Grogs had added a rock pile at either side of the driveway. According to the scratchings, this was a place of powerful good magic for the tribe.
He gave some bolts of cloth, seeds, and religious books to Narcisse. Along with her care of Blake, she'd started a little church for the human community in St. Louis. While the only holy spirit the human river traders took came in a square bottle, Narcisse had made it her specialty to invite human captives of the Grogs into her circle. She'd been traveling to a couple of different neighborhoods more or less strapped to a mule. Valentine would have to promote his pack-horse to the carriage trade and find her a little two-wheel cart. He could acquire the kind of thing high-ranking Grog chieftain wives used to visit relatives in the complicated tribal family structure, curtained to prevent lowlier Grogs from gazing on the high and mighty.
Valentine pulled the bell rope that told Blake that it was okay to come out of his comfortable basement room.
Blake, at just under four years, was as tall as a boy on the cusp of his teens, "papss," Blake hissed excitedly as he emerged. He wore an oversized jacket and jeans with the cuffs extended. Gloves dangled from his sleeves. When he'd go outside he'd add a scarf and a floppy old hat to disguise his appearance.
Wobble, Blake's little dog, picked up on the boy's excitement at having "paps" home and chased his tail in excitement.
"Night games tonight?" Blake asked.
"Anything you like," Valentine said. "Fishing, a deer run, or I can read you stories."
Blake put up with stories only when he was very tired. He didn't like to sit and just listen or read along.
"Night games!"
For night games Blake wore a football helmet with padding sewn in at the sides so it fit snugly on his rather narrow head.
The games took place in the old St. Louis children's museum, a warren of chutes and ladders and tunnels made out of assorted bits of industrial and artistic junk from the pre-2022
world. The Grogs used it to train young warriors. At night the Grogs loosed their young on each other, to chase and brawl.
Some of the tougher human children sometimes joined in, also suitably padded and helmeted. Blake's helmet had a mesh with eye-slits attached to the grill-Valentine once explained to another human parent that the Grogs sometimes gouged with their long fingers-and with leather gloves on it would be hard to distinguish him from any other skinny young boy.
He could even shriek like a prepubescent when the mood hit.
There were no human kids there the night he took Blake. Valentine relaxed a little. Blake sometimes liked to show off by executing a jump no human could make and sometimes when wrestling he reversed his arm joints.
The most common Grog game was for one of the less dominant males to run up and swat a tougher one and then try to get away. The Grog children clearly considered it something of a coup if they could get away from Blake; they would swing or dangle from climbing obstacles and hit him, or three would strike at once and run off in different directions. Blake took the punches and swats with good humor and pursued his attackers and threw and pinned them when he could.
The roughhousing resulted in surprisingly few injuries. Young Grogs bounced like basketballs.
Valentine had stiffened the mesh in front of Blake's chin. Blake had acquired a good deal of self-control, but no sense taking chances.
He sat, watching Blake play. When Blake disappeared into one of the ill-lit buildings filled with noise and shadow, he followed, carrying a mug of sweet tea hot from a thermos.
A second thermos waited in Valentine's pack for when Blake tired. It was filled with warm chicken blood.
* * * *
They fished the next day, then crossed into the woods on the north side of the Missouri the night after that, going on a deer run in the early morning.
Blake didn't have his helmet this time, just a hat with earflaps.
Valentine and Blake had a unique manner of deer hunting. They'd cover their scent as best they could with deer droppings and then wait. The deer liked to forage at the edges of old roads and broken-up parking lots. When they decided a herd was close enough, Valentine tapped Blake and they took off after a deer.
Last time they'd gone on a deer run, Valentine had been able to sprint ahead of Blake, even with his stiff leg. This time Blake beat him early in their dash after the bouncing white tails.
Valentine had that moment most fathers had, much earlier in the quick-developing Blake's case, when the son outdoes the father physically. He pulled up and sheathed his knife, relegated to the role of watcher.
Sometimes the deer crisscrossed and Blake got confused. But this time he bounded onto a big young buck at the fringe. Valentine had a moment's doubt, wondering if Blake would be taken for a brief ride before he lost his grip, but he brought it down like a cougar, clawing his way onto its neck and biting.
By the time he trotted up to Blake, the deer's eyes had gone dead and sightless. Blake raised a blood-smeared smile to him.
"Clean kill, Blake. Let's dress it. Sissy will have venison for the whole winter now, or deer sausage to go with her eggs."
At noon-Blake liked to sleep through the days-Valentine settled him down for a nap.
They'd return with the deer carried on a pole between them that night. He read to Blake a little from Charlotte's Web, but Blake seemed unimpressed by Wilbur's predicament.
"Pigs don't talk," Blake said, "story is not real"
"It's a story. In stories pigs can talk. So can spiders and rats."
Blake didn't understand why, if the pig could talk to Templeton or Charlotte A. Cavatica, it couldn't talk to Fern.
Blake would rather watch the bugs moving in the grasses and find out what they were doing. Maybe he was just scientifically minded. Valentine still found it disturbing that he couldn't summon his imagination to aid him in understanding the story.
Or empathy.
* * * *
Blake helped him with various repairs to the house. Valentine went into St. Louis and got kerosene and tallow for light, a big bag of rice, chicken feed, and tar for a couple of weak spots in the roof and drainspouts.
Valentine watched Blake with Narcisse. She touched Blake fre-quently, patting him on the head or shoulder or arm, and he smiled, but he rarely touched or returned hugs with much enthusiasm.
But then he loved to nap with his head pillowed on her lap or breast.
Once, while Blake was sleeping away the morning, Valentine asked Narcisse if she was ever afraid.
"Daveed, don't be silly. I am safer with the boy here than with a whole pack of guard dogs.
He tells me when the Grogs come ten minutes before I hear them."
"No, I mean of Blake."
"He cares, in his way. He is like-he is like the cat who just takes affection on his terms.
One time I fell from my wheel-stool and before I knew it he was beside me and righted it.
After, I had a scrape on my arm and he got a cloth with vinegar for it."
Valentine gave voice to his doubts. "Maybe he just thought he was repairing you, the way he did the chicken wire."
"One night in August it was hot and I did not kiss him good night. He asked me why I didn't as I left, and I told him I was worried that he was getting too big for a kiss good night. He said he liked it because it made him feel warm and sleepy. He has love and caring. Do not worry for me."
Valentine let the matter rest.
* * * *
They said their good-byes in the driveway. The garage now had a two-wheeled rig for Valentine's packhorse. Wobble sniffed at the new feed trough Valentine had built.
Narcisse had shown herself adept at driving the trap and Blake found the challenge of driving a horse fascinating. Blake approved of simple action-result loops much more than E. B.
White.
Valentine had acquired the rig by pledging to a loan of trade goods at the old church office in the city. He'd pay it back through the river rats.
"No sneaking blood out of that horse, now," Valentine said to Blake.
"No, papss," Blake said. Neither of the horses were happy about Blake's presence. They sidestepped and danced every time he moved. The carthorse would get used to him eventually.
"Help Sissy all you can. I may be gone for a while, so you've got to look out for her."
"No trouble for sissy" Blake said. Narcisse stroked his odd tufts of hair. It looked as though someone had glued old toothbrush heads in odd patterns on his scalp. It just grew in that way.
He remembered one of the Miskatonic researchers saying something about it possibly being an identifying mark.
"Go with the magic of the right hand, Daveed," Narcisse said.
He plucked her out of her wheelchair and hugged her. She'd put on a little weight since he'd met her in Haiti.
"Can't thank you enough, Sissy," Valentine said.
"I go where the most need is. Blake needs someone to teach him. My whole life, I never fit in anywhere," she said. "That is something I can teach Blake. How not to fit in right. The people here, especially the captives of the Grogs, they need me too."
Valentine knew she'd been practicing her folkloric brand of medicine with the humans.
She had turned a sunny south breakfast nook into a room devoted to growing herbs. How she got exotic peppers and roots in St. Louis was a marvel. Cutcher had probably helped her build her collection.
He was proud of the victories he'd won for the Cause, but he couldn't visit Big Rock Hill again without seeing faces of Beck and Kessey, knowing where they were buried and what they looked like before they'd been cleaned and shrouded.
Narcisse was also a victory, in a way. There'd never be a plaque to commemorate her, the way there was one on the old red-brick consular residence on Big Rock. Instead of brass lettering, this victory came with a shining smile, a colorful kerchief, and arms he could feel as they embraced.
He rode away from the house on the Missouri bluffs and into a cold wind. He didn't dare think of it as home, or else he'd never have left it.
* * * *
Valentine's Whitefang guide must have had a fine old time in St. Louis. He'd acquired two wives, one for him and one for his brother, and a legworm's worth of trade goods.
It looked like his brother was getting the ugly one. But then Valentine wasn't current on Gray One aesthetics. While he waited for his guide to arrange the departure, Valentine fended off a trade Grog trying to buy his hair.
Luckily his guide didn't mind him hanging bags of horse grain from the legworm's dry, fleshy hide. First you had to sink a cargo hook into the thing, which took some judgment, as patches of skin were constantly sloughing off. Then there was the legworm's habit of crashing through thickets. You didn't want to put your load where it might get accidentally torn off as the legworm brushed a tree.
They passed south easily enough, the tough Morgan stepping easily in the legworm's wake, nibbling at bits of trampled greenery now in easy reach. Valentine only remembered wondering how big Blake would be the next time he saw him.
His efforts at recruiting a dozen or so Whitefangs met with a stern refusal from the chief:
"In the days of my grandfather, whisperers promised much and gave little. Little thinskins all same."
"Give good guns. Give good gear. Whitefangs share camp and food and battle, become friends to thinskins," Valentine said.
The young warrior who'd led the Whitefangs in battle against the Doublebloods snarled and displayed in front of Valentine, stamping his feet and tearing up ground with a ceremonial planting hook.
"Not need thinskins' guns put up plenty good fight," he said. Valentine got a nose-full of Grog breath.
"I saw Whitefangs in battle," Valentine said. It was hard not to flinch. One good swing of that hook and his brains would be leaking out of his nose. "Would want such warriors as friends against whisperers."
The young warrior squatted and looked to his chief.
The chief fingered his necklace. Valentine saw two Reaper fangs among the odds and ends of his trophy braiding, gearshift knobs and dog tags, mostly. "Whitefangs enemies enough. Not need seek more across river," the chief said.
That seemed to settle things.
* * * *
Back at the Highbeam assembly, Valentine found his company hard at work sewing.
He changed back into the tired old militia uniform and ordered a powdered meal as he received Rand's report. A contingent of three aged Wolves had arrived. They were already known through the company as "Patel's Shepherds." Each had taken a platoon and were putting them through tough field training.
"Recon's hard work," Rand said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirttail when the formal report ended. "They've sniffed out six stills, two basement markets, three gambling dens, and a brothel and a smokehouse that does beefsticks you won't believe. They also located a mother and two talented widowed sisters in Jonesboro who enjoy giving formal dinner parties for the handsome, brave young officers of Southern Command.
Handsome and young being key to an invitation to dinner."
"In other words, they're experienced soldiers."
Valentine found his desk unusually orderly. He'd been expecting an overflowing in-basket.
"Private Ediyak, the gal with the idea for the uniforms, helped me with some of the low-priority stuff. The rest is in the locked file cabinet."
They'd set up two sewing machines in a workshop next to the command tent. Someone had found a battery-operated radio and hung it high in the tent.
* * * *
He met Private Ediyak, a small blonde with the delicately wide-eyed look of someone brought up on KZ rations, when she had a soldier model the new uniform.
It was made out of denim the color of a foggy evening. Baggy about the legs but easily bloused into boots and knee pads. She'd layered a denim jacket over an athletic sweatshirt, and put an olive canvas utility vest over that. The vest was trimmed with yellow reflective tape.
Valentine recognized the vests. They were Labor Regiment. He used to cram sandwiches and water bottles into the big pockets for a day in the fields or on the roads. There were D
rings for holding more gear on this version.
He walked around the soldier modeling the uniform. He looked like a young, fit construction worker.
"The Day-Glo tape is almost out at Supply, sir," she said. "I backed it with fabric and Velcro. Removing the reflective stuff just takes a second. Speaking of Velcro, sir, the same goes for the arm patches. If it would be possible for us to get something made that looks KZ-ish, we could swap between KZ and Southern Command as needed."
"I wondered about that, sir," Rand said. "The inspector general's office won't like flags not being sewn on. 'These colors don't run' and all that."
"The inspector general's never had to look inconspicuous in a KZ streecar," Valentine said.
"Who's the honcho there now?"
"General Martinez," Rand said. "Three Hots Martinez, the men call him."
Valentine's stomach went sour, but there was no need to pick at old scabs. He offered his hand to Ediyak.
"Good work, Ediyak. You just won yourself a promotion to corporal. You're also company clerk, if you want the job."
"Clerk, sir?" she said.
"It's a quick path up to lieutenant's bars, if you'd like to start that climb again."
She considered for a second. "I'll do it, sir."
"Good. Your first job will be to requisition whatever you need to finish these uniforms. I'll speak to someone about getting us some KZ patches." That someone being Lambert and staff.
Valentine rather liked being able to dump such details off on someone who could be relied on to get it done.
"What about helmets and rain gear, sir?" Rand said.
"Typically these formations wear white or yellow hard hats, sir," Ediyak said.
Valentine's liquid dinner arrived. It tasted like a shake made out of strawberries and mud but it was fast and easy. "Let's see if we can scrounge up some civilian winter coats," he said as he sipped. "I don't ever remember seeing these guys in ponchos. As for helmets, maybe we can stuff some old hard hats with Kevlar. Get canvas covers for when we don't want the Day-Glo look."
"Patrol coming in," the company outdoor fire watch shouted.
"Patrol?" Valentine asked Rand.
"Patel's Shepherds have been taking them out, platoon at a time, on overnighters or three-dayers, sir. This should be first platoon com-ing back from a three-dayer."
Valentine went out to take a look.
The platoon looked dog tired and strained, rolling on their feet in the toe-in manner of footsore men as they carried sand-filled artillery shell casings instead of guns. The bearded old Wolf in charge straightened them up and they saluted as they marched past. Valentine saw some bandages across noses and a few blackened eyes.
"Sergeant, halt," he called.
"Line up for inspection," the bearded sergeant bawled. Valentine saw Corporal Glass at the other end discreetly check the line.
Valentine took a look at one of the bandages. "What happened, here, Sergeant?"
"We paused at a roadside for fresh pretzel bread and beverages, sir," the old gray Wolf said.
"The gentlemen owning the establishment didn't care for scrip. We convinced them otherwise."
"Anything serious?" Valentine asked. He doubted the road-stop in question would make a report. Everyone was required to take Southern Command scrip but some business owners didn't care for the exchange rates.
"One of them drew a knife, sir. The civilian in question will be working his fly with his left hand for a while. Corporal Glass has a good eye. He's quick or I might not be standing here."
"Good work, first platoon. Get some food and sleep."
* * * *
Valentine fell back into the regime of training as the days turned grim and gray and the nights cold. They'd formalized the roster at last and had three balanced platoons. Valentine had known companies where there was a crack platoon that took the toughest jobs and two less-reliable ones to support it, but he'd rather distribute his best men where they could teach the others than rely too much on a single elite formation. The NCO slots were filled with ex-Quislings.
He gave them a brief speech about duty, as he saw it. In the KZ command flowed down, with a lurking "or else" implicit at the end of every order. While that was a fact of military life regardless of origin and uniform, Valentine would rather have those under his command following orders because they understood the stakes and consequences of failure.
Several of them turned down offers of promotion to leadership roles.
That was the big shortcoming of these men, he'd learned. They could use their equipment but not their minds. Everyone was terrified of making a bad decision, lest they be out a seat when the next round of musical chairs orchestrated by the Reapers came round. Soldiering wasn't for the dumb-not if you wanted good soldiers rather than gun-toting robots.
They held a company party at Christmas, with everyone in their smoky denim uniforms and the kind of glossy shine you could get with new boots. The base hall was being used by the Guards so Valentine spoke to the pastor of a local church and got the use of a big revival tent, complete with a deacon to open the ceremonies and offer a Christmas homily. The company made paper lanterns and fire balloons and put up a Christmas tree in front of the command shack. A distribution of quality flower, confectioner's sugar, and food coloring allowed the foodies in the company to make green-and-red iced cupcakes. With a couple of guitarists, a fiddler, and Rand, who turned out to be an accomplished hurdy-gurdy player (he claimed he was always too clumsy to dance, so he might as well play for others), they held a dance.
Valentine paid a visit to the hospital in Jonesboro to issue a general invitation to the nurses there. A handful were brave enough to show, and a few brought friends. Valentine issued strict orders not to talk about the "move south" no matter how pretty the face or how good the reason for future correspondence.
"We might as well get to know them. Some of us are going to end up seeing a lot of nurses before the operation is over," he finished.
Valentine enjoyed an opening waltz with the senior nurse chaperoning her charges-the nurse had a lot of experience dancing with a man with a stiff leg-and then settled down with Patel to watch the festivities and make sure the punch bowl wasn't spiked to over eighty proof.
The smiles on the men and the laughter of the nurses cheered him more than the music.
The company had worked hard on their uniforms and decorations, and he liked seeing them show off a little.
A blat of a trumpet interrupted the music. There was some kind of stir at the door of the tent and then a Group of Guards forced their way in, dragging what sounded like Marley's chains and lockboxes.
The dancing stopped and the men parted.
"We brung you a Christmas present, Major," one of the Guards said, with a rather drunken salute. "New recruits. You was looking for some Grogs."
Valentine heard a riding crop strike flesh and a "Go on." Two other Guards pulled on a chain, and Valentine smelled a zoo-like stench.
"They'll fit right in with the shit detail," someone guffawed.
A Grog sprawled for a second, then stood up. Two more were pulled in behind. But Valentine couldn't take his eyes of the formost. She was a female gray dressed in an oversized pink tutu and fake ballet slippers.
It was the Grog he'd once known as Bee.
"Bee!" Valentine said.
"Beeee," she said back, eyes open wide and staring. She tried to slink sideways up next to him.
The room fell silent. Most of the men there had never heard Grogs do anything but ook or cry out graaaawg when wounded and begging for assistance.
Valentine locked his gaze on the joker who'd called them the shit detail.
"What did you call this company?" he asked.
"Errr, nothing, sir," the Guard said, red-faced and counting the number of men coming to their feet. One of Patel's Shepherds snapped his teeth at them.
Patel thumped his cane on the floor. "Boys, these visitors seem to be confused as to the location of their barrack. Escort them back."
The party dissolved into chaos. Southern Command soldiers would probably have let out their trademark foxhunt shriek as they chased the Guards back to their regimental grounds.
Valentine's company let out a deeper uhuhl
Patel's Shepherds used the confusion to dump a couple more preserve jars of busthead into the punch.
The Guards wisely dropped the Grog chains and ran, with half the company in hot pursuit, throwing Christmas cupcakes.
The male Grogs behind Bee fell to their knees and covered their heads with their hands as men hurdled them. Bee dragged herself up to Valentine and sniffed his hand.
* * * *
Valentine took Bee, the other two, and a plate of cupcakes over to the workshop tent. As he issued cupcakes-most Grogs had a sweet tooth- he employed his rough-and-ready Grog but her dialect made it slow going. The other two Grogs understood him well enough, after a period of suspiciousness broken by Bee's emphatic thumping of Valentine's chest, a Grog version of saying "He's a stand-up guy," evidently.
Hoffman Price, the bounty hunter Bee traveled with, was dead, evidently of some illness.
He'd made it into free territory and turned Bee over to an old friend before dying during a surgery Bee didn't begin to understand. The old friend, whom Bee called White Hair, promptly dropped dead a short time after Price. White Hair's family either gave or sold Bee to a circus.
That's where she met the other two Grogs, Ford and Chevy. They'd been warriors from a tribe in Mississippi who crossed the river in some incursion and were left behind, wounded.
They were captured, defanged (they pointed to the big gaps in their teeth), and bought by the D.C. Marvels Circus.
They didn't know the name of the circus-Valentine had guessed it. He'd seen posters put up around the hospital giving the dates for the circus performances at the Jonesboro fairgrounds.
According to the men, it was mostly a set of rigged carnival games and bad ginger ales sold for three bucks a bottle. A beer that was all head cost six.
In the circus Bee performed what Valentine guessed to be a comic ballet in her tutu-all Valentine got from her was "make dance, make fall, make roll." The other two took turns standing in an empty kiddie pool while spectators threw rotten onions and tomatoes at them.
He ordered a couple buckets of warm soapy water, a sponge, and towels. First thing to do was get them cleaned up. And Bee out of that ridiculous tutu.
"You want finished circus?" he asked the three.
"Yes, yes," Ford and Chevy chorused. Bee used another word of her limited English vocabulary: "Pleease."
"Like join thinskins warrior tribe?"
Bee said her version of please again; Ford and Chevy pointed to the gaps in their dental work. "Not warriors. Us finished warriors."
"Not matter with thinskins," Valentine said.
They thumped Valentine's chest. This time Valentine relaxed into it, though he couldn't help taking a tender, experimental breath afterward to see if any ribs were broken.
* * * *
The men didn't much care for having Grogs among them. The former Quislings considered the troops who fought using Grogs the lowest of the low, hardly human themselves. Discontent filtered up through the sergeants and to Patel.
"Yes," Valentine told Patel, who seemed a little discomfited himself. "The Kurian Zone despises them. Southern Command hates them. But a uniformed Grog can cross a bridge or stand at a crossroads without anyone looking at him twice in the Kurian Zone. I'm sure you can see the use of that."
"Yes, sir."
"We're going to have to put them under someone. Any ideas?"
"Why don't we just call them the major's bodyguard?"
"That's a bit Lawrence of Arabia for me. Anyone who wants to do it gets to be a corporal, quick promotion-that is how they entice people to do it in the KZ. I'll teach whoever volunteers the language."
Glass, their heavy weapons expert, took the job. "Not so much that he likes Grogs; I just think he hates people more," Patel said. They talked over how they'd juggle the platoons once again.
A messenger interrupted them. "You won't believe what's outside, Major. It's quite a show."
Valentine peeked out one of the many cracks in the shack, and believed it. A pair of civilians stood at the gate, a rather dazzling bronzed man in a purple tailcoat and oversized yellow bow tie and a black mountain of muscle in overalls.
He'd been half expecting this. He went to the corner of the shack and took a tin plate off a bucket he'd been saving for just such an occasion. He filled his pockets.
Valentine closed the top button on his old militia tunic-he wanted the men to have their uniforms finished before they made his-and stepped out to the top step of the command shack.
"Is that him?" the man in the purple asked.
"Yes, sir," the gate escort said.
"Hello, Major," the man in the purple said, flashing whiter-than-white teeth. "D.C. Marvels is the name. Dazzling cavalcades of marvels is my game. You've heard of me?"
"Not until recently."
"Then I'd like to extend a personal invitation to the show. You're aware that soldiers are entitled to a ten percent discount at my circus; twenty percent on food and beverages? For parties of three or more, that is."
"How can I help you, Mr. Marvels?"
"There's been some sort of misunderstanding. A few of your gallant comrades rented an attraction of mine, poor benighted Grogs I've taken under my wing, saving them from river dredging or worse. They never returned, and I'm due in Mountain Home by the end of the week."
Valentine was beginning to look forward on this. "I don't see where I fit in. Were they men under my command?"
Marvels planted his feet. "Didn't say you were responsible, Major.
The soldiers in question said things got rather out of hand at your party, and they had to leave my attractions behind. Grogs can't be left in the hands of amateurs. They'll sicken and die, poor things."
I'm afraid they've quit your circus, Mr. Marvels. They've enlisted with Southern Command."
"You're kidding, right? They're not competent. They're mine and I want them back. I'm trying to be nice here, but I'm perfectly willing to take legal action."
Valentine crossed his hands behind his back. "So am I. Get off this post."
"Corricks," Marvels said out of the side of his mouth.
The muscle inflated his chest. "Ford! Chevy! Bee! Here now!" He pulled a whistle from his pocket and the trilling filled the company tents.
Valentine felt the whistle as much as he heard it. It gave him a headache.
"Shut your man up, Marvels."
"When I see my property!"
Valentine hurled a ripe tomato at Marvels, striking him just under the yellow tie. He drew a rotten onion from his other back pocket. The whistling didn't stop until he bounced an onion off the handler's head.
The big man took a step toward him and Valentine matched his move, more than half hoping Marvels would throw a punch.
"That's assault! You've assaulted a civilian. I'll have your commission for this," Marvels said, extending his shirtfront as though it were a warrant for Valentine's arrest.
"Then I might as well enjoy myself," Valentine said, aiming an onion for his head. Marvels ducked under it.
"The gate's that way," Valentine said, throwing another tomato. This one hit Marvels square on the buttocks as he turned to run.
* * * *
The expected summons to Colonel Seng's office came that very afternoon, courtesy of Seng's messenger, Tiddle. Tiddle reminded Valentine of the White Rabbit, or maybe the Road Runner, always in a hurry to get somewhere. He either ran or used a light motorbike rigged with tires for cross-country driving. His hair normally looked as though he'd had a recent close encounter with a live wire.
Valentine washed up with some of his French soap and put on his best uniform. Lieutenant Colonel Jolla didn't look particularly jolly.
"That Marvels fellow just left. He's in quite a temper."
Valentine shrugged. "Is he getting his Grogs back?"
Seng's frown deepened. "No. I pointed out that the practice of chattel slavery is against the law and is in fact a hanging offense. He said I could expect a letter from his lawyer. I don't need these headaches, Valentine."
"Sorry, sir. He had two of those Grogs in what amounts to a bear-baiting pit. Customers paid to throw fruit at them."
"Says as much about some of the customers as it does about Marvels," Jolla said.
"If he starts a legal fight, it might be worth someone's while to check his payroll accounts.
When I had Ahn-Kha on my rolls, I kept up-to-date with policy. They're free to hire on or quit, and you have to pay them at least convict rate. According to the Grogs, they never saw so much as a dollar."
"Still not a defense for your behavior," Seng said. "Save it for the enemy."
Valentine smiled at that. Technically he was still a condemned man under Southern Command's fugitive law, though his face had long since been removed from the wanted cabinets.
"Will that be all?"
"No," Seng said. "Lambert told me you were a little unorthodox but effective. Let's work on the effective and cut down on the unorthodox. Why aren't ordinary militia uniforms good enough for your men?"
"You want us to operate in the Kurian Zone. Southern Command militia uniforms might be a bit of a giveaway."
"Still, it's odd," Jolla put in.
"It's an odd unit with an odd role," Valentine said. "Supply in enemy territory, acting as liaison with the local resistance."
Jolla brushed back nonexistant hair with his palm. "Yet from what I've seen, you're training your company like you're part of the hunter battalion."
"You don't object to fitness trials, I hope."
"We'll see what kind of men you have when the real training starts in January," Seng said.
"I'll look forward to seeing what you can do."
* * * *
The guns arrived a few days after the unpleasant meeting. It was hard not to be disappointed.
They viewed them from the back of the wagon rig, three cases of rifles and one of pistols.
A trio of Uzi-style submachine guns were in with the pistols, evidently meant for the officers.
The rest were mostly militia stuff: deer rifles and shotguns and a few venerable AR-15s. In the hands of a company of veteran Wolves, it could be a deadly enough assortment, but he wondered if they'd be heavy, expensive noisemakers in the hands of some of the greener members of his company. It would make familiarization and training a nightmare.
Plus there would be supply difficulties, trying to get everything from buckshot to .358 to
.30-06 to .223 into individual hands.
Patel's cane tapped behind and Valentine turned to see his sergeant major shake his head sadly as he lifted a double-barreled bird gun. "It's like telling the men they can't be trusted with anything better," he said.
Valentine thought a couple of the Remingtons might make a decent sniper rifles, if they could find optics. He had at least six trained scout/snipers out of the Kurian services-they had an easier time sneaking away than most. A shotgun or two distributed to each squad would be handy for urban use. The rest, not much more than rabbit guns, would be better off in the hands of the UFR's young Camp Scouts or backwoods raccoon hunters.
There was nothing to do but hand them out.
"They've got to be kidding," one of the former Quislings in line said. Valentine recognized him as one of the men he'd seen training the militia back at Liberty.
"Mebbe these are just to carry for practice weight, like the shells," another said.
"We should take a trip over to the river patrol reserve armory between the Tennessee and the Mississippi. They don't hardly guard that. Get us some real guns."
Valentine dredged up that last man's name: Robbins-no, Rollings. "Private Rollings.
What's that?"
"Sorry, sir."
"No, you're not in trouble. Come over here."
Rollings gave his pants a subtle hitch up as he approached, his sergeant falling in beside like a protective dog. "The major wants something?"
"What did you say about an armory?"
"You're not in any trouble, Rollings," his sergeant said.
Rollings kept his gaze on Valentine's feet. "River patrol armory and motor pool, sir. The old western Kentucky number four. We used to gas up there when I was with the River Road Light Artillery of the Tennessee Troop. It's a crap-err CRP,-um, that's Combined River Patrol, sir. Reserve armory and warehouse for patrol and artillery boats on the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi. Creepy place. There's those flappy gargoyles quartered in town and nests of harpies in the hills up by the Ohio."
"Explain what you meant about unguarded."
The man gulped. "Not unguarded. There's usually six or seven men about. It's just that the armory's for the river patrol, so the Tennessee Troop, they don't see it as their job to garrison it. The river patrol figures that since it's inland, it's the Troop's job to secure it. Nobody wants to be stationed there, exactly, with the harpies in the hills and the gargoyles in the empty town. Not much to do but play cards and come up with better nose plugs."
Rollings had five more uncomfortable minutes as Valentine quizzed him about the roads in the area, the terrain, the location of KZ settlements. . . .
When he finished the poor private was sweating.
Valentine gripped him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Rollings. You're the kind of complainer I like."
Rollings' eyes finally came up. "How's that, sir?"
"The kind that offers a solution."