Winter Duty (13 page)

Valentine noticed the improvements to the camp as soon as he led his party up past the small organized mountains of debarked supplies on Henderson Landing. He checked in Lambert, his hatchet men and medical staff, and Pencil Boelnitz under the watchful eyes of the sentries on the western side of the main highway’s pared-down bridges into Evansville. They walked up past artillery positions shielded by hill from direct fire from the river, and communication lines strung to observers ready to order fire down on river traffic, but the Ohio was empty that day.

As there was plenty of daylight left, Valentine sent the hatchet men and medicos under gate-guide to their appropriate headquarters and borrowed some horses to take Lambert and Pencil Boelnitz on a tour of the battlefield where they’d attacked the Moondaggers. He showed them were the guns were sighted, where the Jones boy had swum the river, the spot where Rand had fallen.

Rand had to be remembered somewhere. Valentine described him in detail to Boelnitz. Such promise, lost.

From the site of Rand’s death Valentine could still see in his mind’s eye his old company’s heavy weapons Grogs, Ford and Chevy, gamboling forward with one long arm to add speed to what looked like an unbalanced canter, the other carrying their support weapons the way regular soldiers tote automatic rifles.

“We saw them run,” Valentine said, pointing out the final Moondagger line. “After all the tough talk about reprisals, roads lined with crucified, blinded, tongueless prisoners, men who’d be burned alive in cages, they ran. They wept when they surrendered too, begged, wiped our muddy boots with their beards.”

“What did you do with the prisoners?” Boelnitz asked.

Valentine smiled. Perhaps his reputation had preceded him again. “Exchanged the foot soldiers for some of ours. The Moondaggers lied in some cases and handed over dead men—one or two still warm—in exchange for theirs. According to their philosophy, we’re a ‘gutter people’ who can be lied to if it’ll help defeat us. I think they forgot how much we gutter people enjoy kicking the asses of those who label us gutter people. Evansville is keeping a few more in their county lockup for trial. There are a lot of murders and rapes in Kentucky to be answered for. Still, wish we’d bagged a colonel or two. No offense, Colonel Lambert.”

Lambert just turned up the corner of her mouth, lost in the hazy sunshine. Her eyes weren’t interested, her questions perfunc tory and polite.

The trees were as brown and bare as a tanned stripper gearing up for her big reveal.

“The big bugs got away, as usual,” Valentine finished. He noticed that even the husks of the dead Moondagger vehicles had been hauled away. Probably melted down for scrap after every ounce of conductive metal had been torn out.

Valentine led them over to the old highway running south out of Evansville. Some of the buildings on the double-laned highway showed signs of occupation. A grease pit and a bar had opened up, and some mule wagons were parked in front of an old store. Valentine’s ears picked up sounds of construction from within.

He wondered what the soldiers of Javelin were using for money. They’d probably picked up a lot of odds and ends on the retreat across Kentucky, or had looted watches and rings from dead Moondaggers—Southern Command turned a blind eye to some of the more ghoulish habits of her soldiers, especially after a victory. Valentine had seen ashtrays made out of Grog hands and rocking chairs with stretched, gray, fuzzy skin stapled to the supports, date and place of the former wearer’s death inked discreetly into a corner of the leather.

After the tour of the battlefield, they turned east of the road and into the shadow of tall trees. Just outside the roadblock at the sentry post, with a fresh-painted sign identifying everything behind the gate as belonging to Southern Command and notifying all that trespassers may be treated as spies, a curious little vehicle stood. It was a cross between a chariot and a station wagon. The odd sort of tandem motorbike had a stiff bar leading back to a hollowed-out shell of a station wagon, its engine compartment hoodless and filled only with cargo netting.

A man in a rather greasy black suit, his white dog collar frayed and holes at the knees and elbows, gave them a halloo. He had a pinched look to his face, like someone had grabbed him by the ears and given a good pull.

“Free doughnuts, fresh made today. Come right over—all are welcome.”

Valentine glanced at the sentry pacing the gate barrier who’d pricked up his ears at the singsong greeting. The corporal shrugged.

Valentine’s eyes picked up lettering on the side of the souped-up go-cart: NUCM-I.

“What do the letters stand for?” Valentine asked.

“I’ll tell you as soon as you give your opinion of this batch. Ran out of my own flour so I’m using the local stuff.”

The doughnut he offered on a piece of wax paper was tasty. He’d dipped it in honey.

Valentine had read somewhere or other that the Persians had given the Greeks honey specially made from plants with pharmacological effects. He hoped that wasn’t the case here.

“It’s delicious,” Valentine said, swallowing.

“I have iced tea to wash it down. Sorry it’s not sweetened—the honey’s scarce enough—but a dunk or two will sweeten her up.” Valentine noticed that the pastry giver addressed himself more to Boelnitz than either Valentine or Lambert, despite the insignia on the uniforms. In the Kurian Zone, it rarely hurt to favor the best looking, best fed, and best dressed.

Lambert and Boelnitz each accepted a doughnut as well.

“You going to tell me about those letters?” Valentine asked.

“I’m with the New Universal Church Missions—Independent.”

Lambert made a coughing sound. Boelnitz eyed his doughnut, hand frozen as though the pastry had magically transformed into a scorpion.

“Don’t worry, friend. I call all brother, whatever their affiliation or uniform. My dunkers are wholesome as fresh milk.”

Valentine guessed that the man had been living off of doughnuts, fresh milk, and maybe a little rainwater and nutritious sun-and-moonshine for a little too long. His skin had a touch of yellow about it, and the greasy skin on his brow was blotchy. But it just made the eager stare in his eyes more authentic.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m threatening you,” Boelnitz said. “But aren’t you afraid of, uh, street justice, so to speak? Some soldiers don’t like Universal Church lectures.”

“A missionary must be prepared to take a blow. Die, even, as an example of sacrifice.”

“What, you give out pamphlets with the doughnuts?”

“No, though I have some literature if you’d like to read it. I have some good stories, written as entertainment, but they contain valuable lessons for today’s questioner.”

“Today’s questioner is tomorrow’s dinner, if he’s not careful,” Valentine said.

The missionary’s face slid carefully into neutral. “Every potter’s field has its share of broken shards. The just have nothing to fear. All this violence is wrong, wrong, brother. You Arkansas and Texas boys are a long way from home. Why not go back? The only land in Kentucky you’ll ever claim is a grave if you continue down this path.”

“Thanks for the doughnut,” Valentine said. “It was delicious.”

They checked in at the sentry post. Valentine nodded to the effusive “welcome backs” and signed in Boelnitz as an unarmed civilian. They issued the reporter a temporary ID. The men looked like they were willing to issue Lambert something else entirely. She was fresh and bright rather than thin and road-worn like the women of Javelin who’d made the long round-trip.

Lambert spoke up. “As a civilian you’ll have to stay out of headquarters unless escorted. If you’ve written stories you need to transmit, just give them to me or the acting exec.”

“I know security procedure,” Boelnitz said. “All I need to be happy is a bed with a roof over my head. I hate tents.”

“We’ll see what we can do.”

Lambert passed her reassignment orders to the corporal on duty to inspect.

“You have seniority on Colonel Bloom, sir,” he said, tapping her months-in-rank line item.

“I’m not here to turn the camp upside down.”

The pleasant walk through the woods to the headquarters building was fueled by a sugar rush from the honey and dough. Valentine’s pack felt lighter than it had all day.

“Speaking of security,” Boelnitz said, “that fellow outside the gate seems like a security risk. He’s positioned to count everyone going in and coming out.”

“The Kurians aren’t usually that obvious,” Valentine said. “I think he’s just a nut, convinced that if he does something crazy enough long enough, the Kur will reward him with a brass ring.”

“No harm treating him like a spy,” Lambert said. “Best thing in the world is an agent with blown coverage who doesn’t know he’s unmasked. We can feed him all sorts of information. Low-grade stuff that’s true for a while and then, when we really need it, false data to cover for a real operation.”

“Voice of experience?” Boelnitz said. “Your operations in Kansas and the whole Javelin thing didn’t work out that well.”

“You don’t know about the ones that were successful,” Lambert said, shooting a wink Valentine’s way.

The wink put a spring in Valentine’s step. Lambert had been sullen and listless during the walk up. He’d been wondering at her state of mind, seeing herself cast into one of Southern Command’s ash heaps. The river trip was just that, a trip. Now she must have felt like she’d washed up in a forgotten corner of the war against the Kur.

Seeing her energy and good humor return relieved him. Perhaps she’d just been anxious at having nothing to occupy her mind, the way a mother duck without any active ducklings to line up didn’t quack or fuss.

A trio of soldiers on their way out of camp met them on the road. They straightened up and saluted in recognition of Lambert’s eagle. Valentine could see that they had questions, but he waved them off at the first, “Excuse me, Major, is there any truth—”

“Can’t talk in front of our new press representative,” Valentine said.

“
Battle Cry
finally got around to sending a man over the river?”

“Not yet. Men, this is Mr. Boelnitz from the
The Bulletin
. You can call him Pencil if you like.”

One of the soldiers asked what
The Bulletin
was.

“It’s a small paper, new,” Boelnitz said, looking a little abashed. “Published out of Fayetteville.”

“Speaking of pen and paper . . . good news, men. I’ve brought the first mail. I’m bringing it to the all-call at the canteen for the company clerks to distribute.”

The younger soldier looked at the other two.

“I don’t want to wait,” the senior said.

They turned around and fell in behind Valentine.

The first thing he did was stop at the big gatehouse and hand off the mail. His oversized carrier held nothing now but official correspondence for Colonel Bloom and a few small presents for his own staff.

With the mail delivered, Valentine’s first duty was to report to his commanding officer.

Lambert turned up her collar and lowered the flaps on the hat. “Give Colonel Bloom my compliments, Major. I’ll pay a call on her shortly, but I’d like to walk the grounds in mufti for the afternoon.”

Valentine saluted and left her to her solitary tour. He gave orders to see to Boelnitz’s quartering, and left him with a promise for a dinner where the reporter could meet some of the other officers.

The main building hadn’t changed much on the outside since he’d last seen it. The comfortable-looking former museum and educational center, later an estate house, was designed to look like a cross between a mountain lodge and a small château. But once through the doors, he noticed new details. There was proper sign-age everywhere, a new map and roster behind a glass case, a duty desk instead of an officer making do with a bench and an entryway table that had been more suited for hats and gloves, and a proper communications center, probably servicing the new high mast rigged to the decorative gazebo behind the mansion.