by E. E. Knight
Got you now!
Valentine's crook spun past his nose and he sidestepped—and caught it as it bounced in the air. This time he heard the cheers clearly. With fresh energy he tore toward the Wildcat side and the distant ball, hidden by a gentle fold in the earth.
Sorry, Vista. You'll keep your temper next time.
But the Grog had unguessed-at reserves. It pounded up behind Valentine, sounding like a galloping horse. Valentine risked a glance over his shoulder and saw Vista running in a two-leg, one-, arm canter, the long crook raised to catch him—
Vista swung and Valentine blocked. Valentine shielded his back against another blow and hurried on, then got a painful rap on the knuckles that opened his hand, and he lost his crook for the second time.
He could run better without it anyway.
Now for a real burn.
Valentine ran, extending his sprint. Were he still a fresh Wolf of twenty-two with an uninjured leg he would have left Vista gaping behind. As it was he increased the distance, but only just.
The ball would be an awkward thing to carry. Under his arm he wouldn't be able to run with a proper stride; held in each hand he'd be running upright, not a natural human motion. He could -kick it, but what if he mistimed an approach and missed? If only he had a satchel . . .
Valentine spotted the ball and changed his angle. Vista slowed behind him, perhaps conserving his wind to intercept Valentine on his sprint back. Even more distance yawned between them.
The referee caught up on both of them.
Valentine reached the ball and the Wildcats booed. He ignored the catcalls.
Vista pulled up, perhaps forty yards away, and blew air like an idling train engine. He left ample room to cut an intercepting course.
Valentine dropped his shorts. Someone on the Wildcat side had enough of a sense of humor to whistle, a twittering wolf whistle.
He picked up the ball and stuffed it into the elastic waistband, then closed most of the waist in his fist. The ball was too big to go out the leg holes.
Vista cocked his head, oddly doglike with ears outstretched.
Holding the ball in the improvised sack, Valentine ran straight at him.
The Grog, perhaps fearing another trick, widened his stance and rocked back and forth, crook held loosely in his right hand.
At three strides away Valentine feinted right, away from the crook—then leaped.
He tucked the ball into his belly as he flew through the air, not wanting it batted away as he went over Vista's head in a great Cat leap.
It swung its crook where Valentine should have been.
Valentine landed lightly on his good leg, had a bad split second when Vista's thrown crook struck him in the ankle, and ran, feeling rapidly growing pain from the blow.
Valentine managed to open the distance between them, and Vista let out a strangled, winded cry.
The Bulletproof danced and shouted behind their markers, some urging him on by circling their arms in wheels toward the red tape.
Valentine crossed the line—a gunshot sounded, and old instincts made him flinch—and fell into a mass of Bulletproofs. He felt a sharp slap on his bare buttock, and looked to see the craggy-faced woman giving him a gap-toothed grin.
Valentine turned to look at his opponent. Vista collapsed to his wide knees, pounding at the turf with great fists. He took the basketball out of his underwear, gave up trying to reach the Dispatcher, and tossed the ball in the air.
Limping, Valentine went out to Vista. The Grog jumped up, snarling.
Valentine offered his hand.
The Grog snatched him up by the arm and lowered his head with mouth gaping to bite it off at the wrist. Another shot sounded and the Grog pulled back, a bleeding hole in its cheek.
Valentine spun out of reach.
The referee trotted up, pistol held pointed at the Grog. "Back to our side! Back!"
The Grog emptied a nostril at the referee and turned away.
The referee lowered his gun, looked at Valentine from beneath a sweat-dripping brow. "You, sir, are one dumb son of a bitch. Congratulations."
"Thank you," Valentine said, rubbing his wrist.
Ahn-Kha loomed up. "My David!"
"I'm fine. A little bruised."
The Dispatcher and Zak joined them, the former with the basketball, the latter holding Valentine's clothes.
"What did you yell?" Valentine asked, remembering the scream from the sidelines. "He forgot all about me."
"I accused his mother of the lowest-caste choice of mates," Ahn-Kha said. "Such an insult can only result in a duel. He started to answer me when you ran."
"Maybe you'd better stay in camp when David goes to collect his share."
"Share?" Valentine asked.
"You won. A portion of the recovered herd is yours."
"And I owe you a great debt," Zak said. "Dispatcher, may I go along and collect my sister?"
"Go in my place. But keep away from the Grog. One blood contest a season is enough."
* * * *
The Wildcats fell back from their side of the field as they crossed, Valentine holding the basketball up as though it were a torch per Zak's instruction.
A huge legworm, longer than the one Valentine had ridden into the Bulletproof camp, led six unreined worms onto the contest field. Valentine watched them pull up soil, weeds, and hay stubble like plows.
Three riders sat astride the broad back, in the "flying carpet" sidesaddle-seat Valentine was beginning to recognize.
"That's Tikka, she's the reiner," Zak said.
Tikka had sun-washed, caramel-colored hair, plumed into a lusher version of the foxtail her brother wore, and the tan, wind-burned face of a woman who seldom knew a roof. The man behind her was shirtless, with bandages wrapped around his midsection. The third rider, a beefy, gray-haired woman, evidently kept the tradition of the third rider being older.
"Watch the whiskers on the unreined legworms," Zak advised Valentine. "Tikka! Look at the trouble you caused," he called.
She dismissed him with a wave. "Talk to the herd."
Zak turned to Valentine. "The Dispatcher won't allow us to ride together. Too many brawls."
"I thought it was cousins who liked to fight in these parts."
Zak winked. "Fight... or kiss. Fact is, I don't feel guilty about either. I'm adopted."
* * * *
Valentine spent the day mildly worried. Duvalier had tucked a note in his pack
Checking out the other camp
Back tonight
—Meeyao
and had not returned.
Valentine found himself a minor celebrity in the camp. As he limped around on his sore ankle, Bulletproof children came up and bumped him with their fists and elbows. He explored the camp with Price, trying to stave off the coming stiffness by keeping his muscles warm. He looked at some of the carts and sledges the leg-worms towed. Many held loads of fodder, or sides of meat, but one, under guard near the Dispatcher's tent, had a generator and racks of military radio gear.
"There'll be a party tonight," Price said. "Weather's nice and the herders will disperse."
"The little contest this morning," Valentine said. "Does anyone ever not pay up when they lose?"
"That's why they bring together as much of the tribe as they can. Sort of like wearing your gun at a poker game."
Valentine and Ahn-Kha did laundry at the washtubs. The other Bulletproofs doing washing insisted on giving them soap flakes and the outside lines for drying their clothes. A woman carrying six months of baby under her tie-front smock hinted that Valentine would be getting some new clothes that night. "They're going round for donations," she said.
By nightfall a raucous throng of legworm herders surrounded the barn like a besieging army. Their rein-pierced mounts stood along the road ditch in lines, eating a mixture of grains and hay dumped into the ditch.
Valentine didn't feel much like joining. His legs had been filled with asphalt, his ankle had swelled
, and his shoulder blade felt like a chiropractor had moved it four inches up. He stayed out in the warm night and ate beans from a tin plate, scooping them onto a thick strip of bacon, and watched Ahn-Kha make a new pack for Bee out of a legless kitchen chair the Golden One had traded for somewhere.
"Everyone wants to see you," Zak said, coming out of the darkness. "Dispatcher himself asked for you."
"I'm tired, reiner."
"Just for a moment. You're Bulletproof now. You've got to have a sip."
"A sip?"
"It's where we get our name. What did you think it meant, Kevlar? We've got some char-barrel-aged Kentucky bourbon."
Valentine scraped off his plate into the legworm-feed bucket.
EVERY BITE ADDS AN INCH was written on the side. "You should have opened with that, Zak. I'd have been up there already."
Inside the barn, a wood-staved cask big enough to bathe in stood upon two sawhorses near the band, each of whom had a sizeable tumbler tucked under their chair as they scraped and strummed and plucked away. Tikka, in a fringed version of her brother's leathers, gave him a welcoming hug that allowed Valentine a whiff of leather-trapped feminine musk, then took Zak's hand and pulled him away. The Dispatcher poured drinks into everything from soup bowls to elegant crystal snifters, with the help of Cookie at the tap.
Valentine entered to applause and whoops. He kept forgetting he was supposed to hate these people. Perhaps they'd bred the leg-worms that destroyed Foxtrot Company at Little Timber Hill. But they'd carved out a life, apparently free of the Reapers. He had to give them credit for that.
"Our man of the night," the Dispatcher said, his nose even more prominent thanks to its reddish tinge. "How do the victory garlands feel?"
"They're turning purple," Valentine said, accepting a proffered thick-bottomed glass from Cookie. A quarter cup of amber liquor rolled around the bottom.
"Some Bulletproof will take the edge off."
"Just a splash, please, sir. I—don't hold my liquor well."
"It's that cheap radiator busthead you flatties brew in the Midwest, is why," Cookie said. "Bulletproof s got aroma and character."
"It blows your damn head off," Tikka said. "That's why we called it 'bulletproof in the first place."
"Enjoy," the Dispatcher said, raising his own glass and bringing it halfway to Valentine.
"Bad luck not to finish your first taste," someone called from the audience.
Valentine touched his glass to the Dispatcher's, and several in the crowd applauded.
The liquor bit, no question, but it brought an instantaneous warmth along for the ride. Cheering filled the barn.
"He's Bulletproof now," the Dispatcher called to the crowd, noticing Valentine's wince. "Bring out his leathers!"
A parade of Bulletproof wives and daughters came forward, each holding a piece of leather or armor—a jacket with shoulder pads sewn in, pants, boots, gloves, a gun belt, something that looked like spurs . . .
Valentine stood a little dumbly as they piled the gear on his shoulders and around his feet. It was a dull gunmetal color, and made him think of a knight-errant.
"Zak," the Dispatcher called. "Where'd he get to? Zak!"
"Right here," Zak called, coming in from the gaping doorway to the barn, Tikka in tow, both looking a little disheveled.
"Zak, show David here how to wear his leathers."
Valentine, Zak, and Tikka picked up pieces of his new outfit and went outside. He'd seen breastplates like the one they strapped on before. They were an old army composite, hot as hell, made you feel like a turtle, but they could stop shrapnel. "You got ol’ Snelling's rig," Zak observed. "He was a good reiner, if a bit flash for the Bulletproof. Dropped stone dead of a heart attack one hot summer day while climbing his mount. You never know."
"No, you don't," Valentine agreed, glad this Snelling hadn't been felled by a sniper working for the Cause.
"Zak says you're a flattie?" Tikka asked. She had a siren's voice, and her melodious accent begged a man to sit down and stay a while.
"Iowa," Valentine said. "But I left when I was young. I spent a lot of time in the Gulf."
"That where you picked up those scars?"
"Pretty much. What's this on the sleeve?" A series of hooks, reminding Valentine a little of sharpened alligator teeth, ran down the outside seam of the forearm of the jacket.
"Serrates," Tikka said. "They're for digging in when you mount, or hanging on to the side."
Zak showed him how to fix the spurs, which were a little more like the climbing spikes utility linemen wore to reach their wires. They could be flipped up and locked flush to the inner side of the boot. Locked down, they projected out and down from his ankle.
"Some guys put them on their boot points. I think that looks queer," Zak said.
Valentine explored the padding in the jacket shoulders and elbows. Military Kevlar plates were buttoned into the back and double-breasted front. The pants had stiff plastic caps on the knees and shins.
"You can take the bulletproofing out, but we generally wear it. Can be a lifesaver."
Valentine felt a bit like a porcupine. His old Cat claws would fit right in on this outfit. He could wear them openly and they'd just look like another set of spikes.
"How do you two kiss without harpooning each other?" Valentine asked.
A smile split Tikka's tan face and her eyes caught the firelight. "That's just part of the fun."
"Don't make fun of the leathers," Zak said. "A lot of effort goes into each one."
"Fine stitching," Valentine said. He wondered about the hides, though; they were thicker and pebblier than cowhide.
"I don't mean that. That's legworm egg-casing, stretched and dried. Getting it is trickier than threading a full-grown legworm for reins. You have to go into a breeding pile and get the egg right after it hatches, because it rots fast if you don't get it scraped out and dried. You have to help the little bugger inside out of it, or he'll eat almost the whole thing, and if you hurt a legworm grub doing that the adults stomp everything in sight."
"It's kind of a rite of passage for our youths," Tikka said. "They have to go into the winter dogpiles and check on the eggs. When they come out with a hide, they're considered full-grown members of the tribe."
"Thank you for skipping that step with me," Valentine said. "I'll wear it with pride."
"But be careful, Dave. There are lots in town that look down on riders. You'll get called a hillbilly and a Grogfucker and worse. Some think riding herd on a legworm's the same as cleaning up after a gaunt."
"He looks too fine for that kind of talk, Zak," Tikka said.
"How do you do the foxtails in your hair?" Valentine asked.
"Easy," Tikka said. "There's a cut-down pinecone attached to the tie. Some braid their hair around it. I can show you. Now that you've got a few worms, you should look the part."
"Zak, I want to talk to you about that. I'm passing through. Hoffman Price brought us up here in the hope that we'd get a guide to the Ohio River, up around Ironton or Portsmouth. I'll swap you my share of the recovered beasts for a ride."
Zak shook his head. "I've got a bigger string a little to the west. I'm leaving early tomorrow to get back to them."
"Then I'll drive you," Tikka said. "That way I'll get my string back."
"He's already got a girl, Tikka," Zak said. "You'll have to excuse my sister, Dave, she's man-crazy."
"Any girl who doesn't want a husband by twenty and babies after is man-crazy, in my brother's opinion," Tikka said. "Zak, you know you're the only one for me."
"'Only one' when I'm around, that is. And that's just 'cause I keep saying no to a train."
She tried to stomp him with her heavy riding boot but Zak danced out of the way. "You're a fresh piece of wormtrail, Zachary Stark."
"What in the hell are you wearing, David Black?" Alessa Duvalier asked from the darkness. She wore her long coat, black side turned out, and carried her walking stick.
"And tha
t's the girl, Tikka," Zak said, grabbing for her long hair. She dodged out of the way and got behind Valentine.
"Apparently I'm Bulletproof now," Valentine said, striking a Napoleonic pose. "What do you think?" Tikka played with his hair.
"I'm tempted to get your pistol and test you. Starving, is there any food left?"
Valentine smelled blood on her. "Sure. I'll show you. Excuse us."
"Let's hurry. Starved."
Valentine led her up to the food tables, and she cut open a loaf and filled it with barbecue. They went back to their camp in the empty field. Ahn-Kha and Bee were wrapped up in a fireside game that involved piling buttons on a rounded rock.
"Price is walking his mule," Ahn-Kha said. "Did they offer us transport, my David?"
"Oh, he's got a ride. Count on him," Duvalier said.
"What have you been up to?" Valentine asked.
"I didn't miss your performance this morning. I just watched it from the Wildcat side. I was checking out these camps. There's some bad blood between these, um, tribes."
"You've made it worse?" Valentine asked.
"Of course. We might want to shift a little more to the west. When it got dark I offed a couple of the Wildcats and left a note warning them not to use Grogs in any future contests. They were already stirred up because someone got shot when they captured those Bulletproofs. When they see what I did to the bodies it ought to put them over the edge. A lot of their riders were upset that they let it go with just a contest. This should put them right over the edge."
Ahn-Kha sent a cascade of buttons down the side of the rock and bowed to Bee. He got up and went over to the wrapping for his oversized gun.
Valentine rose and looked across to the ridge with the Wildcat campfires. Had some of them gone out? He should have counted. Captain Le Havre would have taken a piece out of his ass for that kind of sloppiness. He picked up his U-gun.
"Wait here," Valentine said. "If shooting starts, let's meet at the creek we crossed just before we turned in here."
"Val, what are you doing?" Duvalier said.
"I'm going to warn them."
"Why? The Bulletproof will probably win; there're more of them. It'll get a good war started between these assholes."
