by E. E. Knight
Duvalier nodded. "That would mean the Kurians had to travel around the country. To much risk. Nothing, but nothing, gets them out of their little fortresses once they are established. They're the biggest cowards in creation."
"Yes, you're right. Doesn't make sense." His stomach rumbled at the smell of cooking food. "But I can understand my insides. Let's eat."
They turned to their bread and soup and concentrated on the hot food. For dessert they shared a bag of summer plums, seeing who could spit the pit most accurately. Valentine won on distance, but Duvalier expelled hers with bull's-eye control. They laughed at the wine-colored stains left on their faces and turned in, giggling like kids.
"How'd you get to be a Cat? Were you always a troublemaker, or is it just the training?"
"Both, in a way. I grew up under the Kur in Emporia, Kansas. It's a town about halfway between what's left of Topeka and Wichita. My daddy had been shipped off to some work camp God-knows-where. My mom made clothes, mostly for the labor. We call that part of the country the Great Plains Gulag. Gulag: I thought it was some kind of hot dish until someone told me it means concentration camps. My mom was a little too young and pretty, though. Some of the Society used to visit her. Society is what we called the Quislings. She got extra food and stuff out of it, but I hated Society calls."
"You don't have to elaborate."
"I have the high ground on you, Valentine. I've read your Q-file. But you don't know much about me, other than that I saved your ass, then recruited you.
"I started causing trouble, sneaking around, spying on the Society guys. They lorded it over the rest of the Labor, driving around in their cars. God, I hated them. I started lighting fires. A real dynomaniac."
"Pyromaniac," Valentine corrected and instantly regretted it. The habits of growing up in the Padre's schoolroom, where he helped teach the grade-schoolers, died hard.
Duvalier didn't seem to mind. "Pyromaniac. It started with the uniform of one of the Society. I swiped it while he was with Mother and torched it in a culvert. I used to watch them burn off fields when I was little, and after a fire everything was clean and new for the spring, and the bean sprouts coming up were always so bright green against the black. The uniform just started me. Ever afterwards I liked to see things go up in flames, especially if they belonged to Society. One time I burned up a police van that had a bunch of equipment in it. They hauled twelve people off to the Reaper, one every twelve hours, waiting for a confession. I knew old Mrs. Finey saw me do it, too, but she didn't turn me in. I've always wondered why not. I felt so bad about it, I told my mom.... I mean, people were being taken off to be killed because of something I did. My mom about died on the spot. She sat down and put her head between her knees and started crying. She had been sick a lot that year—I think now she had syphilis. She grabbed my baby brother and went to the phone—the phones worked in that part of Kansas. I figured she was going to call one of the Society guys and turn me in. I ran out of the house with just the clothes on my back.
"I lived for nearly a year on my own. I got picked up by the law once, pretty early on. An old guy and a young guy in a car." Her voice got low and monotone. "The young one convinced the older one to pull off the road so he could haul me into the woods and rape me. The old one just opened a bottle of beer and said, 'You have ten minutes.'
"He took me into the woods, I can't imagine why—I was dirty and thin, didn't look much different from a boy at that time. My boobs had shrunk from not eating to practically nothing. I had handcuffs on. He bent me over and got my pants off, then threw me down on my back. He was getting set on entering me, fumbling around with his prick, I think. I got my teeth around his Adam's apple and bit for all I was worth. Then blood was everywhere, and he was making this weird wheezy sound. He tried to get up and was drawing his gun when he tripped over his own pants. I stood up and started just kicking into him, right in the face, with my heel. He was stunned and about half bled to death, and I jumped in the air and landed with both feet right on the side of his head. His jaw broke, but he might have been dead already, I couldn't tell.
"I knew what a handcuff key looked like, but it took me forever to find it and then get it into the cuffs. I was doing everything by touch behind my back, and I was shaking so bad, I kept dropping the key. It seemed like it took hours and I kept thinking his partner was going to show up and kill me.
"I got the cuffs off finally and picked up the gun. It was a revolver with this really nice white handle and scrollwork on the barrel plating. He had probably stolen it somewhere. It had bullets in it. I sat there for five minutes, hiding in the bushes with the hammer of the gun pulled back, waiting for the partner to show up. Finally I hear him honking his horn on the car.
"I got up and left my pants off, and wiped the blood off my face mostly. I pretended I still had my handcuffs on and came running out of the woods up onto the road with my hands behind my back holding the pistol. I was screaming and crying, which wasn't too hard to do given what had just happened.
The old guy was looking at my crotch when I ran up to the car, and he said something like 'Where the hell's—' or 'What the hell's—' and I never heard the deputy's name because I shot him right in the face from three feet away. I shot him twice more just in case through the window of the car, even though his brains were all over the place.
"I got a nice leather jacket, some food, blankets, a compass, camping stuff—all kinds of things I needed from the car and the dead Society men. Guns—pistols, a shotgun and a rifle, too, but I threw the rifle away after the first day because it was so heavy to carry all the shooters and my other stuff, too. I burnt the car with them in it, which was a dumb idea because it attracted a lot of attention and I only just got away by crawling through a swamp. I knew from when I was little that there was a place in the mountains to the southeast where they didn't have to live like us, and I decided to go. I made it just as winter was setting in. A nice family named the Duvaliers took me in. They didn't know what to make of me: I talked almost nonstop. You'd think I would have been quiet, but no. The poor bastard who had to take my statement had a lot of writing to do. I had a good eye, noticed a lot of things: where there was militia, what kind of vehicles they had.
"So the next spring they had this raid planned into Leavenworth. There are all these prisons there that the Reapers use. They needed scouts and guides, and my name came up. I was young, but they put me out ahead of the column. I got pretty chummy with the other scouts; one was a Cat named Rourke. He liked what I did, and before I knew it, I was his disciple. I've been back to the Free Territory only four times in the eight years since then. Five now, if I count this time with you."
Valentine woke early with a plan. While Duvalier slept, he turned it over in his mind.
"We ride the rails," he said as they split what was left of the fresh bread for breakfast.
"Hmmm?" Duvalier said. Valentine had learned that she was something of a bedbug; it took her a while to wake up.
"Have you ever bummed a ride on a train? Not a military train, just one hauling corn or potatoes?"
"Not too often. Being on a train means pulling into train yards. They're well guarded."
"I did it in Wisconsin. It wasn't without risk, but it's doable. In fact, it seems to be a pretty common way for the people in the KZ to get from A to B. I think it's kind of winked at. But you have to be somebody."
"You mean a Quisling?"
Valentine nodded. "In this Gulag, what do the Quisling militia wear?"
She thought for a moment. "Generally they're called the Society in most of Kansas. They wear kind of a khaki police uniform with epaulet. From Nebraska on north, they're a little more anything-goes. They're generally called Marshals for basic law enforcement, but since it is a borderland, there's a military unit called the Troop. Individually, they're 'Troopers.' The Marshals wear this black uniform, usually with a tie and everything. The Troopers wear any old thing, but they almost always have old police bulletproof vests with in
signia patches on them and their name stenciled across the back."
His mind gaining momentum; he put down his tin. "Okay, we go up into Nebraska and get our hands on a uniform and some papers."
"I've got a few forgeries for us. I worked on them while Welles was giving you a hard time. Or I can make them as we go. It's a talent you should learn, Valentine."
"We just pose as a couple of travelers. Better if one of us could be a Somebody, or at least military. Everyone in the KZ lives in fear of offending a big shot and winding up in the hands of a Reaper."
"Pretty nervy. I like keeping away from towns and stuff. Too easy for something to go wrong."
He turned the thought over in his mind, looking for holes. "We could pull it off, I've met a few Quislings. Having you along would add a little realism."
"How's that?" she asked.
"Anyone who is anyone in the KZ travels with a woman.
You're attractive, just the kind of pretty young thing a Quisling officer might have hanging on his arm."
"Dream on, Valentine!"
"Just a suggestion. Even if you're in uniform, too, we're just a pair, traveling to see relatives in Kansas, or an old friend in Omaha."
"Omaha ain't ours no more, Valentine. It's a ruin on the Missouri River. Hip deep in Grogs. Harpies, Tunnel-Snakes, Bigmouths—"
"Sorry, I forgot. Anyway, we can crisscross the Gulag and try to pick up the scent. Maybe your sister ran off with a Twisted Cross guy and I'm helping you look for her. Are there a lot of checkpoints—say at the Kansas-Nebraska border or something?"
"No, the Gulag runs from northern Oklahoma to the Dakotas, from the Rockies to the Missouri River. Just little princedoms, you might say, with Satan's own on the thrones. Something for bribe and barter would be handy. I've found tobacco pretty useful."
"We can pick up all the tobacco we need in Fort Springfield. They might have some whiskey that's hard to acquire in the KZ, too. Thank God we're still in Southern Command. Cash crop."
She smiled at him. "Okay, Valentine, you sold me. A-riding-the-rails we shall go. But I've got a few visits to make, so let me do the navigating once we get into the KZ."
They requisitioned feed for the horses at the Fort Springfield depot, the last post on borders of the Ozark Free Territory. Duvalier and Valentine turned in their Southern Command ID to the officer commanding; he'd hold it until they returned or a year passed, when the next-of-kin protocols would be put into effect.
Valentine found a healthy pack mule and did not even have to throw their weight as Cats to acquire the beast. The stable master handed over the pack and leads with a chuckle. "He's a damn thing. Fifty bucks says you'll be eating mule steak two days from now."
They also signed a chit for enough script to load up on cheap cigars, cigarette makings, and rolling paper, and a few bottles of labeled liquor. Some feed for the mule and provisions for themselves went onto the mule's pack.
At Duvalier's insistence, they went out of town and traveled a half day east back into the Ozarks.
"We aren't the only spies in Missouri. Kur has eyes in every border fort we have, without a doubt," Duvalier explained.
Valentine made sure they weren't being followed, dropping off the horse behind high points in the rolling ground and letting Duvalier lead his horse while he scouted. The pair turned north after a column of patrolling Guards jumbled their tracks.
"Nice work. You're shaping up, Valentine."
"How about you just shorten it to Vail" he asked. "It's what most of my friends use."
"Funny you should say that. Duvalier gets shortened to Val a lot, too. Can't say that I want to be the Val twins, though. You can use Alice or Ali if you want."
"Okay, Ali. I'll answer to David, then."
"We'll see. Every time I say David, I hear Ryu in my head using that fatherly tone of his. I like Val. But if you want to wake me up in a hurry, use Duvalier. That's what old Rourke used to bark in my ear when he wanted me on my feet."
They decided that for now they would stick to Missouri, keeping to the west side of the state in the hilly region east of Kansas City. Then they would cross the Missouri River somewhere north of St. Joseph, angle into Nebraska, and start hitching rides on westbound trains around Lincoln.
They switched over to night travel while still within the nebulous borderlands of Southern Command. If they were to encounter enemies, daytime was more dangerous than night, for the Grogs that lived along the Missouri Valley preferred to fight in daylight. After a long afternoon's rest, they turned up an old road at nightfall. The mule had its own ideas about nighttime travel, and took a good deal of convincing to get it in motion. It then showed a tendency to stop at every opportunity, leaving them with the task of getting it in motion all over again.
"No wonder that stable master parted with him so fast," Valentine said.
"Maybe we can tempt him with something," Duvalier suggested, pushing on the back end while Valentine hauled away at the front. "Do we have any plums left?"
"That would work, until we ran out of plums. Then he'd never move without one."
The quest seemed to be off to a mule-stalled start when Valentine finally solved the issue with what Duvalier laughingly called the "wugga-bugga dance." The mule bit Valentine, nearly clipping off his ear, as he tried to pull it by the throatlatch. With blood running down the side of his face, he ran into the woods, returning with the better part of a poplar sapling. He yelled gibberish at the mule, thrashing pack, ground, air, and mule with the noisy branches. The leaf-shaking spectacle sent the mule trotting down the road of its own accord. Any time thereafter that the mule balked, Valentine just brandished his leafy shillelagh, imprecating against it in the glottal nonsense that worked on the recalcitrant beast. The mule put itself into high gear to get away from nasty voice and noisy leaf.
"We'd better start taking turns scouting soon," Duvalier said later, after a break for a cold meal.
"Why's that?"
She pulled down a young sugar maple bough. "Stripped clean," she said. Something had torn off the leaves and bark, leaving the thin limb as naked as a rat's tail.
"Grogs?"
"Yeah. They don't digest much of it, if you've ever looked at the droppings close."
Valentine swept the woods with ears and nose and picked up only a distant owl. "Duty in the Wolves denied me the pleasure. I've never patrolled Missouri, just passed through it a few times. More east of here, though."
"Don't know if it aids their digestion, or they just put something in their stomach to fool themselves out of being hungry. Anyway, if you see stripped branches, you can tell they pass through. The evidence hangs there a lot longer than footprints. Or droppings."
"First point goes to—"
She tweaked his nose, held up to better catch the soft nighttime breeze. "Me. God knows I can't keep that mule moving."
Mule problems aside, Valentine found he enjoyed nighttime travel. With his cat's-eye vision, the color-muted landscape looked clearer than he remembered the brightest of moonlit nights. His ears worked to their best advantage, as well; the sounds of nighttime insects carried farther, though they made a good deal less noise than their daylight counterparts. The Cats bedded down after dawn with a hot meal and dozed away the heat of the day. Even the mule grew accustomed to the routine.
They cut a few trails of Wolf patrols, but these grew more and more rare as they approached the old Kansas City-St. Louis corridor. If there was a danger point on the first leg of their journey, this was it. They took turns leading the mule, with one of the pair on point a hundred yards ahead, looking and listening, and the other guiding the mule. As Valentine peered down onto the area around the old interstate that the Grogs frequented, the mule decided to bellow into the night. He swore he'd dine on a mule steak for breakfast. Either nothing heard the animal, or whatever did hear it did not want to bother to investigate the source. In any case, they crossed the corridor without seeing anything but tire tracks and footprints.
Va
lentine was on point when he scented them. Three Grogs, sleeping upright back to back like Buddhist statues, rested on a thickly forested knoll.
He drew his sword and waved Duvalier forward.
"Pistols or blades?" he whispered.
"Neither."
"They're snoring."
"Of course we could kill them. But ten would come looking for them. You're good; we would probably kill those, too. But then a hundred would close in from either side."
"In the Wolves—"
"Don't ever want to hear that again. You're a Cat now, and it's all about the mission. Killing a Grog patrol has nothing to do with that."
By dawn they were miles off the corridor and pushing northwest. The land began to flatten out with the beginning of the Great Plains. They supplemented their dwindling supplies with, and fed the animals on, the wild corn and beans common to the area. They set small game snares on likely ground, two or three every morning, and it was a rare day when they could not come away with at least one animal for the stew pot. Even if it was only a wild rat.
Valentine and Duvalier began to know each other's minds. They approached abandoned buildings communicating through hand gestures and learned to rely on each other more and more as the days passed. When Duvalier spent a day in the cramped agony of dysentery—she would devour meats the new Cat wouldn't even touch—Valentine gathered a shirt full of elm bark and poured boiling water over the strips, then picked out the floating parts once it had cooled. He made her drink the infusion three times over the course of a day, and the symptoms subsided.
They released the mule and horses at the Missouri River. Valentine gave the mule its freedom with a kind of sadness; he would miss their combative companion. Like parents with a rebellious child, dealing with the bloody-minded beast together cemented the relationship between the two Cats. They left the beasts grazing in a grassy field thick with white clover-heads, shouldered their newly heavy packs, and crossed into the Gulag.
Chapter Six
