by E. E. Knight
As the sun set, a mist began to steal across the valley beneath the great rolling hill.
"That's strange for this time of year, especially in the evening," Mrs. Hendricks said, watching the veil thicken around the camp.
"It's the Kurians. They can shape the clouds when they have a mind," Duvalier said. She'd lingered through the day, saying she wanted to rest her legs and her horse. "Val, I'll ride now. You still staying?"
Her tone was nonchalant, but he read concern in her eyes. "Yes."
There wasn't a fight this time.
The pair went to their packs in the guest wagon. Duvalier stripped down to a utility vest, perhaps some old angler's jacket or photographer's rig at some time, now dyed. She now loaded it with everything from her claws to screw-topped pipes filled with chemicals designed to burn or blow up. She began to apply black greasepaint across her face and arms as Valentine sharpened her sword. The straight, angle-pointed blade had a dull coating everywhere save the very edge, where it glinted with cold reflections.
"I'm going to be outside the camp before the sun goes down," she said. "I plan to stick to them like a tick. You live through this, you can catch up to me south of Omaha, where I got that pheasant. Remember? Just head east till you hit the Missouri."
"I'm not leaving these people until things are decided one way or the other," Valentine said.
"Neither am I. This column means there's a headquarters for it. I'm going to find those Troopers and see what I can see. Could you help me with this greasepaint?"
Valentine coated her shoulders and the back of her arms with the ebony grease, leaving the occasional strip of sun-darkened flesh exposed to break up the human pattern. She looked like a black-and-tan tiger. Her torso finished, Duvalier slipped into baggy black pants with enormous cargo pockets on the thighs and her trusty old hiking boots. She tucked her red hair under a dark, insignia-less kepi. It was the standard-issue hat of Southern Command dyed black.
"Technically I'm in uniform, not that it makes a difference if they catch me. If I learn anything useful, I'll try to leave you a message somewhere outside the Twisted Cross camp. Look for a pile of four of anything sticking up, rocks, sticks, whatever. I'll leave a note under it."
"Be careful."
"You, too. Don't get your head blown off, Ghost." "Don't get caught lighting any fires, Smoke." She took a step toward him, and evidently thought better of it—instead she opened the door. She touched the side of her hand to her eyebrow and then dragged her index finger down her grease-painted nose, and left.
Fog and night closed in on the camp; the lantern lights glowed like amber gems, each surrounded by a tiny halo. Valentine stepped out of the guest house-wagon. He wore his old Wolf buckskins instead of his traveling coat, now like Duvalier's night gear darkened to a chocolate color. The heavy vest weighted his shoulders. His parang and revolver still hung from the sweat-darkened leather-and-canvas equipment belt he could not bring himself to let go. But now it had additional gear added: the old curved sword hung across his back, and the two spare drums for the submachine gun were clipped above each buttock where once canteens had ridden. His fighting claws, worn more for luck than because he expected to use them, hung around his neck from a breakaway leather shoelace like Eveready's old necklace of Reaper teeth.
Even with the seventy-one-round drum in it, the submachine gun had a nice balance. He sat down on the tiny steps to the wagon, broke down the gun, cleaned and oiled it, and put it back together again. He flicked the little switch in front of the trigger from full automatic to semi-auto, and back again, listening to the inner workings of the gun. He put the drum back on and chambered the first round.
He looked at the stock, and looked again, before he recognized what he saw. Someone had marred Tank Bourne's carefully stained and lacquered finish and carved a little heart in the stock, no bigger than the nail on his pinkie. A valentine? It must have been Ali, in one of her sentimental fits. He wondered if she kissed it after she had etched the icon. Of course he knew many soldiers with strange little rituals they practice to bring fortune. One of his Wolves used to chew a terrible gum made of pine sap before action, as though as long as his jaws worked, he knew he was still alive.
Valentine tried to relax, but his body refused to cooperate. He rose, deciding to walk the perimeter as darkness fell.
The inner ring of wagons had been drawn into a tighter circle, trek tows lashed under the wagon in front of it, with the little house-wagons parked in the gaps. The remaining women and children were huddled in a quiet mass around the main campfire. Jocelyn Hendricks read by firelight from some children's books, reciting the well-known tales of Pooh and Piglet. Piglet was voicing his worry over meeting something called a Heffalump when she looked up and met Valentine's eyes.
"Rin, read the rest of this, would you?" she asked a boy, handing him the book before getting an answer. She stepped lightly between the children in her pointed-toe boots and joined Valentine.
"These are the kids whose parents won't let them go. They figure if anything's going to happen, they want it to happen to everyone. Is it as bad as that?"
Somewhere on the walls a sentry started up a tune with a Native American flute. He or she was skilled; it sounded like two instruments accompanying each other. The woven notes soothed.
"Are the kids okay?"
She shrugged. "The little ones just know something is wrong. The older ones are so busy pretending to be brave, they don't ask questions, but I can tell they're listening. Not to my story or the music—they're trying to listen for the sounds outside the camp."
"And you're pretending to be brave reading, and I'm pretending to be brave walking around with a gun."
"It's not pretending. At least not with you."
Valentine looked down at the young woman, scarecrow-lean in her hand-me-downs. Duvalier was the bravest person he'd ever met, and she voiced her fears. Why couldn't he admit to them, as well?
"I'm scared all the time. Scared of dying, scared of doing something stupid that causes others to die. Scared that no matter what I do—" Valentine stopped, not wanting sink into nervous garrulity. Especially not in front of this young woman he had just met.
"No matter what you do? What's that mean?"
"Not making a difference."
A quick, embarrassed flush came over her, and she rose to the points of her boots and brushed her lips against his cheek. "I feel safer with you here. With our wagons. So that's a difference, isn't it?" Then she fled the kiss's rebuff, or return, to the circle of children.
Outside the central ring, he met Waldron, setting up the last of his one-shot cannons to cover the outlet for the spring. More battle-wagons, ready to roll, had been placed to block the gate. "The lookout up on top of the ridge says the fog isn't thick at all, doesn't even come up to the hilltop. Says he thought he saw movement on Stake Ridge. Where's your lady?"
"Out there," Valentine said, gesturing with the ugly muzzle on the gun.
Waldron whistled in appreciation. "No kidding? You wouldn't get me out there on a night like tonight, not with them Reapers on the prowl. They can see through fog, right?"
"Fog, night, rain—it's all the same to them. They can read off of something else."
"Body heat, like old infrared equipment?"
Valentine shook his head. "No, but it's generated by our bodies. Some kind of energy. It's what they, or rather their Masters, feed off of. Your cattle create it, too...."
"Rider coming in," someone called from the wall. The observation tower was useless in the fog.
Mrs. Hendricks hopped down from the wall, where she had been talking to some of the men on guard, showing fair athleticism for a woman her age. The deacon stepped forward, putting on his tall formal hat, but she moved in front of him.
Valentine half expected one of Tolkien's nazgul-shapes to appear out of the misty darkness drifting thick around the camp, but it was only a tired-looking rider.
"Don't shoot, now," the man said, riding forwa
rd with his reins in one hand and his other in the air. "I'm Deak Thomas, with the Bar Seven, speaking for Wagonmaster Lawson. Where's Wagonmaster Hendricks?"
"Dead, son. I'm his wife, I'm filling in. Say your piece."
"He heard you were gathering outriders, and he's come himself with ninety-five, horsed and equipped. We came as fast as we could, so we need provisions."
"Glory be!" the deacon muttered, raising his eyes to the fog-shrouded heavens.
"Tell him he's welcome. Tell him he'll get his payment for helping those messengers along, and a lot more besides. Tell him I'm grateful for his help, and I'm glad to see that the bad blood between him and my man is forgotten. Now's the time to put aside our differences if we're going to get through this."
Thomas nodded out his understanding. "He's a half hour away at most. We've had to ride carefully, before this fog set in we spotted some Troopers. They must have forgotten what happened the last time."
"With your Wagonmaster's help, we'll teach 'em another one, Mr. Thomas," Josh Hendricks said, coming up in support of his mother. Thomas walked his horse back into the fog, and they heard it break into a trot.
"That's news we can use. Close to hundred!" Josh said. "He must have emptied his camp."
Valentine felt his stomach tighten in turmoil.
All wrong. Something's all wrong about this.
"Funny ...," said Mrs. Hendricks out loud.
"Ma'am," Valentine said, wondering how to say this. "I don't like the sound of this. When we spoke yesterday, Mr. Lawson just didn't seem right to me. He looked nervous when I asked him about that scout plane. He was sure of your camp's location—like it'd been on his mind."
Josh Hendricks interrupted.
"Nothing unusual in that," Josh said. "Are you trying to start something, stranger? Didn't the man help you on your way? He could have just killed you or turned you over to them when you were in his camp."
"Quiet, now, Josh," his mother said. "Let the man speak. I've got a worry or two, and I want to see if his are the same."
Valentine lowered his voice, not wanting to have rumors spread in case he was wrong. "First, it sounds like there's some history between your brands. I don't know what it is, but bad blood can make people do crazy things. Especially if the hurt is recent. Second, is he the type of Wagonmaster to strip his wagons, leave his herd almost unguarded with enemies in the area, to come to the aid of someone else? Unless he was sure they wouldn't be touched, that is."
"That's true enough," the deacon said.
"Third, he knew a lot about your camp, where it was, the calving, but none of his men must have talked to yours or he'd know you were the new Wagonmaster. Finally, his brand was also on the line of march from the Platte, but the Triangles got wiped out and his wasn't. You'd think his whole brand would've spent the last day running for their lives."
Josh Hendricks shook his head. "Pa used to say I could think better than most, Mom. I'm thinking this is plain stupid."
"Hush now, Josh."
The boy ignored her with fifteen-year-old certainty. "No Trekker has ever rolled over for them, and I don't think even Lawson would be that low. His men would string him up. They can't all be bad apples. I'd bet my life on it."
Mrs. Hendricks looked out into the fog. "I've got to think about more lives than just my own. But we'll see. You may have to bet just that, with the help of our new friend here."
Twenty minutes later, Lawson and his outriders came into the camp through a gap in the gate battle-wagons. Two tables laden with food and drink stood near the gate on one side, opposite the little shallow with the stream running out of camp. A fire burned cheerfully in the center. The deacon stood in the light enjoying a bottle of beer and one of Valentine's cigars.
Valentine watched events from beneath a house-wagon in the second line in the center of camp. Rocks, cases, kegs, and dirt were piled up under the wagons, hiding him and two dozen men good at rapid rifle fire. A few feet in front of him Josh Hendricks stood, Valentine's revolver tucked in the back of his belt.
"Look at those guns," a man sighting down his lever action muttered to Valentine. "There ain't a man there who isn't ready to shoot. Think they suspect us?"
"No, I think they're supposed to do this in a hurry," Valentine breathed. His heart sounded loud in his chest. A fight was coming; he felt it in every raised hair.
At the sight of all the ready guns and the antsy-looking men, Josh Hendricks seemed to shrink back into his clothes as he stepped forward. Lawson stood up in his stirrups and looked around the walls, where a few of the Eagles were on guard. He scratched his heavy growth of beard with the front sight on his pistol.
"W-w-we sure are glad to see you, Wagonmaster Law-son," Josh stammered. The deacon edged closer to the boy. "We're short men on the north wall. After you eat, you think you could get your outriders to screen us from the ridge side?"
"Those your orders, boy?" Lawson said, squinting at Hendricks.
"No, my mother's. She's Wagonmaster of this camp."
"Not anymore," Lawson said, pointing his pistol like a striking rattlesnake. He shot Hendricks in the chest twice, and the youth toppled backwards, falling almost in front of Valentine.
Valentine's riflemen brought their guns up as the Bar Sevens wheeled their horses toward the walls. The men and women to either side of him fired in a long, ragged volley, followed by a second as the Eagles worked the bolts and levers on their guns. The food and drink tables upended, men appearing from underneath like shotgun-armed jack in-the-boxes, blazing away at the surrounding horses. From the walls, men fired down into the mass of emptying saddles and screaming horses. Three Bar Seven outriders managed to get outside the gate before the battle-wagons were pushed together behind them, but explosion-flashes from the swivel guns swept them into a bloody, dying heap in the trench.
The deacon crawled through the flying lead and dancing hooves, pulling Josh. He dragged him beneath the wagons and stayed put.
It was over in less than a minute. With the gate shut, a few of the Bar Seven men flung their rifles down and dived off their horses. Some tried to crawl out under the wagons, only to be rounded up by the men from behind the tables who advanced into the slaughter-yard to pistol the crippled horses and pick up the wounded men.
Valentine raised his gun over his head and waved it. He and the snipers emerged from beneath the wagon to join the deacon and Josh. "How is he?"
"Gasping for air, scared, and a Godly man for the rest of his days, I'll bet," the deacon said, pulling apart Josh's shirt to reveal Valentine's bulletproof vest on the coughing youth. The deacon extracted out the flattened remnants of a slug and tossed it from hand to hand like a hot chestnut. Josh Hendricks got to his feet and removed the vest, handing it to Valentine.
"I guess I owe you an apology, sir," he said, rubbing his breastbone.
Valentine looked at the deacon. "No harm letting them think the sneak attack worked—"
The deacon's eyebrows came together; then a grin split his face. "Good Lord, yes." He turned to the walls. "Fire off a shot now and then ... like they're mopping up." A few shots cracked off into the night.
"Ghost! Ghost!" Valentine heard a female voice call from out of the mist.
Duvalier.
He ran to the front gate. His fellow Cat stood, barely visible in the mist in the light thrown by a reflector lantern.
"Can't stop for more than a moment—can you hear me?"
"I'm here," Valentine said.
She spoke quietly, but Valentine's ears picked up her words. "A Trooper and another of these Bar Seven turncoats were waiting about a couple hundred yards out."
"What did she say? Why's she so quiet?" one of the men on the wall asked.
"Anything we have to be worried about?" Valentine asked.
"No, I took care of them. One's just behind me, and the other's in the stream, if you want to get their weapons. I listened in at their camp; they're waiting for a signal. Watch your north wall, too."
"
For what?"
"No idea."
"Get out of here."
"It's a good night for hunting, Ghost. You were right about the Bar Seven after all. I'm impressed. Good luck." She disappeared into the fog-weighted night.
Waldron was replacing the expended charge in the trough of the swivel gun with a new shell.
"Signal, huh?"
"Yes. I think I need to ask a few questions."
The deacon was finishing his cigar as a woman in a white calving smock tied a tourniquet around the leg of Wagonmaster Lawson. Lawson looked around at his shattered outriders, tears of pain or anguish streaming down his cheeks.
"Shot up bad," the deacon muttered.
"They made all kinds of promises," he confessed to the deacon as Valentine approached. "I thought I'd become the biggest cattle king in the history of Nebraska, able to run the Dunes as long as I didn't cause them trouble. But as soon as they got into camp, they started showing who was boss. That damn General guy, ordering us around, treating ray men like dirt. But what could I do? All the women and kids are in their hands now."
Valentine approached the pair. The medic looked up at him and gave a tiny negative shake of her head. The ground beneath Lawson was black with blood.
"Damn, that tobacco smells good, Deac," Lawson said weakly. "I haven't had a real smoke in months."
"Give him one, Deacon," Valentine said.
"Thanks," Lawson said, through a grimace of pain. He took a deep puff on the cigar and closed his eyes. For a moment Valentine thought he would die; then they opened again. "Hey, you're the one with the horses, trying to warn people. They asked me some questions about you two. I gave them a wagonload of bullshit."
Valentine whispered something into the deacon's ear. He nodded.
"Lawson, here, hold my Bible. The Good Book's about the only comfort I got for you. You don't have much more time in this here world, so maybe you want to think about the next. You can help us, tell us what you were supposed to do once you took the camp."
Lawson's breathing became labored. "Sure. In my pocket. Flare pistol. Fire when we ... got the camp."
Valentine found the wide-mouthed pistol, listening to the occasional shot or two still ringing out.
