Choice of the Cat

by E. E. Knight

  She got up and opened the door for Valentine. He dragged himself inside and sat at the tiny table. Rolls and a slice of pie stood on the table next to a pitcher full of milk.

  "I couldn't touch meat, let alone cook it. Sorry," the young woman said, opening a window.

  "I'm not that hungry," Valentine said. He poured himself some of the still-warm buttermilk and drank. The rich taste triggered something in him, and he raised the glass, gulping it down. What did not go into his stomach went down his chin. He put the glass down with a shaking hand.

  She stared at him, biting her lower lip. Valentine, in a fog matching last night's, couldn't bring himself to make conversation.

  "Was this a bad battle?" she finally asked.

  "No. You won."

  She shifted her weight closer and brought up a rag to wipe off his chin.

  "There's ... blood or something all over your clothes. From when you were in that truck, so I hear. Though it's already turning into a tall tale: they've got you jumping like a deer, practically flying.... Let me wash them for you; they can dry while you sleep."

  He stood, still chewing, his mind taking in her movements, the taste of the food, and the little cabin, but not processing the information. He began to undress. She blushed and stepped outside, and he handed her the bundle through the window.

  "Thanks, Miss Hendricks," he said.

  "Jocelyn."

  When he woke, Jocelyn was sitting on the cabin's tiny stool, oiling his boots. He either felt safe in the Eagle camp, or she had sneaked in during his deepest cycle of sleep: he did not remember her reentering the house-wagon.

  "You're leaving?" she asking, getting up to show him his newly washed traveling clothes.

  "Soon." He sat up, still wrapped in the blanket, and tried to blink the gum out of his eyes.

  "To find your wife?"

  "Wife? She's more of a guide. I suppose I rely on her better than some men do their own wives."

  "I know it's none of my business, but do you and she—?" She trailed off, darting an embarrassed look at him, from her lowered head.

  "No—we joke about it. Maybe under different circumstances I'd think differently."

  "I had a boyfriend. He went on a drive to Denver, never came back. That was over a year ago now. I guess he wanted to see the city. I was hoping for a letter, a message, but he never explained himself."

  "I'm sorry."

  "He used to make me feel... all warm and safe. Last night, when you talked to me, I felt warm and safe again. I wanted to kiss you."

  Valentine felt lust and compassion war within him. She was an alluring young woman, but he was leaving almost within minutes. "Jocelyn, I'll bet every young man in this brand would walk through fire to kiss you. We're strangers."

  "The guys here are good men. I've known diem all my life. All the older ones act more interested in the fact that I'm the Wagonmaster's daughter. The young ones are just. . . kids in men's boots, if you know what I mean. You're ... serious."

  Valentine thought it a strange word. Perhaps it was apt.

  She placed the boots on the floor and sat at the edge of the bunk. "Since that meal after you rode in, I've been thinking about you. You probably think I'm just some silly hick girl. I'm not looking for a man permanent. If anything, you going away makes it better for me—I can just lose myself in it without worrying about the future. Know what I mean?" She took off her bandanna and shook out her thick chestnut hair. She planted her palm between his pectorals; his heart thumped hard against his ribs, as if it were trying to touch her.

  Valentine rose from the bed toward her, and they fell into each other's arms, need making the embrace smooth and unembarrassed. Even better for Valentine, it was unself-conscious. Instincts sublimated during months without touching a woman surged inside him, spilling out like rising floodwaters over an earthen dike—in an instant the barriers dissolved. He took her rich, sage-sweetened hair in his hands as he kissed her.

  "David, who are you? I... feel like I'm in heat," she gasped as he explored her neck with his mouth, the rest of her with his hand. He helped her wriggle out of her clothes. His blanket had already fallen away, leaving him nude and aroused and pressed hard against her.

  He laid her down to the sheets, and she parted for him. Her hands gripped, pulled at his back as he entered. She melted around him, greedily taking what he gave her, but what she gave him was even sweeter. Forgetfulness. For those minutes there was no battle, no hunt, no responsibilities or fears, only a trembling woman in his arms. Their lovemaking was just kisses and softness and warmth and wetness and lust and motion, thrusting motion in which there wasn't a last night or tomorrow just a climax like a lightning flash in the dark of the angry void that was his life, a paroxysm that left him even more hungry for her and the oblivion of her body.

  He trotted out of the Eagle's Wings camp on a bay quarter-horse gelding. It was like riding on a mobile tower: the horse measured over seventeen hands and had a rear end like a rowboat. The Eagles lined up to see him out of the gate. Valentine felt honored by the gesture, though he flushed at the little half-wave Jocelyn gave. He saw her hands clasping and unclasping as he rode out, and felt guilty.

  Valentine's only souvenir of the fight was a metal helmet, a piece of Kevlar with coal-scuttle flanges protecting the neck. With his battered vest, it would add to his disguise should he have to resort to posing as a Trooper again. Whoever had worn it invested in a cork-and-webbing liner and khaki cotton sun sheath, which did an admirable job of keeping him cool.

  He searched the Twisted Cross camp. It stood in the lee of the little ridge south of the larger, horizon-filling one that sheltered the Eagles' camp.

  A pair of outriders scavenged the wreckage, throwing everything from useless-looking scrap metal to expended shell casings into a wagon. Valentine rode up to them.

  "The man with the tommy gun," one of them said, waving back. "Hey, mister, we got word you were looking for piles of four of anything. I think we found what you're looking for—that or these boys sure have a funny way of taking care of their dead. Look at Sam beside the trail yonder." He pointed down the rutted cross-country trail.

  Valentine joined the waving outrider and found a little collection of four Reaper heads, arranged in a neat pile like cannonballs in an old fort. Bluebottle flies were already thick on the dead flesh; in places, masses of maggots had already exposed black bone.

  He closed his nose and mouth and knocked over the pile with his toe. Beneath the gruesome marker was a folded piece paper. He picked it up and recognized Duvalier's hand.

  Ghost,

  I'm moving south to the Platte. I listened to the camp, and there's another contingent over in Broken Bow. Just go south to the highway and follow it east, or read your map. If they've pulled out of there, let's meet south of Omaha where we talked about. I listened in on their General, and their Headquarters is there. They call it the "Cave," whatever that is.

  Don't be impressed with the pile. This is wounded I finished off while they were trying to get back to their camp.

  —Smoke

  Valentine folded the note and put it in his map case. He returned to his horse, which already had its nose down in the dry grass, cropping some green weeds beneath the longer growth.

  "Broken Bow it is."

  He camped that night near an old highway intersection, in a former Nebraska national forest.

  The indefatigable horse covered nearly sixty miles that day. Valentine was astonished at the distance. In his first year as a laborer in the Free Territory, the horsemen in the Ozarks had passed on their preference for mustangs, sad-dlebreds, palominos, and tough ponies, claiming quarter horses lacked stamina. The bay's energetic, mile-eating walk proved the Ozark horsemen wrong.

  Valentine had seen some wisps of smoke to the northeast in the afternoon, but decided that whatever happened was probably over with before dawn. He had no desire to investigate another gruesome battlefield and risk being seen by a straggler. He saw fresh tire tra
cks on and beside the old highway, but even the little plane that had appeared every day previously was grounded. His only companionship was the occasional wary coyote and a few far-away hawks.

  The campsite felt lonely. He missed Duvalier's jabs and sarcasm, and the smell of the woman's sweat over the campfire. He made a cold camp, and not knowing what might be out there, decided that his old Wolf habit of switching campsites around midnight was called for. He waited for the moon to go behind a cloud, and then he picked up his blanket, pack, and saddlebags.

  As he placed the western-style saddle on the bay, preparing to walk to a new campsite, the horse grew restive. Valentine tried to stroke the horse's forehead, making soothing sounds, but the animal wouldn't be quieted. It danced backwards. Alarmed, Valentine turned to see what the bay was backing away from. A hummock of grassy ground bulged beside him, and he caught a wet moldy smell, like decayed wood swollen after a rain.

  Valentine agreed with the horse. He vaulted into the saddle. The animal turned, but the saddle did not turn with it: Valentine had just placed it on the bay's back in preparation to walk the animal and never fixed the girth. He tried to grip the horse's barrel chest with his calves, but saddle and rider slid sideways off the fear-crazed animal.

  He rolled to his feet and drew his sword. He felt the ground shift under his feet and sprang away. Something attacked the saddle and bags in a spray of dirt. He ran a few steps to the old highway, wanting broken pavement beneath his feet instead of soil that might conceal an enemy.

  Something crashed through the woods and brush on the far side of the embankment. He saw a boulder shape bouncing downhill. It altered its course slightly-—and intelligently. It headed for him, even as he sidestepped to get out of its way.

  He dived, and the thing bounced over him. His peripheral vision picked up movement from another direction, and he put up his sword. A carpet of living muscle threw itself on his legs. Something poured liquid fire into his calf. He shifted the grip on his sword and plunged it into the thing, working the blade like an awl right and left in search of something vital. Valentine gasped for breath, and his sword and the pinned Sandbug suddenly looked distant to him, like the optical illusion a glassless telescope creates.

  He had no inner sense of peace as consciousness died, his life did not flash before him... just a confused What the hell? And then darkness.

  His little sister's puppy liked to nibble feet. It would lie down and cross its paws over his shin in the yard, and chew at his toes with sharp young teeth. David would lie in the yard and shriek out in ticklish agony while his sister sat on his chest and her mutt worked at this foot. Then his sister started in on the knee on his other leg. He felt her tearing at the soft flesh at the back of his leg. "Ouch, Pat—cut it out!" Then someone put a pillow over his face, and he had to struggle to breathe.

  Valentine felt dirt in his mouth, but he couldn't spit it out. His tongue felt dry and withered, like a desiccated toad. He was in darkness, every muscle frozen. He tried to shake his head, move his arm, but his body wouldn't answer. Something was thumping at his chest. It was easier to fade back into sleep. You sleep, you die, a little voice told him, and he fought to stay awake, to break out of the enclosure binding him, but it was too hard, and he faded again.

  Pat was at his face, strong beyond her years and trying to force a tube into his mouth. Using his last iota of willpower, he kept his jaws clenched.

  "David! David!" his mother called from the back door.

  "Mom?" he called back. "Pat's being—"

  A hard probe entered his mouth, and some kind of fiery liquid hit the back of his throat. He couldn't breathe through his nose; he swallowed.

  "David!" Jocelyn implored. "David, I'm here, it's okay. We killed the Sandbug grubs, you're going to be all right."

  Valentine felt neither one way nor the other about the matter. He was too tired.

  "Give him another jolt of whiskey. Best thing for the damn Sandbug venom," a gruff voice said, but his foggy brain took its time with the words.

  More liquid forced in, his mouth held closed, and his nostrils shut. He had no choice but to swallow.

  He woke feeling like a broken victim of a cattle stampede. But he could see now through blurred eyes. Jocelyn, the deacon, and Danvers sat around a campfire, staring into the flames and sipping something out of tin cups.

  "Water," he croaked.

  Jocelyn grabbed a canteen and knelt beside him. Danvers got behind him and lifted him so he could drink properly. The cool water infused him with enough strength for him to look up at Jocelyn.

  "What?"

  "Your horse wandered back yesterday. We knew something must have happened," she said, her hair tickling at his face as she stroked his brow.

  "The Sandbugs are loose everywhere," Danvers explained. "We're losing cattle right and left. But the Wagonmaster, when she saw your horse come in, had us drop everything and track you down, just in case. We've pulled guys out of Sandbug holes before, and if they ever come out of the coma—well, they're like stroke victims a lot of the time. You being a tenderfoot and all, I figured about all we would be able to do is kill the grubs and bury what's left."

  "It hurts.... Anything help the pain?" he said.

  "I've got a soda poultice on it now," Jocelyn said.

  Danvers patted Valentine's scratched and dirt-covered hand. "You'd clawed your way to the surface. We saw your head and arm sticking out of the burrow. You must not have got much of a dose."

  "Don't let him scare you," the deacon said from the campfire. "You'll be fine. They only nibbled on you a bit, and all your fingers and toes still twitch. You were buried at least a day. Have another swallow of whiskey. That old saw about it being good for snakebite is bullfeathers, but some alcohol in the bloodstream sure helps with whatever it is they sting you with."

  Danvers uncorked the bottle, poured another mouthful into Valentine, and gave him a chaser for good measure when he swallowed the first.

  "That good, eh?" Danvers said. He took a swig.

  "Chuck, you stop that, don't forget we're far from home," the deacon admonished.

  "Sorry. First drop since calving festival, Preacher. Lot's happened since."

  "It's your last till we're among the wagons again. When dawn comes, I'll ride back and let them know to call off the trackers."

  Dawn came, and Danvers roused the deacon from his watch. The old Bible-thumper went to his horse and eased himself in the saddle.

  "Time was, life got easier when you got old," he grumbled, and walked his horse over to Valentine. "Young man, you're welcome at our wagons anytime you like."

  The deacon pulled his hat down firmly on his head.

  "Thank you," Valentine said. He still felt drained, but his mind was back in the alcohol-numbed world of the living.

  His left leg throbbed at the ankle, but it was the healthy pain of a body healing. "Now I know what Sandbugs smell like, sir. I'll be fine."

  "Jocelyn, he doesn't saddle his horse for two more days. Lots of water and rest will flush the stuff out," the deacon ordered. "Danvers, I'll send out some of your men to take your place so you can get back to work."

  "Thanks, but no, Deacon. I'll keep an eye on Jocelyn."

  "As you like. Good-bye again, Mr. Stuart. God be with you."

  The poultice cooled the wound. Valentine bowed his head and shut his eyes. "He was when I met the Eagles."

  Valentine napped in the shade whenever he wasn't drinking. His Eagle companions fed him on bread soaked in broth. Jocelyn put vinegar-soaked compresses on his wound, and the cool antiseptic bite of the vinegar brought some relief. Valentine watched the two work: Danvers's eyes never left the girl when he was in camp. But there was restlessness to the man; he continually went out to fetch water or survey the road, or set snares for small game, and hallooed from a quarter-mile off when he returned.

  "He likes to be on the move, doesn't he," Valentine said, as Danvers rode off to exercise Valentine's bay on another sweep of the ground
to the south.

  "He was born and raised in the saddle, more or less. His mom climbed off her horse and had him two minutes later. His pa says she climbed back on five minutes after that, but no one takes him seriously. He's leaving us alone out of politeness."

  "I like your company, but there's no need."

  "He ... I made kind of a scene at camp when your horse came back. I told my mother I was going to find you and go with you."

  Valentine read the anxiety in her eyes.

  "I think your people need you," he said after a moment. "More than I."

  "They'll be fine."

  "I'm not going to tell you you couldn't keep up, or that I wouldn't want you next to me, Jocelyn. So I'll rephrase. You need your people."

  She looked at him, eyes wet. Perhaps she had expected a different argument.

  "They're your family. You're at exactly the age where that doesn't mean much to you, but as the years go by, you might regret your choice."

  "I might not, too."

  "I wish I had the chance to regret my family. I had parents, a brother and a sister, a home. It all was taken away when I was eleven. If you've got any respect for me, set aside whatever it is between us, and listen to this: Stand by your mom and Josh. We're two people who needed each other for a little while. Your family will always need you."

  "You're just saying this to keep me from . . . tagging along. Tell me you don't want me to go with you, and I won't."

  "I don't want you to go with me for the reasons I just explained."

  Her face hardened. "That's not what I meant. You, David, the man."

  "Man? Am I?"

  "Well, you're not a mule, except you're stubborn as one."

  "You need a man with possibilities. I'm—"

  "Used up?"

  "What makes you say that?"

  She sat still for a moment. "It's what my father used to say. About the older generation, the one's who'd seen too much death and change. He said they were still walking and talking, but something in them died—'used up' in the wars. Their families, if they had any, had a hard time."