Winter Duty

by E. E. Knight

  The tunnellike inside was full of twelve folding bunks attached to the walls of the vehicle, as well as seats along the walls: cushioned lockers. The bunks blocked some of the firing slits but not the cupola.

  The machine guns looked more frightening from the outside, thanks to the big barrels. Inside, they were revealed to be assault rifles rigged out with box magazines. Still, firepower is firepower.

  “What’s up top? A broomstick?” Valentine asked.

  “Oh, the gun’s real enough,” Drake said. “Twenty millimeters of lead that’ll turn any breathing target into dog meat, from a Reaper to a legworm.”

  “Dogs know better than to eat off a dead Reaper,” Stuck said.

  Next in line was the Chuckwagon. It was a standard military truck with an armored-up cabin, a mounted machine gun at the back, and a twin-tank trailer dragging behind. The paint job and new tires made Javelin’s venerable and road-worn Comanche look like the tired old army mule she was. The Chuckwagon towed a trailer with two big black tanks on it.

  The hood was up on this one, and a plump behind wiggled as a woman in overalls inspected the engine.

  “Ma,” Stuck shouted. “There’s someone needs meeting.”

  “Busy here.”

  “You’re never that busy. Come out of there.”

  A plump, graying woman hopped down from the front bumper. She wiped her hands and gave a wave Valentine decided to interpret as friendly gesture instead of sloppy contempt.

  “This is Ma, one of the ranch’s roving cooks. Ex-Southern Command and ex-Logistics Commando, she’s our expert on Tennessee and Kentucky.”

  “Really only know it to the Tennessee River, but from the Goat Shack to Church Dump, I’ve been up and down her. My specialty was likker, of course, but I traded in parts and guns too.”

  Valentine nodded. “I’ll put you to work on this trip. We need medical supplies and—”

  “ ’Scuse me, sir, but I don’t know medicinals; never had much of a mind for ’em. Too easy to get stock-shuffled or wheezed or lose it all in the old Bayou flush. Easier to spot a true rifle barrel or bourbon from busthead.”

  Finally, there was the Boneyard, a military ambulance truck. It had the same basic frame as the Rover, with a longer back end and higher payload bay. A bright red cross against a white background decorated its hood and flanks.

  “Doc and the nurse are helping out in your hospital,” Stuck said. “The driver’s name is Big Gustauf, old Missouri German. My guess is he’s eating. Never was a Bear as far as I know, but he’s got the appetite of one.”

  Valentine paced back up the column and found the matriarch who’d assembled all this to bring her boy home. “I’d like to congratulate you on your column, Mrs. O’Coombe.”

  She offered a friendly tip of the head in return for the compliment. “When we were young my husband and I ranched right into Nomansland,” she said. “Hard years. Dangerous years. I knew what to bring on such an expedition.”

  “I hope your care obtains results.”

  “That’s in God’s hands, Mister Valentine. All I can do is my best.”

  “God usually fights on the side of the better prepared,” Valentine said.

  “I don’t care for your sense of humor, Mister Valentine, but as an experienced soldier I suspect you’ve earned your cynicism.”

  “Your son didn’t serve under the name O’Coombe, did he?” Valentine asked.

  “No, he didn’t want to be pestered for money or jobs for relatives,” Mrs. O’Coombe said. “He served under my maiden name, Rockaway. Sweet of him, was it not, Mister Valentine?”

  Valentine made a note of that. He’d have to check the roll call records and medical lists to learn which legworm clan ended up taking care of him. They had left only a handful of wounded behind who seemed likely to survive, and even then only in areas controlled by their allied clans.

  “How much do you know about Kentucky?” Valentine asked.

  “My sources say there are many off-road trails thanks to the feeding habits of the legworms. I wanted vehicles that could use poorly serviced roads and even those trails.”

  “How did you get vehicles like these together?” Valentine asked. When he’d first seen her, he wondered if she’d hired mer cenaries. They knew about moving off-road with a column of vehicles. They had plenty of tow chains and cables ready to offer assistance to the next in line or the previous. He noticed the various trucks’ engines had cloth cowlings stitched and strapped over them. The cloth had an interesting sheen. Valentine suspected it was Reaper cloth from their robes.

  “Get them? Sir, they’re from our ranch. We control property that covers hundreds of square miles. The ranch wouldn’t function without range-capable wheels.”

  “Where do you ride?” Valentine asked Stuck.

  He lifted a muscular, hairy arm and pointed to a pair of heavy motorcycles with leather saddlebags and rifle clips on the handlebars. “Me and Longshot are the bikers.”

  “Where’s Longshot?” Valentine asked.

  “Up here,” he heard a female voice say.

  Valentine looked up and saw a woman in old-fashioned biker leathers sunning herself atop the Bushmaster. She zipped up her jacket. “I’m the scout sniper.”

  She had strong Indian features, dirtied from riding her motorcycle. There was a clean pattern around where she presumably wore her goggles. You wouldn’t necessarily call her “pretty” or “beautiful.” Striking was more like it, with strong features and long black hair that put Valentine’s to shame. “Comanche?” Valentine asked.

  “Hell if I know. Tucumcari mutt: little bit of everything. You?”

  “North Minnesota mix,” Valentine said.

  “Hey, want to see me feed these beasts?” Stuck asked.

  Valentine nodded.

  He walked over to the Chuckwagon’s trailer. It had big twin tanks that Valentine had assumed were powered by gasoline or diesel or vegetable oil.

  Longshot hopped down, and Stuck opened a latched cooler strapped on a little platform between the tanks. Two buckets rested inside. A ripe fecal smell came out, so powerful it almost billowed. Valentine watched Stuck and Longshot, apparently oblivious to the odor, each lift a bucket and pour it into one of the tanks.

  “Everyone pisses and shits in the old honeybucket,” Stuck said. “Food scraps are good too, especially carbohydrates.”

  Stuck took a leather lanyard from around his neck. Valentine noticed a Reaper thumb on it, interesting only thanks to an overlarge, pointed nail capping it. The lanyard also had two keys. Stuck used one of them to open a locked box on the tanker trailer and took out a plastic jug of blue-white crystals with a metal scoop sunk in.

  “This is my job. I check the test strips and seed.”

  He extracted a long dipstick from the fragrant tank, wiped it on a piece of paper about the size of a Band-Aid, carefully placed the test paper in a clip, and held it up to a color-coded, plasticized sheet. Nodding, he made a notation on a clipboard that rested on the box’s hinged cover.

  “The Kurians guard this stuff like the Reaper cloth factories,” Stuck said, leveling and dumping three roughly teaspoon-sized portions of the granules into the larger scoop.

  “I’ve seen those factories,” Valentine said. “Or one of them, anyway, in the Southwest.”

  “This tank’s just about done,” Stuck said. “Takes about thirty-six hours to do three hundred fifty gallons. Then we refill off this tank while we fill the other with waste, or pig corn, or melon rinds, or what have you. In a pinch, these engines can run off of kerosene, regular diesel, or even waste cooking oil, but this stuff’s easier on ’em, and Habby doesn’t bitch about changing gunked-up fuel filters.”

  Valentine watched him dump the crystals into the conversion tank.

  “Always makes me wish I’d learned more science and chemistry and stuff, instead of just getting good at taking Reapers and Grogs apart,” Stuck said.

  “So where did you get that stuff? I’ve never even heard of i
t,” Valentine said.

  “The Great Dame is friends with some big bug in Santa Fe. He’s playing both sides of the border, scared there’ll be a reckoning if Denver Freehold and Southern Command pair up and hit the Southwest. He’s a honcho in transport. Keeps trying to propose, but she shoots him down.”

  “What’s your story, Stuck?”

  “I was never cut out for military life, even as a Bear. Hurry up and wait, hurry up and wait. Drove me crazy. Stand here, look there, turn your head and cough, bend over and pull ’em apart. Not my lifestyle at all. Mrs. O’Coombe keeps me busy out in the open where I’m alone, riding from post to post checking security. No one to piss me off that way.”

  He looked up from the mix. “Longshot, get over here,” Stuck said. “What do you think of this color?”

  “More water,” she said.

  “That’s what I thought. Thanks.”

  She hopped down and bumped into Valentine.

  Valentine found himself looking into the reversed-raccoon eyes of the girl. The face mask had left an odd pattern on her features. Dusky and dark, she reminded him a little of Malita, save that Longshot was a good deal shorter.

  “You must love your bike,” Valentine said.

  “I was out scouting east of here this morning,” she said.

  “Longshot gets bored easily,” Stuck said, watching her grab a washcloth and towel and head for the camp’s showers. “She’s a retired guerrilla from down Mexico way. Met her during Operation Snakebite. She’s ridden at my side ever since.”

  “Full partnership, or limited liability?” Valentine asked.

  “Nah. A Reaper yanked my gear off when I was captured in ’sixty-six. Didn’t hurt as much as you’d think, but about all she does is keep me warm.”

  Valentine had a hard decision to make, and after consulting Lambert, he presented it to Mrs. O’Coombe the night before their scheduled departure.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to commandeer your doctor for Fort Seng, Mrs. O’Coombe. Our remaining doctor is exhausted. He’s worked seven days a week for over a month now.”

  “And just who do you suggest will look after my son or any wounded we recover?”

  “We’ll take our nurse. If they’ve lived this long, I doubt they’ll need any more care than that.”

  “I’m sorry, Mister Valentine, but this is one time I must tell you no. I don’t like the idea of traveling with wounded without a doctor.”

  “A nurse should be sufficient for travel,” Valentine said. And that was that. He had rank, after all, and it would take months for Mrs O’Coombe to get her friends to exert their influence for or against him. And by then he hoped to have her son back.

  Valentine passed the word and names for an officers’ call and then arranged for food to be sent up to what was now being called the map room. Next to the communications center, it had formerly been a game room. Lambert had altered it so it featured everything from a large-scale map of Kentucky to an updated map of the Evansville area, river charts, and even a globe Lambert had colored with crayons to reflect resistance hot spots against the Kurian Order.

  Lambert was a whirlwind. Somebody had a screw loose if they had just cast this woman aside as part of a political housecleaning.

  Gamecock was there representing his Bears, Frat for the Wolves, and Duvalier just because she saw the others gathering and wanted to grab a comfortable armchair. Patel was present, of course, and Colonel Bloom’s new executive officer, a Guard lieutenant who’d distinguished himself at the bridge where Bloom had been wounded on Javelin’s retreat.

  “You looking forward to your trip, suh?” Gamecock said.

  “We won’t be touring. I don’t care how well equipped and crewed she is. If she’s recovering Southern Command forces, we need Southern Command along. I think she’s sailing into trouble.”

  “Isn’t she a bit old for you, Val?” Duvalier asked.

  “You can come along and keep an eye on me,” Valentine said. He hadn’t yet told her that he wanted her to as part of his command.

  “No walking, I hope,” Duvalier said, with a light laugh that did Valentine’s spirits good. She’d been so moody lately. “Twice back and forth across the state is enough for me.”

  “Who would you like to bring, sir?” Patel asked.

  Valentine looked at his notes. “I’d like to take two Bears—Chieftain and Silvertip—four Wolves, and a nurse.”

  “Who’s bringing the beer and barbecue?” Duvalier asked.

  “Do I have to remind you that this is an officers’ call, Captain?” Valentine said, using her titular rank.

  “Then I’ll join the tour,” Duvalier said.

  “Call it a survey, call it a reconnaissance in force, call it a recovery operation. Call it anything you like. It’s my intent to have a mobile force of some strength who knows how to deal with Reapers. With the legworm clans encamped for the winter, they’ll be so many sitting ducks for whatever vengeance Missionary Doughnut is talking about.”

  “Goodwill tour it is,” Lambert said. “Our friend out front has never made much sense. Seeing some Southern Command forces in Kentucky’s heartland will do the Cause some good, in any case. And let’s not forget our outgoing president’s letter. If I go myself, I’ll consider my duties discharged.”

  “Can I go with my Wolves, sir?” Frat asked. “I’d like to see a little more of Kentucky.”

  Valentine looked at Lambert, who nodded. “Glad to have you along, Lieutenant. Thanks for volunteering. You’ll save me a lot of legwork.”

  Duvalier snickered at that. Valentine wondered why she was so merry this morning.

  Alarm.

  Valentine came out of his sleep, heart pounding, a terrible sense that death stood over his pillow.

  The Valentingle.

  He hadn’t called it that at first. If he thought about it, he might have remembered that he once called it “the willies” or “the creeps.” The name came from his companions in the Wolves, who learned to trust his judgment about when they were safe to take refuge for the night—what hamlets might be visited quietly, whispering to the inhabitants through back porch screens.

  Whether it was sixth sense, the kind of natural instinct that makes a rabbit freeze when a hawk’s shadow passes overhead, or some strange gift of the Lifeweavers, Valentine couldn’t say.

  But he did trust it. A Reaper was prowling.

  Valentine slipped into his trousers and boots almost at the same time, tying them in the dark.

  He grabbed the pistol belt hanging on his bedpost. Next came the rifle. Valentine checked his ammunition by touch, inserted a magazine, chambered a shot. He slung on his sword. Oddly enough, the blade was more comforting than even the guns. There was something atavistic in having a good handle grip at the end of an implement you can wave about.

  Duvalier would say that it wasn’t atavism. . . .

  Valentine hand-cranked his field phone. “Operations.”

  “Operations,” they answered.

  “This is Major Valentine. Any alerts?” He swapped hands with the receiver so he could pull on his uniform shirt.

  “Negative, Major Valentine.”

  “Well, I’m calling one. Pass the word: alert alert alert. I want to hear from the sentries by the time I get down there.”

  The communications center lay snug in the basement.

  Valentine looked out the window. The alarm klaxon went off, sending black birds flapping off the garbage dump and a raccoon scuttling. Emergency lights tripped on in quick succession. They were perhaps not as bright as Southern Command’s sodium lights that illuminated woods on the other side of the parking lot, but they had precise coverage that left no concealing shadows on the concentric rings of decorative patio stones. The old estate house had quite a security system.

  A shadow whipped across the lawn, bounding like a decidedly unjolly black giant, covering three meters at a stride, a dark cloak flapping like wings.

  Reaper!

  Could it be their ol
d friend from the Ohio? The clothing was different, it seemed. The other one hadn’t even had a cloak and cowl when he’d last seen it, and it seemed doubtful that a wild Reaper could attain one.

  Valentine, in more of a hurry to throw off the shutters and open the sash than ever any St. Nick-chasing father, fumbled with the window. He knocked it open at the cost of a painful pinch to his finger when the rising pane caught him. He swung his legs out and sat briefly on the sill like a child working up the nerve to jump, rifle heavy across his thighs.

  Valentine had no need to nerve himself, but he did want one last look at the Reaper’s track from the advantage of height. Would it angle toward the soldiers’ tents or the munitions dugout? Kurians had been known to sacrifice a Reaper, if it meant blowing up half a base.

  It did neither. It headed straight for the woods south, toward the river.

  Valentine jumped, felt the cool night air rush up his trouser legs. He landed on his good leg, cradling the rifle carefully against his midsection as though it were a baby.

  With that he was off, settling into his old Wolf lope, the bad leg giving him the port-and-starboard sway of a tipsy sailor or perhaps an off-balance metronome.

  He cast about with a coonhound’s frantic anxiety at the edge of the woods. The tracks were there, hard to see in the deep night of the woods. Only the Reaper’s furious pace allowed him to find the tracks at all.

  Valentine searched the woods with his hard ears. The wind was smothering whatever sounds the Reaper made—if it was in fact running and not just trying to lure him into the woods.

  Deciding on handiness over firepower, Valentine slung his rifle. Drawing his pistol and sword, he tucked the blade under his arm and began stalking into the woods with the pistol in a solid, two-handed “teacup” grip, searching more with his ears than his eyes.

  His footfalls sounded like land mines detonating to his nervous ears. Of course, anyone venturing into thick woods after a Reaper would be a madman not to be nervous.

  Motion out of the corner of his eye—

  Valentine swung, the red fluorescent dot on the pistol’s foresight tracking through wooded night to . . .