by E. E. Knight
"Kird Q. Pelgram," Valentine said. "I think you'll have to do better."
"If a Quisling troop train pulls out of New Orleans at twelve thirty, going twenty miles an hour toward Baton Rouge, and eight hours later their support train pulls out, going forty miles an hour, when will—"
"It won't. We'll blow up the bridge at Red River so the Quislings have to fight without artillery."
"When are you going to change out of that milita rag?"
"Near the border, at one of those shifty inns that does business with the Grogs out of a basement armory."
"Speaking of uniforms," Patel said. "There's a Kentucky gal in second platoon who used to be on some big bug's staff Ediyak—Private Ediyak now. She knows Kurian auxiliary forces from the Gulf Coast to the Lakes. She's got a design for a uniform based on their priority labor. Moleskin, they call it, almost as tough as leather, with denim shirts, both dyed down to a foggy gray."
"I've seen something like that in the KZ. Those the guys who run phone lines?"
"Yes. Flying specialists that work their communications and electrical. Always moving from place to place, so strange faces won't raise eyebrows."
"Denim's easy to get. Labor troops. I dunno about the moleskin."
"Popular with ranchers. Rand says he can find some with his old LC connections."
"If she can modify them so they're Southern Command but still look KZ, that would be ideal."
"I’ll speak to her about it."
Valentine decided to jump in with both feet. "Put Rand to work getting denim and dye and sewing supplies. He might as well get his baptism of fire with Supply or put his LC background to work in the UFR. Worst-case scenario is they'll be a fresh set of civvies for our guys."
"These leathers are getting a little gamey anyway."
"How are the knees holding up?"
"I'm now a confirmed aspirin addict, sir."
Valentine extended his hand and they shook. "Give yourself a break, Patel. Let Glass take them through the twelve labors. No one's going to think worse of you if you pick the cane back up after these last weeks."
With that he rode out of camp, turning north into a November wind.
* * * *
For six gallons of root-beer syrup he got a Whitefang guide to take him up to St. Louis, the Grog clearing a path through the brush with a year-old legworm. His guide frequently stopped his mount to scout on foot, and at these rests Valentine would feed the horses and check their trail. The only thing that picked them up was a slight cold on their ride north. Both he and his guide took turns sneezing and blowing their noses, but it was better when they came into St. Louis three days later.
He traded a captured revolver—he'd tinkered with it on the journey and modified the grip and trigger guard for Grog-sized fingers— for a foot pass and toted his bag full of toys to Blake's home.
Not that Blake lacked toys. The old Jesuit researcher, Cutcher, had been observing him constantly as he played with various puzzles, games, and toys, gauging the young Reaper's mental development.
They'd built another coop and chicken run in the side yard of the prairie-style house located high on the bluffs above the Missouri. The Owl-Eye Grogs had added a rock pile at either side of the driveway. According to the scratchings, this was a place of powerful good magic for the tribe.
He gave some bolts of cloth, seeds, and religious books to Narcisse. Along with her care of Blake, she'd started a little church for the human community in St. Louis. While the only holy spirit the human river traders took came in a square bottle, Narcisse had made it her specialty to invite human captives of the Grogs into her circle. She'd been traveling to a couple of different neighborhoods more or less strapped to a mule. Valentine would have to promote his pack-horse to the carriage trade and find her a little two-wheel cart. He could acquire the kind of thing high-ranking Grog chieftain wives used to visit relatives in the complicated tribal family structure, curtained to prevent lowlier Grogs from gazing on the high and mighty.
Valentine pulled the bell rope that told Blake that it was okay to come out of his comfortable basement room.
Blake, at just under four years, was as tall as a boy on the cusp of his teens, "papss," Blake hissed excitedly as he emerged. He wore an oversized jacket and jeans with the cuffs extended. Gloves dangled from his sleeves. When he'd go outside he'd add a scarf and a floppy old hat to disguise his appearance.
Wobble, Blake's little dog, picked up on the boy's excitement at having "paps" home and chased his tail in excitement.
"Night games tonight?" Blake asked.
"Anything you like," Valentine said. "Fishing, a deer run, or I can read you stories."
Blake put up with stories only when he was very tired. He didn't like to sit and just listen or read along.
"Night games!"
For night games Blake wore a football helmet with padding sewn in at the sides so it fit snugly on his rather narrow head.
The games took place in the old St. Louis children's museum, a warren of chutes and ladders and tunnels made out of assorted bits of industrial and artistic junk from the pre-2022 world. The Grogs used it to train young warriors. At night the Grogs loosed their young on each other, to chase and brawl.
Some of the tougher human children sometimes joined in, also suitably padded and helmeted. Blake's helmet had a mesh with eye-slits attached to the grill—Valentine once explained to another human parent that the Grogs sometimes gouged with their long fingers—and with leather gloves on it would be hard to distinguish him from any other skinny young boy.
He could even shriek like a prepubescent when the mood hit.
There were no human kids there the night he took Blake. Valentine relaxed a little. Blake sometimes liked to show off by executing a jump no human could make and sometimes when wrestling he reversed his arm joints.
The most common Grog game was for one of the less dominant males to run up and swat a tougher one and then try to get away. The Grog children clearly considered it something of a coup if they could get away from Blake; they would swing or dangle from climbing obstacles and hit him, or three would strike at once and run off in different directions. Blake took the punches and swats with good humor and pursued his attackers and threw and pinned them when he could.
The roughhousing resulted in surprisingly few injuries. Young Grogs bounced like basketballs.
Valentine had stiffened the mesh in front of Blake's chin. Blake had acquired a good deal of self-control, but no sense taking chances.
He sat, watching Blake play. When Blake disappeared into one of the ill-lit buildings filled with noise and shadow, he followed, carrying a mug of sweet tea hot from a thermos.
A second thermos waited in Valentine's pack for when Blake tired. It was filled with warm chicken blood.
* * * *
They fished the next day, then crossed into the woods on the north side of the Missouri the night after that, going on a deer run in the early morning.
Blake didn't have his helmet this time, just a hat with earflaps.
Valentine and Blake had a unique manner of deer hunting. They'd cover their scent as best they could with deer droppings and then wait. The deer liked to forage at the edges of old roads and broken-up parking lots. When they decided a herd was close enough, Valentine tapped Blake and they took off after a deer.
Last time they'd gone on a deer run, Valentine had been able to sprint ahead of Blake, even with his stiff leg. This time Blake beat him early in their dash after the bouncing white tails.
Valentine had that moment most fathers had, much earlier in the quick-developing Blake's case, when the son outdoes the father physically. He pulled up and sheathed his knife, relegated to the role of watcher.
Sometimes the deer crisscrossed and Blake got confused. But this time he bounded onto a big young buck at the fringe. Valentine had a moment's doubt, wondering if Blake would be taken for a brief ride before he lost his grip, but he brought it down like a cougar, clawing his way onto
its neck and biting.
By the time he trotted up to Blake, the deer's eyes had gone dead and sightless. Blake raised a blood-smeared smile to him.
"Clean kill, Blake. Let's dress it. Sissy will have venison for the whole winter now, or deer sausage to go with her eggs."
At noon—Blake liked to sleep through the days—Valentine settled him down for a nap. They'd return with the deer carried on a pole between them that night. He read to Blake a little from Charlotte's Web, but Blake seemed unimpressed by Wilbur's predicament.
"Pigs don’t talk," Blake said, "story is not real"
"It's a story. In stories pigs can talk. So can spiders and rats."
Blake didn't understand why, if the pig could talk to Templeton or Charlotte A. Cavatica, it couldn't talk to Fern.
Blake would rather watch the bugs moving in the grasses and find out what they were doing. Maybe he was just scientifically minded. Valentine still found it disturbing that he couldn't summon his imagination to aid him in understanding the story.
Or empathy.
* * * *
Blake helped him with various repairs to the house. Valentine went into St. Louis and got kerosene and tallow for light, a big bag of rice, chicken feed, and tar for a couple of weak spots in the roof and drainspouts.
Valentine watched Blake with Narcisse. She touched Blake frequently, patting him on the head or shoulder or arm, and he smiled, but he rarely touched or returned hugs with much enthusiasm.
But then he loved to nap with his head pillowed on her lap or breast.
Once, while Blake was sleeping away the morning, Valentine asked Narcisse if she was ever afraid.
"Daveed, don't be silly. I am safer with the boy here than with a whole pack of guard dogs. He tells me when the Grogs come ten minutes before I hear them."
"No, I mean of Blake."
"He cares, in his way. He is like—he is like the cat who just takes affection on his terms. One time I fell from my wheel-stool and before I knew it he was beside me and righted it. After, I had a scrape on my arm and he got a cloth with vinegar for it."
Valentine gave voice to his doubts. "Maybe he just thought he was repairing you, the way he did the chicken wire."
"One night in August it was hot and I did not kiss him good night. He asked me why I didn't as I left, and I told him I was worried that he was getting too big for a kiss good night. He said he liked it because it made him feel warm and sleepy. He has love and caring. Do not worry for me."
Valentine let the matter rest.
* * * *
They said their good-byes in the driveway. The garage now had a two-wheeled rig for Valentine's packhorse. Wobble sniffed at the new feed trough Valentine had built.
Narcisse had shown herself adept at driving the trap and Blake found the challenge of driving a horse fascinating. Blake approved of simple action-result loops much more than E. B. White.
Valentine had acquired the rig by pledging to a loan of trade goods at the old church office in the city. He'd pay it back through the river rats.
"No sneaking blood out of that horse, now," Valentine said to Blake.
"No, papss," Blake said. Neither of the horses were happy about Blake's presence. They sidestepped and danced every time he moved. The carthorse would get used to him eventually.
"Help Sissy all you can. I may be gone for a while, so you've got to look out for her."
"No trouble for sissy" Blake said. Narcisse stroked his odd tufts of hair. It looked as though someone had glued old toothbrush heads in odd patterns on his scalp. It just grew in that way. He remembered one of the Miskatonic researchers saying something about it possibly being an identifying mark.
"Go with the magic of the right hand, Daveed," Narcisse said.
He plucked her out of her wheelchair and hugged her. She'd put on a little weight since he'd met her in Haiti.
"Can't thank you enough, Sissy," Valentine said.
"I go where the most need is. Blake needs someone to teach him. My whole life, I never fit in anywhere," she said. "That is something I can teach Blake. How not to fit in right. The people here, especially the captives of the Grogs, they need me too."
Valentine knew she'd been practicing her folkloric brand of medicine with the humans. She had turned a sunny south breakfast nook into a room devoted to growing herbs. How she got exotic peppers and roots in St. Louis was a marvel. Cutcher had probably helped her build her collection.
He was proud of the victories he'd won for the Cause, but he couldn't visit Big Rock Hill again without seeing faces of Beck and Kessey, knowing where they were buried and what they looked like before they'd been cleaned and shrouded.
Narcisse was also a victory, in a way. There'd never be a plaque to commemorate her, the way there was one on the old red-brick consular residence on Big Rock. Instead of brass lettering, this victory came with a shining smile, a colorful kerchief, and arms he could feel as they embraced.
He rode away from the house on the Missouri bluffs and into a cold wind. He didn't dare think of it as home, or else he'd never have left it.
* * * *
Valentine's Whitefang guide must have had a fine old time in St. Louis. He'd acquired two wives, one for him and one for his brother, and a legworm's worth of trade goods.
It looked like his brother was getting the ugly one. But then Valentine wasn't current on Gray One aesthetics. While he waited for his guide to arrange the departure, Valentine fended off a trade Grog trying to buy his hair.
Luckily his guide didn't mind him hanging bags of horse grain from the legworm's dry, fleshy hide. First you had to sink a cargo hook into the thing, which took some judgment, as patches of skin were constantly sloughing off. Then there was the legworm's habit of crashing through thickets. You didn't want to put your load where it might get accidentally torn off as the legworm brushed a tree.
They passed south easily enough, the tough Morgan stepping easily in the legworm's wake, nibbling at bits of trampled greenery now in easy reach. Valentine only remembered wondering how big Blake would be the next time he saw him.
His efforts at recruiting a dozen or so Whitefangs met with a stern refusal from the chief:
"In the days of my grandfather, whisperers promised much and gave little. Little thinskins all same."
"Give good guns. Give good gear. Whitefangs share camp and food and battle, become friends to thinskins," Valentine said.
The young warrior who'd led the Whitefangs in battle against the Doublebloods snarled and displayed in front of Valentine, stamping his feet and tearing up ground with a ceremonial planting hook.
"Not need thinskins' guns put up plenty good fight," he said. Valentine got a nose-full of Grog breath.
"I saw Whitefangs in battle," Valentine said. It was hard not to flinch. One good swing of that hook and his brains would be leaking out of his nose. "Would want such warriors as friends against whisperers."
The young warrior squatted and looked to his chief.
The chief fingered his necklace. Valentine saw two Reaper fangs among the odds and ends of his trophy braiding, gearshift knobs and dog tags, mostly. "Whitefangs enemies enough. Not need seek more across river," the chief said.
That seemed to settle things.
* * * *
Back at the Highbeam assembly, Valentine found his company hard at work sewing.
He changed back into the tired old militia uniform and ordered a powdered meal as he received Rand's report. A contingent of three aged Wolves had arrived. They were already known through the company as "Patel's Shepherds." Each had taken a platoon and were putting them through tough field training.
"Recon's hard work," Rand said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirttail when the formal report ended. "They've sniffed out six stills, two basement markets, three gambling dens, and a brothel and a smokehouse that does beefsticks you won't believe. They also located a mother and two talented widowed sisters in Jonesboro who enjoy giving formal dinner parties f
or the handsome, brave young officers of Southern Command. Handsome and young being key to an invitation to dinner."
"In other words, they're experienced soldiers."
Valentine found his desk unusually orderly. He'd been expecting an overflowing in-basket.
"Private Ediyak, the gal with the idea for the uniforms, helped me with some of the low-priority stuff. The rest is in the locked file cabinet."
They'd set up two sewing machines in a workshop next to the command tent. Someone had found a battery-operated radio and hung it high in the tent.
* * * *
He met Private Ediyak, a small blonde with the delicately wide-eyed look of someone brought up on KZ rations, when she had a soldier model the new uniform.
It was made out of denim the color of a foggy evening. Baggy about the legs but easily bloused into boots and knee pads. She'd layered a denim jacket over an athletic sweatshirt, and put an olive canvas utility vest over that. The vest was trimmed with yellow reflective tape.
Valentine recognized the vests. They were Labor Regiment. He used to cram sandwiches and water bottles into the big pockets for a day in the fields or on the roads. There were D rings for holding more gear on this version.
He walked around the soldier modeling the uniform. He looked like a young, fit construction worker.
"The Day-Glo tape is almost out at Supply, sir," she said. "I backed it with fabric and Velcro. Removing the reflective stuff just takes a second. Speaking of Velcro, sir, the same goes for the arm patches. If it would be possible for us to get something made that looks KZ-ish, we could swap between KZ and Southern Command as needed."
"I wondered about that, sir," Rand said. "The inspector general's office won't like flags not being sewn on. 'These colors don't run' and all that."
"The inspector general's never had to look inconspicuous in a KZ streecar," Valentine said. "Who's the honcho there now?"
"General Martinez," Rand said. "Three Hots Martinez, the men call him."
Valentine's stomach went sour, but there was no need to pick at old scabs. He offered his hand to Ediyak.
