Winter Duty (40 page)

“I’m only sorry I didn’t sign it over to you two years ago,” Rockaway said. “But I was seeing Arbita and she didn’t want me to give it up, and for my sins I listened to her. But I’ll sign it over to you now, Mother.”

“So you’ll return to the UFR with us?”

“If that’s what it takes for me to be able to live my life in peace, do my job, and marry who and where I choose, I’ll take the trip.”

So the happy reunion wasn’t quite so happy, at least as far as Mrs. O’Coombe and her son were concerned.

Brother Mark needed a ride back to Fort Seng. A wounded Gunslinger named Thursday was also going that way, as he wanted to recover over the winter at home with his family in a town called Grand Junction on the road back. His brother-in-law was supposed to drive out to the Gunslingers and pick him up, but his brother-in-law had flaked. Again. O’Coombe and Valentine’s command had passed near it on the way up, and Thursday promised it was just over a ridge from their route home, on an old federal route in reasonably good condition.

They packed up the four vehicles. Valentine made sure Bee had all her odds and ends. Traveling with a Grog was a little like taking a child or a pet on a journey: You needed to make sure you remembered favorite toys, snacks, and clothing.

Thursday wasn’t much of a guide. He spent a lot of time examining map, compass, and map again before giving instructions that proved to be guesswork. Valentine could have done just as well with an old road atlas. Thursday’s wound was a piece of shrap nel to the buttock, or so he said, and he rode on a special pillow. Valentine wondered if he wasn’t really suffering from aggravated hemorrhoids.

His instincts improved once they crossed a small river and he claimed to be in home territory.

“Grand Junction’s not even an hour away, now. Three more big ridges and we’re there. We could use a garrison of you Southern Command boys, now. There’s a marketplace and even a bank that trades Karas’ old currency for the new government scrip. Some riders came in a while back and tried to rob the town, but we shooed them off.”

Valentine said, “Most of Southern Command’s back across the river. All that’s left are some training and technical personnel.”

“That’s Southern Command all over. They claim they swing the biggest dicks but always come up short when belts hit the floor.”

A flake struck the windshield like a bug. A big piece of almost-sleet, it sledded down on its own melt.

“I guess winter’s here,” Valentine said, by way of breaking the tense silence.

In his winters south of central Missouri, Valentine had softened in his attitude toward cold weather. Winters weren’t a matter of life-or-death survival, with desperate, predawn to post-dusk fall efforts to stock up on enough fuel, food, and fodder to get yourself and the livestock through to spring—an almost unimaginable span of time away. Winter was a season of rest, refit, and relaxation.

The horizon closed in as the real snow started, following behind the big flakes like a wall of Napoleonic infantry advancing behind their pickets.

Valentine didn’t like the look of the big, soft flakes. When they first appeared they fell idly, spinning and drifting in the wind, but minute by minute they thickened, aligning themselves in a single, southeasterly direction.

“Better slow down,” he told the driver. “Turn on the running lights. I think we can quit worrying about aerial observation.”

“Hope we don’t have to do too much off-roading in this,” the driver said. “Wish the locals took better care of the roads.”

“Legworms make their own roads,” Thursday said. “We like it nice and run-down. The Ordnance doesn’t risk their axles bothering us.” He chuckled. “This is Kentucky. We just don’t get that hard weather. Even the sky takes it easy here. This’ll blow over in no time.”

CHAPTER TWELVE

The storm and the night dragged on.

The snow waxed so heavy that night that they couldn’t see more than fifteen or twenty feet in front of Rover. The headlights reflected back so much light from the snow they did more harm than good, so they drove using the service red guide lights. The motorcycles were useless in this weather, so Stuck and Longshot stopped and hung them up on the side of the Bushmaster. Fortunately, Thursday had put them on the right road for once, and all the driver in the cramped Rover had to do was stay on it.

With the storm raging outside, reaching Grand Junction became not just a matter of convenience but a necessity. If they pulled off and camped, everything would take three times as long thanks to the weather, and no one would have a comfortable night.

“Still can’t believe about the Coonskins,” Thursday said. “They were good men. Had many a meal with them when we all rode for Karas. The Moondaggers must have threatened them with something awful.”

“Haw,” Habanero said. “I’ll bet every head in my share that no one threatened them with anything more than having to come home to six wives.”

“That’s how the Kurians get you,” Longshot said. “Giveaways. That’s how they took over in the first place, my old man always said. They showed up—and, sure, they offered food and fuel, but there was more than that. They offered structure and freedom from having to think for yourself.”

“I’m sure that’s just what people in an earthquake-hit city wanted,” Thursday said. “What the hell you talking about, Habby?”

“It’s like that story about how to trap swamp pigs. Ever heard it?”

“No,” Thursday said.

Valentine had. Habanero had all of five parables, and the pig one wasn’t nearly as good as his story about the frog and the scorpion. Mostly because that one was shorter.

Mrs. O’Coombe read her Bible by map light.

“Well, seems that down in the Congaree swamp in South Carolina there was a whole passel of pigs running wild. Now, pigs are smart. Every now and then a hunter would go in and try to get one, but most came back empty-handed, the pigs were so wary and wild.

“Well, a stranger feller came into town and said he was going to get them pigs. Of course all the locals about laughed him out of town, but he ignored them. Instead he went and bought himself a couple fifty-pound bags of corn.

“Every day he went into the swamp and poured some corn on one of the pig trails in a nice woodsy spot. Well, of course the pigs came along and ate the corn. It was free, after all. Easier than rooting up grubs and tubers.

“After a few days, with the pigs showing up regular for their feed, he put a few beams down in front of the corn, and he watched them eat from a distance. Just wood on the ground, easy for a pig to hop over, and none of them minded making that jump to get at that corn. Then he started building a fence for a stockyard. He always made sure there were plenty of ways in and out for the pigs. They were a little nervous of the construction—one or two hightailed it right back into the swamp—but the rest were getting really used to that corn, so they went in.

“Now gradually he shut off the entrances and exits, kept watching them from nearer and nearer, and made it tougher and tougher for the pigs to go in and get the corn, till all they had was a little gap to squeeze through. But darned if they didn’t squeeze through and gobble till every last bit of the corn was eaten.

“Only one time, when they were done, the pigs saw that there was no way back out of the pen. He’d blocked it up.

“They got their free grain still. ’Nother day or two, anyway, before a big ol’ livestock trailer pulled up, and they used sticks and dogs to herd them pigs right into the trailer. Didn’t cost him much: a few big bags of corn to convince them pigs there was such a thing as a free lunch.”

“So that’s what they’re doing to us Kentuckians, you think?” Thursday asked.

“I don’t know if the Kurians are smart as that man down Congaree way. But the Kurians are big on advertising their wares as free, aren’t they? Sometimes I think the scariest words in the American idiom are ‘no obligation.’ Of course, sometimes they stick in an ‘absolutely’ ’cause that one more lie just pushes people right over the edge into stupid.”

They only knew they entered Grand Junction once buildings appeared on either side of the road.

“I know just where you should park, Habby,” Thursday said to the wagon master at the wheel. “There’s a grain mill just the other side of town. Not one of those claptrap corrugated iron things—real stonework. Abandoned now because of the lack of juice. We grind grain with a couple oxen these days, the old-fashioned way.”

Valentine looked out the window. He was used to seeing gutted storefronts, but one of the buildings that had a hole in the front looked like it had received recent damaged—the splinters in the door were white and fresh.

“I wonder how long we’ll be snowed in here,” Duvalier said from the bench she had to herself at the very back of Rover. “Charmingly dead.”

“What’s that?” Habanero said suddenly into his mike.

Valentine plugged his own headset in, uneasy. “What happened?” Mrs. O’Coombe said.

“Ma in Chuckwagon says she just hit a person.”

“Good God,” Mrs. O’Coombe said.

Valentine’s earphone crackled: “—maybe it was just a big dog. But he came leaping, trying to get on the back of Bushmaster, and slipped. Under my wheels before I knew it. We bumped over him.”

“We should stop,” Mrs. O’Coombe said.

“What kind of fool runs into a line of trucks in this weather?” Thursday said, his face unholy in the dim light of the console.

“Must have been a dog,” Habanero said. “Shadows are weird with all the reflections.”

“Here’s the mill,” Thursday said. “I’ll get it open for you, and then I’ll check in with our sheriff and let him know you’ve arrived. As long as that wasn’t him Ma ran over.”

He laughed at his own joke, but no one else did.

The mill looked like a staggered tower, in levels going back from the street rising to a sloped roof on the top floor like an old ski jump.

“Always thought this building would be great to live in if you could gut and rebuild like they used to. Left just here, Habby,” Thursday said. “Don’t think you can get more than the first two vehicles parked inside. The loading dock’s only made for one truck, really. There’s plenty of space around the side with the train tracks.”