Choice of the Cat (Vampire Earth #2) - Page 8/10

The Sand Dunes, September: Stretching north from the Platte River is the rolling, empty expanse of Nebraska's dunes. Sitting above one of the great aquifers of the world, the coarse, dark brown soil is not suited for crops, but supports some of the world's best ranching country. It is the Sahara transformed into a grassy garden. The Dunes, a beautiful green ocean in the spring before being burnt into straw by the summer's heat, cover an area larger than the state of Connecticut. They start to the west, and like the ocean, the great rollers are found the farthest out, thousand-foot-high, wind-rounded ridges a mile across and ten miles long, almost all running east-west according to the prevailing winds. East from the great ridges are smaller hills of varying squiggled shapes but still mostly long and thin. These gradually fade off into tiny steep hillocks, as the great rollers of the Atlantic turn into the chop of the English Channel. So like little waves are these hills that the residents use a nautical term for them: choppers.

While much of the soil is too dry to easily grow crops, the area is anything but a desert. It is ideal ranching country and supports more than horses and cattle. The little valleys between the hills are thickly wooded: lakes and ponds, marshes and soggy meadow can be found among the teeming cottonwoods and box elms. Trout streams and lakes filled with pike are dotted with beaver homes and dams, and a newcomer is sometimes startled to see a pelican fishing after descending from one of the high, dry ridges as seagulls ride the breeze overhead. Game is plentiful, mule deer bound through the long grass like giant jackrabbits, and antelope herds graze while the younger males at the edges keep watch for coyotes. Bird hunters come home with everything from waterfowl to wild turkey, pheasant to sharp-tailed grouse. But the residents of the Dunes ride with rifles for reasons other than shooting game. They hunt the minions ofKur.

Valentine and Duvalier caught up to the Twisted Cross train at the fork where the North Platte and South Platte converged their sandy banks. The town of North Platte no longer existed on the spit between the rivers, having been burned in the chaos almost fifty years ago. A hand-lettered sign announced that they were pulling into Harvard Station.

Their train did not stop, even though they had been assured by the engineer-this being a cattle car, unguarded except for a few rifles in the hands of the railroad men- that it would pause at Harvard Station before moving on to Ogallala and Scottsbluff. As they passed through the station, they saw squads of Troopers milling all over the yard, crates being unloaded and organized, and sentries posted on either side of their track for the express purpose of making sure no one got off. A small, single-engine plane came in for a landing on the old airstrip southeast of town, adding to the panoply of war. He and Duvalier openly stared; in fact, had they not watched the plane, it would have been even more suspicious, flying machines being a rarity even in the Kurian Zone. Valentine looked at it through his binoculars: it was tiny bush hopper, white with red markings. He half expected to see a swastika on the tail, like in pictures in World War II books, but could identify no markings.

"I've been here before," Duvalier told him, "but I've only seen it from the other side."

Another Twisted Cross train was on a siding by a dock with some chutes and pens for livestock. They could see figures lounging in the sunlight, wearing what looked like black jumpsuits, but unlike the men at the other train, they seemed to be in no hurry to unload the contents of closed boxcars. Around the caboose, a team of the most formidable-looking Grogs Valentine had ever seen stood guard, taller than the slab-skinned gray ones he had fought at Little Timber and partially covered with fawn-colored fur.

A concrete blockhouse, surrounded by razor wire and gated, looked out over the ruins of the town and the river below. Men in a sandbagged platform smoked as they stood watch with machine guns. The black-and-white banner fluttered from the blockhouse's flagpole.

"They're setting up shop," Valentine said as their train pulled away westward. "Supplies, men, weapons, a plane. But what's the target? We haven't heard any news of a uprising in the local Gulag."

Duvalier gazed off northward into the rolling, grassy hills. She looked terribly, terribly sad. "If there were, it would be news they'd keep quiet. This isn't even a Kurian center-this is an outpost of the one down in McCook, right on the border."

"Border? Border with what?"

"The Dunes. They must be after the Dunes." She sighed, as she had done one day in Kansas, when they saw a police truck lumbering down the road with human fodder for the Reapers chained in back.

Valentine followed her gaze, not exactly doubting her, but waiting to hear more. "Who or what are the Dunes?" he finally asked. Duvalier liked to make him ask questions for some reason, perhaps as revenge for his occasional corrections to her English.

"It's more of a where, Val. The Dunes are that," she said, pointing. "It runs from here up to the Dakotas. Kurians never really controlled any of it, and every time they've tried, they got their ears pinned back. It's a huge area, maybe half the size of the Ozark Free Territory. I don't even think the Reapers dare hunt there."

"Why is that?"

"The Trekkers. Wanderers. The only way to describe it is big moving ranches that go with their cattle and horses. Everything in their life is packed onto their wagons, they move from winter to summer pasturage and back again, but not always the same spot. Their whole world is their cattle; the herds feed them and buy what they can't make."

"Buy from whom?"

"There are a few outfits that trade with the Quislings, no doubt about it. Oh, they call Quislings 'Jacks' out here. I've asked six different people and got six different stories. Some say its short for 'jackals,' but I'm not even sure what those are."

"They're a sort of scavenger dog-in Africa, I think," Valentine explained.

She ignored the zoology. "Others say it's because they used to be led by a man named Jack. Some more say it's because they run like jackrabbits if someone starts shooting at them. I forget the others. Doesn't matter. They're Jacks to folks out here;"

"You know the people in the Dunes?"

"I do. Good people, damn good people. I got friendly with one of the larger clans, a group of families under the Eagle brand. They identify themselves with the marks they put on their cattle, you see. The brand looks kind of like an old set of air force wings, or an American Indian thunder-bird. I guess it got its start from some Strategy Air Controller people who helped them fight off the Kurians in the worst years."

Valentine wondered if she meant "Strategic Air Command."

"They don't care for strangers too much, but I got to know them when they were running stock to Denver. I ended up riding scout for two cattle drives. Good days. Learned a lot about the land between here and the Rockies. The area between the two Platte branches is real anything-goes country. A couple Kur ranching settlements, bands of Jacks riding for the Kur, Crow Indians trying to live on the Pawnee, and a few little villages just trying to keep out of everything."

"So you've been to Denver?"

"No, the Denver Outriders would meet us outside the city. I always wanted to go, though. See a city. Of course, they tell me it's pretty empty, just like everywhere else. A fair amount of damage, but it's still free soil, and that always feels good."

Valentine watched Harvard Station disappear into the distance behind them.

"So you think they're going to clear out these Trekkers?"

She nodded. "It kind of fits the pattern. That other Lifeweaver, Ura, she mentioned that a couple of small Freeholds got torched by these guys. Maybe they're training before taking on bigger game, like us or Denver."

"If Denver depends on these people for food," Valentine theorized, "could be this is a step in a campaign against them. That might go a long way to explaining the attack on Fort Rowling. It was a probe."

"This will be a chance to see how they operate," Duva-lier said. "We can see how they organize, scout, prepare for a battle. Find out about these Reapers with guns. Do they have artillery? It looks like the Twisted Cross has an air force, even if it's just one plane. Southern Command will need to know what's coming."

Valentine felt another, more important battle coming on. His duty and his humanity, his conscience and his code silently warred within. It wasn't much of a fight this time. Too many lives at stake.

The wind at the top of a rise pulled at his hair. He pulled it back into place, and as he did so came to a decision. As if a yoke had been lifted from his shoulders, he straightened.

"Ali, that's exactly what we should do. But first we've got to warn those people."

They jumped from the train as it slowed to climb a hill east of Ogallala. Rather than leaping immediately into the bushes, they waved at the railroad men watching from the caboose. The railroaders waved back, smiling.

"That's always fun," Valentine said, pulling a teasel weed's prickly head out of his hair and picking up his pack. "You okay?"

"Did it knock some sense into you?" she said as she changed back into her stained traveling clothes. At least she was speaking to him again. They had argued briefly, until she quit talking to him after he asked her if she could just watch her friends from the Denver cattle drives die.

"Not yet. Ali, I didn't say that you had to come. I didn't even suggest it. One pair of eyes can see as much as two. You can keep an eye on the Twisted Cross, and I'll try and get the word out to the people in the Dunes."

"You did suggest it. You said, 'We've got to warn those people.' We is plural, Mr. Professor."

"Okay, I hoped you'd want to come with me. After all, you're already known to them."

"Irresponsible. What we're doing-recon-is really important. As far as Southern Command is concerned, the Twisted Cross is just another gang of Quislings. I wanted to take you on because after reading your reports, it seemed like you were just as worried about them as I was. But you want us to go up into the Dunes, where all that's going to happen is we'll be on the receiving end of their attack, instead of evaluating it and learning about their numbers and methods."

Tears trickled down her face. "I liked those people, Val. They're good people, as good as I've met anywhere. There are families in those wagons, Valentine. They're going to be dead in a little while, and there's not a thing we can do about it-and it's killing me. Now you just want to throw our lives away, too.

"Our duty is to Southern Command. What about warning them? Didn't you take an oath when you became an officer, or a Wolf or whatever they put you through when you joined up?"

"Maybe if I can warn them they can hide the kids. We, or I-whatever-I just have to let them know about what's coming." He tightened his pack. "I'm going in there. Unless you want to try to stop me."

The stare-down was brief.

It ended when Duvalier looked at the dirt beneath her hiking boots, poked the loose soil with her walking stick. Then she gripped it firmly by the middle, and for a second Valentine thought she was planning to knock him out with it. But the tears disappeared.

She even looked a little relieved.

"Okay, David. We warn them. But that's all."

The Cats decided to risk crossing the North Platte River during daylight, starting as early as possible in their race against time and death.

It wasn't hard; at this time of year, the brown-streaked river was at its lowest point. They crossed into the Sands at the wreckage of the Kingsley Dam, passing a sign that read

UNSECURED TERRITORY. TRESPASSERS SUBJECT TO SUMMARY justice. Although the road had been destroyed, a drift of sorts existed, allowing them to make the treacherous crossing without wetting anything below their knees. A few anglers, perhaps out of Ogallala, plied their rods from the banks. If hidden border sentries also watched the pair, Valentine's Trooper vest perhaps confused the guards enough to keep them from shooting.

Rather than disappear into the Dunes right away, which would look more suspicious to a stillwatch, Valentine decided instead to walk up the banks of the Platte among the birches and poplars of the floodplain.

After a rest, they found enough wooded cover to cut up into the Dunes, running parallel to the old State Route 61 north into Dune Country.

Valentine pushed the pace. He carried Duvalier's pack across his chest, so Duvalier, who hadn't spent years running from point to point in the Wolves, was light enough to keep up with his trot.

They jogged carefully along the hills, making sure they did not skyline themselves. At sunset they stopped to rest and watch the daylight go out in a blaze of glory. Valentine had been in some wide-open spaces before, but something about this rolling sea of straw and grainy soil felt endless.

"It's funny," Duvalier said. "What we're trying to do is just... nuts. Hopeless. I feel liberated, though. Like I'm about to go shoot some rapids in a barrel and it's too late to worry."

Valentine looked at her as he massaged his aching legs. The fading sun tinted her skin the color of beaten copper. "No, it's not that. You're doing the right thing. When I was a kid, the man who raised me after my family died, he was a teacher. He used to have the older students read about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was when-"

"I know what the Holocaust was," she said, but without her usual vexation. "Kind of a dress rehearsal for all this."

"He made us study it for a couple reasons. One was to learn that there were people who went through times as bad as these and survived, although it wasn't that bad in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. I think the other reason we read about it was to learn that evil, even if it seems all-powerful for a while, always collapses eventually. He used to say evil was like a rabid animal: it was very dangerous and should be destroyed as soon as possible, but even if it couldn't be attacked from the outside, the sickness within would put an end to it.

"But back to this one book I read about the Holocaust. It started with this diary kept by a little Jewish girl in hiding. She was killed, but her diary survived, and the rest of it went on about people who helped the Jews and others hide from or escape the Nazis. People would ask them afterwards how they found the courage to do it, when the Nazis killed people who helped the Jews. They said it took no courage at all; it was the easier choice to make. By doing the right thing, they kept their humanity. I think being able to keep their self-respect gave them strength. There's a power in doing right."

Valentine opened an old tobacco pouch and took out his little pyramid-shaped stone so it could absorb the remaining sunlight and charge.

Duvalier looked at the tiny crystal pyramid. "Do you ever think the Lifeweavers are angels?"

"What? Err... no, I heard you. What do you mean, I should say."

"When I first got to the Free Territory, and that Cat Rourke began to sort of be a father to me, he took me to see Ryu. It was a sunny day, and he was wearing that white loincloth he goes around in, only he had another white thing he was sort of wrapped up in, too. I remember I was looking at him, and something about the sun must have warmed him-he turned to it and spread out his arms. Suddenly I saw this man with a halo, and these big white wings billowing out from his back. Of course, it was the white shawl or whatever he was wearing and the sun in his hair."

"Be a funny kind of angel, making killers. The Lifeweaver who turned me into a Wolf, he said the only kind of people who were going to be able to beat the Kur were ones filled with hate and fury, not so much soldiers as berserks. At least that's how I remember it. The whole thing is a little hazy."

"I never heard anything like that out of Ryu. He always seems"-she sought for a word-"lonely. Lonely and sad."

Val shrugged. "You want to get a little rest before we push on?"

"I think maybe you should get some. You always carry most of the load, plus that god-awful gun and ammo."

Back in the Regiment we should have been called mules rather than Wolves. They selected us for a sterile life of endurance. He stretched out on the grass with his coat as a pillow. "I can handle it."

"You still carry too much," she said, and suddenly leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.

He opened an eye. "It's a good thing you didn't do that while you were still wearing that bra-and-shorts combination. Otherwise I would have performed a very convincing newlywed act on you."

"Dream on, Valentine," she said, sending a peanut shell his way. They had picked up a bagful somewhere during a trade.

"I wish I could have seen you buying that red bra. That would have been a memory to treasure. No one at the hall would have believed me. I suppose you burned the evidence."

"No, I didn't buy that in Lincoln. Actually I found it, still hanging on a little plastic hanger in a ruined store in Amar-illo a year ago. Still wrapped up in tissue paper and plastic. It fit so well, I decided to keep it for days when I just can't deal with my boobs."

He laughed. "You carried a red bra around with you for a year?"

"It's a hidden little piece of me, okay? You're a man, you don't know how important a good bra is."

"Your little pieces weren't so hidden under that jean jacket. What does it feel like to have a tan inside your belly button, anyway?"

"Cretin."

"Bitch."

"Quit being an ass. Get some rest-we're up again in an hour."

A day later, they cut a broad trail moving east. Cattle, wagon ruts, and horse hooves all churned a wide swath through the grassy dunes.

"You don't have to be Red Cloud to follow this," Valentine said, pushing the dirt in one of the deep wagon ruts aside to see how far down it had dried.

"Red what?"

"Red Cloud. He was a Lakota Sioux chief. My mother used to say that when I tracked mud across the kitchen."

She tipped her head, a faint smile on her face. "Do you have a picture of her?"

"Only in my mind."

"I bet you have her hair."

Valentine shrugged, and they began to follow the trail. A distant, buzzing errrrrrrrrm made them take cover as the little plane they spotted at the Twisted Cross depot came up from the south.

"Now wouldn't that be a timesaver," Duvalier said, looking up at the scout plane. That little thing can do in an hour what it takes us days to cover."

Once it had moved off to the north, Valentine and Duvalier continued on their course, trailing the marks of the mass of men and cattle into the Dunes. They walked hard for an hour, and then rested for fifteen minutes, then got up again to jog for a while. After six hours, even Valentine began to get dry-mouthed and rubber-limbed. Duvalier groaned whenever they rose from a rest break, but otherwise endured the hard miles in silence.

It was afternoon when they spotted a pair of riders, the rearmost part of a rear guard, cutting across the path ahead. The pair rode smart, avoiding the skylines, and frequently paused their horses just to look and listen.

"Those are Trekkers," Duvalier pronounced, passing the binoculars back to Valentine. They began to jog in the open, trying to catch up with the outriders.

The riders spotted them soon after they started running, and moved with their horses to intercept. Valentine had his gun slung where he could get at it, but he had no weapon in his hand, and Duvalier just had her walking stick.

The men sat their horses, rifles on their hips, and awaited events.

"That's close enough, Trooper," one of them called from beneath a wide-brimmed Western hat. "What are you, a deserter?"

"Parley, riders," Duvalier called. "He's no Trooper. We took that off a dead 'un for disguise. What brand do you ride behind?"

"Barred Seven. Glad you're not a stranger here, little lady. What brand do you ride behind?"

"The last time I visited here, I rode with the Eagle's Wings. We have to speak to your Wagonmaster."

"Always happy to talk to a brother brand, 'specially when the visitor's such a pretty one. Does your boy here talk, or did somebody fork his tongue?"

"I can talk, friend. I just like to see which way the wind blows."

"Out here, it's usually west-east," the other man said, his lips hidden by a long drape of a mustache. The wide-brimmed man guffawed.

"You still got a good two miles to go before you hit the wagons, I'm afraid," he said. "But we'll get you to the edge of the herd." They turned their horses neatly and began to follow the trail.

"Bar Seven," Duvalier said quietly. "Not one of the larger groups, but tough as nails. They keep to the border country. Rumor has it that they trade with the Jacks, but let ye who are without sin cast the first stone. A lot of the Trekkers do, one way or another."

"What about your Eagle's Wings?" Valentine asked.

"No, they have a serious feud with Kur. Lots of memories from grandfathers in the military. And too many losses while running cattle to Denver. But in a way, this is good-Bar Seven might not want to offend the Eagles by being difficult, since the Eagles are the biggest of the Trekker groups. Once in a while there are disputes over winter pasture, and Bar Seven can't afford to make enemies."

They caught up to the herd, mostly Herefords that looked like they had been toughened up by the addition of a long-horn bull or two. Beyond the herd they could see a little spread of twenty or so wagons. A cowboy with a yellow bandanna tied at his hatband had a few words with the scouts and then rode up to the Cats.

"You want to see the Wagonmaster, huh? You got anything that's worth Mr. Lawson's time?"

"I think Mr. Lawson would like to be able to make that decision, friend," Valentine said.

"Ain't your friend, half-breed. Would like to be your friend though, miss."

Duvalier reached up to shake his hand. "Mister, we've come a long way. Could we please see the Wagonmaster?"

"I'll ride in and ask. Best I can do."

"How about you bring us with you. Saves a little time."

The man pursed his sun-dried lips. Either he had trouble thinking on his own or he had a very strict set of orders to follow.

"The Wagonmaster is a busy man. Where do you come out of?"

"The KZ, to the south," Duvalier said. "But I've ridden with the Eagle's Wings."

That seemed to make the decision easier for the rider. "Be back soon," he said, putting his horse into a trot toward the wagons.

Night blanketed the grassy hills. The Bar Seven cooks rang the supper bell as Valentine and Duvalier finally caught up to the loose ring of wagons. After a boring wait among the cows, the yellow-marked foreman rode back out with news that Wagonmaster Lawson would see them.

Lawson was a broad-shouldered individual with a heavy scar over his forehead, giving him a scraggly eyebrow that looked permanently raised in surprise. He used the back gate of a large wagon as a combination desk and supper table, and was tearing into a blackened piece of beef when they were introduced to him.

"Boy, you might want to take off that vest in here. One of my men might take a shot at you, just out of habit."

Valentine removed the vest, feeling strangely naked without its weight.

"I hear you two rode with the Eagles?"

"Just me," Duvalier said. "Actually, I'd like to get back to them in a hurry. We think the Kur are planning a major raid into you out of North Platte. A real clean sweep."

"Uh-huh," Lawson said. "What makes you say that?"

"A sizable force offloaded from a train in North Platte. Everything from Reapers to Grogs, armed for bear. Even the Reapers will be carrying guns."

"Haw, that's a good one. Skulls with guns! Since when?"

"We both saw it. They're fighting with new tactics. They're scouting the area, and they're going to strike soon. Haven't you seen that little scout plane?"

Lawson looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Ee-yup. As a matter of fact, it circled here a couple times. You think they might be aiming to hit us? Bar Seven, I mean?"

"That we don't know," Valentine said. "We're just trying to warn you."

Lawson scratched his growth of beard. Judging from the whiskers, he shaved only once a week, and according to Valentine's sensitive nose, bathed even less often.

"We really need to get to the Eagle's Wings," Duvalier said, almost pleading. "It's a lot to ask, but if you could loan us a couple of horses ... We don't have much to barter with. A few cigars, a little tea."

The Wagonmaster stared at them through narrowed eyes and sucked in his cheeks. "Nice-looking lady like you always has something to barter."

Valentine watched cords pop out on Duvalier's neck. She glared at the Wagonmaster.

He lost the staring contest and shrugged. "But charity's always been my middle name. Okay, looks like I might be out two horses. How's this: if what you say is true, as far as I'm concerned the information is worth two good horses. If you're wrong, I'll be relieved but expecting either their return or payment. Tell Mr. Hendricks that a couple calfs out of one of those big reds he breeds would be adequate. Sound like a deal?"

Valentine looked at Duvalier. "Deal," they said in unison.

"I'll even throw in saddle blankets. Sorry I can't do any better, good tack is hard to come by. We ain't short of leather by a long shot, but good saddle makers are rare."

"Do you have any idea where we can find the Eagles?" Valentine asked.

"You aren't leaving now? It's getting dark in an hour or so."

"Afraid so, sir," Valentine said.

"Hope you know what you're doing. Hard riding in the dark is a good way to lose a horse. The Eagles are about forty miles northwest of here. It's calving time, so they're in a good anchorage, with water and wood under one of the big ridges."

"And where's that?" Valentine asked.

"Go dead northwest until you come to a big ridge, runs the whole skyline, a good ten or fifteen miles long it is. If you hit a little stream, turn left; if not, turn right. They're at the head of that little stream. You should see the cattle a long way off-Eagle's got thousands."

"Thank you, sir," Duvalier said.

"Good luck to you, Mr. Lawson," Valentine added.

Lawson began barking out orders, and his men hurried to comply.

"Nice diplomacy, Smoke," Valentine said as they left the wagon with one of Lawson's riders. "Never would have guessed you had it in you."

She squeezed his hand. "You'd be surprised at what I've done with my mouth, if it gets me where I need to go."

They rode out at nightfall, heading northwest. Valentine's stomach sometimes got ahead of his brain, and his insides were doing flip-flops from fatigue. And he had a new worry. When they dismounted from the improvised, blanket-and-rope saddles to walk the horses for a while, Valentine's concerns finally made it to his voice box. "I don't get it, Ali. How does he know so exactly where the Eagle's Wing camp is? They camp in different spots every year, don't they? You said Bar Seven and the Eagles aren't even friendly."

She stopped for a second, then shook her head.

"Valentine, their horsemen range pretty far. Hunting, rounding up strays. Sometimes looking for other Trekkers' strays, if I know the Bar Seven. He gave us the horses, didn't he? If he were in cahoots with the Twisted Cross, which is what you're suggesting, why not just hand us over to them, dead or alive? They had a good twenty guns hanging around those wagons, and their men know how to use them. We wouldn't have had a chance. Stop being paranoid. The Bar Seven are on the shady side of the line, sure, but I've never heard of one group of Trekkers betraying another. Every other Trekker brand would come down on them from every direction but up, and they'd try that if their horses could jump high enough. It'd mean the death of-"

"Enough. You win. You get hold of a man's ear so he has to chew it off to end the arguments."

The hard miles crossing the Dunes left Valentine's brain swimming. He finally convinced himself that the disquieting feeling he had from the Bar Seven came from lack of sleep.

They cold-camped for a couple of hours, deciding rest was more important than hot food. Duvalier kept his spirits up by promising him a sizzling steak on their finding the Eagle camp. While the horses cropped grass, they shared a soda-cracker-and-cheese meal that brought them back to their first journey together.

At noon the next day, they caught sight of their destination. Lawson was not kidding about the ridge. The grassy monster loomed like a tidal wave over little lines and clusters of trees at its base, following the eastward-flowing stream he described. Herds of cattle were scattered on the floor of the valley and the steep slopes of the dune.

Valentine traced the base of the hillside with his binoculars. At last he spotted it, an irregular triangle of wagons parked on a hummock at the base of the hill. The base of the triangle spread out as a concave arc, and the peak trailing up the hillside. On top of the ridge, like the mast of a ship, an observation post stood on a single trunk of timber. He whistled in appreciation.

"You don't know the half of it, Val," Duvalier said. "They've got other herds we can't even see. Counting all the families, there're over sixteen hundred people in this traveling circus. There's about a five cows to every person."

"What about that steak," Valentine said, training his binoculars across the red and red-white herds.

"Coming right up, sir," she said, touching her heels to the horse's sides lightly. Their horses broke into a trot, catching the smell of their kind coming from the three-sided enclosure.

On closer inspection, the wagon laager was even more impressive. Hundreds of wagons made a wall centered on the little spring in the hummock.

"They have three kinds of wagons," Duvalier explained as they cut through the herds. A bull or two stared at them, but most of the cows took no notice. Valentine noticed a lot of calves-a few still knock-kneed newborns-dutifully trailing behind their mothers. "Most of them live in little house-wagons, which they told me are based on Gypsy wagons, whatever Gypsies are. No, I don't want any history lessons, Val. Those are drawn by horses. Then there are the supply-wagons; those are the ones with the big rear wheels and the small front ones. They take oxen because of the heavy load, sometimes as many as sixteen. Most of what you see on the walls are those or the long battle-wagons. The battle-wagons are drawn by draft horse teams, and when they stop anywhere for longer than a day or so, they fortify. The battle-wagons have sheets of metal that they put on the outer face, joined kind of like double-paned windows, with rifle loopholes. They fill the space between the aluminum sheets with sand. The kids even help with this. They have little shovels and buckets they carry. In the space of an afternoon, they can build a pretty substantial wall by hooking the wagons together, and within a couple of days, they have trenches dug and the walls filled in."

As they grew closer, Valentine saw the battle-wagon scheme in practice. The triangular fort even had little mini-forts at the corners, clusters of four wagons projecting out like towers at a castle's corner, covering the main gate.

"Keeping the fires going, that's the teenagers' job," she continued. "Whenever I tell this story to people with kids, they laugh. The Trekkers don't cut down trees for firewood unless it's an emergency-they use deadfalls and trim branches, sure, but when the wagons first used to roam, they'd cut down too many trees and screw up the whole area for everybody. So they conserve wood. They use the cowshit. They mix it with grasses and twigs and leaves and press it into dried bricks. It makes a good fire, practically smokeless. Gathering the droppings and turning them into fuel is how you spend your youth from twelve years old to sixteen, or whenever they allow that you're ready to get your own horse and gun.

"Wherever they stop in a camp, they plant, potatoes, tomatoes, and peas mostly. They mark the crops with stakes before they move on if they can't harvest themselves. It's called 'leaving something for the future.'

"The Eagles have some allied brands, groups of families that have split off to form their own brands. It happens every generation or so. These wagon trains can only get so big before they become impossible to feed and water without permanent digs."

Valentine noticed that no outriders came up to ask them their business; the men watching over the cows just looked at them from under the brims of their felt hats. Presumably some sentry in the observation tower signaled strangers coming in long ago.

The wide gap in the wagon wall that served as the gate was also the outflow of the spring that watered the camp. It splashed down a rocky watercourse to meander into the trees to the east. They dismounted and led their horses up the final slope to the camp. Valentine expected it to reek of burning dung after Duvalier's travelogue, but he smelled only people, cooking food, and cattle. He eyed the layout of the camp, the trench and fortifications, with admiration.

A lanky man with a thin beard and a dusty top hat waved and came out to greet them. He recognized Duvalier with a smile.

"Glory be!" he said, stamping his foot and tossing his head like a horse. "If it isn't Little Red outta Kansas. It's been nigh on three years, sister."

"Hi, Deacon. I see you're still in the baptizing business. I've brought in another stranger from the south. This is David Stuart, out of Minnesota originally. We've traveled hard and ask your hospitality."

"The Eagle's Wings grant it to both you and the brother. With pleasure, Little Red, with pleasure."

"We're also going to need to speak to you, the Wagon-master, and anyone else concerned with the Common Defense."

"This has anything to do with that plane that's been passing overhead?"

"Yes, Deacon."

"I knew that machine was a bad omen, soon as I saw it. We'll talk later, woman. Why you're thin as a rake! Let's get you into camp and get some food into you. Boy, come here!" he hollered at a scrawny kid gaping at the new arrivals. He spoke a few urgent words to the youth and sent him running into the camp.

They passed through the wagon barricade. An inner ring of wagons, a mix of the house-wagons and larger supply-wagons, formed a second wall within the first. A corral held a reserve of horses with saddles draped on the trek-tow fence. Valentine guessed the camp could mount a hundred men in a matter of minutes. Another wide loop of wagon wall sheltered a mass of oxen downwind, and more could be seen just outside the walls, grazing. "Animal husbandry must be second nature to you," Valentine remarked.

"We live and die by the stock," the deacon agreed.

They made their way past women washing clothing in the stream, lines of laundry drying on ropes stretched between the house-wagons cracked in the fresh breeze. At the center of the second circle of wagons, another pole-mounted crow's nest held a sentry, and above him a flag with the symbol that looked like a thunderbird-or perhaps a set of United States Air Force wings.

A train of dogs and curious children followed the deacon and the Cats as they walked their horses into the center of camp. The children were dressed in the final tatters of hand-me-downs, but they looked healthy and energetic.

"The widow knows you're coming in," Deacon said. "Since a fever took Mr. Hendricks, rest his soul, last April she's been running things. They had a son and a daughter, if you remember, Red, and Josh and Jocelyn have both grown into fine people. Good woman. Those were some big shoes to fill, but no one's missed the old Wagonmaster except in their hearts."

Mrs. Hendricks did not look like a Wagonmaster to Valentine; she looked like your favorite aunt who always bakes a thick cherry pie with a perfect lattice crust. She wore a simple dress with an apron containing everything from pen and notepad to scissors. Her sun-streaked hair was tied back into a bun, and she had meaty, work-reddened arms, well-padded hips, and cherubic cheeks. The only thing hard about her was her eyes.

Seeing the deacon and the visitors, she waved over some young women with platters from the cooking pits. A long table with a blue-and-white checkerboard tablecloth was filled with still-sputtering food, joining tall pitchers of water and prairie-herb tea.

"You poor tired things. We're in the middle of calving festival, so I want you to try this rib roast and tell me what you think. Doris, what's keeping those peas?" She turned back to her guests. "Now, clean up in the bucket over there, don't spare the soap, and tell me what brings you in. Red Alice, I remember you from a few years back, but this young man is new, isn't he? Have you taken a husband?"

"Some days it seems like it," Duvalier said, freckled skin going a trifle redder. "Other days it's like I've had a son. Questions all the time."

After washing his hands, Valentine swung a leg over the bench when the woman motioned them to sit. He reached for his knife and fork, mouth overflowing with saliva, when Duvalier grabbed his hands and thrust them in his lap. The deacon had just bowed his head at the end of the table.

"Heavenly Father, for what we are about to receive may we be made truly grateful." He raised his head. "Lord, that looks good. Let's eat."

Valentine could not have agreed with him more.

With supper cleared away, the dinner table became a council of war. The hot meal had left Valentine sated and sleepy. Through some internal resource, Duvalier was as bright as ever. Valentine struggled to imitate her.

"Red Alice" summed up the threat in a few concise sentences, giving her experiences with the Twisted Cross in Oklahoma, and their supposition that the Dunes were on the list to be cleared out.

The Hendricks woman listened impassively, shaking her head in sadness when Duvalier described the dead Calta-girone and his Wolves and the massacre in Colorado. Her son, Josh, and her daughter, Jocelyn, joined them at the table, mostly listening. Waldron, the Camp Engineer, who looked as though he had a bit of longhorn in him, asked sensible questions. The leader of the outriders, an almost baby-faced young man named Danvers, who proudly claimed he was eight years old on the ground and eighteen years old in the saddle, wanted to know details about the Twisted Cross weaponry.

Around the tables, many other members of the Eagle's Wings Brand stood, squatted, and sat, all listening. The Wagonmaster was not one to hide her doings and decisions behind closed doors. The others kept a respectful silence, allowing the words to carry, and the few who asked questions held up their hands and waited to be called on like disciplined schoolchildren.

"I wish we had a better idea about what you're facing," Valentine said in answer to a question from Danvers.

"We only ever worried about artillery," Waldron said. "So far, every time those Troopers have brought it into the Dunes, they've lost it. We even have a couple of their pieces in camp, but the mortars are the only ones that still have something to shoot out of them. Air power or armor would whip us, but if any Of that's still being made, it's not finding its way to Nebraska."

Valentine nodded. Duvalier had briefed him on how the cavalry harassed invading columns, assembling and striking at them like sparrows pecking at a hawk, and dispersing again to leave the Troopers capturing nothing but hoof-prints and air.

"Fact is, those creatures can't cooperate for shit, or they'd of took us long ago," Josh Hendricks said. The boy's clothes didn't fit; his adolescent body was lunging out in all directions.

"Language, Josh," his mother warned. "I should say English, too. I didn't teach you to talk like that."

"Sorry. But one time that bast-that bad'un in Scotts-bluff came at us with everything he had, trying to take the whole land up to the Niobrara. He was doing pretty well until his cousin in Cheyenne hit him from behind. I hear he lost half his territory. Been all he can do to hold on to the rest ever since. I can't see a bunch of them ganging up on us. Not like 'em."

As darkness fell, a bonfire and music started, almost at the same time, from the south end of camp by the gate-stream.

"It's still calving festival," Mrs. Hendricks said. "I hope you young folk will join in the fun after your hard ride."

"Just some sleep would do nicely, ma'am," Valentine said.

"We won't keep you, then. We're going to talk over what you told us and decide what to do. Don't let the music fool you. We're taking this very seriously. We'll have extra riders out tonight and people on the walls. Please feel free to stay here as long as you want-we'll handle the Paul Revere job from here on out. Jocelyn, show our guests to the visitors' cabin."

A saddle-muscled young woman stood up. Jocelyn Hendricks wore a man's moleskin hand-me-downs brightened by a red neckerchief wrapped around her thick brown hair. She stepped around behind the Cats.

"Thank you for the dinner, Mrs. Hendricks," Valentine said, swallowing the last of his milk.

"Yes, it was wonderful. Thanks for the bed, too. It's going to be very welcome," Duvalier added.

They zigzagged through the maze of wagons, tentage, washing lines, and campfires.

Jocelyn paused at the little ladder and door of one of the house-wagons, set apart from the rest. "People are going to be asking me what our chances are. What should I tell them? They'll be worried about their children."

Valentine looked at Duvalier, who shrugged.

"I can't tell you what to say, Miss Hendricks," Valentine said. "If there's somewhere safe they can put their kids, I'd recommend that they do that right away. Reapers move fast at night when they want to. They could be here tonight."

"We'll be here with you, at least tonight," Duvalier added. "I believe that if anyone in the Dunes can beat them, it's your brand."

Jocelyn showed them the cozy little cabin, with its bunk beds, tiny cabinets, and built-in basin. "There's water in the pitcher," she explained. "Clean bedding on the mattresses, real horsehair stuffed, and a thunderbucket in the corner in case you don't feel like a trip to the pits. I'll check on your horses and tack before I turn in; they're in the north corral.

"There will be dancing until midnight or so. You sure you aren't up to it? A lot of the folks would be interested in meeting people from elsewhere."

"We just spent two days traveling hard," Valentine said. "I'm sure you understand."

Duvalier added, "Another time."

"Maybe tomorrow night, then," Jocelyn said, smiling as she closed the door.

Duvalier placed her sword where she could reach it easily. "If there is a tomorrow night, Val."

No call to arms, no attack from the darkness disturbed their dreamless slumber. It seemed only a matter of minutes before Valentine heard a gentle tap on the door and opened his eyes to light pouring through the window.

The door opened, and Mrs. Hendricks entered, bearing a tray. "Good morning!" she half sang, half whispered. "Anyone up? I've brought you a little something to get your eyes open."

Valentine realized he had collapsed in his clothes, and guiltily looked at the mess he'd made of the sheets. Duvalier had stripped down to her shirt, and she swung her legs from the bottom bunk with a groan.

"I thought I might kill two birds with one stone. So I brought some sausages and wheat bread and a cup of tea for each of you. Nothing happened over the night. The meeting went until late, and we decided to scatter some of the herds and families. We sent out riders to warn the other brands and asked them to send what men and guns they could this way. We're going to have to unite to stand any chance at all, from what you've told us."

"How soon will they be arriving?" Valentine asked.

"Days. The Dunes are big, and in the summer the smaller brands get to the most remote places they can. If the Troopers raid into us, it's usually between May and September."

Valentine removed the fly-cloth from his breakfast and began eating. Duvalier nursed her tea, content to listen and look out the window.

"How can we help?"

"You've done enough, by my reckoning. But if you want to, go around, speak to the men, maybe tell them a little more about those Reapers. We don't have much experience against them, and what we do know has us all frightened."

Duvalier nodded. "We'll do what we can." After the

Wagonmaster left, she looked at Valentine. "I'm frightened, too."

"Never thought I'd hear that from you."

She went to the basin and wrung out a washcloth, wiped it across her face. "Hear me admit it, you mean."

Valentine shrugged.

"We've warned them, Val. Let's head out."

"I'm staying. You've got more experience at this. You'll be better without me."

"Staying? Staying like in desertion?"

"Staying like in helping them fight. We've been over this before."

She lowered her voice in case anyone was outside the wagon, listening. "I figured once you saw them, you'd either figure there were enough guns for the fight so that you being here wouldn't make a difference, one way or the other. Or you'd see it was a lost cause."

Valentine stood for a moment. He feared the coming fight but wanted it, as well. Do I have a death wish?

"I'll quit trying. You're a lost cause, Valentine. No wonder your captain had you court-martialed."

She must have seen the hurt in his eyes, because her tone softened: "Sorry. You-well, you deserved that, but I shouldn't have said it. I'm going to scrounge up some supplies. Think about it before I ride out."

Valentine spent the day with Waldron, the Camp Engineer, trying to forget about Duvalier by inspecting the defenses.

The Eagles had a trench around the camp, hurriedly being made as wide and deep as the sandy soil would allow. Shovelfuls of thrown dirt rained dust and pebbles that made skittering noises as they bounced off the metal panels of the walls. Some of the corrugated sheets that served as armor on the outside of the battle-wagons still had sections of vaguely familiar logos from the Old World.

"We took a lot of these facings from old rigs. Big engines called semis used to haul these trailer affairs. The metal is light and strong."

Valentine ran his hand along the dirty old surface, printed in huge letters, adway. Farther down, the red Coca-Cola label protected one of flanking comers. Strange that one of the most persistent holdovers of the Old World was its product marketing; like the advertisements for gladiatorial contests that he'd read could still be seen on a wall or two in Rome.

"Been a long time since we've had to shoot from the walls of the camp. Last time it was because we got surprised," Waldron said as they walked the perimeter. "A few years back, the Troopers reinforced a bunch of their trucks and loaded them with men. Came barreling at us across the plain; I think the idea was to ram through the walls. Sure, tin and sand stop bullets, but not a truck moving at forty miles an hour or more. They either didn't know much about physics or they forgot about the trench; they hit it and killed most everyone in the trucks. We hardly had to fire a shot."

He lifted up his shoe, and Valentine smiled at the serrated pattern of a truck radial. "Got a dam long-lasting pair of shoes out of it, and a good laugh."

"You said you had some artillery?"

"Ha! A pair of mortars and less than thirty shells. Eighty-one millimeter. Let me show you what we have come up with, though."

They cut through a hidden angle in the battle-wagons, and climbed up into the bed. A shiny cylinder that Valentine recognized as an old artillery shell casing, probably a 155-millimeter, sat in a metal trough secured by a heavy steel cover. A fuse, curled like a pig's tail, dangled behind. The whole affair stood on a tripod welded to an old metal wheel.

"This is kind of based on a swivel gun. You can point it using the mount, but your aim doesn't have to be very precise with this cracker. It's an artillery shell casing sitting in the half-cut pipe there. We loaded it up with powder and put a bag of taconite pellets on top of the wad. No range to it whatsoever. But it'll sweep twenty yards in front of the gun like you were using a broom, and more beyond if you get lucky. We've got a version that goes on the ground too, in a wooden holder. Strictly one-shot, takes us a good while to clean and reload it if the casing doesn't crack." Valentine thought it looked like as much of a threat to the men behind the weapon as the enemy in front, but he kept silent.

"We also have some grenades we took off the Troopers, but not enough, and coal-oil bombs-which are really just sawdust and the oil mixed in an old vodka bottle. And that's our artillery."

After lunch he met with Duvalier. She had spent the morning after her scrounge riding with Danvers, going from point to point looking for signs of the Twisted Cross.

Eagle Brand families took a portion of the cattle and dispersed to hiding places among the dunes. "They're great trackers and the best horse-riding guerrilla fighters since the Apache-plenty of rifles but not enough support and artillery," she said.

Valentine was happy to find her equitable-or just resigned to him staying. "Same thing in camp. The Reapers will tear this place apart from a couple hundred yards, and there won't be much they can do about it. All the guts in the world aren't much of a help against Kalashnikovs in the hands of something that isn't disturbed by catching a bullet."

The little red-and-white plane appeared just then high in the sky, hardly audible even to Valentine's ears. He felt a chill as it threw a wide circle around the camp before moving off eastward. It was like the ravens of the Middle Ages, who would gather along with the armies in anticipation of the coming carnage.

"Rider coming in," the sentry mounted in the crow's nest at the central cluster of wagons called. Valentine saw Josh Hendricks go toward the gate with the deacon. Valentine and Duvalier looked at each other, shrugged, and joined the cluster of people, wondering what new calamity the rider portended.

It was a boy on a lathered horse. Valentine guessed him to be somewhere between fourteen and sixteen. He was dressed like a Comanche, in a leather loincloth and vest, and had a blanket-saddle on his black horse. His mount dribbled, foamed, and glistened with sweat.

"Boy's out of the Q or Twin Triangles Brands, is my guess," an older man by Valentine predicted. "Don't look like good news either."

The kid rolled off his horse, half-fall and half-dismount. Josh Hendricks poured him some water out of a canteen.

"Triangles' camp's been burned," the boy said flatly, once he had caught his breath. "Last night. We were camped between the Middle Loup and the Middle Branch. I was outrider to the north, and I heard shooting. All a-sudden the wagons was going up in flames. Then up came the Grierson family. Mr. Grierson was shot and looked real pale; his sons were carrying him. Mrs. Grierson told me to ride and warn you. She said they weren't no Troopers, they came with guns and explosives, and the bullets didn't seem to touch 'em. I asked about my pa and ma, and she didn't know, she said she was sorry," he said, his voice cracking before he realized he'd voiced his thoughts.

"Damn," the older man next to Valentine said. "That isn't far at all. Just east of here maybe four hours' ride-and not a hard ride, neither."

"Big difference here, though," Valentine said. "We know they're coming."

The elder man spat. "We know the sun's going to set in about five hours, son, but there ain't a thing we can do about it."

The deacon handed the boy the reins to his horse. "See to your horse, son."

Then he turned on the gloomy man next to Valentine. "Have a little faith, Brother Tom," the deacon said. "The Lord's seen fit to bless us with warning and some help. He'll be with us tonight."

Tom's words troubled Valentine as the sun lowered toward the horizon, as slow and deadly and inevitable as Poe's pendulum. He learned more about the Twin Triangles: though not numerous, they were as good a group of riders and shooters as existed in the Dunes.

The Eagles had more fighters, but would that just mean more bodies to be buried? With the teens and older men armed, the Eagles could horse a force of five hundred men. But nearly a hundred of these were with some of the women and children and livestock who had scattered into hiding after the decision by the Common Defense Committee last night. Dozens more were riding across the Dunes now, as messengers to the other brands. The foundation of the brand, their wealth and their sustenance, was the cattle, and the animals had to be moved and protected. This deducted another hundred and fifty riders. That left a force of a little over two hundred women and men able to stand in the wagons, backed up by teens old enough to shoot for the camp.

One of the scouts sent back word during supper that a convoy of vehicles had been spotted west on the old Highway 2. The Trooper-marked column wasn't making good time-weather and actions of the Trekkers had reduced the road to little more than a bad path-but they were clearly heading for the Eagle camp. The Twisted Cross were intent on smashing the largest brand in the Dunes, probably sometime after nightfall.

A few voices suggested that they pull up stakes and move at dusk, leaving nothing but empty space for them to attack, but Hendricks vetoed the idea with the weight of the Common Defense behind her. Valentine explained that with the Reaper's ability to read lifesign, the mass of moving wagons would shine like a lighthouse across a calm sea, and they would be able to cover whatever miles the wagons put between them and the camp that same night. They were better off fighting it out from behind trench and wall.

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 forward 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 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.

"My men .. . have pity . . . wounded . . . ain't. . ." He faded away.

The deacon checked his pulse. "Not dead yet, but soon," he decided. "God have mercy on you, Wagonmaster," he said, taking his Bible back from the relaxing fingers and mumbling a prayer.

Lawson gave a faint gurgle, and Valentine waited for the deacon to finish. When the deacon's hat was back on, Valentine picked up Lawson's pistol and handed it to Josh. "Souvenir for you, Josh." Valentine turned back to the preacher.

"Deacon, get me Waldron."

Mrs. Hendricks looked out over the slaughtered men and horses, shaking her head and patting down her hair, as the bodies began to be dragged away and lined up. Valentine didn't need his Wolf's nose to tell she smelled like gun-smoke.

"Wagonmaster," Valentine said. 'This may work to our advantage. They were supposed to send up a flare when they seized the camp. If we send it up, the General's men might come in. I expect they'll be careful about it, but they'll still get close enough to have a look. I think if we can hit them then with some of Waldron's one-shot wonders, we can shorten the odds."

Waldron joined Valentine and the deacon. The four hashed out a plan, and then gave it to the leaders to pass among the Eagles. They would fire the flare, and the gates would be opened. When the Twisted Cross, or the Troopers, or whatever walked or rode in, they would fire every one of Waldron's cannons on command. Valentine described the main targets: 'Tall humans, probably in body armor or at least heavy robes. They'll also have some serious hardware, battle rifles with curved magazines. Don't waste your cannon on the Troopers if they come in-just try to get the Reapers."

Mrs. Hendricks fired the flare herself, which arced up into the mist and bathed the camp in its red light, glowing as it descended from the heavens like the Star Wormwood.

"Remember, cheer as they approach the gate," Valentine said to the men, some standing and some hiding in the battle-wagons flanking the gate. Every cannon Waldron could load was clustered around the gate, and the wooden mine versions were hidden behind dead horses and in front of the wagon wall. They would explode in a hail of splinters and scrap metal. Valentine crouched in the cold waters of the spring, waiting.

He heard an engine approach, filling the night with the rattling, wheezy sound of a big diesel.

"What the hell?" one of the men on the wall said, peering into the mist.

"Cheer, yell your heads off!" Valentine called up at them.

"Would you look at that Goliath," the deacon said, crouching behind a dead horse. His cigar tip glowed above the cannon fuse.

"Let it in, let it in," Valentine called over the increasing noise of the engine. "The troops are coming in behind it." He half closed his eyes.

Quiet.

Centered.

Valentine pictured his consciousness as a large blue ball filling the horizon, and breathing deeply, he shrank it and shrank it, all the while inhaling and exhaling from a point at the bottom of his rib cage. He felt his heart slow, felt the whole world slow. The people around started to look like mannequins, dummies like he'd seen turning round and round in shop windows in Chicago. With his mind faint and open, he felt the presence of Reapers. A lot of them, terribly near. And coming closer, cold will-o'-wisps of death drifting toward him out of the fog.

Valentine's first view of the Twisted Cross, coming straight at him out of the midnight fog, froze him in place. A tracked vehicle, like a bulldozer with armored plate on its arms and front instead of a blade, towed a tanker-trailer that someone had torch-cut and welded into a mobile fortress. Crew-served machine guns pointed out of each side of the trailer and the windows and doors of the tractor were covered with slitted armored plating.

Behind them, in two columns, came the Reapers of the Twisted Cross. More like insects than men, they wore carapaces of heavy body armor, topped by visor-covered helmets that hung down at the sides and back like old samurai versions. The battle-Reapers held assault weapons at the ready and bulb-headed tubes in a harness on their backs.

The Eagle men cheered, some of them almost hysterically, others tentatively. A few inched away, ready to run for cover at the first shot.

Valentine crawled and flattened himself into the depression cut by the stream of water as the battle-rig rolled overhead, its bulk straddling the little spring with ease.

C'mon, Waldron. Now!

A whistle trilled in the night, to immediate effect. The swivel guns began to go off in such quick succession that it sounded like one continuous roar; an avalanche of sound and air pressure washed over Valentine. From beneath the still-moving trailer, he saw armored figures knocked down, some never to rise again. Others seemed not to even feel the blasts, and they turned to fill the night with muzzle flashes like yellow flowers blossoming.

Valentine, deafened by swivel-gun blasts and the gunfire, crawled out from beneath the trailer.

A Reaper ran toward the back of the truck, trying to take cover from the cross fire streaming down from the battle-wagons.

He rose to his feet with his gun at his shoulder. It pulled up and stared, perhaps surprised by his sudden appearance. It brought up its gun but caught a chattering blast from Valentine's PPD through its visor and into its face.

He heard the machine guns in the armored trailer firing, stitching the side of the battle-wagons to either side. Men toppled and dived for cover.

Valentine turned. He took two steps toward the rear of the sawed-off tanker and leapt, vaulting into the air as if lifted by an invisible pole over the ten-foot moving wall. The Cat landed on a walkway that ran along the spine of the converted tanker. The top hatch was round like a manhole, locked tight. He found a fan mounting on one of the sloping sides, the exterior closed by wire designed to keep grenades out.

Quisling mechanics take no pride in their work. Quick and cheap does it every time.

He squatted next to it, ignoring bullets whistling all around. Balancing on the balls of his feet, he coiled his body, grabbed, strained, and tore the thin grating free. Then he kicked the plastic blades out of the way.

He tucked the gun and dropped inside.

Only one had time to even look in astonishment at the intruder who had appeared in the their midst as if conjured out of the fog before Valentine swept the forward half of the gun bay with a burst from the submachine gun. The PPD roared in the confined space of the platform, sending men sprawling.

Valentine sensed movement behind-ducked as a pistol shot ricocheted off the armored wall where his head had been. He put a burst up into the soldier, lifting the man clear from the deck. He squeezed a second blast into the other rear gunner as the Twisted Cross man struggled to put a new magazine in his rifle.

Eight dead or dying men lay inside the back of the truck. Valentine moved forward to the crew-served weapons, shooting one crawling soldier in the side of the head as he did so. The semi was turning, bringing its deadly sides to bear on the main gate, the drivers in the cab still unaware of the destruction wreaked in the rear.

He pulled the machine gun facing the wall of wagons out of its mount and looked in the box magazine at its side, half-empty of shells. He decided it was enough and climbed up to the firing position at the front of the old tanker, using a step that gave him a clear view out over the top of the tracked dozer. The driver and his companion traded shots with the Eagles on the wall from within their reinforced cockpit. Nothing but canvas and wire mesh stood between him and the two men in the cab. He shoved the gun tight into his shoulder and pressed the trigger, snarling down at the unsuspecting Troopers. The muzzle flash blinded him. When he lifted his finger and could see again, both men lay dead in the bullet-riddled cab.

He went to the other machine-gun slit in the tanker wall. It was a well-designed weapons bay: a slit cut in the armored side of the trailer, with the gun mounted on a tripod behind a second bulletproof shield. Through the slit, he could see a triangle of Reapers. They had made it past the gate, firing all around as bullets hit their body armor. They seemed invulnerable. A grenade exploded amidst the three, causing one to drop to its knees. It righted itself and continued firing.

Valentine sighted the weapon and loosed a long burst, the tripod easing his aim. The weapon hardly shook as the bullets poured out of it, cartridge casings sounding in the gun's deafening chatter like faint bells as they tumbled to fall through the holes in the wire grid deck, where they wouldn't be tripped on before they could be collected from the belly of the tanker.

The first Reaper went down, broken in half by the machine gun. Another's head vanished when it turned to look at the first, and the grenade-wounded third tried to crawl away after he knocked it over with a blast. Valentine must have put a hundred rounds into it-in short bursts that alternated with mindless obscenities-before it finally lay still.

Get a hold of yourself. Use your brain as well as this gun.

Fighting the madness still heating his blood, Valentine dropped two more Twisted Cross off the wall. Another team vaulted into one of the battle-wagons. One removed the head of the defender in the wagon with a single hand-thrust up and under the Eagle's chin; its companion fired a weapon that looked like a plunger with a football glued to the end of it. The warhead took off in a whoosh of rocket-sparks and exploded under a battle-wagon, tossing men and debris into me air.

Valentine emptied the weapon into that pair, knocking one-its midsection torn to a pulp of black goo-into the bullet-riddled wall and blowing the other off the parapet. It fled, swinging over the wagons and into the trench minus an arm and a leg.

Working as though possessed, he lifted a new ammunition belt from the locker at the base of the weapon and opened the feeder at the top. As he placed the first round in the gun, a Twisted Cross rushed out of the darkness. In two seconds, it covered the distance to the truck.

When Valentine saw it leap, he drew his sword, and by the time it ripped through the top hatch, he had the blade held ready.

It came through headfirst.

His first slash removed the thing's arm at the elbow; it just dodged his backswing designed to take off its head. Had it immediately dropped in clawing fury on Valentine, it might have ended the fight there, but whoever was animating the Reaper decided to use its gun.

It dropped and spun to land on its feet; as it fell, it brought up the Kalashnikov, giving Valentine the instant he needed to roll forward under the burst of bullets. He opened its stomach just beneath its vest, where the groin-guard joined the armor above, then used the return thrust and skewered it under the armpit.

It turned, plucking the sword out of Valentine's hand like a wounded bull taking off with a banderilla. It staggered a step away as Valentine reached for his parang, drawing the machete-like knife and striking the back of its neck with one fluid motion. The body took one more step with its spinal cord severed before crashing to the deck, smearing a tarry black substance on the wire flooring as it rolled and flopped.

The men at the walls and figures outside the gate were still exchanging shots. Valentine heard a great deal of fire on the hillside at the north end of camp, not the chatter of the Kalashnikovs but the pop-pop-pop of aimed rifle fire. An occasional heavier whump sounded as one of the swivel guns discharged, joined by sharper explosions Valentine knew now to be rocket-propelled grenades.

Feeling thick-limbed and dull-eared, he retrieved his PPD and replaced the drum. Shaking himself back to coherence, back sore from adrenaline-burn, he readied the mounted machine gun and trained it on the gap at the gate, but even the muzzle flashes of the Twisted Cross guns had ceased. The gunfire around the camp faded into a moaning chorus of the wounded calling for help or screaming out their pain.

There was nothing left to kill.

Valentine sagged against the butt of the gun, aware of nothing but the smells of cordite and hot metal; he waited for someone else to make the decisions.

As the Twisted Cross Reapers withdrew, the barrage started, a fall of mortar shells blasting man, animal, and wagon into pieces. Valentine had never experienced anything like it. Though they fell all around the wagons, each explosion seemed aimed at him.

Thirty minutes later, it stopped. Then the cleanup began.

"If mis is victory, I'd hate to see a defeat." The outrider leader, Danvers, looked across the smoldering ruin of the campsite as dawn burned away the fog. Valentine had joined him in the survey, asking that he might also employ the outriders in looking for a "pile of four" message from Duvalier.

The Eagle's Wings Brand dead lay in a long row, blanket-covered bodies with feet, at least in the cases where the deceased had both legs, protruding from beneath the earth-toned shrouds. Among them was the Camp Engineer Waldron, killed by a Reaper while reloading a swivel gun.

As they waited for the dawn and organized what was left of the defense, Danvers told Valentine about his outriders' fortunes on the hill above the north wall. During the Twisted Cross retreat, they discovered insectoid Grogs they called "Sandbugs" scattered on the hill above the camp.

"Sandbugs we can handle. They're out of the Dakotas- they live mostly in the unoccupied prairie and Badlands area," Danvers explained. "They look kind of like big sow bugs-they grab you in their front choppers and stick a needle with some kind of venom into you. If you're lucky, it kills you; if you're not, you get paralyzed. Either way, they throw you in a hole with a bunch of their eggs."

"Weaknesses?" Valentine asked mechanically, watching a widely spaced line of men on horses checking the grounds around the camp.

"They're the dumbest damn things, they don't organize at all, just scuttle in to the attack whenever they spot motion. Of course, if they had made it to the walls, there would have been trouble, they can dig like hell and they would have just hit the trench and gone right into the sand, come up in camp. That wouldn't have been pretty. What's left of my men are trying to hunt them down. They'll be hiding from the sun now that it's coming up. All we need are Sandbug nests on top of everything else."

Valentine's business was with the Twisted Cross, not new Grog physiognomy. He hadn't seen Duvalier, or discovered any message from her.

He found the deacon overseeing the care of the wounded and preparations for interment of the dead.

"I can't find Mrs. Hendricks, Deacon, so I thought I'd say good-bye to you, and ask you to tell her I'm on my way."

"Hold on now, son. You need a break as much as everyone else. Mrs. Hendricks is riding with the outriders. Let them see what those people have found out. No point in you wandering off half-cocked. Besides, we still haven't found sign of your friend. Don't you at least want to see her given a decent burial?"

"I think she's alive, Deacon."

"Now look, here comes the Wagonmaster now. Talk it over with her."

Mrs. Hendricks rode in, bearing her exhaustion and loss with the same mild manner she used to order her camp. A man ran up to help her off her horse.

"Thanks, Brent," she said. Valentine and a few others approached her, anxious for news.

"Yes, they're gone-their camp is empty," she announced. "And no, we haven't found any of the missing people yet, except for Peter and Judith Reilly. They're down amongst the trees, shot. That should take care of most of your questions."

The crowd mostly turned away, but Mrs. Hendricks chose to speak to Valentine first. "No sign of Alice, young man. But no body, either."

"Wagonmaster, I don't think you have to worry about the Twisted Cross for the immediate future. They'll need time to regroup after this. I'd like to move on. Maybe I can follow them back to their hole. Seems like they're retreating."

"We've survived before; we will again. You'll always be welcome among our teams, David. I saw you with that mobile bunker," she said, looking at the battered tanker. It had been emptied of weapons; the automatic guns were now in the capable hands of the Eagles. "I didn't grow up in this area-I was born into the Freehold out in the Wind River in western Wyoming. I was a dispatch runner at one time, before I met my husband while he was scouting for the Eagle

Brand cattle drive. I know the Hunter's Arts when I see them. Back in those days, I used to use my ears and nose just as much as my eyes. I'm sure you know what I mean."

She turned to her son. "Josh, we'll need a good saddle horse and rig for our friend here. He has to be riding on. Put a couple of bags of feed for the horse and something to keep him going on the saddle, would you?"

"Yes, ma'am," Josh said briskly, despite the pain and fatigue in his eyes. The boy had changed from opinionated adolescent to dutiful outrider in a single night.

Danvers added, "It might take a while. The horses that had bolted during the mortar barrage are still being rounded up."

She smiled at her son's back. "I think they pulled out south." Her rosy features turned fierce. "We really gave them something to choke on. Oh, there was a pair of burned trucks, and one heavy tow-rig that looked like it plain blew up. Could be your Alice got in their camp when they were busy with us. Hope she didn't go up with their powder."

"She said she'd leave word if she could," Valentine said. "Did you see any markers, any piles of stones or wood?"

"No, but then the camp was a mess. She sure can cause a lot of trouble when she sets her mind."

"You could say that," Valentine agreed. "And now I need to find her."

"You've been up all night, son. Crossing the Dunes with Lord-knows-what still out there bleeding and angry isn't a job for someone who's half-asleep. You need two hot meals and some sleep in between before I let you walk out my gate."

He opened his mouth, but shut it again when Mrs. Hendricks planted hands on her hips. She jerked her chin down in a nod, putting the same authority in the gesture as a Chalmers tapping her gavel.

Valentine returned to the house-wagon, grateful to give in to the wisdom of her words. Jocelyn Hendricks sat on the wooden steps, a cup of something steaming in her hands that smelled faintly of whiskey.

"I put breakfast in there for you," she said. There were circles under her eyes. "There's so many dead. It felt... strange to make coffee and food with bodies laying in rows. I feel like everything should stop for a while, but the cows still needed to be milked."

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 tracks 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."

"I was going to say you need someone to grow old with. I've had ... bad luck with friends."

"It can't be better to be alone."

He shook his head. "Of course not. But it's easier."

Jocelyn was chipper as a robin in spring sunshine for the rest of his recovery. Valentine couldn't tell whether it was a mask or not. The three of them talked long across the firelight as the stars circled overhead, until the embers dimmed and they were only shadows and voices in me darkness.

The next day Jocelyn and Danvers rode southeast with him for a few hours, before saying their good-byes. Danvers shook his hand, and Jocelyn hugged him when they rested their horses at the farewell. Jocelyn broke off the embrace and resaddled her horse; perhaps she was not as eager to leave her brand as she seemed.

"Thank you," Danvers said, taking his reins. His gaze darted to Jocelyn and back again. "For everything."

"Remember... us," Jocelyn said.

"I will. Your people helped more than you know. The General's been given a bloody nose. Maybe he'll run home to his hole for a while. Then I can catch up to him."

With the good-byes said and an annoying mist in his eyes, Valentine turned his horse's head to the road, and tried not to listen with his hard ears to the slow hoofbeats of friends leaving.

This land was thick with stands of cedar, with small, irregular hills sheltering wetter country and woods. Wild-flowers and bees ruled this part of the Dunes. He saw no sign of cattle or the trails of the Trekkers. He was into the borderlands.

He tried to remember what Kurian controlled this area, and thought it to be the one in Kearney. He doubted he would see any Kearney Marshals out this far yet, but there was a chance of a Reaper at night or Trooper patrols in the day. He walked his horse and rode with more caution, keeping to low ground farther from the road.

He approached Broken Bow by throwing a wide loop around to the south. He had known some Quislings to be suspicious as hell of someone riding in from the no-man's-land, but let that same man just circle and come from me other direction, and they were nothing but smiles and "have a cup of Java."

Night was falling by the time he approached the little cluster of pre-Overthrow gas stations and markets, houses and roadside stops.

He came across an old railroad track and dismounted to inspect it. There was no question that it was both little used and had recently had a train pass over it. The rails and ties were in poor shape-even for Quisling-maintained lines-yet the overgrowth had been damaged by a passing train.

He paralleled the tracks and the road, coming into town as the shadows disappeared and evening claimed the town. Only one building, a whitewashed cinder-block corner shop of some substance, had any light burning from windows covered by makeshift shutters. Only the wind moved through the streets.

If there had been a train in town, it had passed on.

Valentine saw the glow of a cigarette in the shadows of an alley, and a Trooper appeared, gun held ready in sentry duty. He pointed the barrel down the road at Valentine.

"Hold it right there. Who are you?"

Valentine halted his horse. "It looks like I'm too late. Did the General's men pull out? I was supposed to deliver a message."

"I don't know you."

"I wouldn't expect you to. I'm from Columbus, not Kearney. I'm going to turn right around, friend. He's obviously gone, and I just had a hard day's ride for nothing."

"Why didn't they just radio it in?"

"Not that it's any of your business, but the General likes to see certain things on paper, or so I'm told. Could be they didn't want everyone with a scanner picking up the transmission."

"Well, go on inside if you want. You could at least have a bite before turning around. Leave the horse and gun out here, though. Better leave that oversize shiv, too. Where did you get a thing like that?"

"A Grog in Omaha, two summers ago. It better still be here when I come back outside. I have a revolver, too-can I put that on the bench over here?"

The gun didn't waver from Valentine, but he could see the soldier relax a little. "Sure. You're well armed."

"You'd be well armed, too, if you were this far out, riding alone."

The sentry went to the door. Its glass was badly scratched but intact. "Dispatch rider coming in. I got his horse and guns."

Valentine strode into the little corner building. Four soldiers, two of whom were sleeping on cots, filled the post with sweat and smoke. Sandbags filled the windows, and a line of rifles hung on the wall. There were new sheets of paper lying here and there on the freshly swept floor; perhaps the building had recently been a headquarters.

"Evening," one of the men said gruffly. He looked like a sergeant, even if he wasn't dressed like one.

"Good evening," Valentine answered. "I'm a day late and a dollar short, story of my life. I was supposed to deliver a packet to the General or his most immediate subordinate. Looks like he pulled out."

"Yep, you're about eight hours late of a done deal. Don't know about a General, but that Twisted Cross bunch were here. I understand they burned out three whole brands in just two nights. There was some orders came through, and they left."

"Hell. To where?"

"How should we know? Those guys are damn close-mouthed. They gave me the shakes, I can tell you that."

"I know the feeling," Valentine said, honestly enough.

"They said they'd be back. Not that I'd recommend you waiting. Some snafu out west with the goat-ropers. Bank on this, though, when they do come back, it's going to be with enough guns to plant every last cowboy out there. Not that it's any blood outta my veins."

"Mind if I help myself to some coffee? I have to be moving on back, then."

"No, go ahead. It's old, but it's hot."

Valentine poured himself some of the acorn-and-hazelnut swill. He missed Duvalier's stolen coffee.

"Hey, son, if you want to take a real break, in the back room we have a nice little piece of runaway. If she's over seventeen, I'll eat my hat. They found her family by the river two days ago, and I sort of inherited her from a buddy of mine who drives a squad. Spooks got her parents. You're free to take a turn."

Valentine took a step over to the doorway and peered in. The other soldier stepped over to his NCO and whispered, "Don't like the look of him, Bud." Not that a whisper mattered to Valentine's ears.

Valentine tossed down the rest of the coffee. "No, but thanks for the offer. I'd just get all sleepy, and I have some riding to do." He walked up to the sergeant, putting his hands in his pockets. "Let's see, I've got a tin of Indian tobacco in here somewheres, and if you'd be willing to swap a-"

He lashed out in an upward swipe, fighting claws on his fingertips reducing the sergeant's eyes to red jelly. With his left hand, Valentine raked the other Trooper across the face, opening four furrows to the bone from his ear to his nose. As the sergeant staggered backwards, palms to his bloody face, Valentine kicked over the cot holding one sleeping Trooper.

The other rose in time to have Valentine almost sever his head from his shoulders.

Valentine slipped off the claws and grabbed a rifle from the wall, aiming it at the soldier rising from the overturned bunk. The hammer came with an impotent click. Misfire or unloaded-he reversed his grip and laid the man out with a swing the Jack was too slow to duck. He struck the other Trooper solidly over the head, breaking the stock at the grip. The Trooper fell to the floor, dead or senseless.

Valentine finished the grisly work, killing the wounded with his parang. He took a pump-action shotgun from the rack, made sure it was loaded, and crossed to the sandbagged window. There was no sign of the sentry; he had either run or was crouched somewhere, covering the door.

Keeping below the windows, Valentine set the shotgun carefully next to the door, picked up one of the dead Troopers, and launched him through the window. Glass shattered, and he heard a shot. Valentine burst through the door, shotgun at the hip, and saw the sentry standing over the body, pointing his gun at the prone figure. Valentine's first shot caught him in the shoulder, and the second load of buckshot tore off part of the man's head.

The quarter horse was dancing in fear, pulling at the bench he had tied it to. Valentine calmed the animal, retrieved his gun and sword, and went inside.

The girl, the object of all this death, was in the bare little back room. She huddled in a corner, wearing only her fear and a ratty blanket. Two large brown eyes stared out at him from under a tangle of almost-black hair. She screamed when she saw Valentine take a step into the room, but he lowered his gun and spread his hands, palms out.

"My name is David. I'm not going to hurt you." He took another step toward her.

"No!" she shrieked, closing her eyes and turning her chin to the wall.

He stopped. "Sorry, this isn't much of a rescue. You're going to have to do all the work. Do you like horses? Do you know how to ride?"

"Ride?" It was only a whisper, but it had hope in it.

"Yes, ride. Ride away from here, on a horse that can run all night."

"Away from here?" she said, a little more loudly.

"Now you're getting the idea. Do you want someming to eat, some water?"

"No ... I'd like to be away from here. Like now."

"Get dressed. Take some blankets."

Valentine returned to the room and looked out on the intersection, if two unused roads sprouting sunflowers from the cracks could still be called an intersection.

The girl had seen enough. He threw bedding and jackets over the dead eyes of the Troopers and returned to the back room.

"Are they dead?" she asked.

"Are who dead?"

"The Authorities. They came in the night and took mem. Took them for-forever."

"Who, your parents?"

She nodded, tears reawakening in her eyes.

"Yes, little sister, the Authorities are dead."

She walked out of the room, the blanket draped over her skinny frame like a poncho, in a torn pair of pants and some thick military-issue socks. "Wow," she said with a sniffle, looking at the corpses.

Valentine took her out to the horse. "I want you to ride on this road, straight as an arrow. I don't think you'll see any trucks, but if you do, hide. Find some people who have lots of cows and wagons-you got that?"

"Cows and wagons, sure."

"You know how to take care of horses, right? I've never seen a teenage girl who couldn't do it better than any man alive. Now that I think of it, I never did name this guy. I guess you'll have to do it."

She patted the big horse on the neck, making friends. "Yes, sir. He sure is a big one. I think I'll call him Two Tall. He has two stockings, you see?"

"When you reach the cows and wagons, find someone called a Wagonmaster. Tell the Wagonmaster that you need to get to the Eagles, and they'll help you. Are you okay with that?"

"Wagonmaster. Eagles. Sure."

"There's a woman with the Eagles who just lost a lot of people to the Authorities. She'll look after you. Now what road are you going to follow?" He asked, taking his pack down from the horse but leaving the food and water.

"This one," she said.

"Any questions, little sister?"

She climbed onto the saddle with the agility of a monkey, a skinny young girl in the saddle of a very big horse. She pulled back on the bit and turned Two Tall. The excited horse sidestepped; she knew how to neck-rein.

The girl's eyes followed the road into the night, confidence rather than fear on her face, and then turned down to Valentine. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Who are you?"

Valentine wondered himself sometimes. He adjusted her stirrups as she looked at the dead Trooper lying in the street.

"I'm the one who comes in the night for the Authorities."

The rail terminus turned out to be a treasure trove of equipment abandoned by the hastily departed Twisted Cross. Valentine found the Troopers' pickup truck, a heavy-framed conglomeration of dirty windows under wire grids, wooden cargo dividers in the bed of rusting bodywork over a double axle. But the mechanical heartbeat within the diesel cylinders was still strong. He examined the engine, added motor oil, and loaded the bed with food and fuel, all the while keeping his ears open for approaching patrols.

The Jacks had either stolen from or been equipped by the Twisted Cross. There were stenciled crates everywhere. He read the labels using the light from Ryu's stone. It fit easily in his palm, allowing him to shine it this way and that. He found a case of grenades and another of thermite bombs. The aluminum-ferric oxide mix, when ignited, burned hot enough to weld metal, and was a favorite incendiary device of the more destructive-minded Quislings. He loaded up with maps, guns, and ammunition from the dead "garrison" and got behind the wheel-looking through a newly cleaned windscreen and the armored wire grid over it.

As he drove-not very well at first, he was inexperienced with such contraptions-he tried to get to know the ancient truck as he would a horse.

Valentine would never know it, but his slow drive through Northeast Nebraska became the stuff of local legend. He wanted to avoid any chance of encountering either patrols or hunting Reapers, so he stayed well clear of the Number One's territory north of Lincoln. He crawled along on the backest of back roads through an area claimed by Kurian, Grog, and Man. He stopped at the occasional lonely homestead, trading guns and boxes of ammunition for a meal and a night's rest.

The residents at each stop asked no questions of him, but were eager to tell him about their problems. He cleared out a nest of Harpies that were plaguing a little bottomland settlement from the old college at Wayne by burning their roost, and ambushed some armed ex-Trooper thugs who prowled in a two-vehicle convoy as they camped at night.

He killed one of the deserters as he went to relieve himself in a gully and returned in his hat and shot the others before they could rise.

He finally gave away the truck from Broken Bow to a co-op of families in the picturesque country north of Blair. On his legs again, he proceeded afoot into the ruins of Omaha.

Omaha was a burnt-out husk. The outskirts of the city were falling apart, the inner regions a charred and collapsed wreck, and everything south of the city between Council Bluffs and Papillion flattened by the nuclear air and ground bursts designed to knock out the old Strategic Air Command base at Bellevue. He planned to move around the edge of the ruins, perhaps along the old I-680 line, when Fate decided to lay down one of the face cards that She sometimes used to change his life.