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They watched the men file into the camp, followed by the wobble-wheeled wagons. Jefferson cursed a blue streak, trying to get his team around a clump of reinforced concrete, its rods threatening horse leg and spoke alike.
"Questions, sir?"
"Who's in charge of supplying us?"
"Commissary Sergeant Major Tucker, in Quonset hut behind headquarters. Good man. Answer all questions. Usually answer is 'yes.""
* * * *
Tucker was more than just a good man. He appeared that evening like a horn of plenty, playing a spirited version of Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" on a silver concert flute. He showed up in the shotgun seat of a roofless, antiquated Hummer, interrupting the men as they were setting up their tents in military rows.
"General's orders," Tucker shouted, pointing with his flute at his cargo. "Fresh bread, fruit and veggies just up from the Gulf. Spring potatoes, winter cabbage, first peas and even apples. We've got beer in cask, but before I can issue that, we need to see what kind of workers you are."
The men forgot they were in the heart of an enemy camp enough to start cheering as he handed out the bounty. Cured side meat lay in baskets revealed as eager hands took the food.
"Whee-ooh, y'all need the showers rigged pronto, boys," Tucker said. "Ever heard of field hygiene?"
"We've been on the road for three days," Valentine said, stepping forward to help hand out the foodstuffs.
"You're up from Louisiana, they tell me."
"Sergeant Tucker, the smell's unfortunate, I know. They need some washtubs and soap more than anything."
"Coming tomorrow, sir."
"I'm only about half armed as well. I'd like to see that rectified."
"Guns are a problem, sir. You'll get a few for marksmanship, to familiarize yourselves with our models, but we don't have enough to arm all your men at the moment."
"That's unfortunate. Suppose there's an emergency and the camp has to turn out to defend itself?"
"We have contingency plans, sir. When y'all are properly integrated into the general's command, you'll be outfitted, but there's too much work to do here for now. You'll be in reserve a few months at least..."
"Months! I thought the fight was coming sooner than that."
"I can't say, sir. Those were the general's orders; he was specific about it."
Valentine recovered his mental equilibrium. "I haven't been fully briefed yet."
"Sorry you had to hear it from me, sir. But be glad for it; you'll have a better time back here. Those boys up north are dug in like ticks on a bear; burning them off isn't going to be a summer picnic. If you saw the hospital you wouldn't be so willful about it."
Mondis. Valentine spent two hours trying to fall asleep, staring at the silhouette of the Quickwood center pole in his tent. Using Quickwood to form their tents seemed as good a way as any to hide the material in plain sight.
Such a small thing, the Quickwood beam. But it was the source of all Valentine's hopes. He saw some of the men touching it as they passed, some with a reverence that brought to mind odd bits of mental flotsam about medieval pilgrims and alleged pieces of the True Cross, others caressing it as though it were a lover in passing. Even Post, who'd never shown any other signs of superstition, would give the tentpole a double rap with his knuckles whenever he passed it in Valentine's tent.
The ruse might last six days, but more than a few weeks was out of the question. Sooner or later some fool would let something slip, a face would be recognized despite the shorn heads, an assumed identity would be dropped. There would be questions, and then, when he didn't have answers, more questions. From what he'd seen of the docks and warehouses, they were well guarded against any attack he could mount, armed as he was, even with his Bears. The Quickwood had to make it to Southern Command, where it would be used to kill Reapers instead of hold up waterproofed canvas. But if he simply decamped and marched across the river, his chances of ever seeing the Boston Mountains were negligible.
Realizing sleep was impossible, he rose, dressed and found an ax. He wandered around the camp, nodding to the men on firewatch, until he found piled cords of firewood. David Valentine split fulls into quarters and quarters into kindling until he could drop into his bunk, body soaked with sweat even in the cold night air, muscles aflame, fretful thoughts finally beaten into numbness.
uins of Little Rock, Arkansas, February: The city never recovered from the nuclear blast inflicted on it in the death throes of the Old World. Though the fires went out and the radiation dispersed, the only life to return permanently was nonhuman. Pine Bluff, closer to the breadbasket of southeastern Arkansas, replaced it as a transportation hub; Mountain Home and Fort Scott surpassed it as government and military centers. At the height of the Ozark Free Territory's progress, it could boast of little more than a dock and a ferry in a cleared-out patch of rubble, though even that was based on the north side of the river; the south-bank heart of the city was avoided as if it were cursed earth.
The new rulers have a grander vision of a rail, road, and river traffic hub built on the decayed remnants of the old. The Rocks, as the locals call them, buzz with activity. The new human constructs have an anthill quality to them; low buildings made out of the blasted components of pre-2022 architecture. Some are already smoothed over by fresh concrete and white paint, and a more traveled eye might think of a little Greek town between hill and Aegean. The pilings and ruined bridges prevent barges from going farther up the river -only small boat traffic goes west to Fort Scott-so Little Rock is an amphibian marshaling yard. Warehouses and tents under the New Order's supply officers support the final mopping up and reorganization of the Ozarks. The river hums with traffic, and trucks and horse wagons fill transport pools as Consul Solon builds his capital.
One building stands apart from the others, avoided by all but a few humans who work on its exterior and still-unfinished upper floors. It is a Kurian Tower, home of one of the new masters of what had been the Ozark Free Territory. Other towers like it are going up in Pine Bluff, Mountain Home, Hot Springs, and a dozen other, smaller towns. Only Consul Solon has seen them all.
Consul Solon. Little is known of him, save that he came from somewhere on the eastern seaboard. The name makes Quisling captains break a sweat. Children are hushed with warnings that Consul Solon will hear about misbehavior. An argument can be stopped with a threat to take the matter to him -a turn of events that might mean doom to both sides. Consul Solon is the man responsible for keeping human order in the various provinces of what was the Free Territory. He answers only to his Masters who have carved up the region: the dark princes of Fort Scott and Crowley's Ridge, the Springs, the Plateau, the Southern Marches, the Corridor ... and other regions. Unlike much of the Kurian Zone, Solon is trusted to ensure the defense of all with a common force, rather than dozens of private armies in the hands of each overlord. Each Kurian has a Reaper representative at Solon's temporary headquarters at Fort Scott, the Consul's nerve center until the grander Consular Palace is built on the north bank of the Arkansas near Little Rock.
* * * *
