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"How's it going?" Valentine asked in a small voice, as if to emphasize the words' inadequacy.
"They got the shrapnel out. Some small intestine came with it. So they say." Post took his time speaking. "No infection." He took a breath. "No infection. That was the real worry."
"God blesses you," the FIRCs chorused downstairs. Valentine agreed again, this time with more enthusiasm.
"You know what? They pulled maggots out of my eyes," Post's roommate said, as though it were the funniest thing to ever happen to anyone. "Got to hand it to flies-they go to work right away. I wasn't laying in the pit but three hours before the medics found me. Flies beat 'em."
"He'll be out tomorrow," Post said quietly, as though he had to apologize for the interruption.
"How much leg is left?" Valentine asked.
"Midthigh," Post said. "At first I thought it was a raw deal. Then I decided the shrapnel could have gone six inches higher and to the right. It's all perspective."
"We'll make a good pair, limping up and down the tent lines," Valentine said.
"You got to admire maggots," the man in the next bed said. "They know they only got one thing to do and they do it."
"I think I'll be spending the rest of the war in the first-class cabin," Post said, using old Coastal Marine slang for a retirement on a wound pension. "I've got to be careful about my diet now. So they say. There's a leaflet around here somewhere."
"Anything I can do for you?"
Later on Valentine spent hours that accumulated into days and weeks thinking back on his offer, and the strange turns his life took from the moment he said the phrase. He made the offer in earnest. If Post had asked him to go back to Louisiana and get a case of Hickory Pit barbecue sauce, he would have done his best to bring back the distinctive blend.
"Get my green duffel from under the bed," Post said.
There were only two items under the wheeled cot, a scuffed service pack and the oversized green duffel. Each had at least three kinds of tagging on it.
Valentine pulled up the bag, wondering.
"There's a leather case inside, little gold fittings."
It was easy to find; everything else in the duffel was clothing. The case felt as though it was full of sand. Valentine lifted it with an effort.
"Open it," Post said.
Valentine saw reams of paper inside. It was like a miniature file cabinet. Three manila folders filled it, marked (in order of thickness, most to least) "Queries/Replies," "Descriptions," and "Evidence." Valentine caught an inky whiff of photocopier chemicals.
Valentine had a good guess about the contents of the briefcase. Post had been looking for his ex-wife almost from the moment they stepped into the Ozarks. Valentine knew the details; Post had talked about her now and then when the mood hit, since the time Valentine met him while posing as a Quisling officer on the old Thunderbolt. William Post and Gail Foster had grown up in the Kurian Zone and married young. He joined the Quisling Coastal Marines, became an officer, fought and worked for the Kurians, in an effort to give them a better life. But the man she thought she'd married was no collaborator. As Post's career flourished their marriage dissolved. Gail Post became convinced he'd gone over to the enemy, and left. They'd always talked of trying to make it to the Ozark Free Territory, so Post assumed she'd come here.
Valentine opened the folio marked "Descriptions" with his forefinger. Mimeographed sheets headed MISSING-REWARD had a two-tone picture of a fair young woman with wide-set eyes, photographed full-face and profile. Perhaps her lips were a little too thin for her to be considered a great beauty, but then Kurian Zone identification photographs rarely flattered.
Post was a dedicated correspondent. Valentine guessed there had to be two hundred letters and responses paper-clipped together.
"There's three sheets on top of the Evidence folder. Take them out, will you Dave?" Post said. His head sank back on the pillow as though the effort of speaking had emptied him.
Valentine knew wounds and pain. He took out the pages-bad photocopies, stamped with multiple release signatures-and waited.
"I found her name. She was here."
"That's a damn miracle," Valentine said.
Post nodded. "I had help. Several new organizations were set up after you guys got the Ozarks back to reunite families. Then there was still the Lueber Alliance."
Valentine had learned about LA his first year in the Ozarks. Better than forty years old, it collected information on people lost in the Kurian Zone. Rumor had it the names numbered in the hundreds of thousands.
"Lueber found that first list for me," Post continued.
The page had a list of names, a shipping manifest with train car allocations-thirty to a car, relatively comfortable transport by Kurian standards.
