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"That chulo gave up on his family when he ran." Valdez opened an envelope resting in his in box, tossed it back like a fish too small to be kept, and sat down. He waved to a chair against the wall. Valentine pulled it up and thanked him for the drink by raising his glass halfway across the ring-stained desk.
"Ran?"
"Yes. I heard he and a few other cowards ran north into Grog land. He left a note saying that he'd send for her once he was established. I understand the Grogs sometimes employ men as mechanics and so on."
"She told you this?"
"No. As I said, it is a small post."
"Then what do you know about me?"
"From gossip? Nothing. But I've been around enough men to know when one is thinking about losing himself in a woman. You should do whatever you came here to do and leave again."
Valentine at once liked and disliked his temporary host. He liked the open way Valdez offered what could be construed as criticism, and disliked him because the criticism was so near the mark.
That afternoon he kept Molly company while she worked, cooling and calming the horses down after they'd been trotted on a long lead. Edward spent his days in the company of a B-dependant, an older woman who'd lost her husband and two sons to Southern Command's Cause.
They quit early when an afternoon drizzle started up.
Afterward, Molly hung the traces up in the tack room to dry.
"Is Mary still horse crazy?" Valentine asked, smelling the rich, oiled leather and remembering the preteen's currycomb obsession in Wisconsin.
"She discovered boys just before . . . everything."
"Where is she now?"
"They took her away."
"I thought she tested negative," Valentine said, and realized the implications of his words.
"Tested negative? What does that have to do with it?"
"A gang of soldiers saw a fourteen-year-old girl they liked in a bread line and just took her." Valentine heard a fly futilely buzzing in a spider's web from the tack room's corner; in the stalls a horse nickered to an associate. Only human ears had the capacity to appreciate the grief in Molly's voice. "They killed her for the fun of it. According to our mouthpiece, they did get a trial and one of them was convicted for murder. Who knows what really happened."
"They do, for a start. I wouldn't mind talking it over with one of them."
"They're probably dead, Dave. Was it always like this in the Free Territory? When you talked about it with me in Wisconsin ... seems like everyone's either dead or has dead family."
"You're not saying it was better back there?"
"No, not better. Easier. You always had the option of believing all the lies, too. Why are you here, David? It's not the sort of place soldiers spend their leave."
"Let's find somewhere to sit."
"I'll take you to my spot," she said, and extended her hand.
Valentine took it, wondering.
She took him out of the barn and to a portion offence that projected from a side door. Extra hay bales sat here on wooden pallets, under a wooden awning to keep the rain off, a sort of ramshackle add-on to the aluminum structure that a pair of carpenters had probably put up in a day.
She scooted up onto one of the bales and sat looking at the springtime green of Crowley's Ridge, rising less than a mile away. "I like the view," she said. "Normally I eat with Edward and the other kids, but sometimes Carla takes the kids out for the day to the duck pond. Then I just eat my lunch here."
"Remember that day we sat on the hill and talked about your dad's setup for us?"
She tilted her head back with eyes closed. "Yes. God, I was young."
"You're still young."
