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They arrived within a couple of hours, a thin string of cavalry on horseback, followed by more troops on mountain bikes, riding in a pair of lines on either side of the road. He watched them the way a rancher might watch a cattle drive - making guesses as to health, morale, and training from everything from the condition of their bootheels to how they shaved their sideburns. Someone in Southern Command knew his business. Valentine guessed this to be a garrison from one of the supply depots supporting operations west of Tulsa.
He sent Jules over to tell the captain in charge. They could radio to scouts around Tulsa. Even if the vehicles couldn't be intercepted, the scouts might be able to track them to whatever hidey-hole they sought.
The woman possessed an agile enough mind, and he could forgive a panic attack with a Reaper scratching at the door.
Valentine helped collect bodies. The Reapers had struck hard and fast, over a hundred deaths and a handful more wounded who would probably die in the coming hours from assorted traumas.
He mopped his brow after lifting one of the starred lawmen into an awning-draped wagon. He was happy to take part in the gory work; nothing quite took the spirit out of a man than having to pile the bodies of friends like cordwood, and as a stranger here he didn't know faces or names. The nasty business had to be taken care of both hastily and reverently.
Shadows on the road. Valentine looked up, saw the captain with a corporal and three soldiers trailing behind, Jules bringing up the rear, probably going inside to find Nancy. He lifted the camphor-dipped bandanna he kept over his face while moving bodies, and covered his features, wishing he'd grabbed a hat.
They turned for him. The hell?
Jules looked anxious. Was the captain going to get another paragraph added to his Q-file by bringing in an outlaw? Valentine went around to the other side of the cart and stuck a stiffened arm back under the awning.
"Excuse me, Mister", the captain said, a little Kansas twang in his voice. He smelled like horse sweat and service aftershave.
"Yes, Cap?" Valentine said.
"Major Valentine", a man with corporal stripes said, saluting. His hedgerow eyebrows had collected some road dust.
"Sorry to disturb, I'm..."
"Tonley, from the Razors. Corporal Tonley now, by the look of it".
"Recognized your walk, sir. Saw you goin' up toward the buildings".
"Glad to see you again, and well. Or should I be?"
"No, Major", the captain cut in. "Nothing like that. I just wanted a chance to shake your hand".
Jules let out a deep breath.
"Glad it's that way". Valentine toweled off assorted flavors of filth and shook hands all around.
"Oh, you thought...", Tonley said.
"Hell no. Hell no, sir!" an unfamiliar private added. "Any sooner tries that, he'll have to walk back to the depot with his bike shoved up his ass".
"I beg your pardon", Valentine said. "Sooner?"
Tonley chuckled. "Oklahoma mounted. Mounted on bikes, that is. Get there sooner than the next guy and all that".
Tonley kept looking at his jaw as he explained the term and Valentine tapped the fracture point and said, "A nasty left hook". Unsaid was that the pugilist had been a Reaper, hunting him and Gail Post in the hills of Kentucky.
Valentine was invited to offer an opinion on tracking the Reaper-bearing vehicles, and the captain broke out his map. The party broke up within minutes, leaving Valentine with the feeling that he'd just got up from a long meal with old friends. Such was the nature of Southern Command's terrible, tasking comradeship.
"Sorry about that", Jules said. "I tried to tell them it was some big mistake, but they insisted on talking to you. They told me they just wanted to shake hands, but Duvalier said..."
"It turned out all right. But you needn't have worried, even if it hadn't. I would have gone quietly. They're Southern Command's boys".
"Meal break?"
"I won't feel like eating till tonight", Valentine said.
"Oh. Of course".
