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"It ain't mine, Major. I got some on me when DuSable and I were checking for booby traps.
It was dripping out of the caboose. The cars look clear. DuSable's checking the rest forward."
He was a cool head.
Second platoon had taken up firing positions, covering the caboose and the rest of the cars up to the engine.
There was some trouble with the caboose's metal door; it was either jammed good or latched from the inside. Valentine pointed to the hinge rivets and the second platoon entry man employed a monstrous four-gauge shotgun on the door. Then Bee smashed it open with her shoulder.
Rutherford slipped in, pistol held in a Weaver stance.
Nothing but blood and body parts awaited them.
Valentine checked the radio log. The set itself was as dead as the gunners inside the caboose, but there was a notation that an unscheduled stop had happed, with approximate location, and that the message had been acknowledged by LEX.
Lexington, Valentine guessed.
* * * *
They opened up the boxcars, giving in to the pleading and pounding from within.
"Liberators," an old man in a black coat shouted. "They're liberators."
"That's better than 'shit detail,'" Ediyak commented.
They thronged around the soldiers, some in blue and yellow and pink clothing that looked like hospital scrubs woven out of paper fiber. In some Kurian Zones, they even begrudged you the clothes on your back when selected for harvesting.
"Please, stay close to the train. Don't wander off," Valentine repeated, walking up the line to check on Salazar.
Salazar had two bullets in him, or rather through him. The Quisling adjutant had opened up on him at point-blank, and Salazar still managed to half decapitate the Quisling before Crow finally fired his pistol.
Crow looked miserable, rubbing at Salazar's blood on his hands like Lady Macbeth.
"I think he'll live, sir," Cabbage reported. "Four neat little holes, two coming in and two going out. His left lung is deflated and he may have lost a big chunk of kidney, but that's just a guess without X-rays."
"Nearest machine is probably in Nashville," someone said.
They held an impromptu officers conference while second platoon distributed food from the stores in the forward-most boxcar to the "fodder."
Valentine had to snap Crow out of his misery.
"Crow, forget it. I need you in the here and now, okay?"
"Yes, sir," Crow said.
"Salazar's either going to make it or not. You poured iodoform into the wound and applied pressure. The rest is up to him and the medics. Worrying about fifteen minutes ago won't cause him to draw one breath more. Answer a few questions for me, and then you can go back to him."
Crow took a breath. "Yes, sir."
"They got off a message to Lexington. What happens if guerrillas hit a train?"
"It depends on if the train is just reported overdue or if they called in that they were being attacked," Crow said, his pupils gradually settling on the group of men around him.
"Let's assume the worst," Valentine said.
"They'll send out an armored train and motorbike and horse cavalry, backed up by at least a few companies of infantry and some light artillery in gunwagons. There's never been more than a few dozen guerrillas here. Too many Kurian-friendly legworm clans."
"How do they track the guerrillas?"
