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She rolled on her side, not the easiest thing to do in a hammock. "So, you going to dance with me at the glam-up? I'll get dressed. Ediyak has a civilian skirt and a top she said she'd loan me." She gripped the edge of the hammock and put her delicate chin over the edge, smiling like the Cheshire cat after a three-canary meal.
"I volunteered to stay in camp," Valentine said, shaking his head. "Speaking of which, my four hours starts soon."
"I'm not a fan of parties either. But I did go to the trouble of swiping some new underwear.
Cute knit stuff, like lace from a fancy doily."
"Ali, these people are patriots," Valentine said. "It's not some KZ three-dollar store."
"I guess so. They're making a very patriotic profit on fresh bread and pies for the soldiers who liberated them."
In worthless coin, Valentine thought. Something about that was bothering him.
"Do me a favor. Stick close, okay? I want to talk to you when I get off."
"That sounds kinda perverted for sterling Major Valentine," she said.
* * * *
With the tent next to empty, his duty time at brigade headquarters crawled. So he spent it roving. He walked the posts, checked the firewood and water supply, saw to it that no one had dug the latrines so they drained toward the food preparation area. The reserve supply dumps were still being built and a mini-backhoe was still at work digging magazines for their small supply of artillery.
Seng had chosen the spot for their new base well. Utrecht stood on the heel of a short mountain range, at a crossroads that would allow a shift northeast up either side of a mountain ridge, or to the southwest, and there were further cuts east and west, old roads and disused rail lines that were in poor shape but better than hacking one's way through woody mountains. At the last officers' meeting, Seng had stated that the first order of business would be a new survey of the area; Seng wanted to know every cow path and bike trail.
Valentine's company would probably be put to work improving old roads or creating connecting trails.
Valentine thought he saw the shape of the coming campaign. He guessed Seng hoped to imitate Jackson's Valley Campaign from the American Civil War near Winchester just on the other side of the Appalachians, as a matter of fact, popping in and out of mountain passes and sliding up and down roads to catch the Kurian forces unawares.
Even now Valentine saw some dozens of legworms being driven into a brushy area south of town, on the other side of a twisting, turning stream where he saw some old, collapsed roofs. Ever since the linkup with Karas's group of rebel tribes, Seng had his regulars learning to handle the creatures. Legworms didn't need much more width than a jeep, and they never got stuck in mud or hung up on a rock. He watched them feed their way into the tangle of bush and young trees. They'd soon have it grazed down into open country, potential pasture or field.
Legworms were better than a Bush Hog.
Some of the goats he'd purchased back on the Cumberland Plateau had made the long trip.
Valentine paused to scratch one. A few of the men were already developing a taste for goat milk. He wondered if they had anyone with cheesemaking experience in the brigade.
The wind was blowing sound away from the torchlit town, but every now and then when the wind died he thought he caught words punctuated by music.
* * * *
At the end of his duty he made a brief report to Jolla, who was dozing in a chair in his office near the headquarters tent. He turned the duty over to Nowak and left, walking past Brother Mark's tent. Valentine's ears heard soft snores form within. The old churchman had pushed himself hard, riding ahead with parties of Wolves, setting up meetings and last-minute details for the unification.
He wondered why he wasn't at the party. Brother Mark, from what he could tell, led a rather Spartan existence. Maybe he didn't like parties.
Duvalier waited in his tent. The soft, comforting aroma of a woman in the canvas-enclosed air was more welcoming than the thermos of coffee she opened on his return.
Instead of some dripping trophy, she'd brought two big slices of cherry cobbler. She smelled faintly of sandalwood too.
"You snuck a little whiskey into this," Valentine said, trying the coffee.
"Just a tetch, as they say here. I think we deserve a celebration too.
Valentine sipped the coffee, thinking of Malita in Jamaica. The coffee had been real there.
Had the emotional connection been fake? What was real and what was wishful thinking-on both their parts- in this little hillside tent?
Duvalier leaned on the tent pole, sipping hers.
"You used to joke all the time about sexing me up. I think you're the only man who crossed the whole state of Kansas with a hard-on."
