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Luckily Kentucky was full of glades, quiet hillsides, and swimming holes. Valentine had a tough time being spared from his duties, shorthanded as the headquarters was with their losses and Bloom still needing a long night of uninterrupted sleep. They had a magnificent yet lazy, four-hour afternoon fuck when Valentine had a midnight to four/eight to noon watch.
Once she tried to use her mouth on him as he was supervising the empty headquarters tent-empty save for one sleepy radio operator with his back to them-and he had to send her back to the Bulletproof camp.
Good thing too, because Duvalier came in soon after. She extended her tongue at Tikka, disappearing into the dark in a disappointed flounce.
"That Reaper the Wolves thought they saw turned out to be a scarecrow," she said. "Some clever clod rigged it to a little track so the wind blew it around his cornfield."
She looked at his trousers. "You trying to win a blue or something?"
Valentine, embarrassed, finished zipping up.
"Odd that we haven't had more trouble with Reapers."
"They keep away from big bodies of men, at least if they're alert. Too many guns. Plus, I don't think the legworm ranchers like Reapers poking around in their grazing lands."
"Any problems between the Moondaggers and the ranchers?"
"I went into Berea right after they left and played camp follower. They left the townies alone. Of course, the Kentucks hid their girls and showed their guns."
"Si vis pacem, para bellum" Valentine said.
"No, these guys favor buckshot and thirty-oughts," Duvalier said. "Does the Atlanta Gunworks make the Sea-biscuit mace-'em? I never heard of it."
* * * *
After his duty, he retired to his tent. He heard someone tap outside.
Probably Tikka, wanting to finish what she started in the headquarters tent. He rose and was surprised to see Lieutenant Tiddle standing there, looking freshly shaved and combed.
"What is it, Tiddle?"
"Can we talk, sir? Like, off the record?"
"Come in."
Tiddle rubbed his nose, looking like he was desperate to jump on his motorbike and disappear in a fountain of dust. "Major Valentine, that story you heard about the Colonel and Colonel Jolla ain't quite what happened."
"Excuse me?"
"We lied to you, sir. We sort of agreed about it. There was a struggle over a gun, sure, but it was Colonel Bloom's. When the shells started falling and Colonel Jolla was just standing there and started talking about surrendering while watching it like it was a rainstorm and not doing anything, she took command. He put his hand on his pistol and told her she was guilty of mutiny. The next thing we knew, they were fighting. Then we heard the gun.
"She was the one who put the barrel under Jolly's chin. Awful sight. We took another bullet out of Jolly's gun and put it in Bloom's."
"Why are you changing your story ?"
"I-we all agreed, as we were treating Colonel Bloom, that whatever their fight was about, Colonel Jolla wasn't right in the head, ever since we lost the colonel. I remembered that story they taught in school about how the president wasn't giving any orders in 2022 and then he shot himself, and we decided that something like that was happening with Jolly."
Valentine decided Tiddle bore watching, in more ways than one.
"I'm still not sure why you're changing the story."
"Will this cause trouble for his family with line-of-duty death and all that."
"No. Let's leave it be," Valentine said. "Conscience clear now?"
"The lie's been bothering me, sir." He sighed, and is face relaxed into the more agreeable expression Valentine had seen here and there around the brigade.
In Southern Command, if a court found that a soldier had been killed while in the commission of a crime under either military or civilian laws, their death benefits were forfeit.
