AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But this time all of the jigsaw pieces agreed. This setup of the Green River clan stripped him of whatever scarecrow of his honor had remained.
He'd decided that the brigade's survival required a sacrifice. Of his honor. More important, of some members of the Green River clan. Wide-eyed children would be fed into war's furnace as a result of a ploy that couldn't even promise victory.
Or was it really for the brigade? Do you need to be proven right this badly, David Stuart Valentine? Tip over the first domino in what you hope will be a series of massacres followed by ambush followed by another massacre, until these beautiful green hills run with blood?
He'd have to shave with his eyes shut from now on.
"Maybe they were right about that shit detail stuff," a woman outside the barn said.
Valentine made an effort not to place the voice to a face.
"I think I've gone crazy, Patel."
His sergeant major tossed a length of strong nylon binding cord over a still-sound rafter and hoisted a corpse by its ankles. Rigor was just beginning to set in.
"You remember Lugger, from LeHavre's old company?" Yes.
Patel fixed the other end of the line to the bare-beam wall. "She was on the Kansas operation. She saw what the Moondaggers did there- entire towns herded out into athletic fields and machine-gunned. She was on a scout and came into one of those ghost towns after.
Saw Kurian cameras viding the bodies as guys posing as Southern Command POWs confessed to the killings. Sometimes they took out towns that weren't even in the fight-just did it to make a point."
"And?"
"These guys earned their killing. This," he said, looping a running hitch around another set of ankles, "is just interest on their deposit."
"What about the Green River Clan?"
"David, worrying now will not alter the future. We must wait and see what happens."
Red Dog took the opportunity to relieve himself on a Moondagger tire.
Patel added, "The Moondaggers might wonder about a couple of large-caliber holes in their trucks and where a gang of legworm ranchers got a wireless detonator. Maybe we'll get lucky and they will see through this charade. They might stop dancing around, herding us, and try to settle things in one fight. I would very much like to see these bastards attack into overlapping fields of fire and proper artillery spotting."
"I don't think we'd win that," Valentine said.
"Perhaps not. But it would make a lot of people in Kansas feel better, knowing how many we took with us."
Valentine liked the picture Patel was painting. He wiped his knife on a Moondager uniform and sawed off another beard.
"I wonder if they have the heart for it," Patel continued, hoisting the next body. "Despite all their shrieks and prayers and bluster. Like most bullies, they are at their most bloodthirsty when striking the defenseless. And do not forget, the legworm clans around here know how to fight and will not be as easily herded as populations brought up at the Kurian teat-"
"Major," a corporal called, not even poking his head inside the barn. "Preville's got some com traffic he wants you to listen to."
"Patel, can you finish up here?" That's it, make it sound like a bit of carpentry.
"Yes, sir."
Valentine left the half-collapsed abattoir gladly. The revolutionary's morality clung to his back, a heavier burden than any he'd ever carried while training with the Wolves.
The command car smelled like stale cigar smoke and blood. It had a side that opened up, rather like the hot-dog trucks Valentine had seen in Chicago, turning the paneling of the vehicle into a table and a sheltering overhang where the radio operator could sit out of the rain.
The radio had a bullet hole in it but somehow still functioned.
"Are they on their way here?" Valentine asked.
"Not sure, sir." He plugged in an extra headset and handed it to Valentine.
"I don't know some of the reports; they're in another language. All I speak is bad English and worse Spanish. But they're also communicating in English. I think that's their headquarters, here-"
