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She had turned a sunny south breakfast nook into a room devoted to growing herbs. How she got exotic peppers and roots in St. Louis was a marvel. Cutcher had probably helped her build her collection.
He was proud of the victories he'd won for the Cause, but he couldn't visit Big Rock Hill again without seeing faces of Beck and Kessey, knowing where they were buried and what they looked like before they'd been cleaned and shrouded.
Narcisse was also a victory, in a way. There'd never be a plaque to commemorate her, the way there was one on the old red-brick consular residence on Big Rock. Instead of brass lettering, this victory came with a shining smile, a colorful kerchief, and arms he could feel as they embraced.
He rode away from the house on the Missouri bluffs and into a cold wind. He didn't dare think of it as home, or else he'd never have left it.
* * * *
Valentine's Whitefang guide must have had a fine old time in St. Louis. He'd acquired two wives, one for him and one for his brother, and a legworm's worth of trade goods.
It looked like his brother was getting the ugly one. But then Valentine wasn't current on Gray One aesthetics. While he waited for his guide to arrange the departure, Valentine fended off a trade Grog trying to buy his hair.
Luckily his guide didn't mind him hanging bags of horse grain from the legworm's dry, fleshy hide. First you had to sink a cargo hook into the thing, which took some judgment, as patches of skin were constantly sloughing off. Then there was the legworm's habit of crashing through thickets. You didn't want to put your load where it might get accidentally torn off as the legworm brushed a tree.
They passed south easily enough, the tough Morgan stepping easily in the legworm's wake, nibbling at bits of trampled greenery now in easy reach. Valentine only remembered wondering how big Blake would be the next time he saw him.
His efforts at recruiting a dozen or so Whitefangs met with a stern refusal from the chief:
"In the days of my grandfather, whisperers promised much and gave little. Little thinskins all same."
"Give good guns. Give good gear. Whitefangs share camp and food and battle, become friends to thinskins," Valentine said.
The young warrior who'd led the Whitefangs in battle against the Doublebloods snarled and displayed in front of Valentine, stamping his feet and tearing up ground with a ceremonial planting hook.
"Not need thinskins' guns put up plenty good fight," he said. Valentine got a nose-full of Grog breath.
"I saw Whitefangs in battle," Valentine said. It was hard not to flinch. One good swing of that hook and his brains would be leaking out of his nose. "Would want such warriors as friends against whisperers."
The young warrior squatted and looked to his chief.
The chief fingered his necklace. Valentine saw two Reaper fangs among the odds and ends of his trophy braiding, gearshift knobs and dog tags, mostly. "Whitefangs enemies enough. Not need seek more across river," the chief said.
That seemed to settle things.
* * * *
Back at the Highbeam assembly, Valentine found his company hard at work sewing.
He changed back into the tired old militia uniform and ordered a powdered meal as he received Rand's report. A contingent of three aged Wolves had arrived. They were already known through the company as "Patel's Shepherds." Each had taken a platoon and were putting them through tough field training.
"Recon's hard work," Rand said, taking off his glasses and cleaning them with his shirttail when the formal report ended. "They've sniffed out six stills, two basement markets, three gambling dens, and a brothel and a smokehouse that does beefsticks you won't believe. They also located a mother and two talented widowed sisters in Jonesboro who enjoy giving formal dinner parties for the handsome, brave young officers of Southern Command.
Handsome and young being key to an invitation to dinner."
"In other words, they're experienced soldiers."
Valentine found his desk unusually orderly. He'd been expecting an overflowing in-basket.
"Private Ediyak, the gal with the idea for the uniforms, helped me with some of the low-priority stuff. The rest is in the locked file cabinet."
They'd set up two sewing machines in a workshop next to the command tent. Someone had found a battery-operated radio and hung it high in the tent.
* * * *
He met Private Ediyak, a small blonde with the delicately wide-eyed look of someone brought up on KZ rations, when she had a soldier model the new uniform.
It was made out of denim the color of a foggy evening. Baggy about the legs but easily bloused into boots and knee pads. She'd layered a denim jacket over an athletic sweatshirt, and put an olive canvas utility vest over that. The vest was trimmed with yellow reflective tape.
