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Rollings gave his pants a subtle hitch up as he approached, his sergeant falling in beside like a protective dog. "The major wants something?"
"What did you say about an armory?"
"You're not in any trouble, Rollings," his sergeant said.
Rollings kept his gaze on Valentine's feet. "River patrol armory and motor pool, sir. The old western Kentucky number four. We used to gas up there when I was with the River Road Light Artillery of the Tennessee Troop. It's a crap-err CRP,-um, that's Combined River Patrol, sir. Reserve armory and warehouse for patrol and artillery boats on the Tennessee, Ohio, and Mississippi. Creepy place. There's those flappy gargoyles quartered in town and nests of harpies in the hills up by the Ohio."
"Explain what you meant about unguarded."
The man gulped. "Not unguarded. There's usually six or seven men about. It's just that the armory's for the river patrol, so the Tennessee Troop, they don't see it as their job to garrison it. The river patrol figures that since it's inland, it's the Troop's job to secure it. Nobody wants to be stationed there, exactly, with the harpies in the hills and the gargoyles in the empty town. Not much to do but play cards and come up with better nose plugs."
Rollings had five more uncomfortable minutes as Valentine quizzed him about the roads in the area, the terrain, the location of KZ settlements. . . .
When he finished the poor private was sweating.
Valentine gripped him on the shoulder. "Thank you, Rollings. You're the kind of complainer I like."
Rollings' eyes finally came up. "How's that, sir?"
"The kind that offers a solution."
eam Assembly Area, Arkansas, November: Just outside the city Jonesboro, now notable only for its hospital, which is the only one in the northeastern corner of the state, a new camp is going up.
Southern Command believes that the best people to build a camp are the soldiers who have to eat, sleep, and train in it. Cartload after cartload of lumber, tenting, plumbing, and wiring arrives as the assembly area swells, hauled from the rail terminus to the camp by ox wagons and mule teams.
A tricky autumn dumped rain and a freak snowstorm on the soldiers as they hammered and tacked and strung. Now, with canvas roofing above their heads at last and corduroy roads made of scrub timber and wood chips, the rain blows out northeast and a cool, dry fall sets in, though the chill in the midnight-to-dawn air hints at worse to come.
Valentines company arrived after the Wolf contingent and Bear teams but before most of the Guard forces of the expeditionary brigade. They got their own corner of the assembly area, a little blister near the camp's drainage.
As far as the men were concerned, they were preparing for a "long out." Lambert had planted rumors that their destination was New Orleans or a big raid on the river patrol base at Vicksburg. Consequently the men assumed that they'd be going in the opposite direction, perhaps to Omaha or another try at western Kansas. One Wolf swore that it would certainly be Omaha, as he knew for a fact that Major Valentine was familiar with the city, as his sister had served under him on Big Rock Hill and afterward on the drive into Texas. She knew all about him. Others bet him that it was Kansas, as Colonel Seng had buried a lot of soldiers there and was going back to reclaim old ground.
Each man both hopes for and fears the coming "long out." On the return from such a campaign, promotions and awards are handed out like Archangel Day candy. Quieter, dirtier stories of the women looking for an easy out of the Kurian Zone appeal to some; others talk of strange liquors and dishes. The best of them, writing letters home or making out the public paragraphs of their wills, refer to the gratification of liberating a town or county, the fear of the residents that slowly transforms to hope, and the hard work of making individuals out of cattle.
David Valentine, looking at his motley assortment of Camp Liberty volunteers (ninety-two former Quislings and twelve refugees, of which nine are women) drawn up on a freshly cleared field within their winter encampment for their first mornings exercises, readies himself for the strain of once again being responsible for men's lives-including, in the words of his old Wolf captain LeHavre, "burying your mistakes."
* * * *
Patel was still the only NCO. Valentine's requests had disappeared into the maw of Southern Command's digestive process. What would emerge from the other end remained to be seen.
He was lined up with the other men, ahead of the massed ranks. Valentine wore his oldest militia fatigues and the men were still in their Liberty handouts. They'd divide the men into platoons later. For now they'd eat, sleep, and exercise in a big mass.
Even in the early days of their acquaintance he was already conditioning himself to the idea that some of them, even all of them, might die in the coming operation.
Valentine had made peace with his own death. He'd seen Kurian rule in all its fear and splatter. Faced with his experiences and the mixture of revulsion and hatred they inspired, he had only one option, the only option a man who wanted to call himself a man had: risking all in a fight that would end only with his death or the Kurian Order's destruction.
Why the men under him signed up wasn't strictly his concern. Whether they fought so they could look other soldiers in the eye, to take the place of a lost relative, to get an allotment, or because they thought of battle as the ultimate blood sport made no difference regarding the orders he would give: He'd do his duty the same whether a man signed for faith or money.
Speaking of duty, his first was creating a healthy environment for his men while they trained themselves into a fighting company.
The only improvement to their ground was a length of three-inch piping and some conduit extending out of the main camp. The rest of their materials were in the supply yard.
Patel stepped out of the little "command shack," the only structure standing in their blister at the end of the camp. His cane had disappeared and he looked as spry as ever.
He walked back and forth in front of the men once. He'd inked in a star on his old stripes and done a good job of it. Valentine could hardly tell the difference.
"My name is Sergeant Major Patel. You came here as a hundred and five individuals.
Southern Command's going to make an army of one out of you. One well-trained, sharp brain that's always alert. One tough Reaper-eating body. One heart that fears only God and Sergeant Major Patel. You read me, slackers?"
