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"You found the Kurian."
"Where we thought he was," Valentine said. "Just a little one."
"He was hungry enough."
"How did you feed him?"
"With the Moondaggers," Duvalier said, pouring herself some coffee from an urn. "It was like one of those Noonside Passions episodes I used to watch in New Orleans. I pretended to be a girl looking for her brother who was being held in the power plant, and this sergeant promised to get him back for me. The name I gave was for a dead man. Lying bastard. So he slobbered on me for a bit and then fobbed me off on a private to take me back to the gate where other family members were waiting, trying to shout messages to the men in the cafeteria.
"I played up to the private a little, the sergeant saw it and got jealous, and the next thing you knew they were fighting. Some officer-priest broke it up, took me away for 'counseling' and he started groping me five minutes later. I screamed bloody murder and the next thing you know half the Moondaggers were fighting with each other. I'll admit, I egged it on a bit by snatching a dagger and sticking it in the priest's kidney. The Reapers broke it up and killed two of them and hauled the bunch of us into the cafeteria. Then they lost it and started running around like a chickens with their heads off. Next thing I knew the Bears were coming in the windows."
"Your feminine wiles have lost nothing over the years," Valentine said.
She snorted. "Dream on, Valentine. I think they put Chope or one of the other Church aphrodisiacs in that syrupy fruit juice they drink. I tell you, Val, there isn't enough hot water in the world to wash off the grubby fingerprints."
Owensboro, December: Kentucky's third largest city, though a little smaller than nearby Evansville, has a vaguely Bohemian air to it. Long a riverfront town, Owensboro had its moments of fame: Its courthouse was burned by Confederate raiders during the Civil War, and once, at the turn of the twenthieth century, it had been shaping up to be one of the pivot points of the new automobile industry before being eclipsed by Ford in Detroit. It was also notable for being the site of the last public hanging in the United States, that of Rainey Bethea for the rape and murder of a septuagenarian named Lischa Edwards in the 1930s.
If Lexington is more bustling thanks to its status as a transport hub linking the Georgia Control and the rest of the middle and deep south Kurian Zones with the Ordnance and others to the north, and Louisville more industrious because of the huge legworm-rendering plants that turn quasi-insectoid flesh and a corn syrup sauce into WHAM!, Owensboro is proud of its cultural heritage. It prides itself on barbecue and bluegrass and, even in the reduced circumstances of the Kurian era, still manages to hold a few festivals a year dedicated to food and drink.
Now it is a popular watering hole for wealthy members of the Northwest Ordnance visiting from their vast homes and ranches in the delightful hills of southern Kentucky and the bluegrass outside Louisville. They enjoy the nominally illicit thrill of a visit across the river to dine and shop. The backdoor and under-the-table nature of the commerce along Owensboro's main street is the sizzle for goods that are often counterfeit, courtesy of the wily Kentuckians. The "Greek" olive oil is from Georgia, the "Colombian" coffee from Alabama, and the "Swiss" chocolate could be bought ten times cheaper in Pennsylvania. The gold in the quarter bars allegedly taken from Fort Knox is real enough; the identifying stamps aren't.
The bourbon, musical instruments, and barbecue sauce is real, however, as is the Kentucky weed. For some reason, plants that have been grown from seeds that passed through the digestive tract of a legworm are considered more valuable.
The giant sassafras tree-according to the locals the largest in the world-is still standing. It was recently the site of another public hanging, that of one of the Moondaggers from the nearby power plant who'd gone over the fence only to be run down by the city's impromptu militia, mobilized to render aid to Southern Command in the return of their plant workers.
The city is quieter than usual this December. Though often subdued in the winter, this time around the city is in lockdown. It's not the troubles at the power plant, or the revolt in Evansville, or the proximity of the forces of Southern Command that has closed the bridge and wharf to Kurian Order traffic. It is the great groups of strangers of all varieties coming in, from long-haired legworm ranchers to statuesque urbane females with gleaming leather courier bags and attractive wool suits.
There's a good deal of speculation about who the strangers are. The locals, for all their guitar picking and hurdy-gurdy cranking and trucks with smuggling compartments over the axles, are keener observers of Kentucky politics than it might seem. They suspect that they're playing host to the Kentucky Assembly but are willing to let history be made before they start talking about it in the main street's many cafes and bandstand joints.
The Crucible Legion, as it was now being styled, had its first field operation providing security on the streets of Owensboro. Valentine had a standing order to put anyone who called it "Valentine's Legion" to work filling potholes, and it didn't take many days of punishment with wheelbarrow and shovel before the name disappeared.
Both the informal name and the formal request to go to Owensboro had come through Brother Mark, who'd decamped without a moment's rest to the Assembly at Elizabethtown and engineered its move to Owensboro.
Valentine and Lambert allocated two companies to the security detail, one to provide a presence on the streets in town and a second in reserve just to the west, ready to move to the west bridge or travel on the Owensboro bypass as needed. Valentine gave the street detail's command to Ediyak, and Patel's company had the reserve duty. Ediyak had an intelligent charm about her that would mix well with civilians, and Patel could be relied upon to get his men from A to B in a hurry if it became necessary.
Valentine had little to do but get to know the town and keep his men from talking too much in the bars or being too high profile on the streets. The soldiers of the legion had the unusual orders to keep out of the establishments of the downtown they were guarding.
He felt odd patrolling a town not in Southern Command control, but as the Owensboro Emergency Council explained it, the delegates didn't trust some of the hotheads in the more vociferous clans not to try to storm the convention center and force the vote their way at gunpoint.
While the forces of Southern Command couldn't be called "neutrals" in Kentucky politics, they were famous for letting the civilians carry out votes without anything more than a soldier's fatalistic interest in the events of elected officials.
All Valentine's soldiers could do was provide an illusion of security. They stood in pairs and trios on the street corners and walked through the old town square and along the rusted, broken river walk. But if a file of Northwest Ordnance gunboats came chugging down the Ohio, all they could do was point the delegates to their designated bombproofs.
Of course, an illusion could be a powerful thing, as Valentine had learned at substantial pain in the Kurian Zone.
Owensboro had a police force, of sorts, who appeared to have one law for the town's residents and another for strangers and transients. Valentine had to keep in the good graces of the local police captain, his deputies, and his "detectives"-who, as far as Valentine could tell, were in charge of extorting money from the shadier local establishments.
The Kentucky Assembly met at the waterfront conference center that played host to Owensboro's famous flea markets. Instead of socks and shoelaces and genuine Japanese electric razors, they traded votes during the day and drinks at night.
Valentine set up his command post in the old town welcome center right on the main street, with a good view of his observation post on the old severed bridge over the Ohio that ran into the center of town. The welcome center had become a sort of lounge for restaurant and accommodation touts and cabdrivers. The touts and drivers were so busy with the Kentucky Assembly in town, they had no need of a place to sit out of the weather and swap lies about their clients, and Valentine had moved in without any protest.
Brother Mark came in on a coal train with a few other delegates, including Tikka, now dressed in an impressive mix of cotton, legworm leather, and riding boots that made Valentine think of a dashing flying ace of the First World War. She looked Valentine levelly in the eye and shook his hand before excusing herself.
"That bright young woman's building an army for Kentucky. Or an Army of Kentucky, though they haven't settled on a name," Brother Mark said in admiration.
"I hope word doesn't get out."
"Kentucky is turning into the proverbial tar baby for the Kurian Order," Brother Mark bubbled. Valentine wondered if he was drunk. Perhaps it was the stimulation of so much social intercourse, running from faction to faction, picking up on the queer electrical currents that run through political assemblies. "They're like Br'er Fox, getting stuck in the tar."
