AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Frat dug around his satchel and tossed the magazine at Valentine's feet. "Well, I thought it was interesting.
"We're more moral than the enemy, right?" Frat continued. "Isn't that a hindrance? They'll do anything to win. We won't. Doesn't that make them the 'fittest' in a Darwinian sense?"
"Fittest doesn't mean strongest or most brutal. Loyalty confers an evolutionary advantage. So does sacrifice. You get all this from those traditional morals the brutes dispense with. Mountain gorillas trample strangers. That's about as brutal as you can get. For all I know, mountain gorillas no longer exist."
Frat looked down. For a moment he seemed to be summoning words, but they never made it out.
They convinced Rockaway to leave his guns and return to the Gunslinger camp. Now that the A-o-K had arrived, there were some experienced artillerymen to take over the mortar sections in any case, but he was still strangely reluctant, even though he admitted he hadn't seen his mother in years.
Tikka finally ended up ordering him to leave. "Show some consideration for your poor mother," she said.
So they rode back with Doc and his nurse in the Boneyard. The medical workers were more exhausted than even the Bears, having worked on the wounded of both sides in the late Battle of the Kentucky River.
They were not the first to arrive back at the Gunslinger camp, so the news of the victory on the riverbank, and the losses, had already been absorbed, celebrated, or mourned.
Valentine, wanting to be a bit of a showman, had the driver back the overloaded Boneyard back toward the little circle of Mrs. O'Coombe's convoy. Valentine and Duvalier hopped out of the cab, and he opened the doors for the assembled Hooked O-C staff.
"Mrs. O'Coombe," Valentine said, "your son."
The effect was spoiled somewhat by the fact that Chieftain and Silvertip were dressed only in their rather worn-through underwear.
"We've come some way to find you, Corporal Rockaway," Valentine said. "I've brought a familiar face."
The corporal jumped down out of the back of the ambulance medical truck.
"What's the matter, Mother?" Corporal O'Coombe said. "Sorry to see me still breathing?"
It wasn't the reunion between a son who served under his mother's name and his devoted parent that Valentine had imagined.
Mrs. O'Coombe stiffened. "You know I'm pleased to see you alive, Keve. Please be civil in front of your fellow men in uniform. Don't disgrace the uniform you wear."
"Respect the people beneath the uniform too, Mother."
"If you're going to be this way, perhaps we should talk in private."
"Do you have something you want me to sign, Mother, now that you've recovered from your disappointment that I'm still alive? Produce it. You know I'm not interested in running a ranch, however large."
"I'm glad your father isn't alive to hear this."
"Yes, yes: The good sons died, the bad one lived. God must have a plan; all we can know is that he gives burdens to those strong enough to handle them."
Rockaway turned to Valentine. "My mother probably left out a few details. Like that the ownership of the ranch was willed by my father to his sons, and Mother only would own it if we were all dead. What is it, Mother? Do you want to sell off some of the land, or riverfront, or water rights?"
She extracted some surveys and a blueprint from her bush jacket. "I am building a home for the disabled in the Antelope Hills, on the Canadian River. I need to deed the necessary acreage to Southern Command."
Rockaway didn't even look at the papers.
"I'll do you one better, Mother. I'll sell you the whole ranch-lock, stock, and the old man's cutest little whorehouse in Texas-for a grand total of one dollar. I'll accept Southern Command scrip if you aren't carrying your usual smuggler's gold."
"That's very generous of you, Keve, and I am happy to accept. The problem is that you'll have to do this in a UFR courtroom, in front of a judge. My beloved husband's will was most specific on points of ownership."
She turned toward Valentine and the others. "You probably think I'm a grasping, conniving woman. Nothing of the sort. It's just extremely hard to run a business interest of this size when you can't enter into contracts without the owner's approval, and the owner is seven hundred miles away from a lawyer, a notary, and witnesses. My son, as you can see, is uninterested in a business that provides a quarter of all Southern Command's meat and that employs a permanent staff of over a thousand and seasonal help three times that."
"I'm only sorry I didn't sign it over to you two years ago," Rockaway said. "But I was seeing Arbita and she didn't want me to give it up, and for my sins I listened to her. But I'll sign it over to you now, Mother."
"So you'll return to the UFR with us?"
"If that's what it takes for me to be able to live my life in peace, do my job, and marry who and where I choose, I'll take the trip."
