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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."
So the happy reunion wasn't quite so happy, at least as far as Mrs. O'Coombe and her son were concerned.
Brother Mark needed a ride back to Fort Seng. A wounded Gunslinger named Thursday was also going that way, as he wanted to recover over the winter at home with his family in a town called Grand Junction on the road back. His brother-in-law was supposed to drive out to the Gunslingers and pick him up, but his brother-in-law had flaked. Again. O'Coombe and Valentine's command had passed near it on the way up, and Thursday promised it was just over a ridge from their route home, on an old federal route in reasonably good condition.
They packed up the four vehicles. Valentine made sure Bee had all her odds and ends. Traveling with a Grog was a little like taking a child or a pet on a journey: You needed to make sure you remembered favorite toys, snacks, and clothing.
Thursday wasn't much of a guide. He spent a lot of time examining map, compass, and map again before giving instructions that proved to be guesswork. Valentine could have done just as well with an old road atlas. Thursday's wound was a piece of shrap nel to the buttock, or so he said, and he rode on a special pillow. Valentine wondered if he wasn't really suffering from aggravated hemorrhoids.
His instincts improved once they crossed a small river and he claimed to be in home territory.
"Grand Junction's not even an hour away, now. Three more big ridges and we're there. We could use a garrison of you Southern Command boys, now. There's a marketplace and even a bank that trades Karas' old currency for the new government scrip. Some riders came in a while back and tried to rob the town, but we shooed them off."
Valentine said, "Most of Southern Command's back across the river. All that's left are some training and technical personnel."
"That's Southern Command all over. They claim they swing the biggest dicks but always come up short when belts hit the floor."
A flake struck the windshield like a bug. A big piece of almost-sleet, it sledded down on its own melt.
"I guess winter's here," Valentine said, by way of breaking the tense silence.
In his winters south of central Missouri, Valentine had softened in his attitude toward cold weather. Winters weren't a matter of life-or-death survival, with desperate, predawn to post-dusk fall efforts to stock up on enough fuel, food, and fodder to get yourself and the livestock through to spring-an almost unimaginable span of time away. Winter was a season of rest, refit, and relaxation.
The horizon closed in as the real snow started, following behind the big flakes like a wall of Napoleonic infantry advancing behind their pickets.
Valentine didn't like the look of the big, soft flakes. When they first appeared they fell idly, spinning and drifting in the wind, but minute by minute they thickened, aligning themselves in a single, southeasterly direction.
"Better slow down," he told the driver. "Turn on the running lights. I think we can quit worrying about aerial observation."
"Hope we don't have to do too much off-roading in this," the driver said. "Wish the locals took better care of the roads."
"Legworms make their own roads," Thursday said. "We like it nice and run-down. The Ordnance doesn't risk their axles bothering us." He chuckled. "This is Kentucky. We just don't get that hard weather. Even the sky takes it easy here. This'll blow over in no time."
The Storm, January, the fifty-sixth year of the Kurian Order: Though rare, heavy winter weather sometimes burdens Kentucky. Blizzards have been known to dump enough snow to form formidable, chin-high drifts where the snow is pushed and channeled by wind and terrain, and once in place, the snow is surprisingly tenacious when protected by hill or tree from the sun.
The storm that winter of 2076 became a byword for bad conditions for generations after. To anyone who survived it, nothing that hit Kentucky in the future could compare to those wild weeks in January when the sky seemed determined to alternately freeze and bury the state.
The Moondagger prophet from the houseboat on the Kentucky River might have smiled in satisfaction as white judgment fell. Some said the real reason for the bad weather was the Kurian desire to see Kentucky's populace gathered together yet isolated, the better to be stationary targets for what bloomed like Christmas cactus in the thick of storm and gloom.
The storm and the night dragged on.
The snow waxed so heavy that night that they couldn't see more than fifteen or twenty feet in front of Rover. The headlights reflected back so much light from the snow they did more harm than good, so they drove using the service red guide lights. The motorcycles were useless in this weather, so Stuck and Longshot stopped and hung them up on the side of the Bushmaster. Fortunately, Thursday had put them on the right road for once, and all the driver in the cramped Rover had to do was stay on it.
With the storm raging outside, reaching Grand Junction became not just a matter of convenience but a necessity. If they pulled off and camped, everything would take three times as long thanks to the weather, and no one would have a comfortable night.
