by E. E. Knight
Valentine stopped and bent over, panting and rubbing his aching left leg.
"Yo down thar," a dry throat called. "You're the damnedest runner I ever saw. You'd think the devil himself was chasing you, but there's nothing behind you but empty."
"Keep your hands away from that gun, stranger," the other said. Like Valentine, he wore only a vest and had a gleaming Western tie at his throat.
Valentine was too tired for the good cop-bad cop routine. "I hope you're Texas Rangers."
"You do?" Dry Throat said. "Well, there's some that say that, and it turns out they hoped the opposite."
Valentine walked up the man-made hillside, hands above his head. "You'll find out if you give me a chance to talk. My name's Ghost, out of Southern Command in the Oua-chitas. I'm looking for a place called 'the Academy,' and your colonel. I don't know his name, but I know the man I'm looking for, a friend of his. Patrick Fields."
"Seems to me if that were the case, you'd be well north of here, heading south."
"I came by sea."
"Haw!" Western Tie said.
"Handcuff me, hog-tie me, whatever, just bring me to either Fields or your CO."
"I'm Sergeant Ranson," Dry Throat said. "This is Corporal Colorado. Colorado, climb down and take his weapons, pad him down. We're on patrol, and we can't just quit whenever we feel like it. I'll send Colorado back for a guard, and they'll take you north." Valentine warmed to Ranson as a man who made up his mind quickly and correctly.
"Should I get out the irons, Gil?" Colorado asked as the young man unbuckled Valentine's weapon harness.
"No, man seems straight enough. If his story isn't true and he is a spy, he's going about this a mite odd."
Colorado rode off north. Ranson had Valentine walk ahead of him to an old roadside stop on the southbound side of the interstate. It seemed like any other decayed husk of the Old World, save for a ladder up to an empty platform where a gasoline sign once stood. Valentine decided it must give a commanding view, day or night-if the moon was out. He smelled water.
"Colorado will be back in a couple hours. Let me go up and take a look around. Do me a favor and walk my horse, would you? A few times around the building will be fine."
Valentine complied, as Ranson made a slow climb to the perch for a long look-round. When the Ranger returned Valentine handed the reins over.
"In the mood for some coffee, Sergeant?"
Ranson's lean face lit up. "You have coffee out of Mexico?"
"Better. Jamaican."
"Holy Moses, why didn't you say so? I ain't had coffee from anywhere east of Padre Island in years. There's a mortar and pestle we use for corn inside, and a coffeepot."
In three-quarters of an hour, they were sharing the coffee, the Jamaican beans campfire-toasted and stone-ground.
"Lord, that's good," Ranson said, sipping appreciatively. He was lean as a winter wolf and sat in an old wooden chair with long legs stretched across a pile of cordwood.
"You aren't worried I drugged it?"
"Naw. I'd kill you before it got me. Besides, you drank first, and I poured. So you've been to sea."
"Yes."
"I didn't want to say anything to Colorado, but a few of us have been told to keep an eye out for a stranger calling himself Ghost. Seems to me you're mighty overdue."
"It wasn't a pleasure cruise."
"Delays beyond your control. I know what you mean. I was on a patrol once on the Rio Grande. It was supposed to last a month. They ended up chasing us west - we didn't make it back till Christmas, five months overdue. My wife was collecting death pension already."
"So the Kurians have the river?" Valentine asked.
"The whole damned valley. Mexican Kurians, they call 'em the Alcaldes, like they was old aristocracy or something. Good farm land, some of the best in the world. The folks there smuggle us out what they can. How are things up north? We don't get news unless it comes roundabout."
"Hard, but Southern Command is holding out."
"And what were you out for? Intelligence?"
"I'll be happy to tell you if your colonel or Mr. Fields okays it."
Ranson winked with one whole side of his face. " 'Loose lips,' whatever that means. My dad used to say it when he was playing his cards close to the chest. Personally, I like a set of loose lips. 'Specially if they're attached to a genuine redhead."
Two more riders arrived with Colorado at the dawn. "Sergeant Hughes says we're supposed to cut our patrol short and see this man back to the Academy."
"Kind of him," Ranson said. "Switch to the relief horse. I expect they want him there pronto. Wish we had a spare for you, young man."
"I expect he can run some more," Colorado said. "He did pretty well there at the end on the road. I'd like to see that trick again."
While the sergeant passed on his report on the patrol, Colorado readied the horses, placing the saddlebags and rifle sheaths on the patient animals. Ranson mounted, still chewing on a snatched breakfast.
They set off, Colorado in the lead and moving his horse at a brisk walk, quickly enough so Valentine had to force himself to hurry at a pace just below a jog, which he found increasingly annoying.
"I'm going to run, it's easier than walking like this," he said, breaking into a trot.
Colorado kicked his horse to a trot, and Ranson followed. The sergeant smiled at some inner joke. Valentine set his jaw, and ran faster, passing the trotting horse at a steady lope.
"What the hell?" Colorado said. He touched his heels to the horse's flanks, and it broke into a canter.
Valentine had to pour it on to keep up with the cantering horse, but he did so. His whole body seemed suffused in warmth, a warmth that slowly grew uncomfortable. Even a Wolf couldn't move at this rate for long. His legs filled with a fiery ache, and his heart beat like a duck's wings. The sweating horse tired of the race, as well, and kept trying to break into a gallop.
"Cut it out, Colorado," Ranson yelled from the dust-trail. "You'll kill the damn horse or our friend."
Perspiration crusted with dust coated Valentine's face, but he kept pace until Colorado halted, fighting the urge to lean forward to catch his wind. He slowed back down to a walk matching the horse's, controlling his breath as best he could.
"Sheeet," Colorado said. "They shouldn'ta called you Ghost, it shoulda been Shanks. I never seen-hell, never heard of a man able to run like that."
Valentine concentrated on breathing.
"You done treating our ally like a bastard?" Ranson asked.
"Ally? We're taking him under guard, ain't we?"
"If them Reapers showed up, he'd be guarding us, not the other way around. Don't you know a Hunter when you meet one, you damned fool?"
"Ha! My pa used to say those Hunters were just good liars, is all. There's nothing to that story."
"Apple didn't fall far from the tree." Ranson said under his breath. But his eyes shared the joke with Valentine, knowing the Cat heard.
The Academy was easy to find. It bordered on a defunct airport whose runways now served as a rifle range. The airport's concourses and some of the hangars had been demolished, but the control tower still dominated the camp, reinforced with a pyramid of sandbags and timber all the way to the top. On the other side of the old military education campus there was a cemetery, graves arranged facing a giant statue that seemed familiar yet out of place to Valentine. "It's the model of the one that stood in Washington, Marines raising the flag at the top of Mount Surabachi on Iwo Jima," Ranson explained, and Valentine realized he had seen the photo it was based on. "It was a helluva fight in the Pacific in 1945. The men who finally got up there and planted that flag were from Texas."
Valentine remembered it differently, but he was in no mood to discuss military history minutiae at the moment. Ranson brought him through the rows of barracks, one lot vacant like a missing tooth, and took him to the brick headquarters. Like the control tower, it was layered in sandbags and barbed wire, with hard-points guarding both entrances.
"Don't worry about washing up," Colorado said as Valentine retied his hair when they moved through the door past a sentry. 'The colonel likes to hear news first. Everything else waits, unless you're bleeding. Bleeding badly, that is."
Spurs clattering in the wood-floored hallway, they approached a reception desk. It was a beautifully carven piece of wood, like many of the items decorating the entrance hallway. Valentine got the impression every square foot of wall space was covered by a painted portrait or photograph. The only ones he recognized were Sam Houston and the Texas United States Presidents. The woman at the desk wore a cheerful Mexican print blouse and a ready smile, but Valentine saw a pistol lying right next to the phone.
"Courier for the colonel," Ranson said. 'Tell him it's Longbow Resolution. The Ghost is finally haunting us."
Another Ranger walked down the hall and out the door, saddlebags hung over uniformed shoulders. Valentine found the contrast between the rough, tanned, mustachioed men and the ornate furnishings interesting.
"Map room, second floor," the receptionist drawled, looking at Valentine from under curled eyelashes.
"Colorado, you can go get yourself fed," Ranson said. "I'll see things through from here."
The younger man took the dismissal well. He hesitated only a moment before saying, "I'll see if I can snag us some bottles of beer for when you're finished, Sarge."
"You do that, Colorado. Thanks."
"Good luck with the colonel, Shanks," Colorado said, offering his hand. "Hope there's no hard feelings over our little race."
Valentine shook it and thanked him. Ranson lead him to a white-painted staircase, and they ascended past photographs of cities filled with pavement, glass, and steel.
Valentine loved maps, and the map room captivated him. A four-foot globe stood by one wall-spanning bookcase, but the other walls were covered with maps. A long library table dominated the center of the room, placed on an oriental rug spread on the polished wooden floor. Tall windows lighted the room. Chairs stood beneath the mounted maps on the walls. One of the maps, showing the Rio Grande region of Texas, was festooned with pins and colored ribbons. Valentine walked up to an older, glassed-in map of the state, which looked to date from Texas's earliest days.
A handsomely dressed Latino opened the door and held it open for the colonel. The Colonel of the Texas Rangers, Officer Commanding the Academy, had undoubtedly been a tall man in the days before his confinement to a wheelchair. Valentine guessed he must have stood close to six five at one time, judging from how high he sat in the wood-and-metal contraption he wheeled himself around in. He was gray haired and clear eyed, and gave the impression of lively vitality from the waist up, like an alert prairie dog whose hind legs are hidden in his burrow. He wore a bronze star enclosed by a circle, pinned over a frilly white-and-blue ribbon.
"Col. Steven Hibbert, Texas Rangers," the colonel said, extending his hand. "Glad to meet you."
The Texans were devoted hand-shakers. "Thank you for your hospitality, Colonel Hibbert. My name's Valentine, but I'd prefer if you just referred to me as Smith, or Ghost, in your paperwork, if I end up being mentioned."
"We generally call him 'the colonel,'" Ranson said.
"Whatever you're comfortable with, young man. This is my chief of staff, Major Zacharias."
After another handshake, the colonel moved on to business. They sat at one end of the long library table, so all eyes could be at the same level.
"Well, Ghost, your contact here went back north a month or so ago on a courier run. He didn't have much choice-he told us about you and asked for our assistance. Fields is a good man, about all he ever asked us for in the past was information about the state of things in Texas and on the Mexican border, and a couple of times he brought us warning of troop movements that saved lives. I'm willing to do whatever I can to help Southern Command. He said you'd have something needing to get north."
"Yes, sir," Valentine said, relieved at their accommodating attitude. "I'm to give you part of my cargo in exchange for your assistance. It's a weapon. Deadliest thing I've ever seen used on a Reaper." Valentine showed the colonel die quickwood pike point he'd brought, and explained the catalytic action the wood had in a Reaper's bloodstream.
The colonel and his chief of staff exchanged looks. "Well, now," Zacharias said. "That's good news. Some kind of silver bullet, huh?"
The colonel shifted his weight in his chair. "And you've seen this work with your own two eyes."
"Yes, Colonel."
"Because I've heard tales of big medicine against the Kurians before, and every one of them turned out about as effective as the bulletproof vests made out of old sticks and beads the Indians wore."
"Not just me. Others, too-you don't have to wonder if I'm crazy. I'll leave you with what I can spare, some saplings you can plant and some lumber you can turn into weapons. We've found that crossbow bolts and spear-points work best."
"Our armorer will take a look at what you've done," the colonel said.
"It's a lot easier than trying to go in and behead them, that's for sure. Time is important, Colonel. Every day the ship waits in harbor-"
"Easy, now, son. South Bay isn't really our ground-not that it's Kurian. If we ride in armed for Reapers and offload you, someone will talk. If this stuff is important as you say it is, we might want to keep it as a surprise for the bloodsuckers. Major, let's put Harbormaster into effect."
Zacharias made a note on a clipboard as the colonel spun his wheels back to Valentine. "You get back to your ship and bring it across the bay to the entrance to the old intracoastal shipping channel. There's a white lighthouse there, manned by some of the Corpus Christi crew. We've got a spy there, and this sounds important enough for him to break his cover. He'll knock out their radio and make sure our Rangers grab the place. We'll make it look like a simple hit-'n'-loot. When you see two blue lights burning, one on top of the other, bring your ship in as close as the tide'll let you, and we'll start loading up your cargo. This will happen twenty-four hours after you get safely back to your vessel. Questions?"
"Two blue lights vertically." Valentine sagged into his chair in exhausted relief. The colonel's quick mind relieved him of his last few worries about getting his prize to the Rangers safely. He shook himself back to the present.
"No questions, Colonel. Some food and a few hours' sleep, and I'll be ready to go."
"You'll get more than that. There's still some things we have to organize. You'll have until dawn tomorrow to eat and rest up. That okay by you?"
"Better than okay."
"Major Zacharias, you'll have operational command. Put Flagstaff in charge of trains and logistics, use Three-Feather's reserve riders for the main force. I want plenty of scouts, too. Send two couriers now and get Harbormaster going. Ranson, you'll take our friend back to his ship and go onboard as liaison."
"Can I bring Colorado along, Colonel? 'Bout time he started working on a longer line."
"Sure, how often does a man get a chance to go to sea nowadays-even if it is just a ride across the harbor. Mr. Valentine, we'll meet again when your cargo is here, safe and sound."
Night on the harbor. The old lighthouse near the wrecked causeway had two lights burning.
Valentine watched from his familiar bridge-perch as the ship's boats, and a commandeered shrimp boat, moved quickwood, men, and material from ship to shore. There was nothing for him to do on shore, save hear Flagstaff give gruff orders to the Rangers and contingent of laborers he commanded. Oxen stood in their traces, and smaller horse-wagons held supplies for the two hundred riders Zacharias brought to guard the precious cargo. The eight-man garrison of the lighthouse was under lock and key, though five of them expressed an interest in moving inland with the Rangers. Valentine idly listened to the sound of waves lapping against the ship as he pulled his tiny collection of books from its railed shelf, lulled by the hint of motion as the Thunderbolt rocked at anchor. He felt melancholy. The Thunderbolt had become a home.
> And it was time to leave.
He would miss the sound of the sailors talking as they washed down the decks in the morning, the smell of good coffee, the wide horizons of the sea. He thought of his father, and his description of the charm of naval service: "Duty at sea, especially when you were out months at a stretch, sounds like you're away from everything, that you'd be lonely and homesick, but you aren't. To a sailor, the ship is a home he takes with him. It's like traveling with your job and all your neighbors. There's nothing like it." His father had been right.
He also liked being able to hit the Kurians where he chose, instead of spending all his time parrying blows. Moving men, their food, and equipment was simplified by the tonnage a ship could carry. A real navy, well handled, could make the Kurian seaboard spend far more of its time garrisoning harbors and seaside towns, out of fear that a occupying force would appear over the horizon. The Free Zones in the Appalachians, the Ozarks, and the Rockies would be given breathing room. But he was just one officer, a spy-saboteur trained to work inside the Kurian Zone. Putting together real sea power would take combinations of time and resources the Kurians took pains to prevent. The great ports of the world were solidly in Kur's grip. But with quick-wood...
"The quickwood beams are going now, Captain," Post reported. "These Texans are organized."
Valentine nodded. "They have to be. This pocket doesn't have any Lifeweavers. They're going up against the Reapers with small arms and guts, and a lot of people on farms and in towns slipping them news and supplies. They're smart, they don't fight over the Rio Valley or the coast, nothing that's important to the Kurians. Texas is a big place, they've got distance on their side as long as they stay mobile."
"I'd always heard they were just bushwackers in uniform."
Ranson, who'd approached and caught the tail end of the conversation, cut in to elaborate. He described how the Rangers would go into some one-horse village and relocate the residents. "Then a few Reapers and Quislings come riding in, lifesign reads normal, they think it's just another town. But it's a town armed to the teeth with men who know how to use their guns. We've got a heck of an intelligence network, most everyone between the Rio and San Antonio city limits knows what to do if they see a column coming into the area. We use a lot of heliographs, since the sun's almost always shining. The Kurians have been burned too many times-now they only roll through with big pacification raids. When that happens, the Rangers scatter."