Part 14 (1/2)

”Gonzo, Harper, get out your blades. There's something we have to do.”

”Cut the horses' throats?” Harper asked.

Valentine decided there was still a chance at bluff. ”No, we have to whittle.”

Five minutes later, but with over an hour of daylight left, Valentine stepped out of the door with the three rifles in his arms. He inflated his lungs, threw out his chest, and let loose with a high-pitched shriek. The three Black Feathers startled at the cry, which didn't seem to echo off the hills so much as pa.s.s through them.

”Come and get your guns,” Valentine called hoa.r.s.ely, advancing a cautious pair of steps away from the door. His holster was empty; Harper covered him from behind with the revolver.

”You made the smart move, son,” Mr. Mind said, trying to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. The three rode forward to claim the repeaters.

Valentine carefully placed them on the ground and stepped back.

The older man dismounted, covered by the guns of his younger relations. He knelt to pick up one of the guns. ”So, there are only three of you. I thought so. These are mighty fine-”

He made a surprised choking sound and pulled his hands away from the rifle as if it were a rattlesnake shaking its tail.

Carved into the stock of each rifle was a small insigne, a reversed swastika identical to the one Valentine had seen on the canoe and discussed with the researcher at the Miskatonic.

He looked up at Valentine, lips trembling. ”Where'd you get these?” he asked.

”Our Masters gave them to us. Their mark is on the saddles, as well. I even have a tattoo.

We're scouting for them, you see. Eight of them moving west as we speak. So take them, but we'll have them back by morning. In good condition, too: They'll only be dropped once.”

”Now, son, we had no knowing you had anything to do with the Twisted Cross. h.e.l.l, we're no enemies of yours. You might say we're on your side. Just this spring we caught a Cat out of the Ozarks. Real little spitfire; the boys ganged her, and we cut her throat, of course. You can ask Lord Melok-iz-Kur, in Rockford. We pay for what we take there with good silver, turned in runners even.”

Valentine smiled. ”It seems we've just had a misunderstanding here. No one was hurt, no one need know, Mr.-”

”It's Black Craig Lorraine, sir. At your service. If there's anything we can do to help you along, anything at all...” The Black Feather was almost groveling.

”Come to think of it...” Valentine mused. Valentine returned to the house, holding the rifles. ”He folded.” Harper handed the pistol back.

”Eh?” said Gonzalez.

”They're letting us go. In fact, they're giving us some supplies. Problem is, they're cannibals, so I had to promise them Gonzalez, since he's the plumpest of us.”

”Bad joke, Val,” Gonzalez said. ”That was a joke, right?”

That night the Wolves rode north with guns, horses, and a new shoe on the spare horse.

They were also weighed down by bags of corn, grain, and food from the supplies of the Black Feathers.

”Jesus, Lieutenant,” Harper said, voice tinged with admiration. ”When you did that Reaper scream, I about c.r.a.pped my pants. You could have warned us.”

One of the Black Feathers, part of the dispersing ring to the north, waved in a friendly fas.h.i.+on. Gonzalez eyed him warily.

”That was a joke, right, Lieutenant?”

Nine

Milwaukee, August of the forty-third year of the Kurian Order: The burned-out corpse of a city that once held nearly two million people rots across some eighty square miles on the sh.o.r.es of Lake Michigan. From the steep hills overlooking the great lake in the east to the Menominee and Root Rivers in the west, the city is nothing but hollow sh.e.l.ls of buildings, the upper stories now housing bats, hawks, pigeons, and seagulls. The lower levels shelter everything from rats and coyotes to vagrant humans. Green has covered pavement throughout much of the city. Crickets chirp and gra.s.shoppers leap along Locust Avenue, and Greenfield Avenue is precisely that: a green field where cattle are moved along to graze.

The new center of the city is the railway station, where the more favored soldiers and technicians house themselves in a ring around the Grand Avenue Mall. A hobo jungle of casual labor lives around and under the spaghetti-strand warren of overpa.s.ses that make up the old Interstate 94/43 juncture. Two Kurian Lords run the city, one from the Grog-guarded 1950 bomb shelter under the Federal Building, and the other from Tory Hill on the grounds of Marquette University. The Miller Brewing Company is still in business, producing but a trickle of the pilsner torrent it once did. Under new management, of course.

Lake Michigan awed Valentine with its quiet majesty. It had nothing of the cras.h.i.+ng drama of the ocean sh.o.r.eline he knew from books. The expanse of water covering 180 degrees of the horizon in almost a north-south line impressed him nonetheless.

He and Randall Harper camped together north of White-fish Bay. They had left Gonzalez in a secluded barn far outside the city limits with the horses after a cautious but uneventful crossing of southern Wisconsin. The only difficulty had been from a pack of guard dogs at a lonely farming settlement who chased them out of a field where they were stealing corn for the horses. The dogs contented themselves with barking rather than biting, and the Wolves had hurried back to their mounts without injury to anything but their dignity.

Now each night they stood behind a four-foot-tall, decorative stone wall in an overgrown park overlooking the lake, waiting for a boat from the White Banner Fleet to show three lights, one flickering, which they would answer with two.

”What exactly is this Flotilla?” Valentine asked his companion.

Harper, comfortably seated with his back to the stone wall, took a puff of one of the noxious cigarettes he smoked. ”They're sympathetic to the Cause, even if they don't fight the Kurians tooth and nail. They're smugglers, gunrunners, traders. When they fight the Quislings, it's more because somebody got double-crossed, or they asked for too big a payoff. The Hoods hate going out into blue water, I'm told, so they leave it to the Quislings and some amphibian Grogs. Naturally the Quislings take bribes whenever they can get away with it. But the Flotilla always fights the Grogs whenever they get the chance. It's a real blood feud. I guess these Grogs are more partial to human flesh than most.”

”Oh, I think I've heard of these. Big Mouths, Snappers, or whatever. They have jaws that open right to left, instead of up and down, right? Kind of fish-frog things?”

”Yep, slimy skin, like an eel. They're a problem in summer. They go dormant in winter. The real danger's in the spring, when they lay their eggs, you gotta keep away from the sh.o.r.es of the places they inhabit. They forage miles inland for food. They like the water a little shallower though, so they're not such a problem here. Up by Green Bay it's another story, though. And Lake Erie is stiff with them, they tell me.”

Valentine thought of all the times that he had taken a boat out into the lakes of the Boundary Waters, collecting fish for dinner. Strange to think of fish emerging and hunting ash.o.r.e. ”So why does the Fleet carry our mail for us?”

”The Hunters in upstate New York give them guns and ammo, that's why. Rope, lumber, paint, turpentine, engines, gasoline-all sorts of stuff. We're lucky. We're just delivery boys; we don't have to worry about payoffs. But I got a little grease for the wheels in my bag; it's sort of expected.”

Valentine shrugged. ”Whatever it takes. You'd think they'd be on our side.”

”They are, they are. In fact, I guarantee that you'll like 'em. Those sailors got a million stories. Of course, most of it's lies and brag, but it's still fun to listen to.”

”I'll bet,” Valentine said.

The next night the boat arrived. Valentine almost missed it, having wolf-trotted back to Gonzalez's barn to check on things at the main camp. Both the horses and his scout looked better for a few days' rest. Gonzalez had explored the area, finding some apple trees and rhubarb growing nearby. The scout had collected a basket of green apples and an armful of rhubarb, and was sharing his findings with the horses. ”I saw some tomatoes near there, too. I'll get 'em tomorrow, sir,” he reported.

”Just make sure you're not raiding somebody's field. We might end up dealing with something worse than dogs. I don't want any locals to suspect we're here.”

”No tracks, no sign, and best of all, no Reapers,” Gonzalez rea.s.sured him.

”I hope not. Sleep light. I'll take some apples back, if you have no objections, Mr. Bountiful,”

Valentine said, filling his pockets.

”Of course, Lieutenant. Give a few to the sarge with my compliments.”

It was a tired lieutenant who returned to the overlook that evening, having covered fifteen miles on foot in the course of the day. Two hours after sunset, the three lights appeared on the dark lake.”Thar she blows,” Harper quoted, choosing a curious allusion. Valentine was mentally reciting two on the land and three in the sea, and I on the outskirts of Milwaukee will be.

Harper poured his flammable liquid on two piles of wood, twelve feet apart on the lakeside of the overlook wall, and set them ablaze. One light on the boat began winking on and off, as somebody opened and closed a hooded lantern.

”Are you satisfied it's them?” Harper asked.