Operations Support. General Lehman had come through with logistics: There was a barge on the Arkansas river being loaded with supplies for his new recruits and to replace the most vital matériel used up in the retreat across Kentucky. Valentine would accompany it back to Kentucky.
He picked up mail—presorted for the survivors of Javelin. Valentine wondered what happened to the sad little bundles of letters to dead men and women.
The mail had been vacuum-wrapped in plastic to protect it from the elements, but it still took up a lot of room, especially since the locals used all manner of paper for their correspondence. The mail office had a variety of bags and packs for the convenience of ad hoc couriers such as himself, and Valentine just grabbed the biggest shoulder bag he could find. Judging from the waterproof lining and compartments, it might have once been meant to hold diving or snorkel gear.
He made a trip to the PX and picked up some odds and ends: Duvalier’s favorite talc, a bottle of extra-strength aspirin for Patel, and a couple of fifty-count boxes of inexpensive knit gloves. If there was one thing Valentine had learned over the years of commanding men in bad weather, it was that they lost their gloves, especially in action. He liked carrying spares to hand out.
Valentine needed peace, quiet, time to think. He caught an electric shuttle and wandered into Jonesboro and found a café by the train station—a family-owned grill with three gold stars in the window. He learned from photos and boxed decorations inside that they’d lost two sons and a daughter to the Cause.
He pleased the owners by ordering eggs accompanied by the biggest steak on the menu rather than the Southern Command subsidized “pan lunch.” The steak was sizable and tough, but his appetite didn’t mind, and the cook had worked wonders with the sautéed onions. The young waitress—very young waitress, make that; only a teenager would wait tables in heeled sandals—chatted with him expertly. Almost too expertly, because he didn’t know any of the local militia outfits, and his equivocal answers made her wrinkle her trifle of a nose. How many single, lonely young uniformed men did she wait on in a month? He tried not to stare as she sashayed back and forth with iced tea in one hand and coffee in the other.
Whether she was family or no, it would be unseemly to ogle the help under the eye of the mother at the register clucking over her regulars like a hen and the muscular father behind the grill. He couldn’t think with her friendly pats on the back of his shoulder as she refilled his iced tea, so he paid his bill—and left an overlarge tip.
The little park in front of the courthouse beckoned, and he was about to take a bench and read his mail when he heard faint singing. He followed the sound to a church where a children’s choir was rehearsing and grabbed a pew at the back. Women and a few men sewed or knit while their kids screeched through the Christmas hymns.
Valentine watched the kids for a few minutes. Typical Free Territory youth, no two pairs of jeans matching in color or wear, rail thin and tanned from harvest work or a thousand and one odd jobs. You grew up fast here on the borderlands. So different from the smoothed, polished, uniformed children of the elite of the Kurian Zones, with their New Universal Church regulation haircuts and backpacks, or the wary ragamuffins of the “productives.”
The boys were trying to throw one another off-tune by surreptitiously stomping one another’s insteps or making farting noises with their armpits in time with the music; the girls were stifling giggles or throwing elbows in response to yanked ponytails.
The frazzled choral director finally issued a time-out to two boys.
Valentine thought better on his feet, so he remained standing at the back of the church, shifting weight from one foot to the other in time to the music like a tired metronome.
Pull out or go all in for
He picked up mail—presorted for the survivors of Javelin. Valentine wondered what happened to the sad little bundles of letters to dead men and women.
The mail had been vacuum-wrapped in plastic to protect it from the elements, but it still took up a lot of room, especially since the locals used all manner of paper for their correspondence. The mail office had a variety of bags and packs for the convenience of ad hoc couriers such as himself, and Valentine just grabbed the biggest shoulder bag he could find. Judging from the waterproof lining and compartments, it might have once been meant to hold diving or snorkel gear.
He made a trip to the PX and picked up some odds and ends: Duvalier’s favorite talc, a bottle of extra-strength aspirin for Patel, and a couple of fifty-count boxes of inexpensive knit gloves. If there was one thing Valentine had learned over the years of commanding men in bad weather, it was that they lost their gloves, especially in action. He liked carrying spares to hand out.
Valentine needed peace, quiet, time to think. He caught an electric shuttle and wandered into Jonesboro and found a café by the train station—a family-owned grill with three gold stars in the window. He learned from photos and boxed decorations inside that they’d lost two sons and a daughter to the Cause.
He pleased the owners by ordering eggs accompanied by the biggest steak on the menu rather than the Southern Command subsidized “pan lunch.” The steak was sizable and tough, but his appetite didn’t mind, and the cook had worked wonders with the sautéed onions. The young waitress—very young waitress, make that; only a teenager would wait tables in heeled sandals—chatted with him expertly. Almost too expertly, because he didn’t know any of the local militia outfits, and his equivocal answers made her wrinkle her trifle of a nose. How many single, lonely young uniformed men did she wait on in a month? He tried not to stare as she sashayed back and forth with iced tea in one hand and coffee in the other.
Whether she was family or no, it would be unseemly to ogle the help under the eye of the mother at the register clucking over her regulars like a hen and the muscular father behind the grill. He couldn’t think with her friendly pats on the back of his shoulder as she refilled his iced tea, so he paid his bill—and left an overlarge tip.
The little park in front of the courthouse beckoned, and he was about to take a bench and read his mail when he heard faint singing. He followed the sound to a church where a children’s choir was rehearsing and grabbed a pew at the back. Women and a few men sewed or knit while their kids screeched through the Christmas hymns.
Valentine watched the kids for a few minutes. Typical Free Territory youth, no two pairs of jeans matching in color or wear, rail thin and tanned from harvest work or a thousand and one odd jobs. You grew up fast here on the borderlands. So different from the smoothed, polished, uniformed children of the elite of the Kurian Zones, with their New Universal Church regulation haircuts and backpacks, or the wary ragamuffins of the “productives.”
The boys were trying to throw one another off-tune by surreptitiously stomping one another’s insteps or making farting noises with their armpits in time with the music; the girls were stifling giggles or throwing elbows in response to yanked ponytails.
The frazzled choral director finally issued a time-out to two boys.
Valentine thought better on his feet, so he remained standing at the back of the church, shifting weight from one foot to the other in time to the music like a tired metronome.
Pull out or go all in for
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