I did manage to catch up with my friend David Valentine before he disappeared into the bluegrass. It was good to see him alive, although he’d obviously seen many miles and endured further privations and injuries since our good-bye beside the big black Lincoln from Xanadu. As that conversation was recorded better elsewhere,* all I will add is that I returned to the Coal Country doubly sure of the justness of our cause and our ultimate victory. Military formations like the Moondaggers never last for long; they make more enemies than they can destroy in their temporary victories.
A SUSPICIOUS CEASE-FIRE
The Tarheels quit the Coal Country in the winter of 2074–75. The trickle of coal flowing out of West Virginia had been replaced by some fresh surface mines in Tennessee, so there was no longer a point to the loss of life. If the Moondaggers wanted to keep their hand in the beehive for a few trains of coal a month, they were welcome to it.
&nbs
p; We were bringing fresh horseflesh up into the mountains when I heard of the approach of forces from Southern Command and the Green Mountains. At first I had difficulty believing that anyone would have the nerve for such a high-risk, potentially low-reward operation.
There was an oddity to their arrival, though. The ex-churchman whom I’d been told about at the Hollow never showed up again. Either he’d finally fallen to bad chance or, for some unknown reason, he’d been removed from his duties of communicating with the Coal Country.
Later, I learned that a simple trick had been played on the freeholds that were coming to our aid. The Moondaggers got a hold of a Golden One and set up a fake resistance camp near the border with Kentucky.
By the time we learned of the ruse, the Green Mountain Boys and Southern Command were already the victims of one nasty surprise when an alleged welcoming barbecue turned into a slaughter of their senior officers.
The Moondaggers executed their operation admirably. They even went so far as to get a Golden One to pose as me, as the Coal Country guerilla army was known to have a Xeno in it, though whether I was the commander or a lucky mascot was a matter of opinion.
The assisting forces guessed the ruse and executed an admirable midnight withdrawal.
• • •
With the forces of Southern Command and the Green Mountain Boys departed, the Coal Country enjoyed a glorious fall season of celebration. Men shook hands and backslapped on the street; young people just walking in the same direction stopped, kissed, and proceeded for a few blocks holding hands before parting on their separate business; everywhere there was music and dancing. Spontaneous parties would form where two or three musicians found a comfortable public place to sit with their instruments. In a few minutes others would gather to listen or dance and some old-timer would extract a flask from his back pocket or her purse and libations would be passed around.
Usually fall is a season of dull wools and nylon shells, but not during that brief, happy spell.
I had seen the liberation of the Ozarks and the Dallas–Fort Worth Zone. Those were raucous affairs, fireworks and bonfires punctuated with horrific sights of vengeance against Quislings and churchmen.
In the Coal Country, the celebration resembled a vast family reunion under the auspices of some fantastic boon. Old differences were forgotten and the division between those who worked for the Kurian Order and those who suffered from it blurred and vanished. Of course, some churchmen fled, and there were directors and managers of the Maynes holdings who decided to “get while the getting was possible” and escape with every portable valuable they could wrap their hands around.
“Good riddance,” more than one Coal Country native shouted into the burned-oil exhaust of a stressed, departing engine. “Don’t come back now, y’hear?”
One beret-wearing grandfather, seventy if he was a day, led a little procession of family west.
“Where’re you headed, old man?”
“Hope it’s not far!”
“Kentucky. My father’s there.”
“Your father. Hooooly shit.”
“We’re a long-lived family. Hale and hearty, as you can see. I fully intend to walk eleven more miles today, and we’ve already put four behind us. See that brat back there?” He winked.
“Why now, just when life’s good?”
“They might let Arkansas go, but not the Coal Country.”
“They’ll take their revenge. The Kurians prefer a knife in the dark to a Guernica.”
• • •
The old man’s worlds circled over me like turkey vultures.
They could celebrate in the towns, but there was still fighting to do. The Georgia Control still had garrisons at the largest mines and rail depots. Coal still flowed south and east to the Kurian Order power plants.
If the Coal Country controlled its own mines, they might just be able to negotiate a neutrality, as Kentucky did, selling a certain amount of legworm meat in exchange for its independence.
THE CURTAIN FALLS