The Wolves exchanged grins, but Valentine's was forced, almost more of a grimace. Good boats didn't just get left on their own, even if they were wooden canoes. A canoe would be an impractical boat for a long patrol, and a tiring one for a trip upriver. And he knew, without knowing how he knew, that his uneasiness came from something having to do with the canoe in the same way that a plague-sheet hanging on the door of a house meant death inside. Something cold and fearful tickled at his mind.
"I say we move quick, before the owners come back," Alistar said, rubbing his palms against each other.
"It's a risk, but I'd like to be across tonight," Burton agreed. Hernandez just nodded, and the three turned to Valentine.
Eveready's eyes met his. "It's a gamble, David, but I think it's okay. You feeling all right? You look like something you ate doesn't agree with you."
Trust the Cat, who lived by and for his stomach, to chalk up Valentine's unease to indigestion.
"Just a feeling. Old Padre, the guy who raised me, used to call it a vibe. There were good ones and bad ones. I guess I'm getting a bad one. This place doesn't feel right."
Alistar made a sound that might be interpreted as clucking.
Eveready ignored it. "Son, when I used to have hair on my head, if it went up, I backed off. I wouldn't be alive today if I didn't pay attention to the part of me that was quivering like a bowl of Jell-O. Which reminds me. When the four of us are back at Newpost Arkansas, I'm going to do some trading at the butchers and make you all some apple Jell-O. My momma's own recipe, with custard creme on top."
"We'll hold you to it," Valentine said, steadiness returning to his voice. "Let's have a look at this boat of ours."
From Eveready's little hillock, it looked easy enough. The canoe was pulled up, well out of the river's reach, on a little backwater of the river. A long peninsula of land, probably an islet at some times of the year, pointed westward beyond the boat: rising and then falling away rapidly like the profile of a wooded sphinx.
Valentine, after a quick look at the overturned boat, gazed at the spur of land pointing into the river. Something about that ominous shape troubled him. But if Eveready, veteran of thirty years' guerrilla fighting against the Reapers, thought it was safe, why shouldn't he trust the wisdom that had not yet put them into danger?
Later, he castigated himself for his silence. The Wolves spaced themselves out and readied their weapons. Eveready unslung his carbine.
"I'm going to take a little look-see. You four relax, stay centered, keep your lifesign down, breathe deep. We got lucky. It'll be dark as we're trying to cross, and the moon won't be up for a while. But I want to make sure, just in case Val's radar is working better than my own."
Valentine nodded, struggling with an encouraging smile as he tried to put into practice what Eveready preached. He envisioned his body glowing with a warm red aura. As he centered himself, he envisioned that aura changing color to blue. Then he began to contract the blue, drawing it inward with each breath. As he inhaled, the blue glow shrank to a small, softly glowing ball in the center of his body. The world around him seemed to fade.
Eveready approached the boat in two great loops, moving to the low edge of the sphinx-peninsula and then back to the base of their own hill before scouting the boat more closely. He even pointed his rifle under it as he approached, but as the last of the daylight faded into twilight's gloaming, he waved the Wolves down.
The canoe was wider than most, well fashioned out of overlapping planks. Someone had put a great deal of time and effort into making it; the wood shone with a polished luster. Two men could sit abreast on its two fore-and-aft seats, and there was room for their packs under the thwarts. The canoe would have held twice their number. Four oars, matching the wood, lay underneath. They decided that the four young Wolves would row two to a side, and Eveready would sit in the center with rifle ready. Darkness grew as they inspected their prize.
"Let's get out into the current quick," Eveready ordered. "If someone starts shooting, the wood is thick enough to stop a bullet fired from anything but point-blank, so just dive into the bottom and let the river take us away. I'll row by myself if I have to. This old Reaper vest stopped a bullet in my back before. Southern Command, in its wisdom, saves this stuff for the Bears, when they can get our guys to turn in the spoils of war, that is. Many's the old Wolf that has one of these under his leathers where the officers don't see it. Not that I'm advising you young men to break regulations, now."
While Eveready stood guard, the four Wolves overturned the heavy canoe and slid it down the gentle gravelly slope. Hernandez pushed a driftwood log out of the way and hooked his hand on to the bow of the canoe as the team heaved then-transportation into the Mississippi.
"Hey, did you see this?" Hernandez asked.
Valentine peered through the blue-black night at the bow of the canoe. An insigne had been branded into the wood, scarring the delicate grain with four black bent bars. Something about the spiderish design tickled Valentine's capacious memory...
"That's a swash-sticker, I think. Only it's backwards," Al-istar said, in a hushed tone.
"The Germans and Japanese had them on their planes and stuff in World War Two, right?" Burton added, uncertainty in his voice. His schooling, like that of his comrades with the exception of Valentine, had been sporadic.
"Just the Nazi Germans," Valentine said. "But Alistar is right, it's the wrong way around."
Eveready came down from his post. "Into the boat, boys. Try not to splash around when you row. I don't like being this close to the bank."
"Eveready, this mean anything?" Valentine asked, pointing at the palm-size design on the bow.
Eveready squinted his aging eyes at the swastika. Good as his distance vision was, he struggled with his "reading eyes." For the first time in the entire summer, the big Cat looked afraid. "It means trouble. Let's not waste time; we don't want the owners to find us." He clicked the safety off on his ancient gun. Another first, and far more unsettling.
They clambered into their allotted places and took up the oars. A few lusty strokes took them away from the bank. The canoe seemed to glide on a sea of oil.
"Breathe and row, breathe and row," Eveready half chanted, kneeling in the center of the canoe. Valentine glanced at him from the right forward seat. He and Burton, the most muscular of the Wolves, provided the power for Al-istar and Hernandez at the back. Eveready searched the sphinx-shape to their right, rifle at his shoulder.
Valentine relaxed into his breathing and rowing. Reducing lifesign was a matter of falling into yourself, concentrating on a single tiny point in the center of your being, like a candle glimmering in the middle of an enormous lake.
The candle flickered.