"We appreciate the offer, Mr. Gustafsen. Really. But we've got to move on east," Valentine lied, just in case. "If you could spare a bag of oats for the horses, we'd be in your debt, sir. I'd really like information about these fires, though. You seem to have your ear to the ground."
"It beats me as much as it does you, son. One old man saw some kind of airship over a fire. I don't know exactly where or when; it's a fourth-hand story. Like the old blimps you see in pictures. He said it moved around with sails. And I got a theory about where it's coming from: somewhere around Blue Mounds. They say it's death to go within five miles of there now. Whatever's happening, they got a lot of troops. The Commissary Patrols are culling stock all over this part of the state, taking good dairy stock and hogs, mostly. It's going to be a hard winter."
"Sounds like. You say this new Big Boss is in Glarus?"
"It's New Glarus on a map," Gustafsen corrected.
"We'd better avoid it," Valentine said, lying again. He had to account for the chance that Gustafsen might be going for a brass ring.
"Smart of you, son."
Two hours later, Valentine rode up to the other two Wolves, two bags of oats for the horses across the Morgan's broad back.
"It went well there?" Gonzalez asked.
"Sure. He gave me the feed, and I looked around his place. He seems a nice enough man. I didn't want him to get a look at either of you, just in case."
"Are we going to move on now?" Harper asked.
"Sort of. It seems like the Reapers have something big going on around Blue Mounds. It's about ten miles southeast of here. Good hilly country, plenty of cover. I want to ride over there and see if we can't get a look at what they're up to."
Harper nodded. "Not too much of a detour, then. Gotta ask you straight, though, Lieutenant, begging your pardon. Do you have something against getting back to the Ozarks? Got a woman in the family way, and you want to stay out of the Territory for a while or something? We could be halfway to the Mississippi by now. We're couriers, not Cats."
"If I knew a Cat in the area, I'd ask her to do it for us. But something that flies and drops firebombs is something Command will want to know about. Especially since whatever this is doesn't make noise. You've seen the little prop jobs the Kurians use on us now and then. They're loud. We'd have heard it. And they can fly at night. Never heard of a plane or a helicopter doing that nowadays."
"Maybe they're trying to train Harpies to fly in teams or carry bombs together," Gonzalez thought out loud.
"Could be. Could be just about anything, Gonzo. The Kurians like dreaming up nasty surprises. But Southern Command is going to want facts. We're all this way anyway. When we get back, we might as well know what we're talking about."
"So what's next on the Lieutenant Valentine tour of southwestern Wisconsin?" Harper chuckled.
Valentine consulted his map and compass. "A short ride thataway. How's your nose this morning, Gonzalez?"
"Wishing it was smelling the masala in one of Patel's pepperpots right about now, sir. But it's working well enough."
"I hope so. We're going to need it."
You have to hand it to the Kurians, Valentine thought at midday, when they struck the line of fence posts. They know how to send a message with easy-to-understand symbols.
The Wolves sat their horses before the line of rust-colored pig iron posts. Atop each post, at ten-yard distances, a bleached human skull grinned at them. The warning line extended into the woods to either side of them, each skull facing outward in wordless warning to trespassers.
"Jesuchristo," Gonzalez whispered.
Grimly, Valentine performed some mental arithmetic. Gustafsen had said it was death to come within five miles of Blue Mounds. Thirty-odd miles of perimeter. That worked out to something like five thousand skulls. The one immediately in front of them was a child's.
Valentine dismounted, drawing his rifle from its leather sheath. "I'm going to have a look around. Sergeant Harper, I want you to stay with the animals. If you hear any shooting, try to break a record going west. Gonzalez, this is a one-man job, but I'd like to have your ears and nose along, so I'll leave it up to you."
Gonzalez removed his broad-brimmed hat and scratched the back of his neck. "Lieutenant, after I was invoked, I learned the Way from an old Wolf named Washington. Washington used to tell me, "Victor, only idiots and heroes volunteer, and you're no hero." But if I stay behind, it'll mean these skulls worked. I don't like to see anything the Reapers do work." He slid off his horse and began filling his pockets with .30-06 rifle shells from a box in his saddlebag.
"Lieutenant," Harper said, "watch your step now. I can see lot of tracks just behind this picket line of theirs. I'm going to take the horses down to that ravine we crossed and wait for you. Be careful; I'm going to make cold coffee for three, and I don't want any wasted."
"Thanks, Harper. No heroics, now. You hear anything, you just leave. I haven't looked at what's in those mail bags, but it's probably more important than we are."
Valentine and Gonzalez moved slowly through the heaviest woods they could find, zigzagging toward three hilltops they could occasionally glimpse through the trees. They moved in a twenty-yard game of leapfrog: first one would advance through the woods to cover; he would squat, and the other would move up past the first. They used their noses, and when Gonzalez picked up the scent of cattle, Valentine had them alter course to catch up.
It was a warm, partly cloudy day. Occasional peeks at the sun through the cumulus lightened their mood; it would inhibit any Reapers around. The cotton-fluff clouds were beginning to cluster and darken at their flat bases; more rain might be on the way. They found the cows, a herd of black-and-white Holsteins escaping the heat under a stand of trees bordering an open meadow.
"That's what we want," Valentine said. "I don't see a herdsman. Maybe they round them up at night."