After a rest, they found enough wooded cover to cut up into the Dunes, running parallel to the old State Route 61 north into Dune Country.
Valentine pushed the pace. He carried Duvalier's pack across his chest, so Duvalier, who hadn't spent years running from point to point in the Wolves, was light enough to keep up with his trot.
They jogged carefully along the hills, making sure they did not skyline themselves. At sunset they stopped to rest and watch the daylight go out in a blaze of glory. Valentine had been in some wide-open spaces before, but something about this rolling sea of straw and grainy soil felt endless.
"It's funny," Duvalier said. "What we're trying to do is just... nuts. Hopeless. I feel liberated, though. Like I'm about to go shoot some rapids in a barrel and it's too late to worry."
Valentine looked at her as he massaged his aching legs. The fading sun tinted her skin the color of beaten copper. "No, it's not that. You're doing the right thing. When I was a kid, the man who raised me after my family died, he was a teacher. He used to have the older students read about the Holocaust. The Holocaust was when-"
"I know what the Holocaust was," she said, but without her usual vexation. "Kind of a dress rehearsal for all this."
"He made us study it for a couple reasons. One was to learn that there were people who went through times as bad as these and survived, although it wasn't that bad in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota. I think the other reason we read about it was to learn that evil, even if it seems all-powerful for a while, always collapses eventually. He used to say evil was like a rabid animal: it was very dangerous and should be destroyed as soon as possible, but even if it couldn't be attacked from the outside, the sickness within would put an end to it.
"But back to this one book I read about the Holocaust. It started with this diary kept by a little Jewish girl in hiding. She was killed, but her diary survived, and the rest of it went on about people who helped the Jews and others hide from or escape the Nazis. People would ask them afterwards how they found the courage to do it, when the Nazis killed people who helped the Jews. They said it took no courage at all; it was the easier choice to make. By doing the right thing, they kept their humanity. I think being able to keep their self-respect gave them strength. There's a power in doing right."
Valentine opened an old tobacco pouch and took out his little pyramid-shaped stone so it could absorb the remaining sunlight and charge.
Duvalier looked at the tiny crystal pyramid. "Do you ever think the Lifeweavers are angels?"
"What? Err... no, I heard you. What do you mean, I should say."
"When I first got to the Free Territory, and that Cat Rourke began to sort of be a father to me, he took me to see Ryu. It was a sunny day, and he was wearing that white loincloth he goes around in, only he had another white thing he was sort of wrapped up in, too. I remember I was looking at him, and something about the sun must have warmed him-he turned to it and spread out his arms. Suddenly I saw this man with a halo, and these big white wings billowing out from his back. Of course, it was the white shawl or whatever he was wearing and the sun in his hair."
"Be a funny kind of angel, making killers. The Lifeweaver who turned me into a Wolf, he said the only kind of people who were going to be able to beat the Kur were ones filled with hate and fury, not so much soldiers as berserks. At least that's how I remember it. The whole thing is a little hazy."
"I never heard anything like that out of Ryu. He always seems"-she sought for a word-"lonely. Lonely and sad."
Val shrugged. "You want to get a little rest before we push on?"
"I think maybe you should get some. You always carry most of the load, plus that god-awful gun and ammo."
Back in the Regiment we should have been called mules rather than Wolves. They selected us for a sterile life of endurance. He stretched out on the grass with his coat as a pillow. "I can handle it."
"You still carry too much," she said, and suddenly leaned over and kissed him on the forehead.
He opened an eye. "It's a good thing you didn't do that while you were still wearing that bra-and-shorts combination. Otherwise I would have performed a very convincing newlywed act on you."
"Dream on, Valentine," she said, sending a peanut shell his way. They had picked up a bagful somewhere during a trade.
"I wish I could have seen you buying that red bra. That would have been a memory to treasure. No one at the hall would have believed me. I suppose you burned the evidence."
"No, I didn't buy that in Lincoln. Actually I found it, still hanging on a little plastic hanger in a ruined store in Amar-illo a year ago. Still wrapped up in tissue paper and plastic. It fit so well, I decided to keep it for days when I just can't deal with my boobs."
He laughed. "You carried a red bra around with you for a year?"
"It's a hidden little piece of me, okay? You're a man, you don't know how important a good bra is."
"Your little pieces weren't so hidden under that jean jacket. What does it feel like to have a tan inside your belly button, anyway?"
"Cretin."
"Bitch."
"Quit being an ass. Get some rest-we're up again in an hour."
A day later, they cut a broad trail moving east. Cattle, wagon ruts, and horse hooves all churned a wide swath through the grassy dunes.
"You don't have to be Red Cloud to follow this," Valentine said, pushing the dirt in one of the deep wagon ruts aside to see how far down it had dried.