"I knew that machine was a bad omen, soon as I saw it. We'll talk later, woman. Why you're thin as a rake! Let's get you into camp and get some food into you. Boy, come here!" he hollered at a scrawny kid gaping at the new arrivals. He spoke a few urgent words to the youth and sent him running into the camp.

They passed through the wagon barricade. An inner ring of wagons, a mix of the house-wagons and larger supply-wagons, formed a second wall within the first. A corral held a reserve of horses with saddles draped on the trek-tow fence. Valentine guessed the camp could mount a hundred men in a matter of minutes. Another wide loop of wagon wall sheltered a mass of oxen downwind, and more could be seen just outside the walls, grazing. "Animal husbandry must be second nature to you," Valentine remarked.

"We live and die by the stock," the deacon agreed.

They made their way past women washing clothing in the stream, lines of laundry drying on ropes stretched between the house-wagons cracked in the fresh breeze. At the center of the second circle of wagons, another pole-mounted crow's nest held a sentry, and above him a flag with the symbol that looked like a thunderbird-or perhaps a set of United States Air Force wings.

A train of dogs and curious children followed the deacon and the Cats as they walked their horses into the center of camp. The children were dressed in the final tatters of hand-me-downs, but they looked healthy and energetic.

"The widow knows you're coming in," Deacon said. "Since a fever took Mr. Hendricks, rest his soul, last April she's been running things. They had a son and a daughter, if you remember, Red, and Josh and Jocelyn have both grown into fine people. Good woman. Those were some big shoes to fill, but no one's missed the old Wagonmaster except in their hearts."

Mrs. Hendricks did not look like a Wagonmaster to Valentine; she looked like your favorite aunt who always bakes a thick cherry pie with a perfect lattice crust. She wore a simple dress with an apron containing everything from pen and notepad to scissors. Her sun-streaked hair was tied back into a bun, and she had meaty, work-reddened arms, well-padded hips, and cherubic cheeks. The only thing hard about her was her eyes.

Seeing the deacon and the visitors, she waved over some young women with platters from the cooking pits. A long table with a blue-and-white checkerboard tablecloth was filled with still-sputtering food, joining tall pitchers of water and prairie-herb tea.

"You poor tired things. We're in the middle of calving festival, so I want you to try this rib roast and tell me what you think. Doris, what's keeping those peas?" She turned back to her guests. "Now, clean up in the bucket over there, don't spare the soap, and tell me what brings you in. Red Alice, I remember you from a few years back, but this young man is new, isn't he? Have you taken a husband?"

"Some days it seems like it," Duvalier said, freckled skin going a trifle redder. "Other days it's like I've had a son. Questions all the time."

After washing his hands, Valentine swung a leg over the bench when the woman motioned them to sit. He reached for his knife and fork, mouth overflowing with saliva, when Duvalier grabbed his hands and thrust them in his lap. The deacon had just bowed his head at the end of the table.

"Heavenly Father, for what we are about to receive may we be made truly grateful." He raised his head. "Lord, that looks good. Let's eat."

Valentine could not have agreed with him more.

With supper cleared away, the dinner table became a council of war. The hot meal had left Valentine sated and sleepy. Through some internal resource, Duvalier was as bright as ever. Valentine struggled to imitate her.

"Red Alice" summed up the threat in a few concise sentences, giving her experiences with the Twisted Cross in Oklahoma, and their supposition that the Dunes were on the list to be cleared out.

The Hendricks woman listened impassively, shaking her head in sadness when Duvalier described the dead Calta-girone and his Wolves and the massacre in Colorado. Her son, Josh, and her daughter, Jocelyn, joined them at the table, mostly listening. Waldron, the Camp Engineer, who looked as though he had a bit of longhorn in him, asked sensible questions. The leader of the outriders, an almost baby-faced young man named Danvers, who proudly claimed he was eight years old on the ground and eighteen years old in the saddle, wanted to know details about the Twisted Cross weaponry.

Around the tables, many other members of the Eagle's Wings Brand stood, squatted, and sat, all listening. The Wagonmaster was not one to hide her doings and decisions behind closed doors. The others kept a respectful silence, allowing the words to carry, and the few who asked questions held up their hands and waited to be called on like disciplined schoolchildren.

"I wish we had a better idea about what you're facing," Valentine said in answer to a question from Danvers.

"We only ever worried about artillery," Waldron said. "So far, every time those Troopers have brought it into the Dunes, they've lost it. We even have a couple of their pieces in camp, but the mortars are the only ones that still have something to shoot out of them. Air power or armor would whip us, but if any Of that's still being made, it's not finding its way to Nebraska."

Valentine nodded. Duvalier had briefed him on how the cavalry harassed invading columns, assembling and striking at them like sparrows pecking at a hawk, and dispersing again to leave the Troopers capturing nothing but hoof-prints and air.

"Fact is, those creatures can't cooperate for shit, or they'd of took us long ago," Josh Hendricks said. The boy's clothes didn't fit; his adolescent body was lunging out in all directions.

"Language, Josh," his mother warned. "I should say English, too. I didn't teach you to talk like that."

"Sorry. But one time that bast-that bad'un in Scotts-bluff came at us with everything he had, trying to take the whole land up to the Niobrara. He was doing pretty well until his cousin in Cheyenne hit him from behind. I hear he lost half his territory. Been all he can do to hold on to the rest ever since. I can't see a bunch of them ganging up on us. Not like 'em."

As darkness fell, a bonfire and music started, almost at the same time, from the south end of camp by the gate-stream.

"It's still calving festival," Mrs. Hendricks said. "I hope you young folk will join in the fun after your hard ride."

"Just some sleep would do nicely, ma'am," Valentine said.

"We won't keep you, then. We're going to talk over what you told us and decide what to do. Don't let the music fool you. We're taking this very seriously. We'll have extra riders out tonight and people on the walls. Please feel free to stay here as long as you want-we'll handle the Paul Revere job from here on out. Jocelyn, show our guests to the visitors' cabin."

A saddle-muscled young woman stood up. Jocelyn Hendricks wore a man's moleskin hand-me-downs brightened by a red neckerchief wrapped around her thick brown hair. She stepped around behind the Cats.

"Thank you for the dinner, Mrs. Hendricks," Valentine said, swallowing the last of his milk.

"Yes, it was wonderful. Thanks for the bed, too. It's going to be very welcome," Duvalier added.

Tags: E.E. Knight Vampire Earth Fantasy
Source: readsnovelonline.net