Valentine said, "What do you mean?"
"I'm not a philosopher, so this is going to come out wrong. Hope you'll understand anyway."
"Shoot."
"Well, Val, sometimes you'll try your damnedest and everything will go to shit. Other times you'll be drunk off your ass, trying your damnedest to kill yourself, and you'll find an answer to your prayers through a haze of gin. If I'd been as squared away as Worthington, would you have trusted me with your friendship?"
"Possibly. Depends on how I read you at the time."
"For all we know, Worthington was unorthodox as an upside-down cross, and just kept it hidden. Why let it worry
you? Cause and effect is slippery stuff. Forget about the 'what-ifs.'"
"Easier said than done."
"Remember, I've got my own set of 'what-ifs.' Do what I do. Keep thinking about the 'what's-nexts.'"
Valentine heard engines in the distance when he hardened his ears as they passed out dinner. Some of the horses shifted restlessly as the wagon train settled in to camp. The sun was setting, and the moon wouldn't be up for hours. It was the time he'd attack, if he were the ratbits.
The ratbits were intelligent, no doubt about that. If they were hostile, why leave food? If they weren't hostile, why would they not communicate their good intentions in person or simply leave them alone?
He heard a familiar heavy tread behind him. "I will be glad when we are clear of this land," Ahn-Kha said. "I feel watchers."
"Did you hand out the shotguns?"
"Of course. My Gray Ones are armed, and Post is speaking to the other men who will be on picket duty now."
"What will you use, if it comes to that?"
"A shovel, my David. You remember the skiops the Golden Ones used. It is close enough. This will be a tough-and-rumble fight."
"Rough-and-tumble is the way you usually hear it. Shall we meet it at the pickets, or back at the wagons?"
"The pickets would be better, give your hearing a chance. The sun is touching the horizon now."
Valentine left Post in charge of the inner ring of sentries. Valentine had placed extra men at the wagons, reserves of weapons and ammunition ready just in case, and every bucket filled with sand or water. He wasn't about to have his cargo burned by ratbits, with a few hundred miles to go. He and Ahn-Kha, with the other two Grogs to either side, walked just behind the line of sentries.
"Excuse, sir. Where the sun swelled up. Hurts to look, but I think some of that grass might be moving," one of the Jamaican recruits said.
"Wind?" Ahn-Kha asked.
Valentine listened with hard ears. The brush and grassland were alive with the sound like bacon on a skillet.
"They're creeping up on us, right out of the sun," Valentine said. He had to admire the ratbits. The men brought up their guns.
"Don't shoot until you see them coming for you," he added, but worked the slide on his .45 and chambered a round just in case. "Maybe it's an embassy."
One of the Grogs hooted, and a Marine added, "Oh, my God."
A brown tide surged out of the heavier growth toward the strip of trees that marked the western pickets. The spaniel-size ratbits ran with little bounces, almost bounding as they approached, covering a yard of sun-dried Texas grass with every hop.
At least the ratbits weren't using guns. The pickets fired a few shots, making no more of a difference than they would if fired into one of the gulf's waves. The ratbits did not slow at the gunfire.
"Back to the wagons," Valentine yelled. "Just run!"
The men did not need the encouragement. There was something terrifying about the brown wave undulating across the Texas countryside like a carpet unrolling. A few threw away their weapons in mad flight. Valentine saw one marine catch his feet and fall. Before he could rise, the ratbits were up and over him.
"Gettayahiiii...," the stricken man cried.