"No, I'm joining up with what's left of Javelin. I suppose you haven't heard. My whole command was moved under one of Martinez's staffers. They were going to stick me in an office routing communications where the only decision I'd ever make is what to have for lunch. So . . . I volunteered to go to Kentucky."
"As what? If you don't mind my asking."
"I don't mind at all. They need a new full colonel out there to act as CO. No bright young officer wanted the job-Javelin's a dead end as far as Southern Command is concerned. I'm not so sure. Thought I'd be the one to be out there for a change."
Lambert had run a sort of special forces unit dedicated to helping allies in the Cause. Kentucky was the second trip she'd sent him on, and whatever had gone wrong in the wooded passes of the Appalachians wasn't her fault. "You've nothing to prove to any of us."
"The coffee on this tub's surprisingly good," she said. "I think the good captain has connections in every trading port on the river. Let's hit the galley and get some. Tell me more about these Quisling volunteers you recruited."
"I have some support staff looking for passage too. And mail, of course," he said, patting his oversized shoulder bag.
"That bag's a heavy responsibility," she said. "If the captain doesn't mind cramming a few more in, I won't object."
They asked Mantilla, who shrugged. "Fuck it. Cook will be busier, is all. I'm fine with it, ma'am," Mantilla said. "Your people do their own laundry and use their own bedding. I'm not running a cruise ship."
Valentine joined the chorus of "thank you, Captain's" from his charges.
"All you headed up to Evansville?" the sleepy mate asked.
"Looks that way," Valentine said.
"Tough run. Not many friends on the Ohio."
"Maybe I'll make some new ones," Mantilla said.
Last-minute stores of fresh vegetables came on board, and with no more ceremony than it took to undo mooring lines, the tug pushed the barge downriver into the narrow, dredged channel.
Valentine now knew why Mantilla's crew were somnambulists when they tied up. They worked like furies when the boat was in motion: throwing sacks of mail and unloading crates to shore boats along the run practically without stopping, nursing the engines, hosing windblown fall leaves off the decks, cooking and snatching food, and, most important, checking depth with a pole on the doubtful river. Mantilla's barge and tug was big for the Arkansas. Most of the river traffic was in long, narrow flatboats with farting little motors that sounded like fishing trollers compared to the tug's hearty diesels.
Valentine, feeling guilty for just watching everyone work, eating of their galley but toiling not for his bread, checked the materiel Southern Command had scraped up for his operation in Kentucky.
As usual, the promises on paper didn't live up to what waited in the barge.
There was plenty of material for uniforms: soft gray felt in massive, industrial rolls.
"I know what this is," Lambert said. "We took a big textiles plant outside of Houston."
"We'll have to sew it ourselves."
"It's light, and it keeps you warm even when you're wet. They use it for blankets and liners."
"What's it made out of?"
"Polyester or something like it. Everyone's talking about the winter blankets that Martinez is passing out made out of this material. But they're not talking about how he acquired them."
"What's the story?"
"Stuff comes from a fairly high-tech operation-a factory with up-to-date equipment and facilities. We captured it intact outside Houston. The ownership and workers were only too happy to start cranking out material for Southern Command as their new client. General Martinez wouldn't have any of it, though. He had them work triple-shifts cranking out fabric, and then when they'd burned through their raw materials, he stamped the whole product 'Property of Southern Command' and shipped it north. Factory never got paid and owner had no money to buy more raw materials, so it's sitting empty now instead of making clothes for Texans and selling uniform liners to Southern Command. But Martinez got close to a million square yards of fabric for nothing."
The weapons were painfully familiar to him: the old single-shot lever action rifles he'd trained on long ago in the Labor Regiment. They were heavy, clunky, and didn't stand up to repeated firing well. The action tended to heat up and melt the brass casings, jamming the breech. But it was better than nothing, and it threw a big .45 rifle bullet a long way. They'd be handy for deer hunting, if nothing else.
The guns kept turning up like bad pennies in his life.
"Don't look so downcast, Valentine. Check the ammunition."
Valentine opened a padlocked crate.
"Voodoo Works?" Valentine asked, seeing the manufacturer.