"The man I'm looking for is up there already. Yes, I'm glad to accept your invitation."
Tikka faked a stumble and knocked into Valentine with her shoulder. "On duty again, I'll bet."
"I'm not sure how to categorize what we're doing at the moment," Valentine said. "Civilian liaison, I suppose."
"Figures. I wouldn't object to a quick liaison under a blanket, but this time I'm the one with a bunch of men expecting me to have my pants on at all hours. Besides, your redhead's looking at me like I'm selling New Universal Church Bibles door-to-door."
Valentine turned around and saw Duvalier sitting cross-legged on the hood of the Chuckwagon, warming herself on the engine. She threw her leg over her sword stick and rubbed the handle in an obscene manner.
"Thin little thing," Tikka said. "I remember her now; she's the one who comes and goes. You should buy her a good Kentucky ham."
"She's always looked like that, but she still puts in thirty miles a day of walking when she has to." Valentine wanted to change the subject. "You know, I don't think I've congratulated you on your new post."
"I delivered one big victory, and now I get cheered everywhere I go. They keep saying they're going to appoint a general-in-chief for the A-o-K, and I wish they'd get on with it. I'm shooting from the hip from the time I get up until the moment I pull off my boots-when I get a chance to sleep, that is. I was brought up to keep the Bulletproof 's worms from getting rustled and our stills from getting stolen, not to do this commanding general stuff. Speaking of which, if the men don't see me in my command truck, they won't keep closed up properly. I'll see you on the banks of the Kentucky, David."
Stuck remained at the Gunslinger winter camp. Where Mrs. O'Coombe went, so did he, a hulking shadow. At the moment he sat pillowed between Longshot's thighs as she rubbed oil into his scalp and massaged his temples, looking like a monkey grooming her mate.
"What's that all about?" Duvalier asked Valentine.
"Bears get twitchy if they don't let off steam somehow. That's how brawls start: Bears with nothing to use as a way to vent."
"Like chopping wood?" Duvalier asked.
Valentine stared at her. He'd never thought of it beyond satisfying exercise.
"You sure you don't want to come up to the peace conference?" he asked.
Duvalier poked him with her elbow. "Snore. There's an interesting craft market in Danville, they say. Maybe I'll visit that. I picked up some real gold braid in Indiana. I'll skip a few days of you making goggle eyes at your bowlegged worm rider."
Valentine decided not to ask how she'd acquired the braid. "I'm not sure how to make 'goggle eyes,' " Valentine said, and then regretted it instantly. A lot of times Duvalier said nonsensical stuff just to provoke him.
"You know, Val, you're just a big plaything to her. A doll with really nice hair and a dick."
"What a shame I missed Christmas morning."
"That's it. I am coming along, if only to keep you from embarrassing us."
The banks of the Kentucky were thickly wooded at the slight bulge that passed for a lake designated as the border between Gunslinger and Coonskin territory. Behind the banks were the river-cut hills, scarred with limestone cuts and patched with tufts of wood like an old man's hairline.
They could see on the other side of the river the observation positions of what was presumably the Coonskin force, no doubt here to safeguard their own negotiators.
Valentine's binoculars weren't much better than his eyes at that distance, but with the help of one of the A-o-K's telescopes, he could get a look at individual figures. He recognized the dark battle dress and red dagger sheaths of the Moondaggers.
"The Coonskins have formally united the Moondaggers," Brother Mark said. "May they live to see the error of their ways and have regret come to wisdom."
Frat took a long look at the foes he'd heard so much about. "Religious nuts, huh?"
"If you call worshipping Kurians a religion," Valentine said. Frat turned the eyepiece over to Boelnitz. He turned the knob back and forth, sweeping across the camp, and then made a few notes in his leather journal.
"Some of 'em like the lifestyle, I guess," the Gunslinger observer said. "No tobacco, booze, or red meat but all the wives you want."
"They've been calling themselves the Kentucky Loyal Host lately," a Gunslinger in an officer's slouch hat said.
"Fancy-sounding word for 'traitor,' " Silvertip observed.
Their long search ended in a matter-of-fact fashion. Valentine and Frat were escorted to Corporal Rockaway, raised O'Coombe, where he was setting up mortar positions on the hillside above the river.
"Your boy Rockaway-or O'Coombe, or whatever his name is-he's involved in this. He may be on one leg and be wearing a diaper, but he's a heck of a fire director and trainer for our captured Moondagger artillery," one of Tikka's captains said as he walked them along the ridgeline.