Valentine had been among his squared-away-and-zipped-tight KZ refugees too long. He'd forgotten how free and easy the Southern Command's men and women were, especially when out cutting bush and chewing jerky.
"My friend is right," Ahn-Kha said. "I must see to my people before indulging in matters of old wrongs, no matter how grievous. Let us not waste time in getting me to them."
"To do that, you're going to have to go into the Gray Baron's stronghold. That's where he's got them now. They're digging holes and setting up building frames."
"We keep tabs on him," Jarvis said. "The Gray Baron's forces are the toughest between here and the Rio Grande. They get plenty of practice against the Missouri Grogs, and us, now and then. He's really dangerous."
"Wish we could still say the same about Southern Command," Valentine said.
They left the rolling hills of Southern Missouri behind when they crossed the Missouri west of Columbia and cut into prairie country.
Valentine had been nervous about the crossing, but the old interstate bridge was still intact. Scheier floated an old boat chair across and explored the other side in the predawn gloom and pronounced it safe. She'd scared off a couple of Grogs by stomping around their camp, breaking twigs and making hissing noises through her teeth.
The river, at least here along the small length Valentine had seen, would be difficult to navigate. While the Mississippi still had a few channel markers in difficult areas and the odd lock and dam working, the Missouri had run totally wild. Unless they could find enough bass boats to float Ahn-Kha's people to Saint Louis, travel by river would be impossible.
The open prairie presented its own challenges. Water wasn't difficult thanks to the spring-rains had filled every brook and pond.
The land, dotted with the blues, whites, and yellows of the tiny spring blossoms, harbored its own host of dangers. To those who haven't experienced it, prairie country is flat with horizon-spanning views.
But in this stretch of Missouri, prairie grasses and brush grow head height or higher between the deep-rooted oaks, widely spaced in their competition for midsummer water. There are many paths and game trails, but there's every chance of meeting a hunting-or worse, raiding-party of Grogs.
Valentine knew enough about legworms now to prefer running into them. Their snap-crackle-popping sounds of feeding and movement carried far across flat country. Grogs on legworms could be avoided, provided care was taken.
So, in a sweaty single file, with Duvalier at the front of the column and Ahn-Kha at the rear-where he could keep an eye on the flagging Victoria Pellwell and her ratbits-they entered prairie country under brushstroke clouds.
Valentine would stop at times and observe the column as they trudged past, making up some excuse to check in with Ahn-Kha. Duvalier, steady as always and traveling light with her loose-limbed stride, a teenager's purposeless shamble that looked busy without drawing attention to itself. Bee followed in her usual spot alternately trailing or leading Valentine like a hunting dog. She wore her sawed-off shotguns in hip holsters, and had a modified Kalashnikov across her chest and a big-game rifle with an extra-long stock in her hand. She'd already brought down one deer yesterday with a single, well-placed shot through the ears and was eager for another. They wouldn't go short of meat if she had anything to say about it. Valentine gave her an encouraging lift of the chin. Bee liked being acknowledged.
Her nostrils flared and the mountain of she-Grog muscle moved on.
Then came Frat and his Wolves in their traditional leathers, camouflage ponchos thrown over their shoulders like capes. Frat seemed at ease in the prairie country, with eyes up and moving. The Wolves, burdened with carbines and communication gear and supplies, bore their loads with the familiar patience of oxen.
Chieftain followed them, wearing the Bear nonuniform of a mix of Reaper robe, legworm leather, Southern Command camo, and an old felt hat with a single nostalgic eagle feather stuck into it. Duvalier had cracked a joke that he'd molted over the winter, but the fact of the matter was he was still mourning Silvertip. He had his usual close-in weapons, twin forged-steel tomahawks. He'd add some support fire to the group with an old-fashioned 40mm grenade launcher that could either fire grenades or a sort of enormous shotgun cartridge of razor-edged flechettes that one of Fort Seng's gunsmiths customized. Rippers, he called them.
Pellwell followed with her ratbits. She carried one, the other two scampered, sniffing at the unique scent of Chieftain (he weatherproofed his uniform with a gummy concoction based on Reaper blood, or so he claimed).
Pellwell was his big worry on the march, though she'd carried her own weight so far. Field researcher or no, she wasn't used to the tired, stinky, hungry life of a soldier in the field. Dealing with the dirt and uncomfortable overnights took a mental toll on some, and Valentine looked for signs of mental stress in Pellwell. But apart from her usual clumsiness-she tended to stumble but not fall-she appeared to be bearing up. Valentine decided he'd have his next meal with her and chat for a while.
And last came Ahn-Kha, serene as a drifting cloud. He carried a support machine gun usually found mounted on a vehicle, a squat little death dealer fed by a belt-in-a-box. It was known as a "Heater" in Southern Command. A revolver big enough to bring down a grizzly hung under one vast arm, and he slung a sharpened shovel that came in handy for scratching out a toilet pit and a long hunting knife known as an Arkansas toothpick.
"What's with the shovel?" Valentine had asked him.
"A memory of my time in the coal mines," Ahn-Kha replied. "When we had no other weapon, we fought with our shovels."
Valentine remembered some of the grisly scenes described in Ahn-Kha's collection of diaries and shuddered.
The second day out from the Missouri crossing, Scheier returned out of breath at lunch.
"Jarvis and I saw signs of Scrubmen, a large party."
"Are they a threat?" Valentine asked.
"Can't say. We found a recent camp. Lots of them, forty or more."
"What would you do if it was only you and Jarvis?" Valentine asked.
"Get a feel for their trail. Moving fast or slow, and with what. If they're hunting, we'd find a place to hide and be ready to backtrack if they approached. They're tricky on the move when hunting, they'll backtrack, parallel themselves, send scouts back along their trail . . . Otherwise just observe."
Valentine considered the delay in backing off and moving north along another trail.