Which is just as well. East Saint Louis marks the farthest north Southern Command's "Skeeter Fleet" will operate, facilitating the activities of Logistics Commandos buying, begging, borrowing, or stealing items from the industrial centers around the Great Lakes. They have been known to tie up in Eastie's domain and deal with the shifty traders found on the Illinois side of the Mississippi riverbank.
When the barges full of well-armed Golden Ones, plus the newfound Headring Clan of Gray Grogs, tied up their barges under the shelter of the east half of the old McKinley bridge and occupied an old, gap-roofed warehouse near the river, there was not a great deal Eastie could do about it.
As it turned out, he did, however, report to the rest of the Kurian Order the mysterious flotilla of barges and their odd occupants.
Night still flowed down the Mississippi. The wind died at midnight and the air filled with mosquitoes and other night fliers, clustering around Number One's running lights.
Bats, drawn by the mosquitoes, ventured far out into the river. Valentine, watching the hazy moon through the moist night air, imagined he could hear their cries as they echolocated.
Eating distance, even in the frustratingly zigzagging manner of this great intestinal river, gave him a sense of satisfaction. Watching the riverbanks slip by without the effort of crashing through brush and bramble, with food and water a couple of steps away and a blanket and pillow that would allow him to both sleep and cover mileage brought back memories of the old Thunderbolt and its endless coastline patrols. Back then he'd marveled at the ease of water travel as well.
Even the deceptively empty banks of the river comforted. The river, running near wild here, had pushed all but transient fishers, trappers, and the river traffic back. Of course, the occasional shed showed so many bullet holes from River Patrol machine guns it looked as though the spots were part of a paint job.
Thumps, calls, clanks, and hammering noises from the barges travelled across the gentle river water.
"What are them Groggies up to?" an idling River Rat wondered.
"Making themselves bunks, I expect," his mate on watch said, watching the barges with the boat's sole pair of binoculars. Their strap had its own flotation strip, and someone had added some extra rubber cushioning to the housing. Optics were hard to replace.
The convoy travelled in two parts. Cottonmouth were the boats exploring where the barges were heading. Exodus were the barges themselves, with the support of the armored firefighting tug. Then Rattler covered the convoy from upriver, a mere two boats and the slowest ones adapted for riverine fighting.
Valentine was tempted to ask for the glasses, but he was nothing more than a glorified passenger in Number One. Besides, if he was feeling too relaxed and lazy to dig around in his dunnage for his own glasses, it couldn't be that important.
He decided to make conversation. His mind kept drifting to Snake Arms, and those hard muscles under that deceptively soft flesh.
"Back in the Wolves," Valentine said, "when I was trying to convince Captain Patel that I knew my ass from a knothole, I learned a saying, 'If a Wolf doesn't have it, he makes it. If he can't make it, he captures it. If he can't capture it, he'd does without.' "
They all watched the tug begin another careful turn, its paired barges in front reminding Valentine of a cargo wagon with an eight-horse team, following in the wake of the pilot boat.
If only we'd grabbed another tug or two. We'd be able to make better speed. Shorter cargo barges would mean easier turns.
Still, the amount of space they'd covered in a single night's run was nothing short of astonishing-a steady five miles an hour thanks to the smaller boats feeling their way forward. They'd be north of Saint Louis sometime before noon.
"That's the worry, Valentine," Captain Coalfield said. Like most men who spent their lives on water, he was darkly tanned and seamed. Rather wispy hair gave away his years-his body certainly didn't. Coalfield was all muscle. "There's a River Patrol station at the mouth of the Illinois River. We got by it northbound by tying together, dousing all our lights and using trolling motors on all but one boat in a dark run. Unless they're all drunk as Milwaukee brewers, these barges aren't getting past without the River Patrol having something to say about it."
According to intelligence, there were no heavy cannon at Alton. Mortars, machine guns, and light cannon protected the base itself from potential Grog raids, but trained artillerymen and their pieces were needed at other borders of the Kurian Zones. The River Patrol relied on their fast, hard-hitting boats to command the Mississippi.
"You don't need much to take out Grog canoes and flatboats," Coalfield's executive officer said when briefing Valentine on Alton.
Captain Coalfield shifted his grip again.
He would have made a bad poker player, Valentine decided. There were all kinds of "tells" that he was uncertain.
"We've never made the run past the mouth of the Illinois River with such a big flotilla before," Coalfield said.
"That may be to our advantage," Valentine said. "Three big barges, loaded, an escort of combat vessels-it's coming from the wrong direction for anything Southern Command would do."
"Could be they were alerted by riverbank spies."
"I've been up that riverbank as a lieutenant. There are a few gangs of headhunters, but they have to watch themselves. The Grogs raid across the river into the bluffs all the time. There's nothing worth guarding on that bank until you get to the big farms in the flats."
Weather came to the rescue of their doubts. As they approached Alton, thunder began to crackle. A line of fast-moving storms boiled up from the south, and soon rain turned the boat into a one vast drum.
"Better go down in the cabin. Lightning on the river can be dangerous," Coalfield said.
Morse lamps were flashing back and forth between the barges and the escorts.
Hair running with water, Valentine complied, as Coalfield made a note on a plastic-covered clipboard next to the ship's wheel. "We're all reducing speed," Carlson told the man at the wheel. "Tighten up on the pilot boat."