"General who?" Valentine disliked it when someone was known only by the title "General." It reminded him of the leader of the Twisted Cross.
"Martinez. Twelfth Guards, formerly."
"Don't know him."
Valentine felt the darkness coming on. The air took on a wet chill.
"He wasn't a general before. He was colonel of the Twelfth."
"They had the tiger-striped kepis. Orange and black, usually stationed in the Arkansas Gap."
"Yup. Got the hell knocked out of them by troops coming in from Texas. That's who's running the Fort Scott area and the Ouachitas. Texans and Oklahomans. They must've stripped the Dallas Corridor bare; they say the invasion was over a hundred thousand men."
"How are they feeding them? Aren't guerillas hitting the supply lines? When I was in Zulu that was supposed to be our catastrophe assignment."
"Can't say. I spend my time scavenging, not on ops or recon. I've seen low-draft barges coming up the Arkansas. Cattle and rice."
"I came through northeast Texas. I thought the patrols looked slim."
"Yeah, the Ks in Texas think big. They're supposed to get a chunk of the Ouachitas. But there's some new bigshot organizing things out of the ruins in Little Rock. That's who's really running things hereabouts now. A man, if you can believe it. Ol' Satan and his gang of Kurians."
"Satan?"
"Solon. Consul Solon, his papers say."
* * * *
Valentine's nose told him they were approaching the camp before they came across the lookouts. Latrine discipline wasn't a priority for this particular remnant of Southern Command.
"So this is what defeat smells like," Valentine said.
"It's not that bad. You get used to it. Hush, now, we're coming up on the pickets."
They were still in uniform, more or less. Mottled camouflage pants and gray winter-uniform tunics, many with hunting vests thrown over them; scarves and gloves made out of scrap cloth. Similarities ended at the extremities; there were a variety of hats, gloves and boots. Some of the men had resorted to cobbled-together shoes or sheepskin moccasins. A boy with a hunting bow whistled from atop a rock, and four men drew beads on them.
"It's Finner with a new 'un," one of the men said.
"Found a stray in the hills," Finner said. "Wolf, I know him personally, I'll vouch to the captain." Valentine wondered why he didn't mention Ahn-Kha or Hank.
"Then report to him," the one who recognized him said.
They passed the pickets, who dispersed again as soon as they moved up the hillside for the camp. Valentine's nose added other camp smells to the list headed by men shitting in the woods: smoke, tobacco, open-pit cooking and pigs. He heard a guitar playing somewhere; it drifted softly through the trees like a woman's laugh. To Valentine it seemed forever since last fall's wagon train, when he'd enjoyed the music of the Texans under the stars.
"Why didn't you mention the others?" Valentine asked.
"Didn't want your Grog friend hunted down. Standing orders, no alien prisoners."
"He's not a prisoner, he's an ally. He's worth those four pickets, and another six like them."
"All the more reason to keep him alive. Quislings we bury, but dead Grogs get stewed down to pig feed."
They topped a flat little rise, thickly wooded like most of the Ouachita Mountains, overshadowed by another hill whose summit was scarred with limestone on the face toward the camp hill. Valentine saw watch posts under camouflage netting among the trees of the taller hill. Tents were everywhere, interspersed with hammocks and stacked stones to hold supplies and equipment clear of the wet ground, along with little shacks and huts put together from everything from camper tops to bass boats. Evil-smelling trash filled the bottom of every ravine. There was no signage, no evidence of any kind of unit groupings. It reminded Valentine of some of the shanty towns he'd seen in the
Caribbean, minus the cheerful coloring and kids playing. The men sat in little groups of four to ten, trying to get in a last game of cards by firelight. Valentine passed a still every sixty paces, or so it seemed, all bubbling away and emitting sharp resinous smells, tended by men filling squared-off glass bottles.
"Welcome home, Captain Valentine," Finner said.
This wasn't home. Not nearly. It looked more like an oversize, drunken snipe hunt. "Thanks."