"You'll be on the ground, all right," Martinez said.
Valentine stepped forward. "What's the matter, Martinez? Afraid to do a summary execution yourself? How come somebody else has to pull the trigger for you? You never been blooded?"
"Somebody shoot-" Martinez began. Randolph reached for his holster.
Ahn-Kha chambered a round in his long Grog rifle, and Martinez looked down the barrel of .50 caliber of death sighted on his chest.
Nail and his Bears came forward, again surrounding Valentine. "No," Nail said, slowly and clearly. A short submachine gun appeared like magic in his hands. "Anyone shoots, Martinez, and my team comes up on that porch. After you. We won't leave enough of you to fill a shoebox. Then we start killing everyone with a hand on Styachowski. Then everyone who tried to interfere with either of those jobs. How many of y'all do you think we'll get before we go down. Twenty? Forty?"
"Whose side are you on, Lieutenant?" Martinez said, making the rank sound like an epitheth. "Sounds like you boys are getting set to do the Kurians' work for them."
"That's so, General," the largest of the Bears said. He had the smooth, rounded accent of the rolling Kentucky hills, rather man the trans-Mississippi twang of Nail. He pulled a knife from his belt, tossed it in the air and in the second before he caught it again drew a tomahawk with his left hand. "But only if you start it. My finishers are out. Any blood spills, mey won't go back in again without your guts strung on 'em."
"He's not a general, Rain," another Bear said. "Not anymore."
"Martinez is right," Valentine said. "Let's not do the Kurians' work for them. What'll it be, Martinez? A bloodbath?"
The Bears and Ahn-Kha must have made an impression. The crowd shrank away, perhaps not wanting to be the first to be tomahawked on Rain's way to the General.
"Name your terms, Valentine," Martinez said.
"First, nobody gets arrested for treason. Second, Styachowski and the judges walk out of camp with us. Somehow I think there'd be reprisals if any of us stayed. Third, you let anyone who wants to go with us leave. Peaceably."
"This is mutiny, Valentine."
"You have to have military organization to mutiny against. Your command is that of a warlord, maybe, but not armed service as Southern Command defines it."
"Then it's to the warlord to give his terms to those he's defeated. You and your men can leave. You may take personal possessions only. No Southern Command weapons, food, or equipment. You walk out of here as civilians, and I'll be sure to let my superiors know why that's the case. We won't be sorry to see you go; my men don't want to breathe the same air as traitors."
"He's awful free with that word," the Bear called Rain muttered.
"Try to get our guns. We'll walk out over-" Nail began.
"Wait, Lieutenant," Valentine said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Nobody gets killed, that's good enough."
"Is this a surrender, my David?" Ahn-Kha asked in his ear.
"A tactical retreat, old horse," he said. Then louder: "You have it, Martinez. We walk out with just our possessions. Now let Captain Styachowski go. We'll be gone in twenty-four hours."
* * * *
"This looks like a conference of war," Finner said the next day, as Ahn-Kha opened the tent flap. Styachowski, Post, Nail and, strangely enough, Colonel Meadows all sat around a folding camp table spread with maps.
"An informal one. Jess, they tell me you know the mountains east of here better than anyone. What are our chances of getting seven hundred people to the Arkansas River without using any Kurian-patrolled roads?"
"I don't see anyone smiling, so I guess this isn't a practical joke. Seven hundred?"
"That's what the numbers packing up look like," Colonel Meadows said. "Some are good soldiers, sick of hiding in the hills. Some are afraid that the General's gone loco." Meadows tapped his chest with the hand missing the fingers for emphasis.
"Styachowski says the hills are our only hope for moving that many without being noticed," Valentine added. "The Quislings stay out of the mountains because of those feral Reapers, except for big truck patrols. We'd hear those coming."
Finner looked at the maps. One, covered with a sheet of clear plastic, had a cryptic mark over where Valentine's refugees had been camping when the General added them to his command. "I was coming here to tell you that we've got two platoons of Wolves ready to go out with us. With them screening we might be able to do it. The lifesign will be horrendous. We'll draw trouble like a nightlight does bugs."
"And we'll be short, very short, on weapons," Post said. "It makes the route even more critical."
"How are you going to feed everyone, sir?" Finner asked.
"Working on it," Meadows said, with a glance at Styachowski. She looked tired.