But had she ever stood under shellfire before? History was full of leaders who were fine organizers but couldn't face what Abra ham Lincoln called the "terrible arithmetic" of sacrificing some men now to save many in the future.
To be honest with himself, Valentine had a little trouble with his sums as well.
Later that night, as he fell asleep, he felt a slight, ominous tickle in his throat.
Valentine, thick-headed and sneezing on the flatboat trip downriver with his new charges, observed that you could mark the deterioration of civilized standards the closer you drew to the Mississippi by the signs along the Arkansas' riverbank.
He liked leaning on the rail, watching the riverbank go by. Mantilla had put them all in oil-stained overalls even dirtier than his crew's and beat-up old canvas slippers with strips of rubber sewn in for traction.
"Only because it's not barefoot weather, unless it's a sunny day," one of Mantilla's crew explained.
Back in the better-served counties with functioning law enforcement, there were polite notices not to tie up or trespass, bought at some hardware store.
Farther down the river, you had hand-painted boards up.
KEEP OUT! THIS MEANS YOU!
or
I'M TOO CHEAP FOR WARNING SHOTS
Then closer still to the Mississippi, the ownership left off with writing entirely and sometimes just nailed up a skull and a pair of crossed femurs at their jetty.
They left the last of the gun position and observation posts guarding the mouth of the Arkansas River at night and turned up the wide Mississippi with all hands alert and on watch.
Mantilla's men were experts with paint and brush and stencil and flag, and within a few minutes they had transformed the old barge with Kurian running colors.
Valentine stood on the bridge, drinking the captain's excellent coffee with Mantilla. They had a shallow draft, so the captain kept close to the Kurian east side as part of his masquerade. There were monsters on the river six times as long as Mantilla's little craft.
"You should have a little honey for that cold. Honey's the best thing. Colds are a real suka."
Valentine accepted some tea and honey. As usual, he was in for another surprise. The tea was rich and flavorful; it made much of the produce in Southern Command taste like herb-and-spice dust.
"That's Assam, all the way from Sri Lanka," Mantilla said.
Valentine wasn't even sure where Sri Lanka was. To change the subject, he inquired about the dangers they might face on the river, motoring right up through the border of two warring states.
"It's a sort of truce at midchannel," Mantilla said, pacing from one side of the bridge to the other on the little tug. "Nobody likes to make a fuss, sinking each other's river traffic. The sons-of-whores military vessels will chase and shoot right and left, but the coal and grain barges pass without too much trouble. Of course, the Kurian captains are smart enough to do a little trade with our little luggers; a few tons of coal or steel given up here and there for a quiet run between the Kurian Zone and the UFR is a small price to pay. The bastards would rather pay up than fall in the schiesse with our side."
"Chummy."
"We stay on our side; they stay on theirs. Most of the time. Your little venture into Kentucky broke the rules. Our Kurian friends can't allow that to stand, you know. They'll strike back."
"It had better be with something better than what they've used so far," Valentine said as the Mississippi unrolled like a blue-green carpet in front of the little barge. "The Moondaggers were vicious, but they weren't much in a stand-up fight against people who could shoot back."
"They were supposed to take you quietly into custody. After a few culls, the rest would be exchanged back to the UFR in return for some captured Texas Quislings or some other property the Kurians wished not to lose. Your little rebellion in the Ozarks is getting too big for its britches."
"Our little rebellion. You're on our side."
"Very much so. If I speak strangely, it's only because I know of other rebels in other places and times."
The "and times" comment put Valentine on his guard. How much did he really know about Mantilla? What did the captain's name mean in Spanish again? Was it a cloak or covering of some kind?
Valentine wondered how Mantilla, a river captain, knew so much about the fighting. You'd think he'd spend his time studying depth charts and dealing with customs clerks and patrol boat captains.
With the usual methodical lucidity he had during illness, he thought the matter over in the glorified closet that served as his cabin. He didn't like being played, but unless Mantilla was an unusually cruel gamester, he didn't think he was being toyed with. Instead, the barge captain seemed to be trying to let him in on a secret without saying so directly.
He went to bed wondering just who, or what, their captain was. If he was, say, a Lifeweaver, why would he be doing something as exposed and dangerous as traveling up and down the rivers of the former United States-and perhaps into the Caribbean and beyond as well?